Ep. 113/ The Power of Video Marketing: Judy Zhou's Real Estate Success Story
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Meet Judy Zhou, a 2-time entrepreneur who has lived in 3 countries and speaks 4 languages. She shares her experience living in China, the UK and being a NY transplant. Judy started her own translation business at the age of 23 and later transitioned to real estate in New York, and she shares her best advice to other self-employed folks and we discuss the importance of mindset, setting boundaries, and the impact of strategic video content creation in building connections and growing a business. Judy shares how she’s harnessed video - getting more creative and finally consistent and landing clients directly from social media.
You will learn:
Judy’s enthusiasm for NYC and shares local favorites with us. - 11:29
Prioritizing freedom and work-life balance. - 30:46
Judy learning how to make creative and consistent videos and how it’s grown her client base. - 33:45
How to be authentic and demonstrate credibility in your interactions. - 40:21
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Meet Judy Zhou, a 2-time entrepreneur who has lived in 3 countries and speaks 4 languages. Judy Zhou to discuss her inspiring journey from working as a lawyer in Hong Kong to launching her own successful translation business at the age of 23. Judy shares how her experience with extreme work culture and long hours at her law firm led her to the realization that she wanted to be her own boss. She also talks about the influence of her entrepreneurial parents on her own work ethic and desire to start a business. After running her translation company for six years and managing a team of 28 contractors, Judy made the bold decision to pivot into the real estate industry in New York City.
Throughout the episode, Judy and Kim delve into the importance of mindset, setting boundaries, and being resourceful when it comes to entrepreneurship and remote work. They also discuss the power of strategic video content creation in building genuine connections with an audience and growing a business. Judy credits Kim's video boot camp with helping her shift her content strategy and improve the quality and consistency of her videos. She emphasizes the importance of preparation, letting go of perfectionism, and consistently showing up to connect with followers. With her enthusiasm for New York City and her empathy for transplants' experiences, Judy has found success in her real estate career and continues to inspire others with her entrepreneurial spirit.
In this episode you will learn:
Judy’s enthusiasm for NYC and shares local favorites with us. - 11:29
Prioritizing freedom and work-life balance. - 30:46
Judy learning how to make creative and consistent videos and how it’s grown her client base. - 33:45
How to be authentic and demonstrate credibility in your interactions. - 40:21
Quotes from our guest:
“The first time I realized that I didn't want to have a boss was partly due to hunger. And this is because I was working in a law firm in Hong Kong where the culture of work is very intense." - 15:05
So I learned from running my own business the importance of adjusting to your own needs and how do you figure out your worth, how do you price things?" - 19:32
“I was tireless in every aspect of the work, not just looking at pretty properties, which is not hard to like, but also all the nitty gritty stuff of management companies, of all the new laws and regulations of the deal making of, you know, the client acquisition. And everything was interesting to me, so I realized that this is the right path for me to fulfill every aspect of my curiosity." - 26:51
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Kim (00:02):
You are going to love hearing from Judy Zhou. She is a two-time entrepreneur. She's lived in three countries and speaks four languages. She shares her experience living in China, the uk, and being a New York City transplant, and she talks about being a New York City real estate agent and gives her best advice to other self-employed folks,
(00:20):
Welcome to the exit interview with Kim Rittberg. Do you work for yourself and want to supercharge your business while still having fun? Well, this is your go-to podcast part MBA Part Cheer Squad. Every week I'll be joined by top business owners who share the secrets to their success. After I found myself working during childbirth true story, I quit my executive media job to bet on myself fighting the fear and imposter syndrome to eventually earn six awards, an in-demand speaking career and features in Fast Company and Business Insider. Now I'm here to celebrate all you rock stars betting on yourself, and I want to help you win Tune in every Wednesday to hear from remarkable founders and don't miss our Solo Friday episodes, a treasure trove of video and podcasting mini masterclasses with me. Exit the Grind, enter success on your own terms. Don't forget to subscribe today and grab my free video tips at my website, kimrittberg.com.
(01:22):
So I'm really excited for you all to meet Judy Zhou. Judy is a New York City based real estate agent, but also she's such an amazing life story. She lived in China, she went to school in the uk. She moved there as a teenager and then she was a transplant to New York City. She's a two-time entrepreneur. So first she ran a translation business and then shifted into real estate. And I just think Judy has done so many amazing things in her life. She and I met because she took video bootcamp and she really wanted to scale her business through video marketing. And so she and I have been working together for a while both in video bootcamp and one-on-one. And I've just loved seeing how she has really taken the video marketing lessons and really taken them to heart and she's crushing it on social media.
(02:02):
You should check her out on social media. I'll make sure to link it out. But really showing up consistently doing a mix of connection and credibility. So doing a mix of kind of raw and authentic content and then more polished content, showcasing her expertise, showcasing more of her interesting background and really bringing to light why people should work with her, really being herself, bringing all of her personality. And I've just been really impressed with the work she's doing in the marketing aspect of her business, but also she's really getting some amazing deals in real estate. She loves helping her clients, so we have so much to talk about. She talks about her experience living in all these different countries. She talks about launching a translation business, all the lessons she's learned from that she shares tips for other entrepreneurs. And then we have a little fun with some rapid fire, but it's a great interview, so make sure to stick around.
(02:45):
I am really excited to bring in Judy Jo. Her mission is to improve her client's lives, which according to her NYU Professor James f Gilligan is the definition of love. Judy's why is that? It brings her joy and gratification to be a trustworthy advisor to people and life-changing events, guiding them to make decisions that will financially empower them and improve their quality of living. Through managing her family's real estate portfolio and growing her own industry recognized translation agency, Judy has honed her problem solving and attentive listening skills. Her attention to details, her ability to be nuanced and effective in communication helps her be attuned to the emotions, not only her clients, but to other parties as well. And to ensure a smooth transaction raised in China and the UK. Judy came to New York for her studies at NYU and found her home here. She lives in an Upper West Side brownstone with her husband and two tuxedo cat siblings who, and she adopted them in an A-S-B-C-A van in Central Park. In her free time, she enjoys doing yoga on her roof deck, playing tennis on the Riverside, play courts, hiking in the Catskills and dancing tango in Central Park. Judy, I'm so excited to have you here.
Judy (03:46):
Hi Kim. Hi video coach.
Kim (03:49):
So Judy and I have been working together for nearly a year, half a year. Anyway, so Judy has been a video bootcamp student now she's in a continuation program and we do private coaching. So I know Judy well and I'm super excited to let everyone know more about her. And Judy, I'll get into a little bit of the video aspect of it after as well. So first I want to talk to you about your backstory is super interesting where you grew up and then you moved to the UK and then here, talk to me about where you grew up and your path to landing in New York.
Judy (04:17):
Yes, I was born and raised in southern China in a city by the sea. It's an hour away from Hong Kong right next to Macau and I went to the UK to boarding school in England when I was 14 and I completed my high school there and I came to NYU for college and that was 15 years ago.
Kim (04:39):
So first I want to start with you moved to the UK at age 14 and moving to a new country for anyone at any age is hard, but definitely as a teenager it's especially hard. Talk to me about that. How was your English, how was the experience? Was it hard? Talk to me a little bit more about that stage of your life.
Judy (04:55):
So it's so interesting. I grew up in China as the girl who was good at English. That was my identity. I didn't have to even study in English classes in school because my parents majored in English themselves in college in the eighties and they made sure I had outside English tutorials. And I spent two or three summers in Australia, England and the US when I was 12, 13, and 14 before I left studying English. So I was fluent I thought in English. But going to England and now starting to do coursework in English, starting to read in English novels like Lord of the Flies and Shakespeare and writing lab reports in biology in English was difficult as a transition. Even though I thought I was good at English, it was still a reality check.
Kim (05:49):
It's funny. So I studied abroad in Spain and I was like you, I was the best Spanish student in my class. I was the person elected to be on TV representing the foreign exchange students. But it's still hard and it's still hard to be I think a foreign exchange, not exchange student, but a foreign student in there. Were there a lot of other foreign students? Obviously doing all the coursework in English is really, really hard. Were there a lot of other foreign students at the boarding school you were at?
Judy (06:15):
The first boarding school I was at was an international school, so everyone there was foreign and it was the perfect landing place for me because emotionally I felt in tune with all my classmates. We were all overseas students and we were experiencing things together and the teachers were all very understanding. So that was a very good transition period even though all the coursework was in English. But the second school I was at was a Harry Potter, like school looking like a gothic castle with spires. We had a forest, we had 11 different houses. I was not in one of the cool ones. And in that school I would say there were three other kids from mainland China. The school has 700 students and there were about 70 kids from Hong Kong. There were kids from India, from Russia, Thailand. But I think overall maybe 20% foreign is my impression.
Kim (07:11):
Wow, okay. And then so you finished school in the uk and then how did you end up in New York? What happened next?
Judy (07:18):
I came to New York twice before I landed here, basically permanently. I was here on a school trip and it was a theater trip that made me decide I was going to move there because I was in Times Square and without feeling like I feel now, being in Times Square sometimes, which is ugh, get me out of here. I was so excited with the energy, with the billboards, with the people I was seeing and the theater. I loved theaters. I was on a theater trip, so I applied to colleges in the US when I was in the uk. I also applied to colleges in the uk, but the best school I got into was NYU. And I came here being very excited to be back in the city again because I grew up in the city. I was in an English countryside for three years aching for city life. I was in London every chance I got. So I packed my bags and I moved to New York and I was at NYU for four years living on campus the first two years in the East Village and then changed 10 places in the next 15 years and landing on the upper West side, I think a lot of New Yorkers.
Kim (08:31):
Exactly, yeah. As listeners know, I'm also a New Yorker. So yeah, moving 10 times in 15 years is totally normal for New York City. So I have to ask you, with all these moves, how did you feel each time you were moving? Was it exciting, scary from age 14 to then switching to another school, to then going to America? What were the feelings you were having at those times?
Judy (08:51):
I was always excited and my parents did a test with me when I was 12, still living in China. We did the two week program in Australia and in Sydney. And I remember my roommate at the time was a girl I had already known back in China. We did the summer camp together, we went a home state and she spent every day crying every day calling her parents crying. And I was super excited about all the new things I was learning, all the new people I was meeting. So I would say at every stage of the next 15 years, the move I had, I was excited. But was I happy the whole time? No, because reality was set in and I would realize I'm in the middle of nowhere, I'm smelling horse manure and the homework was really difficult and I have to apply to English and American schools take the outset on everything else and felt overwhelmed.
Kim (09:47):
So it's not necessarily every day is exciting, but overall, I think to your point that you had one friend that was homesick. Did you feel homesick when you were living abroad or not really?
Judy (09:56):
I did eventually, I think my last year or two in England when things got really hard with school when I was staying up until 5:00 AM pulling Allnighters in the countryside and I was the only waking soul in the whole corridor and I missed just having, and sometimes when English classmates would go home for weekends and holidays, I would stay at school because I home was 12 hours away. Those moments I did get homesick and it helped that there were other students who were also staying at school that couldn't go home over the weekends. So we sometimes would sit around and make ramen and dumplings together, ramen dumplings that we would buy from Chinatown in London and bring all the way back to school.
Kim (10:46):
That's fun. So you've been living abroad basically since you were 14?
Judy (10:49):
Yes. I actually did move back to China after college for three years. That's where I launched my own business, which was a translation company.
Kim (10:59):
So what I love about Judy is that you were a two-time entrepreneur and I do want to revisit the idea of moving to New York. I do feel like I work with a lot of real estate agents and you have to love the city that you sell in and you have to really be driven by it. Obviously it's a really competitive industry. So now as a real estate agent being based in New York, what are your favorite things about New York and how did you, being a New York transplant and falling in love with the city in Times Square, how do you feel like that relates to being a real estate agent and how that drives you as an agent?
Judy (11:29):
I think that it's a really convenient fact that I love New York so much because when I meet a client and they're about to move here or they have been here and they are not looking to leave, let's say it's somebody who wants to continue to stay here and find another apartment. My enthusiasm and the little small businesses in different neighborhoods that I have found over the years that I save on a Google Maps list that I will share with my clients, it shows them that I am someone who loves this and I think it makes them feel more excited and more comfortable and it's really helpful that it's not fake and they end up telling me that they enjoyed the coffee shop that I like or they didn't like this coffee shop as much. This place is actually close Judy, and we have debates about what's the best coffee shop on the upper West side. And that's great and I think that being able to live and work in a place that I love and to walk down the street and be able to point out to my clients this building has this story, that building is this, that building used to be, this used be Kmart and now it's Wagman in Aster place. That's fun for me. And I think to my clients it adds credibility
Kim (12:48):
Because I work with agents, but also obviously me being a marketing coach and a video coach, it's the same with I have to love both marketing and people. And for agents you have to love your city. You have to love history of buildings and really getting knowledge all the time. It's ever changing and you have to love people. And I feel like when both of those things don't match up, you have to have both of those things to really do well because people can smell out, people can smell out not being authentic. If you don't really like people or you don't really love New York City, you're not really passionate about real estate, they're going to move on to someone else because so competitive.
Judy (13:24):
Exactly. And I think your point about being a transplant, I think that it's an asset for me because I don't know the exact statistics, but I would say the majority of New Yorkers are transplants. They either transplanted themselves or they transplant with their parents and maybe the people who've been lifelong New Yorkers for three generations might not want to work with me. And that's okay. I cannot necessarily be the best fit for everyone and that's why we have so many options. But as a transplant myself, I can connect emotionally very well to other transplants and I can understand when they are shocked about the price tax and I can understand when they push back and they might think I'm not telling them the truth when I say, if you find an apartment that you love and it's a rental market in the summer, we need to put in an application right away the same hour. They might think I'm being pushy or it's for my own benefit because I've been in their place before. I have that extra empathy. And I think that the way I can explain the situation and everything, it ends up working out better than maybe somebody who hasn't been a transplant telling somebody you have to do this and that they might not understand their fears and concerns.
Kim (14:43):
I think the other thing is when you're someone like I know Judi, so I know you're very honest and straightforward. So if you're telling someone they better put it in, it's because you're really mean it. So I think that people can also, that's a part of it is being real with people. I love the fact that you're on your second time in entrepreneurship. Talk to me about the first time you realized I want to work for myself.
Judy (15:05):
The first time I realized that I didn't want to have a boss was partly due to hunger. And this is because I was working in a law firm in Hong Kong where the culture of work is very intense in Hong Kong for anyone who might relate or not. And I would get into the office, I was 22 years old, I was 23 years old, and I would get into the office at 8:00 AM and in the boutique law firm where I was a legal translator and a marketing manager, I will sit and work for many hours straight and by lunchtime by around 12 one I will be hungry, but my small team, my boss and my colleague will still be working and I will feel awkward of standing up to go and grab lunch. And at that time I didn't know anything about meal prepping. So I sometimes would sit until 3:00 PM and they're still not moving.
(16:04):
So I end up feeling like I have to get up because I'm not focusing anymore physically on well, so I would feel really awkward and guilty, but I will go and buy a sandwich and come back and eat at my desk. And this went on for a bit, but I didn't have some of the work authorizations needed to live and work in Hong Kong permanently, even though I was Chinese, had a Chinese passport. So I would work remotely at home in Guang Jo as well some of the times. And when I was at home, I could eat whenever I wanted and I still got the same amount of work done. And in fact I got more work done. And that freedom to a 23-year-old for the same job just started to become jarring. And I started to think and my parents were entrepreneurs, which I think is helpful.
(16:57):
So I started to think, why don't I have my own translation business and continue to work with my boss and maybe work with some other law firm clients as well? And I shared the idea with him, he was very supportive and he became my first client and I just worked in Guangzhou at the time and I was start traveling around. And because I was in marketing for law firms, I reached out to all my law firm contacts and a lot of them started working with me as a translator. So that was how I got started. It was at the end of my 23rd year on earth is when I formed my business less than a month before I turned 24. And that was my first entrepreneurial journey.
Kim (17:40):
So you start this translation service and where was your translation service built and then did you move it to New York? How did it work?
Judy (17:47):
I was building it in Hong Kong and mainland China, and it was at the time I charged 28 cent Chinese rent. And towards the end when I moved back to New York two years after I started the business and all of a sudden the money I was making was seven times less because the currency exchange. So I was charging 28 cent Chinese ran and my clients who I was building, a lot of them were in China, they were okay with it. It wasn't the cheapest, but they understood the quality. All of a sudden I was back in New York and I was making less than $20,000 a year because I was maybe making 140,000 r and b in China and my rent was 3000. So that was okay and I was splitting my rent with someone. But back in New York, even though I had three roommates making less than 20,000, my first year back in New York was very scary and I slowly had to increase my price.
(18:54):
It was harder with original clients, I lost some of them, but I repositioned myself. I incorporated a New York business. So as a 25-year-old I had a Hong Kong business and a New York business. And every tax season it was just the most awful thing. But by the time I was in my last year of running my New York Cantos translations business, I was charging 28 cents US dollars award and that is at the top of the market for in the US and for some of the harder stuff, academic book translations, my rate was 50 cent a word. So I learned from running my own business the importance of adjusting to your own needs and how do you figure out your worth, how do you price things? And in real estate, whether somebody wants to pay your commission or not, there are a lot of commission lawsuits going on right now and I'm used to having to justify my worth. And I think that having that experience in my twenties was extremely valuable in my current entrepreneurship.
Kim (20:04):
How many years do you have the translation business and how many people were working for you? Was it just you or you had a team?
Judy (20:09):
I had it for six years and I had a contractor team of, at that peak, about 28 contractors. I had different contractors who specialized in different work, so I had legal contractors. When I got legal contracts to translate, I had filmmakers and screenwriters who were bilingual when I would be getting jobs from production studios, et cetera. And then I did some of the fun stuff myself, like interpreting on stage for a director or a film actor or an author when they would come to the US or I was an interpreter on set at a documentary production. So it was a mixture of both and it was hard to manage a team and I think that was the hardest thing when I was running my own business, the bottleneck was that I could never quite find someone who could replace me, so I couldn't take on more work than what I was able to review and edit.
Kim (21:10):
So you end up being the max, right? The thing that stops the growth. You were saying your parents were entrepreneurs, what did your parents do?
Judy (21:17):
They started their own factory for metal smeltery, so pretty heavy metal stuff, but they actually studied English lit before and my father was a translator as well, and journalists want to be in his early twenties, so I guess I just copied their past.
Kim (21:38):
So Judy also said, right, Judy studied journalism and was going to go into journalism. So I do find that as we get older you kind of look back at your parents. So my dad had a small business and he was an immigrant and he came here and he definitely gave me and my two brothers, the hustle mentality. It's so bred in us, for me the hardest thing to do is just chill. But he had a small business and it looked exhausting. I wasn't like, Ooh, I want to do that. I was like, wow, it's a lot of work to run your own business. That's what I took away from it. It was in computer real estate software for, so he was a computer engineer, so that's not really some sort of company I would take over. I never really had that coding expertise or interest in engineering.
(22:20):
But funny enough is my mom was in journalism and so she was a photojournalist and she used to write, she had some essays published in New York Times Daily News. So I definitely feel like I ended up doing a lot of things my mom had done. And then right before my dad passed away, actually all three of me and my siblings, all three of us had launched our own businesses and he was really proud. He was like, I always knew my kids would start. I look at my kids, they're all running their own businesses and he was really next level. He was so proud of us for doing it and for making it work because he really valued, to your point earlier, the freedom. And for me, I work for myself because it's the freedom. I like what I do, but there's a lot of different ways to do what I do. But I like that I get to help people, but I also get to do it on my own terms and I don't have to be at a desk nine o'clock to six o'clock every single day in an office. That's not where I'm at right now.
Judy (23:13):
Instead you text people back at midnight.
Kim (23:16):
I do. This is true. You're
Judy (23:19):
Still working and I'm telling you to get off your phone.
Kim (23:21):
It depends. I'm usually not working at midnight. I'm usually scrolling. I should be reading a hardcover book and instead of reading a hardcover book, I'm reading news on my phone before bed, which makes me not sleep as well. But I'm not usually working at midnight actually. I'm not like a crazy person anymore. I used to be a crazy person and I'm not anymore. I'm like a normal level New York crazy person, which everyone knows is nine out 10 instead of 10 out of 10. Okay, so then you shifted, you were like, I'm going to shift out of the translation business. Was that because you felt like it can grow only a certain point to your max capacity? How did you say, I want to not do this translation company anymore, I want to shift into real estate. How did that happen?
Judy (24:00):
So there are two parts to that question, and the first part is why stop the translation company? And I saw the writings on the wall with the way I was running it as an intensely human labor intensive translation business. I have friends in tech who when I started the business said, I give you five years tops and then AI is going to take over. And then five years later I was still running it. I was like AI didn't take over. But last year, which is the eighth year if I had started running it, AI did start to get really good generative AI came out and a bunch of my friends said, oh my God, it's so smart that you stopped when you did. But another reason was because I was getting fatigued by that bottleneck and the constant need to check my contractor's work and when they're really good, they didn't need to work for me.
(24:54):
They could have their own translation business. They didn't need to give me a margin When they are working for me, sometimes they will miss deadlines and I end up having to scramble sometimes their work will not be good enough and I will spend all night fixing it and I got really tired and sometimes they quit mid project and they're good people, but nobody loves your business the way you do and it's your reputation on the line. I did it for so long and I was so interested in so many other things beyond just words on the page that I wanted more personal interactions was very, so the second part of your question was why real estate? I was very interested in real estate already as a person in their twenties just looking online at different properties. And I think everybody, especially during the pandemic probably share that.
(25:49):
The scrolling on Zillow or Street Easy Experience, I was starting to do that during the pandemic. And my mom is a real estate investor and she has had some properties that I helped with, but nothing glamorous, more like there's a repair request from a tenant, there is tax problems, the bookkeeping issues and transfer, money transfer. So I was helping with that and I think I just decided that it was time for a change and I wanted to see if my interest in real estate could turn into something. So it's not a secret that it's not hard to get a real estate license. You only need a high school degree and 75, 77 hours of coursework and a pass fail exam. So I got my license quickly and I gave myself a year to see if I would like the work and I loved the work. I was tireless in every aspect of the work, not just looking at pretty properties, which is not hard to, but also all the nitty gritty stuff of management companies, of all the new laws and regulations of the deal making of the client acquisition and everything was interesting to me.
(27:13):
So I realized that this is the right path for me to fulfill every aspect of my curiosity.
Kim (27:21):
I love that. I like to ask people who've started their own business, their top three tips to other people working for themself. And I know you submitted these tips in advance. I have people fill out a form, spoiler alert, I prepare for my interviews. But the three tips you'd give people for someone running their own business and I'd like to know, or the things you learned from the real estate from the translation company, are they both the lessons you take with you that you would advise someone else working for themself?
Judy (27:47):
Yes. I think that the first lesson is to get your system set up. It's the most non-sexy part of the business. Your bookkeeping, your taxes, and your invoicing. There were invoices that I still haven't gotten paid from my translation business from 2016 17, and that was because I was so focused on delivering to my clients that getting paid seemed like it should just happen, but it doesn't. And after a while it's like I think it might be too late now to get paid. So we are running a business, this is not a hobby. Get your systems in place. Think of yourself as a business owner. It doesn't matter if you're on is like, oh, what are you even doing? That seems like a hobby. You're just making videos on YouTube. No, get yourself in place. Take it seriously and start early. And the second advice is that I can't remember what I wrote on the thing, but don't be
Kim (28:47):
Afraid to fire people. Don't be afraid to fire people.
Judy (28:50):
Exactly. Don't be afraid to fire people. It's very important because I am someone, I'm working on it, but I'm someone who want to be liked and I am afraid of displeasing people sometimes. That is a huge issue when you're running your own business, both in getting clients and in hiring people because I want to be the co boss. And if you are having a tough day or a tough month or a tough year, like oh, it's fine, it's not fine. There should be boundaries set up and expectations set up from the beginning for people who work for you. And by firing people, I mean both people who work for you and your clients because if your clients don't treat you the way you deserve, you don't need them to, you are actually sinking in more time and you're so unhappy that it's taking away your ability to have more clients and make your business prosper more.
(29:47):
So that's number two, huge lesson learned and continuing to work on that lesson myself. The third lesson is finding a balance. And this is something that I know, Kim, you talk about a lot on your podcast with other entrepreneurs and I am out here in the countryside upstate right now and I've decided this week that I am going to work remotely. And that's a big decision to make because what if somebody calls me tomorrow and they want to go look at $6 million apartments? I have to make that decision to say it's okay because it's going to be my 33rd birthday in two, three days and I want to be in a reflective environment and if something happens, I will tell them, I'll be back this weekend. Can you wait? And if not, I will figure it out. I will have a colleague help me show you can't win every deal and you can't please everyone and you have to listen to yourself, figure out what you need and fill that cup yourself as an entrepreneur.
Kim (30:46):
I totally agree with that. I mean, I think I started my business specifically for the freedom of it, and I remind myself, okay, if I'm going to missed and earth my kids, if I'm going to work just as hard as I did before, why am I doing this? And that's not the only reason I do it. I like actually helping individual business owners versus making content for a media company. It's more rewarding, but I have to check in with myself and say, this is okay. I want to be by the beach in the summer. I'm still working, but it means logging off earlier to get the kids from camp because camp is shorter hours by the beach. But I think to your point of preserving it, I think there's that also, I don't really study this whole concept or whatever, but that scarcity mindset idea is understanding that A, you're a real person with a life and you deserve to have some off the clock time or work remote time.
(31:36):
But also this idea, I just turned down a really big speaking opportunity. It just wasn't the right time. There was too much happening in my personal life and it just wasn't the right time. And I said, you know what? I'm not going to think of it as a scarcity mindset. These people found me, other people find me. Someone else will find me. That will not be the only massive speaking engagement opportunity that I will get this year. I have to be confident in saying no, and that's okay. And it's the same with saying I'm going to work remote. I definitely turned it over a lot in my mind. But you have to come with that idea of it's not the only client I'm ever going to get. If someone wants to see an apartment, it will also, what do they say? Necessity is the mother of invention. If you're away and you're working remote and somebody really needs to see it and they're about to go traveling in two weeks, you will find a colleague who will let them in. So I think it's also knowing you're resourceful and that you don't actually have to physically be there every single minute. You can unplug. But these are things that we learn. We learn them over time. We learn from experience.
Judy (32:36):
And also the secret is I'm only two hours away, so if I really need to go back, I can, but
Kim (32:41):
We're not going to because we're going to reflectively believe in our third birthday. But I love that. It's interesting when I was building the video team for US Weekly and we were growing from three people to seven people to 10 people to 17 people, and my boss and I had lunch and he said, we talked about it and he realized that I was reviewing every video and he's like, you're going to be the bottleneck. I was like, yeah. He's like, do you trust your two lieutenants? You trust your two deputies? I said, yeah. He said, then you have to let content go out and you haven't looked at every single thing, and it's okay for you to review every single thing at the pace we're growing at. It's not going to work. And so I think just having that conversation, I remembered, yeah, he's totally right. I know that intellectually, but it's hard to do it, but you have to. Okay. I want to shift gears now. I want to talk about video. We're going to talk about video and then we're going to do rapid fire. Judy, you ready? Yeah. Okay. Well first we'll do video. So obviously we have worked together. Judy took my video bootcamp and then she did a continuation program with me and we worked together privately. So talk to me, Judy, before we started working together, what was the biggest challenge in your business in terms of marketing?
Judy (33:45):
It was consistency. And I created simple content like stories, and I had highlights in the little bubbles on my Instagram, but I knew that I wasn't getting to the heart of the content I want to share with people, which is complex real estate tips and market updates made simple because that takes a lot of time to first distill the information, simplify it, and then make it digestible to audiences. So I was not really doing that. And also some more stories about myself and my journey so that people could know me better. So most of my content was I'm at this restaurant, here's what I think of this restaurant. I'm out on about seeing apartments and guess the price. I mean it worked. But ever since we started working together, I think it was this January or February, there has been a huge shift in the way my own friends and colleagues view me.
(34:46):
I've had so many friends and colleagues come up to me and say, I love your videos, and they don't have to say that. So I guess they do because I was posting videos for three years before that, just not the quality and the consistency. It's amazing what people notice. And my goal in social media is very clear. It's not to be an influencer. It's not to have a million views on every video or a million followers. It is to have leads. It is to stay top of mind for people. And I think it's really working out this phase of the strategy, the next phase of the strategy. I would love to reach a broader audience and have people who have never met me reach out to me as well. But I think the first phase of the strategy, which is to remind the people I've already known, but maybe we don't keep in touch very often over the last 33 years of my life to remind them that they could reach out to me if they have any questions in real estate. And it's working extremely well. So thank you Kim for messaging me when I was on holiday sitting by the pool with this twisted ankle in Puerto Rico and just saying, I think you're ready, Judy. It's
Kim (36:05):
True. I have a couple of clients that I say, aren't you glad I bullied you into video bootcamp? And they're like, I'm so glad. I'm like, I know the people who, this is a funny thing. I think I've shifted. I know the people who will really succeed from the course and I can see it. You were putting yourself out there, you had a message, you have a unique personality, you're not shy on camera. I was like, you're going to really crush this course. You're going to do really well. You're going to take it with you. What's been the biggest two of the biggest game changers from our work together? You were saying before the quality and consistency is higher, but would you say, what are the two biggest game changers from our work?
Judy (36:37):
So I think the first one is writing and planning things out. As somebody with a journalism background, I should have known this, but I somehow didn't apply it to social media videos. I never wrote a script until we were in class together. And when I did, I thought, but this is what I was doing for the Ano Lopez show on WN YC when I was 21. Why didn't I think of doing this? Why am I just watching videos on social media thinking their message is so crisp, but not realizing that they had a script? So that was a huge game changer. Although I will say that once I wrote the script and I followed it, I realized I sounded stiff. So then I learned that I should just bullet point because that works better for me. But preparation is what you taught me. And the second biggest game changer is that it doesn't have to be perfect.
(37:31):
And I think that especially for someone who wanted to work in media as myself, it felt like every piece of work was live or die. But in the end, it's not about one piece of work, it's about the message you consistently put out there. And nobody even remembers what you said last month. So don't spend an hour or two hours on a clip that you could do in 20 minutes. And this is where Kim, you're super helpful, although it is slightly scary when you ask me, how long did it take you to do this video? Oh, you did it in 30 to 40 minutes. No, it should be a 20 minute video.
(38:09):
It makes it less of a thing. Working with you made me realize that putting out videos, it should just be like going to have some lunch. It's just a regular part of life. I'm not trying to be really impressive every day, and I love your strategy about showing up on stories every day or every few days. Just go, it doesn't matter where you are, what you're wearing. And it doesn't matter that I sometimes trip over my words and I pause and I'm tripping literally on the road I'm videoing. You should be careful. But that kind of content connects people with you. And I got that from watching your videos, your stories, your stories. You're always running. You're a little sweaty, and you talk about that one time you were in bed and you were sharing a video of some burning dump fire stuff that was hilarious. And I forget that we've never met in person because I really feel like I know you so well and that's the power of video, but we should really meet in person.
Kim (39:12):
We should, and I forgot that we haven't either. We almost came close. I was right in the upper West side and I texted Judy, and I love what Judy, I love what you're saying and I want to hammer it down for people listening because I think it's really, really important. So number one, the idea of prepare what you're going to say, and I always recommend bullet points over script. Most people are not good at reading prompter, so TV anchors are good, most people aren't. So just write two to three bullet points that you want to mention in this video. And the other thing is it's normal because I think people who work really hard, we're used to working hard, try for the A, if it's not an A, it could be an minus, but never put out a C. It's just this idea of the things that get you to this point won't get you any further actually.
(39:49):
So I think especially with content, you need your strategy, you need a plan and to do it, but not to be so perfectionistic because that's what I see a lot of my clients, they can't get past it because it's hard to press play like, oh my God, it's not going on the Super Bowl as a Super Bowl ad. It's going on your social media. It's looking to connect with people. And honestly, if it's a little more raw, people are going to realize it's really you when it's super duper, duper polished every single day for the rest of your life. I think you need some mix. Some of it should be really polished and some of it should be really authentic and raw, but always on message. So first you start with the message like the Judy was saying. So I think number one, not being so stiff and just following bullet points instead of a script.
(40:27):
But then number two, not holding every single thing that it has to be perfect. Because remember, the goal is to connect with people. The goal is to reignite old relationships, build new relationships, and remind people why you're great. And so when you really distill it down, it's about connection and credibility. Let people connect with you in a way, in a consistent way, just connect with you. And then you have the credibility. You're teaching them about real estate. You're teaching them about your industry, whatever it is, so that they're believing that you're somebody worth their time and investment and relationship. So I love those things and that makes me really happy to hear all of the wins. And I love, I mean, Judy's content, everybody should follow her. Judy's content is really good. She's been doing a really great job at expressing her message in good scripts, bringing her personal story into it.
(41:09):
That's how I even knew I knew her, obviously, but I knew to ask about China and all that because I'm like, oh, what an interesting story that Judy came from China and lived in England. That makes me more interested in just her as a person. And so I think Judy's giving people more of an insight into who she is, but also letting other people know. Share more about yourself. Judy's posts about China reminded me to share. I lived abroad in Spain and I was interviewed on Spanish TV when I was 15, and I'm wearing brown lipstick and my eyes are darting. I'm so nervous, but just letting people into more of who we are and so letting people know we're not robots. We're not perfect. We're just people who are passionate about what we do. So I love that. Okay, now we're going to go into the rapid fire. Are you ready, Judy?
Judy (41:50):
Yes.
Kim (41:51):
Weirdest job you've ever had.
Judy (41:54):
When I walked a client's dog, because they were out of town and it was like a Friday night and I was already had a two or three drinks, they texted me and asked me if I could walk their dog and I did.
Kim (42:09):
So a drunk pro bono dog walk. Okay, an embarrassing moment either from life or work.
Judy (42:15):
This is really bad. I was listening to a Zoom call when I was in the bathroom, and I didn't realize the camera was on, but it was facing up, so it was just showing my face in the ceiling. But it's really bad.
Kim (42:28):
But people know what the bathroom ceiling looks
Judy (42:29):
Like. They do. I mean, but there were like a hundred people on Zoom, so hopefully I wasn't really on top of their screen, but I haven't really told anyone. So there you go.
Kim (42:37):
Now they'll all know.
Judy (42:38):
Yeah, I'm honest. It's the first thing that came to mind.
Kim (42:43):
First thing you do in the morning
Judy (42:45):
When I wake up in the morning, I go and boil hot water, and then I lie down with a belt and I stretch my calfs because I have a chronic sprain in my right ankle and I need to strengthen it every day. Otherwise I need to get surgery. So I spend the next 20 minutes drinking hot lemon water and working a very boring physical therapy exercises. But I take it as a morning routine meditative. Exactly. I hold myself consistent to it, and if I do it, then at least I succeeded in the first part of my day. That discipline.
Kim (43:23):
I love that. Judy, this was great. Everyone's going to love this conversation. I loved this conversation. Where can people find you?
Judy (43:29):
I am most active on Instagram at the handle of Judy Y Zhou and I also am on LinkedIn and YouTube and TikTok, but they could also just call me or text me because I love talking to people.
Kim (43:46):
Amazing. And if you're in New York City especially you're looking for some property, give her a call.
Judy (43:51):
Thank you so much, Kim, for being in my life and for this conversation. It's been great.
Kim (43:57):
Thank you so much.
(44:02):
Thank you for joining us. Don't forget to exit the grind and enter success on your own terms. This is the exit interview with Kim Rittberg. Don't forget to grab my free download, how to Grow Your Business with Amazing video at kimrittberg.com and linked out in the show notes. I love to hear your feedback. Make sure to submit to me what you learned from the show and how you are crushing it on your own terms. Connect with me on Instagram or LinkedIn at Kim Rittberg, R-I-T-T-B-E-R-G. And this show is edited by Jillian Grover and produced by Henry Street Media. I'm your host and executive producer, Kim Rittberg.