Kevin Oakley (00:02.516) Welcome to episode 400, 400. Julie Jarnagin (00:05.398) Yay! Beth Russell (00:06.537) Wow. I wasn't prepared. Kevin Oakley (00:09.28) I'm Kevin, I'm Kevin Oakley and with me today is Julie Jarnigan and Beth Russell for the, did I say 400th episode? Julie Jarnagin (00:10.673) I think... Julie Jarnagin (00:19.114) 400th. I love that. That's exciting. I should have worn like a party hat or we should have worn tuxes and ball gowns or something. We should have done something exciting. Beth Russell (00:26.521) what do I have? Quick. Kevin Oakley (00:30.414) Something should have happened, like we should have given away 400 something or I don't know. I always feel like we let a little bit of let down. The challenger part of my personality is like at every milestone is also like, should we just stop it? Because if it ever did end on like episode 419, that would trigger me. I would have to do... Julie Jarnagin (00:34.909) huh, huh. Beth Russell (00:43.555) This is supposed to be a celebration, not depressing. Julie Jarnagin (00:44.5) Look, hmmm. Julie Jarnagin (00:57.704) god. Beth Russell (00:59.011) Mm-mm. Kevin Oakley (00:59.118) 81 solo episodes just to get to like 500 before it before it all ended. Julie Jarnagin (01:00.672) Mm-hmm. Julie Jarnagin (01:04.69) No, I'm with you. You can handle it. Yeah. Beth Russell (01:04.96) Yeah, I agree with that. Kevin Oakley (01:08.244) All right, let's do a quick special announcement and then we'll dive right into story time. The Online Sales and Marketing Summit is like right around the corner. So we record in advance, but by the time you're hearing this episode, we're talking about the beginning because registration is probably closing slash sold out. So this may be the last time you hear us talk about on the podcast as a quick reminder. So go click the link in the show notes. get a ticket if one's available and before we shut things down, because we have to print out lanyards and get your seat all shined up. We actually get out like this special cloth and we wipe down and we put a little placard on the back of your seat with your name on it and make sure it's set to your, yeah, it's gotta be set to the proper temperature that you prefer. We've upgraded our seats this year to like individualized temperature control. Beth Russell (01:54.933) Is it a chamois? Kevin Oakley (02:05.006) because you know at conferences everyone wants, half the room wants it hotter, half the room wants it colder, so this year we've up, but we can only do that if we shut off registration early enough so we can prepare your seat just for you. Julie Jarnagin (02:17.142) Yeah, and I've been on the back end of seeing what everybody's preparing, who's speaking, what's coming up. You don't want to miss this year. You don't want to miss it. It's super actionable, exciting things that I just can't wait to be out in the world. So if you're going to come, this is the year. Beth Russell (02:24.534) Mm-mm. Kevin Oakley (02:34.518) Yeah, and more research slash scientific studies are gonna be released this year than the last two years, I think. So it's gonna be good. Gonna be good, all right. But nothing can be as good as story time. Julie Jarnagin (02:41.109) Mm-hmm. Julie Jarnagin (02:47.05) Yep. Kevin Oakley (02:52.918) So, Beth, on this 400th episode, kick us off. Beth Russell (02:57.975) The 400th episode, I'm actually going to allow you guys to have a peek behind the curtain because we did something that we don't typically do. Normally, as our conversation kind of unfolds, we have this weird red string that occurs in between story times. But this morning, Julie and I spoke and I was like, Julie, there's been so much going on. I'm not really sure what I should talk about. And she was like, you know, this is what I was thinking about. And I was like, well, maybe there's something that's going on that'll kind of really connect to that. Maybe there's a connective tissue that we can build. And so that's kind of what we did. So I'm being honest and kicking this off to say there was, we did plan ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Kevin Oakley (03:38.712) Are you saying you planned ahead for this podcast episode? Geez, thanks for telling me. Julie Jarnagin (03:40.854) Can you believe it? It's changing on episode 400. Now we plan ahead. Kevin Oakley (03:46.575) We're changing everything. We're OK. Well, then I definitely am going to continue to go last because I don't know. I'm going to figure out how to connect this here. All right. Yeah. Beth Russell (03:50.143) I am no longer just winging it. No, I'm just kidding. Beth Russell (03:57.949) We left him out of the planning of this guy. So sorry. No, but we were having this conversation of and it's kind of it kind of weaves into actually what you and Rachel just talked about with your office hours that just went live yesterday in terms of our recording of this podcast and, you know, attribution, the thought of attribution. And it got me thinking of like, how do we attribute the wins internally? as a company so we can figure out what is working versus what isn't, right? We had a conversation with a builder this week about, we'll call it a campaign that they were running. It was something that was more in the power of their sales team in terms of getting it to the customer and to work. And then eventually, like after it had run for maybe a week or two, it was brought out to the public via marketing channels, right? And so the data at face value, right, we're talking about service level data was saying in the beginning, before we made it public, there wasn't much momentum. Then we made it public and all of a sudden things started working. The contracts started rolling in and whatever. like at face value, it looked like quote unquote a marketing win and that win could be attributed to the marketing team and their efforts. However, and we're gonna talk even more in depth about this at summit, as you pull back the layers and really look at the context of those numbers and what was happening in real life, it was the fact that the people who were moving forward were the people that were already in the funnel, the people that had already met with OnSight, and it was a matter of the fact that the OnSight team was really like going gung-ho in getting those people aware and involved and making it personal to them of what this particular campaign would mean for their customers. So surface level looked like a marketing win and you could easily craft it and attribute it to that. However, as you dug deeper, if you're going to allocate some wins to it for someone within the department, it was really a sales win and their effort. Kevin Oakley (06:16.066) Yeah, that makes sense. Julie Jarnagin (06:17.268) Yeah, which in the end is a marketing win. When you say marketing win, it doesn't take that away from marketing. It's the weather we're getting new people in the door. This happens a lot of times with things like incentives, know, leadership's like we're paying for all this, you know, y'all need to shout it out from the rooftops. Well, we can, and we often do. But a lot of times that's not where then we see the numbers from. It's more that middle of the funnel, but it can still be a marketing win because that's marketing's job to go and get that messaging around it and implement that plan. So as marketers, we don't just live there at the top of the funnel. Sometimes that's what other people in the company think, and that's all they want to give us credit for. But the good marketers are still doing marketing all the way through that funnel. Marketing's job is to put the tools in the hand of the sales team to use. And so that's where it's like singer-songwriter stuff. Sometimes in purely marketing, the marketer is the singer and the songwriter. When it comes to sales, marketing is often still in a songwriter role, but you're never the singer. And if you try to, I was just on a call actually with someone who is. Julie Jarnagin (07:14.834) Heh. Beth Russell (07:23.86) Mm-hmm. Kevin Oakley (07:40.353) It felt like at times I was trying to overly script exactly what the sales team was supposed to do here, there, and everywhere. And I was like, this is gonna be hard, harder than you think for them. And they're like, well, you just have to click these other buttons or you just have to do this other next thing. And I was like, you're not the songwriter though, or you're not the singer in this part of the process. So that's good, good stuff. Julie, what do you got? Julie Jarnagin (08:01.96) Mm-hmm. Julie Jarnagin (08:07.254) Yeah, talking similar to that a lot of the things I've seen that are moving the needle right now because you know markets tough people are looking for new things and we daily We get these things people are throwing out, know throwing out there and trying but the ones that are sticking to me seem to be the ones like Beth said that's getting the whole company behind it on on in on board I don't know if I've talked about it like Kevin Oakley (08:17.153) it's tough. It's tough out there. Beth Russell (08:19.732) Never heard of that before. Julie Jarnagin (08:36.726) Roebuck, Meredith at Roebuck took the map tool that we talk about with inventory, but she didn't just use it as a marketing tool. Then that was implemented all the way through the layers of everybody knowing which homes were important in which ways and how that could affect online sales and onsite sales and people out in the field and paying more attention to those homes. also the example Beth was talking about a lot of the things that are feeling bigger moves and bigger shifts. You can't just be behind your marketing desk, know, let's do this ad sometimes. And some things, you know, we're just tweaking and moving, but some things need to be a bigger company, big push. How do we get all hands on deck? And that's right now where I'm seeing like that steering of the ship, that turning of the ship when the whole company is on board. And like Beth said, you may not get marketing credit for all that, but that is still your role. Kevin Oakley (09:31.662) . Julie Jarnagin (09:34.472) as marketing to identify those things that can be a bigger move and getting on-site sales on board and sales managers and online sales and leadership and people out in the field making sure all those things look beautiful and perfect because those are the ones we're really pushing out. So that's been exciting to see some of these concepts or concepts everybody knows and are working on, but the people executing them in a big way and like. going all in with them that seems to be really moving the needle. Beth Russell (10:05.044) Reach Julie. Yeah, the alignment. think that's what's interesting. I don't know if you have seen this too, Kevin, but we just made fun of the fact that, you know, though the market's tough, it's been tough. And I feel like there's this bridge that's starting to be constructed circa like 2018, 2019, where marketing and online sales used to work more cohesively with one another and the conversation used to be open. Marketers had time to go out on site like you were talking about. Kevin Oakley (10:05.25) Yeah, and alignment. Beth Russell (10:34.311) And I feel like that bridge is slowly starting to reconstruct itself out of necessity because the customers are asking for it. And like Julie said, when you attribute to the wins, it's not marketing versus sales. It's like, OK, we all have to be bought in and work on this collaboratively because that's the only way we're going to make any sort of momentum. Kevin Oakley (10:55.502) Yeah, I think that bridge got imploded in 2020 and 2021 because the demand was so high for sales. And yet at the same time, there was this unknown, like it was like, the marketer needs to go solve every problem. Some marketers felt like they were solving every problem because the demand was so high that they're like, look, I can do anything. Just whatever you need done, I'll magically Beth Russell (11:01.127) Yeah. Kevin Oakley (11:25.344) achieve like like someone working at a restaurant who's in charge entirely of takeout. Something would be like, I should just open up my own chain of restaurants everywhere. I'm a freaking genius. Look at all the takeout orders that are happening. And then on the sales end, they're like all these tasks, things you're asking me to do or the feedback like none of it matters. I have a hundred people out here that I need to go pay attention to. So it feels a little bit like a marriage on the rocks. You know, where it's like, each, you've grown apart, or maybe it's not like actual animosity, it's just you've grown apart with the kids or whatever they say on TV. So someone, when that happens, someone has to be the first person. I'm taking this in a direction I don't think, you pre-planned, but someone in any argument has to be the bigger person to toss out a... Julie Jarnagin (11:55.62) Heh. Beth Russell (11:55.846) Mmm. Beth Russell (12:04.572) Mm-hmm. Julie Jarnagin (12:18.144) Hahaha Kevin Oakley (12:24.27) an opportunity for resolution. know, like if you're arguing with your spouse or significant other, even in middle of a heated argument, if someone tosses out like an inside joke that you both know, or kind of like, maybe you've got a signal word, but like someone has to make that first step. And so that's the challenge for the listeners is like, are you the one making that first step? Because the bridge has to be repaired. And I don't think it's as much because consumers are demanding it as much as your results will suck without it. Like, cause the consumer gets lost. They're not demanding anything other than help and service and the kind of thing they want to improve their lives with. But it just feels disjointed and there's a whole lot of extra friction when alignment's not there. And I think people have tried to solve alignment by firing someone. Beth Russell (13:00.05) Mmm. Julie Jarnagin (13:19.005) Mm-hmm. Kevin Oakley (13:19.116) or by putting a single person in charge of both sales and marketing, and that's not alignment. That is, I'm thinking of a military word here, Beth. It's just like command and control. No, it's like command and control. It's like just shut up, because I'm in charge of both now, and you guys need to go do this. And that's not a rebuilding of a bridge. That's someone just trying to, like with an iron fist control things that, and that's not the ideal way to do it. So I think, Beth Russell (13:19.186) Mm-hmm. Beth Russell (13:27.494) I'm not a good army wife, don't ask me. Julie Jarnagin (13:29.577) Ha ha ha. Beth Russell (13:43.249) Mm-hmm. Beth Russell (13:47.313) I'm gonna disagree with you for a second though. Kevin Oakley (13:49.206) I love it. That's what I live for. Beth Russell (13:51.184) I know that's why I was so excited to say it. I think the customer is telling us that they want us to be in alignment. And the reason why I say that is because we see it time and time again with the content that's working with the campaigns that we're testing out that maybe look a little bit different than they have previously. The customers want to have a little bit more control. The customers want you to listen to what they care about. The customers want you to know what their feedback is and they want you to hit their emotional triggers and make it personal to them or they're not going to pay attention to you. And I feel like the only way that you can really touch on that and make that happen is having the conversations, know, spending time on site as marketer, taking that initiative to say, okay, I'm ready. Let's talk about this. What is working? What are they saying? Where's the feedback? So While it is happening internally and there is this mess up of alignment that you're referencing where there's a puppeteer trying to control everything, it's really the customer that's saying BS, it ain't working. Kevin Oakley (14:57.73) Yeah, they're just not saying it. That's all. We're in agreement. It's just, I would say there's signals there that that is what they're thinking and feeling. But they're not, when you say they're telling us, know, the customers aren't knocking on your window or door and being like, excuse me, could you all get on the same page? Because it's really bugging me. Like they don't do that. that, yeah, you're right. Beth Russell (14:59.963) Yeah. Beth Russell (15:04.293) Mm-hmm. Beth Russell (15:11.419) subconsciously. Beth Russell (15:17.136) So you're telling me I'm right? Yeah, I love that. Thank you. Julie Jarnagin (15:21.494) So I feel like with this analogy you used, Kevin, that we now are the marriage therapist in this relationship. Kevin Oakley (15:28.31) Yeah, you know what's really hard about therapy? Stop me if I've talked about this one, because I've talked about it a lot with a lot of different people. But the best therapist ever will tell you that they know what's wrong in the first five minutes, but they can't. And when they're young and dumb therapists, they're like, look, you just need to stop it. No, Bob Newhart's get just do this, like just do this and it'll solve your problems. And they they are right. But they have to ask questions. Julie Jarnagin (15:33.386) Yeah. Julie Jarnagin (15:42.004) Mm-hmm. Beth Russell (15:53.04) Mm-hmm. Kevin Oakley (15:54.927) and get in the muck with that person enough where that person can self-identify or else it doesn't work. And that's where people again get this wrong all the time. They're like, I know I'm right. These are the facts. They just have to blah, blah, blah. Well, unless your name is Mrs. CEO or division president, it doesn't, that's not how it works. You you have to get them to self-realize and want to progress to make the change that's necessary because they see it themselves. Beth Russell (16:22.895) Absolutely. That was the other favorite quote from this past week was a sales and marketing leader who said, I am half therapist, half crime scene investigator. And I was like, that is totally our position as well, because we're therapists half the time, Julie knows that. And also we're constantly digging, trying to look at the facts, trying to figure out the root of the issue, what's actually working versus not and helping lead them on the same path. Kevin Oakley (16:41.581) Yeah. Kevin Oakley (16:52.354) Yeah, and yet the disconnect there can be that you see yourself as those two things. The rest of the company just sees you as the firefighter and your job is to go fix that blaze, put it out, right? And so that's where you still have to be aware of that is what you're doing day to day. But if the rest of the company walks by and sees you as a firefighter in a fire suit, just waiting for a fire that they can point out and send you to go fix. then you're never gonna get to finish your investigation of the crime scene. You're gonna be so distracted and pulled off by the urgent versus the important. Kevin Oakley (17:32.755) Okay, well this has been a great 400th episode, because we're already 17 minutes in and I haven't gone. So I'll just pick one of my two. I'll do the more fun one, because it's the 400th episode, which is a concept that I made up yesterday called Waterfalls of Urgency. Or you could say Locks of Urgency, like the Panama Canal and how it obfuscates with locks. Beth Russell (17:53.871) Mm-hmm. Kevin Oakley (17:56.815) But the waterfall idea came from thinking about project management software. You've got this idea of a waterfall sequence if you're visualizing that in your head. And I was talking with a marketer in the western half of United States talking about urgency. They're getting a ton of interest on a particular incentive and messaging that they created that is, it's really good and it's And they're getting a ton of action on the ads, like click through rates. went through the roof as soon as the messaging changed. But the conversions on the site aren't falling. And I was kind of just brainstorming with the person about to head down the wrong path. And then Sarah Simmerman was like, excuse me, excuse me. Customers want what they're seeing in the ad though. And I was like, yes. That's exactly right. The reminder is it's working on the ad, which means that is something that's getting their attention, causing them to take action. So we shouldn't even touch the idea of changing that. Instead, what we have to really do is focus on how we can improve conversion there. So we really are looking more at the landing page. There's some good opportunities to talk about maybe payments instead of interest rate once they had already seen some other messaging to kind of reinforce. Anyway, then later on in that same amazing conversation, we were talking about how in Caudini's book, any principle of influence that you can layer, even if it's the same principle from multiple angles, Beth Russell (18:59.406) Mm. Kevin Oakley (19:22.976) It's not a one plus one equals two level of urgency that you create or influence that you create. It's an exponential. So one plus one equals five. Like we're made up this fake urgency indicator of like what the consumer might be feeling. And their incentive is gonna end at the end of September. And they, so they only have a certain number of days left. So there's a time urgency. And then we created. an additional urgency, is availability. So the language on the page talks about both that this ends September 30th and there's a limited number of uses of this available. Now the original thing about that is there's always pushback. What do mean limited? We don't have a limitation on this incentive. And I was like, okay, if you sell 300 homes between now and the end of the month, when your sales goal is 40, at some point are they gonna say, time out, you can't sell anymore? Like there is actual limitations here in the amount of times this can be used. okay, that's interesting. But then what do we say when people call? And then it became about not limitation of availability or time, it became about this limitation of how far and how fast you can go through this process before September 30th. So now we have three different layers of urgency that we can build. And the marketer had a great insight. They're like, okay, but do we put that in the ads or the copy as well somehow? Which is a sales idea. Tell the customer everything they need to know upfront. Or is that something that the online sales team can use? that's where again, this waterfall idea of if we can use the first two to heighten urgency, they reach out to the online sales team and they start having this conversation. Now online sales can unlock this additional layer of the waterfall and create an ever, because when we were role playing it was like, well, what would the online salesperson say when they're like limited availability? What does that mean? The consumer thinks it means limited number of slots or spaces, which could again be true, but we just role played it and said, well, actually what my main concern is around this is that we're a custom home builder. We build on your lot and you might take four weeks just. Kevin Oakley (21:40.513) messing around with the design of your master bedroom if you really wanted to. And I wanna make sure that there is no urgency or pressure around you making a decision quickly in order to get this incentive that's really important to you. So I wanna make sure you have, so now we've both leveled up the urgency to level nine, while also being the nice person who's like, look, I'm just trying to make sure that you get in sooner rather than later so you have time to make a good and informed decision which is gonna sound familiar. to those of you pre-sale without fail fans, but this isn't a community, it's an on your lot builder. So just this idea of don't give away what you need to and that there's multiple layers of urgency and being strategic, because that one point about, when do I use that to unlock it is really powerful, because if you already have the sailing momentum from the urgency that's built in from the first two, adding the third right there might cause nothing to happen. Like you do have to think about it, like Disney thinks about their rides or the theming of a world, it's like when should they hit this, then when should they see that? And it's not just give them all the information at the front. Julie Jarnagin (22:51.84) Well, and this is, think, the magic of what's happening with these builders that's getting multiple layers involved in the company is that I think a lot of people's initial thought is to like, gatekeep it in marketing. Let's come up with the whole program and put all the things in the ad and in the blog, and then we control all this, and then they know exactly what to expect, and then it just goes out there, and it doesn't work like that. And that's where these other things that have worked, like you said, the waterfalls is that if you're layering things on and getting the appropriate people to take the appropriate step at the appropriate time, it like unlocks something different than when we try to like have, I think it's like a control thing too. We just want to have it all in marketing right here when they first see it. And we've got to trust and have systems in place to let that waterfall down through different layers. Beth Russell (23:36.076) Mm-hmm. Kevin Oakley (23:48.289) It's so funny to me because it could be from either extreme. There are the marketers who want control and that's a big opportunity for error. And then the thing that I see more frequently from people who've been around long enough and at least like self-aware enough to be like, I might need to stop doing this is incredibly bad direction from senior management or sales management to say, just put it all out there. Beth Russell (24:15.883) Mm-hmm. Kevin Oakley (24:16.302) So I think both can be true and the end result is the same. Like my last session at the summit, Julie's like, I gotta have a title, gotta have a title. I was like, Julie. Like I usually like to have the last thing be whatever could be the absolute most relevant and I hold onto it. I put down what I'm going for right now and this is encouraging me to stick with it. It's just like, if you do what sales wants you to do exactly as they're asking you to do it as a marketer, Beth Russell (24:45.515) Mm-hmm. Kevin Oakley (24:45.836) you oftentimes will not give sales what they want. And that's just like this. Beth Russell (24:51.547) so true. Because they don't know what they want. They don't know how to describe it. Kevin Oakley (24:53.346) Yeah. Well, no, they want an outcome, but they think the way to get that outcome, it's like this person who goes on, and again, salespeople are fantastic at dates and discovery and all of those things, but the analogy is someone who goes on 50 dates in a month and is like, I don't get it. I'm just not getting to the second date, but they keep prescribing exactly how the date should go, like in advance somehow. Maybe we don't do it that Beth Russell (25:23.212) It's so funny that you know, I think so many people think of it as control, you know, both of you are talking about the situation where one person, person A wants too much control, person C has relinquished too much control to someone outside of their, you know, area of expertise perhaps. And so it's like that situation B where you have just the right amount of control and that how you get there. Julie Jarnagin (25:41.174) through. Kevin Oakley (25:43.534) Mm-hmm. Beth Russell (25:52.199) is thinking of the psychology of the customer and thinking through almost like, hate to say it, but you almost have to channel your inner Taylor Swift and be a mastermind and think, what are they going to do next? What are they going to do next? And then the way that we describe this to our marketers specifically is you have to think of your, where you are in dangling that carrot, your job as a marketer is to dangle it and to get them to move along. It's not to have them chomp on it. It's to just. Dang it, so that they keep moving. Kevin Oakley (26:26.1) You got me stuck on Taylor Swift. I think the thing that people discount about her is her, she thinks like an investor. MrBeast, Jimmy Donaldson, I think is his last name, on YouTube is the same thing. Like every dollar, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But every, I already have ADD, don't distract me more. The idea is that every dollar he makes, he's reinvesting in the next video. He's not trying to pull out a bunch of money and buy a Lambo. He's arrived at this point, but he's always thinking about both what is next, Beth Russell (26:42.366) Wait, his name is Jimmy? hilarious he doesn't look like a Jimmy Beth Russell (26:51.154) Hahaha Kevin Oakley (27:06.818) What's the next piece of content I'm gonna make? Taylor's, what's the next chess piece I'm gonna move? But also there's that story from a couple years ago where she wanted to add those light bands to all of her concerts and they were like, it's not in the budget. And she's like, screw it, I'll pay for it myself. Like take it out of my money. So she's both thinking proactively and thinking like an investor. And I would say that most of the time, Boy, this might be overstatement, but people are not thinking about what they're investing in. They're thinking about the immediate outcome in the next week or the next month that they need, and marketers and sales leaders are not thinking about investment in that way. One of the switches that a lot of sales training companies use is they'll be like, are you spending the most amount of your time with the people who are most likely to grow and develop? You're just spending your time as a sales manager with the people who take a lot of your time but don't ever get sales. Beth Russell (27:40.788) Mm-hmm. Kevin Oakley (27:59.055) It's that same kind of idea. Like, why are you investing so much in something that isn't? Like, you gotta think like an investor about that. Beth Russell (28:06.142) Yeah, and I think that's what's the genius behind these campaigns that we're seeing. The one you spoke to earlier, Kevin, and another one that we've seen a builder partner execute is that it is structured, pardon me, specifically for the next step and planning ahead for three months and what chess piece, quote unquote, you're going to use or move three months from now. And it's taking that collaboration, bridging that gap, all the little analogies and sweet nothings that we've Kevin Oakley (28:22.786) Mm-hmm. Beth Russell (28:35.731) plastered into this as Easter eggs in the podcast already. It's all intentional and it's working. Kevin Oakley (28:45.464) Yep. Yep. Julie Jarnagin (28:46.102) I just have to say that I think Taylor Swift's album is coming out October 3rd, which is during Summit. So we might have to have a listening party at Summit. I don't know. need to confirm that. Beth Russell (28:52.265) HUH?! Kevin Oakley (28:58.488) Maybe I just need to get everyone a copy somehow. I mean it's all on streaming services, Beth Russell (28:58.717) Done. Julie Jarnagin (29:03.094) Yum. Beth Russell (29:06.429) But the vinyls, she's done the vinyls and everyone wants a vinyl. Julie Jarnagin (29:11.126) Isn't it the third? I think it's the third. I don't know. Beth Russell (29:13.745) It is the third. are correct. I watched the podcast. No shame. Kevin Oakley (29:16.248) Do not ask me, I have no idea. All right, first up from the news from mashable.com, Instagram ads, TikTok style repost feature for reels. And essentially if you're familiar with TikTok or X, formerly Twitter, it's this idea of retweeting, reposting a different way to help amplify content that you really enjoy. And. Beth Russell (29:19.305) Yeah Kevin Oakley (29:44.376) I think it's awesome. It is kind of surprising as much as Instagram stole from Snapchat that they haven't continued to lead into taking more from TikTok in that same way, I think. Beth Russell (29:57.223) Yeah, I think from an aspect they've been trying to mimic the algorithm aspect of the clock app, as I like to refer to it as. Kevin Oakley (30:03.402) Mm-hmm. AI slop is what the kids are calling it, yeah. Beth Russell (30:09.737) But they the interactivity of it is where they have fallen short in my opinion again, not a clock app user. So like I can't really speak to that too much. But from what I do know, I think that's where it has fallen short. I love this especially from about someone who balances their personal Instagram as a story of both who I am professionally and who I am personally, because the repost is a way for me to curate some of that professional content. Like Kevin's face is already on my profile. Like he's there and he's gonna be there and I'm fine with that. But I think it's fun because you can kind of show different layers of yourself in that aspect and show like what you are finding meaningful. Kevin Oakley (30:47.458) You Julie Jarnagin (30:56.662) As a marketer, I like it a lot because it's making things more convenient for sharing. As a user, you also don't want it to turn into Facebook where your second cousin's constantly posting weird stuff you don't care about and then you have to block them. So I have mixed feelings about it. As a marketer, it's great. As a user, like, I don't want to see everybody's reposted stuff. I want to see direct or like the photos you're taking. of your family on vacation and not some random meme, whatever it is. So I don't want it to become Facebook. So personally, it's my feelings on it. Kevin Oakley (31:34.989) Hey, be friendly with the unfollow, be friendly with the mute, be friendly, like if you're not curating all of your algorithms, like you need to be, like I think my year, my word of the year for this year and next year is probably going to be agency. Just this idea of you being in control and you being the one to cause something. Like if you, A number of people who are excited about AI just is gonna do stuff that they already have to do instead of thinking about using it to do things that you don't think about being able to be done or doing more. Like you should be asking more questions, not less. You should be doing more research, not less. should, I just think agent, like those who have agency, you understand your place in the world and how you can like move yourself forward unprompted. is gonna be like the difference maker. Okay, next up from brightmls.com. This was really cool. Thank you, Jackie Lipinski for sharing it. It's a market survey report. BrightMLS is I believe the largest MLS in the Pacific Northwest. And they have a market survey titled, it's a whole new housing market. And it has one, two, three, four great charts in it. The very first one is, Why did your buyer client stop their home search? So again, Bright MLS, it's an MLS. So this is survey to agents about why did your buyer client stop their home search? In the past, the number one answer was that mortgage rates are too high, 59.7%. It's currently dropped to 41 % and the new number one is that home prices are too high. which is kind of like why everyone says, what are you waiting for? Like it's gonna be one or the other that's smacking you all the time. So just get in if you need a home. But the one that I thought was also really interesting was frustrated by unsuccessful offers. 56 % said that was the reason they stopped before or part of the reason, because I guess you can choose more than one because these percentages are not adding up to 100%. Drop from 56 to 32%. Kevin Oakley (34:02.19) So I thought that anything else in that particular chart that you all found interesting before we move on to the next one? Julie Jarnagin (34:09.65) Yeah, I I think also people are coming to terms with what affordability is right now. Like we were, they were holding out hope for a long time right now. You know, if you can't afford it, that's a limitation. But some people who were just holding out the holdouts, I think it's been long enough. They see there's not gonna be drastic changes. Kevin Oakley (34:31.534) Yeah. The second one up is why did your client buy a home? And the number one answer previously in Q4 of 2024 was 31 % said they were tired of renting or they had a strong desire for home ownership. The number one reason, and that still is, sorry, the number one reason, but it's a much closer gap to family reasons. That's now the number two spot up from up 5 % from the prior year. And I think just think that's like this pent up demand thing of like, just can't, the dynamics of my family, I need to get something smaller, I need something bigger, I need something closer, I need something farther away. Just these family reasons is an interesting one to search too. Julie Jarnagin (35:17.546) Well, and it's also interesting. I mean, it could be too that people, where they were thinking of the home as an investment, that was a real big draw for people not renting. Now that affordability has gone a little bit higher, that idea of a home as an investment may not be as top of mind as it was. It doesn't surprise me too that it said that job changes or job reasons was getting higher too, just with the economy. Beth Russell (35:43.876) Mm-hmm. Julie Jarnagin (35:45.778) shifting in different ways and people's jobs and you know being remote or not being remote or layoffs all those things that didn't that didn't shock me that that was a bigger reason. Beth Russell (35:57.178) Yeah, and I know one decline that a lot of builders in certain markets are feeling is the lack of investment properties in second homes that people are considering. And we're seeing that in coastal areas. We're seeing that in urban areas where they would heavily rely on investors coming in to purchase anywhere between three to 15 homes in a neighborhood, depending on their allowance. And that's just not happening anymore. In fact, a lot of them are pulling out of deals because it's not the way it was previously. Kevin Oakley (36:30.382) My favorite is the last one, and then we'll stop with this third chart out of four. Why did your clients decide not to sell their home? I think the most interesting one on this list is the 34 % said they did not want to give up their current mortgage rate, and that has dropped to only 15%. So we all know the power of what mortgage rates do to affordability, but there is this little bit of a reset. Beth Russell (36:47.973) Mm-hmm. Kevin Oakley (36:59.254) or you could argue a big reset on what that really means in terms of why people are or are not beginning their search or being in this case willing to sell their existing home and consider buying a new one. Beth Russell (37:12.665) Yeah, I think that speaks really well to the other one, which is did not get the price they wanted, which saw an increase because I think there's this psychology of the seller because we're seeing these still marketed high prices, right? But they're selling for less. And so there's still this mental game that they're playing within themselves of saying, well, you know, it's listed for this amount. I'm only willing to give it for this amount when in reality you have to maybe take 3 % off that amount because that's the reality of what they're selling for depending on how long it's sitting on the market and how your specific market is performing from an absorbent standpoint. Kevin Oakley (37:59.151) Let's move on to the last one from Zonda. The Home Buyer Outlook launched. This is not an article. I totally confused my co-hosts when I put this on the list. But I think it's, we don't really even need to dive into, just, wanted to have the link here for the show notes. Zonda released what they call the Home Buyer Outlook, which gives buyer demand insights based upon activity happening on new home source. Beth Russell (38:07.557) Yeah Kevin Oakley (38:27.884) They acquired BDX and New Home Source, gosh, is it two years ago now? It's been a while, it feels like, maybe longer. And they've always had this idea of being able to not just help builders get more leads by having New Home Source and having it kind of be the premier place for new construction specific only listings. but also to be able to use the insights from the data of people going on that site, what price points they're looking for, what bedroom counts they're looking for, and being able to share that insight. The way I was talking about it earlier with someone was think about it like getting access to a GA4 account for a national syndication platform. That's a good way to think about it. You can go in and see. What is the consumer doing when they're looking and shopping and what are they considering, what are they not considering? And where are the holes in the market that you might be able to fill? Julie Jarnagin (39:24.692) Yeah, I love that, you know, we talk about. Kevin Oakley (39:25.432) So, just conceptually, it's interesting idea. Julie Jarnagin (39:30.908) Yeah, and we talk about some people just track data to track data and it's too much to take in and it's not the right, but I do appreciate Zonda when they bring stuff like this. It's relevant and useful and so I'm looking forward to seeing what it looks like. Beth Russell (39:51.076) Yeah, the concept of this too is interesting when you think of it from the aspect of it is Zonda. So Zonda already has all that market data that they publish and are looking into. So now they're layering in not only some market data that they also have, but the consumer behavior aspect of it, which is, has the potential to create a very beautiful love child. Julie Jarnagin (40:16.438) I like that description, Beth. Beth Russell (40:19.275) You're welcome. It's better than using the word absorbent when it doesn't fit in, but it's okay. Kevin Oakley (40:19.49) Yeah. Julie Jarnagin (40:22.998) Ha! Kevin Oakley (40:26.36) All right, well, that'll do it for the incredibly suspenseful 400th and exciting 400th episode of the Marketproof Marketing Podcast. We'll see you next week. Julie Jarnagin (40:35.102) exciting. Bye! Beth Russell (40:37.655) Bye bye.