Podcast appearances and mentions of brian i'm

Brian Roemmele is in contention for the most interesting man on the internet. That's why I invited him on the podcast. I wanted to discuss his work, his thoughts and philosophy and his propensity for finding fascinating content not found anywhere else. What I got was three hours of unmitigated fascination. Brian was ready to rock-n-roll. His heart and mind opened up and delivered such a lucid and thought-provoking monologue that I was little inclined to say anything. So, I didn't, really. I just let him say what he needed to say. The result was one of the most interesting, coherent and salient testimonies I've ever had the good fortune to witness. Grab a notebook, clear your mind and buckle up. This is a wild ride. I'll bring Brian back on sometime relatively soon, but in the mean time, find him here: Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrianRoemmele Website: http://voicefirst.expert/ Quora: https://www.quora.com/profile/Brian-Roemmele --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/logocentrifugal/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/logocentrifugal/support

Zach speaks with Dr. Brian Williams, an accomplished surgeon and highly sought-after public speaker who shares his insights on racial trauma, resilience, and social justice. Thrust into the national spotlight in July 2016, Dr. Williams became a voice for racial reconciliation after a Dallas sniper shot 12 police officers at an anti-police brutality protest. At a press conference days after the tragedy, he voiced his concerns as an African-American man with regard to racial injustice and simultaneously decried violence targeted at law enforcement. He now travels nationally inspiring audiences about resilience and social justice at the intersection of race, violence, and medicine. He walks us through his actions that tragic day, talks a bit about his experience with the Dallas Citizens Police Review Board, and offers several pieces of wisdom for young professionals seeking to build effective partnerships for their personal and professional development and journey.Connect with Dr. Williams via LinkedIn or Twitter, and check out his personal website by clicking here.Interested in his podcast Race, Violence & Medicine? Follow this link to listen on a variety of platforms.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and you know what we do. We have authentic conversations with real folks to center black and brown experiences at work, and so if you are working any type of 9-to-5, even if it's your own 9-to-5, or maybe you're working, like, a 3-to-6. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what y'all--you know, if you're out here working, you're grinding, you're at work, you're an underrepresented person, this is the platform for you. And so we have these conversations--and it's not just me talking to y'all or kind of, like, ranting into the ether. It's more so me having conversations with black and brown executives and different types of professionals, public servants, entrepreneurs, educators, activists, creatives, artists, and we're doing this all with the goal of amplifying underrepresented voices at work. And so again, we have a really great conversation. The person that I'm really excited to talk to today and introduce to you all, Dr. Brian H. Williams. Dr. Brian H. Williams is a first-generation college graduate who earned a degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the United States Air Force Academy. After six years of active duty military service, he followed a different call to serve and enrolled into medical school at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine. He did his general surgery residency at Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and a fellowship in trauma surgery and surgical critical care at Emory University/Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. Upon completion of his training, Dr. Williams served on the faculty at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, where he taught and mentored students, residents, and fellows. Dr. Williams is well-known for his role in treating victims of the July 7, 2016, Dallas police shooting. He was the trauma surgeon working on the seven injured officers who were emergently transported to Parkland Memorial Hospital. At a press conference following the tragedy, his heartfelt comments about racism, gun violence and policing touched thousands. Unbeknownst to Dr. Williams, his impromptu speech became a viral media event, and his life of comfortable anonymity ended. In addition--Brian: That's a mouthful. [both laugh]Zach: It is, but it's real though. In addition to his work as a trauma surgeon, Dr. Williams travels the country as a thought-provoking speaker sharing his unique insight on resilience, gun violence, and racial justice. He is also an opinion writer featured in the Dallas Morning News and hosts the podcast Race, Violence & Medicine. So y'all, we're gonna have all the links. If y'all don't remember the black doctor who was--it was all on the Twitters, you know what I'm saying, it was all on the social media. If y'all don't remember all that, we're gonna have all of his reference materials in the show notes, but, you know, that will be after y'all listen to the show. Dr. Williams, how are you doing?Brian: I'm doing fantastic, Zach. Thanks for having me on.Zach: Man, thank you for being here. So let's get into it. You were already known within your field, but you were thrust into the national spotlight after treating victims of the July 7th, 2016, Dallas police shooting. You were the trauma surgeon working, and so you were actively, right--like, I remember even in that video, you were--it was clear that you had just got done working. Like, you were--you were working. You know, I'm really curious. Considering your personal experience with police and the history of policing in black communities, what was going through your mind, like, just treating--like, in that situation? Can you talk about just what--of course there's no question as to your oath and your commitment to deliver care, but what I'm trying to understand--so, like, I want to be very upfront with that. What I'm trying to understand though is, considering your own experiences and your own identity, like, what was it like? Was it automatic? Was it just like, "Look, this is what I do?" Like, can you walk us through that experience?Brian: Sure. In that moment, when the officers were coming in, nothing else mattered. I just fell back on my training. So my experiences, my life experiences, that was not a factor in how I approached what I did, and, you know, it's a large team of nurses and doctors and students. So it wasn't just me, although I was the trauma surgeon that was on call that evening at the hospital. But in that moment, I'd give them the same sort of care I give any patient. Like, I do not differentiate based on occupations or race or ethnicity or--you know, all of those ways we try to categorize people as being different. That matters not to me. At the moment, I just saw a human being that was severely injured and critical, and I am trained to do things to try to save their lives. So that was what--like you said, it was automatic. It just was a crisis. My training kicked in, and I went to work.Zach: And so then talk to me a little bit about, like, so--you know, so after the care had been delivered and, you know, after you were done performing surgery and care, again, to the victims, you know, you had the conference. At what point did then, like, all of the emotions and thoughts and things come rushing back?Brian: Well, let me walk through the timeline of those few days. The shooting was on July 7th, 2016, but you may or may not recall that on July 5th, there was a shooting, Alton Sterling, in Baton Rouge, and on July 6th, that was Philando Castile in Minnesota. And then we had July 7th. So then on July 7th there were actually protests happening all around the country to bring awareness to this ongoing issue. People remember Dallas because of the tragic shooting that occurred there. This is happening all over the country. So I was aware, in those preceding couple of days, of those two deaths, and you could imagine that the public discourse was basically a screaming match about black lives matter and blue lives matter and all lives matter, and there's all this negative talk. So when I went to work on July 7th, I was aware of that but didn't expect this sort of tragedy to occur. A few days later, on July 11th, was when the press conference occurred that you referenced. So there was a couple days between the time of the shooting and the time of the press conference where I pretty much just cut myself off from society. I wasn't watching the news. I wasn't listening to the radio. I wasn't reading the paper. I just was in my own little bubble, because that night was--it's the worst night of my career. It's something I still think about to this day. It just really got to me for a number of reasons, but the big thing was that this was fueled by intolerance and hate and racism, and all of these elements that we don't discuss about in an honest, open manner fueled this event, and to lose any patient--but that happened on a night that was particularly volatile and unfortunately became historic for all of the wrong reasons. And going into the press conference, these were the things that I was thinking about - you know, what's going on in our country? What role am I playing to bring us together? Am I doing enough? What have I done with my life? There was just a mix of a lot of different emotions and thoughts which I didn't have the answers [to] or wasn't really able to process completely, which takes us to the press conference that you mentioned, and that all kind of spilled out in the moment without any plans or preparation. I just planned to sit there, just to be seen, because my wife felt that the country needed to see that there was a black surgeon there that night trying to do the right thing.Zach: You know, so let's talk a little bit about the conference, right? So, like, at the conference following the shooting, you said, quote, "I want the Dallas police officers to see me, a black man. I support you. I will defend you. I will care for you. That does not mean I do not fear you." Can we talk about, like, what you meant here? Like, what does that--and it's interesting, right, because it's almost--one could almost argue that those things are... like, there's a duality there, right? So, like, when you said this, what did you mean?Brian: Right, and that's exactly the word I was going to use. That's the duality that I think many black people in this country deal with. So to break it down into two parts, when I said "I support you," I'm a child of a military veteran. I have a lot of military veterans in my family. I went to the Air Force Academy. I was an Air Force officer. So I know what it means to wear a uniform, I know what it means to serve something greater than yourself. I know what it means to make sacrifices to serve a greater good. So although I'm not a police officer, that sort of ethos is not something that was foreign to me. Zach: And so, you know, because you took all of this--like, you took all of this, right? Like, so your fear, your frustration, your dedication as a public servant and as a consummate professional, and you mobilized that into an effective partnership to actualize change, right? And so here's my challenge though, right? My challenge is I can't look at any point in American history where police have done right by black people. So, like, just the historicity of policing in America for black bodies, and, like, not to mention, like, the pathological narratives that majority media propagates, as well as the institutional systems and laws that make holding police accountable so incredibly challenging. And so I'm really curious, 'cause I--I know that I'm not the only person who has these challenges. I don't doubt that, Dr. Williams, that some species of this has been on your mind at some point of time, and so I'm curious to know, like, with those things in mind, what was your journey to become, like, the chair of the Citizens Police Review Board, and can you explain what it meant to manage through those relationship dynamics?Brian: Yes, I'm on-board with what you're saying as far as the challenges, and I guess we'll get back to that in a second, but as far as the journey to the Citizens Police Review Board, that was--the mayor's office reached out to me about potentially joining the board as a chair, and that was because a prior chair was turning out, so he needed someone new. Now, the Citizens Police Review Board is meant to be this body that will hear complaints from citizens about their interactions with police, and they can bring them to the board, we can deliberate and try to give them some resolution. So that's what the board existed for at that time. I didn't know that the board existed when I was asked. I didn't know what it did. I didn't know if it was worthwhile. I didn't know if I had the time. I had all of these questions about the board, but I asked around and learned about it, and I said--I thought, "Yes, this can be something good for the community. It can be a voice for citizens," and I felt that I could make a positive contribution to all of this. It was definitely challenging. I learned a lot about the Dallas Police Department. I learned a lot about community activists. I learned a lot about various board members in City Hall. So there are a lot of stakeholders working towards public safety, and to bring them all together to come to some sort of collaborative effort to ensure that the public has trust in their police department is challenging, and I think it's actually now an ongoing journey now that the board has been revamped and given more support as far as resources, personnel and a budget, which we did not have when I was a chair. Zach: And so I'm curious though, right, like, when you talk about--it's just interesting, because I don't think that we have a lot of examples in American history when it comes to, like, relationships where the underrepresented voices have, like, actual authority over a majority group and things don't become strained, like, either quickly or over time, and I think authority and accountability is a struggle for anybody, right? So I don't think that that's unique or exclusive to dominant and sub-dominant groups, but I'm really curious about, like, what did it look like, especially--like you said, at the time that you were the chair there was not a budget. Like, what did it look like to really be the chair on this review board and talk about right behaviors? Like, do you feel like you were able to have honest dialogue? Do you believe that there was, like--do you believe that you had the actual authority to kind of, like, drive substantive change? Like, what did that look like for you?Brian: So I think that everyone involved knew exactly who they were getting with me as chair. For one, they saw my statements at that press conference. So I [?] there. Two, I wrote an opinion piece that published in the Dallas Morning News where--actually, I wrote two regarding the police, one that talked about the history of slave patrols and how this distrust in black communities goes back for hundreds of years. It just doesn't happen overnight. And I talked about, you know, police departments have historically been there to maintain control over communities of color. It wasn't about public safety or protecting their rights, it was about keeping communities of color in line. So that is the history with which we need to reckon in order to move forward. So everybody knew exactly what they were getting with Dr. Brian Williams, [laughs] which, you know, had its pluses and minuses. I think the benefit was they couldn't accuse me of having any kind of agenda, right? I was criticized from both law enforcement and, you know, black civilians for the comments I made. And I, you know, received praise as well. So I feel I was pretty much solidly in the middle of all of that that I could equally appeal to and offend anybody that was involved in moving the Police Review Board forward.Zach: So your journey didn't stop there, right? Like, what did you learn about yourself? Like, what were some of the main things that you learned about yourself that then prompted your transition from Dallas into the South Side of Chicago?Brian: Well, and I'll just say, you know, that last comment I was obviously kidding when I said offending people. [both laugh] But I guess the point there was I was moving forward with this mission to ensure a voice for the citizens of Dallas with integrity, and I did not try to have any sort of self-gain from it. It was about serving the city of Dallas and the people of Dallas.Zach: Which is rare, right? 'Cause I think, especially, like, in the political climate that we're in today, right, like, you see these voices, like, on the far right who--like, they're black voices. Like, they're tokens, like, coming and, like, sharing specific talking points and narratives without any, like, real intellectual substance behind them, and I think what really intrigued me about you--'cause I've spent a majority of my life in Dallas, and my mother is still in Dallas. I have family in Dallas, and so I was very familiar with--like, with your work and your statements, and they run very true to me and sensitive for me considering that I'm from that area, right? So what I'm curious about is did you ever feel any pressure to kind of, like, lean one way or the other or take on certain agendas or certain talking points that you yourself didn't agree with from a principle perspective?Brian: The short answer to that is yes, and I should say, you know, I wasn't immediately embraced by citizens that were working on police reform. [They didn't?] know who I was. You know, I was a new quantity, and people have been working on this reform for decades, right? These are Dallas natives that were born and bred here in Dallas, and I was--Zach: The activist culture is deep, right? There's a lot of community servants and activists who have been on the ground. So yeah, I'm right there with you. And it's hard. It's hard to break in, right? Like, when you're new and, like, the main thing you have when it comes to community activism--from what I understand, because I would not consider myself a community activist because I know that I want to respect that work, but what I understand is, like, really it's your relationships--your social capital is, like, gold, right? That's, like, the only thing you have, and if you're unknown, then it's hard to, like, you know, break the ice.Brian: Exactly. And I will say your podcast is a form of activism.Zach: I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Williams, man. You got me blushing, man. [both laugh] Brian: You're doing it, man. You're doing it.Zach: Man, I really appreciate it. So let's talk about South Side, Chicago. Like, you transitioned, you went there. Like, what was the call or the impetus to transition from Dallas to Chicago?Brian: Well, my journey in health care--I mean, I've always been very mission-driven about what I can do to eradicate racial health care disparities, and that is a nation-wide mission, right? That can occur anywhere. Now, as a trauma surgeon, I'm particularly focused on gun violence as well. So South Side, Chicago, you know, there's a lot of gun violence here. It's frequently talked about in the media in ways that aren't--I think that dehumanizes the population that's there living within these violent communities. There was a new trauma center that opened up in the area, and several of my mentors were here at the trauma center, so there was this perfect storm of the mission that I want to serve with a community that was very active in getting this trauma center here built with people I know that had flocked here, and I said, "You know what? I would like to be a part of having impact that will cross generations," right? And I think it's happening right now, and that's why I wanted to join this group here. As far as Dallas, you know, that was not an easy decision. I had been in Dallas--I was in Dallas for 9 years. That's the longest I've been in one spot my whole life. It's now my de facto home. [laughs] If Texas will accept me, it's pretty much my de facto home. I've been moving my entire life as a military kid, as a military officer, you know? I feel home in Dallas. I still follow what's going on in Dallas. I'm interested in what's gonna happen to my home city. Zach: And so, you know, I'm interested, right, in addition to this you're a respected health care leader. Can we talk a little bit about how your work and the legacy of racism impacts health care inequity, right? Like, so you're coming in, and you're in Chicago, and yes, like, you're supporting--there's a gun violence issue in South Side, Chicago, and I--you know, honestly, I really do wish that some folks never found out about Chicago, because I feel as if it's, like, the default when anybody ever wants to pathologize black folks. It's very annoying. It's just like, "Golly, I wish that--anything Chicago, I just wish y'all wouldn't have known about it." But, you know, in your work, can you talk a little bit about, like, how health care inequity shows up, right? Like, that's been an ever-growing talking point or just point of awareness, right, like, in headlines and mainstream media, growing awareness around health care inequity for black and brown folks juxtaposed to majority members, white counterparts. Can we talk a little bit about, like, what you've seen from a perspective of inequity and kind of, like, how you've combated that as a black surgeon?Brian: I would like to see us get to a point where we just get real about what health care disparities are and health care inequities. This is the legacy of racism in this country. It's about health, poverty, housing, education, employment. Like, there are so many things to unpack and address. Health care is one part, and that's where I happen to be, you know, an expert in that particular field, but I recognize that what I do in the hospital is not gonna be enough to uplift these communities in need. And like you said, I don't like to pathologize Chicago either. I'm coming here to help, but I don't know how to talk about it without being offensive to people that live here, right? Like, who am I to talk about their community? So I'm trying to be sincere about my desire to contribute, to uplift the community without being offensive to the folks that live here and are actually gonna be doing the work for a long time. So I completely agree with you that even I feel like an outsider sometimes in doing this work.Zach: So then, you know, I think--and I'm really excited, and I'm thankful that you've been able to come on the podcast, because I think what really intrigued me about having you on, beyond you just sharing your story and the work that you've done and that you do, is around, like, the concept of effective relationships and building relationships with individuals that you may not feel immediately safe with or comfortable with, and I know that that involves a certain level of emotional labor for you, even today, right? I'm curious though, like, if you could give younger professionals any advice about building relationships--and when I say relationships, I'm thinking more like coalitions for your personal and professional development and journey. Like, if you could, like, boil it down to, like, three things, what would they be?Brian: I would say, first and foremost to young professionals, nothing is worth sacrificing your dignity for acceptance. What I mean is that the papers and the promotions and the titles, like, if you have to leave part of who you are at home, if you have to compromise your integrity and your ethics and your purpose to achieve those goals, those goals aren't worth it, so do not hand over your dignity for acceptance. That's one. Two, you need to set your boundaries. If you don't set your boundaries someone else will set them for you, and you may not like them. And actually I believe that if you set your boundaries, that will lead to greater connectedness with people, not less, because you are respecting who you are and what you stand for. You're not letting anyone else compromise that for you. And the third thing is just always keep your end goal in mind. As you're going through life, your profession, like, think about what it is you want to accomplish, where you want to be. If you never lose sight of that, then all that noise and chaos that you encounter on the way, you'll be able to filter through that and not lose sight of the end objective. So people call it your North Star, your purpose, but I think your end goal, whatever that is, never lose sight of that.Zach: Man, Dr. Williams, this has been a great conversation. I just gotta thank you again for being a guest on the podcast. Any shout-outs or parting words before we let you go?Brian: No, Zach. First of all, thank you for--I'm honored that you asked me to be on the show, and I'm glad that we were able to make this happen. And I'm always happy to engage with listeners. They can check out my website, BrianWilliamsMD.com. That's Brian with an I. I'm pretty active on Twitter at @BHWilliamsMD. But if you do drop me a line, email or direct message, I will get back to you. And you talked about making connections. That's one way that I have increased my connectivity with the universe. Thanks again.Zach: Man, thank you so much. All right, y'all, you know what it is. You've been listening to Dr. Williams, surgeon, speaker, educator, public servant, man... just overall dope individual. 'Til next time, this has been Zach. We'll catch y'all next time. Peace.

Hi, my name is Brian I'm going to be sharing conspiracy theories with you guys and then talking about them with guests and seeing their thoughts and opinions on it also sorry for the audio in this video I'm using a phone mic so there were be better quality of sound in the next videos, thank you

Zach discusses building learning communities with ChangeNerd CEO and founder Brian Hampton. Brian talks a bit about ChangeNerd, a digital learning community that supports change management practitioners and inspires innovation, and he also offers some advice for black and brown folks who are looking to build a learning community of their own.Connect with Brian on LinkedIn!Check out ChangeNerd's home page and follow them on LinkedIn! Want to become a member of the community? Click here!Visit our website!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate. Now look, you know what we do. We have authentic conversations about being black and brown in the corporate space. Now, corporate space makes it sound really fancy, right? Like you're wearing a suit and a tie, you know, maybe sometimes you have to actually put some lotion on your ankles. That's not what I mean, right? I just mean the place that you actually have to work, right? Living Corporate is a place that amplifies the voices of black and brown people at work, okay? And how do we do that? We do that with authentic conversations with black and brown executives, entrepreneurs, influencers, educators, public servants, creatives, activists, right? And we do that in just, like, one-on-one conversations, sometimes we'll do a two-on-one, sometimes we'll do a three-on-one, sometimes we have, like, a--you know, we mix it up, but the point is we're having real talk, and that's why our tag line is what? Real talk in a corporate world. All of that being said, y'all know we're having dope conversations every time y'all hear this podcast, and today is no different. Today we're talking to Brian Hampton. Brian is the CEO and founder of ChangeNerd, a company that supports change management practitioners and inspires innovation. Brian, welcome to the show. How are you doing, man?Brian: I'm doing well. Thanks for having me, Zach. I really appreciate it.Zach: For those of us who don't know you, why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself?Brian: Yeah. So, you know, I started ChangeNerd. It's primarily a digital learning community. I started it to really bring professionals together, because for us who do change management and help organizations adopt new ways of working, we really just tend to be heads-down, working on our projects, and I wanted to create a way for us to just connect and share best practices. Prior to launching ChangeNerd, I consulted at Deloitte. I also led change management teams at different companies, both private and non-profit. So I love the field. I'm super passionate about it, and I'm glad to talk about it today.Zach: Yeah, man. You know, and coming from a change background myself, you know, I don't see a lot of black men in this space, right? I don't really see a lot of black folks period, but I definitely don't see a lot of black men specifically and just black and brown men in general in the space. Can we talk a little bit about, of all the professions you could have chosen, like, what about change management got you?Brian: Yeah. This is real cool, this is real cool. Nice question, and--great question, actually. So I went to college in undergrad for criminal justice and then soon realized there was no real money behind it, and so I jumped into HR, jumped into the federal government, and at around 2008, 2010, I felt like HR was kind of flat, and then I was introduced to change management because the agency I was at at the time, we were implementing PeopleSoft, and so I was formally introduced to change management, and I really couldn't believe this was a full-time job, right? 'Cause it's really around just working with people and helping them, you know, really adopt new ways of working. And I'm like, "Wow, people get paid doing this?" So I did some research and saw that the pay was decent, and so I jumped into the field. So yeah, I thought--at the time I thought HR was boring, and change management seemed to be the new thing, and there's some really strong transferable skill sets from HR to change management, and so I took the leap.Zach: Man, you know, that's 100%, and it's interesting because my career was a little bit the same. I think we talked about this off the mic, but, like, I started as an HR manager at Target and then transitioned into org design and just being, like, a specialist, right? And then eventually formed all the way into change management. And you're absolutely right, a lot of it's transferable, but you know what's interesting? I think a lot of it isn't, because--I do agree that often times HR gets a tough rep as just being, like, the benefits folks, right? And kind of helping with ER issues, but really they're just kind of--they're almost like the security guards of the company, but they don't have a gun. They've got, like, a roll of quarters to call the peace when it gets really scary, you know? They might have a flashlight so that they can look at you while you're doing something wrong, but they don't really have any actual, you know... come on, man. Yeah, so anyway. Okay, cool. So look, we're talking today about building learning communities, right? ChangeNerd is a learning community, like you said at the top, but to start, like, how would you define a learning community, and what are the benefits of being in a learning community?Brian: Well, you know, quite honestly--and, you know, the whole theme of this podcast is corporate--you know, corporate living, and if you're in corporate, your organization is more than likely changing. It's using and bringing on new technology, new processes, you know, organizations are trying to be competitive, so all of that activity is happening, and what that means for the individual person is that you have to take ownership of your own journey, your own learning journey. And so the best way to do that is really tap into some type of social learning community, and that's part of the reason why I created ChangeNerd. There was nothing out there specifically for, you know, professionals who spend a lot of their time in project management, change management, and so I wanted to create a community for us folks. And, you know, what I'm noticing after doing this just for 12 months is that it's extremely beneficial. We got thousands of people in the community, both at the executive level and, you know, practitioner level, and the people love the community because they can take charge and, you know, tap in whenever they want to tap in. It's LinkedIn on a much smaller scale, you know? And there's beauty in having access to like-minded people. So if you're on a project and you're struggling, you know you're only a button away or an email away from getting help, and that's what it's all about, and for us, we tend not to have those strong networks when it comes to corporate, and so--you know, I'll be honest with you. I'll share this story. Deloitte was--working at Deloitte was the hardest--and it was fun, but it was extremely difficult, primarily because I didn't have that network. Even tapping into, you know, the African-American BRG, it's still tough for us to connect with the right people, people that we can trust in the corporate atmosphere. And so, you know, yeah, you go to work every day and you build a network there, but there's nothing like building an even broader network outside of your organization to give you the confidence you need to be successful.Zach: Man, you know, you're 100% right. And it's interesting. Like, as organizations, or just as technology continues to grow... like, at first the draw of technology and, like, social networking was size, right, and scope. Like, "You can reach anybody anywhere!" Like, you know, big numbers were attractive, right? So if you could say--you know, you say LinkedIn, like, millions of people use LinkedIn every day, right? But then, like, the disconnect is "Okay, what does it look like for me to actually touch somebody?" 'Cause I don't really need to touch a million people. I [may only?] really need to touch, like, 15. So what do I need to do to make sure that I can actually touch those, you know, less than 20 people that I actually need? And so it's just interesting as you see, like, communities change or digital communities change and evolve that, you know, we're noticing that size isn't everything, you know what I mean?Brian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, building a community around, you know, your role or your aspirations professionally, it's an ongoing journey, and what I will say is--here's the major benefit, right? If you got 100 people, because you were diligent, and let's say you spent, you know, three to six months really building a community around you or tapping into an existing one, and you now have 100 people that you trust that you know you can reach out to. If you get laid off, if you want to go independent and start your own agency. You know, if something bad happens to you, you've got 100 people who got your back, and that's what it comes down to. I can't--you know, just in doing this community, you know, ChangeNerd, I can't tell you the amount of people that I've been able to help, you know? So-and-so got laid off? Oh, I know this partner at this firm, right? And there's a trust that's built. And so, you know, submitting your resume becomes more of a--it's something that happens afterwards, right? Because of trust, that organization is pretty much gonna bring you on, right? And so your resume becomes a formality after the fact, and so, like, that's the beauty of having a network and being tapped in to a digital learning platform or any social learning community that you have.Zach: Yeah, man. You know, it's interesting. You talked about some of your challenges at Deloitte and, like, the barrier being you not having that community, formally or informally, right? So, like, based on your experiences, what advice or, like, what lessons learned would you be able to share and kind of what would you be able to give to black and brown folks today who are looking to build those types of spaces for themselves for their own professional development?Brian: To be honest with you, it's a journey. It's a journey, and the reality is you don't know what you don't know. Years ago when I was at Deloitte, I don't think I had the right mindset, you know? You know, they hired me for a job, you know, primarily to do deliverables on projects, and that's what I did, but to be successful, there are--there are so many other competencies there, you know? You've got to be able to manage up. You've got to be able to build relationships. And, you know, when it comes to corporate, a lot of times, you know, I know for me and probably for the folks that are listening to this podcast, sometimes you may be one of the few black or brown people in a room, and it's difficult to raise your hand, and it's difficult to bring your perspective without being judged, but over time with the right experiences you get really good at it. But honestly, I don't know if there's any advice that I can give to anyone other than, you know, go for it. Continue to build your network out. But ultimately, it's your journey, and you have to own your own learning process, regardless of what type of, you know, leadership development programs you find yourself into. You have to own your own learning. Tapping into a network is beneficial, but just recognize that relationship building and having the ability to build trust with others, those are the things that you'll learn along the way.Zach: Man, well, let's do this. Let's talk about ChangeNerd, because I do get folks who hit me up, right? I have old colleagues, I have people in different, like, just social networks who hit me up about getting into change management. Let's talk about ChangeNerd, you know, why the name, the journey you got there, and then just where people can learn more about it.Brian: Yeah. So it's funny, I knew I wanted to bring--well, I'll tell you this. Me and the team, we were building an app. So we built this nice, sophisticated change management app, and as I was trying to sell it to different companies I realized that change management teams didn't really have the budget for it, so we scrapped it. But I ran into--I live in the Chicago area. I found six large companies all implementing SAP all struggling at the same point in time, right? And it was that moment where I realized "Wow, I need to build a community, because we're just working way too siloed." So I launched the community. And the community is free to join, and every week I interview a subject matter expert around--and we talk about some area surrounding organizational best practices, and every so often we offer virtual courses and we also offer in-person events. And so, you know, when people think of ChangeNerd, I want them to think about the learning community, because at the heart that's what it is. We pay the bills by consulting different companies, but we try to spend the bulk of our time just enriching the learning community.Zach: Well, that's incredible, man. So talk to me about where--at what point did you realize that ChangeNerd was, like, "Okay, wow. This is something serious." Like, this is an actual--so I'm not gonna say it's a movement because that's mad corny.Brian: It is. [laughs]Zach: It's mad corny. People always--man, sidenote. Man, people always talking about "it's a movement, it's a movement." So many--how is everything moving? Brian: I know, I know. So let me tell you how I knew it was real. It got real for me when I got an email. I got an email from an HR VP that said "Hey, Brian. We want to fly you to Boston, and we want you to do a series of workshops for our supply chain leadership," right? That's when it got real for me. So I replied back. I'm like, "Do you have budget?" And they told me the budget, and via email within, like, literally 5 minutes we negotiated budget. That's when it got real for me, because what I found out was when you tap into a community or if you build a community, right, you're automatically building trust with people, right? And so when they see you they trust you because you're giving out good insight, you're giving out--you know, you're helping them, and when opportunities pop up they reach out to you. And so, you know, first it started out as a speaking engagement, right? And I didn't have to give them documents and compete with other firms. They wanted me. That's when I knew. I told my wife, "Honey, this is--like, this is real money," right? And then the phone calls came, you know? Head of IT from this company, head of HR from this company. "Brian, we want to get your perspective," right? And they knew that, you know, I wasn't gonna do it for free, and so they came with the budget, and so it's just--when you have that network of people, you're able to help people, and they can help you as well. And so to be honest with you, that's how I knew that this could be something real, when I started getting emails of different companies, from different companies, that needed my help.Zach: Well, talk to me about what you've been most excited about that ChangeNerd has accomplished, and as you look at 2020, what are you most looking forward to?Brian: Yeah. So when it comes to change management, you have major training companies really trying to control the narrative. You have--I won't call out any names here, but you have companies, you know, controlling the narrative. What I'm so proud of is with me interviewing different subject matter experts every week, it just opens the opportunity for the narrative to change, right? And so for change management not to be come, like, an academic exercise. And so for people not to be locked into one particular framework, and for more stories and experiences to be told. As we move into 2020, we're going to get a little bit more niche. We're gonna have little--well, not little, but smaller digital communities. So change management in health care, change management in non-profits, change management in financial services. We're gonna have digital communities by industry, by specialty, just to give people access to more practical advice. So that's something I'm looking forward to as we move into 2020.Zach: All right, man. Now, look, I wouldn't be a platform if I didn't give you a space to actually plug ChangeNerd. So, like, where can we learn more about it? What's the content? What's the information? Of course we'll have it in the show notes, but go ahead and shout it out right here.Brian: Yeah. So you can dive right in to the online community by going to community.changenerd.com. Community.changenerd.com. That will put you right into the community. Go ahead and join. It's totally free, and I look forward to seeing you there.Zach: All right. Now look, everybody--y'all heard him, okay? So y'all driving, you walking, you're doing whatever you do, you heard what he said. Community.changenerd.com. It'll be in the show notes. And y'all be clicking the links. We look at the Bit.lys. We see that y'all clicking stuff, but you ain't gotta do it. You heard me, right? So you heard Brian, you heard Zach. Just go ahead and click that thing. Now Brian, before we let you get up out of here, any shout-outs or parting words?Brian: No. Zach, I love what you're doing, and it's podcasts like this that really help people like us move forward, so I appreciate the effort that you're doing. And if you're listening to this episode, I would encourage you to reach out to me, and hopefully I can be of help to you, and that's pretty much it. But Zach, I'm very proud of the work that you're doing.Zach: [air horns sfx] Man, them air horns is for you and for me, man. I appreciate you, man. I thank you, and I appreciate the work that you're doing, right? You're demystifying change management. You're creating a space for folks who are interested in change management and who are already established change management practitioners to engage, learn, and build. And this is not an ad. So yeah, just shout-out to you. Shout-out to ChangeNerd. And listen, y'all, this does it for us on the Living Corporate podcast. Thank you for checking in. Now look, y'all typically know I kind of put all the ats and stuff, but every now and then I just kind of flex on 'em, just a little flex. Sometimes I'll just say "Google us." [Flex bomb sfx] You know? Just Google Living Corporate. Just "Living Corporate," right? We're on everything. We're on all of the streaming platforms. We're on Instagram at @LivingCorporate. We're on Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, right? And then if you want to check out the website, again, just Google us, Living Corporate, or you can type it in the browser - living-corporate, please say the dash, dot com. We're also livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.net. We've got all of the livingcorporates except, you know it, livigncorporate.com, 'cause Australia has--Brian, Australia has livingcorporate.com, man. Brian: That's crazy.Zach: Ain't that crazy? Yeah. So listen, y'all. Appreciate y'all. Listen, if you have any questions, anything you want to learn about change management, make sure that y'all contact Brian. We're gonna put all of his contact information down in the show notes. Until next time, this has been Zach, and you've been talking to Brian Hampton, CEO and founder of ChangeNerd, a digital learning community for change management professionals. 'Til next time. Peace.

Angela Bassa is the director of data science and head of data science and machine learning at iRobot, a technology company focused on robotics (you might have clean floors thanks to a Roomba). Prior to joining iRobot, Angela wore several different hats, including working as a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley, the senior manager of big data analytics and platform engineering at EnerNOC, and even a scuba instructor in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Join Angela and I as we discuss the role data science plays in robotics and explore: Why Angela doesn’t believe in a division between technical and non-technical skill Why Angela came to iRobot and her mission What data breadcrumbs are and what you should know about them The skill Angela believes matters most when turning data science into a producer of decision support Why the last mile of the UX is often way longer than one mile The critical role expectation management plays in data science, how Angela handles delivering surprise findings to the business, and the marketing skill she taps to help her build trust Resources and Links Twitter: @AngeBassa Angela’s Website iRobot Designing for Analytics Seminar Quotes from Today's Episode “Because these tools that we use sometimes can be quite sophisticated, it's really easy to use very complicated jargon to impart credibility onto results that perhaps aren't merited. I like to call that math-washing the result.” — Angela “Our mandate is to make sure that we are making the best decisions—that we are informing strategy rather than just believing certain bits of institutional knowledge or anecdotes or trends. We can actually sort of demonstrate and test those hypotheses with the data that is available to us. And so we can make much better informed decisions and, hopefully, less risky ones.” — Angela “Data alone isn't the ground truth. Data isn't the thing that we should be reacting to. Data are artifacts. They're breadcrumbs that help us reconstruct what might have happened.” — Angela [When getting somebody to trust the data science work], I don't think the trust comes from bringing someone along during the actual timeline. I think it has more to do with bringing someone along with the narrative.—Angela “It sounds like you've created a nice dependency for your data science team. You’re seen as a strategic partner as opposed to being off in the corner doing cryptic work that people can't understand.” — Brian “When I talk to data scientists and leaders, they often talk about how technical skills are very easy to measure. You can see them on paper, you can get them in the interview. But there are these other skills that are required to do effective work and create value.” — Brian Transcript Brian: Welcome back to Experiencing Data. Brian here, of course, and I'm happy to have the Head of Data Science, Data Engineering, and Machine Learning at iRobot on the line, Angela Bassa. How are you? Angela: I am great, Brian. How are you? Brian: I'm doing great. What's shaking today? You're up in northern Massachusetts, outside of Boston, is that correct? Angela: Yep, just outside of Boston. Brian: Yes. You're in the leaf, the leaf zone, probably. Angela: It's gorgeous out! We're in peak foliage. It's really, really quite gorgeous out. Brian: 

James: Hey, audience and listeners, this is James Kandasamy from Achieve Wealth Podcast where we focus a lot on value-add, commercial real estate investing and we usually talk to commercial real estate operators who have been very active buying deals nowadays.  Today, I have Brian Murray. So if you have not heard about Brian Murray, he's the author of the best-selling and award-winning book: Crushing It in Apartments and Commercial Real Estate. And he owns almost 700 units right now on his own and I think out of 700, 600 of it is apartments and 100 units are on office sites. Hey, Brian, welcome to the show.  Brian: I'm really happy to be here, James. Thanks for having me. James: Really happy to have you here. And so tell me about, how did you go from 0 to 600 multifamily 0 to 700 asset classes on your own without syndication?   Brian: Yeah, well, you know, I started 12 years ago and I'm located in Upstate New York. That's quite a bit different market than New York City. But my first property was an office building and it was a distressed office building and from that very first deal, I did a lot of value-adds. Frankly, I really didn't know what I was doing, I was kind of figuring stuff out as I went along but I progressively made that property perform better over a couple of years and added a ton of value. On that deal, I assumed the mortgage and on my second deal, I did an owner/finance situation. It was another property that was half full, I filled it up and refinanced out of both of those and bought three more properties and followed that path the entire way. Which is find well-located properties that were not well managed or had some other large value-add component, exercise that value add and then refinance, take cash out and buy more properties. And that's the exact path that I followed to get to where I'm at today. James: That's crazy, which is good. I mean, that's the model that, I mean, it's an absolute value-add model, which is basically the theme of this podcast. And so did you buy and then improve it and then refinance the money out or did you sell it and I didn't get that far, can you clarify that? Brian: Yeah. So I refinance the money out. I am primarily buying hold, still to this day. But especially in the first 10 years, I think I sold one or two properties, smaller properties, for the most part, during that time. I am selling some of my smaller properties right now to redeploy those funds into larger properties, but my strategy has really been buying hold. James: Awesome. Awesome. So before we go further, I want to clarify about your book, Crushing It. I mean, I remember asking this question to you when we met face-to-face. So did Gary take the 'Crushing' name from you or you took it from him? Which one is that?  Brian: You know, so his book, Crushing It, came out about a year after mine but he launched a book called Crush It prior to when mine came out. But he took the Crushing It and you know, but that's fine. It doesn't matter. It's all good.  James: Well, it must be a good name because both of you are like a best seller, you know, in your own domain. So awesome. So right now what's your plan? I mean you own this many units on your own and what's your plan right now?  Brian: So right now, I'm really focused on diversifying. I was really excited to do my first Mastermind, which was last year, which is how you and I met and I met some great people at that Mastermind and highly recommend that to other people; surround yourself with other folks that are doing what you're doing. But when I went off to this Mastermind, it was really eye-opening for me because pretty much everybody there was doing syndication and it was a model that was really new for me and I just learned a ton about what people were doing.  And my model has worked great for me up to this point, but I've reached a size, we're growing purely organically. It's becoming more challenging to maintain that pace of growth. I think also with valuations at a higher point, it's more and more challenging each year to pull that much value-add out with refis. I think another factor that's come into play is I've been very, very dedicated to putting every dollar that I've earned back into my real estate. That's been a been a big part of how I've done what I've done is to continuously reinvest back in. As a result of that, to this point, I've been living fairly frugally and you know at a certain point, you want to not have to put every dollar back in but you know, to maintain that growth rate, I've got to look at other options. I also want to diversify geographically because most of my properties are in one location. And so I'm in the middle of my first syndication right now and I've met so many good people that now, I'm developing partners and looking at new markets and it's very exciting for me. I love to learn, I love to try new things and getting into these other markets and, you know, meeting accomplished people like yourself, it's very motivating. So I'm just super excited about it.  James: Yeah, it's eye-opening when you go and talk to different people who are doing the same level as you are doing much more higher level because you can see a lot of different thought processes and how people do things. So why are you moving towards syndication? I mean, you own like so many units on your own, can you go into a bit more detail on why do you think syndication is going to be beneficial for you right now in this market cycle as well or on your investment side?  Brian: Well, you know syndication, it does open up a lot more opportunities in terms of size. So for example, right now, I'm looking very closely at an apartment complex that's approximately 300 units. It's in a market that's new for me that I've been doing a lot of research on and that would be a real challenge to try to pull off on my own. It really wouldn't be possible right now. So the property that I've purchased strictly on my own, without raising any outside money, I did last year, it was 126 units and you know to try to purchase something that's 300 plus units that wouldn't be possible for me right now. So it's pretty exciting and I think another thing is I really enjoy working with the idea of doing some projects with partners and getting into some of these new markets. So, there's another piece of it that's kind of exciting is, I've reached a point where I've done pretty well for myself and the idea of helping other investors who want to put their money to work to achieve their goals, I think that's going to be rewarding too. That if a project does really well that, it's all those limited partners that come in that can then improve their lives through their investment as well. And if I can be a part of that, I think I'll find that very rewarding.  James: Okay, that's awesome. So scalability is important and you think of helping others as well to make money, especially I think other investors or other GPs who needs your skills, I would say? Brian:  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and that's one of the things that's great too is I've found that it's meeting these other people that are doing it, I've got a different experience. So just like I'm learning from people like you, I'm finding that partners I can bring some different perspectives and value to the table as well. So you always want to partner with people that have strengths in areas that are different from you and that's what makes a strong team. James: Absolutely, especially in commercial real estate because the number of knobs that you can tune, there are so many knobs and especially like in multifamily because it's very management intensive compared to the triple net, other commercial properties. Multi-family is very management intensive and it gives a lot of ways to make more money or to scale down or to scale up. Even though you'd be really, really skilled at that but it just gives you a lot more opportunity. And the lease is one year term or six months term; you can quickly raise or reduce rents, it gives you a lot more fungibility, I would say. I mean, you have like SAS, we talked, in the beginning. You have like 600 units multifamily and 100 office space? Brian: Yes.  James: So can we go a bit more detail into the office? What kind of office is it and how did you strategically balance within the 600 and 100 office? Is it optimistic or what did you see and why did you do it?  Brian: So I started off with the office and actually, my second property was retail and so, starting on that commercial side was really interesting. I think one of the things that did for me is really emphasized my focus on customer service and customer care with tenants. And when I tried my first multifamily, I think that there were differences but they're also a lot of similarities. So the value-added approach that I was taking to office retail worked just as well with multifamily. And our focus on really taking care of our tenants as our customers really served us really well in that area also. Over time, as recently as two or three years ago, we had reached a point where up to that point we had more office and Retail and then about two years ago, I would say, we were 50/50 and now we're closer to two thirds, maybe even 70% multifamily with the rest commercial in terms of the makeup of our portfolio. So as time went by, we've really gravitated toward multifamily and that's our 100% focus right now. I think the biggest thing is that there's a number of things we like about multi-family. From our experience with commercial, you've always got a little bit more risk because you tend to have, not always, but you often will have tenants that comprise a disproportionately large percentage of your income and that can leave you really vulnerable if somebody leaves. So, on more than one occasion, we've had a commercial property where someone that takes up more than half of the space in that property, leaves unexpectedly. And then you've got with one tenant leaving, you have a property that is negative cash flow. And if you don't have a portfolio in place to support that, that can be devastating and it's really not fun even if you have a portfolio to perform it. And then when you go to backfill that space, it's more challenging in commercial properties because you oftentimes have to find the exact right tenant for that space, for that location, for the tenant mix and the property, for the configuration of the floor plan. There's a lot of things that you know, different commercial tenants are looking for.  If you just adjust the rents up and down or maybe offer some concessions, a lot of times, the market doesn't immediately react to that. So turning that dial like you do in multifamily, you have less control. So if you're looking for a particular type of commercial tenant, it could be, it's not unusual for us to sit on a vacant space for one two or more years before the right tenant comes along and fits in and takes that space. With multifamily, you've got those dials that you can turn and say, Hey, you know, we're going to run a special. We're going to bump rents, we're going to drop rents and you usually will see a pretty quick reaction from the market to the changes that you make and from my perspective, that's better.  You always want to have more control and the ability to adjust with your market, adjust to combat your competition and different things like that. And frankly, we've enjoyed working with the tenants. I think there's a perception out there that a lot of people would love to invest in commercial because they think they have this idea that working with white collar tenants would be much better, wouldn't have the problems but in our experience, they can be more challenging. They can be more demanding and sometimes even unreasonable with what they're looking for and you don't usually find that as much with the residential tenants in multifamily. We do primarily workforce housing and the people that we deal with there, tend to be good down to earth people and reasonable. So we appreciate that.  James: And when you talk about office, this is the normal office tenants, I guess?  Brian: Yeah full-spectrum, mostly professional tenants. We've got plenty of medical tenants. We have lawyers, accountants, all types, we've got not-for-profit offices, engineers and architects that would pretty much any type of white-collar professionals. James: Got it. That's very interesting. So when was the aha moment that, hey, I should do multifamily because you are focusing a lot on office, what was that triggering moment where you say, okay, I may need to look at this multi-family? Brian:  Well, I don't know if there was a specific moment. I think it happened gradually over time. When we had about 50/50 multifamily and Commercial, I think one of the big things was watching the performance of the two halves of the portfolio and seeing which half was performing better and part of it had to do with the types of value-add projects we were finding and I thought we were better able to execute on the value-adds on the multifamily side. And that portion of our portfolio just kept outperforming the commercial side and I just saw in the market that we're in, more opportunity there and I felt like it was more stable income based. So, I think I think it just happened gradually over time and you kind of tend to slowly move in the direction that's performing well and where the needs are in your Marketplace. James:  Got it. So all the deals that you have done on multifamily, how did you choose? I mean all these deals are in Upstate, New York, is that right? Brian: Yes. James: So you may not choose the city because that's where you live, the area. But how did you select the submarket? Okay, this deal is good in this submarket, what are the parameters that you looked at When you look at a deal in multi-family? Brian: So, we have a really close familiarity with the subtleties of the market and so it's fairly nuanced like there's not one overarching thing. One of the primary drivers of the market where we are is not that far away is a fairly large military base. And so one of the factors that we look at is, well, we definitely welcome military tenants, we have shied away from the properties that are closer to the military base and tend to have a really high percentage of military population. That's just because there's so much turnover, lenders are less excited about lending those properties because they know that long-term, there could be downsizing. A base could close, there's exposure with that. So we have gravitated within our region to the areas that are maybe we will have some military but not be all military and into the communities where people want to live, in the parts of the city that we feel are strong and good safe locations and convenient locations for the major employers in the area. James: Got it. Got it. And on average right now, what is the price per door in that market? Because I never talk to anybody from New York who's buying multifamily. I mean, Upstate, New York,  New York City, but in general, can you give us some guideline on price per door? What cap rated stabilize deals are being bought right now? Brian: Yes, absolutely. So it's a really, really wide range. So that's what I would say at first. The most recent stabilized property that we purchased we paid about 60,000 a door. There are properties selling in the area, 80,000 plus per door, not that often but a lot of the properties we've got, we've purchased a couple of decent sized properties at auction. We've purchased a lot of distressed properties.  The 126 units that we purchased last year, we paid in the 40s per door and that's pretty low for this area actually, but also the occupancy was below 60% when we bought it and it had a lot of deferred maintenance. So I do feel like we got a fair deal and a good deal on that because there was so much upside but there was a reason that it was priced that low. And so you can come along properties in this area that have low price point sometimes even down into the 30s per door, but usually, there's a reason why they might be in severe distress. But for stabilized properties, I think you're mostly looking at maybe 50 to 70 a door.  James: Okay. You also mentioned that you're looking at other markets now?  Brian: Yes. James: And why is that and what're your criteria to look for in other markets?  Brian: So the number one reason is really a risk management type of approach. Where anybody who's come in and taken a close look at our business and one point even a few years back, I had some graduate students come in and they analyzed it and everybody said, hey, you're kind of crazy. You've got all your properties concentrated right here in this one city and now they're all within maybe half an hour drive of that City and there's a lot of risks involved to that.   So if that City that I focused on starts to decline or say that military base that's not that far away, if they downsize then that all affects my portfolio. So I've known for a long time that it would be wise to diversify geographically and it's time to do that. Another factor is frankly, this is not a huge City. It's not a big area that I'm in and we've got limited opportunities for growth here. There's a limited number of properties that come onto the market and realistically, it's time for us to look to other places. So it's a variety of things. James: So let's say you're looking at a new city, a city A and a city B, what do you look for in that city that you think is going to be appealing to you?  Brian: Well, I think there's a variety of different factors. Probably the number one thing that makes the city appealing is job growth, job creation. Being located in Upstate New York, it's not a strong area for job growth. There are pros and cons to being in a market that's undesirable. So I have less competition. I can buy things at much higher cap rates and I can get properties to cash flow better if I have less competition and higher cap rates. So, there's sometimes you can look at it and say, hey, if you're in a market that's less desirable, sometimes you're getting properties at a great deal and there's something to be said for that. But as I look to new markets, I'm trying to find something where cap rates haven't dropped too far and you can get a reasonable return but you've got that benefit of healthy growth in population and jobs. But I think because I'm looking for more geographic to looking for a market that's going to show more stability, it's on an uptrend and just like any other place, no matter what market I'm looking at, I've realized over time just how critical the specific location with any city is.  So almost any City has their good parts and the bad parts and so you could take any market that you choose and break it down into all different, more and less appealing locations. And so, I wouldn't just throw and say, hey, this one city is great, even though the population is growing and you and I talked about a property not that long ago that you are familiar with the location and you very wisely were like, oh, that's not the right deal. It might be a good city, but that's not the right part of the city. James: Correct. So, I mean, you are sitting in Upstate New York, you looked at the entire nation. Can you give us the top three cities that you think that you want to delve in?   James: Brian, so you are sitting in Upstate New York, and you looked at the entire nation, you know how multifamily works because you own 600 on your own. So you just briefly outline what are the things that you look for in a city. So can you name like top three cities that you think that you want to be involved in that you think has a strong growth story?  Brian: Well, it's a work in progress for sure. And what I would say is sort of the candidates that I've narrowed it down to the commonality would be they tend to be the places that people are migrating to and being in Upstate New York where a lot of people are leaving the area, I want to look toward the places they're going.           And so, primarily in the Southeast, pretty much our candidates or everything from starting in probably North Carolina going down to Florida and you know all the way over to maybe the little bit in Texas, but I think Georgia is an interesting market that a lot of people are pursuing. I'm partnering on a project in Kentucky right now and we're looking at North Carolina and there are some very attractive markets in Florida as well.  James: Got it. Got it. Got it. Before I want to go into the deal level analysis that you do, I want to quickly ask this question because you know, it's very unique to you because you had your own deals and now you're going into syndication, right? So what do you think are the skills needed from yourself when you are having your own deals, where you can skip a distribution or whatever happened to the deal is your own problem. So now you're going into syndication, where it involves a lot more people. What do you think is a few skills that syndicators need to be successful in syndication? Brian: Sure. I mean I would say start a start with one of the big ones which is something that I don't have, which is an investor base and that's a whole job unto itself. Over the years doing what I've been doing and getting some acknowledgments for that, I had a lot of people approach me over the years and say, hey, you know, can I invest and I never took them up on that and now I'm doing that. But what I've realized is in getting to know all these folks that are out there that there's a lot of people who are interested in partnering with me who already have those investor bases and have that skill set of managing those investors and taking care of all aspects of that.  So at this point, I'm primarily thinking that I bring more value in the weighing on the underwriting and the property and identifying all the value-add opportunities and making sure that people look at it as more than a spreadsheet because there's so much more. I toured a property last week and was able to uncover quite a few things. The broker that was there. I was one of the last people, they had about 40 tours and I came through and identified some significant value-add opportunities that the broker said no one else picked up on. And I think that that's something I didn't discuss but we've managed all of our own properties that whole time and so, the knowledge that you get from that just brings so much better of analysis to a deal to make sure you're vetting it properly, you're not overpaying, you're also not underpaying and that there might be value there that you're not realizing. That some of the assumptions that you're making for rent growth are real and can actually be feasible for implementation. And so, you know, those are some of the things that I bring and the experience and having the portfolio I have may give lenders a lot of comfort. And so, I'm recognizing that, hey, I could focus on my strengths and bring some things to a partnership and take those areas that I don't have and other people might and partner up. So if someone's going to do it on their own, they've got to have a pretty broad skill set and that's a challenge, to have the operational knowledge and bring that side and also have the people skills and the investor relationships, it's not easy. I have a lot of respect for people that are doing it all. James: Absolutely. So you are two operators, where you underwrite deals, you understand the operation and you're doing your own asset management. You're missing the investor base creation side of it, which I think you are either partnering or slowly building that up so which is awesome. For me, the operators are at the top of the food chain because they are the backbone of the whole deal. They know what's happening in terms of the rents, how many percents of rent increase is happening on each unit? How many units are being turned? What is the make ready period, what's the delinquency? What is the idling unit period? That's a lot of parameters in the multi-family operation which can be optimized and if you know that very well, your underwriting can be very, very solid, I would say.  Brian: And I think you also bring a reality check. I think that the folks that are operating in the syndication space that don't have as much operating experience, it's easy to look at numbers and assumptions in a spreadsheet and it's challenging to actually recognize what that means in terms of the actual human beings who are there living in the apartments, what it means for the contractors and the property managers and whether what you're assuming is even practical. I look at a spreadsheet and I'm looking at it realizing, hey, you know, I looked at it once a day and I told somebody I'm like, do you understand how much drama will be involved in this? So if you haven't done that you don't know. And sometimes that translates into you might need to maybe tone back your rent growth or you might need to say, hey, maybe we implement something like this over time so that we don't have an all-out rebellion on our hands. So, you know, it's a challenge to bring all those things to the table. James: Yeah, I've seen people who come to me, you know, first few deals and say, oh, this is all bills paid, I'm just going to change it to tenant pay bills. I say, well, that's easy. We can see the value. Well, you do not know how much drama you're going to have there and you might not able to do that on a specific property, a specific location. And they say they want to do them; Utility Bill back, they want to increase the rent, they want to charge covered parking, they want to do laundry increase. So many things they want to do at the same time and I can tell you, they don't have the experience actually. But the thing is, a lot of people have been making money even without all the skills. And I always tell them everybody's a champion in a bull market.  Brian: Exactly, yes. A rising tide lifts all ships, right?  James: Correct. So, people may not look at that skill more in detail or give due consideration to that type of skills where the operation is important, but I think it's important if you want to sustain good rent growth across different market cycles. So coming back to underwriting. So right now you are looking at deals, how many percents of deals do you reject immediately by just looking at it?  Brian: Wow, I would say well over 90%.  James: Okay. So the 10% that you have or what do you look for in that 10%? What do you do? What are the steps that you take to look at that 10%? Brian: You know, I think the very, very first thing I do is I look at the T12. I want to start my analysis of a property by looking at actuals. And then I'm going to base the current situation and the actuals, going to kind of weigh that against my own experience. So, how does the target asking price or the whisper price or whatever they have, how does that compare to the actuals?           And then based on my experience looking through those actuals, what do I see that jumps out at me that might create value? And if you look down through and start looking at the comps and really piecing together this puzzle about, what opportunity is really here? Is the valuation based on something that's completely unrealistic? A lot of times, you'll recognize that some brokers are way better than others at doing a realistic model and pro forma and that's much appreciated. Because you see too many where they'll say, oh, you know, the labor is going to be whatever, $300 a door, and you know, hey, that's crazy. Like it should be 1100 a door or 1000 a door in that market and you know, you'll find out that well, it's been managed by the owner and they don't track the labor. But if you see that it's based on the labor is $2000 a door and you know, hey, we could get that to 900 realistically and still do a good job of maintaining that property, then you start to see an opportunity. It's a combination of running numbers and logical analysis based on experience, is really what I would say it boils down to. James: So in a new market, how would you determine payroll and [12:09unintelligible] on property taxes because this differs by market? Brian: Sure. So all those things are going to vary by market, although many of them will fall within a range. So you're going to say, well, in that market it's going to tend to be higher or lower and I will use my best judgment but if it passes a certain level of scrutiny, that's when you want to really get an established reputable local property manager involved who could look at it and say, okay, for this market specifically, these assumptions you've made are realistic or not realistic. The same thing goes with construction costs they could vary and I can look at it and say, I think that new flooring should be this much but hey, maybe in that market, flooring is much more expensive or maybe it's a lot cheaper. So, you know it's going to be within a certain range, but you just need to figure out how you need to tweak it to get to that market.  James: Got it Got it. Got it. I mean since you have your own property management in your own backyard and now I presume you looking at third partying your property management in this new market, is that correct?  Brian: That's correct.  James: So, what would you think is the most important factor to look at that third party property management company? Brian: Well, at this point, I would say yes, we're relying on third-party property managers. We may eventually consider expanding into new markets or operations, but not doing that right now and evaluating the property managers, it's been a very interesting process. I think you need to look at the full picture. I don't think there's any one thing you can look at. For a project that we're underwriting right now, in evaluating the various property managers, of course, we weigh referrals, you know, that's always good to hear referrals but I think one of the things that are appealing about the property manager that we ended up selecting for this project that we're pursuing is they actually specialize in this specific type of property that we're looking at. So, they have a track record and experience of nearly 10,000 units that are specifically C-Class properties that they've done value-add and executed those successfully. And a fair percentage of those are in the specific market that we're looking at and so there's a lot of things that just lined up. I think if I had to pick the one thing from my interaction with this firm because they toured the property with me as well, but I actually was very impressed with their analysis of our underwriting. They actually went through our assumptions and they toured the property on their own before I got there and gave us their own analysis and without us asking, they also toured the comps and gave us some feedback on that. I was impressed. You could tell that they went out of their way to look at the right things. They looked at the types of things that I would look at and they identified things and based on that write-up, I just said, hey, this is a firm that's experienced. They get it. They did a thorough job. They were professional, they were responsive and you know, it really checked a lot of boxes in terms of giving us an overall sense of comfort with the possibility of working with them. James: Awesome. Awesome. Let's go to a bit more on the value-add side because you have done a lot of value-adds because you buy refi and keep it more long-term. So what is the most valuable value-add multifamily from your experience?  Brian: I would say that the most valuable is it's different for almost every property. If I had to pick, you know, I think that sort of the Big Bang low-hanging fruit tends to be the, I'd say, clean paint landscape, kind of like the surface stuff. If a property is dirty and not well kept and then you make it clean and you put a fresh coat of paint and you landscape it, it can change the entire image of property of fairly modest cost and that can have a huge impact. The rent adjustment is sort of obvious, I think everybody looks at that. I guess big picture if the landlord is way undercharging, of course, you know, that's an obvious big easy one, but one thing that we've ended up doing in a number of cases that is less obvious that people almost never talk about is lowering rents. And in the 126 unit that I mentioned earlier, that's under distress, that's the first thing that we did is we went in and by our assessment, they were trying to charge too much which was a major factor in why the occupancy was so low.  So we immediately went in and cut all the rents and that might seem counterintuitive for a value-add person but over the last six months, we've raised the occupancy 25% and one of the big reasons is we lower the rents and so the net change in terms of the net operating income of that property it skyrocketed by lowering rents. So that also further demonstrates that it really varies, you kind of have to you know. It's sort of like if you look at five different people and say, you know, what change would you make in each person to improve their overall wellness? For some people, they might say stop smoking and some people might say, well, that one needs to eat better so you can't kind of really say well, what's the one thing overall?  James: How did you decide to lower the rent? What was the data that you looked at and decide, okay, I just need to reduce the rent here?  Brian: Well, you know, that's one of the fantastic things when you've got so many properties in one market. You know immediately that based on your other operations that something's off. You know when it's low, you know when it's high, you know when the fees don't match what's present in that market or the concessions don't match.  It becomes very simple. If you're going into a new market, you've got to study those comps and do the best you can and hopefully, tour those comps and do your own homework. But it's one of many advantages of having a concentration of properties in one area. In addition to all the many operational efficiencies that you can have is that you have that market specific knowledge that is there's no substitute for.  James: Got it. Got it. So when you decide to lower the rent, I mean it is a counter-intuitive but I think it makes sense in value-add, especially when you go with that kind of low occupancy. You need to do something to bring up the occupancy because once you bring up the occupancy, you can do a lot of other things. Brian: Exactly. James: You can't do it when the occupancy is low and you're adamant about pushing up the rent. So was your thought process, rather than I leave this unit vacant, that's the biggest loss compared to giving [19:48inaudible] $25 or $30 increase that doesn't make sense.  Brian: Yes. That's right. So, you know that's been one of the strategies that I've adhered to and has worked well; you lower the rents and lease it up and then you make improvements as you go and then you raise rents from there. Nothing more expensive than vacant space. The other piece of that which is an advantage of not syndicating is that I have been able in many cases to fund many of the improvements out of cash flow. So with this particular property, we did lower the rents, but the occupancy has been brought way up. So we've just crossed a threshold where now this property is cash flowing again and all that cash flow is going to be directed right back into making improvements, probably, for the next few years at least. And so, that's a perfect example of well, if you're going to syndicate and you need to pay investors, you really can't be investing all of your cash flow back into a property.  So what do you need to do? You need to raise some money up front to pay for those improvements and not count on cash flow so that you can achieve your investor returns and start to get them their money back.  James: Yeah. That's the one thing different with syndicated deal versus owning your own deals. You don't have to raise so much money so you can take your cash flow and just put it back. With a syndication [21:27crosstalk/inaudible] and you may lose deals because you're competing with somebody who has a lot of money versus somebody who is syndicating.  Brian: That's right. James: It's very interesting. So in terms of, I'm going to your personal side, is there a proud moment in your life or not in your life, toward your real estate career, that you think, I would remember that moment throughout my life until the end; can you describe that moment?  Brian: Oh, wow, you know there's been so many moments, but not all good.  James: No, no, the proudest moment where you think you really made a big impact on something.  Brian: I never really expected this but some of the proudest moments that I've had has been since my book came out and I would have never guessed that that would lead to that but some of the feedback that I've gotten from readers that they've shared with me that it's changed their lives that they started into investing and have already built portfolios. And to see the direct link between the book and people, you know, really making improvements in their lives has been extremely rewarding. So I think one of the great things is that I really went into the idea of writing the book just because I wanted to share what I've learned, the mistakes I've made and to help other people, but I never really thought that it would sell very many copies or that people would have that kind of effect and the fact that it did. When I get a letter, a note from somebody, it's been extremely rewarding. So now I kind of remember that I think that's been a big impact.  James: Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, I get a lot of notes from my books as well and sometimes you don't really take it seriously because for us it's just common knowledge from what we have learned. But some notes do make us think, oh, I really really made an impact on someone. I mean, it's mind-blowing in how many lives can be changed with the things that you share in a book.  Brian: Right, right. Yeah. Absolutely.  James: Yeah. So the next second question is why do you do what you're doing? Brian: Well. You know and it's interesting. I mean actually, in the book I share at one point, this was a few years back, I had somebody come up to me and they said you know, how much is enough? Like you are so greedy, why do you keep going? And I just realized that this person doesn't understand, they missed the whole point that it's just rewarding to take a property that's not performing, that's in distress, that's maybe even a bad thing in a community and to turn it around and make it a better place for people to live. You help the tenants and you help the community and to do that and start to get involved. Like I do meetups now and I met new people and threw those in the book to help other investors, and so, you know, I look forward to going to work every day. I enjoy it. I enjoy the challenge of finding and executing on properties that aren't achieving up to their potential and making a better place for people to live and more profitable at the same time. So I just think it's fun. Like I enjoy what I do.  James: Yeah, it's like a discovery, you're trying to discover these from your paper to the real stuff. Especially when you are underwriting because you're assuming a lot of things and how does that whole assumption become a reality? You know, it's very interesting to see the output of that become [25:42inaudible] people's lives, which is just... Brian: Absolutely. James: So we really had a really good knowledge box from you, Brian. So can you tell our listeners and audience how to get hold of you?  Brian: Sure, you know, your listeners can find me on Facebook. You can find me on LinkedIn, you know, you can find the book on amazon.com or on the book website is crushingit.info and my company's website is Washingtonstreetproperties.com  And if anybody is interested in reaching out, I'd be glad to hear from them.  James: Awesome, Brian. Thank you for coming and joining us. I think that's it. Thank you.  Brian: Thanks, James, was an honor.

Learn about becoming an everyday hero, being a better parent, living every day as a miracle baby AND with Tourette's syndrome, and more!! Brian Schulman of Voice Your Vibe comes on the show and gets real as he describes to us the crazy things he went through growing up as he went through wild experiences - and emerged as a person who is always spinning things positive. Brian works to inspire people and his children every day! Show Highlights 02:20 - [Ari] How do you go about inspiring one person each day? 03:08 - [Brian] I wanted to give out the opposite of the negative that I had received by those around me. Don’t get me wrong. I mean I certainly had a ton of positivity around me but sometimes, we all know how one negativity can overshadow a thousand positives. 03:25 - [Brian] So I wanted to be a giver of good and positivity, and light, and strength, and encouragement. And I know life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. 03:42 - [Brian] I know I've failed way more in life and in business than I've succeeded, that I've learned from every step, and I've gotten up every time. I've dusted myself off and I'd get going and that’s why I've succeeded no matter what the outcome is. 04:18 - [Brian] My ”why” is to inspire one person a day and that can be in so many different ways. If I can inspire one person to chase after their dreams and no one feel and believe that they can accomplish anything (continue to say more here…) 05:00 - [Brian] You know the reality is, life has and will, and continue to throw me mad curveballs and I will continue to get up to the plate and keep swinging. 12:27 - [Brian reading his daughter's essay] This story about to be told is about an extraordinary man now 42 years young, who accepted all the obstacles life had to throw at him. I know you may be thinking that everyone has different obstacles they just overcome throughout their lifetime so how is he different from you and I? 12:45 - [Brian reading his daughter's essay] What makes this particular man different from you and I is the tactic he used when faced with these obstacles. What makes him different from you and I is that he took these obstacles and used them to help make a difference and inspire others to never let life get in the way of their greatness and achievements. What makes us different from everyone else is not the obstacles life throws at us but what we do when faced with these obstacles. 13:14 - [Brian reading his daughter's essay] Will you choose to accept defeat? Or will you choose to persevere? 14:57 - [Brian reading his daughter's essay] No one knows what life has in store for them. All we can do is live until we are forced to face an obstacle and we must make a choice to either overcome or accept defeat. 15:13 [Brian reading his daughter's essay] One person can make a difference in the lives of others. But the experiences this boy has to face came a life lesson. with determination, perseverance, and support from others, anything can happen. 15:50 [Brian reading his daughter's essay] He helps lift peoples spirits and hopes in times of hopelessness and despair, He helps people turn their ideas and dreams into realities, he helps build people from the ground up and hopes that they too will one day share their stories with others, he makes the difference in this world each and every day which inspires others to make a difference as well. 16:13 [Brian reading his daughter's essay] Who may you ask is this man? Well, he is my father. Out of all the lives he's made a difference, I believe he has made the biggest difference in mine. He inspires me to never give up on what I believe in, He always told me to do what makes me happy. But most importantly to always live every day as if it were the last because we are never guaranteed a tomorrow. 16: 52 [Brian reading his daughter's essay] Be the change you wish to see in the world making a difference in the lives of others. 19:24 [Brian] "They're all here for me, they know who I am, I don't need it." 20: 47 [Brian] Tourettes, by the way, is more common on boys versus girls and usually between 16 and 18 years. 24:18 [Brian] My legacy are my kids, my legacy is every person that I have, the ability whose hearts I have devoted or touched in some way. 24:38 [Ari] If all were able to touch us, the people around us but not our own kids and our own family, aren't we may be doing something wrong? Shouldn't we be focused on family first? I don't mean the only family but if we're gonna be inspiring people, our kids come first. Why should we let somebody else be the inspiration for our kids? 25:14 [Brian] We could talk about this all day, I always wanted to be a daddy. It was no question in my mind. I love kids, I wanted to be mine, mom and dad form. Like she was so inspiring to me. 28:20 [Ari] The typical definition of success from most people is money, great job, doctor. All these things, the people just internally, without thinking about it and that's the pinnacle of success. 28:40 [Ari] The truth is if I could get to the end of my life, look back and be able to say that I'm a good dad. That would be successful. 29:00 [Brian] That's not that, at the end of the day when we're taking our last breath, that's not what matters. What matters is the impact we make in my opinion. The impact we make on people's lives. 29:32 [Brian] They're better human beings. If their hearts are bigger, they are kinder. 30:16 [Brian] "You can't turn the clock back." 32:32 [Ari] From most parents or at least for all good parents the choice is to never accept defeat. The choice is always what do I have to do to overcome or make a passes, it doesn't matter what it is, I'll make it work. 33:13 [Brian] When we become parents, it's not about us anymore, like literally it's like snap and everything changes for the good. 34:21 [Brian] We have genuine heroes around us every single day, people that take a selfless action and make a dramatic impact on somebody's life. It happens every single day, every single moment. 34:56 [Brian] I remember thinking to myself, I don't ever want anyone to feel the way I feel, I don't want anyone to ever be treated the way I've been treated. I don't want them to feel that way or feel like they are being treated that way when they're around me. 39:32 [Brian] So I just said: "well, I'll just tell my story." 41:40 [Brian] I'm inspiring people by sharing it and it's not that they have got to have gone through what I've gone through, we all go through trials and tribulations in our life. We all get beat down, it's about getting back up and I didn't think I had a voice for a story that matter, I just looked at it as life. 44:20 [Brian] This is the most important part for anyone "It's not about you, it's about sharing your experiences that can help at least one person out there" and if you think of it that way, it changes your mindset completely. 45:13 [Ari] Sometimes when we're so down when we've got so much stuff that's happening to us that are creating such havoc in our lives or such negativity or potential negativity or whatever it is and we're just all the way down there. Legitimately the one thing that helps us more than anything else is another person reaching down with their hand to lift us up. 45:40 [Brian] Yes, that's what it is about, it's about community, it's about people coming together, it's about knowing that we all go through different things in our lives and we can do that. 47:16 [Ari] Every single time you get up, and people don't realize this and this is part of the issue, and every time you get up, you're stronger. And every single time you stand up you're that much more able to withstand whatever else life throws at you in the future and whatever else it comes. "I had that moment 2 years ago when I had that really big issue but I can do it I can get passes and I know I can!" 47:41 [Brian] Great ways to remember that? Pull out your phone when you're on your worst moment that you feel you're having in your life and hit record and talk to yourself. About Brian Schulman Check out Brian Schulman's guest biography (https://www.waytogreatness.com/guest/brian-schulman/), or read what Julian Smit wrote about Brian: "If you don't know this fine man, you're not spending enough time on LinkedIn! From Miracle Baby to Forbes Featured Entrepreneur, Brian has gone from fighting for every breath as a miracle baby, born at only 1.5 pounds, to Tourette's syndrome as a pre-teen, to one of the most prolific and popular video creators on LinkedIn! He's the founder and CEO of #VoiceYourVibe, and is a co-host of #LinkedInLocal San Diego! Despite all he's been through he's one of the most positive people you'll ever meet and is The Godfather of LinkedIn Video. He's an inspiration to many and a joy to talk to!" -Julian Smit, Host of the BIYF Marketing Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/biyf-marketing/id1372483245) Originally recorded 10/7/2019 Special Guest: Brian Schulman.

James:  Hi listeners and audience, this is James Kandasamy from Achieve Wealth Through Value-add Real Estate Investing Podcast. Today, we have Brian Hamrick. Brian owns 370 units which 2/3 of it is syndicated, the remaining is owned by him. He's from Grand Rapids, Michigan. He does multifamily, self-storage and also non-performing notes and Brian is also the past president of Rental Properties Owner Association.  Hey, Brian, welcome to the show.  Brian: Hey, James, great to be here. Thanks for having me.  James: I'm really happy to have you here. I mean, you have been podcasting for the past three years. You have a really good audience because I remember after showing up on your podcast, a lot of people did contact me. So I'm sure a lot of people love your podcast as well.  Brian: That's fantastic. I'm glad to hear that.  James: Yes. So can we go a bit more detailed into what is this Rental Properties Owners Association, how do they add value to syndicators or landlords or tenants? Can you describe a bit more on that? Brian: Sure, the Rental Property Owners Association, which I'm a past president of, I'm currently on the executive committee and I sit on a number of different committees, they are a landlord representation organization.  So we also work a lot with Real Estate Investors and provide all kinds of training for both landlords and Real Estate Investors. Every year, we have an annual conference where we have National Speakers come in and talk about all different types of investing asset classes and whatnot. And really I got involved with it because when I moved here to Grand Rapids, 15 years ago, I was looking for a professional organization that I could become part of that would help me network with other professionals in the industry. People who own rental properties and knew how to profit from it and also just an organization that would help teach best practices so I could learn the ropes how to do it and certainly through the Rental Property Owners Association and the people I've met there, I've learned a lot.  We provide a lot of training but probably what I consider most important of all is we have a legislative committee that works with lawmakers, both local and at the state level, to help push through bills that help rental property owners and also help prevent bills from becoming a reality that would hurt us; anything that has to do with like rent control or some of those hot button issues that as landlords and rental property owners would like to avoid.  James: Yeah, very interesting. So like New York and I think, Oregon now is rent control states, if I'm not mistaken, so they probably have similar Association like yours in that city, I guess. Brian: I would hope so. It sounds like they're fighting a losing battle as you and I both know as rental property owners, you know, I believe you invest out of state, out of your area, is that correct?  James: No. No, I'm from Austin. I invest everything in Austin and San Antonio. Brian: Okay. So would you even consider investing in a city or a state that has rent control?  James: No. Of course not.  Brian: Yeah. It's really detrimental to the market and I think it's going to cause a lot of problems. I used to live in Santa Monica, California where they had rent control and you can see the negative results of that. James: Oh, Santa Monica in California, did they have rent control in the past?  Brian: Yeah, a lot of the Los Angeles counties, you know, it's kind of county by county, city by city, area by area, but there is rent control in Los Angeles in certain areas and you can just see how rental property owners, who own buildings in rent control areas, have no incentive to put money back into them. They're not putting the capital expenditures back into their property to keep them in good shape because there's no incentive to do so. They can't raise rents beyond a certain amount each year and you know, so why would you invest $100,000 back into your building if you're not going to get that out in value? James: Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't make sense for a business. So you may not run it as a business, you may be just run it as cash flow, I don't know, it's like a cash flow investment. I guess you don't have to spend any capital on it.  Brian: I can see how if you've owned the property for a long time and you bought it at the right price at the right time, you could probably be doing well with cash flow. But in these markets where you see a lot of rent control, they're expensive markets. So I'm not really sure once rent control is instituted in these markets what's going to incentivize new investors to come in and bring fresh money into the market. James: Interesting interesting. So coming back to your portfolio, can you tell me in terms of your holdings, how much is multifamily, how much is self-storage? How many percents of each one of these and how much is non-performing notes?  Brian: Sure. Sure. So multi-family is my bread and butter. I've been doing that since 2008. I moved to Grand Rapids in 2005 and 2008 the bubble burst, you know, we entered the Great Recession, it was a buyers' market. I bought my first 12 unit, I was using my own money in the beginning, started using other people's money and then started syndicating.  We currently have about 370 units here in the Grand Rapids area, Grand Rapids, Michigan and that's multi-family residential. In 2018 we purchased a self-storage facility, it's about 28,000 square foot, we're currently adding another 15,000 square foot to it and that's been a fantastic investment, I really love self-storage. And then, as you mentioned, I host a podcast - The Rental Property Owner and Real Estate Investor Podcast - and one of my guests over two years ago was a gentleman by the name of Gene Chandler and he was investing in non-performing notes and I really liked his strategy so much that I ended up investing well over 300,000 dollars with them and the results have just been fantastic.  James: So, you now do multifamily and now you're doing two other asset class. So can you tell me what does multifamily did not offer that these two other asset class offers? Brian: Well, I like you, I'm investing in my own backyard for when it comes to multifamily. Even though I've bought and sold over 450 units, in 2015, I stopped buying multifamily altogether because the values had gone to a point where I could no longer justify syndication. I couldn't get the returns that I needed for my investors to be able to to pay the prices that people were asking. The last two deals I found - one was off-market, one was kind of in between market - and I can go into details on that but anything that I saw after that point just, I was so spoiled by the prices I was getting between 2008-2014, that I started looking for other asset classes.  And there were probably about 3 years where I just sat on the fence, waiting to see if the market would change or something else would come along. And at some point, one of the people who I met through the podcast, brought me a self-storage deal that he had found off-market. I looked at it, I like the numbers. His underwriting was very conservative, but the numbers were very compelling and we ended up buying that in 2018. And just in one year of basically bringing the rents up to market value and switching to a virtual online web-based management system, we were able to add over $700,000 in value to that property. So I like the simplicity of managing and owning self-storage more so than multifamily because in multifamily, you have tenants and plumbing issues... James: So it's very Property Management intensive, right? Brian:  It definitely is and the self-storage, it's not. When you have turn-over, you're basically sweeping out a metal shed, you know, so it's a lot easier to manage and own and operate self-storage, especially when you're in a good market and I think we bought in an excellent market. It's just north of Lansing, Michigan. And then with the non-performing notes, I found a strategic partner who handled a lot of the nuts and bolts of that and I was able to invest with him somewhat passively so I enjoyed that aspect of investing there and the returns we were getting were very good.  James: Interesting. Yeah, I mean, as I mentioned in my book, commercial asset classes go in cycles. I mean, I know I'm a multi-family guy and your bread and butter is multifamily but if you find the right operators in other asset classes, you can make a lot more money or equal amount of money as what you're making with multi-family. So, would you think so? Brian: Absolutely. Finding the right strategic partners in other asset classes that's one of the things I set my mind to when I realize I'm just not seeing the returns I want to see in multifamily and apartments in my area where I'm comfortable investing. Now, have you looked at other asset classes? James: I did look at a few asset class. I mean the asset class that I looked at is also like, you know, self-storage or mobile home parks but it's also in demand. I'm surprised to see here that you found something in 2018 because I thought self-storage is a hot asset class as well, I will risk going after that. Brian: Yeah, it was a lucky strike and we've been looking for similar opportunities. But yeah, we're not finding them. What we're doing instead is building ground-up construction in self-storage, finding locations where the demographics are right and the need for more square footage of self-storage space is there and then we go in and fill that need. James: Yeah, but I'm happy that you are looking at multifamily is not like the only asset class throughout the whole real estate cycle. I mean you felt like in 2015, things picked up and you really can't find the prices that you want and you have changed strategy which is how an investor should be. You always want to look at what's available out there, the deal flow because the economy is still doing very well. There's a lot of capital out there and it's just harder to find a great really-making-sense deal. I wouldn't say deals, making sense deals in multi-family, something that makes sense. It's just so hard to find out nowadays. Brian: Absolutely. As an investor, you have to stay nimble and flexible and be open to other opportunities. Now, I know a lot of people in our field, our asset class of multifamily and apartments will find strategic partners outside of their area like in Texas or Georgia or wherever and partner with strategic partners who are able to find better value and better yields in their Investments. But I've had some bad experiences early on with some single-families that I owned out of state so I've always been very hesitant since then to own rental property, residential rental property, out of state. James: So you like to have any property within your own backyard, but you like to diversify within asset classes. Some people have one asset class, but they go across the nation. Like some people like to buy multi-family across the nation, wherever make sense but you are doing it the other way around. Brian: Yeah. Since I've branched out into self-storage and non-performing notes, I'm comfortable switching up asset classes. James: Awesome. So on self-storage, are you the operator, are you the primary guy?  Brian: No, my strategic partner is. He's the one who found the deal off-market, he negotiated it. I basically came in and raised the money; we syndicated that and raise the funds to be able to acquire it. James: Got it. Very interesting. And on the performing notes, you have a strategic partner, I would say, right? Brian: Yeah, I have a strategic partner on that. He's the one who knows that world. He's been doing it for well over six years now and really knows how to negotiate with the lender who we're purchasing a non-performing note from. He works with the homeowners to try to keep them in the home and figure out if that's even possible and then knows who the title company is that he should work with to get the right due diligence done and he's got the different scenarios in his head of how we can profit off of these notes. If we keep the homeowner in the home, what are the strategies there for us to maximize our profit or if we have to go through the foreclosure process. How do we go about that and maximize our returns in those cases as well. James: Interesting. Interesting. So if you get a multi-family deal today, would you still do it? Brian: If I found a deal that made sense and my underwriting shows that I could get the returns to my investors that they're accustomed to, I'd do it in a second, absolutely.  James: Okay. Okay. So let's talk about the market and submarket selection. So why did you move from California to Grand Rapids, Michigan?  Everybody's heading to Texas and Florida from California.  Brian: I'm from Michigan, originally. James: Oh, you're from Michigan? Okay, that makes a lot of sense.  Brian: Yeah, my wife is from here as well. So we met in California but decided okay, if we get married, start a family we didn't want to do it in Los Angeles, it's just too busy there.  James: Makes sense. Yeah, I mean just based on data that 50% of the population move to Texas And I think there's a lot more but Texas and Florida is the favorite destination for people from California. That's why I was asking the question. And how do you select the submarket in Grand Rapids, Michigan? Like how do you select which submarket to really do the deal? Brian:  Well eyes because I live here, I am looking within a half hour to an hour of where I live. Grand Rapids is very strong, has very strong demographics. It's one of the few Midwest cities that really bounce back strong from the Great Recession. A lot of diversified manufacturing industry. Furniture, Amway is here, we've got a lot of different industries and employment based here. So when I look at submarkets, I'm looking more at the neighborhoods, what's the crime rate in that neighborhood? What's the income level in that? What kind of rents can we command and by the way, I'll buy B properties and C properties or you know, C minus properties that we can push into that C plus B minus range. But I will avoid the The D areas and I've seen a lot of opportunities in the D areas. And by D, I mean where you have a lot higher crime rate, where you have a lot more evictions and tenant turnover and problems.  So I'm just very careful about and I work with the property management company that has a good grasp of these areas. So when we look at a property, we can really get a sense of if we buy this, is there an upside value, can we improve it and get higher rents, get better residents in here or is it going to be bound by the neighborhood it's in, that where it is now is what just where it's going to be? James:  Got it. Got it. Interesting. What about underwriting? I mean, when you look at a deal like I mean when you are buying multifamily, right? So how would you select the deal? Let's say a hundred deals been sent to you, do you know how many percents of it you would reject? Brian: Right now 100%. I'm not even looking right now, but what I'll do is I'll do a quick rule of thumb. Okay, what's the net operating income? What's the cap rate that they're asking? Is there upside potential? And of course, if it's listed by a broker, they'll always tell you the market the rents are way under market. you can raise the rent. No problem. That's sometimes true, sometimes not true.  But this area is so strong that any seller right now knows that they can get top dollar and while there's a lot of Institutions and out-of-state investors and even International investors who are willing to pay top dollar, the yields that they are willing to accept are much lower than what I'm willing to pay, which is why I'm not even looking at the moment.  James: Very interesting. Now I see it's happening across the country. I thought it was only happening in Texas and Florida but looks like across the country, that's what's happening. It's just so hard to find deals that used to make sense to us long time ago, right? So it's crazy out there.  Brian: Yeah, and it could just be that I'm spoiled because I was buying during a period when I could buy it at eight nine ten caps. And now, when I see things at five six, six and a half caps, I don't even want to consider them. But had I bought it at those cap rates between 2015 and 2017, I would have made a lot of money. So maybe I'm just a little too stringent in my criteria right now.  James: Yeah. That could be it as well.  Brian: Are you buying right now? James: Well, I mean, well, I'm still buying if I find the right deal. It's just so hard to find the deal that makes sense for my criteria, and I'm sure that's the same thing as your criteria. I'm still buying if I find the right deal but I'm not underwriting a hundred deals, you know, in one month. You know, whatever deal comes to me, I usually know that within the quick look, I know whether it makes sense for me to underwrite or not. And sometimes brokers will call me if they know that a certain deal is something that I would do. That's the only deal that I look at.  Brian: What's your quick back of the napkin way of determining whether or not you want to invest in something? James: If it's an email blast, I probably wouldn't look at it.  Brian: Yeah. Yeah, you kind of eliminate the ones that go out to everybody.  James: Yeah, it's already got everybody on his shop date and coming on an email blast. You know, you have to go on a best and final and best and best and final and then this ultimate best and final offer, which is you're shooting in the dark, right? You're basically bidding against yourself. [20:45 inaudible] I'm not really in a desperate mode to buy deals that go through that kind of process. So when I look for value-add if there's a true value-add deal, I mean, minus the crime rate area, I definitely know the area that has high crime rate, I can check it out quickly Class B and C, but need to have true value-add that we can go and add value. I don't really look at the entry cap rate, but I look for the spread of the cap rate from the time I buy to in the next two years kind of thing without any rent increases.  Brian: I think part of part of my problem, one of the reasons that I've just been on the fence is because we bought a value-add property back in 2015. It was an older building, built in 1920 and it was such an exhaustive process to go in and add value to that property. I was over there like every day. James: It is very tiring to do those value-add deals. To do deep value-adds, I would say.   Brian: Deep, deep value-add. And so my bandwidth for more opportunities was just completely limited because I was so exhausted by working on this one particular project. Now, luckily, we got it to a point where we added tremendous value to it and we're very proud of the work we did but you have to weigh the opportunity cost when you do those value-adds because sometimes they're so intensive that some of the lower hanging fruits, you bypassed that. James: Correct. Yeah. I see some syndicators doing deals every month and they're not doing a deep value-add or they're just doing the lighter value-add. Maybe they're just doing a yield play. [22:30inaudible] they can buy every month. They can claim 5,000 units or 3,000 years versus deep value-add to be like 100 and 200 and 300. It's a really really deep value-add. You probably make a lot more money than the guy who owns 3,000 to 4,000 units, but it's a lot of work.  Brian: It's more than just asset managing. You kind of become a de facto developer. James: Developer, a huge project manager. Yes, so many things but the deep value-add gives you a sense of accomplishment. Brian: It does.  I'm very proud of the work we did on this particular property and more so than any of my other properties because I didn't have to put nearly as much work into them.  James: Yeah, and the deep value-add it becomes a case study, right? Because it truly shows your skills to turn around property.  And people who have done deep value-add it's going to be easier for them to do the lighter [23:30inaudible]   Brian: Yeah, yeah, that's an excellent point.  James: So that's very interesting. So can you name like 2 or 3 secret sauces to your success? Brian: The two or three secret sauces to my success. I'm sorry if you hear that printer going in the background there.  James: It's okay. No worries.  Brian: Hopefully that ends soon. Secret sauces to my success; I think doing the underwriting, running my numbers. I always like to say, I like to see my numbers in bullet time. To see all the Matrix, you know, everything slows down and you can see it coming at you. I want to know what are the real expense is going to be after we've acquired the property. One particular mistake that I see a lot of investors making is they assume that the property tax is going to be the same as what the previous owner was paying and that's just not the case. So right there that's one of the main factors that I look at right away, is what is the property tax going to become once I buy this property and that eliminates 50% of the deals that I would even consider. So number one secret sauce is just really understanding the numbers. Not just where they are today, but where they will be once we acquire the property. Number two is having the right team. I am all about partnering with strategic partners who add value because they understand inside and out the asset class that you're investing in. The reason I was able to expand my multifamily portfolio was that I partnered with someone who owned his own property management company and managed the type of properties that I wanted to acquire. That without his assistance and without his team that really knew how to go in and do the due diligence and help me assess upfront, what are the capital expense costs going to be? What are the true costs going to be when we acquire this property? Without that, I would have made a lot of mistakes. The same with self-storage. I partnered with someone who even though he's young and new, somewhat new to the business, he had really studied it, talked to a lot of professionals, been mentored by people and really understood inside and out how we could add value to that self-storage facility. And everything that he put in his pro forma ended up becoming a reality. With my non-performing note partner, I mean he knows that world inside and out. So when we acquire a note, the first 12 that I bought with him, we only had one that we lost money on and that was about $1,700.  James: Out of how many notes?  Brian: We bought 12 notes to start with because I like to test before I bring other investors in so I bought 12 notes with my partner, I JV with him. Five of the notes our average return was over 80%.  James: Wow. What timeline? Brian: A year and a half.  Well, actually, each note is kind of on its own timeline. So I'll tell you that of the twelve notes that he and I purchased together, five of them are closed and paid off like we've made our profit. Our average return on investment, before we split 50/50, our average return was 81% and that included the one note that we lost $1,700 on. Some of the returns that we're getting are phenomenal. Five of the notes are re-performing, which means that we were able to keep the homeowners in their homes, which is fantastic. That's our number one goal. Our average return on those notes as we collect the monthly income is 30%. And then two of them are in some form of foreclosure. In fact, we're about to sell one. We just listed it today actually, so we should make a decent return on that. We always try to work with the homeowner and keep them in the home. Half the time we're able to do that, half the time it just doesn't work out. But you asked me the timeline so, of those five notes that we closed, our average return was 81%, the average number of days that we were in each of those notes was 163 days so that took less than half a year.   James: I mean, those are good great numbers. I mean, I mentioned in my book, find the right operator in that asset class and partner with them or invest with them for passive investors. So as I said in every asset class, there's always good operators. So the numbers you're telling me in non-performing notes in self-storage are huge, right? I mean, I know multifamily you can make money if the market went up and you have a really good operator that can handle that. On average, not everybody is making what you just told me right now on self-storage. So why is multifamily more popular than other asset classes?   Brian: There are more people teaching it.  James: That's absolutely my point. Brian: Yeah, I mean like there are some excellent instructors out there in multifamily and you and I are both the part of a group with one of them. I mean great top-notch training material. Okay. Yeah, there's just fewer people out there. Whereas you have between 10 to 20 people out there teaching multifamily, you could count on one hand the number of people teaching self-storage and it's even less teaching the non-performing note.  James: I understand. Yeah, it is it is true. There's a lot more people teaching multifamily, a lot more boot camps, a lot more 2 days weekend seminars on multifamily compared to self-storage or non-performing notes. And I think multi-family is also very simple to understand, it's a house. Not many people understand what is non-performing notes.  Brian: Yeah, there's all that educational like just understanding and wrapping your head around the concept. I got into multifamily because I understood the economy of scale and I understood people have to have a place to live. So if you can get them to pay their rent and that rent pays all your expenses plus the mortgage, well, you can make a lot of money that way. And then once I understood the next level of value, which is the income valuation method, how commercial multifamily is valued based on the income method and you can increase your returns exponentially if you understand that. The relationship between cap rate and your net operating income and value that was very compelling to me. And I think that still is very compelling when it comes to investing in commercial real estate whether it be multifamily or self-storage. I think non-performing notes, there's a lot more perceived risk in that because it's not valued based on any  - it's hard to understand how that's valued because there are so many different scenarios in which you can profit from non-performing notes. That you can't just say well we value it this way and if you buy this note, this is what you're going to make, it's kind of a crapshoot. But if you do it right and you partner with someone who knows how to avoid the dogs, you can actually make a lot of money doing it.  James: So what is the most valuable value-add in non-performing notes? Brian: You mean an example of one of our...? James: No, not an example. I'm talking about what is the one thing that if you do the most of the time or the frequency of things that you do in non-performing notes that you get the most value out of? Brian: Well, yeah, it differs note by note. I'll give you two examples. One is a property that was pretty much a teardown property that we bought the note on in Middlebury, Indiana. We paid $5,000 for this note and I asked my partner, I mean it's $5,000, this property is a teardown. How are we going to make money on this? And he said, well, we're not buying this for this property for the house that's on it. We're buying it for the land because it's right next door to a farm and this farm is owned by this Amish family. So he sent a realtor over to the Amish family and they ended up paying $35,000 for that note. So after closing costs and paying the realtor and getting our initial $5,000 investment back, our profit was over $24,000 that represented a 245% return and we did that in less than two months. James: Yeah, but you need to identify that opportunity. I mean, it's not like you can go and buy any deals right now. Okay, very interesting. Brian: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Another quick example of how you can profit on notes and I don't want it to lead you to believe that your best profit is always going to be a few foreclose or take possession of the property because you can still make a lot of money if you can work with the homeowners. We bought a note on a property in northern Michigan, probably about 9 or 10 months ago now. And I believe the numbers were in the line of we paid $20,000 for this note, got the homeowners re-performing, the unpaid balance on this note is $41,000. Once we have them season for 12 months, meaning that they're paying on time for 12 months - we've been working with them with a mortgage loan originator, where they can go and get new financing, permanent financing of FHA or Fannie Mae type loan in place with much better interest rate much better payments. Well, when they go do that, they're going to pay off that unpaid balance. So our $19,000 investment, now that I'm thinking about it was $19,000, our $19,000 investment, we're going to get paid that $41,000 of the unpaid balance on their note, plus the money that they've been paying each year. So our return on that is going to be 100%, it's actually over a hundred percent.   James: Across how many years?  Brian: We'll be out of that in under 15 months. James: Okay, interesting. Brian: Because they're going to refinance and when they refinance, we get paid that unpaid balance. James: Got it. Got it. What about on the multifamily properties that you own before 2015? What do you think is the most valuable value-add that you really like?  Brian: Well, they're all great because just anything I bought between 2008 and 2012, I've achieved an infinite return on those.  James: Okay. So refied it by and you kept it? Brian: Yeah. Yeah, we've refinanced, pulled our initial investment out. We have no money in the properties and we're collecting cash flow every month. So you can't calculate a return on that. Probably one of the best examples is a 37 unit that we purchased. We bought it at a short sale in 2009, was about 600,000 is what we paid for it. We put a $200,000 into it right away to replace roofs, windows. It was a hodgepodge of heating systems. There's electric baseboard heat and hot water boiler heat and then gas forced-air furnace heat. It just depended on which unit you were looking at. So we replaced a lot of the mechanicals, made it as much of a new property as we could, as far as just the mechanicals and the roof and the windows. And we refinanced it once it had over 1.1 million dollar value, pulled all of our initial investment out plus some extra cash flow and then we just refinanced it again, put a tenure fixed loan on it through the Freddie Mac. small apartment loan. So we got great terms on it, 30-year amortization. At that point, it valued over two million dollars. So we've added a lot of value to it and the compression of cap rates didn't hurt either.  James: Yeah. Yeah. Those are the awesome deals, the deep value-adds. That's where you can go and refi and make it infinite written because you pulled out all your cost basis. Brian: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's the goal to achieve infinite return. Whenever we can do that, that's what we do.  James: Absolutely. Aren't you worried about the state of the market right now in real estate in general?  Brian: You know, gosh, I was more worried about it two years ago than I am now probably. James: What has changed? Brian: Probably because two years ago, I was thinking, oh, it's going to turn any minute now and then it only got better and better. You and I both know Neil Bala and we talked to him at the last event we were at together and he made a very good case for the continuation of this market. And it basically rests on the fact that the United States, it's one of the few, if not the only places in the world where you can go to get real yield on your investment. We're seeing a lot of international money coming into the United States because in their countries, they're seeing negative yield or 0 yield. Here even if you can still get three or four percent yield on your investment, that's a lot of money. It's bringing a lot of money into this country and that's going to prop up our values for quite a long time. On top of that, I've always fought or believe that interest rates were going to rise and I've been believing that since 2000 and they keep going down. And even now, as we're speaking, they're talking about lowering the rate again by the end of the year. So that interest rate risk, I know we're playing with fire here and eventually, we're going to have to pay the piper but our government seems to keep coming up with ways to prolong this growth and the increase in prices. So am I worried? Not in the short term. No. No. The Economists I listen to are saying, oh, it's going to be a roaring 20s for us. Things are really going to hit the fan and. 2027, 2028, 29. James: Interesting. Yeah, because I think I don't know, maybe my thoughts are similar to yours somehow the Fed has figured out how to do quantitative easing and quantitative tightening. Somehow they're able to contract the economy and bring it down. So they could have found some new mechanism to keep the economy going even though our thought process always has been real estate goes in cycles. But at some point, you will hit an affordability issue, it can't [40:13unintelligible]  go up all the time, right?  Brian: Yes.  James: The prices can go up because the interest rate is coming down because now you can get more cash flow. But at the same time, you can't keep on increasing rent because our wages are not going up so much. I mean, I'm not an economist but at some point, you will hit some roadblock, but I'm not sure where is it and how is going to come.  Brian: Yeah, well, we're seeing a plateauing I think right now in just the rents that we're able to charge, the prices that people are willing to pay but it's still a very strong market. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not going out there and just buying stuff like crazy because I am very conservative and like I said if I can't get the returns that I need to bring investors into my deals, I'm just not even looking at it. I don't anticipate that the market is going to have a huge correction, there might be a bump, I think if you're in a good market, like Grand Rapids, that bump won't be nearly as severe as some other places.  I'm keeping my eye on the market but at the same time, investing conservatively in asset classes that I think will be able to withstand the next correction.  James: Awesome. So let's go back to a personal side of things, right? So is there a proud moment throughout your career in real estate that you will remember for your whole life, one proud moment? Brian: One for a moment to put on my tombstone. James: Yeah, absolutely. That you really think that hard, I'm really proud I did that.  Brian: Yeah. So a couple of answers. I mean any time we're able to go in and improve a property and improving neighborhoods, that always makes me proud, you know, that we're adding value to a neighborhood and community. The older building that I told you about here in Grand Rapids, it was built in 1920. When we bought that it was very tired, kind of poorly managed, it was losing money. We were able to turn that around so I'm very proud of that. I'm very proud of the fact that we also fought very hard and work very closely with the city to be able to put a restaurant in that building. So the fact that when we bought it it was 96 apartment units and about 6,000 square foot of vacant commercial space. Now we had to work with the city to get it rezoned because it had been vacant for so long, it had to be reverted to being zoned residential. So we spent over a year trying to get it rezoned so we could add commercial in there, but we filled up all 6,000 square foot including a restaurant and that took about two or three years to do.  So when I think about what I'm proud of I think I'm definitely proud of that.  James: Awesome. That there is hard work  because you're turning the zoning from residential to mixed use.  Brian: Yeah, mixed-use residential commercial, just dealing with parking, number of parking spots and green space and tree canopies. I mean, it was a massive undertaking.  James: Yeah. It's very interesting that kind of work. I did one that was borderline and we merged it with an apartment and we did so many things. It was a very unique value-add that we recently refinance.  Brian: What was it, a lot of work for you? James: It was a lot of work because you have to go through, you know, buying the deal - you had to buy two deals at the same time. One is the apartment and one is the land and then we have to go to the city to merge these two plots. Then you had to rezone it, then you had to - I mean replot it, rezone it And then after you do a tree survey, you have to do so many different surveys have to do to get that. It's not normal in a residential, you know, where you buy today and increase rent, reduce expense kind of deal. But it's very interesting and people got 80% of our money within 15 months, which is huge, just by doing this creatively.  Brian: That's fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, you talk about its zoning and tree, you know.  James: Yeah, zoning and tree and all those. Brian: So it's a whole new world and it definitely is costly and time-consuming because you have to have experts on your team. You got to bring experts like architects.  James: Yeah, we brought in architects, engineers.  Brian: Yeah, engineers who even understand what it is that the city is asking for because if you were trying to do that yourself, you just would be a mess. James: Yeah. I mean the good thing about what you said about what I'm proud of this kind of process and 99% of the syndicators don't have that kind of experience. Brian: Yeah. I didn't have that kind of experience but now I do.  James: Most of the time, you just buy buildings and, you know, look at increasing income and reducing expenses and after that, at some point you sell but you don't do different contracts buying land and doing kind of things. So another question for you, Brian, why do you do what you do?  Brian: I love it. I love what I do. I feel very entrepreneurial about it because I've been an employee up until about five or six years ago. Whatever it was I was doing, whatever job, I always embraced it and did the best I could. But what I love about being an entrepreneur, being a full-time real estate investor, now syndicator/asset manager is that it's all very self-motivated. I'm the one who decides what needs to happen, what I need to pay attention to on a day-by-day basis. I don't have a boss or anyone else telling me, 'Hey, Brian, go do this' when I'm like, 'no, I want to go do this instead.' I get to call the shots. So that's what I love about it. I get to call the shots, I get to take time off if I need to take time off and I get to kind of fill my day with activities that I want to be doing. James: Awesome. Hey Brian, you want to tell our listeners and audience how to get hold of you?  Brian: Sure, James. First of all, you can go to my website, which is higinvestor.com. That's HIG is Hamrick Investment Group. You can also listen to my podcast and James you've been a guest on there so you can definitely listen to me interview James. It's the Rental Property Owner and Real Estate Investor Podcast and it's sponsored by the RPOA, which we begin this conversation talking about. And if you want to get in touch with me, you can also email me Brian@higinvestor.com.   James: Awesome, Brian. Thanks for coming in and adding value to my listeners and audience and to myself as well in the kind of things from our discussion here. I think that's it. Thank you very much.  Brian: All right. Thanks, James. It's been a pleasure. It's a lot of fun. James: Lot of fun, thank you.  

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="no" equal_height_columns="no" menu_anchor="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_position="center center" background_repeat="no-repeat" fade="no" background_parallax="none" parallax_speed="0.3" video_mp4="" video_webm="" video_ogv="" video_url="" video_aspect_ratio="16:9" video_loop="yes" video_mute="yes" overlay_color="" video_preview_image="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" padding_top="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" padding_right=""][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" layout="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" border_position="all" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" center_content="no" last="no" min_height="" hover_type="none" link=""][fusion_text]Watch the live interview below [/fusion_text][fusion_youtube id="https://youtu.be/IMEWAY-hdgI" alignment="center" width="" height="" autoplay="false" api_params="&rel=0" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" /][fusion_text] Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:22] Hey I'm Beatty Carmichael and welcome to the get sellers calling you real true podcast. And I'm excited today to visit with another wonderful agent actually a client of ours named Carrie George from Crimmins Colorado Carrie. Say hello and tell us where cribbing is. [00:00:40] Hi there everyone. Crumbling is located in the northwest portion of Colorado. So oftentimes I tell people we are in between Silverthorne and that's where the ski resorts like Breckenridge and Keystone are. so in between there and Steamboat Springs. Really beautiful valley of the Rocky Mountains. [00:01:03] Well you are definitely in God's beautiful green earth and I guess sometimes White Earth out there during the wintertime. So all of that I'm over here in short sleeves and it's warm outside. Well I'm really excited to visit with you Carrie because I know you got a real strong stable business. We talked and you got some really great balance in your life and I think there's a lot of things to share because having a stable business having balance still handling this challenges but managing them in a really great way is there's a combination that you don't always find. So I'm really excited about that. Thank you. And also just for a reminder of those who are on the call watching or listening. It is an Internet call so please pardon any Internet interruptions that may occur. So I guess to get started Carrie can you tell me a little bit about yourself as a realtor maybe. How long you been in business and just anything that gives people an idea of understanding who is this person we're talking to and why should I listen to you. Right. [00:02:18] Perfect. So I've been a realtor for 15 years. I got my license back in 2004. I kind of came into this business sort of by chance I never really thought that a real estate career was something that I'd want to do. But at the time I was transitioning from being the Chamber of Commerce Director here in our little town which was a very fulfilling job. But it was very hard and I got paid very little money. But I met a lot of great people and learned a lot about our area. So in hindsight it was a really nice segway to go far from in the Chamber of Commerce Director and moving into real estate because I already had connections with so many people. One of the things that I love most about real estate is the creative aspect of it the marketing the photography that the new technology that we are always seeing coming down the pike. I love that kind of ever changing aspect of our business. I work in a small community. Others for full time realtors in our town which is which is unusual. I think most people are. And bigger cities where there's a lot more saturation. [00:03:30] You don't have hardly any competition there. Right. [00:03:34] Really downs. I mean I have to pinch myself sometimes and thank God because a lot of ways there's parts of it that are really easy. And then a lot of ways there's lots that are very hard. I feel like sometimes a big fish in a small pond where I have sort of this one little area that I do real estate and that sometimes is hard to branch in to other parts of our county. So it comes with its bonuses and negatives being in this small community mainly mainly positive so well know what type of markets do you typically do. [00:04:10] I know we were talking a little bit before the call but what have you found to be kind of the real staple niche or focus that drives your business. [00:04:21] So lots of residential I'd say about half my business is second homeowners. And the other half is primary residence. I love doing residential real estate the most. I will also do vacant land and commercial but selling houses and photographing houses is way more fun than taking a picture of a piece of dirt. So I so because they're two very different markets the primary residence and the second homeowner you know you have to kind of have different marketing approaches to deal with those two different clientele. So you know my primary residence These are people that I know that I see all the time our kids go to school together. You know just building really strong relationships with them that have to do with real estate. And then I don't have to do with real estate. And then with the second homeowners finding other ways to reach them I'm usually through direct mail and in farming certain areas is is the way that I'm reaching out to those people. [00:05:19] I'd like to talk on the second homeowner Mark. First because it's kind of a unique niche. And for those that are in that niche there is always the question how do I grow it. OK. And and I know that there's probably going to be folks listening to this saying Well oh she's only competing with three or four other realtors so doesn't matter what she does she's going to. You know it's easy to get business. Let me in. Let me ask that question first. Is it really easy to get business because there's not that many realtors or are you still kind of find that there are things you have to consistently do if you want the business to keep coming in. [00:05:53] Oh there definitely is. You know one of the agents here in town she was born and raised in this community. She knows everybody and everybody knows her. And so you know even though there are just a few of us you still have to have your game. You know you still have to you cannot take a back seat to this business. Everybody who is in the business knows that when you're in sales your effort is 100 percent related to your success. So it's very much still and my personality is that I don't like doing a job halfway. I really care about what I put out there. I care about what my voice sounds like through my marketing and how my voice sounds in person. And so being authentic is very very important to me. And that has got to come through in the marketing as well. [00:06:47] Well let's talk about that because I know that was in our conversation before the call. That was the number one thing you mentioned is just that authenticity or being authentic. I'm not sure what the word is. I was trying to fill up. So talk to me about being authentic and talk to me. So after 15 years you've found you've gone through those things you You've experimented I'm sure with things that just didn't work and those things that did. What is the how does the impact of being authentic impact your business and what are you doing to be authentic. So people actually will come to business with you and repeat business. [00:07:27] So I have a perfect case study for this exact example. There's a couple of area subdivisions that are nearby and you know I'd have a buyer who hey I really want to be in this one particular area and say OK great Look send a letter out to all of the homeowners and see if anybody's been thinking about selling. So I'd write a nice letter. Hi Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so. I have a buyer looking in your area. Have you thought about selling your home. And I literally got zero response from these letters that I would send out. But I would still do them because I thought well you never know somebody might really be thinking about it. Just recently we have a new pastor coming to town and he found an area that was really attractive to him. And I thought you know what. I'm going to do a little bit of a different strategy this time I'm going to be really specific in my letter I'm going to use his name. I'm going to use his wife's name. I'm going to say that he has two kids. I'm going to say he's the new pastor at our church and I put all of that in the letter. I had him review it before I sent it out and off it went well I had 400 times more response from that letter than I did from all of my subsequent letters. Well I'm wondering how does what does that have to do with being authentic. [00:08:44] Well I think what it has to do with being authentic is. I think if I would have put my head in to a sellers head but just received a very generic letter from me it's possible they might have been thinking that I'm just fishing for listings and that is not part of my personality one of the things I pride myself on is integrity and honesty and so I knew I had a buyer for that specific area but those sellers didn't. And my letter sounded exactly like everybody else's letter Hey I have a buyer. Are you thinking about selling your house. And until I was using specific examples I was not getting the kind of traction that I wanted and so now I have totally changed my strategy with this. I've got another guy who's looking in the same area. I said Brian I'm going to use your name. And he said OK go ahead tell him exactly what I'm looking for. And I feel that that being authentic being honest being straightforward being what using the most integrity that you possibly can is a way that you will kind of bridge that gap from sales person to seller and actually start to create a real connection and a real relationship with somebody you know that's interesting because in marketing what we find is if you're very specific you're believable. [00:10:06] Yeah. It seems to me that what you're doing is you are being very specific with not I have a client but I have this particular client. Here's what he's looking for in so the more specificity you give the more believable in your words more authentic it is. And now they know this is a real solicitation for a real prospect who really wants to move in this area and is very legitimate. Yeah. [00:10:33] I love it. Yeah I was really pleased. I thought Wow it took me 15 years to figure this out but now this is my new strategy. [00:10:42] Well very good. Very good. So let's talk about is there any other examples or any of the things that you can share on what you do. You mentioned earlier and I want to come back to this your voice. OK. When you talk about your voice What are you. For those are listening. You. What do you mean by that. [00:11:00] So anyone who's in real estate or is then thinking about getting into real estate you'll if you google any of that like how to be a successful realtor you'll start to see some of these kind of bullet points like. Well you should call a call. You should call for sale by owners you should work the expired list. And to me all of those things are they probably do work. I don't think they work for me because they don't feel authentic to me. I am a very not pushy person and that has actually worked to my benefit because I have clients all the time who will tell me. Thank you for not being pushy. They also put that in their reviews that they do for me after a sale. And so I think then people choose to work with me because they know I'm not going to be pushy. I really feel that buyers and sellers are decision makers. I'm there to guide them to counsel them to provide as much information as possible so that they can make the decision that is most appropriate for them and their family. [00:12:08] I had me on mute. And that was great. I love it. [00:12:12] So now talk to me in terms of driving business from your second home owners. What type of things are you. Do you find that really the things that work those things that don't and and are you. So let's go down that road a little bit can we. [00:12:28] Because second homeowners OK so for a second homeowners I mainly do direct mail. I know a lot of agents are totally moving away from some of the old school marketing styles. I personally think that direct mail still works very well. If you use the right pieces I still really like giving an envelope and hand addressing it because I think people will then open it. So that's if I have something really important and specific to send to somebody in a certain area. like a second homeowner I will take the time and hand address envelopes. It well your hand is your hand is sore. Don't get me wrong but I think the open rate goes up so much when you take that extra time to to hand address on the loaves. So again I will sometimes do a market update if there is something that's been recently sold I'll do a quick analysis for them because again I think just sold and just listing postcards have their place but I know that sellers get a lot of those. And so instead of maybe sending a just sold postcard why not break it down and say you know here's a less for sales and why are these sales significant. Are these the highest sales in this subdivision in you know X number of years that's what we're finding in our market is that it's so strong that that's a great pitch that you can send out to sellers to say did you know in the past twelve months we've had the four highest sales that your subdivision has ever seen as a as a homeowner that would be something that would be really important for me to know I'm not just hey our market's really hot and everything's really great but give me something specific that I can work on so I'll do things like that and then I also try and do things that are really visually and design wise very appealing because that's another thing that's very important to me I'm I'm kind of like a marketing geek. [00:14:29] I love anything to do with marketing and the way something looks is really important to me. I recognize that sometimes I have analysis paralysis where I'll work so hard on something and I wanted to be just perfect. But then I heard a quote the other day that perfectionism is actually procrastination in disguise and I'm like Yeah oh that's me. That's totally me. So I've let go of some of that but I do really care about how how something looks because I want to be proud of what I send out. And I also want sellers to see a piece for me and say this person put a lot of thought and care into putting this together and then I equate that to the fact that I would also put a lot of thought and care into marketing their home. [00:15:17] So out of curiosity these. So you're talking about sending out sold or you know less for sales. Is that that's not a postcard you're actually doing that in an envelope. [00:15:28] I am. So those I do in a letter where I'll highlight you know I just did one for a condo complex actually at a little bit outside of my market but I thought what would be something that I would want to know about my area. And I did a little bit of research and saw that over the past 15 years we had the four highest sales in this complex in the last 12 months. And I thought well that's something that's really useful that I could write a letter about. [00:15:53] So now are you sending these to your past clients that are out of town owners who are using these to just prospective clients prospective clients. Yeah. Okay okay. Very cool. And so when you're sending in the letter are you are you putting photos of those sales or just kind of outlining it. I mean when I get the letter. OK it's going to be handwritten I'm going to open it. And then what's in the package. So I have a little paragraph at the top and then the sales are bullet points because I know that. [00:16:25] Our attention span is about eight seconds even if you get something open. I have about eight seconds to catch their attention. So I put the sales in the middle of the letter as bullet points no photos but just listing the sales what they sold for how big they were what the sales date was because I thought if they look at that and then they also see the name of their complex. I mean it hopefully hook them and they're going to read the whole letter because I still think at the end of the day if you own a property in any given area and somebody provides you something of value about the value of your property they're going to be interested. [00:17:04] So now in terms of. So is this one of the primary things you're doing for their second homeowners just mailing out these letters are you doing postcards with it as well. [00:17:13] At times I do a mix of postcards sometimes as well especially if I want to do something really big and I don't want to have to dress 500 on both camps right. I'll do a postcard for that but then sometimes I'll just like try and pick a really visually beautiful photo something that's maybe unique to our area so they know like oh yeah I know that mountain that's right in my backyard. So some kind of hook something where they say this is relevant to me that this is not just something that's gonna go in the trash. [00:17:43] So then help me help me quantify. You can you may or may not be able to but your mailing generally speaking to about how many people each time and what type of return is that producing in terms of people calling you say Hey Carrie I want to sell or I want to buy what are you what what do you get out of it. [00:18:03] So I there's two areas that I farm regularly and I'd say I send out about a hundred to one hundred and fifty pieces per area I reckon nice too that there are people who get my letters on a consistent basis who put it in a folder and say when I'm ready to sell I'm calling her I had a sale last year and that's exactly what the person told me. I've been getting your letters for years and I knew when the time came for me to sell you were going to be the person I called. So you know if you think of it some of this stuff you're filling a pipeline for years down the road. But I think consistency is also very important. I would say in general on average my response rate from those is maybe like three to four calls or emails per mailing which I think is still pretty good and well worth it to me now. They're not always ready to sell at that moment. It might be Hey I got your letter. I have some questions because you do a market analysis for me. You know I'm not ready to sell yet but I'm thinking I'm going down that road so they don't always turn into an immediate client and an immediate contract. Sometimes it's just the beginning of nurturing that relationship and making those connections. [00:19:22] Yes. So that's really good though. Three four calls for mailing because now you kind of identify who it is in the pipeline yet they get a chance to engage with you. I would assume that those people who are calling you when they do go on the market. Have you ever lost any of those to another agent. [00:19:42] I don't think so. Yeah. So really think about it but I don't think I ever have. [00:19:46] Well so that's the most important part in my mind is if you can just get them to engage with you even if it's early on then you pretty much have a habit. I want to switch topics real quick to your primary homeowners there in the because you're actually you're doing both types of marketing right. And I'm assuming that the marketing is different that you do for secondary home versus what you do for primaries correct. [00:20:11] It is. So one of the things that we've been I work in a small office and I have a couple of colleagues one of the things that's been really important to us is is supporting our community in any way that we can. So we do a lot of events sponsorships throughout the year. I'd say we prep locally we host a couple of our own and then we sponsor a couple of other events that the community does. So for instance we sponsor the summer reading program and my colleague and I will go to the library and do a craft with the kids and send them with a little gift when it's all done. We sponsor our local community festival every year we do a parade float and hand out popsicles to everybody. We sponsor our own pumpkin giveaway in October where we fill our office with hundreds of pumpkins and the kids come to pick out a. And for free we sponsor the mutton busting at the fair so we we really try and get our name out there with community events. We mainly focus around kids because my colleague and I both have young children. So it's something that's very very important to us. And so we're doing these events that have nothing to do with real estate but supporting the community that we live in and love. It's not just to generate sales. [00:21:33] It's something that we truly feel is important to give back to the community and in any way that we can. [00:21:41] And so if that because it is that about. So I'm curious because this is really cool. Are you doing besides has been involved in the community or are you doing anything special and either reaching out to people personally or marketing to them or is it simply just kind of being present. [00:22:01] Well it's kind of twofold. So I think there's sort of a natural residual good feelings that people get by knowing that you know Keller Williams top of the Rockies sponsors these great events in our community. Like it makes people feel good about what we do for a living because let's face it there are we get compared to all kinds of. not nice industries and some people are. not great realtors but most of them really are good realtors and they're good people. So we have that aspect of it where people feel good about what we're doing and feel good about us giving back to the community. And then in terms of like actual marketing to primary residents I do a combination of direct mail with them as well. I do handwritten cards to a J. I'm really getting disciplined about it Good job parts per day to my sphere and then a little bit even wider than my sphere doing Popeyes. That's been a little bit hard for me because it feels a little more pushy than I'm used to but I find too if I'm bringing something of value that I don't feel awkward about it. Let's see what else am I doing. Well the Monday morning coffee which is fantastic and I'm absolutely loving it and my clients are loving it too. [00:23:25] I guess I'll tell people because a lot of folks listening to this won't know the background of your handwritten notes or Popeyes or Monday morning coffee. So can you enlighten a little bit more on that so people know what you're talking about. [00:23:38] You're listening to the get sellers calling you podcast to increase sales from past clients and sphere of influence or from a geographic farm learn about Agent dominator. We guarantee your sales in writing or give your money back to learn more. Visit our website get sellers calling you dot com. It's like Agent dominator from the. [00:23:56] And now back to the podcast. [00:23:59] So Monday morning coffee is a program that Beatty does through MailChimp and there's a little blurb at the top about real estate because that is what we do but it's short it's easy to read it's nothing super technical and that this. Thirds of it really nice feel good story something inspirational something really you know touching about it just other human beings that are on the face of the planet with us. So I get feedback every single week. People say to me I love having Monday morning coffee with you or this made my day. I hear from people I haven't heard from in years that they reach out to me and say wow I'm sitting here reading your your email and crying like because it's such an emotional story that I've resisted doing like a newsletter for so long because I didn't want to send emails about how to clean your gutters and when to change your your furnace filter because again that feels so inauthentic to me. And so sales and so typical real estate nothing against anybody who does that. I mean if it's if it's your cup of tea that's fine. It wasn't something that I wanted to do. And so Monday morning coffee was such an amazing fit for me because it had a little real estate blurb but more than anything it was just something nice to read. And in this day and age where you get so much bad news and you're just bombarded with all kinds of garbage constantly. I love that there's one e-mail that comes out for me per week that is just a really fantastic story. [00:25:36] So these are just some great touches into your personal lives and you know I've got to ask you you did you just start doing pop bys from our conversation a few weeks back. [00:25:47] Yeah. And I had something that was kind of in the works too. But then our conversation sort of prompted being like I really should just do this. People are scared of me and I you know I don't know why I thought like they won't want to see me but they do. And I created a business and and B by being authentic I am friends with many of my clients after the sale we hang out on a social level we'll get coffee together so I think it was my own personal hang up about they won't want to see me. They won't want to talk to me. And that was really the complete opposite of what it really was. [00:26:21] I love it. I love it. Well I want to ask a crazy question or an unusual question out of everything you've done. What are the one or two things that just absolutely did not work for you that you tried it was just a bomb. Anything you can share with folks on maybe what not to do. [00:26:40] Well I would say that when you get those calls from people who are going to promise you a bunch of Facebook ads by pushing your listings out there and creating the ad for you personally I have found those to be a complete dud and be very very expensive. So. And again going back to being authentic I think if you want to do a Facebook marketing and you want to be reaching people that way I think it's so much more important for you to just create really valuable content versus paying somebody to build ads for you. So you know offer a you know you would host a free clinic at your office to talk about the market or to teach people about different loan types and invite a lender to come in and teach that class with you offer something of value. People see listings they can go anywhere. Real Talk on Zillow Trulia they can find listings anywhere if they're on Facebook and you they want to provide value and make clients client connections there. I would say offer something of value offer some kind of content. So that debt that tanked for me I spent a lot of money on those and I got nothing from them. [00:28:00] Local I. That makes sense. Well let me shift gears I want to talk about work family balance. Now you have a family is that correct. Yep. So tell me a little bit about your family. Just so we kind of have a perspective. [00:28:13] Sure. My husband Bill and I have been married for almost 15 years and we have two daughters. Elizabeth is eight and a half. And Ashley just turned five. [00:28:24] I love it. So you've got a busy household for sure. [00:28:28] We have a second grader and a preschooler so we're not like entrenched in those school sports yet. Like I know parents of high schoolers are but we're still pretty busy and the work and family life balance has always been a struggle for me. My husband is also a Realtor. He sells bigger properties so we're both in sales which is which is difficult. You know in a lot of times you know one spouse will be a realtor and the other one will have a real job where you get paid every two weeks and we don't have that in our in our home. So that sort of fear of missing out and feeling sort of very attached to your phone and feeling a little paranoid about not answering your phone call is a real thing for both of us both struggle with it. And I think setting really good boundaries for yourself and for your family life is very important. But it's it's hard. It takes work. It takes discipline. It takes. [00:29:32] You trying to be in the present in that moment and it's that's really hard for us to do in this day and age for always thinking about something that's already happened or something that's going to happen instead of just being here right now. And so it's almost like a habit you have to form. [00:29:50] Talk to me about those boundaries. What have you what have you and your husband put in place and I'm sure it's tempting to kind of break the boundary periodically and how do you hold to it. Tell me what it is a little bit more. [00:30:03] Well we're not always perfect of course but we do try and have a certain time of day where you know the business phone calls stop and you know replying to emails stops. I am really particular about my Sunday mornings. We go to church and I do not show property or meet with clients from ten to twelve on Sundays. Now after church is over I'm happy to catch people because I know a lot of my clients. That's the only time they're available so I do trying to accommodate them in the afternoons but I think you have to decide you have to decide what's important to you have to decide where your priorities lie. And when I look at my two young daughters and I know they still really like me and they still really want to hang out with me that might not always be the case when they get to be teenagers they might rather be with their friends and so and all of this that I do and real estate is still going to be here. So I need to as a mom and as a wife make sure that I make my family my priority. But like I told you earlier it's like we're training for a marathon. It does not happen overnight and you have to just really work at being disciplined and and creating really good habits for the health of your family and yourself. [00:31:16] I agree. It really takes a discipline and what I've learned for me is it takes scheduling it out you know knowing specifically I'm going to take this time off from where you cut off the clock at this point and literally almost putting in your calendar. And so the answer is No. During these times. Does that make sense. Yes exactly. So you mentioned church talk to me about. Talk to me about your spiritual life. [00:31:42] So my spiritual life has been kind of a crazy road. I grew up in Denver and my grandma my great great grandfather is actually the founding one of the founding members of the largest synagogue in Denver. I was actually raised Jewish but then I moved to the mountains and there's really no synagogues in the mountains. And so my spiritual life kind of like really just was very dormant for a really long time. And then I had some personal struggles and some business struggles that had come into my life and I was just kind of out of options like I don't know what to do here. One personal struggle in particular there was really no right answer to what I was going through. It was just extremely painful and extremely difficult. And I found myself just kind of on my knees like all right God if you're out there I really need your help right now like this. I don't know what else to do. And that was when my spiritual life like almost like a seed that goes dormant started to just blow up is not the right word but completely flourish and and grow. What started to happen at that point to say it again maybe what started to happen at that point. [00:33:04] What what were the things that just started to flourish. Can you give me some ideas on that. [00:33:09] So. I have like in my life dealt with a lot of anxiety and so and living in fear and this particular situation created a lot of anxiety and fear for me. And when I finally got to my lowest of lows and and asked God please you help me not only did he answer my prayer for what I really was praying for. but the amount of peace and calmness that he brought to my life was I can't even really compare it to anything. It was like almost like a light switch went off like oh I know what to do now I have peace I have calmness and I knew that he was in control and he was in charge. And then from there I just started to find the Lord and find my relationship with him. And you know the judeo christian religions very much cross over each other. But what I think is so amazing about being a Christian is having a relationship like a real relationship with the Lord. And like anywhere that you might be you can sit down and talk to him and tell him what's on your mind. And it doesn't have to be formal and structured. You can just say whatever is is going through that go at any kind of struggles you might be going through any kind of painful moments you might be going through guidance advice like what should I do about this. [00:34:38] And and that part of it has been so amazing because growing up Jewish. A lot of it was very hands off very much like just ceremony and and praying but not not having relationship. And that's just such a different ballgame. [00:34:57] If that makes sense for me it makes a lot of sense. You know some people is oh holy God. Yeah. For others it's dead. God. Right. Exactly. And having that relationship where you can just bring anything to him even the little things and the big things. So how has your relationship with the Lord impacted if you look at your business OK and how you live your life. What are the things that is impacted that if you did not have that relationship with the Lord you would probably do things differently. Does that make sense. Trying to ask. [00:35:35] I think so yeah. Well I think first of all like I've always felt like I was a person of integrity but knowing the Lord and knowing truly knowing the difference between wrong and right and knowing his way has guided me in so many different ways. [00:35:57] Like I'll use an example of sometimes you know what the right answer is it's not really what you want to do but you know it's the right answer. And when you have him by your side making that hard decision is so much easier because you just you you feel differently about your interactions with people. [00:36:19] It's not just so much about how much money he can make going to make. And can I go on this vacation or that vacation. I would say that through my relationship with the Lord my giving has expanded tremendously that I realize now how important that is to not just give money but to give time as well. There are situations that I pray with my clients. Yesterday I was at a listing appointment and I asked. I said Can we pray. And they said absolutely. And so we just prayed for God to light their path because they're not really sure if they want to sell or not. Would he guide them. And if their home does sell that the new people that live here that they would have peace and harmony and safety in this new home. So it's just it's like it's opened up a new sort of chapter of my business. I found connection with a lot of people because of our our spiritual values align with each other. Sometimes it will come up very randomly. I met a gal yesterday morning and she asked where my kids went to school and and I said they went to the local school and she said Oh yeah I know there's a couple of kids that go to the Christian school and so then that started us talking about oh where do you go to church so I go here you know. And so then then then you know like that you have that special connection and that you maybe see things somewhat the same personally. [00:37:43] So although the idea that you're praying at the listening appointment when we put a contract on our house and our realtor was a Christian you know first thing we did is we prayed over the contract. Yeah really cool. So in terms of your interaction with your clients from a Christian standpoint just like praying at that listing appointment are there anything else. Anything else for your relationship with the Lord kind of model. Is your behavior or how you reach out to people in those interactions. [00:38:16] I would say one thing that's been really cool about working with other Christians is their disappointment level when something doesn't work out. Is is is actually really graceful and beautiful. They understand that you know that maybe wasn't the right house for them because God's got something better. And I I try and be sensitive to other people's viewpoints and spiritual backgrounds and so I will have that conversation and maybe a more secular way with with clients that are not Christian AND I'LL I'LL SAY YOU KNOW EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON AND AND YOU KNOW MAYBE THAT'S that house isn't for you because there is a better one coming. But I know when I work with Christians that they recognize that right off the bat that we don't even really have to have that conversation there. They're acutely aware of the fact that that there's something better in fact I spoke to a lady yesterday. She has her house for sale in Estes Park and she said that our house has been on the market for three weeks and we haven't had an offer and that's so unusual. And she said but then my husband and I realized well God doesn't want us to sell our house yet because they don't have anywhere to go. They can't find a rental here and crumbling. So she said it makes perfect sense now that he's waiting for us to find a rental before he makes us homeless. [00:39:35] Totally a little bit of in your own personal life because there is that level of peace that was with your client the sense of being able to look at things and say it's OK because the Lord is guiding it. Do you share anything in terms of your business or how you manage life as a realtor where there's just that overwhelming sense of peace. [00:39:57] Yeah. And because most of my life I live with a lot of fear and a lot of anxiety. Again it's kind of like a heart that you have to break a bad habit. But knowing every day in any given moment that I'm not alone and that he's always there it's it's hard to describe. It's like what kind of blows my mind as I see people all the time that are searching they're searching for some thing that one thing that's going to bring them X Y and Z happiness fame fortune love whatever it might be. [00:40:38] And the one thing that's actually going to be the cure for what ails them is right there. And it's free. It's for the taking. It's it's there for anybody who wants it but I also recognize that I had to go on my own journey to get where I am right now and that in God's perfect timing all of that came about in the way that it did and that if it would have happened artificially or if I would have been pushed into something that I wasn't ready for it wouldn't have been him and it wouldn't have been what it is now. So I know his timing is perfect and I try and encourage and and blessed people as I can but I also recognize that that he has the ultimate plan and that he will bless people in the appropriate way. [00:41:28] Hey I'd like to ask you I don't know if there's an answer to this either because you may not have something to share or you may not want to share but is there been is there something specific you can share that you know that if you did not have the relationship with the Lord and this event happened in your life you would have responded just totally different. Is there anything like that that you can share and then what was the outcome of it ultimately. Does that make sense. I'm looking for kind of a testimony so to speak of how has the Lord and really good man in a time frame that someone else would have panicked. Yeah. [00:42:06] Well I do have one specific example and it was actually kind of in the midst of my of my spiritual journey. I mean we'll always be in our spiritual journey but it was at the beginning of mine. I had a situation come up at work in my own professional career that was very maybe very anxious. It was it was very difficult to kind of wrap my head around. It was scary. It was something that I couldn't really talk to anybody about it because of its confidential nature. And again and I found myself kind of on my knees like God I need your help I. I don't know what else to do. And I was just I couldn't eat. I was so nervous. I was just I was miserable really. And I remember that night I I I drank some calming tea it was like you're in the grocery store or they have all those that are for different ailments. And I found one calming tea so I drank this tea and I prayed and I got on my knees and I said God please help me through this situation. And when I woke up the next morning my first thought was. Wow t really works because I feel so calm right now and then I realized I was like oh no it wasn't the tea it was it was God and Holy Spirit descending on me and bringing me peace and I wouldn't necessarily say that immediately my problem was solved. It did eventually resolve itself but what was brought to me was just an overwhelming sense of peace and in the sense that it's going to be OK. Like I don't have to beat myself up about this problem. I can take it to him leave it at his feet and walk away. [00:43:49] They say because the Bible says the perfect love cast out fear. Yeah. And when we are in those situations where we can be afraid then you know God's love can push it out and we're no longer afraid in the outcome. If we're trusting the Lord is always always good. And you may not be easy but it's always good. [00:44:14] Exactly and that's what it was for me. I just took a deep breath and I said thank you God this is gonna be OK. And that was actually then that Sunday was the first time I ever stepped into a church. I had been a Jewish girl my entire life. And I thought Oh this is gonna be really weird. And it wasn't weird at all. It was exactly where I needed to be. It was beautiful. It was welcoming. And I've been going ever since and it was probably six years ago. [00:44:42] Well so you're just a six year old Christian. [00:44:46] I am. That's what I tell my pastor all the time I'm like you've got to treat me like a kindergarten I should be at Sunday school with all the little kids. [00:44:52] I love it. I love it. Well in wrapping up is there anything else you'd like to share either from your relationship with the Lord and how that's been in your life or anything in terms of your business that would help somebody. [00:45:07] Yeah I would say that my my pastor asked me to open prayer at our next service. [00:45:15] And at first I was super anxious about it. I don't like to speak in public. And he said I understand Carrie. But consider this you're speaking in front of family and you're speaking to God. And when you put it that way I thought I can do this. I would say to anyone out there who is maybe struggling who is doubting themselves who is who you may be in a hard hard place with your business or your personal life. [00:45:45] That then at the end of the day you have the fortitude inside of you and with God's grace and his strength and his love. If you keep putting one foot in front of the other that's all we're asking you to do is just don't give up. Keep moving forward. Challenge yourself sometimes step outside of your comfort zone of where you think that you need to be or want to be. Sometimes that's where our greatest growth is happening and then also to just one thing that's helped me so much and in my business and in my personal life to try and live everyday with gratitude to look around and see how we have been so blessed. I mean not just to to be able to live in this country and be one of the richest people on earth. [00:46:38] I think they said if you own two cars you're in the top eight percent of the richest people on the planet. Not just that but when you look outside and you see God's beauty the mountains the valleys the forests the ocean the deserts the plains that he put all of that here for us. I mean the fact that you can go to your sink and turn on the water and clean water comes out. I mean I kind of geek out about this a little bit because it's one of the things I'm super passionate about that we have so much bounty and so many blessings. And if you can hold on to those things the things that we ought to be grateful for instead of all the problems in your life it will turn I think turned things around for you almost like the snap of a finger because that is what perspective and gratitude can do. [00:47:28] You know I had to share a story so it's not my story third party but you know in the Bible it says that whatever is good what is your pure repute whatever is honorable you know all these things dwell on that. And there was a couple I was listening to teach many years back they'd gone through a almost certain point of divorce. He was always gone. He was always brash he was always go go go. She wanted him home and wanted more loving and compassion. And it got to be a real rift to the point that she was literally she had if I remember the story correct. She had the divorce papers in hand and the Lord put on his on her spirit just a little check in her spirit that this is not the rule to go. And she went back to the scriptures where it says to just like you you know focus on those things that you're that you can have gratitude for. Focus on those things that are good. She's actually made a list of everything that she loved about Bob and Bob and Cindy Harrison many years back. What she loved about Bob that she fell in love with. [00:48:39] What was interesting. Is those were the same things that she was now frustrated with. Right. But she started to focus on that. And every time she would get upset she would thank the Lord for these great traits and qualities of Bob. And she said it was just a matter of I mean so fast. She fell back in love and their marriage has been really super strong. So this whole attitude of attitude of gratitude and thanking the Lord and just being appreciative of all that he's done is really powerful. So I appreciate that. It really is. All right. Well I think we're pretty much at the end of this call. So Carrie thank you so much for sharing. And for those who are watching or listening if you do like this let me courage you to subscribe to our podcast. Be sure to like it on iTunes and on YouTube and in place also like our guest sellers calling you Facebook page if you want to learn more about us and how to grow your business. Just visit our website get sellers calling you dot com. So Carrie thanks again. And it's a real pleasure to visit with you. [00:49:50] Thank you. You too. All right. You'll be blessed. [00:49:55] If you've enjoyed this podcast Be sure to subscribe to it so you never miss another episode. AND PLACE LIKE OUR get sellers calling you Facebook page. Also if you want to increase sales from past clients and sphere of influence dominate a geographic farm or convert home valuation leads. Check out our agent dominator program. We create custom content that differentiates you from other realtors then use it to keep you top of mind with your prospects with postcards targeted Facebook ads email campaigns video interviews and more. And the best part is we guarantee yourselves or give all your money back. Learn more at get sellers calling you dot com and select agent dominator in the minute. [00:50:35] Thanks for listening to the get sellers calling you podcast. Have a great day. 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Part 3 of my conversation with guest Brian Salvatore as we look back at the music of 1985. Show notes: - Check out Brian's podcast Input/Output - Jay's #5 - Brian: "I'm a major label sellout guy" when it comes to R.E.M. - R.E.M. started getting rock radio airplay in '85 - When MTV News was a thing - The evolution of Stipe - Brian's #2 - The Pogues: A love 'em or hate 'em band - Shane McGowan has teeth now - Jay's #2 - Two great Husker Du albums in '85 - New Day Rising gets the edge over Flip Your Wig - Rock concert business was focused on arenas in '85 - Indie rock acts had to forge their own way - Brian's #1 and Jay's #5 - Camper Van Beethoven's interesting debut mixed a lot of styles - Jay forgot about the Replacements - Trouble Boys, the Replacements bio, is excellent - Mats reunion may not be over - Jay's #1 - Pete Townshend's last great work - Ambitious project about the London projects where he grew up - Since then, he's focused on Who tours and licensing - McCartney can't stop/won't stop - Next up: 1990 Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review! The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.