Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another SLG meetup. And today I'm very happy to bring with us the person that is considered the most recognized face and voice in real estate. Her name is Glenda Baker and she has amassed almost a million followers on TikTok getting some of these viral videos that got millions of views and she has disrupted the whole real estate industry by going, taking their step forward in marketing and based in Atlanta, Georgia selling some of the most incredible homes. So definitely a personality and super excited to have her here with us today.
Hello. Cheers. Cheers. The most recognized face and voice in real estate.
What a privilege. How are you? I'm so excited to join you today. I have to tell you when I saw your message, I was like, oh, I'm stars.
Did you actually know me? I about passed straight out. So I am thrilled to be here with you today. Oh my God.
Thank you. Thank you. The pleasure is ours. And look, I got to tell you, there's a few people here and there that you come across that are doing something different and they're disrupted, right?
The whole real estate industry such a saturated market. And you're definitely one of those. Like the way that you are carrying yourself, the way that you are branding yourself, I'm branding the properties that you're selling. It's unbelievable.
So for those that don't know much about you, tell us a little bit about who you are and how is it that you are caking the way that the real estate is sold. Oh, my sorry. Well, my name is Glinda Baker. I'm a real estate agent in Atlanta, Georgia.
And I've been doing videos since 2016. I started a very elementary Glinda live when I saw Gary V doing a lot of video and it was terrible. It was awful. It was so bad.
And I would get worked up about stuff and I talk about it from my Porsche and it was called post from the Porsche that was in 2017. And then I was at a conference in 2020 and I heard, I saw a video from a guy who had 43,000 views on a video on TikTok. And I was like, if he can do video, I can do video on TikTok. And so I came back to Atlanta and I looked around for a videographer.
I called one and he said, you know, lady, you can do this from your phone. And I said, you know, that's not really my file. And he goes, okay, this is so much I'm going to charge you. I'll come shoot 12 TikTok videos.
And sure enough, that's how we started. And really it's kind of evolved into something that I've never ever expected. Initially it was sugar and spice, real estate advice for buyers and sellers. And then, you know, he asked me the question because if you were a new agent, what would you do?
And I gave some agent advice and all of a sudden, all of these real estate agents started following me. And a lot of people said, oh, no, no, no, no, they're going to copy you. You do not want that to happen. Don't do that.
And I was like, hmm, maybe they will. But I'm like, even if they can find me because my profile is public, it's not going to block a million real estate agents, right? So I really embraced it. And I will tell you, you know, again, at first I was focused on buyers and sellers and getting buyers and sellers to contact me.
And then when this, this layer of real estate agents started taking an interest in me, it really built my brand. I do the stars on my sweaters. I love star stuff and people started sending me stuff, star stuff. People also started sending me referrals.
They didn't know what brokerage I was with. They didn't care. They'd seen my videos. They knew I would take great care of their clients and started sending me clients.
And so last year, about 30% of our business was agent to agent referrals, specifically from agents that follow me on social media. There's so many people about that, right? That data try and they stop because they don't see results or they're too afraid to get started. You want to hit and hire somebody to help you, to guide you a little bit and just go ahead and do it.
What's your recommendation for anybody that is like in the fence? Well, remember, I started with live video and I was doing Facebook live for God's sake, everybody's a dinosaur. But the thing about it was that I couldn't delete it. It was already out there.
And that was really like where I cut my chops because I would be upset about an inspection. I would be excited about listing and I would put it out there. And it really started getting some legs on it. And so this is the thing.
Video is not about virality and vanity. Like if that's why you're doing video, you know what? You may get lucky, but that's not really why you do video. The reason that I want agents to do video, whether you invest in it and have it done professionally or you just do live video or videos on your social media that you shoot from your phone is that I want you to bring value to the client and visibility to your brand.
Now, I got to ask you, so obviously you didn't achieve millions of followers and views overnight. As we said, it's consistency. You have a clear purpose and that was going to get you going forward. But what's been the hardest thing that you can counter through this journey?
Ooh, okay. So and it's very recent. So the hardest thing and I had to listen to myself. I had to listen to my own advice is that recently I have lost followers, which was kind of weird.
Or my videos haven't had as many views. And this is the first time in this kind of video journey that this has happened to me. And so I immediately went back and looked, okay, what is working? What is not working?
Is your consistency off? Is your message off? Is the way that you're talking about the videos? Is it that lots of people are doing the videos the same way you are?
And I think that that that's one thing that people don't do. They don't audit what they're doing. So the hardest part for me is not to just rest on my laurels. It's not just to just, oh, you know, I'm TikTok famous now.
I don't need to post every day or I don't need to post at eight o'clock every day or, you know, they're going to follow me no matter what. You got to bring value, period. If you are not bringing value, there are plenty of talking heads. And when I say bringing and think about it, you can chat GPT, you can Google anything you want about real estate.
What you can't do with Google or chat GPT is help people understand intimately your market or your experiences or how you have brought value to Bobby and Susie who wrote 10 offers with a different real estate agent and couldn't get anything accepted. And then when they wrote an offer with you, you were able to get it accepted because of the terms and the tactics and the relationship that you had with the agent. And I think that that's what people don't understand is that your knowledge, your value, isn't something that they can find on Google. You are the Google of real estate in your community and you need to take on that persona.
100% and wow, you really nailed it right there. It's so important. And I got to also ask you because I mean, I'm experiencing this to a certain degree. I'm starting to see that and I've been surrounded by a lot of different influencers or people that have a mass, lots of followers.
And when you are able to grow your audience, you're also going to grow certain haters, right? What we call the keyword warriors. I mean, TikTok, I've seen a lot of those. So how do you handle the haters?
Well, typically I pin their comment to the top and let the people eat them up. But you know, this is the thing. I had somebody who was considered an expert on in the financial arena come after one of what I said on one of my videos. And I think that you have to be 100% committed to what you're saying.
You can't phone it in. You can't fake it. You really need to know what you're talking about. So whatever content you put out, number one, you need to stand behind it because you feel like you're right or you need to acknowledge that maybe you didn't have all the facts to make a video that really was accurate.
So you know, when you have, and then again, there's nothing like the invisible user 12856121318, that that person is going to say you're fat, you're under your skin. Oh my God, the keyword warriors, those girls. Yeah, and people are so prepared to be to focus on the negative. And this is the thing, I may have 10 negative comments in 100 comments.
What about the other 90 that are, thank you for inspiring me. Thank you for telling me that story. I've been wanting to get into real estate. I've been wanting to sell my house.
I've been wanting to buy my dream home. Why are you focusing on user number 18121318? Right. Now, we always ask this question, and I'm very curious to know what it's luxury to you.
What is luxury to me? Freedom. The ultimate luxury to me is the ability to do what I want to do when I want to do it. And, you know, if you had asked me five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, the answer would all be different.
But I will tell you, there is nothing more luxurious to me than the freedom to do what I want to do when I want to do it. And in the way, I want to do it, whether that is in a first class seat or taking the day off or taking my kids to the, taking my grandson to the jumpy place, that is the ultimate luxury. Is your freedom to do what you want? Love that.
Love that 100%. Well said. So listen, I want to wrap this up by asking you, what's the biggest lesson that you've learned for all your entire career? And that you can share with the audience.
Sit down and grasp tightly. Don't look back with regret. Look forward with reflection. Number one, what I have learned over my real estate career is that there are many ways to make money in real estate.
It's not just about the commission that you're earning. So me, real estate is not a job. Real estate is my life. I love it.
I would do it for free. I wake up every day in my dream home, getting to work, my dream job. And when I look back, I think about being focused on, you know, Wagner, I sold in five years in five houses, $200,000 worth of houses in 2011. I made $6,000 and I danced down the street with that $6,000.
Wagner on the other hand, in those $200,000 worth of houses, used $46,000 with his money, has had him rented out for the last 12 years and had positive cash flow on all of them. And now those houses are worth $2.1 million. Amazing. Had I bought instead of being so focused on being the real estate agent, I could have bought the $32,000 house that's now worth $300,000 that's rented for $2,000 a month for the last 12 years.
And I didn't think like that. So I want real estate agents. I want buyers and sellers to think about there are more ways to make money in real estate than just buying and selling real estate. Wow.
I love that. Now, Glenda, you're amazing. I'm speechless. You've said so many amazing things today and I'm sure that our listeners will appreciate every single piece of it.
And look, I'm excited to meet with you on Las Vegas and to continue this conversation. But for those that want to connect with you and want to see more about you, what's the best way to connect TikTok, Instagram? Wherever your platform is that you're most comfortable, hashtag Google Glenda. I'm Glenda Baker everywhere, but I have trained Google that you don't even need to put in my last name.
Just put in GLE and NDA and whether you're happy on TikTok or Instagram or LinkedIn or Facebook or YouTube, you can find me. Go find Glenda. She's amazing, valuable content, entertaining and look, you're a personality. I really enjoyed this.
So thanks again. And I look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you so much. I'm honored that you asked me.
Thank you. Bye everybody. And thanks again for everybody tuning in today. We hope you enjoyed it.
And remember, embrace it's beautiful success in life. My name is Alvaro and I'll see you next time.