One of the most important things you can do is build your business around how you're wired.
Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast, I’m talking with Gene Donohue, a real estate coach from Apex, North Carolina, who’s worked in the industry since 2011. Gene started as one of the first 100 agents at EXP Realty, later led mentorship at Fathom Realty, and now focuses full-time on helping new and early-stage agents build reliable, sustainable businesses.
We talked about what he calls the three stages of growth: cash building, impact building, and legacy building. Most agents never get past the first stage, so we dug into the practical systems that make that possible, especially for people just getting started. Gene’s focus on aligning prospecting strategies with DISC profiles stood out.
The conversation is a great example of starting with self-awareness and then applying the systems-supporting mindset and revenue. If you’re thinking about how to grow your business from scratch,or help others do the same, you’ll find real value in this episode.
Key Takeaways:
I explore Gene Donohue's transition from a successful real estate agent to a coach for aspiring real estate professionals, emphasizing his focus on the "cash building stage" as a foundation for long-term success.
Gene discusses the importance of niche specialization in the real estate industry, helping agents strategically position themselves to enhance their value proposition and become indispensable to clients.
The episode delves into the DISC model, guiding agents to align their sales strategies with their personality types, which can improve their work-life balance and income consistency.
I learn about Gene's structured coaching programs, such as the "Authority Blueprint," "Agent Catalyst," and "Pathway to Profits," which are designed to establish authority and support career growth for real estate agents.
Gene shares insights on innovative marketing strategies, highlighting the importance of viewing prospects as valuable assets and nurturing relationships through targeted Facebook ads and engaging content.
The episode emphasizes the benefits of a capital investment mindset in marketing, rather than an expense-based approach, to build lasting relationships and increase conversion rates over time.
Gene introduces strategies like postcard marketing and QR codes for building robust prospect lists, aiming to provide a fresh perspective on achieving stability and success in the real estate sector.
Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 263
Dean: Gene Donohue.
Gene: Good morning Dean. How are you?
Dean: I am good, how are you?
Gene: I'm doing well for a Monday morning.
Dean: Ah, perfect. Well welcome to More Cheeseless Whiskers. I'm very excited about getting to talk to you because I know you're involved in one of my favorite things real estate marketing. So, yeah, so I can't wait to hear what you're up to. We got the whole hour we're already recording. Let's see what we can do to hatch some evil schemes for you here. Yeah, I love the evil schemes.
Gene: Yeah with Mike.
Dean: Myers the doctor. So I'm excited. Usually it's good to start out. Maybe just kind of introduce yourself. Give everybody a sense of who you are, where you're from, what we're going to focus on today.
Gene: Sure, so my name is Gene Donoghue. I currently live in Apex, north Carolina. Grew up in New Hampshire, though, so got tired of the snow and stuff, so it came south, but I've been in real estate since 2011. Started off as a single agent One of the first 100 agents with this little known company back in the time called EXP Realty oh, wow, yeah. So eventually I moved into leadership, had a national position with a company called Fathom Realty, and my title was director of the FAST mentor program, but essentially I was coaching mentors in the field on how to coach brand new agents Okay, perfect, very good. Brand new agents Okay, perfect, very good, yeah. So left fathom, and I've been working on everything that I've learned over the last 14 years, putting it all together in a way that can help not only brand new real estate agents, but also more productive agents that are looking to grow their business to the next level Perfect.
Dean: So how do you do that? In terms of, is this your? Is that you're not involved in residential, in real estate right now, as in real estate sales, but all exclusively in coaching.
Gene: Correct, I'm no longer. I'm not in production right now, one day I might go back to it, because everything that I've put together it's like oh wow, maybe I should become a real estate agent again. Right, right, right, exactly.
Dean: I got it Well, very cool. So how does the latest iteration of your business work right now, then? What kind of people do you work with? How do you find them? What do you do for them, all of them?
Gene: So you know, up until this point I'll answer. How do I find them? It's really been word of mouth, reaching out to people that I know and you know that's really where the work that I've been doing, that's where it's coming from. But I want to take that to the next level and get it out more to the masses. You know everything that I'm working on that I present to potential coaching clients. I call it the three stages of growth. Okay, and really it's the first stage that I concentrate on, because if you can't get through the first stage of growth, it doesn't matter the rest of it's never going to happen.
Dean: So you're talking about for a brand new real estate agent like this is the first three. Okay.
Gene: Yeah, and actually I've seen agents that are in year five and six and they still haven't figured out the cash building stage.
Dean: Okay.
Gene: You know so. So then that's the first stage is the cash building stage, that everything relies on that. So you got cash building, impact building and legacy building. Legacy building is really that 1%, those top real estate agents. Most of my focus is on the cash building stage.
Dean: So who's your ideal client? Is it someone who's brand new, getting started and wants to get some traction? Is it someone who's been in for a while, maybe getting a little traction, but not really predictable like they would like?
Gene: or yeah, it's more towards the latter is you know they've had some success and you know, unfortunately the industry does a really good job of getting someone to pass their test and collecting dues, but does a horrible job in teaching how to actually build a small business.
Dean: Yeah, I don't know how accurate the latest numbers are, but the number going around for last year is 74% of realtors didn't do a single transaction. That's pretty wild. So that leads to what you're saying, that NAR is really good at getting members and collecting dues, but that's half the thing.
Gene: Yeah, and the Pareto principle doesn't apply in real estate. It's not 80-20, it's actually 90-10.
Dean: Yeah, so with the word of mouth, are you working with individual agents or are you working with a brokerage and mentoring their agents?
Gene: What's the yeah, so right now it's working with individual agents. I am exploring working with brokerages, but I'm also exploring the working with brand new agents as well through an evergreen program and I've developed that can really help the brand new agent agent and it's low cost and gets them into my ethos. If you will, then, as they desire or require additional coaching, then I'm available to them. So really, that's where I wanted to focus with you today is on the new agent and direct mail marketing to the brand new agent, because you can get lists of newly licensed agents from almost any state.
Dean: Yeah, exactly that's true. So let's work backwards, then, okay sure. Successful engagement with you. For what's the tell me about how you work with these agents? Let's say you're we're going to focus, put blinders on, we're going to focus on brand new agents. How do you, how do you progress through the working with them? Yeah, so I'm a certified disc professional as well.
Gene: And I truly believe that the industry as a whole could be more successful if more people understood that they need to develop their business around the way they're wired.
The way that they act and interact. It's funny I see so many posts on Facebook saying hey guys, I'm in trouble. What's working for you right now? I need something immediately, and so, if I think back to the beginning of my career as well, when I was told that I have to call Fizbo's and I did, but many days I'd rather have a sharp stick in my eye than call Fizbo's.
I'm just not wired for it Right. So I think that's an important aspect of success is using the way you're wired to your advantage, and that's really the underlying foundation of everything I do understanding how you're wired and then build your business around you, not what you know the guy down a couple of cubicles down is doing, but you use, I'm a big fan of these.
Dean: You know it's guy down a couple of cubicles down is doing, but you use, I'm a big fan of these. You know it's personal awareness really right Like that. I use the Colby. Do you know about the Colby?
No, I'm not familiar with that one. Okay, so it's similar. You know, in disk is it's a. I think when you I'll tell you the ones that I use that kind of give you that 3D perspective. Right, Because DISC is one thing. Colby is specifically designed to show what you do when you're striving, so when you're trying to do things, your natural approach and basically similar to DISC.
There's four cognitive strengths. You are either a fact finder, so we all use fact finding, follow through quick start, which is ideas and stuff, and implementer are the four kind of strengths they give you. It's very simple because it's just a combination. You get a score out of 10 on each of those to show you which the longest, meaning you know if you are a one, two or three, you are resistant to fact finding. You don't like. I don't need to get into the details, Just give me the let's just go kind of thing Right. Fall four to seven means you're accommodating to it but not insistent. And eight, nine, 10, you are insistent on that. That's your prevalent thing.
So if somebody is a fact finder, that their first thing is they have to like research and know everything before they ever get involved in something. Before they take a step their first step is to gather all the facts about it. A step their first step is to gather all the facts about it. The follow-throughs are about how you organize information and create a system or some organizing principle around it. So they got to get all their ducks in a row. This is how you create a system on thing.
Quick starts are just like ideas, as this is what we're going to. Hey, this is what we're going to do, and then implementer. If you're an implementer, your first action is to do something with your hand, like to build something or to make a model of something, or to play with a tool that's going to get you. That's going to get you. So having that awareness really helps, especially when you combine it with your disc and then combine it with the other ones that I use are working. Genius is another great example where that shows six different levels of how you are. It's specifically for business, and then your Myers-Briggs, which your personality type. So that helps, right. All that self-awareness really, just like you said, helps you put things in a lane because no matter what we're going to do, what we do, we're going to do what we do.
Gene: Naturally, right can't fight it for long, so you may as well build around it right, yeah, exactly, and it makes the awareness, makes things easier, makes things more enjoyable and it feels like you're going downstream instead of upstream, right, yeah, yeah exactly, and you know something clients can see that, absolutely, they can see that.
Dean: So what kind of? Let's begin with the end in mind here and say that, after having worked with you, what's the best thing you could do for a brand new real estate agent to build that great foundation, how long does it take and what would be the outcome that you could, that one would expect in working with you?
Gene: Yeah. So you know, the most important thing is building a prospecting system that works for them, because if you don't have clients, you don't have a business. That's the truth, yeah, so that's super important right there. And then you know, one of the things that I say a lot is you know, mindset fuels the systems and systems support the mindset, so that the prospecting system so lead gen and lead follow-up is the most important thing that an agent can put into place. Now there are three other systems that also work around that as well Contract to close that's where agents really make their money is in contract to close that's where agents really make their money is in contract to close.
A referral system, and not just after, you know, not just after the transaction's over. Hey, please refer your friends and family to me. No, that starts all the way back with the very first conversation you have with a potential client, and then cash flow. So that's because so many agents have issues with prospecting. They're just throwing stuff out to see what sticks. Their cash flow is all over the place as well. But if you have a cash flow system in place that supports your prospecting, you can build for the future and really that all starts going all the way back to how much money do you need to make every single month to support your household? And once we have that in place, we can build everything around that and build backwards. So I teach that if you need to bring home $10,000 a month you need in order to build a business properly, you need approximately twice that in net commission income. So you need 20 grand to support a 10,000 a month lifestyle because you have taxes to pay, you have operating expenses and you also need to build cash reserves.
Dean: Yeah, so that's all very good. What's the sort of high level playbook for the prospecting system and how fast? What would be like the outcome that you would be able to help somebody with in that?
Gene: Yeah, so really dial in on. You know at least one main prospecting system that they're using? You know whether it's geographical farming, networking, you know whatever is really they're going to be more wired for. We need at least one, maybe two, of those. And then another thing that goes along with that, however, is you know there was an agent that I used to know in the market I was in and you know I'd give her a call and her voicemail would say I specialize in helping buyers and sellers throughout the upstate area. Yeah, I'm like no.
Dean: Uh-huh.
Gene: You can't be everything to everyone, right? Yeah, find your niche and work with that niche.
Dean: Yes.
Gene: And where you're sitting. Instead of trying to be everything to everyone, you're being everything to this subset.
Dean: Yes.
Gene: And that and your value proposition is so strong in that niche that it would be irresponsible for someone looking to buy or sell in that niche not to use you. So that's really digging down there.
Dean: So what sort of tactical things would then be that somebody might do? Give me a timeline for someone if they were brand new. They want to get off on the right track. How do they decide between farming, networking? What might be some other tools in the toolbox there?
Gene: Yeah, yeah. So that is dependent upon where they fall in the disk world. So you got somebody a high D, a dominant. I can get them on the phone right away.
Dean: Yes.
Gene: So it's like boom Now. Yes, they will need some sales skills if they don't have any Right, and so many people are afraid of practicing, of actually doing scripts and dialogues Right. I think it's misunderstood in the industry of what exactly that is and people are like well, you know, I don't want to sound scripted and it's like well, at first you might, but you have to understand that you have to be situationally aware, and if you're not practicing that, you can't be situationally aware.
And if you're not practicing that you can't be situationally aware, so you have to be able to internalize it and then you can make it your own. So, yeah, so it goes back to sales skills there. And then for, let's say, the high I life of the part, they can just go out and start talking to people and it doesn't take very long to find somebody. If and start talking to people, and you know it doesn't take very long to find somebody If you're talking, if you're having those conversations, it doesn't take very long to get there. And again, that's more immediate. Then you get to the S's and the C's. You know they're slower paced and the S is all about building relationships. So it can take a little bit more time for the S and the C to get that going. But again, it's because of how they're wired.
Dean: Yeah, exactly. And how long do you engage with someone? So what kind of if you're working with them one-on-one, is that kind of the one? Sure, yeah, If we're working one-on-one.
Gene: I like to work with them for about six months. Okay, we can go longer, but really I tried working 90 days. It's just not enough time. It really isn't.
Dean: Yeah, yeah, I guess that's true, right, when you think about especially even just the lead times of getting things to happen. Even if you get a listing it, you should have people in your funnel that you know they just came in.
Gene: So they're brand new, and you should be keeping track of that as well. How many are you having a conversation with? And then how many have raised their hand and said, yes, I'm ready. And so those are basically 30, 60, 90 days.
Dean: So, yeah, it can take a while. Yeah, you look at it right. That progression the appointments, leads, appointments, contracts, closings that's the progression that has to happen and they're all going to happen. You can't get closings if you don't have contracts and you can't get contracts you don't have appointments. And you can't get appointments if you don't have leads. So you got to kind of look at that assessment right.
Gene: Yeah, those leading indicators. Yeah, because most agents are going to track the lagging indicators Well, how many closings? They can answer that, but they're not tracking their conversations, they're not tracking their conversions, things that you that will, if you follow the process, lead to success.
Dean: Yeah, I love it. So what do you have? What would be the best kind of success stories if you'd say, like what have people been able to do under your guidance in the first six months, or what could you? What would your expectation be in working with you for the six months?
Gene: So, first of all, it depends upon their goals. You know, if there are and there's nothing wrong with this at all and I applaud someone who has this kind of thinking is you know I'm looking for work-life harmony of thinking? Is you know I'm looking for work-life harmony? I want to do 12 to 15 transactions a year and so that I can enjoy, you know, my five and six-year-olds. You know that's great and then you got people that well, I want to do 35, 40 transactions a year.
Dean: Yes.
Gene: So it really depends upon the person. But you know minimums, you know I want them to be. You know I stated earlier they need $10,000 a month for you know, to bring home so they can support their current financial. So we should be, they should be doing that on a consistent basis. Yeah, so you know, if you're, if you do that three months in a row, you're well on your way.
Dean: And the good news is I mean to do. We're in a situation where you know the median house price nationally now is $400,000. Right, so you know we're really. You're right in that range of talking about one or two transactions a month will get you to that net $10K.
Gene: Yeah, absolutely In my heyday, when I was in full production, I was in a market where the median was $160,000. I was doing five to six million. That was a lot of work, but yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dean: So how much do you charge for that engagement if you're saying like just to put a, trying to, because everybody, when they're going to make that decision, they're going to look at that ROI as the investment return there?
Gene: Yeah, yeah, so if they're working one-on-one with me, it's $1,000 a month, which I think is a pretty good deal. Yeah, absolutely, one with me, it's a thousand dollars a month, which I think it's a pretty good deal. Yeah, absolutely, because you know, I bring a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge, book knowledge as well, as you know, working, you know, for a couple years with essentially brand new agents. I learned a lot from that as well. So, yeah, so it's thou no 999, but you know.
Dean: So you look at that so as the six month engagement for $6,000, you know it's not, you know it's certainly going to pay a dividend in that they're setting up the system that's going to yield multiples beyond, and so, yeah, that's part of the thing. Are they curious about that in terms of in their asking you, well, what can I expect, or what can I, how are they going through that evaluation process? And I'm curious how many of them actually, as brand new agents, have the money.
Gene: Well, you know that's part of the issue with brand new agents is they don't necessarily have the money and the same can be said you know somebody who's been doing it for four or five years, Right, exactly, they don't have the money either, Right, right. But you know, when you know I've brought them through a couple of steps, yeah, Before they've actually come to the point where I'm offering this one-on-one coaching with them. So you know, they have put a little bit of dollar into learning, and so, you know, by the time they get to the one-on-one coaching with me, the value has already been laid out for them, and so it's an easier transition going from well, here's my evergreen program for $297 to a thousand dollars a month.
Dean: You had mentioned that as the beginning. Yeah, so 297,. Is that program in existence now already? Yes, it is 997. Is that program in existence now already? Yes, it is Okay. So you've got that. People can join that. Yes, and the beginning of the funnel is actually $19. Okay, $19. Well, walk me through the funnel then so we can look at that. Somebody starts out the $19 is what.
Gene: I call it the authority blueprint, and the authority blueprint is about prospecting and teaching agents how to build that authority so that potential clients no longer question them about their commission. That's essentially what the authority blueprint is about.
Dean: I got it, and is that a modular course? Is it a video course? It's an audio course with a workbook Audio course and workbook, and how long does it take somebody to go through? How long does it take somebody to go through?
Gene: The audio itself. The whole thing is made to be about three, four hours really, so it can definitely be done quicker than that or longer. I didn't want someone to look at this and go oh my God look at all this work. Yes, you require them to do some work in the workbook. It can be digested fairly quickly.
Dean: And then. So then the next step is that leads to your $297? Yes, Grammar is an intermediate step in there.
Gene: Yeah, and that's called agent catalyst.
Dean: Okay, that's the 297, agent Catalyst. Yeah yeah. And is that? Do you do that in cohorts or do you do it as a modular?
Gene: Yeah, that's on demand. On demand, yeah, videos and workbooks.
Dean: And so it's multi-hour again. Different modules, continual improvement.
Gene: So, those are the six elements in the process flow stack.
Dean: Okay, that's great.
Gene: And how long do people take to kind of go through that program? So if you're being diligent and going through the program, it can take four to six weeks to really go through. If you're doing everything the way it's been set up and not taking shortcuts, and you're doing the work and the workbooks, it can take four to six weeks to go through that.
Dean: Right. So these as the core and then, once people get an experience of that, if they want to jump into working with you one-on-one, that's where that's the progression kind of thing.
Gene: Yes, and that's called pathway to profits.
Dean: Got it Okay. So there you go. You got yourself a nice little progression. So how does the machine that generates that business for you work? How's that going? Not very well, okay. Well, that's what we're looking at, right. So the ideal thing, these, the realtors, are available. As you said. They're visible prospects. You can get a list of the brand new agents. That's not a problem. How are you getting people for these? Now, what's your existing process?
Gene: Yeah, so I started to move into social media and marketing that way and, to be honest, dean, there is so much noise there that it's really difficult to break through that noise. You know you've got some. You know you've got some big names out there. Really dominate the coaching real estate coaching world in social media.
It's really difficult to get past them and get heard by those who need to hear my message, Because I find very few really focus on what I'm focusing on. You see a lot of coaches out there. They're focusing on specific strategies for prospecting and don't look at the business as a whole, Because really it is. It's more than just prospecting.
The process flow stack brings us through that as a whole, because really it is. You know, it's more than just prospecting. Yeah, you know that the process flow stack brings us through that. So so getting cutting through that noise has been very difficult.
Dean: So your situation, so that's a reach issue, right Like there there's the thing it's not a capability issue. It's like I feel like if you had a new agent assigned to you that met certain criteria, that you would be able to get them off to the right track through this, through either authority, blueprint, agent catalyst, the first six or nine months of their career, you could certainly get them on the right track.
Gene: Absolutely.
Dean: So what the challenge is, then, is getting the reach to let the realtors know that this is an option. So, any realtors? Do you have a list of realtors now that you've built or that you're?
Gene: I'm currently. I was building my list through through Facebook ads, but I felt like I was really banging my head doing that, so I stopped. I stopped and I'm about ready to bring those ads up again, but not just for list building purposes. So the authority blueprint is going to be what I'm marketing on Facebook. So automatically, you come in, you're going to, you know, paying something, you're going to buy a product from me instead of just list building.
Dean: Yes.
Gene: Because I want the right type of agent to come into my systems. And list building doesn't really do that, but in my opinion, if they purchase something from you, you've got probably a higher quality prospect lifetime income from this prospect than somebody who just came in because I'm giving them a lead magnet.
Dean: So that's a thought that there's. So it all depends If you look at it. It's kind of like the same thing If you look at you know. It's kind of like the same thing, right, if you look at it that in order for somebody to work with you and we see this all the time that people talk about they have to know you, like you, trust you, right, Right, everybody talks about that, but they always say the words together Know you, like you, trust you. And read it as one destination doesn't properly revere the giant leap from not knowing you to knowing you.
Yes because it's a much shorter journey from knowing you to liking you and an even shorter journey from liking you to trusting you, right? So if we, one of the things that I've always looked at is separating the compelling from the convincing, and one of the things that I think you're gonna run into, on social media especially, is, if you're doing paid ads, if you're trying to convince people to buy something, the number of people that you're going to engage in a dialogue with are much, much lower than if you are offering something that they could download for free. If you were focused 100% on lead generation, right, and I find that even when people are doing lead generation, they're doing it in a convincing way. So do you remember how much it was costing to generate a lead for you using Facebook.
Gene: Yeah, it was a little bit over $5.
Dean: Okay. So this is how I look at it with. That is that if you look at that, you've got 100, you know it costs you about $500 to generate a cohort of 100 leads. Yeah, that's a great way to think about it right Now. What you also have to keep in mind is what would it be worth if we look at those 100 people over the next 100 weeks, not over the next 100 hours? And that's what most people are doing when they're moving into advertising or Facebook advertising or lead gen advertising. They're looking, they're taking what I refer to as an expense-based approach to marketing.
I know where you're going with this, right that you're saying I want to spend 500 on ads but I want to make at least 500 back. That's what I would consider as a success, right? So thinking is well, if I charge people 19, then I'm gonna as long as I can run these at break even. That's kind of like the dream, right, but it's also very short sighted, right. If I get you to think in terms of turning your marketing into a capital investment, and it changes everything. If you're thinking about let's, we'll stock our pond with a hundred fish that are exactly what we're trying to attract. If we're making a, if we're making a thing for brand new agents or for and it doesn't really matter for your program whether it's brand new or whether it's somebody who's wanting to get traction right, they're just looking to get that stability. You're looking at the kind of let's call it the entry level agent for it that, if you were to make that investment of a hundred $500 to generate 100 of those people and then nurture your relationship with them over a period of time if we look at 100 weeks is the great example, and the reason I do that is because there's been so many lead conversion studies that show that five times more people convert after 90 days than in the first 90 days, and that was something that really changed my whole approach to it.
I used to do a lot of lead generation in the 90s, and this is where I found this company that does inquiry handling, you know, on an enterprise level, and what they found was that, no matter what the industry, they did something that they called did you buy surveys? So they would call people up, they would go back 18 months and take a sampling of people who inquired about something 18 months ago, and they'd call you up and just ask one question. They'd say gene, you inquired about faucets at the home show. Did you buy any faucets? That's the whole thing, and what they found was, no matter what the industry, they found that just over half of the people that inquired about anything would buy what they inquired about within 18 months, but only 15% of them would do it in the first 90 days, and so it's a very interesting thing. I use that as a model now, where I like to be conservative on things and I like round numbers. So I extended it out to two years, 100 weeks, and I lowered it to 50%.
So my expectation is what would it be worth to you if somebody you know, out of 100 people who came into your world over the next 100 weeks, if you know if 50% of them were going to do something, they're going to need to get some kind of help right? How many if you just nurtured it, would you have to? If you got one one-on-one client over 100 weeks? If you were able to add value, nurture somebody, put them in a cohort of your evergreen program and, by the way, I'll talk to you a little bit about that, the adding a cohort element to your evergreen, setting a start date for the cohort, is a really great way to bring some clarity into something right. So some decisiveness.
Okay, I have a program.
I have a program called Email Mastery that is evergreen, but I always launch it with a case study group on a particular one time a month. So I'll say, hey, I'm starting a new case study group on here and here's what we're going to do, and then I'll do a kickoff call with that Right, so that I use that as the start date for people. So if you were doing your $297 program, you know to invite people that you're starting a new agent catalyst case study group starting on, you know, may 15th or whatever, or May June, whatever the thing is. If you started on that same day, that is going to be an opportunity for all the leads that you've generated to have an opportunity to make a decision, because that evergreen if it's always available and they can do it any time, then there's always delay in that because there's no urgency to it. But when you have a start date and you're saying we're starting on you know June 1st at noon or whatever that makes it, oh, I'm going to jump on and be part of this group.
Gene: So they wouldn't gain access?
Dean: well, no, so what you're saying here once they pay. Once they pay, they can gain access to the whole I got you, but this is more of the marketing positioning it yeah around.
Gene: Okay, here's time is of the essence because we're starting on X date.
Dean: That's exactly right. That's exactly right Because otherwise there's no urgency to it, there's no nothing that I'm coming up to make a decision on. Right, the bus is leaving. Are you going to hop on the bus?
Gene: now Gotcha, gotcha, and that's actually providing even more value to them as well.
Dean: And that's part of the thing, like, if you look at it, I would look at maybe positioning your $297 program as a one-time membership where that now they are an agent catalyst member and there's no expiry on that in a way, right that you do, and you use those calls as an open line call for the existing agent catalyst members so that you allow yeah, you allow them to stay. You know to be part of this. You know, once a month you do your agent catalyst member call, which will be great for the first portion of it would be. Maybe you set aside the first 30 minutes for welcoming new members and then you stagger it that at 1230, then it's the open line thing where now all members can come in and get some gene time.
Gene: So it's two different start times then.
Dean: Well, if you were, if it gets to where there's a lot of member, if you want to have no-transcript, everybody's welcome to come on that. Welcome to come on that. But if they want to come just for the Q&A or the portion and maybe the three levels of it are, your orientation at the first 30 minutes, your featured, you know field reports or your success stories of people who have been applying the Aging Catalyst program or have been working with you one-on-one, that maybe there's some interview and lesson that you've learned from that. And then open line, ask me anything and offer at the end where you're always. You know whenever you're ready.
Gene: Right, or you could do a hot seat as well. Yeah, exactly those kinds of things.
Dean: Just thinking about building that relationship with those people. How many people are in this agent catalyst universe right now? How many of those?
Gene: I've actually bought the program. Yeah, not enough.
Dean: Okay.
Gene: To be perfectly honest, it's 22 people so far.
Dean: Okay. So when you look at that's going to be a factor of how many what I would call unconverted prospects. How many emails do you have of prospects who know that you exist and you can email them directly right now?
Gene: Yeah, so just under 600 right now.
Dean: Okay, like a key metric for you would be what a number I call your rev pup, which is your revenue per unconverted prospect, and that's a number that I derived from the hotel industry. The way the hotel industry looks at and evaluates hotels is they have a number called rev par, which is revenue per available room. So we look at it that it's a fact that your 22 people who have bought your catalyst program were came through those 600. You had their email address at one point first. So if you look at just the, how we measure that number as a rolling 12 months is how long have you been offering this, the? How long has it taken to sell the 22?
Gene: I launched in January this program.
Dean: Okay, so there you go. So you've got 22 times 300 is $6,600, right, and your pond, your unconverted prospect list or whatever was 600 people. So if we take that 6,600 and divide it by 600 people, that gives you a revenue or unconverted prospect. So you right now have roughly 10X or 11,000 people and you've generated, right now, $11 per unconverted prospects. So you see, now what I'm talking about is, rather than thinking about an expense-based approach of I'm going to spend $500 on Facebook ads and I'm expecting, or I need it to make me back $500 right away, if you take that capital investment approach and you say I'm going to make a capital investment of $500 to grow my, the asset that I'm investing in is my list of unconverted prospects, people who know me and are self-initiated, interested in whatever the title of the book is right. Whatever your lead magnet was, what were you using as a lead magnet? Oh, let's see there.
Gene: More it's more growth, more freedom.
Dean: Okay, perfect. And so when you look at that, that if you were to stock your pond with 100 people who were interested in that proposal, you're building that audience Now what would it take, what would it be worth, you know, to really treat those people like you're responsible for helping them? Really interesting thing, right You're? We're using this approach whenever. If you're saying, pay me $19 to help you, I would almost be inclined to get rid of that $19 and use that as your you know, 100 day follow up program for people who are who download your book, you know, and really put all the weight then into joining your agent catalyst membership, which is a ongoing thing. That is only one status you either. It's like ratcheting in their levels, right, that when somebody pays 297, they're in on this level and your member benefits of that.
If you treat them like members, that's a, that's a great thing. And then setting up so that they come into your one-on-one program, that would be good. That would be a really good catalyst. But even if you didn't change anything about what you're doing, if you just if we just added a zero to those things, if you had, instead of 600, you had 6 000 and 22, you had 220. Those numbers would all still work out, right yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay.
Gene: Well, that's definitely a different way of thinking about it.
Dean: Well, especially since you've got the goods, you're working backwards, you're not trying to figure it out, you're standing there waiting. You've got the ability to help people. What's your capacity for helping them? How much excess capacity do you?
Gene: have. I've got a ton of excess capacity right now.
Dean: What's your goal? How many would you love to work with one-on-one?
Gene: One-on-one. I have the capacity to work with up to 20 one-on-ones.
Dean: And so there, I mean that might be a good way to look at it. Do you enjoy doing the one-on-one Most of the time? Yes, yeah, right, exactly yeah. I think that's a good way to look at it is really just shift your thinking to focusing on that asset of building the list of people.
Gene: So really it doesn't make that much of a difference how that person got onto my list then. Because it's the same process, no matter what. So if I decide to postcard market to brand new licensees, it's the same process.
Dean: That's exactly right, but the postcard would be what you would do on the Facebook ad Same thing postcard with the cover of the book free book QR code. They can download the book right now.
Gene: Yeah, yeah, so I'm not giving them the hardcover copy, I'm giving them the PDF version of it.
Dean: Yeah, right, so that's great. So that's part of the. That's why I said the QR code or the URL that they can go and instantly download the book.
Gene: Yeah.
Dean: Yep, okay, I think you've got a winning formula there, because you're not trying to figure out how to get the results. You're ready and able to get the results. We need more people to know that you're ready and able to get the results and to see evidence that you have gotten the results for people, and that's what your monthly catalyst things could do.
Gene: Yeah, and going back to what you said earlier, that leap from not knowing you to knowing you, that's a huge leap, but the leaps to like and trust are yeah so much smaller.
Dean: They know you. Now it's going to be like, wow, where has this guy been my whole life? I am liking. I don't. I'm not thinking about liking as, like the, you know best buddy yeah, I'm drinking beer liking is. I agree we're like-minded. This guy's making sense. I like what he's saying about and then the trust is going to come. When you're demonstrating, you're featuring people that have gotten results using your approach. That's going to come.
Gene: This makes sense for me this makes sense, okay, okay, I am. I just recently started getting more active in social medias as far as content goes, so I post a weekly long form video there's also a podcast version of it. And then you know on the same subject, and then a long form post on the same subject and short. You know videos that I've clipped from that's all.
Dean: That's fantastic if you keep that approach of one weekly flagship where, if you're doing, if you can keep that cadence up of doing one long form video, how long is the video that you?
Gene: typically it's around 12 to 15 minutes.
Dean: This week was actually eight minutes a little bit shorter, but perfect if you can keep that cadence and do that every week, that's. You're on your way. Now we just. The number one thing that's going to make the biggest difference for you is growing that audience.
Gene: You need more reach. Yeah, makes sense. All right, good.
Dean: So how did all that land? What's your takeaways here? What are you thinking?
Gene: Well, I definitely like the idea of adding a cohort to it, because that gives them even more value, can keep them on track as well, have a sense of urgency around. You know whether or not I make this decision, so I I like that idea of it. You know, back I haven't shared this with you yet, but back in the 90s, when Al Gore invented the internet, I had an internet-based company. I had 25,000 people on my email list.
Dean: Wow.
Gene: Yeah and yeah. That took a couple of years to get there. Yeah.
Dean: It's. All it takes is just thinking about this as a capital investment, nurturing, building that asset, and it's going to have a yield, because people gestate at different periods, right? Some people are going to come right on next month and join the agent catalyst. Some people are going to take six months, 12 months, but the more that there's evidence and the more that they see that.
Gene: Yeah, so when they come in through my book, so then it's just a matter of nurturing. Then, yeah, and my email I think I would turn.
Dean: What I would do is turn your authority blueprint into a serialized thing to distribute to people over a period of time.
Gene: But couldn't you serialize the book?
Dean: Well, I think you want to have something. The book is going to be the foundation stuff, right, so the book. You want people starting foundation stuff, right, so the book. You want people starting the process that they can consume right away. And then you've got, you know, you kind of bite-sized action pieces ending out the the thing for the next, you know 100 days, kind of thing okay, I like that.
Gene: I like that I can do that yeah I can do that and I actually was developing another product very similar to authority blueprint, looking up here. I've got a whiteboard over here. Yeah, it's called the natural path framework, uh-huh, and it's built around disk and using your natural and that's all the thing.
Dean: When you look at you're constantly as that audience is building, you're going to be able to add other product things or other workshops or other modular things for them that they can, you know, and maybe have member pricing if people are already an agent catalyst member that they get.
Gene: Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, love it.
Dean: Yeah, absolutely it's been fun, Gene. I think you got a great thing going. I love your enthusiasm. Thank you, see how it all plays out.
Gene: Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. You know I'm going to be laid up for a while with a knee replacement, so I'm going to have lots of opportunity to do some work here.
Dean: I love it. There you go. Okay, awesome, well, keep me posted for sure.
Gene: Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, thanks, gene. Such a pleasure. Thank you Appreciate you, dean. Okay, I'll talk to you soon. Thanks, all right, take care. Bye-bye.