Unlock your success with Josh Culler‘s expert insights on social media and content creation! Join Derek Dombeck as he dives deep with Josh into the essential role of marketing, relationship building, and consistent effort in building a thriving business. As a seasoned real estate investor and content creator, Josh shares his journey from humble beginnings to becoming a leading voice in the industry. Discover how to leverage organic content to connect with your audience, establish valuable relationships, and ultimately achieve your business goals.
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Marketing Made Simple: Using Social Media For Success With Josh Culler
This time a friend of mine that I have not been able to see in person in a few years, but one of the leading guys when it comes to media and getting yourself out there. Whether you are a mom-and-pop or a big corporation, you’ve got to have a social media presence. You’ve got to have content going out there.
Josh Culler will be with us. Before I bring Josh on, I always want to tell you how much I appreciate you following the show. Help us in any way you can to spread the news and get the show out in front of other people you think could get what you are getting out of this. Anything you can do or have questions on, always reach out to us on our website. You can see what we have going on with the Elite Negotiations Academy, our Generations of Wealth Voyage, and our Circle of Trust masterminds, all that stuff can always be found at our site. With no further ado, let me bring on Josh Culler.
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Here he is the infamous Josh Culler. We haven’t seen each other in a little while in person, Josh, but I do believe we have had some adult beverages together in the past. How are you doing, sir?
We have some good stories. Even like the five minutes we chit-chatted before this, we had some good stories. It’s good to see you.
Josh Culler’s Journey In Real Estate And Content Creation
For the rest of the world that doesn’t know you, give us a little background on who Josh is.
I will make it short and sweet for you guys. If you want to dig deeper into who I am, Derek’s going to have some links to my socials and my podcast, so you can check those out further. I have been in the real estate investing space since 2012-ish, somewhere in the middle of 2012. I got hired by a local company to do a lot of stuff, and this was right out of high school. I was nineteen years old when I entered this industry.
Thank God I chose not to go to school and got into this because a friend of mine his dad owned a bunch of rentals in our market. I started working for them, doing a bunch of minor minuscule things like putting up bandit signs, pre-looking properties, Craigslist postings, Facebook Marketplace postings, and all kinds of stuff. I worked with them for about six months, then went to work with my good buddy Gary Harper, who now does Sharper Business Solutions. He works with some of the top real estate investors in the country, implementing business systems and processes. He was partnered with a couple of other guys in our market. We were doing a wholesaling company, and I got hired to be their marketing director.
I did that for about six years, and in that time, I started developing a lot of skills in the marketing world, namely media creation. A lot of what we were doing back then, Derek which you are familiar with, was building buyers’ lists. What we think of as acquisitions is not what it was back then. A lot of what we were doing was podcasts interviewing guests, people we were working with, lenders working with us, buyers working with us, and curating that list with a bunch of content. That’s where I got my skills in the content creation space.
I worked with them for about six years. The company split up. I went with a guy, and we had all started up a mastermind. I ran that mastermind for a little bit of time, continuing the content creation journey and always doing this stuff as a side hustle. Then, in March 2019, I went full-time into my business and started working with people managing their social media, podcasts, YouTube, video content, and all that stuff, building their brands all on the organic side.
Even to this day, I only work with people in the real estate investing space. However, what I do and what I teach you’ll find me on YouTube and some of my podcasts and stuff. It’s all very centered on content creation as a standpoint, not just for real estate investors. I work with real estate investors, but the principles of what I do stay the same no matter what industry you are in. That’s a little bit about me.
I know a lot of stuff about you. I won’t tell the public most of it, but what I do know is that you started off the way you did, and the grassroots efforts to grow where we would cross paths. We are at some of the most elite platforms for people in our space. You’ve always been spoken of very highly, which either means you buy them a lot of beverages or you know your stuff and I know for a fact, it’s the second because he’s way too cheap to buy beverages.
I am. I go back to my hotel room as soon as the last session of any event is done because I’m wiped.
The Importance Of Content For Real Estate Investors
Let’s go to the person who is a mom-and-pop getting started, flipping some houses, or has some rentals. What’s the importance of them building their content? Most of them think, “I don’t need to have a presence.” I will put my hand up and say, I was that person for a long time.
Whenever I start with advice toward anybody, not somebody who’s already started stuff how do I tweak it to make sure it’s more specific to my demographic? Ultimately, the whole general premise of social media is to be centered on marketing. A lot of people try to take social media and even if they started a podcast or a YouTube channel, or even if they wrote a book of any type of content that has some value perceived in it they try to detach it for some reason from marketing.
I have seen this done time and time again endless times where somebody will start a podcast. They’ll come to me and say, “How do I grow this podcast? How do I monetize it?” Which is the popular thing to ask for. My first question is always going to be, “Why did you start it in the first place?” Then there’s no answer. It’s so common, and it’s unfortunate. The way we have to retool that is that everything we do from a content generation standpoint is based on marketing for our business. It comes down to, if you are a mom-and-pop and you are getting going and I get it.
I walk into some of these mastermind groups or even teach on somebody’s webinar or something like that, and maybe the demographic is a little older. Maybe even people who are shut off from social media as a whole, they’ll start to roll their eyes back and go, “Here we go.” Another social media chat and they are tired of hearing it, but the truth is that it’s not as complex and as laid out as most people think it is. It should be leveraged as marketing. That’s it.
A lot of people think, like, “I got to get on TikTok and start doing dancing videos and reactions, and I got to put out two or three podcast episodes a week.” A lot of it’s the misperception of the commitment to it. Let’s be real. You talked about how you are on four straight recordings doing a podcast, and it takes a time commitment to do this stuff. However, if you boil it down to baby steps, it normally doesn’t take all that much to do some consistent content creation.
Winding back from mom-and-pop, if you are getting started, or maybe you are a bigger organization, you are not understanding where to build your foundation. The definition of content marketing, to me, is answering questions that your target demographic has about who you are, what you do, and your industry. If you can boil it down to that statement, and all you are doing is flipping a camera on and answering questions, that’s literally what it is. If you are a mom-and-pop, if you are in the real estate space, and I’m not entirely sure about your audience and what they are focused on. Let’s take, for example, if you are a real estate investor and you are flipping houses. You are probably not doing 20 or 30 deals a month however, you might be doing 1 or 2. Go through the properties, do walkthroughs, and record showings.
It’s a whole show-and-tell thing. You could tell people all day long about what you do, but until you show them, they are not truly going to foundationally believe it. Start showing what you do, and that will start to create some generation for your content. Then, as you go along, you start to tweak it a little bit and direct it more toward your audience.
You could tell people all day long about what you do, but until you show them, they will not truly believe it foundationally. Share on XIt’s turning on the camera, showing what you do, and answering questions about what your target demographic has about who you are and what you do. Again this is where I talk about, like, even if you are a donut shop and you are selling donuts, it’s turning the camera on and talking about the donuts showing people how you make them, showing people how you make the glaze, showing people the dough you use and the batter. Showing what you do and then answering questions that people would have about the donuts. That’s literally what it comes down to.
Show them how you bribe police officers. That’s what you should show them.
Yes. Case studies.
The Value Of Creating A Show Despite Early Resistance
Donut holes versus the donut itself. I don’t know. I have always had this problem when I started this show. I was asked the same questions that you mentioned, “Why do I want to have the show? What am I going to do with it?” I had a marketing company that I was working with who I don’t work with anymore and their perception was, “Yes, we are going to build this, we are going to get a certain following, and we’ll be able to monetize it through ads and everything else.” I was very resistant to starting a show for a long time. Ultimately, now, as I have been doing this, I don’t ever want to stop because it’s not about getting to a certain threshold and being able to sell ad space.
If that ends up happening, so be it, but the relationships and the conversations that I have had with people on this show, people that have read the show and then asked me questions all that type of stuff that’s the reward. The network, the people that we get to meet. I interviewed a guy whose show will come out before yours does. Everybody will know this at that point, but he’s 21 years old. He’s a second generation in real estate, and he’s helping to manage half $500 million in real estate assets at 21 years old. It was a fun conversation. I would have never had that conversation with this person if I didn’t have this platform.
It’s such an awesome perspective for other people to be able to see and read because I asked them. I said, “I have an eighteen-year-old daughter who’s finishing up high school. How do I not push her too hard but give her enough?” Can you imagine coming into his world in his teenage years, and then, “By the way, son. Here you go. You are going to be in charge,” of whatever he is in charge of? It’s crazy.
The point is, I do this show because of the satisfaction I get from knowing it’s helping people. I can sit up here on my soapbox and be like, “I’m giving back.” That’s BS. I’m not doing this to give back. I’m doing this because I’m truly passionate about spreading the message about vision and how we can build generational wealth but it’s also, what do I get out of it?
I get the network, and I don’t shy away from that. Every person reading this right now you, yourself included, I want to work with you for years to come. You and I haven’t seen each other, and we figured it out for several years, and yet the second we came face-to-face, we were giving each other a hard time. That’s the network.
Monetizing Content And Building Relationships Through Organic Marketing
There are a couple of points I want to make off of everything you said because it’s all spoken truth. The first thing is, I want to go back to the monetization conversation that you had. People don’t understand any type of marketing that you do, or let’s say organic content creation because there’s a difference between advertising and content creation, because advertising, we could throw out a Facebook ad. We could throw out a postcard, direct mail piece, pitching, and saying things like, “We can buy your house.” Cash offer, no repairs, as-is, like all that stuff. That’s advertising. That’s where you could get a phone call immediately after that.
Content creation’s a lot more value-driven and it’s a lot more relationship-based to build an audience and curate that audience so that they can repeatedly buy from you. When it comes to monetization, let’s say you start a podcast, and you get told like, “I need to work towards X, Y, and Z numbers to be able to get a sponsorship so that somebody could throw a 30-second middle ad on my podcast to pay me to do my podcast.”
Content creation is a lot more value-driven and more relationship-based to build an audience and curate that audience so that they can repeatedly buy from you. Share on XThat’s fine. There are many forms of monetization. You could do affiliates. Affiliates are things you could do right off the bat if you have affiliate partners that you work with, like maybe it’s a software company data provider, service provider, whatever. The number one thing that people miss out on is they miss out on monetizing their stuff. It’s like, if you have a podcast, you probably have something that you could pitch to other people, whether it’s they invest with you because you are looking for capital and hard money lenders. For me, I started a podcast called The REI Marketing Weekly, and I get people on there to talk about their marketing, I’m looking to monetize my services because I only work with real estate investors.
I have a midroll ad in the middle of my podcast that says, “I’m Josh Culler, I edit and manage podcasts. If you have one, make sure to go to this website and fill out this form, and we’ll be in contact with you and work with me.” I’m monetizing my stuff on the platform that I built. Now, eventually, it makes sense to start tying in some sponsorships and that thing, but people wait until they hit like 3 or 4 years in and 500 episodes and X amount of downloads to start sponsorships when they could start on episode 1 and monetize their stuff and see results the day 1, the episode goes out. That’s something to keep in mind. Not a lot of podcasts do that. Do that on your YouTube content. Do that on your social media content.
At the end of every single social media video, you should have some form of a call to action that tells people, if you are this person and you need this, then go here. If you are a real estate investor who’s looking to start a podcast and you need help with that, then send me a direct message, and we can talk. That’s monetizing my content. The next thing I was going to tell you was on the relationship side of things. One of the most beautiful things about content creation is the ability to collaborate with other people. For example, right now, the collaboration that’s happening between us. When this episode goes out, your team is going to send me some links and say things like, “Promote it.” “We are recording an episode today, but it happened this morning.”
I was on somebody else’s podcast, and I got tagged on Facebook and everything, and they had this nice thought-out post with a graphic of me on it being on their podcast, and I shared that out. I never had talked to that person before, but again, as you mentioned, when we got on, we hit it off immediately, and I built a relationship with that person. I had him on my podcast, and likewise, you are going to be on my podcast. The collaboration of it is ingenious, but it’s something that should be heavily invested.
In the source when I have my podcast, and I’m reaching out to guests to get them on my show, I do 1 of 2 things. I’m either reaching out to current existing clients that I work with to deliver more value to them by putting them on the platforms that I have built, or I’m reaching out, excuse me, to people that I potentially want to work with and get them on my podcast.
Now, I’m delivering value to them by interviewing them and putting them on my platform for 20, to 30 minutes, but I slot it out for an hour because I give 30-ish minutes to chitchat, get to know them a little bit, and potentially be able to talk to them about what I do and that thing. I don’t push it and that thing, but I’m building a relationship with them, and that has proven to be successful. I have pulled many clients from having them on my podcast, and then by the end of it, they are like, “Tell me a little bit about what you do,” and that’s normally the way the conversation ends. Those are great points that you brought up, and I wanted to make sure I capitalize on those two.
Essentially you are selling without selling, which is great, and I do the same thing. The reality is, a lot of my readers, whether they are of this show or they know me speak from stage, or we happen to meet in some other setting, have that social media presence, whether it is a podcast or your social media itself, I use it all the time to build credibility.
Am I monetizing the show? No. Not directly, but when somebody Googles Derek Dombeck and I may have approached them to buy a property, I tell everyone every civilian I ever talk to about buying a property “I got nothing to hide. Go Google me.” That’s all I say. By the time I meet with them in person, they have already built up enough of a rapport with me that isn’t even with me. They have listened to me, they have seen me, it doesn’t matter. That in and of itself is worth continuing to do this type of marketing.
There are some cons to this too because if you put something out that you don’t want out, then that’s dangerous but for the most part, we should be cautious anyway. If you put something out, whether it’s a social media post, a podcast, a YouTube video, or whatever it is, or you are featured on somebody else’s podcast, to me it’s like a 24-hour salesman.
If somebody were to watch a video at 2:00 in the morning when phones are off and everybody’s asleep, but for whatever reason, let’s say for instance the person I work with is on the West Coast, which is two hours behind us so that’s midnight for them. They are winding down for bed and they are like, “I need to start a podcast. I need to reach out to somebody.” Then they look it up, come across my content about podcasting, and watch it at 2:00 AM my time. They are going to be sending me an email or a direct message the next morning, and I didn’t even have to curate that lead because my 24-hour salesman content piece was out there for them.
The beauty of the podcast versus putting a post on Facebook or other social media platforms is that this is out there it’s evergreen and if people can find it, it’s there. You can put a great post on LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, wherever, and it’s down to scroll in a matter of seconds, never to be rejuvenated again. That’s the part that I like about this.
Overcoming The Fear Of Content Creation And Starting Simple
Here’s my biggest challenge, and Josh, you and I talked years ago about this as I was trying to find people to work with too. I am not tech-savvy. I have been forced to learn things that I have to learn, like being able to not screw up this microphone and this camera and other things like that, but it’s not second nature for me to pick up the phone or a camera and talk into it.
I like having conversations with people. If I have to do this and talk to myself, it’s different, and I don’t like it as much, but we have to force ourselves to get used to certain things. The more you do it, the easier it gets. That is something that held me back for a long time, and I venture to guess many people you talk to, as well as people reading the show, have two things going through their heads. Either they have limiting beliefs that anybody wants to even hear anything that they have to say. I have had those many times or they don’t want to appear like they are bragging. There is a difference between being arrogant and being confident. If you are good at something and you are not sharing it with the world, shame on you, in my opinion, but being an arrogant, cocky prick I don’t want to watch that either.
I will tell you that there are methods to this that I normally run people through. Shockingly enough, a lot of the people that I work with even though they could be like a maverick visionary type personality not everybody has that type of personality. Typically, they do because, normally, business owners are good salesmen, so they can speak a little bit smoothly.
You know my PI don’t you? I’m a maverick.
I’m a maverick too. It’s easy for a lot of people to hop on, hit record, and start talking. Theoretically, I always tell people you shouldn’t be talking about things that you are not an expert in inside and out anyway. However, it’s still the fact that it can be challenging to look at a phone screen if you’ve not done it often. Especially if we are going back to the conversation of somebody like mom-and-pop done before. Normally, that coupled with not knowing what to talk about are the two biggest roadblocks when it comes to getting started.
Here are my tips for this. Let’s start with topics. Normally, if we are filling a knowledge or fear gap, topics are going to be the easiest ones to tackle. There are two ways you could do this. Number one, to create and combine a list of things that you are going to talk about, everything needs to be centered around who you are, what you do, your industry, and your expertise.
The first thing you do is write down every single question that a customer, lead, prospect, or whatever you want to call them has about any of those things. That’s hard factual data that people are looking for, and you can create video content on it, a podcast, a social media post, or any video. Let’s say you have somebody that’s on the phone for you. They should be documenting every single question, and you should do videos on every single question but not one video. Do multiple videos in multiple different formats.
A lot of times people get afraid, like, “I did a video on this topic a month ago, so I feel like it’s going to be stale.” The reality is, 1) Nobody’s going to remember that. 2) If you bring that topic up again, it will create consistency in your messaging. As long as you are not giving inaccurate information which you shouldn’t be doing anyway you will be using different contexts. You will probably tell a different story, use a different case study, or whatever it is. You are not going to say the same thing twice. It’s not going to happen unless you literally which I’m against have a word-for-word script that you are reading off of. Don’t do that.
The second thing that can create unlimited video topics, and I will forever hold this true, is that you cannot have excuses that you don’t have video topics. If you use this method, ChatGPT, you are going to open that up and give it a prompt that says, “I need 25, 50, 100, or 1,000 topics.” However many you want. “I need 50 video topics for social media about my expertise based on the content from this website.” Go to your website or your competitor’s websites, copy the link, paste it in there, hit enter, and you’ll watch ChatGPT do the work. It will list out your topics. Then you can tweak the topics or whatever you want. Sometimes what I will even do is say, “Give me three bullet points to talk about for each one of those topics.” It’ll spit it out in a Word document if you want it to. You give it that prompt. That will eliminate the issue of what to talk about.
Now we go to the camera. Now we have our topics, we are prepared. What do we do with the camera? First of all, we are starting simple. You are not going out and building a $20,000 recording studio. You are not going to spend $300 an hour at a recording studio to record. You’ve got to start from square one. Anybody that’s ever done content at a high level, the Alex Hormozis of the world, the Gary Vaynerchuks of the world, they started somewhere. Go back and look at their very first video, and it’ll prove it.
Start with this you can get a $15, $20, $30, or $40 wireless microphone that’ll plug into your iPhone. The cameras on these phones are astonishing nowadays. Whip that open and start recording those video topics. Start there. If you have a hard time looking directly into the camera and start recording, one thing you could do that I do a lot for some of my clients is have somebody interview you. We call this documenting, where you could do it I call it either 60 Minutes style, or you can look at the camera and have them stand behind you.
You could do this. Like if I’m looking at somebody here, if you are on video, you are seeing what we are seeing right now, but if you are reading, you are missing out but if I’m looking forward and I’m talking to somebody right here in front of me, have them ask me the questions, camera’s rolling off to the side, and then I’m answering those questions. You could have somebody standing behind the camera, and then look at them and answer the questions that way. Eventually, you are going to want to get to the point where you can look directly into the camera, but like anything in life, practice makes perfect. If you don’t do it at all, you are going to suck, but the more you do it, the more consistent you are at it, get over the fear, then you are going to be good.
The more you do something, the more consistent you become at it. Get over the fear, then you are going to be good. Share on XThe last thing I will say about all this is a little bit of tough love that I will deliver because I have now given the blueprint to be able to get through all these hurdles. In business, there are a million things that we have to do that we don’t want to do, that we despise and hate, but we do them anyway because we need to in 2025. In the world that we are in right now, if you aren’t going to create content, put value out for your audiences and your specific demographics, you can bet your assets somebody that’s a competitor of yours is going to do it, and they are going to have that edge over you in their marketing because you are afraid to do it. Get over the fear, suck it up, and do it, and you’ll get better at it as you go along.
That I will add to that is I always overthought things because I had staff that is no longer working for me and nitpicking stuff like in my background, there’s a cord that runs from this TV behind this book, and I had somebody that was just, it drove her crazy that you could see that cord, and then the lighting wasn’t perfect, and this wasn’t perfect and I said, “All I want to do is talk to cool people, and I don’t give a crap if I don’t have the perfect studio. At this point in my career, I want my message to get out, and that’s all that matters to me.
We went back and forth for weeks on all this different stuff, and ultimately it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t work for me anymore, but I would much rather because I’m she’s wrong, whatever, and I pay the bills. Ultimately, this conversation is way more important than to get out into the world than if my complexion looks good in this lighting because as you said, there’s a vast majority of your listeners right now that can’t see us anyways. You don’t even know what I’m pointing at.
The Reality Of Starting From Scratch In Content Creation
Everybody starts at zero. You go to 1 and 2. The problem that I see in, especially in our industry is that people will see some of the top influencers in our space, and they will never have shot a video before, and they shoot a couple of videos, and I’m like, I need a videographer that’s full-time following me around, like everywhere I go and I’m like, “You don’t need that. You start from ground 0, then work to 1, 2, 3, and 4.” Everybody wants to jump from 1 to 350 right off the bat. I will say this, I’m a person who values quality. However, if quality is going to be the roadblock for you not doing something, then you are looking at it from the wrong scope.
If quality is going to be the roadblock for you not doing something, then you are looking at it from the wrong scope. Share on XI will say this like with anything in life, you want to do it to the best of your ability. You want to make it look and sound as good as you possibly can because if you are going to invest the time or the money to do it, then make it as good as it possibly can be. At some point, Derek decided to put that book in front of the cord and hide the cord, and now it’s not going to bother anybody. There are little tweaks and changes that we make along the way. Everybody wants to go from step number one to the top level, to where they have a full-time videographer following them around, and they have this staff that they are paying $100,000 a year to manage content, and then their business goes to crap and they wonder like, “I wonder what happened?”
I have had this happen. I ask them, “What do you do with your time?” They say, “I spend about 25 to 30 hours a week creating content,” and I’m like, “You mean content about your failing business? Is that what it is? It’s because that’s the issue you are going through right now.” Minimize that, work on the business, and let’s figure out actual priorities. Do it to the best of your ability, but you start from one and then you work up as you go along. That’s where people get lost along the way a little bit.
I will also add that sometimes doing is good enough versus not doing anything at all and the other thing is consistency. We have a weekly show, and I don’t think we have ever missed a week. We had one post-production issue, we were backed up by days. Consistency is the key. If you are going to be putting stuff out on your social media platforms, that would be probably my biggest lesson. Not that I’m good at any of this, but I have a team that makes sure it’s all out there.
If it were up to me, this is what I enjoy. This conversation with you is what I enjoy. Everybody that knows me personally knows that I don’t do crap leading up to when I hit record, and I don’t do anything after I stop recording because it’s not my area of gifting but I have got people that it is. That’s important to know about yourself. If you know that you are like me, and this is not something that brings you joy other than recording the episodes or recording the content, then find people like Josh that is their area of gifting.
Building Relationships And Setting Boundaries In Business
In order to get in touch with Josh, we will connect you, so that you can have those conversations, or you can follow his podcast, or you can get in touch. As Josh pointed out, why am I doing this? I also have my stuff too, and those who are normal followers know that. You go to the generationsofwealth.com, and you’ll find all of that too. As we wind down here, Josh, I ask this of almost everybody that I interview. What’s one question I should have asked you that I didn’t? It does not have to pertain to content creation or social media. It can pertain to anything other than that night we almost got thrown into jail.
We won’t talk about that one. That’ll be a tell-all that’ll come out in a few years. A good question to ask would be just learning from failures. I believe that, and detaching from the social media world and that thing. There are a lot of examples I can give when it comes to content creation, like starting something up, and then it ultimately wasn’t achieving anything for me, so I shut it down. Stuff like that being willing to look at anything that you have done in the face and learn from it is extremely important. However, it goes the same with relationships. We talked about relationships and the value of that through collaborating on content, but I wouldn’t be here now without the relationships that I have or have had.
I will tell you this like, it’s not something I’m super proud of, but there are relationships that I had when I was younger that I don’t talk to people much anymore but they were a contribution piece to who I ultimately have become. One of the things that I think about a lot, and I’m very intentional about, is doubling down. When I make a good relationship with somebody doubling down and trying to bring as much value as I possibly can to that person without making it feel like I’m doing this for something in return.
We all know those people who are constantly asking, “What can I do for you? ” As I’m in the media space, I have people reach out to me. Maybe they knew somebody that I knew or whatever, and they would send me a bunch of edited videos of myself and say, “I’m trying to get a job.” To me, it’s like, I appreciate that, and I feel bad, but I’m not looking for anything right now. That’s what they jumped to. They had no interest in building a personal relationship with me or anything like that.
I try to lead, and almost everybody that I work with on a personal level as a clientele, I try to have a personal relationship with them first before they work with me and it’s proven that that is the route to go. Sometimes when I’ve onboarded somebody as a client, they were perceived as this person when I was onboarding them in the talks of working with them. Then ultimately, when I started working with them, I saw another side of them that I didn’t know about, and ultimately they became like, they were either a jackass or their expectations were this, but they only wanted to spend this.
I value relationships so much in business and my personal life that it’s something that’s not talked about a lot. People talk about it, but they don’t talk about it in necessarily the ways that I wish I would have heard when I was younger. That’s some of the conversations I would have just value relationships, being intentional about being a friend to somebody and being kind, and that reciprocates in some way.
In my world, I’ve always called it my no-A-hole policy. I’ve raised in excess of $25 million over the years, and I’ve had to turn down a lot of money from private investors because they would have been a total narcissistic pain in the ass and it’s not worth it. When I’m working on a real estate deal and I’m using private capital, it’s people I have relationships with, or maybe I’m referred to somebody that might be somebody I’d work with but that comes from a trusted source, and we are going to build that relationship. I’m not going to jump into bed with somebody because they’ve got the short-term capital I might need, but it could be a long-term nightmare, and it’s not worth it, but it’s always tempting.
Especially if I have somebody that comes around and says, “I want to work with you. I have X budget,” and I’m like, “That’s a good budget. Sure,” but I have to be careful with that because for the same reasons if I’m receiving phone calls and we have protocols. Clients can only reach out to us in certain ways and at certain times of day. If somebody breaks that consistently, I have issues with that.
I get to set boundaries for myself, and it’s not shirking responsibilities, it’s prioritizing your life. I’m building this business for my lifestyle, and because of that, I’m taking it very seriously. I do value communication with clients, but if I get a phone call from somebody at 10:00 at night about, “You guys put this post out, and I don’t know if I like that,” I’ll say, “You could have sent that in the Slack channel. Do that next time. Don’t call me again.”
Setting boundaries for yourself does not mean shirking responsibilities. It means prioritizing your life. Share on XThat’s boundaries. That’s your vision for your life. That’s what this show’s all about. You set your vision, and if they’re not your avatar or your ideal client for your personal life and your business, you shouldn’t want to do business with them. That’s not, Josh, that’s to everybody reading. That’s what this is all about.
I don’t have to press my lifestyle on theirs. However, I can set boundaries for them. I very rarely ever have those boundaries crossed anymore because I’m very forthcoming and upfront about it on the front end. It’s on me to communicate that to them, but it’s also on me to uphold it as well. If I allow them to do that once, it’s going to happen again and again, and now it’s my fault.
I always tell people when they get short with me, “How come I’m not available nights or weekends?” I’ll say, “If I were your bank, attorney, or accountant, they have office hours. I have office hours. Certainly, there are special occasions, but those are by appointment only, and you didn’t have an appointment. If you want to do business with me, that’s the rule. If you don’t, I respect that.” I started setting those boundaries when I met certain people who showed us how to figure out how to set those boundaries but once you do it and it becomes the normal expectation, people don’t push it very often.
No. They don’t.
It’s great. It’s great because you get your life back. I want to keep talking to you for a long time, but the good news is I get to be on your show, so we get to keep talking, Josh. What’s the name of your show?
We have a podcast called The REI Marketing Weekly. We only talk about marketing for real estate investors. If you’re an active real estate investor looking to learn how to generate leads, to build your brand, that thing, we interview some of the top real estate investors in the country and the world, talking about their marketing and cracking it open. Allowing them to pull back the curtain and show us what they’re doing. We’ll have Derek on that podcast. Maybe by the time this episode goes out, that one will go out. I’m excited to have you on.
I can’t wait. I appreciate your time, and we’ll talk to you real soon.
Thanks for having me on.
Everybody else, again, thanks for coming here. Thanks for following us. Please spread the word, spread the Generations of Wealth message, all the shares, the likes, the loves, all that stuff. Until the next show, live your vision, and love your life.
Important Links
- Reicot.com
- Gowvoyage.com
- TheGenerations OfWealth/FbGroups
- TheGenerationsOf Wealth/GotoJosh
- TheGenerationsOfWealth.com/YTChannel
- TheGenerationsOfWealth.com/Instagram
About Josh Culler
Josh has been in the real estate investing industry since 2013 and has been apart of hundred of deals as a marketing director.
CEO of Culler Media, a service provider that offers full social media management along with YouTube, Podcasting and other forms of content marketing.
Primarily working with those in the Real Estate Investing Education Space