Will Draper is a realtor in the Raleigh, NC area. After working in corporate America, Will decided it was time for a change, and wanted to get into the world of real estate. He made the unusual move of becoming a home inspector first and eventually became a real estate agent. Will makes Google and Video Content a major part of his business model, getting all social media to work for him. He also has grown to love helping other agents, and now has a second job as a real estate coach with Tom Ferry.
Excerpts:
SAM: At what point do you decide that you want to coach and do coaching with Tom Ferry?
WILL: I've been coached by them for a while, and I decided to make that move because I felt like I could affect so many more people's lives by doing that. Because me coming into as soon as I started coaching, I took off. Right? I didn't know what I was doing. My first year in the business, I did nothing but, like, online leads. So my brokerage gave me Zillow and Realtor.com, and I just learned how to be good on the phone and serve clients. And then when I left that brokerage and went somewhere else, I was like, I have no idea how to attract business. I don't know what I'm doing. So I was like, I've been watching Tom on YouTube for a while. Let me go give this a shot. And as soon as I did, I made these big, massive goals for myself, and I hit them in the first year, and then I doubled them next year and then doubled them the next year. And I was like, look, if people actually follow this and lead into it, it can severely change their lives. And I've always had the teacher's heart, if you will. Right. I've always been helping other people. No matter what business I've been in, I've always been like, either a leader or a teacher. I do lots of trainings, and it just seemed like something that would be a natural fit. And I talked to my coach about it, and he goes, oh, yeah, you'd be great at this, because I was already leading masterminds with several different coaching groups, and it just seemed like a natural fit. And I was like, yeah, I'll do it. Maybe on the side, I'll coach a couple of people. And then as soon as I started coaching, I was like, Nah, this is my jam. I enjoyed a lot, and I'm up to coach about 30 people right now, and I'll probably add another ten to 15 over the next four or five months.
SAM: And is that now that's really your main business? Would you consider that your full time gig and you're selling real estate on the side, or is it 50 50?
WILL: It's transitioning more to the coaching side just because I enjoy it so much. But for the most part of this year, I'll coach three days a week, but about three quarters of the day, and then I'll do my real estate business in between coaching calls on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or on Monday, Friday. Okay. I rarely put in any time on the weekends now, but doing that I'm coaching 30 people right now, so takes up three full days. Yeah. And then I'll do my business on the other two days, but still have done so today is what, the 26 September? Still done 30 transactions so far this year while coaching 30 people working today a week in the real estate business, and it's not taking any sort of time or business away from you.
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SAM: So moving forward, you are a content person. You love making content. You love coaching on content. That's actually for coaching. Between you and I, that's the only thing we talk about. I don't think we've talked about business once. It's only content because I was like, don't worry. I don't want to talk business. I want to talk content because that's where I need help. You have really figured out Google. You get a lot of business from Google. Would you say that the business that you have coming in for leads that are not referral and repeat client based, is most of it coming from Google versus Instagram and TikTok? Or is it kind of a mix?
WILL: Yeah, most of it comes through Google, and then it's kind of a toss up between, like, Instagram and YouTube. Okay, so most of it is through Google. I do a lot of, like, hyper local SEO type stuff. I do Google Local Guides. I post a lot about neighborhoods and houses and local businesses and all that goes on. Google my business, so I have a big footprint. So if you type in my name in my area, it's going to show up a lot. I get about 4000 organic searches on my name a month in my market just from people seeing all of my videos out there. I mean, I was at the grocery store yesterday and had two people stop me. And they're like, I know you from somewhere. It was a friend of a friend who sees all my videos online. And then the other person was someone that works at a grocery store that sees, like, my YouTube videos. So I've become known in my locality for just shooting all these videos. If they're like, I know you're like videos. They're like, yes, you're the video guy. And by the way, it's free. The business that you're getting from Google is free.
SAM: Well, are you doing paid advertising on Google?
WILL: So most of it's been free. I've done Google local service ads in the past. I've had to stop that because you have to be available to pick up the phone, and I'm not available to pick up the phone.
SAM: Doesn't work for your business?
WILL: It doesn't work for my business because I am always on a zoom, without question. If I'm not on a zoom, I'm actually creating content, and then I'm back on a zoom. So I just don't have the availability to answer those calls right now. But we're going to get my assistant who's got her license now, get her set up, going to restart those so she can at least start fielding those calls. Yeah, most of it is organic.
SAM: How long would you say it took you working on your Google Page until you started to notice business was actually coming from it?
WILL: Three months.
SAM: So you just, like, went and you were like, all in, like, three months?
WILL: A lot of time. I was all in, like, a lot of time. It was September 1 last year. So September 1, I was working with my coach, and I was like, all right, I'm just going to lean all into this Google thing and try to make it happen. So I posted on Google, I posted a blog every day to my website, or five days a week to my website. It also went on Google. I uploaded a ton of photos. I started doing Google Local guides. I started reviewing local businesses. I started posting it. So it's one thing to create content. It's one thing to distribute content. So I distributed it as many different places as I could. And I remember it was like the weekend of Thanksgiving, and I got my first lead from Google. Somebody called me and said, hey, I found you on Google. We're moving to the area. You seem like the only guy in Wake Forest, because I live in Raleigh, but I'm in a small town outside of Raleigh, a little suburb called Wake Forest. They're like, you seem like you're the only guy there to talk to. Can we meet this weekend. I'm like, sure. And I was a little shocked. And I texted my coaches like, hey, I got one. And then that happened one to two times a week from then on out. Wow. So that's where my leads came from, and from Thanksgiving through Christmas. So a one month span of last year, I brought in $100,000 GCI in business. Just from doing hyperlocal google My business, just like, pounding it five days a week and following that formula. And I basically did nothing else but that. But all the video I created ended up going on Google My Business. You can't upload long videos, but I would create comment cards that would keep going on there that would tie back to YouTube, and it would go on my blog. So I just kept building up that spider web effect for Google. And it's like, any time someone types in my town name, I want to be the person that they find. And again, it's free.
SAM: It's sweat equity free.
WILL: It's sweat equity. Totally sweat equity. And now all of that was free.
SAM: And now that you've done it, it just continues, right? People out there are spending $10,000 a month on Zillow leads or on billboards or on print ads, and you just spent three months creating as much content as you could, putting it on Google, and now it's just feeding your business. And you just did that for free.
WILL: Yes. Did it for free.