Nathan Daniel: 0:00
Hey everybody, it's Nathan Daniel and welcome back to the broker broker real estate podcast. Today we are going to be talking a little bit a little bit about how to embrace the local culture, in your city into your branding. And I'm excited about that. So let me cue up the music. And I'll introduce you to our guests. Alright, so we have today with us Laura Dahl from Music City Experts. Laura, welcome to the show.

Laura Dahl: 0:47
Thanks so much for having me.

Nathan Daniel: 0:49
Yeah, I'm excited to have you here. We were introduced by a mutual friend of ours, Miss Jen Henry, shout out to miss Jen Henry. And she was telling me you've done something very unique with your branding and all that stuff. So could you tell us a little bit about your backstory, and all about Music City experts.

Laura Dahl: 1:10
So I've been in real estate about 21 years, I grew up in Virginia, daughter of a realtor used to sit around the dining room table, rolling my eyes anytime my mom wanted to talk about real estate and now fast forward and I do the same thing to my children and they roll their eyes at me. So lived in Virginia, became a broker had a pretty successful business, but was married to a military man. And he moved us to South Carolina. And so I moved to South Carolina opened up my first brokerage in a place I'd never been never visited, didn't know a single soul. And of course, that was 2008, which is the perfect time to open a brokerage in our economy at the time. And I sold that company in 2010 to the largest Coldwell Banker franchise in the low country, and really learned how to be hyper specific in my branding. When I moved to Buford, South Carolina, I really capitalized on that was kind of like the key to my success, was capitalizing on how to roll into town, not knowing anybody and come in with a big bang, with just badass marketing and attention getting, but super hyper local to the community that I was serving. And then I moved to Nashville in 2010. And I worked on some really big teams and for some other companies, and I was doing a lot of training and coaching for them and realized I've been building everybody else's business for the last five years. And I've done this before for myself. So I think it's time that I probably just do that again. And so I opened up Music City experts in 2017, we started out with probably four or five agents, we grew quickly to 25. By the end, that was October, we created 25, by the end of 2017 52, by the end of 18. And we're sitting at about 75 this year. And again, when I created Music City experts, I really wanted to think about what I wanted my logo to look like I want to think about playing on the Music City theme of Nashville, and what I could do to stand out among the competition,

Nathan Daniel: 3:27
Let's talk like, thank you for sharing all that. I'm really excited to jump into this because it sounds fun, you're going into a local market. And I love what you said I roll into the town and make a big bang. So can we dissect that a little bit? Sure. How do you do that? So what I mean if you want to take Nashville right, that's, that's where you're at now. So let's can we dissect that process?

Laura Dahl: 3:50
Sure. So like as an example for us, obviously, our company name is Music City experts in Nashville is known as Music City, like a lot of towns have a moniker like that. But when I was creating the logo for our company, I created a guitar pick. So our cards are actually in the shape of a guitar, pick their die cut cards, our signs are in the shape of a guitar pick. And you'll see that throughout our branding, but it was really playing on the love for music that this town has is playing on. You know how connected musicians are in this town of all different genres of music. And for me, it was about standing out among the competition, having something that looked completely different and unique as a conversation starter, even right down to that business card when you give it to somebody that it doesn't look like everybody else's card right down from the shape that plays into the music part. So

Nathan Daniel: 4:43
okay, so going into a town that has a clear a clear theme, obviously music that played a lot into and it's probably very recognizable. And I what I'm going to do actually in the show notes is put a link to your website so everybody can see that because I'd love to showcase what that looks Like and so that they can get ahold of you as well if they want to any referrals. They're in the Nashville area, but it's saying I'm not in a city like I'm, I'm a broker I'm in, you know, an area where there's maybe not just a huge music presence, but I still want to do something similar. Right. Talk to us about how we do that.

Laura Dahl: 5:19
I think the reality is it doesn't have to be something super popular that the whole country knows that you're known for. I think it is really about embracing. Even in little small town culture. There's something that stands out or is unique about the small town culture in which you live. So for example, we can go back to Buford as an example in South Carolina that is a shrimping town, second home resort property area. I could have made a run or play on shrimp in Buford because Forrest Gump was filmed there. And Bubba Gump shrimp company is, you know, known from you know, from the movie Forrest Gump. But you could take something small like that, that even is just a monument that's well known or a park that's well known or an area of town that's the most populous or exciting, and really run a theme, with a branding and marketing off of that whatever that small little thing is, if your town is down for crabcakes, you know, maybe you are, you know, crabbing King, realtors, or whatever it is, it doesn't matter. I'm just giving examples. But you know, even in the town, like Asheville, for example, so Asheville is known for the mountains, but it's also known for breweries, right? So maybe you want to appeal to the people who come to Asheville, for breweries, and you might be able to tie in your marketing in some way, shape or form into the brewing, brewing industry.

Nathan Daniel: 6:45
Okay, so you have to know your town a little bit. So doing some market research, identifying the culture of the community, because ultimately, you're going to want to attract the people in that community. Right. knowing your audience.

Laura Dahl: 7:00
Yeah, definitely. I was really playing for me though. I've worked in three markets, but two of those were heavily relocation, heavy area. So people were coming to Nashville, people were coming to Buford, that I was trying to capitalize on relocation business, really. So people who didn't know the town as much, but if they read all the tour guides, and all the things to do and the things that come up over and over again, in the chamber of commerce literature, they would know that this is uniquely this particular area.

Nathan Daniel: 7:34
I love what you've done. I like I love embracing the culture. It's very recognizable. And it does, it's a little fun. Right. And I love that you just talked about Forrest Gump. And, you know, I could see shrimp realty or something like that popping up. And that, like that would be cool. Right? Yeah. And just having fun with it. And I think that's the great thing about if you're starting your own brokerage, or branding or anything like that, like, it's gotta be fun for you. Like, you've got to wake up every day be excited about it. Right,

Laura Dahl: 8:02
Right. And I actually drew my logo out on a bar napkin at a bar knew exactly what I wanted and had somebody more professional make it look pretty, but I definitely think it has to be fun. When I give one of our cards to somebody, because it is a die cut card in the shape of a guitar pick. It's a conversation starter. It's a piece that they go, Oh, wow, this is really cool. We even have branded guitar picks, we gave Jen one. When she was here actually, for our business planning workshop, we actually have actual guitar picks that we give to people. And that's also just a part of our brand. That is actually just a topic of conversation, that it's unique. And it sets us apart from some of the other people.

Nathan Daniel: 8:45
Yeah, well, that's really cool. Well, I want to transition a little bit now because, you know, you you're you're bringing awareness in your local market around your brand will naturally obviously you've attracted a ton of talent to your organization. And you do that in a very strategic way. Right?

Laura Dahl: 9:05
Correct. Yeah. Well, it's probably not that unique to most places. But for me, it's probably one of the most important things that I think helps us attract and retain really good quality agents. And we have five calendar events a month. But those events are very specifically designed for camaraderie for you know, basically just networking and to get to know your agents. You and I talked a little bit once before about just where the industry is moving, and how so many companies are trying this online model where they're giving up their brick and mortar offices as a way to cut overhead which I understand but I still believe and I know for a fact that agents are still hungry for interaction. They are still hungry for convenience. kinship for feeding off of other successful agents. And so a lot of the events that we have each month are geared towards showing up and actually being present with each other not in a virtual room.

Nathan Daniel: 10:12
So well and it, what it forces you to get dressed, right? To put clothes on, all of a sudden, like he made you feel a little different like, right, and getting around a community, right of people that are in a very similar mindset. Obviously, the same culture is really cool. And you were sharing with me one of these events, and I love this. Can you tell me about the tour bus?

Laura Dahl: 10:37
Yes. So I hire a 40 passenger tour bus, like a charter bus. And we invite agents from all other companies all over town, we promise not to recruit them on the bus or anything like that, but and then I choose listings in a variety of price ranges in one particular area of town. So each month, we focus on a different area in our city. And I choose listings in a variety of price ranges that give an insight as to what you can buy for the money, various builders that exist. And then the people who come on the buster, we spend the day touring houses, we provide them free lunch, and they get to network with other agents from other companies and get to see what's for sale in an area that they may not be familiar with. I've been featured in the local newspaper for it, I've had investors reach out to me directly and ask for their houses to be featured on the tour. I've had agents who have consistently shown up every month for the last two and a half years that have said when's the next tour? Where are we going to be? It's just been an incredible experience. But what has happened on the bus is I have watched agents actually put deals together on the bus. I've had agents actually tell me that they have secured listings, using this tactic or strategy saying if you list your property with me, I'll get it included on a bus tour with 40 other agents to come by and look at it. And that strategy works. And then getting the listing. And I've had actual buyers say that I saw this listing on your bus tour. And that's why I'm interested in it. So it's just been but it's also a great place for the agents to get to know each other because they're going around looking at houses all day, taking social media pictures and videos, while they're in each one of the listings and they start to get to know each other month after month, the ones that keep coming back. So it's really

Nathan Daniel: 12:26
Well, it reminds me of you know, whenever I was cool. in leadership at an office, we used to do you know, broker tours right here, the caravans, right However, most the time, you know, agents would would pull up and there'd be two, three, maybe four agents in the same car, which was great camaraderie and all that stuff. However, there's like 30-40 cars going out at the same time. And I think this takes it to the next level, right? All of a sudden, there's somebody driving, so you're not having to pay attention to the road and where you're going, you know, you get to focus on the person sitting next to you, right, and having a great conversation, building relationships. I love that that's really good. And you're educating. And it's not about necessarily only your agents, right? It's about the industry as a whole. You're educating agents to know their community better. Yeah, and you do it in a pretty rockin way on a tour bus.

Laura Dahl: 13:22
It's pretty awesome. And then the other part is that you have a captive audience for your vendors who are helping support putting on the event that people are on a bus, they can't get off and check out like they're stuck listening to them if they're coming on the bus with us. But the other thing about the education is you're 100% right? It gives me an opportunity. So in our area, we have what are called HPRs, which are, you know, typically reserved for condo units, like horizontal property regimes, but it's where someone has torn down a building and put two structures on the same lot. And they've established an HPR for that parcel, right? Most agents don't even know what an HPR is. They're all over Nashville. So when we get into a certain area of town where that's very prevalent, and a lot of the listings that we're looking at are HPRs, I take the time to educate these agents who come on the bus, what an HPR is, what the pitfalls that could be existent with them, how they need to advise their clients about purchasing an HPR and what kind of documents they need to be on the lookout for. And several agents who've been in this business. 1516 years have said to me, I'm so grateful that you shared that information. No one's ever told me that and I know I've sold some and I've never told my client what they needed to know about it. So I do think it's a great opportunity for me just to educate some other agents in our industry in our in our area that aren't mine, you know? Yeah.

Nathan Daniel: 14:50
Well, and I know like coming from that level of education and you're pouring into people not asking for anything safe space not recruiting on The bus has that turned into conversations outside of the bus.

Laura Dahl: 15:05
Absolutely, it has been a natural byproduct of the bus. One, I get to spend the day with them. So they are getting to know me. They're getting to chat with me sometimes on the bus, I get to have a talk with them about their business. And they'll ask me questions. And it has been a natural byproduct of the bus tour. I've probably recruited about eight or nine agents from the bus tour over the last year alone. And mostly is because people who have come on the bus tour have said, number one, I've gotten to know you and I like you and trust you. Number two, I've learned a lot from you just in the short period of time that I've been on the bus. So I can't even imagine what you're doing in your office. And then number three, I listening to you say all the things that you provide for your agents, and my brokerage doesn't do any of that. And so I thought it was worth a conversation to come talk with you. And so it has been a natural byproduct. But I do think that there's some hesitation sometimes with other agents that are like, I don't want to come on the bus to work, because I'm afraid that they're gonna be recruiting me. And so I'm very careful about how I behave on the bus tour that I'm going to be me and I'm going to educate you, and I'm going to be a great host for you for the day. But I'm not going to pursue you after that bus tour unless you've given me the window to do that.

Nathan Daniel: 16:21
You know, that's good, that's good. So truly coming from a level of contribution in education, pouring into them, helping them really improve themselves. Right? You gotta love it. Alright, so you mentioned you have five events per month, can you jump into what the other ones look like? So

Laura Dahl: 16:39
we have a team. So team meeting once a month, always the first week of the month, just like most companies a team meeting where we're sharing sales strategies, introducing vendors, celebrating wins. The big thing for me though, is I don't celebrate the person on the highest spot in the leaderboard, I celebrate all wins a brand new agent and just got to first listing. Someone who really struggled to keep a deal together and went the extra mile, I want to recognize that somebody who is brand new, who, you know, made their first listing presentation or buyer presentation, some of them that just I think require some acknowledgement. And then the second week of every month, we do some community service project as an office. So instead of once a year, we've decided we want to do something monthly to give back to our community in which we serve. Sometimes that's donations of items. So like this month, we're collecting Toys for Tots. Last month, we collected food for the food bank, we have served dinner to cancer patients, we have adopted foster teenage boys, and got gift cards. It really ranges month to month on what we give back to that has been a good source of really culture and camaraderie among my agents, when they're serving together and participating together, I feel like they have, they're in a deeper level of relationship with each other than just attending a class together. And then the third week of each month, we do a team social. So that is actually a no agenda, just an opportunity just to hang out. enjoy each other's company that could be at a vineyard, it could be at a Titans game. It could be a rooftop bar, it could be a sushi making class. We've done all kinds of stuff, just a social little thing. And then we do our bus tour once a month and then we have an agent mastermind as well.

Nathan Daniel: 18:25
Okay. And then. Alright, so this is a lot like there's a lot of events going on. Like, are you the only one planning all of this? Or do you have hell?

Laura Dahl: 18:39
No, I have an amazing team. I have a director of marketing who's kind of my right hand man, even though he his job is marketing, he really helps me keep this company afloat and the operation of it day to day. I also have a director of operations, that helps me schedule keep everything on the calendar help our agents administratively. And then we have a transaction coordinator who's helping support but the three of us or the four of us really together are all meeting probably weekly to discuss our calendar. It is a lot. It is those bus tours by themselves. They take us three weeks put together from selecting listings, securing the bus securing sponsors, promoting and marketing the tour to set up the day of tour ordering lunch and everything. It's three weeks, three weeks worth of planning that we do every single month. So it is a lot of activities going on. But what I found is I came from companies that were 100% model when I moved to Nashville and I'd worked in one before in Virginia. And what I found was that 100% great companies are great platforms for a lot of agents. They make sense for a lot of agents. But what I found was that it was very isolating that there was not a lot of support, camaraderie, interaction, or help like along the way from your college. Eggs, not just your broker, and I, when I was getting my license learn so much from some of the people I've worked with and sat at a desk across from in my office, that some of the strategies I still use today that I teach my agents are things that I picked up from multimillion dollar producers that just happened to sit across from me in the office, because they were willing to talk to me, and pour into me. And so I wanted to make sure that we gave opportunities for agents to interact with each other, to learn from each other, to spill into each other or to even just be motivated by watching what they're doing. So I wanted to make sure we created something so that you don't feel isolated. We certainly don't chastise anybody for not showing up to everything in the COVID world that we're in our office, all of our events now are hybrid, we did have to pause our bus tours for a period of time, because you can't put 40 agents on a bus and straight some through a house. But we pick those back up in January, hopefully, we, but all of our events now are hybrid. So we're doing some in person where people who are more comfortable. Everybody's matched up social distance, whatever. And then the rest of our offices join in via zoom. And everything we do is available in both outlets so that you have people have choices. So it's kind of changed a little bit how we do things.

Nathan Daniel: 21:23
Yeah. Well, that's awesome. I love that you have a great team behind you. Because I can only imagine the amount of work that it takes to prepare these. I know I always love whenever, you know, you have one of these tours scheduled. And you're going to a house and next thing you know it's under contract, so you have to replace it. Yeah, so that's always fun. Well, um, Alright, so we've covered your events. We've talked about the local branding and getting it specific to the culture of the community. And I love that you do one other thing, right? That's kind of on a local level. And you you have a podcast,

Laura Dahl: 22:01
I do have a podcast as well. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Nathan Daniel: 22:05
So tell us a little bit about the podcast. And if somebody wants to tune in. Now, it's a it's a local podcast, right? Based on Nashville.

Laura Dahl: 22:13
It is typically hyper local, based on Nashville, but a lot. It's called broker bites. So, but it is basically a lot of times my content is sharing information for new or experienced agents. That's most of what the content is, I do a lot of coaching and mentoring. I do a lot of one on one coaching with our agents. But the podcast originally was set out to be hyperlocal, with local guests. And but it really morphed into helping agents because I discovered that a lot of people were reaching out to me saying you should do a podcast, you're so good at coaching other agents, that really, you really should be directing your podcast towards helping them in a place where maybe they're not getting that kind of support where they are. And so a lot of times our episodes are talking about, you know, the five top things that you can do to get more business now, or this week's episode that's just released today was on vetting referral partners, and how to choose those properly and questions to ask in order to do that. But I do feature local agents as well. And this is a unique twist is that the one I just recorded this week, is an agent who doesn't even work for me. She works at another company. But she comes to our bus tours. And I met her and fell in love with her. And I really felt like she had something to share with people. And I wanted everyone to get to know what she does. That's different and how she operates. And so we do invite agents from other companies to be a guest on our podcast so they can share what they are and what they do with other people out there. So yeah,

Nathan Daniel: 23:54
yeah. Well, I love that. I love that approach. And I think it ties right back to what you do on your bus tours. You're educating people doesn't matter, necessarily about the brand. And you're showing up and you're being yourself. Right. Yeah. Be you and be real. Right. That's it and I love that.

Laura Dahl: 24:11
I've got to be you, do you for you. So I've

Nathan Daniel: 24:15
never seen that. That is so awesome. So if you're listening to this, she just showed me her wrist and she's got a little tattoo right there. So that's so cool. That's awesome. Yeah, well, um, all right, well, I'm gonna put out all the notes and everything down in the show notes for this episode. So if you want to get in touch with Laura, we've been talking to Laura Dahl with Music City Experts in Nashville, Tennessee. Definitely, definitely, definitely appreciate you coming on the show and sharing this because it's a really cool, unique twist on building culture and community inside of your community.

Laura Dahl: 24:51
Well, thank you, I appreciate what you're doing. The first time I got became a broker, you know, I had to learn on my own and had to come up with strategies on my own of how to grow my company. And now a little bit removed from that. And I love that there's resources like you out there that are helping give ideas to other brokerages about ways that they can pour into their people. And so thank you for sharing what you do to help those who are trying to learn how to be better leaders out there.

Nathan Daniel: 25:17
Absolutely. I appreciate that. Well, Laura, you have a fantastic day.