Jul 8, 2022
Kurt Uhlir is a globally recognised marketer, operator and speaker. He has built and run businesses from startups to over 500 million in annual revenue, assembled teams across 6 continents, has been part of a small team leading an IPO ($880M), and participated in dozens of acquisitions. Kurt serves as Chief Marketing Officer for Showcase IDX, which has helped real estate agents and brokers bring more than 3 million visitors to their websites in the past year.
In this episode we talked about:
Kurt’s Bio & Background
Differences between Residential and Commercial Sites
Implementing Marketing Strategy Approaches
Lead Magnets
Building Digital Strategies
Common Mistakes in Marketing Strategy
Building a Team
Upwork
2022-2023 Marketing and Business Development Trends
Importance of Consistency
View on Mentorship
Resources and Lessons Learned
Useful links:
Book “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World” by Cal Newport
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtuhlir/
Transcription:
Jesse (0s): Welcome to the working capital real estate podcast. My name is Jesper galley. And on this show, we discuss all things real estate with investors and experts in a variety of industries that impact real estate. Whether you're looking at your first investment or raising your first fund, join me and let's build that portfolio one square foot at a time.
Jesse (23s): Ladies and gentlemen, my name's Jennifer galleon, and you're listening to working capital the real estate podcast. Our guest today is Curt EULAR. Kurt is a globally recognized marketer operator and speaker he's built and run businesses from startup to over 500 million in annual revenue, assembled teams across six continents. I've been part of the small team leading an IPO 880 million and participate in dozens of acquisitions. We're talking today about real estate coaching marketing, and just generally topics regarding real estate as we normally do on the podcast.
Kurt, how's it going?
Kurt (56s): That's great. Thanks for having me.
Jesse (58s): Thank you for coming on. I appreciate you taking the time out of your, out of your day for our guests. What we typically like to do is a little bit of a background rather than me. Just kind of reading things out. Maybe you could give a little bit of a background on how you got into this world of real estate.
Kurt (1m 15s): Yeah, I, I've always been a kind of entrepreneur, an operator, you know, at, at heart a little bit came from family, but I mean, like I started two legal entities when I was 14. One of those is still running today. Now it's only an eight figure a year business, but oh, sorry. It is a seven year figure a year business. It was an eight figure business for about 10 years, which was really good, but I tend to always be involved in myself, starting side hustles that become decent sized companies or helping others with that. And so kind of across almost any industry.
So I was at a company called Navteq became here technologies. If you've ever used a, a garment device MapQuest back in the day, you think about ways or anything that companies does 90% of all that mapping and spatial data globally and all the places that worked from, from anything in, in, in any of our real estate industries to GIS, to navigation, video games. I did that for 10 years and actually ended up finding my way about five years ago into a real estate where I'd built up all these new marketing channels that like we use today, like influencer marketing and social media marketing, and had an opportunity to come look at some stuff and, and, and more on the residential side.
And that's broadened a little bit more now across, you know, the, the broader industry, but it's like, man, it came in and it just like, it feels like such a pure form of entrepreneurship to me.
Jesse (2m 36s): Yeah. Fair enough. So from kind of that beginning to, to where you are at today, has that changed? What, you know, what, what are you doing right now and, and, you know, how does that relate potentially to marketing and real estate marketing generally speaking?
Kurt (2m 51s): Yeah, so I invested in a couple of PropTech companies, probably back even like eight, nine years ago, but five years ago I came, came into and ended up leading a lot of showcase. What's known to showcase IDX. So the home search primarily on the residential side and actually the only home search that consumers choose over Zillow. So our partners are web developers, agents that are building agent websites so that they, that agent grows their own businesses. It's great to have a sub-domain website from Keller Williams or Remax or ESP, but, but when an agent changes brokerages, like that's their brand, like you should have your own site.
That's what showcase IDX does. But about three years ago, the company was acquired. It's still a completely separate entity, but it was acquired by ESP roll holdings that owns exp Realty. So that's given me a much broader view and exposure into other parts of the industry on the commercial side global and a lot more, which I had had on the showcase IDX side, but a lot more into the, the, what that looks like from an investor perspective, because a lot of agents are investors themselves, but either way, most of those investors, especially those syndicating deals, they're not an agent they're working with one very often.
So that's been very interesting is that kind of gone back and realized how much showcased IDX grew from, from on the, on the investor side that I just wasn't, it wasn't aware of. I just thought people were kind of building websites and not realizing the big difference in focus when you're an investor or light commercial versus just pure residential.
Jesse (4m 14s): And what would that like, what, what would those differences look like between say residential and the commercial side?
Kurt (4m 21s): So like on the, on the pure commercial side and a bigger commercial, I mean, we, you don't have IDX, you don't have pure home searches like that. You're working with, you know, much larger firms often, but there's so many people that I found that were actually specializing in light commercial where it's the same, it's actually in the same feeds that say showcase IDX has from the residential side. But a lot of times people are building sites, just only showing those light commercial properties or what I find. I tend to find it a lot more than was people that were, they were doing residential and they found a way to really add like a one or two X multiple on their transaction volume by, by starting to do light commercial, Hey, you're already in Roswell, Georgia.
That's where I'm based at and go, Hey, if FMLS has some light commercial properties in there, you spin up just load a separate section of your website that tends to be better than a separate website, but that shows just those properties and focuses on that. And especially if you're an investor, syndicating deals use that as a way to siphon in and leads for, for potential deals at an investor. But commercial is like, it's very different if I'm doing a high rise, cause like that's not my main business and you know, but, but there's such a big opportunity in light commercial, whether it's a strip mall, a gas station or a farm.
Jesse (5m 36s): Yeah. So the, for listeners that don't know the, it IDX is just ID it's internet data exchange. And it's basically correct me if I'm wrong. It's typically a feed through a local real estate association or real estate board that you get that their data. And it's basically you transform it into a site that you have, so that if you're an investor, I can go on Kurt site and I can go search for a property. And that, and that's what we're talking about, right?
Kurt (6m 3s): Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is actually it's, it is it's everything you just said. I mean, I think technically it is just the feed itself, but what that looks like to an agent or an investor or anybody is it's the experience, it's the home search. It's when you go to red wagon team.com and you want to look, you know, he, he works across like Los Angeles and some of that area, everything. And part of that home search experience is really what's needed. Use the IDX from a agent or investor perspective. Now there's technically the feed behind it, but it's all those tools that, that a visitor would engage in themselves.
Jesse (6m 34s): So I'm curious, I know in our area, like it, it depends on different state or province if on the Canadian side that there are certain rules of whether you have to be part of a board to be able to have that feed or get that feed a certain confidentiality, is it the same among different locations where you get that feed? You have to be an agent or broker.
Kurt (6m 57s): If you have to be a member of the MLS that's providing that feed, you do not always have to be an agent or a broker, depending on that's usually the case, but there are some analyzes where you don't have to be an agent or a broker. You might be an affiliate or some way other, but you do usually have to be a member because it's kind of viewed as well. I think it falls under in the U S broker reciprocity. The MLS is sometimes just look at that as Hey, as long as people are. Okay. Sharing it. You just need to be a member of that sharing.
Jesse (7m 23s): Yeah. That makes sense. And when you say light, light commercial, I just immediately think light industrial, but you mean just kind of smaller and commercial, like a,
Kurt (7m 33s): Yeah. Things can be stripped off, which sometimes do still come in, you know, with the, the bigger commercial broker does entities. But I mean, if, if you're looking at a, you know, a 12 story building, I'd say almost anywhere in the world, that's a, that's not coming through an IDX feed and, you know, that's, that's very, that's working with a Cress or somebody like that. Very different than somebody that I might buy a gas station or a strip mall from.
Jesse (7m 55s): Yeah.
Kurt (7m 56s): I spoke to somebody last night yesterday that they're literally looking for a, for a commercial farm. I mean, it's more of a something for, for just their family, but I mean, it will be a business unto itself, so it needs to be zoned as such. And so that would fall into a commercial entity for me.
Jesse (8m 10s): Yeah. And that makes sense, because even in our brokers, it's a strictly commercial. If we have something that's on the smaller end or if it's a retail and we want to get more eyes on it, we might move it into like actually put it on the MLS, which we typically don't do. And that would probably be captured by, you know, whatever feed that, that, that specific, you know, MLS is, is producing.
Kurt (8m 31s): Right. Well that, I mean, that makes sense. I think a lot of it also does come through is because of the brokerage or who people are working with a lot of times, whoever the owner is, it, you know, sometimes it depends on where they're coming. Sometimes you have people that, that own larger properties that also comes to gum and it's come to that smaller commercial side. On the other side, you also have a, I find investors where I may be investing in residential retail properties. And then as a small apartment building comes up, comes up a gas station, a strip mall. Well that I might, I may invest into those.
And so it depends on the agents that I'm working with, where I think where that feed and property may go as well.
Jesse (9m 8s): Yeah. That makes sense. So on the, you can move over to the, the marketing end of things. So whether it's, you know, business professionals, real estate agents, real estate investors, the aspect of, of implementing a marketing strategy, those elements, how crucial are they to the role? And maybe you could talk a little bit about, you know, from your, from your vantage point, what the, you know, the best approaches when it, when it comes to marketing strategy. And let's just say from somebody that's not exact, not completely starting from scratch, but they're looking to, to continue to build what they are currently working with.
Kurt (9m 44s): Yeah. I, I mean, I think I remember that marketing strategy and especially like thinking about what that looks like digitally for people it's crucial for, I'd say anyone, that's not like a Gary Vaynerchuk or grant Cardone. I mean, if you have some sort of influence, whether it's a, you know, nationally celebrity or local celebrity, yeah. You may be able to source deals yourself. But I think what everybody needs to be aware of, whether you're a, an investor, an agent or broker or anything is, Hey, you're, you're, you're be anybody that's going to work with you. Or, you know, whether selling you properties, buying from you perhaps, but definitely selling or syndicating investing with you, you're being vetted against other people that they could work with.
And so the, you know, there are people are going online to vet who they are. That is why should I work with you with your brokerage? Why should I sell to you if you're, if you're a, an acquisition, you know, in the acquiring side. And so like for me, like ever that vetting almost always takes place online. There may be some personal phone calls as well, but it takes place online. And really from a sourcing a deal perspective, like if you want to like 10 X your business in the next couple of years, the only way to do that is building an online persona. And it doesn't mean you have to be as big as grant Cardone or somebody like that.
But you have to have something that when somebody is searching for, start searching for where to sell their properties at, or who to work with, or Hey, what brokers do I work with? Or should I syndicate deals? Or what does that look like? Like people are going online to do that. And so you might get Google traffic, and that's a good thing. But by building a digital presence, it allows, it gives you the things to be able to start working, whether it's your door knocking, which still does work, or whether you're sending out emails or you're going to social media influencing, you have something to kind of push people back to.
And so it's crucial on anything, but for me, it's like, there's a bunch of things we can talk about around, like, it really has to be a website. I mean, cause otherwise you're just risking your business. I mean, everything else is good, but you have to have a hub to send people.
Jesse (11m 40s): Yeah. So, so on that point, like the, the model itself. So let's just, let's say, you know, for, for listeners, it might be a real estate investor. It might be an agent either way. You know, one is looking for business in the form of clients, on the real estate, real estate agent side, the other others, the other one is looking for investors. If they're raising capital or, you know, if they're expanding syndicating deals is the model, you know, the model that you typically see, or at least I see is the, you know, the model where there is some sort of lead magnet, we get them to this place where there's lead magnet, or like you said, a home base, a site, they get the lead magnet, you get them on a distribution list.
Is that model still kind of the, the kind of building blocks of this? Or is there, is there a little bit more involved? Maybe you could speak a little bit to that.
Kurt (12m 26s): I think you're right in that they have to have a website and a destination. I don't think you always have to have a lead magnet. Lead magnets can be great. The email sequences are wonderful as well, but I, I do think you have to have that website, but it's not just because it's not just because you're having a place to send them. You're right. Like you need to capture contact information to stay in touch with people like, Hey, Tik, TOK, YouTube podcasts, all of these things are great. But when the algorithm changes, if you don't have contact information, you're screwed. And I mean, and so your business is going to plumb it at that point.
So you need to have that hub that you own that sends people back to. But I think for most, most entrepreneurs, whether they're new or they're, they're, they're, they're trying to, you know, grow their business and they maybe haven't built an online presence. It's actually the act of building that website. That is what tends to grow their business. Like yes, getting up, getting emails, getting them there. But when I talk to people who, you know, Hey, like I have a friend here in Atlanta that owns about 30, maybe 35 residential properties. He runs out, I can talk to him and I know what he does.
I've known him for years. That's great. But, but he does not have that short, concise 32nd or three minute version. If somebody asks him, what does he do? And he's out at a party or he's out at church. He doesn't have that sharp response to be able to, to give them a response so that he could get another property so that he could start syndicating deals. And so by the sheer act of building a website and thinking through what would be my lead magnet, how would I describe myself in that concise viewpoint that I would also use verbally? That's what helped people grow their business?
Yes. Everything digitally that you mentioned, lead magnets and email campaigns that matters. But what I find holds back most people is they cannot articulate what do I do? And why should you work with me? And that's important just because you might be a lead. If I meet you at church or meet you at a barbecue or the park, but more likely, you know, somebody that could be a lead for me somewhere. And if I can't tell you what I do, there's no chance that you'll ever refer business to me.
Jesse (14m 21s): So what would that look like? If, if you're trying to have a concise way of doing that, as it say, as an investor, you, you meet somebody w where do you see that? Where they go wrong, where they, maybe they have a site, or, but they can't in a concise way say state what they're doing like to me, if somebody came up to me, what do you do? Working in commercial real estate, we do raise capital from deals to time to time, but kind of putting that together so that you don't lose that person. Or if, like you said, they have a connection that might be useful to you. So like what, what would be their approach in that scenario?
Kurt (14m 52s): If I'm coaching somebody individually, it's, it's, it's going to be as kind of archaic as just a Google doc where I'm going to literally like, Hey, I want, I want, I went three sections, then we're going to work on them together. It's going to be kind of a Twitter link version. It's going to be a three minute version. And it's going to be a multi paragraph version that you'd have on your website as well. That could be longer. That tells more of a story and let's work on these altogether. And, and then share them with people that if, especially if somebody is already been working in the area, share them and say, does this represent, is it, does this tell, tell, tell the story of who you think I am or where, or that I'm missing things on there, and I'm gonna share it to some other people that are potentially good clients and let them eat it up.
So like, I didn't have people that I've coached this program. So then we can share some of that around with people that have already gone through that process, but ask questions. I mean, it often cause it, it is too generic, a lot of level. It's one thing when you're at the brokerage level, but even like with what you just said, Hey, sometimes you help raise capital. Who do you raise capital from? Do you, are you syndicating? You know, are you syndicating deals across 20 people and we're trying to buy a commercial property or are you looking for one or two major person? Are you looking for family opposites? Like if you're syndicate, if you're raising capital, typically from family offices, that's a, that's a very definite definite thing versus, Hey, I'm bringing in people that are bringing in 25, 50,000 at a time, and we're syndicating up to help, you know, syndicate deals for people that are doing light commercial, like two completely different sets of who you work with and how, and how you work with those people.
Jesse (16m 24s): Yeah. And that makes sense. And so on this, like topic of you, you mentioned Gary V. Grant Cardone, you know what, regardless of, you know, how you view those individuals, when we're talking about influencers, where everything it seems like with talk Instagram, it just seems like there's a, you know, our industry, we've had this even before social media where, you know, everybody's a guru, you know, back in the nineties or early two thousands, just people at seminars. And, you know, sometimes you get a good one. Sometimes you don't. So for people that are, that are breaking in and having a digital strategy and whatever they do, whatever their background is from an entrepreneurial standpoint, you know, what, what is it that you recommend that sets them apart when they're actually engaging in that, you know, quote, quote, unquote influencer aspect of becoming a subject matter expert in your area.
Kurt (17m 15s): I would advise them to stop trying to be a guru and just be you. They, you know, there, there is actually a lot, I do agree with how Gary Vaynerchuk approaches things, but it's like, Hey, nobody's going to go up and be him tomorrow. I mean, that's even part of thing. Like, Hey mine, I'm working at this for 11 years before you might have a thousand people that follow you on YouTube or, you know, like that's, that's okay. But, but be you in, in, in with exactly who you help, like, I, you know, it's a little bit easier on the residential side for some examples for me, but it's like, I think about like, if I'm going to refer somebody to an agent, well, you know, well, who am I going to help at different things?
I think some of the most popular people that I know from a very local influencer, they weren't that way, but it's like somebody who in a city, you know, St. Louis or Chicago, side's like, who do they help? They help singles in downtown insert city name by condos and high rises like that too. They help like, and the only other person, they help us. Sometimes they help married people who where's that single person when they sold them, the condo sell their condo to somebody new. Like that's a very finite level where it's like, yeah, I think if you're trying to, if you're starting as an influencer, how specific can you get?
And just go deep in that, like, by all means like, be big, do, do commercial when, when you have millions of subscribers, but focus on your tight little area up front, like I've invested in a lot of, you know, much more, you know, blue collar businesses, you know, hourly workers and things and big tech con things that became big tech companies. So it's like, that's very different than what most people do. Usually it's like, I have some people that, like, if you have a marketing agency, they invest in marketing agencies that are doing seven figures of revenue and they help them to get to eight or nine figures and sell the company.
That's, that's the only people they invest in. Damn. If I had a marketing business, helping people, wherever they were, and I wanted to help grow my business, what, I just take money from Kurt Mueller that doesn't help somebody like that, or, or what this buddy who it's like, no, he has a history of, he's gone to 20 of these companies. He's bought a 25% stake in them. And they, they sell for a 10 X, multiple on a couple of years, that's who you take money from. And so if you're going to be a local influencer, like focus on that and focus on what you do and where you can help or where you're trying to be. And don't try to be the guru and Mitt that you're not there yet say I'm new into a light or smaller commercial.
And this is where I'm trying to help people and just tell the story as you grow. And people will come around for that if you're authentic. But I think too many people try to be a guru. And the end, it feels like snake oil, if somebody's selling or people can sense if you're not authentic. And like, if you don't know stuff, don't tell me you don't know it. And then say, I don't know, I'm going to bring in 10 people to go talk to. And that, that know this stuff.
Jesse (19m 60s): So aside from the, the authenticity aspect that you're kind of describing there, w what are some of the, the big mistakes you see individuals make when it, when it comes to their, whether it's their, their marketing strategy in general, but the items that are actually holding them back, are there, are there some, you know, ones that you see over and over again, that, that you try to correct right off the bat?
Kurt (20m 23s): Yeah. The, the two biggest things are one. They, they haven't done that work to be specific on who the profile on who they are, and like to pass that vetting to enough, to put it up on our website on a tick doc and a YouTube, you know, to do that, that, that quick little 32nd view on your YouTube channel and says who you are and why somebody should pay attention. They haven't done that. And, and then they kind of either vacillate between they have no concept about what they'll start to talk about, whether it's trying to build an influence or even writing content, or they feel like it has to be perfect.
And so they didn't have to have their next three years of ideas mapped out before it gets done. No, you don't need to do that. I mean, I was working with somebody literally this morning. That's like, they, we literally would just, all we did was look at their Google sheet for what are their first seven shows going to look like, like they're going to do these little five to 10 minute live things. And here's the first seven topics that they think they're going to do. And then there are a couple of people that call, we added two or three other ideas that shifted around that gives them seven ideas to go and do shows for. They don't have 70, they don't have 700, but they can get seven and they can get started with it.
And it feels bite-size and enough to get started and enough consistency that says, all right, I can film all these today. Or I could do one each day or one each week. And you add onto it after you see what works.
Jesse (21m 41s): Yeah. So for the, that analysis paralysis, I think it's not just real estate. I think people in general, you know, some people I think are more prone to it, but I think we all have that a little bit of that aspect. And it is if you don't have a social media presence or especially videos where you're actually being seen the idea of getting it perfect is I, I definitely can relate to that. And I think most people probably can. One, one thing I'm always curious to get, you know, individuals that are in your space, their idea on this, if, if you have a part of that and paralysis can be caused by you do two or three things, you know, we're in an economy where people are doing multiple things.
So, you know, whether it's you say you have your investor, you have a podcast, or like you're saying marketing doesn't really matter the business, but you have multiple things that you're doing is your recommendation of that. If there's a through line between those different areas that you, you kind of put them together and let's just use a website for an example, that you try to get everything in one hub, or do you keep them disparate. And what would be the kind of the deciding factors for you on that?
Kurt (22m 46s): In most cases on websites, I'm going to put them all together, unless there's a, unless there is a reason that to have a pure spinoff site, but like, it's so hard to rank. It's so easy and yet hard to rank websites today. But when you get authority on a website, then like it's so much easier to rank a second topic, a third topic, a fourth topic. So the only way I would ever do a second, a second website from something is, is if there was a reason that it needed to just live unto itself. If I'm doing a podcast it's gonna live on Kurt, eular.com, unless there was a real reason that I needed to separate that off.
Like if you and I were doing something together, Hey, that's a reason to spin it off somewhere else separately. But, you know, if I, it, but if I'm doing anything, it's going to live on my domain and I'm going to branch out from there because I want the benefit and multiplicity that I can get from Google when it hits. And then I could have a second, I could have a YouTube channel that's on just one thing. Like I've done a lot in the main American movement, helping companies and individuals build that can use that maiden in the USA label. Well, that's very specific. Well, like, okay, like I could go start a podcast on just that.
Where would I send them back to probably to my main website, unless I had a reason to do something separate.
Jesse (23m 60s): So we go down the line with you or we're successful entrepreneurs and in whatever domain that is, once you get to a critical mass where you really don't have the time to be doing all the things that you used to do before, whether that's, you know, working directly with, even on the investing side accountants or working directly with people that are editing, what is, what's your approach to being able to build out the team and how you can make sure that you're doing the things that are going to be the most valuable. And you know, it's not three in the morning and you're editing a website or you're, you know, you're, you're in an email thread with, with multiple accountants.
Kurt (24m 37s): Yeah. I, I, I do, I, I, as quickly as possible where, I mean, we're where you had the money in your vest or it, or it makes sense financially, just for you to hand it off, you bring in help, just like you said. And so I would say, look, look to the network. You already have. A lot of times there will be people that are, they're trying to, they're trying to get to where you're at in two or three years. And so, you know, bringing them in for, to pay for some done for you work that changes their business trajectory and helps them out today, but it takes stuff off of your plate.
And so that, that I really, I find a lot of times there are people that are working on things. I've hired friends that now have general contracting business. And, but yet I needed them. I knew they were in a place their business for five years ago where it made sense for me to farm off 10, 15 hours a week, where they were good business operator, but they, they didn't have the room to step up themselves. But then there's other places too. It's like, there may be things in your network where you can just go to, and you find somebody that like, they're going to be your chief operating officer when your business grows.
And you start to hand that off to them and you find a business deal that works for them. But also like Upwork can be great. I found a lot of, I'll say a little secret for people hire my mom.com it, you can get anything from full-time employees to part-time people, but somebody who's decided that they're, they, they, you know, they'd been up. Usually somebody who's been a part-time or a stay at home parent for a number of years. And in some cases you have somebody who was a creative, you know, ran a creative design department that could help build your website or social media assets. And I mean, they were working at Coca-Cola and like the five years they've been a stay at home parent, and now they have 10 hours a week that they want to farm out.
And you'll never find that person on Upwork because like, it's just a different thing. And he, I mean, I have full-time employees I've hired off of that, but sometimes transitory, and then sometimes that's what they were looking for. It's a great little nugget to go find somebody, but Upwork has been great for me as well, where I'll go and find somebody that I trust and, and, and farm work out to them.
Jesse (26m 34s): Yeah. And for those that don't know, I think it's pretty common at this point, upwork.com, you know, I've, I think I've mentioned it on the show. We've gotten a lot of success, my partner and through Upwork and it, and it depends like you, through that, you can, we're actually just talking with a client at lunch yesterday and they were like, they were kind of amazed of what the level of, you know, you could have somebody do clean up a, a pitch deck for you to somebody that's a, you know, editing videos or, you know, and it has a long-term relationship I find really useful with Upwork is you can see not just the reviews, but what I like with Upwork is that if they're individuals, you can see how much they've earned on Upwork.
And I think like that to me, is an important, maybe even a more important metric because money talks and if, if they are actually doing the work, it, you know, coupled with, you know, not an absolutely terrible review, you can kind of get an idea of, of who you're working with. And then lastly, on Upwork, I think it's great. The fact that you can have different levels of proficiency in your native language. So if you're in Latin-America and you need somebody that speaks the native language, you can go there and if you're in the us, you can do that.
So I find that Upwork for anybody that hasn't tried it, I would definitely recommend, you know, it's not a plug for them, but I'd definitely recommend creating a profile because there's always these little things that we just don't have the time for that we really shouldn't be doing that. It's literally somebody that'll get it turned around in a day or two. And it's pretty amazing with some of the results that you can get if you're careful about vetting.
Kurt (28m 3s): Yeah. And I think that key in vetting is important, I think. And I agree with everything you said, I think a few tips because I've spent lots of money on Upwork and some successfully and some not, but the knot has led me to finding success. Successes. If you don't even know what you can hand off by signing up for an account and Upwork, you can do searches for things that you do every day and go look and see are other like, are there people on there? And it will help people spark and go, oh, I could farm this out to somebody out. And, and, and so it's good for thinking that through, but to your point, yes, you can see how much people earn, but some cases you may see the people are cranking through.
And what they're really good at is they're not actually the ones doing the work, but you don't know the behind the scenes. They're farming it out to other people which can be good and bad. It's still usually needs. It could be good at completing stuff, but I love that, but I'd say you've never worked with any site like this, either hire my mom.com, which is not quite as much as I've worked for reviews, but you'll get super quality people assume that the person you hire, no matter what the reviews look like, isn't going to work out. Like I say, come up with a test and like hire three people to do the same job. And at least one of them will end up usually being great.
And if you make a decision, sometimes two rarely what all three match out on some cases, it's just like the third person might not come up. Like I have Dwayne in my team who he's gone through with designers. And it's like, I'd say about a third of the designers that he ends up, like interacting with actually ended up following through with their work. So it's always good that he started two or three. And even if both work out, you can come back to somebody, but, but try it. But when it, if it doesn't work with just one person, that's okay.
If you're going to learn, and then you're gonna make a better decision on the next person.
Jesse (29m 45s): Yeah. And I, and I find the, once you do find somebody that works, it's just like, it's such a useful tool. I had something there's a while ago where I think I sent, we just didn't have the bandwidth at work. I just needed emails for like 800 outreaches for investors. And it was just like, find the emails online. I don't want personally emails. I, they, you need to find them and for what, you know, whatever this person did, whether they crawled on the web, you got these back and it was a ridiculously low costs. And then I had another one where for investors, real estate investors, if you're creating pitch decks, I mean, I had one where it was, I would normally have our assistant at work doing it.
But again, we were at a busy time and I said, listen, like, I could probably just do this on my own, but I need this whole thing formatted properly. And like within 48 hours or 24 hours, whatever, it was perfectly formatted, PowerPoint, little things like that, where you don't realize you waste so much time on, because they're just those things where you're like, I need to get them done. And if you don't have that outlet, you don't have the outlet. So definitely recommend that for individuals. So for the 20, 20 to 2023, I know we're kind of in a crazy time right now, just kind of coming out of this fingers, crossed that we're all heading in the right direction over the last a year, year and a half.
What do you see? Are there trends that you're seeing right now that people are jumping on, that you think are useful or are there, you know, different things that are happening in the marketing space or even in kind of the business development side of things that you're seeing?
Kurt (31m 15s): I see people jumping on trends and it's like a lot of what I see is some are healthy trends and some are not healthy trends. And so I see a lot more people trying social media podcasts, YouTube, which is great. I don't see a lot of them that I feel like have something thought through from a strategy where they don't have that digital hub we talked about. They don't have a plan for it. YouTube is great for you right now, but what happens when the algorithm changes? And so they, they haven't done that. And you don't have to have fully thought through, but people are trying things. I think they're feeling much more comfortable getting started.
They that's the positive side on things. The other side is I, I find a lot of times, especially on the investor side and even on, on the agent side, whether commercial or residential is they think because they've tried something before and it didn't work. They're like, Hey, I'm done with it. The websites don't work anymore. Oh, I tried that social media thing. I got nothing from Facebook, really? Like how many stories do you want, where it's like, maybe you just did it wrong. And so I've, I find actually things tend to be bifurcated very much where a lot of people that have never tried a lot of the digital platforms they're trying to now, which is great on the other side, people think that they tried it once or twice, twice, and rather than realize that the problem was how they approached it.
They think the problem is just with that chip or that network. And they go, ah, social doesn't work. Yeah, no, no, very often one of the reason a business that I've been in hasn't worked was because of me and that's that where I need to look at it and go, maybe I wasn't consistent. Maybe my topics weren't good. Maybe I wasn't narrowed. And so I think too many people nowadays are going they're Fickling on things that they should not be fickled on. And they should realize that, no, no, you should go retry that again, the fact that you tried Twitter, you tried Pinterest. Yeah. It was really good. And bang your head against the wall for nine months.
Now go try it with Tik TOK and, but try it in a different way and talk to the people that have been successful. Be very transparent about why it didn't work and people just aren't doing that and said they just fickle on the whole channel.
Jesse (33m 10s): Yeah. We've had investors on the show that have absolutely blown up on tech talk and, and Instagram, and it's kind of amazing. And I'm blanking on the name here. We had them on recently. And what he basically said was, cause you know, everybody's they do the post-mortem like, how did, how did it happen and whatever. And he said, I just made a commitment that for 30 days I was going to do a Tik TOK video about real estate every day at the same time every day. And not that that's a strategy, it's just going to work for everybody. But I think it goes to this idea of I'm a big believer in consistency and the real challenge.
And it's not easy when you don't see the success yet where you know that hockey stick curve where that, you know, the blade might be very long until you get that pop off. Whereas if you, if you kept going, it was month 12, or if it was month 18, what's your view on consistency? Like how important is it? Especially in, I find in the social media and digital world, if you, if you kind of check out early, you don't really know what could have happened.
Kurt (34m 11s): I'd say consistency is actually the only thing that matters. I mean, a consistency matters more than your content, more than how you look more outside of maybe the sound quality for about anything. If you're doing video or audio, consistency is the most important thing that you have. It's not, in some cases, it is because you're putting out content, whether it's daily or weekly or whatever that looks like. But it's the changes that it has, that it makes in me myself when I'm being consistent with something over the last probably, maybe almost 90 days at this point, I have so many things going in my, in my, in my full-time job and all a bunch of investments and my side hustle that, I mean, my life was, was becoming chaos.
I felt like, and I wasn't being as good as everything. So I'm taking 30 to 45 minutes every day and I'm writing right now. So I'm putting out, you know, five to 10,000 words a week just on super quality content. Sometimes that's editing and all there. But I did that because when I was retrospective, I looked down and realized I wasn't being consistent in my day-to-day things, even when I was focused on just each one of those jobs. And it, for me, I know taking, writing and saying, I'm going to narrow down on this topic. And just focus on that, that changed in me, makes me a better leader, a better residential person, a better marketer and a better investor.
And so I think that consistency is actually what helps people into being more successful, whether they're doing social or digital or anything else. And to your point, it's, it is, it is making the commitment and it doesn't have to be like, I'm going to do a one-hour video every day, or I'm going write for 45 minutes. My commitment is that I will write every day. It ends up being 30 to 45 minutes. If I write for two minutes, I have checked my box. I'm good. And I feel, I feel good. So if I can sit down and that's all I can do, it's for two minutes. That's great. If in the other some days I take two hours because I'm in a flow and my business allows me to do that.
Jesse (36m 3s): Yeah. Yeah. I think, and I think that's part of the challenge where you're describing like a lot of people, especially the people in our world will have a full-time job will have a side hustle and then you get to this point of like, yeah, you want to go deep in one thing, but then oftentimes you see that they're not really going deep in any of them. So being able to juggle that and make sure that, you know, if you have those two or three things happening, that you are actually giving them the time or at least outsourcing the things that are important. So you have the time to do those things.
Well.
Kurt (36m 34s): Yeah. Especially if you're, if you're working on a side hustle, things haven't clicked yet. If you, if you have not, you don't even have to read atomic habits, the book, get the audio book, listen to it in your car and listen to it at the gym. But atomic habits is like, it's the core for everything. I think because it gives people the permission to not be perfect and to not take an hour on everything, sir, seriously, sit down at your desk for two minutes and do whatever it is and be very joyous that, that that's what you've accomplished your task. That's so much more important for getting the longevity than it is about just sheer number of hours at any one time.
Jesse (37m 9s): Yeah, for sure. Well, Kurt, I want to be mindful of the time. There's a couple of questions we'd like to wrap up with for our guests. If you're cool with that, we'll, we'll go with those questions and then we'll, we'll let listeners know where they can connect with you.
Kurt (37m 21s): Yeah.
Jesse (37m 22s): So first one, in terms of mentorship, you know, people coming into our industry, it could be marketing, it could be real estate, you know, pick an industry. What is your view on mentorship from the perspective of younger people coming into the industry? You know, what advice would you give them?
Kurt (37m 40s): It's, it's critical. And I think you have to have it. And I don't care whether you're get a mentor or a coach by officially asking somebody, or if it just kind of ends up becoming an unofficial relationship. That happens for a lot of people too. And you just kind of Ruth realized later, like, wow, you've been guiding me for a couple of years, but I, I think you have to have a mentor and it's not just somebody who has been like monetarily successful. It's somebody that's been successful for 10, at least 10 years. And wherever you're going, I like, Hey, I don't want somebody to guide me in my marriage.
That's, you know, just five years down the line, I want somebody who's been, you know, you're 40 years into a marriage and you know what, that looks like. I'm gonna know somebody who's sold two businesses or they've done, you know, I've been successful in commercial real estate for the last 25 years. Like that's who I wanted my mentor.
Jesse (38m 29s): Yeah. That makes sense. All right. Next question. Something that you know now in your career, you wish you knew when you first got started,
Kurt (38m 38s): That fee, that being wrong about something and being right. Feels the exact same until you realize that you're wildly coyote off the Cliff's edge. And that you've actually been wrong about something for the last six months or six years.
Jesse (38m 51s): I like it. You kind of alluded to one atomic habits. What's some media, whether it's digital content, a book that you're reading that you could recommend to listeners
Kurt (39m 1s): Notebooks right now, atomic habits is a really good one on there. And so that's probably what I point most people back to that and deep work by Cal Cal Ripken. So our Newport Cal Newport,
Jesse (39m 15s): Cal Newport. Yeah. That's great. But we'll put a couple of links up last question. First car, make and model.
Kurt (39m 22s): Cause like a 20 year old Chevy cavalier.
Jesse (39m 27s): I was close. I was the Pontiac Pontiac. What was the opposite of the Sunfire? That's the one. Yeah, pretty much the same car and just, yeah, well I have a nineties. Awesome. So for individuals that want to connect with you, Kurt, we'll put a couple of links up aside from a Google search, where can they go?
Kurt (39m 45s): My website, dealer.com is that best place. Cause it mentioned like hubs at farms yet anywhere you want to know what the personal life of somebody that's had my background, it's going to send you over to Instagram business stuff. You go to LinkedIn. If you want to read about servant leadership. Great. I got tens of thousands of words on there. Boy,
Jesse (40m 1s): My guest today has been Kurt Mueller, Kurt, thanks for being part of working capital
Kurt (40m 6s): Things rather than me.
Jesse (40m 15s): Thank you so much for listening to working capital the real estate podcast. I'm your host, Jesse for galley. If you liked the episode, head on to iTunes and leave us a five star review and share on social media, it really helps us out. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram, Jesse for galley, F R a G a L E, have a good one. Take care.