How The Platform Strategy Works In A Luxury Vacation 2nd Home Market

Ali Shoemaker:  What I like about Platform is that human-- like, just they see you as not just this, "Hey, I wanna sell you a house," you know? People love just the wholesomeness of it. I really liked the ad. I got a really good response on the one talking about raising kids and just raising capable kids. People just really appreciate when it's not all about real estate, and that's what I love about Platform is there's-- You won't find anything else like it.

Tim Chermak: This is The Platform Marketing Show where we interview the most creative and ambitious real estate agents in the country, dissect their local marketing strategy, and get the behind-the-scenes scoop on how they're generating listing leads and warm referrals. We'll dive into the specifics of what marketing campaigns are working for them, how much they're spending on those campaigns, and figure out how they have perfected what we call the Platform Marketing strategy. This is your host, Tim Chermak. I'm the founder and CEO of Platform. I love marketing and I talk too much, so let's dive in.

Tim Chermak: Hey guys, it's Tim Chermak and welcome back to another episode of The Platform Marketing Show. I'm joined today by Ali Shoemaker, who's near Big Bear, California. Ali, welcome to the show.

Ali Shoemaker:  Thank you. I'm pumped to be here.

Tim Chermak: Ali is in a unique type of market, so I think this will be a really encouraging and interesting episode for those of you who are in a non-traditional market. Ali sells a lot of luxury homes, second homes, vacation homes near Big Bear Lake in California, so it's not your stereotypical American, Midwestern town where homes are $300,000 and all the middle class can afford a home. This is kind of a luxury, interesting niche market that Ali is in. And so, understandably, when you started the Platform strategy, you're having all these questions of like, "Is this gonna work in my market 'cause my market is different from all these other markets?" 

Tim Chermak: And then to tee this up too, I'll let you share more of your backstory, but I know that you were on a team prior to joining Platform. And so there was also this question lingering of like, “Is this gonna work fast enough or is it gonna work at all if I was previously on a team? I didn't really have my own personal brand. The team got all the branding.” So I know that these were all variables of why you decided to give the Platform strategy a shot. So, Ali, I'll let you introduce actually where your business is at this year and give us some context of what did your business look like two or three years ago when you were on the team versus where are things trending right now since you've started Platform.

Ali Shoemaker:  Yeah. So do you want me to share a little bit about how I landed with Platform and kind of--

Tim Chermak: Sure. Yeah, sure. 

Ali Shoemaker:  It was very serendipitous, I'll say, because I was kind of getting to the point where I was seeing this trend in my business, where I was doing a lot. More of my sphere was more of my business rather than the leads that were coming on. I mean, in the first five years of my business, obviously that was mostly generated by the team, but I was really seeing that I was generating a lot of my business.  I mean, of course you're like, "I'm gonna go out on my own, but I've never done this lead gen thing. What am I gonna do?" I just kept telling myself like, I just know that something is just gonna speak to me. It's just gonna come to me and it's gonna be the right thing. 

Ali Shoemaker: I was on Facebook one day, and I'm a part of all of those different real estate groups, and someone said, "If you could do one thing for your business, what would you do?" I think it was probably one of those things where everybody went and it was like, “Platform, Platform, Platform.” I looked at it and I was like, what is this? Ended up scheduling a call with Diana and she broke everything down for me. I was like, okay, I'm giving this a year and if I'm able to really succeed with this on my own then I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna finally do it. 

Ali Shoemaker:  So it definitely took a little bit longer for me. I started in August of 2023 and I'm really starting to see, I mean, a drastic change in my business, a lot of it, from Platform now, especially this year. So typically, starting in, I would say, 2020, my volume would range anywhere between about $15 million, $20 million and this year–

Tim Chermak: However, at that point you were on a team, right? 

Ali Shoemaker: I was on a team, yes. Yeah, and so that's why my numbers– I mean, I've listened to a few of them and they're, you know, like– Chantal, I listened to hers 'cause her and I had a conversation when she first joined and hers has obviously tripled, but mine, a lot of my– Obviously, that income was due to leads that were being generated for me.

Tim Chermak: Right, so you're a split on those leads and you're on a team, can start at 50-50. 

Ali Shoemaker: 50-50, yeah. 

Tim Chermak: Yeah, so even if you were selling $15 million or even $20 million on a team, you have to translate that of like, well, and of those deals, you probably made half of what you would normally be making.

Ali Shoemaker: Oh, yeah. Well, and also too, I mean, we had a rule too on the team where, if any like– it was where the lead generated from or its original generation. So say I had a client come back to me, I've been in the business 12 years. Say I had had a client come back to me after six years, I still had to pay that 50-50 split if I was in that range at the time.

Tim Chermak: Yeah, so you were kind of at the point in your career where you're like, “Alright, I'm selling $15 million, $20 million a year. I think I've got the hang of this. Maybe I don't need to be on this team anymore,” but then the big question becomes they're feeding you a lot of leads every year and you are starting to do more of your database and everything but they're still this guaranteed stream of leads being on a team. And so when you go out on your own, you're taking this gamble of like, can I replace that stream of business on my own? 'Cause if you can, it's a really smart gamble. If you're making 90% to 100% on every deal versus making 50%, obviously that really changes the math not being on that split with a team.

Ali Shoemaker: I mean, I would look at my numbers and it would be like two years in a row post-COVID, I was like, okay, you would've either made the same or more. And then I would just be like, one more year. It was a 100% Platform that gave me– To be honest with you, I don't find myself to not be a confident person, but I really lacked confidence in going out on my own. I really was intimidated by it. I'll tell you that a majority of the big dogs up here, I would go to say that the top five selling teams, 'cause most of the bigger agents up here are teams, first of all, they're 95% male but they're also average probably 55 to 60 years old. And so I was thinking to myself like, how am I going to step into a listing appointment with these people that have been doing this forever? I just really felt intimidated by having to compete with that. 

Ali Shoemaker: I mean, for the first five, probably seven years of my career, I was a buyer's agent. Like, I was a buyer's agent. But I was really confident in being a buyer's agent. I'm like, if I could just figure out how to be a listing agent, have the same confidence walking up to buyers, no problem. Ask me anything, I know what I'm talking about, but it definitely took some time with the listing side. And I knew that when I was going out on my own, that was gonna be a majority of what I was doing, which is what? Today. 

Tim Chermak: Did it take courage to sign up for Platform in that moment or was it more of once you signed up for Platform, it gave you courage to go on listing appointments because you knew that you actually had a different marketing plan than other realtors? 

Ali Shoemaker: Yeah, for sure. I don't think immediately. It took probably six months. I would say probably about six months for me to say like, “Hey, go look at my content.” It was definitely pretty immediate that I was getting calls from other agents like, “Hey, what are you doing?” Because I mean, like I mentioned, there's a lot of old dogs. That was another huge reason where I was like, this is a huge opportunity for me to be the IT person when all of these people retire at the same time 'cause that's what's gonna happen, right? I mean, I'm looking at all these top teams. I'm like, you know. Even our team lead, which is a huge reason why I also decided to leave, he moved to Utah to semi-retire. And so I was like, “Hey, you better get out there and brand yourself because if you don't, when everybody retires, you're gonna keep trying to catch up.”

Tim Chermak: I mean, in real estate, at the end of the day, the only thing you really have long term is your personal brand. 

Ali Shoemaker: 100%.

Tim Chermak: That's everything.

Ali Shoemaker: Yeah, and I was such a huge part of his brand for so long and totally proud of that. I mean, literally had the best real estate coach ever, would never discount that, but it was just one of those things where you're like, okay, it served its purpose, right? .

Tim Chermak: Yeah, for sure. So you signed up in 2023 several years ago. It took a while to feel like it was working. Looking back now, what ads– I kind of have a two part question here. First, what ads do you think have been the most effective in helping you build your brand in your area? And then second, where are you anticipating your business will be at this year in terms of sales volume at the current pace you're going, keeping in mind that you're no longer on the teams so you're not on a 50-50 split anymore?

Ali Shoemaker: In terms of ads, you know, I run into so many people in town and it's funny. A lot of the people in town– Big Bear’s interesting. We are 100% sure 90% of my clients are second home buyers. There's been some friends and stuff in town that I've represented on primary homes, but a lot– I think that it really just humanize– like what I like about Platform is that human-- like, just they see you as not just this, "Hey, I wanna sell you a house," you know? 

Ali Shoemaker: I really like how– you know, my kids are in a lot of ads. At first, I was a little uneasy about that because you're like, okay, there's however many thousands of people looking at my kids, but people love just the wholesomeness of it. I really liked the ad. I got a really good response on the one talking about raising kids and just raising capable kids. People just really appreciate when it's not all about real estate, and that's what I love about Platform is there's-- You won't find anything else like it. I mean, you know, you know people–

Tim Chermak: Yeah, the ads just feel real.

Ali Shoemaker: They’re 100% real. They feel like they know you. I mean, I see people in the grocery store. It's so funny. My mom, I swear it always happens when my mom's in town too. We'll go to the grocery store, she's like, “This is crazy,” and then she gets all worried, like, “Are you worried?” I'm like, “No, mom. It's fine.” But I think people just feel like– 

Tim Chermak: And you're at the grocery store, you're saying, and people are recognizing you or they're stopping you and saying– 

Ali Shoemaker: Yeah. It's flattering, but it's cool. It's also like this admira– like whenever they see you, it's a, “Oh my gosh,” you know? But I feel like they kind of admire it because– I mean, people I run into, there’s so many people who are like, “Oh my gosh, I always look forward to your posts.” 

Tim Chermak: There's actually some interesting psychology here of why people view you as a celebrity. Even getting down to the evolutionary biology, I guess, of how humans process the world, like our sensory system, historically, any figure that's speaking to people is automatically an important person. So like, you automatically have social status if you're addressing a group of people. I mean, that goes back thousands of years to the time of Jesus, and then hundreds and hundreds or thousands of years before that when you think of Socrates or Plato, Aristotle, Moses, right? I mean, however far you wanna go back in human history, if you're speaking to a crowd, you're speaking to people, automatically then the brain processes that whoever is speaking must be an important person because they're speaking to a group of people. 

Tim Chermak: Just recently in human history in the last, I mean, essentially, actually not even a hundred years, the last like 75 years, we've had TV, right? So anyone on TV, for our entire lives, has automatically, they're a celebrity because you don't see just average people on TV. If you're on TV, you're automatically a celebrity. But social media and newsfeed ads on Facebook or Instagram are literally just in the last 10 years that that's even existed. And so our brains, brains don't evolve every year. It takes hundreds, or I mean actually, thousands of years for the human brain to truly evolve. So the fact that we've only had screens as a society for less than a hundred years and now all of a sudden, you can pop up on someone's screen, the brain, essentially, the human brain has not had enough time to absorb all that so it just automatically views anyone on a screen as being a celebrity and an important person, even if in this case, you're literally just a local realtor in your town. People see you on a screen, and therefore, you're a celebrity. So it's kind of cool when that happens. 

Ali Shoemaker: Oh, it's so cool. I mean, yeah, no, I love it. You know, it's like, even influencers. How many people wouldn't be famous if it weren't for social media, you know? 

Tim Chermak: Absolutely. And so all you're doing is leveraging that and just applying it to your local real estate business. So you said any of these personal ads that kind of just feel wholesome, they feel real in that they don't look like ads. I mean, really, at the end of the day, that's Platform 101 is make ads that don't look like ads. You've been doing that and I know you've had a lot of wins this year. I know you work with Taylor as your account manager at Platform, and Taylor shares a lot of your wins with our team. “Oh, Ali just got another million dollar listing,” or, you know, “Ali got another multimillion dollar listing,” and you can track it back to the social media ads you're doing, which is really cool. 

Ali Shoemaker: Yeah, no, 100%. Well, my biggest win this year, and my biggest Platform win, I mean, like I said, we're mostly second homes but there's some big kind of larger home areas in Big Bear. There's a neighborhood that is, I mean, your minimum is a $1 million listing maybe. Ironically, the team lead that I had left lived about three houses down on the other side of the street from this house and they were best friends. They're still close friends. I would drive by this house as it was being built. I mean, crazy. I'm just like, what? Who is this and why are they building, like– Not why, I mean, it's amazing. Such a beautiful home. The nicest house for sure in the neighborhood. It was one of those things where you're like, “Oh, someone's building this custom for themselves.” I mean, it's on three acres. He has over $500,000 in just landscaping. Pickleball court, putting green, I mean, it is just spectacular. I would always say, gosh, I want to go in that house. I just wanna walk by and be like, “Hey, can I come check out your house?” 

Ali Shoemaker: So, I get this call, oh gosh, it was a few months ago now, from the owners of our franchise. I'm with RE/MAX up here in the area and we're the largest franchise by quite a bit. We have three different offices and I wanna say there's about 75 of us agent-wise, maybe more. The owner called me and said, “I just got a really interesting phone call. There was a seller that is looking– there's a guy who’s looking to sell. He's been blown up by however many realtors because of his house and called the top office and just wants the right fit, like wanted to ask us who we thought was the right fit and so we're gonna give it to you.” We're like, “We know that nobody can get as many eyes on his house like you.” 

Ali Shoemaker: And so I'm like, okay, this is cool, but at the– you know, I'm like, maybe it's about $500,000 house or something. So he gives me the address and I'm pulling it up and the house is new. It was only built a couple years ago so it's actually not populating on the map, and I'm like, oh my gosh, it's the house. So I called him. We had a great conversation. I think his original plan was maybe to interview multiple agents, but I mean, if there's gonna be a listing appointment I'm gonna nail, it's gonna be this one. 

Ali Shoemaker: Went over, I actually sat with him for two and a half hours and they were like, “Yep, it's yours.” It was one of those ones that you could not comp out. I'm like, let's just throw something out there and see what sticks. I'm actually working with a buyer on it who called me directly so we're kind of in negotiation, so hopefully, it would be lovely, might be a double ending situation as well. 

Tim Chermak: What was the listing price on that one? 

Ali Shoemaker: We started at $4.2 million. I did a really big brokers open there and we kind of got price opinions and so we just dropped to $3.8 million and have had pretty steady interest in. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, so it's probably gonna sell somewhere in the mid to upper threes.

Ali Shoemaker: 100%. Probably around $3.5 million. 

Tim Chermak: And you got that listing because you know that the people who recommended you said like, she's really good at social media. 

Ali Shoemaker: They said, “No one is gonna get more eyes on your property than her.” 

Tim Chermak: That's amazing.

Ali Shoemaker: I hired a professional videographer for that one. It might be over 100,000 views. Crazy activity on that. I would run into people in the grocery store, “Oh my god, that house, that house.” And then just to top it off, the neighbor called me two weeks after I had it listed from across the street and saw my video and wanted to list and that's actually going to escrow today. That was a little bit smaller, $1.1 million, but hey, I'll take it. 

Tim Chermak: It was a smaller house at $1.1 million. There's agents listening to this that their market has $250,000 homes, so that'd be four transactions for one. This one was a bit smaller at $1.1 million, but you know, beggars can't be choosers. 

Ali Shoemaker: Yeah, exactly. But I'm thinking to myself like, wow, okay, the potential just from like, if I say it, I end up double ending it and then selling that other one across the street. I mean, that alone for this year would be– It's all because of Platform. 

Tim Chermak: And I know you've had other buyers and listings, etc., that have come from your Facebook ads as well, right, in the last year? 

Ali Shoemaker: Oh, yeah. We have a bunch of little lakefronts, but most lakefronts will start closer to the million dollar range and this one is over on the other side of the lake so a little bit of a tougher market, but they've been listed with three other agents and they called me. I was actually on vacation, met with them when I got back. I kind of sensed. I'm like, they totally saw me on Facebook. I've had a harder time being like, “Where'd you find me?” But they just came out and said it. They're like, “We've been following you on Facebook for over a year now.” 

Ali Shoemaker: You know, we recirculate the listings. I have specifically one that does lakefront homes and they're like, “You're the only one that was promoting our house when it was listed.” I'm like, “Well, I was just putting a list of lakefront homes out there.” But yeah, and that one's $599,000 and that just went live about a week ago. But the great thing about it is they were listed with three agents and they were listed high. I was real with them and was like, “Hey, you ought to get the price down,” and so I think we're kind of now in the ballpark where it'll actually sell. 

Ali Shoemaker: But yeah, no, ever since I've been with Platform, there's been– I mean, we always talk about the fuzzy ROI. I know there's a lot of that, but there's definitely a lot of business that's came from it for sure. And just even the recognition. I would say too, the confidence that it's given me in like, “This is my brand.” Now, I feel very confident in my brand. So confident. When I go to listing appointments, like, “Hey, this is what I offer. Different. Scan my QR code. Go check out my content. You'll see the thousands of views on all of my listing videos.” It's a huge competitive edge. Who else is gonna offer that?

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