Alicia Berruti: (00:07)
Hello, hello welcome. As always we are going to just hang out for a couple of minutes and give everyone a chance to get logged in. We’re not going to… We’re going to make sure you don’t miss any of the good stuff, so we’ll make… It’s being recorded, we’ll send it out. If you do log in late or if you have to leave early but while we’re waiting for everyone to log in, I just want to say welcome to Valerie.

Valerie Garcia: (00:34)
Hi everyone, good morning. I’m excited to be here. It’s going to be fun.

Alicia Berruti: (00:39)
Yeah. We also have Todd that’s hanging out. Todd’s going to help us out in chat today. I’m sure you have been on lots of Zoom sessions over the last year. So, this is not brand new information but you do have a chat box, you can open it up, say hello. I see friends on there already. It’s Jesse and Bruce. What’s up guys? So, you do have an option on your chat that I want to make sure you know you can send it to just panelists or you can send it to panelists and everyone that’s on. Feel free to use the chat throughout the session to engage. If you love an idea, if you’re like, “Wow! That’s so cool. I’ve got to do that.” Use chat for that. We want you guys to connect with each other. But, here’s the thing. We had over 1300 people registered and if you put questions in chat, they’re going to get lost and we’re never going to be able to answer them. So, I want to encourage you to put those questions in the Q&A, we’re going to make sure that we get them answered. Yeah, no cat faces.

Valerie Garcia: (01:43)
I know I’ve been meaning to find the cat filter.

Alicia Berruti: (01:49)
That I think is by far one of my favorite Zoom mess ups that I’ve seen in all of the pandemic.

Valerie Garcia: (01:56)
It’s definitely a top three. I would say for me still the guy who was doing the BBC interview and the little girl walked in, that’s still my top one. I would say the cat filter is number two but I’m still pretty partial to that girl who took her laptop into the washroom with her and that was really early on in the pandemic. So, yeah. Zoom, it’s a good time.

Alicia Berruti: (02:18)
And there’s been some rough ones of people not realizing their camera is on.

Valerie Garcia: (02:23)
I know, I know. Well, we’ve got lots of awesome people on here. Lots of people that I recognize. Lots of hellos. North Carolina, New York, Miami, Missouri. I love it. Love it. Good stuff. We’re going to have some fun today. We’re going to share some really good ideas. For those of you that are jumping on get ready to take notes. We’re going to give you some fun ideas.

Alicia Berruti: (02:48)
Yeah, well I think we can jump in Valerie. We’ve got quite a few people and slowing down. For those of you that just logged in, my name is Alicia. I work for BombBomb. I’m a National Speaker. I had to say me too on the tacos because I sent the deck to Valerie to put in her slides and she said that she was a lover of tacos and I was really concerned that you guys would think that I don’t love tacos. And Valerie, why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself?

Valerie Garcia: (03:16)
Hey everyone, good morning. I’m Valerie Garcia. VP Learning & Development at Realvolve. I’m also a National Speaker and as you can see, lover of tacos. I feel like it’s important to share one really critical personal detail about ourselves so you can get to know us. And I feel like the tacos is really tells you a lot about me.

Alicia Berruti: (03:35)
It’s universal I think. All right well, let’s jump in. We’re going to be talking today about those customers that you need to connect with that maybe you haven’t done a great job of connecting with. I know for myself, I’ve been doing this for several years and I talk to realtors that are everywhere on the spectrum. I have people that are completely solid in their plans. They have a strategy. They’re reaching out consistently. They get tons of their business from referrals. Then we talk to people all the way to the other side of, “I don’t keep track of any of my past clients.” No matter where you are on that spectrum, I hope that you’re going to take away some ideas. Today we have some fun stuff because we’ve got some really tactical, strategic business minded ideas, as well as some more fun relational ideas. This stat I’ve seen so many versions of it over the last few years. The 90% of consumers would use the same agent but in reality only 13% do. And it always varies a little bit but generally it’s about the same. Would you agree with that?

Valerie Garcia: (04:46)
Yeah, I think this number is really only fluctuated a tiny bit over the last 10 years or so since NAR started putting it out there where they’re saying most people say, “Hey yeah. My agent was great.” But then only that small number really uses them again and I always like to say it’s not because they forget about you, it’s honestly because somebody else swoops in and takes them over really. It’s not that you’re not sending out the videos or the magnets or the reminders. It’s that at some point somebody else has an opportunity to start a conversation and then they form a relationship. So, it’s not about losing touch so much as it’s about constantly providing value and having conversations with them, which I think is a lot of the things that we’re going to talk about today

Alicia Berruti: (05:35)
Which is, I love what you said. It’s the value piece. It’s about relationships. It’s not that you were a bad agent or they forgot your name but it is. It’s the person that’s showing up and investing in them that they feel more connected to. That when they think about their house, it’s the name that is coming to mind. And like you said, someone else has done a better job of providing that value. I said, relationships make the world go round on the bottom here but here’s the thing. If you wait until you need business, it’s going to seem desperate and fake, and it will also be desperate and fake. So, what we’re really talking about today is making sure that you’re doing that consistently. That you’re leading with value. This is actually a mantra that our marketing team adopted a couple of years ago that I have made my own personal mantra when I’m building content. If I lead with value and the abundance will follow and it also becomes a little bit less embarrassing. Having to call your database because you’re struggling for business and being like, “Hey, do you know anyone you could send my way?” It’s awkward but if you’ve done a good job of investing into the relationship all along and you’ve built up that basis of value, it’s not an embarrassing question to ask if they have a referral.

Valerie Garcia: (07:02)
Yeah. And I think that’s one of the things that holds us back from talking to those people that have been in our database for a really long time. You know those ones that have been there for so long. We haven’t talked to them. We haven’t reached out. We haven’t been sending them regular stuff and sort of just pop up and be like, “What’s up.” It is embarrassing. It’s scary. It’s a little bit like, “Oh, what are they going to think?” And so then we put it off and we put it off until we have this huge chunk of people in our database that we’re simply not connecting with. We might be sending out that regular drip campaign, that email but they’re not getting that personal feel. So, we really want to give you some ideas today on how you can get rid of that embarrassment and that fear and reach out to those people. Specifically the ones you haven’t talked to in a while.

Alicia Berruti: (07:51)
Yeah, exactly. I love it. Well let’s jump into some of our ideas. The first one is, I call the Social Media Observation. And one of the questions that I will ask people often is, how many of you… Be honest, please be honest. How many of you when your CRM says it’s time to check in with someone you don’t do it because you don’t know what to say. There’s only so many times that you can call a past client and say, “Just wanted to check in and see how you guys are.” This is really great because people are putting so much information on social media and people like to talk about themselves. It’s why it’s on social media. It’s part of… It’s why we put it out there. It’s makes us feel more connected to each other. So this is a really great opportunity to use the information that they’re already giving you to start a conversation.

Alicia Berruti: (08:50)
I recommend if your CRM is telling you it’s time to make a personal with someone, do this. Go take a look at their social media: Facebook, Instagram and see what they’ve been up to. Or you can just do this randomly. You see a past client post on Facebook that they went and checked out a new restaurant, maybe not depending on restrictions and all of that. Maybe they went to a park with their family that looked great. Perfect. You can use that to really invite them into the conversation and I think that’s the key here. When we’re talking about, how do you make this reach out? You’re making an observation about something you saw then invite them into the conversation. Ask a question. Ask for more information. Ask them if they liked it. And now you’re having a relationship instead of liking their posts. And you can do this in your Facebook Messenger, or you can do it in email, or your CRM. Wherever you feel most comfortable communicating with them but it’s really about inviting them into the conversation and they gave you the prompts to do it.

Valerie Garcia: (09:56)
Yeah. And what I love is we’ve already given them an example of this. Tammy from Charlotte, North Carolina just jumped in chat and said, “Yum to tacos.” The reality is that Tammy and I don’t know each other but because we said we love tacos, I gave her an opportunity to make it personal. That’s the thing about us sharing some personal details on social media, is it gives other people that opportunity. But when you are sharing those, you’re also looking for those chances to say, “Oh my gosh! I saw you at that amazing takeout burrito the other day. Where did you get that from?” Having those moments of humanity outside of work-related conversations is so critical. You have to put those out there as well as always keep an eye out for them.

Alicia Berruti: (10:43)
Yes. 100%. Valerie, why don’t you talk about this surprise CMA because this is one of my favorites.

Valerie Garcia: (10:53)
I love this one and I have heard so many real estate agents tell the story of doing this and getting tons of repeat referral business from this. I like to map this out and actually show people how it works because when I say surprise somebody with a CMA they think they have to go in and do a full CMA. Pull all the comps and do a full listing presentation. But you don’t. You simply just need to send them an email or a video that looks like what you’re seeing on the screen. Hey Jason and Chris. It’s been over a year since you closed on your house. The market’s changed a lot since then and even if you aren’t considering selling right now, it’d be helpful to know what your home is worth today and what we’d be up against if you were to sell. So, I’ve popped in the last three sales in your neighborhood as well as three similar listings for your review. And if you have any questions at all about your home’s value or your future goals, don’t hesitate to give me a call.

Valerie Garcia: (11:48)
Now what’s great about this is that I’ve given them three recent sales that are somewhat similar. I’ve given them three listings that they’d be competing against but what I haven’t given them is what I think your home is worth. I’ve left it a little bit loose there and maybe I’ve created a little sense of curiosity and it doesn’t take very long to create this template. I literally built this in Canva, which is free and you can create a template and you can pop in different photos and different sale prices and you can send it out. You can attach it to a BombBomb video where you actually say this to them or you schedule it in your CRM to go out. And now what’s great is you’ve given them something to think about. They look at this and they go, “All right, well, that house is somewhat similar. My house may be worth a little bit more than that. Wow, that’s really changed.” And even if they’re not thinking about selling, they maybe want to have a conversation. So, you’ve given them a little bit of value. You’ve given them a sense of curiosity and you’ve started a conversation.

Alicia Berruti: (12:51)
I love it. All of the ideas that Valerie and I are sharing today, you can do with, or without video. All of the reasons why video is so powerful are going to enhance some of these but don’t think that anything that we’re saying like, “If you don’t use video, it’s going to flop.” But we’re here because we believe in video and video’s really effective and I saw someone actually say in the chat that there are many BombBomb CMAs are doing so well. And I want to show an example. So, those of you that aren’t familiar with BombBomb can see what this can even look like.

Alicia Berruti: (13:25)
This is our friend Jimmy Burgess and he calls these unsolicited CMAs instead of surprise CMA. It’s the exact same thing. And what Jimmy does, is he does one a day… When he’s doing this project, he’ll do one a day and do a quick BombBomb screen-share and go over the data and show them the comps. It’s another way to do it. Jimmy told me that the first time he did this, he did one a day for 90 days and at the end of those 90 days, he generated $11 million in listings. Now, when you watch the video, you’ll hear he’s dealing with things in the one to 2 million price point but either way, I don’t think anyone would be complaining even if you were at a lower price point. So really, really effective way. I love what Jimmy does because he starts on Google Earth to give them some reference points for what he’s talking about. Then he switches right over to the data. So I’ll play this for you.

Jimmy Burgess: (14:21)
Hey Curious, Jimmy Burgess. Hope you’re doing well. Wanted to give you an update on what’s been going on at Adagio. We’ve had some changes there. Let me pull this in here and get you to a place where you can really see a little better exactly what we’re looking at as far as in Adagio right now. One of the things I’m pretty sure this, but A, B, C, D, E, F, G, as far as the building numbers. So what I want to do is, I want to come in here and talk specifically about some of these that have sold recently in the last year to give you an update on your value to get you a better feel for where we are. What I did is I broke down. Obviously the ones that are off the water are going to be the ones south of a million. The ones on the gulf are going to be the ones that were this higher price. I’m going to really focusing on your place here to give you an idea.

Alicia Berruti: (15:07)
So cool. I love it. The screen recorder makes it really easy because he’s able to go through and talk about the data and then sends it off as a gift. Marty asked in chat, what program is he using to record these? He’s using BombBomb and we have a built-in screen recorder that lets you press an icon that will record your whole screen as well as bring your video there. And you send it off in an email. All they have to do is press play and they have all of that data with your professional expertise right there.

Valerie Garcia: (15:38)
Love that. I want to address Alexander’s question in Q&A. She said, “Do you think this works for newer agents who don’t have a ton of clients yet and are staying in close contact, or are not staying in close contact with them already? I have to reach out to sphere of influence some of whom haven’t been in touch with in a very long time.” Yeah, absolutely. I think if you’re farming an area, even if this is not a past client, if you are a newer agent and you’re working in a particular geographic area, you reach out and you send this as a video, or an email, or a letter in the mail to someone. I think it’s absolutely as effective, even if you aren’t their agent already, if they aren’t your client. I think giving them some information of value that’s helpful to them is always relevant even if it’s someone you haven’t been in touch with in a very long time.

Alicia Berruti: (16:30)
100%. Any other questions? I’m trying to see if there’s anything else we should cover before we move on. I think we’re good. We’re definitely going to take more time for Q&A but we will try and cover those as we go through. Yes, the screen recorder is available in the essential subscription. All right. So this next one, the Seasonal Local Expert. This is another one of those it’s lighter and fluffy but it’s a great way to build into the relationship. I did a session about using this template, or using this email that I built back in October. And I want you guys to know, I am not proud of this email. I don’t look at this email that I built for the session and I’m like, “Oh wow! It’s so beautiful.” I used a BombBomb template but I’m not a designer. But the goal of that session was to really show agents that aren’t doing marketing, they don’t have a person, how easy it is to get something out to their clients.

Alicia Berruti: (17:34)
Now, we have a system that automates monthly content, that’s seasonal, that’s also really value-driven and I do training on that all the time, but this was really to show agents how easy it is. So, this was an example for Halloween because Halloween was different this year. And much like the social media observation, the goal here is to provide value but invite people into a conversation. So, I just found from the internet a couple ideas for a COVID safe Halloween. I put a couple of links in there. I used a template and I told them what to say in a video to invite people into a conversation. And I had an agent reach out to me. She was an older agent. She’d been in the business a long time. She hadn’t been doing anything like this and she could not believe the responses that she got from people that she hadn’t really been sending this mass content to and they were responding back to her being like, “Wow, we’re actually going to build a candy shoot. Thanks for that idea.” Because she copied my email.

Alicia Berruti: (18:39)
Really the goal here, and it doesn’t have to be something like a list of ideas. It’s as simple as being observant about what’s going on in your community and using that as an opportunity to provide that value to your people. And again, whether you’re doing this over social media or over email I would say the main difference is that if you want to get directly to your people as opposed to throwing it out on the wall, you’re going to want to be more direct and send it over email but you should also do it on social media. You should throw the spaghetti on the wall as well as provide value directly to the people that you rely on to build your business for repeat and referrals. Anything else you wanted to say on this?

Valerie Garcia: (19:27)
Holidays are such an easy win. People never go, “Oh my gosh, somebody contacted me to say happy Valentine’s day.” You’re like, “Nobody ever gets irritated about holidays.” No, we get a little bit snarky about black Friday these days because you get 8011 emails but I feel for the most part, you can always get a quick win with a holiday. So, happy Valentine’s day, here’s three quick ways to show your house some love. Change your air filter. Change the batteries in your smoke detector. Have a chat with your agent about whether you should look at your home’s value. I don’t know. It’s really easy wins to tie in holidays. So every time there’s a holiday coming up, it’s a great opportunity to reach out. If you do have those people in your database that you haven’t talked to in a while, take the easy win. Say happy Valentine’s day. Say hope you have the luck of the Irish. You’ve got a billion options. pick one and use it as an opportunity to open that door.

Alicia Berruti: (20:34)
It’s such an easy win. And this is one of the areas that I love, love, love, love video for. If you are a professional, whatever industry you’re in real estate, mortgage, doctor’s office, dentist’s, insurance agents, any of those fields. When I get a postcard or a Christmas card in the mail, or whatever it is, a birthday card from my dentist, I actually know full well that there is no one there that actually knows that it’s my birthday or that sent that Christmas card themselves. They’re paying someone to do it. And it’s one way communication. It’s like it’s checking the box. Oh yep. We sent everyone in our database a Christmas card. It does not build a relationship. I get a Christmas card from a lender, or my dentist office and it’s going to go in the recycling bin. They don’t get fridge placement.

Alicia Berruti: (21:27)
And I’m not saying don’t send Christmas cards. I’m saying that when you send a video, it’s engaging. You’re having all of the benefits of eye contact, and serotonin, and the warm fuzzies, and it gives you an opportunity to get a response. Because if someone sends me a Christmas card, they’re not necessarily going to get a Christmas card back. My dentist office isn’t going to get it. My real estate agent who I love, he’s not going to get a Christmas card from me but it’s really, really easy to hit reply and be like, “Oh, it was so good to see your face. Merry Christmas to you too.” Now you’re having a conversation.

Valerie Garcia: (22:08)
Totally. Love it.

Alicia Berruti: (22:10)
All right. Next one here is inventory stats.

Valerie Garcia: (22:15)
This is such a critical reason to reach out right now. Everyone in the entire world, it feels like, is talking about the market. We are across the board seeing an insane market right now in pretty much everywhere. The inventory is really low. Interest rates are really low. Buyer demand is really high. We’re seeing massive numbers of younger demographics moving into the market. A fastest growing demographic of first-time buyers is single women under the age of 35 followed closely by single dudes. People are buying houses right now. There are not a lot of houses out there to buy and everyone’s talking about it. So don’t gloss over reality. Now’s the time to talk about reality. It’s a perfect opportunity to reach out to your people and be like, “Hey, everybody’s talking about inventory right now. Let me talk to you about what it means to you.”

Valerie Garcia: (23:17)
If you’re a buyer right now, this is what you’re up against. These are some of the things you’re going to need to do in advance. I can help you get your ducks in a row, be prepared. It’s a little bit going to war right now. If you’re a seller, you’re going to need to make sure you’ve got a place to live because you’re probably going to have to move out really quickly. And these are some of the things we’re doing to help keep you safe. You’re going to tie it into the value that you bring but you’re going to be really obvious about the fact that this is where we’re at. And so you’re going to find these stats. I see Cecilia asking, how do you find these or make these for your local area? Your local MLS. Your local board and AR all kinds of brands and companies put these out. You can simply search NAR stats and look at your inventory. Right now, we’re looking at less than a month or two supply of inventory in most areas. Really go into what does that mean?

Valerie Garcia: (24:14)
I see a ton of agents right now that are posting things on Facebook like inventory is low. I need listings. Every time I see that I die a little bit inside. You don’t need listings. You need to explain to people what that number means to them. And you need to offer them help in making smart decisions right now for their investment, their future, or their families. So enough of this, I need listings stuff you all. Now is the time to say, “Hey, if you’re hearing the inventory’s low, let me tell you what that means.” And really go the next step because that’s what’s going to help you stand out but that’s going to be the stuff that people forward, engage with, posts to their friends, talk about, read. This stuff is easy to find, but what isn’t easy to find is context. So be the person that offers the context. [crosstalk 00:25:05] That was one.

Alicia Berruti: (25:07)
It’s so important. And again, I think the differentiation between posting something on social media and saying, “Hey, inventory is low. I need listings. I want to sell your house” It’s very very different than reaching out directly to your network and your sphere and saying, “This is what it means to you.” And the you language matters. There’s a difference between saying, “Oh, I have so many buyers but no listings. Do you want me to list your house?” That’s very egocentric as opposed to, “This is what’s happening and here’s what it means to you.” And again, that it’s relational instead of just throwing it out there. We have a lot of questions so far piling up in chat and Q&A. So, we’re going to take a quick pause and look at these. I did see a question about, I find emails with video attachments end up in people’s spam folders, any suggestions? So, one of the things about BombBomb is that it’s not an attachment. It’s embedded right into the body of the email almost as a link. So, inbox filters don’t necessarily look at that and think, oh there’s a big video file here. I’m going to put it in a separate folder. We actually sit at about a 98 to 99% inbox deliverability but you can use other-

Valerie Garcia: (26:39)
Alicia froze a bit there me. Is that just me?

Todd Burleson: (26:46)
No, I was wondering too.

Valerie Garcia: (26:48)
All right, she’ll come back in a second. So I know she’s saying that… Alicia froze. Come back. There you are. I think you’re muted.

Alicia Berruti: (27:01)
That’s scary. I have no idea why Zoom shut down. I’ve been having weird computer stuff today.

Valerie Garcia: (27:06)
All good. You’re back. All right.

Alicia Berruti: (27:10)
Yeah. So just know that it’s not your… Your likelihood of ending it up in a spam filter isn’t going to happen. If you’re adding it as an attachment, it does become a massive video file. Mercury is in retrograde Catherine. It’s true.

Valerie Garcia: (27:27)
How many questions are in here about templates Alicia?

Alicia Berruti: (27:30)
Okay. Holiday templates. You’re right. I saw one about Valentine’s too. We put holiday templates into your account for every single holiday, big and small. If you go into your account right now, there are Valentine’s day templates in there. I saw a question about family day. I know Canada has family day on Monday. Sometimes our designers are really good at getting Canadian ones in there. I don’t know if they know about family day, so we can check or you can shoot an email to support@bombbomb.com and they might be able to tell you if there’s family day templates in there but when you log into your account you have an option to change templates and it’ll open up your template library and you’ll have all of those holiday ones there. So yes, Valentine’s day templates are in there.

Valerie Garcia: (28:17)
And what if you don’t have email? Lots of questions around what if you don’t have people’s email?

Alicia Berruti: (28:23)
So text messaging. You can use videos for texting. You can reach out to people on social media and ask for their email address so that you can keep in touch but you got to be really strategic about the way you do that and make sure that you’re providing value or you could burn those relationships. I don’t know what kind of suggestions you have Valerie for connecting with people that maybe email address you have not kept?

Valerie Garcia: (28:54)
Well, I think reaching out on social media, people are always somewhere. If you identify somebody that you want to touch base with, you could probably find them on LinkedIn, or on Instagram, or Facebook. If you have their phone number, you can text them a video. You can text them a little voice message. I love that. Sometimes sitting there and I’m cooking dinner and my phone beeps, and it’s a voice message and I don’t have to… I can sit there and listen to it. There’s lots of different ways to reach out, and I would say don’t feel like email is your only option. If you don’t have somebody’s email address, don’t let that hold you back from reaching out. If it’s a personal message, it’s absolutely okay if I get a text message from somebody saying, “Hey, what’s up? We haven’t talked in a while. I was thinking about you. I dropped past your house the other day. It looks great. You’re really keeping it up. Amazing. I saw a snowman in the front yard and that was so much fun. And I just hope you guys are really enjoying your home.” I think there’s nothing wrong with 30 seconds of human. Don’t let the email stop you.

Alicia Berruti: (29:57)
And it’s okay to apologize and say, “I did not do a good job at keeping track of email addresses. I’m sorry.” I saw someone say that in chat. Apologize, ask for their email address and say you won’t sell it to Zillow. It’s what someone said that, which is great. Definitely promise you won’t sell it to Zillow, then don’t sell it to Zillow.

Valerie Garcia: (30:18)
Yeah. That’s another good reason to reach out too. Say, “Hey, I’m reaching out because I don’t have your current email address and I want to send you something of value every once in a while. Can I grab that from you?” Yes, everyone’s going to give you their email address if they’ve worked with you in the past, or if you’re going to send them stuff of value. Absolutely. [inaudible 00:30:38] our email address for far less things.

Alicia Berruti: (30:42)
This next one. Prior to 2020, I never ever in a million years would have been a training told someone to send a video checking in. I just wonder. But things changed and happened and we’re still in the middle of a global pandemic. Hopefully not the middle. Hopefully really the tail end. But I firmly believe in gratitude. I am a gratitude junkie. It’s one of my favorite topics and I think there is a tremendous amount of value of making your own gratitude practice a part of your business. Just connecting with clients and saying, “I’m so grateful for you.” And to do this personally, “Hi Tom and Susan. I was thinking about you guys. I’m so grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to work with you over the years. How are you guys doing? Is there anything that I can do for you?”

Alicia Berruti: (31:41)
And I came up with this presence, empathy, gratitude, service, to help you remember. You’re showing up as a human being and saying, “I’m grateful for you. Can I help you?” It’s not rocket science. Jason, who is an agent that was on a session I was doing told me that he sent 45 of these one-to-one videos out to his database over the… It was a two week period and he had 18 returned phone calls from that simple video that, “Hey, I’m so grateful for you. Are you guys doing all right? Is there anything I can do to help you?” 18 returned phone calls is pretty impressive. And again, you’re not asking for anything. You’re it’s relational driven and you’re giving them an opportunity to ask you for something.

Valerie Garcia: (32:30)
Yeah. I love that. And it’s such a simple reminder. Slap those four words on a sticky notes, stick them up above your computer and every time you get stuck for a reason to reach out, look at that and think, hey I’ve been thinking about you, and I care about you, and I’m thankful for you, and I would love to help you in any way that I can.” Super simple. It doesn’t have to be always really complicated. It doesn’t always have to be a surprise CMA. It can simply be, “Hey, I’m thinking about you. I care about you. Really thankful for you.” Absolutely.

Alicia Berruti: (33:06)
It’s that easy. All right, this is a great one. I love this idea Valerie. Tell us about this.

Valerie Garcia: (33:13)
I love this one too. And the reality is these days is that, love them, hate them whatever, everybody in the world is checking their Zestimates. Everybody’s looking at what their home would be worth these days, even if they simply just bought it. Even if they’ve owned it for a while. These numbers are out there. So again, this is one of those things where let’s stop pretending this doesn’t exist and let’s address it and use it to our advantage. So, dear Scott and Stacy, or Hey Scott and Stacy. I haven’t talked to you in a while. I’m sure you’ve had a look at your Zillow Zestimate like everybody else but did you know that those aren’t always accurate?

Valerie Garcia: (33:51)
In fact, they have a disclaimer on their site that says their value may be off by up to 20% and they encourage sellers to consult a professional real estate agent for accurate pricing. So, here’s some examples of recent sales in your neighborhood and their sale prices versus their Zestimates. If you’re serious about selling your home, take Zillow’s advice and call me for an accurate pricing strategy based on the current market. Again, you’re not telling them what their house is worth but you’re giving them that little sense of curiosity of, oh wow! Those three houses. That was the Zestimate? That was the sale price? Even if it’s over only off by several thousand dollars, that’s money in their pocket, right?

Valerie Garcia: (34:33)
These are great conversation starters for people that potentially have been in their home for a while, or maybe they’re in a neighborhood, or on a street where there have been a lot of sales lately. So our tongues are wagging and everybody’s thinking, what is my house worth? Or, maybe especially in those neighborhoods where they’re starter homes. Maybe they’re townhouses and these are people that typically aren’t going to stay in these homes for years because their families are growing. It’s now a way to start that conversation. So, Peggy good question. With Zillow now being a brokerage, do we need to be careful about comments we make? Absolutely you do. The comments that are on the screen are 100% accurate. That is absolutely a disclaimer word for word that is on their website and you can absolutely bring this up and talk about it. It’s the elephant in the room and you should be talking about these things and if you can give great examples, absolutely use them.

Alicia Berruti: (35:32)
And just be mindful of the fact that after SNL last weekend, a lot of people went to Zillow. I never go to Zillow. And after it, I was like, “Zillow, I want to look at houses.” It’s silly.

Valerie Garcia: (35:51)
I have a houses in Hawaii saved search. So, I am just as guilty as everyone else.

Alicia Berruti: (35:58)
We can’t help it. So, the next one, I know we said that we were going to move past birthdays and holidays but it’s almost impossible for me not to want to show you Mark and Laura, because they are joy inducing. And I, as someone who gets a handful of happy birthday videos, you’d be surprised it’s only about five or six but there are about five or six clients that send me a happy birthday video every single year and it is just as joy inducing but here’s the real kicker, okay? Aside from the fact that you are going to help their brain produce positive chemicals when you send a client a happy birthday video, it’s memorable, right? For the same reason why I’m like, you send me a postcard in the mail that goes in the recycling bin, a birthday video is memorable because they will probably have had 100 people write happy birthday on their Facebook wall.

Alicia Berruti: (37:01)
If you were the only person that sent them a happy birthday video, either in their Facebook Messenger, or a text message, or if you sent it as an email, that stands out. I could list off the five or six agents that send me a happy birthday video every year. I saw two of them in the chat when we first logged in. But it’s memorable. So, this is Mark and Laura Anderson. They have been BombBomb customers for I believe eight years. They’re OG BomBomb customers and they send out a personal happy birthday video to every single one of their past clients every single year. And they do it year after year because this is a referral engine for them. They wouldn’t put the effort into doing a personal happy birthday video year after year if it wasn’t paying off in generating business and it is. So, I’m going to play their video because it’s joy inducing. And I’ll talk about a way to do this if you’re not going to sing but I’ll let them do their thing.

Laura Anderson: (38:04)
Did you pop up?

Mark Anderson: (38:07)
Perfect timing.

Laura Anderson: (38:08)
Perfect timing. Happy birthday, Glenn. It’s your birthday! It’s your birthday! It’s February 13th. The day before Valentine’s day and here we are.

Mark Anderson: (38:17)
Here we are.

Laura Anderson: (38:17)
To wish you well.

Mark Anderson: (38:18)
Cold and frozen.

Laura Anderson: (38:20)
Cold and frozen to be sure. Are you ready?

Mark Anderson: (38:21)
Ready.

Laura Anderson: (38:22)[crosstalk 00:38:22] Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Glenn. Happy birthday to you.

Mark Anderson: (38:33)
You try to fool me. You try to mess me up.

Laura Anderson: (38:37)
Usually I do a little embellishment and flourish and I went right into the end, messed him up.

Mark Anderson: (38:42)
Yep, fooled herself.

Laura Anderson: (38:43)
Happy birthday.

Alicia Berruti: (38:46)
I won’t make you watch the whole thing. I see it in the chat. LOL. I love this. OMG love them. So cute. So cute. That’s cool. Here’s the thing. Every single time I show a video of Mark and Laura singing happy birthday to their clients, people have this emotional response to it. Now, if you’re not going to play the ukulele and sing, that’s fine. Here’s your tip for how you do a great happy birthday video without needing to sing or have them in your background. Think of, or find out one interesting thing about that day. There is a silly national holiday for every single day. There’s celebrity birthdays. There’s on this day in history. It’s as simple as, and I saw someone say, how do you do a BombBomb video in Facebook Messenger?

Alicia Berruti: (39:31)
I’ll walk you through this as if I was doing it in Facebook Messenger. Because even though Facebook Messenger has a video option, I don’t like it. Because as soon as you lift your thumb off of that record button it pops the video into the message, so you don’t get a chance if you mess up, or you accidentally cuss, or right? So, you go to the Chrome extension. You’re in Facebook. You see that someone has a birthday that’s a client. You don’t want to be another person that says happy birthday on their Facebook wall. You open up the Chrome extension. The camera pops on. “Hi, Valerie. Happy birthday. I don’t know if you know this or not but your birthday actually falls on National Pizza Day. So, you might just have the best birthday ever. I hope you’re well. I’m thinking about you today. Celebrate yourself, I’ll talk to you soon.” Right?

Valerie Garcia: (40:22)
Yep.

Alicia Berruti: (40:23)
Easy. You don’t have to have a personal history with them. They’re just a client you don’t have to, “Hey, remember that time we went to such and such place?” You’re pulling from the internet. What silly national holiday is it? What celebrity do they share a birthday with it? You make a quick video and you send it off. It’s memorable.

Valerie Garcia: (40:42)
Yep. Absolutely I love that. Love that. And again, don’t overcomplicate it. I think that’s the key. I think we sometimes feel like we have to have this whole big script in our heads before we reach out to somebody. Just say what you would say if you were running into them in the grocery store this afternoon like, “Hey it’s so good to see you. How are you? I know, crazy year, right? I hope you’re hanging in there, aren’t we all? Say hi to the fam. Enjoy that pizza I see in your cart. You should get some ice cream too.” I don’t know. Just be human. I don’t know how many times I can say that but I think sometimes we forget that we are human and all we have to do is be human and that’s enough.

Alicia Berruti: (41:24)
100%. Okay. This is a great one as well. Using your vendor referral list-

Valerie Garcia: (41:32)
But not just your vendor referral list. Your vendor referral list and your sphere of influence. Two for this one is. So, here’s what you do. Reach out to your entire sphere and say, “Hey everyone, I’m updating my list of local businesses and services. Who do you love? When I’m done, I’ll send you the updated list.” Simple, easy, right? So now you’re going to get people that are like, “Hey. Awesome, great. Those painters you recommended were awesome. I loved them. Also, there’s a new local, whatever. Have you checked out the new restaurant? Have you tried this new, whatever service in town? Hey, I’m also looking for a plumber.” “Great. Awesome. Okay, great. Yes. Thank you for reminding me those painters are great. And I definitely recommend Tom at Universal Plumbing.”

Valerie Garcia: (42:18)
Now you’re creating some conversations. Good question is why are they looking for a plumber? Are they doing updates to their home? Did something go wrong? Now you have a reason to reach out even and ask better questions. What’s great is when you’re done with this, you have an updated list of local businesses and services that you’re going to send out to your sphere but also you’ve had an opportunity to reach out to those people that have been in your database for so long and you’re not asking them to buy and sell with you. You’re simply saying, “Who do you love? Who’s local.” And somebody might be like “Hey, my kid is a painter. My cousin does hair at the local salon.” And, “Oh, great. I’d love to promote them. Thank you so much.” It’s super simple. And again, you’re helping people, you’re solving problems and there’s a win-win on this one.

Alicia Berruti: (43:11)
There’s a massive win-win on it and it keeps… It’s going to help them know to keep coming back to you as well for those recommendations. You’re really establishing yourself as the trusted advisor, which is what you want. If you are in your past clients and your sphere of influence is mind as the trusted advisor when it comes to their most important probably asset, their biggest asset, no one else is going to be able to scoop them up because you are the trusted advisor already. All right, this next one is a another really great idea that I actually had never heard anyone pitch before as an idea. And this is another great place where I think the screen recorder could really pump up the value on this.

Valerie Garcia: (43:59)
I totally agree. This is something that I never thought of until the first time I ever got my property tax assessment. And like everyone else, I opened it up and I looked at it and I thought, what the beep is this? I don’t know how to read this. What does this mean? I looked at the assessed value. I was like, this is not what I paid. I don’t know what this means. I had a proper freak out. Then I texted my agent and I was like, “What does this mean?” He walked me through it but then I also thought what an amazing opportunity to know when your local property tax assessments go out and preempt that with the week before sending out a letter or a video with a screen recorder saying, “Hey, you’re going to get your assessment in the mail here any day.” And you’re probably going to look at it and think, what the heck does this mean? So here’s how to read your property tax assessment. Here’s how to understand it. Here’s how to dispute it. If you need to have the conversation before the problem happens and be the one that’s on the front foot and solving the confusion. I love this idea because it’s so real. I get mine every year and every year I look at it and go, “This is so confusing.”

Alicia Berruti: (45:15)
I just did a refile on my house that I finished, I think in December, and I’ve been getting some of those tax assessment stuff again. And I set them aside and put them somewhere with the intent of actually I might need someone to help me figure out if I need to know any of this stuff. So yeah, it’s a massive, massive value for you to be able to provide that. We have about 15 minutes left and we definitely want to take some questions. I want to throw those up there for those of you that were taking notes so that you can see some of those ideas, but Val, any other ideas that you want to throw out there while we start to dive into some questions here?

Valerie Garcia: (46:01)
I think now’s a great time on that same topic of being the guide to provide sellers guides and buyers guides. Now’s a really good time to start linking to some of those downloadable resources that people are searching. Google tells us people are searching up to 90 days before they ever contact an agents and typically they use the first agent they talk to. So, get in there with some good information. So, sellers guides and buyers guides are awesome right now along the same lines as the property tax assessment is also letting people know you’re going to be getting your mortgage interest statement. If you haven’t gotten it already. Make sure that if you get a mortgage interest statement, you give it to your accountant or your bookkeeper because that’s money that you might be able to write off. And so absolutely, every bit of money that you can help people save is important right now. And you can always tie that into the comment of, is it time for a conversation about your home’s value or your future plans? I think that’s such a better way to word it than are you thinking of buying or selling, which I think is so done instead. Instead, is it time for a conversation about your home’s value or your future plans? Be the helper, don’t be the seller. I think that’s my big thing.

Alicia Berruti: (47:23)
No, that’s huge. That’s a huge, I love it. We’re going to start to dive into some questions here. Just real quick before we take questions, we want to… Our goal here was to provide a ton of value but we do want to let you know some of the things that are available to you if you’re not aware. So, first I mentioned… Like I said, today was not to sell. I wanted to provide value but I did mention that we do have an automated system that helps with a lot of these touches. Every single month, our team designs content that’s timely and relevant. Sometimes it’s about tips for your house, sometimes it’s more seasonal but it’s all value-driven for homeowners. We build the content and then you get training from me saying, “Hey, welcome to your March prompt. This is what the content is about. Here’s what your video should sound like or could sound like.” And I give you an example.

Alicia Berruti: (48:21)
Then all you have to do is record the video that I told you to record and then it goes out to your sphere. Every single month we do tracking for you. We also post it to social. So, I’m going to throw a poll up here. If you’re interested in getting more information, just let me know. I’m going to leave it up there. We’ll have someone sends you some more information just so that you have it. There you go. Awesome. I appreciate you guys posting or taking the time to do that poll. Then Valerie, tell us about the integration between Realvolve and BombBomb, because this is a question that we get all the time from everyone. What’s the best CRM? What CRM should I use? What CRM should I use? And you guys have an incredible integration. Talk us through that a little bit.

Valerie Garcia: (49:10)
Yeah, absolutely. So we have two different products under the same umbrella. We have Realvolve, which are workflows and Firepoint, which is a really in-depth CRM and the two work together as well as both integrating with BombBomb. If you are looking for a CRM that integrates with BombBomb, that does a lot of the things that we’ve been talking about today like reminds you to follow up. Prompts you in advance. Automate some of those continual nurture touches over a long period of time. Follows up with your leads immediately. We have solutions for all of those things. And what I love is, again, that simple instant click where you just say, send a BombBomb video and it drops it in, and it records it, and it sends it, and it records it in your customer file, so you can see all of the videos that you’ve sent to them.

Valerie Garcia: (50:05)
I think that’s really simple and easy, and I love that integration. I’m also going to drop a link into the chat. If you want some more ideas, if you have listened to some of these ideas that we’ve shared with you today and you think, gosh I could use a few more. Actually have an ebook of 200 creative marketing ideas that you can download and you can steal and you can use. I’m going to drop those into chat right now, and that’s simply realvolve.com/ideas. So super, super, super simple. All you do is go to that link. You can get 200 more marketing ideas from us. And yeah, if you’re looking for a CRM, we can absolutely help you with a demo with that as well.

Alicia Berruti: (50:51)
I love that. Todd, would you mind throwing the link to do a free trial. If you are a Realvolve customer that were on the webinar and you are like, okay, let me give this video thing a try. We do offer a 14-day free trial. No credit card required. You can try it out. The integration… When you sign up for a free trial, you can turn the integration on, so you can even see how it works inside of Realvolve and you’ll get a feel for it over those 14 days. That chat is in there, or the link is in there as well. It’s bombbomb.com/trial. You can do that free trial if you want to give it a go. Okay. Questions.

Valerie Garcia: (51:29)
Lots of questions. Yes, for everyone who’s asked, we have recorded this. You will get a link to the recording. So lots and lots of questions on those.

Alicia Berruti: (51:40)
This is a tough one. Someone asked about how to get engagement on your Facebook business page. I regularly post with valuable influence, try to do fun giveaways and polls but people don’t engage. Valerie do you want to talk about this at all? Do you want to give any opinions here?

Valerie Garcia: (52:00)
Yeah, I think we’ve gotten to the point where Facebook business pages are a… They’re an enigma. I think they’re really great for a place for people to go and find you, and find testimonials and see samples of your work, and contact you, and they’re a great resource if you’re going to be running ads. But other than that, I think that if you’re looking to create a lot of engagement on a Facebook business page, you’re probably wasting your time. I can’t believe I just said that out loud but I feel like if you friend people and you put a lot of effort into it, you can have a lot of conversations through your Facebook profile but as a business page, I don’t know.

Alicia Berruti: (52:52)
Facebook doesn’t even show… Shows them less in the algorithm than personal posts and they’ve actually even said that they’re going to be even decreasing some of the business page posts and focusing on more personal pages. And like Valerie said, if you’re going to be running ads, yeah you need to have it, but I think you’re going to get better results focusing on building relationships with the people that you’re connected to personally and being a real person as opposed to getting them to engage on a business page. It’s the nature of it.

Valerie Garcia: (53:30)
Agreed, agreed. A lot of people saying it’s pay to play and I agree with that. You’ve got a bunch of questions in here about, you need to have a BombBomb subscription to use Prompt?

Alicia Berruti: (53:40)
Yep. Yes, you do need to have a BombBomb subscription for Prompt. It is one of our levels of subscription. So, if you raised your hand for that, we will get you some more information so that you can really better evaluate what that looks for you. Can you do BombBomb on Instagram? That’s a great question. Instagram as a platform is a little bit different than Facebook, or Twitter, or LinkedIn. In the sense that you can share something to Facebook, or to Twitter but you can’t share something from somewhere else to Instagram. Instagram wants it up loaded natively. So, you can take a BombBomb video that you’ve already recorded for another purpose, then download it to your computer, then upload it to Instagram. But it’s not going to be really efficient. So, Instagram really wants everything loaded natively. That’s just the way that they do it.

Valerie Garcia: (54:46)
Lots of people asking if they can get some of the pages that we showed. Some of the slides that we showed on here. Absolutely we can distribute those in the followup email, so if you’re a registered we can absolutely give you a link to those slides. For those of you asking about my Zillow templates, I literally just created those in Canva. I literally just went into Canva, chose a blank page and typed it out. You can take those as examples and you can create your own. You can create it in whatever tool that you use but absolutely those are yours to rip off and duplicate.

Alicia Berruti: (55:25)
Sorry. I saw a question about Outlook. Should I use Chrome or Microsoft Edge? Use whichever browser you’re most comfortable with. For a long time, the browser extension was just for Chrome. We have it on Edge now. They’re pretty much comparable. I would recommend just using whichever browser you are most comfortable in. If you don’t have the Chrome, or the Edge extension, you can go to support.bombbomb.com. Todd, if you want to throw that in the chat, that’s our support site and you can search Chrome extension or Edge extension, and it’ll walk you through the setup step-by-step. It’s really, really easy. It’s a couple of clicks then you have that option anywhere in the browser to record a video then either pop it into a CRM, pop it into an email, pop it into social media. I see another… I’m seeing lots of integration questions. Let’s see here. I’ve seen some stuff about kvCORE. Heather reached out to the support team at kvCORE and they will help you get that synced up on that end. Anything else? I’m scrolling trying to see if there’s anything-

Valerie Garcia: (56:49)
I’m posting that link to the ebook for ideas one more time because a couple of people have private messaged me looking for that. That’s just realvolve.com/ideas. Again, that’s 200 more ideas. We’ll make sure everybody on here gets the recording and the slides. Yeah, tons of questions. Some of these are pretty specific. If you have any questions specifically regarding Revolve or Firepoint, we’d love to help you out. Again, you can reach us at revolve.com/demo, or you can simply go to realvolve.com and we’ve got lots of support options there. I don’t have anymore-

Alicia Berruti: (57:28)
I think we covered all of the things that were broad. There was some real specific questions that people had about specific integrations or things like that. I would recommend reach out to your respective support teams for those really specific questions. We will send out a recap of the recording and we will put the slides in there so that you have them at your disposal. Valerie, anything you want to close with?

Valerie Garcia: (57:55)
No. Just that I love that orange slide again at the end. I think we’ve come back to that idea quite a few times during the session, which is just be human. Just like that reminder in all of your… Don’t always feel like you have to be marketing to people that you’re starting a conversation. So just be human. I loved that reminder that you said at the beginning, “Embracing imperfections, and embarrassment, and fear and pushing past that.” And I think the way to push past that is honestly give them information that solves problems and answers questions, and that really becomes the value. And if you can do that… It’s not so scary to reach out to people and say, “Hey, what’s up.” Challenging you all on this call today to do that. Reach out and say, hey what’s up?

Alicia Berruti: (58:40)
Reach out and say, hey what’s up? I love it. Valerie, thank you. Thank you so much for bringing your expertise and your energy. I’m so glad that we finally got to do a session together.

Valerie Garcia: (58:52)
We’ve been wanting to do this for years. It was a lot of fun. We should do another one.

Alicia Berruti: (58:57)
Absolutely. Well, thank you guys so much for joining us today. It was an absolute pleasure having you here. So great to see so many friends in the chat. Have an awesome rest of your week. Look for that recap email and we’ll see you guys soon.

Valerie Garcia: (59:13)
Bye everyone.