Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Hello, and welcome to coffees for closers. As always, I'm your host, Tim Brigham, and today I have a top producer who is record breaking. He has held multiple titles in Chicago, one of them being the highest rental on Michigan Avenue. With me today is Rafael Marillo. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Thank you, Tim. Appreciate you having me on the show, and, yeah, excited to be here.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Listen, man, I know you pretty well, but for those who don't know who you are, please introduce yourself. Yeah.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: My name is Raphael Morello, the principal of RM luxury group at Compass, specialized in the luxury real estate market, and have a very successful track record working with professional athletes.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: You're actually part of Compass's sports and entertainment division, right? If I remember that, correct.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: So it's a select group of agents across the country that they have a track record working with professional athletes and celebrities, it's a way for you to be able to help your clients in different markets and just know that the other agent that you're working with is someone that's trusted, that has a successful career, and knows how to maneuver these types of transactions, like having an NDA nondisclosure agreement. So that's, like, something that I implement in all my transactions with professional athletes. I want to protect their privacy. I want to make sure that when this deal closes, you don't have kids that are, like, showing up to the house, ringing their doorbell.
Don't want cranes Chicago business, dude.
They love writing stories. I mean, this is the type of content that they like putting out there, but at the end of the, they're.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: They're people.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: You know what I mean? And privacy is important to them, especially being a celebrity, like, individual.
You want to just kind of come home and have that peace, right?
[00:02:17] Speaker A: I've got a fiduciary responsibility, too. So you and I have had conversations about some of the people that you've talked to, right. We're trying to figure out mortgages and these other things, but, man, I got to ask, was it always like this? How did you get in with athletes and entertainment people?
What was the springboard to get you into that?
[00:02:40] Speaker B: It was a little bit of social media, like, building up a strong presence on social media. And just over time, when I got to a point in my career where I had these luxury listings, it kind of just organically happened. So I remember my first deal with a professional athlete, which happened to be my record breaking lease for $30,000 per month on Michigan Avenue.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: I remember that place.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: It's beautiful. Former New York Yankees player didn't speak very good English. I'm bilingual in Spanish. So he ends up reaching out to me directly in Spanish, and I was able to put my thoughts together and kind of reply back to him in Spanish. And I set up the appointment with one of his managers. I didn't actually even really get to meet him. I think I met him for, like, a split five minutes when he actually came to look at the property.
But the whole time, I was kind of just working directly with his manager, and I was just going above and beyond to make this deal happen and at the same time provide them with other options just in case this property didn't work out. Lucky for me, it worked out. And from there, it was like a little domino effect. Next, you know, this player from the Cubs and this player from the Cubs and this player, and then they all just started contacting me and saying, hey, you worked with so and so. Can you help me find a place?
And from there, I kind of noticed, hey, I can kind of turn this into a niche.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Right.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: So then I started building relationships, not necessarily with the players, but their go to person, smart, their financial advisor, their sports agent. There's always someone behind the scenes that's kind of maneuvering the transaction for the actual player. Like the last deal I did, I worked with a Chicago Bulls player, and everything was through the.
She handled. She handled everything for her son.
[00:05:21] Speaker A: I'm sure there's a specific language and a way that they want to be treated because obviously they've got all these people coming after them all the time. You obviously do a really good job with that, and you're obviously trusted in the industry because I know you get referrals from so many others across the country.
I want to unpack that just a minute. Right. So you basically started with social media. Right. And focused on social media to then build a brand for yourself. Right. And then that springboarded into people picking that up to then wanting to work with you. Right.
That's remarkable because I think it's a lot of people that they aspire to be, right. They don't know how to do it or they're trying something.
What would you have for advice for somebody who's trying to up their game in social media? You and I are big on making sure that our audience, we stay in front of them and let them know that we really care about them and that we're in the trenches every single day. This isn't part time for us.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Right.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: What advice would you have for somebody.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: Who, I think the word that you use is part time. Social media is not part time. It's like a full time gig for me. I have a calendar in place on what I'm going to post this week at what time I should post. It's not just about posting. You have to be consistent on social media to, over time, grow a following and as well as the algorithm at Instagram to kind of start picking it up. So I'm very strategic when I post, right? I'm not going to post at midnight or just random times because, hey, I have some time available right now. Let me get this little post out of the way.
[00:07:22] Speaker A: So when do you post? What's your best for anybody listening? When should somebody post?
Do you post certain cotton in certain times, or is it just time frames of where you think it's the most?
[00:07:33] Speaker B: I think it's time frames, and I think you want to follow work patterns, right? So I like to post. If I'm going to post in the morning, it's usually maybe 08:00 a.m.
Until 10:00 a.m. Because people are either commuting to work or they still kind of have a little bit of that downtime in the morning. They're getting their coffee, they're kind of getting ready to start the day and then lunchtime hours. So maybe like noon till 01:00 and then after work hours from like, say, 05:00 p.m. Till about 07:00 p.m. So those are the type of rules that I try to follow when I'm posting content. But on top of just posting content, I engage with my followers, I engage with other content as well.
If you post and I see it, I'm going to like, and I'm going to comment.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: I see you also, too. I noticed that you're the most active when it comes to news channels. When it comes to things that are relevant, you're not doing it just to do it. Where I see some people, they're just making comments, right? Smiley face emoji and things like that. But you're commenting on social issues, you're commenting on news articles that come out. You're actually providing a real opinion. And I'm noticing that you'll start dialogues with people.
Fox News, CNN, something Chicago, y'all see that? Pretty.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: That's.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: I don't notice that for many other.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: People, it's something that I started doing simply because I care. Yeah, I'm tired of all the negative media and the way they portray our city. I mean, I was born and raised in Chicago. I love this city. I've traveled to other cities and I'm always like, yeah, this was a really fun trip.
Austin was really cool, or New York is awesome, but it's not Chicago. So this is like my way of kind of like fighting back, you know what I mean? It's like me being Batman and trying to just take it easy, spread the. I'm just trying to be positive out there. You know what I mean? No, that's not true. Our city doesn't suck. It's one of the best cities in the know. And this is mean.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: That's. I love that. And the pride behind know. I'm so sick and tired of. There's all this negativity that people have and opinions they have of Chicago, which. No, the social issues and the things that are popping up, those are real and those do need to be addressed. But that's not Chicago. That's what's happening. There's an issue that we need to deal with. But Chicago, to me, from somebody who didn't grow up here, came here, and now is in love with Chicago, is because of people like you, the people that walk around and entrepreneurs, the people that bust their butt, that you can go and make something out of nothing here. That's what Chicago is to me, is that somebody with just a hope and a dream can just go out there and make something of themselves. It's so common that you'll run into people know their family has a business here, and then they've established right. They know a neighborhood and their grandfather was in that neighborhood, or they were a firefighter, a police officer. There's so much pride behind living in Chicago. I don't know that I see that as much in other cities. I didn't grow up that know these people are like, no, I'm from Chicago, and they're proud of it.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: Let's take that back.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: Right? I mean, you grew up in Chicago.
What led you into real estate? How did you get into this business?
[00:11:24] Speaker B: So it happened by accident, to be quite honest. For a very long time, I worked in the hospitality industry as a brand ambassador for various hospitality nightclub groups. So that's kind of where I picked up a lot of my social media skills. So when I kind of got into real estate, it was a little bit easier for me to kind of just immediately start doing the social media and somewhat already get how social media works, because I was running the social media pages for a lot of hospitality groups, and during the day and at night, I was working the nightclubs as a vip host, which is a hustle you're.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: Grinding every single day. Right?
[00:12:18] Speaker B: And it was one of my really good clients, and now it's a really good friend, someone that you know and that you care about dearly.
I'm having a conversation with TK, and I'm sitting there.
It's probably like, 01:00 a.m. In the morning. Just got done taking shots with him, and we're just kind of chatting or whatever.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: Sounds like TK.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. If you know TK, he's a big personality, and I'm just kind of, like, sharing my frustration with him. Something like, this is fun and all.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: But there's got to be more.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: I was like, there's got to be more. I was like, I can't see myself being 40 and working at a nightclub. It's like I kind of hit a wall, and I wanted more, and I wasn't necessarily sure what I was looking for, but I knew I wanted just a different career for myself. So tiki right away is like, hey, I'm a mortgage banker, blah, blah, blah. I own my own mortgage company. You should come work for me. So and so, good friend of yours, Tony, too, he's going to be working for me.
I'm like, what? And I'm like, yeah, let's do this. Why not? Why not?
This is my opportunity.
Let me jump at it.
I follow up with him the next day just to make sure it wasn't just, like, drunk talk, right? And he's like, yeah, let me know when you want to come in. I'll set up a meeting with my partner, and we'll go from mean. That's how I met you.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: So anybody watching? Full disclosure, Raphael got his first job, and I'm so proud of this story. I would love to hear you tell it, because I know it. But our audience needs to know, what is the real Raphael? How did you get to where you are?
[00:14:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, 2012, I started my real estate career with you as a mortgage lender.
I was probably maybe, what, mid 20s, still working the nightclubs, because I still needed money to eat and live. Right.
But it was an interesting start because I remember kind of like my first day, and I'm like, all right, well, what do I do? And you guys just kind of throw, like, a pack of freaking leads, and it's probably, like, 300. Call them. And I'm like, call them. Like, all right, what do I say? You're just like, just listen. I think the first day, you're like, just spend a day just listening. Listen to the other loan officers. See how they talk to the leads, how they open the conversation, how they engage the prospect and whatnot.
I remember just calling, like, about 300 people. And I remember going to your office and being like, hey, I called everyone. And you're like, all right, well, start calling them again. I'm like, that doesn't make sense, but all right, go back and start all over and start calling these leads again. And I remember one of the first few calls, I get someone on the phone. I'm like, holy shit, I got someone on the phone and I'm freaking out. And I'm talking to this person and she's like, I'm in an arm. And I'm like, arm? And I put pause on the phone, and I'm like, hey, guys, what's an arm? And they're like an adjustable rate mortgage.
And I sit there clueless like, what the fuck is an adjustable rate mortgage?
[00:16:08] Speaker A: Welcome to the mortgage business. Welcome to the mortgage business. Your start was that exercise. That was my start. That was TK's start. That's how we figured out. And it's a different time now.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: It was the old school way, right? I'm actually very grateful to kind of, like, have that old.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: The. The one thing I knew about you is that you would just pound the phones. Like, you would just keep going. I was so proud of you. And I remember one time, Tony, shout out to Tony, love you, man. But he's sitting there, and there was a little bit of a struggle at first, which is expected, right? You're investing in these guys and thinking as a leader. You're like, okay, we got to get you to start converting. And one day I walk by and Tony's sitting there at his desk, and he's know I've called all these leads, and I can't get anybody to say yes. And I said, you've called all these leads? Hold on a second. I grabbed the leads off his desk and I started making phone calls. The second phone call I got, I pulled two deals out of it, and they're the same leads that were sitting front. And I was like, you didn't call that lead? And he goes, no, I didn't call that lead.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I thought.
[00:17:10] Speaker A: Because what's up?
It just takes that relentless grind to get to where you need to be. What happened from there? So why aren't you a mortgage lender these days?
[00:17:19] Speaker B: I think you can tell that story.
I wasn't really good at it. I sucked.
Just wasn't.
I think at that time, even though I wanted a different career. I wasn't mentally there, you know what I mean? I was still partying, still working the nightlife, making really good money in the nightlife, you know what I mean? So it was kind of hard to fully walk away from that, you know what I mean? From making close to six figures, literally. Partying is what I was doing. I was partying and getting paid to party. So walking away from that was just kind of hard because with the mortgage business, it was 100% commission.
I think maybe the timing wasn't the best. I mean, I do recall being able to actually get some people on the phone submitting applications, and just because of the kind of, like, the current market conditions that we were dealing with at that time, a lot of these people were underwater. So then we go through the entire process.
Appraisal comes short, and we're not talking like 5000 appraisals were coming. Like 50 to 100,000.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: Different time. It was a very different time.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: And then it was a dut deal, meaning I wasn't making any money on that deal, even though I got it from start then almost to the finish line.
You don't get paid for almost, right? Yes.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: I've said this multiple times, and I did ask your permission to say it this way prior to, but when I let you go, I don't think I've ever. I hate firing people. I hate partner ways. It's like the worst. And you would think with my personality, I'd have no issue with it, but I do. I genuinely care about the people that work for me. And I remember sitting in the room and I looked at you and I said, look, got two options here. You can either go back to your nightlife job, and I said something kind of douchey, I think. I said, it's fine. You can go do that. I mean, you can go get bottles for us and whatnot when we come out, right? And I was trying to ring home with the message and I was like, or you can learn from this and you can go on and you can take this message, take what's happening right now, and you can go do something with it. Those are your two options, right? Because I don't know what you want to do, but today we're partners, friends, and you and one other person were in the room, and that other person, God bless them, they went on to do something else. You took it and said, you know what, I'm going to use this as motivation, right? And you went on to start breaking records. You went on and partnered up with some people that we all respect in the industry and learn. Cut your teeth on how to be a badass, not only realtor, but leader. Right. Because you now have a team. Right.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: Talk to me about that. I mean, I think it's all about how you take a loss, right? So even though it was like a loss in my book, it was also an opportunity, right. Because I still learned a lot from being in the mortgage industry. I learned from you, I learned from TK. I learned how to act as a professional and what that looks like. And obviously what got me fired was how not to be professional.
It kind of just opened my eyes a bit, and I kind of had to dive deep and be like, I really got to work on myself first before I even can step into.
[00:20:57] Speaker A: A career.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: I got to work on myself and be okay mentally and realize that this is life. This isn't like, freaking fun and games.
Being in the hospitality industry, it was fun, right? It was mostly fun and games, but that's not the real world. You know what I mean? If I want to make a change for myself and be a better person and want the future me to look back and be proud of the person that I've become, you got to change who you are and make better decisions. And that's kind of what I did. I think I spent maybe another one and a half year in the hospitality industry. And then I started thinking to myself, I was like, you know, something like, the mortgage industry wasn't for me, but I was like, I enjoy being with people and helping people and just building and maintaining these relationships. I think I want to sell real estate. And as crazy as it sounded at the time, kind of like, all right, well, obviously my mortgage career wasn't very successful, but I saw something in real estate on the sell side where I was like, I think I can make this work. And I still remember my first two years in the business. I was very strategic about where I was going to work. I wasn't chasing the dollar. I wasn't chasing 100% commission. I took my time to interview brokerages, so I sat down with Sotoby's Berkshire Hathaway at Properties Remax. I mean, I was interviewing brokerages and trying to find which one was going to be the right fit for me to learn and grow as an agent. I wasn't necessarily chasing the dollar, right. Because if I was chasing the dollar, I would have just joined, like, 100% commission. So my first two years, it was like, I put education first, so I would show up to the office every day.
[00:23:22] Speaker A: Who are you working for?
[00:23:22] Speaker B: When you first joined, I joined the Scaron group at properties for people that might not know Phil Scaron because he's very low key, but he's a monster. I mean, he's one of the top agents at Trump Tower. So I was working for a hitter, right, a whale.
[00:23:48] Speaker A: And I'm going to pause you there for anybody who's struggling, right. If you're truly struggling, listen to what he's saying, is that chasing the dollar isn't going to make you struggle less. It's going to make you struggle more. Agents will come up to me and be like, well, what's your advice? Well, if the fundamentals aren't there, if you truly need help figuring out how to establish a foundation, reach out to a hitter, reach out to somebody who runs a team who's willing to pour into you. No, you're not going to make their money. They're going to share with you. The knowledge that you're going to learn from it is invaluable. Right. And that's something that you do for your team. Right. What was it like working for Phil? What were you doing for know?
[00:24:28] Speaker B: I wasn't necessarily doing much for Phil in the sense where I was kind of like an agent there to support his business and run around and do showings for him. I feel like every team has kind of like just a different way that they're run, right. There's teams out there where the Principal drives all the business, and he has so much, he or she has so much business that they need help, right. They need foot soldiers to just be there present for showings, for inspections. Philstein was very different in the sense where Paul Blackburn at the time was like his right hand.
And Paul did a great job just training me on how to build my, my business, right.
How to look for business or generate business for myself.
I think they always knew, even when I joined the team, that eventually I was going to either go and start my own team or just kind of go and run my own show.
[00:25:47] Speaker A: They were there for a resource, but.
[00:25:48] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. They were there for a resource. Like, I was showing up to the office every day learning how Phil was talking on the phone. When I did have an opportunity, I would ask to tag along, hey, can I come to Trump Tower with you? Can I come to four East Elm? And I would just pay attention to how he was communicating with his clients. Right.
And that's why I kind of say the first two years was really just like me learning the business, right. Working on the business, whether it's just building up a social media brand that's not going to instantly generate leads, but over time it's just going to organically just start feeding.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: So let's expand on that. Right. I think that's something that we talked about. Part of this was, what do you think the biggest mistake? You're obviously a huge social media guy, like I am, right? You focus on branding and making sure that people understand that you're passionate, you're professional, and you're responsive and they're going to be on top of these things. Right. That's the expectation that they receive.
What do you think the biggest mistake that agents make when they're starting to jump into.
First off, let's start here. What made you go after social media? What was the first thing that you did that was successful or that made you really focus on social media to get business?
[00:27:17] Speaker B: I was just paying attention to what some top producers were doing, not necessarily all because in the very beginning of my career, I feel like social media wasn't quite, it wasn't there yet. There was maybe like a select few agents and some that weren't even local. I was just paying attention to what other brokers were doing in different markets in the east coast and the west coast and seeing how they were kind of know, running their social media pages and it kind of clicked to like, hey, this is. I know, right? Like, this is what I was doing in the hospitality industry. You know what I mean?
[00:28:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:02] Speaker B: I was a social media manager for hospitality groups.
How can I apply this to real estate?
[00:28:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:14] Speaker B: So I remember I'm like, I still have my Facebook page for my nightlife VIP host business. I went back because I'm like, man, I was like, I have like 5000 followers on there. Went back on that page and I deleted everything. I cleaned it up, even my personal Facebook. I try to clean that up as much as possible because I'm like, you know something? No one's going to take me serious in this if, if they go on my Facebook and they see all these pictures when we're a, you know, when I was younger and I was partying and doing the whole bottle service thing, I was like, I don't think anyone's going to take me seriously. And the funny thing is everyone that I knew, everyone thinks like, oh, he has, he built his book of business because he comes from the nightlife industry and he was already rubbing elbows with professional athletes or whatnot. But the thing is that it took a couple of years from everyone from my past to actually take me know, because to them. I was know Ralphie, the VIP host.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: That's a hard thing to overcome.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: Yeah. So they couldn't take me seriously. I can have fun with you, I can party with you, but I'm not going to trust you with a real estate transaction. So I really had to start from scratch. But I was very consistent with the social media early on.
I was also very strategic about the marketplace that I wanted to be in and the type of clients that I wanted to attract.
So early on, I was already kind of just reading up as much as I could on the luxury real estate market, learning every building in downtown Chicago, which one has a pool, which one has a basketball court, how many units are in the wall door that there's two units on each side?
[00:30:29] Speaker A: Are you the first one to do lifestyle videos? You're one of the first. You started embracing doing lifestyle videos to get them out there to kind of show what Chicago is and what you're.
[00:30:41] Speaker B: I mean, till this day, I would probably say that I'm one or few that implements lifestyle videography in their listing videos. And what I mean by lifestyle is kind of know, luxury real estate is more than just like the house, but it's like the lifestyle that comes with living. Yeah, exactly. So I implement models, cars, boats. I try to sell the, like, I just did a really cool video for the Regis and I'm like, hey, we should do a boat scene. I mean, this is a waterfront property. I mean, this is kind of like the lifestyle that comes with living at the St. Regis is that the Chicago river in Lake Michigan is steps from the building. I mean, that's the lifestyle. Let's sell on that, right? Let's sell on that dream.
[00:31:36] Speaker A: So does it work? I mean, when you do these lifestyle videos, your mom must think you're awesome, right? Your friends might think you must think you're awesome. But you see some of these people do.
[00:31:49] Speaker B: I still remember the first lifestyle video. I had a bunch of people laughing at me. Like other agents, really. They were laughing behind my back and I was just overhearing it from my friends. And in the business, so and so freaking said this about your video and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, all right, well, whatever, man. You know what I mean?
I'm going to do me. You do you. You know what I mean? My way of business might be different from yours. Doesn't necessarily mean that my way is wrong or that your way is wrong. That's the beauty about this business. There's so many different ways to generate business. And what works for me might not work for you, but I was paying attention to what the agents were doing in California. You know what I mean? Like heavy hitters out there. I was paying attention to what agents were doing in York.
[00:32:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: And they're all doing lifestyle video. No one's doing lifestyle video in Chicago. I was like, after noise, I'm going to keep doing what I think works or where I think marketing, the way that real estate should be marketed. And I just kept with it did.
And it started opening doors, man.
[00:32:58] Speaker A: Really?
[00:32:59] Speaker B: It started opening doors. I still remember I get a call from Crescent. Actually, no, I get a call from a very successful developer who's now a really good friend, good industry friend. And he actually has this marketing person call me. He's like, hey, you don't know who I am. You don't know who so and so is. He wanted me to call you just to let you know that that video was freaking awesome. He saw the Facebook ad that you were running on that video and he called everyone into a marketing meeting and he played the video for us and he was like, this is what I want. This is what I need.
[00:33:40] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:33:41] Speaker B: And that was like a huge compliment.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: This guy is like, he was developing luxury condominiums in Lincoln park in the west loop. I mean, he was a big time developer. And I'm like, wow, all right, so it's working. I don't have a listing yet, right? I was like, I don't have a listing yet.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: But you're getting attention.
[00:34:01] Speaker B: I was like, but I'm getting attention, right? I was like, I'm getting negative attention, but I'm also getting. This was like, all right, here's the first positive noise that I made. I'm like, cool, let's keep at it.
And I end up getting a million dollar listing in the south loop. And I'm like, all right, from this video. No, this was just one of my past renter clients that I ended up converting into a buyer.
And we do a lifestyle video.
[00:34:42] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:34:43] Speaker B: Guess who calls Crescent heights next door. Oh, I mean, we're talking a nationwide developer. We're not talking, like, small Chicago developer. These guys are building skyscrapers all across the country. And they call me and they're like, hey, we saw the video you did next door at one museum park. It was great. We want to meet with you. We want to talk to you about possibly listing one of our penthouses. We're going to list it for $25,000 per month. We also saw that you rented a penthouse at six North Michigan for $30,000 per month. We want to meet with you.
[00:35:27] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: And I go and end up getting that listing, end up doing a badass video till this day. That's probably one of my favorite videos.
We rented a Ferrari.
We went all above and beyond. Yeah, it was a great video, and it was really fun from there. It was like the rest was kind of history. That right there was just like, yeah, this is going somewhere, and I'm going to just keep at it. Now. It's part of my listing presentation. Now I'm going in there, like, yeah, but let me see their video.
Anyone can shoot a video, but look at my video. My stuff is top notch. It's cinematic. We're spending, like, a full day of shooting. This isn't like a guy just showing up with a camera in 510 minutes and boom, he's out. No, we're sitting down before we even schedule the video.
What's the story that we're trying to tell?
Who do you think is the client for this property, and how can we attract that client through video?
It takes weeks to kind of just get everything in place before we even shoot the video. And then after you shoot the video, it's all the stuff that I'm doing behind the scenes. It's not necessarily like, all right, I got a video. I'm going to post it.
[00:36:59] Speaker A: Post it one time and hope it nets a seller.
[00:37:01] Speaker B: Exactly. I'm running YouTube ads. I'm running ads on Facebook, Instagram. I'm driving clicks and views to the video because video, very similar to SEO search engine optimization for websites. Just because you have a website doesn't mean it's going to generate leads. Right? You got to do PPC, you got to do SEO, you got to work on the website, you got to write blogs. So eventually, your website starts ranking on the first page of Google. So it's the same concept with video. There's still marketing behind the scenes that's being done to promote the video.
[00:37:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
I love what you just said because if you really unpack all of it, right, you shot a video just because you just thought it was a good idea. You were watching other things and you believed in it, and you had haters instantly. People were making fun of you. Most people would have quit. Most people have been like, that was stupid. What a waste of money. I shouldn't have done that. And you said, all right, well, whatever.
[00:38:16] Speaker B: That's the number one problem with our industry, Tim, is like, everyone wants instant gratification for what they do, and that's why everyone gets into real estate, thinking like, it's easy. I'm going to go and sell $3 million homes a month after I just got licensed. No one wants to put it in the work, man.
[00:38:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:36] Speaker B: I spent two years doing rentals and taking all the rental listings at my office that no one wanted to take just because they were just top producers and they just didn't want to deal with rentals. I was like, hey, man, raising my hand at the office. I'll take it. I'll do it. You don't want that listing? I'll take it. And guess what? A lot of those rental clients turn into buyers and sellers in some ways. I built my book of business in the very beginning, working these renters, taking the leads that no one wanted to take. But I treated every lead with respect and value, each and one of those clients. To me, there were opportunities. All right, maybe the commission wasn't anything to smile about, but to me, it was the experience.
I was learning everything that I could about downtown Chicago by doing all these showings. I was learning about the different buildings. I was learning about the amenities that they offer. And as soon as that deal closed, I was thinking about next year, right? I was like, this is an opportunity for me. This is an opportunity for me to either have repeat business with this client. Either they're going to rent from me again, or they're going to buy from me next year. So I was building that relationship along the way.
I always add all my clients on social media, and I try to do my best to engage with their contact and try to keep up with them. You know what I mean?
There are some clients that you just naturally build a really good relationship that you still just keep in touch right after the deal.
After so many transactions, though, it's hard to keep up sometimes. So social media for me has been a to keep up. So Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.
At the end of the day, real estate is my life, right? So I was like, why keep my personal separate from my business if my business really, truly is kind of what I live for? And I love it. It doesn't feel like work to me.
[00:41:05] Speaker A: I love it. You've said multiple times you love this. You're having fun. This is your lifestyle. I don't think everyone fully grasps that is that it changes you. It changes you as a person.
What does your family think of your career?
You didn't grow up in a real estate family, right?
[00:41:22] Speaker B: No, I mean, first generation immigrant family. I mean, my dad worked two jobs at one point because he didn't want my mom to work. He was a little old school, right? In that way, he's like, no, I want mom to kind of stay home with the kids, make sure that we're well taken care of, and just keep us on check, right? Yeah.
[00:41:45] Speaker A: Awesome. That's awesome. They've got to be super proud of you, man. I know I am, right? It's to watch you start in your career and to see where you are now. That's incredible, man. And you earned it.
[00:41:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:56] Speaker A: You take all credit for that.
[00:41:57] Speaker B: It's great.
Just stay humble. Yeah, that's kind of been my thing, right? It's just stay humble, be good to people. And by being good to people and being nice, you just naturally just attract positive energy to yourself. There's days where I'm having a bad day, and then the minute that I'm just like, all right, you know something?
That's one deal, right? Let's shake it off.
[00:42:25] Speaker A: Time to go.
[00:42:26] Speaker B: Let's smile and let's go. And a couple of days later, next, you know, you get a freaking call and you're like, oh, my God, here's a win. Here's a win.
[00:42:35] Speaker A: That's why we started you on a stack of leads, because it's like, okay, that wasn't a good one. Now I'm on to the next one. Man. I'm so proud of you. Thank you so much for coming in here. Raphael. We really appreciate you. And keep fighting the good fight. Good hanging out with you today. Thanks for coming.
[00:42:49] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:42:49] Speaker A: Join us.
