We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Keith McKeever. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Keith below.

Alright, Keith thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s talk about social media – do you manage your own or do you have someone or a company that handles it for you? Why did you make the choice you did?

I currently manage my own social media, however that hasn’t always been the case. Throughout the years I have had a few different companies and a virtual assistant manage all or some of my social media for me. Every business owner needs to examine what is right for them but what I had noticed in the real estate world is that many of the online companies that can manage it for you are specializing in real estate content. They are also sharing the same posts, that nobody reads, to many other agents social feeds in your same market. Nothing is fresh and original. Nothing shows who you are, or your personality. Moving out of that into creating more of my own content and having a VA manage things, was a step in the right direction but still needed quite a bit of oversight into the content, wording, license law regulations etc. Now I find it easier to manage my own content that I have full control over and know it’s fully compliant, even if it’s less frequent at least it’s my voice, face, and brand identity.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Looking back at my life, it was pretty apparent that I would eventually end up in real estate. My parents both got their licenses in 1988 and throughout the years they sold homes, flipped, rented and even sold log home packages for a number of years. From a young age, I could be found helping my parents with their rental and flip properties by doing light demo, cleanup or clean outs, helping stuff envelopes, putting out signs, burning the real estate listing books, doing open house tours in the log home, and talking to people at home shows about log home construction and costs. After dad passed from cancer in 2001, my mother closed the log home business and rental properties to focus on real estate sales. She had told me many times as a teenager that I would likely end up in the family business, but like most teenagers I brushed it off as something not remotely on the radar.

So I went on to earn an associates degree in law enforcement from Illinois Central College in 2005 and shortly after that joining the United States Air Force as a Security Forces member. Despite two combat deployments to Iraq, I was also fortunate enough to have a pretty memorable experience in the military and also attended great schools such as Airman Leadership School and Security Forces Combat Leaders Course.

After service was over, I found myself transitioning back to civilian life and ended up working in furniture sales. After a year there I decided to take huge leap and got my real estate license, jumping into real estate and working alongside my mother. In the years since, i have found a deep passion for real estate and helping fellow veterans. I often say both real estate and being a veteran are a very big part of who I am and they have in different ways, both given me a mission and something to fight for.

Since the beginning I been very active within the real estate world outside of sales too. I am currently serving on the Peoria Area Association of Realtors board of directors as the Secretary/Treasurer and have chaired multiple committee’s and task forces over the years. My biggest passion is to help advance and fight for higher professional standards and diversity and inclusion in real estate. I am very proud of all the hard work that has gone into the committee’s over the years to advance our local association forward. There has been great people to collaborate and work with to achieve these goals and we have a great Association thanks to the many volunteers and the countless hours put in, I am just lucky to have been a part of advancing things forward.

Since the start I have focused professionally on residential sales here in the Greater Peoria, Illinois area, with a majority of my buyer clients being first time home buyers and fellow veterans. My personal and professional mission statement is “Educate, Guide, Connect” and working with these buyers I get to really deep dive into education and guiding people through a process that many times is new to them and quite confusing. With so many online resources and different ways of doing business around the country it’s imperative that Realtors, remain the local guide and source of information for their clients! It’s far too easy for people to be confused or mislead by information that may be correct in another state but just isn’t how things are done here. I have always been very proud of the fact that I treat my clients like I would my family, and in many ways most become somewhat like family throughout the process and after. It’s a business philosophy that I saw my parents build back when my father was alive. I heard so much about him from current Realtors that had worked with him back in the day when I got my license years ago, about how he conducted himself and dealt with his clients. Being able to take a page from their book as the ONLY way to run a business is the single greatest thing I can say I am proud of in my business.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Back in 2018 I had a client who was a Marine. At his home one day while taking pictures for the listing we were making small talk as two veterans would and he asked me about using my GI Bill education benefits. I had not used them since leaving the Air Force and he educated me on how it all works, how much time you have to use them and so on. I realized that day, that I had three years left to finish my bachelors degree before these benefits expired. How could I let a free bachelors degree go to waste? Neither of my parents, not any of my grandparents had any degree. My grandfather had expressed his wished before he died that all his grandchildren get a four year degree, as he knew the importance of getting an education would be. That day I decided to pivot and enroll back into college and pursue my Bachelors in Business Administration no matter how long it took to complete. Three years later I achieved that goal, even though it added stress to life, made running my business a little bit harder, I still achieved a lifelong goal that I never thought I would do!

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

I have had quite a few great inspirations over the years but a few really stand out. Many years ago I picked up Tom Ferry’s “Life! By Design”. In a basic summary it made me realize that I had a lot of control over where my life is, and where it could go if I was strategic, had written goals, reviewed them regularly, and lived by that philosophy.

Some years later I listened to the audiobook from Darren Hardy called “The Compound Effect”. This made me realize that the biggest factor to success was going to be consistency above all else. Pretty much matter what I did, as long as I stuck with it and gave it my all over time little actions compound into success.

I have also been an occasional viewer of Gary Vee’s content. He has way too many great sound bites and inspirational ideas, insights that can provide so much clarity and direction if you really stop and listen to what he is saying.

In the past couple of years I met a fellow veteran named Lane Belone, who co-authored the book “Unleash Your Humble Alpha”. It’s a great book and could easily be on this list but its actually what Lane says the most in meetings that really changed my philosophy so much. “Imperfect Action”. That’s it, just take imperfect action, do something even if it isn’t perfect, just do it. You can come back tomorrow and make it a little better but just taking action, even if it’s not perfect is the key to growth!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.keithmckeever.co
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keithmckeever/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KeithMcKeever.co
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kmckeever/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/keith_mckeever
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-Es7JcLIUIuZO8nbPRHS-A