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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Edmonds speaks with Brandon Bateman, a digital marketing expert specializing in real estate investment. Brandon shares his journey from bagging groceries to founding Bateman Collective, a company focused on direct-to-seller marketing for real estate investors. The conversation delves into the importance of personal growth, company culture, and building trust in business relationships. Brandon emphasizes the need for continuous improvement in marketing strategies and the significance of employee satisfaction in achieving business success.
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Brandon Bateman (00:00)
So I think, I think all of us and maybe, maybe some people discover this different ways, right? What I’ve been, here’s what I really, really like about being an entrepreneur is that there is no such thing as there never being an opportunity for growth. There’s always an opportunity for growth because if you somehow solve those problems and you don’t need to grow anymore as a person.Brandon Bateman (00:24)
to solve the problems you’re dealing with, then what’s natural is that your business will grow and then it will face new problems that you haven’t yet solved. So you’re kind of like always in this space of just like, they say experience is something that you get just after you needed it.Quentin (02:10)
Hello everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds. Excited to be here today. And you know why I’m excited? Because I have another fantastic guest. You know, this is the highlight. This is what I love to do, is to be able to look through people, other people’s lenses, and how they navigate real estate business. And we all on this journey, but we are in so many different various places, right? So it’s always good that we can come together and learn from each other. And I have somebody that is an expert.At being them, they are expert at what they do, but not only if they expert, they are specialists when it comes in marketing. And so I’m excited for you guys to get to know and learn more about Mr Brandon Bateman. Mr Brandon, how you doing today, sir?
Brandon Bateman (02:53)
Very fantastic. Great to speak with you today.Quentin (02:57)
Absolutely man, so glad you’re here. Thank you for being here. I’m excited to do this with you and so listen, Brandon. I want to dial right in man. I want you to tell the people what your main focus is these days. When it goes a little bit of an origin story of kind of how you got started. We love the heroes journey and then if you can tell us what part of the world you’re in, I’m sure they would love to know that too. So Brandon, so you have the floor man.Brandon Bateman (03:19)
Yep, you got it. So I’m based out of Salt Lake City, Utah. And what I do specifically, I own a company called Bateman Collective and Bateman Collective is a digital marketing company that specializes just in working with real estate investors for direct to solid marketing. So that’s all we do. And it’s all really I’ve done. So if you look at the, if you look at the origin story, I started this company when I was a sophomore in college andIt’s been about eight years since then of just building this one company. all, you know, it’s my entire professional career. I was bagging groceries before I was doing this. The very beginning was just me saying, I want to get into digital marketing. Let me go find a few people who are willing to engage me in that. I emailed a bunch of people, said, I don’t even care what you want me to do in marketing. I don’t even care what you want to pay me. I don’t care if you pay me. I just want to do this kind of stuff.
Can I, can I learn? And, and that was, know, the first clients and those clients give referrals to people and those referrals give referrals to people. And, you know, at some point I found myself neck deep in this real estate investment space and cut off all the other parts of the business. And, now it’s been about five years that we’ve been just exclusively working with motivated Saturday gen for real estate investors.
Quentin (04:35)
I love it, As you was talking, I was writing down a little bit of your resume, right? Started sophomore in college, right? Then you talk about you was bagging groceries, man. I absolutely loved that. You bagging groceries, thinking about the dream. And then you’re like, hey, I want to get in this. I’m going start calling people. And so I love your natural progression, how you really worked your way up to where you are now. And I have a saying where I say destiny has no wasted moments, right?meaning no matter where you are in life, once you go through different journeys of your life, it kind of make you who you are today. And so, man, you was thinking about this vision even back then. So I would love to know now that you’re living the dream, what has destiny taught you about yourself? As you went through each motion of your life to now where you are now, what has destiny revealed to you about you?
Brandon Bateman (06:11)
that’s a, an interesting question that I’ve never been asked before. Let me, let me think.So I think, I think all of us and maybe, maybe some people discover this different ways, right? What I’ve been, here’s what I really, really like about being an entrepreneur is that there is no such thing as there never being an opportunity for growth. There’s always an opportunity for growth because if you somehow solve those problems and you don’t need to grow anymore as a person.
Brandon Bateman (06:39)
to solve the problems you’re dealing with, then what’s natural is that your business will grow and then it will face new problems that you haven’t yet solved. So you’re kind of like always in this space of just like, they say experience is something that you get just after you needed it.You’re always just kind of like, I could slay what I was doing two years ago today. But with the challenges I’m faced today, they’re just a little bit harder. So I’ve learned that I really like that growth journey. And the cool thing about that growth journey is it brings out.
all of your strengths and it also brings out all of your weaknesses and you learn a lot of stuff about yourself along the way. Like in my case, I learned that I’m really good with numbers and the way that I see the world is a little bit different than how most people see the world because of that. I’ve also learned that I have to work really hard to understand a lot of the emotional parts of business and leadership. And like those things don’t come naturally to me as they do to some other people as well.
So, I mean, there’s endless, endless like insights along those ways, but like at some point you kind of, you kind of see yourself in a, and I’m sure I’ll even look back at who I am today in 10 years and say, like, I didn’t have a clear lens then, but it feels like over time, the lens just gets clearer and clearer and you understand who you are and you’re a little bit more comfortable with that. And you get better at doubling down on your strengths.
Quentin Edmonds (07:58)
Canyou still hear me Brandon? Okay, cool. Perfect. Yeah. So I’m experiencing some internet issues on this end. I’m sorry if I cut you off because I couldn’t hear you for a second, but I’m glad you can still hear me. So was you finished flushing out your thought? I apologize.
Brandon Bateman (08:11)
Oh, I, I basically, basically all I, all I finished with there was, um, yeah, the lens gets a little bit clearer over time. Like you understand who you are, you, you, you, learn to double down on your strengths and, and you, learn how to work around your weaknesses. So it’s, yeah, that’s a, I learned. really liked that journey.Quentin Edmonds (08:29)
Yeah, man, Brandon so eloquently said, man, thank you for sharing, man. As you was talking, I was just writing things down. Always an opportunity to grow. Appreciate the growth. A lot of people don’t appreciate the growth, don’t appreciate the growing pains. But that’s what happens when you grow. You get in awkward situations, you’ve never been before, and they bring up the best in you if you allow it to. And so I love your self-awareness, man. I love your ability to go within yourself and look atThrough the lens, like you said, the lens look a little bit clearer the more you grow. So it’s a very eloquent way to say that. Thank you for answering. So man, I know you, as you was building, you faced some adversity, right? How has adversity looked for you? It looks different for everybody, but specifically in what you do, how has adversity reared its, I won’t necessarily say ugly head, but because it is what it is. It’s just part of the growth like we talked about, right?
Brandon Bateman (09:25)
Yeah. Yeah. It’s so, and there’s, there’s so many, you know, so many different challenges. think, I think one big one, if we’re talking like, cause some challenges are short and others are, are persistent problems that like, really need to make it past in order to grow. ⁓ one of those, one of those really persistent problems for me. ⁓ I don’t know if you guys in your, in your organization, you track a metric it’s called employee net promoter score. you basically actually ask each employee.What, how likely are you to recommend working at this company to a friend on a scale of one to 10?
And then you take basically, um, to get up 100 on the score. You would have to have like every single person in the company says like nine or 10 out of 10, um, to get a negative 100, every single person would have to say a six or lower. And then to, get like the most common scores are between zero and 30. That’s, that’s where it’s like, like zero would be, I had five.
people who scored nine or 10 and I had five people who scored six or lower. So therefore it’s zero. It’s right in the middle between negative 100 and zero one hundred and, and, 100. So, so that’s, that’s like how Nepromotor score works for employees. And when I first started, uh, when I first started tracking that it was like 45, which is generally pretty good. had a small team and, uh, I worked well with everybody and then
And then we kind of went through this growth phase as a company where we grew our head count, like 267 % over like, ⁓ over six months. So we were in this quick growth phase. This is when the real estate market started going crazy. And I, that score went literally as low as like, started teetering between like negative 70 and like at the best times zero, you know, a quarter to quarter kind of like teeter between like, we’re kind of neutral and we absolutely suck. And we had lots of employee turnover. ⁓
And like, I genuinely didn’t think that my business was a place that I enjoyed working and I didn’t feel like other people enjoyed working there. didn’t feel like I was getting the most out of it. felt like people were my liability, not like the strength of the company and all that kind of stuff. So that was, that was really hard. That was a period that lasted multiple years trying to get out of that. ⁓ Now we’re at like positive 70 as far as that score goes. And we’ve been there for like 18 months. ⁓ since, since we like,
And then like two years ago we were at like zero. So it was kind of like a slow climb out of it. And then, then to a really good place. And the way that I feel about people, the way I feel about the company is completely different. ⁓ so yeah, that was a, that was a journey. And that’s like at a time because I didn’t know anything else in business. I just thought that’s kind of how business was. And I didn’t realize that that was actually a really bad thing. Like, I know it felt bad, but I was just wondering like, this is just how it is. Maybe this is what it feels like to own a business.
Yeah, that’s been that journey of like figuring that out and creating a better company culture and everything has been ⁓ like the biggest swing that my company has gone through. Because of course, it’s like it’s at the foundation of everything else. And as the leader of the company, it’s my responsibility. Right. So when it was bad, it’s my fault. And when it’s good, it’s technically like everybody’s technically like everybody else to contribute to that. Right. But but that hurt knowing like this is what I’m responsible for. And I can’t create something that adds enough value that people like are happy that it exists.
Quentin Edmonds (13:22)
Yeah, Brandon, man, I absolutely love your leadership style. I love how you leave from self awareness and reflection. I mean, I absolutely love it you know, some people, unfortunately, don’t want to take accountability. You don’t want to reflect in light, you know, and I love how you felt it like you felt what everybody else was failing and you sort out to the changing man. I absolutely love their leadership style. And so it makes me want to ask you, Brandon, what’s the next real goal for Bateman Collective? Like, what are you looking to solve a scale next, man?Brandon Bateman (13:52)
So yeah, big things that are happening for us. Like here’s the thing, I’m not a big like pivoter. I’m not a big like, here’s the, let’s burn the boats. Here’s the new vision kind of guy. I’m a very analytical person. And I also recognize that so much of what we built already is so valuable that putting that at risk is a dumb thing to do. So generally, if you look at our goals,It’s that we just want to get marginally better in a few places. We’re, we’re the kind of company that if we get marginally better in a few places, it makes quite a big difference compounded over time. So that’s, that’s essentially the entirety of the plan is we do two things right now. Number one, we get new clients. Number two, we keep them forever. If we can get better at getting more new clients, just a little bit. And if we can get better at making sure they never leave just a little bit and growing them, then.
That’s like those are two levers of the business. And if you look at our goals for this year, it’s basically 25, 30 % growth by getting just a little bit better at both of those things.
Quentin Edmonds (14:58)
Mm-hmm. Man, I love everything you’re talking about, man. Have you heard of a book called Atomic Habits?Brandon Bateman (15:46)
yeah, absolutely. That’s yeah, I read that a long, time ago and I think it built the foundation for like so many, so many things that I, that I do.Quentin Edmonds (15:55)
It makes so much sense because when you talk about marginally better compound, that stuff’s not the compound. I’m like, yeah. So no, makes total sense why you’re successful. Like you said, you’re not the type of burn and shift type of guy. Just make these little things better, you know? And I’m with you. I just try to be 1 % better than I was yesterday, right? That’s that kind of atomic habit kind of processing in my brain. Like, in pattern. And like you said, things start to compound. So I love it. Again, man, I am absolutely lovingyour leadership style for sure, man, is no doubt this is why Bateman Collective is so, so successful, man. And so I want to ask you, you, you talked about your employees, you felt what they was failing, you’re in tune with your employees, with your team. So I want to talk about this word relationship. What is your perspective when it comes to building relationships within business? Is it important? Has it helped you? How do you go about it? Like, what is your perspective when it comes to building relationships?
Brandon Bateman (16:54)
My perspective on relationships, so I’m interesting. I’m not what a lot of people would call a relationship guy in the sense that I don’t build business relationships because I like golfing with this person. I think golfing with that person might be a waste of time a lot of the time. ⁓ I think the only meeting better than a good meeting is no meeting at all. And I prefer to have as few meetings with people as I possibly can. So if you look from that lens, I’m different from a lot of people. But of course, relationships are reallyimportant. One of my favorite frameworks for them is like in a relationship you need trust. This is from the seven habits of highly effective people. And trust comes down to two things. It comes down to your competence and it comes down to your character. And I believe it’s like the foundation of every relationship is that one person and another person, they have a belief in the competence of the person that they’re working with, that they can actually do what they’re going to say they’re going to do.
And that they can perform at a high level. And then they also have this, this belief in that person’s character that they’re actually going to have like even other people’s best interests in mind. And I think those things are like way stronger than the fact that like, we both like golfing, but we’re horrible people. So as far as relationships, like that’s like the way we approach, like working with our clients and stuff. Like we’re always looking at it from the lens of like, how do we build our competence with this client? How do we build our character with this client? ⁓ I, I think it’s, ⁓
I think it’s everything, right? So that’s a lot of how I do business. Like, I have no reason to have any relationship issue with you. ⁓ But the more deposits, like where I think like, hey, Quentin is a person who I can actually trust. He has a strong character, or he’s actually performing on a high level. He has strong competence. Like the more that happens, I think that’s how relationships grow.
Quentin Edmonds (18:42)
I love it man again. Thank you for answering that question. Thank you for answering it Honestly, you know everybody normally get their their take on that question and I absolutely love you take is definitely from a different lens and I love it because you said listen Sometimes the best meaning is no meaning at all when I tell you I hear you on that sir. I You on that brandy for sure, man. What’s your? Thank you for answering that question that gives or honestly and organically badLet me ask you, is there any topic that I have not brought up that you would want to talk about? Or is there any kind of word of motivation, education, inspiration that you will want to give people? If there is, man, I would love to hear it.
Brandon Bateman (19:29)
Yeah, I don’t have anything super specific. We haven’t talked a lot about like my actual expertise.Quentin Edmonds (19:39)
This question in there because I’m like you know, you want to brag man? You want to get the shoulder on? This is the time to brag about what to do man. AbsolutelyBrandon Bateman (19:50)
Yeah. Well, it’s funny because like, far as like a lot of the stuff we talked about, it’s like it’s stuff that I’ve learned a lot of. And there’s probably people out there who are way better at that kind of stuff than I am. And as far as the, what like what my company does, the online marketing for real estate investors, for motivated seller of eGen, that’s kind of like you’d have a hard time finding a lot of people who know more about that than we do, right? Because that’s like our thing, right? You spend enough time, we’ve got our 10,000 hours spent and then some.and just being really, really good at that particular thing. ⁓ So yeah, if I was to put a message out there, I ⁓ would basically say, if you’re a real estate investor and you’re not doing marketing channels like PVC, like SEO, then it’s an opportunity. If you are doing them, it’s likely that you’re wasting a lot of money on a lot of stuff that you shouldn’t be wasting money on. ⁓ So the best thing you can do is find a partner that has the right data to find those places where your budget’s being used in effectively.
dial that in so that you can get better results. And that’s essentially the entirety of what we do as a company. But yeah, there’s all kinds of stuff on that. if you guys want to know more about that, you can go to our podcast. It’s podcast.batemancollective.com, where we have all kinds of episodes there. And you can even get access to stuff on our website. We just did a 12 week PPC live training and stuff like that, where we just peel back the curtain and show people this is exactly what we do.
because we’re not afraid to show people because we believe in it because it’s all based on really strong data. ⁓ And the average investor, when they find out exactly how it works, they realize it’s not quite what they want to do either. There’s the 1 % that can and should do it, but there’s the 99 % that basically need to find their who in that circumstance. that’s kind of what we strive to be. So yeah, I’d encourage you you want, if you’re interested in that kind of stuff, check that out.
Quentin Edmonds (21:39)
Absolutely, man. So listen, if someone wanted to collaborate with you, learn more, would they just go to the podcast or is there somewhere else you would want to send them as well? Website anything like that. I would want to know that as well. If you’re you’re OK giving that out.Brandon Bateman (21:52)
Yeah, yeah. The other thing is BatemanCollective.com. What you can do with that. So let’s just say you wanted to do either of those things, SEO or PVC. You could go to the website and you can get booked with a strategist on my team. If you’re already spending money on either of those things, we can look into them for you and help you identify. The thing we do for free is we help identify where is their money being wasted. That could be better.So yes, we can do that. Or if you haven’t done it before, we can help you understand is it actually a good fit for you or not, because it’s not for everybody. But if it is a good fit, it’s worth doing.
Quentin Edmonds (22:26)
I appreciate you, man. But I want to say this to you. I had to make sure I got this on camera because I want to say three things to you, Brandon. So first, thank you for your time. know, time is a precious commodity. You run a business, you know, you could be doing anything with your time. So definitely thank you for your time today. Secondly, thank you for your story.Thank you for your, I call the gift of vulnerability and transparency. Just leave from a transparent space, from a place where we feel like we’re building some momentum of trust, right? So I’m hoping people will hear you, trust you and want to collaborate and connect with you. So just thank you for your story and your narrative. Lastly, man, thank you for your perspective. Thank you for your mindset and bringing that mindset to this platform. You have added tremendous value to this platform. So I just wanted to say to you, thank you again for being here, man.
Brandon Bateman (23:16)
Thank you, Quentin, appreciate it.Quentin Edmonds (23:18)
Absolutely. So listen y’all heard mr. Brandon. You got that you got the the nuggets You got the value check the show notes check out his podcast check out check them out online But definitely make sure you subscribe here because I promise you we’re gonna continue to bring up amazing people just like mr. Brandon So sir, I just want to say thank you again and to everyone else y’all have a fantastic day
