Welcome to the Successfully Unemployed show.

My name is Dustin Heiner and I'm here to help you learn how to quit that job, that just over broke job with any means possible.

It could be starting a business, having a side hustle, being an investor, whatever the case you may be.

Today we're going to be learning from an expert on how you can utilize social media to build up your brand and build a successful business from social media.

All right, let's do this.

Welcome to the Successfully Unemployed show.

The place where ordinary people become extraordinary by finding the path to financial freedom through entrepreneurship, side hustles and passive income.

We've already blazed the path showing you how to retire early and have financial independence so you will never work for someone else again.

And now here's your host, Dustin Heiner.

Hey guys.

Now I gotta be honest, I personally don't like social media at all, but I know that it is a great tool for us as business owners, as side hustle experts and anybody else who's trying to make money outside of working a job, you know, that just over broke job.

And honestly, if I didn't have my businesses, I would probably be completely out of social media now.

After talking to my expert today, I definitely switched my tune because after hearing what he does, how he does it, and how it's completely changed his business and grown his business, I'm thinking, oh my goodness, I need to get in the game of social media or I need to hire people that can help me with my social media.

Because usually on my social media, like if you find me on Instagram, it's the Dustin Heiner.

And honestly, I'm not that egotistical to actually put the for it.

That's the only one I could find.

I would have just grabbed Dustin Heiner, but I wanted to make sure I had my name in it as well.

But you go to Dustin Heiner or sorry, the Dustin Heiner, look me up and you can find.

It's literally just me and my family doing things and showing you just what we do for fun and vacations and stuff like that.

But man, like the things that influencers do on social media like dancing and flapping around and all that sort of stuff.

It's just weird to me.

But apparently it works really well.

So I'm here to learn and my expert today is definitely showing us how we can use social media so we can build our business.

Now remember, get my real estate investing course.

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Text the word rental R E N T A L 233777 rental the 33777.

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Okay, now let's start the show where I interview an expert, Jeff Fitzer, who's going to show us how we can utilize social media to explode our brand.

All right, here we go.

Jeff, thanks for being here with us on the successfully unemployed show.

Thanks for having me, brother.

Good to be here.

What is the way or how did you quit your quit that 9 to 5 job?

What made you successfully unemployed?

Like, what do you do to make money to provide for yourself and your family?

Well, it's a, it's a loaded question.

I haven't formally quit anything if actually I've probably added more to my plate.

But I'm loving what I'm doing and I am not in my business anymore.

I'm on my business, which is creating a hell of a lot of opportunity for me.

So.

And honestly, the simple quick answer to that is I started doing video back five, six years ago and then it kind of evolved and morphed into becoming a social media expert and utilizing social media.

And now today I spend more of my time doing all of that, which has created an attraction to where business chases me and I don't chase it.

And I've been able to scale out of my business.

That sounds like someplace everybody wants to be.

That sounds fantastic.

Now what were you doing before this, like becoming maybe were you working a corporate job and you know, get the nerves to eventually quit or when I say quit, you basically stop working for somebody else and just work for yourself?

Yeah, I mean, I'm in the mortgage business is my day job.

That has been my job.

J O B.

I like how you do that for the last shoot, 21 years.

And I have dabbled in some things along the way.

You know, back before the crash, I was diversifying, thinking that was the right thing to do.

In hindsight, it was the worst thing I could have done.

I wish I had stayed in mortgage.

But what ended up happening was so I was in the business.

I mean, the mortgage business, if you're familiar with a corporate type of job, it's a, it's a grind and it's, it's, it's, it's rewarding.

But but also a grind.

And you've got a lot of pressure.

You're.

You're kind of engineering the biggest purchase of people's lives.

There's a hell of a lot of stress.

And, you know, it's.

It's.

There's pressure from real estate agents and all that jazz.

And the hardest part of it is you're always chasing the next deal, and you're only as good as your last deal.

And so what I was always perpetually trying to figure out was, how can I get the business to chase me?

How could I create something that allowed me to a grow, which then allowed me to scale and kind of remove myself from the business and just sit back and make it rain?

And that's kind of where I am now.

And also now I'm a part of several startup companies, which is where I spend most of my time.

That's fantastic.

I love having so much more time in my life not working for somebody else, but then I use that time, obviously with my family and traveling and all this fun stuff.

But we don't do that literally 100% of the time.

I make businesses, I start businesses, I have businesses that run, and it's because I have so much extra free time.

Okay, so you talked about utilizing video and social media and stuff to help build a brand, build a business, and be able to scale the business.

Now, where does that even come from?

Like, where does that start?

Well, obviously, we know that if you have, like, let's say you have 10,000 followers or a million followers on TikTok or Instagram or something that doesn't translate into money.

How do we, like, where do we.

What's the first route that we got to go with?

Yeah, well, so for me, the story is this.

We.

We were.

So.

We had been at the same company.

I won't give you the long story because that's kind of somewhat boring, but we had been at the same company for about eight years, which is a pretty long tenure in the mortgage business.

And we had a group, we were running a branch of roughly, we would fluctuate between 25 and 35 people.

We were struggling to grow.

We had plateaued.

We were doing well by comparison.

But.

But we were frustrated because we're entrepreneurs.

We want to grow, we want to get better, we want to make more, we want to earn more.

We want to all.

We don't want to always be bound by, you know, gosh, if somebody leaves, is it going to completely crush our business?

Right.

We ended up making a move, left the company that we were at then that we've since come back to to basically because we got sold for opportunity.

It was a horrible experience and a wonderful one all at the same time.

Because had we not done that, I wouldn't have created what I became.

And what I became was when we left, we were leaving the market share leader in my city, which is St.

Louis.

And I had to quickly figure out, all right, now I'm going to be the new guy in town, even though it's.

I'm not, but I'm bringing the new brand to town.

I got to figure out how can I compete with my now competitors who used to be my colleagues, and these are other branch managers.

And this was right about the time Facebook Live was becoming a thing.

I was following a guy who was doing these things called Coffee Talks, and I just was kind of fascinated by it.

I said, man, I just feel like this is where the future is going to go.

Social media, marketing, all that stuff.

I'm going to give it a shot.

And I can still remember the first Facebook Live I ever did, which was like a walkthrough of an office, One of the offices we had at the time.

It took me about 45 minutes to press play.

I had rehearsed it in my head.

I probably spent hours thinking about it.

I was nervous as hell, and I was basically by myself.

It was hard, but once you get past it and I started doing more of it, it started to become a little bit easier.

And then it evolved into where at the time, you know, I'm in the real estate business, essentially, I was realizing that, man, all I'm doing is talking about my business.

This is boring me.

Mortgages are boring.

I can still remember kind of that light bulb moment where my daughter, at the time, she was roughly, gosh, 12 or 13.

She's now 18, and she was making slime.

She's my little entrepreneurial kid, and she was making slime and selling it on Etsy.

And I was like, you know what?

This is cool, Isabel.

Why.

Why don't we do a live.

We'll make slime and we'll, like, try to promote it, and you can sell some slime.

And I did it.

And, you know, of course, for that kid, that age, like, being on camera is natural.

And I got so much engagement, so many comments, so many views, and I was like, huh?

Like, this is what people relate to.

And there were so many people like, ah, my daughter does it, my son does it, blah, blah, blah.

And I was like, I need to give them more what they want.

And so I just.

It just continually evolved into.

Now I call it my own personal reality TV show.

And it's just personal branding by turning the camera on my life more often, sharing it with my audience, sprinkling in my business.

And it's amazing how the digital celebrity that I've created has created exponential opportunity.

Now, is that just Facebook, like Facebook Live, or do you do other platforms?

It's started with a lot of them.

Yeah, I started with Facebook and has obviously since more.

Really, Facebook's one of my least favorite anymore.

In fact, I think Facebook, I wouldn't call it dying because it's too big to fail.

But to me, Facebook's all about groups.

At this point, I don't spend much time on my personal Facebook page.

I spend most of my time in Instagram, tik tok, and YouTube, because I think those are the three.

Well, I know those are the three monsters that are going to be battling it out for eyeballs and users and over the next probably several years.

But I'm also prevalent on LinkedIn as well.

So it's those five platforms that I produce content for on a regular basis.

That seems like a ton of work.

Have you figured out ways to make sure that.

It's like, I love creating content, and then it's the same content, but it's distributed in many different ways.

I'll give you an example.

So I create one podcast episode, but I record it on video.

So the video goes to YouTube, the podcast goes to my podcast, and then I have somebody actually write out what I say, transcribe it, then format it, and then put it on my blog.

But then we also goes to Instagram, it goes to TikTok, all that sort of stuff.

I do it one time, though.

So is there any tricks to.

Because I don't want to do a lot of work.

But it sounds like you probably have a system already put in place.

Yeah, well, I mean, you know, it started with grinding, right?

It started with learning.

And that's what I, and I, we now coach people.

We have these platforms that we do this stuff on.

And, and I, and I always tell people, I'm like, listen, if you're in a position to where you can hire all this stuff out, by all means, go for it.

But I'm going to tell you this.

You know, it's like to be.

To be a coach in the NBA or in a major league sport, if you had experience and you played the sport, you're probably going to garner a hell of a lot more respect than if you just Come off the streets, right?

And so the way I look at social media is the same thing.

If you are not a practitioner and you actually roll up your sleeves and you've, you are shooting your own videos and maybe you have some basic editing skills and you're writing your captions and you're writing your hashtags and you're understanding the game, the game of the algorithm, you know, it's going to make you stronger, it's going to make you better.

Because I do know some very successful people that just went from, I'm very successful, I'm hiring a team, just take my picture and do all the stuff, right.

And I'll talk in front of the camera.

But I do believe to be good at this, to be good at anything, you've got to, you got to roll up your sleeves a little bit.

So I did for a number of years and I grinded and then, and then I got to a point where I could afford to hire a full time videographer.

I had one on like retainer first and then I, and then I hired a full time videographer.

Now I have multiple videographers and editors.

We've now since hired and probably the biggest key to scaling, affordable scaling and effective scaling is virtual assistants.

So we now have about six VAs.

We have an op.

I started with someone who helped me with my Instagram.

So they, they first learned my brand.

They actually helped make it better, make it more refined, made it more consistent and cohesive colors and whatnot.

And they did that on Instagram.

And she still to this day still creates content for me on Instagram and does the captioning and the hashtagging.

And it took about two or three months of me grooming her and correcting some grammatical errors.

And then now she owns it.

Now she's the one telling me what to do.

I think I pay her roughly five or six bucks an hour and she's awesome and almost always accessible.

And then it grew to, we hired an operational manager.

So she kind of manages a lot of these businesses now who then helps US hire more VA's.

So we now have, I have someone who manages, edits videos and post to YouTube.

For me it does all my YouTube management.

We've got a copywriter who's doing blogs for us now we've got a graphic artist who's creating, you know, like the graphics for a lot of our posts.

And we're just continuing to scale and I think we've got another video editor.

We've got multiple video editors.

And so I've got some stateside and some in the Philippines.

And the affordability of being able to do this with VAs is beyond comprehension.

And it's allowing me to grow and scale and become way more omnipresent.

And even to this day people tell me all the time, dude, I see you all, I see you everywhere.

And I'm like, yeah, that's cool, I'm glad you say that.

And I want about 5x that like I'm not done.

And, and, and my next goal is actually to hire a social media manager Stateside.

You shouldn't have a VA which logging into your accounts.

They should be using third party posting services.

But I need somebody who can log into my account and act as me when I'm just not feeling it right or when I don't want to feel it.

I don't want to be in the grind all the time.

And, and, and, and because the algorithms are detecting where the logins are from, they'll shut you down if somebody's logging into your account from the Philippines or from anywhere that's not stateside.

And so I would recommend a social media manager locally or you know, in state in the states.

And that's my next hire actually.

Got it.

So I'll be honest, I recently hired a virtual assistant.

She does a great job with lots of different things.

But one thing I said, hey, I really don't want to post on anything.

Can you log in for me and post?

So that's a bad idea.

I didn't realize that.

But I did do recall when she logged in, Instagram sent me a message, hey, hey, is this you from way over here?

I was like, yes, that was technically me, not me, but it is me because I hired somebody else to don to do it.

So that's interesting because we, I definitely don't want to get shut down.

So now this brings up not that but the idea of hiring people brings up loads of questions about hiring.

But first let's talk about.

So you have these different platforms.

Are you creating specific content for each one?

Like TikTok specifically just a TikTok type of content, a YouTube short specifically just a YouTube short and things like that.

Like are they all separate or do you, have you found a way to maybe duplicate one thing over here and another over there?

Great question.

Most of it is multi purpose.

Now I will say I'm glad you brought up TikTok because TikTok has completely changed the way I looked at content and, and previous to TikTok.

And by the way, TikTok's evolved to longer form video, but it started at 15 seconds, went to a minute and now since has evolved.

But when it was at a minute it got me changing the way I shot video because now I was always thinking to myself, if I'm going to go live or I'm going to go live or just shoot a video on any topic, right?

You're a coach, you know what I'm talking about, right?

And so, or let's just say I'm a realtor and I go and I go and I want to talk about something that's happening in the market or a change to whatever, write a new listing.

We're scared to death of video when we first get on the camera, right?

To get on the camera, then we get on the camera and we won't shut up and we just, and we just ramble.

And you end up rambling for two or three minutes because it's just not, it's not scripted, it's not well put together and your, your mind kind of wanders a little bit.

And so what TikTok had me do was I'm like, crap, I gotta get this message that I thought was a minute, but damn, it's like two, two and a half, three minutes.

I gotta get this condensed to a minute.

So I started scripting my stuff.

So when I had my thought, which was actually a really good practice because then I would put it to paper and I would literally go to a word document, put it into a script.

And originally I was just doing a line at a time because when you're shooting a tick tock, you push the button stop, push the button stop, push the button stop.

Which, which creates jump cuts and you can change your background stuff like that, which is cool.

I've since evolved, I still do some of that.

But then I started to, to script it and use a teleprompter.

And so I use a teleprompter app for most of my stuff now because it takes me less time to write a script and shoot with a teleprompter than if I just tried to riff.

Because riffing, I'll end up shooting, reshooting, more edits, all that kind of stuff.

And, and so that's those, those are my tricks to answer your question, because I started doing that in TikTok.

TikTok became my content creator for two reasons.

Multiple reasons really.

Mainly because advanced editing features, all of the different, you know, tools and fun features that you can add to your videos.

But then the licensed music, you cannot add licensed music to, to any video and put it on any platform and it won't get muted or shut out.

But you can if you do it in TikTok and then post the TikTok to other platforms.

So I don't post everything because I create a lot of content on a lot of platforms because I'm a social coach.

I'm always testing.

But I use TikTok for a long time as my content creator and every video or a lot of my videos I'm not.

I was cross posting to Instagram.

Now it's.

I'm posting them to Instagram reels.

I definitely.

YouTube shorts is growing my channel.

So I'm.

All I'm doing is multipurpose in my TikToks and, and absolutely back to Facebook.

So I do do a lot of multipurpose thing.

I do do some organic reels and I'll.

And I'll multipurpose the reel to TikTok and vice versa.

I go both ways.

But all day long multipurpose does YouTube, not YouTube shorts.

Because I like YouTube shorts.

But do they not like I could have swore I saw something where they don't like that little TikTok logo on there.

Is that something that would, that would actually hurt you?

So I've been hearing that for a long time and we even had that conspiracy.

We have no proof and I've been testing the hell out of it.

So I've had, I've had some.

And actually it was Instagram that they were talking about.

But I'm going to tell you why I, I think that conspiracy is not true.

A, I've had TikToks perform well on Instagram and some bust.

Right?

It's just sometimes it's just a matter of the content and does it, does it go.

Go viral?

But the, the purpose of every social platform is the main purpose is one thing.

All platforms keep the user on the platform.

Right?

That's their goal.

Every platform.

And so when you're posting a YouTube link or a TikTok link or an Instagram link, you're going to be suppressed because that's the, the, the, the user has to click the link, be taken off of that platform and go to another one.

But if you're downloading your TikTok video for example, to your phone like you should because there's a little button to toggle and automatically and then you're posting it organically to Facebook or Instagram or YouTube.

It shouldn't matter that TikTok logos on there.

In fact you're doing Instagram or any of these platforms a favor, because now I'm saying, hey, Instagram, I'm going to give your user TikToks without them having to go to TikTok.

So I'm keeping them on your platform.

So.

And I would actually also argue that the TikTok watermark is an attractant because people now know, because TikTok has been wildly known as short form and entertaining, rather than this long form Facebook Live video where I got to listen to you BLABBER ON for five minutes.

Now when I see the TikTok logo, I'm like, ooh, let's see what they got.

Right?

And so my opinion is, I don't see.

I think that's wrong.

I just think people just made it up because Instagram is fighting against TikTok for eyeballs.

So is YouTube's doing that too?

Yep, exactly.

But YouTube created shorts.

Why?

So they could grab the TikTok eyeball.

So now when the Jeff Fitzgeralds of the world are posting my TikToks to YouTube, what am I doing?

I'm pulling the TikTokers over to YouTube.

And so I'm actually doing them a favor.

So, yeah, that's a good point.

And I know if I'm watching, let's say, a TikTok, I know it's going to be very, very short, like you said, as opposed to a YouTube video or even Facebook Live.

I hate it.

Okay, I've got my phone up.

Okay, everybody, I'm going to wait a few seconds before more people.

Don't tell me that.

I know you're going to wait, but just go ahead and start talking.

Then you could read anyways.

It's just irritating when they do that.

It's like, get to the point.

So now I love this idea.

Now you're building out where people are seeing you everywhere.

Is it because how do we get our videos in front of more eyeballs?

Is it hashtags?

Is it descriptions of SEO?

How do we do that?

That's a loaded question.

There's a combination of things that you can do.

The number one way to get your content seen more often is to get engagement.

And so, like comments.

Not just likes, but comments too.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, the more people that are engaging with your stuff, and that's just not comments and likes, it's also shares.

It saves.

It's all those things depending on the platform.

But at the end of the day, the more engagement you get the algorithm, which, by the way, it's not a.

It's not a little human on the other end, watching Your stuff saying, ooh, this is good.

I'm going to show it.

It's an algorithm.

And they're saying they've got 15, you know, 15 likes and 10 comments.

This is likable stuff.

And, and, and hey, guess what?

Dustin like Jeff's stuff.

So I'm going to start showing more of Jeff's stuff to Dustin.

And so which is why when a professional uses social media for business, which you should, but not create business content.

And I actually have a video about this where I say social media is all about business, but it's not about business.

Figure that one out.

And what it is, what it means is, is you're playing the game of hacking the algorithm.

And hacking the algorithm means showing puppy dogs, showing toddlers, showing travels, showing food.

Right?

That's the reality.

And then you sprinkle in your business.

Not because it's going to get engagement, because it's like a billboard.

Why do you put a billboard up?

No, very few people are calling off the billboard.

It's, it's repetition.

I drive by it all the time.

Over time, I just assume that's the expert in my market because I see their face all the time, I see their name all the time.

Right.

That's why you do it for people that buy, that buy investment properties.

Why do people market.

I buy ugly homes, I buy homes for cash.

It's repetition.

So when that time comes, you know, and, and it's the same concept on social media.

So people are driving by slash scrolling.

They're not going to engage my mortgage post because that's boring, but because they engage all my other stuff, my mortgage stuff will show up when I post it.

They're going to scroll right past it, but subliminally they saw it and they're going to associate Jeff with whatever it is he does for a living.

And that's the whole point.

Okay, this is awesome.

So what I've done with all my social media, I literally just post my family and all that sort of stuff.

I never post about my business, which I know I should, but I'm like, I don't want to bore people with that stuff.

But let me, let me ask you the question of like, basically a ratio.

If I'm going to post 10 times, how many times should it be business?

How many times should it be Life?

Or maybe 100 out of 100, like one business, the rest life.

Like how, what do you have some sort of like a idea of a ratio that we should be shooting for?

Yeah, there's no scientific equation, but we I say, I say we.

But and I, I say this because a lot of other ex.

Experts, and by experts, I mean in my mind, an expert is somebody who actually is a practitioner, right.

And can prove it and has the business to follow.

I say 80, 20.

So 20 would be the absolute maximum of how much you're posting about your business.

So try to make sure that the majority of your content is what the people want.

And, and honestly, as you're, as the more advanced you are in your career, like I am, I don't have to remind people what I do.

They already know what I do.

I just want Jeff Fitzer to remain top of mind.

I want Jeff Fitzer to be the guy that they, that I entertain them when I'm, when I'm posting fun, fun things that are happening in my life with my wife or with my two and a half year old or with my kids, right.

And I, I just want them to continually follow me.

That's, that, that's kind of the goal because the more they do that, they're going to know what I do and remember me.

And for me, my target audience is actually realtors.

And so, you know, I sprinkle in educational content that's going to help the realtor grow their business.

And, and so that's what I want to be known for.

And so that's.

You, you got to figure out who your target target audience is.

Jeff.

I'm definitely gonna learn from you.

So what is your.

Let's just do Instagram.

Cause I know you got lots of them, but just Instagram.

Cause I go on there maybe once every day.

But let me follow you.

I'm gonna follow you there because I want to see how's Jeff doing it.

Let me see if I can emulate that.

But what's your handle there?

It's my name.

That's my name.

Just type in my name.

Okay, so Jeff, so Jeff, Jeff, last name.

Pf.

P as in Paul, F as in Frank.

I, T, Z, E, R.

I just follow you.

So because here's what my dilemma is.

I definitely, I have plenty of brands.

I have different businesses and stuff like that.

And I'm like, I really don't want to just spam people with all that sort of stuff.

So here's, here's a thought.

A lot of people have their own brand.

Like give you an example, Master Passive Income or Successful Unemployed.

Two of my brands that I have, I just like those are just podcast episodes, YouTube videos, whatever.

I post those on there.

But that's probably gonna get a lot from what I'm hearing, it's gonna get a lot less traction than my own.

Like mine is the Dustin Heiner.

It's not because I'm egotistical.

Cause the only way I could come up with the Dustin Hiner.

But anyways, that's on Instagram and it's just all about me.

So if I, instead of having Master Passive Income and successful employee, just all, you know, like interview, interview, interview or whatever, just do Dustin Heiner and intermix the other businesses with my life.

Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, exactly.

And by the way, I would make the biggest mistake I see people make on social when it comes to their name is they try to get too cute.

And the reality is most of your audience and your customers, they know you by your name.

They don't know you by the lender in St.

Louis.

Right?

It's.

Or whatever you are.

I mean, or, you know, somebody had, you know, something Caribbean girl at heart.

I'm like, who the hell is going to be able to find you if you go look for me on any of those five platforms I mentioned?

I'm Jeff Fitzron, all of them.

Now, I'm lucky I have a unique name.

But put your name in your username so that you're easy to find.

That's great.

Now, okay, so Instagram, I love that idea.

So I'm definitely going to start incorporating that now.

Let's say YouTube.

YouTube is a tough nut to crack.

I mean, my goodness, I've been going at it for a long time with Master Passive Income.

I only have like, I don't know, 4,000 plus subscribers on there, getting a decent amount of views.

But I've been doing it for a long time, but for like eight months.

I put in three videos a week, and they're, I think, somewhat pretty good.

Is there any tips or is there anything that we should think about for YouTube that, that we can help, that can help us to get more views?

Is it like, hey, guys, comment below on this specific topic.

Like, any thoughts to help YouTube grow?

Yeah, and I'm not the expert at YouTube.

For me, YouTube is a, as a placeholder for me because I haven't spent a lot of time there, but I've interviewed a lot of YouTube experts and I have some friends that are just crushing it on YouTube.

And I can tell you exactly what they tell me.

For one, the same strategy that applies to all platforms applies to YouTube.

And that is the general strategy of engaging with others.

And so in other words, it's.

It's Tristan And I call this the LCM strategy, like comment message.

And obviously it's different for each platform, but that's the general premise.

In other words, if you've treated social media like you do prospecting, and it is essentially prospecting, and you set aside 30 minutes every day, I would go into your platform of choice, the one that you want to grow, or multiple platforms if you want to overachieve and spend, spend enough time liking commenting and messaging.

Twenty people, like target people, you know, people that, people maybe that were your past clients, maybe people that are your target referral partners, maybe somebody who's influential in your market and engaging them.

Right?

Because the more you engage them, the more they're going to take notice.

It's 10x more powerful than a cold call and even a warm call, because nobody really wants to be bothered anymore.

But when I take the time to post on my social media, wherever it is, and you give me an authentic, real comment, like, that tickles me.

And you damn well know I notice, right?

Because I'm checking my notifications and I'm like, yes, somebody watched my stuff and somebody actually paid attention.

And so you're remembering that.

And so if you create that as a strategy, like you're gonna, you're gonna build a rapport with that person, almost parasocial in a way to where they're going to start liking you.

And then when you do call them and say, well, for whatever reason, you got a reason to call them, maybe to invite them out for lunch or coffee or whatever, it's, it's, it's like, it's like hot.

It's not just warm anymore.

Now it's, hey, they like you without even knowing you.

Because what happens is, is when somebody engages me consistently, my natural inclination is I'm going to go check out their profile and I'm probably going to go down their rabbit hole a little bit.

And it's the same concept when, when somebody sees my content, like, if you stumbled upon me and you're like, oh my gosh, that was a great video.

Your inclination on Instagram is to click my profile or TikTok, click my profile, go see what I'm all about, go see if I have pictures, see if I have enough, see if I have a good bio.

And then all of a sudden you start scrolling my feed and you're like, and you start, I love it on TikTok.

Because people, I can tell when people stalk me because all of a sudden they've liked 20 videos in a row and they're just, they're going down the Jeff Fitzer rabbit hole.

And I do the same thing with people and that's what happens.

And so it's.

That kind of go also goes back to your question, you know, how can I grow?

How can I make it more intentional?

The problem with anything in life, this isn't just social media is we're lazy.

We want get rich quick.

And social media is not get rich quick.

It's, it's about two to three years of grinding and, and executing being consistent poster, being a consistent engager, being a consistent, you know, commenter, being a consistent, you know, obviously going out and actually going and reaching out to people without them connecting to you.

I mean, there's, there's a combination of factors that you got to put into this.

Also, you mentioned hashtagging.

People follow hashtag.

The algorithm is paying attention.

So they know I live in St.

Louis.

They're going to show me more St.

Louis stuff.

They know I'm vacationing in Florida.

Ironically, the same stuff in that market shows up on my feed.

That's why you use hashtags specifically Instagram and Tick Tock and then of course keywords on YouTube.

YouTube's different.

That's Google, that's SEO.

Right.

But for the, the Tick Tock and, and, and the Instagram and Facebook, it's all about geo and, and like local hashtagging or topics, you know, if you want to focus on.

You're a photographer and you want to focus on weddings.

I'm always hashtagging weddings and wedding locations because I want my content to show up to the people that are seeking that stuff.

Right.

That's the name of the game.

It's just cataloging your content, basically.

So is TikTok.

Is that type of content the same 80% being personal, 20% being business?

Because I've also seen there are TikToks that are blowing up where, let's say they're just literally just teaching finance.

And in a weird way, like there's a, I met this one lady, I was at a conference and she has a TikTok that's exploded really, really well.

But she dances so funny and like so weird.

Like she's making fun of herself.

But she puts like finance information, like teaches finance with her TikTok videos of her dancing.

Really, really weird.

But that's literally her entire channel.

Should we do something that's a blend or one that's more 80, 21.

That's all content.

What do you think?

So here's the beauty of social it's not one Size fits all.

And so, even though Jeff is preaching to go 8020, I do know some lenders and realtors that have gone all in on their business content, and they've gone viral.

They've become very well known, and they're crushing it.

I won't say it doesn't work, because it does work for people.

For me, I find authenticity easier.

Like, I don't want to work harder.

Right.

And so to answer your question, either one can work.

So you're right on TikTok.

I mean, there's.

There's.

There's some mortgage people that are.

I can think of 3 off top of my head that have, like, 3, 4, 5x followers that I have, and they're 80 to 90% mortgage, but that's just how they've been able to grow.

However, it's more edutainment than it is education, and they've figured out ways to make it a little bit more entertaining.

So you got to find your mojo.

If you're good and you're creative and you can figure out a way to create business content and make it fun and entertaining, by all means, go all in if that's what you want to do.

But if you're like me and you're like, damn it, I.

I want to do this, but I want to work my ass off, then what I suggest doing is, is just turning the camera on your life more often and creating your own personal reality TV show, because everybody loves that stuff.

It's created tons of followers.

And I'm telling you, if I.

If I had a nickel for every time I've gotten a phone call from a realtor in wherever market, I'm.

St.

Louis, just wherever.

Ohio, California, Florida.

Jeff, I.

I feel like you don't know me.

That's how they started, Jeff.

You don't know me, but I feel like I know you.

And it's like, I already know I've won that relationship, and I didn't even do anything.

All they did was stalk me.

And that's.

So that's why I'm passionate about that side of it, because it has worked really, really well for me.

So this is fantastic.

Now, how do we trans that, translate that into money?

Because followers don't equal out the money.

I know there's one huge celebrity that was like, Instagram or whatever, she was like, had lots and lots of followers, and she put out a clothing line and nobody bought.

And she.

It was like, instead of millions of people following, thinking that some would buy, none of you did.

But how do we now translate that into making money.

Yeah.

So for me, I mean, what I've been able to do is, is.

So I'll use myself as an example, because that's real.

Is again, my target is Realtors.

So if you have any loan officers that listen to this show, and actually this.

This is applicable to realtors as well, and it could be applicable to anybody.

So for me, my target was realtors.

So it's like, how do I again attract them?

So it started with, all right, what is every loan officer saying?

And they're all giving the same spiel, right?

Just like every realtor is going in, giving the same generic listing presentation.

Every loan officer is like, I.

I'm accessible.

I have great rates, I have great programs.

I'll answer your phone on nights and weekends, and I'll meet every commitment date.

Right?

Duh.

Like, that's your job.

That's not value.

And so what I realized was if I can become the expert at something that's valuable to their business, that is when I start attracting them.

And so that's where I went all in on the video and then social.

And what I quickly learned was that, okay, the industry is actually really lagging in that department.

There's a massive gap.

Most brokers aren't doing this stuff, so how can they teach it to their realtors?

So now all of a sudden, I just figured out my, my window, my, my.

Actually more of a door, more of a garage door that I can barge through and position myself as an expert.

I ended up infiltrating the largest, you know, real estate Facebook group on the planet, Lab Coat agents.

And now I, you know, I host their podcast.

That's how we met.

And I'm a big contributor in that platform.

So I basically get to be a, a, a billboard inside of a group of 140 plus thousand realtors.

And it's not because I'm telling them, hey, I do mortgages and I do them well.

It's, hey, let me give you a tip on video.

Let me give you some tips on social.

And then people just gravitate towards me because I'm bringing them value.

And so for me, it's create.

It creates relationships, which then creates opportunities.

And it's created massive growth for us, like 5, 6x.

I mean, we went from our best year.

I started doing this in about 15, 16.

It took about two to three years to really gain traction.

We had our best year in 19, which was around roughly 800 units, four for 135 million.

We spiked.

We hockey stick curved in 2020 to, we did around 1900 units for 370 million.

This year we're going to do almost 2300 units for over 500 million, half a billion.

So we have grown to levels that beyond my imagination.

And the concept is, is whatever it is you're selling, if you can gain the followers and gain the eyeballs on social media, then you can, you've earned the right to deliver the messages.

So for you, for example, right, you're, if you're an investor, you know, for example, I'm going to target my messaging to, you know, homeowners that might need to sell.

Homeowners that might be, might have financial troubles, definitely realtors, right.

So, and, and I'm gonna start creating content that positions myself as the authority on that topic.

So I hopefully those people fall into my web and then as they're going through their hardship or whatever it is that I want them to get into my web, they're going to think and call me.

To me, Dustin, this is the most organic, free way to grow your business.

And it's a complimentary piece.

Like if you're, if you're crushing it with, with, with billboards or putting signs in yards or any, any form of traditional marketing, don't stop doing it.

Start doing this as a, as a tag on because you're going to need to continue to do the traditional things.

But in two to three years, if you do what I told you to do, you're going to be able to vacate all that crap you probably hate doing and vacate those expenses that you had because now the business is going to start to flow into you.

So I hope that answers your question.

I mean as, as an influencer, just generally speaking, the more eyeballs you have, the more loyal followers and raving fans that you have, the easier it is to say, I wear X brand of sweatshirt, I wear X brand of hat.

I highly recommend actually I am an influencer for a shoe brand.

They just send me free shoes.

They don't pay me anything.

But I've gotten free stuff out of it to create them content which is really a great deal for them.

For me it was like, just made me feel special, you know.

So for them they're getting probably, if they hired a marketing agency, tens of thousands of dollars in videos that I'm creating for them because I'm doing it for fun.

And, and you think about it, it's kind of a win win for companies.

So if you're out there and you're selling a product, influencer marketing is by Far and away the most brilliant form of marketing of the future.

In other words, find somebody who's got a bunch of followers, give them your product, and in return, ask them to create a bunch of content for you.

You're now getting tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of eyeballs on your product and somebody's going to tell that those people in a subliminal way buy this.

And it's so freaking valuable, man.

That is.

And especially as an influencer, it's great when somebody does that they value, they say, hey, what you're doing is so great.

I want to put either my money behind you and actually pay you.

I just got a sponsor, 4,000 bucks, and I was like, oh, this is great for YouTube and everything.

This is perfect.

Like, I get to create good content and they're paying me money for it and they're getting benefit from it.

Also with being an influencer, it also definitely helps, in my opinion, to have something that people can give you money for.

Like if you say, well, I go to my Patreon and donate to me, you're going to get very few people doing it.

But if you're giving them something in return, a value something, I'll give you example, like with real estate, I teach people how to invest in real estate, but I give out so much free content in YouTube and Instagram and all that sort of stuff.

At the same time, I have ways for them to give me money if they want me to for helping them, coaching or courses and all that sort of stuff.

So it all works together.

It's just another fantastic, in my opinion, like you said, even better way of marketing.

Because if, like YouTube, you make one video that just stays and keeps playing over and over again, you don't have to do anything else.

If you put up billboards and banners and yellow letters and all that stuff, like trying to get deals, that's a lot of money outlay, like you said.

So, man, Jeff, you give us lots and lots of great stuff.

Now I want to jump into the rapid fire round and the rapid fire round.

The questions are short, but your answers don't have to be.

So first question is, what is one bit of advice that we probably looked over that I probably should have asked you from the beginning.

All this social media is completely useless if you don't get in front of the camera.

So if you're not going to shoot video, and I would even take it one step further, if you're not in a position, which most aren't, to hire a videographer, learn Some basic editing skills.

And this is a shameless plug because we did start a school called the business Video School.

But I will tell you so we teach this stuff specifically to the real estate world but we would do it to anyone.

And we teach camera presence and how to shoot and what equipment you need and lighting and, and scripting and editing and everything.

But there's also this little platform called YouTube so if you're a self learner you can go learn on your own.

I actually Learned from a 13 year old again she's now 18.

But that was the kid that I would force me to sit down.

She taught me how to TikTok, she taught me how to, she's taught me how to how to edit videos.

Like if you have kids, they know how.

That's the one biggest piece of advice I would give anybody who markets anything.

Practice video shoot video consistently.

Because I'm going to tell you this, your video will outperform any non existent one and gain some basic editing skills.

Learn how to edit the beginning and the end so there's no fluff that it starts right from the beginning.

I'll throw one bonus tip on there and learn how to start every video with a good hook.

I hear it every single day from some good people, some, some highly, highly successful people and they start their videos out with hey, Happy Wednesday.

Great to be here today.

Like don't do that.

Start with a hook.

Start with a hook every time.

Tease the video, you know, ask a question, anything to get them to want to stay.

Then you can introduce yourself.

Then you can go into the, to the meat and potatoes.

But do never, do not start with Happy Wednesday or hey guys, that's another thing.

Social media is actually one to one and we all think it's one to many because it is.

But you're actually talking to individuals on the other end.

So stop talking as if you're Gary V.

Because you're not, you know, you're talking to one person on the other end.

And I love the idea that you said like don't say Happy Wednesday.

Like you get people that say good morning, it's afternoon when I'm watching this, like why are you saying good morning?

Like that's just silly.

Like be present.

And I love the also idea.

Everybody really needed to catch that you're talking to an individual every single time.

It's just one person.

Now there's many individuals but individuals, that's what you got to look for.

Okay, next question is what's one bit of advice that you would give your younger Self, you know, young, you know, 10, 20, 30 years old.

Like when you were really 30 years, a little long, let's say 15 year old.

What kind of advice would you give your 15 year old self?

Don't chase every shiny object that comes in front of your face.

Go all in on, on what?

On what you're good at and what you know, you can grow and scale and, and just dial in.

I definitely have been known to chase shiny objects, so that's a good idea.

Okay, next question.

What is one non fiction book that you've read that you would definitely recommend that we should read?

It could be business, could be life, whatever it is, but non fiction.

I'm not a big reader because I spend a lot of time on social.

But one of the books that had the most profound effect on me was called Living with a Seal by Jesse Itzler.

I, I just so happened to get to meet him as well, which was by chance.

He happened to be at a mastermind.

I got to spend a little time with him.

He's a billionaire and it just, it.

So the book in of itself is very entertaining and really awesome.

And he's got another one living with monks.

He's a very fascinating dude because it had.

It led to a series of events beyond it that helped me create what I've been able to create because he, he gave me some advice that was very valuable back then and it was just, it just stood with me.

So that book, and he also sent me 100 copies.

I've given a lot of them out and I still have a bunch, but they're, they're, it was a, it's a good book.

It's a really good book called Living with a Seal.

Man.

Jeff, okay, you give us so much great advice.

I know people are going to want to reach out especially to learn more from you.

How can they find you and reach out to you online?

Well, my name.

Go search me on whatever platform you spend time on.

Feel free to shoot me a DM on any of the platforms.

I have no problem actually.

Usually when you DM me and if the conversation is going to go anywhere else, I'll quickly shift it to text because I check that more often.

So my cell phone number is 314-220-4945.

Seriously, if you got any questions, just shoot me a message if I'm super.

You know, a lot of you like oh my gosh, you're so busy.

I'm like, yeah, I'll respond when I have time and, but I will respond and so yeah.

If you've got questions, if I can help in any which way, yeah, please feel free to shoot me a message and I'm happy to help.

That's awesome, Jeff.

Honestly, giving out your phone number, that's huge.

So that's.

I'm impressed.

So, Jeff, thanks for being on the show.

You give us lots of great advice, so I appreciate your time, man.

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See ya.