Ed Stulak – From Likes to Leads

Lindsay Favazza: Welcome back to the Agents Who Crush It In Real Estate Podcast. I am so excited because I am sitting right here on the screen with as you can see, Mr. Ed Stulak. Ed, welcome to the podcast today. 

Ed Stulak: Thank you. Thank you so much. Good morning  

Lindsay: Let me tell you a little bit about Ed. If you don’t already know who he is because a lot of people do. He has over 80,000 people who have watched his videos and growing by the second on TikTok, Instagram, all the social media channels. He is a licensed New Jersey realtor. He’s a brand strategist and Instagram and TikTok guru I would say. He just cringed, but it’s true. He was named top digital hustler from Realtor Magazine. I love that title. That’s pretty good. You should put that in your signature, I think. 

Ed: I think so too now that you said it. 

Lindsay: Yes, right? Ed, tell us a little bit about your real estate career. Then I want to dive into specifically all the stuff that got you to where you are on social. 

Ed: Cool. Real estate started back when I was 21. Just about six, seven years ago, got into– I don’t think for the right reasons, per se, I got into it for the looks and the money. I’m just being upfront. I really wanted to get into it. I was influenced just by the look and the culture of what real estate agents portrayed themselves to be online. I was a big advocate of social media in 2012, 13, 14, 15. That’s when Instagram started growing. All I saw on there was just luxury and fame and money and I’m thinking, “Damn, what do they have in common?” 

Then just repeated and revolved around real estate. I was thinking, okay, maybe I should dabble with that career. It doesn’t require school degree. That’s great number one. Number two, I was thinking this sounds crazy to study five hours of schooling, do some tests, and then you’re good to go. [crosstalk] 

Lindsay: Easy, right? 

Ed: Easy. Yes, dove into it. Since then, just been trying it out, seeing what works, seeing what doesn’t, selling a house. If you’re in there and then scaling to where it is today. 

Lindsay: Where are you at today? How does your real estate day to day? How’s it going? I know, I’ve seen some of your videos where you have some pretty awesome listings of properties that you’re going through. Tell me where you’re at today with your real estate career. 

Ed: Right now I wake up in the morning with about 17 different fires to put out. That’s always fun and stresses me out. I got out to my coffee, which by the way, this thing says this is probably bourbon and it probably is. [crosstalk] It’s just a matter of day-to-day. It’s always something with my clients, with my projects, with developers, with listings. It’s happening. It’s happening from what I’ve perceived six years ago. I’m very happy that it is now. The cool thing and I’m super honored to say is that business is coming to me as opposed to me chasing it. 

My phone rings. Just before we started I got another buyer from Instagram just reached out and said, “Hey, I’m looking for somewhere in Lakewood, New Jersey.” It comes to me now. I’m pretty stoked about that but that’s happening now. Six years ago, that was not happening, so eventually. 

Lindsay: What’s interesting about you and I say this to a lot of real estate agents that I talked to when I’m doing trainings and things like that is, you are a real estate agent, definitely you’re realtor, but you’re a marketer. I feel like you came into real estate as, “I’m a marketer who sells real estate.” I think that’s a really interesting way to look at it because I think a lot of people just say, “No, I’m a realtor. I help people sell and I help people buy. The reality is you have to market those houses, you have to market yourself. There’s no way you’re going to get those buyers and sellers unless you’re marketing yourself. 

Tell me a little bit about the marketing that you do maybe other than social, then we can dive into really the social which has been such a huge component of what you do, but what other marketing strategies do you use? 

Ed: Six years ago, when I dove into real estate, I joined a little mom-and-pop shop. Little mom and pop shop right around the corner. It was Christmas Eve and I was door-knocking around all my neighborhood. I hit three houses down that I’ve been living here for maybe 10 plus years now and I never knew who lived in there. Knocked on the door. This gentleman walks out, older gentleman I hand him a card, “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, take care,” and I walked away. He comes running back out. “Hey, come back here.” I’m like, all right. I’m like can I just get my first lead  

Lindsay: Be cool, be cool. 

Ed: I walked back, “Hello, sir.” I started talking to him. He’s like, “Come here for a second. Let’s sit down and talk.” I’m like okay, this is awesome it’s happening. He sits me down. I swear to God, it was like a movie scene, puts me in a garage, pulls up a chair, puts it in the middle of the garage, turns on this one little light lamp in the middle of the room, and like starts and interrogating me. He’s like, “How long have you been a realtor for?” “Like, a year?” He starts asking me questions. 

He’s like, “Listen, I’m a real estate broker. I own my agency this and that. I need hustlers like you. Obviously, the door-knocking helped out in that case, which when I got into his agency, he told me all the fundamental elements of real estate, door knocking, cold calling, physicals, expireds, all that stuff. Then him and his partner always just stressed the importance of the fundamental elements. Anytime I brought in my photographer or my media crew, back then into the office, he always looked at me like, “What’s that?” It’s my mediocre we’re going to do some content. He’s like, “Oh, that’s never going to work.” 

That killed me. The social media side of things I could not push as hard as I wanted to back then because they were not for it. They didn’t see that. 

Lindsay: They weren’t seeing it. Yes. 

Ed: This guy had a typewriter in his office. I’m like, dude, but you know what, here’s the thing. I’m saying all this stuff because they did teach me one thing. This was the offline marketing. This is what I’m trying to tie the bow here is that the offline side of things are still very powerful, still very exponentially do your benefit if you do them now, like no one else does. The door-knocking, the cold calling all these things I still do today. I still go door-knocking. 

Anytime I have an open house, I’ll door knock around the area, I’ll hit all the houses, explain to them, “I have a house that’s down the road. During the open house from 1:00 to 3:00. I’m doing a neighborhood exclusive invite first you guys can come between 11:00 to 1:00,” something like that. “If you’re open to it, let me know.” Every now and then I do hit someone that says, “Yes, I’m interested. I’ll stop by.” I’ll tell you the one instance. I had this one lady, she walked out she said, “Ed, you know what, I’ve been in this house for a long time now. I’m a widow.” She sounded like her husband passed away two days ago. He really passed away 20 years ago, but she loved this man. 

Her name is Sue. Sue always comes out. I always stop by her house now, just to bring her a jar of honey. The last time I brought her a jar of honey, she said,” Oh look at that. Honey from my honey.” [crosstalk] 

Lindsay: building a relationship. She’ll never forget you. You’re the honey realtor. 

Ed: Yes, exactly. I am the honey realtor now. I have connected with her that social media will never do with her and I. That’s why I have to understand my demographic and my audience. I know her now. Every now and then I’ll bring her a new jar of honey and say, “I think you’re running out. Here’s a new one.” Every time I come back. I’m I trying to get a sale? Oh, yes. 

Lindsay: Of course. 

Ed: I’m I going to get it? I really don’t mind if I do it or not. I know that she is mentioning my name. She’s talking about it. I already had a listing appointment with her. I already sat down with her. We explained the numbers. I already got to what I was looking for but if nothing happens, then I’m okay with it. I’ve now earned a new reputation in that neighborhood with her community and that’s what matters. 

Lindsay: Absolutely. 100%. Tell me a little bit about your personal brand. Who are you? Who is Ed Stulak? What is it that you are putting out there on social that you want people to know that you are, like who are you? 

Ed: My name is Ed Stulak. It’s on my shirt just in case I forgot. Put that out there. Ed Stulak is a personal brand, just like everyone out there. We all have one. You have one everyone does. It’s just a matter of what else we tie to it that makes us who we are. As you’ve noticed a few seconds ago, I picked up my coffee bourbon. I’m a big whiskey guy bourbons. This is my thing. It’s who I am. I love it. I’m never going to hide it. I’m going to always be very upfront about it with my clients will always share that interest. If we’re cool with it, we do. Same thing with my hockey life begins of hockey, begins of suits, I love watches. Things like this is what I portray out there naturally, there’s no force to it. 

This is what I perceive and I push people to do is focus on those interests and push them because it has to be a natural thing. You shouldn’t make your brand forced because someone else is doing it that way. I need to do it that way. I don’t know. This person is doing or this influencer or this celebrity. I want to look like her, I want to look like him. Take tidbits of ingredients from them, and implement them into your brand, but never make your brand someone else. That’s what it really comes down to my brand. I’m a real estate agent, entrepreneur, this guy, I’m a social media geek. That’s what I started calling myself. 

I like social media, I never want to perceive or be perceived, as a coach or guru or anything of that sort, because there’s too many of them. There are way too many out there, I don’t want to just be another one of them. I have a personal brand. This is what I want people to be attracted to, that’s this is what I encourage all real estate agents to do because we are all influencers in our local areas, become those influencers. You don’t have to be a worldwide influencer, no, be your Boston influencer, Texas influencer, California. That’s it. 

Lindsay: I think it’s really important that you say that, because a lot of agents they think well, “Yes, he’s doing and he’s got this many followers, but I want to be more local, I don’t want to be national, I want to be more local.” Explain how an agent that does want to start doing more videos on Instagram and Tiktok. What is the strategy to keep it more localized so that they’re getting clients from their local market? 

Ed: It’s a matter of being proactive, as opposed to being reactive, which a lot of people are reactive on social media. Let me explain. Us, users of social media wait for a like, we wait for comments, we wait for a DM, we wait for someone to follow us. We wait for that stuff, and if it does happen, which it does from time to time, not always though. When it does happen, we neglect it. We’re just like, “Oh, cool. We just got a new follower, we got a new like, we got a comment. Cool.” Sometimes you’ll comment but I know a lot of people that don’t even comment back not even emoji not even– Nothing. Just acknowledge it, like it, maybe like that’s such an insult 

Lindsay: Friends.  

Ed: Like this person just went out of their freaking way to go and comment and like your posts or even follow you and you don’t acknowledge them. Do you know how badly people love acknowledgment? Imagine being in a crowd, I don’t know like a comedian, a comedy show. You’re at a comedy show, and you’ve never been to a comedy show, please  one. They’re the best. A comedian is looking into the crowd and pokes at you and says, “Hey, you with the glasses and the hoodie.” 

All of a sudden, where does the spotlight go? Right on that person? What does that person feel like? Oh, shit, something’s about to happen, but I like it, but like, I’m nervous, but what’s up? Talk to me. Everyone’s eyes go where? Right on that person, right? Like now it’s a comedian, which is the main point of the show and that person, and all of a sudden acknowledgment, like you, love to be heard you love to be seen. The same thing should go on social media, and that’s what people aren’t doing. Give people that spotlight feeling. What I do, anytime someone follows, anytime someone likes, comments, or DMS, I make sure to go and send them a DM back a video message. 

I will pull out my phone and say, “Hey, Sarah, thanks much for the comment, I love your support, and I appreciate it so much. If there’s anything I can do to help you out, let me know. I’m here for you, but all of a sudden, damn he just reached out to me that way. First of all, the retainment is through the roof. Oh, my God, I”m never leaving this guy like he is awesome. He reaches out to me when I need it. I can rely on this person. That’s great, and there’s just number two it’s relationship, people-people business, but this what I’m talking about is all reaction. 

Proactivity is being the person that goes and likes and comments and DMs and follows, but where do you find these people, one thing I always say is focus on the hashtags because everyone uses hashtags on Instagram or even locations. You name a location, Dallas, Texas, you’re trying to build a following or organic following in Port, Dallas, Texas, I need you to go and search hashtag Dallas, TX, hashtag Dallas, Texas, hashtag Dallas, hashtag Texas, like go and search those hashtags and engage with those people. Because more than likely they are in that area. 

There’s no reason for someone from Australia or Tokyo or New York to be per se using that hashtag unless they just visited a different story, but the odds are very low. 

Lindsay: The same thing with restaurants and any of those local hotspots like especially crosstalk], yes, exactly. Especially if it’s like a small type of community. Not necessarily small in population, but close-knit. I live in Gloucester Massachusetts, and everyone knows it from like The Perfect Storm, with George Clooney and all that. Like, it’s very much a fisherman community, but everyone that lives there has been there for a very long time. 

It’s a small tight-knit community with a lot of people in it, and it’s like there are those local restaurants that locals go to the most, and you go to those pages on Instagram and you follow those followers or you like and comment on their content and things that they’re posting about. Then you know you have a local audience, you know that the people that you’re attracting are local, and like you said, you follow up with when they do like, or comment or follow your page, you’re following back up with saying thank you and engaging with them as just a human being. Everyone just wants to be acknowledged. That’s what you said, it’s exactly what it is. 

Ed: That’s it. That’s exactly it and as long as someone is stumbling upon your page and sees that you are in that area. This all comes back down to your brand, again– 

Lindsay: Brand awareness. 

Ed: The social media stuff that we’re talking about, you can implement it all day long, but if you don’t have a brand that you’re portraying, and pushing on social media, that it doesn’t matter. You can have no profile picture, no bio, no followers, no posts, you can do the method that we’re talking about here, but no one’s going to follow or engage back because they don’t think that you’re an actual person, they think you’re a bot. You think that you’re fake, you’re a scam, make sure that people know that you are not that. 

Have a profile picture, have a bio, have your full name, have your agency that you work with, have the location, have your contact information, have a website, have that stuff, so people see your page because they’re going to say who the hell just commented on my page? They’re going to see you, they’re going to click, they’re going to be curious, and they’re going to see, okay, this person from this area, I see their profile picture. They got to follow him. They got posts, oh, my God, they’re from down the road? No way. 

Immediately there’s going to be some relevance for them to psychologically say, “Who is this person, and should I just invest my next two minutes of my time to engage with this person?” Let’s do it. Let’s like, let’s comment, let’s follow, let’s DM. That’s how you grow an organic following. 

Lindsay: I love it. 

Speaker 1: Let’s take a quick break to hear from Marko Stratakias a leading producer with WT Phelan Insurance as he shares his latest tip. 

Marko Stratakias: Make sure your clients are checking their insurance company’s rating. A- rating is an independent assessment, usually by AM best, which shows the company’s financial standing. A good rating means the company can meet its claim obligations, even after a widespread disaster, the ratings go from A-minus to A-plus. You want them to have a minimum of an A rating or better. Otherwise, it could pose problems for them in the future. Also, make sure if you have insurance partners that you recommend that they have this rating as well. 

Speaker 1: Thanks, Marko. Now, let’s get back to the show. 

Lindsay: Talk to me about and I saw this in the write up that you had sent to me before this, and I thought this was a really interesting question, and I know you do training and things on this, but how do you turn those likes and those follows into actual real estate leads? I think that that’s really where people get like, Okay, well, if I’m going to put all this effort in, and again, I feel like even just that when someone says, “Okay, well, why should I do video, am I going to get leads from it?” You’re already thinking way too far ahead. 

Work on growing a following, and then those leads are going to come just like you said, in the very beginning, like, now the business just comes to me. 

It’s like stop thinking of it as I’m going to get a lead because I did this video and start doing it as I’m going to educate people, and I’m going to get in front of them and show them, what they need to know about the market and what’s going on in the real estate market right now. Then they’re going to start to just gravitate to you, but talk to me about how you actually physically go from likes and follows to leads, what’s that strategy for you in those conversations? 

Ed: Solid content, again, having those two variables are so important, the social media strategies that we’re talking about, but then also the brand.together. It’s that contrast that will make someone say, “Well, I have to talk to this person.” Again, the social media strategies, you can implement all day long, they’re not going to work if you don’t have a brand. You can have a beautiful brand out there, but if you’re not implementing social media strategies, you’re going to have to, that’s number one. Number two, the content that you’re creating has to be very valuable to the user, to the audience member to the follower. 

You have to acknowledge who is your ideal audience? What content are they willing to consume, digest, and then come back for more? Four, what is that content looking like? Is it educational, entertaining, is it about animals, is it about interests, is it about sports? What is it about that you’re super into? Then make sure to put that out there as much as you can in the most trendy way possible. Reels are a huge thing. TikTok’s are a huge thing, this vertical format and type of content as opposed to the horizontal which is on YouTube and all. Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook reels, shots on YouTube, like all these things, vertical format, that’s what matters today. 

These are the best ways to really create that type of engagement. Now stepping aside from all that stuff. How does this actually all convert into a lead? What I was mentioning before being proactive is a huge push. You have to be proactive on social media. You have to be out there engaging with the type of following that you’re actually trying to attract. Then just sparking up conversations like the one that I mentioned before, as an example, reaching out to Sally and saying, Sally, thanks for commenting I appreciate the love and support. Listen, I’m a local realtor. I’m right down the road. 

If there’s anything I can help you with if you have anyone that it’s just whatever I can do. Real estate, social media, branding you need a recommendation. You need a contractor, a painter, talk to me I’m here for you. Let’s connect I’m right down the road. Talk soon. That doesn’t have to be longer than 15 seconds. If you do that 20, 30, 50 times a day, one of them has to convert. Let’s use a 10% rule. If 50 people are being reached out to, five of them should be at least somewhat interested in what you’re saying, and then from that 5% may be one of them should actually have a solid conversation with and say, you know what maybe we can chat. 

It’s a numbers game, same thing with door knocking, same thing with cold calling, social media, same thing. It’s starting those conversations and just being proactive about it. This is again, something that so many real estate professionals neglect. They think it’s going to come to them out of nowhere it’s not, you have to be proactive. 

Lindsay: As you were growing your audience and as you were having more and more followers watching these videos that you were doing, how did that transfer into the next video that you would do in the next video? Did you look at what people were responding to and then say, okay, here’s some ideas of like what they did, but now I’m going to do this to get to like, how did you generate ideas after you started to see that things were picking up? 

Ed: I had been split testing since 2012. Again, I was not in real estate in 2012 I was a high schooler graduating high school in 2012 and 2013 in college moving forward, trying to figure out who is Ed Stulak. I was a hockey player playing at Penn State University studying pre-med that’s who I was in 2012, 13,I’ve been split testing since then. Am I a social media guy? Am I the hockey player that I want to portray myself to be? Am I, this am I that I had no idea. Let’s see what people are engaging with. Let me be genuine. Oh, people like genuine. Let me be a little bit more entrepreneurial and motivational. 

That works too, but not as much as the genuine side so let me go back to this, implement a little bit of this and dazzle it here. Then I just kept doing that repeatedly and repeatedly. That was when I got into real estate that I said, let me just focus on one thing now and just hone in on it so real estate, real estate real. That’s when I started to realize, oh, I think real estate is my niche. A lot of people are engaging. A lot of people know what I’m saying is actually true and they’re listening and they’re implementing. This is interesting. I started teaching and creating content, tailored to real estate professionals and I saw that I got all their attention. 

I’m thinking, all right, I think this is it let me just stick to this for now and see how far I can go. Well, I’ve been doing it for six years now, just repeatedly, and it’s growing and growing and growing, and it’s becoming this hockey stick curve at this moment. I’m proud and happy that I can finally stick to one thing that it makes me happy, but it also makes my audience happy and that’s the nice, happy medium that you’ve got to find in your brand. 

Lindsay: For sure. What exactly makes you go that worked? What is it that you’re looking at? Are you looking at just views? Are you looking at engagement? Are you looking at– It’s funny Anthony here, the owner and we always talk about his feelings. Sometimes we do a lot of television ads and we’ll put a television ad out and I’ll be like, I don’t know, or like not seeing a lot of traffic to the website. He’s like yes, but people are mentioning it. I got good feelings, you know what I mean? How do you actually measure, like in your mind what is that measurement? What is that stick that makes you go, “That worked?” 

Ed: Honestly engagement for sure because that’s the only measurement or some metric that you can go off of. Oh, I just posted this video three hours ago when I have 2000 likes already. Wow, this is great I should do more stuff like this. No, no, not per se. You looked at it, it did good, but you don’t know why it did well. Try it again. See if something similar to that type of content we’ll do the same engagement. Then you post it again. Only 30 likes this time, what the hell happened. Type of content and I’m sure and you’ve heard these stories I’ve heard these stories. I’ve been a part of these stories where you put five hours of time into your content. You create, you edit it, you hire a videographer. He makes it pretty $1,000 later. Awesome piece of content only 800 views. What the hell happened? 

Lindsay: I’m like, wait, did it go? Where are the people? 

Ed: Then you whip out your phone for a 13-second reel and it gets 50,000 views and you’re like, okay, I don’t know what to do anymore. Don’t overthink your content. The metrics though you are looking at them, though that ego boost and that I guess some recognition and proof of concept when you see those likes start to build up and the followers are coming and the comments are growing. It’s like, this is good this is working. I always revert back to did this piece of content just make someone laugh. Did it make them smile? Did it motivate them? Did they learn something? If they did that’s all I care about. I’m not looking at likes anymore. I really am not. 

This whole culture and I need to be an influencer and have thousands of likes and views not per se. I know if I post that one piece of content out there and it inspires a 15-year-old kid to get into real estate, I’m stoked, that’s cool. He’s going to be talking about me in his household which I think his parents are going to hear about me, which are going to say, who is this guy? Maybe I’ll get in there or if I inspire some 78-year-old woman out in, I don’t know Wyoming and she says, “You know what, I think it’s time for social media.” Awesome that’s cool. That’s one more person that I just changed their day. I changed their life. I help them go in the direction that they never knew that it even existed. 

That’s pretty cool. Here’s the thing that makes me different is I will go ahead and do that. I don’t look at the metrics anymore. I don’t mind how many likes it gets that’s fine. If it gets 5 likes, 58,000 likes I don’t mind. If I’m posting every day, I’m posting something all the time so me posting that bad piece of content on a Monday, the difference is that one person out there they will post about one content. They’ll get low likes and they’ll say, I don’t want to post again it’s not working. 

I’ll post today, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow and the next day, and the next day and the next day and I will build up a lot of videos with maybe a little engagement but if you look at it overall, 5,000 views here, 10,000 here, 40 likes here, 80 likes here and all of a sudden I’m hitting them every single day. It’s a billboard that’s always on the highway and people are always driving past it because everyone’s on social media scrolling. The more that they scroll and the more that they see me they’re going to say like, who is this dude? Why is he always posting content? That’s what you’re trying to get out there. 

Lindsay: It reminds me of when you’re on a diet which women we do this all the time, but you’re on a diet and you weigh yourself every single day. Then you can see that the trend is actually going down but if you only weigh yourself once a week you could be weighing yourself on the day that you’re at your heaviest. Do you know what I mean? Even though you’re technically trending down that one day so it’s the same thing. If you posted only on Mondays you have this like Monday series. 

I see a lot of agents do that or it’s the Tuesday thing or whatever it is. If Tuesdays or Mondays are not the day that your audience is truly engaged then it’s might look like it’s not working for you even though if you were to post multiple days during the week or every day during the week, then you could actually see that Fridays are actually a better day or Saturday mornings are a better time or whatever the difference is. That’s really funny that you say that because it reminds me of that whole diet weighing yourself culture. It’s the same thing you got to do. You got to try all the different things. 

You got to put it all out there and then see what sticks so I love the idea too, that at this point you’ve backed away from paying attention to those likes and follows and that now it’s more just about what you want to put out there and what people are resonating with. I think that’s really, really cool to get to that point. 

Ed: Everyone should start there, like just do it if it makes you happy and if it is valuable to your audience, then that’s a win. That’s a absolute win. Don’t worry about getting all those likes and all the follows no it’s okay just do it it’ll happen. 

Lindsay: You’re obviously not a shy person, so I’m sure it comes much easier to you but the biggest pushback I get from real estate agents, when I say video is king and you got to get out there and make some content is they say, I don’t like the way I look, I don’t like the way I sound or I don’t know what to talk about. No one wants to see my face. No one wants to hear from me. You’ve heard these things too, what is it that you say to those people that are doubting whether or not it’s something that could work for them? 

Ed: That’s a solid question. It’s so different for everyone because I could tell you, don’t worry about how you look just put it out there, see what happens from it but again people see their one result that one video of themselves, and nope, sounded exactly like I thought it was going to it’s terrible never doing it again. 

Lindsay: My voice sounded awful. 

Ed: Voice sounded awful. Oh my God, my hair splits or whatever split ends like, oh, stop it. Just stop don’t worry about that. You know what, I’ll tell you something i just did– It is so embarrassing, I just did a TV interview with Southwest Florida, the big publication down there and it was a digital– Just like this. We were doing a Zoom call. I had my media guy come out because, again, it was a TV interview. I needed this thing to be professional as professional as could be. I had my suit. He brought in the mics, the things, the lights, the big setup, this hugely deck for making the audio sound right, the whole nine yards. 

This TV interview lasted for three minutes. It was very fast, not long, but the amount of work that was put into, oh, my god. I had toothpaste on my fricking beard the whole time and I did not even know. This jerk-off didn’t tell me that I had toothpaste. I’m like, “Are you kidding me?” [laughs] 

Lindsay: Oh, my gosh. Now you’re never going to do another thing like that without first opening up your mirror and checking it all to make sure. 

Ed: It camouflaged so well and then when the light hit me different story. 

Lindsay: [laughs]. 

Ed: You can’t really even see it in the TV. I’m like, “Are you joking me?” You know what, I had no idea and I’m owning it. I love it. Let’s go. If that’s going to attract the [crosstalk] 

Lindsay: You would have shared and be like, “Oh, the video where I forgot to check the toothpaste.” Now it probably would get even more views too because people would be like, “What?” They would want to see. 

Ed: You know what, probably you’re right. I’m probably going to do something like that now. 

Lindsay: You totally should. 

Ed: It’s okay. Stuff like that happens, and it’s okay. [crosstalk] the people I was thinking. 

Lindsay: It’s going to happen. 

Ed: It’ll happen. No point here. Don’t worry, just post. Just post, you don’t know what can happen. I’ve seen some very funny interviews. I’ve seen some very funny pieces of content before that. I’m thinking, “No way did they just post that.” Like, “Really?” They got the engagement that they, I guess, we’re striving for. You just never know. 

Lindsay: You never know. 

Ed: You never know who’s watching. You never know who’s listening. You never know who’s going to listen to this podcast. There some great opportunity can come out from it, for you, for myself, for your agency. You have no idea, so just do it. Understanding what can happen if you do it I think it’s just definitely worth a shot of making it happen. We can go to all these events, we can hear all these amazing speakers speak about what is going to get you leads and all this stuff. I’m sure real estate agents always go with them. They feel pumped. They’re like, “Wow, I can now make 578 phone calls in one day.” That’s a lot of phone calls. They feel like they can do it now because of how influenced that they were. Then they go and do it, maybe make two calls the next day. People get influenced from that stuff. Why don’t you get influenced the same feeling that you might get at an event about someone talking so highly about cold calling? Why can’t you do that with social media? Take this as a lesson. Social media does work. 

Lindsay: Here’s your sign. 

Ed: There are people that are watching. 

Lindsay: Here’s your sign. 

Ed: Here’s your sign. 

Lindsay: It works.  

Ed: For those that are skeptical about it, the lead that I just got before we hopped on million-dollar buyer. That’s awesome. He said up to 1 million budget in down south New Jersey. Epic. From Instagram. I got another one from a $2.7 million listing off of Instagram. I got another one the other day, another $900,000 plus listing up in Jersey. These are all starting to come my way. I know these prices sound high, and they do because usually, the average price point is like $400 here. Me talking these numbers is just crazy to me, even myself, and I’m happy that they’re happening but all from Instagram. 

Two years ago, I got an Instagram message that changed my entire real estate career. It was a DM that just started off saying, “Hey, I have an opportunity. We’d love to present it your way. I feel you’re a good fit for it.” I had no idea what I was stepping foot into the next morning when I met with these three developers and this sweetheart of a girl that brought this opportunity to make, a 180-unit building to list. I’m four units away from selling off the building. 

Lindsay: Wow, congrats. 

Ed: From Instagram. Keep in mind, Instagram is what made this happen. Not me door knocking, not me cold calling, Instagram made it happen. She reached out for some reason. There was some content that I posted. I don’t know which one. It was something that made her say, “I have to reach out to this dude.” It was the amount of content that I posted that intrigued her every single time I posted it to make her say, “I have to do this now.” 

Lindsay: It all comes back to someone who’s a seller or someone who has properties that are going to need a realtor’s help. They’re looking at it as if they’re willing to market themselves the way that they do, they will put in that same effort and have that same audience growth and visibility on my property. Again, if anything, you’re showing your clients and your future clients, like, “This is how I will treat your home.” That’s fantastic. That should be a motivation enough to get on and start doing videos and showing off the properties that you have and things like that. Imagine you have a seller and they look on your social media and you haven’t posted in three months. 

Then will, “Why would I have that person be the one that would be marketing my home if you’re not even going to talk about the homes that you have listed?” I think you’re absolutely right. It’s so important to just start doing video. You can start at any point. You don’t have to feel like you’re missing the boat. Start now, here’s your site. I love the fact that this would be the episode that people would listen to and then all of a sudden there’s big change. I hope that that’s the case. Ed, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time today. I think that our audience is going to learn so much from you as they did in our training that we did a couple of weeks ago. 

It’s funny, I found out about you from Instagram as well. I went and searched. I think it was actually TikTok. I went to TikTok and I searched real estate agents and then I started scrolling anyone who was doing good video and yours just kept popping up. I just kept seeing your face and I was like, “Oh, my gosh, this guy’s all over the place.” Then I went to your Instagram channel, I was like, “Oh, yes, this is the person I need to reach out to.” He’s absolutely telling you the truth when I say that he connects with people because as soon as I wrote to you, I swear, it was within 15 minutes that I got a message back, “Hey, Lindsay, thanks so much. I would love to help you with your training and blah, blah, blah.” That’s exactly what you did. Then as soon as we finished the training, I had a video from you saying, “Thank you for letting me be a part of it.” That authenticity is real. You’re authentic. You’re an awesome human being. I think everyone should go and follow. Tell everybody where they can follow you and what your @ symbols are and all of those locations that they can find you. 

Ed: You’re so sweet, Lindsay. Thank you so much. 

Lindsay: I appreciate that. 

Ed: Thank you. It’s, I don’t know, genuinity is something that so many people lack. I’d never want to be that person that lacks that. 

Lindsay: No, everything you’ve said today you did with me so I know that you do it because I saw firsthand. I appreciate that. 

Ed: Of course. 

Lindsay: Where can people find you? 

Ed: Ed Stulak. Anywhere, social medias all across the board, LinkedIn to Instagram to Snapchat to whatever it might be Ed Stulak is where you can find me. If you want to chat even more Ed Stulak on Instagram. Reach out to me and we’ll be happy to chat away. 

Lindsay: Sounds good. Awesome. Thank you so much. We hope you all will subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already so you don’t miss any episodes. We are now on Season Two and we’re super excited about it. We’ve had at least 20, 25 I don’t even know how many people that we’ve interviewed over the last year. They bring so much. Each person has their own experience of what’s worked for them and what hasn’t worked for them. If you’re not listening to the podcast, then you’re definitely going to miss out on some of those tidbits. Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and we will see you guys on the next episode. Thanks again, Ed.