How a Podcast Funnel Built a Real Estate Brand from the Ground Up

[00:00:00] Most people never think about how to truly help first-time homebuyers or how to turn that into a powerful brand and business. But that's exactly what my guest today, David Sedoni, did. In this episode, he shares how he used a podcast and digital media to disrupt the real estate world, educate buyers, and build a growing business from the ground up, even in the toughest housing market.

[00:00:25] Now, you don't have to be in real estate to appreciate this next episode because you're going to learn a ton about content, podcasting, and finding your niche, whether it is at a personal brand or as a business. But you've got to make sure to stay tuned to this next episode of your Digital Marketing Coach Podcast. Digital. Social media. Content influencer. Marketing. Blogging. Podcasting. Vlogging. TikToking. LinkedIn. Twitter. Facebook. Instagram. YouTube. SEO. SEM. PPC.

[00:00:54] Email Marketing. There's a lot to cover. Whether you're a marketing professional, entrepreneur, or business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert advice. Good thing you've got Neal on your side. Because Neal Schaffer is your Digital Marketing Coach. Helping you grow your business with digital-first marketing, one episode at a time.

[00:01:24] This is your Digital Marketing Coach. And this is Neal Schaffer. Hey, everybody. This is Neal Schaffer, your Digital Marketing Coach. And welcome to episode number 413. On this podcast, I interview a lot of experts. Many are authors. Some have their own businesses. They're entrepreneurs. Other are corporate marketers.

[00:01:47] Today, we have an interview with a content creator. Or as our friend Joe Polizzi would say, a content entrepreneur. David Sedoni is the founder of HowToBuyAHome.com. He took his passion for educating first-time homebuyers and turned it into a digital-first brand and thriving business. Built almost entirely from a podcast. This episode is full of lessons on niche digital marketing, the power of organic content, and how to build trust through education.

[00:02:17] And trust me, it will be applicable to any of you regardless of what industry you are in. If you're trying to grow your brand, connect with your audience, or use content to drive your business forward, David's story will inspire and guide you. So without further ado, here is my interview with David Sedoni. You're listening to Your Digital Marketing Coach. This is Neal Schaffer.

[00:02:42] Hey, everybody. This is Neal Schaffer. Welcome to another exciting live stream episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast. Today's guest is going to school us on a lot of things related to this new landscape of organic content, whether it be social media, whether it be Google, and he is not your average marketing consultant, author, speaker. As you will find out, he is the founder of HowToBuyAHome.com.

[00:03:10] And as he puts it, at 49 years old, he pivoted into his third act, creating a passion project company to truly disrupt an industry in dire need of disruption, the real estate industry, using multiple branding and marketing techniques, including a podcast with over 1.7 million downloads. That is a really impressive number. His entirely self-funded company is growing even through the worst year for first-time homebuyers in history.

[00:03:38] So we're going to find out the secrets. Well, there won't be secrets anymore, but we're going to find out all about how he did this. And I know that some of you listening are in the real estate industry. I also have clients in the real estate industry. So I'm really going to be looking forward to learning more about specifically that industry. But I believe what he's going to teach us is going to be applicable for everybody. So without further ado, the founder of HowToBuyAHome.com, David Sedoni. David, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. And boy, I could have used you six years ago.

[00:04:08] Well, we all could have used you six years ago. So, you know, let's get started. That's sort of part of your story. That's your third act. But not everybody thinks of, and I know we're going to get into the power of podcasting. Not everybody thinks of starting a podcast. Not everybody thinks of, you know what, I'm going to disrupt an industry and I'm going to figure out how to do it with digital marketing. So what is the DNA that brought you to where you are today? And please also describe a little bit more about what exactly is HowToBuyAHome.com.

[00:04:38] Well, the platform is an education and empowerment place for first-time homebuyers. Where they can get everything that they need to know for what is a gigantic hole in the real estate industry, which is the planning aspect of buying your first home. Especially because today's consumer is used to researching. A while ago, two or three years ago, I figured out that every millennial had had Yelp since they were 17 years old.

[00:05:03] So this searching, talking to the hive mind in your Facebook and getting information from other places is what they do. And the real estate industry has done a horrendous job of, number one, helping first-time homebuyers. And number two, explaining to them that being a planner is part of the process. They've turned the entire industry into, from the real estate end, they are looked at as door openers.

[00:05:30] And from the lending end, they're looked at as number punchers. As opposed to people that help them with the planning of the most difficult, complex thing that anybody, young adult, has done in their life. So I had grown a real estate team to a point and I had a bunch of buyer's agents working for me. And then my wife looked at me, I work near Disneyland in Southern California and have a ton of deals with them. And she goes, you're only happy when you work with the Disneyland people. Because I thought I was going to be happy managing a team.

[00:05:59] And I realized that that education, that motivation and inspiration, uplifting of first-time homebuyers, everybody in real estate knows it's a cool thing. No one wants to do it because it's a low ROI. So I thought, digital. That's how I scaled this. And as I continue my story here, you're going to see way more error than trial. And at the beginning, I was 100% positive I was going to be a YouTube star.

[00:06:28] In my 20s, I actually hosted television shows. So I'm good with sitting in front of a camera and talking. But because I was always making sure that I was learning, always making sure I was growing, I was consuming tons of content for a year while I was figuring out to make this move. I was 48 at the time and I was like all over Gary Vaynerchuk and the Social Media Marketing Examiner and anybody that was talking about digital media.

[00:06:55] And I can't remember, Flash something like six, seven years ago that Alexa was trying to do Flash briefings, I think. I remember that, yeah. Yeah, remember that? Everybody was talking about it kind of like Clubhouse. Remember how everyone was talking about both those things? Right before Clubhouse, there was Flash briefings. Before Clubhouse, yep. Audio. Audio got in my ears. Gary Vaynerchuk said it. A bunch of different people I studied in the real estate world were talking about those Flash briefings. And podcasts.

[00:07:24] So here I am trying to build a YouTube channel, trying to figure out how to go organic on Facebook and Instagram. And dipping my toe in ads. And as a side note, I'm going to do a podcast. Lo and behold, suddenly as I kept doing that, thinking it was just going to be for my Southern California people as kind of a pre-buyers consultation. Like here, get a bunch of your questions answered. Next thing you know, I'm a year or two into it.

[00:07:51] Through COVID, and people are calling me going, oh my God, what you're saying is everything I've been looking for. Who do you know in Nashville, Chicago, Dallas? And the How to Buy a Home platform was formed, where I have an elite group of realtors. Very, very small. Very vetted. I always like to say I have fired, I think, 150% more than the actual people that are in my network. So it's not a pay to play.

[00:08:20] But the podcast has become such a powerful tool. I have, my entire company is pretty much one funnel based, changing this year. But it's all been the podcast and my digital marketing strategy. David, so, wow, I got a lot of questions. But it's also really fascinating when there's a guest on and we have some intersecting points. Did you ever attend Social Media Marketing World? I'm going again for my fourth time at the end of March. Okay, so I've spoken at many previously.

[00:08:49] Maybe we might have rubbed shoulders there. And then what part of Southern California are you in? I think we're neighbors. First of all, Neil, I've seen you. Second of all, your name sounded familiar the first time I saw it. I'm like the only content creator there. You know, over the past couple of years, more of the people that are doing it turn into content creators. But I am just south of Disneyland in Orange County. I was raised in Northern Orange County, Seal Beach, Los Alamitos. And now I live in Aliso Viejo. Come find me, people. Stalk me. It'll be fun. David, I'm right around the corner in Irvine.

[00:09:19] So. Oh my God. That is. And I grew up in Palos Verdes. So, yeah. Wow. Okay. I know that everyone listening is like, you know, who cares? But anyway, that's really fascinating. Because in Southern California, in Orange County, real estate is like the number one industry outside of maybe Disneyland. And I think that a lot of real estate trends start here as well. Right, David? I'm not from the industry myself. But okay. So let's go back.

[00:09:43] And first of all, I want to ask you, when you were creating this content, because we have content creators that listen to this podcast. And monetization is always something they think about. Wow. So when you were doing this, did you already have a... Because I know like referrals across state. And then actually, if you have a broker's license, actually having the modest commission on the agents and feeding them leads, that makes a lot of sense. So I can see the business model evolving.

[00:10:08] But at the beginning, did you see this as becoming a new business? How did you envision the monetization of first YouTube and then starting a podcast? I actually had that business plan before I started it. It was a very unique business plan that I saw as my own. It was something that I broke down because I saw that Zillow was doing it on a pay-for-play. And then as I looked deeper into it, Dave Ramsey was probably the biggest model. He has endorsed licensed provider, people from the ELP.

[00:10:37] The problem with all of those is that it's a pay-to-play. There's no vetting. There's no actual practical application to see whether or not these people are the right people. The companies make money by selling their position that they're going to put to the leads that they get through digital marketing. The large company realized that the real estate industry was absolutely behind and they sucked at digital marketing.

[00:11:05] So they went out and said, we're going to get all the leads, you dummies. You're door knocking. You're cold calling people. You're working through your sphere, which is how I grew my business. But they were doing nothing for all these people that their best friend is in their pocket and they do all their research there. So they created these initial referral recommendation digital presence. Presences. And they would say, hey, do you want to connect with someone? We endorse this person.

[00:11:35] B.S. You don't endorse them. They pay you a subscription and that's how your company thrives. Now, how did I recognize that? Because that's how the entire real estate industry thrives. People don't understand. The realtors are the consumer, not the people buying and selling homes. Brokers make money selling stuff to the realtors. 71% of realtors did not sell one home in 2024. Sorry, that was a little negative soapbox. Let me jump back.

[00:12:01] So my original thought was I have a unique thing within my industry that people move. And the real estate industry has for years created a business platform. When I need someone to go from California to Dallas, then my broker wants me to call someone from my broker in Dallas and then they will give a referral fee back to me.

[00:12:25] So in looking at that, I realized I could create an authentic, transparent, real, practical education where I'm saying, talk to my people. If you like them, great. If you don't, take everything I give you and go find your own what I call unicorn realtor. And so I took the established business practice of the referral system within the real estate industry and use that to form what I was doing.

[00:12:54] And it was part of the reason why I had have gone through seven or eight different social media marketing teams because none of them have a template for me. Yeah. It's not e-commerce. I'm not selling a coaching course and I'm not selling a webinar. And no one knew how to do it. And so the first two or three years took me a little while, but that's the platform. Gotcha. So it makes a lot of sense.

[00:13:18] And in fact, you know, I always say that realtors, if you look at the biggest number of small business owners in the United States, what industry are they're in? It's realtors, right? There's probably more of them than any other. So it also, from a business model perspective, having that vision of seeing that everything was becoming democratized and the top of the funnel was becoming more digital. And the education, and I almost think, you know, for a lot of content creators, it's, they're not doing referrals to other realtors, but they're doing affiliate marketing, right? Or now they're selling their own products.

[00:13:46] So I think we all now understand with education comes this economy, this business when you do it right. And obviously, you know, homes are one of the most expensive types of things you can sell. So that's a good place to be. So podcast, and I know we're going to get into, you know, the promise of this episode, which is all about this era of recommended media, as I call it. But you tried YouTube, didn't work. You went to podcast.

[00:14:11] Most people find that YouTube actually gets them better results than a podcast. So I'm curious, what did you do? Or what do you think led to the success of your podcast? And on the flip side, what do you think you weren't doing enough of or well enough on the YouTube side, just for everyone listening to educate them? Absolutely. The podcast succeeded out of dumb luck, and I fell into something. And then I did massive research when I saw the success.

[00:14:40] Everyone's trying to figure out one of the things too many people do in digital marketing roles. They throw the stuff out there, and they don't look at the analytics. They don't look at the data. And they're not, you know, big companies spend hundreds, millions on focus groups. Our focus groups are the comments.

[00:14:58] So initially, what I discovered was that for my very, very specific niche of people wanting to get an education, it wasn't something they wanted to sit down and look at on a video. They didn't want to stare at something. But it was something they wanted to do when they were doing the dishes on the treadmill, walking the dog, or commuting to work. And what's very interesting is we're finding that most of our numbers happen on the commute home. In the morning, they're listening to music and entertainment.

[00:15:27] In the evening, when they're still kind of in a little bit of work mode, that's when they listen. Also, we had a lunchtime bump too. But what I found was that the people who really want to delve deeper into it, it truly depends on your product. For my product, when I'm preaching, plan, plan, plan, plan, plan. No one's giving you the right planning information because the industry doesn't care about you. I do. Here's how we do it. And then that particular niche narrows down.

[00:15:57] You know, we handle, you know, tens of thousands of people a year, but there are 1.3 million first-time homebuyers every year. So I'm in no way crushing with, you know, 50% market share. But what I found was the people who were really interested in learning about something. That's where a podcast hits way faster than YouTube or shorts.

[00:16:24] Now, to answer the second part of your question, we kind of about 18 months ago realized this YouTube thing, we've got to figure out a way to crack it. So I've spent tens of thousands of dollars on all the different workshops with different people and researched everyone. And we're right in the middle of our relaunch. It was supposed to happen a while ago, but I got hacked. And we had to relaunch our entire page. But we spent a whole lot of time changing the format to educational.

[00:16:50] From what I see, you know, for instance, in my industry, everybody on YouTube who's a realtor, the only people that are doing well are the people that are the ambassador to their city. So when people say, I want to know what's going on in Phoenix and Salt Lake, you know, in Tallahassee, it's the person that is the person who tells them about the city because that's what they're looking for on YouTube. People are not going to YouTube to see who can tell me why they're the best realtor in Tallahassee. Yeah.

[00:17:20] And so what we ended up doing was looking at turning our, I think we're three or four of our new videos in where it's five to eight minutes, maybe 10 if it's a good one of education for first time home buyers. It's a different consumption level than podcasts. The podcasts are 20 to 45 minutes, depending on who they were talking to, but five to eight minutes, real short, single topic.

[00:17:45] And then I just, you know, it's taken me 18 months to swallow and understand that, you know, Mr. B spends a hundred thousand dollars on his thumbnails. Exactly. Just like it took me forever to go. I don't want to be that cringy guy on my shorts, but guess what? Now I'm all about the hook. Just like on YouTube, I'm all about thumbnail and title. We build that first before we write a script. Yep. Amen.

[00:18:10] And I think everybody listening that the universal truth here is that with this democratization of the way people consume content and all that, there is an education process at that very top of the funnel. And who is going to be the people or the companies that they go to for that education? And you figured that early enough and you situated yourself with just focusing on that education.

[00:18:33] So where others, and I would still argue that there is a place for keyword research, you were more about the psychographics, like first time home buyers, what information do they need? No one's serving it to them. And I'm going to serve it to them one podcast episode at a time. And now when YouTube, and it's just, it's a classic template for success in the creator economy, but obviously any business can be doing the same thing. Right. Yeah. And so I want to get into sort of like the heart of, you know, of what we prep for.

[00:18:59] So this new landscape, and I think you'd agree, you know, you saw things pre-COVID, then during COVID and post-COVID. And we're definitely in this new landscape of organic media. And you sort of hinted at the hooks. And I think definitely when we get into YouTube and we're getting a short form video, the hooks and content become even more important.

[00:19:17] But for those that are listening, that are still doing social media and content the way they've been doing it, you know, since pre-COVID, what would be your advice and takeaways about this new landscape of organic media that you see? In my particular niche and in other niches similar to it, whether it's, you know, financial literacy, people that are trying to figure out things that are going to be a big part of their life and they want to do it the right way.

[00:19:42] It was a hard pill for me to swallow, but you have to be that, you know, almost hyper-probolic in your hook because those first three seconds stop the scroll. That's the only way you're going to get seen. And the biggest part for me was constantly listening to Social Media Marketing Examiner and all the podcasts with that. I mean, every week there's something new that I'm listening to and learning, oh, that's the new thing this week. That's the new thing that week.

[00:20:08] TikTok, I was paying attention to and I thought, okay, maybe I should do this. And because of, I was listening to four or five podcasts about TikTok at the time and working with a social media person who was into TikTok, I learned about Spark Ads early. And I did Spark Ads before the users understood that it was an ad.

[00:20:28] And I went from 7,000 to 140,000 followers because the people who wanted to, and it wasn't expensive compared to everything else that I was doing. And again, this took a lot of me screwing up and I'm still trying to figure it out today. I'm in the middle of trying to work on what does Reels want right now? Dang it. But the concept of understanding that you're hyperbolic hook, you use that to get people in.

[00:20:56] And then what a lot of people do is they don't do the next part well. They don't immediately address what they said. They just start talking about other things. They're using the hook as bait and switch. Right. So. Seen that before. Yeah. So one of the neatest things in this, when it's gone away from, because when I started, it was still friend-based. And now, as you've talked about, it's interest-based. It's democratic.

[00:21:23] You're not posting stuff so that your friends can see it. You're posting things and they're trying to get it to other people who might like your content. So you've got to catch them with a hook. And then beyond that, then you need to address the hook and then find the problem, pivot, and solve. And that format has been something that we have wrestled with. And it's been something that I'm continuing to work on every single day.

[00:21:51] And, you know, it's really funny you brought me on. I mean, here I am. I've been doing Instagram and TikTok and YouTube Shorts now, and I'm right in the middle of relaunching long-form YouTube and right in the middle of relaunching my LinkedIn presence because I just heard on another podcast I was listening to that they are potentially getting into interest-driven content very soon.

[00:22:18] Yeah, the video tab in the LinkedIn app, that's pretty much what it is. So it's only anecdotal. I know a few people that have gotten like hundreds of thousands of views in that because it was an experimental tab. But, yeah, that definitely is the way that the industry is moving. And, you know, what you talk about here is definitely short-form video, long-form video based, that hook, that thumbnail title. I mean, you know, I did this great interview with Daryl Eves, author of The YouTube Formula. And there is a form now. The hook is an art, obviously.

[00:22:47] But I think as you get into LinkedIn, I think you'll see it does come down to the hook as well, the first two lines, and then are people going to click see more or not? So what you do, it's really reimagining your content, knowing that you need to stop the scroll. And it comes down to the hook, but also, as you mentioned, delivering on that. And then in the case of YouTube, the thumbnail, I mean, with LinkedIn, the image, we can go on all that separately. But, yeah, I think that's a really, really interesting way of just, you know, I think as marketers and content creators, we just want to get that content out.

[00:23:17] We have a great idea. We're going to create content around it. And the hook is sort of we don't really think a lot about it or think enough about it. So that's really, really great advice. Another thing that you did, I mean, it sounds like you're doing a few things now. And, you know, YouTube and Shortform Video, we were prepping earlier about using an audio podcast as the base. And maybe that was back in the day that worked best. Would you still have that same recommendation today?

[00:23:46] Or would you say, hey, you should start with Shortform Video or something else today? Well, once again, for me, and I created this business idea that everybody thought I was crazy, including my dad and all my mentors.

[00:23:58] But I knew that based on my internal structure of the way that business flows and that revenue can go out and go in, that if I created an education platform, it would be something that could turn into something that was scalable where I was actually serving the customer as opposed to just asking them for an appointment. So in my particular niche, you know, e-commerce, I don't know. I don't think so.

[00:24:28] I'm sure there's a million better ways to do digital marketing for e-commerce. Right. For me, much of my shorts and my YouTube and every other piece of digital content that I'm doing is truly to get them to the podcast. Because if there are 1.5 million customers every single year, I don't need them all. If you don't want to spend the time to listen, if you want to watch a short and go, oh, okay, that's how I do it. Let's go.

[00:24:54] Then I'm not necessarily sure that the way that I'm going to serve you is going to work directly. And, you know, this is an important point that a lot of people forget. And a lot of it, I don't know if you've ever been to VidSummit, which is like the big YouTuber thing. I've gone a few years. No, I got yelled. I've been yelled at for not going. Yes. Everybody yelled at me. So I know I'm going next year. Yes, please do. And one of the things they say is what a lot of people forget is that the short form video viewer and the long form video viewer are two completely different types of people.

[00:25:24] Right. And you nailed it. That's a short form video. But the podcast and us podcasters would agree that we are able to build the most intimate relationship, not only of the length of time that people spend, but we're literally in their ear. And that makes a lot of sense. You become so trusted because you're in their ear so long and you're just giving them education that they are prepped to do business with it. I'm assuming that that's the difference that you see between all the different formats, right? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:25:50] And it's been interesting because I've been asked now, you know, not just through me reaching out to people, but random people reaching out to me, probably because of our numbers, for me to be on other people's podcasts. And I can tell you the one reason why so many podcasts out there fail. Number one, it's not being consistent and giving up. But the main reason why the podcast message isn't getting through to people is people are trying to do too much.

[00:26:14] They're trying to be an expert in so many different things because they think that broad spray is going to give them a bigger funnel up top. And understanding that the consumer who is listening to the podcast is in it for 20 minutes. They're committing to this. It's not a short.

[00:26:35] And so instead of trying to get, you know, 10 million people to listen because you're going to talk about buying a home, selling a home, investing in homes, flipping homes, remodeling homes. People go way too broad and they don't understand the power that you're talking about. At least that's what I've seen. When you have an idea, for sure. I had no idea. Yeah, I totally thought I was going to.

[00:26:59] I thought I was going to use my on-camera personality to be able to, you know, dominate YouTube and Instagram. Yeah, it turns out it's just me and a stupid microphone because people and I and it was great because then I realized how much education I actually had. And then when I, you know, dug into Gary Vaynerchuk's jab, jab, jab, right hook. And I just gave, gave, gave, gave, gave. And for me, it's like jab, jab, jab, jab, jab, jab, jab, jab, jab. Do you want to call? Okay, fine. Jab, jab, jab, jab. I just keep giving, giving, giving, giving, giving.

[00:27:29] And again, a lot of that now, everything I've done and changed and adjusted has been within my analytics and tracking and listening to the consumers. And the consumers are telling me everywhere I go, they just want to tell me yes or no, I can buy a house. They don't want to tell me how. So, that for me is I just gave it to them.

[00:27:52] So, whatever industry your folks are listening today, if realize that the bigger niche you go and the more you can get detailed into answering a question in multiple different ways, that's what people want to commit to and listen to when they're on the way to work. You know, look, if they choose to listen to a podcast, the mindset is wildly different than I'm scrolling. Yeah, amen. And you can interview prospective clients. I mean, there's a lot of things you can do with.

[00:28:21] And I have separate episodes on this podcast, getting a little bit meta here, about podcasting. But obviously, if people want to learn more about that, they should go through my archive here. Yeah, for sure. So, you've done a lot of trial and error. I like to say, and it's funny, I have a paid group coaching community. And we all agreed that we're all startups, entrepreneurs, and small business owners. We're all like elements of all that. And I think a lot of people listening to this are as well. So, as a startup, you know, 9 out of 10 startups fail.

[00:28:50] And I think you would agree that's almost the approach you need to take because there's going to be trial and error. Now, you mentioned failing on YouTube, success on podcast, failing on Instagram, success on TikTok, organic paid. What have you learned other than just the constant need to experiment? It also sounds like you're a lifelong learner like myself. You're actually consuming the media that you want to influence. I think that's another mistake a lot of people miss is they want to be big on TikTok, yet they're not watching TikTok videos themselves, right?

[00:29:17] But what are like the key learning points that you can, you know, give the listener and viewer around this whole mindset of trial and error to find your sweet spot? Well, I'm going to regurgitate all the things that I learned. So, one. Thank you. Make your side hustle education. That's what I did my first couple of years. I continued to sell real estate while I built how to buy a home.

[00:29:40] And I was working, you know, 12, 14-hour days and all weekends where eight hours on real estate and the other half on learning. Straight up, you don't do that, it ain't happening. You can't do any of this part-time. You can't go broad and try to do a little bit and everything. And then I subscribed to, again, Gary Vaynerchuk, who, you know, there are stuff I totally agree with him and stuff I'm like, eh, no. But if you decide that, oh, I'm going to go on LinkedIn, take 20 hours and go be a LinkedIn consumer.

[00:30:09] And then once you start, watch and listen to the consumers. You know, I mean, I failed so much because I thought this is what they want. And then every single time I felt like I wasn't getting traction, I would redo my algorithm by changing the things that I liked. And then I would learn how and what the people were looking for.

[00:30:33] And then as far as like specifics, the things that I learned immediately for me was understanding on Instagram the use of green screen and the use of pointing to a headline and the use of man on the street and the use of – and I had trial and error with all of those. And what was really interesting in the podcasting world, because I had spent so much time looking at the other social media platforms, the first thing I thought was, wait a minute, how do people know what's good?

[00:31:04] When I was researching other first-time homebuyer podcasts, I was trying to find the best one. As a general consumer, you can't find who has the most downloads. What's going on? Reviews. I put all of my efforts into reviews, and that plus about $275,000 that I spent on podcast commercials. Wow.

[00:31:26] That's – you know, the reviews got me to the first level when I realized this was a business, and then I put that money in, and it was a perfect break-even ROI. But at that point, I was a million bucks in. I ran out of money. So for the past two years, I've been figuring out how to do this organically. So I re-pushed on my reviews, and it's crazy.

[00:31:46] Just today, I was looking at a few different real estate podcasts, and the review count – the guy from Mad Money has like 4,000 reviews, and Dave Ramsey has like 30,000 reviews, and Mel Robbins has like 5,000 reviews. And, you know, but a comedy podcast has 25,000 reviews. Yeah.

[00:32:06] And understanding the metric that the people look at to discern your credibility, it's a huge part of – that's the reason why the Spark ads and TikTok works so well for me.

[00:32:19] And on Instagram, it's such a vanity metric, but I've learned that if I just post a bunch of stuff that doesn't do well, I'm okay with it because when the person finds me, and then they go to my profile, and they scroll down, then they can just consume as many 30-second nuggets of the information that they want, and they stay there. So I'm just putting up a bunch of stuff, and I'm not concerned that my reels don't hit a million.

[00:32:48] I'm concerned that my full portfolio there is something that – someone who said, I want to learn how to buy a home, I could say, cool, do me a favor. Scroll through 50 of my Instagrams and tell me how many of those things were new and something that you learned. Yeah, and, you know, you hear stories – I hear a lot on YouTube, but it could happen on TikTok as well. Like you've been doing it for 6 months, 12 months, and then all of a sudden you get the uptick, right? And then the algorithm starts – and I think it's from what you just said. You have enough content in there.

[00:33:16] All it takes is a few people to heavily consume that content, engage with it, share it, for it to send the signals to the algorithm like, hey, this is a great content creator here that you need to add to the mix. So all this, though, David, does raise this question, and it's the million-dollar question, and it is the commonality between a realtor with Zillow reviews, a podcaster with Apple Podcast reviews, or an e-commerce seller on Amazon with Amazon reviews. It's all the same, right? It's this concept of social proof. So how did you go about getting your reviews?

[00:33:46] Are there any tactics or things that you did that you would recommend others do as well, including myself? Because we could all use more reviews, right? Well, the first thing was I didn't stop there. When I understood that reviews was the way, I didn't stop there. I looked for the next level. And I'll get to the answer to your question. But the next level was I looked at everybody else who's doing stuff. Everybody's claiming I've helped 10,000 first-time homebuyers. I've helped this many first-time. Show me.

[00:34:15] So every single person we close, I ask if they wanted to come and be on the podcast. I have over 70 interviews. 70 of my podcasts are interviews with real people telling their real story. Some of them using my unicorn network. Some of them not. Some of them just using the information. I didn't make a dime off them, and I don't care. But nobody. And that's why if Zillow comes out tomorrow and puts $10 million into creating their own David Sedoni,

[00:34:43] which they absolutely could. I have no IP on what I do, teaching people what to do. The savvy consumer will see the credibility that I have. And so the first thing I did was don't just, you know, everyone's talking video, video, video, video. And then they put up a text five-star review. Like, if you've got 500 five-star reviews, I bet five or 10 of them would pick up their iPhone and do something. So that's number one.

[00:35:13] But then the other thing, too, is stay on top of it. The minute Spotify started doing it, I implemented the answer to your question, which is systemize asks. Just like you do in real estate, when someone closes on a home, best time to ask them about their friends and family. You know, we used to hold housewarming parties for people. Say, hey, don't worry about it. You know, you're in, especially for some homebuyers. I'm excited. Invite all your friends. Well, they invited all their friends.

[00:35:43] A bunch of those people are renters. And at the housewarming party, all I do is, you know, make sure the taco truck is good and clean up. Right. And it's a passive way of getting reviews. So in the digital world, when someone is connected with someone, as I hear they close on the home, I ask them for a review by email and by text. Smart. And I'm continually asking people for reviews when they're at that happiest moment. And then I'm staying on top of how all the platforms do it.

[00:36:11] Like I said, when Spotify first said it, I took that same template that we have, the multiple asks. And the other thing I do is I personalize it. I don't bought it. I know I just said it's a system, but the system is in the morning I wake up and I have a reminder in my CRM that says, ask this person for a review. So I tweak it because I think it's one of the most important things for me.

[00:36:37] And so I personalize the beginning of the ask and then I copy and paste the specific links. Don't tell people go to Google and write me a review. Put a link there. Don't say go to put a thing on Facebook. You got to spoon feed them. Yeah. And again, this is stuff that I only speak with such authority because I screwed up so much. It's funny the way you talk about it in the author world, except written a few books.

[00:37:05] They say the same thing when people reach out to you and say, oh, my gosh, I love your book so much. You get a DM on Instagram, a comment on LinkedIn or like, you know, an email. It's always following up with, oh, my gosh, if you like it, would you please, you know, would you be kind enough to review it on Amazon? And by the way, here's a link. And you're right, like Apple podcast. I tell people, oh, just write a review on Apple podcast. They're like, Neil, where do I write the review? I have no idea where I can write. And so some of these platforms, you know, you really do need to spoon feed to get them to do that. So that's really awesome advice.

[00:37:32] And just a reminder to anyone, no matter what business you're in, you can always have more testimonials. They don't need to be reviews, but any B2B business can have testimonials. And they're gold. It is a type of user-generated content. And inviting, you know, customers on your podcast, that's a brilliant idea. And it's going to be way more authentic than you and me talking about it than the person actually went through the process, right? David, this has been really fantastic. Is there anything about your journey that somehow we missed? I think we covered a lot. You've spoon fed us a lot of a great education.

[00:38:00] But anything else to add as a last note here before we part? I think that more than anything, it was Brian Tracy, you know, old school sales consultant for everybody. I saw him when I first started my real estate career in 2006. He was in our backyard. He was doing a live thing in Newport Beach. So I went and saw him. And it was a long time ago because I spent like 800 bucks on probably discs, CDs. So yeah. Just tease yourself, my friend.

[00:38:30] At least the best. Heck yeah, baby. It's been worse. Part of what I try to explain to people is you need someone experienced to actually teach you how to do this. Not that cool realtor you saw on Instagram who just got their license six weeks ago. Yeah. And they're young and they're hot. And that's why they have so many views. So anyway, he tells everyone, get up and read for 30 minutes in your industry. The concept behind that is that if you do that, you know, he said, and check back with me in 30 days.

[00:38:56] And like this large percentage of people come back and said, I changed it to 60 after three weeks, 60 minutes, because I was seeing double the sales leads coming in. It's having that knowledge. So let me be the purveyor of a crappy potential concept thought that I believe. First of all, that was the worst sentence ever. I'm just going to say you have to keep learning. This stuff changes so fast.

[00:39:22] First, probably the one thing I am just as much a student of a game right now, even though I am my business is handling, you know, 20 times what I was doing my first year. But I am constantly listening to other people who are monitoring and understanding what's going on in the digital landscape.

[00:39:42] Because if you don't and you just do the same old thing, I mean, my God, if I see another realtor that video there starts, hey, this is David Sedoni back with another real estate update. I mean, like that just says to me that person is not listening or they took a video workshop five years ago. Yeah. And it's welcome to the game. If you play football, you're going to get hit. If you're in digital media, you have to understand what's good that you constantly have to stay on top of the evolution.

[00:40:12] Amen, my friend. You know, it was a graduation speech at university when, you know, the commencement speech said, hey, this is not the end of your education. It's the beginning of it. And since then, I've really taken this whole lifelong learner approach to heart. So, David, this has been awesome and really a great example. You know, on podcasts, there's a lot of people pitched to be on my podcast and they all pretty much do the same thing I do. Whereas you're on a podcast about digital marketing, but all the entrepreneurs, small business owners, marketers, content creators, service providers, who knows when they or someone in their network.

[00:40:42] Is looking for that first home. And then who are they going to go to? So, sometimes going outside of your own niche in promotion, like, you know, this is not promotion for you. It's education. But indirectly, this is really like a case study of how to do it right, David. So, thank you for, you know, bringing the goods, offering up yourself as a resource. And I know if there is someone that is thinking of buying a home, they want to search you out. So, David, where can I send people to learn more and find out more about you and how to buy a home? And I'm assuming I know the answer, but I'll let you say it. That's okay.

[00:41:11] It'll give me a second to say the reason why I'm so excited to be able to do this is because people like you help me build my solopreneurship. So, that continuing learning came from people like you. And yes, GoDaddy has a feature for $99 where they will try to get a domain for you. I've heard it's only about a 5% success rate. Right? Some dummy sold me howtobuyahome.com for like two grand four years ago. So, everything's at howtobuyahome.com.

[00:41:41] Yep. You need to get the ROI of that. But yeah, that's easy to remember. In fact, I thought I was going to mess it up, but even I didn't mess it up. So, all good. So, David, I assume on the socials, is it howtobuyahome or is it David Sedoni? Well, I have to figure out how to get it on Instagram. Okay. Some guy who hasn't posted, he posted six things and hasn't posted since 2018. Yeah. TikTok's howtobuyahome.com. YouTube's howtobuyahome.com. Instagram, howtobuyahome.com. Or you can do David Sedoni. But howtobuyahome.com. You type that in anywhere and we will come up.

[00:42:11] Well, there you go. There you have it. Well, David, thank you so much. And thank you all for listening. I'm not going to ask you for a review, but hit that subscribe button so you don't miss awesome interviews and the ability to meet awesome people like David. David, once again, thank you very much. And wishing you all a great day. Absolutely. Thank you. Share this with everybody. Hey, I hope you enjoyed that interview as much as I did. Really mind blown. But when you think about all the other industries, all the other headaches or problems that consumers

[00:42:41] or businesses have that you can be the solution for and you can provide that solution through content and build a business, it truly excites me. This digital first world that we live in and all the opportunities that it provides us. Hey, if you want to keep in better touch, obviously this podcast is published weekly. But did you know I also have a weekly newsletter? Go over to newsletter.neilshafer.com to subscribe. I also have a ton of free resources, free e-books, free previews to all my different books.

[00:43:11] Go to neilshafer.com slash books to grab hold of all those freebies. Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'll be back at you next week with a solo episode. Over the last several months, I have been publishing two episodes a week to get caught up with my 50 episode a year schedule. And guess what? With this week, I am finally caught up. So going forward, unless my schedule delays me, be on the lookout for new episodes. Hopefully every Wednesday. I hope to commit to that.

[00:43:40] But I am on track for my 50 episodes this year. And I know when you're used to listening to a weekly podcast, all of a sudden you hear two episodes a week. It can be a little jarring, maybe too much. So thank you for sticking with me. But I'm back to my weekly episode frequency. But hey, would you like to hear from me twice a week? Let me know. DM me on the socials, neilshafer, or reach out to me, neil at neilshafer.com. This is your digital marketing coach, Neil Schaefer, signing off.

[00:44:08] You've been listening to your digital marketing coach. Questions, comments, requests, links, go to podcast.neilshafer.com. Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes at neilshafer.com to tap in to the 400 plus blog posts that Neil has published to support your business. While you're there, check out Neil's digital first group coaching membership community if you or your business needs a little helping hand.

[00:44:38] See you next time on your digital marketing coach.