Doorify Real Estate Podcast

Upping Your Marketing & Prospecting Game in 2025 with Clay Meek

• Doorify MLS • Episode 74

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It's time to up your real estate game and get ready for 2025.

In today’s episode, I’m joined by Clay Meek, a seasoned real estate professional with the Meek Realty Group at Keller Williams. Clay shares his incredible journey from automotive sales to running a successful real estate business alongside his wife, Susan. We dive into the power of community engagement, from hosting local events to leveraging unique office spaces to establish a visible presence. 

Clay also breaks down his meticulous approach to prospecting and why it’s crucial to focus on giving instead of taking. 

For agents ready to level up their game, this episode is packed with actionable insights you can start using today.

Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:

  • How to build meaningful relationships through consistent communication and community events.
  • Why having a strong prospecting strategy is essential for real estate success.
  • Insights into creating a visible and impactful presence in your market.

Links from this episode:

1ae5b43598204883b524f061d4880e6d10fca88c (for podfollow.com)

Clay Meek [00:00:00]:
First of all, you gotta approach it from the standpoint of giving. What are the three or four things that you can give to someone in an escalating market? As values go up, this is what your house is worth. Have you considered refinancing? Do you have enough insurance on your home? And are you interested in selling your home? So all four of those are giving information rather than trying to knock on a door and just take from them.

Matt Fagioli [00:00:29]:
Hey, guys, welcome back to the Doorify Real Estate podcast. I'm your host, Matt Fagioli, here with my good friend Clay Meek, who is with Meek Realty Group at Keller Williams and Clay's in the Atlanta market, or near the Atlanta market anyway. And. And I was have been dying all year to record a podcast with him to get some insights from him on how they built their business. Clay and his wife Susan are partners and what he's doing into the new year and all that stuff. So, Clay, welcome to the Door of Real Estate podcast.

Clay Meek [00:01:05]:
It's an honor to be here, Matt. Sure appreciate the opportunity to share with you and also appreciate your friendship and looking forward to the conversation.

Matt Fagioli [00:01:12]:
Yeah, well, you know, for all of us agents and brokers that are listening to this, Clay, can you just kind of tell us where you came from? I mean, I know you had a huge sales history, but tell us a little bit about your background and how long you've been in real estate and all that.

Clay Meek [00:01:26]:
Sure. Came out of school, went in the automobile industry, found some success there, went into finance. I was a finance manager for large Mercedes dealership here in Atlanta for about five or six years. And then I went into business for myself kind of during three, four, five, six years into that. Susan, I guess in about nine years ago, started with Keller Williams as an agent. I was training finance managers at the time and had the opportunity to join her pretty much right after that. I got my license and was helping her where she needed assistance. And then about five years ago, went full time, you know, just focusing on real estate, which really poured the gas on a fire.

Clay Meek [00:02:03]:
She'd already done a great job of starting. And our business quadrupled that year when we were really focused on that, which would be, certainly be a point of conversation, is focus on one thing and not get caught up in shiny objects and chasing things. But that really, really brought a lot of success. That was during the time as Covid was hitting and just, just as the governor opened up the state, we began to utilize door knocking, which we found to be extremely successful, and some unique things there that I could Share and just built our really saw incredible increase from there that year. We had a very, very profitable year. We were able to purchase a office here in downtown Houston, which is. We're in the fifth fastest growing county in the. In the country.

Clay Meek [00:02:45]:
First fastest growing in Georgia, of course. And that has assisted us tremendously. And we found good success and are enjoying what we're doing.

Matt Fagioli [00:02:52]:
Man, I can't believe that it's been that long. I remember back during the COVID season and when you guys were really getting going and let's talk about the office a little bit because you guys have taken a little bit of a different approach where a lot of people have either no office or they have some tiny office space. You guys have built a really elaborate office in a historic downtown area. So tell us about, you know, your choice to make that decision and what it's been like for you and your business.

Clay Meek [00:03:18]:
We were just in a position where we were looking at houses and what they were selling for. And when we found this 1920s home right on the main drag of our town and what we were able to negotiate to buy it, it just made sense to buy. Even if we just fix it up and flipped it, it made sense. So we were able to ranch financing on it and purchased it and then went in and did a great job. Susan helped and we tag teamed it and did a great job of completing it. You know, to have a brick and mortar on the main drag, if someone has the opportunity to do that, where you can really put. Put your flag in the sand there and say, hey, we're here. I would highly, highly recommend it.

Clay Meek [00:03:54]:
Just to open an office that doesn't have much, you know, where a lot of people are driving by and seeing it or something that doesn't make a real special statement. I don't know that that's worth the investment. But we, we felt it was a good financial investment, so we made that move. But we have been overwhelmed at how articulate we've been as far as recruiting agents. Or we'll have probably one. One person a week. It'll stop in and say, hey, I'm interested in selling a house or buying a home. But again, we're in a very strong market and we're very thankful that the opportunity came along and certainly tickled that we, we took that, took that risk.

Clay Meek [00:04:27]:
And it, we were at a position financially where it was a. It did feel like a risk, you know, but at the end of the day, I'm a sales guy and we have a good system in place. And I Felt like I could outsell the, outsell the interest meter. And we've been able to do so so far and have seen tremendous appreciation on the property. And I feel like it's really helping our business grow.

Matt Fagioli [00:04:47]:
Yeah. And I think, you know, well, if anybody could say, hey, you're going to get 50 quality leads over a year, then that, that's worth a lot. But you guys, really, I, I guess the way you're saying it is makes me think that it's kind of an all or nothing thing. So, you know, just any old office space is, you know. Yeah, that, that might not be a value at all. But you guys came in, you, you've got a kind of made a statement. You've got your literal flag, you've got, you know, an amazing piece of signage out there. And so.

Matt Fagioli [00:05:15]:
And you also did the work to dig into the community. And like everybody, everybody knows Clay Meek and Susan Meek now as you know, the center of that, that community. So it's really, the building really is just a piece of that strategy.

Clay Meek [00:05:30]:
It is. We're fortunate it has about an acre with it and we're able to. In fact, I met yesterday with the Jackson County Band. This is the, like the marching band for the high school, which is a monster school, and having their jazz band come and do three concerts next year, doing some screen on the green type situations where we're doing a movie and prior to the movie the band's going to come and additional events. And so we, we designed it, seeing events. We have not had as many as I'd like to in the past, but we're positioned very well and committed to that. We have the personnel in place that. That weight doesn't fall on Susan and me as much this coming year.

Clay Meek [00:06:05]:
So we're very confident that we'll pull off. We've got nine different events planned this year. The next one coming up just give you an example. We have Jingle Mingle, which is a event that the city does where they tour different historic homes and businesses. Probably most communities do that. They're coming in and we have found that we can work with sponsors. So we have LGI Homes, which I'm sure a lot of you guys are familiar with. They build all over the country, but they're going to help us with this.

Clay Meek [00:06:30]:
We'll be giving away real nice cookies. Real nice. And then the local chiropractor that I use is going to be here as well, and he's going to be handling the stand. Whether we were served coffee and hot chocolate and that type Thing, so, and there's going to be a draw. We always do a drawing. That's another tidbit. If you have any type of event, always do a drawing for a free meal at a local restaurant which gives you your address, phone numbers and, and, and email addresses to your, to people that come in. So we'll expect about 200 people to come through for that evening, four to six on December 6th.

Clay Meek [00:07:04]:
And we also have a really good Santa Claus and Ms. Santa Claus that'll be here with us. And we are, now that we got sponsors helping us, we are planning on having a professional photographer. And we're going to call all our past clients and say, hey, we've got a professional photographer. We're doing it early enough in the year that they can get really nice photographs with Santa and for their, for their Christmas card. So we feel like it's going to be a huge win. And any excuse we can use to give back when we're making phone calls. And I do it every week, I put that headset on and I'm talking to.

Clay Meek [00:07:35]:
My goal is 50 people a week. I don't always get that done, but it's between 30 and 50 calling into the database and calling the past clients. But we love to have something to invite them to. It really makes that call a lot more fruitful.

Matt Fagioli [00:07:49]:
Yeah, that's, man, you know, you guys have done such a great job with events and with, you know, gifts for people. I know I don't know what you're doing this year. I'll have to hear about it. But in the past, I know you guys have done pies and turkeys and all that stuff. So what are the other things that you're doing if you're doing that stuff this year?

Clay Meek [00:08:05]:
Yeah, no, great point. And we have really simplified that. We, we have not done pies in a while. Turkeys. What we've done is popcorn. We do the popcorn tin. We get them at Walmart and just advice on that. We have a nice sticker design that goes on the top, says Merry Christmas from our family to yours.

Clay Meek [00:08:20]:
That's our, our tagline is our family serving yours. It's on all of our signs, everything that we do. So the same type of thing, sticker goes on the top. If you go to Walmart, the popcorn has two different lids to it. One of them has a plastic see through lid and the other one is a solid tin lid. We always get the solid 10 one because the logo looks so good on it. And we like popcorn rather than any cookies or anything else. Because it has a perceived much higher value.

Matt Fagioli [00:08:49]:
They're.

Clay Meek [00:08:49]:
They, we first started buying at $5. They're up to $8 now, but it still has about 16, 17 value to it. If you're not, if you didn't walk through Walmart looking for them, you, you would, you would think they're, they're somewhere around 16 to $20. Real nice popcorn that has a, three different flavors in it. Y'all all seen them? That works. Well, we've always delivered them. And I take the whole month of December. I do not do my phone calls.

Clay Meek [00:09:13]:
I don't, I don't do the contacts there. I deliver that popcorn personally and it, it takes the whole month, six, seven hours a day. But we, I want to go face to face. I want to ring that doorbell and I want them to see me on ring if they're not there. And again I see me, sometimes it's Susan delivering, sometimes our agents delivering if it's their client. And then this year when we do the jingle mingle, we're also going to use that to call and ask the clients, all of our past client. I'll get called and we'll ask them to come to the jingle mingle and pick their popcorn up there. So that'll save, that'll give me that face to face if they come and save me that time of delivering because it's starting to get, you know, when you, when you do, you do 60 to 80 deals a year, it doesn't take long that you, it's, it's, it's hard to keep that up.

Clay Meek [00:09:57]:
But I'll come out with six to seven listings that I can put right back on that popcorn delivery that, that I'll do in January and February and March. So it's, it's, it's very valuable.

Matt Fagioli [00:10:07]:
Yeah. And you guys have done a really diligent job of database building. You know, that's something that, you know, I love the way, you know when, when people come into real estate business that have really solid past sales experience.

Clay Meek [00:10:21]:
Yeah.

Matt Fagioli [00:10:21]:
You know, it's a different thing. Right. You, you knew, you knew you had that, that discipline of like, man, I got to get these contacts, I got to do my follow ups. And when you first started out, you were such an aggressive door knocker. And I feel like anybody who really commits and does a good job door knocking is going to kill it because most people are just afraid of it, you know, and. Yeah, but you hit it out of the park and I feel like, you know, maybe you've backed off of it a Little bit. But talk to us about prospecting and, you know, what advice you'd have for agents who think they maybe want to pick that ball up next year where they hadn't done it before.

Clay Meek [00:10:54]:
Yeah, I'll be happy to speak to that. Building. The database is the key. And yes, I don't knock the doors. I used to knock. I'll talk about that in just a minute. But once you get your database built up to 13, 1400 people and you've got a PC or a past client database that's running, you know, 6 or 700, probably. Probably at 600, I would say, then you've got that amount of people those need to be called three times a year.

Clay Meek [00:11:20]:
So I use Mojo just like we all started. Or if you. If you've done calling, you need some sort of calling system, don't try to dial the numbers you need. Mojo. Well, you.

Matt Fagioli [00:11:30]:
You'd be surprised, Clay. I think the vast majority of agents are not using a dialer. And guys, just so you know, Mojo is one of the dialers that you can get. And you should talk about that, Clay, because I think a lot of people don't understand that that's just going to allow you to be more, you know, more effective and faster. But talk about how the dialer experience is for you.

Clay Meek [00:11:47]:
Oh, yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you for teeing that up. And like you say, there are several different ones. So once you get your database built, you've got that inside of some sort of a CRM, and then Mojo is going to run right in that or your dollar will. So I go to the dialing, pull that up, I go in there and check my voicemail, and the voicemail I'll leave is a generic. Well, specific to me, but it's generic to the name. So if I was calling you, Matt, it would say, hey, this is Clay.

Clay Meek [00:12:14]:
I hope you're having a great day. Just reaching out to see if you guys are thinking about selling or buying any real estate in the next three to six months. And anything I can help you with in any way, please give me a holler. 678-555-3333. I hope you have a beautiful day. So it's a little out of the ordinary, a little more energetic and maybe a little more emotional than normal calls be. But again, these are people that relatively know me. And so that's set up generically.

Clay Meek [00:12:37]:
So the minute that you don't answer that, that. That call, Matt, I'm pushing the. Pushing the leave message button. It's leaving that message and it's ringing another one. The second thing that I cannot emphasize enough is never use a two line dollar, a three line dollar. They'll try to sell you on this, that it's going to, you're going to talk to 17 times more people. It is totally, totally. It goes the wrong way because it, it pushes people away.

Clay Meek [00:13:04]:
That's the dollar that you get all the time where it says they answer. And these are. There's a pause if you use a single line dollar the minute that Matt or Tom or Fred picks up. Hello, I'm saying, I'm, I'm talking. Hey, hey, it's Clay. Fred, how you doing? Hope everything's going well. And so use a single line dialogue. You'll get plenty of calls in on a single line dollar and you've got the time to wait on those calls.

Clay Meek [00:13:26]:
But definitely set your drop the voicemail so you're never leaving, you're not leaving a voicemail. Now when I'm calling my people, I know if it's someone I know, you know, from coaching the kids football or, or they bought a house from me, I don't drop the voicemail. I take the time to say something personal on that so that it comes across using the name. I try to use a person's name as much as I can and I try to, you know, rather than saying have a great day, I try to say, hey, I hope you have a beautiful day or hope your day is amazing or something that's a little, a little out of the ordinary that puts a little more motion in it.

Matt Fagioli [00:13:57]:
Yeah. Clay, do you have a sense for how many calls an hour you get now? And of course you probably spend a bunch of time learning the dialer and getting grouped up. But do you have a sense of what that is?

Clay Meek [00:14:09]:
I do know this. It's about. It's going to take about three calls to have a conversation. The dollar will speed that up tremendously. But you know, Matt, how do we know? I mean, I think about when I get a voicemail from you or other friends that has a value to me. Many times I'm reading that it might phone will interpret that into a text or I'm listening to it. And you can't just measure the conversations. You also have to put a value.

Clay Meek [00:14:37]:
Obviously it's not a one to one ratio, but the effect of a voicemail from a person that you relatively know from some reason. Maybe I knocked your door, maybe. But I'm typically dialing into people that are getting mailed by me every month. So we've got about 16, 1500 mail outs that go out every month. So we just going back to more information. We email on the 7th of every month like clockwork and we email on the 22nd of every month. So the 2nd, 7th and 22nd in the middle of that is the 15th, the 15th we snail mail. And it's just the typical, well, it's not typical, it's really high class.

Clay Meek [00:15:18]:
But it, it says, you know, for sale under contract and just sold. And I got pictures of three different houses, pictures of us on the back, picture of my mortgage broker, he helps some with that. And then I have a picture of our team, individual pictures of our team. And then our tagline, our family serving yours. These are not people that have never heard of me. These 1500 people that I'm, that I'm hitting are getting some sort of, I'm not just a total stranger to them. They're not someone who, who signed up on realtor.com six years ago on calling in. That's enough.

Clay Meek [00:15:48]:
You got 15, 1800 people that you're dealing with there. There's a hundred deals a year out of there. If you work that right, plus have some sort of lead source and you do some fresh door knocking and have some events, you're going to do 100 deals a year.

Matt Fagioli [00:16:00]:
So they're, I mean you're saying, so they're, they're hearing from you three times in terms of email and the drop piece. So they're getting three touches from you in a month, every month. And then you're saying, I think you said you want to try to talk to them or voicemail them three times a year. Is that right?

Clay Meek [00:16:16]:
Yeah, I'd love to talk to them three times a year, but I'm going to, I'm going to hit them on that dollar three times a year whether they answer or not. They can get a voicemail, either a drop voicemail if I don't know them, you know, if I don't really remember who they are. I mean sometimes some adults, I don't even know how I, they got in the thing. I'm going to drop that. If it's someone that, oh yeah, I coached this kid in baseball three years ago, then I'm going to leave a personal boss. But I want to be as personal and relational and we can get into. You want to. But there's a, there's a conversation that you have with people where you're talking to their head and there's a convers that you have with them when you're Talking to the heart.

Clay Meek [00:16:49]:
I've learned to go after that conversation more from a heart side than a logic side.

Matt Fagioli [00:16:54]:
That's awesome. Well, I mean, I think this has been a great conversation, and people hear what it sounds like for a team that's really got their system dialed in. And, you know, y'all are big, but you're not. You know, sometimes you talk to these teams that are doing 9 million deals a year, and it's like, I can't even see that, you know, but y'all are just running a rock solid business, and it's just impressive, the consistency that you've pulled off and. But I do want to talk to people a little bit about prospecting. I feel like, you know, what you've done is you've backed off a little bit because you got your list built and you're busy. But for the agents who need to up their game next year and they've never done prospecting, what advice could you give them for how to get started, how many houses and all that stuff?

Clay Meek [00:17:37]:
Well, I guess prospecting can. Is a wide net. If you want to talk about. Do you want. You specifically want to talk about door knocking? Is that kind of what you want to go?

Matt Fagioli [00:17:44]:
Yeah, that's what I meant. I'm sorry. Yeah.

Clay Meek [00:17:46]:
Well, I think that's a good point, and I certainly can bring some very key things to that that we learned that bring success to it. So, first of all, you got to approach it from the standpoint of giving. What are the three, three or four things that you can give to someone in an escalating market? As values go up, this is what your house is worth. Have you considered refinancing? Do you have enough insurance on your home, and are you interested in selling your home? So all four of those are giving information rather than trying to knock on a door and just take from them. So I always have the right thing in hand. So I'm going to have my logo shirt with my Meek Realty Group logo or Keller Williams logo. I love the Keller Williams brand, but whatever brand, if you're remax. Whoever it is that you are, people know if it's a brand, people recognize and wear a shirt with a nice logo, nice collared shirt, look sharp.

Clay Meek [00:18:34]:
I'm clean shaved. And so. So when I knock on the door, a person comes to the door. I want to take a step back and give them plenty of space. And then we have in our hands some key information. So there's going to be a picture of three homes that are in that neighborhood, and it's going to have a price under each one of those homes. And. And then it's going to have my.

Clay Meek [00:18:53]:
My logo and. And then our contact information. We always put a magnetic, not a cheap magnetic, a magnet that will hold a kid's picture up on the refrigerator inside of that in a sleeve. So it's a sleeve. If they're not there, I'm going to leave it on the door. If they are there, I'm going to talk about that sleeve. So I'm holding that out in my left hand. I'm pointing at it with my right hand and say, hey, Mr.

Clay Meek [00:19:16]:
Jones, this clay with Meek Realty Group we just saw. And I'm going, I'm not saying, how are you doing? Don't start. Just get to the point. Hey, I'm Clay with Meek Realty Group. We just sold these three homes in your neighborhood and wanted to let you know what the values are and wanted to check with you to see if y'all have talked about selling your home. Have y'all discussed that in any way in the last few months. It's all in one flow. So I'm, I'm getting.

Clay Meek [00:19:38]:
I think people mess up. How are you doing the. The thing? The other person on other side is thinking, how fast can I end this conversation? And what the age do you want? And you need to get to that very, very fast. And so, so we're very professional. I go straight to it. Then when they say, wow, I didn't know the neighborhood. I didn't know that those homes were selling. And again, this is in the neighborhood, not in the community.

Clay Meek [00:19:58]:
So they. And it's easy. I might not have sold them, but these sold in the neighborhood. And then I say, now if they engage, then I'm going to go after those three points. Do you have enough insurance? Did you realize your house is worth this much? Have you considered refinancing? Now, when we had this escalating rates that we've had, that hadn't been as much a conversation. But I use that all the time, you know, three, four years ago. Because, hey, if you've got a VA loan or FHA loan, you're paying extra fees, you should refinance now because you have. You have equity that you didn't realize you have.

Clay Meek [00:20:30]:
You can easily go refinance it. So I'm just looking to give. And then I have a mindset when I'm knocking that door, I'm thinking, lord, the person on the other side of this door needs my help selling their house. And I don't I watch my self thoughts, my self talk, and I'm expecting that person to open that door and be glad to talk to me and, and that we're going to do a deal during COVID I could have 40 if I had 40 conversations, or I would have 40 conversations. I could list a house in the next three months out of that conversation. So those numbers aren't the same because people aren't. You don't have the same interest rates that you had that. But there is a number.

Clay Meek [00:21:06]:
And for you, it be different from me as far as how good people are at connecting with people. But the biggest thing I learned from the mentor that taught me how to sell is can you figure out a way to make people like you fast? And I think that's something I've worked on all my life. I've been very conscientious of that, and there are some key points to that. But I want that person that opens that door to like me fast. And I work very hard to try to be relational in that situation, and that's what I'm looking for. I'm just want more people in the community to like me and to think of me when it's time to sell their home.

Matt Fagioli [00:21:37]:
Dude, that is some great advice. I mean, I. I've never heard anybody talk through that script to say, you know, and just the way you feel, you know, when somebody knocks on your door, you're like, man, what is this guy wanting? You know, and. But for you to say, like, man, I'm gonna get that whole thing out in. In one or two sentences before they even say, no, I'm not interested, or whatever, and it's like, that is just absolute gold, you know, and. And I mean, even for a new agent, even if it took a hundred houses to get one listing, you could. You could knock on a hundred doors a week. You could have a new listing every single week.

Matt Fagioli [00:22:11]:
Right? And. And of course, build a monstrous database. And so. Well, Clay, I really appreciate you sharing all this, and I know that the folks at Doorify that are going to listen to this or going to be blessed by all your advice. And so I hope you guys have an amazing 2025. I know you're going to. I know you're gearing up for it, and we appreciate you being here.

Clay Meek [00:22:32]:
Well, I'm honored that you asked me to speak and share, and I hope that this is helpful someone. We're so glad to share and thanks again for the invite.

Matt Fagioli [00:22:39]:
Yeah. Yeah. All right, guys, thanks for listening to the Doorify Real Estate Podcast. Thank.

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