Get ready to be F.I.R.E.D U.P! Today, we have Alex Mayer. He is one of my top producing students. He will share with us how implementation changed his business, and how did he transform from chasing leads to attracting them using Digital Marketing. Always remember, only learn from the ones who have done it. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!
Krista Mashore:
Hey, everyone. Are you ready to be fired up? Because I sure am. I'm actually really excited today about this interview. I've got Alex Mayer, and he is actually one of my current students. He's been with me for quite a while, and he is about crushing not just his business, but his life. He's made some major, major transformations, and he continues to. Super, super proud of him, and super, super excited to have him here. So if you're ready to find out exactly what to do, how to thrive in today's real estate market as a listing agent, then stick around. Hey, Alex, good to have you. How are you?
Alex Mayer:
I'm doing great. Middle of the week, ready to crush it, Cinco de Mayo, we're getting some margaritas after this.
Krista Mashore:
I need to get some after this too, that's too early for me. But hey, it's Cinco de Mayo. Any reason to have a margarita. Right?
Alex Mayer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Krista Mashore:
So talk to me, so tell me a little bit. Where are you from? How long have you been in the business? Go through the basics.
Alex Mayer:
Yeah, so small town Iowa boy, I was born in Riceville, Iowa graduated at Luther College, and after that, I moved up to Rochester, Minnesota, home of the Mayo Clinic, largest hospital in the world. And from there, I served tables, bar tended for a little while, worked at Mayo Clinic for a stint. They put me in a cubicle. You don't put someone like me in a cubicle, not a good place. From there, I went into auto sales, did really well in that. Got recruited into real estate, worked on the top real estate team here in Rochester back in that time. And they disbanded back in June of 2018, went independent at that point.
Alex Mayer:
Hired Krista in, I want to say February of 2019, February or January, somewhere around there. And life is much, much easier. Business comes a lot easier now. I get recognized everywhere I go. I'll talk a little bit more about my story in the business here down the road, but it was a hamster wheel, and then Krista made it so that now my business is pretty much automated. And I work as kind of needed, and business is still thriving, so I'm excited to talk about it all.
Krista Mashore:
You're so funny. So talk to me about what you were doing before. I know your story, obviously. And so before you learned a new way of doing things, tell us a little bit about your real estate life. What was it like? How were you generating business?
Alex Mayer:
Yeah. So I was very blessed. I tell people when I was brought into the real estate industry, I was kind of born into innovation. It was really, really nice. The team that I was on, we had a bunch of top producing agents on that team. It wasn't just a broker who hired anyone. Krista talks about the superstar question. She can talk about that later if she likes. But I was asked that question when I joined that team. And they eventually ended up hiring me after a two week vetting process. We were getting our leads anywhere from Google, sign calls, things like that. But we were prospecting anywhere between two and three hours a day, Monday through Friday.
Krista Mashore:
Explain what that looks like, so prospecting three hours a day Monday through Friday.
Alex Mayer:
We were on the phone. So someone would actually raise their hand looking at real estate, so I'm not doing circle prospecting or just randomly generating numbers online. People are actually filling their information out online, we're calling them and talking to them about real estate. Now it's just like any other lead system, you have to burn through a lot of calls to get those gems at the end of it. That's why it's called prospecting. You're prospecting for actual business.
Alex Mayer:
I was born into that way of doing business. And I think for someone who's starting out on a new territory, it's really not a bad way to start. I actually train my current buyers agents who work with me now to do the exact same think because I think once you have that book of business behind you, business just becomes easier and easier, and it all kind of flows together. But I was on the phone two to three hours a day, Monday through Friday. We were trying to shoot for an average of two appointments a week, which is still a really good quota that I adhere today, is if I hit my two appointments a week, a buyer contract, a seller contract, both. Sometimes you'll hit more, sometimes you hit less. But if you try to hit at least a minimum of two, things are going to be good for you. You'll close a lot of transactions.
Alex Mayer:
So that first year, I think I did 39 transactions. I was the buyers' agent rookie of the year, the year after. And then they disbanded. From there, I went independent. I bought into the same system that my previous broker did, which was making the phone calls Monday through Friday. But I realized that every day, I had to be on the phone prospecting for business. When I was calling these people, they didn't know who I was. They didn't know where I was calling from. I had to prove myself every time I got someone to pick up the phone. Realized that if I stopped making the phone calls, then I would stop getting business, other than the fact that I was still getting referrals and everything at that time.
Alex Mayer:
And like I said, around that December timeframe, I decided I needed to kind of shift to a different direction. I had a really, really great mentor before, and I loved working with him. I read Krista's book, that's how I found her. And then she started showing up all over my social media feed, and I was like, “How is it that I can do that?” And then from there, like I said, January or February, I hired her, so that's kind of where I come from in the real estate business.
Krista Mashore:
So tell me what real estate looks like now. Gosh, you're one of the only people that I know that actually doesn't mind being on the phone two or three hours a day. I mean, I have never, ever been able to do that, more than 50 [inaudible 00:05:30].
Alex Mayer:
You're telling me that I've got to get on the phone for an hour today, I'll be like, “That sounds like pulling teeth.” But I also know that starting out in the business, it was a really great way to do it. I'm really great on the phones, so that was an awesome way to start generating business. And it made me really, really skilled nowadays when I get someone on the phone. But I still train my sub agents to call people on the phone. I think that's a really great way for them to build their business. They get to split with me. It's a really great way for them to get good mentor in the business, which I tell people, being on a commission split with a mentor when you first get in the business is kind of the tuition that you pay to become successful.
Alex Mayer:
Later on, when you're financially capable, definitely hiring a coach, that's a big part of it. Right? And I always tell people too, you can hire just any real estate coach and they'll probably put you in the top 20%, but they're not going to get you to the top 1% or top 3% like Krista will. That's the big difference. You'll be recognized. People will notice you in your marketplace and business just becomes a whole lot easier.
Krista Mashore:
What does your day look like now? So before, you'd call three hours a day. By the way, I have to tell you, Alex is one of the most regimented people that I know. I mean, he sticks to systems. He sticks to processes. He's very, very good at being told to do something, then actually doing it. So talk to us now about what business is like and how you're generating business.
Alex Mayer:
So would you like me to tell you what business was like in the mornings, and then what it is today?
Krista Mashore:
Yeah, do that. What was it like?
Alex Mayer:
Okay. So when I was prospecting every day, and like Krista said, I'm very big about my routine. I really adhere to the SAVERS technique in Miracle Morning for real estate agents. I think that thing is a blessing for anyone that will take the time to do it, but to spend some time in the morning with some silence, affirmations, getting a little bit of exercise in, reading, writing to yourself, actually talking to yourself. I think those things are all really important for the mental health and the mindset that you need to have to be successful in this business because anyone who tells me that they're batting 1000 in this business isn't taking the plate enough. You will get punched in the gut. Appraisals will come in low. Things can get devastating really quick. So I think you really got to take care of yourself that first hour in the morning.
Alex Mayer:
Lately, I've been doing a lot of boxing, or working out at the gym, or going for a run. That's what I do mostly now. But in the past, it was doing that. I would get a lot of my busy paperwork done between, I would say 7:00 and 8:00 in the morning. By 8:30, I had my plan out for who I was going to call. And I would call people from about 9:00 until 11:00 in the morning. I like to get everything done right away in the morning because I break my day into offense versus defense. I focus in the morning on generating business and what's going to move the needle forward in my business. The rest of the day is focused on maintaining business, showings, contracts, offers, then finally, closing business, which is kind of the transactional phase of the business.
Alex Mayer:
But I try to get the stuff that's going to move the needle forward done in the morning before 11:00 if at all possible. Today, it's very, very similar. I will tell you that I don't work very much anymore. I don't need to because I've built this kind of business that automates itself and I can just focus on meeting with clients, which is my favorite thing to do, representing them, giving them advice. And I guess the main thing to that is, whereas I was spending roughly 10 to 15 hours a week on the phone, nowadays, I can knock out with an hour of writing three different scripts. I can record those three scripts inside of an hour. I can email those off to an editor. My total time invested into creating the scripts, recording the videos, and getting that off to an editor, probably less than three hours.
Alex Mayer:
And I can advertise those videos in a week, and I can get hundreds of hours of video views of these 60 to 90 second little videos. So I feel like I'm always constantly front of mind with people nowadays. But I don't have to spend the time prospecting or chasing the business. It's not uncommon for me to just wake up in the morning and all of a sudden have three different people reach out to me about buying houses. Either they've met me before, they've talked to someone who's worked with me, and they're just a referral client. Or it's someone that I've met kind of out and about in my daily life.
Alex Mayer:
One thing I will tell you is if you do follow Krista's program, and I mean you've actually got to do the work, people will start noticing you and recognizing you when you're out and about, and it gets really kind of funky. People will just start talking to you about real estate, and you're just like, “Are you going to introduce to me [inaudible 00:10:10] because … ” Or have we met before? So my biggest difference is my mornings, I don't have to focus so much on the generating business. I feel very relaxed with the business now because I don't have to chase like I used to when I was first starting out.
Krista Mashore:
So talk a little bit about people recognizing you. I know we always talk about it. It's like people feel like you're their friend, kind of a thing.
Alex Mayer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). So one of the things I really love about your program, it's all about getting really crystal clear on who your client avatars are, who it is that you're actually trying to work with. The people that I want to work with, these are your young professionals who are educated, who want to make good decisions, people who like communication. Communication's a core value of mine. My three core values are education, communication, responsiveness. I always tell agents when they're first starting out in this business, as soon as you realize that it's all about taking care of the client first, business becomes super easy after that. And you actually have to be able to do that. Most people who are only closing one or two transactions a month and needed to close to pay the mortgage, they can't do that. So there's actually something to be said about producing at a high level that makes it so you can actually take better care of your clients.
Krista Mashore:
That is so, so true because you learn obviously as you go. So before, you were on the phones, calling two to three hours a day. Now, no more phone calls. It's just answering phones, creating video content, and the business, you're attracting the business. So talk to me a little bit about the production. What are your numbers like now without having to be on the phone? What are you producing?
Alex Mayer:
Yeah. So I looked at the numbers just yesterday because I didn't know what the actual ones were, so it was actually 42 in the last year, which is actually ball park for where I was at the beginning, but I was on a 50/50 split. And nowadays, I'm 100% commission. I do have a couple agents that have started underneath me. Right now, I only have one, and he's crushing it. He's 18 years old. I think he's got four or five sales already and 10 clients, so he's doing a really great job. And again, he's one of those guys, I'm training him the same business, way I was trained in. He's on the phones. He's calling those leads. He's hustling. He's doing the work, and he's getting busy.
Krista Mashore:
Yeah. I love that though. So you did 39 on your best years, and 42, but you're not having to cold call. And now you're not working for another company, you're on your own. So before, the leads were being fed to you, now the leads are coming to you. And you're not having to do any of the heavy hitting.
Alex Mayer:
Yes, that's exactly right.
Krista Mashore:
That's fabulous.
Alex Mayer:
And I'm working a third of the amount of time that I was. Honestly, if I wanted to I could start chasing business again and do a lot more in transactions, but like you said earlier, there's other things in my life other than real estate that I'm focused on as well, health, mindset, other areas that I want to go at in life as well. I love what I do. I love educating clients. I love seeing the click in their eyes as they come into some sort of new understanding. And I really, really like winning. It's a lot of fun when you're out there and you're competing with people on multiple offers, or you're going up against someone on a listing. And you know that person, when you first got in the business, was one of the top agents in the territory. And you get into it and you're like, “He's got to go up against me.”
Krista Mashore:
So you're beating out top agents now.
Alex Mayer:
Yes. So I've actually been … I just found out that I was the top gross commissions income agent in 2019. But I actually found out a couple months ago I was in 2020 for my brokerage. There's 60 agents at our brokerage. I'm 100% commission, so I run my business my own way. But yeah, I'm sure a big part of that came from joining your program in 2019.
Krista Mashore:
So you're saying you were the highest paid commission in 2020.
Alex Mayer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Krista Mashore:
Great. Great, great, great. In your brokerage, it has 60 agents.
Alex Mayer:
Yep. And then other things that I really learned from going independent and hiring you and all the other different crazy things that come into real estate and marketing and getting your name out there, is how important it is to not only have a really, really great routine, a morning routine that gets stuff done, that is moving the needle forward, because if I get that first morning, if I get everything done in the morning that I need to, the rest of the day, I can do nothing else.
Krista Mashore:
And that's what you do, too. You've got so much time.
Alex Mayer:
Yes. The downtime is the best part to that. The second biggest thing is to actually have a budget in place. I know this is something that drives you wild, but there are agents who get into this business, and they spend nothing. I mean, that's okay if you got someone who's generating leads for you, or you've got some sort of system behind how it is that you're going to get clients. But this is a business, you need to treat it like a business. You need to actually spend money on getting clients, on taking care of your clients. The only way to really take care of your clients is to do enough business to know what it is you're talking about and actually provide something that's both different in the marketplace and that actually is going to provide clarity and education around how to actually operate in the market when they're go to it.
Alex Mayer:
The only way to do that is to build up your experience. And that doesn't mean time. That means doing as much as you possibly can in the beginning, so that you can learn those things quickly. I tell people it's just like anything else. The first probably two, three times you wrote an offer, first time probably took you two hours. Then it probably took you 15 minutes. Nowadays, you can do it in five, six minutes. It's the same thing with-
Krista Mashore:
My first time, it took me about two hours. Now I can do it in five minutes.
Alex Mayer:
Yeah. I remember it was two hours for me, and I had help. And then from there, it's the same thing with video, it's the same thing with the program and sticking to your program, is you've just got to make sure that you do the work. The first couple times, it's going to be like, “Oh, this seems really arduous. This is really difficult.” I can write a script in 20 minutes. I can record that script in 10 minutes. I can do the basic edits to get it narrowed down inside of probably five to seven minutes, and off to an editor. They'll get it back to me in three to four days, something like that. And from there, it'll take me 20 minutes to upload that to Facebook, and I can run that video as many times as I want.
Krista Mashore:
So tell me. What kind of videos are you doing? And how many … So you're doing, you said two to three videos a week.
Alex Mayer:
Yep.
Krista Mashore:
What types of videos are you doing?
Alex Mayer:
So mostly educational. I know I should be doing more community based stuff. But I guess my whole personality is I just like to teach as much as possible. Like I said, seeing that click in people's eyes, that's what I really care about. So I try to talk about little miscellaneous little things in real estate, such as: What is earnest money? Well, how do you differentiate your offer in this marketplace? If you're a seller, how quickly can we get your home up and on the market? What can you expect for absorption rates?
Alex Mayer:
Different little things like that, I try to keep it around 60 seconds as much as possible. Honestly, if you could get it down to 30 seconds, that's probably even better. If anything, that's one of the best blessings to this program is you don't actually have to be in front of the camera for two hours. You can record a video, a really good one minute video, inside of 10 minutes to get it right. And then from there, you can have thousands of people watch that video.
Krista Mashore:
Tell me about your 72 hour program. So talk to us, tell me about your 72 hour club.
Alex Mayer:
Yep. So the way that I explain that is because I've been advertising in the Rochester area for over two years now doing the digital marketing, because we're able to re-market to these people, because we're able to go after what we call special ads categories now, but what was called lookalike audiences, we can actually re-target to those people that have been engaging with our videos for the last, ultimately, really two years have been really engaging with these videos.
Alex Mayer:
So when I list a property for sale, I'm going to have a probably 60 to 90 second home showcasing video done on that property. Mine don't include me in it. I just have a videographer go through there. I pay them to run through, make it all professional. And then from there, I'll put a budget behind advertising it. I try to do it two days before it actually goes live on the MLS, where it's advertising at maybe 10 bucks a day. And then the day that it goes live, I'll increase that to about $40 on reach, $40 on video views. And I will get probably between 30 and 40 hours of video views in the next 24 hours.
Alex Mayer:
So what I do is I tell my clients, it's called the 24 Hour Plus Club, but actually, in 48 hours, I might get 73 hours of video views. So I'm telling people, “How many open houses would I have to do in order to break time?” And the answer is, you can't. And these are actually people who are engaging with these videos. Real estate's really a lot like an on and off switch, in all fairness, I will tell people. I could put a property up on a coming soon status with one photo and still get 12 showings. But that digital marketing, that shows the sellers that you're serious about what you're doing. It gets your name out there. And it shows people that you're doing business.
Alex Mayer:
So having that audience on there and being able to actually re-target to them, it differentiates you from everybody else in the area. I mean, I've been doing this for two years and I've been watching, and there's no one else doing this.
Krista Mashore:
And even if they start, they might try to use video, but they don't know how to distribute it properly, so nobody's seeing it anyways.
Alex Mayer:
Yeah. And they don't have the established audience that's already created by having ran years and years really of video content that people have been watching.
Krista Mashore:
Good, good. Okay. So what else? I love the 24 Hour Club. What about your referrals? I mean, honestly, thinking about it, Alex, that is really astonishing. So you went from working on a team, being fed leads, to calling these leads two to three hours a day, your best year, closing 39 deals, to leaving the brokerage, establishing yourself on your own, leaving the team, establishing yourself on your own, no more calling two to three hours a day, creating video content and properly distributing it, and now closing 42 deals a year. That is phenomenal, and having your life back.
Alex Mayer:
Yeah. People, they ask, “Did you have the day off today?” And I'm like, “Well, I work every day. But some days it's 15 minutes,” so it's like eight hours when it gets really crazy. But I mean, when I was first starting the business, it was sun up, sun down, you had to be on the phones doing things. Nowadays, it feels like the wall's just been built from consistently doing things over and over the right way, that nowadays, people just kind of run into it and they fall … It feels like business falls into your lap.
Alex Mayer:
But as far as referrals and everything goes, referrals, I will pick up the phone for an hour every month, just to show the other agents that work with me that I can do it, just to make a point. If they're running dry on clients, I'll be like, “Well, let me do it.” And then I'll pick up two clients in an hour because I do love doing that. I'm super ultra competitive. But again, it's like pulling teeth. I don't want to do it. Yeah, so I mean, I'll still get on the phones and do those things from time to time, but overall, it's like I'll get random text messages from people telling me they're referring someone to me.
Alex Mayer:
I mean, obviously I'll get leads from Carrot and Facebook from time to time that I'll actually follow up with from the videos. But that's the other thing from it, is not all of the business comes from a specific video. You can't say it's this video that actually gets the clients. You're out an about, and then someone starts talking to you about real estate, and they're like, “Oh, my God, you're going to be my realtor when that time comes.” Or someone calls you that you met two years ago, who you totally forgot about, and asks to meet with you to buy or sell a home. And then obviously-
Krista Mashore:
They're calling you. Why are they calling you from two years ago?
Alex Mayer:
Because they recognize me.
Krista Mashore:
From seeing your videos.
Alex Mayer:
From seeing the videos, yeah. So yeah, that's the thing, you can't say it's that specific video, but everyone knows that you're the real estate person.
Krista Mashore:
Yes, got you. Got you. And there's no one else doing it in any other profession, which is the crazy part to me. In any profession, every professional should be doing this.
Alex Mayer:
I know. Right? It's really sad. I've talked to people. I'm like, “Why don't you do something like this?” I mean, at the end of the day, it's the same thing you tell all of the agents who are starting out in the program. You've just got to get out of your own head. You've just got to do the work and do it. I mean, people honestly don't care enough how we look. It's just about doing it and getting the information out there.
Krista Mashore:
So let's talk a little bit about you personally. So personally, I mean, I know you've done some … How much weight have you lost?
Alex Mayer:
Well, I lost 36 pounds, but then I gained 10 back. But I think that's mostly from strength training and boxing and things like that.
Krista Mashore:
Muscle, yeah.
Alex Mayer:
[inaudible 00:23:24] today.
Krista Mashore:
Yeah. How many of those do you drink? What is it? Is that celery juice?
Alex Mayer:
This is an alkagizer. It does have celery in it. I'm doing some WildFit program through Mindvalley. And we have to drink one of these every day.
Krista Mashore:
Yeah. So Alex, so when we were in the program, I got this wild hair up my butt to do 75 Hard, and so I encourage the students to do this. There was probably about 40 of us that did it, so Alex went through 75 Hard. And then he went through the second and third phase. You're going through the third phase. Right, Alex?
Alex Mayer:
I will be doing it in June.
Krista Mashore:
In June, yeah. So he absolutely has just transformed not only his business, but his appearance and his attitude and his health, so you look fabulous. I love that tattoo. Tell me what you tattoo says.
Alex Mayer:
The one on my arm says, “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek.”
Krista Mashore:
The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek. I love it. And the other one?
Alex Mayer:
We're all stories in the end, just make it a good one.
Krista Mashore:
We're all stories in the end, just make it a good one. I love those tattoos, they're actually meaningful.
Alex Mayer:
Yeah. I know. When I decided to get my first one, I knew I was going to get some real nice ones, and I wasn't going to be cheap on them either.
Krista Mashore:
Yours is … I don't have any tattoos, but I saw yours and I commented. I was like, “That is a really cool looking tattoo.”
Alex Mayer:
Yeah, thank you. That was actually Mel Robbins. It was in her book, The Five Second Rule. One of the [inaudible 00:24:47] in there was by a gentleman, and he said, “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek.” And it's all about procrastination, and kind of like what we were just talking about, getting out of your own head and doing the thing that you don't want to do, because usually, that's what you need to be doing in order to move your business forward, or to get to that next level.
Krista Mashore:
Yes, absolutely. Alex, it's been such a pleasure talking to you. I always respect you. He's a very, very good real estate agent. If you've got any referrals, send them his way. I'll have him tell you how to get ahold of him as well. I couldn't just be more proud, and just I love watching you. You're such a doer. You're such a doer, and that's so good. So if people want to get in touch with you to give you their referrals, Alex, where should they go?
Alex Mayer:
Well, first, I'm so blessed to have you and I know everyone in the community feels the exact same way. That's the other thing about the program we didn't touch on enough, but the community is where it is all at with the Krista Mashore Coaching Program. That people that I've met in that program are some of the top producing agents in their field. And we're all communicating on ways to do better. So that is one thing that I think needs to be driven home more and more.
Alex Mayer:
If you do want to get in touch with me, you can just go Alex Mayer on Facebook. I'm pretty public profile. Rochester Area Homes by Alex is my dot com site. You can also find me on Facebook doing it that way as well. But you can just look me up, Alex Mayer, anytime, and you can just message me directly.
Krista Mashore:
I love what you're saying too about the community. That's so Napoleon Hill, one of the 16 characteristics of the successful people, that successful people have is that they have an award winning mastermind team that they surround themselves with. So such a huge part about success is who you are hanging around with, who you're associating with. Who are you learning from? I could not agree with you more.
Krista Mashore:
Okay, everyone, Alex, thank you for being here. You've been a treat. I always end it this way. If there's one thing you were going to tell people, whether it's business or personal to change their life, what advice would you give them?
Alex Mayer:
I think I said it at the beginning. As soon as you learn that it's all about taking care of your clients, business will become super easy, and then you will be successful.
Krista Mashore:
I love that. People before things, and the things will come. Okay, Alex, thank you. Everyone, now he's given you some great tidbits, and one of them was to take action, start creating video content. He is working less and making more, a lot more, more than double, quite frankly, and has more time than ever. So we all got in this business for two reasons, to have more financial freedom, to have more time, and we find out that the business just absolutely takes us over.
Krista Mashore:
If you'd like to learn more, you can always reach out, and remember that learning is great. Oh, there's Maya. I see her. This is Alex's wife. So cute. See, he's got her on the wall, and she's all over everything. But if you don't take action, nothing happens, so make it a great day, and thank you again so much for your time.
