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How to Build a Real Estate Referral Machine Using Facebook Groups
•Kim Hughes•Episode 165
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Struggling to stay top of mind with past clients once the transaction closes? You aren't alone. Many real estate agents find it challenging to maintain meaningful connections and deliver ongoing value long after the keys are handed over.
In this episode of the Unstoppable Real Estate Agents Podcast, we break down a proven blueprint for overcoming this hurdle: launching an exclusive Facebook VIP group. Discover how to transform a simple online community into a powerhouse for repeat business and referrals.
Key Takeaways & Actionable Strategies
Establish a Strong Foundation
Drive Consistent Engagement
Monetization & Excitement
Strategic Growth & Exclusivity
Why It Matters
Building a Facebook VIP group does more than just keep you connected—it establishes you as the trusted local authority in your market. By combining consistent engagement, valuable content, and smart monetization, you can cultivate a thriving community that delivers mutual value for years to come.
📩 FREE RESOURCE: Download my Complete Checklist – 72 To-Do’s to Dominate Success in Real Estate to supercharge your strategy! https://www.kimhughes.com/72-to-dos/
Power Strategy Call – Best 30 minutes you will ever spend discussing the struggles in your business as we create solutions that will set you up for unbelievable success! Go to http://www.TalkwithKimHughes.com
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Hi everyone, in today's podcast, we're going to be talking about how to create a VIP group in Facebook. And this is where you're going to put all of your past clients and how to nurture them and stay top of mind. So stick around because I think you'll walk away with some great tips. Welcome to the Unstoppable Real Estate Agents Podcast. I'm your host and real estate productivity expert, Kim Hughes. Join me as we focus on real strategies and implement real solutions designed for you to achieve major success in your business and life while getting you organized. So when you talk about Facebook, you know, depending on your demographics, everybody's on Facebook. There's going to be a younger generation probably on Instagram, but this can apply there as well. You just got to bring them over. Just got to bring them over to the other side. So what we're going to talk about here is Facebook groups. This has been around for years and years, and agents have created, you know, different types of groups and have reached out to new clients, past clients, leads to try to get them into a group. The problem is, is if that group was not successful, is that you're not running it correctly. So here are some things that you can do to have a really standout. Everybody wants to be in the club group. So first of all, you want to call you you want to go in, create the group, you want to give it a name, and then you want to buy the domain. And then point the domain to the Facebook group. Even though it's private, they can you still need to have that domain. And then I want you to create a beautiful, you know, image for, you know, cover for the Facebook group. And do your due diligence when you set this up. Don't just go and throw it up and then start inviting people. Really put your effort into this. Maybe upload some freebies, you know. Um, you know, you've talked, you've heard me talk about seasonal checklists. So this is where an uh a homeowner that you've worked with can go and get a spring checklist, a summer, a fall, a Christmas, you know, whatever, the winter. And so these are things that you can give them that, you know, they may not normally be able to get somewhere else. Okay. So think about what files you want to put in the Facebook group. Doesn't mean you have to put a hundred of them. It just means maybe put three or four to get started. And again, I'm gonna go back to the the checklist on, you know, the seasonal checklist for the homeowner. So that takes no time to do. You can probably find that for free. Um, I think I even have it in my website on my free resources as a download template. So you can find this anywhere, tweak it to your market because what they do in California in the springtime and what they do in Texas are going to be totally two different things. So make sure that whatever you do for a checklist that it's to your market. All right, now what I want you to do is once you have the Facebook group set up, you've got your cover page, you've got you know a couple of downloads in there. Um, you might even want to start out with a poll. Um, you know, create a little poll that says, you know, what do you hope to get from this group from me as a real estate agent in your market? What is it that you need from me to have a better, you know, lifestyle, maybe um, you know, better return of investment? What can you, what can we do here for you, the person that's being invited into the group? And then I want you to make a list of what activities do you need to do every week or bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc. Because if you don't have a strategy and you're just gonna wing it, then it's not gonna work. So just sit down with a piece of paper and brain dump. Like, okay, you know, we're in the month of April. This is some things that I can talk about for April. May I can talk about this, you know. So always have at least a three-month schedule going on. You know, it doesn't have to be fancy or anything. It's just keeping you on top of mind of what you're going to do for that month and that Facebook group that you don't really do for anybody else. I mean, this is for your elites. This is for people that have bought or sold with you, or maybe they've even referred you but have never bought and sold. So these are your top people. And then once you do have this lined out, so let's say for the month of April, um, you know, April 1st, of course, you're gonna talk about, you know, an April Fool's joke. Um, that would always be fun. You can talk about it's, you know, April 15th, you need to file your taxes. You know, here's a little some little tips from my CPA that can help you get it together. Um, you know, that would be something that would be good. Also, the spring checklist. You know, don't forget to get my spring checklist. It's a PDF, it's in the files, or it's here, you know, attach it to your comment. And there's three things right there. Then you can talk about what's going to be coming in your newsletter, what's coming up on the market. Um, you know, what listings do you see that are coming to the market? Maybe these are not your listings, maybe they are someone, another agent's, but you can talk about them. And you can say, hey, you know, we have a home coming up that's a three-bedroom, two-bath, corner fireplace, has a, you know, a pool. You know, if you know anybody that lives that's wanting to move to Wood County, let me know because this may be the home for them. Putting subtle things out there. Talk about your weekend events. What events are going on in April that your group would be appreciative to? Make it family, make it adult, you know, like if there's a wine tasting, um, you want to post about that for the adults. If you're um doing a community um face painting festival thing downtown, that's a family thing you can do. So talk about the events, talk about what the organizations are doing. Um, you know, one of the organizations that I'm in, um, we do fundraisers throughout the year. So we just wrapped up our geranium fundraiser. Um, I would promote that. Hey, you know, the Fannie Marchman Garden Club is selling their geraniums, you know, up until March 1st. Make sure you grab them. Here's the link to their Facebook page. Here's the name of a person you can reach out to. Um, then talk about the mini, you know, like in my town, I'm just giving you ideas. In my town, we have a little, we're a railroad town, so we have a little mini train with a playground. It's all, you know, created around children. Great family event, you know. So don't forget that the mini train is running this weekend from, you know, 11 to 3. It's a free, you know, it's free or it costs, you know, always make sure you tell them where it is. Well, first, what the event is, where it is, how much it cost, and is it age appropriate. So that way people don't have to guess or start asking a bunch of questions. And then go to these events and have pictures made. Or tell your group of people, hey, if you go to this event, will you take a bunch of pictures and upload them? We'd love to have that in our, you know, for future reference when people are talking about what events to go to. Um, you could do, like if we have a concert, you know, things that go on the in the community. I mean, you can talk about the grand scale, like if you live in Dallas, you know, huge city, yeah, there's some huge events going on there, but it's really the ones that are the smaller events that get the most attention. So don't always feel like you have to go out and promote that, you know, Elton John is coming to American Airlines. No, let's talk about, oh, they're gonna have the sailboat race on White Rock, you know, this weekend from 11 to 5. Make sure you come out and and let's talk, you know, hook up, you know, let's um, you know, grab a Coke or something like that. And then be there. You know, if you can't be there, then don't say, I'll meet you out there, come look for me or anything. Um, but if you do, you could have some t-shirts made, you could have some tumblers made, you could have something made that um has your company logo on it, you know, your whole thing. Hey, come find me at the White Rock sailboat race to get your free t-shirt or to get your free tumbler or something like that. And so now you've caused people, ooh, I want one of those. Oh, I would love to go see that race. Oh, while I'm there, I'll look for John, you know. So these are things that you can be doing that get people excited and want to get out and and come and be in the into a social life. So, you know, like if there's a zoo, talk about the zoo, if there's an alberita, um, if there's a hiking trails, you know, talk about what people can be doing in their area. And then that starts conversation because somebody may say, Oh, and by the way, you know, um, there's a f there's a uh farmer's market going on on Saturday as well. Oh yeah, there's a horseback riding um camp at three o'clock, you know. So people get to talking about it and you can ask them, what's going on in the community that I need to know about? You know, what's going, what are you doing this weekend? So that's something that you could do. That could be a weekly um event that you put out. Like on Wednesday, you could put out, you know, a little quick video of here's some things you can do this weekend, and then hey, what are y'all doing this weekend? I'd love to know. Maybe I'll meet you, meet up with you. So think of it that way. You're building a relationship with the people that are in this group because you've already met them. They've already worked with you in some way. So make sure that you you treat them really good, okay? So in this VIP group, some other things that could go on is you could do like a monthly giveaway, ask a trivia question, and give them a gift, you know, like um I've seen people do um barbecue tools, you know, grilling tools. I've seen them do beach baskets, you know, um picnic baskets with all the tools for a picnic, you know, things like that. I'm thinking of summer because that's where we're heading into. But going into winter, you can make up little baskets of hot chocolate with coffee mugs and, you know, stuff like that, cookies and everything. And you could go around to your local merchants and ask them to donate or just go in and buy them. But if you go in and ask them to donate, then you can promote them in the VIP group. You know, so you could do interviews with you know local merchants and talk to them about what their business is and and all of that. So to wrap this up, it's basically creating a VIP group and making it someplace where people want to go when they get on social media. Well, I wonder what's going on in John's Facebook group. Um, so make sure you do that and make sure that you remind them about the group by sending them a little DM, maybe once a month, and just mention a couple of things that y'all have done in the group. You know, hey, if you haven't been in the group lately, you know, check out my free screen checklist. Oh, and Amy had a great uh suggestion for a weekend event. And we have this going on and this coming up. And when they see it in their DM and you put the link, then they'll click on it and go over there. But this is private, so make sure you only send it to past clients, um, active clients, and people that have been referred to you and people that have referred to you. So keep that in mind. This is a very selective group and you want to talk about it. You definitely want to talk about it because you want people to go, well, I want in that group. I'm that fear of missing out is real. So when you talk about something in your in your group, you could give a hint of it on your social media timeline. So you could say something like, Oh, in our private VIP group, um, we somebody mentioned that there's a wine tasting on, you know, Saturday night from 8 to 10, and there's going to be a local band, you know, that kind of thing. Hey, don't forget to, you know, check it out. And then people are gonna go, well, what's VIP group? How do I get in that VIP group? So then you're creating conversation. And even though that person has never bought or sold with you and they want in that VIP group because they've mentioned it, then you can qualify them to get in. You know, if it's all right for them because now you've got them in a in an environment where they have people around them talking about, you know, hey, I've worked with him, you know, building relationship, you're building trust, you're building authority. So these are all the things that a VIP group can do for you. Now, once you, and I'm gonna kind of step backwards because I think I forgot this part, but one thing that you do want to do is when you invite people to the group, you want to maybe send them an email, maybe send them a text, maybe call them, send them a DM, you know, and then if they don't reply, make sure you follow up with them. Um, I would say probably the best way is to send them an email. Write out your little script uh for your email, and then give them the link, and then have them answer some questions before they can get into the group. Whatever those questions are is a totally up to you. You could just, you know, it could be trivia questions. It could be, hey, when was the last time you bought your house? You know, when was the last time you and I worked together? Something like that. And make sure that they have to put their email address and then you add that to your database if you don't already have them in there. So there's a lot of ways you can work these VIB, VIP groups. So love to see you do that because with the markets kind of, you know, quiet in some areas, that this is a great time to create that and then create that relationship one-on-one in an atmosphere that they're already in. And you're just getting them to move over to you. So hopefully you'll put this together. If you have any questions about it, you let us know. Um, I have seen this work, I've done it for years for agents, and we've seen great success. But the key is to be consistent, know what you're gonna be putting in there, don't do it on the wing, you know, flying by down the road. Make sure you sit down and lay out each month or maybe even the whole quarter of what you're going to do. Um, what events are you gonna promote, you know, things like that. The other thing that you can do with this VIP group, which I think is very cool, is that we have started working with agents on creating um a secondary income. It's not their main income, even though it could be, but that's not the way we're looking at it. And and when you are in real estate, you never know where when you're gonna get your next paycheck. It's strictly commissioned based on closings. If the closing falls apart, you do not get paid until that closes. So that can be very frustrating. And if you're trying to budget, it's very hard to budget around that. So what we have done is created a second stream of income for agents, and that's through affiliate marketing. And we have a whole program on it and everything. And so if you're interested in that, let me know. But in this VIP group, you can promote your product, you know, any product, any company, anything you want in these VIP groups. So if you are, for example, putting together a um, let's say a grilling basket, and you have all the grilling tools in there, you know, um charcoal, I mean, the the tongs, the spatula, the whatever, the brush to clean, you know, whatever that may be, then you put that in the group and it's a free gift to somebody that answers your tri trivia question. But you can also say, hey, if you like these products and you want to, you know, get them for yourself or give them as a gift, here's the links. And you can link all of them, or you could have it go into your website to where they're linked there, or to your Amazon store. And then that way you're starting to earn a little commission off of the products that you're already promoting. So it doesn't cost your clients anything. They just click on the link. You get paid a little commission for them clicking on the link or maybe purchasing it, and then you've started building up a little side income. That side income can really be a powerful thing when you're trying to pay your bills, when you're trying to send a kid to college, buying that first car, that first cell phone for the kid. You know, so these are the ways that we have looked at for the, you know, for our clients to tap into another resource and not be so dependent on a commission check from a sale that literally will throw you out of the out of the world if you have to change the closing date, if it falls through and you are really depending on that income, you can always step back and go, you know what, I've got this other income coming in. So there I'm I'm gonna relax, I'm gonna move forward with what I'm working on and really build my real estate business, but knowing that the second income can help me out a lot. So that's just a little tip that you can do. If you're interested in the affiliate marketing that we've created for real estate agents, let me know. Um, it's really a great program. And we have um put a link down below to give you a guide. If that's something that you're interested in, you can get the guide, see what we're talking about, and we can help you out, um, talk to you about how you can put that together. But the VIP group in closing is going to be something that is powerful. You've just got to make sure that you schedule out what you're going to do with the group and the objective in the long-term goal. So this is long-term, you know, so you might even get to know somebody that can manage the group for you that's already in the group. If you have an assistant, if you have, you know, like we run it for our agents, and you know, we just have access to the group and we monitor it, make sure everything is running smoothly. We're there to answer any questions in case the agent can't get right to it. So it works out beautifully, but you can find ways to run this group. So highly recommend that you do that. So hopefully this is a great tip that you can walk away with and implement immediately. And um we'll see you next week. Thanks so much. Thank you so much for tuning in. And if you know someone, and I bet you do, who would appreciate this podcast, please share it with them. As a reminder, this podcast can be delivered directly to your favorite device by using the subscribe links you can find in the show notes below or over at unstoppable realestateagents.com. Remember, it takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan. Have a great day.
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