Ryan Hashemi
@ryanhashemi_
This is NY's #1 Real Estate Broker.
He could barely sell any properties in his first 2 years. In 2022, he sold $2B of properties.
He disrupted his industry using YouTube - Harvard even wrote a case study on him.
Here's what every entrepreneur should learn from Ryan Serhant: 🧵
He made $59K, total, in his first 24 months as a broker.
Now, he pockets over $20M for himself each year.
Why such a drastic change in fortune?
He attributes his success to YouTube.
He's known as the "luxury property guy", giving us viewers access to see multi-million dollar properties we wouldn't otherwise get to.
This access he shares with his audience isn't just driving millions of followers; it's driving tens of millions of dollars into his pocket.
Get this, he once sold a $40M mansion over FACETIME.
His YT content strategy has helped him unlock major international deals and helped him hire RE agents across the world.
It's responsible for him working with ~ 94 billionaires in 8+ countries
+ celebrities & influencers like Logan Paul, Lady Gaga, and Gary Vee.
The best part:
The more luxury properties he shows on his YouTube channel, the more luxury properties are brought to him to sell. More videos, more business.
This loop is 100% the goal for every entrepreneur. More on that later.
How did Ryan get to this point, though?
He actually started as an actor in 2006 and landed the role of Evan Walsh on "As The World Turns."
But two years later there was a global recession and things went sideways.
He reached a point where he didn't have cash to buy food.
A friend helped him out & advised him to get into real estate.
Ryan listened, but he got his RE license in the middle of a global recession. He only made $9K in his first year.
His first BIG deal took 100s of cold calls, waiting, rejections and over a year to close. One thing you cannot deny is his persistent hustle.
He did eventually sell a property worth $8.5M, but it took an agonizing and unsustainable amount of work to get this 1 sale.
He wanted to join a team and started at Nest Seekers as an Associate Broker.
After growing his team slowly but surely, he decided to launch his YouTube channel in 2018 with a vlog.
It got 50,000 views in its first month and gained more over time as his channel grew.
He kept posting consistently, week after week, getting better and better.
Almost one year and 40 videos later, he published a video touring a $188M property in NYC.
His first viral video (19M views) was born, opening the floodgates for what was to come.
It's at this point Ryan learned what every entrepreneur should know:
1) YouTube has unmatchable ability to drive business
2) Clickability ( ideas & thumbnail / title ) is critical to succeed
The level of screen time intimacy you can build on YT is unparalleled. To maximize business, you must maximize:
Time audience spends with you x value you deliver
No other platform offers the ability to maximize this the way YT does. Ryan knows that.
Between 2018 & 2020, Ryan's YT channel scaled massively.
He knew content creation was going to be the future, but no real estate firm was aligned with his vision.
So he decided to launch his own brokerage firm - SERHANT
It has clocked $3B+ in sales since.
Ryan Serhant has clearly made YouTube his brokerage firm's crown jewel.
I'm going to break down Serhant's creative strategy, at a high level, so you can replicate success for your business.
Before we get into it...
Hi, I'm Ryan Hashemi.
I get top entrepreneurs & businesses to win on YouTube.
- grew Jubilee to $8-figures/ year (10M subs, 5B views)
- advised top brands on YT like @netflix & @ProcterGamble
- Emmy-nominated producer 🏆
I'm the "YT for business guy".
Winning on YouTube is hard, but much easier with the right strategy. Remember:
1. YouTube wants people to spend more time on YouTube.
2. To spend more time, users need to be served clickable videos that can hold their attention.
Ryan Serhant clearly understands this 👇
1. How to win clicks
The thumbnail on the left is how your avg real estate videos look.
A Serhant video (Right) nails fundamentals
a. Clickable ideas ('world's biggest closet')
b. Intriguing visual (Pink mink + closet)
c. Eye-catching numbers
d. Instant clarity
I've been running this test for years and recommend it to everyone:
Photoshop your thumbnail & title onto a screenshot of the YouTube homepage (mobile & desktop).
Make sure it captures your attention faster than any other option in the ocean of Thumbnails & Titles on YouTube.
Ryan's packaging (thumb & title) does a great job of standing out when passed through this test.
This is important because: Click-through-rate (CTR) = how interesting your video is to the world.
All else equal, the more clickable your video is the more YT pushes it.
Cool. Hopefully you're starting to see how he draws clicks.
Let's talk about how he holds attention.
Study his hook:
In the first 30 secs, he packs in all the insanity of the property with breathtaking footage, teasing each element to come.
You click because 'this property looks insane' and he shows you 'it's more insane than you could've imagined'.
You stay to see it all.
Sprinkled throughout his videos are seeds of intrigue for what's about to come.
He intentionally never gives you a chance to get bored or want to click away.
Every one can and should do this.
Because, in addition to CTR (clickability), strong retention is critical.
Besides getting the creative strategy right, he also leverages the audiences of other creators. Doing your own version of this is a must.
He has toured the homes of Gary Vee, Lady Gaga, Logan Paul, Wolf of Wall Street, and Iman Gadzhi.
Many of their followers become his.
Ryan's content mix is also quite intentional.
He uses the crazy tours (tentpole vids) to bring in millions of eyeballs.
But he nurtures an even deeper relationship through his vlogs, day-in-the-life, and thought leadership videos.. even if less views.
He knows what he's doing.
Oh, and he drives more than $10M in revenue from courses. NBD.
His education business "Sell It Like Serhant" is available in 110 countries.
17,000+ agents have enrolled and the majority of these students are converting because of his YouTube videos.
Most important lesson for business owners:
His videos show you exactly what it would be like to use his 'product'.
You must: Bake your product or service inside good content. Not as a promotion, shout-out, or commercial. The difference is substantial.
My unique specialty is conversion rate optimization (CRO) for YouTube.
I've used my framework to drive 12% conversion on millions of views (insane), and helped others increase their conversion by over 1,000%.
And I can tell you Serhant nails this.
One last thing. It's worth calling out...
While YouTube absolutely helped him scale SERHANT to a billion-dollar business, Ryan is also just an incredible entrepreneur himself.
His hard work, mindset, persistence, and helping others got him to where he is today.
Every serious entrepreneur and company should be on YouTube.
It's the only platform I can guarantee will be thriving in 10 years + no other platform compares to its power to drive lasting business.
You don't even need millions of views.
If you're looking to start on YouTube, here's my one-pager on how I'd do it + tips on who to hire in order to succeed:
