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Michael Stewart
Welcome, welcome. And good morning, Mike Stewart live, Happy New Year everybody. Here it is 2021, the first show of Mike Stewart dot live the website all about audio and video marketing. I’m glad you’re here. More importantly, I want to start thinking about let’s focus on positive things for 2021. I’ll tell you what 2020 was so filled with so many things that were frustrating that even though they were frustrating, there were things that were good that came from it. But there’s a lot of things that I know have been frustrating a lot of folks. And so anyway, this show today is about positive things, setting goals. You know, one of the things that I like to talk to people about and I like to remind folks of, I don’t care what your business is, you need to work on your business, not just work in your business. That’s kind of in the message and kind of the theme that I always try to do I’ve been doing for years. But really more and more today. For 2021. Let’s work on our businesses. And one of the ways to work on your business, no matter what your business is, is mastering audio and video technologies, audio and video content marketing. I mean, that’s why I do this. I do this as a community service for my audience. I want folks to realize that if I can do this, you can do this. It’s not that hard. And I really got an exciting guest this morning, who is a local business colleague of mine. She’s a successful real estate agent here in Nashville. And she uses the very same technologies that I’m an advocate of to help generate business for her real estate business. And we’re going to hear all about that. So without any further ado, I want to introduce to you my friend and colleague, Miss Meredith Smith. Meredith.

Meredith Smith
Good morning, Mike. Happy New Year,

Michael Stewart
Happy New Year to you. I’m so glad you’re here. You know, the reason I wanted to have you as I remember, I met I met you through one strategy that I recommend for every business owner, is to go out to networking groups. And I remember the day I met you at our networking group, which by the way, I’m going to put the link up there for people that don’t know about it. It’s called networking. Today International, anti great group of local business folks, and you were there. And you caught my ear that day, you said I’m a real estate agent, but I do YouTube video marketing. And I went, Oh my gosh, I gotta get to know, the folks that know me know that video. And audio marketing has been my passion for 20 years before there was a YouTube, right? And I said, Okay, if this real estate agent didn’t talk about mortgages, or there’s markets going up or down, or I got all these listings. Now there’s all the typical things. The one thing you said the very first meeting earlier, is that you wanted to interview people, for your YouTube videos. And I thought, Okay, I gotta learn what, what is Meredith up to? This is, this is amazing. So my first question for you in this interview is, you know, we know, and my audience should know now, Meredith is a successful national real estate agent. She’s a realtor. So what doing video has done for your local business? Just tell me the story, how you got into it, and what’s going on with

Meredith Smith
it? Right, right. Well, so I, I’m entering my 18th year of real estate, and when I relocated to Nashville, it was in 2017. And I knew nobody, I had no sphere, nobody, but I know, I’m very outgoing. And I’m not shy, and I’m willing to try anything. So it was 2018. And I needed to rebrand myself in Nashville, as, you know, a real estate professional, and also needed to try to figure out, you know, I was still learning the market, how am I going to get people to know like, and trust me, and the strategy I came up with it just it’s evolved over time, was to start doing video, not just real estate videos, but start interviewing other businesses, because I’m still getting to know people. People are getting to know me. And if I can interview a business, I can serve them, I can help get their name out. But also people can get to know me while I’m interviewing so people can see, you know, how I interact with people. And you’re also you know, I’m showcasing a business. And it’s, it’s something that I completely take on and I loved it. So it was basically be can consistent interview, do a couple interviews a week and just keep pushing the content out. And then it started to evolve from there.

Michael Stewart
So you’re telling me that you are doing 200 views a week on average?

Meredith Smith
Well, not well, I was at the beginning, I was doing as many as I possibly could so I could get the content. And I’ve gotten so busy now with with real estate that I can’t do as much as I used to. So now I’ve got a slot every, every Thursday at two, I do an interview, I live stream on here on stream yard with a local business. And I also get on at two o’clock on Mondays to either interview someone or put out a real estate tip. We’re going to talk later today at two o’clock. Yeah, I’m

Michael Stewart
a guest on your show today, which I invite folks to come back, we need to, we need to know how to subscribe to your show to as well, because, um, you know, the thing that I think that is a lesson here for my audience, and I’m seeing some comments here, and we’re gonna take questions, be sure to if you got questions, right, here’s Meredith, who her expertise and her background and for years and years is making a living doing real estate. And I know you’re a professional real estate agent. But you’ve got past the learning curve. I mean, how many real estate agents even know stream yard exists? Bravo.

Meredith Smith
Yeah, I don’t know. Not many in the when I met you that first day. And I will never like going into a networking group. I ask. I don’t I don’t tell you, you know, it’s obvious I sell real estate. But I want to interview you. That’s that’s my ask. When I go to a networking group. It’s it’s let’s get together. And because of COVID, that’s why stream yard became so important because now I do interviews with my stream yard show.

Michael Stewart
Well, okay, but pre COVID. You How are you doing interviews? Tell us the process that you were making your content, what would you do

Meredith Smith
got it. So I would go to the location of the particular person, I would bring my camera and my tripod. And

Michael Stewart
that was at a phone or a camera,

Meredith Smith
I would use both. This works just fine. But I also would bring my Canon camera and with my boom mic, wow. And I that I bought to do real estate pictures, I don’t take my own pictures anymore. I hire a professional for that. So I get great use out of this camera now. So basically, I would go, we would do a couple takes, I have software called Filmora. It took me months to master and I now do my own editing. It’s so simple. But if you don’t want to deal with that, bring your iPhone and use your and you can edit it right on your phone. But I like downloading it I like being able to see it I like be able to manipulate the sound. And now that I know how to do it, you know, it used to stress me out getting all this new content because I’m like, Okay, I gotta get this edited and done. But now it’s like, boom, boom, boom. And I’m in it’s out there and I

Michael Stewart
yeah. Okay, there’s the lesson, folks. Here’s a professional real estate agent who took the time, you know, I did a course on Filmora. Because that’s a that is a good editing program for the PC. So I assume your PC?

Meredith Smith
Yes.

Michael Stewart
Okay. And and of course, if you’re Mac based, a lot of people use iMovie. And the iPhone has a free iMovie app that does anything. Yeah. And so so you were doing interviews, so you are actually getting in the car driving to somebody location, scheduling, what, that’s how important it was to your local business to get these interviews correct.

Meredith Smith
salutely. And, and what what was remarkable was the response from the business owner, that he would take the time to do this to showcase me because Mike, I would put their information, like I wouldn’t even make the call to action me, the call to action would be the business that I was interviewing that particular day. And a lot of people were like, you know, they would take the video and they put it other places. So I don’t just provide the content, I provide you the YouTube link so you can put it wherever you want. And it doesn’t have I’m not plastered throughout it. It’s all about the business owner. And I it, it was one of those, you know, I’ve gotten to know so many people by doing it. And so many people have gotten to know me, and just from me taking the time to do that interview. The whole purpose was you know, not to get business but you know, for to get that brand recognition, and doing the videos has turned into business for me and it just was something that just evolved. You know, it’s become this great thing now that I you know, I’m so proud of and i’m not i’m not gonna stop, I’m gonna keep going because I just I enjoy meeting new people. It’s a lot of fun.

Michael Stewart
Okay, so all right, here’s what I’ve heard folks. We have a non video internet video person originally because we all started out as non online video people. And you, you you got you learned how to shoot it, how to edit it, how to post it, and how and then it became a story that built relationships that I want to get into To the networking and the relationship building of how that brought you business, I want you to come in and give some examples and talk about some of the results. So where were you putting these videos, when you first started,

Meredith Smith
when I first started, they would go, I post them to my Facebook business page, I’d make the post, I would add closed captions, and then I would share it to my personal page so that my personal network could see it along with my business network, I would then put it on LinkedIn, with a with a blog. And then I would also always put it to YouTube so that I could easily share it with whomever I was interviewing. So I get it. And then I have a website that it will also go to under my blogs. So it kind of it, it goes to and I can repurpose it in other and use it, you know, over and over again if I want to. But you know, I have I have when I do an interview, when I put out new content, I have a process, that it’s always the same, I always post the same so that people can know what to expect.

Michael Stewart
Give me the good. Let’s give out your web address, because this is also my podcast. So So spell it out and spell it out. And then I’ll put it up on the screen here because we already had a question from my good friend Tom out in Portland. He wants to know what your channel is. So what is your website first?

Meredith Smith
It’s Meredith. Sell t n.com. So Meredith sells tn.com. Okay. And I, yeah, my Facebook page is pretty easy to find. You can just look Merrick Meredith sells tn. And that will be my Facebook page. I have an Instagram page. Meredith sells tn you can see there the

Michael Stewart
America sales tn.com. I hope all that good social media is linked from that website.

Meredith Smith
If I have a YouTube, I have all the links up at the top of my page. So you should find that thing. Yep.

Michael Stewart
All right. And is your YouTube channels look a link from Meredith? Okay, see, folks. You know, that’s one of the things the big things I preach and do myself and I tell everyone have a portal have a central, you know, Meredith sales, Tennessee? Oh, my gosh, if you can’t remember that, then we’ll work on it. But But the thing is that that becomes the portal. I mean, everybody knows Google is the portal to search. eBay is a portal to buy Amazon. You know, I always ask people, what is Amazon? And they say, well, it’s a store that sells everything. Yes, it is. But it’s a portal to people with credit cards already pre programmed. It’s a search engine for buyers. So it’s all how you look at but it’s still portals are very important things in the internet. So that is married is portal. So all right. So you started out with the equipment of nothing more than you had a good camera that you bought to take photos of listings?

Meredith Smith
It’s a five year old camera. It’s nothing fancy

Michael Stewart
DSLR is it does video as well

Meredith Smith
as video. Yes.

Unknown Speaker
Okay. And,

Michael Stewart
you know, one of the questions I used to get years ago when I was teaching video was the number of what camera? Should I use Mike? And my answer was always one you know how to run. You know, those Canon cameras, they got a lot of settings on it, they got a lot of adjustments. So that’s what I love about, you know, cell phones here is that the cameras are amazing. They’re easy to use. And you know, you can start using it tomorrow. So nobody cares at the bank what camera you use. Now, let’s let’s let’s go on. So you’ve mastered that you’ve got all these things in place. Let’s talk about when did you discover stream yard and by the way, my affiliate link to stream yard is join stream yard.com. So I got to give that out. Because I wanted more and more people I don’t care. Look here Here is a local business entrepreneur who learned stream yard. Now what has been the experience of using stream yard since COVID?

Meredith Smith
Oh, well, I went when we went into lockdown. I was I struggled. I was like, Oh my gosh, I can’t interview people anymore. I did a few videos on my own. But I’m like this isn’t working. And my friend Matt Brown at the Nashville marketer reached out to me and said, I’ve got a program that I’ve discovered. I want to interview you on it. And this is what it’s all about. So that was April. And then I then I flip the switch, and I created the show conversations with your Nashville realtor. I’m Meredith Smith. I am your national realtor. And now that’s that’s what my stream yard show is called conversations with your Nashville realtor. And ever since I learned how to log in, I’ve been using it and I think I’ll continue to do the stream yard because I think we’re going to be in this COVID situation for a bit longer. And I’d rather keep everybody safe and just interviewed this way I think. I think it’s a great program. I love it. I still have a lot to learn about it though.

Michael Stewart
Well, you know, the thing that that I’m such an advocate of it is, you know, one, we’re safe. Number one, number two, how convenient it is send a link and and most people, and you know, I’ve actually done tests and I don’t know if you know this, Meredith but when people log into stream yard on their phone, the quality is amazing.

Meredith Smith
I have had a few that have logged in on their phone for me to interview and it’s gone great. Oh,

Michael Stewart
yeah, because you’re getting, you’re getting the video and audio recorded at the same time. So if you really get proficient at live streaming, here it is. The editing time becomes nothing, you know, the interview is I mean, when I I’ll be honest with you, I’m an advocate of zero editing. I like doing a show and, and and when I get done, it’s posted and it’s ready. Well, you know what we this is the other thing. So So what equipment are you using for stream yard? What is that?

Meredith Smith
I’m using an HD webcam with a mic. And I’m using my HP laptop, and I had it plugged into a big screen here. That’s it.

Michael Stewart
So what brand of webcam? Is it?

Meredith Smith
Oh, it is?

Michael Stewart
Is it a Logitech or is it a different brain?

Meredith Smith
It’s an F HD camera? It’s I got it on Amazon for 40 bucks. It’s 40 bucks.

Michael Stewart
Alright, well, we’ll have to, I’ll have to research that. Cuz

Meredith Smith
you I also use a ring light, I have a ring light to kind of light not my office. Because the lighting isn’t great. I’m still working on the lighting. But yeah, it cost me know the equipment doesn’t cost much. You know, it’s a monthly subscription to stream yard and it’s worth its weight in gold. With what I can produce from it.

Michael Stewart
We’ll see I love that, you know, I keep trying to this is not online marketing. Now. This is this is local market brand awareness. relationship building strategies. So I tell you what we’re gonna do I want you to tell me what tell me some of the takeaways of positive. You’ve only been here in Nashville for a little over three years. Correct. Here’s what it was.

Meredith Smith
I was a licensed broker in Maine. I started in 2003.

Michael Stewart
Wow, Maine to Tennessee. Well, that that’s, that’s awesome.

Meredith Smith
Yeah. And people were like, You’re crazy. Meredith, you know, how are you going to do that? I’m like, I can do it. And it’s just you’re not being afraid. I’m not afraid to talk to someone, I’m not afraid to pick up the phone. I’d much rather be in person. That’s why I love nti, the networking group, because you can meet so many people, and they’re there for relationships. They’re not there to sell you. It’s all about serving. And that is the that’s the hallmark of my strategy. And my my brand is serve, don’t sell period.

Michael Stewart
Oh, you can’t learn a lesson from what Meredith is doing, folks. I don’t I don’t know what to tell you, other than I just I admire what you’re doing. If you can do it, if I can do it, it’s just you know, how hard is this? We just show up in our offices. And we have a friendly conversation and it creates content that could build a relationship that turns into business. So talk about some of the wins that you’ve had, since you’ve done this in just the three short years that you’ve been doing it?

Meredith Smith
Yeah, well, I didn’t really take off with the video until mid 2018. So it hasn’t been that long, a year and a half. Yeah. So it didn’t take long. I was doing a few interviews. And a particular gentleman that I interviewed, you know, he was like, what, what, what, what do you want for what am I going to have to give you to get this, I’m like, you don’t have to give me anything. Just give me your time, your content, I want your content, your story. And it that particular interview evolved into a friendship, which has evolved into several real estate transactions, and a referral to another gentleman. And it’s going to be a significant amount of revenue from one video taking the time to get to know someone to let them share their story. And they liked they liked my process. And in that process they wanted they they were like I want to do business with you. I think you’d be great. And it’s going to generate it’s going to be over the from 2020 to 2021. And it’s going to be a significant revenue source just from one video.

Michael Stewart
Well, I gotta tell folks, you said that 2020 was an amazing year for you. And out of all the negativity and craziness

Meredith Smith
in spite of COVID and all the craziness, staying creative thinking outside of the box. 2020 was my largest selling year ever in real estate,

Michael Stewart
the biggest year in a new city. Folks, if you don’t hear the message from what this lady has done, and You

Meredith Smith
know, it’s this this is what?

Michael Stewart
video and online video marketing, relationship building. It’s not just marketing, it’s content marketing is relationship that know like and trust factor is what put it over the edge. Well, I’ll tell you what we’ve been going 20 minutes. Normally I have a sponsor. Well, today’s sponsor, and then we’re going to, this is your opportunity. If you have any questions, we’ll wrap up with some questions. And any final thoughts you have, Meredith, but today’s show is brought to you by project that is a is something that is a passion for me. It is, I’m in a band called The Box Tops. And Meredith, you’re too young to remember the box top. But my buddy Gary Talon and I A Gary was a founding member of the Box Tops, they had a hit record called the letter, which was a number one record. It’s one of the biggest records in 1967. You can Google the letter and find out about the box up. And I got to be a full time member of the Box Tops last January. And we were on tour we had all kinds of tour dates, and COVID killed that, you know, I got to play five gigs. And they were really nice shows and all of our 2020 shows had been consistently being pushed out in the future. Because here’s Guess what, nobody is playing live again. Nobody. So this is my online project. You know, I want to show this little thing here. This might be interesting. But 14 years ago, my good friend

Unknown Speaker
Armand Morin, I

Michael Stewart
created a fictitious artist called Michael Lee Austin. And we took Michael Lee Austin to number one in Billboard. And may 13 2016 14 years ago, we proved that with the Internet, and I have high, very passionate fan base, that you can monetize music. So I’m doing this with Gary, we call ourselves mash Memphis, a blend of Nashville and the Memphis sound. And I’m going to have the world debut of our song, which is essentially telling people how to support music. Until we can play live again, the song is called until we can play live again. Here’s the world premiere of my Nashville memphis.com song. Well, they’re

Meredith Smith
very good.

Michael Stewart
You know why I can play a song on my show? Because it’s my show.

Meredith Smith
Literally, that’s so cool. I’m so excited to have been a part of that.

Michael Stewart
Yeah, well, I thought, this is something I’m doing for 2021. In fact, that song is basically, you know, talking about here in Nashville, we’re in Music City. And I don’t care who you are, whether you’re somebody that you know, plays down, you know, on Broadway, or like us, we have a Beatles band that plays around, we started getting some momentum before COVID and, and all that’s gone away. And so rather than hating the internet, I’m trying to tell the music world embrace it, you know, the chorus of the song says, you know how you can support us. It doesn’t cost anything, add us to your playlists, exactly. You stream our music, it supports us. And so I’m looking forward to the day we can play live again. And and that whole song was built through the internet. We did everything going back and forth. I taught Gary who’s an amazing singer and guitar player who didn’t know how to do virtual sessions. And then now we this is I’m gonna move the camera there’s my new recording studio. And we did that whole record virtually without ever having to you know endanger our lives. We don’t Oh album and it’s it’s Nash Memphis calm. So just documenting. I’m going to be semi promoting it. Now. We’ve got a couple of questions here. And thank you, Vicki. Vicki says that was awesome. And of course my message here is we’re here’s another first. There’s never been a band named a website.

Meredith Smith
I love Yeah, that’s awesome. No,

Michael Stewart
another words are the name of our band is Nashville. memphis.com. So in other words, when you say the name of a band, you are giving out our web address. So cool. That’s a marketing strategy. All right, we got some questions for you some good ones. First of all, but here’s some great comments. This is Tom Brooks. loves your comment know like and trust your right on. So what is your channel? If you want if you wanted to search the channel on YouTube, how would you search the channel?

Meredith Smith
Um, it’s just Meredith Smith Nashville realtor. Yeah,

Michael Stewart
okay, great. All right. This is my good buddy. This is a content marketing. Guru expert, wonderful friend knows his stuff. That’s a great question for you. How long are your interviews And what kind of questions do you ask?

Meredith Smith
Great question they can it can be five minutes to 25 minutes, just depends on what kind of content or what kind of questions are are. And the questions are either you give them to me, because I’m not an act like, I’m my financial advisor, I feature bi weekly. And I have a hard time coming up with a question sometimes. And he’ll we’ll discuss what what does the show look like? What do you want to talk about? So if you’ve got some hot button topics or anything like that, feed me the content because I’m not I’m the man. I know enough. But I don’t know everything. So I want to make sure that the information that’s showcased is going to be useful for the viewers.

Michael Stewart
Oh, Jeff says, I did this to a great and he said he’s not a guru. But I like saying that because it makes him mad. So but going back to Jeff’s question, what are the average shows like I try to stay at around a half an hour?

Unknown Speaker
Yeah,

Michael Stewart
we’re already at a half an hour with us. But I took

Meredith Smith
12 to 15 minutes is the average time.

Michael Stewart
Okay. And and so you let slip. But like, for instance, today, I’m the king of, of winging it. So I had, I just figured I just get with you, we’d have fun. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. But I also had kind of a mind. You know, I wanted to do two things with you today with questions wise, prove that somebody who is not an internet marketer is using these strategies. Alright, we got another great question here. This is from you’re gonna love this. Meredith. This is the owner of Grand canyon.com. He’s and you talk about a guy who has really generated leads through an amazing, an amazing domain name, you ought to check it. Go check out Grand Canyon. This is Carla. So what do you do to prepare people you interview from their iPhones or smartphones?

Meredith Smith
Honestly, um, they they’re typically I asked them to, if they can be in front of their computer. I that’s what I asked them. But as far as you know how to prepare them, just make sure they have a stable Wi Fi connection. Otherwise, we’re going to freeze up the whole time. So if they are on their iPhone, or smartphone, all they need is the link to log in. And that’s it. So just make sure you’re you’re not using not using data and that you’ve got a nice Wi Fi or you’re if you’re at home, you’ve got a strong connection.

Unknown Speaker
Okay.

Michael Stewart
See if we got any other questions we got. We got some of my friends being smart aleck. So I won’t show those. We, you know, had some comments. Tom loved the song. Thank you, Tom. So Dan Carlin, thank you, but, but this is a chance here. If you if you got any curiosities of how a local business realtor is using online video marketing? This is your last chance to answer the question or I guess the main thing is, if you’ve got any final, final closing thoughts or comments that you’d like to say, I’m gonna put your website back up your again. Yeah,

Meredith Smith
I think to close it out, Mike, thanks for having me. I’ll never forget the first time we met because we were just drawn to each other because we were doing similar things. And I you know, I love commenting with you. I love connecting with you. And figuring out how to, you know, evolve, keep evolving this video marketing, because I still have so much to learn. But if there’s anyone out there that would like to be interviewed. Don’t be shy, please reach out. I would love to chat with you. My website is right here. My cell phone is 615-969-0406. I am a full time realtor. I work all the time. So I’m always available. So thank you so much, Mike. I love sharing my story. I have so much fun with this. It’s a great, I guess side gig. And I would love to teach people more about how to do video because it’s so easy. And if I can do it, anybody can do it.

Michael Stewart
Well, that’s great. Well, you know, we’re at the 30 minute mark, and I don’t see any other burning questions. Oh, well, I’ll tell you what, here you go. There you go. Jeff, Jeff, reached out to Meredith or I’ll make sure you get her number. Jeff is an amazing content marketer. And you guys, you know if nothing else you guys need to connect today. I can tell you stuff about Mike. Thanks, Jeff. So, with all that being said, this is Mike Stewart live. If somebody wants to tune into the two o’clock show this afternoon or go back and see some of your shows. They can find that out at Maritza sales. tn.com. Right. Is that correct?

Meredith Smith
Yes. They’re just gonna they’re gonna click on the Facebook link, because it’s going to be it’s going to stream on Facebook, and it’ll be right on my Facebook page.

Michael Stewart
All right, then. Bye. Bye, Meredith. I’ll see you today and thank you so much for being a part of Mike Stewart dot live.

Meredith Smith
Thank you so much.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai