How a Top Real Estate Team Thinks About Marketing & Branding • Dan Schepleng

Keeping It Real Podcast • Secrets Of Top 1% REALTORS ® • Interviews With Real Estate Brokers & Agents

In this episode Dan Schepleng talks about his personal journey to his advertising and branding agency, Kapowza. Dan shares best practices that individual realtors can learn from his experience working with Northrop Realty. Dan also discusses the role of humor in content creation and how agents can adjust marketing strategies to be more compelling. Next, Dan advises how to discover your brand and build marketing around that vision. Last, Dan talks about the importance of having a council to help you make creative decisions.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Dan Schepleng can be reached at [e-mail]

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Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00
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Hello, and welcome to keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide and host through the show. And have you ever wondered what the top real estate group in the country who they use for their marketing and branding efforts? Well, we found them. But today we’re going to be speaking with Dan shuffling who is the president and creative director of kapow zone, he’s going to tell you exactly what he does for real estate teams. And before we get to Dan, just a couple of quick reminders. First is to tell a friend think of one other real estate professional that could benefit from hearing from top producers and send them a link to our website, you can find us at keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done, you can stream right from your browser. And also if you’re sending this over to someone who is a podcast listener, have them pull up a podcast app and search for keeping it real and click the subscribe button. And then second, please follow us on Facebook every single day we post an article that we find online specifically designed to help agents grow their business you can find [e-mail] forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our interview with Dan shuffling.

All right, on today’s show, we have Dan Buckley. He is the president and creative director of composer, which is a creative agency based in Baltimore, Maryland. And let me tell you a little bit about Dan. Dan was born in Annapolis, Maryland. He grew up in Pasadena, not the California one but the Maryland Pasadena and he’s been working in creative ever since he was in his mid teens actually since he was 15 and his first job was a commercial editor at a small DC agency. Dan also began his filmmaking career as a composer, and then moved into the director’s chair writing and directing commercials for Capozza. He has served in nearly every facet of the advertising industry and on the real estate side composer has been recognized with many awards for creativity, including an Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for the blue block blue box television commercial for Northrop Realty. Northrop Realty, by the way, is the number one real estate team in the entire country. And they hire Capozza. So we’re so excited to have Dan on last year. Northrop, which is a Long and Foster foster company was named number one specialty brokerage in the nation for Team owned brokerages. So we thought what a great opportunity to bring Dan on and learn some of the secrets of what these top teams are doing with respect to marketing and branding. But their non traditional advertising guided by Dan continues to play a key role in their growth. Now you can check out Dan’s work and learn more about couples by visiting their website, which is capozza.co. So again, and let me spell that for you. It’s KPOWZ a dot c o capozza.co. Dan, welcome to the show.

Dan Schepleng 3:44
Hey, thanks for having me. I don’t need to say anything more, you said it all. So I’ll see you like I said it

D.J. Paris 3:47
all I have. And we’re done. I am a marketing person myself. I’ve been in marketing ever since I graduated college, which I didn’t go to school for marketing. But I have been in that industry, my sister is also a branding person. And so this is, this has been in my blood ever since I got out of school. Same with my sister. And I love talking to marketing people, because this is such an important part of any business. And on the real estate side, of course, you know, understanding your market and knowing how to speak to your market is just so critical. And something that just about every realtor I know is always looking to do better. So we’re excited to have you. Well, thanks

so much.

Yeah. Well tell us a little bit about how, you know I spoke a little bit about how you got involved. But tell us a little bit about you know, how couples got started and how you got involved?

Dan Schepleng 4:42
Well, I think most most good things that have happened me kind of just happen by accident. You know, I’m not I’m not really like people that have these plans and all these things. I’m very fortunate. I just kind of fell into some things. My mom were worked at an ad agency in DC. And they needed someone to edit some of their commercials. They weren’t really known for commercials and I happen to make like music videos for fun on the side with their they had an agency camera a little, like an XL two and I used to, I used to shoot little music videos that made absolutely no sense. And my mom being supportive sent the music videos to their creative director. And they were like, well, you know, he can he can edit a thing. Why don’t we hire him? And I’m looking back at it. I was just thinking about can you imagine like, at least some of these are like national accounts like Like, like, Oh, I’m just going to hire this 15 year old to edit my stuff. Because I saw one music video, start to question the creative direction of that company. Now that I’m a little bit more into it. And in so yeah, it was like 334 100 bucks a pop of editing, just videos and commercials, some conference videos. And I remember I I was I was like, Oh man, you know, 1415 or you have a car for 100 bucks a pop to edit a thing? I’m rich, good money. Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s good money for anybody. And so I I took that money and decided I was a rich, rich person. And I needed to play golf. And so I blew like, all the all the stuff on golf clubs, and then like, played twice, and that was my, that was my, that was my one experience being wealthy, it didn’t work for me. And, and now here we are. And fast forward a little bit. You know, I was working at a designer at another agency and started just going freelance, with some of my friends started companies and I would just be their their marketing their creative person. So I do like the design and do some video stuff. And you know, working with like, no budgets, like I remember cutting commercials together, we’re using stock footage and just having just having a ball with it. And it was just, it just grew out of you know, freelance, and then, you know, I got too busy to handle the clients that I had and you know, hired a part time designer. And then from there, hired. Now a partner, Sean Sutherland, our new business guy, and you know, we’re almost nine people now coming up on six years. So, yeah, it was just it just grew kind of organically kind of, you know, almost by mistake. In a sense. We just wanted to do good work. Like I just wanted to do really good work. And I didn’t have the portfolio to prove that. So like no one was going to hire me. So I was like, oh, I’ll just you know, I’ll start an agency and I remember the story I like to tell is this like, I was a freelancer. And then I decided I was an agency. Like I was a freelancer on Friday and Monday I was an agency and I remember telling clients or an agency now what’s the difference? We’re an agency now. That was how it started in the name. Capozza is just as it’s a Simpsons joke, like, yeah, there’s the marketing lady who has says BART has absorbed Capozza and that’s that’s literally that was it. That was the big that was the big business plan. Of

D.J. Paris 8:05
I remember that episode. I forgot that she said Capozza, but I, as you were referencing that they were in like a probably like a like a board meeting or something with television executives. Yeah, it

Dan Schepleng 8:14
was the kids News episode. Yes. All the kids news. Yeah, BART has absorbed Capella. I just love that marketing lady on The Simpsons. She just says nothing. Like she just like in her feedback is just it’s just, it’s just hot air.

D.J. Paris 8:29
She is She She is so perfect for representing. And I, you know, I’ve worked in other industries, where people in marketing departments, sometimes CMO, sometimes others, creative directors, sometimes are a little bit that way. So I think they sort of nailed that part in time where that was that was maybe more more common than,

Dan Schepleng 8:51
you know, a show like The Simpsons that has been on Psalm 3333 years, like, eventually they’re going to write every possible thing. Yeah. Every possible person and archetype in existence. So yeah, yeah. So yeah, that’s, that’s kind of how I got to here. And, you know, it’s really is a credit to the wonderful people that work at Capozza. And the same with the Northrop folks. I mean, there’s a reason they’re there. Number one, like like, that’s not by accident, they, they’re very, very smart and very, very good. I just recently just so been working with him for a while, but having not had much personal real estate experience. I was helping a friend sell a house. And, you know, I asked Craig and the team and wraith are over there. I said, you know, hey, who would you go with to sell this house and then they suggested a guy and they came in and they like redid the whole house and like, and like had contractors come in and like fix the carpets and all this other stuff. And the house sold for like $100,000 More than it was supposed to and it was like we had like 7575 showings the first weekend. They had to cut it off because it was too many people. And it was it was just like they sold in a week. It was It was in my friend is not easily impressed. It’d be like, Wow, they’re doing something right. So yeah, there’s, there’s, there’s a reason they’re number one, that’s that is certainly not a mistake.

D.J. Paris 10:09
Well, we should also mention that because they’re number one, they’re getting called by every agency in the country, let’s, let’s be honest, and they’re chose, they have chosen you guys. And so that is a huge feather in your cap, you’re clearly doing amazing work. And we should mention, for everyone listening or watching, I want you to go to compose a.co. And I want you to take a look at the Northrop work because it is it is really inspiring, it is cool it is outside the box. And it’ll give you a better understanding of what some of the top agents are, in this case, the top agency is doing to, you know, to market and also to brand themselves.

Dan Schepleng 10:44
And that’s really kind Yeah, they’ve, we’ve done almost 10 spots for them now over the last few years. And every time we get to do something new, we get to do something special. And it’s you know, every year when it comes around, it’s kind of one of our favorite things to work on. Because of the the not necessarily the scope in terms of the project, but the scope and the amount of people that see it. And so they really invest in making sure their spots get seen which that is a huge, huge part of why they’re so successful is people know that name. And they know that brand, because it’s out there. And so I know when we make a commercial for them, a lot of people are going to see it, and it’s going to get a lot of attention. We can do other work for other brands, and it can be a good spot in and of itself. But if they don’t have a good media plan, you know, no one’s gonna see it and since and so it’s always exciting to be able to, you know, play on the big stage.

D.J. Paris 11:39
Well, let’s talk about what individual agents can learn from a creative director at a at a top agency who works with top real estate teams. And you know, a lot of people listening, a lot of our audience are going to be individual real estate practitioners who maybe aren’t on a team, or maybe they’re on a small team, or they work at a small boutique firm, and they’re really running the entire business themselves, which includes marketing, arm event. And, and realtors, it’s a tough thing to do, because realtors have, right they have so many different hats, they need to wear just to make money, which include you know, every part of a transaction dealing with the customer. But also, you know, in marketing the home there might be trying to buy or sell marketing that to their client to the public. But also there’s a focus that often gets lost, which is what is the brand I’m pushing out outside of a transaction? What am I projecting out into the universe of potential clients? How am I? How am I what image and What feelings do I want associated with my brand? And how do I actually get that out there. And I would love to spend some time talking about content creation. You know, what I love about one of the things I love about your company is in the name itself is is dynamic and fun. But it’s also funny, right? So it’s a Simpsons reference, which obviously is going to be pushed in the humor side. And humor, I know is really important to you. It’s also something that is noticeably absent in a lot of realtor stuff. Yeah. And, and we and and you know, it’s funny, so we’re affirming in Chicago, we’ve added some humor in our recruiting efforts to try to attract more agents. And, you know, we just because no one else is doing it, and literally nobody does. And that’s kind of who we are. We’re kind of silly guys, too. And that’s not to say that if you’re not that way that you should try to force it in. But I’m curious and what the role of humor is in your sort of content creation.

Dan Schepleng 13:40
It’s really interesting you say that, so when we started working with Northrop, we were really young agency and we mutual friends, as I said, you know, hey, they were looking to do something new. They’re taking pitches, and we went and had a meeting with just Craig back then. And his son will and we just walked them through some ideas that we had and they really responded to a whole bunch of them and in later it came out the there was a write up about the ads in Adweek and they called them like the the anti real estate commercials. And it was it like it was some calculated thing that we were like oh here we go. We’re gonna make the anti real estate but it was truly our ignorance of just you know, that was our that was our voice and that was our take on the industry and so like if we’re gonna make something you know make it interesting make it funny make it make it heartfelt make it feel something move you move the audience do something like and so humor is like humor because it’s so accessible in in you know, it’s it’s pretty universal if you if you strike the right tone and you know advertising humor is certainly different than movie humor and certainly different than like stand up or anything like that. But it it can cross you know, demographics, both male and female, it can cross Age. It’s very shareable, very consumable. It does well on, like, where most of the ads are run, if they’re run on TV, they run on sports, like, like live sports, and it’s just, that’s a good, that’s a good thing to run on sports, because they’re usually louder, you know, more of a spectacle. But the role of humor is, I just think that people are desperate for interesting content, they don’t care where it comes from. And as a brand, you’re already starting in a negative. Because it’s like, it’s like, oh, what are you selling me now, you know what I mean, it’s like, oh, the here comes this guy to tell me or this woman to tell me that, you know, they’re their real estate agencies the best. And that’s why I should go with, there’s a motive behind every piece of creative versus just like funny cat videos you see online, but that’s what you’re competing with. You’re competing, you’re competing with pure entertainment. And, and you’re competing with big entertainment now with like Netflix and, and Hulu and Apple TV, and all of these places that that are just desperate for your attention and truly deserve it. There’s some really great movies on Netflix, and that’s what you’re competing with is the attention. And so, you know, just realizing the playing field that you’re on, you’re not people don’t want to hear from you. Like they’re not looking to hear from you. And I think that’s a mistake we all make in our businesses where, because, you know, I’m an advertising and I think advertising is really interesting. Well, there’s plenty of people that hate advertising and don’t think it’s interesting. And, you know, in, in your industry as well, in real estate, I’m sure there’s tons of stuff about real estate, that you could just listen to all day and read books about but you know, how many dinner, you know, dinner conversations, do you end up talking about real estate where people are just like, Okay, I get it, man, you’re, you’re into it. And but I just think the I wish, you know, in every marketing department around the country, I wish there would be a sign that just says nobody cares. That’s so true. They don’t, they don’t, they really don’t. And like a lot of brands, the biggest mistake I feel like they make large or small is they operate from this, this position of, oh, they’re gonna they’re gonna be interested in this. I remember we had a, we had a client years ago that they were going through a name change, and they wanted to do a campaign about this whole name change. And I remember everyone kind of saying, no one’s gonna care, they’re gonna go, okay, then I got your name good for them. And that was basically what happened. And thank goodness, you know, they didn’t actually run any campaign, but it was talked about and it was just like, that’s just the view that you have, because you’re in it day to day and you think it’s interesting. And so like, I think seeing, you know, for better or worse, I have a really short attention span. So So I think, you know, the realization that if I’m not going to care, you know, who’s this other person and, you know, you can use emotion, it doesn’t always have to be humor, too. You can use we’ve done some some great work for north up that is, you know, heartfelt and I guess sappy is the best word, but heartfelt, probably the more the better word for it. But you know, you can use all these these tools. And the beauty of it now is that you have no excuse with with, you know, you have tons of opportunities with a phone, that you can film your own content. And I know a lot of agents do that. Now, a lot of the big agents at Northrop, they’re great content creators, they make little videos about every listing, and they’re hilarious, like, we have nothing to do with it. I’m just, you know, get to sit on the sidelines as a fan and be like, wow, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s good content, they, they become influencers in and of themselves. And so that’s just realizing the, the field that you’re on that you’re just because it’s commercial doesn’t and you paid for it in you paid to be here doesn’t mean you have my attention or the right to my attention. And you know, thinking about your own buying practices, you know, when a commercial comes on on your phone, what are you doing, like or waiting to hit the skip button, and a lot of times late? Exactly. And most of it for some reason, a lot of brands can’t get out of their own way to think you know, well, I don’t want to see anyone else’s commercial, but they’re gonna love to see ours.

D.J. Paris 19:12
Yeah, it’s really, it’s really a good point, because I think maybe the most accessible, or one of the more accessible examples of this for our audience, would be an AI, please understand the spirit in which I’m saying I’m gonna say this is when I put a big asterisk and say, I’m not saying this doesn’t work. And I’m not saying people who do it are stupid. I’m just talking about how I personally respond to it as a marketing person, not as a real estate person. When I see bench ads, where it says such and such team or when where I see billboards, again, I understand that those are maybe just there as a function to sort of remind people who see them that these people exist and they’re part of this group and it’s just a rapid maybe a repetition thing. But I often don’t, I don’t find those ads typically very compelling, unless they’re doing something slightly outside of what I would expect a real estate ad to look like. So what I’m curious is because you talked about, you know, emotional connection, and how you can do that through content, and whether it’s humor, or whether it’s vulnerability, or sadness, or, or, you know, I find that I tend to connect the most with either things that are funny, or things that move me and make me feel something intense. And it doesn’t have to be a life changing intensity, but something that makes me feel connected to, you know, the people in the advertisement or, and typically, that can be done through vulnerability. You know, it’s some sort of intimacy. But I’m just curious on how, as a realtor, and I know, we don’t have a magic bullet solution, a one size fits all, but maybe how agents can start to think about adjusting their marketing to sort of meet more of that need, because then what you said is so right you’re competing with and now you’re competing with Tik Tok, which is taken over, you know, certainly younger people’s attention span, because these are quick, short, really dialed in videos about how to capture attention within a few seconds. And oftentimes, they’re silly, but they really do work to capture someone’s attention. And I’m not suggesting that’s always the way to go. But but there is, it is tough. And I’m just curious on what suggestions you have, for you know, any of our audience to start thinking about how do I better position my marketing?

Dan Schepleng 21:30
Well, there are a couple of points this the thing you said about the like, the bench heads, in the billboards, like if you go to a baseball game, you’ll usually see a Coca Cola logo, there’s nothing else there’s just a coke logo. And you think anything, you know, there, I saw a tweet once it said, Dear Coca Cola, we’re aware you exist, thank you. But like, what they’re doing is they’re just, you know, it takes seven to eight touches for you to make a purchasing decision. That’s just one of them. If you have the budget to do that, you know, and you can put a bench ad Sure, why not, you know, it could help you know, or a bus ad or something like that. But, you know, dollar for dollar, you get more out of what you said, doing something interesting, and that’s every human, we all connect to the things that are funny or interesting to us or move us in some way. That’s, you know, every every human in history has something like that, that you know, there’s a reason why, you know, we we consume so much content, the reason why podcasts exists and Tik Tok and I love Tik Tok. And I think, you know, it’s, you know, there was a big hole when, when vine left and you know, I need my dose of 15 seconds of humor. But I think the biggest thing that people can do is be honest and be truthful about who they are and what they like to do. If if you can’t hire an agency, or you’re just not there yet. You know, if you like to write, you know, start a Twitter if you if you liked a podcast, to talk, start a podcast, if you’d like to write long form, start a blog, you got to do something, you like to take photos, take a you know, start an Instagram, it’s all free. It’s like, like, that’s the amazing part, you know, 2030 years ago, like, getting all of this content out is would have been, you know, impossible. But it’s all free, like all of it. And, you know, the Craig Northrup himself still is, you know, posting on Facebook and making videos and content and like, you know, he’s still he’s still doing it in like him personally, and, and you think, you know, man, if that guy is still doing it, then you know, who are the rest of who the rest of the agents, you know, who don’t. And I think, you know, just being true of what you like, like Craig is a is a great big personality and a great talker. And so He’s great on video, like, that’s his, that’s his bread and butter. But you know, me like for frost, for example, I like running our Twitter, our Twitter is silly and stupid. And I think my mom’s the only fan of it. But you know, it’s it’s what gets us out there. And, you know, people remember it. We also have a newsletter, that our marketing directors Sean likes to write, because that’s what he likes to do. And so don’t force yourself to do a video if you’re not comfortable on camera. Don’t force yourself to take photos. If you don’t like taking photos, you got to do something, but just be honest with what you like doing. And you can learn like, there’s no, you know, we’re going through a process. We’re hiring a new designer, and just the level of proficiency of portfolios these days is stunning, just absolutely stunning of how, how much further people are than I was at that point in my career. And it’s because, you know, they have access to knowledge, like all of this stuff is free on YouTube, like learn what you like and what you don’t like, because all creativity is is just taste that we’ve all agreed on. And so, you know, the what’s the Even Spielberg likes in a movie, the average person seems to like it too. And in so figure out what your taste is, and do your homework on what you like, and what you know what turns you on creatively, emotionally. And just be honest, don’t force if you’re not funny, don’t please don’t be funny. Like, like, it’s really painful. But maybe you’re inspirational. Like maybe you like giving talks and or maybe you like hosting groups. Like there’s, there’s no excuse to not be a content creator somehow. And in this day and age, you know, if you if you can’t, if you can’t, you know, hire someone to do it, you know, which, which Craig can but he’s still doing it, you know what I mean? Like, it’s so the, I kind of think there’s no excuse not to do something like, maybe you even, you know, you read articles about real estate and share your thoughts about them. Like, like, that’s, there’s there’s no shortage of ideas and opportunities, especially right now.

D.J. Paris 25:54
That’s such a, what you said is so important, and I hadn’t really thought of it is such a wide scope, which is just to reiterate, something Craig mentioned, which is to say, you know, if social media isn’t your thing, then maybe writing is I know, an agent that is considers herself an introvert very successful here in Chicago in what she does is she doesn’t really enjoy doing a lot of social media, because it’s out side of her, you know, sort of wiring her biological and emotional wiring. So she goes, I’m just not comfortable turning the camera around and doing, you know, a fun video. But she’s a good writer. And so what she does is, and I think this is such a brilliant thing. And I’ll just share it just because it came to me as Craig was correct. As Dan was speaking, at that she wants a transaction closes, she writes an article about the couple, for or if it’s or if it’s an individual, just up the person. And or if it’s a family, the whole family, and she takes pictures. And she writes about their life, and she posts it on her website. And then she pushes that out on social media, and says, Hey, we just had this closing, I’d like you to learn about this. Ellen says, you know, and she gets their permission, of course. And she writes this beautiful article about them. And it’s so brilliant, because nobody else does that. And to my knowledge, I don’t know anyone else here locally that does we have 44,000 Realtors here. So guess what, those people are super flattered. And they also share that with everyone because someone just wrote an article about them. How cool is that? And so there’s a lot of different ways to do this. And maybe you’re not a writer, you know, maybe you’re not a video person. And also, maybe you don’t like doing Instagram stories, because you’d like to maintain more privacy than maybe that allows. But as, as Dan says, Pick your lane and what I would recommend. And Dan, I’d love to get your opinion on this. If you’re not sure you know, where you want to publish your content or what kind of content you want. I know we did this recently in a nonprofit that that I helped with, that we reached out to our customer. And we said, hey, where are you hanging out online? You know, where do you spend your time, we actually found that for this particular association, I’m involved with that it was LinkedIn. And we wouldn’t have guessed that. We actually found that more people were on LinkedIn than they were on Facebook and Instagram. And we’re like, wow, that totally shocked us. So now we said, Okay, well, everyone’s on LinkedIn. And now we’re like, Okay, now we know that’s where they’re going to be. And now we’re creating content for them. So that’s something that you can do, you can survey your existing customers your contact list, and just say, Hey, I would love to get your help. I’m working on my marketing plan for this year. Can you talk a little bit about where you hang out online? And then you can start to figure out how to create that kind of content for that, you know, distribution model?

Dan Schepleng 28:36
Yeah, I think, I think that I think, first of all that article thing, what a great idea. Brilliant. And I think it’s less. So if you break that down the idea of writing an article about the people that buy from you, or you sell or, or you work with, isn’t necessarily original, but all true, but it’s true to her. And that’s what makes it so good. And so people get with creativity, they think it’s like magic, and they, you know, have to do something that’s never been done before and have to do something original. And there’s this paralysis of they’re terrified to put something out there. Because, you know, look at all the other stuff that has come before and you know, who am I to write or do anything? But you know, it’s not necessarily an original idea, but it’s good because because it’s what fits her and she keeps doing it. Yeah, the consistency. It like posting one article posting, I would rather have a client or a realtor post, one article a week, that’s average versus for a year versus one brilliant thing and then never post again, like it just doesn’t work that way. It’s about volume, and in being truthful to what you like to do, and also where do you like to hang out online? Like, do you spend your time like I do, I spend my time I love tick tock, I love YouTube and Tiktok. So video is, is how I communicate, or enjoy making enjoy consuming, but I don’t like the camera on my face. And so if we ever do when we do stuff, it’s usually I’m behind the camera or I’m writing. And so yeah, I think I think that’s brilliant, just what she did and just, you know, being honest with yourself, and I hope everyone could like find that find their thing. That’s the that’s just their thing. And everyone knows that that’s what she does. And, and, you know, it’s a great shareable piece of content that all of the people that are friends with the people that bought the house, we’ll all see. And so it’s, it’s, you know, there’s the big commercials, and then there’s just the content that you chip away at. And they all do both like, like the the big brands and the in the the big real estate teams. They’re not they’re not just betting on one marketing horse. Like they’re doing Instagram, they’re doing tick tock, they’re doing YouTube, you’re doing Facebook, they’re doing Twitter, they’re doing Facebook Live Events, they’re doing motivational quotes, they’re doing videos of listings, individual agents are doing walkthroughs. And oh, yeah, they’re doing big commercials. They’re doing the, the billboards, they’re doing everything. And so it’s, it’s more about a little bit of everything at that at that large scale. That gets the gets the results that they’re looking for. And because, again, seven eight touches to for people to remember, and everyone in this market knows who they are. And it’s because you know, they’re there. They’re out there. And, you know, they just painted a whole bus in Ocean City, because they’re opening a bunch of offices down the beach, ocean cities, like out out east.

D.J. Paris 31:45
I know it real quickly. My sister when we weren’t, we’re in college, her after her freshman year, she moved to Ocean City, Maryland for the summer, too, because she saw it in the back of an advertisement that said, hey, students come out here. And we went to school in Ohio. And her and her best friend worked at a crab shack at some sort of crab restaurant, they’d come home smelling terrible everyday from from what I love crab, but you know, what do you work at? And maybe not? It’s not so fun. But so I do know, Ocean City? I’ve not been there personally, but my sister lived there for some time, though. Yeah,

Dan Schepleng 32:17
they have a lot of students that come and a lot of students from overseas, it’s really cool. Like, like, I don’t get I don’t know how the hiring process works. But yeah, it’s there’s definitely a lot of students. But yeah, like, they have no shortage of opportunities for you to know who they are as a brand. Yeah. And, you know, if you look at it as like, like everyone likes, like, the food pyramid is like a constant thing, like the the big commercials that are running regionally on the Super Bowl that we make, and the campaigns that we work with them to make, they have an incredible marketing team that’s doing everything below the tiny point of the pyramid, we’re just that tiny point of the pyramid, that is the key piece of content. But there are, you know, tons of people in that organization that are working to make that stuff happen. So it’s certainly not all of us. We’re, we’re, we’re just the tip of the spear, when it comes to the commercials and the creative, but you know, they really keep that brand going. Because of the in house team as they have,

D.J. Paris 33:19
I would love to talk about the idea of telling the story. And that sort of what that means in advertising in branding, and how agents can start to think about how to do that. And I’ll give you just a quick example. Just yesterday, I was interviewing someone for our podcast, who’s one of the top eight luxury agents in the country. And we were talking about story, story selling, which is maybe an antiquated term. But this idea that she’s now working with people who this is usually their fourth to fifth home, this is not their primary residence. These are ultra mega net worth people who have whole teams that they travel with. And it’s, it’s a whole different world that I live in, they play yeah. It’s and she has to serve all these different and appease all these different people. But what she said is she goes when I you know, show a home, or when I introduce a home to to a possible client, I have a whole story. She goes it’s almost an act, or a play in three acts in my mind, and she has a bit of a theater background, but she says this is a performance I and it’s an authentic performance, but she says I really want them to understand the story of this home, and how they can see themselves in it. And and I want to talk about just you know, the that’s just one small micro example of storytelling, but to talk about how that that can be done authentically, in you know, taking your phone, turning it around, if that’s what you’re comfortable with and doing a 15 second Tik Tok video or a 92nd You know, or 62nd Instagram video where you know in in dance, it’s something else Just want to really quickly before I forget, point is that make a step on this point a little bit, because it’s so important is the consistency. And whatever you decide to commit to with content creation, whether it’s videos, podcasts, you know, articles, tweets, you know, memes, funny memes, whatever your thing is, you have to really commit to it for at least a year and do it consistently. And, and, and what Dan said is so important is, don’t let perfection get in the way, because it’s not really what people always need. In fact, I think most people don’t care about perfection. So in other words, if the lighting isn’t perfect, if you stammer a bit, as long as you’re putting out quality content, and you’re checking to see what kind of results you’re getting, are you getting good feedback? I would say don’t what do they say Perfection is the enemy of just getting things done, or I forget what the end of that expression is. But, but just the idea of not having things because you work at an agency where you have, you know, oftentimes budgets to make things look perfect, which is amazing. But the rest of us do don’t have that. Maybe we can we talk a little bit about why that’s

Dan Schepleng 36:06
so so the interesting thing is people are willing to forgive quality, if they understand the expectations. So when we put a commercial on TV, there’s a certain expectation of quality, because at the beginning before that commercial exists in their mind, and after that commercial exists in their mind, there’s a there’s a set expectation that these are going to be professionally lit, professionally shot, professionally acted, directed, written or edited. And all of those things, when you turn a cellphone camera around, the content that you’re around IS and IS is honest, and amateur, and people expect that amateur look and feel and there’s nothing wrong with that. We actually made a commercial two years ago that was shot entirely on a phone, it’s like one of my favorite things we’ve ever done is for Cancer Foundation. And it was like, it was just shot on a cell phone and we just follow I follow people around us filming on this phone, and then we cut it together. And it’s really it’s really powerful. And there was no expectation because it was clear that the cellphone was part of the story. So So you know, as long as you’re honest with the audience, and you’re not trying to do something that is obviously not true. Like for example, the apple’s ads about shot on iPhone stuff, I think are a little disingenuous, because because they weren’t perfect. Well, they’re shot on iPhone, but what’s around that iPhone, right? Like, who’s shooting with that iPhone? Because like, if, you know, Rian Johnson, you know, takes your iPhone and starts filming, it’s gonna be different than like someone else taking your iPhone and filming. So, but yeah, perfectionism is is really an enemy. I think it’s, we’ve grown up with this feeling that creative people are meant to be our tours. And they’re meant to be you know, these geniuses that toil away in a cabin and that, you know, creative is this, this elusive thing, but it’s more craftsmanship than it is anything else. No one asks a plumber, where do they get their ideas? Where do they you know, where do they where does it come from? Like, how do you plumb? I don’t think that’s the right word. But you know what I mean? But yeah, and creativity is very similar to that it’s chipping away at an idea. And it’s it’s puzzles, it’s problem solving. And, you know, even going down to writing a commercial scripts, like, Okay, I need to get this couple from here to here. And they need to do something in the middle that does this. And it’s in, it’s just, it’s just craft and a certain point, it’s not magic. It’s not like pulled from thin air, you’re stumped for a while, and then you figure it out. Same with any other problem solving that you do. It’s just, you know, the thing that we’re selling is emotion, not, you know, correctly running pipes. And I think it’s a real shame. Because I think correctly, pipes are probably just as important as I look at the pipes around me. So yeah, I think people just need to get out of their own way. And it’s really hard. Because, you know, and this is saying, So as someone that you know, we have a Twitter account that I’ve been posting consistently on for the last two years. And it still doesn’t have that great of an audience. But damn it, I love the content on our Twitter account, and I have fun doing it. It’s, it’s really funny, it’s really silly. And and it’s a nice creative outlet for me, and I enjoy it. And I have no idea how many people follow us, because I enjoy the creation of the content. And that’s why, you know, our Twitter account may be big one day, it may never be big, but doesn’t matter. I’ll keep doing it because it’s fun. And I do enjoy it. And so, you know, again, back to that theme of of what do you enjoy and where it what makes you happy? Like what turns you on?

D.J. Paris 39:46
Yeah, and I would love to, to just talk a little bit about discovering your brand and just, you know, any sort of simple suggestions for our listeners or viewers who might be thinking, Gosh, I don’t know We have a brand I mean, I don’t know what I what I wanted. So maybe we should just define what that is, and maybe give some suggestions about how to discover or how to rediscover maybe even what your brand does.

Dan Schepleng 40:11
What’s the same thing as like, what’s the story? What’s the brand like? Like? The the, it’s a moving target of a definition. And if you ask someone that is a branding expert, they’ll give you a very specific detailed answer. But if you ask someone in a supermarket store, though, you know, the point of the cereal box and say, well, Captain Crunch, that’s a brand. Sure. And the crazy part is they’re both right. You know, the brand is basically you know, is your personality. And we all have a brand, whether we like it or not. And when we come into a room, how we’re dressed, how we talk, how we think how we communicate, and most importantly, who we’re communicating to, in that room, is all our brand. And so your companies are doing the same thing, just on a different kind of more disconnected scale, it’s not one room, it’s dozens a room, it’s not one person, it’s dozens of people. And, you know, thinking about the person you had on yesterday, you know, she is selling to very high net worth individuals, they’re buying their fourth or fifth house. And that is that right there, we can already picture the brand, we already have an idea in our head, that it’s very white glove, very buttoned up. And you know, this is disposable income purchases here, this is not a starter home. And it’s a different experience than someone buying their first home, in, you know, Calgary, Michigan. And so you know, the who you’re talking to is a big part of your brand that you already have it already. That and how people think of you is is, is a big part of that. And I think, you know, there’s a lot of exercises you can do. But one of my favorites is to just on a whiteboard, list, every single word that you think of when you describe your company, every single word in a lot of them will be redundant. You may say smart, intelligent, crafty, creative. And you could all start grouping those things together. And eventually, what you’ll do is you say you have like a, like 50 words. And you’ll find that there’s like three themes, like you’re saying the same thing over and over again, highlight those themes, and that’s usually close to what you think your brand is. Now the trick is, if you do the same, the same thing with employees, team members, or partners or customers, and if that doesn’t line up, you have a miscommunication of what you think your brand is, versus what your brand actually is. And that’s almost always the case, how we view ourselves is very different, and how other people view us, oh, I’m too fat. I’m too I’m too. I’m too short. I’m too, you know, my voice is nasally. Like, we but people, you know, will will meet you and say I don’t think you’re fat, I don’t think you have a nasally voice. So your perception of your brand is very similar to how your perception is as a person. And so the easy thing, you know, is to ask, you know, how are we into really look, how are we viewed in the market? And I think that is the benefit of hiring an agency, you know, is the outside perspective, because it’s really easy for us to look at you look at it, look at a brand and go okay, well, they’re obviously they’re selling to luxury homes. Look, what are other luxury home people doing? Okay, this is how they fit in there, the more accessible Okay, they’re selling to Silicon Valley people. So that, you know, these are, you know, $500 jeans, people, not Armani suit people, and that’s a different kind of brand. And, you know, maybe this maybe this realtor drives a Tesla instead of a Bentley, because it’s more eco friendly, because you just you just go down this rabbit hole of who they’re talking to, and, and what they need to say. And so just being again, it comes back to honesty, all good advertising, and all good creative work is honest. And, and we and we as humans have a really, really good lie detector for when someone’s being inauthentic. So when something like pop music, if it feels too polished, you know, you’ll like it to appear to a certain age, and then you get a little older and you’re like, Hmm, I can hear the auto tune in that. And in maybe that’s something you enjoy. And that’s something you’re willing to, you’re willing to prioritize another honesty in that work. But, you know, we tend there’s a reason why acoustic albums are always, you know, are still a thing. They’re still popular, like, because we like the honesty and that’s why that’s what’s a great thing about a phone is that a commercial made on a cell phone looks more honest. Because it’s it’s made in a more humble way. Because we we are such consumers of content, and especially video and just compared to you know, when I was a kid, you know, there was AOL, and that was about it, and there was TV and then you went to the movie theaters.

But now I’m probably watching eight hours of video a day in some way, shape, or form. And just the absolute, the advancement of the audience because of that constant barrage of content, you just have to be at a higher level and honestly, is the first place to start. And that

D.J. Paris 45:20
goes a lot to, you know, I don’t want to say anything controversial or to upset anyone, but why not alters his tone? Historically, realtors historically have been very concerned about their physical appearance in advertising. And certainly not to suggest that physical appearance isn’t important. Of course it is. But there’s an over seem to be an overly concerned effort to appear perfect. You know, we all can joke about and know realtors who, you know, have their photo that they’re using as their headshot, and it’s 20 years old. I think we’re to a point now because of social media, in particular, the accessibility of video and how easy it is to create that I think people are, I would guess this is just a guess what I would think people are respond a lot less to to perfection, and a lot more to authenticity. I mean, I think that’s kind of an obvious thing to say. But what I’m what I’m really saying is that this polished look, I think is is more of an outmoded idea for small brands, maybe for bigger brands, it’s more important, I don’t know, but, but certainly, as an individual we don’t, the individual person walking around doesn’t relate to perfection and we relate to, to you know, that’s the Oliver Cromwell warts and all, you know, we relate to imperfection. Vulnerability

Dan Schepleng 46:43
is what we relate to. And I would say it depends there are no hard and fast rules, like you know, if your brand is perfection, and you know, there’s there’s some great brands that are known for their perfectionism, Apple among them like that, that p but you’re talking about small things. I never I always like to say that, you know, with anything there is there’s always an outlier. There’s always something that I that we could you could bring up that disproves the future. So the idea that videos need to be seven seconds, 30 seconds, 15 seconds, I’ve seen seven minute commercials that are that get crazy views and blow everyone’s mind. It’s because it’s good. And that’s all people really care for? Is that, that it’s good. So if your brand is being a perfectionist, then you know, that’s that’s you be honest, do but you know, and you can have a lot of fun with that perfectionism. But you’re right, like the vulnerability, I would say, the honesty, the being a real person, like, what do you like, when you meet a person? Like, do they? Do they speak from the heart? Do they? Are they? Are they rude? Or are they nice? It’s the same with brands, like, you know, you the role of any kind of creative agency is just a doll, the edge, you know, you know, a bank is not a, it’s not something we would think of as heartfelt. We wouldn’t, we wouldn’t think as the bank is huggable. It’s kind of like hugging a steel ball. But there’s some bank commercials that have bring you to tears. And that’s by design, because you need a kind of a, you know, a rubber coating on that steer steel ball to keep the wheels of commerce going. I asked to boss I had years ago, you know, when I was first getting into this industry, I was like, What are we doing here, like all of this work? What is the point and is just like what with with, and I slowly realized that it’s kind of like the grease of the gears. Because of you know, it can take any kind of company down to the heart of what a real estate transaction is. It’s paperwork, its you know, its its laws and its paperwork. And it’s not an insurer, you know, there’s a side of it, that is romantic. But if you can, if, you know, none of our ads, you know, mentioned any kind of, you know, closing process or anything like that, it’s all about like, hey, you know, look at the look at the life that you could possibly have. And so, most good, most good work is about you’re selling an ideal, you’re selling a dream. I saw a billboard once about retirement. And it was just this old couple sitting on a porch, like a stoop of a porch drinking coffee, and they were retired. And I think about that ad like once a month. It was not that it might have been a stock photo, but it just resonated with me. I was like, Man, I want a porch and coffee and sitting like, that sounds nice. And so you know, it’s all selling some kind of ideal. And I think that, you know, the, the way the way that most brands present themselves is just the ideal that we wish our that we wish for ourselves sometimes.

D.J. Paris 49:46
Yeah. And, you know, back to branding for a second I was you know, Dan was was giving the exercise about listing all of the sort of characteristics that you think that that you think you are able to to delight Varane with your customers, and, you know, feelings and experiences. And then Dan also mentioned, well, gosh, you know, we’re so we’re almost too close to ourselves to know, the objective, sort of third party view, which is how to other people view us. And we may be right, we may not be accurate. So you need to find out. And I think, one way to do that, just as a quick little tip, Dan, maybe you have a, an additional suggestion, or or maybe this is a decent one, but it is to send it anonymous surveys to to your customers and say, hey, you know, I was in the process of going through a branding exercise. And here are here are sort of the, you know, the, the, the words that I want associated with my brand, but I want to make sure that that my customers or my clients feel this, that this is authentic to me. And if it isn’t, I really need to know that. And you can do it, you know, from an anonymous perspective, where they’re not giving their personal information, they can, you know, feel the need to be more honest about it. But I would think that would might help marry some of the what do we think and what, you know, the public thinks about us?

Dan Schepleng 51:06
Yeah, I mean, that is the basis of any, any good marketing strategist, that’s where they start it’s surveys. And any kind of strategy is usually built upon that. And I think we’re all terrified to do that as business owners, because, you know, we’ve never sent out a survey, because it’s like, oh, gosh, what are we going to hear? You know what I mean? Like, we get testimonials through the site called clutch, which is really interesting, because they’re like, curating testimonials. And it’s interesting to see what people say, and what people value. But yeah, I mean, look, the hardest thing I remember my first commercial, I was directing, it was what was like the second or third, but the first like real one. And, you know, you go through the script, and it’s three or four drafts of the script. And then you go through, you go through casting, and then shot lists, and then you got the shoot day, and there’s multiple takes there, then you have the Edit, then you have post production. And at that point, you don’t even know what’s funny anymore, right? And you’re too close to it. Yeah, and the client might not know either, because, you know, we’ve all heard the punch line three or 30,000 times that flames come out of the sink, and it’s like, is that even funny anymore? And it’s really hard, because you have to you have to try and disassociate yourself as best as you can, to, to put your yourself in the eyes of someone seeing this for the first time. And that takes that’s a that’s a real skill, you just, I just I was bad, I have to develop it, but having good honest friends in the in the industry, and then friends outside of the industry, you know, every single commercial that we make gets sent to about, you know, five to 10. Friends and colleagues, for different kinds of notes. Like I know, if I send a commercial to a filmmaker friend, he will say, This looks good. But the color correction is off between 10 seconds and 15 seconds, by sending it to a business person or business friend, they’ll say, cool, but what are they selling here, and you just you just, you know, it’s about getting good feedback. And that’s where good creative comes from, it’s the really important thing is it’s not magic, it’s structure and feedback. And it’s actually, you know, more boring than, you know, than the the Italian villa, where you’re reading, you know, the great American novel, it’s structured and feedback. And so, if you can have some honest friends, and you know, honest that you say, Look, you know, I want to know if, you know, my pants are down in public, like, you know, that’s always my biggest fear. Like, every, every artist in the history of artists, and I wouldn’t go so far as to call us artists, I think it’s probably a little pretentious. But the the idea of someone that makes creative stuff, all has something on their record, that they it was just a miss. And was it a mess? Because they didn’t care? Or was it a miss because they just didn’t, they didn’t, their their tastes didn’t line up with what was what everyone was gonna like. And good friends and friends that are inside industries and outside industries, the best feedback can come from, you know, someone totally outside of the demographic you’re going for it because because, you know, it’s really interesting to see how that what they think and what they point out. And so you can we do the same thing with work. So we get feedback as much as we can. Like, it’s really, really important. And especially for something you know, millions of people are gonna see this thing, you know, oh, my goodness, like, what if something is offensive, you know, and comedy is tough it like, like, and you know, you have to ride this line of like, will there be something that you know, you blindside that you totally didn’t see coming? Fortunately, we’ve never had that happen, because we get a lot of people looking at scripts. A lot of very aware people within the agency are also like, I think the thing that makes me most proud of the agencies that were very diverse. And I think that’s important for both ideas and Know those blind sides? And so yeah, do the same thing with your brand, you know, you know, if it’s not a survey, take a friend at lunch that is in the industry or someone that has that has used your services. And you know, how do you see us and let them unless let them talk, people love to talk. And so like I’m doing here,

D.J. Paris 55:16
I also love to be helpful to, especially if they like you. And so assembling this council of people that can give you honest feedback, as Dan was suggesting is so important. And then you have to be willing to turn your will over to, to at least receive their feedback and and understand that many things are misses. And as you create this content, there may be as many misses as there are hits, you might find somebody might say, you know, this just isn’t good enough. And here’s what I would do to make it better. And, and that’s okay. I mean, gosh, you know, you know, everyone learns from experience experience usually comes from making bad decisions. Also good decisions, too. But I learned a lot more from from the mistakes I’ve made. So assemble a counsel that it’s really important and and if you’re unwilling, if that’s too scary for you to do face to face, then do it anonymously, send it out to your clients and say, I don’t want you to feel that you have to tell me, You know what I want to hear just, here’s what I’m thinking of, here’s a particular direction I want to go, do you think that fits? Does that fit with your experience of me, and then you can adjust from there. And it’s funny that, as you were saying that, I realized we’re in the process of rebuilding our recruiting website for recruiting realtors to join our firm. And even though we have 750 Realtors here, I was struggling with this with this brand idea, you would think by now I would know, what is our brand? And what and I had to go to my owner. And I said, Well, here’s the seven words I want associate and he goes now only really for those work. And I said, Well, I don’t know, I think seven at first I had 30. And I said let’s do all 30. Wouldn’t that be kind of fun just to have 30 different things. And we could do something neat with that. He goes, No, it’s too much people get confused. And I was a little disheartened because I’d put all this work into it. But it was a mess. It was just wrong. It was the wrong approach. And he says we’re going to narrow it down to these four. And it was training support family, because we’re family, business and fun. And I said, that’s it, those are the four. And I would have as a creative person, I would have loved to do all 30. And I had a really cool idea. But it wasn’t really the right idea. So I have a counselor as well, you should also do the same. And you know, once you narrow down what what those experiences are those words, you want to associate it with your brand? Well, then that gives you such good direction. And it really, as Dan was saying, and really probably doesn’t matter as much what the distribution model is. In other words, how are you getting that content out, there’s a million ways to do it. And whatever fits with with your sort of personality is what you can go with. But I would say do that before you do anything else. Otherwise, what I did for the first many, many years here at our company is I just tried a whole bunch of stuff without testing it and threw it against the wall. Thankfully, none of it, you know, torpedoed our company, but a lot of it just was a bad idea that I didn’t ask other people about at a time, and it would have saved me a lot of headache over the years. So that’s that’s such a great suggestion. And I also want to mention, too, that kapow, is a dance company, they are looking to always expand their business. And if you know they work with what the top team in the country now and we have we interview Top realtors and so I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that if you are a brand, whether you’re a real estate into you know, an individual or a team or a brokerage, and you want to really take your branding and marketing to the next level, you know, check out couples or look at their work, if that seems to fit with with what you want for the vision of your company. And, you know, gosh, other award winning agency, they certainly have a lot of cool accolades, and they will take great care of you. But if you’re interested in learning more about them, please go to their website, take a look at their the content they’ve created for other clients, which is couples a.co, which is k p o w z ey.co. And Dan, do you mind sharing your email in case anyone wants to reach out to you directly?

Unknown Speaker 59:06
Yeah, absolutely. It’s just [e-mail]. And yeah, please reach out I’d be happy to I mean, stuff is really interesting. It’s fun to talk and it’s fun to brainstorm and it’s fun to it’s fun to help help people and so yeah, I mean if anyone wants to reach out there’s also you know if you if you want to join the literally dozens following the us on Twitter it’s Capella CO is the Twitter but yeah, I think my mom’s the only one that that actually follows that

D.J. Paris 59:37
Well, I I will tell you just a funny Twitter story as we wrap up only because this will make you feel a lot better. So years ago prior to me getting into real estate i i would just write jokes on Twitter and there were my own jokes. I wasn’t appropriating them which I have always a big issue with I see on Instagram. Everyone just steals everyone else’s content and because it’s way much easier And I just personally, I don’t like whatever people can do whatever they want. But I never did that. And I was able, and this is not this is kind of gonna sound like I’m bragging. But the reason I’m saying it is it is absolutely not a brag. So I amassed a pretty large Twitter following, or at least I thought it was I did about 100. And I don’t know, 30,000 Twitter followers, which sounds amazing. And, and just so that, you know, everyone understands, it really did nothing for me, as far as from a business perspective, maybe I didn’t learn how to monetize it or use it to my advantage to get other opportunities. But, but but I would have, you know, a lot of good feedback, which was nice. But But certainly, and now I don’t post it all on Twitter, and not because I’m like, Oh, well, I don’t need to do that anymore. I just stopped being able to come up with the great jokes. But what I will tell you is whether it’s dozens, or in my case, I had a lot more. The reality of it is is it’s still always hard to get noticed, I kind of maybe got lucky because I got some people who tweeted out things that I had tweeted. And so I got a lot of attention that way. It wasn’t just like I struggled. But and it took seven years to get to that point. So it was a seven year process. And I wish it would have happened overnight, but it didn’t. But the point is is is you know, whatever you want to do, whether and by the way, again getting 100 Once I got 130,000 Twitter followers, I realized oh or Yeah, I was like, Oh, this doesn’t really do anything for me personally. For other brands. That would be amazing. Like, if well, it felt it was yeah, it I guess it did it felt good. But then I realized it didn’t. I was like, Well, I’m really great at things that don’t make money. Isn’t that awesome? I devoted my life to something that doesn’t make any.

Dan Schepleng 1:01:36
You sound like a musician? Yeah, well, yeah,

D.J. Paris 1:01:39
I do play guitar as well that for the last 30 years. And that hasn’t made me a penny either. But, but it is fun to do. And, you know, I think that if you can have fun with your branding, and do something that’s authentic to you, and think of it more, you know, in line with, am I meeting my customers needs? Am I giving them what they want? Am I being true to myself, that you really can’t lose? Whether you have a few people that follow you on Instagram, or you know, 1000s and 1000s as long as it’s authentic, and fun people will the people who you want to work with will probably connect to that. And we could spend a whole nother hour talking about how do you get in front of those people? How do you get those eyeballs or, or ears to see or listen, but But you know, for now just focus on the content. You know, try to think about something fun that you would is exciting for you. And, and just push it out in and I would just say commit to whatever you want to do at least for a year doing it regularly, and see what happens.

Dan Schepleng 1:02:38
Well, and the reality is you’re gonna you’re gonna keep doing it, whether somebody is listening or not because you enjoy it. So like so and so yeah, I’m on. I’m on year, one of the Twitter account. And so we haven’t we haven’t had that. But you know, it’s, you know, add a huge following us, which I thought was cool. That’s awesome. Yeah. But it’s like, 200 I just looked it’s like tuna and some people, but I enjoy it. And, and, you know, you know, I hope eventually to get to that 100 and some 1000. But, but but, but I’m not waking up every day going. Okay, how do I get my Twitter account? 100 something right, right, right. I just like, oh, this is funny, I should post about this, oh, this is fun. And it’s just, you’ll keep doing it because you like it. And it’s the same with being a real estate agent, you know, you know, not to, you know, keep going back and namedropping Craig, but he really likes it like, you know, he probably doesn’t have to I don’t know much about him personally, but he probably doesn’t have to sell homes anymore. Like directly that agency is big enough. He could probably spend his time. But you call North a realty he’ll pick up the phone. And he’s a real estate agent, like he’s still really gets a kick out of it. Like Saturday morning, he is selling homes. And like he could spend his you know, he could fly to Beverly Hills and, and just play tennis all day. But you know, he’s still really likes it. And that’s why he’s been so successful. And I guess it’s the same for us. We just really liked doing this. Like it’s really fun. You know, writing and trying to figure out funny things to do with brands and just an or heartfelt things and telling stories. And and working with people. It’s just really fun. And it’s what gets us up in the morning.

D.J. Paris 1:04:13
I love it. Well, you have given us such amazing value today. And what a great conversation I’m, I’m a marketing person. So this is what I love to talk about. And I appreciate, you know, talking to someone who’s outside of the what well works within the real estate industry, but also other industries and just providing our audience with some suggestions. And so you have done that in spades. And we are super grateful for you to have come on today. So on behalf of the listeners and viewers, we want to thank Dan and the composite team for taking time out of their incredibly busy day to spend time with us on the show and provide our audience with with some some good ideas. And on behalf of Dan and myself we want also thank the audience for tuning in for listening right now. We could not do this or would not do this without you. So we certainly apprec She ate it. And all we ask that if you want to, you know, support us? Well actually, first you want to support Dan, please go visit couples a.com Take a look at their creative. See if it’s something that fits with what you’re looking for and reach out. They’re super accessible and will always be able to give you some good good ideas. And then if you want to support our show, the easiest way to do that is just tell a friend, I think of one other agent that could benefit from, you know, watching or listening to our podcast, this particular kind of great conversation about branding with Dan, and send them a link to our website. If they’re not a podcast person, they don’t have to be they just go to keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done is streamable right from the site. It’s super easy to navigate, or at least I hope it is I built it. I hope it’s easy. But either way it’s they don’t have to, you know, download a podcast app, but if they are a podcast person, then just have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real and ask them to hit the subscribe button so they can get this content. Thanks, Dan, so much. Really appreciate your time today and we will see everybody on the next episode.

Dan Schepleng 1:05:59
Thanks so much for having me.