Last August, Gary Vaynerchuk delivered the keynote session at Inman Connect San Francisco and shared his one-of-a-kind approach to marketing, social media and business. Throughout his talk, Vee challenged agents to stay ahead of the curve and get hip to “the digital revolution.”
The marketing guru predicted that many of the audience members wouldn’t follow his advice, but that those who did would experience business-changing and even life-changing results.
One of the agents who heeded Gary Vee’s words was Alex Wang, a Sereno Group agent who is known for being an early adapter to platforms such as Snapchat.
“I was at Inman Connect and met Gary Vee, and he’s been my inspiration for documenting my life as a real estate agent,” Wang said.
Wang, who has amassed a social media following of more than 2,000, has become famous for his in-depth Snapchat videos that show the ins-and-outs of everyday life as an agent, husband and father.
“It is much more real,” Wang said in an an earlier interview with Inman. “These are one-take snaps — I take a snap and post it and don’t try to curate it.”
He’s now taken his “real world” approach to Snapchat and applied it to a new series of videos that aim to give a peek into the life of a listing agent.
‘Gloom to Bloom’
In the first of this video series, “Gloom to Bloom in 12 Days,” Wang takes viewers on a three-day journey in which he completely renovates a home, puts it on the market, and has it sold within nine days to a cash buyer who offered more than the asking price.
The video features Wang waking up at the crack of dawn to walk through the home that has old furniture, trash sprawled about and a pesky flea problem his team has to get rid of before they can get to redecorating and staging the space.
There are a few times when Wang looks tired, running on nothing but Starbucks. But, he doesn’t mind that — Wang wants viewers to get a true look at what it really takes to be a successful listing agent.
Wang says his experience on a real estate-themed reality show gave him the push he needed to begin showing people what it really means to be an agent.
“I had to bring 10 outfits and change in and out of them to give the illusion that we’d been working over the course of a few days,” he said.
“I realized there was nothing real about reality TV, and I wanted to do something that was not fake.”
Just the beginning
The video has a happy ending — the home was sold in nine days to a cash buyer, something Wang says is typical for the Silicon Valley community he serves.
“I think part of it is the [tech] demand — people are flying here in droves trying to work for the local companies in this area. The demand is very high not only for newcomers, but for those who have been here for awhile.”
Wang says this video is just the beginning, and that he’ll keep producing videos that give viewers a first-hand look into the listing world.