FULL EPISODE | The Standard with Chance Brown | Episode 1 | Video Content with Rusty Gates

[Music] hey welcome to the standard my name is Chance Brown and this is a podcast designed to bring you the best of the real estate industry and business Community to help you come up with great ideas to build your business my guest today because why wouldn't we have our very first guest on the podcast be the guy who is typically behind the camera we bring him out in front of the camera Rusty Gates Rusty Gates media and the Houston made podcast and magazine welcome to the standard Rusty this is an honor I mean among all of my accomplishments this is at the top to be the guest number one number that's a big deal you know whenever you're winning podcasts Awards they'll be like oh but who is the first guy on that are there podcast Awards I assume I feel like we should apply I feel like it's one of those things where nobody knows about it so we'll apply and we'll win one we will win there you go awesome love it hey so the idea behind this podcast was really to kind of storytellin the history of ever have we needed video to tell those stories more yeah you know if you go back and you look at the way Nar specifically tracks things and and calculates and does all their statistics they've been telling agents for the better part of like 15 almost 20 years you need to do more video and apprx imely zero people have until like maybe I think maybe Co yeah like Co kind of kickstarted people being like oh [ __ ] okay we need to actually like get in front of a camera or do something yeah we can't have happy hours right we better get on Tik Tok exactly yes um and so what I want to kind of talk to you about is I think it's important that people know your background and why I think that that is super applicable to what we do so why don't we why don't we start there and tell everybody the Journey of one Rusty case sure it's there's there's a lot of details that we don't have to spend all the time in but for the sake of brevity I'll say um I actually started out in church work I went to Dallas Baptist University got a degree in English uh I love words I that's evident and it has been true for a long time um and then I went to Seminary I got a pastor's degree a master of divinity I'm a master of the Divine there you go and did Church work for a good number of years and loved that it's what I always wanted to do and I got a chance to do all the things I wanted to do um because life sometimes just works out the way that it does um ended up moving to Houston with my wife where she's from she's from out here in Cyprus um went to school a block away from here from basically K through 12 and uh and when we moved here uh just through happen stance I ended up getting a job at an executive Search firm that helped churches and nonprofits and schools find leaders and so that was my first kind of taste of the business World got to see like what a real corporate environment was like which is very different than kind of the the soft skills of ministry right which is like three emails a day and a lunch uh right not to demean it but just be like that was my experience and then I started working at this executive Search firm where we were helping churches uh nonprofits schools find leaders and really that first look at kind of corporate world of real work um and so I did that for four or five years and then it was kind of through happen stance we got to a point where we I kind of had to make a career uh I had to make a career move and was kind of got to this point where I was really tired of being a salaried employee right so just this idea of it didn't matter how well I was doing like I wouldn't make more money if I crushed it right kind of hoping for a bonus at the end of the year and then I uh also if like I spent five hours a day on Reddit and still did my job you still got paid the same I still got paid the out right and it actually got to a point of like being bored where I was like oh I just don't like this is not working um and so we ended up having to make a move um for some Financial things and I went to a buddy of mine who helped us sell our house and what I didn't realize when I had this conversation is that 75% of his job title at that time was recruiting new agents to The Brokerage and so I show up to his office and I'm like hey man hey hey I'm kind of thinking about real estate do you think I would be good at real estate like all of a sudden like a totally different person shows up at the desk and like let me tell you yeah and he was like he was like you'd be amazing at real estate and he was like well what are your financial goals and I was like oh you know man if I could make like $65,000 a year like I'll pay my bills and he was like okay okay let me show you how easy it will be to make $150,000 and we did the math he was like he showed conversion ratios but he's like if you had four real estate conversations a day and converted those like at average ratings you would make way more money than you think you'd need to make and so then I was like all right I'm in and so then I was a Realtor I was an individual agent for five years years uh did really well one Rookie of the Year my first full year in the industry um and did that for a long time and then but I kind of always hated real estate I was I was good at it I took really Hey listen it's easy to hate yeah it's easy to hate that's right and I yeah so I took good care of my clients I did a good job I made a good amount of money but through that process I started making videos for my own real estate business and I really fell in love with that and so I I realized I was like oh I really want to do this this and then I got opportunities to do that for uh friends who had small businesses outside of real estate but eventually it kind of worked its way back around to where now I have three years into a media company where I have clients all across the country um and 75% of my business probably is within real estate as Realtors Lenders Title reps Etc and yeah and so now I travel the country making a short form video for uh clients I still think that your business card should say say master of the Divine put it on there just because it seems amazing like that's the greatest title you could have yeah I am the master of the Divine you made a whole video today about talking about the letters that people put at there end I should it should be rusty Gates MD yes um okay so let's talk about those first videos MH how terrible were they not great yeah not great in a lot of ways but I think that that's an important lesson for most agents is you're not a movie star day one no but you weren't good at anything you did in real estate the first time right that's right but that there's I don't know if it's the public nature of it that oh hey I'm like putting myself out there that really just talks people out of wanting to be on camera yeah yeah people it's people have so much anxiety around it it's right we talk about this a lot of you know as a Realtor you don't really sell houses right right right uh people don't buy a house just to buy a house they buy a house because they want a new beginning they buy a house because they of status right they want to prove something to their mom look how far I've come they buy a house for uh you know space or Freedom right during covid people are like I don't want you to tell me how many people can come over to my apartment like I'm going to buy a house so like people don't buy houses for house house sake um so you that's not what you're selling you're not selling houses you're selling all those things Freedom status you know Etc yep uh I don't really sell videos like I sell confidence I sell fun because like you said like people feel real anxiety around it and the reason why people hire me is because I make that process not so miserable yeah you know I used to always kind of joke with people like listen you don't want to get on camera because you think you look funny and you think you sound funny guess what your clients are going to meet you and they're going to know that you look funny and sound funny like get over it there's no hiding it just get over it you are who you are like go do it so you let's talk what were your first videos uh so my probably my first videos were really the first time I really was like I'm going to make videos I'm going to do this consistently is I did a 30 days of Thanksgiving kind of thing where I got my phone I just looked you know at the camera on my crappy little iPhone however many years ago that was and would do today I'm thankful for this but I had been you know you and I've talked a lot about stealing like an artist and just like borrowing from inspiration here and there and there was a guy who was making these videos on YouTube that I really liked cuz I'm a nerd uh about like Dungeons and dragon and he would but he would talk about this stuff at a mile a minute he would it would just like was so fast like funnily fast and so I was like I want to fit you know three pages worth of text in a 30- second video I want to just like boom and so the Micro Machines guy when we were kids yeah yeah yeah so it was that I was today I want to talk about this and I'm really thankful for that you can't do this and also have the people listening to this have no idea what the hell I'm talking about when I say micro machine guys were very much dated uh I want to go off on that tangent so bad I'm I'm I'm going to hold it back here but yeah so I did 30 days of Thanksgiving and the funny thing about that was I had dropped my iPhone in some water at some point not the toilet and uh the microphone on there never really recovered and so it sounded like I was around across the room even though so the audio was terrible the video wasn't very good they were weird and shaky and all this stuff um but I did it and I did probably yeah like 30 of those videos all right so let's hit on something that you just talked about and I was going to bring this up later but we're here so let's go audio versus video which one's more important uh audio this is the industry standard is audio but wait make them both good as a videographer make them both good but audio is is powerful right yeah okay so that that's what I you know when we talk to people like they're shooting movies on iPhones now doing really cool things with iphon yeah that's real but also you have to have like a decent mic to it goes it is one of the fastest way right my I do video presentations in these workshops on making videos uh and my rule number one is clean your lens right right because when you are using your phone it's so easy to get your oil and grease and dirt all over your camera and so don't make people look through your filth that's my rule number one and the second easiest way to improve your video after cleaning your lens so please clean your lens is getting getting a mic even a cheap mic will make it dramatically better yeah yeah Okay cool so you start making these videos and then what happens people come up to you and be like hey how'd you do that yeah there was there was a little bit of that is I started making videos and um it just loved it it went from kind of those talking to camera on my iPhone to saying oh I actually want to do this but I didn't have a camera uh and I wanted to make better videos and so I found an 18-year-old kid off of Instagram who was making these kind of anime fight Style videos with a bunch of his buddies and uh they were crazy and ridiculous and absurd and not the kind of video I needed to make but I what I saw is that this kid knew how to shoot yeah um and so I found because I had reached out to a videographer like hey how much would it take cost to make this kind of video and the videographer is like uh you know $1,200 I was like nope don't have that I don't have that I was you know relatively new in the industry and uh and so I found this kid and I was like hey could we do this for like 200 and he was like yeah totally and so the deal was he would come with me we would film I had to go pick him up because $200 at $18 is $1,200 for sure that K and then I would edit everything and so I had him film he we would like literally download the footage onto my computer while I was driving him back to his apartment and then I would edit those videos and so that was kind of the next iteration where I really started playing with editing the footage which is such a time-consuming process yeah yeah let's can we talk about that yeah all right so it's the bane of my existence it's probably I have known forever that I needed to do video Yeah and probably the number one reason I didn't was because of the editing piece of the puzzle and not knowing how to do it not being freaked out by that piece it's not the getting on camera I'll talk to anybody yeah but the editing part is just like I completely black out and go to another place it's so much and that's where that's where if you get these prices you get quotes from videographers so much of the the prices right because people like well hey I just need like a three minute video and it's like well but that can mean a lot of things you just going to sit and talk to camera for three minutes or it's like do you need b-roll do you need how many times like how many different locations right what a three-minute video can cost you a couple hundred dollars yeah it could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on what that right like these Super Bowl commercials right uh those are like 30 second videos that cost a lot of money I mean I remember when Big Pimpin came out and it was like the first million dooll music video on MTV and I'm like a million dollars for a three minute yeah yeah it could be there and so but a lot of that it comes down not to the shoot some of some of it is the filming and how much time it takes to film but right there are a lot of people who have different thoughts on this but it's like for every minute of footage you're doing hours of editing and that's what you don't see so it's so hard for people to always understand like oh you know our packages are like $100 a video for some of my short form content and that can seem like a lot but it's but it's a lot yeah it is a lot on top of the the all the you know $30,000 of camera equipment we bring with us it's also my coaching my direction and then the hours that me and my team spend editing so it can yeah it also one of the reasons if you're listening or watching this one of the reasons why invited Rusty was because we have now gone from Micro Machines to Jay-Z big p yeah in the of what a minute and a half two minutes like that's that's the reason Rusty's number one on the list here we go because we're just going to make all kinds of weird pop culture Dungeons and Dragons done Dungeons and Dragons anime fight style like we're going all in so I love it okay so if I'm an agent yeah and I'm wanting to get started on doing something video what should I do right I'm not Reinventing the wheel here I didn't come up with this and I'm not taking credit for it but I do think that it's good advice the first thing that you should do absolute first thing is you should start sending onetoone videos on your phone to your clients your friends video text message that simple and yes and I would say if you really want to get good at it stop texting I mean there's obviously some places where it's going to be appropriate to text sure but even if like your loved one your spouse your best friend has a question and it's just hey can you get eggs on the way home pick up your phone turn on the camera and say yeah I can get those eggs I'll be home at this time boom send because that's all it is right when you're talking to camera you're just talking camer already I already hate you I just want to read I just want to read the response are you getting the eggs or not yeah right but that's that I I get that that's obnoxious but it's but it builds the Comfort level right yeah and you're getting reps in yeah and this is where you're an exception you were like hey can we do long form content I was like I was like for chance Brown we can do long form content but for most of my clients what happens is they go to a Tom fery conference Tom FY and all their coaches say you need to make be on YouTube it's the greatest search like algorithm that exists today right and I'm not discounting that but what I'm saying is that if you are bad at video or uncomfortable in camera five minutes of it ain't going to get better no that and and you're going to do one a month you're the Reps that you're getting in you will not improve fast enough to see any kind of result whereas I if you can start with short form video I went to the gym once why am I not ripped exactly or once a month they're like oh it didn't work oh yeah obviously but if you say oh I'm going to make 10 short form videos a day via text message to a friend or my spouse or whoever you're getting better faster because you're getting a lot more reps and if not just start with short form video that's my that's why I recommend that is because you're going to get more reps in you're going to get better faster you're going to be able to Pivot faster um yeah that's where I'd start all right what do you think about property videos uh should the agent be in it should they like but what should a property video be we talked a little bit before about what you actually sell right okay yes you're selling lifestyle you're selling status all that um it's more important that you sell yourself and your services in terms of like what you're promoting you should be promoting yourself more than you should be promoting properties if you make a beautiful video of this amazing $5 million listing and it's going to be amazing yeah right because it's going to be easy to point at a camera at these beautiful fixtures um and you put that online it gets a bunch of video like a bunch of traction people are going to see it they're send it to their Realtor and say hey buy me this property yeah so I I'm not opposed to property videos but can you do it in a way that showcases you so my take on this when I was a Realtor is that I made property tour videos but I did it one it was me I was in the video and I interviewed the homeowner about the renovations that they had made oh that's cool so it was and and here's the thing again I wasn't selling Rusty like I wasn't selling the house I wasn't even really selling the renovations what I wanted people to see in those videos is I wanted to see what it was like for me to interact with another human being so what's Rusty like yeah that's what I'm actually selling you which you don't know it because you're like oh wow look at those Penny tiles those are really nice but you would in those videos you'd see me make my client laugh you would see me fumble over words or what you're conveying is the Comfort level of your expertise that you bring to the table I wanted to yeah when we get to a property tour I wanted to feel like oh we've already done this with Rusty before right and so doing that with another person me because very rarely am I going to be you know as a Realtor would I have been in a property alone correct like and you don't tour like this now here's this and here's that and I'm not going to caress a countertop while walking through telling about this is so can I can I tell and you're leading to something here that I think you are anyways one of the my biggest pet peeves with property videos are these the the new new er Trend I want to say new because it's been around for a couple years but this in trend of I'm going to slowly approach the front door and then Zoom inside and then here's a picture of the water faucet running and Fire coming from the gas burner on the stove and it's just this like collage of images that are run together that drives me crazy because I don't think it tells the story of the home yeah and if I'm wanting to engage somebody like listen if I'm buying a million dooll listing I feel relatively certain it's got a gas stove yeah right and I'm hoping Elric burner certainly hoping that it the water runs yeah that's amazing right I I'm not buying a house given yeah but what's the story of the home I I have the same problem with a lot of MLS listings where I feel like the order of the photos should walk you through the property but because we're told kitchens and bathrooms kitchens and bathrooms yeah you get that first I do think you know I have also been guilty of this whole thing of like you know real estate's not all selling Sunset but there's actually a lot of things you could learn from those like kind of obnoxious luxury Realtors which is when they do an open house it's a party right they have a DJ they have models they have dancers they have the best catering and right because it's an event that people want to come to well but then if you're like in there and you're like man like I'm surrounded by I just I'll say it as a as a guy right I come into that space I've never been to one of those parties but I imagine you go there and you're like there's all these beautiful women around you and you're like drinking champagne and everyone's being real nice to you like oh yeah you look great you're selling the idea that oh if I buy this house this my life is going to be what my life will be like every day and to your point I'm going to live inside of an episode of Entourage exactly right whereas again we're living in Houston and a lot of our new developments are these beautiful master plan Suburban communities and there's a videographer out there um I think his name is Andre Restrepo um I forget the name of his company but he does like cinematic lifestyle videos for listings where they will bring in actors to do this where it's oh here's you picking your kid up from school because it's a block away here's you on the walking Trail here's and I do think that that's amazing but I'll acknowledge as a Realtor sometimes you sell unsexy houses yeah and sometimes it's just a house sometimes it is and that and that's okay now a story can every property still can have a story and that's hard to you have to come up with that story what what is and then how do you make that appealing to a broad audience but but I think when you look at something that's like a lifestyle video it's more cinematic like that it allows people to imagine themselves there yeah right as opposed to here's some crown molding here's some crown molding oh I want that crown molding dude that's like one of my biggest pet peeves in all of real estate is I'm showing somebody a home and oh there's crown Ming or a Realtor show I'm not me because I don't do this but a Realtor show like oh as you can see there's crown molding like yes I can see that there's crown molding why do I give a [ __ ] yeah a friend of mine when I was working in the corporate job asked me to like sell sell them some sticky notes right just a sales exercise s me this pin exactly right and what what they pointed out in that example is that I was listing features and not benefits yeah yep and and that's one of those things feature benefit statement yeah exactly right and so it's which is challenging and this is which is a whole other Episode by the way of why we should have better actual sales training in real estate that we do not have I and this most people don't come here from a sales background I I wholly agree with you and retig Gates media which makes short form video content for Realtors and entrepreneurs and business owners um is a value proposition statement is a marketing company at its heart I am I am helping people with marketing and one of the things that I now deeply believe as my company has grown and we have two employees which is a big thing is sales before marketing yes Rusty of the Realtor would not have agreed with this Rusty is a proper CEO business owner and owner of multiple companies sales before marketing lead with Revenue please and it's so easy to be like I want to make cool videos and people in the the the dopamine hit of those likes and those comments absolutely and saves and oh they feel so good when I started doing with you and I got that first YouTube recap and I'm like 1,200 people watched me talk on internet that's dumb but also really cool yeah and then those numbers have gone up and gone up and I'm like holy crap okay yeah but you should probably think more about what I say and maybe cuss less I don't know no no more probably yeah probably true but yeah it just that's it's so difficult to do that and and part of that is because yes marketing can like lead to sales and I truly believe that absolutely the better branded you are the less you have to sell but that is not an excuse not to do the lead gen activities that you're supposed to do no for sure if anything what I you know I look at the marketing world in real state is kind of two different sides to a coin one is advertising right I look at a listing video more from the advertising standpoint because what I'm trying to do is elicit immediate response yeah right versus short form content long form content those kinds of things that's more branding to me because what I want people to do is understand the expertise yeah what I want people to do you know in in the videos that you and I do together I'm trying to be somebody's broker before they realize I'm their broker yeah and then they come over and work at my brokerage right like that's the goal and so I want to to put forward that face of expertise that's a long Play If I mean Hey listen if they pick up the phone that day and say hey I've been watching your videos and I want to come over and have a chat awesome goal achieved yeah but it's not the the initial intent I the the analogy I draw is everybody in the entire World literally everyone in the world knows Coca-Cola's brand yeah they're still going to run a Super Bowl commercial on Sunday yeah like they're still going they've got a long-term view of brand building um to just reinforce their their brand diens yeah it's it is fascinating because as a Realtor you have two jobs you have to sell yourself because you need more clients and when you get those clients those things are supposed to be the things you sell right and that that Duality uh in tension I know people get caught up I know I got caught up in it of I wanted to sell myself and I didn't want to sell houses which is why which I do this now right uh but you have to be able to do both you have to and you know I think that one of the things that we you know you can go all the way back to kindergarten right and you got a blue ribbon for citizenship or sportsmanship or whatever ship that they wanted you to be on that day um for not bragging about yourself yeah and that's tough for a lot of agents to overcome because there is a little bit of I've got to do some self-aggrandisement I've got to toot my own horn here but you can do it in a way that isn't cheesy yeah and I think that's the key is hey I've got this expertise let me tell you about it because inside of that is value yeah this is one of my favorite rants specifically for Realtors it is um right is that they say what I ask why do you want to do this like why are you in real estate their answer is I just want to help people one of my favorite books is 101 things I learned in uh advertising school they have a whole series of 100 things I learned in uh business school architecture school Film School Etc and in the business school book there is the section that says if people are not actively and excitedly taking the opposite position of your Mission Vision Values then they probably don't mean anything and so what I say is right great you want to help people are there people who are Act AC L advertising that they want to hurt people in real estate no no no I mean of course people do hurt people in real estate we know that's true but that's not what they're leading with with their messaging right everybody wants to help some exactly so it's not that it's false it's just I don't know that it means anything and so when I have a pitch with a client a consultation I always say my goal is to make a [ __ ] ton of money and I want to make a [ __ ] ton of money off of you and the only way that that works is if the videos I make for you help you make more money and if it they do then when it comes to time to write me another check you're to do so smiling and and being honest about my motivations is so disarming and it it's so comforting to people like cool I know why you're in this and I feel like as Realtors so often you forget you you just can't be honest or you don't know why yeah in the marketing world it's called pattern Interruption yeah right like that's the technical term for it is oh crap I had to take a second take a second and you just you were just really honest with me yeah yeah have you ever seen the movie crazy people crazy people which one is that it's um Paul Riser and Dudley Moore and Daryl Hannah it's like like late 90s or I don't even know in the 90s some but if you haven't watched it homework this weekend okay uh it's hilarious Dudley Moore and Paul Riser are are like Madison Avenue advertising team yeah and Dudley Moore has a break with reality his wife leaves him and he has a break and he starts writing truthful advertising okay like Metamucil it makes you go to the toilet if you don't take it you will get cancer and die like that's the ad campaign for metam musil and by some you know Calamity of events all of these ads start getting published well in the meantime they've sent them to an insane asylum um and the ads become like the biggest Trend advertising and now they've got an insane asylum full of people writing ads amazing for forun 500 companies and it's it's phenomenal and bonus you have to watch till the end of the credits okay okay when you watch the movie watch the end of the credits because the funniest Sony commercial of all time is at the end of the credits okay noted I I'll put it on the list for sure and it it yeah it just goes to that point of so often we haven't done the work to be honest with ourselves or really even think about these things of like why do you do what you do really no really no really like when you really push and that's where you can start to find if you can get to those nuggets to say I do this because and this is this is a softball I think there are even better answers than this but right but like I do this because I want to provide the best life possible for my children yeah and and if I say that with conviction and I mean it right then I can say like you'll know I'm going to go to bat for you you know I'm going to do a good job you know why not because of you because I care about my kids more than anything in this world and me doing a great job for you ensures that I can pay for their education yep my parenting why is I don't ever want to have to tell my kids no because I can't M right like I tell them no all the time yeah of course constantly yeah um but I don't ever want to tell them no because I can't and that's the driver and right and being honest with that of like hey this is why I just want let you know before we get started this is why I'm in real estate you have that moment in a a listing presentation and like that talk about a self like a differentiator that's wild to be like oh okay now I know where you stand yeah and we know this like I want to get something out of this right absolutely that's and that's where we we like want to be like like I'm so altruistic I do this for free like it no you wouldn't no you shouldn't because it's a really yeah I've often joked that like real being a Realtor sucks when you make $30,000 a year yeah when you make 300,000 it's an awesome job it's way better it's the best but when you don't make any money it's the worst cuz it's a lot of work it's a lot of stuff um awesome all right so how do we feel about Blog podcast I mean I know we're on a podcast how do we feel about blogging podcasting for the sake of an agent trying to build business so I started Houston made podcast which now is in its we're producing its fifth season um and I have it then turned into a magazine that corresponds with that so I will be honest with that that I did this and I did it in very much as a way to talk about real estate without talking about real estate so Houston made is a podcast where I interview local houston-based entrepreneurs and business owners about what it's like to be in that middle of that Journey while I selfishly gain insights as I build my own business perfect right so that's the int to the show that's and I tell people that's what I'm doing here part of that came from the fact straight theft that's right yeah and I tell people um because one I genuinely love entrepreneurship so the fact that you how can you not the fact that you can just do stuff you can just do anything and if people you can give people to pick you pay you money for it like that's a business I mean it's the quintessential American Dream right like yeah I never before has it been easier and so many of my friends have started businesses and gone on to be wildly successful and I just like ask how did you do that they go well why just did this yeah you can just do that yeah yeah so I love that and then the other thing is that I wanted to talk about real estate without talking about real estate cuz if I interview you about your tattoo shop and your tattoo parlor and I'm like oh well in my real estate business I do XYZ and this is how this is similar or different um now that said podcasting is the least uh viral form of media available right there are a few out there yeah and no one's going to stumble on to an hourlong conversation listen to all of it and so uh so I always just start with that to say first off no one's accidentally going to listen to your podcast so if you're going to make that you have to have other ways of Distributing it and advertising it so just know there's far more work that goes into it um two it's a long play like you said this is a longplay branding thing um pod fade is the term that they have for whenever people start a podcast and don't get past like episode three because it's a very real thing my first season went something like 40 uh episodes because I wanted to prove I was like I'm I'm not pod fading I'm doing this for real I think that's about what my first podcast Top 5 yeah um I think we got to about episode 35 36 that's that's real and it was really you know I started that podcast frankly because I was trying to get my agents during covid to jump on video to get involved in video because if they weren't going to see people yeah face to face let's see them virtually face to face and so we started that podcast really with ideas to like help agents take actionable steps in their business and it did what it needed to do yep um we got back to real life and I stopped doing it yeah for sure and that's and again all of these things can be tools and you have to again know why you're doing it what you're hoping to get out of it and that's where a lot of my clients I'll ask them when they come from the Tom Perry coaching Network like whoaa I know that they said this was a good idea why are you doing this and what are you want to accomplish so but the thoughts on it are if you are committed to it and realize that it's a lot more work than you think it's going to be go for it for me okay so Houston made Luke Bronner is um he's been well established in the podcast scene in Houston for a very long time back in the day he had a show called the H which was really successful not a Realtor um but just loves podcasting he's done all kinds of shows and he runs the network where Houston made technically lives and he said early on in uh kind of a beta Test episode I think what we all really want is to talk with people that we admire about things in which we're mutually interested and doing that in front of a microphone and calling it a podcast gives you access to do that with people you would otherwise not have access to no doubt about it and for me that was the value so if people listen to it great but having a podcast and it having a name and branding and all that stuff means that I get a chance to sit down and have hourlong conversations with entrepreneurs who otherwise would not give me an hour of their time and become their friends and also I don't know if you've had this experience right it's easier for me for whatever reason it's easier for me to send an email pick up the phone call whatever and say hey would you like to be on my podcast than it is to be like hey would you like to share all your secrets with me or hey would you like to just hang out and talk for an hour on the phone you're offering them a platform versus asking them to give you things yeah and so it's an offering versus a request and that makes all the difference and now you know I have the cell phone number of 60 plus entrepreneurs and business owners across Houston that I would consider friends not like take me to the airport friends right but if I have a quick question or need a recommendation for a CPA or something you can pick up the phone and call yeah exactly right and that was the value one of the great things about top five especially because all the people that I was interviewing were also sitting around not talking to people in person um was I really got to like for the first time meet and say thank you to a lot of the people who were in the industry when I first started that I stole their [ __ ] and made it my own and I got to actually interview them I mean I got to interview a New York Times bestselling author which was super cool um and hilariously all because I made a joke at a training he did before he was a super superstar and I reminded him in the email and he's like I actually remember that and I was like cool so um but yeah to me it just makes it easier to to make the approach that's right so I'd say for all those things if you just recognize going to be difficult understand that most of the benefit are indirect right benefits right um very few people are going to listen to it or watch it but the people who do like that's really going to strengthen your relationship with those people yeah so it's that one's I think podcasting the blog type long form stuff is go about going deeper with the people that do watch as opposed to going wider with some of your short form video content yeah yeah that's great um all right anything else that we need to add to this that if you had a message you wanted to get out to an agent about video other than just go make video Yeah and don't let it suck what would that be yeah I mean clean your lens clean your damn lens yes clean your lens just please clean your lens that's the that's absolutely number way I'm going to get a clean your lens tattoo you know what I'm I'm saying it right now on the record a clean your lens tattoo is going on my body for sure it's going to say number one clean your lens I think you should go like like postmalone style right under under the eye under the eye yeah I I think there's that um if you want to do these things you can do them I spent five plus years in this corporate environment watching YouTube videos of people travel the world with a camera thinking man that must be nice like if only I didn't own a camera I didn't believe that I could make videos I didn't even think about uh making videos uh but then like I just took steps in that direction and right most people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in five right and you know five years ago I was probably just starting to make videos like on my own for Real Estate stuff and now I have look at you yeah I I get to travel world I get to fly around the country uh and and so when it to all of this stuff whether it's making short form content or making a podcast or YouTube videos or just growing your real estate business in general so many of us are comparing the beginning of our stories to the middle or end of somebody else's and so you just need to remember that the only place to start is at the beginning if you start and you are consistent you will likely get where you want to go far faster than you act you think you will okay so I wrote down on my notepad here consistency yeah like that's really the key right it's putting out content what whatever that looks like for you yeah but it's doing it all the time yeah do do stuff now you and I've talked about this before I I value consistency I think consistency is not as helpful if it's not builting momentum right so there's this idea of like you can make a video every day you could post five videos a day and it not get you where you want to be if you're not learning and growing through that process and so right you consistency is brushing your teeth every day right yeah that's great your your you keep them from falling out but like Mo momentum is going to the gym every day and then pushing yourself adding more weight Progressive overload and getting jacked yeah and so I just want to clarify that because it's so easy to be like yeah consistency consistency you're post well you po I post it you know three times a week on Facebook and I didn't get anything and it's like well great but what have you learned yeah did your post suck maybe yeah what have you learned and and how are you growing what are you going to do next what how are you going to improve and that that's the biggest thing is yes consistency but continue to learn like continue to grow continue to like get better and that's the piece that I think people Miss because that's not fun that's why I don't work out because it sucks and it's hard it makes my musles hurt so so you joke about that but literally last night I'm at the gym and I texted my trainer I'm like working out is stupid yes because the same almost the same exact workout I had done the week before I was struggling like a hell to do and last night I asked a guy for a spot and then was embarrassed that I asked him for a spot because I lifted the weight so easily yes and I'm like this is dumb like last week I'm dying this seven days like seven days difference I'm dying on one hand the next one like make it make it look easy and the guy was like all right job man cool great job you did it yeah like yeah but it yeah it's it's just that idea of you have to put yourself in uncomfortable situations to grow you have to face your own ignorance you have to be willing to say I am ignorant I don't know what that's right and that's painful to our egos but then you get better and you've got I'll tell you the second part of that and this is actually part of our teaching philosophy of our brokerage right so the first step is the knowledge piece of the puzzle and you have to be willing to admit that you don't know uh but the second part is then you go and do it you've also got to be willing to fail yeah and those two things those are those can be ego shots in a big way brutal it's so brutal I yeah I remember the very first time I ever saw myself on video I worked for a home builder and they would have Us mystery shopped okay cool um and so you know the guy's got the hidden camera in his button or whatever right and he's following you around and this guy was a magician cuz we would always try to figure out who it was because it was always the same guy but this guy never got caught on mirror never got caught in the reflection of anything he was like a vampire yeah um I got the first video sitting there with my my sales coach and my manager they put it in the DVD player turn it on I said like oh like I was a valley girl immediately insecure right now I immediately thinking about this conversation and saying what have I done it was awful it in the course of like a 40 there I say it right there in the course of a 45 minute conversation with these people where I'm walking them out to houses I said like 46,000 times it was just the like so painful but but without confronting that it wouldn't have changed stopped doing that and now one of my most prolific video clients who has I've shot literally thousands of videos with now sees your stuff and says he is so good at this and I go right why because you had to watch yourself I had to watch myself like a thousand times in a in a listing thing it was terrible it was terrible all right we're going to go into the speed round here at the end of the standard all right four questions right off top of your head okay best business book you've ever gotten or read my favorite book that I have read is um all marketers are liars Seth Goen uh or all marketers are storytellers he changed the name but and so it's funny because on the cover of the book it has Liars marked out and says storytellers nice I love sethen yeah I I honestly don't love all this stuff but I love this one it goes back to what are you really selling and why do people buy things and that has changed my life favorite piece of technology my favorite piece of technology what do I love the most um well if you only take one thing on an airplane what would it be oh man I mean my iPhone like is that a bad answer no I love my iPhone my whole is on that thing I've got games and books and music and all the things I yeah it's understated all right next on that list then on your iPhone what is your favorite podcast my favor outside of Houston mate obviously available anywhere you find your favorite podcast that's right um okay I don't want to narrow it down to one I would say for business related stuff that's been most helpful to me is uh Joo willink um I think it's extreme ownership yep or or is it just Joo I forget what he calls the podcast the Joo podcast the Joo podcast is I think um it's not going to be for everybody I'll admit that but there are some real lessons that come from his experience in the military that my soft nerdy experience of life has not you know encountered and so it's it's definitely a differing perspective from my worldview in a way that's been really helpful for my business to push through difficult things and learn and grow as a leader all right now I'm going to put you on the spot because I feel like this one's probably going to be the the most difficult of the four sing of the four questions just because you just talked about how you had all these entrepreneurs on who are and you're taking their advice what's the best piece of advice you've gotten the best piece of advice okay I mean I've just made a video about this so I think that this is this is fresh in my mind um don't play to not lose play to win oh brother can I talk to you about Bill O'Brien please that was was so he was the former coach of the Houston Texans and I am a DieHard Houston Texans fan and that was always my problem with that man and more often than not the result of playing to not lose was that you lost mhm in his case almost every time like in spectacular fashion I'm like dude just go out there like you're winning go win yeah like rub it in their face and win yeah it's a competition yeah yeah go for it that's great advice yeah it changed my life it was a early in my real estate career a productivity coach of mine I was running out of money and I was starting to pull my punches and get like really kind of closed off and he he made that call he's like it seems like you're playing not to lose I think you should play to win what would it look like if you win all in and I and so I took the last little bit of money I had I got my own office space that's outside of my house and uh I did five times as much in volume that following year one Rookie of the Year all of that because I said all right well screw it because I was willing to fail was to say all right well what if I if I'm going to go out I'm going to go out at a B of Glory flaming Glory that's right like I just want burn the boats heavy metal on I want fire and fireworks and I just want to like I I I want it very much uh uh uh Mad Max like witness me like that's that was the thing and and I and it's you know I've been back to that place so many times in my businesses where I go oh no like I'm running money oh no my clients are gone oh no there's this and it is so tempting every time to start pulling those punches to be like oh no I guess I got to go get a real job as opposed to saying like all right like let's just put my head down and just run through run at this brick wall and see what happens so that's that's more often than not you break through that's right yeah so awesome Rusty thank you very much if people wanted to find you where do they go Instagram Rusty J Gates or Houston made podcast the best place to find me Rusty Gates media.com uh yeah I'm I'm in those places awesome thank you for being our first guest on the standard thank you for joining us today we appreciate it check out our next episodes coming soon