EP #246: Michael Cunniff with The Super Agency and Fairway IMC: Mastering the Art of Online Marketing and Collaboration

Unlock the secrets of digital marketing mastery as Michael Cunniff, a marketing sage from the Super Agency and Fairway IMC, joins us for a captivating exchange. Michael's transformative journey from print to digital unveils a treasure trove of insights for thriving in today's fast-paced digital marketplace. From the rise of social media to the bedrock of SEO, you'll learn how to navigate the evolving landscape of marketing strategies, all while keeping your feet firmly planted in humility and gratitude. 

Dive headfirst into the realities local business owners face when marketing in the digital realm. Michael and I explore micro-targeting – the beacon guiding businesses through the crowded social media sea. We unravel the art of crafting authentic content that resonates with your core audience and the role video content, a stellar web presence, and local advertising play in propelling your business forward. This conversation is a blueprint for those looking to partner with marketing mavens to sculpt campaigns that truly speak to their audience.

As we wrap up, the imperative nature of cross-industry collaboration comes into focus. You'll hear about the profound impact of diversity in marketing teams, akin to the many hands that make a movie. I share insights from my role as Marketing Director at Fairway, from the unique ethos guiding our team to the societal implications of real estate in fostering generational wealth. Prepare to be inspired to embrace growth, foster connections, and discover the power of simplicity, with the digital universe at your fingertips. Join us for this episode that's as much about the heart of human connection as it is about the transformative potential of social media.

Call us: (305) 209-3666

Visit: https://www.thesuperagency.com

Follow us: https://www.instagram.com/thesuperagency_

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Jeremy Wolf.

Speaker 2: 0:12

Hello, hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. I'm your host, jeremy Wolf, and today I'm joined by Michael Cunniff. Michael joins us from the Super agency and fairway IMC. He was actually nominated by a past guest of the show, priscilla Fletcher from Priscilla's Plumbing. I actually met with her and her team like a week or two ago and then she thought of Michael. She said he would be an excellent guest for the podcast. He is in a similar space to me, does marketing services and things of that nature, also mortgages, which we're going to get into. So I said let me connect with Michael and it turns out he's a pro at this. He's going to teach me a thing or two about a thing or two today, right, michael?

Speaker 3: 0:55

Well, I think we're going to teach each other. I think that's the goal here. We're going to kind of volley back and forth with tennis, pickleball, whatever you're into. That's what we're going to do today. We're going to have a ton of fun. First off, thank you so much for having me on here. Second, thank you to Priscilla. She is also a social media rock star. You do see her all throughout social media doing her thing. She's never afraid to just get out there, put herself out there, create new relationships. So that's a wonderful thing. That's something that I would suggest to any professional at a baseline level. So shout out to her and thank you very much for having me on today. Let's roll the sleeves up.

Speaker 2: 1:30

All right, let's get into it. So let's start off from basics here, right? Tell everybody a little bit about the super agency, and then we'll get into Fairway IMC and then we'll go from there.

Speaker 3: 1:43

All right, did you hear that? I took a deep breath. I got to get really good. It's a deep breath. Here we go. Where do I start? I'm going to keep it short. Of course I want to truncate it, um, keep it as short as possible because there's so many stories that we can tell as professionals. But the most important thing that I want to put across here I like that you have here. You know I'm sharing them out of gratitude, out of a side of being humble and, you know, respecting the people that I've had, you know, the ability to work with through the years. So the super agency is a fantastic, fantastic thing. We'll call it that.

Speaker 3: 2:15

That came out of my early career in print advertising. So I was in print advertising for a long time with Voice Media, village Voice Media. It's a pretty big weekly here in the United States. It's not the largest weekly in the United States. It's a very fast paced type of advertising experience. So you're creating like week over week advertisement and about a decade ago maybe more now, if I date myself you'd go out to business owners and you talk to local business owners and they'd say I don't know where my logo is, I don't know. I don't even know, I don't have a menu online, I don't. Stuff really didn't exist, you know. So it was pretty cool to get out there and uh and see the pain points, you know, first and foremost, and create relationships with people.

Speaker 3: 2:51

Now, to bridge that um, I ended up becoming a um director of admissions for the art Institute. It was in Fort Lauderdale. We would bring in, uh, digital creators, website developers, all kinds of awesome people like that, and there was a bridge there. It kind of had like an aha moment. I said, listen, can you help this person with a logo, help this person with a website? And it was a great relationship. People would come back and say, wow, that person you sent to me. They were just so professional, so great. I started to say, wow, this could be a business.

Speaker 3: 3:16

So I started a brick and mortar on Galt Ocean Mile in East Fort Lauderdale. It was a great experience. We did the Gulf Ocean Mile Merchant Association. I mean, we really were doing our best to put on our best thrift store suit jackets and get out there and just try to be professionals, you know, and so many great relationships came out of that. That was called Monster Vine Marketing and then that segued around 2012, 13 into just full on digital marketing. I mean, I remember there was a point in marketing and advertising you could probably agree with me and other people will that are hearing this when you would almost like sell the opposite. It was almost like you would. You would sell a website and then you'd give away social media. I'd be like give me a Facebook, and Instagram was still there at that time, but new territory. So it would be like built into bigger marketing plans and then somewhere along the lines it was like I'll do a free website for you if you're interested in doing social media digital packages, you know.

Speaker 3: 4:12

So what an interesting thing. And I was speaking the other day as I was preparing for your podcast and one of the important connections for all of that was search engine optimization. So I think in its pure point it always boils back down to search engine optimization. That's what professionals are looking for, business are looking for brands. So out of that came the super agency. We've made it.

Speaker 3: 4:34

A lot of the clients I was working with early on in my career were in the high net worth and ultra high net worth demographic.

Speaker 3: 4:40

There are a lot of people that will hear this podcast and they will cringe, who know me personally in my life, because I have worked very hard to kind of mesh the world between you know, humble and gratitude, and, of course, that other side of the world which is, you know, pretentious and money and everything that comes with the high net worth and ultra high net worth. Now I want you to know we're all people, we're all human beings, right, just because you have maybe more success or more money, whatever that may be, doesn't make you any different than the other person on the other side. So what's important is to kind of mesh those things together and just give more, more of a humble voice, an organic voice, to both sides. So I was working with yacht brands like Van Dutch Yachts, a supercar dealership, the new auto toy store. At one point it was the largest exotic dealer in the United States, having over 300 supercars. Just incredible. Chiropractic team, hospitality companies like, at that time, j Hospitality, which has turned into Handcrafted Hospitality A shout out to Mark Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 2: 5:34

J Hospitality You're talking about yeah, Mark Falstead.

Speaker 3: 5:38

I can't believe, I can't remember Mark's name.

Speaker 2: 5:40

Mark bought my old house in Oakland Park.

Speaker 3: 5:43

He recently moved over that's so cool.

Speaker 2: 5:46

I connected with him many, many years ago.

Speaker 3: 5:51

There you go. So now you're seeing the real estate stuff. I got to give a shout out to Mark Falsotto too. I didn't know I'd be mentioning him in the podcast. That was definitely not a pre-thought, but Jay hospitality was such a big part of of that early, early onset of my career. I remember times when I would sit with him and he's an incredible business owner and a leader and he would say a lot of things to me, eye to eye, that would say listen, if people don't understand what you're doing, it's not for them. You know, find the people that believe in what you're doing, that see what you're doing, and I understood that that was a big part of his brand, you know. And ultimately he's he's with Anthony Bruno, now with Anthony's, and they sold Anthony's pizza, their taco craft Run by 84. Now, come on, are you kidding me? Forget about it.

Speaker 3: 6:27

So, yeah, now you can hear kind of some of the people that I'm connected with in life and that's why I say the super agency became kind of this cool thing. You know, I didn't know what we were doing, but we knew what we were doing, you know. So we were running and gunning within this new digital space. So we were running and gunning within this new digital space. You know, seo became so hot in this new format of video and, like what we're doing right now with podcasts, it's just so exciting the way that people can share information. So to get back on track there, the Van Dutch Yachts. I also give a shout out to a mentor I had there. That was Anko Maas. Anko's an international guy, he's Dutch and I apologize to do impressions, but he had this thing that he would do Bring it on, let's go. He'd say Michael, when you do marketing, there's two things you must do in marketing. First you must boom and then you must wow. I'll say okay.

Speaker 2: 7:18

You must boom, and then you must what.

Speaker 3: 7:20

You must boom, then you must wow. I he goes boom, then you must wow the boom and wow Okay, I like boom. And then wow, and I'll tell you. People will hear this podcast. I'm going to share it with some friends and they're going to say, they're going to comment, they're going to say boom, then wow, boom, wow, the boom wow system. That's what we used to call it, and what it was was like a Van Dutch yacht I don't know if you know what of amazing collaborations around the world. I think they're in France or Monaco right now F1 going on. But it was an incredible experience with that brand because it was an avant-garde yacht. It won the best yacht design in the world in 2013.

Speaker 3: 7:51

And Anko would tell me the way that he got to where he was in his career was boom and then wow. Basically saying that if you put something in front of a person, you leave it alone. You simply slide it across the table and boom, that's your boom moment. You have an opportunity to present something, to present it with no words. The other person must say Jeremy, hook me up. What are they going to say? Wow, baby, wow, that's it. And what happens if they don't? He'd say he'd go glad this is a podcast, throw it in the trash.

Speaker 3: 8:23

What most people do is we try to expand on that. Right, it's like almost like asking a person who doesn't do what we do. It's asking a yacht builder who's not a yacht builder say, hey, listen, how would you change this yacht? And I would imagine there are, there are, there are, you know, breadcrumbs there, there's information, there's things you can grow from there. But what he was basically saying was that every time you create something or do something, it has to be boom and then wow. And if it's not received with that wow, you got to go back to the drawing board. You've got to create it or present it in a way that it's wow. And that's always stuck with me throughout my career. It's kind of a differentiation between being OCD you know a person, I'm OCD, you know I could be a perfectionist, you know things like that.

Speaker 3: 9:01

It just takes a different twist on those type of words and saying boom and then wow, it's in its simplicity. So what does that mean? Why did I tell this story? The super agency that's where super came from. So I really wasn't looking for a big word, I wasn't looking to be fancy, we're just looking to be super. That it so we were. We were super because we would boom and then wow, and everything we did. People would go, wow, that's super. You know I, if I hang out with you long enough, you're gonna say it later today, jeremy, you're gonna say that's super cool. This is just super man, what a super thing you know.

Speaker 3: 9:35

So I've noticed the internationals that I've had the blessing to work with um, keep it short, keep it fresh, keep it original, keep it organic. Um, organic, boom, wow, short, cool, fun, super. You know all the things that we really enjoy. If you were to take away all of the things that we put into the experience that communication is extremely important, but like kind of how I'm rambling on right now, but communication is important, but keeping it short and simple. There's something like eloquent there and that was the luxury side. So that was how incredibly difficult it is to create simplicity.

Speaker 3: 10:09

So that was the super agency we started segwaying into all these amazing things working with these wonderful clients. Shout out to the Fort Lauderdale Magazine 15,000 plus voters that vote year over year for five years in a row, we've been blessed to be best best of Fort Lauderdale. So we have best ad agency, best PR agency, and I think one, maybe two years out of those five in a row got best videographer and I thought that was so cool because it just to hear like words of validation or to get you know a simple you know thing of appreciation. It really keeps you going, keeps you excited. We lost our camera there, but I'm still here.

Speaker 2: 10:49

Your battery is exhausted my friend, so hold on while you get your camera up and running. I want to dig in.

Speaker 2: 10:56

There's a lot to unpack there, brother you went through a lot of stuff and there's a lot I want to touch upon that I think is going to be applicable to your run of the mill business owner out there. As you know I don't know, we spoke briefly before the show, but kind of what I do you mentioned a couple of things that you had a background in print and now you're in the digital space. What I do outside the podcast, I publish some hyper local community publications in Cooper City and surrounding areas. We do some stuff.

Speaker 2: 11:22

It's all about micro-targeting and I speak to a lot of local business owners and one of the main pain points that I encounter when it comes to marketing is there is so much noise out there nowadays.

Speaker 2: 11:33

There's so much clutter. If you just go into social media you mentioned earlier about how that's obviously the new craze and there's just so much there and there's so much to get overwhelmed by as a business owner. And what tends to happen from my experience is that business owners they they jump in and try certain things short term and they don't get the results they'd hoped for. They get discouraged, they try something else and then over time they kind of resign themselves to growing their business through word of mouth and referrals, they stop traditional advertising, they stop getting out there and marketing and they kind of get complacent with that and they get resigned to that. So how can you, I guess, make that process or introduce that type of business owner into this space and take away some of that, the feelings of being overwhelmed, and kind of help them transition into the today's marketing space?

Speaker 3: 12:28

Well, I think that's a fantastic segue and the most important thing is that every person and business owner has this little device in their hand, the little cell phone, you know. So we all have the 4K cameras and the words I've been using a lot are organic right, just showing who you are. You know, using Priscilla as that example, you had your previous guest Putting yourself out there right, put yourself out there.

Speaker 3: 12:53

People want to work with people they know, like and trust. It's not always about business. We're not. We're not robots. You know we're not in a box. You know a box. We exist outside of this box. It's important to bring what exists outside of that box into that box.

Speaker 3: 13:06

I heard something funny the other day. Someone says if you have a circle or you build a circle and I'm not included in that circle, I'm going to build a bigger circle, and I think social media is kind of like that. You just have to kind of build a circle and keep building people and including people in that circle and your circle will grow. I know that's like a kind of a cryptic answer. It doesn't help a normal business owner. So to shoot right from the hip, it depends on what industry you're in. I would definitely suggest if you're interested in digital marketing or interested in advertising or it's a kind of a peer to peer thing, like, let's say, it's one company within an industry that you're in and you're seeing that and you're a moving company and you're like, wow, they are just crushing. I love what they do. See what they do. Write down what they do See, especially what's important to you what you enjoy as a business owner. That way you can bring the sales part, the business part, the meat and potatoes to the table and you can allow the marketing professional to connect the dots. And I think if you do that you can. You can both be professionals. You know, instead of coming to the table and asking a marketer for business or sales advice and I've noticed the most in my career that when people bring me their pain points and their business points, it's easier for me to put creativity to that or put a platform to that I can oftentimes see myself getting lost in the sauce with a business owner and then I think what every marketer will have let's get on the marketer hat for a second here.

Speaker 3: 14:33

Every marketer has always said after working with a business owner, it's almost like you've done it and you can start that business. You kind of feel as if you've learned about a business. Well, I don't know if it should always be that way. I think you should have R&D, like research and development within an industry, and you should strive to create platforms and help that business owner. But you really have to dive into what's important to the business owner. Some businesses are as simple as having a website that you can check out, or doing local advertising like you. You're talking about that micro advertising, micro targeting. It's so important nowadays. What a great thing you know.

Speaker 2: 15:08

Yeah, absolutely, because, again, there is so much noise, so much clutter, and another thing that business owners get discouraged by is they think they have to reach everybody. Right, and they go and they try to target too large of an audience. They don't identify their target market, their specific client base, and then their message just gets completely unless you have an unlimited budget, you ain't going to reach everybody. And I'd argue to say, if you have an unlimited budget, you still ain't going to reach everybody. So you really have to hone in and focus on what works for your business and try to get in front of your audience. So, with that said, you mentioned videographer. So the super agency, it sounds like you do a little bit of everything, but specifically, what are your best strengths when it comes to digital marketing? Are you working with clients and producing video content for them and then promoting that on all these different social media channels? Are you doing web design, SEO optimization? Are you doing pay-per-click? What does the super agency do and what does it do best? Yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 3: 16:16

Everything. We do everything best. We are gods. Yeah, we do it all. No, no, there's definitely levels to this game. There's levels to this industry.

Speaker 3: 16:21

I think the further you get into marketing and advertising, you realize that, like it is an overall umbrella, I can have people you know I won't go too deep into it, but I could have people with, you know, stars in their eyes looking like, wow, it's just, it's such, it's such such an immense industry. And I didn't create the industry. I didn't jump in at the start of the industry, but I came in at a very unique time in the industry. So I was coming in at this time where, if you hear that that start of the career was in print advertising, right, that's like the dinosaur of age, right, but it still exists. It still had a purpose and a place. The internet still existed at that time. Young people who are listening, or younger business owners, you know we had. It took us a little longer to get online, but we did get online. So I existed in a world where you know, if I were to be grounded, I'd be grounded and I'd have to type up my own paper.

Speaker 3: 17:12

Ooh, you know. So, by the time I got to college I was pretty proficient with typing and it's almost like like an instrument, you know. So I did learn development and I'd be like the jock athlete that was well inside of computers and learning. Just, I was learning with the industry, so is the best way to say it? So I had to pick, pick a road, and my favorite road. Truth be told, you guys are going to hear it Ready. Here's what I love most. Here's what Michael loves most.

Speaker 2: 17:36

Website development.

Speaker 3: 17:40

Website development. I love platform development. We call them databases nowadays Databases. So when I first started in this industry, it was like a landing page, a four or five page website, a static website. Then we bridged over to these dynamic websites, you know, and now we have databases. You know, and that was about four to five years ago. I started busting the door down with, like we need to build a database. For example, a great client of mine still running client to this day is bocagroveorg. So if you want to see a beautiful example of a website, bocagroveorg and Van Dutch. Van Dutch, that was a beautiful website. I don't think the design has changed to this day. It's one of my favorite brands that we mirrored Porsche North America. You know Porsche design. We had a brand, zeelander Yachts. They loved Rolls Royce, so we mirrored Rolls Royce design. You know we had a company inspectedcom.

Speaker 1: 18:32

You check out?

Speaker 3: 18:32

inspected. They look like.

Speaker 1: 18:34

Zoom. You know, we're on it.

Speaker 3: 18:36

You know we do the Zooms every day. Now they say, um, they're not the same industries. So I want you to know we're not, we're not copying, we're not taking Porsche's logo and making it a yacht logo. It's just, it's about form and function and design and a lot to do with the things that we have in our hands, like Apple, you know. So I say boca groveorg, check them out. I'll leave that there. It's a, it's I'll. It opens. It opens with their logos, as if you're going into this beautiful space. And that's similar to Faina dot com, because when I go to Faina, it's a beautiful property, it's a private property, it's exclusive, you have experiences there.

Speaker 2: 19:20

Don't show me pictures of golf courses. Now, man, I want to go play. You're giving me the it property. It's exclusive. You have experiences there? Don't show me pictures of golf courses. Now, man, I want to go play. You're giving me the itch.

Speaker 3: 19:24

Scroll down just a little bit. Scroll down just a little bit so I hope it comes through on this. But look at that parallax so that's what we call a parallax there, so rotate like it's like the sky's moving. How incredible see the sky, see the clouds moving in there. How incredible is that? So, yeah, we, I, yeah. This is a good example. I'm still focused on the golf course here.

Speaker 2: 19:41

Yeah, and that's why I've never played Boca. I actually didn't realize.

Speaker 3: 19:45

You're not going to see it on the podcast. You can't see it. But I'm wearing a Peter. Oh no, I'm wearing a Grayson today. Grayson with the Boca Grove logo. There it is. So what's your handicap? I know you play, no, no, no, I enjoy golf. I'd say I'm probably like a solid 12. I think you'd I'd lie to people and say like a 10. Impressive, but no.

Speaker 2: 20:08

It's respectable.

Speaker 3: 20:09

Yeah, yeah, On a good day I can get into the eighties. You know All right?

Speaker 2: 20:14

Well, I'm going to be expecting my invite to come join you at Boca Grove. Man, I'm going to give a plug.

Speaker 3: 20:19

I'm going to give a plug. So Boca Grove, of course, because everyone wants to do Boca Grove, but I'll do a plug. So we're doing the show here. I was just with a friend last night, zachary Oppenheim. He's a broker in East Fort Lauderdale, that's kind of the real estate connection here. He's going to do a top golf event in Pompano on June I believe 8th it on the third Tuesday of the month. We'll connect that. So hopefully Jeremy can be there, maybe we can even go live. We'll bring some podcast stuff out and go live. But we're going to do some golf. It's just for fun, it's not business related. It's a bunch of people come out and just enjoy. It's a daytime thing because it's business related. So, yeah, let's get out there, let's do Topgolf in the middle of June or invite some people out.

Speaker 2: 20:57

You got to send me the details for that. We'll plug it, we'll link it, I will. So that's my plug there.

Speaker 3: 21:01

So I want to segue it. So so that was my answer was was websites? How did it? Why video? Then I had to pick a poison, so for me it was video. So I had I had graphic designers, I had an understanding of Photoshop I've been doing it for a very long time Graphics so I was able to kind of mesh the worlds together. But website development, database development I wish more people knew that. So it's kind of cool that I'm really glad you have me on the podcast today, because there's one thing that people could take away from the podcast or the gem, it's that and it's my favorite thing to do, which segues into everything else that we do. And I responded to an email earlier, so I'll segue into where I'm at today with Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation, because I'm the marketing director of a really cool branch here in East Fort Lauderdale and I didn't know what a gold standard brand was. I worked with Create Gold Standard. But what is an actual gold standard brand? You got to look that up, you got to feel it. I won't take it away or paint a picture, but Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation is a gold standard brand.

Speaker 3: 22:11

It's faith family fairway. You always hear companies it's fairway family. No, it's faith. Family, fairway Doesn't matter, your denomination doesn't matter, where you come from, that's the most important, right. And then your family. The hope is that we all become family here at Fairway. So you notice, I'm on a podcast right now. I'm talking about the super agency. I've got the fairway mortgage logo behind me. We've got Boca Grove. It's kind of a weird thing, right, but we're meshing it all together because, if you notice, boca Grove is a private community resident only. You can't buy your way into the country club unless you're a property owner, right? So that goes back to early on in the career. I had the family brokerage.

Speaker 2: 22:46

Oh, wait, I'm sorry. Is that you? Is that you telling me that I'm not getting the invite to play?

Speaker 3: 22:50

it. There's a diamond in there, you got to find it.

Speaker 2: 22:54

No, no, no, we're going to get you out there. I could be a guest.

Speaker 3: 22:56

We're going to get you out there. We're going to get you out there. But that's an example of like people start to learn the levels of the game even there. You know that's a country club. Because it's a private residence, you have to own property within there. So that was an interesting caveat a few years ago when they had come on as a client to learn about that. And so I mean there are things I had learned.

Speaker 3: 23:19

I've learned through clients that I didn't know about industries or didn't know the people who are within them. You know, and I started to see more and more like a post I did the other day about how important collaboration is. You know, in any given industry, competition is a nice thing. It's important to be competitive in any given you know thing that you do. But collaboration is extremely important at the top. And I've noticed that most of these businesses that I work with, I'm not the only marketing person, I'm not the only person that does the stuff, I'm not the one doing it, you know. And the videography thing is really cool, because I use that analogy to say if you've ever rolled credits on a TV show or a movie, it never just says John Smith, that's it, you know it says a full team. You know people going by whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. So it's extremely important. You know, and somebody who might say I'm not ready for you know, print advertising or local advertising. That makes sense. You know what are you doing? Now let's peel back the onion on what you're doing so we can get you there. You know.

Speaker 3: 24:08

So, sometimes when people may say things or they're negative towards something, it's because they don't have an understanding of it, or maybe they're just not prepared for it, and that's okay. We're all on different journeys. We're all on different, different, you know paths and that's a great thing. That's okay. So, yeah, so how do we get into fairway? About three years ago, became the marketing director of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation. I'm going to keep it short on that because I think people can connect a lot of the dots. I get to work with 28 incredible mortgage advisors. I don't call them loan officers, call them mortgage advisors. I've learned an incredible amount about the industry. You know what it takes to become a home buyer, what it takes to become an investor, things that create generational wealth, right? So they say that I think it's like 1,500 people a day become millionaires and 90% of them did it directly through real estate. I want to be a millionaire.

Speaker 1: 24:57

You want to be a millionaire.

Speaker 3: 24:59

We said Mark Falsetto, he does real estate right. You got a house from him. He's an entrepreneur, a hospitality person. So I think it's important, like a gym, to kind of work your way up, work out, do more, do more out there and learn more and put more in your bucket. You know, fill up your bucket, empty your bucket, fill your bucket. That's kind of what life is.

Speaker 3: 25:19

So that's how we ended up here at Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation, where I'll give a shout out to Derek Furtick and Justin Miller. They're the incredible leaders here, as well as the CEO of the company, steve Jacobson. They're just, they're excellent leaders and people gravitate to that and I've seen people's lives like completely change and I don't mean like it's life changing in the essence of like you know, in the radical way that I would say it's that it's life changing in that you're around good people. You're around people that don't want you to be in a silo. You want to collaborate and you want to create more market share for people and I think the only way to do that in this market is to be a resource, to be organic, to be a real person and educate people on their pain points. Find out pain points in the marketplace and educate people.

Speaker 3: 26:04

But right now, collaboration is a huge part of that and I started to notice that, no matter what I did, every avenue seemed to go back to real estate. Even crossing with Justin Miller and Derek Furtick, and seven or eight of them are top 1% producers in the United States. I mean that's like almost a hundred million dollars a year in business and it's a relationship business. These are that's not like a lead based business, like you can do leads in this industry, but it's relationship based. I mean you can have four to five real estate partners that really make or break you. You know, as a professional, and I've noticed that everyone on this team just have incredible relationships and it bleeds into other people's relationships in the marketplace, which is a fantastic thing. You know, and I'm sure you see that with the magazine that you do, you know and the platforms that you do.

Speaker 2: 27:10

Battery exhausted, get your signal back up online. Brother, you mentioned something you keep saying collaboration, and I think that's important, not just across different industries, but within the same industry, and I think this is a wonderful conversation to have, because there are so many different facets within every industry, and it's important to get together and draw on others for ideas, because we're all learning every day and certainly don't know everything, and it's important to surrender yourself with others and bounce ideas off each other, and really that's how we grow, you know, by staying humble and realizing that we don't know everything and just being open to receiving ideas from every turn, you know.

Speaker 3: 27:56

It's very important to stay in age. You know, we're not in a, we're not, we're not. We don't want to be on an island, we don't want to be operating in a silo. Life can be hard enough and, as humans, we tend to complicate that. I think, like Einstein or someone said, that, like as humans, we tend to complicate that. I think, like Einstein or someone said, that, like as humans, we tend to complicate things.

Speaker 3: 28:12

It can be more simple and I think when you surround yourself with good people, like all the people that we've mentioned in this podcast, it's important to know that, no matter where you are at any given time, you know you're standing on the shoulders of giants, that people have gotten you to where you are. You know, even as a young kid, you know all the way to here. So it's important to kind of remember that you know and we're always moving forward. So shake a hand, give a hug, smile at a stranger, help a person where you can, and just you know, I say just do your best and chart the course. Those are my two favorite things to say, right now, Do your best and chart your course.

Speaker 2: 28:47

I was just thinking get out of your head and get out of your own way.

Speaker 3: 28:53

That's it. That's it. Let someone pass, it's okay. Give someone a smile, ask how can I help you today, as opposed to, we're always so business-minded. It's not how can I? It's so self-serving.

Speaker 2: 29:07

How can I serve others? How can I? Yeah, and in doing that and that's why teaching is so important and sharing what you know with others, it just reinforces what you know and makes you more confident. And that's the biggest thing that everybody struggles with as human beings is just being in their own way and getting in their own head and just not letting go and not believing in themselves. And on the North side of 40, I've really come into my own in that regard.

Speaker 2: 29:32

In the past, I was very, very shy about putting myself out there. This whole social media space was scary to me and I kind of took the leap of faith. And now you know you got to take advantage of this stuff. I mean, maybe not for your personal life, necessarily, but if you're in business and you're not taking advantage of everything that's available out there, you're really missing out, and I think a lot of business owners suffer from you know.

Speaker 2: 29:55

Just, they're so self-conscious about putting themselves out there and and and they and they just, oh, this is not for me, I can't get into this space, I can't do this, and the only way you could do it is by getting in there and making a fool out of yourself and failing over and over and over again. And then eventually you get a little bit better, you get more confident and it builds and it feeds and then great things start to happen. But so many people stay in the shadows and don't tap into their true potential for fear of what others think, for fear of failure. All this bullshit, right, and that's all. It is Right, because in the end we only have this ride to go until we, until we pass this earth and might as well put everything out there and leave it all on the table. Right.

Speaker 3: 30:27

I agree and have fun. And, and you know, the internet, the internet never forgets it, internet sticks. You know I love I get a kick out of that. But in social media world I don't know if that's a hundred percent true Put yourself out there, have fun. If you don't, you know, might delete later, that's okay, you know, enjoy.

Speaker 3: 30:43

What I like to tell professionals right now is that your, I don't know, I don't know if we're doing a PG podcast, but your crappy video. Let's say that your crappy video is better than someone who has no video. No video, exactly, right. I mean, come on, just put it out there, have fun. And again, if you're having trouble or it's a tough thing, it might you might be approaching it with a bit too much business minded, all right, and I and I mean I could Ted talk all day, but I appreciate you giving me a lot of the floor and the soapbox and you've been an excellent podcast host here. But I would leave people with the idea and this is one of my favorite presentations to do is social media right? Somebody comes to you with an idea Like if I bust down your door, Jeremy, Jeremy, I got an idea we're going

Speaker 3: 31:23

to do a video. I got an idea for a video. Here's what the video is going to be. You know, and Jeremy could like legitimately ask me like who? Where'd you get this idea from? Did you like them up? Did you give a comment? Are you following them? Are you did you like share this with other people? Are you commenting on other people's page? So it's important.

Speaker 3: 31:38

The point of it is it's important to put the media, the social, before the media. It's not media social. You're commenting, engaging, liking, getting further into that space so that you can see the things that you enjoy. If you're opening up explore page and you're not seeing things that are relevant to you or your business, change that up. The easiest way to do that is to search by relevant. Search by relevancy, I'm sorry. Search by relevant tags and find things that are specific to your business, specific to what you enjoy. I've been playing adult hockey in East Fort Lauderdale at the War Memorial. What a fantastic thing. I'm getting further into hockey stuff. I had a friend in St Delane. He sent me some really cool stuff and I'll leave people with that thought. So how do you feel about that? Put the social before the media and then I'm going to bring a friend into the video here as we close it out, and I want to show you a gift that I got and a friend as you're closing it out, jeremy.

Speaker 2: 32:35

Yeah, bring it on. Yeah, I think it's important, right? Engagement so many people look at social media and just ingest everything out there but they're not engaging, and I think in doing that, you're going to get more comfortable and confident in that space. And then where are you back? What do you got? Oh, you got you got a little, a little cute doggy.

Speaker 3: 32:56

Yeah, so we're on a podcast. You're not going to be able to hear it. Maybe you could like sniff or something. Can we do sniffs? Oh well?

Speaker 2: 33:01

we got the video going, so I want to. I want to get my guy over here.

Speaker 3: 33:04

Oh, get it, let's go. So I've got a 12-week-old Australian shepherd. He's Aspen, st Regis Flagler, because he's a fancy guy. So that's my little guy. And then I got to show you the power of social media. I've been playing hockey. Pull him up again.

Speaker 2: 33:20

My daughter's on the dog. Oh, I got to put him up. Here he is. Here's my guy. I got it. Look over here, look over here. There you go. That is the cutest thing.

Speaker 3: 33:29

Oh, my goodness, that's my little guy. So Aspen Aspen for short and I got to show you the power of social media. Put the social before the media. I had a friend pop up. I was in Dubai and I see insane Delane and he says, man, what a cool trip you're having and this is so neat. And I become buddies. He says he's into hockey. He wears number 12. He likes country music. Let's go the wheeling dealing Kiss stealing Diamond ring wearing. We're playing hockey now. Look at this Insane delayed Sent me these cool things. I just became a homeowner and I got this awesome new thing. Look at the power of social media. I just put out there I like hockey, I love hockey. It's so cool. I got this cool thing for my house and of course I'm going to send him back a gift. Make sure he's happy. We got a friendship going. It's not always business, you know, might turn into something in the future, but at the very least you're making friends, just like you and I and Jeremy Wolf and I know we get Looking forward to it.

Speaker 2: 34:28

That's our cue to end it. The battery's exhausted again. So before we go, michael, please share with our listeners for anyone out there that's listening, that is looking for some expertise in the marketing realm, that would like to connect with you. How can they find you? How can they connect with you? How could they learn more?

Speaker 3: 34:44

Well, if you want to find me, you can always find me on social media. So you can find me on social. You can always find me on social, of course, right. So you can get me at Dukes all day. You can find me at the super agency dot com or, of course, you can go to at Fairway Mortgage, florida. So I know we had a multifaceted conversation. You can always find me online.

Speaker 3: 35:04

Ask the experts. You know experts people who are good at what they do are always willing to help you out. If it's a soft body joke one time you're asking a pilot how an airplane works, might not be the best question. But having a specific question about turbulence or maybe a lift or drag, you're going to get a professional answer. You're going to get a sincere and real answer because they're professionals and that's like any other industry. So if you have a question, please reach out to me. I'm sure Jeremy's available for you as well. I'm sure this will not be the only time that we speak or meet. Maybe we can do this in person one day and we'll keep it rolling. So seek out professionals who can answer your questions so that you can continue to grow and put the social before the media.

Speaker 2: 35:47

Absolutely Looking forward to continued collaboration in the future and speaking to you more. Michael, it was a pleasure getting the opportunity to speak with you and learn about what you've been up to here in South Florida. So thanks truly, brother, for joining us today. You're a rock star. Thank you so much. Yeah, man, thanks to our listeners for tuning in and we will catch everyone next time on the next episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. Everyone, take care, have a wonderful day.

Speaker 1: 36:11

Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Cooper City. To nominate your favorite local business to be featured on the show, go to GNPCooperCitycom. That's GNPCooperCitycom, or call 954-231-3170.