Geographic Farmer Ryan Smith Talks About a One-To-Many Marketing Strategy Approach

Jeremy Deighan
Thanks for checking out the show today. We have Ryan Smith from Launch Your Farm, who has a very interesting take on the real estate niche and is doing some really cool things as far as marketing goes and getting people into his program. And I think this is going to be a really cool episode. And I've got a lot of questions for you.

So how's it going today, Ryan?

Ryan Smith
I'm super excited to be here. And thanks for having me on. And yeah, this is gonna be great.

Jeremy Deighan
Yeah, I'm excited. We were talking a little bit beforehand. And I'm really excited to dive into some of the strategies that you've been using because no one's talked about this, particularly on the podcast so far.

But I always like to start at the beginning and kind of hear people's backstories and how they got into, you know, the business or online courses or these programs. So what were you doing before this? And then how did you transition into this type of business?

Ryan Smith
Yeah, so I'm in real estate coming up to 13 years now. And when I got into the business, for me, it was always something that was kind of my vehicle to get me to where I wanted. I knew it was never. It wasn't going to be my forever career. And I loved the industry. But I knew that the day-to-day operations of real estate itself was not where I could see myself.

So I always wanted to find out where it was going to be. I didn't know if it's going to be teaching and training or consulting. So over the last number of years, I dabbled in different things. I was a productivity coach in my office. I did some consulting on the side.

About six years ago, I had a podcast called The Niche Agent, where I interviewed real estate agents about unique niches. And I never really monetized that. But my intention was to get into course creation and get into to kind of really what I'm doing now. But I was trying to figure out really what was the best avenue.

And then, for me, I was in a relationship. And I was about to launch, started the relationship, I put it on hold. And then I jumped into the relationship rather than jumping into the coaching and training side of things. And then that ended a few years ago. And then I was like, "Alright, this is the time. I've been waiting too long. And I really need to do this."

So I decided to jump in. And I've been now doing this for less than a year. I really launched in July. I kind of got the planting the seeds at the beginning of last year, just before COVID hit. But then I really, really launched in July. And now I'm here.

Jeremy Deighan
Awesome, very cool. And the name of your business is Launch Your Farm, and you're in the real estate realm. So, could you briefly explain your business, your niche, and what it is that you actually teach?

Ryan Smith
Yeah, sure. So for people outside of the real estate world, when they hear "Launch Your Farm," they think farming plants and animals, Old MacDonald, whatever. Even my own friends and family, when they saw stuff on Facebook, they're like, "You live in a condo. I didn't know you're into farming

So in our industry, basically, geographic farming is what I specialize in. And what that is, is basically a play on words. And that it's you're focusing on an audience. And in my case, geographic audience where you have a smaller demographic.

Rather than trying to be all things to all people, we have a smaller audience, and we then focus our time and attention, and resources on them. And we put our love, and we put our marketing into them. And we put all our resources into that area, and we become the go-to specialist in the area.

So I did that myself about six or seven years ago. I really focused on a geographic farm. I had a business partner at the time. And we did really well. And we took off really quickly. And when I started that, my intention was to really kind of package what I was doing and kind of systematize what I was doing and then turn it into my course.

So it evolved from that real-world life experience. But I was doing to then turn it into training agents. So now I teach agents how to do that. So how to become the hyperlocal specialist and become that go-to person in the community. So they can get a lot more business and be a lot more effective in what they do.

Jeremy Deighan
Yeah, that's definitely awesome. I like that a lot. And it's kind of like a niche within a niche. And I think it's a really cool idea.

When you're talking about a specialized area or smaller area, how small are you talking? Are you talking like on a city basis or a town basis or even smaller than that?

Ryan Smith
Yeah, so there's a lot of opportunities within any of those ranges. Generally speaking, with a geographic farm, you're looking at like a neighborhood. Some people may farm like a apartment building or certain part of town.

And one of the things that I teach is not to go too big. It's better to go small. Find the right audience, get your marketing figured out. So generally speaking, you're looking at like 500 to 2000 homes.

And then, a lot of times, agents who have been really successful with it, they scale up. So they start small, figure out their systems and the tools, and then they become that neighborhood specialist. And then they may take over the neighborhood next to them or another area in town. And then they basically use that systems that they're developing to kind of keep growing.

Jeremy Deighan
This is really cool. So it reminds me of actually making niche websites online. So something that I do on the side that I think is kind of fun is I make these little niche websites.

And if you've ever tried to create a website before, it's really hard to break into Google's search rankings. And so say you wanted to teach, you know, dog training, you don't want to go out and just teach dog training, because there's a million people doing that. You want to focus in on, like, you know, Chihuahuas or Bulldogs. And then you can grow as you build that authority.

It sounds like you're doing something very similar in the real estate niche.

Ryan Smith
Exactly. It's exactly what I do.

Jeremy Deighan
Yeah, that's really cool. I haven't heard of that before. Again, I probably don't know a whole lot about real estate anyways. But it sounds definitely like a cool business strategy.

So you're doing these trainings, and then you realize that maybe this is some information that you can start teaching others. So what was kind of the early process of that?

You said you kind of already had an idea that you wanted to get into online courses. So what were some of the first steps that you did?

Ryan Smith
Yeah, that's a great question. So for me, I've done all kinds of marketing and training and all kinds of things. And I went back to really the core fundamentals and figured out what I want to do, but then really, what does the audience need?

So when I first got started, I had an idea of where I wanted to go, generally speaking, but the specifics I didn't have figured out. So I did a survey. And I sent it out to a bunch of agents that I knew. So I sent it out to 400 agents that I had connections with. And I used that as my seed, basically my program to kind of get it launched and get going.

So I did a survey of what people's experience were like with geographic farming, what are their expectations, what's stopping them from doing it, how much would they spend, what strategies would they like to do, what strategies that they tried? And I basically did this long survey and pulled on the heartstrings of people that I knew and just said, "Hey, can you do me a favor? I'm creating this program."

So what happened was I took that, then I went back, dissected, and said, "Okay, where are the gaps? Where are the trends that I see that agents have had problems, where they had struggles with? Where are the things that they need help with, and that I can help create programs around that?"

So for me, there was kind of three main things that I saw that came out of that survey was, one was they needed accountability. So a lot of people said the reason why they didn't succeed was they weren't accountable, and they didn't have a plan. The next ones, they needed an actual system to keep holding them to doing it. And then the other one was they needed content. They didn't know what to do, how to do it.

So then I work backwards and said, "Okay, well, I'm gonna make my programs based on that. How can I put accountability into it? How can I give them a plan, and then how can I help them with the content and help them with the marketing?" And that's kind of where I started from. So I got that figured out. And then, once I had that, then I knew I needed to build an audience.

And for me, I forget who I learned it from a number of years ago. They said, when you're getting into sales, there are two ways of doing it. One is you build an audience and then sell them something, or you build something and then find an audience to sell it to. So for me, I have always been on the side of I'd rather build an audience first and then sell them something.

So once I knew what I wanted, I knew what the plan was, then I worked on building my audience. So that's when I launched my show last year. So I have an online show called Launch Your Farm where I I interview other real estate agents who do geographic farming, and I also interview other professionals kind of within the industry that would help with that.

So I started my show, built my audience, and then I started selling stuff to them later in the fall. So once I had a following, I built up the credibility, I built up the trust, and then I was able to then release my program. So then, based on the information that I got from those surveys.

Jeremy Deighan
Awesome, I love that. Surveys are super powerful. I've been using them for a long time. But going through my own coaching program, who my coach taught me how to fine-tune the surveys. And they can be just so powerful.

Because as you said, the people are giving you the exact information that you need to go create the course, the marketing, the messaging. And if anyone hasn't done that yet, I implore you to go out and survey your audience and kind of get an idea of what they're saying.

So I know a big buzzword right now in the industry, the marketing and course online space is creating a beta group or a beta program. Anyone who's not familiar with that is getting your audience into the course and kind of building it with them before you do, you know, version one and launching it. Is that something that you did, or did you just create the course and push it out?

Ryan Smith
So I have three products that I've created, and I'll kind of break down the order that I created them and then explain kind of what I did. So I had a good friend of mine who runs a software program and a marketing program for real estate agents, and I had lunch with him, and he told me I needed to get off my butt and start something.

And I've always been a bit of a perfectionist at times, and I've hesitated doing stuff. And he put me in the direction of reading The Lean Startup. I don't know if you've ever read the book, but it's a fantastic book, and it talks about creating a minimum viable product. So he said, "Just get out there and create something."

So what I did was I took the details from the survey, and I just created a very simple course, still good information, lots of good content, but I just got it out there. It was ugly. It wasn't pretty. It was just decent.

And then and so I sent that as a thank you to everyone who did my survey. So I got them to go through that. And they were kind of my beta testers for that course. And then as a thank, you for that, as a requirement, if you will, because I asked them to give me feedback on that.

So those people that did the survey and showed interest in it, I got them to really go back, rip it apart, tell me what they needed change, what would they like to see in it, and how can they get better. So then I did version two of that, which was then my official launch that. I got that up there, and I built that.

And then I launched what I call it my Boot Camp. It's an eight-week program that I created, and originally it was ten weeks. And through my beta group, I paired it down. So I got out this program, and I got 12 agents that I knew to go through this program which I normally charge $500 for they got it for free. But all I asked is that they rip it apart, tell me what they think, give me honest feedback, and then they would provide me testimonials and give me good feedback on it.

So that group, I literally hadn't even created the program. I had the layup. All I told him was, here's the topics we're gonna go over, and I was literally creating it on the fly as I went through. And I told them that I said, "Listen, it's gonna be crude, it's not gonna be perfect. That's why you guys are getting it for free and not charging me that money." So I got it launched and got great feedback.

I then launched version one of that got out there started selling it. And then each time I've done it, I just keep adding, keep taking feedback from the sessions, and then just keep tweaking it and growing it. And then, I created a 30 Day Launch Program, which is 30 videos over 30 days. And basically, that was a bit of the accountability program. And it was based on what was missing between those two programs. So I kind of filled the gap in between.

Jeremy Deighan
Yeah, I absolutely love this. When I started my online course creation journey about seven or eight years ago, I was just creating products and then trying to find the audience I was going to completely backward. And now that I've grown and I've learned, this has become my favorite way of creating products, info products.

Even if you're creating a physical product, you can do the same philosophy is you know, serving your audience, find out what they want, and then get some beta people to come in and go through the program, fine-tune it, see what they're saying, and make it a better program.

Because then, when you do that, you are making the perfect product for your audience. When you go sell that when you launch it, and you start, you know, promoting it or running ads to it, it's a guaranteed success because you've had actual people go through it and tell you exactly what they want, right?

Ryan Smith
Exactly. And you've got the testimonials built into it. And you've got the feedback. And then you know, generally, is this something people want or not. And a lot of people come up with ideas.

And I've seen it in my own experience where people have this amazing idea in their head, and the world doesn't really want it, or the world doesn't want it in that version or that form or in that way that they're doing. And it's like, you need to take some feedback.

But on the flip side, I've had people say, "Well, I would change this or add this." And there's still you have to keep some consistency with it and may not just because if someone says to add this one thing, and just because one person brings it up doesn't mean you should build in everything just because someone says it.

Jeremy Deighan
Yeah, that's also a great point. You know, don't change everything around just because everyone's saying to. So that's really cool. So yeah, I would like to hear you did mention that 30-day sequence that you have. Can you expand a little bit more on that?

Ryan Smith
Yeah. So for me that when I created that, that was kind of the gap filler for me. That beginning course that I created was just kind of an entry-level to understanding what geographic farming was about. And then my boot camp was more advanced course for people who actually have a farm. By creating it, I knew there was an in-between, which is how do I actually get my farm launched. So I created it. It's called The 30 Day Launch.

And one of the big feedbacks I took was that people wanted accountability and a plan. So what I did was I created a 30-day launch program. So it's literally 30 days, 30 videos, it's about 12 hours worth of video. And each day, there's one video gets released one video at a time, or per day. And then there's the video and then homework and then video and homework.

So I broke it down. I took kind of all the strategies that someone would need to get started. And then I kind of clumped it together under categories. So the first eight days is doing the research and choosing your farm. Then I went into the marketing, and then I went into the value ads and how do you create value. And then I did administrative-type stuff. And then, I created this 30-day launch program.

So it's one of my best-selling programs. It's 200 bucks. And it's a system where people can jump in, and they just have to do it, and they kind of follow-through along, and they don't get to go ahead or work ahead because they have to wait till the video is released. So it kind of helps keep them accountable. And then they take this homework, do it each day. And then, by the end of that 30 days, they're up and running.

Jeremy Deighan
Yeah, that's awesome. That's really cool. I like that. And then when they finish that 30 days, are you then sending them into the next phase, which I guess would be the bootcamp?

Ryan Smith
Yeah, exactly. Then at the end of that course, there's a promotion, that discount if they want, they can move into taking the next boot camp, and I run those every two months. So then, depending on where they are and when they finish it, they'll be able to join in and join the next one if they want to.

Jeremy Deighan
I love this. So you've created what you know Russell Brunson would call a Value Ladder, where you're walking people through the steps of what they need. So if you're a beginner, you start here.

And then, you move to this next phase, which is your 30 Day Challenge. And then you move them into the boot camp. And then maybe you can keep, you know, moving them up the ladder, maybe into coaching or client work or something like that.

Ryan Smith
Yep. And I base a lot of that on that. I love Russell Brunson. I love his stuff. So that's kind of what I went through and realized that I needed to have those different price points and different value levels. And then also not just value levels, but also flow.

So going back to that beginning. Okay, what do they do now? And now it's this next thing. Now you want to launch it. Now you want to get into the next level and kind of take them through that process, and then have enough programs that people can choose, but not too many programs where people are going, "What should I take? What should I do?" So to try to make it as clear as possible, "Saying, step one, step two, step three, here's the way to kind of get you there."

Jeremy Deighan
So have you started writing your free book yet?

Ryan Smith
I actually have. I have.

Jeremy Deighan
Nice.

Ryan Smith
Based on that, and that was one of the big eye opener for me. And one of the things he talks about is you have to draw a line in the sand and be polarizing. And so what I've called my book or calling my book, I haven't finalized the names, but it's the Farm Manifesto.

So it's 25 beliefs that I believe that are basically about farming, and some of them are contradictory to what other agents have taught or learned. And it's very cut and dry, saying, "This is what I believe this is where I think future farming is."

So I've got kind of 25 points of really where I see farming and kind of Jerry Maguire -esque where it's waiting till three in the morning writing up all night, kind of getting my ideas out there. And I basically did that. Now I'm turning that into a book.

Jeremy Deighan
So let's move over into some of the traffic strategies and talk a little bit about that. Earlier, you mentioned that you had a podcast. What kind of podcast is that? I think you mentioned that you have some people come on and do an interview. But can you talk a little bit more about your podcast?

Ryan Smith
Yeah. So the show is a video show. It's a video podcast that I do. And it's interview-based. So it's myself and another agent or myself and another professional within the industry. So I interview agents who have done geographic farming with different unique twists.

So I've got agents who do really community heavy, some people are doing volunteering, some people are doing online ads, some people are using video, some people using social media, and all the different things that you can do. A lot of things that I teach. And I basically interview them kind of take best practices, what are they doing? How are they doing that?

And part of the reason why I did that was not just to build an audience but it's also to help build my credibility. And not that I'm not credible in what I do. But one of the things I've learned through my life is that one of the best ways to grow your credibility is through other people's credibility. A perfect example that is Oprah Winfrey, or Larry King, by interviewing other people and having other professionals in there that escalates your credibility.

So by having these people who have done it as well and succeeded, it now builds me as the go-to person. Now in the social media channels and then real estate groups, people are saying, "Oh, Ryan's the farm master. He's amazing. He's incredible." And it's it is what I'm doing is awesome. But it's built and backed by the other people that I'm interviewing.

So I do the interviews, I provide a ton of value. And that's basically my free resource. I always send people back to that. If people are reaching out and they're on the fence, I say, "Hey, go back and check out Episode 3. Go back and check out Episode 27. That might be a good fit for you."

So it gives me a way to build trust with people. They know what I'm talking about. They know that I can deliver on the content. And it gives me something to use in my marketing as well.

Jeremy Deighan
Yeah, I love it. Obviously, I have a podcast, and I agree with everything you say. I find podcasts do three things for the hosts, particularly. One, I get to share other people's knowledge. So you're on here talking about different strategies that I've never used before. And so, we get to share that knowledge.

Two, the credibility, like you said. If I have you and other experts in the field, I get Russell Brunson or Gary Vaynerchuk or someone like that to come on. It's going to help elevate my podcast, right?

And then the third thing is you just build some really great relationships. Everyone is afraid of competition. And I have more of an abundance mindset instead of a scarcity mindset. And even if I have other people teaching course creation, I love having those people come on because we build a connection.

I've met some great people where I've been in their Facebook groups doing training. They've come in my Facebook group doing training. And podcasting, I think, is such a cool way to go about that.

Ryan Smith
I'd add a fourth one if I can.

Jeremy Deighan
Yeah, definitely.

Ryan Smith
What I find as a value is I call it the "one to many" approach. Is by having audience, you get in front of their audience, and they're going to share it. And I use this in my training all the time. And I talk about if I go put an ad in the paper or run a Facebook ad for my business, I don't go tell my friends and family like, "Oh Mom, look, I ran a Facebook ad today."

But if I get featured on something, and I get to be a guest speaker on something, or I get interviewed by someone, I'm going to go share that with my friends and family. And so it's going to open up the doors to a whole different network that you never would have had.

So by having me on, I'm going to be proud that I'm on your podcast. And when It comes out, I'm going to go share it with my audience. It's going to expose it to other people, and it's just going to help amplify your reach. And I think that's a super valuable reason why I think doing interviews are so important.

Jeremy Deighan
Yeah, that's amazing. I love that. That's a great philosophy too. And I totally agree with it. So this podcast, you said, it's a video podcast. So, where are you distributing it? Are you doing it in a Facebook group, on YouTube, or using Spotify and Apple podcasts? What does that look like?

Ryan Smith
So this time around, I didn't do an actual podcast itself through the normal distribution channels. I did that with my old podcast. I changed it because there's a lot of real estate podcasts out there already. In my opinion, I don't connect as well with the podcast itself for my audience. And so I do video specifically and video only.

So I do it on YouTube, Facebook, I have a Facebook page, Instagram, then I put it under the different social media channels, and I'm part of like some groups for real estate, things like that. I shared it there. And just any channels I can get out and get it to as many places as possible, and then it's hosted on my site. So then I try to drive all the traffic back to my site as well.

Jeremy Deighan
Very good. And are these live podcasts that you're doing, or are they pre-recorded, and then you just upload them to those platforms?

Ryan Smith
Yeah, the pre-recorded I don't like live for a couple reasons. Scheduling is a nightmare. And then someone backs out, or someone forgets or technical difficulties and things like that.

And so I like to do pre-recorded, and then you can kind of lay it out. And it's also nice to batch record as well so that you can get your time back too.

Jeremy Deighan
Oh, I know the batch recording. I've been doing it all week. I'm a little exhausted. But I'm excited because I have the next three months worth of podcast episodes ready to go. And once I get them edited, transcribed, and up on the website, I can take the foot off that, you know, gas pedal and focus on more important aspects of the business.

Well, not more important, but you know, other aspects of the business that I really need to be focusing on. It's not transcribing a podcast.

Ryan Smith
Exactly.

Jeremy Deighan
Cool. So before we got on the call, we were doing a little bit of talking, and you mentioned that you were also doing some virtual training sessions, so if you could just tell us a little bit about these virtual training sessions that you've been doing.

Ryan Smith
Yeah, so that's been my main source of business and how I've gotten, next to the show, this is my other way of getting a lot of my clients. So again, going back to that philosophy of one to many, I like to look at things of how can I get in front of other people or multiple people at once, rather than trying to sell myself one at a time.

So when I started developing this, I thought, "Well, how can I get in front of more people?" So there are a few options in our list. And going back to Russell Brunson, his Dream 100. Who can I can connect with that can connect me with more people. So in our industry, we have a lot of Facebook groups. So there's like really impactful and really powerful Facebook group.

So there's one group that I spoke for; there's 125,000 members in their group. I get to another session for a group that has 22,000. I'm about to do another one in a few weeks. That's 37,000. So I wanted to get in front of their audience. So that's why I started creating these training sessions.

And then I opened it up to we have real estate boards. So when people don't know how real estate works, we have in your each region, kind of each area has its own real estate board. So maybe a city area and maybe like your counties or your regions, and like that, you have a real estate board that oversees that.

So I've been approaching real estate boards and offering training for them. I get paid for it. So I charge $250 for the one-hour session. So I'm getting paid to now speak.

And I tell them, it's not a big sales pitch. It's educational based. It's actually meant to teach people stuff. It's not just a big sales pitch webinar. And then at the end, I just say, "Hey, if you like that, you want more information or like to join, here's a discount code and you can register that way."

And then I also go after real estate offices. So I target real estate offices. I've been doing a lot of training for real estate offices. And some of the offices, I have 1200 people in the office, and I get a fair amount of people showing up. Obviously, not all 1200.

But I get a few 100 people sometimes on the sessions. So I'm exposing my message to an audience quickly and to a larger audience. And it's done in a format that I can control, and I can do it.

One type of, so I've got three different webinars that I do. I've created a bunch of them over the last year. And I kind of taken my testing, seeing what's worked, what people really liked. And I've narrowed down to three different sessions. Again, each of those sessions kind of cover different things.

So now I've created a website specifically for that that I send out to the boards instead of the brokerages with all the information, the FAQs, the links to the information, here's what they're going to get, here's the value that's going to bring to your audience.

And now I just reach out and say, "Hey, who's responsible for your training in your office or your board?" They let me know, and I say, "Hey, I'm doing some training, like to offer to your office or to your board. Here's the information. "And then people say, "Okay, sounds good." And then they sign up, book it. Now I get to speak in front of our audience and build my audience that way.

So it's been very powerful, very effective. And yeah, it's made me a decent amount of money.

Jeremy Deighan
This is so cool. I love this. You know, this is why I love having people like you come on the podcast. Because this is something that, you know, I've never thought of I've never done myself. And hopefully, people are paying attention out there who are listening and can start thinking about how can you apply this into your niche, you know?

Is there some way that you can take what Ryan is saying here and apply that and reach out to, you know, people in your industry and getting in front of their audiences? I love this one-to-many concept that you have. Because when I'm asked, "How do you get traffic to the course?" People always give you the basic answers, you've gotta blog, you've got to start a podcast.

But no one ever really talks about that. Why don't you try to get in front of like-minded individuals or people who are in your industry, and get in front of their audiences and provide training? As I mentioned earlier, these relationships that I've built on the podcast with other course creators who are doing exactly what I'm teaching.

I don't see it as competition, I get to go in his group, and I get to do a training on something I'm a specialist at. And now he's got like you said, 7,000 or 10,000 people in the group. I'm reaching people who hadn't heard about me before, and then we share, and we collaborate, we do the same thing and migrate. So I really love that.

Ryan Smith
Yeah, I want to add to that, as well is that. Sometimes you've got to think outside the box, too, and say, "Who would be a complimentary group? Is there an organization that I could get in front of? Is there a group that would feed into mine? Is there someone else who serves another group that has connections and that?"

And for me, like I've literally gone through, and I found every real estate board in North America, there's 1200, and change real estate boards. I have all their phone numbers, their email addresses, their websites, all their information. I'm now working on a list of real estate offices that I can go to. And literally, my next step is going to be hiring an inside salesperson to go push this for me.

I will never run out of people to serve and to sell to because there are so many people in so many organizations that I can now get that message out front of. And I can plan and what I want to do with this is that I can literally get this in front of so many people and pay someone else to do it for me. And it buys back my time. I can hire someone to do that initial reaching out to people, setting up appointments, and doing that for me.

And I've done the math because there's a 1.5 million real estate agents in North America. There are over 100,000 offices. There's 1200 boards, so like, there's not a shortage of people. It's just how do you get in front of them. That's what you've got to figure out.

Jeremy Deighan
Yeah, I like what you said about thinking outside of the box—even thinking about my own business. The common people for me are a course coach, course creator coach that I could reach would be other course creators, or maybe digital marketers. And so we tend to stay in that alley. And we don't think outside the box like you said.

But why don't I go get in front of, say, a group of fitness professionals? And I could go teach how you can turn your knowledge of coaching people in fitness and turn that into an online course. So it gives you an idea to spread your audience more and reach more people.

Ryan Smith
Yep, exactly.

Jeremy Deighan
How are you handling these training sessions? So let's say that you reach out to someone that have 1200 people in their audience, and you know, maybe 500 people show up. How are you delivering that is that through software, like zoom or something like that?

Ryan Smith
Yeah, I use zoom. So depending on if they want it on their account or mine, I'm happy to do either. Sometimes they control it. So it's their own link, and they use the same thing. So if they have a session on an ongoing basis, and they want to use that, I'll use my own.

Generally speaking, from a numbers perspective, I find I get about 1/3 of the people who register will actually show up, and depending if there's a replay. So I don't like letting people know there's going to be a replay because then they tend not to show up. So I find if you push it and say there's no replay, or you don't tell them there's gonna be a replay, you'll get more people to show up.

Yeah, and then within that, like, the office is 1200 people, not all of them are interested in farming. So I did one, and we had 50 people show up to that session. And then another 70 or 80, people watched it later on. I did a session for my friend, the tech trainer. We had 200 and change. I've done digital conferences, and I've had 300 or 400 people show up. So, yeah.

Jeremy Deighan
Yeah, that's cool. Did I hear you correctly say that, on your website, you have these trainings, what's going to be in the training, frequently asked questions built out on the website?

So when you reach out to someone and say, "Hey, I want to do training for you. These are the three different types of trainings I have." That person can go look at that and have an idea of what you're going to talk about?

Ryan Smith
Yeah, exactly. So I've got on the landing page, there's a video, which is, "Hey, Ryan here. This is what I'm about." Because at this point, I'm just cold reaching out to them. And they don't know much about me.

And then I'll say, "Hey, there's three courses below that. Here's the options that I have. There's session on Facebook groups. There's a session on strategies, there's a session on myths. If you want to check out those." And they can click on that, and they can find out more information and details. And then it says, here's the details of what they're going to get.

So that's not on my public page. I keep that as a private page that I send to the offices and the boards. So if you're scrolling around my website, you won't find it that way.

Jeremy Deighan
Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I've seen speakers do something similar. So if you're going to go speak at a conference, having some trainings up on that landing page, I think that's brilliant.

Yeah, I think this is a really cool what you've done here. And it seems like you really thought this strategy out, and you are doing a great job implementing this. Are there any other methods of marketing or traffic that you are using or that you see working really well right now?

Ryan Smith
I've tried dabbling in some affiliate stuff, and it's a little trickier to do, and they don't have the same passion as I do. So I've had some agents who've had some groups that have done that. What I'm trying to do next is really, I kind of got my year plan that I'm working on.

So right now, I'm doing the training sessions. That's my main lead generator. Now I'm working on my email and getting better at the email conversion and getting more deals from that. So I'm setting up better funnels and follow-up plans through that and trying to get more people.

And then the next thing I'm gonna be launching is a challenge method. So I want to be doing a challenge method. So I'm going to focus on that. So I'm taking some training right now on how to do a five-day challenge, get people in for a free challenge, and then get them into the pipeline that way.

And then the last piece is I want to do paid ads. I haven't done anything with paid ads for a number of reasons. One, I haven't spent the money because I want to make sure all my systems and things are in place before I go spend a bunch of money. So I want to make sure that funnels are in place before I do that.

And then I'm kind of taking money off of each deal that I'm doing and putting it away. So I have a budget to do that. And then once I have that, then I can scale up once I have everything kind of tweaked enough that I'll be able to dump the money back in and spend it on online ads.

Jeremy Deighan
Yeah, that's very smart. This is a big mistake I see a lot of people make is they go and they try to run ads to an offer that hasn't been proven, doesn't convert, and then they run the ads. And you don't really know what's working and not working. Is it the ad, is it the landing pages, is it the messaging?

So I think you're going about it the right way. You know, fine-tune your offer, fine-tune your messaging, and get a good converting offer. And then once you know that's solid, then you just run ads, and that just adds fuel to the fire.

Ryan Smith
One of the things I'm going to do then, too, is back that up with because I'm gonna be going after different geographic areas with the boards and the offices. And then I want to either trail behind or ahead of those things with some online ads.

So if I'm going to be calling in that area and be speaking in those boards in those offices, I'm going to do some preliminary visual ads, they can see what it's about. And then some offers after.

So they'll know who I am, they've heard about me, they've seen my stuff, maybe at their board or through office, and then they see my ads online to kind of tie in and really solidify what I'm doing.

Jeremy Deighan
Cool, awesome. Well, it sounds like you've really thought this out. And you've got a great strategy. And you're doing a lot of different things and seeing some major success with that.

Thinking about the person who's listening right now who's like maybe a little earlier in their journey. And they just have, you know, maybe they're one course, or they're building their audience. And they don't have all these different methods set up like you have.

What would be your main piece of advice that you could give someone who's kind of starting out and would like to get to the point that you're at? But you know, you don't want to overwhelm them and tell them to do, you know, a book and a podcast and all these things. What is something that you could tell them that could help them out?

Ryan Smith
First is you need to survey an audience. So, find an audience you're going to serve, and then survey them to find out what's important to them. Before you go, create a bunch of stuff like we talked about earlier. Don't create something and spend all this time and resources creating something that you don't even know people want. So doing that survey is important.

And then next step would be, don't be afraid to get something out there if it's not perfect. And that took me a long time, a lot of energy to get over that. And just create something, get it out there, test it, and then scale up. But I think the important is while you're doing that is to build an audience as well. And don't try selling them stuff right upfront.

A lot of people try to sell something right away. There's gonna be a delay of time, or you're trying to get those ducks in a row and build that together, build an audience and give value and grow that audience. And don't worry about selling them stuff right upfront. So just build an audience so that you build that trust people know who you are.

And then when you come up with a product, and you finalize it, you polish it, then you're able to sell to them. And then they're already building trust, and they'll want to buy it from you.

Jeremy Deighan
That's absolutely brilliant. I encourage everyone right now to rewind this podcast about five minutes and listen to that over and over and over again. Because again, I can say because I again. I made that mistake. I went out I made the product first, didn't build an audience, didn't survey anyone.

I tell the story where I created a Photoshop course. The course is 12 hours long. It's got hundreds of resources and downloadables. Never wants to talk to anyone about why they would want to learn Photoshop or what they want to learn about.

I spent a good portion of the year working on this. Had my wife stressed out, my kids stressed out. And today, that course is brought less than like 3% of all my total revenue.

And it's sad because I think it's a great course but had I followed that process that you're talking about finding your audience, talking to them, having conversations, surveying them, building that audience up, and then launching that product, it would have been much more success.

So rewind this podcast and go listen to what Ryan just said. It's absolutely brilliant. So just thinking about your business going forward, I know you have a lot of pans on the stove right now.

What would you like to see happening for your business in the next two to five years if everything just went as smoothly as you'd like for it to go?

Ryan Smith
So it's funny, you mentioned this. I just had a conversation last night with a friend of mine. I consider myself a very hardworking, lazy person. So I always try to work smarter, not harder. So everything I'm trying to build is to I can do less work, even though I stack on more stuff, then I got to figure out how I can do less.

So my goal down the road is I want to travel more. And that's the whole reason I've moved and shifted into doing courses and training so that I have the freedom and the ability to be location independent and not be stuck in one place. And the irony is I'm teaching other agents to be location-dependent, based on their farm. But for my own sake, I want to be able to move around.

So for me, I want to get to the point that I can have it on autopilot, do the things that I enjoy doing, and then grow it when I want or where I want or how I want to do it. And just keep funneling it and feeding itself. I'm not one that's driven by money.

I'm more driven by freedom and time, and ability to do what I want to do. So I'm trying to build this business to allow me to do that and not be a slave to the business. So I'm trying to grow it, but automated enough that I can still enjoy life and joy things outside of doing this.

Jeremy Deighan
Yeah, I love that. And you know, just thinking about your business, you know, having the ability to travel seems like it would actually grow your business more.

Because if you could go into an area and teach these skills locally, you know, around that area, get more people involved, and then move and go to a different area, it sounds like that would actually be beneficial to your business, because then you could actually teach people on a local level and just help keep growing and growing and growing.

Ryan Smith
And one of my dreams is to retire in the Caribbean or semi-retire in the Caribbean. And one of my plans is to do like workshops down there and bring people down there.

So it's like, "Hey, come down for a week. And we'll do these mastermind sessions and trainings," and things like that. So they come to me. And that's really what I'm the direction I'd like to head.

Jeremy Deighan
Well, I am not in the real estate niche. But if you need a guest speaker, you just call me up, and I'll meet you down. Cool, Ryan. Well, thanks so much for coming on today. I think this has been enlightening.

I think you have dropped some really golden nuggets on people. I hope that they take heed of all the advice you have given today. And if people want to find out more about you and your business, where can they do that online?

Ryan Smith
Yeah, they can check out the website it'sYeah, they can check out the website it's launchyourfarm.com. And then I've got my show. You can find it in YouTube. You can find it in Facebook, Launch Your Farm.

Just type in Launch Your Farm or YouTube/launchyourfarm, Facebook/launchyourfarm. And you can kind of see the videos, the shows, what I've done, and kind of how I do my interviews and get more ideas on what the courses and programs are about.

Jeremy Deighan
Perfect. Ryan, thank you so much for giving your time today, your knowledge, your expertise. And yeah, I just look forward to seeing you down in the Caribbean in a couple of years.

Ryan Smith
Awesome. Thank you. Looking forward to it too.