You're listening to the REI marketing nerds podcast, the leading resource for real estate investors who want to dominate their market online. Dan Barrett is the founder of AdWords nerds, a high tech digital agency focusing exclusively on helping real estate investors like you get more leads and deals online, outsmart your competition and live a freer, more awesome life. And now, your host, Dan Barrett.
(0:40) Hey, guys, welcome back, you're listening to the second part of last week's episode? Let's jump back in. I want to ask you that because you have seen so many investors over the years. And not only have you met with the top two of investors, we just like you said, like one of the things I really love about collective genius is just this idea that it's essentially a mechanism for the best people in the industry to share what they know, right? That's what it isn't. It's cool, right? It's like you come to here, you share what you know. And so we all benefit from your expertise. So when you look out, and investors today, if you are trying to pick someone who you're like that person is going to make that person is going to navigate this fine, you're gonna be fine. What do you think are the characteristics of that person? Right? And maybe it's someone who's newer today, right? A lot of the investors I've had on the show that were are massively successful? Well, it started in like, 2008. Right. And it's like, very common starting, right, those those people tend to last. So if you had to pick some characteristics of investors that you think are going to make it through this transitional period, well, what do you think those are? Or conversely, if it's easier to answer, what do you think the stakes are that people are going to make that are going to stop them from making it through the way they want?
(1:57) I think the characteristics of the people that are going to make it are there is a there's I think there's something there's a there's a fight or flight mechanism, when you're I don't even care if you're if you're wealthy, if you're running an active business, there's a fight or flight mechanism that that internally that kicks off in you when you sense, danger, right. But there's a fight or flight mechanism and for the people who have the fight mechanism. And because that mechanism is what kicks off the intense action, it's what kicks off, what's the word I would use to, there's a balance right now, someone that understands the balance between safety and aggression. It's a tight, it's a tight rope. But someone that understands the balance between safety and aggression is going to win someone who is patient, and you have to be able to afford to be patient, not everybody can afford to be patient, right? You have to be able to afford to be patient literally afford to be patient, I think people who are at making quick decisions, you know, like someone who understands the gravity of what's going on in the market and can say, Okay, I know that I'm gonna look at my p&l. And, you know, for the last 12 months, our trailing EBITA is x. If we get to a certain point, I need to, I need to trim my staff here, we get to another point I need to trim us people who are being very calculated with regards to what's going on in the marketplace and making decisions around data in people who learn who duck people just embrace change. Like we had a team call today. We have one every Tuesday 11 o'clock. And a gentleman very challenged John, who's on my leadership team flips hundreds of hundreds of properties each year. And he was Eric Brewer. He's like, I'm talking to a lot of people and they're just they're just spoiled. They're just spoiled. And I suppose spoiled. A spoiled brat is not going to fare well. Right now you got to do what you got to break. And that mean, for some people, sometimes there is a contraction before there's an expansion. And you may have just gotten to a point say where you no longer, you've got your dispositions outsourced, but the reality of it is you had order takers, and now you got to really have somebody who can talk to a homeowner, and understand their concerns and negotiate. And you might have to get back to the kitchen table. Yeah, pending your tenure in the business and size of business, etc. Right? You might have to get back to the kitchen table in order to continue to thrive financially, right. And so But bottom line is, I think people who are making make quick decisions, who embrace change, who think strategically, and use data to make decisions. You know, you're gonna have to be real, I think you're gonna have to be relentless. You know, you're gonna have to be relentless. But again, if you're willing to be relentless, you're gonna thrive on the other side, because there is going to be a tremendous amount of opportunity because of this You know, this is really we're just talking about the single family space, there's going to be a price, there's going to be a wash out in the multifamily space to be lost so many people, you know, buying properties with bridge loans, short term interest rates, without, you know, without cap protection on those bridge loans and fillers is going to come due. And with change in interest rate, generally ability to recap out is going to be several points higher, it's gonna suck cash flow out of that, like, I'm not trying to in any way, I want to make sure this is clear. I'm an eternal optimist, but I also balance that with a sense of realism. And I want to my I am not in any way trying to be negative as much as I am trying to, you know, when you get rates that rise like this, it's it creates a lot of dysfunction. Yeah, and, you know, I'm not in favor of, but I do think rates need to be increased. But I think the reality of it is the Fed is moving, they move too slow to increase rates and other moving too fast without allowing, you know, without allowing the byproducts of those raises to take effect. Yeah, there's more at stake here than just inflation. And so you know, but that's, that's, I think that's what people are going to need to, you know, people are going to need to embrace.
(6:08) Oh, I think your your point about people taking the momentum that they felt and sort of attributing it to their skill set, right? That's a really common thing. Everybody, this is just human nature. Everybody doesn't some somewhere, right. And I think it's very easy in those good times to really say, Well, I've got this all on lock. And then when things change, and the context is different, not being willing, almost on a on an identity level to walk backwards, and like you said, like, sit down at the kitchen table again. Yeah, right. I've had to do that in my business. Right? That is a that is such a real thing that you are talking about. Yeah. And you hit it on the head right there the identity like that, that you can accept, from a humble place. Right, that you you might have to make some changes or shifts in your business that impact your lifestyle or what have you. Yeah, that's you can you have to operate in humility in order to accept that and, you know, it's, it's, it's a big deal.
(7:12) Yeah. All right. Well, I'm gonna change the topic a little bit, because I have to ask you about this because this is my secret burning desire to know because look, you run a mastermind, you don't just run a mastermind, you run an incredibly successful mastermind. And not only I want to, I want to be clear about this, too, like one of the things I really am impressed with about you is not just that, like, oh, collective genius is great. And you run it, because you have built a team at CG, that is absolutely. But everybody that works that CG is one of these people where you meet and you just feel like, Oh, I was like one of the smartest people in there. Alright, I was just incredibly good at what they write just everybody, there's awesome. In. So I want to ask you about how you think about networking and connecting with other people. Because it strikes me that you have done an incredible job of doing this, you've always been really great at making me feel incredibly welcome in the group. You do that with everyone. Right? So you are net, you are incredibly skilled. I want to know how you think about networking and connecting in your network in general, like do you do you have a system? Do you have a spreadsheet? Give a note? Like, how do you do this? Because I have trouble remembering my kids names? I've only got two. Right. So yeah, how do you think about this? Because it's clearly at the core of your business? Yeah, open question. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
(8:34) Yeah. So that's kind of evolved over time. When I first started CG was something that I really wasn't aware of it. But when I started CG, it helped me understand that I had a natural innate ability to connect people, I would just immediately when they were talking, I would immediately start thinking about, Oh, you mentioned this, I can put you with this person, they can help you with that. Right. And so it kind of exposed me to an innate gift that I have. But at this point of the game with 300 As of today, 313 memberships? Yeah, it's got to be way more systematic. It no longer relies on me or my, quote, unquote, gift. It's far more systematic and soft line approach to that is, is that when we are number one at our meetings, and number two on our monthly masterminds for the team members that each of our members has, is a very calculated approach to ensuring that the right connections take place. And the funny part about it is you would think especially the way you've spoken of the caliber of member in the collective genius that we would meet do this. But I think that because we do it is what creates a tremendous level of success and CG. And so when you come to one of our meetings, and you get up and you go through your needs, hey, I'm trying to accomplish this, or I need help with you know, I've been buying at the auction for years, but you know, the margins have gotten thinned down and I need to go I need to Start going seller direct and build a sales floor and it's centered senator, no sweat, I'm going to put you together and connect you with Mike Osborne out of Northern California up in Sacramento. And the guy's an animal has 600 Plus rental properties flips a couple 100 houses a year, we're going to introduce you to Mike, Mike's gonna help you out. Right? Um, we document that on the spot on the spot who's who's in the hot seat in front of the board of directors, but what do they need? Who can we connect them with? And sometimes that person's in the room? Yeah. Right. And somebody say, they can't, I can help with that. And you're, you're up there and you're like, okay, cool. Me. Never have Yeah, you guys go your separate ways. Dan, you're up there. You don't write it down. Yeah, you don't seek that individual out and say, oh, and dude said he's gonna help me. You know, Joe, Joe, Joe Taylor said he would help me, let me let me make sure I write that down and get with him before I leave, then after you take responsibility at a pretty high level to ensure that it does. And we do have a spreadsheet and we do document who spoke what they needed, who can fix it, or help them along their journey. And then with typically within 72 hours of returning home, that connection is literally physically made by saying, Hey, Dan, you said you needed help with x. I've got Joe here on this text messenger. I've got Frank kava on here, who can absolutely assist you with that you guys do what we do connect get a time scheduled to chat. Right. And so, you know, probably over the course of any single meeting, there are, I would, I would say, between 450 to 600 connections that our team makes afterwards by matching people together.
(11:50) Wow, that is bad as that blows my mind. I mean, I should have realized kind of the scale of what you're trying to do, right? Because a lot of people CG and every connection you know, you got all these things going on. Let's find motivated seller leads online but don't know where to start. Download our FREE motivated seller keyword report today, AdWords nerds have spent over $5 million this year researching the most profitable keywords for finding motivated seller leads. And you can grab these exact keywords when you download a report at www dot AdWords nerds.com/keywords.
(12:37) Let me ask a connected but sort of different angle that question because you mentioned your team or you mentioned Frank kava, who I've met is, is brilliant. You've got all these brilliant people around, right. And you've got this giant group of real estate. And real estate investors tend to have fairly strong personnel. Right? Like they're motivated, ambitious, driven people. They're smart, they're successful. Like there's a lot of big personalities that play. So we say a lot of bulls in the same pen. Yeah, it's insane. Like I was explaining, I was explaining it to my wife once and I was like everyone had CG is an alpha male, including every woman that's there. Right? It is, it is like, top of the top right. And to me that's like, it's like exciting, like, because that's not, that's not necessarily my personality type. And so I'm, I'm, it kind of brings us really cool energy. But it would also be so easy for that to go. Right? Like you can bring those people together and have that not worked out to have it not gel or have the vibe of be off for however you want to define it. Right. So when you think about leadership in a community of people who are all leaders themselves, is it easier because of that? Is it harder? Like how do you think about drinking personalities like that together and having it work out?
(13:58) Yeah. So I don't know that it's I think it's easier or harder based upon how you approach it. And the things that I will tell you that we have to give everybody listening a visual we show two pictures at the beginning of every beginning of every CG. And there's two pictures contain Texas Longhorns. And the first picture shows two Texas Longhorns all locked up, right there are locked up. And then the second picture shows a whole herd of Texas Longhorns all walking in the same direction, and no one is looking for a pool. And the reason that is the case 99% of time is because of the culture that we've created. At CG we make it pretty clear, right? Number one, our community comes first. If you don't want to take good care of this community honor this community giving you this community is probably not the best fit for you. Glad to give you your money back. Right number two, you got to operate from a place of integrity. Does that mean that everyone is perfect? No, I'm not perfect. I either, do we make mistakes? Yes. Are we in integrity, or 1,000% of the time now, by and large, you need to be able to do what you're going to do what you're going to say, right? Number three is go giving, if you don't have a genuine heart to help people, we're probably not a good fit for you. Right. And so what I basically just did was go over our core values, community integrity, and go giving. And those core values are what's meant the culture of our organization and put the borders the guidelines, the bumpers, the guardrails in place, of which our members need to play within. And if they go outside of those boundaries, guardrails, bumpers, then there, we will kindly remove them. Now, we try to prevent that before it ever happens. Because we have a pretty thorough screening process. We literally had someone you know, yesterday, who's a hitter in our space, they're like, Yeah, I'm ready to go. And they're like, well, willing, you know, Leon on an online team is like, well, that's, that's great. But we've got to go through a screening process to figure out whether or not we're the right fit, you don't just qualify because you make a bunch of money and do a bunch read, you got to qualify, because you make a bunch of money, do a bunch of deals, but you're also a pretty decent, respectable human being. So our screening process up front does a ton of that heavy lifting. And then once we get in the mix, we put all the bulls in the same pen and in the event, we get a better sense of how that person is going to act behave. And so that's, that's how we keep a great group of people together in
(16:31) our community. Yeah, it's, I love that there was a lesson that I had to learn last year very personally, right with my team. Yeah, it strikes me right, like culture is so hard to get right. Because it's so easy to lose, right? So it's so easy to compromise a little bit and just have the whole thing won't. Right. And so you guys have just done such an amazing job. I don't want to keep you too long. I will literally talk to your ear off about this. I have to ask before we go see Gino, you're talking about go giving CT does a lot of charity work. I want to ask you about that. First of all the decision to make it's such a big part of the events. It is a big part of the events every time that's gone. And it's a fun part. It's not like, Hey, everybody, you got a blah, blah, blah, you really get people behind the different causes that you support. So what was the process of kind of making that such a core part of what CG is? And then what are you guys working on now? Or kind of what's your turn thing that maybe we can promote or talk?
(17:29) Sure. I've always and again, it's we're talking about culture goes back to the core value of go giving. I've always believed that with blessing comes responsibility, a responsibility to care for the people around you who may not have that same buff. I'm not saying that we either have it or don't. I absolutely feel we can could we create blessing in our life. But ultimately, there are people that aren't afforded the same opportunity that need a little help. And so we have what we call the generous genius. That's what Dan is referring to collect collected, geniuses are for business, the generous geniuses are charitable arm, if you will. And with blessing comes responsibility. I firmly believe that I'm a tither. If I make $1, I'm going to give away a dime all day long. I can tell you since I started that 12 years ago, my income has not went backwards of single year, not one single time. And I firmly believe that blessing Congress sponsibility and so I utilize C gene and the talent of our membership to get behind certain charitable causes. And you know, for example, last quarter, Jeff Hoffman was at the event, he has a charity that build schools in Uganda. And so we raised I think $165,000 And what we did was we gave half of that to Jeff pretty cool. This was the second time we've done that the first time the kids in Uganda they made a sign and they don't speak a lot of English but they learned that enough to say thank you collective genius. That was pretty cool stuff. Yeah. So you have to have to Jeff and then we have three other folks in our group who are either higher ups or run the 5013 C's why ma'am which build houses and in sonata Bright Futures which serves at orphanages in Wat Amala it's not just the raising and deploying of capital our members get on airplanes and fly to Henson Ana and build the houses ya know, and they take their kids and they lead by example. So it's full soup to nuts raising capital deploying capital doing the work getting their hands dirty bringing their kids it's it's kind of a soup to nuts experience. And you know, the reality of it is is Life is about more than just the accumulation of assets. You reach a point. You reach a point at some point where you realize more is not going to change my life. Yeah, you know, in no real way I'm not going to get a different house. I'm not going to get a car I'm not going to get put my child in different school. Like Moore's not going doesn't mean you still play a game you You know, but you get to a place where more is not going to change your life and you start asking yourself some more, some deeper questions about like, Okay, well, I've accomplished that particular piece of my life my stable, but now what what's, what's more beyond just the accumulation of dollars and stuff, you know. So that's how that's what genders teams is all about. If you, if anybody would like to make a donation to it, you immediately get a tax receipt emailed to you, within like, 60 seconds, all of our donations are made public, we screenshot the transfers, and put it on Facebook. So it's extremely transparent, if you will go to generous genius.com and make a donation or not whatever, you know, good way.
(20:44) So I mean, I, I love it, man. And it really does add, add something to the community, right. I mean, I think it really brings people together in a way that like just saying, I mean, obviously everybody wants to maximize their bank account and all that stuff. But it brings people together in a way and helps build that culture that you're talking about that I found really, really impressive. So Jason medley, I love to keep talking to people, I have to let you go because I will be criminal not to. But for people that want to learn more about collective genius, where can they go do that? Well, I think you just about Senate. I know I just did, I did a great job. But I'll let you stay the URLs if you shorten up a little bit, but it's literally just learn more about CG. Learn more about CG, just as a simple webpage got a ton of example, like illustrative factual examples of you know, how our members benefit from being in CG connections we've made that make them tons of money, how they improve their businesses, from a systems perspective. You name it, it's, you know, how they save on their tax bills, how they like it's all it's all right there. You're welcome to go check it out. If it's something you'd like to learn more about, you want to get there, you can click a little green button, complete an application, schedule a call with our team and we can help you great if we can't, no harm, no foul, you will not be pressed.
(22:07) Yeah, well, like we said, right, it's you got to apply to get in you got to be GAVI fit to get in. But I gotta say, if people are listening to this, and you're, you're on the fence, you John, the mastermind thing before I got I just got to say there's certainly levels to all games, I think collective genius far and away. Well, best masterminds I've ever been in, in any industry. And I've been in a few. Jason medley. Thank you so much, man, you really brought it today. I was asking you before the call. I said, You know what, we'll make this a home run. You said you wanted to provide value to the audience. You definitely did this. Definitely did that you really delivered. So thank you so much, man. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you, sir. I appreciate the opportunity. That is it.
(22:45) That's it for our interview this week. AdWords nerds.com is our website. Folks, you can go there you can find all our past episodes, show notes. And more than I mentioned this in the beginning, obviously. But look, if you're a real estate investor, and you're worried about the market right now, you want to talk about how online marketing can help you get through the hard times, you can go to AdWords nerds.com and request a call with our team. It's totally free. It is not a sales pitch. What we do is help you put together an online marketing strategy that makes sense for your market, your risk tolerance and your goals. I do not believe in a one size fits all approach to anybody's business problems. And we certainly aren't going to try to foist one of those on you. So it's going to be customed to you. If you're interested in doing that. Like I said, AdWords nerds.com is the website. Go there? Check it out. Like I said, totally free. I really appreciate you listen to podcasts every week. Thank you so much for being here. I will see you next week.
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