WS775: How To Build An Authority HUB with Trevor Mauch

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Real Estate Syndication Show. Whether you are a seasoned investor or building a new real estate business, this is the show for you. Whitney Sewell talks to top experts in the business. Our goal is to help you master real estate syndication.

And now your host, Whitney Sewell.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:00:24] WS: This is your daily Real Estate Syndication Show. I’m your host, Whitney Sewell. Today our guest is Trevor Mauch. Thanks for being on the show again, Trevor.

[00:00:32] TM: Whitney, man, it’s awesome to be back here with you. And dude, I’m impressed how you’re able to deliver a show this quality daily. Dude, it’s a lot of work I know, and so I appreciate you having me back on.

[00:00:42] WS: I appreciate that. It’s not easy. And I don’t tell anyone it is. That’s for sure. But I’m grateful for your time as well and just looking forward to getting into your expertise, because you have definitely become an expert in the area we’re going to talk about today. But just in case the listeners don’t remember, Trevor was on show number WS515. It came out March 19th of this year. So I encourage you to go back and listen to that and you’re going to learn a lot more about Trevor, and it’s just a great show. But a little more about him in case you didn’t listen to that one. He’s the CEO of Carrot, one of the nation’s fastest growing companies according to Inc. Magazine, where they have helped the nation’s top real estate investors and agents pull in over 3 million online leads in just five years. Closing thousands of deals with their software and training. Trevor lives in Roseburg, Oregon with his wife and three kids and is passionate about using business to fuel one’s passion and to amplify the impact one wants to make in the world.

Part of the impact he’s passionate about is helping entrepreneurs unleash that entrepreneurial dream finally unlocking that freedom, flexibility, finances and impact that one has dreamed of but has not been able to fully make happen. Trevor, thank you again. Anything you want to update us on Carrot before we just jump in today? I know, I mean you are just an expert in obviously this marketing machine that you’ve built and created and I want to jump in and ask questions about that and you’ll be able to share with listeners as well some details about that. But any updates with Carrot and what you’re up to before we dive in?

[00:02:13] TM: It’s interesting because I didn’t remember the specific date that I was on before, but it was right at the beginning of COVID. And so a lot a lot has changed. A lot has changed since then. So I’ll give you a quick little update. In those early days of COVID what we were seeing and what we were doing was probably what a lot of people were doing, and I’ll kind of tie it into what’s happening now and what people can do moving forward to make sure that their businesses are thriving post-COVID. But in the early days, man, I think the smart entrepreneurs, a lot of us kind of tightened up. So we don’t know what it’s going to look like. So let’s tighten things up. Let’s look around the business and see where those expenses we can cut. Let’s make sure over communicating with our customers, over communicating with our marketplace. Let’s make sure we’re leading out there with content and authority.

What we found, Whitney, was this man, it was I predicted when COVID would hit there’s a lot of our competitors or it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, but most people kind of pulled back and they tightened up. What they didn’t do is they should have actually like doubled down on their marketing. Most people we had talked to they actually stopped their marketing or cut their marketing down because some of their businesses have gone down. And we were saying, “Well, shoot.” We think there’s going to be a little soft period maybe weeks or maybe months where people are trying to figure out what is what with COVID, but we feel that’s exactly what we should double down on marketing because our competitors are pulling back.

And so that’s what we did. That’s what we suggested our clients do, our real estate investor clients and agent clients. Many of them were scared to do that. They were saying, “Shoot! Our conversion rate has dropped,” which our data did show that, Whitney, in those first two to three weeks of COVID. Your session, so search is online for buyers, sellers, tenants, stuff like that, dropped by about 15%. It’s a good little drop, but still the majority people were still going online making searches to sell their houses fast to a cash home buyer to get an apartment or to buy a house. But then the conversion rate dropped by 30%, okay? So searches dropped by about 15, conversion drop by 30, which shows there was still demand there, but some buyers, sellers, tenants were sitting on the sidelines because they’re like, “We’re not sure what to do. Can we go get a house? Should we be selling a house? Should we have people walking through our home right now in the early stages of COVID?”

And so I’ll kind of bring it up to today now. We thought that once the kind of initial shock of the, say, home orders and people kind of normalized, that a lot of the activity would go back to normal, and it did. Conversion rate is still slightly below where it was before COVID. There’s still some people that are kind of sitting on the sidelines to go, “Well, I’m going to wait till it’s all over to do what I’m going to do.” It could be safety. It could be health. It could be whatever. But in general, searches, so sessions for people looking to sell their homes especially have gone up. Sessions for tenants, people looking to rent properties have gone up. Sessions for people looking to buy have gone up, and that’s where we can kind of pick it up there, but it’s been an interesting last six months. It’s been great for our business. It’s been great for investors and agents who have done the right things to modify their content. And we can talk about some of the marketing that they’re doing that any business can do to thrive at post-COVID.

[00:05:12] WS: Yeah. No. That’s awesome. I appreciate you sharing that and just through what’s happened and your thought process behind it. We should be doubling down while our competitors are cutting back. Just thinking like that instead of being guided by fear like most. Yeah, well let’s jump in. And a lot of the listeners, obviously, they are trying to be an active syndicator or are an active syndicator. They’re all looking for investors or working on their marketing or thinking about it constantly of how to get out there. How to get in front of those high net worth individuals, right? Just like you’re getting in front of sellers and agents and or those people that are buying and selling single family for the most part, but you are an expert in that marketing piece and I know this stuff can relate to us as well. Help us to think through that and be able to develop that marketing side of our business like you have.

[00:05:57] TM: Dude, so the biggest thing is this. And so let’s kind of go specifically where we are right now in the economy where the stock market’s been insanely volatile the last six months, okay? And a lot of smart money has been pulling out of stock markets. A lot of smart money has been moving around. A lot of smart money honestly is sitting there on the sides right now because they’re waiting for opportunities. They’re waiting for opportunities that are better buys. A lot of the stock market got insanely heated at the early parts of COVID. Things took a tank, but then they started to go back up pretty steadily. Real estate right now is like the residential markets kind of crazy, but that’s not going to last too long. There’s some things kind of propping up the market, really low inventory, really low interest rates. So you have the higher demand. And housing prices are going up.

So if you’re looking to raise money as this indicator going into a big commercial dealer or multi-family deal, I think the next 12 to 24 months is going to be an amazing, amazing time to be able to raise capital. So there’re people with cash on the sidelines that they’re waiting to do some stuff. Here’s what I would do, Whitney, and this is what we suggest our clients do, and this is what we do too. So like anything I’m going to be saying is exactly what we do. It’s the way we’ve built our company over the years and it’s the way I’ve helped other companies and a lot of other different industries do the same. So anytime there’s a period, Whitney, where there’s volatility, anytime there’s a period where there’s a lot going on, the first thing that people do is they seek out the experts, they seek out the authorities. They say, “Who should I actually listen to right now? I’m looking to do something. I’m looking to increase my portfolio. I’m looking to get better returns. I’m looking to do whatever it is. Who the heck should I listen to?”

And the best way to stand out is not to send out a bunch of emails. It’s not to just do one-to-one interactions, because as we’ve seen in COVID, if all of your capital raising was done at events, going to live events and talking to people, if all of your capital raising was sitting across the coffee shop table from somebody or going to local events, there was a period of time where a lot of that shut down for people. They couldn’t go into these big events. And a lot of those big events still aren’t even coming back right now. And so if you’re really focused in on building your trust and authority by having to do in-person events, then you need to really look at this other way I’m going to show you, which is building trust and authority using content online.

And so what we did in in the early part of COVID, this is exactly what I would suggest people do, is we said, “Okay, what are the questions that are going through the minds of our prospects right now? What are the fears they have? What are the frustrations they have? What are the things that they’re nervous about? What are the desires that they’ve got?” Okay? And then we sit down and take out a piece of paper and start to write all those down, right? What are their desires? What are their fears? What are their frustrations and what are they nervous about? And then we’ll start to go out there and talk to those customers and we create a strategy and a plan and then we just start creating short video content and all that stuff.

And what we did in those early days is exactly, as we said, we’re going to double down and we’re going to become the authority or double down on our authority in this marketplace. So we are the trusted source in this area for anybody that’s turning to information on X. And so I’ll give you guys the exact action plan that we took to really come through and go in a phase where our business dropped by about 10% to 15% for three weeks in early COVID to growing faster than it’s ever grown in the past 90 to 120 days, okay?

Here’s what I would have everyone do. Number one, your aim is not to do marketing. It’s to build authority. Your aim is to build trust with people. The only thing that’s different between, let’s say, an expert, someone who knows a lot about something and an authority is an expert is someone who knows a lot about something. An authority is someone who knows a lot about something that a lot of people know a lot about something. So a lot of people recognize you as an authority because they hear you, they see, you’re putting out content and they know that Whitney is an expert on this and a lot of people know it. So therefore you’re an authority.

But, Whitney, if you knew the same knowledge about syndication, if you knew the same knowledge but you didn’t get out there and put content out, you’d still have the same knowledge. You would still be an expert in it. The problem is your income would be a fraction of what the potential is as an authority, okay? And so what I want people to do is make that mindset shift, is shift into becoming the authority. And I’ve got something that we’ve been really hitting hard with Carrot the last couple years and we’ve ran our businesses this way for years, but it’s something we’ve been educating our market on it a lot more. It’s a concept of evergreen marketing versus hamster wheel marketing, okay?

I think most of us started to be entrepreneurs for a couple reasons, right? You mentioned at the beginning of the call, but we want to have more freedom and we want to have more impact. And the problem is a lot of our lack of ability to have freedom or lack of ability to have impact is the way that we’re doing our marketing. And I recognized that probably three to four years ago it’s like, “Man, the way that I do my marketing or the way that our customers do marketing, yes, it can increase your income, but certain types of marketing, hamster wheel marketing, which I’ll explain that here in a bit, can actually decrease your freedom. It decreases your predictability. It actually makes your business less stable, less fun.

And so what are hamster wheel marketing examples? It’s going out there to the networking event and having to go to that networking event every single month. Now it works, right? Dude, that works. I don’t tell people not to do that stuff. I just say you have to recognize that if your business is based off of that, then you’re going to have to do that in perpetuity forever. And if you ever want to like take a vacation or not go to that event, then you’re going to have to realize that your pipeline is going to go down. Okay, that’s hamster wheel.

In order for you to continue getting the benefit from that marketing, you have to keep doing the thing. The second you get off the hamster wheel it starts to slowly – We grind to a halt and then you’ve got to get back on that marketing hamster wheel. Cold calling, direct mail marketing, text message marketing, all of those methods are all hamster wheel marketing. Once again, they all work. They’re immediate. They’re like really fast to get results. But the second you stop sending out direct mail pieces, within weeks those calls stop and then you got to keep going after it. And there’s nothing wrong with that, right? But that’s the question, is do you want your business to be based off of hamster wheel marketing, which does have an ebb and flow? And if you decide not to do that marketing that one time, your pipeline will go down. So you start to have the boom and bust income cycle.

So on the other side of it, Whitney, and I’ll toss it back to you, is evergreen marketing, okay? Evergreen marketing is a little bit harder. I’m going to share my screen if I could really fast for those watching the video version of it. I’ve got a really fancy award-winning graphic that I drew on my iPad. But for those that are not watching this and you’re listening to it on the podcast version, I’ll explain it.

So I’ve got this graph here and there’s this kind of yellowish line which represents the standard traditional hamster wheel marketing flow that someone might have as an entrepreneur. Something works insanely well over here at the top left. Things are pumping. You’re talking to your buddies, your mastermind people. Man, this direct mail piece worked amazing to get all these potential investors. It worked amazing to go find those properties, right? That works great. But then you get inundated by some leads or whatever it is and then you stop that marketing because you’re like, “Oh my gosh! I got so much leads there.” You stop the marketing. And then two to three months later you’re wondering why you don’t have enough leads, right? It’s this ebb and flow thing. Or you want to take a vacation and that marketing method was reliant on you doing something. So then you took that week off or two weeks off, you weren’t able to do that thing anymore. So then therefore your lead flow or your business starts to take a dip again, okay? You ramp it back up. I do the thing again. And then eventually what happens with a lot of people is they get tired of doing the hamstring stuff. They get tired or they get burnt out and they say, “Well, maybe this business isn’t right for me. Maybe it’s something else.”

And guys and gals, it’s actually the marketing possibly, like it might not be the business. So the other example is the green line. It takes longer to get results. It takes longer to get momentum. And I’ll walk you guys through examples of evergreen marketing and what the definition of it is. But it takes longer to get results momentum, but the thing is it keeps on going up. And as you go it gets better and better and actually gets easier and easier. And the cool thing about evergreen marketing, Whitney, is you create marketing pieces. And I’ll tell you exactly what to create here in a second. You create marketing pieces today that work for you in six months, that work for you in a year, that work for you in three years.

I was looking the other day on a website of our clients that has a really good piece of marketing, a piece of content on his website that he put up there with one of our features called video posts. It’s been up there since early 2017. It’s ranked number one in Google for a phrase that his ideal prospects are searching out and has been for three years. He hasn’t touched it. It took him less than 10 minutes to create, okay? It didn’t take very long. And it’s closing him leads and deals every single quarter.

Guys, that right there is where it gets cool, because then you can stack on more of those authority building content pieces. They’re going to be around for months and years rather than having to do a one-off marketing thing that’s not going to be working for you in three months. So I’m going to stop this share here. But dude before I go on, I want to toss it back to you. Any questions or any parts you want me to dig into more specific?

[00:15:05] WS: No. On what you just shared, and just so the listener that’s maybe listening in the car right now or in the gym or wherever and they couldn’t see that. I just think it’s worth going and looking at because obviously it shows you really high when you’re out there, you’re motivated in the very beginning. You are going to all those conferences. You’re meeting all these people. Seems like a lot’s happening. But sometimes a lot does start to happen, and guess what? Like you said, you can’t keep going to those events. And I experienced that. I mean I flew all over the country the first couple years in the syndication business and there’s no way I can do that now. There’s a lot more deals happening now. There’s a lot more investors to talk to. There’s a bigger team to manage. All these things, right? And so I could see how that it’s so true. It’s going to dip. But we have to have other way. And of course we’ve started obviously a lot more evergreen stuff. But so it’s changed, right? And I think initially, yeah, we were out there just like that. But I think purposely quickly we saw, “Okay, we can’t keep this up forever.” Let’s jump in though, because I want you to have a little time to talk about this evergreen marketing and what we should be creating.

[00:16:06] TM: Dude, that was such a good example that you were saying there too where you were traveling around a lot. And like I say, it works. I don’t tell people not to do that. I think we just have to acknowledge, “Hey, do I want to build my business off of this forever?” And I think for most of us the answer is no, because, yes, it works today and we need to get revenue coming in today. We need to get results, but we also have this other dream further down the road whether it’s a year down the road or 20 years down the road of freedom and impact. And there’s something that isn’t matching up.

And what a lot of us entrepreneurs do, we think, “Well, shoot. Maybe if I fly around even more, maybe if I go for a bigger number. And then once I hit this bigger number up here then I’ll just stop flying around and then I’ll stop doing all. Then I’ll stop hustling and doing all this stuff.” The problem is, dude, as the numbers grow, you just keep on growing your number. Very rarely do people ever stop and say, “Well, I hit the number. Now I’m 42. Now I’m just going to stop doing all this.” That does happen with some people, but very rarely. So that goes back to that original mindset, is hamster wheel marketing works great, but really focus in on going, “Yeah, I’ll do that in the early days and I’ll do it – I’ll even do it later,” right? Like we still do some hamster wheel marketing, but our business is not built off of it, because I don’t want it to be. It’s kind of icing on the cake.

So what is evergreen marketing?

[00:17:21] WS: It’s very short-term thinking.

[00:17:22] TM: Exactly, short-term thinking, and you’re going to get burnout. What is evergreen marketing? So evergreen marketing like I said is marketing that you create one time and it’s around for weeks, months and years, okay? It’s producing for you. And examples of that, the best types of evergreen marketing is content, honestly. And one of the best ways that we have found is the way that we focus in on delivering that content is through Google search. Now you could put that content up on social media. Let’s say you put it up on LinkedIn or you put it up on Facebook or Instagram, and those are all great platforms, but the problem with those platforms as far as posting content goes is there’s a limited amount of time that content is going to be there. So you can post it there. You can get in front of your audience. That’s hamster wheel marketing. Okay, just work that into your day if that’s something you want to do, but recognize that within 24 to 72 hours after making that post no one’s going to really see that post anymore. So you have to always continually be posting in order for that to work, right?

The better alternative that we like to focus in on is there’s always a steady stream of some of the most qualified prospects that you would want to work with. They’re motivated. They’re seeking out solutions actively. They’re usually the highest margin, the highest profit types of prospects in almost every business because they have motivation. They’re seeking out a solution actively. They’re the ones who go to Google and type up a phrase. They type up a phrase. Like I’ll even go online right now and pick up some examples, but they’ll type up a phrase like investment alternatives in 2020. Or they’ll type up phrases like should I get into real estate investing, or buying apartment buildings in Pittsburgh, or whatever it is.

Let me toss it your way, dude. So what are some of the things that you believe your ideal investors might be searching for, whether it’s talking to someone else about it or even in Google?

[00:19:05] WS: You know, I think you hit it earlier on a little bit, and it’s like real estate versus the stock market right now.

[00:19:11] TM: Yeah, exactly. So I’m going to Google. I’m typing up in Google. And it’s one of the best ways to come up with content ideas. It gives you suggested searches. So when you type into Google really slow. Just type in whatever you think your prospect might type in, and then Google serves you up some things that are related to it. And so we’ve got real estate versus stock market graph, stock market returns, real estate versus stock market, real estate versus stock market Reddit. So that’s interesting. But let’s get even deeper. Are there localized things? Are there other things that could be interesting?

So let’s say someone is looking at getting into apartment buildings. So buying apartment buildings in the POPS NYC and Canada. You can even put in Louisville or whatever it is. So buying apartment buildings in Louisville. If I was a syndicator and Louisville was one of my markets, there are people typing that in every single month to Google, buying apartment buildings in Louisville, Kentucky. And can you imagine, if you were an expert in that and you had a website online that talked about all the things related to investing your money in real estate at a high-level. I’m going to have videos on there, not just written articles. And one of the best things people can do, Whitney, is take out their darn cellphone. And if I’m a syndicator and I’m in front of an apartment building, I’m going to take out my cell phone knowing that people are looking at buying apartment buildings in Louisville. Down there at the bottom of Google, it gives you suggested searches again, and there’s some phrases people are typing in, two, four, sixplex apartments for foreclosures in Louisville, Kentucky. Investment property for sale Louisville, Kentucky. Apartment complex for sale near me in Louisville. Multifamily property for sale in Louisville. There are some other phrases like that. Those are mostly probably smaller deals, right?

But I’d be in front of the building and say, “Hey, this is Trevor. I’m actually in front of an apartment building that we just closed through a deal here in Louisville, Kentucky. It’s 186 units. It’s da-da-da-da-da.” And sort the name off some of the stats that are interesting, right? And you might be asking yourself, “So should I be buying apartment buildings here in Louisville, Kentucky or any of the other areas?” Well in this video I’m going to walk you through some of the reasons we love Louisville, Kentucky for buying apartment buildings. Some of the things that we look for here – And if you’re looking to get involved in buying apartment buildings in Louisville, Kentucky, I’ll actually give you some ways that you can do so even if you don’t want to do all the work. And then that’s where the call to action comes.

[00:21:24] WS: No. That’s awesome. Put yourself out there, right? Tell people what you’re doing. But you’re using those key phrases that you just searched for, right? That you were thinking through and feeling like your potential client or customer investor in our case is looking for.

[00:21:39] TM: Yep, exactly. That’s some really high level. I know I went through it fast, but that’s some really high level types of things you can do to start putting content out. The key here with putting content out though is let’s say you record that video. It’s a three to eight-minute video, okay? Upload that to YouTube and then title it something that people would search in Google, and just grab exactly what Google suggested out of Google. Buying apartment buildings in Louisville, KY. Make that the title of your video and then do -five tips when looking to buy here locally or something like that. That’s your title.

And then where the real power comes though, Whitney, is this, is a lot of people especially apartments indicators, doesn’t matter what type of real estate investor you are, contractors, man. I was having the hardest time trying to find a contractor here locally. They all have the worst websites in the world. And one of the biggest things that happens is this, when you’re out there networking with a lender or even someone who’s lending you money on the private lending side of things or even the institutional bank, one of the first things that they’re going to do y’all is they’re going to Google you, okay? They’re going to go to Google they’re going type in your name. They’re going to type in your company. And what I want everyone to do is this, is I want you guys to go to Google tonight or right now if you’re not driving your car. Go and Google your name. Go Google your name with your location, like your city after it. Google the name of your company and see what comes up. Because if someone’s going to be investing multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars in your company, they want to make sure – Or in a syndication deal. They want to make sure that they’re investing in a trustworthy investment that is backed by a person who’s trustworthy.

And, number one, if you don’t have a website, you likely are going to – You’re going to have a really hard time raising outside capital outside of your own warm sphere. Number two, if you have a website like most people do where it’s kind of like a low performing website. It’s more of a brochure site, right? It’s your Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, has a few things up there. Says, “Hey, we’re a indicator.” Has maybe a picture of a couple properties if you’re lucky and might have a good about page. Okay, that’s better than having nothing, okay?

But then what’s one level higher? What’s going to help you close more lenders? More properties over this next 12 to 24 months? It’s building what we call an authority hub, okay? It’s the hub of your entire business, the hub of everything that shows and builds the authority for you and your company. And an authority hub is simply this, okay? Number one, when someone lands on your website, can they find out about who you are in detail about how your process works in detail? What you actually do? Can you actually solve their problem in detail? FAQ in detail. I mentioned how it works part of it. What a lot of people do on their websites is they’ll put a basic how it works, right? Three-step process. You talk to us, we find deals. You send us money. We send you payments. That’s great. But what’s even better is building authority by recording a video in front of your whiteboard or whatever it is or with one of your clients and says, “Hey, this is Trevor with XYZ Properties. I’m insanely excited that you’re here and you might be actually looking at working with us on a project. So I’m going to be walking through the process of how it works to work with us on a multifamily deal, if you’re considering that. And here’s how the numbers work out.”

So walk through the whole thing. Do the math. Show them the thing and get them really clear on how it works, okay? That builds authority. That builds trust. That’s going to help you to convert them better. Now that’s the base level, right? Make sure you’re building trust credibility for yourself. Have a good reviews page with actual legit reviews. A good how it works page with a real video walking through the real process of how it works, building connection.

But then take it one step further, Whitney, and this is where those videos comes up, is I want everyone to write down those topics that your investors are thinking about, okay? Even if you don’t care if they get ranked in Google. I don’t care if these get ranked in Google. This is to make all of your existing marketing work better. If you’re going out there to events, if you’re sending out direct mail pieces, if you’re cold calling people, I guarantee all of your offline marketing is driving online demand, okay? And if people are going online to search you and you have a basic website that just has a couple little things, I can guarantee you’re losing deals. You’re losing lenders.

And what I’d like to ask you guys is how much is one lender worth for you? How much is one deal worth for you? And how many of those are you willing to lose because you just have a website versus having built an authority hub? Okay. So that’s the core of your authority hub is a good home page. Says, “Hey, here’s what we do and here’s how we can help solve your problem.” Then I’ll recap it. It walks through the process in the tab up above, how it works, a good video, reviews of your service, about your company and FAQ, okay? And now I want you guys to take those ideas that we talked about before that you grabbed out of Google or the ideas that people would be searching or asking about like stock market versus real estate, or like buying properties myself versus partnering with people, or like whatever it is. Then I want you to create short series of videos just like I showed you on your cellphone.

Okay, there’s a reason we want those videos to be short. Three to eight minutes max. Number one, you can get through enough information three to eight minutes where you can build amazing, amazing authority and credibility. It’s easy bite size simple. Number two though is we want to take those videos, like I said, and get them on YouTube. But then we want to get them on Google so we have a chance of ranking those well in Google for people to come to us that we don’t know. People that are searching online looking for our solution that we can solve their problem, and the only way to do that is by yanking all the words out of our videos, okay? Making written articles on them.

And so there’s something you can do manually. Our system, Carrot, does this automatically. That’s one of the things that we do best, is we help you create robust authority content in the real estate industry. Make it take a lot less time for you. But we have a feature called video post, and all the video post does is you take it on URL, on the YouTube URL, plug it into our system. Our system yanks all the words out of the video. Makes you a full written article. Says video transcription at the top of it so people are clear it’s a transcription. And then it emails you and says, “Hey, your article’s done.” Now, you can log in, you can edit it if you want to. But what we suggest people do is just get used to creating content right now. Now, if you want to do that yourself and if you’re not using Carrot, just go to rev.com. Okay, go get your video transcribed. It’s buck 25 a minute. Take that transcription, copy and paste it below your video on your blog post. Title it some sort of phrase that you found out at Google that people are searching. If you do one of those a week on your topic, people are going to never not invest with you if they see the investment opportunity looks good because they trust you. You are the authority in the topic. And almost no other syndicators are putting out content like that. So build the authority hub, not just a website. Stop losing leads and syndication deals because you just have a website rather than really diving in and building authority.

[00:28:29] WS: I love that. I mean you hit on so many things there, Trevor, and you really just laid out a step-by-step process for the listeners and myself. A few things though, or a couple things. I like how you call it an authority hub. And putting yourself out there. And I think initially it’s easy to be overwhelmed by putting yourself out on the internet, or making a video. What if I say something wrong? Whatever. But you know you said like three to eight minutes. And most of us if you’ve been in the space very long can talk three to eight minutes about so many things in this space, right? And I think you have to remember too that the people that you are connecting with or that are looking for these things don’t know near as much as you do about it. So you may not consider yourself the expert, even though you are an expert compared to most of the clients that are searching these things and you can teach them a lot. So you have a lot of skill or a lot of knowledge that you’re not giving yourself credit for maybe as well. And on the website thing as well, you said what’s the opportunity to loss, really, if you don’t have that, right?

You see the many thousands of dollars it takes to make or build a good website and time span. It does. It’s a big investment, but it is an investment. And like Trevor said, you have to have it. I mean you have to have it. You go to a website that’s even if it’s about something outside of business or real estate and it looks really poorly, I mean you’re just ready to go somewhere else very quickly. And so that’s incredible. Any other just quick – Maybe a quick tip about just evergreen marketing or another way they can create marketing before we have to move to a few final questions?

[00:29:51] TM: Yeah. I mean I think the biggest thing, Whitney, is it’s a mindset. I’m actually on the internet right now clicking around through. I’ve got a client in Pennsylvania where they raise syndication. They raise capital for syndications. They use Carrot, our system, for doing that. And they actually produce content and videos and things like that. I was trying to find a good example of a video or an article that they wrote. I think the biggest thing, Whitney, is just consistent, is going out there and saying, “You know what? How serious am I about building my business over the long term versus short term?” And if you’re serious about building your business over the long term, you have to control the conversation online around your brand, around everything related to you and your brand. And the way that you do that is by creating content.

And so if people are afraid of creating content, what I always like to say is it’s the same face, the same voice that you’ve got to go talk to those lenders or investors with. Don’t be shy about it. It’s an insecurity that you’ve got deep down within that you need to get out. You need to get rid of it because it’s actually holding you back from where you want to go. It’s holding you back from your dreams. We all are critical over ourselves at the beginning even later. We’re critical over our voices, “I don’t like my voice. Or, “Oh, man. Look at that pimple on my face,” or whatever it is. I think you’ll realize people have a lot more grace than we all predict. We’re our biggest critic.

It kind of goes back to that old adage when people say, “Hey, look at a picture of you and a group of other people. Who do you look at first? You always look at yourself first. You almost did never look at the other people. And so it’s going to be the same way, guys and gals. People are more worried about themselves and they’re worried about you looking great in a video camera and them worrying about themselves. They want to make sure that they’re making a sound choice with their investment.

So lock into a consistent long-term mindset and just start to document. Don’t get too wrapped up and trying to create amazing content. Literally, take out your cell phone when you’re out there at a property or you’re working up an offer for a deal, go, “Oh, this might be really good content that I could put out.” That would be interesting to other people that might want to invest or that might have properties to sell. Let me document it, “Hey, this is Trevor here in Roseburg, Oregon.”

I’m actually working up an offer on a property that’s a 380-unit property. Now you might be wondering how do i calculate my offer price for this. Well, I’m going to walk through in this five minutes how I’m coming up with this offer price. But if you’ve ever wanted to invest in this type of property but don’t want to do the type of work that I’m doing, let me know, because we work with lots of people just like you who want to participate in deals like this. Or if you do want to do deals like this, awesome! I’ll show you exactly how to do it. Check it out, blah. So just find ways to document what you’re doing a lot more.

[00:32:21] WS: Nice. Trevor, we’ll have to pivot just a little bit. What do you predict is going to happen in the real estate market in the next 6 to 12 months?

[00:32:29] TM: Man, such a good question. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, because obviously our business is hugely based on real estate on both the retail side and the wholesale side. Here’s what I think, Whitney. Now you guys can take it for what it’s worth, which is free advice. So here’s what I feel will happen, okay? So number one, in the real estate market right now it’s really, really hot. Like I’m talking residential real estate first. And I’ll go into the other commercial and institutional real estate. But the residential market is really, really hot. Inventory is insanely low. A lot of people look at and go, “Why are prices so high? The market just must be so great. The economy must be so great.”

Guys, inventory is really, really low, okay? There’re a lot of buyers because rates are lower than they’ve ever been pretty much for buying houses. And so when you have that mixture of really low inventory and really low interest rates and we’re in the middle of the largest home buying generation that’s possibly ever been in existence, but it’s for sure the largest one right now, which is the millennials. Okay, millennials are right in the sweet spot, right in the middle of their home buying phase. How does that impact rentals? And there’re a lot of millennials who of course are in cities. I think we’re going to see more and more people with all of the craziness happening in cities in general and millennials starting to get older that you’re going to see more that where they’re moving to suburbs, possibly moving out of apartments, possibly, depending on the area. And that generation is really, really big. And so that’s something that we need to all look at and go, “Cool, that’s a really healthy indicator. That’s a really healthy thing about the market. That’s not going away.”

The next thing with that, Whitney, is this, is we have foreclosures. There’re a lot of foreclosures that are being held up based on the moratoriums from COVID, okay? So I was talking with a buddy of mine. He was on my podcast recently, the Carrot Cast, and he’s big on the foreclosure market down in Texas. He’s got the data and he buys a ton of properties himself both apartment buildings and residential. And he was looking at the numbers and there’s about 80% less foreclosure filings were happening right now than should be happening on a normal healthy month, because the moratoriums. So those foreclosures aren’t going away. They’re only stacking up, right?

And so after the moratoriums go away in early 2021 and 2022 you’re going to start to see these being released in tranches. They usually don’t release them all at once. You’re going all the way back to 2008 through 12. They released them in tranches over about three to five year periods. So they didn’t flood the market with foreclosures and drive prices down on the assets that they now owned. And so I think you’re going to see more foreclosures hitting for about 6 to 36 months starting probably mid-2021. That is going to help get more inventory on the market. I think you’re going to see prices soften from their crazy highs right now. Interest rates, who knows what’s going to happen there? I think they’ll stay really low, but I think that they’ll probably tick up slightly over the next 12 to 24 months, but they’ll still stay low. So there will still be good buying opportunities. I don’t think it’ll be as much of a seller market on the retail side as it is today in 12 months.

So now let’s go to the other side of it, right? So I live in a small town here in Roseburg, and one thing, Whitney, that is pretty common across most cities especially some kind of like rural outskirt cities is housing is in a really, really – There’s a lot of needs for housing right now. People put in for renting an apartment in here and you’re on a list with 30, 40, 50 other people. It’s really hard to get a rental property here as a tenant.

And so right now there’s two big apartment buildings being built, which is big for here in Roseburg. They both have 100 to 175 units in each. They’re both being built right now within a half mile from each other, okay? And that’s not even going to fill up the demand that’s happening there. And so there’s a lot of cities around the place that that’s happening. There’s a massive shortage of affordable good housing, especially in some parts of the market, not just the lower end. Like the lower end of the market, that’s getting built up pretty good in a lot of these areas. The parts that there’s gaps that we’re seeing, Whitney, is kind of your middle to higher middle end of housing where it’s really hard for someone to find a really good three bedroom two bath house that’s nicer or an apartment that’s nicer to rent. So I do see opportunities there from both people looking to move into apartments that are nicer or you’re downsized, your baby boomers are looking to downsize.

I see residential looking really strong. And here’s one last prediction, Whitney, is this, is I see rural is going to get a big boost in the next decade. With COVID, there was a couple big dynamics, COVID and just this year in general. Urban areas have kind of become crazy in some respects. And so I think there’s a lot of people who are looking at some of these urban areas and saying, “I just want to get out of the city into more of suburbs and more rural areas.”

Now I’m not saying that people are going to be leaving urban areas and droves. I just think that there’s going to be some mindset shifts from some of the people in urban areas. Number two, with COVID, all employers are pretty much forced to figure out how to do remote. And what we’re seeing here and we’re seeing up in Portland as well is there’s some big companies that had three, four, five, six, seven hundred staff members in offices and now they’re letting go of leases of 80,000 square foot buildings. They’re working out of their 40,000 square foot building, which is still big and they’re saying, “We just don’t need that anymore because people are working remotely.” And so that’s going to be interesting. It’s going to be interesting seeing what happens with the office space market.

And you’re going to see a lot more of those people who can now work remotely. They’re going to be coming to rural, I feel. And so if you can find good opportunities in rural to help and support those remote workers, to find and create opportunities and great homes, great housing, great neighborhoods and great commercial spaces, I think rural is going to be growing really big time the next 10 to 20 years.

[00:38:12] WS: No doubt. I appreciate you going in depth about that, because I know the listeners, everyone’s wondering what – People like you. What your opinion is about what’s going to happen just from your feeling, your pulse on the market and just what you know. So it’s interesting you bring that up that we have numerous communities in a couple of different states that are 100% occupied. Five people moving out, I mean there’s five leases the same day. I mean it’s incredible.

But moving on, we had a very long time or past time, but I want to get a couple more questions, Trevor. I believe everyone that’s successful in business like yourself no doubt has a high level of self-discipline. How did you gain such a high level of self-discipline?

[00:38:47] TM: Oh, man. Dude, self-discipline for me is not easy. It doesn’t come natural. Something I still struggle with. There’re a couple things that have worked for me and hopefully they can work for other people. Number one, I think you have to surround yourself with people who have a high standard and have good self-discipline to show yourself a good example of what it should be like and actually hold you accountable. And so my wife is really disciplined in many respects, and I’ve got great team members who are.

But I think the biggest thing for me, Whitney, is when I’m not disciplined is when I don’t have a clear vision of where I’m wanting to go, right? It’s like if you don’t have a clear vision where you want to go, whether it’s health-wise, or fitness, or business, or whatever it is, it’s usually because you are not clear where you want to go. So then therefore you’re just doing whatever seems interesting at that point and you are scattered all over the place.

And so the number one thing is write down what I call a vision story, like literally take out a piece of paper and write down 20 years today on this Thursday at da-da-da-da 20 years from now, what does that average day look? Like starting from when you wake up to when you go to bed in excruciating detail. Where do you wake up? What’s the house look like? What does the smell like? What are the first discussions you have? Who do you talk to? When do you go to work? Where do you go? What type of work do you do? Who do you work with? What meetings do you have? When do you stop working? You get the idea, right? Like being crazy detail.

I do with the 20 year, the 10 year, 5, and then I don’t do it for the one. That’s just kind of your plan for the year. And so be crazy detailed y’all on where you want to go, because then if you’re excited about your own story, I think you will be more excited about creating discipline to get there. The second thing like more practical in the moment is I have a really simple spreadsheet that I use called my routine and habit tracker. That’s where I put my – I use it every day. It’s where i put my goals for my top five commitments for the month, the week and the day. I do five-five-five. And every single month I pull it up. About five minutes I map out my top five commitments for the month. Every week I pulled up on Monday, look at my monthly commitments. I map out my top five for the week. And every day I pull it up, look at my weekly commitments and map out my top five for the day. And people can go grab that for free. Just go to carrot.com/trevor. You can get that worksheet and all my other productivity things that I personally use.

[00:41:04] WS: Nice. I appreciate that. I know the listeners will be going there to get that. Just the daily habits, it’s these small consistent things that you do that build up to massive, massive things. So kind of like you talked about in the marketing, it’s a consistency. And I think the daily habits are a great example of that. What’s the one thing that’s contributed to your success?

[00:41:23] TM: I’ll just kind of double down what you just said there, is consistency and executing and not giving up too early. And it’s very cliché, dude, but most people give up too early. And I think it goes back to the vision. Having a good long-term vision that you’re not willing to compromise because of shiny objects steps in front of you.

[00:41:41] WS: How do you like to give back?

[00:41:42] TM: Coaching and mentoring is my favorite thing. I love to do it to my team members and locally here. And I want to do it more. In my existing role right now, I’ve got 40 – Almost 40 employees and trying to buy more time to do coaching and mentoring. But I love that. And we have our care impact fund where we endowed that last year with a big hunk of money and we support the local community in big ways with that too.

[00:42:05] WS: Nice, Trevor, so grateful for your time and to have you back on the show. Just a wealth of knowledge, especially – I mean so many parts of business, but in marketing, that you shared with us today. And just your thoughts on the market too, I appreciate that piece too. Just how in-depth you were and just many layers there that you covered. Grateful for that. Tell the listeners how they can get in touch with you and learn more about you.

[00:42:24] TM: I have a podcast called The Carrot Casts. So just carrotscasts.com where you guys can find us at carrot.com if you’re looking to grow your leads through evergreen marketing more as a real estate investor. We do have syndicators that use our product or use our program to find private lenders, which is great. Man, just go to carrot.com. Like I said, carrot.com/trevor, T-R-E-V-O-R, to get all those resources. An di think there’s a link to the podcast on there too.

[00:42:48] WS: Awesome. That’s a wrap, Trevor. Thank you very much.

[00:42:51] TM: Awesome. Thank you, Whitney. I appreciate it man.

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[00:42:51] WS: Don’t go yet. Thank you for listening to today’s episode. I would love it if you would go to iTunes right now and leave a rating and written review. I want to hear your feedback. It makes a big difference in getting the podcast out there. You can also go to the Real Estate Syndication Show on Facebook, so you can connect with me and we can also receive feedback and your questions there that you want me to answer on the show. Subscribe too so you can get the latest episodes. Lastly, I want to keep you updated. So head over to lifebridgecapital.com and sign up for the newsletter. If you’re interested in partnering with me, sign up on the contact us page, so you can talk to me directly. Have a blessed day, and I will talk to you tomorrow.

[00:43:33] ANNOUNCER: Thank you for listening to The Real Estate Syndication Show, brought to you by Lifebridge Capital. Lifebridge Capital works with investors nationwide to invest in real estate while also donating 50% of its profits to assist parents who are committing to adoption. Lifebridge Capital, making a difference one investor and one child at a time. Connect online at www.LifeBridgeCapital.com for free material and videos to further your success.

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