From Missions to Real Estate: Courtney Fricke’s Journey

Brett McCollum (00:00.758)
All right, guys, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Brett McCollum, and I’m here today with Courtney Fricke. And today we’re going to be talking about de-scaling. Pretty interesting. But before we do, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers, and real estate entrepreneurs to 5x their businesses to allow them to build the businesses they’ve always wanted and live the lives they’ve always dreamed up. Without further ado, Courtney, how are you?

Courtney Fricke (00:23.438)
I’m doing good, man. Thanks for having me on the show. I appreciate you having me here.

Brett McCollum (00:26.49)
Now I’m excited. It was really cool catching up with you. We probably spent a little too long, if I’m honest, in taking your time up getting to know each other. I’m nerding out. You’re from New Orleans. I love New Orleans. We’re just talking back and forth. But before we get into everything here, can you do me a favor? Can you rewind a bit, backtrack, give some context, some history? Who’s Courtney?

Courtney Fricke (00:50.284)
Absolutely. Look, so I’m born and raised in the suburbs of New Orleans, which is often why I joke. say, don’t sound like I’m from here, but born and raised. But, you know, grew up here and, know, I never went to college. Instead, a lot of my background is even from an early age, I actually started going on missions trips and I started doing nonprofit work. And so that actually led me to actually going on the missions field.

Brett McCollum (01:12.899)
OK.

Courtney Fricke (01:18.806)
And so I actually lived in Thailand for a year and I went to 25 different countries, did a lot of different types of work. And it was actually very interesting. you know, with that, a lot of my, a lot of my background was, you know, even growing up, I, I really enjoyed, you know, helping people, you know, things along those lines. And, you know, it came from, you know,

Brett McCollum (01:21.507)
I’ll lock it.

Courtney Fricke (01:47.266)
lot of that stems from having some issues at home, right? And just looking for, there was a level there that I could kind of equate with people who were hurting and had, whether it was trauma or they were facing difficulty, whatever it was. so nonetheless, didn’t go to college and said I went and worked at a missions agency in Texas where at a internship, I worked in a call center. So that was fun.

Brett McCollum (02:15.351)
our

Courtney Fricke (02:16.389)
different things along those lines, but it was all geared towards missions trips, getting people in the mission field, things like that. Learned a lot about sales and customer service and overcoming objections. Just even, I can’t go on a missions trip to Africa. I don’t have $4,000 or $3,000 to go for a month. so just, that was a very interesting time right outside of high school. Went, like I said, to 20, 25 different countries, a lot of them on a operations side.

or a leadership side, bringing a team of people with us. And then I moved to Thailand by myself for an entire year when I was 23. And man, did that really open the world in my eyes. And sure enough, I came home, unexpectedly came home. So like literally left my stuff there, came home for the holidays, my sister’s wedding and never got the chance to go back.

And so it took me about a year and a half to get my stuff back. But so I come back home and I stumbled my way into a job where I managed a Marina that was owned by an apartment complex corporation. And I just took the job because they said salary and benefits. And as someone who worked on the mission field, who had the exact opposite of a salary and benefits, know, you know, obviously I went to that job for a sense of security and

Brett McCollum (03:27.364)
Thank

Brett McCollum (03:33.05)
Sure. Yeah.

Courtney Fricke (03:43.148)
Yeah, it was a very interesting, interesting time.

Brett McCollum (03:47.264)
Interesting. Yeah, man, that’s really cool. Okay. I’m gonna back. It really is. Yeah, let’s take a breath everybody. Okay, so out of high school, you’re working, when did you, were you on and off missions fields right out of high school or was it you were working within a missions organization first?

Courtney Fricke (03:52.206)
It’s a lot to digest, right?

Courtney Fricke (04:08.29)
Yeah, so first of all, I went on my first, the summer after my seventh grade. So I went on my first trip. went when I was, I had just turned 14. I went to Lima, Peru for two weeks, the summer after seventh grade. And so right before going into eighth grade, I went and I spent a lot of my summers in high school on the mission field. Like the longest I went was two months. So like literally got out of school almost immediately left.

Brett McCollum (04:30.723)
Okay.

Courtney Fricke (04:36.482)
come back almost immediately go right back into school type of thing. But then, know, and so those were, I started doing that and even my senior year, went, I doubled up one year and I went during my, instead of my senior trip, I went on a mission trip to the Netherlands, to Amsterdam. And so some of it, that started bleeding over into school. And then I graduated and the missions agency that I was using,

Brett McCollum (04:55.194)
wow.

Courtney Fricke (05:05.812)
actually had an internship in Texas. And so instead of going to college right after high school, I went to their internship.

Brett McCollum (05:12.858)
Cool, yeah, and that makes a lot of sense. I mean, it’s a natural progression at this point, you know, it makes a lot of sense. And then you go to, and eventually you find yourself in Thailand for that year. I have a lot of questions. I have, the last missions trip I’ve been on was 2008. It’s been a minute. And we went to China for two weeks.

And that was a, and we were, you we got at the end, you get to do the fun little touristy thing, but you’re not there on the missions field to do fun touristy things, right? In going into the countryside and seeing the level of poverty in different areas that you just, it’s a, it’s a humbling, it surely does, you know, and we’re raising our kids now, like with, you know, looking at, right, my son’s 11, you know,

Courtney Fricke (05:58.934)
It changes your worldview.

Brett McCollum (06:09.014)
at what point is he old enough to come with me to go somewhere kind of thing and exposing him to the world not on the hey let’s go to you know like what is it you know jamaica and hey do these in the dominican there are all these poor countries but they have some of the richest wealthiest resorts you know that we’re all going to for fun and that and there’s nothing wrong with fun i too love to go to have fun there however how do we get them to see the the world as it is you know and and that’s something we’re really passionate about for for

Courtney Fricke (06:31.661)
Right.

Brett McCollum (06:38.908)
ourselves is trying to like, how do we raise our children to see the world that way as well, you know?

Courtney Fricke (06:43.702)
Yeah. I mean, it was huge for me. mean, literally I turned 14 and like two weeks later, I go to Peru for the first time and Lima, Peru. And I remember we went to this orphanage that was literally in the slums, right? Like kids were rolling tires through like, like, like garbage and sewage, right? So like, and I remember after two weeks of being there, like I came back home and my mom, one of the first things she did was

Brett McCollum (06:50.329)
Yeah.

Courtney Fricke (07:12.43)
she realized what happened to me, like how much it changed me and it changed a lot of my trajectory. Uh, we actually went in and we went to, uh, you know, we invested in some luggage cause she’s like, all right, you’re going again. I can already tell like, and invested in some like heavy duty luggage that could like, you know, kind of get drug around the world. And, um, but it was a level I think for anyone traveling for one thing, like even just, you know, for, for pleasure traveling opens up your eyes, but when

Brett McCollum (07:27.588)
Sure, yeah, yeah.

Courtney Fricke (07:40.962)
you’re in an all-inclusive resort. Like if you’re very like doing the tourist thing, you’re seeing what kind of they want you to see, right? But when I go now, when I travel for pleasure, I’m like, I want to go and act like a local, right? And I get a better feel for the area. But man, it opened up my eyes so much. And obviously as a young 14 year old, it was like, who was having some issues at home, right? And then seeing that on the, you know, we’re all

Brett McCollum (08:06.318)
Yeah.

Courtney Fricke (08:09.538)
we all have similar life experiences. And so it really opened up my eyes and I mean, it opened up my heart and really set my life on a trajectory of like, I remember then I’d been playing basketball. I played basketball for years. I ended up playing basketball for 12 years. And I remember for a long time, I wanted to be a professional. Well, I wanted to coach college basketball. Like, I just loved the idea. I wanted, didn’t never, I never wanted to be like in the WNBA.

Brett McCollum (08:33.421)
Okay.

Courtney Fricke (08:38.306)
but I wanted to continue in basketball, but I wanted to coach. And that came from a lot of like, hey, I wanna help, right? Like I wanna kind of mentor, wanna, but then eventually, you know, those dreams kind of got shifted to how can I continue to help people? in like still in that sense of like almost a big sister way, how can I help? It was weird to see that thread throughout my life. Not weird, but it was interesting to see.

Brett McCollum (08:59.16)
Love that.

Brett McCollum (09:04.018)
No, and I’m going to take us on a little path here. think you’ll, I’m pretty excited about here. So you go to Thailand, you spend that year there, you come back home. And I don’t want to quickly diminish that, by the way, but I do want to try to move us forward into getting into the real estate thing. So you spend your time and time. And I know enough about the Asian culture just from a little bit of time and then just.

I’m a geek out on cultures. It’s something I like to do.

What was the service aspect like in the customer service, like the way that you were treated from the local community there, like when you were there, what did that look like?

Courtney Fricke (09:49.58)
Let me set the backdrop. I lived in a city of a half a million people. So relatively large city that was not a tourist town. So, I understand I am a white woman in, in a year I saw less than 10 white people in a city of a half a million. It was not a tourist town, right? I stood out like a sore thumb, right? Thailand is called the land of smiles in, for a reason. The people are so kind.

Brett McCollum (10:09.284)
Sure.

Courtney Fricke (10:19.662)
And I think Southeast Asia is a bit different than some of other Asian cultures. But they would bend over backwards to help me. I can’t tell you how many times I was, was, you know, they would barter with me, Hey, I will give you free meals at my restaurant. If you would just sit and have conversations with my, with my kids. And, um, I mean, I got offered to go on family vacations with people just to have conversations. And, uh, and I mean, but if I was sick, they were like, Hey, go to this place and get this meal or get this medicine.

Brett McCollum (10:36.782)
Yeah.

Courtney Fricke (10:49.158)
I was very much adopted in and I also was because I also took time to learn the language and they saw that as such an endearing thing because the Thai language, pretty much outside the border of Thailand, you can’t really, you rarely can use it elsewhere. It’s not like Chinese, not like English, things like that where you could use it in a lot of other places. And so for them, really, it brought something out into it. Yeah, it mattered. so, but no, they’re,

Brett McCollum (10:55.67)
Mm-hmm. Love that.

Brett McCollum (11:15.13)
Tim, you

Courtney Fricke (11:18.956)
I’ve again, I’ve been to over 25 different countries. I’ve been to Thailand four times. I truly love that country. And it has stood out as some of the nicest people who are genuinely, know, they genuinely for the most part, they care. And it’s a very, it’s a very interesting culture altogether. I learned a lot from them.

Brett McCollum (11:38.712)
Yeah, I love that. And we’re gonna hold the thought on that because I’m gonna come back to this in a moment. So Courtney, you get back home, maybe not necessarily planned, unplanned. How do you then, I’m in real estate, what happened there?

Courtney Fricke (11:57.902)
Yeah. So I stumbled into that job, right? So I was working some odds and in jobs, right? Just to make some money while we were trying to figure out if I was going to get a visa back there, whatnot. And then when it started to become real that I was not going back, I was all right. Well, then I need to put down deeper roots, right? Like I actually need to, uh, at that point I was 23 turning 24. was like, Hey, I need to start acting a little bit like an adult, right? Like, me grow up. Right. And so someone said, um, you know, I was working some part-time jobs.

Brett McCollum (12:17.178)
we have started running a full idea.

Courtney Fricke (12:24.46)
And someone said, Hey Courtney, I’m leaving a job that has salary and benefits. think you’d be a good fit for. And it was basically, it was an assistant manager job at a marina owned by an apartment complex. And I was like, okay, like, well, I don’t know what the hell that is. Like, I don’t know like what that looks like, but, so I ended up taking that job literally, but I kid you not. I was the assistant manager to a manager and I did know before taking the job that the manager had cancer day one on the job.

Brett McCollum (12:38.062)
Great.

Brett McCollum (12:51.001)
Okay.

Courtney Fricke (12:53.582)
HR flew in from the, it was a large corporation owned it, apartment corporation that was nationwide. They flew in to do my HR stuff and like, know, get me set up as an employee. Cause it was a location with only two employees. So like it was a big deal. We were getting a second one, right? And literally the manager went to the hospital for chemo, died that day, my first day on the job. So my manager who was going to be training me all this,

So long story short, corporate looks at me and they said, figure it out. And they’re like, that was going to be your training because it was the only Marina owned by their entire apartment portfolio. so like major deviation, none of their training. They’re like, that was supposed to be the person who trained you. Right. And, so I took that, took that job and I was like, okay. it was 40 % occupied when I went the Marina.

Brett McCollum (13:25.892)
You’re in.

Brett McCollum (13:39.962)
cheese.

Courtney Fricke (13:50.38)
And it had a one-star review on all the websites that mattered for boaters. And I knew nothing. didn’t, I’ve never been on a sailboat. Like my dad had some Bay boats growing up, but long story short, I just kind of put my head down. I took some of the lessons that was instilled in me growing up, like leave a place better than you find it. You know, all that, some genuine curiosity. And within two years, it was a hundred percent occupied and five star reviews. And a corporate was like, if you want to climb in the ladder, you know, like we can move you to another location. Like, Hey, we see some, some potential here.

and someone gave me some advice during that time. And I, ended up becoming, he was a tenant at the, at the Marina who had just retired himself at 50 and, and he was a business owner and stuff. said, Courtney, you don’t understand what you just did. You just turned that asset around. now, cause they immediately put it for sale after I turned it around. They, because now they had tried selling in the past, they failed. Now the assets performing.

And he goes, Courtney, if you can ever figure out how to do that for yourself, you can become very wealthy because what you just did, that the way you turned an asset around. And so I took his advice and while I was still at the Marina, I bought my first property. It took, it took a lot of creative creativity cause I was surely lacking in finances and things like that. But, I bought my first property while at the Marina and the amount of

equity I captured on that one deal was more than one year’s salary at the Marina. And I said, all right, if I can do this again and again, the bug bit me. was like, I’m ready to roll. so that’s really how I really transitioned. I stumbled into a job that was real estate related, but the reality there was I didn’t realize I was capturing skillsets along like unintentionally capturing skillsets.

And, and when someone gave me that advice, they kind of just took my shoulders and they pointed me in the direction of doing it for myself, of really finding a failing asset and learning how to turn it around. it, really opened up some doors. And so then when I did it for the first time and saw the actual money tied to it, I said, okay, there’s something here and all around during that time, the number one question I was having was, you know, back on the mission field, I saw a lot of people who wanted to do good.

Courtney Fricke (16:09.944)
but none of them had a strong financial footing. And so they were always preoccupied with fundraising. They were always preoccupied with like basically being in need. And I was like, man, I want to do good, but like, I want to have a solid foundational of a foundation of finances. Right. And, and so that was kind of driving me. was like, I want to do good, but I want to have financial independence. And when I started studying it, obviously real estate was a strong trend, you know, a lot of things like that.

Brett McCollum (16:13.978)
Sure.

Brett McCollum (16:32.516)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney Fricke (16:38.03)
But there was a level I wanted independence and I wanted freedom for, like the freedom to be able to help people. But I also wanted freedom from, I didn’t want to go slave at a job for 40 years. And I also didn’t want to depend on the government. I didn’t want to depend on an inheritance, family, a spouse, any of that. So that was all some of the big, I was having a quarter life crisis at that point. I was 25, 24, 25 and having those big thoughts.

Brett McCollum (16:48.356)
Yeah.

Courtney Fricke (17:06.806)
I don’t want, I wanted freedom from, but I also wanted freedom to be able to do those things. And so while all that was happening and then doing that first deal, it was like the doors really got opened that this is, this is the path.

Brett McCollum (17:19.362)
Wow. All right, what year was that?

Courtney Fricke (17:21.794)
So I got in the industry in 2014.

Brett McCollum (17:24.858)
So I’m 14 and all right, let’s fast forward 10 years, okay? So you’ve built out what happened.

Courtney Fricke (17:34.434)
Yeah, so that first deal was a live in flip. then so early on I started off flipping and then added in wholesaling. And so I’ve done a few hundred deals in the greater New Orleans region, predominantly flipping and wholesaling. And then towards like 2019, I started to have a major shift where I said, man, I got into this for financial freedom and independence, but my goodness, I just bought an 80 hour a week job, basically.

Brett McCollum (17:38.02)
Yep.

Brett McCollum (18:01.284)
That’s right.

Courtney Fricke (18:02.088)
And so during that time I was doing a lot of the scaling. So I was bringing on people on my staff to help with acquisitions, project management, stuff like that. So long story short, I started to make a major shift in 2019 to where I started to de-scale some. I started holding more properties and I still consider myself a recovering flipper and wholesaler. I still will relapse sometimes.

Um, but usually those are for high quality. Like last year I did a $75,000 assignment. did a $55,000 assignment, uh, and a $40,000 assignment on, you know, handful of wholesale deals that I did. Um, but they were higher quality because I knew, you know, knew how to structure those deals. knew how to do things. I was better at it where I didn’t have to compete with volume. Right. Um, and you know, how many back in the day when they were 5,000 a pop, would it take for me, you know,

Brett McCollum (18:47.386)
the and the much larger bed it is.

Courtney Fricke (18:58.078)
I would have to have done dozens to equal those dollars amounts, right? But then I shifted to where it was predominantly. So now the majority of what I do is I do buy and hold. So I acquire it through creative financing. So actual seller financing subject to or private money and true private money from individuals and, or I buy stuff through creative financing and I sell it on creative financing to basically where I have a portfolio of rentals. I have a portfolio of notes.

Brett McCollum (19:00.612)
Exactly.

Courtney Fricke (19:27.95)
from the seller finance stuff the creative financing on the the the Dispo side and I’ll still do you know, I I still do less flips more hotels or Wholesales that’s predominantly where I’ll do some of that But it I mean it changed the makeup the last ten years, you know, I kind of went the long way around But I learned what I liked I learned what I didn’t like and I learned what I wanted

Brett McCollum (19:51.226)
Yeah, I want to say this. I’m glad you said all this. So I want to say this.

We were also talking pre-show a little bit about the current economic climate for a lot of real estate investors, you know, and something you had mentioned that we were talking, it was like, you learned how to play defense. And right now in that season, in the season of where the uncertainty in the market and da da da da, you know, every flipper listen to this can tell you that like, maybe not every, but a lot of markets across the country, homes are just sitting and not moving at all. Matter of fact, this morning, a mentee of mine had called me, like, asking, it’s like, Brett,

I mean, I’ve had this flip, I mean, it’s been on the market for 10 months, and it’s not moving. What am I supposed to do? And where did you get that advice from? What does that look like in your business today?

Courtney Fricke (20:45.23)
Yeah. So I’ll admit early on, I learned from who was the loudest. So folks who have social media channels, things like that. But in 2018, I met a guy who, so when I started to go into Mississippi, so I’m in Louisiana, but I started to get a ton of leads from all my marketing in Mississippi. So I said, you know what, it makes sense. And so I started networking with the largest buyer in Mississippi. And at one point he looked at me and said, Courtney, I think you’re really gonna like my dad.

After getting to know me his dad had been investing since 1975 was still is still active today in his 70s still actively doing a significant amount of deals and When I met his dad something in me stood up This guy this guy does not cold call this guy does not send direct mail this guy But this guy I mean when he drove me around his 75 acres every property we could see he was like, yeah That’s why Reynolds about what seller financing this one. I’m like, this is like Lion King everywhere the

Brett McCollum (21:28.026)
Hmm.

Courtney Fricke (21:41.964)
the sun touches his dude only, right? And I just, something in me kind of stood up in like, I love the way he did real estate. And so he introduced me to a world of what I called my gray haired mentors. These are guys who’ve been investing since the sixties and seventies, still active today who’ve done both volume and tenure. You know, they’ve been in the business a long time.

Brett McCollum (21:42.296)
Yep. Yep. Everything.

Brett McCollum (21:59.258)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney Fricke (22:09.998)
Cause some people they’ve been in the business a long time, but they’ve done, you know, 10 deals, right? But then some people have been in the business for 10 years and they’ve done, 3000 deals, right? I like a mixture of the both. I like people who’ve done a good bit of business and they’ve been in the business a long time because their skills have been adequately tested against different market cycles. And that was one of my biggest concerns, you know, being in the business now for 11 years now, it’s like,

Brett McCollum (22:14.073)
Right.

Brett McCollum (22:30.33)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney Fricke (22:36.844)
my skills haven’t been adequately tested. Cause this is my first changing market and a changing market test is basically takes what’s been theory, you the deals you’re doing, but when the market’s against your back, mean, anyone’s smart, anyone has the Midas touch, you know, but then when the market changes, you’re like, Whoa, am I actually doing this right? You know, Buffett says when the tide leaves, we find out who’s swimming without their trunks one, right? And so that is one of the things I was looking at. I was worried about a changing market. And so I’ve

I’ve longed to what I call my gray haired, respectfully, my gray haired mentors who have been through multiple market cycles. And I’m like, hey, what did you have to, who did you have to become in the seventies? You know, in the eighties, when the interest rates went to 21%, not what did, yes, I want to learn what you had to do, but also who did you have to become as an investor to survive then? So, so that has been a lot of the, one of the biggest things they’ve taught me though has been defense, you know, because

Brett McCollum (23:18.767)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (23:25.305)
Right.

Courtney Fricke (23:35.086)
They’ve often told me Courtney, this guy had hundreds of houses, but he’s no longer here. Not because he’s passed away because they’re, you but, because he, know, he got kicked off real estate Island. You know, he, he got booted out because he, you know, made some bad business decisions along the way. So that is who I credit a lot of that sound, advice from is, is those guys, because I’m like, look, they’ve seen a lot of, you know, wait, was such an anomaly.

Right? Like the, the, if you, any of the data you look at, I’m not even going to pretend to be an expert in economics, but wait, it was such an anomaly. But if you look at different, the.com boom, if you look at the, the eighties, the seventies, if you look at different cycles, market cycles, what happened, what happened to single family homes, what happened to multifamily homes, what happened to values, rents, all of those things, you know, the, availability of credit, it really starts to open up your eyes. Like, man, each one was really different and it demanded.

different things from different investors. and so that’s really, you know, obviously I learned a lot from them. They’re, they’re all heavy in the creative finance space. So I’ve learned a lot in the sense of like deal structuring and stuff. but, but even the deal structuring to win your backs against the wall, how do you deal structure your way out of when a deal goes back? You know, like there’s been a lot of stuff along those lines that, that I’ve really appreciated because

Brett McCollum (24:45.986)
your structure is huge.

Brett McCollum (24:54.394)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney Fricke (25:00.044)
You know, none of us are immune. were talking about this. None of us are immune for deals going wrong, right? In this market, there’s a lot outside of our control, but what has saved me has literally been three things. It has been cash in the bank. talked about that. It has been equity and the ability to assess that, you know, access that equity. And the third thing has been, you know, education in the form of skill sets. It’s one thing to know about something, but can you actually go put into action?

That skill set is so, so huge. And I mean, I’ve had to sit down and be like, all right, let me write down 10 different ideas of how do I overcome this situation with one of my deals that’s, you know, given me curve balls and, and, literally say, Hey, how can I, know, how can I structure my way towards, you know, a better outcome?

Brett McCollum (25:48.154)
Yeah, I think that’s incredible. I have one more question, and I wanted to bring it back from our conversation about Thailand. In all of the business you’ve done in the last 10, 11 years now.

To me, the most successful people I know, real estate investors, there’s some scummy people out there. You’ve met them, I’ve met them, we know who they are. But the most successful people, the ones that we respect, tend to have a level of care and service to the seller community that we help. How have you been able to apply?

the years on the mission field, seeing cultures, because I think America as a whole doesn’t understand service. I do see the world like teaching us, like if you look at it, it teaches us that. you been to, have you seen any correlation to what you’ve learned from the mission field to what you do in the real estate market from that end?

Courtney Fricke (26:42.254)
Absolutely. So even my hat says it for a long time. I didn’t know, like I didn’t want to just be called a real estate investor because I felt like that one lumped me into people I didn’t want to be, you know, lumped in with, but then also because I didn’t feel like it was enough. And so a few years ago I started calling myself a solutions based real estate investor. So I would introduce myself in a room for real estate agents, you know, or whatever. And they’re like, well, what does that mean? I’m like, well, look, at the end of the day, I’m here to help. And

And if there’s no problem for me to solve, there’s generally no reason for me to be here. So I’m going to refer you to real estate agent. I’m going to refer you. I’m going to give you some ideas out of FISBO, but otherwise I’m going to, I’m going to say, Hey, I’m not the right fit for you. But when it comes to someone, you know, I’ve stopped foreclosures for over the last 10 years, you know, I’m coming to someone who’s in a tough place. One of the correlations I saw, you know, especially from the missions field, I saw so many people who, you know, they were.

in a very, whether it’s a dire situation, you know, whatever. And I would advocate, you know, which is what sellers I would advocate. say, Hey, don’t sell to someone like me. You don’t need to sell it like someone like me. Right. And so it’s where I’m giving them multiple options. And sometimes only one or two were doing business with me. And it’s this idea of, you know, there’s a great principle I learned from a book called extreme trust by Don peppers. It’s this idea of good businesses doing what you said you would do.

Brett McCollum (27:57.999)
Right.

Brett McCollum (28:09.658)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney Fricke (28:09.784)
But now the new level is you’ve got to do business and you’ve got to basically, you have to do what’s in the best interest of the other person. And which is sounds, which sounds counterproductive to business, but it’s this idea of plenty times I have told people, Hey, don’t sell to someone like me because you don’t have enough of a problem to, right. but there have been plenty of times I’ve laid out people’s options and said, and they then made an informed decision. So what I took from all those years was informing people.

leading with a level of care and informing people and I never want to rob someone of an informed decision. And so so many people, you know, I’m not sitting there giving a lecture, but you know, I’ll ask qualifying questions and then I’ll give, you know, information like, well, tell me why you haven’t considered doing this or this. And we talk and then, you know, I’m going to give them information and I have so many people come back to me, even if my offer is not the highest, even if it’s not X, Y, Z.

They still choose me, but it’s an informed choice. And that’s one of the things I’m, and it allows me to lay my head down at night. You know, I can go to bed knowing that I’m doing good business. Sure, I’ve done well monetarily, right? And I may not be the flashiest person, but sure, I’ve definitely changed a lot with my family monetarily, right? But at the same time, I can…

Brett McCollum (29:30.628)
that.

Courtney Fricke (29:33.602)
You know, I used to have it as a grocery store test. Like if I walk in the grocery store and I see a seller I bought house from six months ago, you know, would I, you know, I want to be able to hold my head high and for them to love to see me, right. To be so happy with the transaction. Now, I mean, I had a fun thing happened the other day. We talked about this festival and I’ll lay in my plane here, but New Orleans is really big on festivals, right? We have festivals for like music, food, everything. Well, just a few weeks ago, I was at a festival here in New Orleans. was a music festival.

Brett McCollum (29:44.314)
Sure, of course.

Courtney Fricke (30:03.118)
I was walking around, I hear my name behind me. I’m leaving to go back to my car with my spouse, hear my name behind me being yelled. I turn around and it was someone who had just stopped a foreclosure for like eight weeks before, know, so, so, you know, earlier this year and they were so excited to see me and all of this stuff. I had bought, stopped their foreclosure. I bought their house subject to the existing loan, right? All this stuff, a nice house, 2020, 2021 build. I got it furnished, all this stuff.

and they were excited to see me. was like, okay, now let’s take grocery store out and put it. My new bar is if I see them at a festival. And by the way, one of them was drunk. And when they were still happy to see me drunk, that tells me I did good business. you know what I mean? Like that is, like, you know what? Cause you know, real feelings come out when people have a few drinks in them. So, but I was like, man, that’s, that’s how you do real estate matters. I usually have that on a t-shirt and I’m like,

Brett McCollum (30:38.189)
Yep.

Brett McCollum (30:44.772)
track that.

Brett McCollum (30:50.97)
That’s right.

Courtney Fricke (30:59.554)
That’s what I care about, not only the technical side, but man, it’s how did I treat that person and is it something where, moving forward and I see them again, am I still proud how I did that deal?

Brett McCollum (31:12.152)
I love that. Man, so good. right, Courtney, this has been incredible. I want people to be able to connect with you. You follow along the journey, that sort of thing. What’s the best way for that to happen?

Courtney Fricke (31:25.966)
Yeah, very simple. you go to Courtney fricky.com, it’s a link tree. has, you know, multiple links to different social media platforms. I’m very active on Instagram and Facebook, things like that. Uh, it also gives stuff like, know, for my podcast and whatnot, it just has links to all my, my resources and my social media stuff. So I’d, I’d love, uh, I appreciate that. And I always love connecting with folks because at the end of the day, um, man, if I want to continue to get that message out there, right.

Brett McCollum (31:52.911)
Right.

Courtney Fricke (31:53.582)
You know, lot of my mentors, respectful, know, respectfully, what I call the gray hair guys, a lot of them, unfortunately we’ve lost a few of them, right? And they don’t have social media presence. Uh, and, so part of my heart is to really carry on a lot of what they taught me, the philosophy around approaching real estate and, and, every now and then they’ll let me put them on camera and in a podcast episode or something. And so, but nonetheless, just sharing, you know, my approach to real estate, um, through social media. So I appreciate that people can go to Courtney for key.com. Find me there.

Brett McCollum (32:07.29)
Sure, truly.

Brett McCollum (32:23.162)
Perfect. Yeah, and we’ll put that in the show notes for you guys to follow. You would be an absolute silly human being to not go follow Courtney, guys. So don’t be a silly human being, okay? Go follow Courtney. Jump in there. But man, Courtney, again, this has been great. Thanks for hanging out and spending your time with us today.

Courtney Fricke (32:40.75)
Yeah, Brett, thanks for having me. I appreciate you guys. yeah, man, I appreciate it. It’s been good talking with you.

Brett McCollum (32:46.573)
Alright guys, well thanks to you as well for hanging out with us, and we will see each of you on the next episode. Take care everybody!