171 | BONUS EPISODE: All Things Social w/Ashley Edge

In this live podcast episode, Garrett and Ashley discuss tips and tricks for social media success. They emphasize the importance of showing up authentically and building relationships with the right audience. Ashley shares her strategy of creating Facebook groups based on shared interests and engaging with members through conversations. She also highlights the use of tools like Group Leads and Zapier to collect and manage contact information. The ultimate goal is to convert the audience into clients by providing value and building trust. In this conversation, Ashley Edge shares her expertise on lead generation and CRM strategies for real estate agents. She explains the process of setting up an email campaign and the importance of multiple touches to engage potential clients. Ashley also discusses the role of social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, in building relationships and growing a real estate business. She provides practical tips for creating niche groups and offers advice for agents who are hesitant about using social media. Additionally, Ashley announces her coaching program for agents looking to grow their business beyond 12 to 24 deals per year.

Takeaways

Show up authentically on social media and focus on building relationships with the right audience.
Create Facebook groups based on shared interests and engage with members through conversations.
Utilize tools like Group Leads and Zapier to collect and manage contact information.
Convert the audience into clients by providing value and building trust.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Technical Difficulties
03:03 Starting the Live Podcast Episode
04:04 Recording Live in Front of an Audience
07:37 Tips and Tricks for Social Media
08:20 Building an Audience and Creating Groups
13:09 Showing Up Authentically on Social Media
15:04 Starting a Facebook Group
22:02 Converting the Audience into Clients
27:30 Tools and Tricks for Social Media
29:20 Introduction to Lead Generation and CRM
29:57 Transition to Email Campaigns
30:22 Setting Up the Email Campaign
31:39 Cadence and Subject Lines for Email Campaigns
33:08 Choosing a CRM and Email Campaign Platform
34:38 Alternative to CRM and Email Campaigns
35:11 Choosing Social Media Platforms
40:11 Building a Facebook Group
45:24 Creating a Niche Group
48:48 Overcoming Resistance to Social Media
50:05 Narrowing Down Group Choices
51:12 Coaching Program Announcement

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Transcript

0:13

I hope this is live and in action. life in person? How do I do that? I'm guessing I haven't done it yet. Is this already on? Go live, right now. I'd be amazed if I did it. Okay. I think... I did it. Someone say something? Somebody comment to make sure this is actually live. Please. Yes. It's done. Okay. We are still waiting for Ashley. It is not her fault though. Don't let her know I said that. because I forgot to send her the link to record. So that makes sense why I wouldn't have done that. And I think I saw you Ruthie posted something in the chat or the messenger chat thing that it would be, we are doing a training on social media and I don't even know how to go live on social media or something like that. So rude, but absolutely accurate. Hey, there's Ashley. Hi Ashley. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Wow, all things social means all things fancy because look where Ashley is. Where are you? on the bayou in Fort Welton Beach Florida. Oh, you're in Florida now. Nice. Well, you're cooler than I am. Thanks for doing that. I was just explaining to, I literally just figured out how to do the live feed. So it was okay that I didn't even send you the right thing because I was just trying to figure out how to even do a live feed. So, um, we are excited that everyone is hopping on. I can see comments. So if you have questions as we go along, we're actually recording a podcast episode, but we're doing it live So, you know, we're trying new things and we're gonna we're gonna fill that out as we go along But if you have questions post them in the chat or the comment and I'll make sure that Ashley gets to them But are you hearing me? Okay, Ashley? Yeah, good. Yep, you're great. Okay, all right cool All right, this is so weird. I'll just pretend like this is a live podcast episode so here we go Welcome back to another episode of the faithful agent podcast Ashley interrupted me all right. Let me let me try again I think there's a delay Is there a delay maybe? All right Ashley keep it to yourself. Let's try. Let's try this again All right here. We go. Sorry everybody Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Faithful Agent Podcast. We are doing something completely different today. We are recording live in front of a live audience. It's not a live audience, but we're live in our Faithful Agent Facebook page on a, on a group of it called All Things Social. So you might hear us interact with people leaving comments. I might be asking questions of Ashley that are coming from the comments section. So it's going to be a little bit different today, but We hope that this will be valuable. I really think it will. We're talking all things social media. So Ashley Edge is with us today. Ashley, say hi to the fans, all your fans. Yeah, all the fans, all the fans, right? All the fans. Yes. Thank you for joining us Ashley. So I gotta tell you a quick story because I think this applies so Two or three weeks ago my family so our audience probably knows but if you don't we've got a six four two and nine month old My family always goes to Chipotle for lunch after church on Sundays So we go to Chipotle this Sunday. It's like two three weeks ago. Go to Chipotle And I've got my three oldest that are walking with me. We go up to the line to place an order and there's this, I've never seen this guy here before, so maybe he's relatively new, you know, maybe, maybe he isn't, but I've never seen this, this guy who's worked in there. I go up and he doesn't say anything, right? He doesn't say good morning or anything like that. He, I go up to him and I say, okay, so I'm going to need five things, right? Cause me and my wife and the three big kids and literally Ashley, he says, Oh, I ain't doing that. That was his response. Oh, I ain't doing that. Yeah. And. I'd no joke and then he walks he leaves and he goes and gets another employee and she comes over and actually helps us which Okay, first of all the crazy but then he comes up to me afterwards There's a couple people behind me comes up to me afterwards and he says He says hey, sir, if you have more he was respectful But he was like if you have more than four orders you need to or four things You need to place an order in advance. I'm like that's never happened. We come here all the time, right? So whatever He goes to the people next to me, well the lady behind me, younger lady behind me, leans to me and says, just you know, I think it's okay that you're ordering food for your family. And I'm like, I appreciate it. He goes to the woman behind me and he says, all right, what can I get started for you? And she tells him, he says, are you gonna want any sauce? And she says, yes, I would. And he says, oh, hold on, is this guy behind you, is he with you too? And she says, yeah, he's with me too. And he says, all right, sir, are you gonna need sauce? Cause I don't wanna have to go over there twice. And it's literally like. Right? amazing. And you know, I don't know what to do other than just like, this is hilarious. Anyways, so now my wife and I, if we're like, hey, we gotta do the dishes, be like, oh, I ain't doing that. Like, oh, I didn't know we could use that just to get out of, oh, I ain't doing that. So here, yeah, that's the new thing. So here's how this applies. Ashley was sharing with us, she's on our Greensboro Conference, which if you guys aren't coming, shame, deep shame on you, I'm just kidding. But you should come to the Greensboro Conference in April. Go to check it out, faithfulagent.com backslash conference. Ashley's helping us on the leadership team of the conference and she starts telling me all of these tools we could use for social media. I'm like, first of all, I was like, I ain't doing that. Right, that's where that comes from. I know I ain't doing that. But then I thought, man, these are really helpful and we should actually share this with everyone. So longest intro of an episode ever. But I thought that was somewhat applicable. So. Again, Ashley Edge, thank you so much for being with us, my friend. The more I've gotten to know Ashley audience, the more I respect her. So I'm super grateful that you're here and willing to share with us. So we appreciate it, but actually less dive in. You have built a big business and most of it has come from social media. Right. So tell us just start, what are some tips and tricks? What do we need to do? to understand social and you were talking about more of the backend, how do we actually elevate the experience and utilize tools and systems that are in place? So you go for it, I'll add questions and any comments you have again, y'all go ahead and post them and we'll answer those. But go ahead Ashley, it's yours. Okay, yeah, so I think a lot of times when people think about social media and building their brand on social media and building your business on social media, all of the thoughts that you initially think of are backwards from what I'm actually doing. You think that you need to be in everybody's face, that every post you make has to be real estate related or has to be business related. Every story that you have, it needs to be real estate business related and that's just not accurate. What you need to do is you need to begin by going backwards essentially in your social media. making sure that you're attracting the right people. So there's an algorithm behind everything. I'm sure people understand that much of social media that you can talk about something and then it's gonna pop up in your social feed. There's an algorithm behind how many clicks, how long you spend on a video, how long you spend on a certain type of page, that will invite more of that into your life. So what type of people do you wanna work with? Well, for me, I wanna work with other military families. I want to work with moms, I want to work with families that are like-minded, outside of real estate and other things that I do as well. So I'm going to spend my time on social media as a mom, as a military spouse, attracting those type of people. Once you have those people in your corner, then you start to add in the other things. The best thing that I can tell anyone is if you're going to start, we can start with Facebook. If you're going to start on Facebook. The first thing that you need is you need a group of like-minded people. So, Garrett's done that, right? Like, he's pulled the group, he's created the faithful agent, you guys are his like-minded people. So, if you're looking for people that you want to sell real estate to, what is something that you're super knowledgeable about, that you enjoy spending time doing, that you could essentially 10X? You can spend half the time doing it because you already know it, you're already good at it, and you can speak to those people. So, in your past, before you were a realtor, where you may be a teacher. Or are you a military spouse? Or are you a chef? I have a friend who's now in real estate and she was an attorney. Are you an attorney? Like who can you relate to? Create a group for those people. Provide them value that has nothing to do with real estate and then watch the rest of that flourish as they see in your life that you are a real estate agent. And I did this, I started probably five years ago starting these groups. I have a group for military people throughout numerous spaces. Thanks to my coach, she actually started that program and I just helped her support that. But then I also have a page for agents that are looking to get their license. I coach and mentor them on that page. I have a page for other moms. I pull people in that way and then they're like, oh my gosh, but she's a welter too, so she could help me with this. I have a page for dads actually that I created for some of the guys for local dads and local knowledge and info. My friend of mine, she does a book club and all of these are Facebook groups that we utilize to grow our businesses. When I started this five years ago, I had one group and I had 28 people in it when I first started. And now I have over 10 groups with over 10,000 people, probably at this point, because each group is roughly a thousand people, if not more. Questions around that you think I need to pause on? Yeah, let me pause you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's super helpful. And when I look down, I'm writing, taking notes. So don't think I'm like, Oh, this is, I ain't doing that. That it's not, it's not with that one kind of thing. Uh, so, okay. So, so let's back up. You started saying you work back or to attract the right people. Right. And you, you kind of a breeze past, but you said when I'm on social, something to the extent of when I get on social, I'm going to show up as a mom and a military spouse and a realtor. I think you said those are maybe the three things, if I remember correctly. I think one of the challenges that we have, and then don't worry agents, we're gonna get into real nitty gritty systems tools, those things right here in just a second. But we've got to start with, is the first question Ashley, how do I wanna show up online? Is the right first question, who am I, you said, who am I trying to attract? And therefore I need to show up as that, or is it really like... a deeper understanding of, and we talk about this a lot, but like authenticity. Hey, I'm not, I can't try to show up as a mom on social media, obviously. Right. But also I don't like, uh, whatever. I don't like fishing. I'm not going to show up as somebody doing fishing just cause there's an audience there. It is going to take time and nurturing. And so therefore it's me understanding, Hey, what are, even as a rule, I'm asking. Three, three ways. What are three things I care about that I want to show up as online, you know, faithful agent, real estate agent, and dad or whatever. Is that kind of what we're trying to figure out first? And then our groups kind of be built off of that. Okay. Yep, absolutely. So would you say three, try to find three things? I mean, I don't know if there's a rule or if there's just good advice there, or what would you say? No, I mean, and I have told people that in the past, pick the three things that you love, go in on those. And if one proves more successful than the other, 10X that. And you know, kind of just dive into that for me, military spouse took off the fastest. So I utilized that, put all my knowledge as a military spouse, everything I've been through as a military spouse. And it... it eventually just leads to it. I'm to the point now where I'm training other agents to do the same thing. And I have a group of agents actually down here in Florida that have started doing that. And they've been maybe a month in and they're already pulling clients and from just utilizing that system. Okay. I love that. It's this idea of we are all multifaceted and we're putting out feelers of things that are true about us and we're seeing how people react to that, right? I mean, that's really what this is. This is who I am. Figure out what the audience likes, right? Or what's going to do well. Okay. So I love that. So first it's getting clarity on maybe let's just say to make it easy. What three ways do you want to show up as? Oh, you know, What are the three ways you want to show up when you, I can't talk, when you want to be on social media, you understand what I'm saying, start there. And then you're saying build groups from that. Right. So let's just do an example. So for example, let's say, uh, you know, I don't want to do one that's too broad. Like, Oh, I'm a dad, but let's say, so I love building fire pits, right. And let's just say that's something I'm going to do. I'm going to talk. I like to talk about, I don't like to talk about fire pits. That makes me sound so boring. Uh, but let's say I did. Right. And I could start a Facebook group, right, about that. Like, what would that look like? I say, hey, this is something I love. I can talk about, I would engage the audience with. What's the first step? What do I do? Yeah, so I would maybe not do it down just to the fire pit, right? Like you love to build something. You love to work with your hands. Where are my dads who love to work with their hands, who love to build things, who love to maybe make a little side hustle, doing that for their family. Connect them and you're pulling them in like that. And then you can niche down while you're in there. Is that a group that I'm starting? I'm sorry, am I starting a Facebook group that says dads who like to build things? Like, what's the actual tactic there? Yes, so that would be the actual tactic. If that's what you wanted to do, you would essentially do that, yes. You would find a cool, creative, fun name, and then you would pull people in that were interested in that. You share video, you share live stream, you share photos, share information, things you've learned along the way, all the screw ups that you've done that make you super relatable, all of that goes in there. Okay, so you create this group, come up with a cool name. It's something that you're naturally going to do anyway. So when you're doing it, you just go live or you post about it or whatever. Right. And you're inviting anyone and everyone just to see who it connects with. Okay. So you find a creative name, start inviting, start posting. Okay. What would you do second? So the second thing in order to grow that group, you can't just post it on your own page and think that all the people are going to find you even if you post it publicly. And that's where I think a lot of agents get misconstrued about, well they told me to go on social and make a public post and the people are going to come to me and they're going to see it. Well they're not going to see it unless you're relating to them and you're coming in their algorithm. So then you're going to spend times in groups like that. So I have another friend who loves plants. So she started a group about plants. and how to keep your plants alive and how to be really successful with them. So you're gonna spend time on the pages that talk about that, on other areas that speak about that and you're gonna look for the people that relate to you that are there. Okay, so someone just made a post in there. Does that person relate to you or how could you pull them to your page as well? Let's say that if you're making this page for that, so who likes to build things? We like to build things and you're in another group a large group We're talking like this group should probably have 15 to 20,000 people And this step goes in there and he's like, hey y'all I started building this table I measured everything out exactly and I came across X problem. Oh No kidding I came across that when I was building this fire pit for my family and a quick turnaround that I found or a quick way That I found to adjust that was this I posted it in X group your group So then not only is that dad gonna see it has the problem, but all the other ones that are in there and already interested in the same things, and they're gonna be like, oh, what's that? So they're gonna go check it out. And that's how you're growing your business with that group. So you're growing your group. So you're gonna go in there and find something that you can relate to. So when you say find people you relate to, my honest first thought was like, what am I going to look at the members and looking at their profiles? It sounds kinda creepy, right? You mean look at the comments that they've made and if there's things that I can engage with or things that are similar to me, I can say, hey, great. You know, question, here's what I've done. I actually posted a whole video or whatever. I hope post a whole video about it over here in this page. If you want to take a look, that's what you mean. We're basically looking at their audience and saying, Hey, you're flying here and you're really similar to me, but you actually should be with me up here. And so why don't you join my group? Right. Cause it's maybe more, more niche down to what you're looking for. Is that what you're saying? You go in there and you, you take their audience. Okay. So you start growing the page that way. Cause I. I would say, you tell me, what's interesting is I think a lot of people would say, and I would have thought, I don't know anything about social. I would have thought, well, don't you just start trying to figure out how to get your members to invite other members? I mean, I don't know how this works, right? But that's not the right way to do it. The right way is to go out and engage and then invite people into your space. Is that right? Yes, yeah, you need to engage with them. They need to see your credibility. How do you relate to them? And then you're pulling them in. Okay, okay, so now you've got your own page. Now you're growing the group by spending time in other pages, you're inviting them into your space. Now what do we do? So now that you do that you want to engage with them. So what is something interesting that you can provide to them? What is something that's going to be helpful to them? What is something that's going to build them up, that's going to keep their interest, that's going to keep them there? What can you share that's going to keep the audience engaged? What are tools that you can provide that can help them, you know, enjoy? the page that you've put them in and is it serving the purpose that you said it was serving when you tagged it and pulled them over? You're making sure that you have that. So if you said, hey I have a video where I did that same thing and this was a shortcut that I found or I made a PDF on it or I jotted it down on a piece of notebook paper, I took a picture of it and posted it there. Did you tag them in that? Do you really have that? Is that something you need to create for them now? Do you need to create a video that talks about how you fixed that problem? So at this point it's watching what they're doing, but it's also creating content that would engage, that would hopefully keep their interest and you can learn that, right? So here's why I love this idea. And here's why I think it goes back to the very beginning. Who am I naturally going to show up as, right? So for example, I think about my wife. My wife who's had four kids like you have Ashley, she has done a ton of research about like postnatal health, right, and getting the woman's body back into tip top shape, right? Uh, and so it's something that she's naturally going to learn about something that she naturally cares about. And so she's always going to naturally have interesting content to share. She doesn't have to go out of her way. It's something that she's already consuming, right? Or she's a homeschool mom. She's always thinking about the best ways to do that. So she already naturally is going to have ideas and thoughts. And so, Hey, guess what? You're going to have those anyways. Now just share them in the page. Right. That's. Different than oh you think there's a lot of homeschool moms out there So go make a group for them and hope you can attract them It's like well, no, that's not meaningful to you already You need to show up and create space that is actually meaningful for you, right? Okay, cool Then you start engaging with them. Okay, awesome Now I know you've got a bunch of tools and tricks that we're gonna talk about here in a second I think the big question in most people's minds is okay cool. I've got an audience But how do I take an audience and turn them into conversions? Right. Obviously the main goal we want to serve people well, but you're not only just getting interest, which is cool. But how do we then get them to take action? So what are the steps from this point on your building an audience? You're engaging with them consistently with interesting content. Now, how do we get them to turn into clients? Right now, how do you convert them? So you're converting them. Essentially, you've started that as the moment you got them to interact with you, you've already began the conversion process. You just have to niche down on that and kind of build that out a little bit better. So what conversations can you have with them that are going to lead to the conversion aspect? So get into conversation with them. find out about their families. What information can you find out? So for me and one of the mom groups that I have questions that, and when you create your group, you're gonna have questions that you're gonna attach to your group. I'm sure you know that from creating the faithful agent, you're gonna ask a set of questions. This will follow up with the tools in just a second and on how you're gonna use those questions. But essentially when you've created it and you're asking these questions, let's call it one of those questions is, I don't know, where are you from? or how long have you lived here or I don't know, something like that. and you're gonna use those questions to create conversation. As the conversation starts, I'm a firm believer in building a relationship with them, which obviously I know you are too, business by relationship doesn't come just because. So I build the relationship with them and from that the conversion happens and it's almost seamless at that point. It's really not like, because a lot of people, they think about how they're converting a client or they're talking to them and it's a real hard sale on this client. The way that I've ran all of this social and created these clients is not a real hard sell. It's truly building a relationship with them, getting to know them, explaining to them what services I offer, be it real estate, coaching, mentorship, whatever, how can that serve their family well and getting that in front of them. So I think as you build the conversation with them and as you talk to them, you'll learn those things and providing the value out front is always going to lead to the conversion in the end. Hmm. So you're starting around a shared table, right? It's all food that we all enjoy the same food. And then from there, you're just getting into conversation with them. Hey. Tell me about, yay, you love whatever pizza do. You know, that's a terrible example, but, you know, great. Tell me about you. Tell me about your family. I mean, it's, it's how we would naturally engage someone. Now we're just doing it online. My question is in that context, are we, are you using those questions actually to, uh, send them a Facebook message? Like, are you directly connecting with them or are you posting a. Go ahead. No, you're good. So the question that, um, the questions that you're asking should lead you to a response and messenger with them. Does that make sense? So every, yep, absolutely. So every person that comes in, I'm going to give an example of a group that was not my idea, but it's one that I helped with. So, okay, great. You want to, you want to learn how to cook and in this area and you love cooking and you love cookbooks and all the things. So we're going to ask three questions about what are the top three foods that you love to cook and they're going to respond to that. You're going to respond to them in messenger to our welcoming them into the group and you're going to say, Hey, I'm so excited you're here. I'm the host of the group. I noticed that you love to cook X, Y, and Z. We talk about why every Tuesday, I would love to have you come to that chat or I would love to have you on that zoom call. Please share any and all tips you have about that. Okay, so now you've got them in Messenger, you're starting the conversation, but you're starting it with something that they're already interested in, and then you're going back into the group, and you're welcoming them into the group. And you're tagging them and saying, hey, I shot you a message, check it out. Hmm. My brain just exploded. Okay. So, uh, that's awesome. All right. It makes sense and it's simple. You know, I think again, it comes back to like, Hey, if you're going to, if you enjoy and you want to engage social, do it the right way, like anything, if this is something you're going to do, do it with excellence and this is what we're talking about here, um, but I like that. So you're taking the questions that they have to answer on their way into the group, you're using that. to then send them a message and let's go into tools and tricks here, but send them a message engaged so that you love these things every week we talk about our favorite things to eat, whatever Tuesday love for you to join us. So you've initiated the actual relationship and then you're going back into the big group and saying, it'd be like saying, you know, again, we're standing around food at a big table. I like to talk about food and we're standing around food and we say, Hey, you know, you're on the other side. And I say, Hey, Ashley, by the way, I sent you a text. Take a, take a look when you can. Right. That's essentially what's happening in this space to start and engage the relationship. Okay. Makes sense. If it doesn't make sense, by the way, if you guys are listening, just shoot a comment, or if you have an idea, anybody that has an idea of a group that they've thought about starting and they want to kind of walk through how to do that, put that in the comments, because I'm going to ask Ashley live, how would we do that? What would we name it? What groups should we be looking into X, Y, and Z? So if you want help from her live, just go ahead and place that comment. But now actually let's move into these, unless I'm missing anything there, let's move into these actual tactical tips and tricks, apps, tools, those kinds of things. Yeah, so you want to stay connected with them in multiple ways, right? And you want to be able to chat with them multiple ways. One of the questions that should be for every group that you have is what's your email address. If that's not a question, it needs to be now. So what's your email address? As soon as they answer those questions, you're going to utilize a program that I was taught a long time ago by my coach. And it's called group leads. That program is a Google Chrome extension. that you're going to use that is going to attach everyone from the welcome, everyone that comes in, they're going to put them automatically on a spreadsheet. So you're not going to have to do all of that by yourself. It's going to put their name, it's going to put when they came in, it's going to put their email address. All of that is going to be on that sheet. So you're going to utilize that. And then... the info, sorry, taking the info from the membership questions. It's grabbing that and putting it in the sheet, right? It's not like going and finding their email address somewhere. It's just pulling from there and putting it into a sheet for you. Is that right? Okay. Cool. Group leads. It's a Google Chrome extension. Okay. Awesome. Sorry. Continue. And then you're going to take that a step further and you're going to use Zapier. And you're going to create a Zap. So the Zap is going to say every time a new line is added to this spreadsheet, every time a new email address comes in, I'm going to move them from just your spreadsheet over to my CRM. Okay, so Zapier, Z-A-P-I-E-R. Okay, so now we have a program called Zapier that takes the spreadsheet info and moves it into whatever CRM you're using. and then you're gonna utilize your CRM, oops, sorry. does it, I'm sorry, does it tag them or something like that? I mean, does it, does it just put them in a CRM or does it tag them? Like, this is where it came from. Or can you set that up? What does that look like? Yep, you can set up tags, all kinds of info. okay, cool. So then you've gone from group leads to Zapier to now what? So then you're gonna take them from there and they're in your CRM. So now you're gonna start them on your email campaign. Now we're into the traditional real estate marketing world. Is that right? But you're not, unless you've gotten them in a group where you know they're moving for whatever purpose, you know, don't, don't email him all this real estate stuff out of the cooking group. And it's to still be relatable, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what kind of email campaign are you setting? You're setting that up. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Now you're good. So now that they're in there, you're going to set them up on the email campaign. The email campaign can look like tick traditionally. It's going to be like, welcome to the group is their first email, right? Cause now you've touched them three ways. You've touched them in the tag. You touched them in the message. Now you're touching them in the email. And that's what we all want to do. Right. We need multiple touches in order to engage properly. And it's going to be, Hey, welcome to this group. You know, I'm super excited that you're here. And not only am I. mom and a military spouse and a mentor. I'm also a realtor and a local. I'm from here. Tell a little bit about yourself, right? Like you need to introduce yourself. This can't just be about the plants or the fire pits or fishing or whatever. Tell a little bit about yourself and then what the group's intention is, why you created it and what the heart behind it is and that you're so thankful that they're there. They ever have any questions, your info is at the bottom. That's your welcome one. And then you're just gonna build out the campaign. consistently, you know, after that three, four more emails, I like to start with four. And I like to set it up all at the beginning so that once they come in and once their name is added, they're gonna automatically get the first one right away. And then in two weeks, they're gonna get another one starting to work. Okay. Yeah. What would be your cadence there? They get an initial welcome email. That happens pretty instantaneously, right? If group leads is grabbing them and Zapier is putting them in the CRM and your CRM knows, send them an email. Uh, that happens right away. And then you've got, you've already pre-built, right? The next emails that are coming out and it's every two weeks. Is that what you're doing for four more emails every two weeks? every two weeks and I recommend using chat GPT here for your subject lines. Do not use them to craft your email because they're going to know and you're going to sound stupid and I hate to say that for people who do use that all the time. I'm sorry but people know. So what you want to do is you want to use chat GPT to research for you what the most open you know what gets the most open emails. in said subject. So is the subject cooking? Is the subject plants? Fishing? Whatever. What gets the most opens for emails that are sent out with that information? And you want to use those. And you can say like, hey, I'm building a campaign to welcome people into my group about fishing. I would like to send them four emails. Can you please give me four subject lines that are the most open, that have the highest open rate within the past 90 days? Okay. And if you, your CRM obviously does that. If someone has a CRM that doesn't like I honestly, since we're just a hundred percent referral, I only use a Google spreadsheet. Like I don't even pay. I don't want to pay for a CRM if I don't need one. What would you, what would you use for that? Right? Do you know of Zappier? Does it, can it take that information and put it somewhere else? Do you need a CRM? Right. Where, where does that come in and where would you build an email campaign? Okay. I didn't start a CRM until actually I started a team. So just a few years ago, prior to that, I didn't have one. I did everything on Google spreadsheets and old fashioned notebook paper. But you can take them and you can zap them to, they'll go to the spreadsheet and then you can get it to pull from the spreadsheet just to directly email them. The problem with that is you can't set up timelines. So if there's someone who knows how to set up a certain timeline of when the email will be sent out. That may be helpful, but I don't know how to do that straight from there. I would have to manually go in and set like an alarm on your phone to know that. Okay. It's two weeks later. I need to send them another email and do that. Yeah. Cause and we could play around, you know, Zapier maybe can send it into MailChimp. I don't know. Right. Uh, maybe there's ways like that where then they're on this auto campaign. They can, those can get really complicated. Let's not do that, but it can get into some sort of auto campaign, but you figure that out. But so what CRM and Jennifer says Google can do mass emails in the Google business suite. Now that's awesome. Uh, Jennifer, can they, uh, schedule those out in advance? that would be helpful. So if you know that. But what CRM then are you using Ashley? Follow up boss. you're using follow up bosses the serum that you're actually putting it into. Okay. So I'm going to walk us through and then I'll ask you one more. Well, is that, are those the steps and Ashley or Jennifer says that Zepier can connect with MailChimp. That's awesome. Thank you for looking at that, Jennifer. Perfect. Yes, while you run over those steps really quickly, I'm gonna get my computer somewhere where I can plug it up. But just hold on one second. Yeah, you're good. Okay. So, yo, you're good. So we're going to recap this. So you start with, you build out this group, you figure out how you want to show up. You create an interesting name. You grow the group by spending time in other pages where people are talking about it. And if you see someone makes a comment on there about, you know, whatever, trying to build something, you comment on that as well and say, Hey, I posted, you know, I built out this and I posted it on this page. Go check it out. And you bring them into your page. Um, and then you're going to engage with them, interesting, helpful content to keep them there. And then how do we actually convert? So we're going to use these questions to create conversions. So it looks like this is the actual process. The page has been created. We've created questions for them as they come in. One of the questions is. What's your email address? Other questions could be, as you talked about with cooking, is what are your three favorite foods to cook? Whatever that is. So from their entrance into your page, now a couple things happen. What happens in the background with the apps and the tools is the program called Group Leads, which is a Chrome extension, takes all that information they filled out when they came into the group. and it goes immediately into a Google spreadsheet. Then your tool Zapier, Z-A-P-I-E-R, takes them from the spreadsheet and puts them into your CRM or as Jennifer said, thank you again Jennifer, can connect with MailChimp or I'm sure there's lots of variations on how it connects. So that information immediately goes into your CRM or your email campaign program or whatever that is. And now you've got, and this is how Ashley sets it up. Now you've got a welcome email that happens almost instantaneously when they join the group. It's an introduction to the group, but it's also an introduction to yourself. That would probably be the first time you're introducing yourself as a real estate agent among other things, right? And so you introduce them and then every two weeks after that for the next, uh, you, you have four more emails that go out every two weeks from that point on. And she suggested using chat GPT to research the best subject lines for open rates, which is brilliant. That's brilliant. So all of that's happening on autopilot, right? All these tools and things are happening in the background happening on autopilot. Then, excuse me, inside the group, we're actually taking the time to engage the people in there by, again, if you say, hey, what's your favorite three foods to cook? You can bring them into the group. You can send them a Facebook message and specifically say welcome to the group I'm glad you're here. I saw that your three favorite things to cook are XY and Z we do a live zoom call or we talk about it live here on this page Whatever it is on Tuesdays at 11 a.m Eastern when we talk about what are our favorite foods to cook and how to cook them whatever it is I hope that you will join us there And then you go on the, so that's the Facebook messenger. And then you go back into the actual group page and you post and you tag that person, Hey, it shot you a messenger or quick message. I'm glad that you're here. So then we actually start to create conversation. Um, I think like anything is we wait for Ashley to hop back on, but I think like anything, so I've had the privilege of, uh, being on the lab code agents. If y'all are familiar with that, it's the, I think it's the largest Facebook group. probably in the world, it's like 176,000 agents, whatever. But anyways, I was on their podcast and I was talking to one of the founders, his name is Jett Fisser, who's a social media guru. And it's interesting, I've never done that, I've only ever done referrals, but he even said specifically on the call with me, he specifically said, "'Garrett, everything is about relationships "'at the end of the day."'You're not gonna sell someone off of social media."'That's not how it works.'" You're not going to convert them off of social media. You're going to convert them. If you use social media to begin the relationship, and that's exactly what Ashley is talking about. So, um, I love the concept, right? Because I'm a person who's highly relational and not technical. As you all saw that it took me like 10 minutes to figure out how to go live in this page. But I do love people. And if there was a way, which Ashley is giving to us to bridge the gap between new people in a group and actually creating relationships, that's awesome. That's what I want. to happen. And I think most agents, there's a gap that we don't know how to bridge. Ashley's giving us the tools to do it. So there's my soliloquy because Ashley is now back. So actually I did a, I did a run through of all the steps and the thoughts and ideas and hopefully did everything you said justice. So you had just finished with the Jet GPT using that. Now we've got these auto campaigns. These tools are creating auto engagement while you're physically creating real engagement on the social media platform, the tools are creating email engagement in the other ways. Is that correct? Yep, that's it. So what do we do at that point? I mean, and it sounds quite honestly simple. Of course it takes time to build and it takes time to get set up and running, but is it really now? Great. I know there's a lot of other tools out there. You asked me if we had a TikTok for Faithful Age. I'm like, I've never even been on TikTok. So no, I don't think so, which interesting news today coming out of the House of Representatives. But anyways, about TikTok, there's so many other ways to do it. is if I am starting and I'm going to say that the I like these ideas, these are super helpful tools. We'll have to have Ashley back for all things social part two. This should have been called most things social. I was a little ambitious thinking, thinking we were going to get all of it. Right. If someone says, Ashley, I want to do this. Where should I start? Would it be right here? Would you start on Facebook or would you start somewhere else? I think Facebook is a great starting point. I think Instagram needs to be the second place where you're spending the most time. There was actually a study that was done and TikTok is still great. I still think that you should, the main sources that you should have, you should have Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and you should have a Threads account. Threads is honestly, if you're brand new and you're just starting this, Threads is honestly probably where you should spend a lot of time. Because there's not a lot of people on there now and you can build on threads what I built on Facebook Five years ago that has taken this time to get here and by the time you're built on threads You're gonna be the first one doing it And I'm seeing this come out of a lot threads Yeah, so Instagram and threads is gonna be your next like spot where you really want to spend Instagram So many people have already built on it. I'm not saying that you can't I'm not saying you can't build your presence But it's a lot harder to build your presence as quickly as you can on Facebook or somewhere like Threads. And again, Threads is because it's so new. There's not already a page for a lot of things. So there, it wouldn't be a group, it would be a page, but you would wanna do reels and things that could engage your following. And again, like Garrett said, we'll probably have to do a second one on this because there's just so much to it, but. We could have a whole master class that literally lasted like half a day. Yeah. And it would just be me being like, wait, what is that again? I don't know what that is. And I don't know what this is. Can you tell me, spell that for me? Yeah. There's a lot to it. I mean, it really is again, one of those things where when you, this is one of the challenges I think in the industry, they're like, well, you need to do social media and you need to do referrals and you need to do open houses. You need to buy leads. It's like to become someone who is excellent at something and master something, there's a lot for you to know. Right. So many people have asked me, you know, when I'm coaching, whatever, and Ashley's coaching and I wanted to share about that in a sec. But when I'm coaching, Hey, what do you think about this for social media? And my answer always is I'm, I'm an expert in referrals. That's all I've ever done. I don't understand social as this conversation has proved, right? Because it takes a lot to become an expert at it. So if you're an agent, like I'm doing a social, I don't know why it's not working because just look at the gap between, and I'm not. tell anybody you're doing a terrible, well, you kind of are doing a terrible job, maybe. So maybe I am saying that, but my point is this, you can't just do a little bit and say, why is it not working? You need to say, what does it actually take to be excellent at this? And Ashley is sharing just a little bit of it, right? What does it take to be excellent? If you're excellent, it will work. That's how this industry works. If you are excellent at something, if you master something, it's going to create business. If you're so-so, if you're intermittent when you use it, if it's not something you actually care about, it's just not gonna work, right? That's not how these things actually happen. So I think even seeing this, okay, Ashley's talking about all these great things. If social is the place you wanna grow, become excellent at it. And that doesn't mean you just post, it doesn't mean you just make videos, it doesn't mean any of that. It's actually being really intentional in the ways that Ashley's talking about, right? Systematically building relationships that start on social. That's what this is and using tools to get there. So I think I cut you off and I apologize. I have a habit of doing that. That's why my ears are small. Okay. Uh, so here's the question. I'm going to have you walk us through this and we'll do this semi quickly. And then I want you to share about the stuff you're doing. Uh, Gretchen. Thanks Gretchen for some ideas. So Gretchen had some ideas and I'm gonna just we're gonna start and you're gonna kind of walk us Through how we would build this. So Let's see. She said for example something super Intentional for her or super important her moms of multiple IVF Or infertility and pregnancy loss native of beautiful, North Carolina something around that space If she wanted to start moms of multiples IVF, what would she do? How would that happen? needs to be the name of the page. Honestly, moms of multiple through IVF. Honestly, moms of multiples, sorry, through IVF. And then she's gonna be in every page she's ever been in and she's gonna be telling them why they need to come there. And I think the very first post needs to be what I wish I knew when I started IVF. And she needs to post that before she has anybody in there. And then post a post, make a post about herself that's like, hey, I'm Gretchen, I'm from North Carolina, I am a mom of multiple, I am a realtor, I am a believer, you know, all the things, right? And then that post on the right hand side, you'll have three dots and that needs to say, pen to top and you're gonna pen it. So whenever anybody comes in, I'm the host, they see she's the host of the page, she's a mom of many, she went through IVF and she's a realtor. Oh, that's so cool. Someone at some point, and it's not going to be long, you guys are probably thinking, this is going to take six months, this is going to take a year. If you do it with excellence, and you do it well, and you do what I tell my team every single day, grow, engage, convert, we already went through all of that. If you're doing those things every single day, it's not going to be long at all before you see the benefits. I say at minimum 90 days, but you have to put the time and energy and effort into it. pro engage commit is that what it was you just said convert okay so she's got this pic oh sorry go ahead No, you're good. You grow the group. You engage the group. And then you convert the members of the group. Yeah, that's really good. So she's got this page, Moms of Multiple IVF, does an initial post, then goes and finds out, she's probably already in some of the groups, she just goes and finds groups that already exist, you had said earlier, like big groups, 15,000 people plus if they're there, go into those groups, read some of the comments, the things that people are posting, and then engage those comments. Make sure, you know, if someone says, uh, whatever, I wish I knew this about it. She has a post already in her group so that she can say, hey, this is awesome. I actually talked about this here if you wanna join me there. Brings them inside her group with these questions, she's got these tools set up, and at that point it's just following your playbook. But it sounds like the hardest. part perhaps is really just what's the name of your group? Like really understanding yourself. What do I actually care about? What's unique about me? What's niched enough about me that I can invite other people in and they will care about what I'm doing. And then once I figure that out, I love the introduction posts. I love, you know, what are the things I wish I knew? But then it's going and finding the people and bringing them into your world, right? I mean, that's really the biggest part of this. And then you said grow, engage, convert. That's the mindset there. I love it. I mean, it sounds simple, uh, because it is it's, it's most of the time, the best ideas are not difficult. They're simple. It's just hard to execute on them because we're lazy or we're inconsistent. Right? I mean, that's really where the problem lies. So, uh, if someone is saying, I love this idea. I don't know that I have time to execute or social media is not a place I want to live, what would you tell them? What would be your advice? And then I've got one question from Jennifer. and we'll wrap up this conversation. But what would you tell someone who's like, this sounds cool, but I'm not a social media person. What would you say? But then what do you want to do? Why are you trying to learn social if you're not a social media person? Why, because you believe in it, because you think it could work, and that's fine if you do, but you have to believe in it enough that it's going to work. I don't want to sit here and say that someone with that type of attitude could be successful with it, because you have to believe in it. And I... going on five years now, I have bought leads in total in my career for three months of my career because I had someone join the team who thought that I needed them even though I was telling them I had been doing this for so long without them and they were like, yeah, but now we have X amount of people you really need them. We spent three months on that. My husband was like, yeah, no, not doing that. Go back to what you were doing because this makes no sense. So it works if you implement, but you have to believe in yourself, you have to believe in the product that you're creating, and essentially it is a product, right? Like you're going to make money off of it, so it is a product that you're creating. You have to believe in that enough to want to spend the time doing it. Hmm. I love that last question because that's great advice. Jennifer says any guidance on how to narrow down the many, many groups that come to mind? She said, I definitely don't have time for 12 groups. So how do you narrow those down? Yeah, so which one does she know the most about? Is she most passionate about? Could she really provide the most value in? And I know again, like you said, we're gonna need to do this again because we're running out of time. But one quick tip for that is just a quick, easy example would be where Gretchen wants to create one for moms of multiples. I'm sure there's a Greensboro Moms group. She needs to go in that group, utilize the search bar, and type in mom of many, mom of multiple, IVF, four, three, six, like the bigger numbers of kids. And then she's going to go to all of the posts that have those things that she's wanting to, or that fit the mold for her new group, and she's going to tag her new group there. Hmm. Smart. Okay. So I love that too. Yeah. You got a lot of ideas. What do you care most about? What do you know most about already? That's that's awesome. So, uh, actually, this is amazingly helpful. I know you're coaching too. So I want you to get to share about that briefly as we wrap this up. But thanks for sharing all those things. So yeah, tell us what you're up to. Yeah, for sure. So we just started a new coaching program with the motivating mama called Growing to six figures and beyond so it's really for agents who are in the middle ground who can't I have two actually So let me back up. I'm sorry So the agents that are in the middle ground that are between 12 and 24 deals a year and really can't push beyond that But really want to and they're looking for a group setting I work with a partner on that and we have a program called the Collab. We would love to invite them into that. It really is more for moms just because that's what I relate to. But any mom who's looking for coaching and assistance in getting beyond 12 to 24 deals a year should come in there. We provide lots of time-saving skills, lots of information. And then I do one-on-one coaching for any mom who's like hitting the six-figure mark but really can't get beyond that. So helping them get beyond the six figures. I love that. If they want to know more, how do they do that? They can just message me on Facebook is actually the easiest way to get in contact with me Awesome. Start a Facebook group, call it Coaching with Ashley, and then just invite her and she'll join and she'll know what that's about. Right. That's a great idea. I'm going to go start that right now and we'll see how it goes. Ashley Edge, thank you seriously so much for doing this. Incredibly helpful. Even for someone like me who really doesn't understand social. I took a ton of notes and walk away think like even I could do this. Like I've got to decide that this is something I desire to do. So I do it well. Right. But even I could do this and it's just so helpful because it's so practical, um, which I know I appreciate. And I think, uh, the people that we're on appreciate in our, our podcast audience appreciate, so actually edge. Thank you so much. Faithful agents. We love you. We will see you next week. All right, thanks, bye. Alright, let's see Ashley. So I ended the live. Good job. That was really helpful. Thanks for spending all that time. Sorry since you're in Florida. But that was really good. And now I'm like, I could totally go do that. We should have already done that. I don't know what threads really is, but I've heard of it. I'm not gonna get on social. Instagram, but the social, so I actually have a social coach, and the social coach that I have, she told me that like two months ago, she was like, if you can get on threads and build what you're building, you know, on Facebook, like you're gonna be far ahead the masses and be able to really stand out amongst the crowd even more than you already do, so, yeah. And X, I didn't know Twitter was still a way to generate business. Yeah. My social coach does a lot off of it. I don't do a ton off there. I'm mostly Facebook and Instagram, but she does a lot. That's so fascinating. Well, I've gotta have discipline and ask Tyler what he thinks because everything sounds good to me and I'm like, I should totally go do that. And he's like, should you? Like, I don't know, but Ashley said it and it sounds amazing, so I feel like I should. But this is something I could, yeah, this is something I could certainly set up on even the Faithful Agent page just as like an engagement tool, yeah, to, yeah, that's really cool. your coaching off of it, you know? Yeah, one of the things that's weird, do you have a quick second? Yeah, okay, one of the things that I think is difficult is, oh, I don't have to keep recording this. That's funny.