Top real estate marketing pro Lauren Henss on how FirstTeam achieves 98% agent retention

HousingWire

This week on RealTrending, Tracey Velt talks with Lauren Henss, VP of Marketing and Strategic Initiatives at FirstTeam Real Estate, a RealTrends Verified top 30 brokerage in national sales volume. Tracey and Lauren dive into the realities of leading a complete digital transformation in under a year, including shifting from legacy to modern branding and creating agent-centric marketing that drives real results.  Lauren shares how consumer brand tactics from her work with Chanel, Nike, and Salesforce translated into real estate, the challenges of brokerage consolidation, and why treating agents as the heroes of your story changes everything.  Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:  How to shift from legacy brand messaging to future-focused value propositions  The "Behind the Agent" campaign that achieved 98% retention and 32% conversion increases  Why buying more leads without fixing conversion is the most overrated marketing tactic  The strategic middle lane approach that balances corporate scale with boutique agility  How AI and answer engine optimization are reshaping agent visibility and listing generation  The five critical elements brokerages need to survive consolidation  Related to this episode:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ⁠Lauren Henss | LinkedIn⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-henss/ ⁠First Team Real Estate⁠ https://firstteam.com/ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HousingWire | YouTube ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXDD_3y3LvU60vac7eki-6Q ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠More info about HousingWire⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://lnk.bio/housingwire  To learn more about Homebot, click ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://homebot.ai/  The RealTrending podcast features conversations with the brightest minds in real estate. Every Monday, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts join us to share their secrets to success, trends, and the lessons they’ve learned. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.

Transcript

00:00Is your brokerage or team having an identity crisis? Are you struggling with recruiting or

00:06struggling with really getting your agent value out to consumers? Well, I talked to Lauren Hentz

00:13today. She is the VP of Marketing and Strategic Initiatives at First Team. They are a Realtrends

00:20Verified top 30. Their national volume rank is 30 on the Realtrends Verified rankings.

00:27And she's worked with brands such as Chanel and Salesforce and Nike and LaPerla. And she did a

00:35complete digital transformation for the brokerage and had some exciting, really interesting information

00:42to share. I think it's a must listen for any brokerage or team or even agent who wants to

00:49rebrand or boost their business. So enjoy the podcast. And I want to give a special thanks to

00:55HomeBot for sponsoring this Realtrending episode. Well, Lauren, welcome to the Realtrending

01:00podcast. Glad to have you on. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

01:05Yeah, we're going to talk all things marketing today. And you've worked with some amazing brands,

01:11Chanel, Nike, Salesforce, Compass, Toll Brothers. You're with First Team now. So what was the very

01:17first thing you noticed about real estate branding that made you say, okay, this has to change?

01:25Well, I think there's two parts of it from like a consumer brand standpoint and integrating it into

01:31real estate. So one was real estate talks to people, like talks at people versus connecting with

01:41people, right? And when you look at like modern brokerage marketing, they're like, we do X, we're

01:47fabulous. This is this, come join us. And it's like, no, that's not, that's not exactly what we need to

01:54do. So when we're looking at a consumer, we're looking at, they're like, who are you? Why do I care?

02:00Why do I want to work with your agents? And the same thing applies to the agent is what's in it for me?

02:07Why do I care? And why should I want to work with you? So it is a partnership between the consumer

02:14and the agent, and it is a partnership between the brokerage and the agent that has to be done.

02:21And then I think the other trend that has been obvious in terms of real estate being a little bit

02:25behind is agents now, as do brokerages, have to basically provide an integrated marketing experience.

02:33It is not just, here's a postcard, here we go. Like that is not what true marketing is. Marketing

02:40is an, and brand is a sum total of experiences one has with you. So you have to make sure that all

02:46those experiences are united. I mean, that's a great point. Um, you know, a lot of times you're not

02:52really thinking that I know even at housing, where we recently went through a whole persona exercise

02:58and I thought that I was reaching that persona and I realized, no, you know, I, there, there's some

03:07things I need to change. So I totally understand that. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think what people

03:13need to understand about like a brand and when you look at consumer brands, it's not that we just took

03:20it from a consumer brand standpoint and like changed everything about it. That's not what we did.

03:24Like what we did in, we kind of talk about this is the brand is memorable. When I talk about the sum

03:32total of experiences one has with you, that really goes beyond marketing. It is the way that the agent

03:38answers the phone. It is their website. It is the way that they, you know, integrate in terms of other

03:44conversations with other agents. It's advertising, it's everything. So you have to make sure that those

03:50touch points are there. And then when we look at the other part that everybody really needs to do is

03:56the agents, the value creator at the end of the day. So when you look at like the big top brands

04:03that I've worked with, it's the same thing. You're just tooling it from an agent experience. So like

04:09Nike, the athlete is the hero, right? Always in terms of that. When you look at Apple, the creator

04:16is the hero. And then when you look at Airbnb, the hosts are the heroes. So it's just making them

04:21in the hero of the story and making sure that they understand and we're positioning them on how to

04:29best serve their clients. And then, you know, first team had a strong legacy and you said, but you said

04:35the story didn't really match the talent. So what's the difference between a legacy brand that's known

04:40and a modern brand that's actually understood? Let's talk about this. When you look at a legacy

04:46brand and you look at a typical brand, a legacy brand is we've been around for 50 years. Okay.

04:54When you look at a modern brand, we are paving the way to build an integrated platform to attract

05:03agents to double their production in two years. That is the difference between a modern and a legacy

05:09brand. So legacy brand is tatting about past, future or past and relying on past experiences

05:18and just experience that they've had in the agency. When you look at a futuristic brand,

05:24it's constantly evolving with the customer, whether that be the agent, whether that be the brokerage,

05:31whether that be the consumer. And it is saying, and basically based on the personas that you are

05:37trying to attract, it frames it accordingly to the messaging and the offer proposition,

05:43the value proposition that it creates. Right. So that I think is the main thing.

05:48So you're not saying do away with the legacy part of it. You're just saying it has to evolve from

05:54talking about your past to, you know, talking about the future or.

05:59You have to, yes, you have to evolve your value proposition to best fit your particular consumer

06:06that you're trying to attract. And why should they care? Because when you look at this, when consumers

06:10are making a decision, you have four seconds to, before they decide, they judge you. And 90% of

06:17consumer brands are based on trust. So if you look at it and you say, I've been around for 50 years,

06:24they're like, great. What's in it for me and why should I care? Yeah. So that's, it's more of just not

06:31like being the 800 pound gorilla. It's producing those micro experiences. So you led a full digital

06:39transformation in under a year. So what does that look like from the inside? Like culturally tech staff

06:46upgrades, the storytelling that all held it together. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So that is, that was a big

06:53undertaking. And when you lead a digital transformation, what I love about it is a digital

07:00transformation. Like everybody thinks it's like, we're just redoing one type of software. They think

07:04we're redoing a CRM and they're like, it's done. No, what you really have to do is analyze the overall

07:11customer life cycle of the agent. What is that entire experience of the agent from onboarding all the way

07:19to exit? And what does that look like? Right? So when you're doing a digital transformation,

07:24it's not a tech project. And I don't think people understand that it's a cultural one. So when we're

07:30looking at it, this is what was involved. We really had to shift from an instinct, you know,

07:37base decisions to data driven decisions. And that is different sometimes from a legacy brokerage,

07:42right? I think the other thing we had to build a modern, when we're building a modern tech stack,

07:47we had to have like dynamic CMS, we had to have advanced CEO, we had to have predictive modeling,

07:52which nobody thinks about it. It involved rewiring workflows to be horizontal instead of,

08:00you know, regular. And then we had to, you know, introduce SLAs and teams and everything to really

08:07lead that digital transformation. And I think nobody really understands what that looks like

08:13until you really do it and handle it. So that became behind the agent. It's what like the

08:20centerpiece of first teams marketing. And so what does it mean to have the agent as the hero? And how

08:25does that differ from traditional brokerage? You talked a little bit about this, but let's dive in a

08:30little bit deeper about what behind the agent actually is, what that is, and how it kind of

08:37changed the marketing style that was happening before. Yeah. So behind the agent, I mean,

08:44we build meaningful careers. That is the main difference with us, you know, in terms of that,

08:50we're not here to, we'll go into more of the attraction, whatever, but we build meaningful

08:57career paths. So the difference with how, how behind the agent came about. And when we worked with

09:02a thousand Watts who were as amazing, there are differentiators when we met with our agents and

09:06we did focus groups that really stand out. One is behind the agent, we're made by realtors for

09:11realtors. We are vastly independent. Meaning if I want to do a new product offering, or if I want to

09:18launch a new campaign, I can instantly do that in a minute. All our decisions are agent centric,

09:26meaning we can do, we make it behind the agent in terms of their growth. So we build meaningful

09:30careers, whether they come in for a new agent, right? Whether they want to be a team leader or

09:35whether or not they want to go into ownership and then have a sellable asset at the end.

09:39So that is the main difference. We're not, Michelle and I like, and Anna like to say,

09:45we're in the career business. We are in the real estate business, but we're in the career business

09:50of building meaningful careers and not putting them into a box. So how behind the agent came about

09:56is we met with many different agents and I'm like, all of these successful agents,

10:02what do they have in common? What is important to them and how do they thrive? They were all

10:08completely innovative. They were all tech savvy. They were all genuine. They were all extremely

10:15collaborative and they were extremely eager. And what I wanted to do is I did not want one single

10:22head figure to be the center of the story because some people may not resonate with me. Agents may not

10:29resonate with Michelle. They may not resonate with Anna. And I wanted to build it off of real agents,

10:35off of people that they resonate to and be like, I want to be this person. I want to collaborate with

10:40this person. So what we did is we dealt, we basically developed these different personas that

10:45we're trying to recruit, right? And made the agents, the influencers of our story. So everything that we do,

10:54whether it is new tech stacks and being able to opt in and tech new tech stacks from, you know,

11:00different types of appearances, all of that, it is built from that culture moving forward. And agents

11:07have absolutely loved it because they've had it to build their brands as well. And so doing that,

11:12you know, as an independent, you know, I think a lot of brokers really, it's like they just recruit,

11:19recruit, recruit, recruit anybody. By doing that, you're really heavily honing in on the exact agent

11:27that you want for the company. So how does that, how difficult is that to say no, or to, you know,

11:39to really maybe turn down a top producer who does not fit with your culture?

11:44I think honestly, when you look at it, when you were asking about it, I know you were asking,

11:49how do I sleep at night, right? Between me, I sleep better because of it. And there's a reason

11:57why. Because if your brand is for everyone, then it's for no one. Yeah. At the end of the day. So

12:04we attract ambitious agents, right? We attract growth-minded teams, people who want to lead,

12:13learners, community builders, right? We repel the misaligned mindsets, right? That don't go with us,

12:21that do not collaborate without ego, passive agents, brand people. I call brand renters who

12:27are just there, you know, part-time to work like one day a year, and people who don't want

12:31accountability. So when we're looking at that filter, brand's a filter. Marketing amplifies the

12:37filter. And then repelling makes the culture healthier. And culture drives the revenue,

12:44right? In terms of what that is. And I think at the end of the day, when we're looking at that,

12:50that is the best way to do it. Because if you're looking at agents joining a brokerage,

12:55and your relationship as the brokerage with the agent, and you're looking at it as a strategic

12:59partnership versus just somebody holding their license there, that's what works really well.

13:06And that's what is great. And I think that also goes down to when we're talking about the agents

13:13we want to attract, marketing and sales are aligned in terms of the business goals of the organization.

13:22We have a true relationship. So that helps us attract the right ones that are going to perform,

13:31that are going to stay with the brokerage, and that are going to work. And we have a 98%

13:36retention rate. So it is definitely working. That was my next question. How do you know it's

13:42working? Are there any other factors that you track to know that your new campaign or your new

13:48branding and marketing plan are working? Yeah, I think it is, you know, when we're going into the

13:55micro segments of the agents that we're trying to attract, they're definitely coming. I would also

14:01say that, you know, our conversion rates are amazing right now, our conversion rates have increased by

14:06over 32%. So I think that is, you know, what we're seeing in terms of, you know, website visits and those

14:14kinds of things. We've increased by over 553% since we launched our website in April. And people are

14:22very much responding to what we're doing. The other thing that we track, which is different than any,

14:28you know, other marketing organization is I track once they're there, what was their experience?

14:36What is their net promoter score? How likely are they recommended to recommend marketing? And also,

14:42what is their, you know, CSAT score as well. So we're looking at everything in terms of what's

14:48working, what's not working. And I think it's important that marketing is a strategic entity.

14:54It is not just graphic design. It is not just flyers. It is a strategic revenue growth driver for

15:01the business. So your airport takeover, CTV campaigns, luxury partnerships, influencer style,

15:08agent story telling, kind of feel like a global consumer brand playbook, more than typical brokerage

15:16marketing. So which consumer world tactics translated best and if any flopped?

15:24Yeah, I mean, you're going to have, I think that's, you know, marketing, you're going to have some

15:28that, you know, flop occasionally. And I think that's, you know, that's what you have to do.

15:35Um, but what really worked, I mean, I would say in terms of like AI, you know, cinematic, emotional,

15:45um, in terms of consumer brands, emotional driven storytelling, right? So when we're looking at

15:51connected TV airport placements, yeah, they were ads, but they were emotional. It was, it was more

15:57behind the agent and we did have, you know, your address awaits. So it was personalized to the agent.

16:03It wasn't just us taking a, you know, airport takeover and say, here's first team, let's go.

16:08So I think that's what, I think the other thing that really worked very well was agent as content

16:13creator content, right? Um, short unscripted vertical videos that outperform corporate content,

16:20like five to 10 times. Absolutely. Because humans trust humans. What did not work is when you're having

16:27campaigns, a real estate moves very fast. It moves much faster than luxury brands. So what didn't

16:33work was all these, I'm like, Oh, we're going to do this tailored, gorgeous campaign with all it moves

16:38too fast in real estate. You have to fail fast. You have to do things, MVP, minimum viable products,

16:43see if it works, test and do the next thing. So I think that's important to look at when we're,

16:48when we're gauging stuff. Um, AI powered personalization worked very well in terms of

16:54customer journeys from a marketing standpoint. So making sure for those personas that we created,

17:00um, what are those custom journeys in terms of content that we want to give them, whether it be

17:06in, um, text format, video, different community groups, those kinds of things that worked really,

17:14really well based on feedback that they wanted to do and education. So I think you have to know your

17:21audience and you have to understand that the most sexy thing may not be right for you, right?

17:29But I still would say the emotional driven storytelling is going to be number one in any

17:35book. And then I think also meeting your customer and your agent where they're at and what those

17:42platforms are. I think the big misrepresentation is everybody's like, Oh, I want to be on Tik TOK.

17:49Great. My, not all my agents are on Tik TOK. So I'm not going to spend a ton of time on Tik TOK.

17:56They're on Instagram. They're on Facebook. They're on LinkedIn. They're on all these different

18:01platforms. They subscribe to housing wire. I'm looking at where they're at and what matters

18:07and giving them the right moment at the right time.

18:09Yeah. I mean, it makes sense that that emotional personalized experience works the best. I mean,

18:15real estate is a relationship business, you know, so it's a little bit different, um, from some

18:22consumer brands that, uh, you know, the one-on-one relationship. Oh yeah. It's a relationship to

18:29business. And I think at the other day, the other part that we do really well, which is important in

18:36real estate is agents need to be seen and they need to act as true advisors. Anybody can, you know,

18:44go get their license, but the ones that are going to succeed in this world are the ones that act as true

18:49advisors to their clients, anticipating their needs, understanding the persona of that, you know,

18:55of that client, understanding their world and being 10 steps ahead of what that looks like.

19:01And so, um, you helped drive a billion in new recruited revenue and another billion in market

19:06share in 2024. So I know brokers listening want to know the secret. Um, what were the biggest kind

19:14of unlocks that actually moved the needle for you? Um, and what advice do you have for brokers who

19:20are, you know, rethinking the way they're marketing and the way they're recruiting now?

19:26I think, I think it's a, I think it's a couple of things. I think if you have a marketer who is ahead

19:33of marketing, that marketer absolutely needs to have a seat at the table among the executive team.

19:39Um, when Michelle chose, you know, the four of us as women to lead this initiative, we were all

19:48very, very good in our lane. She didn't plan on it being women. She chose the, she chose wanted to

19:53choose the best. And then we just happened to be women right at that point in time. So I think when

19:58you're looking at it, the future, when you're looking at it, you absolutely have to have a seat

20:02at the table. So you need to have marketing where you have your brand and performance is one part

20:09agent marketing is separate. You need to have them separate because they will run parallel in

20:17some instances from a customer experience standpoint, but you need to have an arm that

20:21is truly driven to brand revenue generation, demand gen, all of that part. And I don't, I think

20:27what happens is a lot of times they just try to condense it into here's the e-commerce side,

20:35here's the agent fulfillment. And you can't do that. Like you need to lead properly. But what I'm,

20:40what I'm, what I'm seeing and what, you know, brokerages really need to do is the future sits now

20:46between in marketing as identity, intelligence, and experience. So when I look at, you know, what's

20:54coming, I can tell you exactly what they need to do and get involved with. Um, one is like predictive

21:00AI experience engines. I think that's a big one. So adaptive journeys that update daily for their

21:07agents. I think that is the number one thing that they can give them from a marketing standpoint,

21:11whether that'd be, you know, real scout, local logic, fub, all of those kinds of things that can

21:15provide that. I think you're going to see, and you're already seeing it now, but especially in the

21:20land of AI agents are going to continue to be full stack creators. So you're going to see a lot more

21:26successful, you know, high, you know, vertical video data, storing, telling that's what performs

21:32the best. I think, um, you're going to see luxury experience as baseline. So everything in the

21:42experience is the expectation right now. I think people need to understand that, that it's not just

21:48going in, talking to a client, getting a listing, putting it on the market and selling it. It is

21:53more of creating those powerful moment experiences. Um, I think also you're going to see those local

22:03experiences that we talked about. So, you know, AI powered lifestyle maps, which we're already seeing,

22:09but data incorporated into local logic reels and those kinds of things. But the biggest thing that I

22:16think that people are trying to figure out, especially in the consolidation phase that

22:20we're going through now is having trying, and it's not going to happen for a long time,

22:26but it's one real estate operating system. So the true unification of the CRM, the marketing,

22:35the intelligence, the search, the automations, the dashboards. Now, some of them, we already have

22:40that, but they do 60% of it. Well, yeah. So I think the whole industry is going to move in this

22:48direction. It's interesting. Um, so what do you see as kind of the next frontier? If you want to

22:54stay relevant for 2025 and beyond, what should they be experimenting with? Um, you just talked a little

23:00bit about some things, but, um, anything else, um, for brokerages or for agents, for brokerages,

23:07I think brokerages really need to implement, think of it as treat the brand as a consumer facing

23:17brand. And I think they need to look at not only have two sides of the entity, which is the customer

23:23facing brand. And how do you want to be pursued to the customer? So for example, we have like the

23:29address awaits campaign, right? That is the consumer facing campaign. And then you might need to have an

23:35entity that is agent facing, which is, um, obviously are behind the agent campaign from a

23:42recruitment. So I really think that it's going to fold into you have one brand, but there's two

23:49different sectors that serve the similar purpose. Um, and I think that's what they need to do to relate

23:56to the correct audiences. I think the ones that are just resting on their loyals of just having more

24:02market share or whatever, I think it's not going to matter. Um, I think the advanced part of we're

24:10already in an advanced personalization from experiences with AI. I think everybody from a

24:17brokerage standpoint needs to understand that and they need to produce those advanced personalization

24:23methods and outreach for, you know, for their agents to give to their clients. And from a targeting

24:30standpoint, because of course there's nurturing sequences that are three emails or whatever that

24:34you see in FUB, right. Or you see your standard sphere of influence. People are smarter than what

24:42they ever have been. And you're competing. People see over, it was literally studied that they see over,

24:50what was it? 152,000 different messages within literally four minutes a day. So when you're doing

24:59that, you need to break through the noise and you need to care about. So gone are the days of

25:03hi, first name, want to see if you want to meet with me about X property. No, don't care. So I think

25:09it's those personalization stories. I think that it is adaptive messaging, whether that be obviously,

25:15um, doing the messaging across social, doing the messaging across email, doing the messaging across

25:20text message, push notification, everything to make sure that you're meeting that consumer where

25:26they're at based on demographics and psychographics that they care about. Lastly, I think AI, the

25:31biggest thing that brokerages need to do is have agents come up when we're talking about content

25:38creators, exactly like this. They need to get them to use AI. If you're not using AI within the next two

25:45years, you're going to be absolutely irrelevant. It's not going to be there. And then also making sure

25:50from that content, from, you know, answer engine optimization, people more now than ever are

25:58searching on chat GPT for homes, give me a luxury home at this price point in Carlsbad. Right. So I

26:04think when we're looking at agents and we're looking at brokerages, agents need to be optimizing their

26:12profile in terms of having the right content that makes them relevant in order to get more listings.

26:21Because when you, when you look at it, you know, very few agents were actually productive last year

26:27and actually had a listing. So they need to sew up and search. So if I sit here and I say, okay,

26:33who is the number one luxury, luxury sales agent, real estate agent in Carlsbad, California,

26:41you need to come up. So that means more content through blogs, more content on social, adding FAQs

26:48to your landing page that you have, which is very, very simple and being relevant, go to awards,

26:56go to housing wire, you know, events, go to those things and show how you're relating and building

27:02those relationships. Yeah, absolutely. All great advice and, and really kind of a mindset shift for a

27:08lot of brokers, um, in how they take on, you know, marketing to agents, marketing to consumers as

27:15well. So it is, but you know what? I think, I think the data doesn't lie at the end of the day,

27:23right? Like the data doesn't lie. And I think, you know, when we're looking at it, a home is buying a

27:30home is one of the most important decisions a person makes in their life for an agent.

27:37This career is one of the most important things at their life. So if you treat each one like a true

27:43partnership, then it goes through. And I mean, I can't tell you how many rewarding experiences

27:52from behind the agent where we met with them. And I think this is different when you were asking about

27:59this on how we're different. I think this is an important point is we'll meet with the agent.

28:04We will do a deep audit of their business of the past year. Um, and that includes marketing. That

28:10includes everything of how they got their business. But I'm, I'm also saying a competitor audit

28:16in terms of who their biggest agents are. Yeah. Then I will come back with a, we will come back,

28:24Michelle, Anna and I, with a marketing plan, with a plan of how to succeed in their business.

28:29And we will meet with them quarterly. That's not done to where we're going so deep and I'm sitting

28:34here going, okay, you want to go, go against this agent at this listing at this brokerage. Here's what

28:39you need to say. That's value. I mean, that's real solid value. And I think the big, the big difference

28:46between us is we have people who have come from advertising and marketing, right? We have over

28:5275 years of global experience. They've done this before, but we also have people for real estate.

28:57And I think the other part of it that is different is we analyze a hundred percent what the competitors

29:04are doing. Yeah. I know every program, every offering, everything that it's doing, but how do we

29:10educate our team to give their unique value propositions? So they're better. Yeah. All right.

29:18I have a couple of lightning round questions and, um, the most overrated marketing tactic in real

29:25estate right now. Buy more leads without fixing conversion. Okay. Uh, most underrated one.

29:32Warm retargeting. Please do warm retargeting, whether it be FUB, whether it be Google, whether it be

29:39meta. It is so easy and just do that. Very, very easy. Uh, one thing agents should stop doing on social

29:48media immediately. Please stop posting templated Canva graphics. Please at least, at least personalize

29:58them because they build zero brand equity. So you're not meant to take the template and leave the same

30:04photo in it. Right. You know what I'm saying? So personalize those things that you need to stop

30:10doing that. Also make sure when you're doing the other thing that I would advise when you're doing

30:16social content, your content needs to be 60% you authentically you, right? Yeah. 40% listings.

30:25Uh, one thing they should start doing tomorrow, let's say brokers, what should brokers start doing

30:31tomorrow? Brokers should start really looking at when we're talking about, actually, can we talk

30:41about, can I go into like the consolidation piece? Because I think that's what really, you know, what

30:46we're really talking about when we go into that. So when you look at brokerages in terms of like what

30:55we're talking about, because the biggest thing that brokerages have trouble with, especially with this

31:00consolidation, is like you have identity delusion of your identity, like an agent's identity, you have

31:06culture friction, right? You have integration fatigue, whether or not you're leading a digital

31:11transformation, because 90% of companies are right now. Yeah. Um, you have operational slowdown, you have

31:16unclear value propositions. So when we look at like what needs to happen, these are the five things that

31:23that brokerages need to do right now in order to succeed. They need to know that agents know exactly

31:31what the brand stands for and why do they care? That's number one. Like you can sit here and tell

31:37it, but can an agent sit here and repeat your brand in one sentence? And do they know what it means?

31:42Two, um, agility. Are you able to move? Like if you're a big brokerage, for example,

31:49are you able to move like the Indies can? Yeah. Because Indies can adopt new tools 10 times faster

31:57than enterprise rollups. So you need to look at that. Um, number three, like, do you provide a sense

32:03of community and belonging? So when I, um, look at it, I'm like, do your agents, and this is, again,

32:11this is a win for like the Indies. Do they have leadership access? Do they have membership? Are they

32:16part of initiatives or are they put in just a regular box in terms of, you know, how they're

32:22going to agree? And then, um, two more is kind of like, do they have the flexibility that we talked

32:29about, which is operationally, they need to ask themselves that from a marketing standpoint,

32:34are you plugging in the best in class tools based on what you think is good or what, how agents are

32:41actually utilizing and building their business? Are you incorporating what agents are currently using

32:46on their own? Right. And then lastly, this is like my biggest thing. Um, and my best advice is you need

32:58to be in the strategic middle lane, which means you're not corporate, you're not boutique, you're

33:07high performance, you are human, you are scalable, you are nimble. Like I would say those are the number

33:14one things. So I would recommend for brokerages, like talk to agents who have been switching

33:21brokerages, the top reasons, like, yes, you're always going to have the top reasons that are

33:26splits, but the four top things that they go for are culture alignment, brand identity, leadership

33:32access, and obviously building careers and how they're going to do that. So I think we really

33:38listened to them and that's what they have to do. Great. This was a really informative. Um,

33:44I think brokers are going to have to listen to this a couple of times and take some notes.

33:48Thanks so much, Lauren, for, for sharing on the podcast today.

33:53Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure, Tracy. I loved it.

33:56Yeah, this is great. Thank you. Thank you.

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