How to Get an Elite Broker to Work With You: Joe Killinger

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0:00 Here we go. We got Joe Killinger. I'm so excited for today's episode. Welcome back to the Owning Podcast. I'm
0:06 Christian, your channel host. I'm joined by Joe. Today we are going to be talking uh he does a lot of a lot. We're going
0:12 to be focusing on the brokerage side and the business side, how he built a and is continuing to scale a large brokerage,
0:19 what they're doing that is completely unique in the industry. We're going to talk about what it is to be an investor
0:24 working with brokers like Joe and his team. I am so excited to get started. Joe, welcome to the
0:30 Christian. Thank you for having me on. Love your podcast. Happy to be part of it. No, this is this is a privilege. I am
0:37 very excited for this. Joe, for those who don't already know who you are, give us the quick 30,000 view. Who are you as
0:45 an entrepreneur because you have you are just a real estate entrepreneur. You're not one thing in real estate. You have
0:51 done a lot of a lot. I love to start companies. I love to start companies and build them up and I
0:56 like to operate them. So, it sounds like we do a lot, but I just have a really good uh crew around that I can rely on.
1:03 So, I've got Commercial Brokers International, full full service commercial real estate brokerage in Los
1:08 Angeles. Great team, about 20 agents right now. Going to take that up to about 24. Then I'm going to open another
1:14 office down in Newport Beach Crow and Delmare area, which if you've been, you know why we're going down there. Love it
1:20 there. Um, and then, uh, we've got, uh, Icon Capital Advisors. It's partners,
1:25 which is a partnership with BMC Capital out of Dallas where you're at. Um, I don't know if you know Keith Van Arsdale
1:30 or not, but if you don't, let me know. I'll connect you. He's a great guy. Well, there you go. I have to bring him up, pod.
1:36 Yeah, you should get him on. He's very good. And then we have the commercial real estate affiliate network, which was
1:41 built out of frustration because I lost out on a few clients because we brought them into Los Angeles. they want to
1:47 expand across the country and we were just an independent broker at the time. We had like 12 agents and we end up
1:52 giving them up. So I built a system that allows us to work with these clients nationwide now. And then I've got last
1:59 but not least JoeKillinger.co. It's a platform that I use to really
2:04 help people in commercial real estate brokerage and investing too. I've been doing a little bit more on investing because I find that it was needed and
2:11 everything on the website is free and I have a booklet on there called your first commercial day commercial days
2:17 your first 90 days in commercial real estate. It's a free booklet for you. There's also another booklet if you're a
2:23 broker thinking about opening your own shop. I put on there the same kind of booklet that really walks through
2:29 everything we did when we launched commercial brokers international. So you can go in and learn from my mistakes so you don't have to make the same damn
2:35 mistakes because they were costly. And so that's the whole point of this podcast, the owner meeting. Learn from others mistakes so you don't have to
2:41 make them. Move faster, smarter, and uh yeah, run your business better than the people before you. I love it. I love it. Love
2:46 it. Yeah, I've made a lot for I probably made enough for everybody listening actually because it's it's been a while.
2:51 I've been in the business a long time. I love the business. I love real estate investing. You know, I've done the different asset classes. We own a bunch
2:57 of property multif family there in Texas. Um, and we own a bunch here in Los Angeles. Right now, we're focused on
3:03 single tenant net lease. We're actually, we own some properties in Dallas and then we're going to start a syndication
3:08 here hopefully by first quarter next year where we can go out and uh get it funded and start buying single tent at
3:14 least deals around the country. Very fun. Very fun. I've I've done mostly JVS through my career. I've done
3:19 a couple syndications. I' I haven't done the the single fund to buy multiple deals, though. I've done a syndication
3:25 per transactions. I'm small on syndication, but it is a great model to
3:30 take out a lot of real estate at a short period of time with an elite team. So, I actually love the model when used
3:36 correctly. Super excited for you to get that started because Oh, yeah. You're going to crush it. Yeah. Well, my uh my business partner,
3:42 he's a CEO, George Pino, he's a CEO of Commercial Brokers International. All he does is single tenant net lease deals.
3:48 And most of these deals get off the market. They're on and off the market before it even gets put on the open
3:53 market. So these brokers all talk to each other, go, "Hey, I got a deal coming on. I want to I want to talk to
3:58 you about it." And because they know that they'll close the deal. You know, you put on the open market, you get offers in from brokers you don't know,
4:04 and then it's kind of a a mix gamble. So, these guys all know they can close. So, we've got kind of an inside deal
4:10 going, and it'll work pretty well. I hear a lot of people out of California, and I' i've had lots of
4:15 people uh within my mentorship group, Multif Family Strategy. I've had a ton of them buy deals in California. But a lot of Californians are like it is it
4:22 feels really hard to operate in that state and it feels like the state is against you in a lot of ways. If you're buying in California and Dallas, just
4:28 objective view, what are the key differences in how you succeed in both red states and blue
4:34 states that are so politically different in business operations to manage out here in Los I'm in Los
4:40 Angeles and we own multif family here. You've got to know the restrictions and you got to know what's coming. you're
4:47 going to get it's you really got to be on your your aame to really make sure I mean they're talking about now to where
4:52 you can't increase your yearly increases just a couple points that's it yet your
4:57 expenses are going up five six 8% depending on you know what level of asset you're doing so it's just a lot
5:05 more here a lot more restrictions you got to watch out for now in Texas especially when it comes to evictions
5:10 you know out here what's been going on in Los Angeles is the the tenant you'll start the eviction and they'll ask for a
5:17 jury trial. So which means you know what here's 20 25 whatever the number is you negotiate it out because
5:23 if you go to a jury trial out here you're probably not going to win you know so you really want to be careful
5:30 whereas in Texas you know you can be a little little more stricter with the tenants and you know but you always want
5:37 to be fair wherever you're at anyway but it's just it's easier management in Texas but and it depends on where you're
5:44 at too if you know a lot of the properties I bought in taxes. Actually, every one of them was an out ofstate
5:51 owner that has was losing the property and most of it was because of the management was bad management on it
5:57 because the broker the investors were never boots on the ground and the last one we bought was over off quite in that
6:06 area right near Richardson and it was I think it was 74 units. We were planning
6:12 on running a program there that was for lower income people and it worked very well. Uh the plan was in the end was to
6:18 redevelop the property because 74 units on about an acre. We could have added about 20 30% more units. But when we
6:25 bought the property, we were talking to the manager and she said, "Are you going to keep me on?" I go, "No, we can't
6:30 afford to keep you on. You're the highest paid manager in the area." She goes, "No, I'm not." And I said, they go, "Well, this is what you're showing
6:36 you got paid." She goes, "Well, here's my paycheck." It was almost half. The company was double dipping. Then we found out they
6:44 had three other employees, two of which were getting free units. One of them didn't even work on the property. They
6:49 worked at that property management company down the street. And yeah, and then yeah, it's it was a mess. And so we
6:56 were able to turn that property around real quick just with being we brought in our own management, managed oursel,
7:02 turned it around because we got rid of all the extra fees. It was crazy. So you really got to make sure you stay boots
7:08 on the ground. Oh yeah. There there's a lot of ways to make and lose money in real estate. The number one for both of those would be
7:14 management. It is not generally hard to be a better manager than the last person. Nine times out of 10, you come
7:19 in, you're like, "Ah, well, here's where we're going to make our money. We're going to manage this thing correctly, and we're going to be intentional about
7:24 it." A lot of people who are selling properties have, for some reason or another, lost interest in the property,
7:29 why they're selling it. So, yeah, they weren't having success. Yeah. You you come in and sometimes you see a lot of fluff. I've had I've had
7:35 deals where that's just been parked at half of market rent. You call their their manager, their voicemail is three
7:42 managers ago on the phone, leaving the voicemail and some some old lady I came in. I was like, "Hey, let's go meet."
7:48 They're like, "Yeah, let's um I'm available in 3 days. Can we meet at McDonald's?" I'm like, "That's not my
7:55 usual meeting place, but I mean, I suppose it be it would like I'm like, "Okay, so this is what this is what
8:00 we're competing with." Especially I do a lot of secondary markets. So you get further out of the city, you see some
8:05 some wilder property management. A lot of money can be made over good management. So that is a long
8:11 that's a great place. So the answer to to California over Texas is just stricter riding and tighter management.
8:17 So much easier the ease of management in Texas as long as you ma you are boots on
8:22 the ground. It's just there's no comparison really. It's so much easier that. So So your advantage in California
8:28 though is physical proximity. the fact that you're there makes it attractive, which and the appreciation game, you get a lot
8:34 more appreciation. Yeah. Your cash flow isn't there, but your appreciation. Whereas in Texas, appreciation's just
8:40 it's minimal, but cash flow. Yep. And being a Seattle Seattle
8:45 starting point for me, I I feel you there. Very, very, very similar market. Tons of regulation, high appreciation.
8:52 The beauty of it is when you find the deal that cash flows in those markets. The appreciation will take care of you. So, the the key is finding the deal.
8:59 It's harder in those markets, but when you find it, it will take care of you over time, which is beautiful.
9:04 Awesome. I I love it. One of the most common questions we get here is how do people, especially people
9:10 who are newer, who are starting, you want to build an elite portfolio. You want to work with the best multif family
9:16 brokers. You don't usually get to start at the top when someone's working with brokers. We're going to get into how you
9:21 built your business and your brokers, but I I this is a question that I get all the time on my YouTube channel, so
9:26 I'm like I'm just going to have you answer it. How does someone get to start working with an elite? If you're a newer and
9:32 you're building up, what what is it that you want to see in a client? Perfect ideal client, what do they look like?
9:38 Perfect ideal client, they come in said, "Listen, I've got cash. I'm going to close. I really want to do the deal." But the problem with somebody new is, "I
9:45 don't know. I don't know if this is right." And that elite broker is going to get frustrated with you. You want to
9:52 be prepared in advance. This is what I want when I hit these numbers. This is what be just be very specific about you
9:58 what you want because the the elite brokers their time is valuable to them
10:04 and which is time is valuable to you and you want to make sure you're doing the due diligence before you even start
10:10 investing to make sure this is the asset class I want to be in. This is the size asset that I want. This is my exit
10:17 strategy. You know, put the whole plan together in front of you and then get with that broker and say, "Listen, I'm a
10:23 serious buyer. I'm going to close deals. work with me. We're in this business to make money. You know, it's, you know,
10:29 our elite brokers work with people that are new that they'll work with you as long as you've got the plan in front of you and you're going to you're going to
10:36 pull the trigger. Now, if you're just out here looking, then we get a lot of that two years.
10:42 Yeah. All about are you a ready, able, and willing buyer? Can you do it? I I Are you going to preferably you have a boatload of cash
10:48 and you're going to close. If you don't, why are you going to be the person to close the deal? It is a business like
10:54 anything else. Have a business plan. Your broker is one of your key people. Pitch them on a valid business plan and
11:02 write offers and close deals when you have a deal in front of you. Be decisive. Move quickly. And I found you
11:08 can cut the line. Even if you're not the person who's starting as the perfect, I
11:14 have $10 million. I needed to play it now. If that's not you, have a business plan that addresses the
11:20 fact that you don't have $10 million. and why are they going to work with you and how are you going to close the deal?
11:25 Have those pieces in place if you don't have them in place. Yeah, there's your next step. The good investors have that in place.
11:33 They know because they don't want to waste their time either and they don't want to waste the broker's time and because they know that the broker's got
11:39 people calling them. If you've built up a reputation in a marketplace, then you know what's going on in that market and
11:44 people are coming to you and so you don't and you just it's common business.
11:49 You don't want to waste people's time and the minute you start hming and hing about oh I don't know and you know
11:55 they're you're they're trying to the good broker will say listen this probably isn't fit a good fit for you let's move on to the next one
12:02 and that's if you have a broker that's giving you unlimited time and you're not pulling the trigger on deals guess what
12:07 you haven't found an elite broker right you probably want someone else on your team like oh this is the nicest guy and
12:13 they're really helping me and I haven't bought anything in a year but they answer all my questions I'm like uh you
12:18 may have found the wrong broker that I read, you know.
12:24 So, how do you build in building your business? How do you build a team of A
12:29 players? Because you can't play at an A level without an A team. Uh, it's one of the hardest things to do in business. You can't do it by yourself. Personnel
12:36 is getting the right people on the bus and then getting the right people in the right seats on the bus for almost every
12:42 entrepreneur is the single hardest task. How have you attacked that in your brokerage side of the business? At
12:48 Commercial Brokers International, we just do it completely different than anybody else. I haven't seen anybody do it. The training for our new agents, we
12:55 don't just bring anybody on. We're we're particular about who we bring on. They have to commit to training for at least
13:01 a year and being in the office. And if you're not willing to do that, then we're done talking because as a
13:08 brokerage, it cost me a lot of money to bring somebody on because in commercial real estate, the the company pays for
13:13 the fees, the co-star, the marketing, the people, and all that. Now, I understand that the broker has their
13:19 mortgage or their rent and their car payment, their insurance. I I get that. So, it's in my mind or the way we talk,
13:24 it's really a partnership, but we're spending a lot of money. So, if I'm going to invest in you, I want to make sure you're willing to put the time in.
13:31 Once we've got over that hurdle, we talked about, okay, this is our training program. Whereas most companies you're
13:36 going to do, you're going to get put in a team. You're going to be mentored by somebody. What we do is every morning at
13:42 8:30, you're going to sit down with a CEO. Usually it's a group of three to four or five people
13:47 and he's going to train you five days a week. And then and that's going to go for like 45 minutes to an hour every morning. And
13:54 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we sit down with the agents, the newer agents, and we go, "Okay, what's working for you?"
14:00 This takes about 15 minutes. What's working for you? What's not working for you? If it's something is working for you, let's double down on that and let's
14:07 focus on how to build what's not working for you. Let's let's kind of get over that hurdle. And so that's how you build
14:14 somebody that is you make them an elite broker right off the bat because you take somebody that's been in the year in
14:19 one of our agents been in training for a year and you take somebody's been in the business for two or three years in another company. There's no comparison.
14:26 Our agent knows the market and how to do the contracts and all that so much better because they've been it's been
14:31 ingrained into their head. And we find that they're also performing a lot faster. They're generating revenue for
14:37 the company a lot quicker and less chance of lawsuits which we all like anyway, right?
14:43 Yes. And so that that's the big thing. And so that's how we do with a new B. But as far as the the more experienced agents
14:49 that we on board, actually we're recruiting right now. And I can tell you exactly what I'm looking for. I'm looking for people that are willing to
14:57 work, are willing to market themselves because right now there's a huge opportunity. If you've been in the
15:03 business two or three or four years, we've seen activities really starting to take off here in Los Angeles. Well,
15:08 across the country right now and going into 2026, I think it's going to be exceptional.
15:14 And so, I think there's a huge opportunity for those that know how to market themselves. If you can create
15:20 content and put it out on social media, not every platform, but at least a couple platforms, LinkedIn preferably,
15:26 Instagram, maybe. Some of them are doing Tik Tok and killing it. So, writing uh blogs, writing articles for uh real
15:33 estate publications, and writing proof stacking, which is something that Edward Winslow, there's a great book that
15:39 Edward Winslow has out, and it's on proof stacking. And what that is, it's talking about a past client, how you
15:46 connected with them, how you overcame their pain points, their goals, how you
15:51 went through their goals with them, and you kind of write down the whole process, and then you write about the end results, and then you put that up
15:57 like on LinkedIn or on a on a blog form on your website, and that's living in evergreen for everybody to see. So, if
16:04 somebody's searching, which everybody's going on on chat GPT or Perplexia or wherever now, searching, it's just
16:10 taking over search. They're searching for I need a broker in Los Angeles. Oh, look, Joe Kellinger's done a multif
16:17 family deal in Los Angeles. Oh, it's not too far from Let's give them a call that's going to live there. So, the more
16:22 you write those, the better off you're going to be. That content creation is very powerful. And video, everything is
16:27 going video. You got to get in front of a camera. It's really especially it just lowers the barrier for people to call
16:34 you. If they see you and see you talking, that's a lot easier to call somebody you've seen talking or DM them.
16:40 And it just lowers that barrier to them reaching out. And cold calling is great. I love cold calling. Probably always
16:45 going to be the number one thing in commercial real estate. But it's also one of the hardest ways to grow a
16:50 business. And if you can start getting inbound leads from creating content, marketing yourself, those closes at a
16:57 lot higher rate. And I've seen that in my own business. It's been crazy. You go to I don't do a
17:04 lot of events this last year because I I just had my first kid. I just turned one. So last year was a little slower
17:09 for me. But it's still crazy. I'll go to events and people come up and they're like, I watched your YouTube channel. I
17:15 can't believe you're at this event. And I'm like, I'm just me. Like I just I'm just a real estate investor. I haven't done anything creative. I don't my my
17:22 entire economic thesis for real estate is if you buy deals that cash flow day one and you buy them in a way where you
17:28 don't have to sell them. So you buy and hold, your income goes up every time you close a deal. Like that's that's not
17:34 rocket science. That that rivals Dave Ramsey for simplicity. Yeah. If you save more money, you'll have more
17:40 money. It's about uh it's about that simple. But that's having a personal brand where
17:48 when people talk to me, they already come in pre-d downloaded with the
17:53 information of I know how you like to buy. I understand your real estate principles. And a lot of people I'll
17:59 talk to brokers like, "Oh, I know who you are. I know what you've done, especially in my markets." It's the
18:04 ability to market as an investor is huge. It's unbelievably more important when you are a broker. When you are an
18:13 agent and you're trying to attract new clients constantly and it is a sales job, it cuts your inbound in I I think
18:20 it cuts it in less than half. I think you have way more inbound, but more importantly, it builds credibility. That personal brand that is like that is the
18:27 capital of certainly my generation. I'm the old end of millennials, but like
18:33 yeah, if you're bringing value in your content, it can do a lot. I'm getting ready I'm shooting a video tomorrow uh
18:38 for my channel and it's on instead of buying more properties which I'm a firm believer in buying more properties don't
18:44 get me wrong this is a headline you got to get the people to watch but uh look at your existing properties and there's
18:51 a lot of money that people leave on the table and I see that in multif family and I can tell you some things that we
18:56 did in in Dallas that worked very well was there's a property um he park and it
19:03 was 400 units and we bought Wow. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. There was no premium neighborhood.
19:09 Yeah. There was no uh or excuse me, Lake Highlands, not Highland Park. Lake Highland Park. That's as expensive as
19:15 you guess. Yeah. Not Yeah. Lake Highlands I love or Highland Park I love. Especially if view
19:20 the Highland Park Village at Christmas. My gosh. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Yeah. Gorgeous. But we we bought this
19:27 property and no parking covered parking anywhere. We added about 25% covered
19:33 parking and then I don't remember what we charged for this is years ago but probably an extra $25 a month that
19:41 killed it. You know just take a lot of people don't look at their existing properties. How can I generate more
19:46 revenue out of this property? Uh accent walls in the multif family. an accent
19:51 wall. I gave we gave five different we'd have like five different color schemes
19:56 and over a fake fireplace they'd have their own color in their unit and that
20:01 was an extra like $15 a month. We paint it took us what an hour to paint it $15
20:07 a month while they're living extra. There you go. And you build a big portfolio. You stack a bunch of $15
20:12 revenues. That adds up in commercial real estate very quickly. That is that is amazing.
20:17 Yeah. Yeah. You'd be surprised how many people don't really take a look at their leases and understand how there's a lot
20:23 of money that gets left on the table. I see it with commercial deals where people don't update their CAM fees. CAM
20:29 fees are going up, but they're not updating it on their contracts. You know, it just all that money is getting left on the table. So, very important to
20:36 take make sure you take a look at those leases. You've had such an emphasis on marketing, especially social media marketing. And and before we hopped on,
20:42 you'd mentioned I mean this has been like a thing that's been 20 years in development of how to do this. What is
20:49 one thing that people are missing on their marketing that you have learned? Like the one one key piece of advice for
20:56 like hey people do not do this and they need to do this. It's probably the the main thing is we
21:02 post for ourselves which is absolutely the wrong thing to do. You need to post
21:07 for the people you want to attract. What do they want to see? If I can sit and post pretty pictures all day, but people
21:15 want to see, if I'm an investor, I want to see stats for the area. I want to know if I'm multif family in Dallas, I
21:21 want to know how many properties on the market right now, what's the average days on market, what what's the average
21:26 occupancy rate, vacant, all of it. I want to know all of that. And we tend to just want to post pretty pictures. And
21:33 that's one of the biggest mistakes I see agents, well, a lot of people making.
21:38 And you need to get over that is forget it. It's not about you. It's about if you want to attract people, you've got
21:44 to give them the information they want to see. That is and and that is not intuitive for a lot of people to do. They I want
21:50 my brand to be me. I want to post what I'm passionate about. This is this would be a news flash for you if you're on social media. Uh no one cares about you.
21:56 They care about your content and they care about how does this serve me. So yeah, you want to get seen, spend I mean you
22:04 could do this in an hour and you're set. Spend one hour quietly just meditatively
22:10 going if I am my client what is it that they want write out all of the problems that you are solving. So what are the
22:16 problems that your clients have? Now divide that into a list of how do I answer these questions. You can make a
22:22 like a content map just out of what questions do my clients always ask me? Yeah.
22:28 And that will give you your next 50 pieces of content. You can divide each question into three or four videos.
22:34 And if you really want to cheat, feed them in a JBT. It will tell it for you. You know, you really, again, with the
22:40 cheating, if you want to cheat, go find somebody, a broker that's just knocking out of the park in your asset class.
22:46 Mhm. Do what they do, only do more of it. You know, work hard, outwork them, you know,
22:51 go look at what they're doing and then just mirror it and then do more of it. And, you know, there's there's people
22:58 that I I look at every day, I'm like, god damn it. And I know that they're paying somebody. They're paying a
23:03 professional person to come up with this content. So essentially, I'm getting a free person to I'm like, that's good.
23:09 I'm stealing that. Gives you the idea. Borrow from the best people in the
23:15 space. And you said something that's brilliant, which is what I want to talk about next. Outworking. I have a lot of people come on the podcast. It's
23:20 actually very common. I just had Rod Clee on and Rod talks a ton about motivation, which is which is unbelievably valuable. However,
23:27 outworking isn't motivation. It starts with motivation. It comes down to discipline. It's extended periods of
23:33 time of doing the same thing believing there will be a beneficial result without necessarily seeing that result
23:40 for a long period of time. To build the business you have, you would have had to have gone through that multiple times of
23:45 hey, it hasn't worked yet. I think it's going to work. I believe it's going to work. We're going to continue to march without seeing reward until eventually
23:52 we do in fact get there. How does one become disciplined in their business? How have you been discipline in your
23:59 business? Actually, my first company was discipline because I had no money. I didn't have a choice.
24:04 So, that that in itself created a hell of a lot of discipline because if I didn't get a deal done, then uh I was
24:12 going to have to move back to Nebraska, which by the way, where I live is a town of 281 people. There wasn't a whole lot to do. So, I was very motivated. But,
24:19 you know, it's I know what I want and I know where I'm going. And that's why I get up and do what I do every day. It's
24:27 at this point it's just really first of all I have a great team around me where it's a lot of fun to be around them. We have lunch together almost every day.
24:33 But it's going to be hard. But if you really want to get somewhere I mean there there's no easy path. There's no
24:41 shortcut. And you know that's one thing I see agents getting into it. I had an agent tell me once she goes, "You're too
24:47 old. You don't understand the way we do it." I'm like, "We?" I don't know who we is, but she was referring to a younger
24:53 generation. She's been out of the business after six months. Wouldn't listen. Was going to do what she wanted to do, you know, but you've got to you
25:01 really need to stay focused and really have an idea of where you're going with this. And that should be, you know, they
25:08 always say if you're a woman and you're dieting, you want this red dress. You hang it on the wall so you see it every day. Put your red dress. Look at that
25:15 thing every day. If it's a Porsche, whatever it is, you know, have something there to motivate you. And, you know,
25:21 mine was I was going to have to eat. So that was my motivation. But have something that really helps you maintain
25:27 that motivation because it is what is that motivation for you today? The people I work with. I really want to
25:33 build something. I want to open another office. Maybe this is a problem. I'm never really satisfied with the status
25:38 quo. I think that's probably maybe not might not be healthy actually. I want to
25:44 have an office in Newport Beach because I want to be down in Corona Delmare which is area that I love. And so that's
25:50 my motivation for that. Icon Capital working with BMC Capital.
25:56 This is this is bad timing. So we were get we set with BMC partners in there in
26:02 Texas and we came up with we're going to do this partnership together for Icon Capital Advisors.
26:07 Took us about eight, nine months to set up. We set a launch date. Well, that launch day hit. Two days later, interest
26:13 rates started going up and up and up and up. So I'm like, you could have picked a
26:18 worst launch date. But, you know, I had to be patient because I knew I'm like, "Okay, well, we're a startup
26:24 essentially. We're not going to get anything." In the last couple of weeks, we're starting to get people reaching out. So, but that's been a couple years.
26:31 And I just know that when I get to the other side of this, that's when I'm going to be happy. And I love going back
26:37 there and hanging out with Keith Ben Arsdale. He kicks my ass in tennis quite often. You know, friendly competition,
26:44 but I just I enjoy doing I just love building companies. You got to find something you really enjoy doing. If
26:50 this is sales is not what you're into or being an entrepreneur, believe me, I
26:55 understand it. It's not for everybody. Yeah. You got to find I love what you said too. It's you're
27:01 never satisfied as an entrepreneur. You grateful. You can absolutely and I think everyone should practice that. You should be grateful.
27:06 Yeah. But satisfaction I think for most entrepreneurs we fear at the end of our life that we are going to look back and
27:12 say what could I have accomplished and that that for me is the scariest thing of like I want to get to the end being
27:17 like I played the game as hard as I could while I could like that is that is so important to me and I think most
27:23 entrepreneurs who build like like you have multiple companies multiple projects and you've seen repeated success getting to the end is never the
27:31 goal. There isn't an actual end. It's the growing and the scaling. I know for myself, I really want to have an office
27:38 in South Lake. I live like 15 minutes from South Lake. I'm this close to it. I've had a home office all my home life,
27:44 my whole career. I would love now that I have kids to get a little bit of space
27:50 into the office on occasion. I get you. It's funny how the goals evolve. You hit
27:56 one goal, you do the next thing. Hit one goal, you do the next thing. One goal that you mentioned that you are also doing this JoeKillinger.io
28:03 IO and the actual you're giving back a lot and there's a ton of free information on this. Tell us a little
28:08 bit about Joe Killinger.co Co. Yeah. No, it's it's something that I
28:14 always wanted to when I got started uh in real estate. Fortunately, I had my business partner George and but there
28:21 was nobody really doing mentoring and we have such a heavy turnover in this industry. I mean, after three or four
28:27 years, I think it's 87 to 92% of the people are out of the business. And a lot of that's because of the training or
28:32 the lack of the training and the lack of the mentoring and and that it's not just for brokers, but also for investors,
28:39 too. I'm putting a lot of content up. There's free content up there for everybody. There's templates that people can use. If you're an investor, you're a
28:45 broker. I've got templates up there you can go get and they're just download them and go. There's suggested reading
28:51 by brokers and investors that's in there. You can go and book that'll take you to Amazon. you can go from there. Um, again, I've created the booklet,
28:58 Your First 90 Days in Commercial Real Estate. It's a free booklet free to download. And then, uh, the book on how
29:03 to go from a being a broker to a broker owner. That's all in there for free. And it's just because,
29:10 you know, this is an incredible industry. But the average age of commercial brokers is right, it's in the
29:16 around 55 years old. So, younger generation needs to find this industry
29:21 because it's absolutely incredible. There aren't many careers that you can knock. You could be making hundreds of
29:27 thousands of dollars in your second year in this industry and you know it's just but they've got
29:33 to find it. But they also need help once they get there. They need to make sure they're getting the right training. I do
29:39 mentoring call every once in a while. I'll jump on with somebody for 15 or 20 minutes. I do all that for free and but
29:45 I also learn a lot about what's going on in the marketplace or sometimes I'll record it and use it for content. So
29:51 it's it's a give and take. But yeah, that's really what this is all about. And I have a YouTube channel under my
29:56 name as well, Joe Killinger. A lot of content for investors and for brokers there as well.
30:02 Perfect. Perfect. And we'll make sure we put that in the show notes as well. So you guys want to check out more of
30:07 what he has to say on brokerage and on business. Absolutely. Check out that YouTube channel. Link will be below as well as the joekeer.co.
30:14 The big question, the question from every podcast. This is it is awesome to know how to move forward and that's what we focus most of the time on. However,
30:20 the best thing that most entrepreneurs can do is they we make mistakes. No one's ever played a perfect game. Uh Rod
30:26 Clee shared how he lost $50 million. So, he so far holds the record. My uh my
30:32 biggest stupid tax has been 1.4 million. So, Rod's uh Rod's Rod's buried me in uh
30:39 in this hell of a story. It's a hell of a story. It can be
30:44 personal. So, it could be it could be a relationship. It could be monetary. monetary ones tend to get a lot little
30:50 bit more drama. But what has been the most expensive mistake you've made in building your businesses and how can
30:56 other people avoid making that same mistake? It was being impatient and mine is very
31:01 similar to what yours about the same price point. So our first investment we bought was a and I was nervous to do
31:08 this. Fortunately, we were our own broker. It was a 10unit we bought in not a great part of town, but the area was
31:14 is quickly changing for the better. and we bought it for 275,000, you know, and then we got it fixed up, cleaned up,
31:23 filled up. That started going very, very well within less than a year. So, we decided to go ahead and buy another
31:29 property. And we were hit a home run with that first one. So, I think maybe we're riding a little too high on our
31:34 own juices. So, we bought a three-story walk up in Korea Town, largely Hispanic.
31:41 That was a big mistake. You cannot keep that top floor occupied. the the units
31:47 were massive, but nobody is going to carry groceries up three flights of stairs. They don't want to do it.
31:53 That was a tough lesson. And we barely got out of that. We fixed the building up, but we barely got out of it.
32:00 I mean, I would have lived in the unit. It was beautiful. This building was built in the 30s and it was gorgeous. It
32:05 had a fake fireplace. The architecturally was gorgeous, but nobody
32:10 wanted to live there because it was just that walking up three flights of stairs after working all day. No thanks.
32:16 I just I just find a deal that was exactly that fourstory walk up and I'm like you can't even do that in DFW
32:23 without an elevator anymore. It was old enough whereas before you were allow I'm like there are zero people and it's a
32:29 penthouse on the top so it's twice as big as the other units. Yeah. Overlooks the water. All four of them
32:34 when we drove the property boarded up windows. Who's going to walk up four stories? That's insane. Yeah. Um
32:41 understand that is hard to lease. So how did you guys get out of it?
32:46 time we were able to make a cash flow just barely and we'd get some people that rent it out once in a while but we
32:52 had to give us such a big discount that you know and then finally we were able to sell we got out we made a little bit
32:58 of money but nothing to speak of. So that was a tough lesson to learn. I mean we were doing a lot of the maintenance
33:03 ourselves on there. We poured so insurance came out and they said well you got to fill these potholes in your driveway. So we went out there and
33:09 filled them oursel a day before the inspector showed up. Three days later, it actually rained in Southern
33:15 California. Washed it all away. Like, well, We are not very good at doing this.
33:21 Those are the those are the projects though where it's like, man, do do they make you run a better business when you
33:26 pick yourself up from those type of projects. I I the lessons that were learned. Oh my god. Yeah. My buildings myself. I I I
33:34 remember all the all the foundational days. I'm like, boy, would not build a
33:39 business that way again. Yeah. Oh, that's fun. What What would someone What would you have done
33:44 differently then to have avoided that particular deal or that least amount? I mean, yeah. No, I I could have done
33:52 putting that time and effort and money into an asset that was just a better We
33:57 were just a little too anxious to buy the property. You know, it was an area that we really liked, but we were there
34:02 was others we should have just waited and found. We just got impatient. You know, it was just our second property.
34:09 And so patience, you know, as an investor, you know, that's part of the whole business plan thing. I didn't have
34:15 one. It cost me or almost cost me, but be patient. Wait for the right deal. Make sure he hits all your numbers. And
34:22 um verify, verify, verify, you know, make sure every all the numbers are are correct. Yeah, that is the most. Do not get don't
34:29 fall in love with a deal, right? If you need to do a good drill, drive 30
34:35 minutes in literally any direction. If you live anywhere near a city, there's a ton of buildings. Someone owns every
34:41 single one. Most of those people are not losing money on every single deal. There are plenty of properties in the
34:47 United States for you to buy. The deal will come. You do not need to buy that property. And that is that was
34:53 the lesson for me. It was Robin Hood Village Resort. Beautiful one of asset. So hard to run. We made it through the
35:00 project just like you did. And it was so much work, so much time on site, so much
35:05 staffing. And then I never bought hospitality again. So it didn't even fit in with the rest of my business. It's this outlier time consuming side
35:12 project. The partners had financial issues. I had to buy all of them out with all of my hard-earned cash from the
35:18 rest of my business. It w it's the same thing. We fell in love with a deal early in our career because it was this
35:25 unique, beautiful, incredible thing. Does it make money? Yes. Just because it makes money doesn't mean it makes sense.
35:32 Yeah, that was a big early lesson for me as well. You know, another lesson I got
35:37 yesterday, a guy said, we were because we were talking about the videos I was getting ready to shoot tomorrow and it was all back to how to make money on the
35:44 how to increase the revenue on your properties. He goes, every couple years, he goes, I just walk onto my properties
35:51 with a blank mind. Like, this is the first time seeing a property. I'm getting ready to buy it. What would I do
35:56 different? And he goes, Joe, that's made me a lot of money. He goes, "We just get into the every day of operating our
36:02 properties and we just do what we're used to doing." He goes, "You want to stop and
36:07 walk out onto your property?" He goes, "There's probably in every one of in every one of your investments, there's probably an opportunity that you're
36:14 missing out on because you're you're not coming at it from a fresh set of eyes." And yeah, that's probably right.
36:21 What a great drill. am at my funny enough when I built my house um it came
36:26 with a stock dishwasher and I have failed to find a buyer for that brand new dishwasher. It sat in my garage for
36:32 uh two years now. Yeah. Uh I have a property that needs it and I already need to go down there. So I'm
36:37 like, "Okay, well I'm going to go get rid of my dishwasher and upgrade one of my units." When I drive down, I'm going to do that
36:43 drill. I have uh I'm in Stevenville, Texas. I have 186 uh units there between four deals. We did a lot of midsize
36:49 multif family. Okay. I'm going to do that all four campuses. I'm going to walk in and I'm gonna I'm gonna try that like fresh mind.
36:55 Yep. I I own the PM company. So, any ideas I have, I'm like, huh, why haven't I thought of this before? That's going to be really fun. I'm going to go in
37:01 there like it's not mine and say, hey, if I didn't own this, uh, what would I be doing differently?
37:07 Then I'm going to ask myself, well, why didn't we already think of this? This is going to be a good drill. It's a great drill. He said one of his
37:12 big things lighting. He goes, almost every one of my properties, the lighting was He goes, "It's amazing what
37:18 you do with solar lights on exterior." Yeah.It cost you next to nothing. You don't need to wire them in. They're they're
37:24 super easy and they're beautiful. Yeah. You hop on Amazon. Make your properties look so much better. And we got on that because of
37:30 time change. But yeah. Wild. Oh, that would be fun. Um I will you know what? I'll actually I'll I'll add
37:36 that to my personal YouTube channel. I'm going to go down and I will I will I will film myself walking through the properties if I don't know them and you
37:42 guys will figure out everything that I find that I'm doing wrong. Oh, great idea. Wow. Got a great takeaway. Everyone do that. If you're
37:48 listening to this podcast and you own a single rental property or thousands of rental properties, go there yourself.
37:55 Walk the property with fresh eyes. That That's a good good idea. Makes you probably make you more money.
38:01 Yeah, I'm putting that in our SOPs. We must do that at least annually. Get to the properties and figure out what these
38:06 Yahoos are doing. Those Yahoos being myself running. Oh, that's great. What a great
38:12 takeaway, guys. This was uh this was Joe. Joe, it's so fun to have you on the pod. Uh, I really appreciate this.
38:18 Please check out his YouTube channel linked below. If you are a broker and you're looking for information, joekillinger.co
38:24 also linked below. Tons of free information there. Joe, thank you so much for joining us today.
38:30 Thank you, Christian. Thank you for having me on. Absolutely.