Speaker 1: 0:11

All right guys, welcome to its personal podcast with me Kurt Fadden, andrew McKelvie. And we've got another very special guest today from Think Real Estate, Cody, and unfortunately Zach couldn't make it. He had some things pop up, but I think we're going to have a great episode here regardless. We really appreciate you being here.

Speaker 2: 0:29

Yeah, man, I'm glad to be here. When you texted us about doing this and contacted us, I'd been watching the show, so I feel honored to be here and glad we got to put together and pump. Yeah, I appreciate that.

Speaker 1: 0:42

So one of the things we really like to start by doing given the name, it's personal is just kind of ask a little bit about your background, what led in your life to doing what you're doing now? Yeah, that kind of thing.

Speaker 2: 0:58

Yeah, so what do we got 35 minutes.

Speaker 1: 1:01

Yeah, we'll probably get hit.

Speaker 2: 1:03

I'll spend 30 talking about me and then at five y'all can ask some questions.

Speaker 2: 1:06

That sounds perfect, no if I get too long, when, do let me know. So I was born and raised here in Panama City, florida, graduated from Bay High, was never super interested in business kind of stuff. I was a sports guy. So I ended up playing college baseball two years in Wallace College, two years at another school in Montgomery and then played a little bit of professional ball was drafted in 2009. It was played some ball with the Cubs, chased that dream for a little bit and honestly I didn't really have it mapped out. After that I tried the pro ball thing In college. I kind of majored in nightlife.

Speaker 2: 1:47

I did the same thing, so after baseball was over with, I'd been in school for four years, and when I came back to FSUPC, I ended up doing two and a half more years just to get my graduate.

Speaker 1: 1:59

So that's kind of.

Speaker 2: 2:00

I wasn't, wasn't super focused. So then I was kind of at that point trying to figure out between two things I was either going to be a baseball coach and or, you know, a teacher and baseball coach, or I was going to do real estate, and real estate was always I don't know, it was just always what was it that made that the other option?

Speaker 2: 2:21

I was playing Monopoly one time. Okay, I was down at our fish camp down at the river that we had. We played Monopoly for the first time. I was probably like 12 or 13. And like just the idea of like the art of a deal you know, and like that you can. I could use my I don't know persuasion or be able to make deals. I don't know, it was just so cool to be something out of nothing, yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:44

And I think, first there's. You know, I'm I really enjoy like branding and marketing and I didn't even realize it at the time, but I saw, I think I saw that there was an opportunity to have that creative outlet, yeah. So yeah, I mean I ended up, you know, talking to my high school baseball coach and asking him like what would you do? He's like, try the real estate thing, try it for a year. If it doesn't work out or you don't like it, you can always coach, right.

Speaker 1: 3:06

Yeah, that's true, that was 12 years ago. Yeah, so there you go. Okay, so you started in real estate. Tell us a little bit about that. Ooh.

Speaker 2: 3:16

What brokerage were you with? I was at Centra 21 Commander, okay.

Speaker 1: 3:20

All right, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 3:21

Amazing folks, like seriously they I can't say enough great things about. Well, mr Charles, and then his son, charlie. Charlie was a I mean, he he I owe him so much took me under his wing and taught me a lot. It was interesting. So that was in 2013. Okay, I'm 26 years old. There is a challenge, for when you're 26 years old and you live at home with your parents, it's difficult to try to sell people houses because you've never bought a house and stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 3:51

Sure, you know. So that was a little bit of a challenge. Not to mention, I was a baby face, you know. I looked like I was 21. And that in that time there was zero, like pretty much zero, social media marketing.

Speaker 1: 4:07

Yeah, it was all networking.

Speaker 2: 4:10

It was all networking stuff like that. So when my brother when I was talking to him, he kind of got me on like the Gary Vee train, the Gary Vaynerchuk train and like I started kind of taken to that.

Speaker 1: 4:22

And it was really the first guy to really push social media marketing. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:28

And so early on in my career, I decided that was going to be my route, and it rocked the boat for sure.

Speaker 1: 4:35

It was not received well at all. Really.

Speaker 2: 4:38

Yeah, yeah, it was interesting. I used to, I can remember.

Speaker 1: 4:43

Because that's like it's kind of like the lifeblood of like what makes you guys successful.

Speaker 2: 4:46

now it's interesting that like Now you can't. I mean, people have gotten off Facebook forever because us realtors have ruined it, right, yeah, and they'll say that, but I can. I can remember. I can remember getting a phone call from another realtor, from another brokerage, that said, hey, you're posting real estate stuff on your personal page that looks bad, it's unprofessional. You need to. You need to. If you're going to do it, you need to do it on a business page, like I had, like people like reaching out personally, personally yeah. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 5:23

Staying in your lane. Staying in your lane, thank you, but staying in your lane, yeah, but because?

Speaker 2: 5:27

I mean at that time that was like it was still a pay to play, kind of thing. So I realized, hey, why would I do that? Because you were intimidating.

Speaker 1: 5:35

I get it At the time, sometimes when and I find this to be true, like in the real estate industry and all industries but sometimes when you're doing something and someone says, hey, maybe don't do that, not all the time You're onto something You're doing something that they think may take away from their share For sure.

Speaker 2: 5:50

Now, granted some of the things I was doing, I look back now and I'm like oh it's so cringe Like. I'm a push the envelope kind of guy, so some of the stuff I'm like oh man. So I'm sure it was very annoying to some people.

Speaker 2: 6:03

I wish Zach was here because he had a good buddy, like a good friend of mine that I played basketball with, call Zach, who was my friend a few years after I got into real estate and was like hey man, like what is going on with him, Like he's annoying, like you got to tell him to stop, like he's he's this is bad. And Zach's like hey man, he's doing what he does.

Speaker 1: 6:24

So you know, not all of it was great and some people push back, but yeah, and I think too, like now it's kind of shifted to like the stuff that's more well received probably provides some relative like value to like. I'll give an example like even in our neighborhood, the trash can remind me of anything like that's it, is it? Hey, it's marketing, but it's actually something that people use, because I literally forget to put my trash out every week.

Speaker 2: 6:46

Well, and that was the idea behind it. What he's talking about is we both live in the same neighborhood and I kept forgetting to take my trash out, yeah, and so I was like, wow, what if I had?

Speaker 1: 6:57

some way.

Speaker 2: 6:58

Actually, I take that back, zach was like, hey, what if we had some way to like remind people to do it or whatever? And I was like, well, let's, let's just do a text marketing thing. So I've been sitting on that one for about a year and a half and I finally put it into play.

Speaker 1: 7:11

Yeah, it's smart because it's not irritating, but it is it's. You get a little text the morning before or something, or trash days.

Speaker 2: 7:19

So the night before. So at seven o'clock it's scheduled and it'll say it's and they're funny too.

Speaker 1: 7:24

They're like hey, your trash can's waiting for you, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's chat GPT. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you just plug it in there and play. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool, though, that's.

Speaker 2: 7:33

But the thing is it's like so, so I'm glad you brought that up. My I have always adopted, for the most part, the Gary Vee long play like branding over marketing touch point. I'm not good at marketing. Yeah, or I play this I hate. The power of words is very strong. I don't enjoy marketing.

Speaker 1: 7:51

People may say I like marketing, I enjoy branding which is just making yourself relevant in a lot of arenas, continually and exactly and repetitive Asking for the sale.

Speaker 2: 8:01

I'm actually that's not my strength, yeah. So for me, in this text marketing my promise to everyone there is I'm not going to ask you for the sale at all. It's not a sales pitch.

Speaker 1: 8:13

There's no sales pitch.

Speaker 2: 8:14

I'm literally only providing value. There's never going to be a here's my open house. There's never going to be anything like that. I just need to be top of mind. I need to know who I am. So that's like one of my big things is the three to big three Know who you are, know what you do, then they can buy from you.

Speaker 1: 8:28

Which you learn over time, like is the non annoying way to do real estate marketing.

Speaker 2: 8:33

But it takes so much time, so long. It's a long, it's such a long More thinking and building up of recognition. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1: 8:42

But anything worth having in business is is is done the hard way or over a long period of time.

Speaker 1: 8:48

So you can get a quick sale from doing different things, but whether they'll stay with you is a different story, absolutely. So what would you say? Like how did think come to be? Let's talk a little bit about that. Like you, you and Zach and think is like I know what think is today, but right, I've probably only lived here for just under like seven years, so to me I don't I don't really know a big county without think real estate.

Speaker 2: 9:09

Well that, hey, that's that's. That's humbling to hear, that's that's cool. I love that. So, like I said, I never had like these big dreams of being a business owner or anything. My dad owned a business and I I never really desired like owning a business, was not really like on my radar. I just wanted to be in real estate. And then I was in the gym one day and I don't have the room to do it here, but I had been seeing this, this guy who was Zach, and I'm seeing him. Like we're both in sales, we're both young, so like we're both networking like crazy. This is that fusion. Before the storm hit it and got it. But I was like man, like I was, I was drawn to his energy and he was doing this. He was like it was probably about this time of year and he was on all fours and he had a strap around his right ankle and he was doing like knees to the chest. I do Like I've seen this.

Speaker 1: 10:07

It's like a video as you see a ticked up. We were like working out, we didn't know, but like I knew, but he also, I mean you would know that's really strong.

Speaker 2: 10:15

He's in shape, like he's, he's, yeah, he's he's. He's stronger than he looks. And so I'm like, hey, man, like what are you doing down there? And he hops up and he goes. Man, spring breaks right around the corner. I'm working on my V. I was like what's up, man? I'm Cody, I'm Zach, and so literally from that point on, every day we get off work at five. Well, he got off to work at five. I'm a realtor. I'm like I'm there or early at four shooting basketball and everything.

Speaker 2: 10:43

And so he'd show up and we worked out. I mean, shoot, I was dating Ashley at the time, he was single, but like we'd be out there working out for like two hours Just yeah, just hanging out.

Speaker 1: 10:51

Those are the days Five to seven o'clock I'm like I'm like if I had three hours now to just go to the gym to shoot. Just hang around. If I can slam it at 45 minute workout, I'm like that was a good day.

Speaker 2: 11:01

Yeah, so anyway. So I get to know him and he and we're working out and having fun and I was like man, this guy and he was, he was a believer in Christ like I was, so there was that he was my brother in Christ. So I really found a lot of value in him. And then he was like, yeah, man, I think I'm gonna, because he was working in State Farm at the time.

Speaker 2: 11:19

Yeah, I remember telling me that, yeah helping run a couple of offices and he's like, yeah, I'm going to move down to Miami and open up. You know whatever. I was like no, you can't do that, man. Like you're my buddy, like you can't move off. And so I convinced him not to do that. He wanted to go do real estate Miami.

Speaker 1: 11:36

No, he was. He was going to stay farmed. Oh, he was going to be a state.

Speaker 2: 11:42

I mean he wanted to leave here, he wanted to yeah like his like at the time he wasn't, he wasn't with his wife now yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah obviously, and have he had?

Speaker 1: 11:49

his connection yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:50

So he was going to do that ended up. He let's see I guess it was about been in for about three years in real estate and he hired me to as his buddy to sell his flip because he started flipping he had done like his first flip house and so after that I sold it top dollar. He fired me and got got his license himself because he was like you know, I'll get it myself. And if you don't know this, like Zach is, he's pretty smart man, he's really smart.

Speaker 1: 12:20

Test taking.

Speaker 2: 12:21

Like he graduated high school at 16, college at 19. Like he was a really smart kid and and so he got his real estate license. And then one day he was kind of like, hey, man, what do you think about like us opening up a brokerage? One day and I was like, yeah, I mean that'd be cool and I just trust, like I knew that, if I was on board with him because I knew he had all these goals, and once we started becoming buddies, my goal started leveling up with these two Right.

Speaker 2: 12:48

And so now I was like, yeah, like I wouldn't, like I don't know if I want to own business. I was like yeah you want me to be in with you because I know you're going to be a very successful businessman.

Speaker 1: 12:56

You want me yeah, yeah, I'll provide that. Let's do it yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:00

And so we thought about it and, thank goodness, we didn't do it. We waited a whole like two years after we were going to launch it. And yeah, so we, we launched it in August of 2018. Ok, two months before Hurricane Michael, oh my gosh. Yeah, I didn't realize that. Yes sir, yes sir, we, we. So when we launched it, had a few people come on it. You know we're getting our feet under something. Shoot, we're, we're. You know, putting the chairs together.

Speaker 2: 13:28

Yeah yes, together, you know, and trying to sell real estate and trying to stuff with plastic on it still, yeah, yeah, we're like literally boxes are piling up and then all of a sudden the hurricane happens, wow, and I can't talk to my business partner for it's like three days. Oh, he had a, he had.

Speaker 1: 13:42

Yeah, we all have Verizon Right. Yeah, is AT&T back up yet this?

Speaker 2: 13:46

morning. I don't know, I don't know, I'm not here to speak on that. My T-Mobile's been OK so far.

Speaker 1: 13:53

So far.

Speaker 2: 13:53

I've been down all day, so I tell you what the Ryan Reynolds and his business in Luke's are too bad right now, yeah, right, but I mean I can remember I was helping my aunt and uncle in the country club and all of a sudden his beat up tundra that had been beat up from. The storm comes driving down and and, like you know, you see your business partner. You just opened up two months ago yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:15

Dude, what's up? Are you OK? We haven't been able to talk. Yeah, and he was like yeah, I'm doing good. And I was like dude, what are we going to do? And he's like man, I'm looking in to get my insurance license again and get it updated. I'm like, well, I'm looking on Craigslist. I've already got a logo for a stump grinding business. So like, like we were ready to.

Speaker 1: 14:32

We were ready to like hey, let's take a break from this thing. Yeah, thank goodness I've been there, yeah, so my brother lives in New Orleans.

Speaker 2: 14:40

His father-in-law finally gets ahold of us. He's a. He's a real estate broker. Went through Katrina and he said boys, ride it. She said just hold still. Yeah, he said the town's going to need you like they never have and it is going like your business.

Speaker 1: 14:55

We'll prosper from this. Yeah, unfortunately, unfortunately, I don't want to say your business at the right place at the right time.

Speaker 2: 15:01

You will be needed in this situation, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 15:05

It was good timing.

Speaker 2: 15:06

And and and honestly we were, we were blessed. The majority of our contacts, the majority of our business was then, and has been in on this side of the bridge. Our office was on the beach, ok you're led to put our office on the beach. It really didn't make any sense to put it on the beach.

Speaker 2: 15:23

You just as a tourism or whatever, yeah we just we, just we just felt like that that's where God was leading us to put our. So I mean we were able to. We didn't have any damage, we had no damage to our things, to our office, so we were able to. I mean we were up and running.

Speaker 1: 15:36

Yeah, it was it was.

Speaker 2: 15:39

it was we were blessed to be able to have something to be able to serve out of during the time, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 15:43

Yeah, that's interesting. I didn't realize that. So how did you come up with the name? Because in my head I have to be honest with you. I just imagine whenever I think about this, I'm like they were. They were like what should we name it? Think real estate, think real.

Speaker 2: 15:55

And then you're like let's just call it that it's cool, right, like I love when people ask me this. I was hoping y'all would. I didn't want to tee it up, but I get asked a lot and it's great because the story literally gets to point directly to God man and I know that's cliche, but like it really. It really does, it's so cool. So for years and years I use this phrase.

Speaker 2: 16:21

When you think real estate, think B Cody shields. I got that from my man, paul Calhoun, which goes by D Paul Calhoun, which is his name, is Darrell Paul Calhoun, so D period Paul Calhoun, that's where I get B Cody. He was like outside of Charlie, okay, commander D Paul was like my other mentor and I mean I just I did everything. He said he's just an old school, just sales guy and he just so, I just soaked everything up. So in the first week I'm like hey, d Paul, do you mind if I'm B Cody? He's like please do it. He's like that's awesome. And then with the think B Cody or he said hey, when you write this, when you write these letters, because I was writing like FISBO letters- yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:58

When you write this at the bottom, put down there and center it and say when you think real estate, think B Cody shields, that's how he talks super slow you know, just like, and I was like I like that.

Speaker 2: 17:09

So I ran with it. You know everything I did Then online. I did as a hashtag then this, and then I put it on my truck and so that was just like a thing Think B Cody shields, think B Cody shields, whatever. So it comes time that we were going to open this real estate company and two years before we actually did it, we're like, hey, we know we want it to kind of have like a spiritual name to it. That's what I wanted.

Speaker 2: 17:32

And I was like, hey, let's have reliance, it's going to be called reliance realty and we're going to be red because that's the marketing color and everything. So, zach, to this day, we had, like he has an LLC, reliance equities LLC. That was supposed to be our LLC and that's what we were going to be was reliance. And where I'm working out one day, zach was not there that day and I was like it just hit my spirit. I'm like I call him. I'm like, hey, man, it ain't reliance. He's like what do you mean? I was like it's, I don't know, it's not reliance and we're not going to be red.

Speaker 2: 18:03

We were like a month away from every starting this all like like breaking away from our company and everything, which has a whole another story. I did it earlier than we were supposed to Cause I felt guilty. It's Zach. It ended up calling some Zach's money, Anyways sorry, zach. I'll pay you back, and so I just, I didn't know he's like hey, you're the marketing guy, Figure it out like that.

Speaker 2: 18:27

And so I was like, All right. So I did like any millennial would do I. Well, first of all I was thinking to myself like what? I like simple, I like quick, I like to the point, and I was like, and I don't know why, but like a sprint mobile sprint.

Speaker 1: 18:42

Yeah, and then there was like like, almost like that single syllable.

Speaker 2: 18:47

Well, so so that's that's where I went and I was like, well, I kind of like the single syllable thing. And so I did like any millennial would do. I went to Google and said you know, one syllable verbs? Yeah, cause I knew I was like hey, what do they have in common? They're verbs and they're whatever. So I look it up and I and it comes up and like, right there on the second page there was it said think. And I was like, oh babe, think real estate. I've been using that and and and. Well, that's what's funny is I think real estate, think real estate. She's like what are you talking about? I was like that's the name we're going to call it think real estate. She goes perfect because it flows, perfect because you've been saying think because she doesn't know I have. So like it, it, it point like people like man, you're, you're so smart that you, you just you long played that the whole time. I'm like, no, I'm a dummy, like I didn't.

Speaker 1: 19:37

That was all connected, not at all Like.

Speaker 2: 19:39

God put that together, god put deep all in my life to give me that idea. And then it just, it all came together and I'm just I'm not. I'm not that smart, I'm not smart enough to put that together.

Speaker 1: 19:49

And so then I was like, well, green just sounded like the I don't know, just just, I was like it's something different than what every other brick and mortar broker is doing too. It's, it's, it's differentiated, yeah, so.

Speaker 2: 20:02

So that was kind of the main thing and I was like you know it's bright. And so I was like, well, what's a green that people will recognize and it'll catch their eye? And so that's when I was like, all right, every 58 seconds, everybody checks their phone. Most people have iPhones One. What's? What's the color that you see a lot of times on your call or your message? Is that green?

Speaker 1: 20:18

So I call it iPhone green so.

Speaker 2: 20:21

I called my. I called a friend of mine and asked him hey, I want, you know, I want some looks like this. I showed him the font and I was like I want it to be like a light bulb and like maybe a house in the middle and like I don't know. You know, eric, it's actually Eric Darnell. Okay, he was. You know that works with Alan Branch and does all the stuff. And thank goodness, and literally that was, that was the first take, like we didn't have to adjust it, nothing.

Speaker 1: 20:45

He sent that back to me and I was like the most like iconic logos Are always done like pretty quickly, not like revised.

Speaker 2: 20:53

It was such a good thing. Like I'm not smart enough to do any of that, like it was all came together and it was really neat, so I'm glad you asked me.

Speaker 1: 20:59

Yeah, yeah, that's. That's pretty cool. So obviously Andrew kind of grew up here. I didn't grow up here, so what, let's talk a little bit just like about like Bay County and like I guess, just what, what is it that you love about Bay County? Like being from here as like a local, you know that kind of thing.

Speaker 2: 21:17

Yeah. So I mean it's kind of it's kind of multifaceted. You know, I got to live other places Dothan and Alabama and Montgomery, alabama, not crazy, sure, coolest of places. I'd spend a little bit of time out in Boise, idaho, not long, a little bit in baseball, but mainly out in Arizona. So I got to lived out in Mesa, which was Phoenix and Scottsdale. I got to see all that. So I mean I've seen a little bit, but I know that there's other places that might have more stuff to do.

Speaker 2: 21:44

But there's just something about Bay County, just the people here that are just it's just special. My family's here. So I'm a big family guy, very close to my mom and dad, very close with them. Both of my grandparents, you know, grew up here and lived here and one set still here. So just like just wanting to be around my family man was big time. A lot of my friends still live here. So I just I wanted that. Secondly, I mean I do enjoy outdoors, you know, and I feel like that. I mean you got, you got saltwater fishing, you got freshwater fishing, you got hunting, you've got you know sports.

Speaker 1: 22:21

It's the best floor to sports, yeah, sure.

Speaker 2: 22:24

It's a good mix of all that and, honestly, you know, with just the freedoms I enjoy and everything you know, I enjoy being here, I feel like this is about the most free place you could live in the United States.

Speaker 1: 22:37

Yeah, true, I agree, yeah, and I think that I think that there's something to it. I've lived in play a lot of places with a lot of great people, but Bay County kind of has that like Southern hospitality flavor at the same time. Yeah, while also being a beach community which is kind of like the whole 30 a Panama city beach thing you got. It's like a Southern beach town which you don't really have literally anywhere else. Absolutely Not with these kind of beaches at least.

Speaker 2: 23:05

Well, exactly that white sugary sand, mixed with that Southern hospitality, is tough to beat.

Speaker 1: 23:10

Yeah, yeah, I agree. So let's talk a little bit about like marketing. Obviously, you guys or you, I would say, branding marketing have a passion for that we can use.

Speaker 2: 23:21

We can use our marketing, it's okay. What is?

Speaker 1: 23:23

the what is the like, one piece of advice that maybe you even give your agents, or you could just give anyone in general that you've learned over the course of like having to kind of figure it out for marketing in general.

Speaker 2: 23:37

Well, I mean I kind of spoke on it earlier Like it's a very simple formula that's not easy to do, but it's literally the three things like to sell somebody a product or service. Three things have to happen First. They got to know who you are.

Speaker 2: 23:52

You know what I'm saying Like I think I think y'all do a great job in our neighborhood, like y'all send out your stuff and your postcards and that's, that's one step. Like they have to know who you are first, all right. The second of all, they got to know what you do, what your product or services Right. And then number three. Then they have to choose you, number one and number two. We try to do it in a way that stands out, in a way that disrupts respectfully but like to disrupt. That's how you're like.

Speaker 1: 24:25

You got to punch through the noise for them to know who you are, you know.

Speaker 2: 24:29

That's why I did the the. The hip hop video in our neighborhood was like. I spent hours and hours filming that. But I was like, hey, I need something to where. I don't care if they like me or not, I at least need to be on their radar At least know who. I am and what I do, exactly which. So if I can do that, then maybe over time I can build trust equity with them Right, and then hopefully the choosing, hopefully I don't really have to come with that right hook.

Speaker 2: 24:57

If I just give jab value, jab value, jab value, which is from jab jab, jab, right hook, Gary Vee, the right hook never even really has to. I don't have to throw a hard right hook. You know what I'm saying so those three things right there, yeah, if you do one and two in a slow roll, consistently, consistently and creatively, then I feel like the number three, that choosing should happen, can play itself.

Speaker 1: 25:20

Yeah, I do feel like, especially in real estate, you have to, and we're trying to be better about this too, instead of just like the spray and pray like blasting the same old stuff market report. You really have to try to take that extra time, money and effort to provide content that's of some sort of real value. Otherwise it doesn't punch through. The noise and they will know who you are and what you do, but almost like an annoying way, yeah you have to build that, you have to build that trust, equity with them.

Speaker 2: 25:47

Like, if you have you got to provide, I say you have to. It seems to me, when I found out, is you is providing the value, right? So, like, if I'm going to post something on social media, what is the value to them? And I'll give you a good example, and I mean this is kind of like opposite of what I probably should be saying. But you know, like, for me, I struggle with, like the graphics that say just listed and we share that, right, I've been doing that for years and years and years. Yeah, but it's so hard for me to do that because there's no value for the end user. I mean, that's true, at the end of the day, like at the beginning, there was value because nobody else was doing it.

Speaker 1: 26:32

Yeah, for the most part, so it was creating exposure.

Speaker 2: 26:34

It was creating exposure and so it's value to your client. But the end user they weren't getting a ton of unless they were getting to see a picture, a snapshot of the market. But here's the deal If they want to snapshot of the market, they can get it. And then, secondly, we as realtors. We are so right hook oriented that every, every fifth post is adjusted.

Speaker 1: 26:54

Look what I sold, whatever the access to that information is more prevalent than ever, even online, and it's not super accurate, but it's fairly accurate. If you just want to get on there and do some research.

Speaker 2: 27:05

So for me, I'd be honest with you, being transparent. I'm trying to figure out a way as the shields group, which is my father and I, we sell with inside our, our company. So you got, think real estate, then you got you know individual agents, your groups, whatever. So that's what I love about having you know. My own thing over here is I can I can throw a spaghetti at the wall. I'm trying to figure out a way to show people a we're selling properties and here's what we're selling it at, and not do it in the way like every other company is doing it and I'm being honest hard it's hard.

Speaker 2: 27:34

I haven't figured it out yet I'm trying to. But that's kind of like a real life situation of that's interesting.

Speaker 1: 27:39

Yeah, you know of, I think, kind of the no, it's true, though, cause like uh, I mean, we talk about it all the time too. It's like, of course, you want to capitalize on the opportunity of an activity taking place, but then even you know, glenda Baker is. Glenda Baker is like a big time, like realtor in the Atlanta area. She has a tick talk, but she talks about it all the time. How, like realtors disservice themselves all the time because we, we will do marketing on like a postcard and I'm guilty of it too or be like we, you know, we closed this and under contract in one day, closed in blah, blah, blah days, all cash. And then we get mad when somebody's out there saying all realtors do is get a text and then open a door and they make 6%, right, right and, and so, like something I've been talking about, a lot is content that like shows the actual process.

Speaker 2: 28:27

For sure.

Speaker 1: 28:27

Yeah, um, that shows all the work that actually gets done would be super valuable to to promoting, because no one is doing that really and what we show is the face value that it. It puts us on a pedestal and shows how much money we made and how quickly, and it doesn't show, like any of the stuff behind the scenes, which we all know is a lot of stuff, a lot of prepping, a lot of conversation and knowledge, and so I think it kind of goes back to that too. The just listener, the just sold thing only shows the tip of the iceberg which is all putting to people almost to a degree I think for sure.

Speaker 1: 28:57

It hurts us.

Speaker 2: 28:58

And back in the desigrate point. Um, back a few years ago, the noise wasn't as loud as it is now, but like, at the end of the day, these you, what is something that they can actually use? Like you know, like Gary V talked about it, and what's funny is he's so far ahead of his time. He's talked about being the digital mayor of your town. Yep, right, you know the digital mayor. Like what does that look? Like, like, go and review, uh, where's the best place to find bone? The swings in Bay County. Right, like, go, go do food reviews. I used to do food reviews and stuff like that. And like, go do stuff that provides value. What's, what's the attractions? What's going on? You know I'll give one away for free that I've been meaning to do it. It's hadn't done it yet Every time there's a building where like, like, what's going there?

Speaker 1: 29:40

Yeah, like people always want to know that. What's the construction. Yeah, before the sign pops up, all you gotta do is go to.

Speaker 2: 29:44

You know and you can. You can go to the website and figure it out.

Speaker 1: 29:46

Find the permit or whatever, yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:48

I still don't even take the time to do it and I'm wondering what it is.

Speaker 1: 29:51

I wish that someone from whatever real estate would do it, would just do it, so I don't have to go look it up. That's a good point. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2: 29:58

So so literally, you become the person now when they're driving on the street and they see a construction on the side of the road. I gotta go to this Facebook real quick. That's the whole point, right? They come to you for certain you can't do everything, but if they come to you for certain things now they, when they see it out and about, they think you're top of mind.

Speaker 1: 30:17

Yeah, it makes so much sense. Yeah, To think about it from a, from a point in place of like, how can I be in front of someone and they know who I am and know what I do without it being about that, and that's what makes it. It's a simple equation but takes a lot of thought to to do it properly, but that makes a whole lot of sense. Yeah, it's interesting. So, transitioning a little away from real estate, like on more of like a personal note, you know, one of the things we like to ask people on here too, is just like what are some challenges that you've had failures even Cause you know business?

Speaker 2: 30:49

Okay, I don't have enough time for all that.

Speaker 1: 30:51

Yeah Right For the failures, as we all know it's not all what people see on the surface and sometimes we're not good at being vulnerable and sharing some of those things, because it's not in our nature as like alpha business people to promote the things we don't do well.

Speaker 1: 31:06

But I find a lot of power in that and I think a lot of people that listen to this or that are, you know, entrepreneurs or real estate agents or we'll find a lot of value in that too. So we just like to kind of like ask you know, what are maybe one or two examples of that? And what advice you can give from it?

Speaker 2: 31:21

Yeah, Well, I'll say this and this. This isn't I think you were using in a. You were necessarily saying this is how you look at yourself. So I don't, I'm just sitting a shot at you, but I heard you use the word alpha, you know, and I hear us use the words like boss and like all these things. I kind of used to really feel like that, you know, and I'll just say like when God himself humbles you like I've been humbled over the past few years and my personal life you, you, you tend to put yourself in seat number two or three or four, yeah absolutely so, so I get that.

Speaker 2: 32:02

I would just say that I'm just. There's a good transition there, Like it has been an interesting year or two with the things that God did, because I thought that I was this businessman.

Speaker 1: 32:15

I thought that I was this you know nowhere of all things, I thought I was this, this Instagram or this, not Instagram do great on Instagram.

Speaker 2: 32:23

But like I thought I was these things right, I thought I was this influencer, I thought whatever. And like I realized, like any creativity I have, any good ideas, anything work ethic, that I have any friendship, it all literally is from him and he can take it away at any moment. And he showed me that, like it was, I was right up in there. So I guess kind of answering the question is like what advice? Be careful who you take advice from. We kind of talked about that earlier before we got on the air. I think that you can get really good advice from a lot of people. And I take my grandfather, who's still still alive. You know he said listen to, listen to what anybody has to say, but don't always take, don't take it all, or any of it you might not say I don't want to do the exact opposite.

Speaker 2: 33:15

And so there, I just feel like in this hustle culture, like we were talking about before we got on air, and like the grind culture and everything and and all this, I feel like our generation, a lot of the millennials and maybe I'm sure the Gen Zs are feeling behind this is like there's this false picture of what we feel like a businessman should be or whatever, and it's like for me as a believer in Christ I know he has this for me over here and I know beyond a shout of a doubt that my why is for me to have real estate to launch me into being able to share his name on whatever level. That is Right. Impact more people yeah, so I know my why, but if my why might not fit in with what this guy that has five million followers says or this person that's written all these books, you know what I'm saying Like, and I was trying to fit. You were trying to pound the two together.

Speaker 1: 34:11

I was yeah, and I was like hey.

Speaker 2: 34:12

God, I want, I want your will and I want, I want to do what you want me to do. You know, as long as it fits in this box over here, and the thing about it is is we're all created very differently. I'll say for me, like I and this is kind of taboo to talk about but like I have extreme ADHD, as, as a professional told me, she's like you're ADHD, like you're really ADHD. But with that it creates certain superpowers that make up for some of the shortcomings over here. Well, if I try to plan my day exactly like my business partners act, who is not like that got like time box.

Speaker 1: 34:44

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2: 34:44

I mean like if I try to do and do and try to fit it into what the world says a business person should look like, or I should make a certain amount of money so that I can invest in this many properties by this time, and everything is like you're just like hey, I didn't, I didn't.

Speaker 1: 35:00

That's not my necessarily my will for you not saying it isn't but you a internet I'm really checking with me.

Speaker 2: 35:05

So for me it was like don't try to fit into this box that I feel like that I'm supposed to be in. Lean into like this, this create, like how God created me. Lean into that and how can I use that to do, to do what he would have me to do?

Speaker 1: 35:20

Yeah, so that's, that's super impactful and I I agree with that. I feel like I've kind of tried to do the same thing, honestly, because you find like I don't want to say like idols, but people you look up to that are saying you know, you have to sacrifice everything and you got to work 100% of the time and crying culture, hustle culture, and that's what it's supposed to be, and you kind of realize the two things or the two ideologies don't really mix together. And I always struggled because I felt like you know, there's this like idea out there that your purpose has to be tied like, or your passion has to be tied exactly what you do or exactly what business you start, and I always felt like I always want to put my full weight into things or what I started or even the jobs that I was ex. I was like this isn't my passion, this is my purpose, and people are telling you have to find that.

Speaker 1: 36:08

And what I realized over time is that I really love connecting with people and networking and helping people. That's why I loved coaching my employees at corporate and having lots of employees and you learn over time that it's that you can find your purpose in that, through whatever you're doing. As long as what you're doing, you feel like God has called you to do it and do it well. You focus on that. You can use that as a tool to influence people and that could be your purpose. And so when I was able to kind of reconcile and align those two things in my mind, now I actually enjoy what I'm doing and how I can use it much more than I did before, I think, and so, yeah, it's very impactful.

Speaker 1: 36:48

I couldn't agree more. Yeah, what would you say like business wise maybe not even personally, but like business wise what your biggest like learning lesson has been? You think, like had to happen to figure it out, but like still today, maybe even on like a daily basis, like kind of drive some of your decision making.

Speaker 2: 37:14

That's a good question. I'll say sometimes I guess I've had to realize that this is kind of cliche, but like letting go of certain things and letting, trusting that the people that you are going to hire to do those things, yeah, Let them. Let them not make mistakes, but let them learn. Yeah, you know what I mean. Let them let them, like, take your, take your finger off of the button.

Speaker 1: 37:40

Do the job you let you hire them to do exactly because they've got to learn how to do it.

Speaker 2: 37:45

And the longer that you're in there trying to do those things sometimes, the more you're hindering the entire company. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 37:54

We just talked about this with Dave actually recently, and it was we were talking about how, like, instead of asking questions and allowing people to figure themselves out on their own, like a lot of company or even just corporate culture is to still really like tell people micromanage, and that oftentimes that's the problem. We want people to think for themselves, but we don't actually do things that allow them to do that for themselves. Yeah, and I think that's definitely true.

Speaker 2: 38:21

I tell you another thing. So I think it's awesome that y'all have a business coach and I think it is so important. I think we as people, business people, sometimes we're just like I'm gonna figure it out and it's like I mean, the best athletes in the world have coaches. Absolutely, and some of them will be like a golfer might have they might have a swing coach and they'll have a short game coach and then they have a middle coach or whatever.

Speaker 1: 38:44

Yeah, and they have a trainer.

Speaker 2: 38:45

So they have this team right and but we're like I can figure it out and sometimes we're just too cheap to spend money yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:51

Right, but we at Think Zach made a great decision probably about two years ago, to bring on some leadership coaches and we worked with them, a company called Leadership 10. And man, like they came into our company and I mean they were very pressed like by our culture and they were like, oh, but but still we had it. We had to learn communication styles, yeah, and we did like this training and learning like how does this person communicate and how does this person communicate and, and once we kind of like, it's kind of like love languages for work.

Speaker 2: 39:27

It really is right and so like like, and it should really help somebody like me, who's very, who has a tendency to be, maybe be scatterbrained or whatever, for people to know, for the people under me to not under me, the people that's not the people who I've hired. We've hired for them to be able to communicate with me, yeah, and then for me to understand, hey, even though you like to be communicated with, like this, they don't. And so, like, what can we do to like to to oil that up? And I will tell you fat, I mean there was some immediate results, but you move forward two years from where we were there and I mean it is like night and day, yeah, and so yeah, it's.

Speaker 1: 40:05

It really is crazy, like like this podcast, for example, we would not be doing this without our business coach. Not a chance, right the focus that we've had to kind of edit not add, but edit things that we were doing that we didn't need to be doing anymore was really from Chris to I would say.

Speaker 1: 40:25

And then you know, like going back to the athlete thing Chris talks about that all the time too that it really is like what we do is stressful, what we do has a lot of risk involved and sometimes you know you are not thriving and the truth is mentally just between the two of us. We can only support each other so much and having that third party who you know once a week or every other week levels you out, is super important, I think.

Speaker 2: 40:53

I think it almost necessary Y'all are. I think it's so smart and so wise, honestly, that y'all have done that Like that is awesome, he's outside the picture too, so that's the important part of it. It's not somebody that's dealing with renovations in real estate or client based real estate stuff. He's not a realtor, so it's not worked with him.

Speaker 1: 41:15

It's been about a year almost a year now.

Speaker 2: 41:17

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 41:17

And so he's put a little plug in there for him. He's putting on the level up event at the end of April. Saw that Leadership and faith and I went to it last year was the first time he did it. He level up coaching as his business and he wanted to bring an event, Kinda that you would normally have to travel somewhere to the. Emerald Coast and so like it's always gonna be at the Emerald Coast, and Last year was about 150 people, this will probably be about 500 people.

Speaker 2: 41:46

That's awesome.

Speaker 1: 41:46

It's that shoreline church in Destin and that's where I got to talk to Jeff Hoffman. Dave Claire, just walk up to him, talk to him. I was at a pretty like low point with the restaurant, some things going on that really really sent me on like a super different trajectory. And it's kind of funny and I tell him this story all the time Like my wife was just laying in bed and a digital ad came up. He only threw it together and advertised for like 30 days and she was like, hey, you should go to this and send to me and I looked at the ticket I think it was about like $800 or something at the time and like the restaurant, I'm like putting money into it every month and just disappear.

Speaker 1: 42:16

I was like I'm not paying for that. She's like, hey, you should just, you should just go to it. I think she kind of knew inherently like I needed to go talk to some and I went and it really, really changed my life.

Speaker 1: 42:25

To be completely honest with you both, both from like a business and like a Faith perspective too. It allowed me to like you know, I'd gotten to a point of such low confidence in myself and decision-making and things like it allowed me to get back to where I was when I was leading teams and things like that and have that confidence myself.

Speaker 2: 42:40

So but hey, I don't want to skip over this. How cool is it to have a wife that noticed you in a position and push? Oh absolutely.

Speaker 1: 42:48

You know, I'm saying like yeah, such a blessing, like I have.

Speaker 2: 42:51

I'm blessed enough to have that as well and that and my wife walked me through a low period, you know, not too long ago, and and helped me through that.

Speaker 1: 42:58

Like that is another big and if you don't, if you don't have a spouse, having somebody that can recognize those things, it's huge and even like, to a degree like when when I was you know I, andrew, can attest to this there was a time at managing the restaurant that I probably wasn't the friendliest person and. My wife basically was like you're an ass, you know. She was like you're, you're being a big a-hole to everybody and I was like, really, she's like yeah, everybody.

Speaker 2: 43:26

And I was like okay.

Speaker 1: 43:28

And then, you know, I actually ended up talking to like a therapist for a while, which was really helpful because it made me just realize that things were like happening around me, not to me, yeah, and and I was able to treat people better even though these things were happening. So, you know, my wife my wife definitely knows won't tell me that I'm not doing something in a good way, though.

Speaker 2: 43:47

My wife is. Not that you're being Mean to people or whatever. Mine is pride. She's like you sounded a little pretty big headed right now.

Speaker 1: 43:54

I don't think I did.

Speaker 2: 43:57

She keeps me, you know I'll bring her something. What do you think my list she's like it's alright. So we, she's like, only alright. Especially if I do a song man like I'll like do and I'll take true my. What do you think she's like?

Speaker 1: 44:13

So we got our big, big wrap-up question which we ask everyone, which is If you had one piece of advice personal, professional, mixture, that you doesn't matter one piece of advice Like kind of even like a legacy piece of advice that you would want to leave someone at but it could be To entrepreneurs, it could just be to people in general what would that thing be?

Speaker 2: 44:35

Hmm, alright, I'm gonna. It'll be a little too.

Speaker 2: 44:39

Part of yeah, that's good first of all, I would have to say if you, if you don't have a relationship with Christ, like Look into it. If you ever been hurt by the church, been hurt by people you've been hurt, like, lean into, like what, what he, he, can offer, lean into what that relationship could be, because it's the greatest things ever happen to me, I agree. So let's say, beyond that Kind of going off what we talked about earlier and I kind of already shot my shot, but Figuring out what is your, why, like, at the end of the day, like what, what is truly gonna make me not happy because I don't want to be happy, I think we're in life, we're looking for joy. I think is what we're truly searching for. Right, and joy isn't always fun, joy isn't always happy.

Speaker 2: 45:27

Joy is a can of choice, right, it's. It's this contentment, and so when we chase these things that are Benchmarkers, you know, of success, we chase how big our house is, how you know how Many people have worked from our company, how many followers I have, how much money I make, right, all those things. The reason we're chasing those is because we're searching for something. We're searching for this joy, we're searching for this contentment, and, although we may have fun during that, or we may have whatever we're even the substances that we use or abuse or don't want like we're using it because we're looking for a Contentment and a joy.

Speaker 2: 46:06

And the thing is, is what I found in my life is I don't find that outside of me, not being in my why. So for me to have that solidified and that's my cornerstone. And every single time I get away and I'm over here and I'm just like, why am I? Why am I mad? Why am I depressed? Why am I this? I'm like I got away from, from my why I got away from this Mission that God's put me on and it might be a you know, in every time. And so time in time and time again in my life, when I get away from that as as my, like my, my god, then I'm what I'm not.

Speaker 1: 46:42

Joyful. I don't have a line with the blessings me right, exactly, and and.

Speaker 2: 46:47

And it's not always about just the blessings, it's not always about being happier that I'm always in a good mood or whatever. It's still a joy and a contentment of knowing that I'm in this will that has for me. So, for for me, I would say Lean into what God wants you to do. What is your why? What did he uniquely create you cur to do? Like what did he give you? And Sometimes it's obvious and sometimes it's not, and sometimes it's a combination, like what did he uniquely give Andrew that he didn't give it to anybody else in this way and this circumstance? And he like, when you're falling in that, dude, what I find in my life and the people that I'm around that stay in that will. The joy in the fruit is Endless, agree, but outside of that is is a searching and it's in it.

Speaker 2: 47:39

Yeah, so I'm sorry, is the long answer.

Speaker 1: 47:42

No, it's a good answer into it and yeah it's that's a great answer. Well, we appreciate you coming on taking the time. No, you get your, but you're a busy guy, so we really appreciate you coming on.

Speaker 2: 47:52

Thanks for having me absolutely, man.

Speaker 1: 47:53

It was a great conversation. That's episode seven of its personal and entrepreneurs podcast and we hope you guys tune in. We got a couple of great upcoming guests. We got Reggie Johns, ceo and founder of book that condo Kind of like a local short-term rental legend, if you will. And we also have Joe Courtney of wild marketing. Joe actually used to be a pastor at a mega church and has a really cool backstory and runs a really cool marketing company. So we hope you guys tune in for those. Thanks for listening.