Alright guys, what's happening? What's happening? I'm gonna give it a second for everybody to come on Make sure you guys can hear me. All right, make sure I got everything going on today's training is gonna be on the weekly email Looks like everybody's starting to come in I'm gonna give it just a second Give me a thumbs up if you guys can hear me. All right, make sure my audio is working really good Let's give it about 30 seconds here. Okay, cool Well, I can see you guys can hear me good All right, cool cool All right, so today we're gonna go through my weekly email I'm gonna tell you a little bit about it tell you how it came to be tell you why I do it And I'm gonna tell you all the benefits that it gives me and it's the reason why I'm making a million dollars a year There's no other way that I can directly Communicate and and stay relevant with All of the clients that I have 10,000 people get this email There's no way that I can stay relevant with 10,000 people You know by calling them or there are other ways, right? There's CRM's. There's Probably some you know different social media things you can do but a weekly email so powerful it goes directly to that person and You can just do so much with it, especially nowadays, so I'm gonna give it just a second longer for people to log in. There's still people coming on A Couple of things I just hit 15,000 on Instagram. So thank you so much super excited about that. We're over 3700 agents signed up in the zero-to-diamond program so far I've only been at it for a little over a year now so lots of people a lot of agents lives are being changed with this program and There's the gratitude It's just overwhelming when I get messages from you guys telling me how much it's helping you so Okay, I'm gonna get started here So how did my weekly email come to be? Why do I do a weekly email? Is a weekly email too much? Is it too frequent? Should it be two times a month? Should it be monthly? Okay, I'm gonna get into all this So how I started doing my weekly email why I do my weekly email? It was literally trial and error and what I did was is I listened to my clients I listened to my prospects. It's what they wanted. I heard it over and over and over again. So Everybody knows my story You know got in no to da da da da da lost everything blah blah blah when I came back into the real estate business in 2008 This is when I was really hungry for one and this is when this is after I realized that Relationships are far more valuable than transactions and I knew at that point. I was going to create a relational business not a transactional business There were a lot of foreclosure agents that were making a lot of money But if you didn't get in with the banks early enough then then it was locked down. They had it locked down You couldn't get in there But they they weren't good with their customer service They didn't answer their phones.  They just processed the bank's foreclosures So in in my mind, I said, okay, we're gonna let them have their fun I'm gonna represent the buyers on these foreclosures and create Relationships and I know that I'm gonna grow a business that way where when the foreclosures go away and those agents have to You know, they're not around anymore, which they're not Then I'm gonna be the one on top because I created relationships with these buyers Who's gonna turn around and sell that property buy another property refer me to people? Those people are gonna refer me to people and I'm gonna have a really big business and I'm gonna win Okay, so through doing through this process Through this process of Trying to find my way there in the beginning of my second round of real estate when I realized it was relationships over transactions Email was something that I really went hard at um, I emailed all kinds of people and My my strategy was to email Random people in the southeast that no Gulf Shores, Alabama. No Orange Beach, Alabama No Perdido Key, Florida. No Fort Morgan and say hey The beaches are half the price that they were five years ago You know who wants a condo now's the time to buy there were always 35 to 44 closures at any time and And so I I started getting emails back I emailed a million people a thousand people emailed me back and About 20 people bought that first year 2008 so it was a It was really cool Process there's a lot of work because when I started my email there. I didn't do constant contacts I went through my yahoo. I didn't even have a website all the links in my email where I created an outlook I sent it through yahoo and I created the links with MLS and so I had MLS links It was created in an outlook and I sent it with yahoo which only lets you do a hundred emails per email five times an hour So I have an outlook set up to where it was sending out Five email emails at a time and I had it on a timer where as long as the computer was running It was sent out these emails every hour So every hour 24 hours a day it was sending 500 emails out it was kind of like a it was like a like a machine, you know like a factory it was just churning out these emails and people responded because people knew Gulf Shores and There were people interested so what ended up happening through that process is I Heard it time and time again. Send me a weekly list of foreclosures. Send me a weekly list of foreclosures I heard it over and over and over again so I Listened to my clients and I started sending this weekly list of foreclosures You know and I started with just the people who said they wanted it weekly Well, I mean after a couple weeks. I said heck I'm just gonna send this to everybody because everybody should know and plus I wasn't just sending foreclosures I was sending market information price per square foot number of transactions, you know events going on in the area was a real report So that's how it started And then I just continued sending it. That wasn't in 2007 actually the end of 2007 was when I started this email and as The foreclosures went away, you know about by 2011 or so. I mean by 2010 there was a lot less foreclosures by 2011 and 12 they were gone And so as the foreclosures went away, I just continued sending this email But just didn't have any foreclosure. It was more like here's the new listings. Here's what's for sale. Here's closed sales here's stuff so That's how it happened It was just something that kind of happened out of necessity and I listened to my clients That's what they wanted now looking back on it. Do I think that one week every every week is too much? No, absolutely not. I think that it's just right. I send that out every single Wednesday every Wednesday Since 2007 It's went out regardless of markets crashing me going through bad moments in my life changing companies vacations old spills Hurricanes whatever Every single Wednesday is the most consistent thing in my life since 2007 and What it does is this when you talk to a prospect when you talk to a client you get their email address you start sending them this weekly email And they get this email every single week on the same day of the week forever It it does all the heavy lifting for you If for that relationship to grow because they start to realize how much of a hard worker you are how dependable you are How professional you are?  I'm real strategic on what how I build it what I do Because it's my baby, I mean it goes out to 10,000 people and this is a representation of who I am That's why I will never do the automatic emails. I will never do the drip campaigns I want ever I will never send an email telling my clients that how to cook shrimp to etouffé or what color to paint their walls in November, you know, so it can sell the best. I think that people Aren't really into that kind of information. They want the real facts. They want to know what's sold They want to know what's on the market. They want to know the events coming up. They want to know what to do They want to see a visual they want to they want to know, you know Pendings they want to know price for a square foot. They want to know what's going on with the markets Okay, and so I mix up a little stuff. That's not on the market, but most of my stuff is market oriented. Okay, so I'm gonna get into a screen share here Let me let me answer some questions real quick if you guys got any and Then I'll get into the screen share and we'll get into building the email Let me see if we have any initial questions here. I can answer right quick. Let's see I see all you guys saying hey, so what's up? What's up? Let's see how the hell does Instagram work. That's a whole another video whole another video We may we may do that one day Let's see See oh Somebody's trying to answer it say they say you just you just post pics Let's see Let's see looking for questions. I see a couple of Comments and stuff looking for questions See let's see. Let's see. Let's see Let's see. Let's see. Okay. My open rate is about 25 percent 20 percent 23 22 stuff like that See, how did I acquire a 10,000 email address? 10,000 person email address Okay, okay the 10,000 emails. This is how I did it. I've made a hundred thousand calls in my career out of those hundred thousand calls I got about five thousand email addresses and Then you add another five thousand people who have inquired about buying property somehow to me So over the course of my career ten thousand calls five thousand email addresses and then another five thousand of buyer leads or Spear of influence or whatever. It's just emails that I've accumulated Over the years who are targeted people for this area who have talked about buying or selling or own property or what have you? So that's how I did that Let's see. Let's see Okay, somebody says what's my process of creating the weekly email I'm fixing to do it right now I'm fixing to go through the whole thing. So just stay tuned a lot of people are asking if they can get my weekly email I post my weekly email in the Facebook group every Wednesday In the zero to diamond Facebook group. So just go there become a member and watch for it to come out every Wednesday Let's see what in the world can we do for you today? Let's see Let's see. How can I get your email? Let's see Let's see. Okay. Okay. Okay. Let's see How can we can we get the name of your template signed up the other day couldn't find it? We're gonna go through that also How do we get your book about the email marketing when we sign up? Okay? Here's the thing guys right here Let me break all this down for you real quick. I use constant contacts Constant contact is is the program that I used to send my weekly email. There are other programs, okay? But I use constant contacts now I tried bomb bomb the thing about bomb bomb is is the video when you have a video in your email Yahoo Gmail AOL hotmail They all see that there's a video in the email and they send it to the person's spam folder So I did that for two weeks I found out that about 500 less people were opening the email and I switched right back to constant contacts because I 500's a lot of people so I have about 2200 or so people opening up the email every week so that went down to like 1800 and I freaked out and I went back to I went back to constant contacts and now I'm back to having the 22-2300 people open up the email every week So here's what I got for you Constant contacts in the description below if you don't already use constant contacts and you're gonna do this weekly email There's a link below for you to sign up for the free trial at constant contacts Okay, once you sign up for the free trial a person at constant contacts will call you and help you set up your your weekly email When they call you to set it up, they're gonna send you my ebook how I made a million dollars in real estate using email Okay So constant when you sign up for the free trial constant contacts sends you my ebook They're gonna call you get you set up And also they're gonna give you ask them about the discounts. They have going on right now I think they have 30% off for the first four months I don't know what discounts they have going on right this second, but they're always running discounts for new members So just when they call you ask them what the discount is at the time But use the link below you'll get my ebook if you're already a constant contact user there's there's a Directions in the description below about emailing constant contacts and CC me to become part of my constant contact network And then I once I see it come through once you've CC me and I see it. I'll automatically just email you that ebook Okay So if you're not already a constant contact member use the link constant contact will contact you and send you the ebook if You're already a member of constant contact become part of my network and I'll send you the ebook if you want to use a different Program to send the emails go for it. I just really like constant contacts. I've been using them since 2010. They're really good to me They have a really good You know rate of the emails going to inboxes People have been getting my email for over 10 years now and they will tell me I've been getting it for eight years six years three years You know seven years So it's really good stuff So to answer your question my constant contact should have contacted you and they're gonna send you the ebook theirself Okay, this is a great question nor says what if I don't have enough content? There's plenty of content. You have content on MLS There's always new closings new listings new pendings, right? There's always new pictures There's always there's thousands of pictures of your area that you put on there. There's plenty of content, okay? So we're gonna go through all this See Can I answer the question about 5,000 emails of my 10,000 database came from? Cold calling how wide is my email database? See in statewide or just Beach City example It's it's everywhere man. I have people from all over the country come down here and by condo So I have people all over the country on my email list Okay, I have a question about the links I put links in my what in my email and from my website to my email How is my website set up who built it? Is it successful to imitate? Do we need a set up for website exactly like yours great question? If you guys have seen my website Ricky truth real estate calm I link links to the new listings Everything for selling Gulf Shores on speech different condo complexes the whole nine yards I have one of the best real estate websites in the state I work to deal out with my web designer for you guys if you want a website exactly like mine Just click the link below you'll see it and you can have a consultation with my web designer He's doing websites just like mine for you guys for zero down and 69 a month So if you don't have a website or you're not happy with it and I'm fixing to show you mine as we're building this weekly email You can take advantage of that as well What percentage of my business is listing versus buyer? I would say maybe right now it's about 60% listings 40% buyers Have I ever thought about posting my weekly email on Facebook? Yes, I do it every week and I've boosted to my clients Over what time did it take me to make my hundred thousand calls 15 years? Because I'm new I thought about two times a week Monday motivation and Wednesday. What's happening area? What do you think? No? I would do I mean am I gonna tell you no try it see what you think I just think you're putting a little too much pressure on yourself start out with once a week Add the second one later if you feel like you can I wouldn't start out with the two But that's just me now I'm not telling you what to do do what you want to do and let me know how it goes and let me know if you have questions Or if you want my advice Let's say you're starting your emails today and have a list of say a hundred to a hundred fifty names some remember you some don't How would you start the conversation as? Your first one. Let's see. Let's say you're starting out the emails 150 names somewhere. Oh, don't worry about it. They don't know who you are just send the information If they unsubscribe they unsubscribe you don't have to worry about them anymore Don't worry about people that unsubscribe from your email Let's see Alexander I'm about to get into how to create content. I Don't I don't open videos with emails You can't put a video on a constant contact email you can put a link to a YouTube video But you can't embed a video like you can with bomb bomb. That's why I tried bomb bomb I like that feature, but it's not good for the algorithms of email Somebody says she doesn't see the link. Oh, yeah, it's all there. The link is there The link is absolutely down there guys Okay, so get a lot of questions. I'm gonna dive into the screen share here and start working on the email So give me just a second. Let me Go here. Let's see a screen share All right, cool. I'm in the screen share. So if you guys If you guys End up not hearing me or something for a second Comment below sometimes this Going live on YouTube sometimes the mic goes has went out. So just let me know. All right. Here. We are. Let's see. Let me just go This is this is my recent campaigns here Okay, let me just open this one up. Okay. Here was the one that I just did yesterday Okay My subject is always the same right here. It always says Gulf Coast market report and The date you can do whatever you want to do but I kind of branded that You know, I kind of made it the same it's been the same for a long long time I see some of you guys are saying it's really blurry But but I can see it really clear on my end on my phone. I'm watching it on my phone here. Maybe I can Zoom in a little Maybe like that See if that works Okay All right. So here's my email. Just want to show you guys this real quick This is kind of a little logo here that I had somebody make for me Here's my tagline that I'm running right now the hardest-working agent on the Gulf Coast this picture This picture is always different every single email It's been different every single email for 10 years I Think that that's big to have a different picture right here every single time because it gives them something fresh It's not the same thing every time Okay, so an exciting picture something new something different something really good You know, we'll keep it fresh see the thing you got to think about guys is is how can we make? How can we create emails that people will actually open up every single week? And so, you know, you got to give them something fresh something exciting And so this picture here is kind of the way that you know one way that I do it and Then and then this week this is a picture of one of my listings So I kind of showcased one of my listings here And I just said new listing alert escapes to the shore to bedroom all that I had a link right here going to it Okay Scroll down a little bit. Here's another tagline that I've been running for a while Thinking about her selling call Ricky my phone number then I have the stay connected Little deal with a Facebook envelope Takes you to my Facebook business page Okay, okay, then this window on the left here is recent market activity Everything for sale. I'll show you these links in a minute These are just different areas in my market and this is a good way to if you guys have different areas Like if you have two counties you work or if you have three or four areas You can create different links for different areas and I'll just click on one like Gulf Shores you go and it goes to my website And it has everything under a hundred hundred to two hundred two hundred to three hundred It's got all the different complexes right here. They can click on these different complexes and find out What's for sale? in each of those buildings Okay So if you have different areas you can just create different pages on your website Like I have Listings by city right here. You can have listings by county listing by area whatever and I've got Gulf Shores Orange Beach, Perdido Key, Gulf Shores Homes, Orange Beach Homes, Ono Island So you can separate it like that and just have a little window right here if you have different areas Then I have the closings these are this is a this is a list of closings again It goes to my website and then here are the closings Okay, they're in order. This is this is condos. I've got another page for homes. I have another page for Perdido Key Okay, then we got my picture then we got my information here my listings my website and Then this this window here. This is where I'm going to kind of really change it up Each week. I'm gonna add some kind of marketing information. I might have some links. This might be an article of some sort or some big event coming up or a festival or Something like that Whatever messes. I'm really trying to get across. I may do like a short little blog post right here I may like write a couple of paragraphs you know, I May like, you know, write myself a couple paragraphs on my thoughts of the market Right here Okay, this was about the market so far. This is how many condos we sold so far this year all year average price Days on the market houses average price days on the market and so since I did that I Just said okay, and then here's a list of the houses that in condos and Perdido Key Properties that have sold this year. I basically took this and just put it over here Okay, and then right here. I just put this little thing down here this week. I'm always adding little things This is something I just kind of added because I had some space I just said are you considering to buy or sell a property down here in the Gulf Coast area? I've sold 70 properties this year Then I've got this. Thank you for your time looking forward to working with you in the future Ricky Caruth Okay, so this is it see how simple it is see how it's pretty big words. It's not real jumbled up. It's really clear It's appeasing to the eye. There's not a whole lot of Fluff going on. It's more like straight to the point. I think that's what people like about my email It's really straight to the point Let's pick another one out real quick just to kind of show you guys two of them here Here's what I did maybe two weeks ago You know here's the same little thing at the top and I said motivated sellers picture the beach And then I said the sellers of these of the properties below are motivated if you're looking for a deal And I had links to these properties. These are all motivated sellers Okay tagline Okay, and then here's the same stuff on this side and then over here says lower Transactions, but I'm still rolling and then I just kind of did a little like I said like a little blog type post You know a couple paragraphs or whatever About what I got going on and then here's a little click here if you want to find the price of your property Which goes to my goes to my website. I Can use this page here? I can run Facebook ads about find your property value if I want to which I don't I haven't done I tried it a couple times, you know, and I got some stuff out of it, but you know, I just try stuff out all right, so How do we make one of these? Right here. Now now there's you know, this is kind of the older version of constant contact Right so this may be different than what you you have So what I'm going to do is go through here for mine and then I'll and then I'll come back And I'll do one on my zero diamond constant contact page, which is the newer version So right here it looks like they've got You know templates kind of created for me based on emails that I've done Okay, here's here's all your standard Templates, okay You can do whatever, you know, you can you just pick one of these things out and start creating Let's see Let's see if I can find the one that I used That I was using It's an old template. They may or may not have it anymore I've literally probably been using that same template for two or three years But I remember what it looked like See if I can find it real quick. If not, I'm just going to start with a Basic one at the top Okay, cool, so I didn't see the one that I normally that I'm using so we will just start with Let's just say this one, okay Okay, we're in here All right, let's see Lot of questions I see, okay I'm gonna get through this. All right, so we're just gonna click anywhere right here and that brings this up So this is your subject So you can say whatever market Report and then the date Okay, your pre-header text see this pre-header text The pre-header text is let me just zoom in a little bit for you guys Okay, the the pre-header text is What people see before they open up the email most people will see this under the email before they open it So this could be something to grab their attention you can say something like new listing at wherever or Transactions down in June or prices up in 2018 or whatever you want to say Okay, let's just say Prices up in 2018 boom So now we have the subject market report the date prices up in 2018 Done Now we're gonna get into the body so we can do so many things Okay, so this is gonna be my This is gonna be my My picture, so I'm just gonna pick one there once I get that there. I can grab this Right here. I can squeeze it out. I can make whatever size I want Okay, the picture like I say I think it's a big thing for me I think one reason I've really won with with this email is because it has so many things It has a picture. It has new listings closed sales everything for sale It has a webcam of the beach has interesting information and facts You know it has a lot of stuff so some people may open it up for the email some people may open it up for other reasons All right, so we're gonna get that out of there Let's say All right, so right here see all these over here You can just grab one of these drag it over by the way got it. Let's see right here. You if you have a logo that That you want to put Let's see where my logo is If you have a logo you want to put it at the top you can Just download have a lot of pictures in here. Here's here's mine Boom All right, so I'm gonna go there with it Okay, right here All right, you know you can do whatever you want right there. You put a tag line If you want to put some text right here, you know if you want to say something You know Move it to the middle. You can go right here and make it bigger You know boom Move that around if you want to Whatever you want to do Okay, okay, then right here you can do put whatever you want there We'll see Let's see what I want to do. Oh Whoa, that's okay. I didn't save that. That's all right I'll just skip that top part. You guys see what I'm doing here. You can grab these images over here You can put stuff You know like a button if you wanted to put a button somewhere visit our website Okay, you can change the color of the button You know you can change what it says Okay, and then you can link it Let's say I could go to my website here. I could go to my listings right here Paste the link there Insert it now this button This button will go to my listings Okay, so I'll show you guys a preview in a minute So basically you can just go in here if you want more you can hit more Right if you want to do a video like right here like like somebody was talking about you can drag it and put it anywhere in here Right, and then you can you can just put a YouTube video in here Like if you and if you go to your YouTube and you put a YouTube video in There it's gonna bring up the thumbnail Okay, give it a second and then I'll refresh Like if you do a video on a listing you can do a video on a listing you put it on YouTube Then you paste it here. You give it a second to refresh. I don't know why that's not working It's going to the video but there we go so it'll bring the thumbnail up boom you can insert it boom So and then you can make it bigger So if you guys do a video on a property you could plug it in and You know you could plug it in And you could say something about it You can put it right there, and then you could you could say something about it here You could say right so you could do that You know and then you could just say some stuff about it Right there, you know three bedroom to bath you can go right here highlight this make this bigger You know, you know beachfront whatever All the stuff you want to say about it and have a video right here if you wanted to do that Okay, here's another button thing you could actually do Do the same thing with just pictures if you just wanted to put a picture there and then talk about it here You can do so many things this is not the same template that I use right so it's a little different It's not set up, but you can do it like that Right here. You can grab this and move it over you're gonna make this bigger Right if there's a picture there it could do it. Let's see. Let's go. Let's just grab this one And I want to make it make it that big boom and I can have stuff going on there Okay, so you just got to get in here and play around with it and make it the way that you want to make it And and go from there with it Um Let's Let me go let me go to the comments here I'll say let me and share my screen What's going on? Cool So let me get to the comments here and see if you guys got any questions if I need to get back into the screen share I'll do so Let me get to the comments here on my computer. All right, cool I'm gonna start with the most recent comments and go up Okay, jana says do you save the newsletter and just change it up every week? Yes. I use the same template Every week. I may change it up Every six months or once a year or I may like the one I've had right now. I've kept it for a while I like the format of it, but I've probably changed it maybe six months to a year ago Let's see. Let me go back in time here Let's see if you if you did a question earlier and I don't get to it just comment below There's a lot of questions and so I'm having a hard time Getting through all this and seeing who actually has real questions and stuff so Nicholas says do I break my emails up into groups with topics specific to those areas? I answered that question when I was looking at my email I have a window and there's links that go back to my website I have different pages of the different areas in my in my market Where they can go and search all the stuff for that area So whatever I can send one email out to all the different areas and there's a link for their area They can go to and search everything. It's great You don't have to worry about splitting up emails. You can just Send the same email to everybody Change it to 720 Yeah, let's see Okay Let's see Okay, very blurry. Sorry guys. If it was blurry. I think a lot of people refreshed and it was good. It looked good on my phone I do need the new remix logo. I'll trade that up Let's see Let's see. Let's see blurry reload What do I think about buying leads? I think it's a horrible idea unless you're a big team leader And I'm still kind of skeptical Do you use the links to the mls or an idx which idx I use I I the the links that I use go to my website with your idx through home finder And if you guys want a website just like mine, let me show you my website Let me let me show you my website real quick. Let's see. Here's my home page Okay, I have this nice video here They can type in a search there if they want They scroll down. There's homes by price areas condos new listings recently sold homes new listings recently sold There's a little bit about me I have a video here kind of playing in the background. Here's my social links Here's a thing that scrolls through all my listings Here's testimonials that kind of scroll through Different testimonials Okay, here's a contact me. Here's blogs. Here's my instagram. Here's my facebook business page You can click here and see all the testimonials that I have on my website Quite a bit So right here real estate you've got the feature properties, which is my listings then you have The property search. Okay, you can go there and search You can set up an account and it'll send you automatic emails. Okay. I love that part And I've actually went on my website and set up automatic emails for people Okay, so listings by city. I love this because I can go in here And I've got the different condo complexes here and then I have condos by price condos by amenities So I have all that uh, you know, if you look at homes It's got Um, you know waterfront different waterfronts and a couple different popular neighborhoods and then by price Right here condo sales home sales pretty dokey sales the live beach cam I've got a live beach cam right out of the front Window of my office And people that aren't here they can see the traffic. They can see the weather. They can see the beach Here's an about ricky page okay, so If you guys want a website like that and the link in the description You can set up a consultation with my web designers who are talking about Customizing your zero down to 69 a month. He'll do it So get with him on that also the constant contacts. There's links below for that Um to get signed up and get my ebook. Um, how I made a million in real estate using email So let me get back to the to the questions let's see All those all those boxes come in a template and constant contact Yes, those boxes come in a template on constant contact and pick different templates and then you can move the boxes around You can customize it however you want to This will be on youtube forever and I'll I'll send links out and everything It'll also be on the website Are there only your listings or listings from other agents or from your brokerage? It's all listings and mls all of them every single listing Richard. Yeah, I'll send the video out Does the 69 include your website? Yes, yes, you'll pay zero down 69 a month and then you have to pay the idx fee on top of that But yeah for zero down, he'll customize your website and get you up and running Uh, what did I use to make my template before I started using constant contacts? I actually use outlook. I used outlook. I created it there and I sent it, you know, I I sent it through um yahoo Uh through my yahoo account through outlook Really wild situation. It was like the wild wild west. It was like Crazy, um, because that's why I did constant contacts because I was having to send emails out 100 emails per email Five times an hour and I got to where I was having, you know, I had 1500 that was when I got got up to about 1500 or so 2000 Emails I was sending out every week and I needed something where I could just make an email and click one button It sends to everybody And very dependable. That's when I that's when I tried constant contacts and I haven't looked back The open rate has been very good the um The uh, you know the response the dependability of it has just been really really good So I mean, I'm really happy with it Yeah, I mean, uh, I see somebody says something about mail chimp. Yeah mail chimp is good too constant contact is also free up to a certain amount of of emails So Either way it goes It's fine by me. I'm not trying to push constant contacts. I just want to tell you guys how I do it what I use Why I use it you guys can do what you want to do I just want to help I just want to show you guys how I do it and then let you guys make a decision On how you should do your business. I just want to give you the best advice I can give you based on my experiences and go from there How do you change the form field to include more than your email address? Oh the from field It's very self-explanatory you go there You'll click and then it'll it'll be tour you can type in there and you can say, you know Your name your company or whatever you want to put there It'll let you do that What software do I use to create my videos premiere pro is what I used to edit the videos Hey, Benjamin, you said you put an email you put a video in yesterday Was it it was just a link to youtube, right? Didn't you say that if you do a video that it will get Email sent to spam. Yes, if it's embedded in the if it's embedded in the email like bomb bomb has videos embedded in the email Those are kind of throw up a red flag to most servers How do you make the videos look so look professional practice? You just have to practice you just they didn't look professional Brianna was just going through old videos. Definitely not professional so you just have to start and just You know just get better and better and better as you go along I spend an hour every week working on my weekly email I'm getting through these ant through through these questions guys. If you have any shoot them to me David says, how do you set up a live webcam? My office did one out front. It's actually for anybody to use So I just got the computer guy to give me the link to it and just put it on my website.  I do my newsletter every week myself. I don't let anybody else do it. I'm definitely not going to have it automated For your contacts. Do you add every email address you come across? Absolutely every email address I can get my hands on not like Like I'm not going to buy emails like You know like random where like 50% of them are bad emails That's that's going to hurt your results because that when you put when you have a lot of bad emails or a lot of you know Bounces or people that unsubscribe and stuff that hurts you big time So you want to keep your audience in your in your email database really really solid Okay, you want to you want to really try to keep it You know people that are actually going to be interested in your stuff How do how do I add the areas or price range from the mls? That is a question maybe for your broker because all mls's are different. I don't know how your mls is but What you should do is if you know go on your website and search that That uh price range and then copy that link And then open up another um browser window and put that link in there And open it up and see if it does what it you know If see if it opens up that price range where anybody could click that link and see that price range in your website and just use that link See what do you use to create your videos? Please What are you asking exactly about? What do I use to create my videos? What part of the video you're asking about camera? Are you asking about how I edit it? What do you what exactly you're asking? Is this a video link you showed so it won't go to spam? Yes. Yes. Yes.  It's gonna it's It's actually a link that goes to youtube. It's not embedded in the email I bordered three country three counties in southern california. How would I make content relevant for everyone? Just like I just showed you guys on the email. There's a window where it says You know everything you know the different areas or counties and put you know Whatever county whatever county whatever county and each of them are links that goes to a separate page on your website That has all the properties for sale or whatever you want to show them about that area on one page So make different pages on your websites for different areas and then have links going to those pages saying This area this area this area Okay It's really easy to do And guys if you have more questions or I don't answer you the question You know exactly the way you need or you have you need further help That's what i'm here for reach out to me. You can just shoot me an email text Facebook message instagram whatever hit me up Let's see Yes, this will be on youtube forever And it'll be on zero to diamond dot com forever Have I ever included testimonials and in my weekly email? Yes, I've included testimonials several times and I think it's a really good idea But I wouldn't do it every single week You know do it here and there once a month twice a month once every you know six weeks. Don't do it every single time Ken says how many assistants do I have for real estate? I have one assistant For personal brand for the coaching business. I have another assistant and a videographer So there's four of us Where do I keep on my contacts? They're all in constant contacts the place that I email them from that's where they all are And guys it's crazy, but I don't know exactly who they are all the all it is. They're emailing there They're getting my reports.  I don't have I don't know who they are Benjamin says idx. Let's see you're asking a question up here. Let me go back to it Benjamin Benjamin was your question Benjamin Could have swore you had uh I could have swore your idx thing was Is From another question you have Benjamin But if you're asking what idx is idx is systems that link to your mls and that can put those Um listings and stuff on your website Lenny says my my newsletter has a live webcam too and local events Also, I have solds and new listings for the last week. Nice job Mina asked me if I ever tried mel chimp. I did try mel chimp and I just didn't like the template. I didn't like the user friendliness of it, but That's just me There's a lot of people that love mel chimp. So whatever What made the emails go to spam the fact that it came from bomb bomb or that I had a video at all I think chip that it had a video I think maybe if you use bomb bomb and you don't do the video you might have a better success rate But I didn't want to try it. I went right back to What I knew was going to work which was using constant contacts. So I was too scared to go any further after that second email I sent out and there was 500 or less people opening it up I was done Janice says do I create videos for my phone? If so, do you I use a certain app? Sorry if this is asked stuff the way for a minute. No, I don't I do a little bit of video for my phone But very little and I don't edit it for my phone. If I do it on my phone I'll download the video on my computer and edit it on my computer Can I show can I show you guys how to how to make my links for area or price range for your website? Yeah, I can do that. I'll do that in just a second A few more questions and I'll jump over and do another screen share Is it possible to make the weekly email in a crm? I'm not sure it depends on your crm I don't know your crm functions and features Do I get rid of bad emails on subscribes from the list and do you add agents to I do get rid of the bad emails that bounce back And the unsubscribe to just get rid of them Thank you and um I don't really add agents There's a lot of agents in my area getting it since I've been coaching and so now they want to see what I'm doing And I'm giving it away for free So there's a lot of agents getting it, but I don't just send it out to all the agents I do send out all my zero to diamond emails to every single agent in my mls My open rate is 22 23 percent Like I said, I got 10,000 people 22 2300 of them are opening it up every week Jay says software to edit that's going to be premier pro What does home finder do differently than an mls subscription? It links mls to your website And it feeds all the listings to your website and it gives the public Um an opportunity to see close closed sales new listings All that stuff Do I use a crm at all or set up searches for potential clients? No, I don't use a crm at all And I do set up searches a little bit. I should probably do it more, but I just I use it I'd go through my website. I set them up there I put their address in and what they're looking for and boom I'll save the search and my website will start sending them Whatever listings they're looking for Just receive my first lead On my website from a weekly email nights You put all your contacts in constant contact and you don't know who they are. How do you? Call that a relationship business? Because ruth Here's the thing Um, I know some of them I don't know all of them if if a prospect if I talk to a prospect and they're not wanting to do anything ever Right They don't want to do anything ever. They give me their email address And I start sending them this weekly email. Okay. Now. I'm a top producer, right? I'm selling 100 properties a year I'm dealing with thousands of prospects a year that I'm trying to convert Right. And so how am I supposed to keep up with who that person is? And what's going on with them? They get the email and then if they ever decide to do anything they have the option to call me Right. The email creates the relationship because it shows them how hard working I am And how much I actually care about them because I put that hour into the email Rather than just put them on a drip campaign, which is what most of you do that's automated and it sucks I actually spend an hour every week trying to bring Good content to them so that it could keep up with the market and what's going on with me with the local event So on and so forth. So Yeah, I put my heart and soul into the email and that's how I create the real that's why it's a relationship But I don't have time to ever call them Right because they said they weren't doing anything I have a thousand other prospects that need my attention because they say they do want to do something And you better believe ruth that if somebody deals with me They believe that we are best friends forever because of the way that I go deep with the relationship Like when somebody deals with me, then that's it Chances are very small They're going to deal with anybody else because I go over the top just like I'm doing for you guys right now free of charge Showing you everything I do telling you everything. I know answering every question I could be cold calling right now You know and hit hit a deal to make ten thousand dollars, but I'm here with you guys Because I go over the top for people So when somebody deals with me, then that's where the relationship is built Is in the deal and when they do a deal with you and they realize how great you are with people and how you go over the top Now they're telling everybody else about you. We're going to dinner. We're meeting families. We're doing all the relationship stuff I hope this makes sense to you Do I meet your clients outside of real estate to keep the relationship with them? Yes, we do dinners We do lunches. I've been on fishing trips um All kinds of stuff um This morning I went on a 10 mile bike ride at five o'clock in the morning with a client Just me and him talking about the market Recommendations for the initial import of email addresses not sure what what the question is there Initial import of email addresses. Don't don't know what you mean there. Please clarify jeffrey So what do I use to make videos of not a phone a camera? A video camera.  I see jeff benjamin says import with the csv file. Yeah Just do it with an excel copy the excel paste it in there Name the group Impress submit Do I analyze my open rate to see if I can improve on the opens? No, I don't And if so, what do you recommend to get a better open rate? I recommend branding your your subject like I have Whatever markets you're in the dates that way they know it's fresh information Have a good preheader text that little thing they're going to see before they open the email You know have information people want to see closed sales pinnings new listings You know if there's a really good deal going on if there's a cool event happening Next weekend, you know, whatever stuff like that's what's going to keep people open in your email It's current events current market stuff current things happening in the area That's what's going to keep people open in your email because they're going to want to be on top of the information David says some serums. Yes, he uses cv core. Although it does not have email templates that I know of It will let you send out mass emails to your contacts. Cool What am I using to share my screen? I'm using uh google hangouts is what I'm using to go live here And they have a screen share option as you're live Let's see What are you what are your recommendations for the initial import of addresses if I have 500 emails just add them to cc how are you handle How are you handling opt in just say they're opt in put them in there You have 500 it's not a big number put them in there start sending emails Cool, so I don't see any more questions. I'm gonna go back Somebody wanted me to show you guys how to make links So let me get back to my screen share here screen share Let me go here Okay So i'm right here Let's just say i'm going to use this Place right here Okay, I'm going to kind of blow this up a little bit Maybe go right there so you guys can really see what I got going on Okay, so right here, let's just say I don't know what area is. Let's just call it area one area two area three, okay See right here. Let's just let's just make them real big Let's make them like really big and then I'll put them in the middle Okay Okay, so let's just say area one area two area three Okay, now I'm going to go to my website Okay, so I'm at my website Here And I've already created the pages So if I already have the pages gulf shores condos for sale orange beach condos for sale So I can just pick one of these pages on my website boop This shows you everything for sale on all these buildings. Here's all these different price ranges Okay so I can just copy this And I'm going to highlight where I want that link to be. I'm going to click this link button I'm going to make it a web page I'm going to paste it right here I'm going to click insert And then boom it's in there now. What if I don't like that green? I just highlight it I want to make it the bright blue and boom Okay, so that's how you create the links Um Let's see Timothy Jackson We'll see All right, cool. So Um, we'll see who asked this question Joanne Joanne Carlo Ann She says can you show us how to make your links for the area or price range for your website? Oh You want to know how to make the link you want to know how to make these links? That's what my web designer is for if you want a website like this click the link in the description And talk to somebody over at web and eight And they will create you they will create all this for you zero down in 69 a month Okay Let me get out of my screen share here Okay, I don't think I I guess I didn't understand the question. I thought you wanted me to uh I thought you wanted me to show you how to just create it on constant contacts Now I see what you're saying you want to know how to create it on the website I mean if you wanted to create one on the website um, basically Let's say I'm at my website and I go to property search I go down to let's just do price ranges. Let's just let's just say we're doing a hundred thousand To a hundred and ten thousand for example Okay And let's just do The whole area not going to be much in that range Oh areas required. Let's do Let's just do let's just do some random areas. Okay boom All right, so here's here's the searches. This is everything and those those areas Um between a hundred and a hundred and ten thousand So there's three results So what I'm going to do is is now that I've done this search Now I'm going to take this link right here. I'm going to highlight it. I'm going to copy it Okay Now what I want to do is I want to go to another window and I want to test it I want to paste and go and I want to make sure that it still goes to that place Okay, and it does so now I can I can let's say that's our let's say that's going to be our area two So I can go there I can link web page paste Insert I don't like the green. I want to do the bright blue. Boom Okay All right. I'm going to go down a little bit so I can see okay So I created the link the the area two link is the link that we just created for the hundred to a hundred and ten Price range and those three areas in my market Now we can use this preview button Preview is really important. You want to go here? You want to preview your your email to make sure all your links are working correctly before you send your email Here's the area two link. We just created when people go and they click there Boom, it's going to pop up exactly the properties that we searched for Okay, all right. So I hope I hope that answered your question um If you guys have another question shoot it to me Timothy Jackson did a super chat Voice mail callbacks. What's a good script Timothy? I don't look at voicemails as like a A way to get people to call you back or get a lot of business. I use voicemails as a branding tool And I just say hey, it's ricky crew through makes our speech. I was calling you about whatever house whatever property whatever this or that And uh, give me a ring back when you get a chance my phone number And so what it does is is they may or may not call you back But they heard your name they heard your company.  They see your signs around town. Everything starts to work together I don't really have a magical voicemail To make people call me back. I don't I don't know if there is one I don't know because a lot of people they just don't like calling people back They don't know especially when it's a real estate agent. They feel like might be trying to do something Even on the voicemail if you say hey, I'm not not really wanting to list your house or anything I just want to talk or if you try to do something like that they still look at it like What am I getting into here? So I think it's important to leave the message I think it's important to not expect a callback and to look at it as a branding tool more than anything All right, let's see Cool, I don't see any other questions um David haim says He's thinking remax. Oh beanies to give me a bigger office. Actually. We're pretty comfortable here Um, I don't expect to uh You know, who knows who knows what's going to happen How often do I mail? Mail a pieces I wonder if you're saying Do I mail I do postcards or something michael, please clarify Daniel says Do you notice that condo owners are more receptive or more likely due to business versus single family homes? What do you mean there daniel? I don't I don't really know because it's all relationships. It's all tone. It's all reading people over the phone I mean You tell me what you will you tell me exactly what you're talking about there What do you think the difference is daniel? Let's see how often do I send mailers every time I list or sell a property I do postcards every time I list or sell a property and I send letters every time I have a buyer for that for a building or for like a specific buyer for something I'll cold call of course, but you can't cold call everybody because you can't find everybody's number So I'll send letters as well Alexander would I leave a message saying let me know if there's anything I can do for you absolutely I like that Let's see some people saying thanks janice and tory. Thank you guys for tuning in. Let me know if I can help you anymore Michael says what does my mail campaign look like I mean, it's nothing special. I just create the postcards off of his to print every time I List or sell something and I send it out to the complex or the subdivision Benjamin wants to know what was my first why just starting out My first why was to help people I uh got in real estate because I wanted to help first time home buyers That was my thing And after I helped like one or two, I realized I don't think I want to work with first time home buyers So I realized I could help even more people by not working with first time home buyers And um, you know now look at me. I'm helping thousands of people. I'm helping you guys um, so It's always been about helping people from the very beginning And uh, I just put my head down and just worked hard because I knew I had to make money Um, I knew I had to make money before I could help people. So I just concentrated on that for 15 years Joanne look in the description below It talks about do you want a website like mine yada yada yada? Click this link to set up a Consultation with my web designer. It's it's there Um, you're gonna I don't have a link to home finder itself There's a link to my web designer who will make the website for you and use home finder to make it Do I do any facebook marketing to my email list audience? Absolutely. I did an entire Live training on that two weeks ago Um, so just look at look there and my youtube channel for it. It's called branding with social media Um, or it's part of the zero to diamond uh online free course as well Michael says do I only mail postcards when I list or sell? Yes, lately. I have List when I list or sell or when christmas comes around do christmas a christ big christmas campaign Um, and then when I list and sell something that's really all I've been doing. I know that uh You know, but when I started out I did postcards and letters every month to the same group of owners And if I was new I would do that again in today's world. I would do that again. I would continue doing that It's in the zero to diamond program Um to do that and I would absolutely do it if you're trying to build your business You need to do that you need to build build brand build recognition And that's a really good way to do it a lot of people aren't doing a lot of direct mail because social You know digital marketing is coming such so strongly um Let's see Am I sending mail in house or another company? I use vista print. I create them and they send them and everything Got in a little late like your content want to find out more about your email campaigns Just watch this video over again. It's going to be on youtube forever And it'll be part of the zero to diamond course What is your mail or look like that you send to your database? And do you mail it and mail out to them monthly weekly? Yeah, yeah, listen guys you need to you need to go to the zero to diamond online course and go through that 60 day jump start program It's eight audios. You listen to one a week for eight weeks And it takes you through step by step everything you guys are asking me It's it's like an hour audio you listen to every week once a week So just listen to it on monday on the way to work or sunday, you know to get you ready for the week or whatever And do that it'll it'll have all of your daily weekly monthly habits in line For your mail errors your social media your phone calls everything Let's see michael you're welcome. Benjamin says any advice on being patient? Absolutely man, just do it Believe work hard adapt and be patient those are the four keys to long-term success If you're not as successful as you want to be you're not successful at all I can sit down with you for five minutes to figure out which one of these four things you're lacking in Most people don't adapt they believe and they work hard, but they don't adapt They don't even get to the patient's part. They just keep doing the same thing over and over again. They don't adapt Um, i'm really good at the first two I'm okay at the third one and i've been really bad at the fourth one But at least I know it right and i'm working on it I've gotten really good at the third one and now i'm working on the fourth one And i'm actually getting really good at the fourth one and the more time goes on and the more i'm growing um The more patient i'm beginning to be Benjamin you just have to believe that it's going to happen When you believe it's going to happen then it might as well have already happened in my mind. I'm already you know The biggest guy in real estate even though i'm not but that's what that's the way you have to think And so if you believe it then it's already here then what do you have to be patient for yet? You're already there It's all in your mind. Everything's in your mind Do I use pre-listing scripts and listing presentations? No, sir I don't because every situation is different and I think it's all about your personality and how you connect with the person I don't do listing presentations and I don't have any pre-listing packages If you want to sell I want to know why you want to sell And then I'm going to build on why you want to sell And you know, I'm going to work harder than anybody in the area for you I'm going to go back to the office right now start making phone calls to make your dreams come true Whether you want to sell whether you want to buy whatever you want to do I'm going to work for you so You know, but the thing you have to understand is is it's okay to lose deals because it's so unlimited There's a million more deals behind this one. So don't get so caught up on the deal Try to focus on the relationship bring value let them decide that you're the person for them And if not, it's okay. Keep going. There's a million other deals. There's more deals than you can handle At all times regardless of what the market does How do I handle folks that require a lot of hand-holding when enough is enough? I just I don't think about them I have a lot of clients that have a lot of hand-holding and I just don't I don't think about them They call me I listen to them and then that's it. I move on. I don't think about I don't let it distract me If you will I just deal with it that is part of your job. Your job is not to you know pick and choose necessarily right I pick and choose but You know, I've had several really really wild deals lately with really hand-hold type clients You just do it just part of it Do I have a system for posting new listings on social media internet? No, I just do it I just post it on there No system no I just post it on there Not trying to be smart alec at all guys on a lot of this stuff I'm just really straight up in blunt and a lot of this stuff is really basic and so a lot of you guys are overthinking This stuff. It's really really simple Um, you just hit the share button and then you just say something about it and hit post On average, how much do I spend to list a new property as far as pictures and any sign services? I spend about 150 dollars a listing on pictures And then most condos you don't do signs. So really the 150s all I really spend and then I'll spend You know 100 I guess on postcards and then I might put You know 50 or so into facebook ads maybe for that listing um Probably two or three hundred dollars What I enter all the email addresses I get from from my farm in constant contacts. Yes Everyone of them We'll love to see how you do a listing presentation without a listing presentation package We're trying to use the package, but don't see anyone really using it Okay, let me read that again Alexa says we'd love to see how you do a listing presentation without a listing presentation packet We're trained to use the packet, but don't see anyone really using it So You guys have a packet that you're trained to use, but you don't use it was what you're telling me Like I don't look at a listing appointment as a thing that I'm going to go do a presentation for right I'm going over to meet these people as if I am their brother cousin mom dad I'm coming over there as a family member I'm coming over to take a look at their property And tell them what I think it's worth And see why they want to sell And see if there's a connection And see if they want me to handle this This transaction for them um You know uh I don't know I've tried the uh, I've tried the pre-listing package thing and I think No, no, no, no, it takes too much time to build those packages and send them out You know when I'm going up against one of those guys that are you know A seller is interviewing two people on one of them and another agent's doing a pre-listing presentation Or even a listing presentation.  Pre-listing package guy? Or do you want mr. Phone call guy that gets stuff done? so Some people are going to be wowed by the presentation and go with them Some people are going to like me. They're going to go with me. You're not going to win them all Right It's unlimited This this business is so unlimited. That's why I send an email out every day To every single agent in my mls telling them exactly how I sell real estate It's a true testament to the fact of how much I believe in This business being unlimited. I haven't lost a single Deal off of it. There's not a single agent in my market over the last year and a half That have been doing this that stole a client for me or got business or stole some of my market share Not a single one Not one Not one Not one Alexis says I'm like the dr. Phil of real estate I was waiting on you to laugh at something Tell it like it is love it can handle it cool All right guys, I'm going to get out of here Pleasure hanging with you if you have any further questions just reach out. You know, I'm going to answer Everybody that reaches out to me knows that I answer right back.  I send a message right back I DM you back. I do all that stuff. So Use the links below if you want a new website use the links below to sign up for constant contacts and um Let's just keep this train rolling Let's just continue to try to reduce the failure rate in the real estate industry one agent at a time I'm going to be in atlanta. I'm going to be on atlanta tuesday august 21st at the best conference ever I'll be speaking at one o'clock. So if you're in the atlanta area, I look forward to seeing you there Um, just come up to me tell me your ztd member And uh, we'll shake hands and hang out for a bit. So until next time. We'll see you guys later. Thanks for tuning in I hope you learned a lot


Welcome back to another episode of Anabaptist Perspectives. I'm here with Glyde Zimmerman, we're in Altoona, Pennsylvania. In a previous episode we do with you, you were just grabbing the SALT program and some of the different things you've been involved in. Can you just unpack, what does that look like practically? How does this actually work with helping alleviate poverty in dire economic situations? Sure. Again, the SALT program is an acronym, means Shared Accountability, Lending and Teaching, that's where the term SALT comes from, but it is, from a practical aspect, saving scrups is the biggest vehicle that we use. There's a handful of methods we use like vocational schools, micro loans, we call it AgriPlus, which is working with farmers and helping subsistence farmers. But the single biggest aspect is saving scrups, and saving scrups, how they form is say 30 people come together in a group, in a community, and they elect officers from their own people, President, Secretary, Treasurer, and then they form a series of bylaws, what's going to govern them, and all of those aspects are done by them, those are choices they make. Okay, so you're not coming in like dictating this room? No, these are all things they choose, you know, how much money will they save each week? It's called a share, the share value, in a place like Southeast Asia, that share value is a lot of times about 10 cents, 20 cents, and every time when they come together. Every week, a typical SALT meeting then, the facilitator, the SALT facilitator, which must be a Christian that believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, that is living a vibrant life for the Lord, is what we try to do, and they come together, usually weekly or bi-weekly, the facilitator comes, and then we have a SALT teaching manual, and there's many different kinds of manuals and teaching content that are appropriate for the context in which they're working, but they may spend 30 minutes, 15 to 30 minutes in teaching, and it's very participatory learning or conversational type learning, open-ended questions, and discovering what the teaching is, so there's usually a Bible principle, like honesty, like work, like, you know, there's a Bible principle, non-resistance, marriage, the family, the home, many different things like that, and there's usually like a big picture story, which is a truth or a factual story, could be from the Bible, and then there's in real life, and that's where they wrestle with, how do we live this out? That's the first part of a SALT savings meeting, and then they will save their money, so maybe just for simplicity, we'll say everybody's saving a dollar, so there's 30 people, one week they come together, they have $30, next week they come together, they have $60, then $90, then $120, so a month or two in, they might have enough money to then take small loans from their own savings, and again, most of these people are the poorest of the poor in their context, and they don't have access to traditional banks or financing, they could never go to the bank and get a loan, they just won't, so what ends up happening then, now through their own savings, they're accumulating sufficient savings, which are held in a lockbox, usually with key holders from the group, and they're only open in the public meeting, and then through, over time, the members in that group make a request to the group for a loan request, and then the group approves it, nobody else does, and they give that money, and then they earn interest or finance charges that goes back to the group, so through that, if they do this, usually a term is one year, so now, they have formed for a year, they might have $1,000 at the end of the year, and a lot of times, they carry that forward into the next term, so now that slowly, slowly over years of time, the economics continue to rise, and the whole goal here is not to make wealthy entrepreneurs, but what the purpose here is, is to help them use their resources they have and save them for a future known expense, whether it's a business expansion, farming, maybe input costs, different things like that, so they can better provide for their families. So that's a neat model, and I know you've spent some time overseas, specifically Bangladesh, outline what you've seen, what you've been involved with there, you know, overseas. Yeah, before I worked for SALT as in the program, I actually, from our mission, our church's mission, I was our representative from our mission, so I worked closely with Gary Miller at the time, this was back in 2014, 2015, and we started, we weren't living there full time at the time, so I was going over about once a quarter and working with the native staff, and in the early days of that program, I still remember walking into those communities, and the poverty is so severe, it just hurts deep within, and you say, how would ever make a difference? And even when you first start something like this, there's a foreigner there, what's the handout, what are we gonna get, what's being given, and so obviously we have no handout for them, we're a teaching organization and a self help savings, and so I still remember leaving and thinking, Lord, will this ever work? How will it work? And you leave, you go home, and you come back three months later, and there's still like, you gotta give us some seed money, you've got to give us something so we can start faster, and of course SALT doesn't do that, because all that does is mitigate against what we're trying to do and developing, and you know, six months go by, a year goes by, and you come back, and not only did the folks stop asking for something, they're so excited about what's happening in their community and their homes and in their villages, where there was no hope, and now there is. Had things changed a lot? Physically not so much, but here it did change, in their hearts and minds, there started to be a slow change, you know, God could bring everybody to the faith, God could remove poverty, but Genesis 3 is real, we live in a fallen world and the needs are severe, so Lord help us to find a way to be able to be a blessing and endeavor. For some reason, God chose to work through men and women. It's still a mystery in my mind why he did that. So based on your experience, especially over there on the field, what is one story you encountered or a person you encountered that deeply impacted you? There's many. I think, you know, just seeing God call men and women, I still remember one time there was a man in his 70s, and he answered that call and became a believer. There's many stories like that. But I'll share a recent experience a couple of years ago, you know, the way the program works is usually the folks in my role try to visit each program once a year. Now some countries is more frequent than that. But in general, we visit once a year. I still remember a few years ago, I was working with the native salt staff. A lot of times when we get together in November, we reflect on what happened the past year and talk about goals and vision for next year and where we want to go and what's the Lord doing, what do you think? And we slowly try to develop a plan for the next year. And I had the opportunity to bring my daughter with me. And she's fluent in the language. She's spent a number of years there and teaching English. And I said to her, I said, would you come with me? And what I'd like for you to do is talk to the women that are believers, these that were Muslims previously and now they're followers of Christ, or they were Hindus, and now they're followers of Christ. And just ask them, what's it like, what's life like in their village? And in Southeast Asia, if you ask a Christian what their testimony is, when did you become a follower? How did the Lord call you? Without fail, you will hear, oh, four generations ago, my great great grandfather became a Christian. And I've been a Christian, our family's been a Christian ever since. And that's exactly what the Muslims say for Islam and so on. And the Hindus the same way. I understand why they're saying it. And then I'll say, no, tell me about your personal relationship with the Lord. How did you become a believer? Oh, I've been a believer since birth. That's usually what you hear. Now, some of that is cultural disconnect and then not understanding what I'm asking. But that's what you hear. When my daughter was with me here a few years ago, and we were busy in meetings, and she was sitting with, you know, we have a vocational center there, they teach sewing, and some of these believers lead that course. And so they teach there. And so she's, she's sitting with them, just talking to them one on one and small group.  How is it in your daily life and in your community? And my daughter told me, she said, you could just see the joy on their face. It was just permeating through their whole being. And they would say things like, before I was in darkness, and today, I have this joy and peace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And, you know, so just one example after the other where they took risks in their community to share it with their family, share the faith.  It just bubbles out of them to their neighbors and coworkers and family members. And I was like, they put the Anabaptist churches in America to shame in outreach as we call it or reaching out to the lost around us. These folks, while they were in a Southeast Asian country, they didn't know that professing Christianity of Southeast Asia says, well, four generations ago, my great-grandfather became a believer. They didn't know any of that. They just said what happened with the Lord Jesus Christ in their own life. And that's a powerful testimony of what Jesus Christ does to all believers that come to the faith. And whether it's somebody in our own circles or one of our family members, whatever the case may be. So right on the heels of that, what do you think is the most important thing you've learned from being involved in this work? Tell the story. This past January, I've been making a lot of trips to Asia the last handful of years and I'd be gone and gone and gone. And finally, I told my wife, I said, why don't we just take this winter and go to Asia and visit all the countries and then we come home. And that's exactly what we did. We visited Indonesia, Cambodia in the north and south and Siem Reap and Penangpan and then Myanmar and then India and then Bangladesh. Obviously, some programs I'm pretty close to and I know them better than others. But in the middle of all of that, you just hear personal stories of what God is doing in the lives of men and women, those that aren't believers, that he's calling and those that are believers. And about halfway through that trip, I said to Anna Mae, God is doing things all over the world like this. I know this little snippet in this one country and all of a sudden I was like, are we even making a difference? So somehow we have to find the middle of those pressure points of recognizing how mighty a God we serve and what he's doing in ways way beyond the Soul program, way beyond our efforts, our feeble efforts, and yet still being willing to be faithful right where God has called us. So if there was one thing you could leave with our audience as we close out this episode, maybe a way they can get involved or food for thought, maybe, as they listen to this, what would you say? I would say this. I believe the Anabaptist community of America has this view that to be a missionary, we need to get on the airplane. And I believe that's a very wrong view. I believe it includes that. Absolutely. And I've probably spent more time on airplanes than most. I believe it includes that. But please look at the resources the Anabaptist community has in North America. Are we using those resources? And look at how small the resources are of Anabaptist missions, comparatively speaking. And as you think about America today, America is becoming an un-church country. Young people don't know who Jesus Christ is. Many people are facing severe poverty and needs in this country. So if I would say one thing, if you think about the Saul program, please pray for the indigenous staff in every country. Because that is where the power is for them to share with their own through the Lord Jesus Christ. But what about us? We have a role to play, but it's this small. What about right where we live? If my neighbors have a problem, do I live my life in such a way that they'll reach out to me? Do I need something from my neighbors? You know, and that's been the vision of the Salt and Light program, is to give a tool for people that have are seriously interested in reaching out to their co-workers, their neighbors and those around them and be able to share the gospel in a way, put it in a shoe leather, as intentionally in our own communities as we tend to do overseas or on our mission work. Wow, that's a powerful way to leave this out. Thank you so much for sharing and sharing those stories. It's been a blessing and may God help us be faithful. Amen.