Guests: Edmund Bogen, Daniel Ramsey
Recorded: April 15, 2020
Excerpt
Learn the public relations secrets to building a top-producing real estate business in this exclusive interview with Edmund Bogen. He leveraged his career experience as the founder of a highly successful PR firm to break into luxury real estate & investing, and in this exclusive webinar he’s going to share with you the strategies he used to make it work!
Let’s face it: real estate can be a tough, competitive market — and any edge you can get will help you rise to the top. By cross-pollinating your real estate marketing with secrets from a seasoned PR vet like Bogen, you can take your business further in today’s market and stand apart from the competition.
Edmund Bogen is a seasoned sales professional, entrepreneur, and real estate investor. Edmund started his career in public relations growing his New York City-based company as a solo practitioner to greater than 30 employees. After exiting his firm, Edmund used proceeds to invest in properties in NYC, Maryland, and Indiana. He also founded First Degree, a marketing company with offices in NYC and London. First Degree was designed to help business owners grow their own client base. In thirteen years, First Degree has served more than 2000 customers.
For clients interested in luxury home ownership, Edmund is a sought-after broker who understands the ins and outs of this special real estate niche. Entirely focused on the luxury market, Edmund’s portfolio includes the homes of St Andrews Country Club and South Florida.
“I moved my family to Boca Raton from New York City just over 3 years ago and I truly understand what families need to make the move to South Florida,” says Edmund. “I have all the pertinent information including neighborhood dynamics, schools, contractors, and any other service provider and I enjoy sharing my own experiences to help them find the perfect place to make their home.” Sellers can count on him to know what is selling in the area and to utilize creative marketing techniques, creating a picture of life in a new home for the buyer.
Transcript
00:00:06:05 – 00:00:21:18
Daniel Ramsey
Hey, everybody. Daniel Ramsey here, and I’ve got Ed Bogan here and we are going to talk. Yes, he is going to talk about sphere of influence, gold. And it’s kind of his unique way of driving business and revenue for his business in south Florida. And thanks for joining us today.
00:00:22:01 – 00:00:34:23
Edmund Bogen
Oh, Daniel, first of all, thank you so much. I’m a big fan of your business. And R.A., who I know will be listening. My virtual professional has been instrumental in business and I owe it to my desk. So thank you.
00:00:35:05 – 00:00:50:05
Daniel Ramsey
Well, thanks for that. We’re we’re we’re excited to have you here today. I know what’s interesting about what we were talking about is you kind of do things a little different, like you’ve had a cocktail party for since you were 25. Every single every single month, is that right?
00:00:50:05 – 00:01:12:05
Edmund Bogen
Well, no, every quarter just about every once a quarter. I have a cocktail party and it’s something I’ve done since I was 25. Actually, the first thing that happened when I was in college, I had a roommate named David. We had a crazy landlord who, if we were late by an hour with the rents, he’d come over breaking things and our house was nuts.
00:01:12:05 – 00:01:29:08
Edmund Bogen
His name was Samir. Anyway, the guy came over and we really couldn’t pay the rent, so we were able to get our fraternity to put up money for a keg. And if you came to the party, you paid $5 at the door and I’d give you a cup. And if you want the cup, you’ve got to give us another five bucks.
00:01:29:08 – 00:01:57:03
Edmund Bogen
I mean, my customer service mindset has changed since then, but you got a cup. We had 500 people through the course of the night. We did 2500 and revenue, 800 permanent provisions. Okay, so let’s do the math. 800 minus this amount left the 1700 dollar profit. We split that 5050 with the fraternity. So they got 850, we got eight 5800, went to Samir, the landlord, and we had 50 bucks.
00:01:57:03 – 00:02:05:21
Edmund Bogen
And I said to myself, Wow, when I’m older, I want to incorporate this into my business. And sure enough, that was probably the biggest lesson I got from college.
00:02:06:07 – 00:02:34:04
Daniel Ramsey
I love it. I love it. So, okay, you do a cocktail party, you also have your own podcast and a mastermind, a think tank, as you would call it. So today’s video for everybody who’s listening is is really focused on driving revenue with a little bit different of a marketing mindset. And I like how you break up your share influence to like sphere of influence gold, which I love and then one like important but not gold.
00:02:34:17 – 00:02:45:04
Daniel Ramsey
So I think this is going to be a great show, but let’s start what what made you think of doing a podcast and how has that helped you as a real estate broker and agent drive revenue for your business?
00:02:45:13 – 00:03:02:19
Edmund Bogen
Well, you know, first of all, I think, you know that I’m I’m a big fan of pad hype and. Yep. And real estate rockstars. I think the guy is funny. I think he’s well spoken. I think he puts on a great show. And I said to myself, I really, really like this format. And I’m wondering, is there room for more now?
00:03:02:19 – 00:03:22:13
Edmund Bogen
I’m sure he would probably say no, but but I looked at this and given the relationships I have with him, Douglas Elliman, real estate, my broker. Yep. I thought I could get it. Access to some of the best people within the company. And not only that, but people will listen to it. And I’ll build a relationship with the very people like you and I.
00:03:22:13 – 00:03:31:04
Edmund Bogen
This is our second meeting like this. I feel like I know you pretty well. I mean, we don’t we’ve never shaken hands, but that’s the world we live in. So that was that was really a driving factor.
00:03:31:11 – 00:03:38:22
Daniel Ramsey
That’s cool. And why what about this think tank, a mastermind group like what was the brainchild and and reasoning around that?
00:03:39:06 – 00:04:01:01
Edmund Bogen
Sure. The name of the group is called Reign Nation. It stands for Real Estate Information Group Network. That may or may not be a good name. But what we really do with it is every Wednesday morning, from 9 to 930, that’s Eastern Time. I have I can’t tell you Paul’s we’ve been top Douglas Elliman agents in New York City.
00:04:01:06 – 00:04:27:24
Edmund Bogen
Raffi Bass, top Douglas Elliman agent in Aspen top agents both Elliman and non. And in California, Connecticut, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., we’ve got someone new from Chicago. I want to stress it doesn’t have to be an element person. And we get together and we talk about whatever topic will come up for the week. It might be how to manage weeds, might be what to do with your sphere of influence.
00:04:27:24 – 00:04:53:09
Edmund Bogen
It might be dealing with difficult clients. I’m sure we’re going to do something now about the coronavirus and like, what are we doing in the wake of a financial collapse or a possible collapse? How do you actually grow? And I found that I’ve given in the last three years about $25 million in referrals out. Many others have given millions and millions of dollars of referrals out.
00:04:53:10 – 00:05:13:03
Edmund Bogen
So from a business growth standpoint, it’s been great. Yeah, but also from a knowledge base, it’s been even more important. It’s this is my coaching session and it’s, it’s low cost and it’s in fact free and people are really, really loving it. So, you know, that’s that’s been a big factor to my business.
00:05:13:14 – 00:05:37:14
Daniel Ramsey
In all three of those are marketing like they’re marketing vehicles for your business. You drive revenue into it into it like let’s let’s break that down because you you have a virtual assistant and you’re doing these unique kind of marketing things that I basically I’ve never heard of anybody doing those three different things together to drive revenue. So how has it helped you?
00:05:37:14 – 00:05:39:21
Daniel Ramsey
Like what have you? What is it done for your business?
00:05:39:24 – 00:06:04:01
Edmund Bogen
Well, my virtual assistant works from Tuesdays to Saturdays. That was the other thing I really loved about my desk. I was able to schedule a time that work for me, you know, at 10 a.m., not 9 a.m., which is even great. So he works from 10 to 7 with some lunchtime and tomorrow he will automatically without me saying, prepare my weekly email newsletter to my spirit influence.
00:06:04:13 – 00:06:27:24
Edmund Bogen
I might so I googled, so I won and everyone else. Yeah he will research interesting articles about real estate online and put into that format for me. He will follow up with people who came to my cocktail party and sensor emails and invites for future cocktail events. I just rented the ballroom here at my country club and had a big presentation.
00:06:27:24 – 00:06:52:08
Edmund Bogen
He was a driving factor in getting that room filled up. So what I do clearly is in sync with what what your company is delivering. And just by the sheer exposure, the phone rings. Last night I got an Instagram message. Hey, Ed, how are sales in St Andrew’s Country Club where I live? Well, this is someone who hasn’t heard from in a year.
00:06:52:08 – 00:07:09:10
Edmund Bogen
Yep. You know, let’s do a little quick painting here. There’s something going on. Why are you thinking about listing? No, my sisters. Okay. I’ve got an appointment now. Well, this is a window house, right? This is something that really it’s not a little bit of money. I mean, maybe to some of the big shots that it was. It’s a lot of money to it.
00:07:09:23 – 00:07:31:13
Edmund Bogen
So, yeah, and that was clearly a social media driven person. The biggest deal I did last year was for 5 million. And, you know, the the guy who gave me I’m friendly with him, but we’re not best friends. And he said, How could I possibly forget you? Well, what is really saying is that he’s seeing all the material that I’m putting out there.
00:07:31:13 – 00:07:32:05
Edmund Bogen
So it’s working.
00:07:32:22 – 00:07:48:12
Daniel Ramsey
I love it. What what are you using your virtual assistant to help in that I’m get I know you have a big social media kind of following you do a lot of are you doing a lot of videos and kind of posts about your community or what’s what is your social media look like?
00:07:48:22 – 00:08:12:09
Edmund Bogen
That’s next. You see everyone’s hearing this before or is hearing it. There is more videos. One thing that I used to do which I’m going to start again, you interview a prominent member of the community, for example, is a man here. I interviewed him. He’s in his mid nineties. He was President Eisenhower’s speechwriter. How amazing is that? That’s interesting.
00:08:12:09 – 00:08:33:00
Edmund Bogen
Guide what a knowledge base to tap into. That’s worthy of a video that’s worthy of people in my community just saying, wow, and I don’t have to say the word real estate. I don’t have to say the word sales. I just have to show up. I have to be associated with that. And that’s what I want to impress upon everyone that people love to buy, but they hate to be sold.
00:08:33:09 – 00:08:42:09
Edmund Bogen
Yeah. So let’s, let’s get yourself set up for the layup. I don’t want you to make the long dunk. I want you to make a layup. I want you to be right there. Ready to take a shot. Mm hmm.
00:08:42:14 – 00:09:05:24
Daniel Ramsey
Well, I mean, I’m curious, what’s your ratio to like like calls the action inside of your stuff where you say, hey, you know, I’ll do a shameless plug. We just wrote a book, and if you want to get it, we’re going to give it away for free. In this video, what’s your ratio of providing value to doing a call to action for what you do, which is sell real estate in South Florida?
00:09:06:10 – 00:09:31:07
Edmund Bogen
Sure. I, I it’s a good question. I need to kind of break down the the numbers on that. I have an Instagram story on my Instagram page, Edmond Bogan, Eddie Mundy, Bio Gene. Every day it’s called Make You Smarter. My podcast is called Making a Smarter Agent. I always say if you want to buy or sell real estate in South Florida, my numbers right below make it a great and safe day.
00:09:32:10 – 00:09:50:00
Edmund Bogen
So if that’s a call, if that’s what you mean by call to action, then yes, a lot. As far as the type of call to action where I say, look at this beautiful home, I could sell a beautiful home. If you have a beautiful home, call me with your beautiful home. That’s just not me. I’m not saying that it’s wrong.
00:09:50:00 – 00:10:10:22
Edmund Bogen
I’m you know, one of the beautiful things about real estate, you can talk to ten different people who made their millions in ten different ways. Right. All about how you’re comfortable connecting with people. And that’s what we’ve spoken before. I believe that I at the heart of it, I’m a marketing guy who happens to have his own real estate business as the only client.
00:10:11:07 – 00:10:13:18
Edmund Bogen
I don’t really look at myself as the real estate guy.
00:10:14:04 – 00:10:34:11
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah. What’s the hardest thing about building out these three different kind of lead generation systems, the events or cocktail parties, the mastermind and the podcast? What’s what do you think if an agent is listening and they want to kind of, you know, decide to do one of these three things, what’s some of the challenges that you’ve you’ve overcome?
00:10:34:11 – 00:10:35:20
Daniel Ramsey
In order to put those things on.
00:10:36:01 – 00:10:57:22
Edmund Bogen
You got to get out of your head. It’s going to rain in 25 years of doing. I’m 50 I’ll be 52 in May. So it’s literally been 20, almost 27 years that I’ve been having cocktails. If you count roughly at least three a year to be conservative, that’s 75 events. Okay. That’s a lot of of things that have gone on for the sole purpose of this.
00:10:58:05 – 00:11:16:15
Edmund Bogen
And in those 75 billion days, it’s going to rain. It’s going to there’s going to be there’s going to be a virus. There’s going to be something that’s going to come up that’s going to stop people from from coming over there. But but here’s the good news. The marketing began when people got invited, not one. They showed up to the event right there on the list.
00:11:16:15 – 00:11:36:10
Edmund Bogen
They will call me back as they’re calling me to sell me something or really calling me to invite me somewhere. Mm hmm. It’s worth calling them back if five people show up. I’ve gotten more opportunity out of the smaller events than I have off the big ones. And as far as my podcast go, I may very well get more out of a relationship with you than somebody watching.
00:11:36:10 – 00:11:47:04
Edmund Bogen
I mean, I hope I can build the relationship and help anyone and I hope I could get some. But sometimes it’s just if you really break it down to what’s more, you could really win a lot more.
00:11:47:16 – 00:12:08:19
Daniel Ramsey
One thing I was curious about as you were talking about your sphere of influence and gold and one I know that this is your list of 500 folks. How do you treat your gold this differently than sphere of influence? One, and why did you choose those names, by the way? They’re funny names. I don’t I’m not sure why, but I love I love that you’ve designated those differences.
00:12:08:19 – 00:12:10:16
Daniel Ramsey
Maybe you could explain that to the audience.
00:12:11:10 – 00:12:45:06
Edmund Bogen
Well, again, it was more psychological sphere of influence that I didn’t make that up. So so I people are used to it. And I thought, okay, would you do X, Y one and then y two? But that doesn’t really get to didn’t feel right. These two still really important people. Yeah, just slightly under the goal. So you know if someone’s bought and sold the home with me particularly more than once so I gold I mean they’re they’re going to be someone if they give me leads if they try there’s people that have paid me nothing but this one woman, she’s 84 years old.
00:12:45:06 – 00:13:02:22
Edmund Bogen
I adore her. She lives in my community. She always calls me up and says, oh, my God means they’re going to be moving. You need to call them. And it’s almost always listed with somebody else. But she’s thinking of me, so she’s just a white gold. I mean, she she she wants she’s part of your the people that really want to make you win.
00:13:03:07 – 00:13:21:17
Edmund Bogen
Yeah. Your spouse, your your father, your mother, your, you know, the clients that you’ve sold to. What are you doing to maintain relationships with these people? So I gold I definitely want to reach out to them like five or six times a year by phone. I want to speak to them. I don’t want to just leave a message.
00:13:21:17 – 00:13:44:11
Edmund Bogen
I want to speak to them. I want to take them for lunch. I want to make sure they get a personalized invite to my cocktail. I want to be able to get them to some of my not only parties, but conferences I put on. Or I have webinars as well we haven’t discussed. I’m working on getting Israel’s top expert on Iraq to do a webinar from Tel Aviv.
00:13:44:11 – 00:13:56:20
Edmund Bogen
If I could do it on the same platform that we’re using here, right? People in my community care about that stuff. Notice I’m not saying buy real estate. There is the call to action. They know that it does. I run into them at the gym. There’s opportunity.
00:13:57:03 – 00:14:09:12
Daniel Ramsey
Right? Right. This is all of your podcast, webinars, events. It’s is always centered around content or adding value to to your people and not real estate sales.
00:14:10:02 – 00:14:26:04
Edmund Bogen
It’s always, always. I think that, you know, if you look at the content is I mean, sure, have I done a Facebook Live at an open house? Of course I have. Yeah. That’s just what know.
00:14:27:04 – 00:14:27:23
Daniel Ramsey
That’s what we do.
00:14:28:06 – 00:14:52:23
Edmund Bogen
Yeah. Yeah. But as far as the content is concerned, I’m always trying to get some type of motivational message out there, some type of advice on how to sell, some type of advice on a new tools that might be available. I will I will yelp about you forever, because this has been something that’s been enriching my business. It’s been a good thing.
00:14:52:23 – 00:14:53:13
Edmund Bogen
I think. Yeah.
00:14:54:12 – 00:15:04:20
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah. Well, let’s talk about that. Why? You know, you you you hired a virtual assistant from us. What has been the good value or how has it shifted your business?
00:15:05:12 – 00:15:37:20
Edmund Bogen
Well, you got to take a historical look at it. I’ve been self-employed now since I was 23. I’ve got another business in New York, real estate investment. I you know, I’ve done well, not just New York. I’ve invested in properties in a few different areas. And I, I owned a marketing company in the dotcom days. Yeah. So, you know, I’ve had employees, I’ve had 25 at one point.
00:15:38:16 – 00:16:02:19
Edmund Bogen
Here’s the thing. When you’ve got someone supporting you and your business and there’s always a certain amount of admin stuff, and the last person I had before are a couple of people before him was a lovely young lady. I’m still friends with her and she was sensational. She cost me at least twice as much, probably more. Not to mention that I had to house her in a facility.
00:16:02:19 – 00:16:21:03
Edmund Bogen
I have to pay payroll taxes and insurance. Yep. And you know, there’s this stuff that goes along with that. And now what? While she got engaged and her and her husband are starting a business and we’re still friends. I still like her very much. And I like to joke her and say, Oh, and you have to go and live your life.
00:16:21:23 – 00:16:44:00
Edmund Bogen
But on a very serious note, the next two or three people that I tried to replace with, it just didn’t work out. And it’s just even if you get someone today, the likelihood of keeping them for more than a year, which is every year passes as is faster and faster for me, you know, you need some type of consistency.
00:16:44:13 – 00:16:49:05
Edmund Bogen
My out just can’t do everything. They can’t run down the street and get a sandwich, but they could order it.
00:16:50:10 – 00:16:53:05
Daniel Ramsey
And they could have it delivered and they could have it delivered and.
00:16:53:05 – 00:17:13:07
Edmund Bogen
They can be so abundantly cautious with everything that you have my credit card numbers, which he has, which he doesn’t want to have, by the way, you know, he really doesn’t. But he will be abundantly cautious, more so than I’ve had with their American counterparts. And I could just tell you, dollar for dollar, it’s a no brainer.
00:17:13:17 – 00:17:21:05
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah. What are what are some of the best tasks that you’ve had him do that you’re like, oh thank goodness for our a my virtual assistant.
00:17:21:14 – 00:17:53:07
Edmund Bogen
Sure. I think the most probably most most well defined is the weekly email that he puts out for me. Yep. It’s also getting on to LinkedIn and strategically inviting and commenting on certain people that I want to be associated with, namely people within Douglas Elliman real estate, my company. Right. I think that I will be in the car as if there’s a real chance listening.
00:17:53:07 – 00:18:12:17
Edmund Bogen
And I know there are. And suddenly the client says, Oh, look over there. I see a lockbox. Why don’t we just go in? Well, you can’t say, well, no, I just can’t go in. Boom, speed dial r.a. He gets right on it. He gets right in touch with them and he gets us in. And I don’t have to think, I just know that it’s just it’s going to get down.
00:18:12:17 – 00:18:28:00
Edmund Bogen
To me, that’s the biggest relief. I just want to make sure that it gets done. Now, this deal with this client today who wants to invest in property and I want to invest with them, are is going to do all the comps for me. He’s going to make all the spreadsheets for me. He’s going to take a predetermined formula.
00:18:28:06 – 00:18:50:01
Edmund Bogen
He’s running C docs our document process of all this to the point where I may be able to sell that as a service to other realtors. Sure, I consider that before. But you know, so so yeah, I think the list goes on and on. But it’s peace of mind is everything. You have to sleep at night and you can get that out of somebody like.
00:18:50:01 – 00:18:50:10
Edmund Bogen
All right.
00:18:51:00 – 00:19:08:11
Daniel Ramsey
That’s perfect. All right. Well, Ed, thanks for being here today. You’ve added a lot of value to our audience. I think we want to make sure everybody knows about your think tank and how to get so in the show notes. We’ve got the Facebook group. We’re going to put those in those notes so that you can actually click on them and just go and buy.
00:19:08:11 – 00:19:14:03
Daniel Ramsey
And it’s a free thing. And I know that you would love to have more agents participating.
00:19:14:10 – 00:19:32:19
Edmund Bogen
I love particularly outside of places like New York, California, but even that would be great. And I’d love to connect with you on Instagram admin with you Eddie Mundy Dodge again please find me our friend Joe back and I’d love to get to know you and learn all about your business. That’s terrific.
00:19:33:03 – 00:19:36:09
Daniel Ramsey
There you go. All right, Ed, thanks again for being here today. It’s been awesome.
00:19:36:09 – 00:19:38:21
Edmund Bogen
Thank you.
