Real Estate Pros Podcast: For Real People Working in Real Estate

94: Josh Cobb: What New York Taxi Drivers Can Teach Us About Disruption

Much of the legislation surrounding ride-sharing apps in Australia revolves around compensating our taxi industry for the projected losses they’ll incur as more people adopt services such as Uber.

On the contrary, when Uber arrived in New York, instead of complaining or relying on government handouts, taxi drivers simply started competing and Uber have had to reduce their prices by up to 30% in order to win market share.

In this episode of Real Estate Pros, we discuss why there's no use competing on price when it comes to disruption in real estate and what New York taxi drivers can teach us about their continued success in an already disrupted industry.

Read the highlights: stepps.com.au/podcasts

93: Josh Cobb: The Rise Of Digital Real Estate Media: Agents Taking Back Control

Before the 90’s, there were only a few channels that brands could communicate with consumers. These channels included direct mail, fax, phone, television, radio, billboards, magazines or newsletters. It used to be that media companies held all the power because they controlled these distribution channels and the audience.

Traditionally we would need to pay these media companies for the privilege to reach an audience on these channels. But this is certainly no longer the case. With a seemingly endless number of channels where our brand can have a presence today, we can all act like a media company ourselves with little to no help from the media. Armed with a smartphone and a Facebook account, anyone can be a publisher.

In this episode of Real Estate Pros, we discuss the advantages of building your own audience instead of paying our industry's media for the privilege to get in front of theirs.

Read the highlights: stepps.com.au/podcasts

92: Josh Cobb: Why Looking Outside Of Real Estate Is Good For Business

By looking at how other industries and professions are successful, and applying it to real estate, we open up a whole new world of competitive advantage and fresh thinking.

If we only look inside our own industry for new ideas, real estate as we know it could very well change around us. The threat of disruption in most other industries has come from outside of those industries and it would extremely naive of us to think it could never happen to us.

In this episode of Real Estate Pros, we discuss why looking outside of real estate for marketing and customer service inspiration is good for business, and two events you may like to consider attending in 2017 where such ideas and inspiration are in abundance.

Read the highlights: stepps.com.au/podcasts

91: Josh Cobb: The Ingredients For Contagious Online Real Estate Marketing

If your competitors are targeting the same audience online with their special offer (and they are!), what makes your company so special?

According to an extensive study conducted by marketing professor Jonah Berger, there is set of common ingredients for why things go viral.

In this episode of Real Estate Pros, we discuss why some brands and influencers get noticed, followed and talked about more than others.

Read the highlights: stepps.com.au/podcasts

90: Josh Cobb: Why You Need A Marketing ‘Not’ To Do List

How many different ways do you market your business? From this list, how many are working for you? Honestly.

With so many channels out there today that your company can use for marketing purposes, but only a small number of channels that your actual customers engage with, we need to be selective about the channels we use. 

More marketing is most often never better. 

In this episode of Real Estate Pros, we discuss the importance of a marketing 'not' to-do-list and why focusing on what you can measure, will produce better results with less work.

Read the highlights: stepps.com.au/podcasts

89: Josh Cobb: Your Social Media Followers & Email Subscribers Are Not Leads… Yet.

You don’t see a rockstar stand on stage and after the first song, try and sell you tickets to their next show. 

Musicians spend years building trust with an audience without asking for anything in return but when they do finally release that new album or round of concert tickets, there’s no shortage of people lining up to buy their stuff.

There is no shortage of real estate agents who are spamming their social media followers and email subscribers with coupons & come-ons.

But here's the thing...

Your social media audience and email subscribers are not leads... yet. Instead of trying to convert them, why not educate and entertain them?

In this episode of Real Estate Pros, we discuss how creating compelling content, consistently over time, will convert your social into clients for life.

88: Kylie Davis: New Real Estate Business Models vs Technology: Which is The Bigger Threat?

According to a study conducted by Elite Agent in 2015, real estate is set to be one of the most disrupted industries in Australia and New Zealand with 82% of real estate jobs at risk of digital disruption by 2032 compared with 44% of Australian jobs generally. 

While introducing technology that reduces costs is a no-brainer, the next wave of change for agents requires greater imagination. The next wave – which is already upon us – requires a reimagining of the traditional business models to put customer expectations – not business comfort - at their centre.

In this episode of Real Estate Pros, we're joined by Kylie Davis - the Head of Property Services Marketing at CoreLogic to discuss The Future of Real Estate and Property Finance Industries Report 2016. Co-authored by Kylie, this comprehensive report identifies five major technology trends that are already being felt by real estate agents, the next big things in real estate technology and how new business models could potentially be more of a disruptor than technology itself.

Read the highlights: stepps.com.au/podcasts

87: Josh Cobb: Why You Need To Stop Building A Database & Start Building An Audience

In real estate, we create a lot of content. We print a hell of a lot of paper with our listings, our agent profiles and calls-to-action about why someone should list and sell with us. We as real estate professionals are advertising machines.

But if we all stopped all that today, would anyone miss it? Would anyone care that their letterboxes or email inboxes would no longer be filled with our marketing 'fluff'? We would likely all agree that the answer to this question is no.

In this episode of Real Estate Pros, we discuss the difference between having a database of contacts versus having an audience of loyal fans - including a real life example of one agent who - in just 12 months after returning to the industry - has built a following of 8,000 subscribers.

Read the highlights: stepps.com.au/podcasts

86: Josh Cobb: Why Facebook’s Latest Changes Are Bad News For Real Estate Agents

With the latest changes to Facebook's algorithm, some experts and those close to Facebook headquarters are predicting that organic reach for Pages will reach 0%. If that’s true, what that means for your company Page is that if you’re not paying to promote your content on Facebook, your content will not be seen by no one.

Unless you are consistently producing viral content, it’s about to become almost impossible for you to reach your followers organically on Facebook.

In this episode of Real Estate Pros we discuss the latest official statement from Facebook regarding how your company Page reach will be impacted when its latest algorithm changes take affect in the coming weeks and months.

Read the highlights: stepps.com.au/podcasts

85: Gia Le: How A Real Estate Agent Uses Influencer Marketing To Grow Her Audience

What about rather than trying to market directly to a large group of consumers, you instead inspire influencers to get the word out for you?

Influencer marketing is a type of marketing that focuses on using ‘people of influence’ to drive your brand’s message to a much larger audience. Rather than trying to market directly to a large group of consumers, you instead inspire influencers to share your content - which helps you to reach an audience you couldn't otherwise reach on your own.

In this episode of Real Estate Pros, I’m joined by Gia Le – a real estate professional in Perth, Western Australia. Gia shares how in just six months of starting her real estate career, she has leveraged her relationships with local entrepreneurs and inspirational business people to attract and inspire a loyal audience.

Read the highlights: stepps.com.au/podcasts