Welcome to Elevate with Elsner. Join us for inspiring conversations with individuals who have transformed their lives and are making a difference through the work that they do. And now, Just like that, there's a new backdrop. All right, Rusk, I'm coming on here because I want you to comment on all the lighting. I want you to tell me how bad this peel and stick wallpaper job was. He's gonna be angry. He's, you know, at least I got the headphones, the cord through my shirt. It's what it is, Rusk. We're still figuring it out over here at the new area. That's why I don't build studios, right? You build studios. He'll eventually comment on this, but I really wanted to come on here. Talk about one thing and one thing only, and that is showing up. So why did I come on here? Well, I'm going to do another podcast episode. I'll be able to cut this into a podcast episode. And I want to explain to people how Google business profiles work. Okay. So when people go and search our business or they type in Realtor, right? And they're in the vicinity of where we do our business. Guess who comes up? We do. That's because that's all part of the analytics of SEO and your website and all this great stuff. And there's a ton of people out there that are, I mean, experts at this stuff. Absolute experts. They dive into these analytics and blah, blah, blah. I mean, you can go on for days, okay? Now you have ChatGPT coming on. ChatGPT only uses, well, it uses a little bit of Google. It uses a lot of Bing and a lot of Facebook. So that's your brand, right? So what I started to do is I started figuring out like, hey, these people that don't have brands are gonna have to start building brands. So now I have people coming to me saying, hey, Blake, can you help me build my brand? And I'm like, absolutely. Let's go look at this podcast, new studio behind me. I don't even have shelves up yet. That's how true this is. I'm like, let me see where you're at. Let me Google your business. So I Google it and nothing comes up. And I'm like, And I wonder why nobody even knows what you do. And if even if they do, you know, there's maybe one or two links about you. You don't have social media presence either. That is ultimate, ultimate business one on one. And some of these individuals, they're high level, man. You know, you you want to go sign up with some of these these individuals. They're going to bring you way to the top, but they're also going to charge you a lot because they are experts at this SEO stuff and this AI, this new whole new AI, or what do they call it, AGI, there's all this new stuff about basically AI search engine optimization type stuff, but it's all through brand, it's all through Facebook, it's all through Bing, it's all through trained you know, conversation. So right now things are still being trained, right? So that's how people are showing up on ChatGPT and ads like, hey, recommend me to the nearest chiropractor and whoever's been training ChatGPT on Bing and through Facebook, it's gonna pull that person and bring it to the forefront on ChatGPT. It's just only a matter of time before the thing's full of ads. I mean, there's so much money to be made with ChatGPT, it's coming. So that's one thing. But the main thing is I'm helping people show up online. And that's a big part. So when I go, Hey, let's create a Google business profile. Let's automate some things. Let's buy back some of your time. You know, a lot of content I post is actually scheduled out. I there's software to use that you can schedule posts. Like there's a lot of things out there to buy back your time. Some people just don't know how to use them. They don't know where to start. They don't know who to look to. Let me tell you, I have an appraiser that I built his entire Google business profile. I've built his Facebook. Guess what? It doesn't take a lot. He has already gotten leads through his Google business profile, through his Facebook, because people are starting to see his brand. And when that topic or that niche comes up, people go, oh, who do I think of when it comes to appraisers? I think of him. Property valuation. That is how life and things operate. And if you One of the biggest things I just talked about on a story earlier, if you can't solve something for somebody. Please, for the love, do not just send them on their way. You leave them with something they can remember you by, okay? So if somebody comes to me and I cannot solve their problem, I will tell them, hey, X, Y, and Z can solve your problem. Go to him, go to her, and they will take care of you. And that's kind of how Some of these massive brands and businesses, they do that. They're very good at that stuff because they know to stay in their lane. They know, hey, if I give this individual a recommendation now, I guarantee you he remembers that down the road when he actually needs me for something that is in my lane. And guess what? That's exactly what happens. And that's exactly how people stay at the top of the mind, right? Same reason when something clogs or AC goes out or a furnace goes out, I get a lot of phone calls or text messages, hey Blake, our furnace went out. Why? Because I'm top of mind. They know, hey, I will send them in the right direction to get their problem solved. That's bridging the gap, right? That is a solution. So when they actually go to sell their house or they want to go buy another house, they call me. That's usually what happens. Now, some people won't, and that's just the nature of the business. That's sales. You're not going to have every sale. You're not going to, you know, you're not, even your grandma might not use you. You know, she might buy from the neighbor. Guess what? That's just part of life. You're going to get your toes stepped on. It's just, that's just how it is. That's how it works. Unfortunately, we can't, can't have it all. Right. That's just, that's just life. So going back to this Google business stuff, I'm really passionate about building your brand because it really is the main, almost backbone of this future. As we go forward as business owners, if you are not present on Google, if you are not present in the AI world, if you are not present on Facebook, Instagram, any of these metrics that you are not present on, people are not going to know you. The person that is on these platforms and pushing messages out, those are the people you're going to remember. This is why it is so crucial to continue to build your brand. And people are like, well, I'm W2, I'm just a teacher. Well, how do you know one day you're not going to build a business yourself? What if somebody says, hey, can you take over this business for you and you don't even have a brand? But what if you did build your brand? And you go, now I can introduce this version, this other brand or this topic and bring it under my brand umbrella is a perfect storm. So when people say like, Hey, I don't need to work on my brand. I'll never need my brand. I would, I would highly recommend retracting on that statement and thinking about your brand again, because you do. And a lot of people are like, I don't need Facebook. I don't need any of this stuff. Well, you don't you're right. You don't. But at the same time, you kind of do. And in a way, if you're going to have a purpose, I'm not going to say you don't have a purpose in life. But people want to know about the ups, they wanna know about the downs, and people wanna learn from other people's experiences. Why do people have coaches? That's exactly why. Why do I talk to Sebastian Rusk every single day? Because I know he contacts Dan Martell every single day because that's his coach, okay? So I know, guess what? I get his information that's filtered down from Martell into his brain, and then he filters it into me. perfect example why your coach should always have a coach. They should always be learning. And that's where I've aligned myself. And what's interesting about life is you'll find yourself like facing certain levels of just growth. And it's like you almost a joke. It's like you got to face the final boss of every level. It's just like back in the day, you pick up a Game Boy and you play Mario and every level one, you'd have a boss. You beat that boss, it's a little harder. Level two, you go through the level and you beat that boss. You get all the way. What is it? You get the Bowser and you got to beat Bowser. That's kind of like the game of life. Right. But you keep going like there's never there's never an ending spot. You're always going to be learning. And I think that's a purpose of mine is to just. get out and try to help people grow their brands. There's so many great people that do it out there. I see people all day long on Facebook. There's a hefty majority of people that I follow that's pretty much my timeline is only people building their brand. That's all I see now. Because that's just how it schedules out my timeline. It knows what I like, what I want, what I intend to do. And I'm doing that with other people's brands as well. So yeah, that's just one thing. I just wanted to get that out there. If you want to connect with me, send me a message, Instagram, Facebook, text me, call me. Because people are asking like, hey, how do I incorporate AI into my business? Well, let me show you. How do I buy back some of my time? With all this technology out there, because if you're not using AI right now, you are putting yourself way behind, way behind the ball. And like I said, AI is not just for the business owner. I'm going to tell you, that is like one of the massive myths of AI is like, oh, well, I don't have a business, so I don't need AI. Oh, I don't know. Oh my gosh, there's so many things in your life. to where you can figure out. I mean, I'm sitting at a dinner table the other night and I'm like, I don't know anything about wine, right? There's three bottles. How am I supposed to choose, you know, the nicest bottle of wine? Guess what? It's called chat GPT. I take a picture of it and I say, Hey, give me the taste. Give me the profile. Give me the breakdown of these three bottles of wine and, you know, we're at a steakhouse. Which one would you take with, you know, with red meat? Which one would you take to a steakhouse? Which one is the highest price? Which one has this type of flavor? Breaks it down. Guess what? You're like a wine expert now. All because Chachi BT. So there's certain things that you can use it for. You do not have to be a business owner. And that's why I tell people all the time, I'm like, please sit down. I will gladly teach you a i will gladly teach you how. Prompts by back so much of your time whether it's your scheduling i mean your content you're like i said there's so many things recipes i mean people literally sleep on a i am communicating with a i all day long it's strange i know to say hey. Everything i take every note i take goes right in today i because that's how i. That's how I function now. Every thought, every idea, I store in AI because I know it's going to be there. And I have my AI trained to a certain degree to where it knows exactly what I want. It's an assistant. So if you don't use AI, please reach out to me. But first, like I said, you need to be on Google. You need to come up when people search for your business. wouldn't, you know, they search for peel and stick wallpaper. You hope this backdrop doesn't show up, but Russ will, he'll help me. I told him, you know, get your, get your little hiney in town. If you want to redo the studio over here. Okay. I, you know, peel and stick wallpaper is not for the faint of heart. I'll tell you that I'm over here, just like trying to put on the wall as fast as possible. And he's going to be like, Well, that's just you. That's just how you are. No, it's just like, you know, I'm going to put these shelves up to see here, these little shelves. I'm going to put them up here, like right back here. We're building a studio. So like right here, you know, there'll be a couple of shelves, put some, put some things up there, you know, it'll, uh, it'll look good. But anyway. You'll see this over time kind of formulate into something a little nicer than just this little wood framing, peel and stick thing behind me. But yeah, Google Business, don't forget, that's your free leads. Let me tell you what, I build this profile out, this guy's now getting leads through his Google Business. He's going to be top of mind when it comes to Non-lender appraisals. I thought about this the other day. I'm like, how genius was this guy? He came to me. He goes, Hey Blake, help me build my brand so that I can specialize in a certain area of appraisals. wow, how genius. And now guess what? This guy's getting phone calls when people need appraisals that aren't bank related, which is tons of, tons of reasons. So now this guy's, he's light years ahead of every appraiser. This guy's like now going to be the top of mind appraiser when it comes to trust, wills. I mean, anything that, you know, fighting taxes. There's so many other instances where you need an appraiser in your formula. It's just part of life. So if you're not showing up on Google, you're not showing up on AI, you're just, in my opinion, leaving a lot of money on the table. So yeah, that was kind of the biggest thing in a lot of these home services. Title companies, that's another thing. I'm working with title companies. Title companies in general are in a very clouded space. You have to stand out as a title company to build your brand. Like, Hey, I want to close with those guys. I want to close with those guys over there. I don't want, I don't want to go close over there with that boring title company. Right. You got to stand out. It's perfect example. I don't even live down in Miami, but guess what? There's a title company, Coral Gables title and escrow. They push so much content on their title and escrow. I follow it. Why? I don't know because it's cool content, but that just shows you how strong of a brand that like, Hey, if I'm ever in Florida and I know somebody that needs to close down there, be like, Hey, uh, I know an awesome title company. They're cool people. Here you go. That's the power of your brand. You just never know when somebody will call you for your brand. It really. I can't stress it enough to people that even not being in business, you want to still have a brand. People like to do business with people that they know, trust. People like to hang out with people that they know, that they trust, that they can provide value and say, Wow, like I didn't just waste my time with that human. I got to enjoy dinner. I got to have good conversation and actually learn and grow and extract experiences and knowledge from individuals that have made mistakes. So then you can program that into your brain so that when that situation arises, you don't make that same mistake. that is the power of learning. And I am all for it, all for learning. And for the rest of my life, I'll be learning. I mean, there's only a few guarantees in life and it's what death taxes and concrete will crack. I think those are the three guarantees. That's another thing, right? People are like, why do you talk about like, like dying. Well, at the same part, I like to tell myself like, hey, you woke up another day. You're here. You get to live. You get to breathe. You get to be on this earth when you had the smallest little chance of being here in the first place. And on top of that, in one of the probably the greatest country in the world, I would have to say, I don't think there's a place where I'd rather be than right here. Being able to go live, being able to talk about my message, being able to say whatever I want and not have anybody say, hey, you can't do that. That is the power of just this being alive, like go out there and show somebody like, hey, I messed this up. Perfect example, guy came out on Instagram today. He's a, he's a huge coach. He comes out, he goes, you know what, I'm going to put my ego aside. And he, he just dropped an absolute raw, real testimony about how 2024 was inside the real estate industry. It was difficult. Some people don't like to say that because it looks like, hey, you're, you're weak. No, no, no, no. That's raw. You gotta be, there's a difference between weak and raw. Okay. That is massive. When somebody can just put their ego aside and come out and just say, yeah, we, you know, I screwed up. I did this because guess what? I got to listen to that and learn every mistake that that individual made that now I can hopefully one day, if that situation arises, I don't make that same mistake. Right. That is such massive. valuable information that that human decided to let down his guard and share with. Now, when I go, hey, who do I think of? That's what I'm going to think of. Like, that is powerful, powerful stuff. I know I'm kind of bouncing all over the place. This entire recording will be you'll be able to hear it, hear it again. But yeah, it's just one of those things that I am very passionate about building your brand. And if anybody, I'm telling you, anybody wants to build their brand, much less get on a podcast, podcast is cruised over. It gets almost up to like 20 countries and it's not like I'm like, wow, that's so awesome. Like I'm the coolest person because I have 20. No, no, no, no. I'm doing that because I want to show people like, hey, if you come on this platform, you're going to be heard. I mean, I tell myself this now, like. I'm like saying stuff. And sometimes you got to watch like what you say, because you're on a bigger stage. It's, it's no different that if I say something, you know, the city of Crestwood, I'm like, Hey, we need to trim, trim, trim some trees. A lot of times they listen, like people who are outspoken, who point out certain things that need to change or aren't in the proper place. Those are the people that make things move. And it's not in a way that is arrogant. It's just, you need those types of people. Just like you need you know, other types of individuals in this world as well. So I, I'm not knocking anybody. I'm not saying, Hey, pick up a microphone. I'm not saying, Hey, go start Facebook immediately. Or if you don't, if you're not on Facebook, obviously you're listening to this. You probably are on Facebook or you probably are just like this. I'm able to pick up a microphone. I'm live on Instagram. I'm alive on LinkedIn. I'm live on. uh, Facebook. Um, and I also love going live because guess what? There's no turning around. I'm here. You got me a raw version of me. I picked up the mic. You looked at the new peel and stick, you know, wallpaper back here. You're like, this guy, this guy is still working on some things. And I am always working on things. Let me tell you, it looks, looks like I might have it together, but I don't, let me tell you. And that's why I like to talk. I like to come forth and really Talk about brand and talk about your awareness because that's what it's all about. So as you can see, I mean, even my Stanley is branded. I got a sticker. These are Stan, Elevate with Elsner Stanleys. I got an Elevate with Elsner Oala cup that I send to school with my kid. Why do I do that? Cause I'm always branding myself. I got my hat. It's rare that you're going to see me out, not branding myself in some way, shape or form. I'm not, I don't have a hat on a shirt on something, a sticker. You're always going to see me showcasing, whether it's Elevate with Elsner, Elsner real estate, you're always going to see me showcasing a brand. And that's the biggest thing is how I bring about the brand. Because when I, want people to think of my services, when I want people to use me for certain things, I want people to think of me like that. And the only way to do that is to continue to stay top of mind. There are certain people, like I said, they do it very well. When you think of lender, you think of this person. When you think of title company, you think of this title company. When you think of real estate, what you want though, is you want people to think of you outside of your industry. Inside your industry, but outside your specific niche. So just like I say when, hey, I'm in the real estate industry, but somebody calls me when the furnace runs out, that's what I like to hear because they're thinking of me constantly. That's a communication string right there that one day down the future, if they need my service, they're going to call me. If they call me for a furnace recommendation, they're probably going to call me for their home sale or their next home purchase, whatever it might be. That's the power of helping people. Some might not. You can give people all the valuable resources in the world. You could give them contact after contact and they will go and F you. And that's just part of life. There's reasons why people don't want to use you in sales. That's just their own reasoning. And you're just going to have to deal with that. And that's just life. And you move on. You go get the next one and the next one. You always got to chase, man. And not in a bad way. It's just that sales. You are... You hunt. You got to hunt all day long, pretty much. I mean, you can't stop. Weekends, weekdays. You are constantly building your network. You're constantly building your sphere. You're constantly doing something to advance your brand. So if you're not on Google, if you're not, if I can't Google you and find you, if I can't find you on Facebook, if you don't have a business, that's all right. But I'm going to tell you, you're going to, you never know what life holds. You always want to have a brand. And that is big. McChesney does a great job, builders of authority. It's all the guy does. He builds brands and websites. I mean, the guy is spectacular at what he does. And that's what you want to become one day, but you have to get through levels of individuals to get to that level. Like it's, it's not just an overnight thing. You have to work with numerous people. You have to invest your time, your effort. into building this so that it can grow and grow. And I'll tell you, while you're still young, you could start building your brand tomorrow at the age of 65. It doesn't matter. There's never a bad time to start building your brand, right? Sitting here at 33, I know I've been building my brand. When I'm 43 in 10 years and I continue to build my brand like this, just think how valuable that will be. And you can do the same exact thing. Just let me know and I'll help you. All right, any questions, comments, concerns? You know where to find me. After Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review and tell your