The Business Model That Runs The World's #1 Facebook Group For Real Estate with Tristan Ahumada

Hey, it's Sharan and how amazing would it be if you could have the number one Facebook group in your entire industry? Well, today I talked to Tristan Almada, the CEO of Lab Code Agents, which is the number one Facebook group in the world for the real estate industry. And whether it's this industry or not, what we dig into was how the group got started, when it went from a group to a real business, how to drive more engagement, how to grow the group and most importantly, the exact monetization models on how the group makes money while still serving its members. We also dig into what it means for you to start your group in today's market and how it can not just be a community, but also put money in your pocket and build clients for life. This is a really tactical interview with the kind and the brilliant Tristan Almada, the CEO of Lab Code Agents, the number one Facebook group for real estate in the world. Get ready, you're going to love this one. One thing is for certain, just because it's tried and true doesn't mean it's working right now. So the big question is this, where can you learn what is working right now? The strategies, the tactics, the psychology and the exact how to go your business, how to blow up your personal brand and supercharge your personal growth. That is the question and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Sharon Trivata and welcome to Business School. So Tristan, being the CEO of the largest real estate Facebook group in the world is one badass. But two, you didn't, when this all started, I don't think this was the goal, right? Like it didn't start this way. So I would love for you to kind of, because every time when I talk to you, you're so humble about it, but no one realizes that looking back, it's easy. But what was it like when this idea first came out? What was that first idea? Dude, the first idea was let me make a blog because that's the world I lived in mentally, right? Yeah. And if it wasn't for my wife who said, you should make a Facebook group. I would have never thought of it. It was just by chance, right? That's it. And we just had the right opportunity at the right time for us. But why, what drove you to creating it for this audience? What was the motivation behind saying, okay, I'm going to create this community, maybe a blog as a content play, which is just, it's a container for content and engagement. But what was it that drove you to creating the group very specifically for this audience? I felt there was a need for it. Number one. And the need was, I kept on getting the same questions over and over and over. Everywhere I went to go speak and engage with people, it's like, well, what tech do you use to convert? And what do you say to convert these online leads? Yeah. That was it. Right? It's hurting for something so simple, right? Yeah. I think that's amazing because if the one that one the one the one the idea is pure upfront, you also had a focus. You're like, Hey, I'm going to talk about skills and conversion. And so anytime you had to show up, you talked about skills and conversion. That's it. That's it. That's all it was, man. And look, it was something that I was really, really, really great at. And it's still to this day. People, they still want to, well, what do you say to this person? How do you say it? Right. What tech are you using? It's the same thing. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And so that went. So Janice talked about not doing the blog and doing the group. The groups were at it's on Facebook where it's infancy back then. Yeah. And it doesn't have this kind of analytics and infrastructure like it has right now. No way. It's just a, it's just a simple group. You're like, hmm, what should I name it? Yeah. But the cool thing is I look back at it now and then I've been able to deconstruct the process. So I'd be like, okay, now you want to do this, right? Because we can go ahead and build another group and we have and we can scale it fast. You're right. Exactly. So that's, that's really what I want to share with you. The process now that we build to be able to duplicate this anytime. Yeah. And how fascinating is that from a confidence perspective that you've gone through it. You can look back and say, yeah, sure. Ideal was in the right time. Timing helped. Platform kind of stage helped. But looking back, I figured out this formula for doing this. But let me ask you this question. So you named, you named it lab code agents. Any, any, any kind of story behind how that came about? Yeah. Man, definitely. And that goes, that goes with way with step number two, which is branding. But here, I'll tell you the story. So I'm sitting there with my wife and I'm like, so, you know, I'm speaking and I'm not sure this is going to last a long time because these companies, it kind of go from one person to the next. And and she's like, are you sure you just, I'm like, yeah, you know, I got this gut feeling. And I go, why don't we, why don't we do this blog? And she's like, you know, if you're going to do this, do this as a Facebook group. I'm like, but I don't even use Facebook. Right. And she's like, but I'm on it all the time. It's really good. I'm like, okay, fine. And so I'm asking my wife how to use Facebook. I'm like, amazing. What do you, what do you do here? And then we're flying. We're going, it's from San Francisco. We're flying to San Francisco. I'm going to speak to a few thousand people at an event. And I'm like, you know, let's just go ahead and do this and let's use this opportunity that I'm going to speak and a webinar to be able to tell people that we're launching a group for those people that are on Facebook. So we can get our first couple hundred people in there. Yeah. Right. And so the idea behind it was just to use what I was already doing to help me kind of push it into that first stage. Right. And the very first time I did that, we had like 200 people join the first time, which is not bad, right? New concept, new thing. The only thing is I was the only one posting. Right. I was the only one posting daily and then the next day and then weekly, you know, this is interesting. How long is this going to be for? Right. And so how long did that last, if only you posted? I think probably about a month and a half and then people started understanding they could give back. You know, the weirdest thing was to me was that people didn't feel free to post correct. They didn't feel free to post their methods of doing business almost like they weren't used to giving. Right. Right. And that concept for a lot of people was difficult and it still is now, man. Look, look at our group is just a lot of questions, very few people giving actual real content on how to process your business. Yeah, but how so, you know, from philosophically speaking, right? We have the group. You have the group as a vehicle to do on a community to bring people together. But human nature is super interesting because you and I talk, you know, geek out on the psychology of this stuff. I actually don't think that at least the real estate industry has created a vehicle for people to share, which is why your group, the lack of what it just has done so well, like you've made it okay to share. You made it okay to contribute. You made it. You're actually fostering the sharing of the idea. Whereas most agents since they, you know, kind of are our individual soul, kind of, you know, gunslingers, they're some, they're naturally territorial. Not, it's not a bad thing. They're just naturally territorial because I got it, I got it, you know, eat what I killed. Therefore, if I give everything away, then how am I going to eat? And, but you creating this actually showed people that there was a vehicle where you can. And it's okay to like contribute and share in the group. You give people permission, which I thought was pretty amazing. Dude, that's, that's it. That's right on. I think people, people are like, wow, this is free. We get, we get a lot of emails back and texts and saying, hey, look, you, you helped me through this process of me evolving from this stage to this stage, just based solely on what you post, right? And they've been able to filter out all the other garbage that goes on sometimes in a massive community. Sure. Yeah. And so let me ask you this question. How, I think about this often, I'm a part of many groups. Some of the groups are so moderator, an admin strict that you post something and it's, it's, you know, reviewed for two days before it actually even gets posted in the group. And so that freedom is not there. So I think twice before, because in a social media world, if I post and like my post doesn't show up in the group right away, I'm like, well, I'm kind of disconnected from this process right now. But how do you teach people? I know a lot of people listening right now have a group of some sort and they may not have 180,000 people in the group, but you and I both know that if you and I were running a business right now and we had 100 clients and prospects in a group, that would be a a badass group if we could run it really, really well. How do you give people permission, what upfront to say, hey, this is our group and Sharan's not gonna be the only one posting. How do you create that invitation for more people to engage in that group with content? - You lead by example. So one thing that I did from the very beginning is not only post continually examples of what we should be doing, like, hey guys, these are the processes. These are the scripts. This is everything. Is that how I grew from one agent to a team to a brokerage to everything else? That example, but also going in and saying, hey, this is a safe place to post because you see how toxic social media can become so quickly. If somebody doesn't agree with the way you're doing something, they'll be like, well, you're stupid and you're idiot. Right? Because I'm right and you're wrong. And so we do our best to shut those down as fast as possible to continue that environment that it's okay to post and be wrong. And I'm not gonna lie to you, it's a challenge. Still a challenge. That's why yesterday I had to post up. I'm like, hey, look, there's just a reminder. There's no racism or hate in this community. - Yeah. - Yeah. And that constant reminder, it makes people feel like I am in the right community. I can continue to post, it's safe because Tristan and Group is going to be monitoring, right? - Yeah. And I also think that the community of Korea, I posted something once or a comment to your post. And I remember this very vividly 'cause I took it like 1% personally. Somebody commented on my comment and said, well, Shron, I agree with you, I respect you, but it rubbed me the wrong way that you said this. And I read that and I'm like, oh, okay. Well, I didn't really mean that. So I responded to the comment and I said, totally hear what you said. I sincerely apologize, I didn't mean it that way. I'm gonna go back and edit that to reflect it. And I wrote a note saying edited, reflected it based on XYZ's comment on this, my apologies, right? And so now because of that, my interaction, my engagement, my respect in the group is sky high because it's not like it's my way or the highway. And that I think has got a lot to do with the self-moderation associated with it as well. That's so true, man, I think with, again, going back to how you lead the group as well. - Right. - Like for you, if somebody goes up to you and says, hey, this is wrong because they've come to me and said that lots of times. - Yeah. - I don't be like, you know what, screw you, I'm kicking it out of the group. - Yeah. - I'm like, oh, you know what? That you're right. Let me actually change that and then approach it differently the next time. - Right. - So as much as we're helping them grow, they're helping us grow if we're just paying attention to this. And it's helped me grow dramatically, not only just to understand the right tone, to really talk to everyone with, but also just to be a little bit more socially aware of really what's going on. And look at all sides a little bit better than what I was doing in the past. - Yeah. So let me ask you this, when did you feel like it got real? - I'll tell you when I felt it's specific. - Let me ask that question. I didn't know how much influence I had until there was a blog article written about an incident that transpired, right? I was in a bus with my business partner for LabCode agents. And comments were made, but not by us. It was by somebody we were sitting next to and they were attributed to us, right? Negative comments about women and really about just that whole concept. - Yeah. - And when that hit online, the first day it was like, like that blog alone had about 20,000 views, but then the article hit another venue and then the next day had 500,000 views. - Oh my goodness. And so in the span of a few days, we were already at over a million views on this article. And people were really pissed off some of them and some were like, there's no way Tristan is like this. I know him, right? And then he's not like this. So that just made me realize how much influence we had because people cared. And I didn't know people cared. I'm like, who the hell am I? - Yeah. - Right? That propelled us into a whole other level. And I was like, I've been really underestimating the ability that we have to influence for so long. - Yeah. - So that, I mean, it shut me down mentally for like an hour and then it affected my family, anxiety, everything, terrible stress. I wouldn't wish it on anybody, but that propelled us into a whole new level. And I mean, after that, I'm like, dude, bring it on. I don't know. - Yeah. - You can do it very much that affects me now. - Do you remember at that time roughly, where were you from a group member size perspective? - Yeah, we were at about, about 20,000. - That's still huge, man. Like that's a lot of people and eyeballs in a group, right? That's amazing. That's amazing. And so let's talk about that for a second. - You've shown me this on the back end, which a lot of people have not had the luxury of seeing is you are very data driven because the numbers are so big. You're like, well, I got 20,000, 50,000, 180,000 people in the group. I've got to allow the algorithm, the numbers, the analytics to show me where people are voting with their clicks and their views and their likes, et cetera. - Yeah. - What I have talked to Facebook group owners across the board and some of whom you and I both know who have 10, 20, 30,000, 50,000 people in their group. And they've never looked at the analytics in their group. And the funny part is, I have a very small group, which is my 5am club group. It's got 6,000 people in a very, very engaged group. I look at the analytics every day in that group, every single day, because I want to see, are we hitting the mark, are we not hitting the mark, or the top contributors, et cetera? And you showed me a lot of that stuff. I would have never learned any of that because it's not directly in your face, but you have to do three clicks to get there. - Yeah. So on that, here's a difference. The moment I realized that this was not only a social media group or community, that it was more than that, that it was a movement, that it was then a business. - Right. - My mind changed and I was like, whoa, I need a lot of data here to understand where this is heading and how we can take advantage of this. Right? So when I looked at that, I then started looking at not only the group insights to see, okay, what days and times is it best to post? What information are people requesting more of? Because they're seeing it more, they're liking it more, they're commenting more, right? - So let's talk about that for a second. Wow. I know I can go into group insights and say that the timeline graphs are totally there. That makes a lot of sense. How do you understand what type of content is actually engaged with more than the others? How do you look at that? - Yeah, all right. So under the group insights tab, there's a section called post comments and reactions. - Got it. - And then you click on that, it'll show you graphs, it'll show you how many active members there are, how many posts there are, what days are best popular days, popular times, all that. And then it'll show you the top posts. - Got it. - Under there, you'll be able to see exactly what that post was, how many comments it has, and this is the cool part. How many times it was seen, and you don't see that anywhere else. So you can see, oh, this one was viewed 30,000 times, but this one was viewed 50,000 times, right? And then you start identifying what's most important to your users based on what they're engaging with. - Right. - You're like, okay, got it. Let's talk about this more. Let's address this, right? And if you want to take it to another level, right? Which I highly suggest everybody that's listening in to do, is there's something called Gritix. I don't know if you've heard of Gritix before, it's spelled GRYTICS. - Yeah, we'll link that to up in the show notes for people. - Cool, cool. It's Facebook group analytics, and it gives you even more information, dude, into your group. Just, yeah, just have to make sure that when you do go onto Gritix, you go onto your group and allow that app to work, yeah. - Great, that's better. - Yeah, you got it. But then it gives you even more details. Top post for the week, for the month, engagement. - Yes. - So many details that you need. If you're running this community to be more than just a group, then you need Gritix. - Right, so like, yeah, so, so, look, on a regular basis, what do you, so you jump out, you kind of jump into the group in the morning, I know you look at the numbers and the growth and all of that, but what are the few things that you always look at in the analytics to kind of get your pulse not only on the group, but the health of the group give you the pulse on the group itself. What do you look at day to day? Yeah, I look at the total member engagement, right? So I want to see how many members out of our 100,000 are so engaged, right? Is that going up? Is that going down? Then I want to look at the total overall engagement. It's important to me to look at the past 28 days to see where we're at, because I can identify trends. So we've been doing this now for a few years. So I can tell you, end of December, January 1st, that time is our highest time, peak. For some reason. Interesting. And look, we talk to Facebook on this too, and it's the same thing all across Facebook. Got it. They're just more engagement. And we've hit like over 500,000 post comments likes over a span of 28 days during that time. Got it, right? And at the very beginning of COVID-19, the same thing. Check this out, because we're monitoring it daily. Yeah. As we got into COVID-19, that number went from over 500,000 to just under 300,000. That's a massive discount for each time. Yeah, of course. And so I was wondering, well, I'm like, what's going on? And then you realized that there are so many groups being created. Oh, yeah, interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Taking that attention away from lab codes. And so then I'm like, OK, look, we've been through this before. Similar. The thing that gets us through every time is consistency. Just keep on doing what you're doing. Just level it up more, right? So we leveled it up more. And we kept on doing what we're doing. Now we're kind of seeing it go back up because the rest of the groups aren't engaging as much. We're so consistent, providing value. And really, that's really what I pay attention to. And then who is posting? Who is commenting the most? Who is liking the most? Because those become our tribe, right? And I can count on those people. If I tag them on a post or if I call them or text them, yeah, they'll appreciate it more. And they'll be even bigger loyal followers. And I know who those people are. I actually have a sheet of them. Yeah, yeah. Well, you showed me, I remember you showed me this. You're like, hey, man, look at your top contributors. You're your top 10 and your top 50. And I was like, I didn't even know this existed. And now I know who to tag, who to support. I had no idea that that. And so I always thought that I'm the lone ranger. I have to post. I have to do this. But you don't realize that there's a lot of people. There's actually people in some of my groups that are more active in the group than I am, right? That's true. Which is amazing. And so I actually wrote this up as a model. I'll share it with you. I don't think you and I have talked about this before. But I believe that across social platforms, and if you take a group specifically, and you are a perfect model for this, is that you have this phase one, which is the early adopter phase, right? You go in and you got the early adopter phase and people come in. And then the phase two is there's this little buzz phase. Hey, there's a buzz. I heard this there. I heard this here. Then suddenly you get this influx, right? But I think after the buzz phase is done, then it goes to this little value phase. Oh my gosh, I got a lot of value in this group. Somebody shared in this group. There was a little webinar in this group. I really learned a lot from this group. That's the third phase of value phase, right? And the fourth phase, what I believe that you have hit, is the non-negotiable phase, right? The non-negotiable phase is this. Unless someone has, like, unless someone doesn't like your eye color or your hat. Which is cool. Yeah. Right? Or your whatever. And it's fine. Like we can't-- everybody can't like us. They're joining lab code agents. If you're in this industry, you have to join the group. It becomes a non-negotiable. And so what I noticed is, like, you went from kind of, hey, the early adopter on your trip to San Francisco getting the first 200 in, created this buzz, and then you got into the value. And because of the consistent-- and then you-- you right now are a non-negotiable in this phase. Like whether or not people do anything, what groups-- you almost kind of have to be a part of this group. There's no other choice. And with that, it gets pretty exciting. Because you have more eyeballs than anyone else out there, which is super, super powerful, right? That's crazy. That's very true. I mean, you look at the real estate agents that are actually creating and producing business in real estate. There's about 600,000 of them that are consistent. And we've got-- what is that? I can't count, but 15%, 20% of them are not right. Which is insane. Yeah. And so here's where I want to kind of take this as a next step. When did you realize, or is there a story? Is there a marker that said, OK, I have a group with engagement, I'm adding value, all of this good stuff. When does it become the beginnings of a business? So that happened by accident, right? I call cool things, or most of them. And that was because I was growing it. I had chosen the right moderators or admins that would then help me grow it by them bringing in people. And one of those that I brought in later on was Nick, Nick Baldwin. And he had been in a different group previously. And he said, hey, have you ever thought of monetizing it? Because this is what I'm finding with another group over here. They're monetizing it through affiliates. Yeah. And I'd never thought of it, which was stupid. And so I was like, no, how would that work? And so he showed me the breakdown. And so we tried it. We tried it. And then it worked really well. Yeah. So I'm like, OK, there's something to this, right? Yeah. Are you-- without giving away trade secrets, are you open to maybe just an abroad model, sharing, hey, how does that process work? I can give you specifics, man. I share everything. Yeah. How does someone's thinking-- I think we have two buckets of audience. And I'll hit the bucket two in a second. But bucket one is like, hey, I've got this group. I don't know what to do with it. I've got engagement, all of that. At least let me understand the monetization around it, because I'll tell you this, Tristan. And the second is kind of the, hey, I am a coach, a consultant, an agent, a broker, whatever. I have 200 to 300 people in my community, my sphere, because I sell real estate in Laguna Beach. That's my group. How do I take care of that? I think that's secondary. I want to get to that. But I realize-- I'll tell you my biggest insight in the group monetization stuff. And I'd love your thoughts on this. Absolutely. People have no problem sitting through TV series and getting commercials. People have no problem sitting through a radio and getting commercials and ads. People have no problem looking at a newspaper or a magazine and seeing more ads and advertisements and commercials than content. But suddenly, when we put something on a group, that is actually a value to everybody, they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, he's selling something. I don't understand that. That's super weird to me. That we are completely open to being shown offers that are probably relevant to us in every aspect of our life. But when something is so targeted by someone that we respect, that is actually pre-vetted stuff for us, I would prefer just that. Those are the best kind of ads, right? Well, that's because you and I understand that. Correct. Exactly. And I think that even if some, and so my realization around this got better when I understood the monetization model. And I said, okay, since I understand this, I don't hate it anymore, right? Like I have an understanding of it. And so you've done a great job of sharing it. That's why for people, even whether they're going to monetize or not, if you can say, hey, here's a company, we use their product, we did this, based on this, they sold this, we got X, like that would be awesome if you could share. So if you could share like an example of that. Well, I think it starts with the branding first, right? Okay. I think that's really important because regardless of whether you want to monetize or not, there is an opportunity for you to do so in all platforms. And that depends on how sexy your brand is, the colors, the logo, the very first thing that I did, and I did this on purpose was, all right, let's create a logo that people would love to wear on a shirt or a hat. Yeah. I did envision that because I wanted to wear it. But dude, look at me, I'm branded everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right? But so I thought that and I thought, okay, real estate or not, I want to make sure that this is a sexy logo. Yeah. And I think that's what you start with because then, then you can start adding the value and the content to make that logo stand for something. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where we go into, if you do want to monetize your group, then you look at affiliates, affiliates that have to do with whatever it is that your group is about. For us, it's real estate agent. So obviously, we're going to bring in companies that can help real estate agents grow in some way. Right. And so the very first one that really approached us and really showed us the possibility of what we could do was, at the time it was Vulcan 7, they were introducing a espresso agent. It was a brand new product. Yeah. And so when they said, hey, can we launch this? First of all, I didn't even think about it. And they're like, can we launch this? And we'll pay you a portion, right? And so we were up front with everybody. We're like, yeah, yeah, let's do this to our community and say, has anybody ever heard of a espresso? Right? And they're like, no, what is it? That was our first launch. We did it through affiliate. Yeah. And I mean, dude, the check, the check, the check, checks were insane for that. For the very end. That's what made me realize, well, there's a lot of money in this, right? Yeah. And then we grew into, after affiliates, we grew into events. And events is more like pushing the brand to, so that people can actually meet with you. And if you do the events, right, they can make you money. If you do the events wrong, they will bankrupt you, right? (laughing) No one can see the expression on your face. So you can go. (laughing) We've still bankrupted, but we've done both. So we had, we owed a lot of money. But that's the other one. And then what we progressed into, and we'll get into some of these deeper, are ads and sponsorships. Think of endorsements like, you know, Michael Jordan endorsement with Nike, right? Well, we get a company that really wants to get their name out there, and they endorse us as lab code agents, right? And we talk about them, we show them off, we wear the equipment, and people know that we're related to them. That's how you think of an endorsement. Those actually end up being better for us than affiliates, because this is what happens being the largest community now. Right. They hear it with us, and then they hear it again somewhere else, and maybe somewhere else. And that fourth time is when they sign up, but they heard it with us first. Correct, exactly. Yeah. And that's a challenge for us, right? Because I can't take advantage of that. Right. But so then we go to brands, and we say, hey, look, brands, because I know my numbers, I know our engagement on webinars, I know everything. Right. This is what you get, right? And we're going to not only help you with branding, we're also going to help you with retention, because people keep on seeing it over and over and over. And they're like, you know what? I keep on seeing this, why would I leave? Right. Yeah. And then those people that keep on seeing it over, is like, fine, I'll try it. Right. Yeah. And then they're seeing the secrets that we're showing on how to use things. Yeah. Then they're like, well, I guess I've been using it wrong because Tristan and Geng are showing us how to use it because it's working for them. Totally. Yeah. That's the whole process. Affiliates, events, ads, or sponsorships, or endorsements, whatever you want to call it. But there's also one more which you've done, but you've done very selectively, which is kind of the inbound consulting stuff. At some point, people just throw up their hands. They're like, I don't know how to do this. Can you just help me? How does that work? Has that been-- It's not-- you've not actively done that. You've done-- I know you've done a lot of inbound saying, OK, I've seen Tron. He's been my group. He's given to the group for three years. And he wants to do a consulting thing with his company. I'll do something like that. Has that been an active part of what you've thought about? Because a lot of people can use that consulting model because they are the kind of-- they're on the pedestal for the organizer of the group. They control the rhetoric and the narrative. So clearly, you automatically have this credibility, if you will. How do you think about that? I love it, man. I think when you have an audience that respects you because you've done a great job coming from contribution and giving value, there's a system that you have to put in place to be able to help them grow now. Because obviously, you're doing something right. Totally. And they want to do that as well. You not only inspire them, but you also have the ability to show them how to grow their business, of course. And so it's a responsibility that you have in a duty. So then you go and say, well, what can I do here? Do I bring in somebody like Sharan to help us and to help our audience grow through consulting or some type of education or training? Or do you create that as well and create a membership type of thing? Right. So there is that consulting, education, training that's paid for. But we like to do both because you see our webinars, you see the education that we-- And you do the same thing. Yeah, of course. So it's a combo. Well, I'll tell you this. For those that are listening, secrets that Tristan and I are on talk about on text that we'll share with you a little bit today is this. I've had people tell me Tristan that they've they'll call me out of the blue for, hey, can you help come consult? And generally, the pricing is like whatever you want, right? Because not from a look at me amazing, but I think what they get is a couple of things that you don't get from a random person who's only a consultant. And what I mean by that is, so let's say there's Jimmy and Jimmy is a consultant and he does marketing automation. That's Jimmy and he's building that brand. Well, if someone hires Tristan, a couple of things are amazing here. Number one, you get-- you're already guaranteed with the knowledge base. Because you see it every single day. You're already guaranteed. So there's no question whether Tristan can help you or not. So that certainty is really important, right? The second is that there is enough social proof around it because everyone has seen and showcased that. And the third, which I think is actually one of someone that contacted me outside the real estate industry told me recently, was, hey, because I asked him, I was like, why did you reach out? He's like, well, I get to hire you and I get your platform for free. Which is brilliant, by the way, right? Because I have no problem now posting a video about me and Sally, my new client. That's for free. To my million followers. There was no way she basically said, I can either write your check for your followers or I can just hire you to teach me. And then I get your platform for free. And she's like, I shouldn't tell you that, but I will. And I was like, OK, that's brilliant, right? And so for those of you who are thinking about something, before you go hire somebody, you want, you would much rather, your bang for your buck is significantly greater to hire someone like Tristan, because you have the guarantee of the knowledge, you have the insane social proof, you have the amazing network that he has. A lot of people that owe him a ton of favors and a free platform. Like you would never get that anywhere else. And so whatever you're paying in consulting is a steal. Is a steal. That is a great point that I didn't put together before. But I've done that a few times. You're right. People reach out to you. Companies reach out to you and say, hey, we need your expertise on this. And I think it was a challenge for me to really accept that. Yeah, first, be like me. Why? Yeah, do I deserve this? Imposter stuff? Yeah, of course. So that's a process too. But that's a really good point to that you bring up. And then going into the membership consulting education training world, I think that's inevitable if you keep on going this route, because you're learning so much, you've got to teach some of it back. You've got to give some of it back. Right. So the other thing that it kind of goes into is products. Where you can create your own product, whether it's a tech piece that-- OK, so here it is. We're so connected to our audience. We understand what they need. Yeah. And some of what they need doesn't exist right now. It doesn't. I can-- I see it every day and I'm like, oh, man, I wish this was around because it doesn't exist. So if you can connect with the right companies, tech wise, people wise, you can then come together to create this for those people. And you've done it too. Look at Kingston Lane. You've done it. So in the same way, we've gone and created something like LCA Marketing Center, which is like the Can For Real Estate agent. And we're in the process of creating other things. We'll screw it up here and there. But it's part of the process. The idea is, because we have our ear to the ground, because we're actually still practicing real estate and engaging with people in real estate, we know what it is that our people need. And it's our responsibility to create it. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's a part that people don't realize, like, products besides your hats and shirts. And besides the merch. Yeah. Besides that, right? It's an opportunity, dude. You-- so great ideas on the monetization. The one thing that I've seen you do better than anyone else. And I actually know a lot of people that are in your fold about this is how you have built this win-win army. Of moderators. Like, literally, no, but it does not exist anywhere. Because most people who run groups, they-- it is the Sharan Interest in Group. It's the Sharan Interest in Group. I mean, I mean, I mean, I hear some VA's who would go in and comment for them, but that's it. And so you-- I'd love for you to talk about, hey, well, how did you think about, what was the first moderator and how did that happen? And then you've actually laid out a kind of agreement with your moderator saying, hey, you're coming on. I'm giving you a platform where you can build your brand, which a lot of people have done, by the way, and then gone on to build their own groups and start their own companies and all of that. But people-- and you want that. You're like, hey, go ahead, do it. But as long as you fulfill the other end of the agreement as well. Can you talk a little bit about it? like this moderator agreement and how you dot through that. Yeah, it stemmed really from the beginning of me realizing that that the growth that the group was having was directly related to the quality of the admins at the time because we only had the ability to do admins right. And so my very first admin was Jake who is my ISA at the time, he's lead coordinator and he's still with me by the way. And Steve Pasanelli from Bombom, I don't know if you know Steve. Yeah. But Steve said, you know, I can't anymore because I'm switching from realtor.com to Bombom. So that's the guy who put me in contact with Nick. Now when I brought in Regina, Brown and Josh Montgomery who were my first admins, they were really passionate about about really spreading the vision. So I they needed to understand what this was about first, right. And so I did such a good enough job to to be able to show them what I wanted to do, right. I said, I want to get to 100,000 like day one. I want to get to 100,000 dude, like you never said that before. I never heard you say that before. Yeah, it's crazy. I shut the door. I close the door with me, Jake and I am like, Jake, this is my idea. I want the science of real estate, right. Let's come up with a logo. Let's come up with a slogan. And so two hours in, we came up with lab code agents and then he came up with the slogan, the science of real estate, right. And as soon as I opened the door and I go, before I shut I go, dude, we're going to get to 100,000. This is needed in the industry. And I close the door. So from that, it the message to Regina, to Josh, they believed in it enough that it was so sincere that I wanted to help that they said, you know what, let's bring in more people because I believe in what you believe in, right. And much later, I realized that the most important piece to me building the community was the people that I was associated with because Regina brought in 5,000 people, right. That's awesome. And I'm like, I didn't know 5,000 agents. I think I was like friends with, because remember, I'm new to Facebook. Yeah. I think I only had like 20 Facebook friends that were real estate agents. Well, Regina, he'd been in the business for such a long time and educating and all of that. So now I look back and I'm like, look, if you're going to start a community or a group, look at your admins and moderators and do two things. One, let them understand what it is that you're actually doing, the vision, the mission, why are you doing this, right. They're going to buy into it and say, okay, this is what you're going to do. I need you to bring in this many people, right. Have a set amount of people they need to bring in. Dude, how did you have the courage to say that? Like, and I'm asking that because if I am invited to a group and I almost like, I can I ask this person, can I ask this person that, hey, as a part of this, their goal is to bring me 500 people like, did it ever occur to you or did you ever feel a little awkward asking for that? Okay. Okay. I did, man. It's a I think you and I especially because we're not like the type of people who are like bragging or they're not takers. Yeah. So, but I believe in it so much that I thought, you know, we're creating such great content and value that everybody needs to be here. And the opportunity that we're giving now, okay, now the moderators and the admin to be able to grow their influence, right. Why not have them when they come in as moderators have them also bringing people that they know who will also love what they're doing because now they have a platform to talk to their own people and be like, look, I'm part of this amazing community and I'm influencing other people as well. So that's how I viewed it eventually, but at the beginning, I'm like, I didn't ask. So, yeah. But now I'm telling you, if you're doing it, please do it for the beginning. That's number one. Yeah. Number two is you need to have a set of guidelines so that your admins or moderators know what they need to do because the last thing you want to do is bring them in and be like, okay, guys, let's do this. Yeah. They can read your mind. Yeah. They don't know what to do, right? So I suggest you let them know say, hey, look, this is an opportunity not only for me, right? And the community to learn from you, but for you to grow your influence because if you do this right, look at all of the other people that have gone out from this to get to get jobs that amazing tech companies to be their own influencers to create their own businesses from lab coats. Yeah. Right. If you do this right, you can do this too. Yeah. And I'm asking for you to at least post three times a week, right? To do a live video once a week to participate in our webinars, right? And to go in and comment and like as well. Yeah. You're just you're basically giving them, hey, this is the playbook. If you're not part of it, like, this is probably not the right fit for you so that it makes it very clear, right? And that way there's no animosity because there's an agreement up front. Yeah. That's it, dude. That's it. And so I really think it's important for you to find the right individuals that that understand social media. Number one, and they have the right attitude because the last thing you want is to bring in somebody that's just has has no emotional intelligence or or kind of lacking in that. And then I'm telling you for personal experience. Well, let me ask you this and this is this may be a harder question. How let's say something goes awry with the moderator, which I'm sure it's happened to you. Do you fire the moderator? How does that work? What's that conversation like? Does it suck? The conversation 100% sucks. Yeah. But you you you have to talk to them first and give them an opportunity and try to understand what it is they were trying to do, right? Unless it's a blatant out racist hate comment, right? Then it's easy. You just block them say, dude, you're out. Yeah. It's more along the lines of lacking emotional intelligence. You just sit down with them and say, look in our community. We strive to do our best to do this. And dude, I've sat down with people over the phone because they're in different states. Yeah. And we like, look, what you're posting to your personal page? Doesn't abide by what we stand for in lab code agents. So if it's if you're going to keep on doing that, I'm not going to say it's not good. I'm just saying it doesn't abide by who we are. Right. So you could just do me a favor. If you want to remain a moderator, I can't have you do that on your personal page because they tie you directly to me. Of course. And that's a difficult conversation, dude. Yeah. Because it's because it's very easy for people to say, well, it's my personal life. Why are you influencing it in somewhere? Right? Yeah. Which is just so wild. Dude, I want to, I want to, there is a group of folks right now. I want to get in that maybe, maybe rapid fire, some questions, that you want some tactics, right? That I want to keep this, this person in mind, who is either a real estate agent, a real estate broker in a local marketplace, an insurance agent, insurance broker, a coach, a consultant, someone that is an expert trying to sell their, their, their advice and their service, right? And a lot of them have started their own groups. It could be a, hey, I sell real estate in Laguna and I've got this Laguna Beach group, which is cool. And I actually, I'm a big fan of that, which is really good if it's done well. So, so I wrote down a few questions to kind of ask you about this. So if let's say I'm one of those, that's the avatar in mind, before I start, what would be like a couple of things that I should do before I start a group like that? All right. The very first thing you need to do is define the group. What does it look like to create this community group? What are you going to do? Right? So I always say, if you're going to do a community type group, well, what type of information are you going to bring to your community? What value are you bringing? Are you going to be the same as everybody? I'll say, check out this awesome listing. Yeah. Or Susie Q walked across the street and got a ticket. Is that something you want to do? Or do you want to go deeper and be like, well, I'm going to be interviewing my favorite coffee shop, right? Which I've already done. Right? And I'm going to be like, so tell how did you start? Right? Yeah. And then outline this. Does this look like video interviews, podcast interviews, real actual news where you're getting together with people who make a difference in the community? Right. And that's what I would look at. And the other thing is I would look to see who's already a mover and a shaker in the community. It's your school at a community center. People that are actively involved and say, I want to team up with this person because that'll bring me instant credibility. Right. And she'll be like, jump into this community because not only am I running it, but Sharon's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. So that so I so I almost need like kind of a charter for myself and you look guideline document before I start something, right? Yeah. What do you stand for? Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And that one, when someone, when you're actually pitching it to somebody saying, hey, you should join the group because you actually have the bullet points prewritten, if you will, right? Yeah. Dude, it's really, it's easy. I think of it like this, the US has a constitution. Boom, boom, boom. Yeah. Your religion, whatever it is, if you've got one, you've got a code or commitments, right? Or something along those lines. And you know what you stand for. So do the same thing for your community because it's a business that you're actually running. Same thing. Let's talk about the second question I had was let's talk about the commitment. So I am starting this group. As you said early on, it took you like, you know, for 60, 90 days, you were the only one posting in the group. And it's probably going to be that way, because you were kind of the boss of the group, if you will in some way until it gets to the size where you can enroll other people in. If I were starting a group, I had 30, 60, 90, a hundred people in there. How should I outline my commitment to posting? Should I predefined, is it a daily, a weekly? Does the cadence matter? Yeah, definitely. It matters a lot. And I think at the very beginning, it matters even more than any other time, only because it'll break it or make it. And you definitely need to go all in. I would, if you could, if you're starting it off, I would post at least three times the day to your group, if it's a new group. I love it. And I would already have some content created as well. People are like, well, how do you have time to create that? It's easy. And it's difficult at the same time. Right. The easy part is if you identify it like I do on my calendar, on a weekly basis, where I have some time to create, there's actually a little section on my calendar, where it says create, create, create. And I've outlined what that looks like on what the on this board, right? Yeah, let me see. Well, you can't see it, but you know what? This board, where I outline, I say, okay, this is what I'm going to do here. These are topics that I want to talk about. This is what I want to do. I'm going to do a video. I'm going to do a post. I'm going to do a live video. I'm going to do an interview. I'm going to do a podcast. I'm going to talk about this in the news. I'm going to talk about this specifically. And I've outlined it so that I can go and post. And one of the things that you need to be doing is also looking at other communities that are similar to yours. That's a good one. Because when you go in there, you're like, damn, Sharon had something really good to say. I'm going to use that and tweak it to make it more of how I see it, but along the same lines. Right. Right. And when you do that, it becomes a lot easier. Because now your brain, and this is scientific, your particular activating systems, actively filtering out content for you. You're like, you're like, oh, boom, that's good. Save. Oh, that's good. Write down. Yeah. That's what it does automatically. And that's how that's how you and I function now. Of course. How do I know if it's working? It sometimes it takes a little, it's like SEO, right? It's a long search engine optimization takes sometimes, right? It's a process. I think I'm going to give you a personal example of a brilliant tribe, which I started the newsletter. Yeah. Of course. In the 31st, 2019. Yeah. I was telling my wife and my wife's like, look, it's a good idea, but the consistency, I'm not sure you can keep up with it because it's going to take a while for it to build up. Yeah. Right. And so she was right. It didn't look like it doesn't sound like a long time, but for me, who's impatient as hell took a long time. A month, and I wasn't getting like the greatest feedback. Right. For you, if you're starting a community, expect, expect, probably anywhere between a month to six months to build it out. And it's really going to depend on two things. The people you bring in with you to grow this. And your commitment to posting more than one time a day, because this is a job. If you're going to come in and post once a week, this is never going to work. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that you and I are both, you know, we have our, we have a lot of connection to our email list. Right. Like, I love, you know, we write, we write a lot. That's a good medium for us. Yeah. I, I, when I started out, I envisioned, and I want people to know, does I envision what it would be like to hit the send button on an email and have 10,000 people get that message. Right. I just, I envision that. And like, that still drives me. I'm like, I can write in a thought. And now that, like, my list is way bigger than that. But it's so powerful. I can hit one button and have that go out. But that's what gave me the confidence and the courage to just build every single day. When someone said, Hey, Sharon, do you want to come on a webinar? It's in, you know, like we're talking to small business owners. I'm like, okay, how many people in the room? 250? I can get 240 subscribers on this. Like, I knew. Like, 100% right? Like, I knew at the end because it's not, I have nothing to sell them. But I know that my, I can influence that. And they can, it's, it's a very opt-in medium, right? And I, what the reason I mentioned that is exactly what you said, which is if you can't have that in mind saying, Hey, I, I'm going to wait, I can't wait for that time in 90 days where I get a direct message from the group saying, Hey, that meant a lot. Or I got a direct email from the group. Or this, that thread inside the group had like 36 comments on it. Like, if you can't envision that, you will not take the, you will not take the time to build it. That's, well, dude, that's, that's so key because if it's not your passion, you're going to give up. That's why I tell people step number one is it's got to be a passion of yours. If it's not, you're not going to see it through because I get super, I get super frustrated when things don't work quickly. And if I don't love it, I'm going to drop it, right? It's like, I am. I'm like, Oh, that didn't work. It's, it's, it's amazing when, when we all, we all think about like, how do you, like, you call it the, the kind of the overnight success, right? It seems like I started yesterday. But man, I've been, I've been dying and pulling all of this, this together every single day. It's, it's been a while. It still goes, man. I mean, look at the amount of content we provide, both of us, right? It's like, it's never ending now, ever. Yeah. If we stop, like, if I stop, then I won't have it ready for the next day or the following day, yeah, I cannot stop now. Yeah. But the reason we keep on going is because we love this stuff. And totally, it's not your passion. Do not attempt to don't do it because you won't stick with it. Two more questions who kind of wrap us up. The first one is what, what shouldn't someone do? That's the first thing that comes to mind is like, Hey, couple of things that, Hey, I already did this. It broke or it didn't go very well. What's that? What shouldn't somebody do? I think you shouldn't ostracize people. That's number one. I think you, if you want to grow massive, if you want to stay small and have a really niche group, right? Then that's cool. You can be like, you know what, you don't, you don't do this right here or we don't stand for that in a, in a negative way. But from the very beginning, like I said, when I shut that door, I was like 100,000. I needed to change my mindset and be more inclusive of people. So I needed to change my opinion of what my opinion was. Yeah. Yeah. Because a lot of personal growth that goes into that. Yeah, it does, man, because yeah, you see the world one way and you're like, wait a second. My way's not the right way, right? And dude, I think that's if I've grown anywhere, it's been on that sense. And it started with, with my, with my wife, right, meeting her because she's, she's Muslim, right? And I'm not. And having to understand that whole process, this whole lab code agents took me into a whole new world where opinions, opinions are only one perception of how the world should function. And the more open we are to accepting other people, the more people will accept you. Yeah, we have principles of what we stand by. No hate and racism, right? We stand for real estate in this case. But we're inclusive. We're inclusive of all different types of approaches on how to succeed. And I think that's number one, because you see it out there. People get pissed off super quickly and offend people. Yeah. And that's the opposite of what you want to do. If you want to grow an actual real business. Yeah. Yeah. Looking back, you've, you've probably said to yourself multiple times, please, so tie us off. I wish I had done that sooner. And I know there's, I know that list is not one or two things. There's many things on that list. Some of the needle a lot, some wouldn't the needle a little. In fact, you even told me about a deal that was on the table when someone wanted to acquire you guys. And then you realized a big lesson from that saying, hey, I wish I had what they have. What is something? Oh, there's a lot of things on my list. I'll give you three that come up to. Yeah. I wish I would have started my email list much sooner. Yeah. We would have had a higher quality list way faster. Yeah. And we would be more massive than we are now, right? So that I look back and I'm like, damn it, I missed that opportunity then, but let's jump on it now. That's number one. The power of email is by far underestimated by me initially. But here's the crazy part for for I people need to realize exactly what you just said. The guy who runs the number one real estate group in the world for real estate literally just said, I wish I had email to drive better engagement to drive better quality, which is, which is amazing from the crossbowlization of platform perspective. That's what I want people to kind of realize here because this is not fluff advice. No, you see the thing that people miss with email is that they think it's dead because people don't open it. They only open, they only don't open garbage. Of course. Yeah. If you're giving valuable content, they're going to open it and it's going to drive more people to your webinars. Yeah. More people to your YouTube page, more people to Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, everything, everything I'll grow from that one list. Yeah, that's why that's what I missed and I missed a big time. Yeah, now we're gaming. So we're I'm getting happier. That's number one number two Be very careful as to who you go into business with yeah, their admins moderators or business partners because they will break you or Make you and you want to make sure that they have the right mindset with this they come from a point of contribution giving kindness We lead with kindness, right at least most of us do So I try to set an example with their that and then lastly is Just be careful who you trust because everybody comes to you as you're growing and and they see you as an opportunity for them to grow sure And not necessarily vice versa Yeah, and you could fall into into a trap there thinking that it's an opportunity for you So you just have to be very careful. Yeah, hey, so you Where can people Connect with you. I will link up the brilliant tribe as well for you But what is if people want to get more of Tristan, where did they go? Yeah, dude? Instagram or YouTube and it's my name Tristan Amata. It's a h-u-m-a-d-a So either one I'm trying to grow my YouTube page so yeah We got to do that. Hey, man. I can't I you know, I have mad respect for you What you have built is amazing and beyond all of that you are just a Superkind and super collaborative guy and I look forward to every time we get to hang out together So can't thank you enough for being on and dropping some great gems. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on Hey, Tron, I have a cool gift for you I took some of my best ideas from the last 20 years and created a five-day MBA It's quick connection packed that you could listen to on the go just like this podcast and I want to give it to you For free just as a thank you for listening to the show no fluff no gimmicks just pure actionable ideas For you to use instantly you can grab it right now at businessschoolshow.com That's businesschoolshow.com You