WS1037: Prepare for High-Growth Business Situations with Whitney Sewell | #MindsetMonday

EPISODE 1037

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:01.6] 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]

[0:00:29.1] WS: This is your Daily Real Estate Syndication Show. I’m your host, Whitney Sewell. If you are watching this, then you will see that my set up is a little different than normal, but I’m gonna get into that in a minute, and so recently I received a question from an investor that I thought would be useful content to share with you our listener, whether you are a passive investor, whether you are an operator or an up and coming operator, and this would probably be a question you’ll get at some point, but I don’t know that I’ve been asked this before, so I thought I wanted to share it so you would be prepared on either side of that coin, whether you’re the passive investor or whether you are the operator in with you to think through this question a little bit, and maybe it won’t seem so out of the norm for you, but I’m not gonna ask this too many times… And before we get to that question though, I wanna remind you that Life Bridge Capital just launched a fund… It’s a D 506(c) fund. I encourage you to go to the website and check it out. If you are looking to invest and add more real estate, cash flowing real estate to your portfolio, I would encourage to go look at that, or call or text me, email me, my information is all over the website and happy to get your information.

[0:01:33.6] WS: We look forward to partnering with you. But that question is many scaled so fast, how are you prepared for that growth, what are you doing to hedge against just the risk of that growth, right. And so that was the investor question, and it made me think about it a little bit, but we’ve done so many things to prepare for growth, but I wanted to back up and share with you way back as far as some things that have helped me to prepare for the growth that we’ve had and are having now, but ultimately, when we first started large capital and started the daily podcast, all those things, I overcommitted… You’ve probably heard me talk about that if you’ve been listening to show very long, I did a show on that alone, just overcommitting and how that has helped me personally in our business in so many ways. But overcommit for the podcast alone, it pushed me… It pushed me to scale, push me to build teams, push me to hire people to do things that I knew that I could not get done if I had done a daily or weekly show, I would have tried to have done everything…

[0:02:39.4] WS: I would have tried to do the audio editing, video editing, adding the Show Notes and posting the show to social media, all those things, find a guest… How long it’s nearly a full-time job, so by doing a seven day a week show, I knew from the beginning that I could not get it all done, and so through that option out the window completely. I knew I had to hire people, I knew that it was going to take finding professionals for these different tasks, these different things, and so that’s what we did ultimately has built that team for people all over the world who are experts in specific parts of the podcast process, production process, and now we have a whole production team, and I had it in-house for 170 to 200 shows, ended up hiring it out to a production company for a while for a few hundred shows, and then I brought it back in-house and nearly a year ago now, so I built another team and we’re producing our show, producing an even shows for other people. Now, if you’re interested or you’re starting a show or you have a show and you’ve been doing all those tasks, you’re sitting down or something, we’ll talk about possibly producing a show for you, but that over committing to the seven day a week show, and push me.

[0:03:47.7] WS: And it calls me to learn many skills to do that, that have helped me to continue to scale our real estate business, our brand and our team, right. I had to learn to hire people and find people with those skills I did not have, so we have so many different team members now, and I went into this with this investor, I said, You know, our team has grown also, and we’re looking to hire more people, very same, even from the production team, I have five full-time people in the Philippines that helped me and they do nothing but worked for me in the production side of the podcast and in multi-media marketing and media stuff, and then my executive assistant, I went to a big process to find her through a process called Top Grading, I would encourage you to go back and look at some shows, I can’t remember… This was probably about a year ago as well. But I went through a process called top grade, I did a few shows where I went through how we did that, we narrowed it down from 700 applicants, I’d say 30, and then to 12 or 15, and then down to four or five, I think my actual interviews and we did, and he interviews, Sam animosity, partner, and I did tandem interviews for those or the last four people, but there’s many steps there that were crucial in finding that class A talent are doing it in mentor that it didn’t take analyzing every application.

[0:05:03.6] WS: Hundreds and hundreds, right? There’s no way that you could get through all of those and do it well, but from my executive assistant to my investor relations manager, to Sam and his assistant, now and everybody has specific skill sets that… They’re very good at it. We just hired an acquisitions manager who he’s been in commercial real estate since the mid-90s, and so he has so much experience, he was asset managing over 11000 units, he has so much experience, and so it’s building a team of people that are way ahead. It doesn’t mean that everybody is brand new to this business, just because it looks like we’ve had a lot of growth, which we have, then the Lord has really blessed our business, it is, and we give Him all the credit for that, but He’s also helped us to build an amazing team of Class A talent. So I just want you to think about that question and what you think about how you would answer, and I want you to think about how you are prepared for that growth and even wanting to show… Actually, somebody asked me earlier, they’re fixing started a daily show, and they said We have 15 shows, the lined up, is that enough to go at lunch, and I said, I would have 60…

[0:06:09.4] WS: I had 60 shows in the bank, and once you would have to have that many, but it just sets you so further ahead by having that banker and my whole line is having somebody to speak into what you’re doing that’s already been there and done that. It is crucial, I say the launch or 15 shows. And then somebody gets sick or they can’t record for a week when now they’re just a few days ahead, they just haven’t set themselves up for success. Right, so even just that one question, it was crucial by asking, I’m talking to people who have been there and done that. So whether it’s mentors, where there’s people on your team, that’s how we’re hedging against any kind of hiccups in their growth process. Do we expect them? Well, of course, that’s gonna be in the business. It doesn’t matter how established you are, you should always be learning, you should always be growing in one way or another, and so it was a great question. How are you prepared for that kind of growth? And ultimately, it’s through our team, it’s by finding amazing people that are good at what they do, and that has been the key to our success and growth, right.

[0:07:12.1] WS: And even they were fixed in hiring acquisitions director, we’re fixed a higher somebody, it’s full-time marketing, and so we can just continue to improve, but the first few pieces were, Hey, I need an assistant, right, I need somebody that can help me figure my time now it minimizes my inbox, so that’s not just taking over my life, and then it was quickly finding that investor relations person so we can just give the best service we possibly can to our investors, they’re just growing and building on out from there and Sam, they did an assistant and we find an asset manager and we’re continuing to grow so we can do things better, and I remember is finding top notch people to add to your team. And if you’re wondering about the quality of this audio, if you’re just listening or if you’re watching on YouTube, obviously my mic is quite different than normal and my set up, but my computer was hit on lightning, I recorded in like seven shows, and my computer was… Then hit by lightning and it would not come back on, and so it’s been quite a mess, but man, the show must go on.

[0:08:13.9] WS: And I just wanted to encourage you, Hey, have not only surge protection on your electricity that’s supplied to your computer, but also on your ethernet cable, that’s where they came in and fried my computer, so just a little quick tip there, and what happened to me. But enjoy this is a quick question from this investor, and as part of my answer that I hope help you and to think through your growth, how go back and listen to those shows about Top Grading, and also check out the Lockridge Capital Fund. I hope you’ll go to the website and check that out and reach out if we can help you, whether it’s with investing, growing your business, or your passive investor, or any way you want… On a podcast production, Hey I wanna help you. Hey reach out. Whitney@LifeBridgeCapital.

[0:08:53.2] ANNOUNCER: Thank you for listening to The Real Estate Syndication Show, brought to you by Life Bridge Capital. Life Bridge 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, Life Bridge 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.