There is a lot of disruption in the real estate industry, from Zillow, Opendoor, Redfin, Rex, flat fee brokerages, etc.
The extra pressure is squeezing agent commission.
Colin Cameron answers the question “How can real estate agents avoid becoming a lowest priced commodity.”
Transcript:
Chris Bounds 00:02
How can real estate professionals like yourself avoid becoming a lowest price commodity?
Colin Cameron 00:09
Be different. It’s really simple. It’s really really simple. Offer what others aren’t. When you look at what everybody else is doing in your marketplace, run the other direction as hard as you can. And for me that was looking around and seeing the landscape and everybody had on a suit jacket and a tie. And they were professionals. And they were not the average Joe and they were not very approachable. I agreed very early on that I was going to market differently. Facebook was my means and so it was video and I embraced it.
Chris Bounds 00:41
Yeah, you have it. You’re very good at it too. Because not everyone’s cut out for video. Videos powerful. But not everyone’s gonna be great in front of a camera or just feel comfortable in front of the camera. What was it natural for you in the beginning?
Colin Cameron 00:57
No, not at all. I have some really crappy content. If you go back about four years ago, you can find it. It’s their shot. I think even on this webcam if I’m honest. You have to give yourself grace, if you’re going to enter into that space and try it. You’re going to realize that your content is going to suck, but you have to suck to get better. It’s that simple.
Chris Bounds 01:18
This is going to be valuable for anyone watching and has that fear. Did you ever have anyone, not ever but did you have in that beginning stage anyone just tell you, “Man, this video is horrible.” or anything like that? Is that usually the nightmare in the back that’s just trying to keep us from?
Colin Cameron 01:40
A lot of that’s the devil on your shoulder. Because we’re all pretty critical of how we sound, how we look and all of that stuff. The way I equate it to agents really is crap. We’ll pay for a billboard. We’ll pay for our face to be on a bench. We’ll literally let somebody sit on us. But we won’t put our face out there with their voice. Yeah. It doesn’t really correlate.
Our job is to put ourselves out there. Our job is to put our products out there, whether that’s buyers or sellers. Whoever it is to get noticed so that they can get traction on whatever it is they’re trying to get traction on. People are going to meet you no matter what face to face is going to happen. You might as well set the parameters of who you are and what you are upfront versus them finding out later. Which is really the whole strategy to everything that I’ve done is I’ve embraced who I am. I tell people who I am. Instead of letting them assume who I am.
Chris Bounds 02:30
It’s pretty easy to do when you are yourself. Don’t try to be the rock star you may see on selling sunset or million dollar listing or whatever. You don’t have to be those people if that’s not you. That’s not you. Be you. You know what you know. If you don’t know, you don’t have to fake it. You could just go on an exploratory journey with your client and learn together.
Colin Cameron 02:57
I think that’s a really good point. I think a lot of people have these ambitions when they get licensed. I’m only going to list million dollar properties or I’m going to get into luxury market. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I think the true story of 90% of agents is that they grow with their clients. What do I mean by that? I mean, I’m seven years into this business.
I don’t know how far you are, Chris. But we all build a foundation in that first year or that second year. Where we have a book of business that is going to be coming back to us in five to seven years. We know that. I’m at a point where my ideal client and my typical client is a move up buyer. So somebody who has something to sell to purchase. I know that’s my ideal client.
I know that’s the client that I drive with, because of my age. I’m 33. I also gear my content towards that. So the most recent content I put out is we did a tool time riff. We did a Jay and Silent Bob. Then we did a meatloaf thing. Right. Late 80s to late 90s. Because that’s our generation. That’s our callback. A lot of it, I think is you realizing what your true avatar is your true ideal client in those moments.
I think a lot of us, while we’re going to eventually have those million dollar properties. We’re going to handle all of those luxury clients. I think you need to be realistic about what is manageable and what’s going to happen. For me, I’d rather have to $300,000 houses all day versus a million dollar home.
I’d rather have two things that are in demand and then I can market and move all day. Right. I think it’s setting proper expectations for yourself and reasonable goals. I think that needs to be combined with your content and how you create it.