Real Estate Operations and Marketing: Your brand is only as strong as your frontline experience (podcast episode #150)

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I love Delta Air Lines. It’s my favorite airline. Please understand that.

Now, that said, when I was a kid, their tagline was ‘We love to fly and it shows.’

I would see the tagline on TV ads. I would see it on giant posters in the airport.

And then I would get on the plane. And even as a kid I could tell…the people working on the airplane, are not the ones that wrote the jingle.

So I love this lesson from a podcast guest application – Your brand is only as strong as your frontline experience.

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I sat down with Melissa Archer-Wirtz, CEO, Century 21 Circle.

Listen using this embedded player or by clicking through to your preferred audio streaming service using the links below it.

▶ Listen to Episode #150 on Apple Podcasts | ▶ Listen to Episode #150 on Spotify |▶  Listen to Episode #150 on Amazon Music

Lessons from the things she made

Your brand is only as strong as your frontline experience

When Archer-Wirtz led a major rebrand, it would have been easy to focus only on the visual identity. Instead, she spent time shadowing agents and staff across multiple offices.

One day, an agent said, “I can’t promise a five-star experience to clients if I don’t have a five-star experience internally.” That moment shaped how she approaches brand work – it has to start with internal alignment and support before anything external resonates.

Change management isn’t about being right – it’s about being clear

Archer-Wirtz had learned that in times of change, waiting for everyone to agree often slows you down more than it helps. When they rolled out new forms and fee structures, there was understandable uncertainty. She focused on being transparent about what was changing, why, and how success would be measured. Over time, people respected that they were clear and decisive, even when not everyone was on board right away.

Here’s another example. During a multi-branch integration across three states and five business units, Archer-Wirtz realized success hinged less on systems and more on clarity. She built toolkits that were actionable, not theoretical — and still says, “If it takes a 10-slide deck to explain, it’s already too much.”

People don’t fear change – they fear confusion

This has been true in every major transformation Archer-Wirtz led. When they performed mergers and acquisitions, there was a lot of anxiety. They built a visual “integration roadmap” so everyone knew exactly what would happen and when. Having that clarity took away much of the fear and helped people stay engaged.

Lessons from the people she made it with

Culture is built through relationships, not policies

via Sean J. Conlon (real estate entrepreneur)

Working with Conlon taught Archer-Wirtz the value of hiring the smartest people in the room – and trusting them to lead. He also showed her how much culture is built through relationships, not policies. Watching how he cultivated loyalty and commitment through personal connection shaped how she thinks about building teams.

Your integrity is your most valuable asset

via Rick Dalton (former Neumann Homes)

Dalton showed Archer-Wirtz that your integrity is your most valuable asset. Even in high-pressure situations, he modeled how to stay steady, transparent, and principled. That shaped how she approached both internal culture and external partnerships.

You don’t have to be the loudest voice in the room to be the most effective leader

via Benjie Burford (former CEO & former military pilot)

Burford brought a disciplined, mission-focused leadership style that Archer-Wirtz hadn’t experienced before.

His background as a military pilot influenced how he approached everything – with precision, calm under pressure, and an emphasis on preparation. He taught Archer-Wirtz that you don’t have to be the loudest voice in the room to be the most effective leader, and that resilience and consistency build credibility more than any quick win.

Discussed in this episode

Advertising and Brands: Details matter, know when to quit, …be nice (podcast episode #27)

Marketing: It’s not about you, and when you make it about you, you are never going to succeed (podcast episode #53)

Cybersecurity Marketing: You don’t need to scare people to sell them security (podcast episode #136)

500 Mangled, Stretchy Rubber Guys: Make sure you have the right marketing partner for your super creative plan – Podcast Episode #3

Adaptive Leadership: It’s never too late to reinvent yourself (podcast episode #90)

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Transcript

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Melissa Archer-Wirtz: That traditional rollout I learned pretty quick, was falling flat. So what did I do? I went into all of our offices. I started shadowing all of our agents, speaking with all of our staff, one on one, asking them what did they need? What did they think about this? What does this mean for them? And I had an agent sit there and say, Melissa, you know, you you're bringing in what you're going to say is five star experience just by the name of a brand.

But how can I give that to my client if I'm not feeling that here? And it was, you know, a light bulb moment for me. Smack gut punch out, you know, what do you do? That statement. How am I not delivering a five star experience? And here I thought I just brought you the fanciest, you know, dish on the menu.

So I sat back and we kind of restrategize didn't, you know, didn't say we were going to stop the rollout and not move forward. But we pivoted.

Intro: Welcome to how I made it in marketing. From marketing Sherpa, we scour pitches from hundreds of creative leaders and uncover specific examples, not just trending ideas or buzzword laden schmaltz. Real world examples to help you transform yourself as a marketer. Now here's your host, the senior director of Content and Marketing at Marketing Sherpa, Daniel Bernstein, to tell you about today's guest, Ethan.

Daniel Burstein: I love Delta Airlines. It's my favorite airline. Please understand that when I tell you this. Okay, when I was a kid, their tagline was we love to fly and it shows. I would see it on TV ads. I would see it on giant posters in the airport, and then I would get on the plane. And even as a kid, I could tell the people working on the airplane, they're not the ones that wrote the jingle.

So I love this lesson from a podcast guest application. Your brand is only as strong as your frontline experience. Here to share the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson filled stories, is Melissa Archer Schwartz, the CEO of century 21 circle. Thank you for joining me, Melissa.

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Thank you, Danielle, I'm thrilled to be here with you today.

Daniel Burstein: All right. Before we jump in all your lessons and stories, I want people understand who I'm talking to so quick. Look at Melissa's back. I just picked a few interesting previous roles of her. Many. She's been senior director of operations at compass and the CEO at Jamieson's Sotheby's International Realty for the past two years. Melissa has been at century 21 circle.

Century 21 circle closes nearly $2 billion in annual residential and commercial sales, and Melissa oversees the operational and growth engine behind over 1000 agents and more than 100 staff across four states. She leads strategic initiatives spanning recruiting, retention, M&A, brand development and the expansion of their full service service platform, including real estate, title insurance and property management. So, Melissa, that's a pretty big portfolio.

Us a sense, do you think? Yeah. What is your day like as CEO handling all that stuff?

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: I mean, you know, I will start with you know, it really depends on the day. But all of that means to me, honestly, it's a mix of vision. People and problem solving in some form of fashion in any given day. Some days I'll be flying 30,000ft, figuratively and literally. Thinking about long term strategies or expansions.

And then there's other days that I'm in the weeds reviewing marketing plans, operational guidelines, leasing, facilities, if you will. Right. All of the things that need to occur on a daily basis. But what I try to do the most within my day is just stay as close to the business as possible. And usually that's talking to people.

So talking to my agents, talking to my staff, finding out what's really going on, you know, on the streets, if you will, boots on the ground. Because I learn a little bit more from that than a dashboard. Even though the dashboard is important. So I see my job really every day is to remove roadblocks, set the pace, and just make sure everyone, is feeling seen and supported in what they do.

Daniel Burstein: Well, you know, the great thing about talking to people is then then the dashboard makes sense, right? So there's numbers there, good or bad. But what do they mean?

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: What do they mean? Where's the context. And then, you know, what with even the context and the numbers, how can you affect change from that? You have to know your people. You have to know your consumer. So absolutely.

Daniel Burstein: Well, let's talk about some of your people. You said one of your lessons is that your brand is only as strong as your frontline experience. As I mentioned in the intro, how did you learn this lesson?

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: So I really, truly believe it's a core tenant of real estate and just going into the background. I've only really been in some form of real estate industry spin off. And so I learned this one incredibly early on. I come from parents who are in hospitality, so it really translated well into this kind of sales industry as well.

So back in my original role at Conlon Real Estate, we ended up evolving that brand and, joining identities with Christie's International Real Estate. So it was really taking a merger of two existing brands and figuring out how to make that alignment make sense. Everything looks great on paper, but it does come with nuance. So when we, you know, as a leadership team got so excited about this, the first thing we thought about was hit the consumer, go out to the marketplace, look what we're doing.

We're up leveling our brand. We're doing all these amazing things. We're going to be luxury. In reality, it fell pretty flat on the agent database and internal. No one knew what that meant. They were struggling with what it meant for them. And so that traditional rollout I learned pretty quick, was falling flat. So what did I do?

I went into all of our offices. I started shadowing all of our agents, speaking with all of our staff, one on one, asking them what did they need? What did they think about this? What does this mean to them? And I had an agent sit there and say, Melissa, you know, you you're bringing in what you're going to say is five star experience just by the name of a brand.

But how can I give that to my client if I'm not feeling that here? And it was, you know, a light bulb moment for me. Smack gut punch out, you know, what do you do? That statement. How am I not delivering a five star experience? And here I thought I just brought you the fanciest, you know, dish on the menu.

So I sat back and we kind of restrategize didn't, you know, didn't say we were going to stop the rollout and not move forward. But we pivoted. And how we did that rollout, really focused inward and started training our agents, clarifying the message internally, making sure our people knew first and foremost what it meant for them versus what it meant to the, you know, the external consumer.

So in the end, you know, our agents ended up loving it. It became a really good retention tool. But this was the start of what I'm going to call, you know, people make the brand, but you can't just drop a brand onto somebody or drop a product onto somebody. You really have to get their buy into it because they're going to they're the ones that make it.

Daniel Burstein: That's great. So take us into that time. And I wonder, was there any internal processes or support that you built for the staff to deliver on it? More than the messaging? Because, for example, when I interviewed Doctor Maura Einstein, she was a professor of media studies at Queen's College. One of her lessons was Details matter, and she told this story when she was working at VH one.

They had these VH one awards, and when they gave the award, the awards were like these kind of 3-D things, a sculpture of each individual's like career. And when they gave the award to Stevie Wonder, there was no glass on the front. So Stevie Wonder could actually feel what the award was. Which people don't know is Stevie Wonder is blind.

I just thought that was always that's such a great detail and such a great experience for the individual. So I wonder the details behind, like, were there any internal processes or support that you built for that team to deliver the five star experience them so they could deliver to the customer?

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Absolutely. So you know what we started with and you'll hear me talk about it like an integration roadmap a few times. But there is a lot of different case studies where this really ended up playing out in our favor. So it started with what is what does Christie's mean to us currently? One of the nuances when I, when I think through this and one of the challenges is we were presenting something that we thought was an uplevel.

The agents were perceiving it as a replacement. We already had a strong brand. We already had a strong identity. So we had to come in and explain to them whether it was through trainings, whether it was one on one sessions, whether it was flying in Christie's. Topics that you see, how it could only enhance, not replace what our original identity was.

So we ended up namely shifting, after after doing a lot, I was after doing a lot of the one on one conversations. What we ended up doing was not separating the two brand identities and saying that we were part of Christie's. We almost made Christie's the afterthought, so we were still leading with our original brand identity of Conlin.

And then it just came this little support lever that it gave the, the agents and optionality which gave them, in turn, more control of their quote unquote, destiny or their desire of liking the brand. So what we learned in that was not forcing it and making it the frontrunner, but almost giving it that kind of, you know, second tier supporting seat.

And it and it reversed where we had thought it initially, you know, our mind was we would lead with the Christie side. So in in reality it was just flipping, if you will, in how we presented it to the agent and didn't really force it on them versus gave them the option to dip into it if they wanted.

Daniel Burstein: So they had the choice about which brand to lead with themselves.

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Correct.

Daniel Burstein: Oh, nice. Also, I you know, when we talked about your large portfolio, saw recruiting was one of the things and I wonder, so when you're creating a five star experience for, the potential customer, it's not only serving your frontline team, but it's getting the right frontline team. And I wonder if you have any tips on how you do that?

Because one thing I've seen in your industry, I'm not in your industry. There's all these reality shows like Million Dollar Listing and all of these type of things, and I don't know if they're an accurate representation or not, but I got to think it's TV, so it never is. So I just wonder when you're recruiting and maybe you only recruit experienced people, I don't know, but when you recruiting like what do you do to set up like an honest promise and give them an idea of what they're getting into and get those right people for the front line?

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Absolutely. So I would say from a frontline experience, right. So what I'm looking for when I'm hiring or training frontline in how to handle or manage agents and or even recruit and retain agents, it really comes down to attention and recognition and that can be seen across any industry. Everybody likes some form of attention and recognition within the real estate brokerage sphere.

It's incredibly competitive. It's incredibly saturated. Everyone thinks so. A lot of these TV shows think real estate brokering is incredibly easy or glamorous fun, and you're going to make millions of dollars.

Daniel Burstein: But the commercial break, it's all solved, right?

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Yeah, totally. In reality, it's Doggy Dogg. You know, you are hunting your kill on a daily basis. And so if you understand and the emotional side of what it is to be a real estate agent and can empathize with what their struggle is, you're you're 90% of the way of making that agent feel supported. Most of the brokerages out there, if I'm going into a recruiting appointment, it has nothing to do with what are my tools and systems and bells and whistles, because in reality, I think we all have some version of the same thing that we are selling.

And so it boils down to culture and people. And how can we support you during the tumultuous, you know, angry sellers, angry buyers who are, you know, yelling at you as an agent in turn? We have to help that agent, you know, communicate what they need to or get whatever they need done to support their client. So back to frontline experience.

It really is teaching customer service and empathy skills can be taught all day long. But what we're looking for is more of that people to people communication skill that someone in need in people.

Daniel Burstein: Oh well, the real estate industry has seen a lot of change, all of our industries and seen a lot of change. And change management is so important there. Or as we mentioned, organizations can can see a change. One of the lessons you mentioned is change management isn't about being right. It's about being clear. So we've kind of mentioned that with your first example there.

But do you have any story behind how you learned this lesson?

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Absolutely. So I mean, I would say I learned it repeatedly. Number one, you know, this is something that we're going to be seeing and doing, at least in in my world. Quite often, but one that rings really true, very visceral, was during my tenure at Jamison Sotheby's. So, it is, it was and is it's a luxury brand.

It's, it's a place to be. And you have to create a lot of additional, you know, bells and whistles and tricks and enhancements for your agent database and their consumer. So one of the the hardest kind of situations we looked at as a team was that we made the decision. We had to double our, our annual fees for our agents as well as, you know, we had to increase some consumer facing transactional fees.

It was the right business move by, you know, all measures. We needed to modernize systems. We needed to invest in marketing. We needed to uplevel certain certain tools and and technology. But it hit the agents hard, you know, imagine sitting up in front of, you know, 500 agents and saying everything just got more expensive. Everything is double it.

It didn't it wasn't, you know, it didn't come with a great reaction. Initial reaction was shock, anger, fear. And when that was received, we just didn't walk it back. We actually doubled down. And what we did was get radically clear. So instead of just saying, hey, agents, your, you know, rates doubled. We explained where every single dollar was going to.

And here is where, again, that visual kind of integration roadmap really came in handy, where we built a visual map that said, here's where the dollars are going. And here's exactly what when you will see the the fruition of that spend. So we're going to promise, you know, a new marketing CRM tool here is when it will be delivered.

Once we started explaining that once we, you know, we had forums, we had one on one conversations, and then most importantly, we created support channels for our staff because our our frontline staff were the ones who were taking the hits the most. You know, as, as we all might think that the top leaders were getting the angry calls, it was everybody else that got every angry, angry, slight, you know, slight dig comment.

And so what we did was actually we put our hands around the staff and say, let's arm you with all of the facts. Let's explain why we're doing this and get you on board so that it just softens those blows or you have a little bit more talk when those agents are complaining to you. At the end of this, we started seeing the value actually hit.

So some of those promises that we made come to fruition. And over time, all of those kind of angry naysayers, some of them really actually became our biggest advocates. They saw the value. And it really started in my mind with that integration roadmap, because we could talk about it as much as we wanted to. But until we put the visual to it, that's when it started to resonate with really everybody in the company.

And I was, you know, I'm happy to say that we we maintained probably about 90 to 95% retention during that time when you could have assumed we would have lost a lot of agents when we said your bill just doubled. But it boils down to really just the one on one conversations that open forum, the transparency and exactly what it was going to.

And then you have to execute on it. You know, you have you have to you have to, be honest about what you're doing, but then you have to, you know, put the walk behind it.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. Make it actually happen. So you mentioned also fee increases for the consumer, the actual and customer. Right. And so real estate is an industry famous for having more negotiating ability than fixed prices. So I wonder if you gave the agents any flexibility there because for example, when I interviewed owners of land, it's the vice president of marketing at octane.

One of her lessons was change. Even good. Change is hard, and everyone wants to be able to control or at least influence the change in their lives. And she learned that from reorg. But I loved how you in previous you mentioned even with the branding, you're like, okay, I'm giving, you know, front line brokers, they're going to have a little bit of control over how they handle the brand.

Was there any flexibility when it came to the pricing?

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: So I would say, and without getting into two credit into too many crazy, you know, legalities or nuances that I probably shouldn't, but. Sure, sure. There is different types of pricing for all different types of consumers and all different types of brokerages. So this really had nothing to do with commissions. These those are and always will be negotiable.

This was more of in relation to a standard transaction fee. So those are going to be pretty common place. And this was where we did uptick those the optionality that excuse me, the optionality that went to the agent is how you want to apply that fee. Do you want to pay it? Do you want to pay it on behalf of your client?

And honestly, there is quite a few real estate agents out in the marketplace that do that. It's part of their business plan. So we gave that, you know, we allow that option. And then there was other, kind of gives, if you will, that even though there was an uptick in some of their annual fees, the the tools that they received for that inevitably were putting more dollars in their pockets anyways.

So it was kind of creating, you know, the, the if then scenario. Right. If you're going to get this, then what do you want to do with your client? Do you want to pay it for them? Do you want to charge it to them? So there was an option. It just I guess the option is how you charge it, right?

Daniel Burstein: Well, no. So it sounds like while you were firm on there rolling out these certain fees or changes, they still had a level of control and what it's going to mean for their individual business.

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Correct?

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. No. That's great. Another lesson. And I see a common theme here in terms of change. I think you've had a lot of change in your industry, a.

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Lot of change, a lot of change.

Daniel Burstein: You mentioned people don't for a change, a fear, confusion. So that was a nice example with your integration roadmap. Can you go a little deeper here especially I know you mentioned mergers and acquisitions. There's a lot of anxiety.

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Absolutely. So, you know, in the world of real estate, I think, as you mentioned, there's been a lot of change and there's been a lot of change in a number of different ways. Right. Our industry as a whole has gone through evolution and, and scary things, usually about every ten years, although that every ten years is now starting to compress.

Now it's every couple of years. Right. And there's some big national scandal. So there's always some, some fear coming from fear mongering amongst amongst the agent database. When I look at mergers and acquisitions, the fear there is what's going to happen to me, you know, and here generally is based out of that, right? It's rooted out of some perceived misconception of it's going to alter my life, you know, negatively or even positively, but I have to do something about that.

And so in mergers, mergers and acquisitions, when you are trying to take two, you know, strong rooted office identities or office cultures and merge them together that aren't rooted in the same tools, systems, you know, party schedule. Well, it becomes a us versus them kind of mindset. And so when I was back at homeland, what I learned really early on, and this is kind of a little shout out to, two people, Sean and Benji.

They were masters of change management, and what they knew how to do was to bring people along the change and not just push them into the change. And the way they did that was kind of with this calm, clarity, you know, transparency. And it was injecting the the culture immediately. So time heals everything. We say that in real estate.

Time heals all deals time. Time heals all acquisitions. And so you have to create that culture change immediately up front. So when I see how we handled, you know, merger and acquisition back in my Conlin days, it was an immediately embrace. You know, you sign all new forms. You you get them all signed up. Day one you have an event.

Day one, you don't let them hold on to their previous identity. And you be very clear about what the map is on the change. Here's what we're going to do. Day one. Here is day two where you get your new x, y, z. You know, swag or login. Day three. Here is your new listing presentation or all of the tools that you need is a real estate agent to be successful, right?

Fill in the blank where I see the reverse and where I go back to. You know that kind of what do you need to do in change is if I look forward to some of my days at Jamison, even while my time here at circle, there is a history of acquisitions that I've seen where that change wasn't or that culture wasn't reinforced right in the beginning, and what it created was chaos.

You see upset individuals. You see that us versus them mindset. You see competing cultures. Well, this is how I did it versus this is how you do it. And it bred resentment and it bred everyone trying to hold on to their way because it created some form of, you know, like validation for what they're worth. What. And when you start out this, the beginning of the, the acquisition or the transition and you validate everyone's worth and what their worth is going to be now as a, you know, like united front, then you can get to where everyone's a little more embracing the, the quote unquote change.

And so at circle currently, you know, we had, a very large acquisition history where a lot of these individual call it former identities have stayed. When we did a recent acquisition last year, I brought back my Conlin playbook. I brought back the things that I knew were, in my mind, the right way to do it. You know, bring everybody in immediately.

Day one. And so when we did this acquisition last year, exactly what we did, I brought out my roadmap. I brought out, you know, the the inner, the how do we integrate everybody? I got everybody into, a Monday board and had everybody scheduled exactly what they were doing and all the dependencies. What every given point, everyone had a visual, you know, look into, of exactly where we were and what was happening and who needed to do what.

And I was happy. I'm happy to say that we kept 98% retention on that acquisition, and it's one of my most successful offices today.

Daniel Burstein: So yay and well done. All right, so you're talking about a lot of change that I mean, the organization had a hand in, let's say M&A and stuff like the organization is involved in this or, you know, changing fees. Let's talk about change that has been thrust on you from the outside. Okay. So there was the recent court ruling about fixed commissions that seemed to really rocked the industry.

And I wonder how you communicated to your brokers and your agents about that, because, you know, just as a quick example, when I interviewed Nick, like a lot, one of his lessons was strategic, internal comms and power brand resilience. And he told the story of the internal communications strategy during Covid. Right. That was a time something thrust upon us and how all the different, different departments had to work together to figure out how to communicate to, you know, their, their audience there.

So again, you can explain it better than I can, but from what I understand was the Supreme Court or something. And they said basically, you can no longer have fixed commissions. And it seemed like that just really changed from the outside, how I know to the relationship that brokers can have with their clients that they could have with their, their company.

So how did you help your, your over 1000 agents navigate that?

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: I would say Covid was a great learning learning curve. Because it really, you know, I, you dust off some of the things that you had to do that. Right? As I mentioned, I think the real estate industry, not even I think I know has gone through some pivotal shifts in so many years. So in my 20 plus years, right, I've seen I buyers that are going to come dismantle, I've seen, well, I actually I won't name competitors, but I've seen a lot of things that are going to potentially shake up our industry or dismantle the way we do business.

And today we're still doing business the same way we're we doing it yesterday, right. We're never going to go away. It's just going to evolve and we have to embrace that evolvement. So like I said, Covid kind of gave us a great learning curve on how to communicate what we need to do for consistent communication and to calm the fear.

So when this started kind of boiling over and I am part of the anywhere real estate group, that is what century 21 sits under. And one of the amazing things I have to say, and this is a plug to them, they were one of the first to settle. So what does that mean for me? What does that mean for my real estate agents?

That means we were the first to know the most. We knew what that settlement was going to mean for us. While there was a lot of other industry buzz about the unknown, we already had our answer carved out. So our brand, our parent brand, gives us a lot of great talking points, a lot of great support. We are also one that is constantly involved in a lobbying perspective.

So we get a lot of Intel and Insight day one. And then I in turn cut that into layman's terms. I try to simplify everything possible to exactly what you need to know, what you need to not pay attention to, what is just noise, and then what you need to be able to tell your eight are your consumers right?

And so I would take all the crazy court documents and all of the salacious news, and I would boil it down into a little one page email that was called NAS noise. And I sent it out on a weekly basis, and it just demystified it for people. Right. Like, I feel like if you just name the beast and talk about it, it makes it a little less scary.

So we were sending out weekly communications, and then I would host about a probably every month, unless there was something new and salacious that we had to address quickly. Every month I'd get on a town hall and I'd talk about it, and I'd give them scripts, and I would give them talking points and so that they could harm themselves, and then in turn, call them the client.

Daniel Burstein: And it sounds like give them some feeling of control of the situation.

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Exactly, exactly.

Daniel Burstein: So. And was there any specific messaging you remember that resonated most? And when you mentioned NAS news, I assume you're referring to a National Association of Realtors, correct?

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Sorry.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah, sure. No. And one at some of the best messaging I've seen from this comes from the National Association of Realtors to consumers. They they put out these big ads. You might've seen these in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, these full page ads, and they said, hey, now you can, I guess, pick and choose what realty services you want.

Well, just so you know, here's like the 118 things that you are doing for you for your commission. And I thought, you know, when we talk about, you know, your previous asking you to talk about the roadmap, you talk about people don't for change if you're confusion. That was a just beautiful example of using transparency. I don't feel like there was a lot of hype in it.

It was just there like, here's what's going on that you don't realize. And so I wonder, can you think of any of this type of messaging that you were able to use internally to help them navigate and figure that out?

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: You know, it was so we've had two different things. We've had the very first one was like na, DOJ, Department of Justice, and this was about the commissions and this is where they decoupled commissions, right? Seller versus buyer and the transparency that goes alongside it. The one thing to note with it and why, I didn't necessarily have to give too many kind of isms, if you will, to my agent database is not every state operates the same way.

So a lot of states were already decoupled. A lot of states already had forms and situations like this. So it wasn't an insane flip. It was an it was a flip for me in Florida. Not as much for me in Illinois, in Indiana. With that said, it was just about calm and the I, what I tried to create was I am the only voice you need to hear.

Ignore everything else. And what I'm telling you is that real estate is not going to be dismantled. And that's all they were concerned about. The agents really felt that. How do I explain a buyer's agreement when I've never had to? And what does this mean? Am I never going to make money? So they didn't care about any of the details.

It was about harming them that their industry wasn't going to be obliterate it overnight. And what did I do? I went back to all of the previous examples of things that they thought were going to obliterate us Y2K, it was going to be all right. Yeah. The start of the internet was going to be our demise. We're still here.

So it was. That's all it really was. There was no there was no moment. There was no statement. It was just reinforcing. You guys got this. And here are your bullet points. So like I don't I don't know I wish I had like a golden nugget to say.

Daniel Burstein: I think there is a golden nugget there that in times of change, people want a voice they can trust. And that's what leadership is, right? In times of change, it might be like, look, the water's choppy, but we've been through this before and I see where we're going to go. Let's let's get there. So I like what you're saying there.

Mark, we talked about some lessons from some of the things Melissa built in. Just a moment. We'll talk about some of the lessons from the people she built it with. But first I should mention that the how I Made It marketing podcast is underwritten by Mic Labs. I the parent company of marketing Sherpa. You can get conversion focused training from the lab that helped pioneer the conversion industry and our AI guild and a community to collaborate with.

Grab your free three month scholarship to the AI Guild at Joint Mic Labs ai.com that's join that Mic Labs ai.com to start getting artificial intelligence working for you. All right. Let's talk about some of the people that you collaborated with in your career and things you learned. You briefly mentioned Sean earlier about Sean, Jay, Colin. Real estate entrepreneur.

And from Sean, you said you learned that culture is built through relationships, not policies. How do you learn this from Sean?

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Sean? So Sean, Sean and I work together for a very long time. He was the the person that really gave me my first shot, my real first shot in, in this business world, well, before I had a resume to justify it, I can tell you that, I was pretty young. I was relatively inexperienced. But he saw something, and over time, really gave me the space to grow and evolve and shed my skin, you know, time over time, over time.

During my tenure with him, I think I had probably 5 or 6 different roles throughout as he scaled businesses up and bought businesses and just shifted. But what I one of the things that I really learned from him is that he, he led by presence. He was not the policy guy. You know, that was probably me.

I was more of the rules lady. But he led by presence. His he built loyalty through personal connection. He showed me, you know, early on that it's one relationship at a time. And and one of the things that he used to say was, every agent is a coffee away from leaving. The flip of that is every agent is a coffee away from staying.

Right. And so how do you create that culture? How do you create that relationship? Build? It's talking to every one of your agents, finding a relatable point, humanizing with them, getting down in the muck with them. He wasn't he wasn't about the rules. It was all about energy and being magnetic and knowing the the agent pain points and how to explain that and break it down to them to give them something to utilize.

So he was a really good in like inspiring motivator. And people were drawn to it. So it was this magnetic energy and learning about how to break down not sexy things, you know, if it's real estate transactions, but making them fun and punchy and providing a space for people who are really being dragged through the mud every day.

Like I said earlier, you know, this is a dog eat dog world and providing an outlet for them that they didn't have to watch their back, you know, against somebody in their office. It was a safe zone. It was a collaborative, you know, collaborative zone. So it was just I learned that you have to build a culture with the people.

You know, this kind of goes back to the people are the brand you can bring in any fancy tool you want. You could bring in something amazing, you could bring in a great speaker. But if you don't have an internal basis of trust and friendship and support, you don't really have a brand or a culture. I guess at least within the real estate brokers industry.

Daniel Burstein: Okay, let's fast forward to today though, because I like what you're saying. But how do you do this at scale? Like you cannot have coffees with that. You've got a $2 billion business over a thousand, you know, agents, over 100 support staff, multiple states. You can't be having a coffee with everyone every day. So like, how have you scaled this up?

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: You've got to try to have everybody have that same mindset. So you know, no I can't have coffee with 1000 agents every day. It's impossible. Yeah. But what I can do is try to spread my time and energy as much as I possibly can. So for the most part, here, because I'm in three states, I have to do a lot of virtual town halls, right?

How can I get in front of people? How can I create some form of personal connection? We have a lot of events. I do go to a lot of office meeting. All of my agents have my cell phone number and quite a few of them use it. And it's, you know, it's because I want to create there's no barrier, you know, and, and the end of the day is I'm not the only one that's helping run this organization.

You know, I may sit here, but there are hundreds of people in my support staff that are all emulating and doing the same exact thing that I hope they're, you know, that I'm that I'm telling them to do. I want you out there having coffees every day. I want you, you know, out there meeting with people. We empower every single one of our managers with what we call kind of flex spend or discretionary spending.

We give them a monthly healthy budget. And it's the one time that I say I never want to see that under budget. You know, they should be toeing the line and the money. It's meant to go out and, you know, come in, hang with your agents, take them to coffee, take them to lunch, take them, you know, get them a postcard, do something.

And that's how you create the relationship. It can't just be not me.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah, like that's like an internal version of the Ritz demeanor. They're famously, ladies and gentlemen, serving ladies and gentlemen. And that's.

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Exactly.

Daniel Burstein: Right for one person. They each have a discretionary budget up to a certain amount. If a customer has a problem, just solve it.

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Just solve it.

Daniel Burstein: Just here's.

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: The standard. It's a great book.

Daniel Burstein: Yes, exactly. Ties into your nexus and your integrity is your most valuable asset. You said you learned this from Rick Dalton of Newman Home. How did you learn this from Rick's? I think this is when you were on the actual homebuilding side of the real estate industry, right?

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Correct. So this is where I very first started. So even though I'd say Sean gave me my first, you know, real, real, I guess shot, Rick actually really gave me the first one. So I started as a temp with him, and then he said, you know what? We'll finish school, and I like what your what you're doing.

So we're going to, we're going to teach you come back. So I came back and he did. He got me into new construction. I was built you know learning things from the ground up. New construction. You can have some not integrity driven people that might be building the foundation of your home. And I had to learn through him or see through him how he handled a lot of these.

Call it construction complaints, construction crews, and how to make sure that what we were selling was matching the product of what we were saying we were selling. Right, and then how to handle customers. But most notably, what I will say is this was very early on in my career. So it was at the start of the economic downturn.

So it was pre 2008 and it was pre some of the big purchasers, but they must have seen what was going on. And so you know I equate it to a duck. I'm sure their feet were going crazy crazy crazy underwater. But he had this calm steady approach. And his his fathers were never ruffled, never raised his voice.

But his command was there in the room. And the one thing he said, because there was a big shake up lot of, all of a sudden everyone thought we were getting raises and new careers, and there was this huge mass layoffs no one saw coming. And what he said, and he wasn't part of the layoff, but what he said was because we were all thinking we would, you know, depending if I did my job right, you won't notice my departure.

And to me, that kind of screams integrity because he is building something and doing something that has nothing to do with his ego. And it's all about a long term lover play for the business. And if he's not here, his footprint listed will still be here. And I shouldn't miss him because what he's done is so fabricated into the footprint.

And so I use that. And I think about that kind of everywhere I've gone since or in every tough conversation, you know, it's just about being honest and being doing the right for the company and not what's right for me.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. So when you talk, I mean, first of all, I love that I all of what you're saying, when you talk about integrity, I think of the real estate industry. One of the biggest thing, I think of vendors and partners and referrals and those types of things. And I wonder if there's any vetting you learned from Rick.

I mean, for example, when I interviewed Michele Burrows, the CMO Splash Top, one of her lessons was make sure you have the right partner for what you want to do. And she told the story of doing this dimensional mailer or sending these, like, old plastic guys. And, you know, she asked, the partner like, hey, can you do this?

And they're like, well, we've never done it before, but we could try. What ended up being they sent it in the summer and all these little plastic guys melted. They didn't have the right partner. And so in the real estate industry, you think about there's so many different vendors, partnerships for the home builder, it's the subcontractors. But for the real estate, you know, agents, it's mortgage brokers, it's the home inspectors.

It's all of these things. And you always wonder as a customer, am I getting this referral because this is the best person, there's a working relationship, or is there a monetary incentive to pass me along as a lead? So I wonder, like, how do you navigate this? Melissa, is there anything you learned from Rick and how you work with subcontractors or how you yourself navigate that with integrity?

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Yeah, I would say, one thing that I learned with Rick, and honestly, I learned it probably even subsequently in some of my Jamison days is with that. So lesson from Sean gut always wins. And then lesson from Rick and Jamison is you move fast. So you couple those two things. And so the vetting you know, vetting is vetting.

Lip service is lip service. Everyone can talk a good talk, especially in this world. Right. You know we're all trying to choose something from somebody. So actions speak louder than words. And if your gut says this is good, trust it. If your gut says, hey, I got it, I got a hinky feeling you might want to put a pause on it.

The second thing is, if your first experience is not great, cut it and move to the next. You know we're not. This is not about try, try, try again. We need to deliver A-plus customer service. And if something's not working, you have to move on. When I'm looking at agents or talking to agents, ultimate role is definitely always present.

Three. Never present them. Just your one attorney or your one partner. That's that's that is where you're going to get that feeling. The same thing that I would tell anybody, you know, you want to go get a new fence, go get three quotes. You're not going to you don't want to take the first quote. And so give that consumer a little optionality, but you're still maybe controlling it from the end.

You know, the back end is the agent or the company about what options I'm giving you. But finding the best partners is important. It's not about the the monetization of it. It's about who's providing the best service and who's most aligned with the culture of the company or the culture of, you know, what I believe is right?

Daniel Burstein: Because long term, I assume that's your value proposition, your customer. Right. We are the trusted voice in the real estate industry. I think that's ultimately what you're selling, right?

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Absolutely. Yeah. You know, real estate is is generally and still and probably will be for a very long time, the largest and most important purchase of any person's given, you know, life. And so when somebody is entrusting you with that right and keyword entrusting, you have to create that. You have to lead that somehow. Right. So we have to provide that with our service providers as well.

Daniel Burstein: Absolutely. I here's one more lesson. You said you don't have to be the loudest voice in the room to be the most effective leader. I briefly mentioned Benji earlier. That's Benji Burford, who is the CEO and also a former military pilot. Yeah. So how did you learn this from Benji?

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: So it's funny because I generally am the loudest one, but not because I try to be. It's just I have a loud voice. But. So Benji, Benji Burford, we've worked together for a long time. He's still probably one of my closest friends and mentors to today. But we worked back at Conlin together. He was a former special ops pilot, although I probably shouldn't say that.

Did McKinsey and then kind of came to us as a CEO and, you know, from his from his military, I think, background. Yes. He came in with precision. He had, you know, this, like eagle eyes, you know, vision of things. But there's also this collaboration that comes from it. And I don't know, you know, if you know anything about kind of pilots and how they act and how they debrief and everything that goes into it.

But it's really calculated and it's incredibly collaborative. So he brought that empathy and calm. But what he what he did with me was he he taught me everything about business. So he taught me, you know, the panels he taught me staffing, positioning, all the tenants, but did it in a way that it was approachable and, and didn't, you know, make me feel less than because I was learning something.

What I learned from that was how he feel, you know, made me feel, I guess, seen and capable in every room. And that you don't have to be that loudest person, right? Because he wasn't he was not the loudest person. It's all about how you bring in the team, create, an approachable way to business. And you don't have to be so icy cold and so, you know, loud and roll with an iron fist.

And it's just something that I cherish and I obviously, you know, bring to how I try to lead and manage, today.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. I mean, one thing and the little I know about military, military parts of them, there's things there's also like a hierarchy of how they perform under pressure, the checklists and all these things. You know, they're not just winging it when they're flying the plane. They they've drilled. They have that checklist. And I wonder if there's anything you learn from him.

They're about making decisions under pressure.

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: So I will tell you. Yeah okay. Go ahead with.

Daniel Burstein: Oh well I was going to mention, when I interviewed, Carlos came to the CMO free pick. One of his lessons was clarity and focus are keys to a corporate turnaround. And he said he learned that from Jack Dorsey when Jack Dorsey was turnaround. Twitter. And I see that that whole type of clarity and focus, it's just so similar to what you'd have to do under that pressure as a military pilot.

And so I wonder, like I said, if there's anything you learn from Benji about that.

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: So absolutely, yes. And actually, it's funny because, I don't know if you've if you might, you may or may not be familiar. There's a book called traction. And I think one of these lessons that Benji taught me very early on is like a foresight to what I do in traction out. But they're very like you said, Air Force and military is very, you know, checklist it, if you will.

And there is this story where he said, Melissa, there is like they right on the propeller do not walk into a moving propeller for a reason. Okay. And, you know, and and it will always stick with me. And he goes, you build everything and this will sound horrible, but you build everything to the lowest common denominator. So do not walk into a moving propeller.

We would all believe that that is borderline, you know, common sense. At some point at some time somebody walked into the moving propeller. So now it is there. And we took that approach and did that for every single process procedure, what if scenario. And we had, you know, every checklist you could imagine. And it was what then during the time of call it chaos or some crazy decision that would have to come to, we'd go to the checklist, we'd go to it.

It was almost just like a calming, it pacifier, if you will. Right. It was like, how do we create something in this storm? And it went to the checklist or it went to the manual or went to a process and how to problem solve, you know, let's go to a slot, let you know, let's break it down so that we can get to a solution and so that we're not in just some emotional, you know, tirade, spin.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah that's good because your decision making abilities when you are not in chaos are very often the women are in chaos. So that's that prep really helps.

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Yeah. Right. All right.

Daniel Burstein: Well from all your different stories and we we learned so many things. But you had to break it down. Melissa, what are the key qualities of an effective marketer.

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: I would say three things. Clarity empathy and adaptability. I think great marketing is not promotion. You know, I think it's connection. And that's very incredibly relevant within my sphere and my, my industries. I'm assuming it can be relatable across many. But I think those three is what drives it home. I think if your message is clear and it's relevant and human, you're going to win more, you're going to win more customers, and that's what's going to create your brand.

You know, I think the message I don't need, I don't need to do and I mean, I think that that is what it is. I just think that's what it it's those three things.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. No. Like marketing is not promotion. It's connection. Connection.

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Yeah.

Daniel Burstein: Well thank you so much for your time today. I learned a lot.

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: Well good I my pleasure. I really enjoyed it. Daniel. You weren't you weren't too painful on me though.

Daniel Burstein: I did when I said at the end. You can be honest, if this was painful going through someone's career or pulling everything out, that can be like a root canal.

Melissa Archer-Wirtz: I it was. I had to really go back into some of the vault of Memories. Gosh, no.

Daniel Burstein: There you go. Well, thank you so much for doing. Thank you. Thank you to everyone for listening.

Outro: Thank you for joining us for how I made it and marketing with Daniel Burstein. Now that you've got an inspiration for transforming yourself as a marketer, get some ideas for your next marketing campaign. From Marketing Sherpas extensive library of free case studies at Marketing sherpa.com. That's marketing rpa.com and.