How to Blow Up on YouTube As A Real Estate Professional with Roger Wakefield

"I'm Roger Wakefield - I'm just a plumber" is how this YouTube celebrity starts his talks, which he delivers for thousands of people all over the country.

But plumbing is just Roger's origin story.

Roger became a full-time marketer for his plumbing business after a critical week where he got zero business calls. In the midst of panic, he messaged his website guy: "What happened? Did we change something? Change it back!".

That's when he realized he needed to take matters into his own hands.

He decided he would learn everything he could about organic marketing.

Fast forward to today, and he's got the biggest plumbing YouTube channel, making hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of sponsorships, and being recognized on the street as the "plumbing guy".

In this article, he teaches us how we can leverage video content to grow our business.

Even if we too are "just a real estate agent".

Widening Your Reach

As a real estate agent, you're probably facing one of two problems:

1. you need more leads
   
   
2. you realize that the only way to scale your business is to work more hours

But what if you could change approaches, and instead build your personal brand to become the authority in real estate in your area, or area of expertise?

What if when people researched "real estate [your area/area of expertise]" you were the first result?

What if out of 12 videos that appeared after that keyword on YouTube, 8 of them were yours?

The possibilities become endless when you put yourself out there.

For example, not only is Roger dominating YouTube, he was one of the first people in the world to do a LinkedIn Livestream.

And it all started from him dreaming bigger.

"When we first started YouTube, we realized we had more plumbers watching us than homeowners (which we thought was our target market). So we changed the name and direction of the channel to serve plumbers. After about a year, we realized we had a lot of tradies watching us, so we changed directions again and just called the channel 'Roger Wakefield'."

And it's exploded since then.

Now, you might be asking yourself why on Earth would you do any of this, if you just want to grow a local business.

Easy.

"Because if you grow your reach nationally, and people come to search your website, that's going to build your local authority as well."

How to Get Started

Let's get to the nitty gritty.

How do you get started on making content as a real estate agent?

These are Roger's 3 tips:

"I wouldn't even do a video on a property - I would do a video on a park, on a neighborhood, on a community where you happen to be listing a real estate property."

This is because nobody wants to watch a sales video about you and how great you are as an agent.

But people will watch a video on the trendiest new bar in the neighborhood, or on the different activities people do on a Sunday morning in the beautiful local park.

This is content people engage with. And engagement drives organic reach, whether it's on YouTube, LinkedIn, or Facebook.

"In fact, the first year that I started making videos, people kept telling me 'you need a call to action' - I never had that," says Roger.

All the "call to action" he did was have a branded shirt and a sign behind him. But the videos were all about the free, valuable content he was delivering. The call to action was always implicit. 

It's the content that drives people to like, comment, and share the video. And that's what makes the algorithm push your videos out to more and more people.

Another crucial step? Reply to every single comment. Because this also tells the algorithm that it's an engaging piece of content.

When making videos, refer to the viewer as "you". Be actionable with your advice, and act as if you were talking to your best friend.

Ask questions so your best friend replies in the comments.
Smile so your best friend likes the video.
Give them great advice so your best friend shares the video with other friends.

3) The restaurant strategy

Roger shares the unique strategy he would follow if he was a real estate agent:

"I would make a deal with local restaurants that I know and tell them I'd make a video on their restaurants, and in exchange I get to eat there for free."

This does two things: it allows him to meet other people who visit the restaurant and become a regular there, and it also influences the owner to direct clients who want to buy property to him.

Don't stop at local restaurants. You can do this with local stores, gyms, and pubs.

Quantity Over Quality?

Consistency is key in the content world, because all social media platforms value users who they know are consistently creating new content that makes users stay on the platform.

Roger advises: "Make your first 10 videos for different social platforms and see where you feel the most comfortable. Then pick one and make that your focus." 

You're not going to make any money on one single video. This is something you need to work on every day.

"I started with 3 YouTube videos of at least 10 minutes, every single week." says Roger, and he shares that the popular video platform has a 72h algorithm, so by posting three times a week, he always catches that wave.

And if you decide your social channel of choice is TikTok or Facebook - go for more quantity, and shorter videos. Every single day at least, and multiple times a day if you want to ramp things up.

This is where batch creation comes in.

For instance, if we go back to the park video example, you can cut that 10 minute video into several, shorter clips. You can then post these shorter clips on Tik Tok, Instagram, or YouTube Shorts.

And you can get a VA to write short articles about them. 

"We make about 125 pieces of content a week, but it's mostly things that we repurpose from the long form content I make on YouTube. In actuality, I'm only doing two or three long-form videos a week, at most."

No idea what to make your content about? Answer the questions your leads and customers ask you the most.

And most importantly, don't be afraid to make mistakes. 

"I put out a video last week where I hit a water tank when digging - and showed the viewers even seasoned plumbers make mistakes," Roger shares.

This only further builds your relationship with your viewers.

Initial Push and Virality

Now, you might be thinking: Roger, this all sounds great. But I've made YouTube videos before only to get 300 views. What am I doing wrong?

There are two pieces of the puzzle you might be missing:

INITIAL PUSH

The first hour of your content being live is crucial, for any social media. There's something called an "initial push" that these platforms do with your content, and if they notice people are not engaging, they won't push it as much.

So what do you do?

Tell your team (or your peer group) that you're going to be serious about creating content, and tell them that every time you post something, they should engage with it and send it to as many people as possible.

Especially if you're a team leader, your agents probably have a network of at least 200 people. This is the difference between your YouTube video reaching 400 viewers vs. 40,000.

VIRALITY

The other reason why your content might not be reaching a huge amount of people is because it simply isn't unique enough.

You have to be different - there's gotta be a vitality component to the content you make.

Roger shares the story of a real estate agent who became huge on LinkedIn:

"She posted every single day a short video of her going to different parts of a community with her clients. She would take potential clients to local restaurants, parks, or neighborhood events. They were short clips where she was showcasing the community, and she posted them every single day."

This type of content is easily shareable, and entirely unique.

Final Thoughts

If you take anything out of this conversation, Roger hopes it's the knowledge that content is a long-term game. 

You're not gonna make one video and sell 20 houses. If you do, please share your secret!

But if you can commit to making several pieces of content a week by repurposing, after a year of consistency, you can make success almost inevitable.

Roger's final thoughts: 

"It shouldn't be about just selling houses. It should be about becoming the authority in your industry - for people buying and selling houses but also for other real estate agents."