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Show Summary
In this episode, Joe Killinger shares insights on building multiple interconnected companies in real estate, the importance of content marketing, and strategies for independent operators to compete with industry giants.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Joe Killinger (00:00)
a lot of usknow your market, you know, is I get so many people say, I want to do this asset class, but you well where you want to do it. And well, I want to be in Santa Monica and I want a seven cap, single tenant at least, okay, that’s not going to happen. You know, so really know your market, ⁓ know what’s going on there, know what you have to invest. So many people just want to get out there and start investing money that you really need to educate yourself.
before you start investing,
Cody Crabb (02:03)
Hello and welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Cody Crabb, your host with Investor Fuel. And today I’m joined by Joe Killinger. Now he is an entrepreneur and commercial real estate operator who is building multiple companies which are all designed to work together across different industries, brokerage, financing and commercial real estate growth. And in this episode, we’re going to talk about what it looks like to builda commercial real estate business, how a smaller firm can kind of be competitive with the bigger ones, and what Joe himself is seeing in the market right now. Joe, thank you so much for joining us today.
Joe Killinger (02:33)
Cody, thank you for having me on. Very much appreciate it.Cody Crabb (02:36)
It’s lovely to have you, it’s lovely to have you. So let’s go ahead and get started. ⁓ One of the things I wanted to start with is like, ⁓ this multiple companies working together thing is pretty unique. It’s not something I’ve heard a whole lot. ⁓ So I’m curious, can you tell me how was this built? mean, what was the catalyst for you starting these, for these being started?in the first place and then why did did why multiple why why did they start stacking on top of each other what problems were you fixing
Joe Killinger (03:07)
Yeah.It wasn’t planned, I’ll tell you that. yeah, it was, it was, it was, it was, it’s kind of an interesting story actually. So, you know, we’ve built companies before we’ve built three companies prior. I actually built more than that, but three of them that we really held onto. And we got them to 5 million revenue in the first 18 months. And they were over different timeframes. A couple of them were before the even the internet was really going yet. So that was interesting. But we were able to layer one on top of the other and it worked very, very well.
Cody Crabb (03:12)
It rarely is, you know, I’ve discovered that.Joe Killinger (03:39)
So, but we started, we had commercial brokers international actually was one of the first three that we started. And we were always doing a lot of marketing. And so we started pulling in clients from around the globe. One of them came to us from Australia and they said, okay, we’re coming to the United States. At the time we only had about 10 agents in our company. We were pretty small at the time. We’re at 20, mid twenties now.but they came over here. We helped them find seven retail locations, nine outlets, a couple warehouses, headquarters for their offices or headquarters, and then housing for all their employees, retail housing for all the employees, which you’d never done before. So that was, we pulled in some good people to pull those favors in. And then we did all that work for them in about a year, year and a half. And they said, you know what? We want to move across the country. And here we are, this small little commercial real estate brokerage company sitting in West LA.
And we’re like, well, we don’t, we can’t do that. And so we ended up losing them as a client and which was very painful at the time. Now, long story short, they ended up not going very far. Their management wasn’t great. So they ended up falling apart, but it still hurt. And I just thought at that time, man, there’s something that we’ve got to do to really make sure this doesn’t happen to us in the future. So I’m always trying to look forward about what we as a company can be doing better and how can we be more competitive in the marketplace.
And so I knew that we need to be joining an affiliate network. And we were just really busy right now. We were in the middle of getting rid of a couple of our companies. We just wrapped up selling our property management company prior to COVID because when COVID came around, we didn’t know what was going to happen. So we knew we need to keep our brokerage. That’s where the money was at. Property management, we got somebody to buy it. They kept all the employees. And so now I had time on my hands. COVID hits. I’m going, OK, we got to join an affiliate network.
So I started calling around all affiliate networks and I found out what they all charged. And there’s, you know, there’s annual fees, there’s transaction fees, these fee of the death. And I’m like, well, here’s why no little smaller independent firms are able to do this because they can’t afford it. And so that really gnawed at me. We were one of them. We couldn’t afford to do what they were doing.
And so it just, it really bothered me. And I just kind of like, okay, we got to figure something out. And then it took me a while and months.
maybe even a year. And I came up with, let’s build our own. You know, we’ve got COVID going. you know, we’re going in, it’s been a while. And so let’s just build our own. And now how do we do that? I had no idea. And so I just started getting on the phones and say, listen, we’ve got our commercial brokerage company here. This is what we do. I mean, I look back at it. It’s pretty damn funny, Cody. It was terrible. I mean, I look back and go, wow, I wouldn’t have taken my call.
And fortunately, I ran into one lady. I mean, I was calling all day. I still do actually. But you know, have to vet everybody out. You have to go in and look at their reviews. You’ve got to go in and look at their website. You got to look at their clients. You got to make sure there’s not been any lawsuits. And then you got to reach out to them. So it takes a long time to really vet somebody out before you actually reach out to them. But I finally found one person in Las Vegas, Natalie Wainwright. If you’re listening, thank you very much for being.
Cody Crabb (07:12)
Wow.Mm-hmm.
Joe Killinger (07:33)
client number member number one of the commercial real estate affiliate network. And I thought, here we go. We’ve got we’re at two now. And you know, then it really was slow. It didn’t it didn’t jump like I anticipated, right. And so we’re at we’re at 35 now 35 members. And ⁓ it’s going great. Yeah, we’ve got a great group. So but now the way I set it up was completely different than anybody else becauseCody Crabb (07:45)
HahahaInteresting.
nice.
Joe Killinger (08:01)
these independent brokerages can’t afford to pay these fees. it’s, I set it up where it’s free. It’s absolutely free. So everybody’s like, well, wait a second, how are you making money? I’m like, well, I’m not, but the way that would generate revenue is our agents in our commercial real estate brokerage firm can now do deals across the country. So our brokerage is making money that way. And so that’s how we justified it. And we’ve got four, well, going on five,Cody Crabb (08:23)
youJoe Killinger (08:29)
clients that are using the affiliate network. So we got deals closing around the country right now that if we didn’t have the affiliate network, we wouldn’t be able to do it. And so it’s just set up to where let’s say, Cody, you’re a commercial broker in Texas, I get somebody that wants to go to Texas, I’ll call you up say, Cody, I want to refer this client to you. Here’s let’s negotiate the referral fee. What is it? We go back and forth, we have a minimum, there’s a minimum of 20%. ButIf I want to handle everything, I just want you to pull properties. can say, know, Cody, how about I give you 10 %? You just pull the properties and then I’ll do the rest. So it’s very, you know, these independent brokerages are all entrepreneurial. So it’s all designed for me not to be to let you have free rein of what you’re doing. ⁓ But we will eventually, you know, when we get to a certain size, we’ll start doing sponsorships and stuff like that. And it really enhanced the experience of being a member of the affiliate network.
So now we’ve got the brokerage and we’ve got the affiliate network that’s growing. I think it’s the fastest growing affiliate network in the country right now. So we really have got, we’ve got lot going on with that. So then we thought, you know, one of the problems we were having was good lenders around the country. So we launched Icon Capital Advisors, which is our third company. It’s actually a partnership with BMC Mortgage, who’s done a lot of our stuff because we do investing as well. And so those three companies, Commercial Brokers International,
Cody Crabb (09:32)
Wow.Joe Killinger (09:53)
commercial real estate affiliate network, and ICON Capital Advisors all work together to make the experience of buying, selling, leasing real estate a great experience. And honestly, I look back at who I really focused on was Richard Branson, the way he set all of his companies up, and the way they all intermingled together. I mean, obviously, this is real estate, his was more ⁓ hotels, planes, Virgin Cola, I don’t know if you remember that one, all that stuff.I did a lot of reading on him and you know, so we had conversations with a lot of people that had done something similar to that. And so, but it’s working very well. It’s fun building these companies. You know, a lot of people think, you know, it’s so hard to do that. And it’s truly not. It’s truly not that hard. It’s just it is a lot of work. You know, so, but it’s ⁓
Cody Crabb (10:44)
I’d liketo dig right in on there because as soon as you said not hard, but it is a lot of work, my brain instantly goes, well, that’s hard. That’s what hard is. So I’m curious what you mean by that.
Joe Killinger (10:52)
Yeah. Yeah, well,it’s a lot of hours. I I used to cut trees for a living. So that’s hard work. When you have to climb a tree, cut all the, Loyola Marymount here in West LA, I was cutting a palm tree, was swaying in the wind, had a chainsaw going. You have to cut the palm trees from the bottom up. That’s falling down on you.
There’s rat’s nest, there’s baby snakes up there, they’d fall on you before they hit the ground. To me that, and I grew up on a farm in Nebraska, so that was work to me. This being in an office, yeah, this being in an office wearing a suit every day is not, actually you don’t need to be in a suit every day, but you know, just being, yeah, Zach, well, you know what, when I was cutting trees, it’s kind of a funny story, cutting trees at Lua LaMera Mount, I saw these young, beautiful girls, and I was in my early 20s.
Cody Crabb (11:59)
Yeah, that sounds like work, you’re right.Yes, I got it figured out.
Joe Killinger (12:17)
all these young, beautiful women that were going to college there and they’re never going to talk to me. Man, the day I get to go to an office and wear a suit and talk to women like this, I’m going to every day. And so, you know, that’s where that came from. But yeah, it’s, know,Cody Crabb (12:32)
Sometimes I ask people’sorigin stories, sometimes it just kind of reveals itself. No, just kidding. Yeah, no. I know what you mean though. Yeah, yeah. I know what you mean though. Like when you say work, like working hard, I get very, I very much understand that perspective because it’s like, is it really work to just sit at a computer? I mean, yeah, so.
Joe Killinger (12:35)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that was my motivation.Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I
mean, I grew up on a working farm in Nebraska. You know, when you got to get up and do chores before you go to school, and I see what a lot of my family members are still doing back there, that’s really hard work. But to sit here and make calls and talk to people and build relationships every day and, you know, come at something and seeing something grow the way it’s growing for us on all three of these platforms, you know, that’s truly rewarding.
I love that. I love building these companies. These are companies we want to and ⁓ maintain and operate ⁓ for a long time.
Cody Crabb (13:26)
So you mentioned some of these early calls. ⁓ I would be very interested to know, like you said, like, hi, listen, I hear those calls back now. I’m curious, like, what did those early conversations sound like? And what was the actual, why did the first people join is what I want to know. Like, what was it that made you, like, worthy to take a chance on if you really did sound quite inexperienced or whatever?Joe Killinger (13:29)
Yeah.Yeah.
I did. It was terrible. I
look back now. I wish I recorded it it was so bad. I mean, I think the first one was sympathy. I think that’s why Natalie actually signed up. She just felt terrible for me. She goes, because I was just very honest. I said, listen, this is what I’m trying to build. And this is what I want to do. And I want to get it to a certain size. And this is my promise to you. And they go, well, how are going to monetize this? And I’m I’m not going to monetize it. We want to do deals around the country.
Cody Crabb (14:15)
⁓ well, good luck with that.Joe Killinger (14:18)
And we want our agents to be able to do deals around the country. And ⁓ I spoke from my heart. I just told them exactly how I felt. honestly, it was a few years in the making, and we’re just now getting traction with it. But I was doing a call yesterday with a bunch of the people in the affiliate network, a bunch of our members. Recruiting in commercial real estate is very difficult.So we have something that we all think we should talk about as a group. We’ll do a zoom call. And yesterday we talked about recruiting and commercial real estate because it’s so hard. And we just brainstorm about what we can be doing better. What’s working in certain markets? What can we be trying? And I was amazed how we came across things that were, you would think are pretty simple, but when you’re in the middle of it, you’re in the middle of building something you don’t really think about. For example, having a Google business profile page.
I couldn’t believe the number of people. Yeah, the basics, you know, they go, yeah, God, I didn’t even know you should do that. They’re the best agents in the world. But you know, they’re running the business. Having these having this group of people that can get together and communicate. Very powerful. And I’m sitting there looking at some of these people like, you know, I saw Patrick Reynolds sitting there. He’s been with us. He was within the top 10 people that signed up on the affiliate network. Why he signed up. I don’t know. You know,
Cody Crabb (15:15)
Yeah, pretty basic.Joe Killinger (15:42)
I had nothing to offer them, but they’re there for me every, you in the meetings, they’re there for me. ⁓ So I’ll bend over backwards to make sure that they’re going to make money by being a member of this. so. ⁓Cody Crabb (15:54)
Well, I mean there yousaid it right there. You said you didn’t have anything offering but you did you’re willing to like really go go the extra mile and so I think I that’s that clearly is what you’re offering
Joe Killinger (15:59)
Yes.Yeah,
yeah, it’s very important that when you’re building something like this, you build what you really want. You want to be true to it, you know, no matter what you’re doing. If you’re building a brokerage, you’re building any kind of business, be true to it.
Cody Crabb (16:58)
Yeah, definitely.That’s a good little, that’s a good little, that’s a good solid little piece of advice there. Yeah, no kidding.
Joe Killinger (17:05)
I’ve learned. You know,I was building a, we had a, it was a tennis training company, but we also had, it was called the RRD. We ended up selling portion of it off. It was a tennis training company, but we also had a piece of it that would track people that would skip. we owned a bunch of properties in Texas. And some person came up with the idea that owned multifamily properties that, and these were class B and C.
they would come up with the idea of, let’s do $100 moves you in, because obviously they need to get their building filled up, right? So that really took off across the state, or at least around Dallas, I should say, the city. I don’t know if it was outside of it, but all of sudden these people move in on that $100, and they wouldn’t leave until eviction started. So six weeks later, you’re starting an eviction.
And but there’s nobody tracking them. So we built a system and we had to be very I mean, I came with pages of stuff I wanted to, to document so we could make sure that these people would quit doing this. ⁓ There’s a lot of laws. So we had a judge in Dallas, we had multiple attorneys helping us set everything up. And so we came up with a platform and it worked very, very well. I probably too well because one of our biggest competitors came along saw the market share we’re starting to take and went out to
Cody Crabb (18:11)
Wow.Joe Killinger (18:24)
all of our people and just offer them one year free tenant screening. Yeah, that was that hurt that talk about your Yeah, but it sure put us in dire need, know, so it was kind of tough. Yeah. Yeah. And they kept doing that for quite a while. And we just couldn’t recover from it. So we ended up selling that off. But, you know, building something thatCody Crabb (18:28)
well, wow. Yeah, no kidding. That’s a sign you’re doing something right though, I would say.Yeah, no kidding, wow. Well, I think it…
Gotcha.
Joe Killinger (18:49)
I don’t know, I didn’t really believe in that company that much anyway. I got in the middle of it, which is building it to build it. And really the passion wasn’t there. So when I saw the opportunity to remove and just like, let’s.Cody Crabb (19:02)
I think that’s a really revealing, revealing is maybe not the best word, but I think that’s telling that, you know, even though that seems like a no-brainer, easy, awesome, gimme idea, I feel like maybe if you wanted to fight back with the competitor and like really try and maybe could have made it work, but like you said, think what the driving force behind all of anything is like, did this invisible motivation. Like if you don’t want to…Joe Killinger (19:13)
Yeah.Yeah.
Yeah.
Cody Crabb (19:29)
If it’s not what you want, it’s just not gonna happen, I don’t think.Joe Killinger (19:31)
Yeah.Yeah. Yeah. Because when you’re building a company, ⁓ know, your focus, your energy.
you know, needs to be, it needs to be hyper-focused. You’ve got to be really on it. You’ve got to really thinking about this is what I need to do. How do I make this better? How do I make it easier? How do I help my potential clients for their pain points? It’s got to be all about the people that you’re trying to attract to your business. And you know, in brokerage, in the affiliate network, you know, it’s different for us because in the brokerage, you know, for us as the brokerage owner, it’s the agents as well as their clients.
it’s our members and their clients. And then obviously, with Icon Capital, the mortgage companies with our agents and their clients, again, are mostly just direct to our clients. yeah, it’s you really got to remove yourself. You just got to really know what you’re bringing to the marketplace and how is it beneficial to everybody.
Cody Crabb (20:11)
Hmm.Yeah, all right, so it sounds like when you kind of got on the scene, ⁓ that you were kind of running into, this is kind of a universal problem for kind of these independent operators across the US, right? ⁓ So what’s the biggest mistake they tend to make when they’re trying to compete with these huge national players? Like what is it that they don’t realize about the…
Joe Killinger (20:44)
Yep.that they can
compete. You know, here’s the thing. That’s the main thing is you can compete. You just need to find you need to find your way is, I mean, we’ve got, I don’t know how the total number of deals right now going through the affiliate network, I’m not sure what the number is, but it’s a good number because these agents were on this call yesterday, and they’re talking about deals are working together. You’ve just if you’re
Cody Crabb (20:58)
Yeah.Joe Killinger (21:20)
building something like this, you’ve got to understand that there’s a way to make it work. How do you make it work? And what steps you need to take. I mean, we saw that there was a need, so we just figured out that, you know what, let’s make it work for everybody. And I think you just got to have an open mind to be willing to look at all angles. If you look at most of the very successful entrepreneurs, know, they’ve hit a wall at some point.and they’ve had to pivot or they’ve had to figure out a way to get around it or get through it, one or the other.
Cody Crabb (21:54)
I think it’s easyfor people to look at someone super successful and it’s the survivor’s bias. The reason you know who they are is because they happened to succeed, but you don’t see all the millions of failures before they got to that point. Of course, they share the part of their story that is successful. I think a lot of times it’s easy to forget that everybody’s failing as much as you are. It’s a universal experience.
Joe Killinger (21:59)
Yeah. ⁓Yeah!
Well…
You know what, it’s so, so Elon Musk was, they always talk about his success, right? They forget that with Tesla, he put everything into that business and was sleeping on friends’ couches. He wrote, he put it on.
Cody Crabb (22:29)
huh.Joe Killinger (22:38)
There it is. There’s everything. Either we make it or we don’t. How many people are willing to do that? Whether you like him or not, I mean, you probably don’t need to go that far that you throw everything on the line for it. you know, you’ve got to find a way. I’ve worked with, so we were the broker of record for The Boring Company when they were out here in Los Angeles. Yeah. And ⁓ talk about hiring the right people. These people were.Cody Crabb (22:49)
Yeah.really?
Joe Killinger (23:03)
I mean, ⁓ being around people that he hired, it’s a lot of fun because they’re so damn smart and they just had this way to problem solve just on their feet. They could just think so fast. So we’re doing real estate deals with them. They were more tech people, but we would run across a problem. We would explain it to them. They’d come back the next day and they had it. I’m like, yeah, was like, okay.Cody Crabb (23:28)
YouYeah, alright, well, yeah. Smart people are smart people. If I’ve discovered one thing, it’s if you’re smart in one thing, a lot of times you are pretty capable in a lot of areas too.
Joe Killinger (23:32)
We’re smart people.Yeah.
I think it
came with some confidence. They’ve had success. The Boring Company, we ended up only doing a few deals with them because they got closed down here in LA. They ended up in a of lawsuits. But it was a sure an experience to see that whole process.
Cody Crabb (23:43)
Sure, yeah.Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah, all right, so ⁓ you said it’s mostly just realizing that they can compete. ⁓ And so I wonder, would you say it’s within the strategy, the branding, the recruiting, what part of it are they like, there’s no way we could possibly, marketing’s probably a big one, right, because there are these massive marketing budgets compared to you.
Joe Killinger (24:17)
Yeah, yeah,yeah, well
You know marketing budgets these days you don’t have to spend. mean we’re not spending for our brokers. Well actually none of them. We don’t spend on ads. We create content. And if you Google a commercial broker in Los Angeles you’re going to see our company come up number one or number two under the paid ads because we’re putting content out. We get reviews constantly. We write white papers. We make sure they’re published and we’re constantly putting blogs out. mean put a blog out. Actually I’m supposed to have one out
today I completely forgot. That’s what I forgot. I knew there was something. ⁓
Cody Crabb (24:55)
There you go. Yeah, it’s on the list.Joe Killinger (24:57)
Yeah, that is it’s on the list to get done today So it’ll go out today, but it’s putting the content out and so you don’t need to spend a lot of money But the time you got to put the time into it. You got it. You got to write the blog You got to write the white paper, you know, and I just There’s no better time, you know with AI it’s kind of a blank slate right now and this is it’s gonna fill up pretty quickly so if you’re writing white papers and You’re putting down that this is what I just did and this is the market. I just did it inand somebody goes into AI and puts in, want to find this type of person doing this kind of work in this area, it’s going to find you. Now you’re the authority figure in that marketplace. So you’ve got to figure that out and get creating content for it. Like I said, ⁓
Cody Crabb (25:37)
Yeah.Yeah, very important to bring up the AI angle for sure, because that’s, I want to say it’s
starting to compete with Google searches, which is terrifying to me. That’s crazy. ⁓ And so yeah, you got to be ready. You got to get on that. I’ve definitely seen, I mean, clearly I’m no stranger to content creation, ⁓ but I know that I can testify that is a real thing. ⁓ So, okay. yeah.
Joe Killinger (25:47)
Yeah, it is. Yeah.Ha
Yeah. yeah. Yeah, you want to you want to get your
content toward not just Google SEO, you want to target it toward AI as well.
Cody Crabb (26:12)
Yeah, I’ve started to see AI, like I don’t remember the acronym, but it’s like AI optimization. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, something like that. Yeah, but it’s, yeah, that’s even a whole new thing. So it’s important to kind of, it’s important to stay on top of things, especially if you’re relying so much on those methods to get found and stuff. Okay, so apart from like the actual logistics of the business, I’m curious, like,Joe Killinger (26:16)
Yeah.There’s three, yes, three letter. was trying to think of it too and I completely lost. I want AEG or something like that, but that’s not right. Or AIG? Yeah.
Cody Crabb (26:41)
What kind of leader do you need to be? What does someone need to become if they want to kind of build multiple companies? I mean, what is the difference between leading one company and multiple companies other than just you’re probably really busy?Joe Killinger (26:54)
Actually, you know, not that much. We’ve got a good team, you want to be, and this always sounds kind of corny when I say it, but you want to be leading from the front, not the back.You want to be the person out there taking charge and kind of snow plowing so everybody else behind you has a little bit easier. ⁓ So you want to be the person that’s really in the charge. You’re first to the other line. And it’s very important because people will see you. It’s tough. I used to have a manager that he would sit in his office all day, hardly ever see him, but he’d just bark orders, tell you what to do.
Then I experienced somebody that was out in the field with me. I would just tag along, I’m like, okay, this is what I needed. This is the person I need to be around. Somebody that’s out there doing it understands it has the feel of what’s going on in the marketplace. So lead from the front. That’s the most important thing or hire somebody that leads from the front.
Cody Crabb (27:48)
Yeah, yeah, that’s right. Yeah,there you go. Someone needs to leave from the front. Yeah.
Joe Killinger (27:54)
Yes, you’ve got to have a leader from the front. You can’t be pushingfrom the back. Otherwise, it’s going to just eventually it’s going to get all piled up. If you’re leading from the front, you know, you can turn to look and say, okay, follow me. Let’s do this. If there’s questions, you show them how to do it. Yeah.
Cody Crabb (28:09)
⁓ Yeah, think that’s great. Just a couple more questions here as we’re winding down. ⁓ So because our audience is full of ⁓ real estate investors, I’m curious, what do you think is the biggest opportunity in commercial real estate right now that you’re seeing that is kind of, if you’re paying attention, then you’ll catch it?Joe Killinger (28:30)
Right. So we’re seeing a lot. Our phone has been ringing a good amount for industrial outdoor storage. That’s one that’s been good. It’s hard to find though. Hard to find good industrial outdoor storage. ⁓ And you can’t believe the amount of calls we’re getting for office buildings. I’ve been surprised. Yeah. Yep.Cody Crabb (28:47)
I guess returnto office is happening a little quicker than, yeah.
Joe Killinger (28:49)
Mm-hmm. It’s thing. Yeah, it’s really there. Yousee it in our building here. I’m in a high-rise in West LA. Yeah, you see it here. ⁓ parking lots pretty full but ⁓ You know multifamily, you know investment sales were pretty slow there for a while and they’re really starting to pick up now So investment sales are good as well depending on your asset class
Cody Crabb (29:08)
Yeah, that’s great. Yeah,that’s great to hear. Okay, so if people wanna work with you, ⁓ what do they need to be? Where do need to live? What do they need? What do they need to be looking for if they wanna work with you?
Joe Killinger (29:14)
Mm-hmm.I talk to people
around the country every day, Cody. You can just go on to joekillinger.co. Matter of fact, if you’re thinking about getting into brokerage, I’ve written a booklet that’s on there under Learn. So go to joekillinger.co, go to Learn. There’s a blog there too if you can check that out. And ⁓ it’ll be your first 90 days in commercial real estate. And everything on my website is free. It’s free for everybody to use. If you’re thinking about launching your own real estate brokerage firm, you’re an agent thinking about launching your own brokerage firm, you can go right below that.
one and it’s how George and I, my business partner, he’s the CEO of our brokerage. When we launched our company, the process we went through to launch ours made a lot of mistakes. You don’t have to because you can learn from our mistakes. And then right now I’ve been doing a lot of meetings on how to recruit in commercial real estate. So there’ll be a new booklet up about that. there’s templates on there. If you’re an investor or broker, there’s templates that you can go get. If there’s suggested reading that you can go get. Lots of goodies on there. Again, it’s all
free and it’s just something that when I was getting started in real estate Cody nobody everybody kept everything close to their chest and they used to drive me nuts because I knew they knew the answers that I needed to quit of my questions but they wouldn’t give it to me so maybe I’m going a little bit overboard and going here here you go there it is ⁓
Cody Crabb (30:38)
Well, it’s funny that you say that, becausethat’s a huge deal at Investor Fuel. That is like a massive thing that we preach. ⁓ The CEO, Mike Hambright, he’s very like all about, let’s just share the knowledge, like share what you have and rising tide lifts all ships, you know. So I think that is, clearly you get it. I think sharing things does not, it doesn’t ever ⁓ bring you down.
Joe Killinger (30:49)
Yeah. Yep.You know, there’s
plenty of business out there for everybody. We had a few broker owners sitting in our office a few weeks ago. And it’s a taboo if you’re a broker owner to talk about your commission splits, right? So one of them kind of asked me, well, what are your splits? I mean, in the ballpark. And I said, ballpark? I said, I’ll tell you exactly what they are. And I just went down there. Because we’re two different types of companies. And so we’re probably not even recruiting the same type of people.
But in the end, they’re going to find out anyway. So a model just come from me. just I try and be an open book as much as I can. Obviously, when it comes to investing, there’s certain things we can’t do because we’re raising money right now. But this is syndication. But we got to keep some of that kind of tight. But ⁓ yeah, it’s we just try to be an open book.
Cody Crabb (31:49)
Gotcha, well thank you so much. I think we’ve had a lot of really good information here. ⁓ And people should definitely head to that website. It sounds like you’ve got a ton of really great stuff there that’s just hanging out for free. So for sure worth a visit it sounds like. You said it was joekillinger.co? It’s .co, yeah okay. Yeah, head over there and check it out. ⁓ And one last question. I like to wrap up with this. So let’s say I put you on stage. We’re at a massive real estate investor conference.Joe Killinger (32:05)
Yep. Yep. That’s it.Sure.
Cody Crabb (32:18)
You have a bunch of people in that room. I’m gonna give you like 10 seconds, like for one thought to share with everybody that you think will move the needle the most in like how successful they are. Like I turn the mic over to you. What is the thing that you say the one little nugget that you think would have the biggest effect?Joe Killinger (32:34)
Yeah.a lot of us know your market, you know, is I get so many people say, I want to do this asset class, but you well where you want to do it. And well, I want to be in Santa Monica and I want a seven cap, single tenant at least, okay, that’s not going to happen. You know, so really know your market, ⁓ know what’s going on there, know what you have to invest. So many people just want to get out there and start investing money that you really need to educate yourself.
before you start investing,
understand and know who you’re investing with. And for God’s sakes, find somebody like Investor Fuel that you can go watch because, you know, there’s there’s 20 year old life coaches that are out there. You don’t want to listen to those, right? You would you the same with investing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So you don’t want to be listening to those guys about life advice, because they’ve not lived any life.
Cody Crabb (33:20)
Yeah, and it’s scary how real they look too. Anybody could make something legit looking nowadays. that’s, yeah, it’s important.Joe Killinger (33:32)
Listen to people that have done what you want to do only. Don’t go listen to people that have bought a house and flipped it and now all of sudden they’re big investor. Go find somebody that has done what you do or want to do and listen to them.Cody Crabb (33:46)
Yeah, sometimes when someone’s selling a course on how to do something, I’m like, then why aren’t you doing that instead of selling this course? You know what I mean? It’s always like, ⁓ that’s great. That is so good. Thank you so much for that. Joe, thanks for joining us today. ⁓ And thanks for everyone for listening. you’re out there, appreciate you listening. ⁓ Make sure to subscribe if you haven’t yet. until then, we’ll see you on the next episode of Real Estate Pros.Joe Killinger (33:53)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.Mm-hmm.
