 300 people wanted help, 100 really wanted some help, and only three get to hear what I'm really saying behind the scenes. I was like, everyone needs to hear this stuff. So I was like, man, if I just open up my entire mind to the entire world for free and let everybody in, then I can create a big enough brand to where I can, at that point, go build other businesses on top of that brand. As opposed to trying to build the business on a coaching program, I could actually open up to the entire world and then build even bigger businesses than the coaching program long-term. Hi, I'm Tim with the Shibereel Estate team, and we are on Behind the Sign with an amazing guest. I'm one I've followed since about 2019. Blew my socks off, Ricky Caruth. Tell me a little bit about yourself. What's up, bro? Good to be here. Yeah, now, man, I've been a 41, be 42 this year in 2023. 2023 is gonna be one amazing year, by the way. But yeah, man, I'm just down here on the Alabama Gulf Coast, Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, right on the Florida line, been selling real estate since 2002, and it's been a roller coaster, honestly, but it's been fun. It's a wild and crazy career, but it's one I think anybody can succeed at, and I think everyone, you know, honestly should do real estate, you know? If I have my way, everybody be a real estate agent, and then everybody says, well, then who's gonna buy all this real estate? Who's gonna use real estate agent? That's a brave statement, man. Everybody should be a realtor, right? Everybody should be a real estate agent. Absolutely, man. And then where are we gonna get the business from? That's what somebody asked me one time. I said, well, listen, I get a lot of business from agents. A lot of business. You know, when you gotta go, when you buy something in a different area, like when I buy in different areas, I use a real estate agent. I'm a real estate agent, right? Because you don't know the local market. You know, the markets are so different from market to market and different paperwork, different fees, different things with the counties and the cities and the states. It's, that's what I say, man. It's such a wild and crazy, crazy deal. So if me as an agent needs an agent when I go places, how do you think normal people feel that aren't real estate agents, even when they're in their local market, right? Yeah, I definitely agree with you 100%. Even like on the commercial side of stuff, I don't do commercial real estate. So I'm not gonna try and act like I do. I refer it because, and if I were to go get something, I would use a commercial realtor because they know what they're talking about, right? Like it is what it is. So Ricky, I started following you. I think we went back and forth in 2019. And I'll be honest with you, man. I was like, this guy is full of crap. How can he possibly do all of that? And I've been watching your videos lately and I know you take a lot of heat there because the amount of stuff that you put out there, the number of videos, and I can say that you absolutely do because you haven't stopped. It just continues year after year. You put out probably more videos than any real estate agent. And I know you do the real estate coaching too, but just the amount of stuff you put out is amazing. How do you keep up with that? Yeah, I mean, from the social media side of things, it's always a work in progress, you know? People look at, they take a snapshot of what I do day to day now. And they think, man, there's, you know, how in the world, there's no way I could do that this, that, and the other. But what they don't get is, is I've been doing this for 20 years. You know, I focused on real estate sales for 15 years. Totally 100% focused. Didn't do anything else whatsoever. Dabbled in some real estate investing, but I didn't do stocks. I didn't do social media, nothing. Just focused on phone calls, emails, and postcards to get my business to where I was making a million dollars a year. Then, once I made a million dollars a year, then I said, okay, let's dabble into other things. I conquered that. And then I started writing books. I started writing and speaking and making videos and coaching and stuff like that. But it's been like, you have to layer it, right? You know, I did Facebook first. You know, I worked on it and really tried to understand it for like three or four months before I even touched another platform. Then I went to Instagram and added that to the layer of it, Facebook, right? And worked on it for three or four months. Then I added YouTube, started working on it. Then I did, you know, different platforms and added podcasts and did all that. So it's been like a layered stair-stepping process. And along the way, you kind of start to learn what works and what doesn't work, how to be more efficient, how to produce content at scale, and everything like that. So now bringing that all to present day, like for my vertical format videos, for, you know, Reels and TikTok and YouTube Shorts and stuff like that. You know, I'll sit down and actually, I'll sit down for like an hour and come up with all the ideas for like 20 videos. You know, these videos are one minute long or so, give or take. And I'll come up with like 20 ideas and I'll literally film all of them in one setting, you know, back to back to back. So I just batch them up like that. And then I have an editorial team that takes them and makes them look amazing. And then boom, you know? So honestly, I'm right now, I'm up to posting five times a day on Instagram. I'll mix a Twitter post in there, a quote or an image. You know, I'm starting to do the article in the background, giving reactions to headlines and stuff. Which is really cool. And that's brought a lot of views to my, and a lot of followers to my profile. But honestly, tomorrow it'll be something else. Like I'll see something or hear something or realize or research about something that changes my strategy up a little bit. And you're just constantly getting a little better, a little better, a little better. But you hit it on the head, man, that it's just consistency. 2019, did you have an editorial staff at that time? I was editing every day at that time. Or did you do the editing? That's what I thought, man. That's why I was like, there's no way because I know this guy is probably doing his own stuff. Yeah. He's making, you know, this many calls. You know what was so cool about it was that when I got to where I was making a meal a year, that was when I quit prospecting and I was just living off past clients and referrals. And when you live off your database, you maintain your level of income. So when it worked so hard to get to the mill, then I could actually turn off the prospecting time and focus more on content creation and building other businesses, but still maintain that meal in a year. Really, I was working like maybe five to 10 at the most hours a week on my real estate business while I was maintaining that 100 deals a year because it's only two deals a week, right? It's two deals a week and I was just taking orders. It wasn't like I was having to work really hard or prospect for these deals. It was just people coming to me saying, I wanna do this, I wanna do that. And then my assistant was really handling everything on the back end. So I was just handling the first phone call, maybe a negotiation here or there, a repair dindum, maybe go to a closing or two. I wasn't spending a whole lot of time, but the thing is is I spent 15 years to build that machine. And that's what people just, they just can't, they're like, oh, there's no way he's doing all this and all that. Well, I spent 15 years to build that machine to the point where I could afford to play it like that. You know what I mean? So the other day, and I didn't realize this back then, but the other day I heard you saying how, you went broke, you worked in the oil fields, you did all this stuff. And I've been in the business since oh four, you're probably oh two, oh three, right? Some of them were back there. So our career path is extremely similar. And I think the way we approached our business was very similar too. And like when I heard you say that you went broke, you worked multiple jobs, that's the kind of thing that those people don't realize that people who think, well, you know, how does this work? How does this happen in their two years in the business? They don't understand the grind. They don't understand that, you know, we've been through the lows and we know that the minute you take your foot off the gas, you come to a stop. And my wife has mentioned to me like, when is enough enough? You know, when is enough enough? I'm like, it never is enough because I'm scared to death to take my foot off the gas because if I do that, this animal is gonna come to a screeching halt and I'm scared to death of that because I've been through it and it's horrible. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the same thing sometimes, when's enough enough? Cause I don't, honestly, I don't have to work anymore, but I still get up like I'm broke every day. I don't know, I grew up roofing houses and, you know, I don't care what's happening like in my financial situation or the markets or whatever, you know, my lifestyle is I get up and work as hard as I can every day. You know, no matter what's happening, it's not really about money, it's not really about markets or whatever, it's just about working. I don't know, man. I just love to work. Honestly, it's almost like a hobby. You know, there's a part of it where I just really enjoy it to the point where it's almost, you know, it's not a hobby because I do it every day all day long, but there's definitely a sense of enjoyment behind it, but you're right. You know, once you let that foot off the gas, listen, you know, people talk about going from part-time to full-time, what's gonna change in your life? You wake up now to go to your full-time job, you know, you wake up and you work your ass off all day, right? When you go real estate full-time, it's gonna be even worse. You're gonna wake up and work your ass off all day and night, you know? Yeah. Your lifestyle doesn't really change that much. I think my enough is enough is at five o'clock every day, right? I like, that's where I cut it off. Like, could I work past five and double my production and produce more content and do more things and all this stuff? And yes, I could. That opportunity's sitting there, but enough is enough. Five o'clock, I'm gonna clock out, I'm gonna, you know, do what I also enjoy doing. You still make yourself available though? Are you still available to your current clients after five? It just depends on what the situation is. Like, if they want to see a house, if they want to, you know, list a property, if we're negotiating a deal, if I need to, if they want me to write an offer, yeah, I'll do any of that stuff. I'm not gonna answer repair dendems. I'm not gonna answer it. I'm not gonna answer an email from a random buyer lead. I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna do the tedious office work type stuff. But yeah, if there's a situation, sure, right? But that's the thing. A lot of people talk about that and come to find out those situations are not very common, you know? I mean, they do happen here and there. And there are markets where most buyers are looking after five o'clock because they work all day. I get all that. But if that's your life, you know, I've always said, I'm gonna work from eight to five. And after five, if you wanna see property on there, right, or on the weekends, I never worked in the office on the weekends and stuff. I always went to appointments on the weekends, but I never like did the day-to-day admin, reachers and development, stuff like that, postcards, letters, emails, marketing. So when was it you hired somebody to your admin, your back end? So when I was, it was probably 2012 or so. I got back in in 2008. And then, you know, I was just single agent till about 2000, I wanna say it was 2011 or 12 or so. And I had 30 active listings. And that was kind of the breaking point for me because I was getting so many requests to see my listings that I couldn't hand, like me handling the requests to see my listings because I'm in a vacation market. So like when they request, then I have to call the rental company to see if the current renters that are there for a week will let us see, then call, then wait on them to call the renters, then have them call me back, then I call the agent. And all that's done digitally now, of course, but it's still a process. I still have to email, wait and respond, see if the renters are okay with it, get the code, like it's a process. And so I was spending all my time handling requests. So that was the first task I had to take off my shoulders to give myself enough room to breathe so I could go out and prospect more and sell more real estate. So once I brought my admin on to take that one task off my shoulders to where I could open up to continue expanding my business, then I just told her everything else, how to put stuff into my list, how to do postcards, how to do all the other things that I needed her to do. So yeah, I think that's the thing is you get to the bottleneck in your business and you realize what those one or two activities are that are really holding you back from growth. And those are the two activities you hire someone for. And then once you get them on board and train them on those two things and you got some room to breathe, then you kind of show them all the other stuff to really take everything off your plate. There was definitely time in my life where I wanted to sell real estate till I died. I just loved it that much. And I think a lot of agents sit there and I've heard a lot of agents say that and I tell them, I'm like, that's what you're saying now. You know? Yeah, yeah, you're gonna get to a point. Yeah, you're gonna get to a point where the grind is gonna be too much for you and you're gonna have wish you put something in place that could kind of supplement that where you could do it if you wanted to, but you don't have to. And so real estate investing is a big, big vehicle that all agents need to be doing is investing into the product that you're selling, understanding the game of real estate investing and depreciation and all that stuff. And then, but I did that of course, but I saw a huge opportunity with social media that I didn't take advantage of in my real estate business. You know? Yeah. And I kind of, I was one of the first people on MySpace and MySpace went away really fast. You know? Yeah. Basically as soon as Facebook came along. Well, when Facebook came along, I was like, well, this is just another MySpace. It's gonna go away quick. And so at that point when what happened to MySpace, it kind of spoiled, it ruined me for social media. And so I just didn't pay attention to any social media platform for like a decade. Cause that was like in 2005, 2004 or five or whatever. And so literally for a decade, I completely ignored all social platforms. And by the time I could pick my head up for air from just keeping my head down and focused on sales, as soon as I could look around and breathe for a second and really started to try to understand what's going on, I realized, wow, these platforms are here to stay. And this is an incredible opportunity. I missed the boat building my real estate business there. However, I can still build a brand there and see what I can do to build other businesses later on. So, well, I was writing a book cause I said, man, I've had a hundred deals for three years in a row. Most people sell real estate for two years and sell 19 properties and now they coach and sell courses for 500 bucks. So my story is I got in, I made a mill, I lost it, I came back, I became the top agent in Alabama and sold a hundred properties a year for three years and then decided I'm gonna try to share some of this with people. So I was writing a book in the middle of writing the book and Remax said, we want you to speak of this thing. And I was like, oh, I'll do that. So I go and do this first speech in Biloxi back in 2016. And long story short, it was a disaster really. I was kind of sick. I was in a suit. I was the last speaker. I was nervous as can be. But I made such an impact on the people. People were standing in line to talk to me afterwards. And I was like, wow, what I'm saying really resonates with people. I need to finish the book. So that motivated me to finish the book. Well, then I started saying, okay, I'm gonna do a coaching program. So I was charging. I was charging 20 bucks a month, 150. I tried a thousand one time fee. I tried all kinds of different things. And at the end of the day, to make a long story short, I realized agents just don't want to pay anything for anything, you know? So I said, you know what? 300 people will sign up for a webinar. 100 will show up and three will sign up. I was like, man, nobody here that 300 people wanted help. 100 really wanted some help. And only three get to hear what I'm really saying behind the scenes. I was like, everyone needs to hear this stuff. So I was like, man, if I just open up my entire mind to the entire world for free and let everybody in, then I can create a big enough brand to where I can, at that point, go build other businesses on top of that brand as opposed to trying to build the business on a coaching program. I could actually open up to the entire world and then build even bigger businesses than the coaching program long-term. And so that's kind of been the play. And what really made me do it is I was just frustrated with trying to build because I was making 10 Gs a month automatic payments on 200 agents at the time. But I was like, this is just not where it's at. And so I was already posting on all platforms and I was already like building brand and stuff, but the paid thing was a thorn. Cause like I couldn't go on stage and tell people everything I wanted to tell them because then I'm telling people the secrets that other people are paying for. Like the whole thing was not me. It just, I couldn't, it didn't feel right. The whole thing. So Gary V, I ran into his content and it kind of hit me. I was like, I need to go free and just build my brand and then opportunities will happen. And so that's what's happened, dude. Now I've got celebrities following me and DMing me and all kinds of big names and stuff. And it's really cool. So I'm getting all kinds of opportunities and we're launching all kinds of different businesses right now and it's very exciting, honestly. Yeah. I listened to that. I was a big Gary V guy back in 2015, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. I mean, the stuff he would say is always, I already had that in my mind at one point or another. So always resonated with me. And honestly to think back and that's what drove me. You know, I've always had the similar, like I want to go, I want to go. I want to be the best at what I do. It's not about making the money. It's about making the biggest impact that I possibly can. And Gary V gave me that. Like if there's a time where I was driving to work and I just kind of felt like blah, I'd have to listen to Gary V or somebody. And next thing you know, I'm back on track ready to get in there and I'm on fire, right? I talked to Gary, you know, like we talk, but like a lot of people think, oh, it would be great if I were like in really good with the Grant Cardone's, the Gary V's, the Edmillettes and stuff like that. And what's cool about what I'm doing is I can visualize five, 10 years from now and I see all the future Gary V's and the future Edmillettes and Grant Cardone's and I'm literally creating great relationships with these future influencers, the next generation of these guys. And it's really cool to kind of take a second sometimes and look at what the future holds for what I'm doing. It's really, it's a really cool thing, you know, to think about. But yeah, you know, there's some big time future influencers that were like best friends, you know, talk all the time. I've always wanted to get there and I've always, you know, I've got quite a few videos and I'm thinking to myself, I got 370, 380 videos on YouTube and then I look at you and you're like 1.3,000 videos. I'm like, I got a ways to go to catch up to this guy. Now, what I've learned lately is that quantity, really, really quality quantity on Instagram is what's crushing it, like what I'm doing five posts a day, trying to keep the quality as high as possible for five posts. On YouTube, it's more quality. Like you could do one video a month and as long as it's a really incredible video that everybody loves, then you're gonna crush it. You know, you could do one video a month and crush it on YouTube, as long as it's very well produced and high quality, you know. So I'm learning, you know. Now, what that being said with YouTube, I film and edit all my YouTube still. And that's why I'm putting out less content there right this second. I'm putting out more shorts than anything because I'm kind of spending time to create my long form content because I really want it to be good. And in 2023, I really want to ramp up YouTube and see some better growth than I have. Hey, thank you so much for watching today's video. I hope it brought you tons of value. Let me know what you think in the comments and I'm gonna put the next video right here for you. So you don't have to go anywhere. You can just click this video to keep that Ricky train rolling. Hey, we'll see you guys on this next video and I'll talk to you soon.