Building a Media Empire on YOUR Terms w/ The Broke Agent

Whether you've been a real estate agent for 15 days or 15 years, every Realtor knows The Broke Agent. You may love his content and think it's hilarious, or you're offended by it and think it's hurting our reputation as real estate professionals.

Either way, you may be right. But it doesn't matter because Eric Simon, aka The Broke Agent, has built a massive brand and media company in spite of your feelings or opinions.

Eric tells the story of sitting in a dead open house and deciding to post some funny memes about the "less exciting" parts of being a Realtor, and how by consistently doing that for the last 5 years, he's grown an Instagram following of 250,000+ and is getting attention from Inman News and Tom Ferry, among others.

As Eric explains, he did it all on HIS terms, regardless what kind of negative pushback he has received along the way.

The Broke Agent is also a master content creator, and he explains which social media platforms he's focused on the most to grow his brand, and why. He gets specific about how Realtors can use TikTok and Instagram Reels to build their businesses, and shares some of his best tips and tricks for having success as a real estate content creator.

This is an entertaining interview, but also super enlightening to see behind the curtain at the business and content machine that is The Broke Agent.

Connect w/ The Broke Agent:
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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

This week we're talking to the broke agent, Eric Simon. He's going to tell us all about how he built the broke agent into a recognizable brand that we all see and laugh at on Instagram every day, but also how he's able to create so much content, where he puts it, how he does it, because he's one of the best content creators in our industry. And he he knows all the secrets. He knows all the tricks. And he's going to share those with us today.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

I love to buy houses.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

I like to sell houses. What is up, everybody? Welcome to episode 161 of the Massive Agent Podcast. I've got a good one today with the broke agent himself, Eric Simon. And you guys all know who the broke agent is. If you've been in the industry for more than 32 seconds, you've seen the broke agent's content on Instagram, Facebook, anywhere really. It's hilarious. And uh, and so he he tells us today some stories about first starting out as a brand new struggling agent sitting at dead open houses, hating life. And so he just wanted to have some fun with it. He wanted to poke fun at our industry and just kind of give a voice to all those inner thoughts and frustrations we have as agents and make light of it in a way that uh that makes us laugh a little bit. So um it's it's a super interesting conversation. And one that I love I love behind the scenes stories. I love hearing how someone built a brand. I love hearing the shit that we just don't see, right? Like all we see is what he posts. Like the same thing with you guys. Like people can only see what you share. So if you want someone to get to know you, you should share some things so they can get to know you. You know what I mean? But we only see what he puts out there. We don't know the story. And so I was super curious, like, how much backlash does he get for the for the content he does? How much, how much of his uh feedback is negative versus positive? And so he talks all about that today, which is super interesting, but he's also one of the best, most prolific content creators. I just use the word prolific naturally too. Like that sounded that sounded normal. He's one of the most prolific content creators in our industry. He's mastered TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. He does it all. And he's sharing some of the those tips and secrets and strategies that he uses to to you know get half of or not half a million, a quarter million followers on Instagram. I mean, a quarter of a million people follow the broke agent. I'm one of them. I turn my notifications on because I think it's hilarious shit whenever it comes across. Uh, you know, we all need we all need something to make us laugh in our news feeds with all the with all the craziness out there in the world today. But uh I learned some stuff from him. I'm I learned some specific like content creation tactics and tricks like creating a video meme for Instagram reels and putting it out there uh when I wouldn't have thought to do it. I would have just made it a feed post. And then he talks about TikTok and how it's specifically to use that. Really interesting conversation. I think you guys will enjoy it, especially if you're if you've been listening for a while and you're and you're you know you're sold on hey, you need to post more on social media and you need to do it regularly, but you're like, what exactly should I do? Where should I put it? Totally valid questions. I mean, that those are very valid questions. Hopefully, this conversation today helps you get past that a little bit and understand where you can post certain things to get the most traction and some of the tips and tricks. So we'll get into it with Eric Simon here in a second. If you are new to the podcast, welcome. My name is Dustin Brohm, your host. I'm an agent in Salt Lake City, Utah. I am the co-founder of the Industry Syndicate Real Estate Podcast Network and the founder of the Massive Agent Daily social media posting app that tells you what to post every single day. Uh, MassiveAgent Daily.com to check that out. Our uh Facebook lead gen training and coaching program is called the Massive Agent Society, where we have a database of ads you can copy and paste. Those ads are proven to work. Um, you know, our our uh client, our member, Wayne, he got 5,000 leads in seven months. 5,000 leads in seven months, and he's closing dozens and dozens of deals from the Facebook ads already. It's incredible. And he just copied one of our ads and he's running it. So you can check that out at MassiveAgen Society.com. One announcement, something cool I've been working on, something I've promised you guys that I would do for a long time. I've finally done. Okay. The Massive Agent YouTube channel is up. Now it's been up for a while. It's just been a boring podcast episode with waveform, so there was no video. So here's where I'm here's where I'm starting, guys. So first off, go over to Massive Agent Podcast.com slash YouTube. Takes you right to our YouTube channel. Make sure you subscribe and hit that notification bell so you so you know whenever we drop a new video. We're gonna start with the video of all of these podcast interviews. So you can if you guys prefer to watch the podcast happening, it's over there on the Massive Agent YouTube. Um, what we're also gonna start doing is taking, you know, bits from the podcasts that talk about a certain topic and chopping those up into separate YouTube videos. And then I'll also be creating once or twice a week, once we get rolling with this, I will be doing uh YouTube specific videos, like videos that are talking about a certain topic specifically for YouTube. They're not gonna be on any of my other platforms, and you have to be on the Massive Agent YouTube channel to get that. So please, again, you can obviously go the old-fashioned way, go over to YouTube, type in Massive Agent, click subscribe, hit the notification bell, or Massive Agent Podcast.com slash YouTube, and we're gonna start doing regular videos over there because you guys have been asking for it. Um, we've been recording the videos, we just haven't been posting it because of bandwidth, but I've got that solved. I've hired a team, I've hired some help, and we're gonna start putting out the video. Um and I'm just I'm excited about what YouTube is about to do for me and my my brand and for you guys and uh expanding my education on all things marketing. I mean, I I get YouTube, like I understand it, but I don't really understand all the details and the nuances and what makes a video do well and what doesn't. Well, I'm about to, and I'm excited, it's a lot of work, but fun stuff. So everyone who everyone of you guys who's already subscribed, thank you. I'm gonna do I just thought of this, okay? Random thought. Kind of cool. For ever everyone of you that goes and subscribes to the Massive Agent channel in the next week, take a screenshot, okay, of it once you've subscribed. Take a screenshot, send it to me in a DM, okay, on Instagram or Facebook, but preferably Instagram at Massive Agent, shoot me, you know, that that screenshot saying, hey, I subscribed. For everyone that does, I'm just going to do a zoom call with you guys. We're just gonna do a zoom call. I don't know exactly when yet. It'll be sometime next week or the or the week after. But um, I will let everyone know. Say, hey guys, let's all jump on a zoom call and we can just chat. We can shoot the shit, I'll answer your questions, and and we can talk for an hour. So that'll be that'll only be open for those who are subscribed to the YouTube channel. So go do that. Send me the screenshot, you'll be on the list, and then I'll get you the zoom link. We'll schedule that and do it. That sounds fun. Let's do that. All right, speaking of fun, speaking of doing things, let's do the interview. Let's uh let's talk to Eric Simon, the broke agent. Uh super interesting conversation. I think you guys will like it. All right, guys, I'm here with Eric Simon, the broke agent for episode 161. Eric, what's up, man? Welcome to the Massive Agent Podcast. How you doing? Thanks for having me. Fantastic. Uh, I, like most other agents, have been following your your Instagram account and your you know, your Facebook account, The Broke Agent, for years. And it's just hilarious. Thank you. And uh absolutely so I wanted to bring you on and just kind of hear more about you. And I understand you're a real estate agent as well, which is, I mean, it's kind of hard to do what you do without having some experience as an agent. But um, you know, I don't think we get to hear much about you. And I'm kind of curious like backlash you might have received or you know, any issues or great things that have happened um, you know, since you started doing the broke agent accounts on social. So um why don't you take you know 30 seconds or so and let us know, you know, where you are, which market you're in, and you know, how you got to um to be the broke agent guy.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Cool. Yeah, I'm in Brentwood, Los Angeles. I do primarily condo sales. I've done a couple of house sales as well, but a lot of my friends are buying condos for the first time. We're kind of at that age where they're getting engaged, having kids. So it's a perfect time to kind of use my USC connections and all my friends here to start representing them in purchase and sales of their first homes or condos. Um, started the broke agent five years ago because I was working on a team in Beverly Hills at Hilton and Highland, where I was door knocking and cold calling and sitting dead open houses every Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday, and had no success doing that, had no success cold calling. I hated it more than anything on earth. Felt extremely uncomfortable, really awkward, hated door knocking, was praying that no one was going to answer the door. And then basically didn't want anyone to come in the open house because I didn't want to talk to anybody because I was just so uncomfortable at 25. Um, and just didn't know much, right? So when you don't know a lot of what you're doing, obviously, like real estate comes with experience. You know, you start understanding the language, you understand the market more the more you've been in it. Um, I was just really uncomfortable. And then I wanted kind of an outlet to show that uncomfortableness and that anxiety. And there's really nothing that I saw that was showing this. I saw Instagrams of top agents and top producers, and everybody was killing it. Everybody was a motivational coach, everybody was selling all these million dollar homes, and I just felt like an idiot, basically. And it was just like, how is this happening? How is everybody so successful in this business? And then just kind of started tweeting out the inner monologue of a struggling agent under the alias, the broke agent, because I didn't want it to be me, and then kind of blew up from there. And so, how long have you been an agent? I've been an agent licensed, like six years. Six years. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

So you launched the broke agent shortly thereafter, shortly after getting your license. Yes. I actually sorry.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Uh I was the receptionist at a brokerage um for about three months and then became an assistant and then a buyer's agent. So I had some experience beforehand and had no intention of doing this, but it was when I was a buyer's agent, like actually doing the lead generation tactics of cold calling and door knocking and reading that Keller Williams book and going to Tom Ferry conferences that like I started getting a lot of content actually being in the field. So that's how it started.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Nice. I mean, you say the stuff that every agent thinks and just doesn't say or doesn't know how to say, or they feel like they shouldn't say it because it's not professional, you know, and and you you just said screw it and came out and you you throw it out there. And I I think that's why you've built such an audience. And you know, I you know, I make sure I get notifications when your posts come out because they're they're hilarious. Like, of course, they're um like every agent's already thinking this stuff, and you just you put it in such a uh a hilarious way that it's almost like uh it gives us an outlet too. Um, otherwise we just bottle it up and we're like, man, this really sucks. And we assume that that's just the way it is and nobody talks about it. Um, what kind of positive feedback and negative feedback have you had, you know, over the last five years since you started the uh the broke agent? Mostly positive, which has been great.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Um, at the beginning, start off as kind of a blog, too. So I would write things like five things to do while you're bored in an open house. Um, kind of just like stupid stuff like that. And a lot of those got picked up because they were kind of like degenerate blogs. It'd be like, you know, nurse your hangover, do laundry, you know, throw like rocks at birds, like really stupid, unfunny shit that I would never write right now. But just kind of like stuff that I thought, you know, agents would enjoy reading while they were sitting dead open houses. So I got a lot of like shares from that early on, but there was a lot of negative feedback being like this guy's an idiot. Agents do not do this. Do you know who Late Lee Brown is? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I remember she shared one of them in a Facebook group and went off about it, being like, This is like the worst thing I've ever read. Agents, if you're sharing like this broke agent post, you should not be like your audience doesn't want to see that. So there was definitely a lot of kind of finding the line of what is acceptable and what's not. And what, like, I don't want to make agents look stupid, right? Like, obviously, I'm talking about the inner monologue of a struggling agent. So a lot of it's kind of the anxieties and everything that is going on in our heads, but I also don't want people sharing stuff that makes our whole profession look bad. So I've gotten a lot of pushback on that, saying, like, hey, you're giving away our secrets, you're giving away like our deepest problems of what's going on in the industry. Um, but success-wise, immediately it started getting shared by like Tom Ferry. I spoke at an in my news conference kind of right off the bat. So it was that like immediate success in the sense of you know validation from higher ups in the real estate industry that really made me feel like I was onto something.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Did that negative pushback ever make you second guess what you were doing?

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Yeah, definitely. Um, and I get negative pushback on a lot of like Instagram posts. I've I've kind of like found the line of what not to do politically, um, what not to do if I'm like sharing someone's like information. Like there's there's probably a post like once every two or three weeks where I'll get a message from somebody saying, like, hey, you should delete this because of this reason, or because it offends this community, or because it, you know, you're showing this person's information or something like that. I want to necessarily give specific examples, but it rattles me. It really does. I'd like to say, like, I have a you know, Dgaff attitude with that. Um, but you know, my my point is to not necessarily like offend people, it's just to make people laugh. So yeah, the negative feedback sucks sometimes, but it's overwhelmingly positive. So I just kind of keep going.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

That's good. Um you must have loved it the other day when Elon Musk tweeted out legalize comedy. Yeah. And people actually lost their minds, like there's something wrong with saying that. Which I want to find those people in real life and just smack them. Yes. Because I I don't I don't get it. But do you feel like the climate we're in in society has made it a little more difficult to do what you do, or is it more enjoyable? Or I mean to tell me about like the you know, the last couple of years when shit has just gotten crazy.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Yeah, well, I'm I'm not a comedian, I'm not like doing stand-up or anything, so I'm just posting real estate memes. So I can't really, you know, talk on it like I hate political correctness and all this because I'm literally I do hate political correctness, but I'm you know posting like real estate memes and humor. So I think yeah, in our industry, um, especially because it's kind of like an older demographic and a lot of like the content goes on Facebook, that's kind of where a lot of the negative feedback goes. I like to test stuff out on Twitter or Instagram to kind of see what the feedback is before I post something to Facebook, because if it goes to Facebook, then that's kind of where like people could jump on it. Um, but yeah, to answer your question, I yeah, I think the political climate right now and just kind of how oversensitive everybody is right now kind of puts you know handcuffs on a lot of people's content, which sucks. But you know, I don't know, you just gotta keep posting.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Yeah, exactly. Um I think, and you feel this. I mean, you said it's overwhelmingly positive feedback. I think overwhelmingly the industry appreciates what you do and finds the humor in it. It's not supposed to like it's supposed to be satire, it's supposed to be making fun of certain things and and like paint taking this little thing, pouring gas on it and making it like extremely uh what's the word, like over in over exaggeration, but it's obviously so. Yes. Um, I appreciate it. So of course, has it helped your real estate career? Like, have you, you know, because we now know you and you know, 100,000 plus people follow you, um, has it helped your real estate career?

SPEAKER_01 16:33

It's helped in the sense of if I'm in a multiple offer situation and the listing agent knows who I am, I feel like I already kind of have a direct line of communication. So a lot of people uh or a lot of agents when I'm showing a place or something, they kind of already know who I am. And that's just really helped communication-wise, because they feel like they've been talking to me for like four or five years. And then it also kind of like puts a weird aspect to the relationship because anytime they do something that I've talked about or I do something that I've talked about, it's like this joke where it's like, hey man, I'm not trying to, you know, you know, joke around here, but you know, we do actually, we are actually expecting offers. And I'm not just saying that to like act like there's more interest in the property than there actually is. So I feel like sometimes it handicaps it as well because people are kind of like worried that I'm constantly just like looking for content. Um, from a sales perspective, I've been focusing on the broke agent primarily, especially for the last two or three years. So I've gotten referrals from it, nothing that's actually closed. I've had one listing appointment from it, but I'm not trying to generate business from it. I'm trying to get out of real estate from this. Like that's my entire goal, always has been the goal. Um, you know, doing real estate consistently helps with the content, of course, because that's where it all comes from. So I don't know what's going to happen when I stop doing real estate. But uh goal has been always to build the brand, turn this into a real media company, get out of selling real estate because clearly you could kind of tell in the voice, it's not something that I particularly enjoy.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

I think that's fair. Well, I I love that and respect the shit out of you for admitting what we all think, anyways. I mean, you do that, that's what every post of yours is, but you're you're like, look, I don't love this. Like, it's cool, you know, pay some bills, but like I'm you like this is what I'm focused on. I don't I don't want to sell houses the rest of my life. And you're honest about that. Um, I've done, you know, I've taken a similar path where I want to build a business, I want to build brands, I want to, you know, run those businesses. I don't want to be making offers and showing homes and private buyers across town when there's two homes for sale in the whole city, anyways. Right. Um, so I appreciate you for saying that. And I think that that's smart. It's one of the themes that we talk about a lot in this podcast is when you're an agent, you can use being a realtor as a springboard or as a stepping stool to a much bigger career, a much bigger business or or whatever, personal brand, media company, all of the above at the same time if you want to. So I think it's cool that you're kind of showing people um, you know, your cards and like, hey guys, like if you don't really love being a realtor, like maybe you should, you know, do something else with it and it's okay because it is okay. Uh is that going according to plan? You know, are you are you seeing that that is um like are you getting validation regularly? Like, you know what, this is working. Like, I'm gonna keep doing this.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Yes, it is going to plan as of like the last couple of years. So, first three years, I really didn't know what is the goal with this. Like, am I just building an Instagram following to sell stupid t-shirts like the one I'm wearing to people? And you know, when in my 25-year-old brain, I was like, this merch operation could be ridiculous. Like, I could be like, you know, a Jake or Logan Paul of real estate and just like sell merch. Right. But selling real estate merch is not something that's gonna make me a ton of money, right? Like once you buy a funny real estate shirt, I don't know how many times you're gonna keep buying, you know, a wake-up drink real estate drink shirt. It did well, but um, so I did a book, I did Commission Impossible, which was a cartoon book. Um, I've tried a lot of different things. I tried an animation series, I tried a podcast called Caravan Confessions once, just kind of seeing what I'm good at. Am I good on the mic? Am I good on video? Um, but now it's finally developing into a media company where I'm actually hiring talent under me to do these things that I'm not necessarily good at. So I have Matt Leonetti. Do you know who he is? He does like really funny real estate videos.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Yeah, he's hilarious. The dude with the mustache, the dude with the black leather jacket.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Exactly. That he's from Canada, he sings, he does hilarious listing videos and music videos. Yeah. And he is doing a podcast, the broke agent presents over asked with Matt Leonetti, and he's interviewing like real estate legends. We had Brian Serhant, uh, Jordan Cohen, we're having Maya Vander on later today, actually. So it's kind of like developing into a media company in the sense that like this is what I would want as a realtor starting out, instead of reading Inman News and reading, like, hey, what's Rela G stock price at? Inman news is great, by the way. I read Inman News every every day for content and for the broke news network show. So I'm not trying to uh minimize what they do, but I I think that there's another lane for media for like younger agents that are just starting out, where it's just like, hey, this is how you do it on Instagram, this is what you do on Facebook groups, this is Clubhouse, this is Twitter, this is TikTok, like these are the strategies, and these are the influencers that you should be looking at to kind of help you through your real estate career.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

It shows you're a great example to show what a personal brand or a brand in general can do. And, you know, those things you mentioned, you know, your book, your podcast, your media company, um, you know, merchandise, all that is those all pour gas on your brand, and your brand fuels those. Yes. And and so many agents are only focused on like, I'm Dustin with EXP Realty, and you know, or I'm Jan with Keller Williams, and and they make it about themselves, the realtor with some other brand. Cool. Like you can you might have a great career, but you know. You can't pass that off. You can't do, you can't build onto it. You can't add other income streams to it. Not really. Um, but you can if you build a brand. Right. And and so the I love hearing the you know the behind the scenes of of your thought process and you know what you've put together and all that. Um, because it's a big deal. Like being an agent is freaking hard and it sucks in a lot of ways. Yep. And uh I I think if we're all honest, we're in it to make a living. There's so many other ways you can make a living besides earning a commission check.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Yes. Yeah, that that that's always been the problem for me is just the instability of the income. Yeah. So I need, you know, monthly revenue, whether it's from like the template platform, from podcasting, blog posting, affiliates, mail lists, merchandise, speaking gigs. Like that's the type of thing that I need to continue and that I like doing way more. I like producing content, making people laugh, and you know, seeing that validation on social media, which just made me sound really shallow. Not that I need to see like the likes and comments, but I've always liked making people laugh in general. That's my favorite thing to do, you know, in conversation, uh, which I'm not doing right now. I'm not being funny at all, but that's okay. Um, I like that that's just my favorite thing. Um, real estate is just kind of like, like you said, it's a great kind of springboard for stuff that you could be good at, whether, you know, from a media perspective. Like, you know, barstool sports exists, right? Sports is my passion. Um, being funny in sports, there's a million people already doing that. There's a million people doing stand up. So I kind of saw real estate as this lane where I could use my humor um to build a brand from it. And thank God it gives nonstop humor every single day. Because every time something bad happens, which is the majority of the time, there's some joke to be pulled from that in the form of a tweet, a skit, blog post, meme, something like that. So anytime you're sitting in an inspection, something happens, dead open house, any bad client interaction, can't get a lockbox open. Like there's it just it gives you nonstop humor, which is fantastic. Yes. Yeah, so that's what I love about real estate is that it you know keeps kicking me, and then those kicks turn into jokes.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Well, it is the gift that keeps giving in many ways. Yeah, uh for sure. It has it gotten easier to come up with content ideas uh over the years, like you seem to just naturally uh like you find the humor in things, or you you find like, oh my god, like if I just put this spin on it, that's hilarious, or you know, I can't even believe this, everyone will understand. Has that gotten easier?

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Yes, I think so. I think at the beginning it literally just had to come up from my brain. So I had to experience something, write it down in my notes section, and then formulate that into a thought and a tweet, or like attribute it to a picture. But now, as the following has grown, so many people are submitting content, which is the best thing ever. So, like, sorry. So, my store, my Instagram stories now, I'm getting tagged and you know, 50, 100 posts a day of people saying, like, hey, here's something that funny happened to me at a showing, here's a lockbox situation. Sorry to keep using the same examples, but people are sending me and submitting content. And that has just helped me so much because I'm just getting constant ideas from my audience now, and then they get the validation from like a tag or they get followers from that, which is great. That was an earthquake. Did you feel that? Was it really? Did you see that? No, I think my uh my girlfriend was at your desk, yeah. Um LA, so who the hell knows? Right, exactly. So, yeah, but that aspect has been great, and then also there's so many accounts that are kind of doing similar stuff that I'm doing now and other industries. So there's like attorney problems, stupid resumes, non-equity partners. So you have like these financial meme accounts, and then we could kind of use each other's pictures or videos and then throw at an open house at it at the end of it, or just like attribute like some real estate to it. So now as Instagram has grown and TikTok has grown and all the other platforms, I could kind of navigate other places to uh get my content from, farm it from.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Which one of those platforms is your favorite right now? Which one do you think has the the best growth opportunity for you and the broke agent?

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Uh, I mean, Instagram keeps growing a lot for me, especially now with Reels. Um, it seemed kind of oversaturated. There's so many accounts, obviously, and it's it's not like the early days where you could post a meme, get a bunch of tags, and then you're getting a hundred follows from that post. There's just so much content out there. But Reels has really made it easier. I think from the broke agent content, Instagram's the best because it's more intimate, meaning if you tag someone in a broke agent post, not everybody is seeing it, like on Facebook, right? So if it's something like you don't want your clients to necessarily see, you're sharing that to Facebook and it has the broke agent watermark on it, your clients are thinking this guy's an idiot or this girl's an idiot. I want to work with this person. Like they'll keep sharing all these horrible things that real estate agents are doing, or all these tactics that I've heard this agent actually say, right? Right. So Instagram for me, I think is the best place because it's that intimate comment tag session. But as far as growth goes, TikTok by far is the best place for any person starting at a brand or starting in real estate to grow.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

So, and you mentioned reels too as a big opportunity. Have you found what what kind can you describe the type of content you're doing on those platforms? Because to be honest, and I know a lot of other agents feel this way. Like, I get Facebook, I get Instagram, I get LinkedIn, and then all of a sudden, like TikTok comes out. Like, I even understand Snapchat, but then TikTok comes out and it's like, how the hell do I use that? Yeah, and it reels is the same damn thing. Yes. So how are you using it? And you know, describe kind of how you're using it that's different than you know, Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Um, so with TikTok, I'm kind of using my memes and then turning them into actual skits and acting them out. So anytime if it's like what I'm doing when I'm bored in an open house, or God, can I come up with any other example than a lockbox situation right now? It's like when I start talking in podcasts, that's like the only thing I can think of.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

Um there's 47 of them all next to each other and they're not labeled.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Right, exactly. Yeah. Um, I don't know. My my TikTok is basically um my memes acted out. And the good thing about TikTok is you could kind of scroll through a lot of content and then use real estate as a twist. So TikTok's all about trends and songs. So in order to actually start posting good TikToks, you have to consume so much of it to even see like how am I gonna start filming one of these? Because it's embarrassing too when you pull up the TikTok app, it's all a bunch of 18-year-olds, like ridiculously attractive, 18, not ridiculously attractive people in general, is what I mean. Doing doing like these dances and these skits and everything. You're like, Jesus, what the hell am I supposed to do on this? Like, real estate content sounds like the cringiest thing on earth, and it is. Um, it really is. It is, and like so now I see realtors like you could point at stuff, right? You could point at stuff to different tunes, um, which is also insufferable, but it's a good opportunity for this like kind of young group of buyers, like the Gen Xers, not Gen Xers, Gen Z.

unknown 29:03

Right?

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Yeah, I think that's what they are. Yeah, yeah, Gen Z. Where you could say, like, you know, here's how you get pre-approved. Um, here are the home buying process steps, um, or here's what a buyer should do before they write an offer. Or for TikTok, it's great because it's got great editing and great music. So you could just film awesome listings. So the the realtors that I see that are absolutely killing it on TikTok that have millions of followers are always ones that are just filming properties. So you could do really gorgeous shots of here's the kitchen, here's the yard, here's the here's the view, here's the garage, set to like some cool uh juice world song or something like that. Does that make sense? It does. I feel like I was all over the place there.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

No, I'm I'm envisioning this.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

I'm like I think I can give better explanations than this. I just mean TikTok is great to grow for agents because it's not oversaturated yet, and you could post something that gets hundreds of thousands of views without any following. And Instagram, in order to get something that gets that many views, you have to build up a following that has a hundred thousand people before you post something that could go remotely viral. So the growth options on TikTok are huge right now. Um, and like you said, when Snapchat came out, you're like, I don't want to do this, but Snapchat's was great practice for Instagram stories, right? Like Snapchat story and filming that like kind of authentic content of yourself instead of just uploading loading photos was kind of a great transition to Instagram stories. So when people said I want to learn TikTok, it's like, well, now look at Instagram Reels. Instagram Reels is TikTok, except for Instagram. So you do kind of have to like adapt these technologies and evolve with the platforms, otherwise, you're not gonna get as much engagement.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

Right. Yeah, Snapchat was incredible. And to your point earlier, where if you want to do you know half-decent TikTok videos, you have to consume a lot of them just to understand it, like just to get how the platform works and like the culture or the language of it, because they're all different. And when Snapchat came out, it was uh like January 2016, is when I really committed to it. And I I was like, I don't get this. This is because stories was brand new then, like now, like everything has stories, you know, target.com stories for God's sakes on Twitter too. They're coming. Twitter's fleets, yeah, like named after an enema. That's fantastic. Please tell me you did some content about that. Well, I I I don't know what a what a fleet enema.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

I know what an enema is. It's a brand of enema. Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't I don't know how you know that. I don't know anyone else that would know that. Well, let's not go there.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Let's change this, change the subject quickly. But anyways, um sorry. I start using Snapchat and just 10 seconds at a time, just over and over and over, doing snaps all day. And pretty soon I'm like, holy shit, I'm not fearful or nervous or um, you know, I I can just speak freely in front of the camera without thinking twice about it. And before Snapchat, you had to just record a video and post it, like a long video. And I I always had that weird like awkwardness, or even my first YouTube video, I was reading a goddamn script off screen and you could follow their eyes, you know. Yeah, but Snapchat changed everything once I realized you could tell a story 10 seconds at a time and add some creative over the top. So that like all of a sudden now I can be on video, I can be on stage, I can do a podcast, I can I just don't have any nervousness really. Like if I speak on stage, I do, but um on in front of the camera, not at all because of practicing on Snapchat. So yeah, to your point, that's a very big deal. Um if I'm curious because Reels, I haven't used TikTok and Reels nearly enough to understand the differences between the two. Is there one that you prefer over the other?

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Um, the editing software on Instagram is great, it's very similar to TikTok. Um, I think I like TikTok better in the sense just because the growth is so ridiculous. On TikTok, you're gonna post something that gets 2,000 views, or you can post something that gets 200,000. On Instagram, I kind of know where it's gonna land. Um, but I think everybody, you have to use reels now. So Instagram engagement wise, and I like study this stuff. And by study, I mean I watch YouTube videos on it every now and then. Um, the Instagram algorithm now is obsessed with reels. So whenever Instagram comes out with a new feature, it pushes that feature and almost suppresses content that isn't using that or suppresses an account that isn't using that new feature. So even if you're just posting videos to reels that are of your properties or something, just do that. You don't have to like do it in a TikTok form where there's music and there's text popping up. You could literally film something for 10 seconds, 15 seconds. You could put a song to it and just say, here's my listing at you know 43 Beverly. And Instagram will see that and start like promoting your content a little bit more. So you have to post reels.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

They definitely reward you. I remember when Facebook, uh Facebook Live was fairly new and they were doing Super Bowl commercials for it, and they would reward the shit out of you if you went Facebook Live.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Notifications to all your your friends and everything like that. And yeah, they they reward you heavily for using reels, which is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

It's just like IGTV. When IGTV came out, they rewarded heavily. And now no, I mean IGTV still exists, but that you know, to actually click on the video after the 15-second preview, a lot of people just don't do that, right? So reels is is kind of filling that void as their new feature. And when Instagram has new features, even on story, you got to do polls, you got to do votes, you got to use gifts, you got to use questions, like you got to use every Instagram feature because that's kind of what like keeps pushing your content. And Instagram says, like, hey, this person's using my feature. I'm gonna like upvote their content, basically. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

Yeah, um, the last point about TikTok, because I've barely used it. Like, I think I might have 10 videos on there and they're all over the place. One of them, I think I had three followers at the time, maybe five. Um, also almost double the followers, but it was of my two-year-old daughter eating pasta with a Barbie doll's foot, and I got like 12,000 views or 13,000.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

I think I saw that. I think I saw that one actually. Did you? Yeah, I think I follow you on TikTok.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

Uh and I was just totally messing around. I'm like, yeah, let's try this out. And I had literally like single-digit followers and 13,000 people saw it. Yeah, it's crazy. And I'm like, um, it it is. So I completely understand uh, you know, that power of the the TikTok algorithm. And plus it reminds me I need to, you know, actually do more on that platform. Um that's a big growth opportunity. Let's talk about creating the content itself because you you are such a great content creator. How are you doing it? Like, do you have a specific workflow, a specific process, certain apps you use? Um, when let's start with you get an idea for a piece of content. What do you do? How does that look?

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Um I organize it in a section sometimes, whether it's an inspection idea, open house idea, agent-to-agent interaction idea, client. So I basically have a note section on my computer that kind of like breaks down the different categories. Because a lot of these ideas like will pop up while I'm at an actual showing or something, and I'll throw it in my notes section and then you know translate it to my computer later. And then I'll I'll usually test these things on Twitter. So if it's something that I can think that would just be better as like words or just like you know, a text-based post, I'll test it on Twitter, see how that does, then test it on Facebook, and then kind of Instagram's like the Mecca. I think I'm kind of walking back what I said originally about testing on Instagram, then going on Facebook, but that was for like politically charged posts or something edgy. Um so and then I'll see like, okay, is there a picture I could attribute to this? Because pictures always do better than just text-based posts. Um, if I can't find a picture, then I'll go on YouTube and see, like, you know, can I screen record one of these things for an actual video and try to turn this into a reels? So, best case scenario is whatever thing I came up with, I could turn it into a reels because again, that's what's getting the best engagement right now. So there's not really like a process, but I also try to um have a variety of posts. I don't want all reels, I don't want all memes, I don't want all text base, I want some slideshows, I want some IG TVs, like having that variety and giving people different types of content, especially for different platforms too, is kind of what keeps people coming back. Because if it's the same thing every time, same jokes or same format, it's just kind of like tired some, right? Right. So there, yeah, there's not really a process. I try to post two or three times on my feed each day and at least like eight to ten story posts a day. So that kind of like keeps it going on Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 37:35

Um, I've noticed that you some of the memes that you do that have video that normally would just be like a feed post. You're you're putting into reels now, aren't you?

SPEAKER_01 37:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

And you're seeing growth from that versus just a feed post.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

Oh, a hundred percent. So the the views I'll get on a reels, I could get up to a quarter million views on reels. But if I post that just to my feed, I'll get 30,000 to like 80,000 views. So it's a complete game changer. You have to do it, you have to format it, you kind of have to change it into uh IG story format because it's that longer, that longer style post, vertical post. So if you could break the video down into 15 seconds or anything less than 30 seconds, always gotta go with reels because you're just gonna get that much more engagement, that that many more followers from it.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

And okay. So so if you you think of a any agent out there could think of some meme, whether it's funny or just attention getting or educational, whatever, they go find a 15 second or less video clip, and then you think they should put that in reels as opposed to just posting it in the feed.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

Yes, and then you should also edit it in reels. So, like TikTok, if you're not formatting the video on the actual platform, it suppresses that engagement. So if I were to post something to TikTok and it was a video that was recorded on my phone uh beforehand, or I guess from my camera roll, and I posted that to TikTok, TikTok would know, like, hey, this isn't native, so I'm not going to promote this as much. They're they're trying to encourage you to use all of its features. So even if you could put the text on Instagram, on Instagram Reels, highly recommend doing that as opposed to formatting it like outside in a different app.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

I've seen some TikTok videos that go crazy on Reels. It you think that either it's just so good that it goes crazy anyways, or they take they download the TikTok video, upload it to Reels, and then do further editing before posting it. Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Possibly. I mean, you could still do well with TikToks to Reels, but just from what I've read, best case scenario, you're filming on reels, editing on reels. So as long as you're using some of their, you know, whether it's their music or you're adding a little bit of text or a sticker or a gif or something like that, you could just get like a little extra boost of engagement. It's not necessarily going to be the difference between like a super viral video and a non-viral video, but it's helpful.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

Yeah. I think that the content of the video makes the biggest difference. Is it funny? Is it worth sharing? Nice. Um have you like do you have a uh background in in comedy? Like, you know, how did you or or are you just naturally a funny guy that decided to start talking some shit uh you know on Instagram about the industry?

SPEAKER_01 40:15

Or um that start? My first job out of college, I worked at the Laugh Factory. Um so I went to USC in Los Angeles and then worked at the Laugh Factory Comedy Club, not doing stand-up or anything, just kind of being around comedians. And then I worked in their marketing department doing their Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. So kind of perfectly evolved into this. And then I also had a blog called The Pudgy Caddy, which was kind of like a you know post-college social blog about like what it was like going out in LA and going to these specific bars. It was really kind of just specific to my friends and like the places we were going. And if I read the posts now, they're probably read the post now, they're like the douchiest things of all time, and they should be completely wiped from the internet. You should edit this part out of the podcast. Don't give them any more reason to censor shit. All right, we don't need any more of that. Exactly. Um, so yeah, there was that. And then I've always just been kind of like funny within conversation. I've done, I did stand up like once in San Francisco at a club called the Brainwash and did like a Yoda impression and then walked off stage. It was horrifying. Um that sounds horrifying. Yeah, and then before real estate, I was doing Vines. Remember Vine, like the six-second app? I do, yeah. So I quit the laugh factory and then had like a two or three-month unemployment phase in Santa Monica where I was literally just like making stupid Vine videos, and some of those did pretty well. So I knew that there was something there with content. And then I was always writing poems, I was always always writing like sports poems about like USC football or the Yankees or anything like that. So I wrote for a sports comedy site called Bacon Sports. So it's always been content producing, never in real estate, never thought it would happen until it happened, and now I'm here.

SPEAKER_00 41:55

I I appreciate you sharing that because so often we don't realize all the practice that goes into you know getting to be a great content creator on stuff that isn't even around anymore. Like you mentioned, Vine. Well, Vine was huge until it wasn't, it was huge until it just went away. But like Logan Paul started on Vine, and now he's a monster uh everywhere, everywhere, like YouTube, everywhere. Um, and a boxer, apparently, a prize fighter. He's fighting Mayweather. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Insane genius marketing. Yeah. And his brother, too. Um but yeah, you you you put in all that work and and you were practicing, not having any idea what it would lead to. But what was important is you were just practicing and you were you were learning how to speak to the internet and in different ways. And then all of a sudden you get put in a spot where you're like, wait, there's like I can do something with this as an agent. Um, and I don't know of a better industry than than a real estate agent. Maybe an attorney is perfect.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

It is no, not really. And I mean, attorney, there's jokes to be made, but you can't really build your brand as an attorney making fun of stuff like this, right? This is I mean, there's attorney problems and there's a bunch of kind of law accounts, but they're not necessarily like trying to monetize, or they're they're not trying to like as a real estate agent, we're so lucky because we get to build our own brands outside of just being an agent or build our brands within real estate, right? Like you could do podcasts to get more sales, you could sell merchandise, you could do hilarious videos. As an attorney, you have this professional reputation that you can't just be like this, you know, alcoholic goofball that's like talking shit about your industry nonstop. You can, but I don't think that's gonna necessarily help your business. For real estate, you have like infinite opportunities to like take whatever hobby you're really good at and kind of like turn that into your brand and build your following, not just like, hey, here are my open houses, but I love golfing. This is, you know, I'm gonna attract like golfers as well. Not a prof not a profound example right there. I you Know, had a good statement and then just cap it off with such a weak ending. But shit the bed right at the end. Yeah, seriously.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

Uh cool, man. Um, I I love to end interviews with these rapid fire questions. Um, you can pick either or well, no, not you can. You should pick either or one or the other. You don't need to elaborate unless you want to. Okay. And then at the end, I'll ask a couple open-ended questions, and then um you can let everyone know where they can find you and find out about your template program and your book and all that good stuff, which we will link to in the show notes of this episode. Oh, by the way. Yes. All right, my friend. Facebook or Instagram? Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

Do I do I provide reasons or I just say answers?

SPEAKER_00 44:42

Rapid fire. We'll we'll just go through Instagram. Okay, sorry to interrupt. Really want to elaborate by all means. Okay. But uh you don't need to. Okay. Instagram or TikTok. Still Instagram. Despite everything I just said. Books or podcasts. Podcasts. Podcasts or audiobooks. Podcasts. iPhone or Android. Alexa or Google Home.

SPEAKER_01 45:09

I don't want any of them listening to me. None of them. Burgers or pizza? Pizza. New York or LA. Sports wise, New York. Living wise, LA.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

You like LA?

SPEAKER_01 45:27

No, I don't like LA. I want to move as soon as possible. But I'd rather be in 70 degrees than you know 10 degrees and 90 degrees and Yeah, plus their freaking humidity in the summertime. Exactly. But I'm a big Yankee fan, so.

SPEAKER_03 45:41

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

Like, no, I hate LA, screw it. But it's better than New York. NFL or NBA. Uh NFL. College or pro. College. Mountains or beach? Beach. Podcast or vlog? Podcast. YouTube or Facebook Live. YouTube. Uber or Lyft? Uber. Gary V or Grant Cardone. Gary V, of course. Of course. Yeah. What's the most impactful book you've ever read or listened to? I don't read books. I'm an idiot.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

I read I read Holes for summer reading when I was in fourth grade.

unknown 46:24

Holes.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

Is that the one they made the movie off of? The Giver. I don't know. Oh, The Giver, yes. Uh, I mean, Catcher in the Rye. I liked when he was calling everybody phonies. Delete this part of the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

We're gonna feature this and uh it'll be like I it's I don't not read books. I just I can't tell you there's a book that's been like you know life-changing for me.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

Fair enough. Uh, what's one app recommendation as a content creator that you that you love using to uh to do content besides the social networks themselves?

SPEAKER_01 46:58

Right, of course. Memes is a great app. So memes has a bunch of gifs from the gift store and then actual memes. So you can search whatever expression you want. You can search like pissed off, or you could search uh you know angry, which is the same thing as pissed off. True. Um is that the purple and black? It is, but you can also format videos on it. You could format memes. So a lot of what I do is I format my video on memes before posting to reels before I actually format even further. So memes is a great app for content creation. Momus is also great uh for formatting pictures and posting memes.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

Momus?

SPEAKER_01 47:36

Momus, M-O-M-U-S.

SPEAKER_00 47:39

Oh, I haven't heard of that one. Cool. So in I have that memes one, the yeah, the purple and black icon. It's like $2.99 a month or something. Yeah, it's okay. It yeah. They'll let you you can change like the change it to like a nine by 16 for yeah, you could you could crop, you could size.

SPEAKER_01 47:56

Insta size also you have to have. Um, I use instasize for all my reels and formatting. So anytime you want to format something for Facebook, for Instagram, for Twitter, InstaSize is what you do. And that's a separate app? Yeah, completely separate app. So this is all just like formatting, but you you have to get instasized if you're trying to like formulate the same piece of content for multiple platforms, you got to use instasize. Nice, love it.

SPEAKER_00 48:19

Cool, man. Uh, aside from obviously the broke agent on Instagram and Facebook, where can people find you and you know, get your book and all that stuff?

SPEAKER_01 48:29

Uh, the brokeagent.com is kind of like the homepage for everything. Uh, thebrokeagentbook.com is where the book is. Commission Impossible Rogue Agent. It's a cartoon about a struggling realtor named Ben Ackerman, aka the B A. Um, just kind of going through the struggles of a young realtor from getting his license, joining a brokerage, and trying to go through his first deal. And then we have a template platform that's on coffee and contracts. You can go to the link in my Instagram uh profile. So if you're struggling figuring out what to post on Instagram, Facebook, we have monthly content for you. I do funny content, 30 to 50 posts a week. And then there's an entire bank of other content, um, email, signatures, templates. There's a ton of shit on there. So it's great. And then also got a podcast coming out tomorrow, depending on when this is released. So two days ago. Yeah, it will already be out when people are listening. Called Over Ask with Matt Leonetti. Our first guest is Jordan Cohen. So check that out. And then I have the Broke News Network, which is an IGTV show where we cover the news, talk about market updates. I give kind of like Instagram, social media tips, and that comes out every Wednesday at the Broke News Network.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

Awesome. Eric, thank you so much, man. Keep doing what you're doing. I love seeing your content. Absolutely. Thanks for uh, you know, and and plus giving us some tips on how you create the content you do, uh, which is genius. So thanks, man. Appreciate your time. Appreciate it. Well, I enjoyed that. I like I really love getting the background story and the behind-the-scenes stuff because I could only imagine the blowback that he got or that his brokerage has received for some of the shit he puts out because it's it's hilarious and he's pushing the boundaries. And some people get offended, some people think it's not professional, but whatever. I think it's awesome. I think it's a breath, breath of fresh air. Uh, but also his his content creation strategies, his content sharing strategies. I mean, you cannot organically build a following of a quarter million people on Instagram unless you're doing good shit and you're doing it well and you understand the platform intuitively and doing things a specific way. Like you can't just randomly throw stuff out there and and reach a quarter of a million followers. So he's someone who really knows his craft. He just does it in a very hilarious, uh, sometimes off-color, which I love, and uh unprofessional way. It's awesome. So, Eric, thanks for thanks again for coming on the show, my friend. Guys, I forgot to mention this before the interview, but uh, I am now doing a weekly clubhouse mastermind every Friday. I should probably look up the time here. Every Friday at 10 a.m. Pacific, that's 1 p.m. Eastern time, 11 a.m. mountain, noon central. See, normally I just give the Pacific time and the eastern time, because let's be honest, Pacific and Eastern, you guys think the world revolves around you anyway, so you don't know how to do the time con time zone conversion. So you've got to be told us here in the mountains, mountain time zone and the central time zone, see, we know how to convert the times. So if I just get a time in eastern, I know I'm two hours behind that. But you guys on the coasts, you guys on the coasts, I don't know what it is. You uh you Pacific and Easterns can't do the conversion. So again, 10 a.m. Pacific time every Friday, 1 a.m. Eastern time every Friday on Clubhouse. We're doing the Massive Agent Mastermind, and it's good shit. We did one last week. Great conversation. So if you're hearing this on Thursday or Friday morning, make sure you go and listen to uh jump on Clubhouse, search my name. You can find the event I'm doing. It's called the Massive Agent Mastermind. Jump in there, raise your hand, love to have you come up on stage and you know ask a question or share something. But uh, I'm doing that every single Friday. Once again, East Coast and West Coast. 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern. And I don't need to convert that for Mountain Central because we're awesome. Guys, appreciate you listening. Um, we'll see you in the Mastermind. Remember, go subscribe to the YouTube channel, take a screenshot, send it to me, and you will be, well, not entered, you'll be able to join us on our subscriber-only Zoom call that I'm gonna do here in the next week or so. Um I'll put a once we get everyone, you know, once I know everyone who's who's there, I'll throw a few times out, we'll see, we'll let everyone vote on it and uh pick the one where where people where most people can join, but you have to be a YouTube subscriber to do that. Thank you guys, appreciate it. Have a great week, have a great weekend, go sell some homes, go close some loans, go be awesome. That was uh damn, that was that was one impactful way to end an episode, wasn't it? Take care, guys.