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Will Sawyer was supposed to be a doctor.

4 years of pre-med. Then a surgeon he was shadowing turned around & asked him: “Why the hell do you wanna be a doctor?”

That same year he flunked his first 2 biochemistry tests, spent a day with his uncle, a realtor, & never looked back.

8 years later:

We’ve worked with Will for a long time. & his growth has been crazy to watch.

Here’s the strategy behind it.

Before we get into it:

Thank you to everyone who joined our webinar this week. A lot of you still had questions about YouTube, so we decided to do a whole session on it.

On Wednesday, October 28 at 1 PM ET, we’re going live to show you the system behind $11M in annual GCI for our clients. It’s built on the same 2 things Will is betting on: YouTube & email.

Save your seat

In today’s newsletter:

— Andrew

Here’s where Will’s business comes from today:

Half of his business. From 1 platform.

He started his channel 3 years ago. Here’s how it’s grown:

But here’s the part most agents don’t understand about YouTube. It compounds.

Some of the people closing with Will today found his videos 2 or 3 years ago. They watched, kept watching, & when they were finally ready to move, he was the agent they called.

Others found him 2 months ago.

The takeaway: A video you make this week can still bring you a client years from now.

For most agents, the answer would be Instagram. Will thought about it too. He even considered going all in.

Then he looked at what it would actually take:

Let me explain what he means, because it’s the key to the whole decision.

When someone opens YouTube, they’re looking for something. Will says they sit down & watch for at least 10 minutes.

On Instagram, they’re scrolling. Maybe 20 or 30 seconds per video.

10 minutes with someone who’s searching vs 30 seconds with someone who’s scrolling. That’s a very different relationship.

To be clear, Instagram works for plenty of agents. It just wasn’t Will’s next step. He already had proof YouTube worked for him, so he built on that.

The takeaway: When something works, go deeper before you start over somewhere new.

This is the part I think most agents have never heard of.

To understand why, look at who his first channel is for.

Channel 1 is for people moving to Greenville.
Someone living in another state who has no idea which neighborhood fits them. They want to compare areas, see what’s being built & understand what life there looks like. For Will, a lot of those viewers are retirees & people over 50.

In other words, buyers.

That’s how most agent channels work. Relocation guides. Neighborhood tours. Cost of living. All built for the person coming in.

But here’s what we see across the channels we build:

For every person moving into a market, about 45 homeowners already live there. & almost nobody makes videos for them.

Channel 2 is for them.
People who’ve owned a home in Greenville for years. They don’t need a video on which neighborhood to pick. They want to know what’s being built around them & what the market is doing.

Those homeowners are your future sellers.

When we build channels for sellers, every video is about what’s happening locally & ends on 1 question: what’s your home worth?

Proof: Levi’s channel, What’s Happening in Dallas, is under a year old & brings in 5 to 7 seller leads a day.

Will is honest that it’s not easy. He just started shooting the new channel, & his words were: “this is actually double the time.” Double the scripts, double the shooting, double the edits. It’s also a lot more expensive.

His take is simple. More content isn’t going to be a bad thing.

The takeaway: You don’t have a lead problem. You have a listing problem.

In our 2026 State of Real Estate Marketing Report, agents posting 3+ long-form YouTube videos a month generated leads at 2.7 times the rate of everyone else.

We’ll show you how to get there without doing it all yourself on October 28.

Save your seat

This is the part of his story I love most.

YouTube didn’t just bring Will leads. It changed the kind of agent he is.

Before the channel, he admits he was “faking it till I made it.” If someone asked about a new project in town, he’d wing it.

Now he can talk to anyone on the street about almost any project or what the market is doing. Making videos every week forced him to study his market like never before.

He also shared something I related to a lot. Will talks slower than most people, so:

I have mine sped up for the same reason.

The takeaway: Viewers aren’t buying a video. They’re buying the person who clearly knows the area best.

Here’s the path for Will’s viewers:

Then it splits:

Every lead also gets a letter:

That letter decides how often the team follows up. So nobody falls through the cracks, & nobody gets called every day when they’re a year away from moving.

Will is also honest about what he still needs to fix: tracking. Right now his team counts every website & newsletter signup as a YouTube lead, because most of them probably are.

The better way, which we talked about on the show, is a tracking link for each platform (called a UTM) & asking new subscribers which video brought them in.

The takeaway: Getting the lead is half the work. The other half is the path you put it on.

Will’s goal is 500 houses a year by 2030.

& he’s the first to admit YouTube alone won’t get him there. So his next big project is his database: 20,000 people he says he barely converts today.

That’s not random. We surveyed 462 working agents for our 2026 State of Real Estate Marketing Report, & email came out as the #1 listing source in real estate.

YouTube brings people in. Email turns the people who already know you into listings.

Search Top Realtor in South Carolina: How He Scaled to 100+ Homes a Year on YouTube or your favorite podcast app to watch the complete episode now!

Andrew

P.S. Can’t make it live? Sign up anyway & we’ll send you the replay.