Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - Revolutionizing Real Estate Data ft. Mark Hockridge | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 58

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

Mark Hockridge, CEO of PropertyRadar, brings over 25 years of expertise in business innovation and leadership to the real estate data space. As the visionary behind PropertyRadar, Mark is transforming how professionals access and utilize property data to make smarter decisions. With a track record that includes roles like Chief Innovation Officer at CREtelligent, Mark has been at the forefront of innovation in real estate due diligence services.For More Check Out our Playlist: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgPwyhl8CkXiM0cBtuY8A_6JS60FueLz3&si=0_2dnoPkYV6jcSGwCheck Us Out on all Platforms!Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coffeez-for-closers-with-joe-shalaby/id1726674707Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2KkQWRqHSHcCK3TVfsRKUK?si=hjTnUOjFS5eTDxBjgf4RwQ&preview=noneAmazon: https://www.amazon.com/Coffeez-Closers-Joe-Shalaby/dp/B0CRYLQRW6 Coffeez and Closers Socials & WebsiteWebsite: https://coffeezforclosers.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coffeezforclosers/TikTok: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbnU0T3RrLXdPbC1BR2NLc2lWcExqWklQaHlQUXxBQ3Jtc0tudi1GV2Zod3hRYzRhTkhONFBuMlptblNGSlJ1QzhpV0tzbHh5YThNR0R3Y2RnNnU5NV9ER3E5ZUhxMjdUUWp1UWo4MVl6Q2szeXo1cFh1OHNkYkxDR1F0MXZtMTZ6QnZoakdzSnJpVl9PcWZBOU9zZw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40coffeezforclosers&v=uXvk6LY9lS8Facebook: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa2pLZ2pMaUxmSTh4dy1qazMtdlBjX2pVN1AxQXxBQ3Jtc0tua2RUTUNsRmJob0RKWlVqeDhNaUN4US1rdlRvUG9Fdm5SNk1jU1pQNzNLQnVmUmtGMGtMYUViZ2pLMXJkOVJUci1kMk9DN2poTThVV2NFd0tISWdDMzNwOEZ2c3pVb09lbEhjemJHblRsS1RKdHZqbw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpeople%2FCoffeez-for-Closers-with-Joe-Shalaby%2F61556355642488%2F&v=uXvk6LY9lS8 Joe Shalaby SocialsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/josephshalaby/TikTok: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa3p6VlRzR1BWMkJQM1ZIaUdVZHhYVTYyak43QXxBQ3Jtc0tuUXVBOE1oZUJYTmZIZnNENUgxQkhjamk4RXJHb09MWU9OczJhLWpnX0JwN2pENzRhaV9NajJROW5nek1tQ1VvVE40ZFJuUUI2cnI0ajNKLXE4d1VMUUpkTGFHR0tGY0o5NUhnWnZnaXJoZXdEM0piaw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40josephshalaby&v=uXvk6LY9lS8Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/josephshalaby E Mortgage Capital Socials & WebsiteInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/emortgagecapital/Website: https://www.emortgagecapital.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/Emortgagecap #1 Mortgage Company on Social on 🌎#1 Non Delegated Lender in the Country🌟#1 Broker in CANMLS #1416824"Mortgages Are What We Do Not Who We Are"™https://finance.yahoo.com/news/learn-why-e-mortgage-capital-192000740.htmlAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What's up, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Coffee's Foreclosers, the podcast where we explore the minds of industry leaders and innovators. Today's guest has over 25 years of experience in creating, innovating, and optimizing businesses. As the CEO of Property Radar, the most comprehensive source of real estate data and owner information, he leads a dedicated team to delivering unparalleled insights and solutions. He's also a former chief innovation officer in commercial real estate, due diligence, a trusted leader, and a mentor to entrepreneurs across multiple industries. Get ready for some invaluable insights.

Join me in welcoming the CEO proprietor himself, Mr. Mark Hock. All right, Mark. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. You flew in special for me, man. Thank you. Yeah.

Yeah, well, it's been good. You've been working together a bit, and so it's an opportunity both to be on the pod and also get some FaceTime with you. Yeah, this is the first time we actually met face-to-face. Been working together for years. I've been a big advocate of your product, and I'm glad to see you guys are finally making a storm. It's like people finally woke up to the importance of data. It has been going nuts, especially in kind of this compressed market as people are waiting for things to change to the positive. Yeah, people have been getting scrappy.

And so they've been needing to get more inventive and creative about how they approach their lead gen. Nice. Now, I'm going to talk to you about the importance of data and how data really implements, how people can really implement data and your data product into their vertical and not just the mortgage vertical, but across all real estate verticals. But before I get into that, I like to start my show off the way I start every show off. And Mark, what's your morning routine? Morning routine. So I typically get up around 5.30, kind of starts with just, you know, feeding the dogs and so forth. And then I go out for a little hike walk with the dogs and get some exercise. And, you know, the sun's usually just kind of coming up. And I like that as a place just to kind of clear my mind.

And I try my hardest to avoid getting on my phone and checking emails and things like that. Try to let that wait until I've had this kind of decompression time and just focus. Come back, often exercise then. Either jump on like, you know, Peloton bike or do weights and get ready for a big day. Yeah, it's always a big day. Yeah. So you guys are all, property radar is pretty much for the most part decentralized. Everyone works remote.

We are fully remote at this point. Yeah, that's right. Were you guys ever? I feel like. Yeah, we did have, we have an office and we did have more folks in the office for a period of time. We've always had a decentralized component to the business. Yeah. Our development staff in particular.

But, you know, once COVID kind of came, people, you know, went to their homes and we found that we were. Just as effective. Yeah. Yeah, and I think, you know, our founder, Sean, put a lot of energy and effort into making sure that we had really good communication systems in place. And it served us really well. And so we continue to do that. And it's also been great because we're now able to hire the best of the best wherever they happen to sit.

That's awesome. Now, has property radar really grown in the last couple years, you would say? Yeah, we've grown, you know, both, I mean, on all fronts. We know both on revenues as well as on customers and also employees. and we're continuing to kind of be on a tear right now. Love it, love it. Now, when did you start with Property Radar? Well, so I started as the CEO just over a year and a half ago.

But before that, I was working with Sean, the founder of the company, in kind of a coaching capacity and a consulting capacity. And he did that for, I guess, maybe two and a half or three years. And, you know, Sean is brilliant, but he was kind of a guy wearing all the hats. And as you know, as an entrepreneur, there's a point at which you just can't do that and allow the company to continue to grow at the pace you want. Yeah. And so he recognized that and also recognized at the same time, like, where did he want to really spend his time?

And he wants to be that product visionary, and he's extremely gifted in that. Yeah. Whereas I'm much more the integrator, much more the people and process person to make his vision kind of reality. Yeah. he's just the guy in the back end making it making the product happen huh yeah i mean he's i wouldn't categorize him his back end at this point and he's definitely in the business day in and day out and and has a strong voice about a lot of things but uh yeah we we have a really good uh relationship in that we we compliment one another very well where he has really strong capabilities um you know

i'm weaker and vice versa so it just works out really well now uh now we'll type it like when did like Why did you decide to enter the data business, you know, from coming from commercial real estate? It's a great question. In fact, I think it wasn't the data that really turned me on. I mean, I've always had businesses that were based on data or technology. But at the end of the day, the through line through my career has been businesses that help entrepreneurs and small businesses to succeed. And, you know, early in the days when I was just kind of consulting with Sean, the product or the platform was more geared, around people doing property or property owner research for the sake of, you know, with their

marketing efforts. But he didn't have that last mile of how to then connect with them. And so a year and a half ago, as I joined as CEO, the change was that he had reached that evolutionary stage where he was able to say, okay, now I want to be that last mile as a product. And also he shares the same passion for small businesses that I do, not just on an economic level, but just recognizing that small businesses are the glue of local societies and cultures. And that is our driving passion and force. And so that was really what drew me into the company. You know, the beautiful thing I love about what you guys are doing is you guys give small businesses

the opportunity to have what big businesses have, which is like incredible data intelligence. Exactly. That's really kind of been the value proposition for us is like empowering. small businesses with the strengths in public records and just in data in general that big businesses have enjoyed for many, many years. The other thing that we were able to bring to that is to bring practices to these small businesses that don't scale, purposely don't scale, because those are the things that big business can't come chase them on. I mean, so to the degree that a local mortgage broker can target a finite group of people

and talk to their specialization and how they can. and serve those customers. Larger organizations can't chase them. Like a Home Depot can't chase the local hardware store when it comes to doing, say, mailers or, you know, local phone calls. It can't scale that across the entire population of the United States. You know, you guys aren't just specific to mortgage companies. You guys, investors, realtors, you know, commercial agents.

I mean, pretty much anyone looking at anything real estate. That's right. That's your market. Yeah, I mean, beyond the ones you mentioned, then home service providers, they think solar HVAC workers. Anybody that's able to leverage business and also needing a constant flow of leads, that's our ideal customer. And you guys also just are outside of data. You're also offering like mail solutions. That's right.

So that's what I was talking about with the last mile. So in the past, people would come to property. radar and build an audience of potential leads. Yeah. And then they would go take it away from the platform and do whatever they're going to do with it. Yeah. Yeah.

We're making phone calls or whatever form of marketing. So now we're building those capabilities in. Specifically, we're building in what we call targeted outbound channels. So that would be the ability to do phone calls through dialers, direct mail. We have a driving for dollars app so you can go do door knocking. If you're that type of lead generator, um, uh, seem to be. programmatic ads and email. And so trying to create this ecosystem of outreach to help these small businesses to connect

with their next best customer. Because they don't know what to do once they have the data. And that's the biggest problem with. So, you know, one of the things, yeah, we condone and we advocate for property radar. And they're like, okay, we'll get the data. Okay, now what? Well, you take the data from here and then put it there. And they're like, oh.

Right. But they're like, getting them to step one. is hard enough, then making them execute on step two. It's like, I think this is the case in most small businesses, but you know, these folks start out because they either have a skill or have a passion for a thing. And that was to take the roofer, right? I mean, I like working outdoors. I understand construction.

I like being out in the sun and whatever those things are. They have no idea when they signed up for that, but all of a sudden they need to be a marketer and they need to be a manager and they need to be a finance person. And so all of those are kind of a surprise. and the things that they don't have just, you know, core competencies in. So we have to help them with that. We have to help them with not only the tools and the data, but the playbooks, right? So the how to go about marketing.

It's the execution. Yeah. So that's good that you're actually on the cusp of helping them execute so they could see the fruition or the fruits of property radar really kind of pan out. That's right. So you guys are just on step one of that milestone now, which is the mail. And you're going to add the dialing. We have a dialer built in already.

We have direct mail. Email is launching here shortly. And then programmatic ads will also deliver this year. So, and the driver for dollars. You have a dialer built in where it's just like a penny a minute or something. Just sign up for, we have a partner firm that provides both a single line as well as a multi-line dialer. Oh, that's awesome.

It does DNC scrubs and all of the rest. And so you can just dial right from the application. That's amazing. Yeah. That's great. When did you roll that out? It's actually been in place for a while, but we've retooled it and are about to relaunch it with some new capabilities. Yeah, once you relaunch that, we've got to do another demo to show people how to really leverage that.

Yeah. Because outside of the – and then we'll do the same thing. We'll do a promo like, hey, you get 250 minutes or something. Yeah. For free just to get people to start leveraging the dialer. Because, again, it ends there with the data. Like, oh, I got the spreadsheet now. What do I do?

Exactly. That's very common, yeah. And then what about texting? and does the dialing solution? Yeah, so we also have SMS capability built into that as well. Through the dialing solution? Correct. That's amazing.

You're figuring this all out. Now, obviously the API is integrated with folks, CRM, so it's all. Yeah, so we have two forms of integration. We have Zapier connections already built into the platform so that anybody can come and snap that in and hook it up to their CRM. For people that have proprietary systems or want to go deeper, we also have a public-facing API that we've built in. And so that allows them to make direct calls and pull data back and forth.

Back and forth. Yeah. Two-way integration. I love property radar. I love what you guys are doing with it. I love the perpetual innovation behind it. Now, I'm going to dive into just kind of the regular protocol of the show, which is like, you know, your entrepreneur spirit, you know, like when did you start your entrepreneurship?

At what age did you realize that you're going to be an entrepreneur? Well, so I come from a very entrepreneurial background, all facets of my family. My parents had an automotive repair shop. We had a lumberyard at one point. Grandparents were, you know, like florists, we had a bakery, all these different things. And so I kind of grew up this thinking that was normal. But as it turned out, when I actually was going through college and after college, I worked for IBM. So I went the exact opposite. I found myself in kind of big corporate America. And I think the big kind of key moment for me was I was actually in Europe on an IBM trip. And I was coming home and I was thinking, man, because I had talked to my dad earlier that day,

and he was at the time had an automotive repair shop and he was bemoaning just normal business issues. I got to deal with these people. I can deal with his state Bureau of Automotive Repair Regulations, all these things. And so I was thinking on the way back, like, boy, it would be so cool if he could take advantage of these top-tier technologies that I'm. I'm promoting and selling at IBM. And so I guess because I had such a long flight home,

I just was thinking about this more and more and thought, well, shit, why not? Why can't I bring that kind of capability to small business and help them through data or through technology that they normally don't have access to? And so from that, I came back, pretty readily left my job and started a company called CustomerLink, which was, again, helping small businesses

with marketing capabilities, automating their marketing. So from that point forward, it's just been entrepreneurial endeavor after. How old were you, or how many years ago was that? This was in 99. It was when they did that. And so, yeah, I was like 30 years old, just about. And never looked back. You started your first company.

Yeah. So I'm now, in terms of kind of startups or entrepreneurial endeavors, I'm like 8 in at this point. I mean, I had a number of turns on this and this flywheel. And it's been a lot of fun. And I really love it and not just. This is the ticket, though, right here. This might be the. Yeah, well, this is great.

And I really enjoy this. And again, it has that passion point for me, which is helping small businesses or helping entrepreneurs. And so that's my big driver. That's my why. Yeah. And, yeah, I, you know, but I can't even think about the next phase. Honestly, I just like of like being done or retire. I'm just, I think in the groove of business.

I like it. I enjoy building teams. I enjoy process and technology. And so, yeah, I mean, I hope this is the long run, you know, but I'm also thinking that even if this finishes and whatever that means, that I'm not done, done. Yeah. I mean, listen, if you love what you do, you're still not working, you know. Right. That's exactly right.

You're still not working. So where do you think you continue? to find that motivation. Is it because you like helping small businesses? Is it your work ethic? Is it just because? Yeah, it's a little of everything. I mean, work ethic wise. I mean, I'm a hard worker. I don't know how not to do that. And that comes from that upbringing that I had, right? I mean, it's like, you're scrappy. We're all scrappy. We're going to make it happen, right? And so I have that work ethic for sure. And then it changes day to day. I mean, there's, most of the time I'm very centered on, like how do we help this group of people, these small businesses or these entrepreneurs.

And I do that both in work. I do that through mentorship and incubator programs and things like that. I just love that. But other days, it's just helping a team developer, helping one individual professionally develop. So I get a lot of reward from that. And so those are the things that I lean into on a daily basis. Nice. Now, after like all this success, you know, like how do you continue to

fine motivation. I mean, at the end of the day, I just, I want to do a good job of whatever it is that I'm doing. And if that's, you know, that goes through my recreation activities to family to, you know, whatever. It's just, I think, kind of how I'm wired. And I think most people are wired that rate. Everybody wants to succeed and they want to do well. Some people mobilize around that and others don't.

And I'm maybe one that mobilizes more on that. I just look at each thing that I'm doing and why. to do it well. So yeah, that's my motivation, I guess. I love it. Now, you've been in like the data technology space for a few years now. And prior to that, you were still in technology. You know, you've always automation technology, marketing technology. Is there a specific mindset that one must have right now to really succeed in, well, now it's going to be AI automation. Now it's going to be data technology. I mean, what kind of mindset must one have to really succeed? in this vertical?

I think ultimately it's curiosity. I mean, I think it's just, the landscape is changing so quickly now, and there's so many new tools and capabilities. It starts with wanting to understand how these things work and how they can be applied and having a natural desire to understand that. How does this work and why does it work this way? From there, it becomes much easier to then snap together the pieces and say, okay, I see how I can apply this.

But I think, I mean, if you're not curious, if you're not a voracious learner and consumer of these things, you're going to get left behind right now. It's just so fast right now. It's so fast. Now, to that point, especially because AI is just coming in like a storm. Yeah. How are you guys leveraging AI to really optimize your data technology and really solve for, you know, various problems. So our first foray into it was recognizing again that we have we have data on every household, every property in the United States and all of the people that either live there or own

those properties and we're talking very very deep data. So in that and I know you have direct experience of this, it takes work. It takes work to mine through all this information and find those niches where there's opportunities or to be able to assemble it so that I think can go act on it, right? This is the same problem that you're describing with the folks like, okay, I have a list, what now? Yeah. Well, even the creation of that list is challenging because you have to understand the data. You have to understand that every county in the country treats data differently. And so it's complex.

So our first foray into AI was creating an AI, what we call a criteria bot. that allows you to speak in plain English what it is you're looking for. I'm looking for people that own a second home where their primary home is in a different state, and they've got X amount of equity and whatever those criteria are, our AI bot will then build you the list. That's going to be great. Is that live? It's live.

It's out. It's working well. And it's multi-language, which is another benefit of just leveraging some of these technologies. Again, another technology we didn't dive into. We should do a presentation just on that as well. Absolutely. The AI bot just because, you know, one of the things with the technology, obviously, is like people want simplicity, going through property radar, figuring out where the filters are,

figuring out, you know, scanning in or zooming in and narrowing in on the city or state. I mean, it's not easy. No. You know, so you have to be pretty savvy with the software. But an AI bot just cuts out all that time. Yeah. So that's where we will head with the next iteration is to then use AI as a tool to learn more about your particular business as an entrepreneur or a solopreneur, whatever it is, to then tailor your experience and make recommendations for you. So that's going to be the second iteration of the AI bot.

Yeah, that's some we're working on at this point. And that's a much bigger, much bigger endeavor. But yeah, but there's lots of opportunities. And each day, again, by being curious and seeing how people use us or where maybe they have challenges or stumbling in the product allows us then say, how can we apply technology, whether it's AI or something else, to make that better. And this data, it's not limited to just homeowners. You guys also have renter data. You have, you know, everyone who lives in a specific sector of apartments. Correct.

You know, so it's, it's very, very, very broad. And even land data, right? So even where there is no structure or nobody living, we also have the data on the land as well. So, yeah, just the deeds on land. Yeah, I mean, it's so robust. So you guys are working with developers, builders, mortgage companies, real estate companies, pretty much anyone in any sort of, the now foreclosure companies or whatever it is, you know, foreclosures are on an uptick, so we see that.

How are you, are you guys seeing a huge uptick in foreclosures? Because we're seeing steep declines in real estate values in Texas. I mean, not yet. I mean, there are areas that seem to, you know, start getting more traction there or start to see more activity, but it still is not like, you know, what it was. And I don't, I don't expect that we're going to go back to that 2008 kind of. I had a friend personally called me the other day in Texas, and she told me she was underwater $50,000.

She bought her house in 2022. And I'm like, and she wants out of the, the property. And I'm like, you're going to have to short sale. And then it got me thinking, I'm like, I've been reading about certain areas in Texas and there could be like a huge swing in short sales coming up soon. I don't know if you guys are seeing that on the data side. Seeing it, I mean, we are seeing some increase.

We're seeing more activity than when we had, but it's still not as frequent and and with the volume that everybody is kind of expecting or talking about. That may happen, but I'm not seeing it yet. Yeah. I mean, in just certain, I mean, that's obviously California. It's not going to happen. Yeah. It's not going to happen in, you know, Colorado.

It's not going to happen in Utah. But certain states, I feel like that we're, everyone was betting on. And the bets just didn't materialize. Right. You know, like Texas specifically. We had, everyone had big hopes on, on Texas. Like, hey, it's going to double because Dallas double. and Austin doubled.

Right. But all these outskirts cities just didn't hit. Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's a, it has been like a couple occasions like that. And, you know, there was kind of the exodus during COVID where people were moving to these other states for all sorts of reasons. Yeah.

And, you know, there's all that talk about, oh, everybody's fleeing California and going to Texas and Florida and did. But I think you're starting to see movements back. And so, yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens relative to homes and values. Now, do you think AI can predict or model some of that? Yes, and we're doing some work there on predictive as well. So far, what I've seen being closer to the data is that the predictions and these predictive tools are not everything. They're accurate to a degree, but they're not as accurate as everybody wants them to be or expects them to be.

So you get a lot of folks asking about it and wanting it. But the reality is it hasn't matured to the point that it's accurate enough. So, yeah, I'm seeing that. I mean, a predictive AI data model would be awesome just to just give us some sort of insight. You know, accuracy, no one's expecting accuracy. But just so we could see like, hey, this might happen. Right. It may happen.

Like, it's like reading about the stock market might. I mean, no data AI. tool is going to tell us, you know, if Nvidia's going to go up to three grand. But, you know, it'd be nice to know. I wish it did. I wish it did. But like, it'd be cool to see what cities in Texas are declining, you know, or where you, there's short sale opportunities because it just presents more opportunity. Yeah. For, for, for me to hear that at a personal level from someone that I personally know, it's just, you know, it's crazy to hear. Right. So that was just one person. That means her whole neighborhood is wiped.

Assuming that they bought in that time. Yeah, it was a new construction. So yeah, it could all be in trouble. Yeah, it was all new construction that was purchased in 2022, 50 grand underwater. That's like, that was crazy. Yeah. Now, it's not a loss if you can hold, right? Yeah, it's not a loss if you can hold, but you might have to hold for three, four years.

Exactly. Yeah. You know what I really noticed about, and what I really love about property radar is that you guys have like great talent and to have great talent in like a data intelligence space number one how did you find that talent number two how are you continuing to foster such great talent at a virtual level and you know and continuing to to really just bring them up within property radar that's a great question i mean i think um and i don't want to uh gloss over and just say well it's all just by design i mean there's a lot of design i'll talk to

that but there's also just a lot of you know luck and drew some great people and we have a great team and they're very committed and leaning in and trying to better themselves and kind of going back to that comment I made about curiosity and that's kind of one of the key things that we look for when we hire and recruit is people that have that natural curiosity that want to understand how things work and how to make them better because we believe that that is a driver to that kind of behavior and to excellence because they really want to understand how to make it better for that client. That said, I mean, we also have what I would argue be fairly regimental process for how we recruit, how we go about that. And it really is not about

the candidate or having some trick interview questions. It's about being really clear for ourselves what a given role is going to do and what our expectations. are around it, right? What if we have these expected outcomes on a role as part of what we write up in a job description? And it's something that we use to then determine, like, does this person have a really high likelihood of performing that thing? If they do, and they have these other elements and they share our core values, then that's somebody we want to invest in. But if we feel like, geez, I'm not sure if that person can get to that outcome, then we're quick to cut line and and keep moving on.

So it's a little bit of design on the front end and some luck in terms of the people we've acquired. And then in terms of the development, I think it's just about, you know, giving a shit. It's like it's about caring about those people and like how do we not just, you know, hire them and stick them in the chair, but how do they continue to foster an environment that makes it fun for them where they can thrive and that they can develop and, and again. Data is not that fun. No, it's not, but talking to a small business person and helping them achieve.

When they talk to us, they have fun. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I think that's the thing that drives folks. There are people in our organization that really love data and they geek out on that. And that's cool too. Yeah, data geeks are cool. But these people on the front line that you're interacting with, these are just people that really care.

We also try to bring people from those backgrounds. So, like, one of the success coaches that I know you've worked with, Katie, she, you know, was a realtor. And she's sold insurance. So she's been in the chair, right? She understands firsthand what it's like and now has an opportunity to help others succeed. So I think that's what it's about. Can property radar be used for insurance agents too? Yeah, sure.

Yeah. In what way? I mean, depending upon what you're trying to sell a position, I mean, you might be looking for higher affluent homes or people that have, you know, other assets. I mean, you start to look for those sorts of attributes on people. Wow, that's crazy. It's like it can be used for anything. It can be used very broadly for targeting. That's the thing. And so as we think about our future, while we're very real estate centric today, as you mentioned, kind of realtors and investors and so on, we believe that any small local business that can

identify attributes about people or about their properties or, you know, financial situation, they can all benefit. So that's where we see the future for ourselves. Yeah, it's like, like what's the future for property radar? Can it help a restaurant, for instance, attract more people to eat at the restaurant? Or is that something on the roadmap? It's not really. I mean, it's not super central because, one, the transaction volume is super small. the dollar volume is small. Secondarily, like once you've established a customer there, then, you know, now based on how good your food is and your service.

Yeah, you'll continue to keep that customer. So businesses that tend to need a constant flow of new volume, new leads, and then have transaction volumes that are a little bit higher. Those are the ones that are kind of in our sweet spot. So, but you could apply it. I mean, we've applied it to Pilates instructors. We've applied it to, you know, other businesses, a little boutique. So we've had use cases that work in these other areas, but it's not going to be our core focus.

Right, right. A high end, I could see a high end restaurant basically catering to like a certain zip code. Correct. Just mass mailing them, aggregating the data like, hey, I want a million dollar homes in the city. You don't need to go super hyper-targeted. Yeah, mail them all a coupon to this restaurant. Right. You know, and yeah, I just, but you don't market that, you know.

You know, you see it, but it totally can, you know, make sense that you could use it for that use case. Now, how do you guys continue to foster talent at Property Radar? Part of it is having, you know, like a development plan and program for people. And so, you know, we have, I'm sure as you do, too, very regular cadence of one-to-ones. And it's not just like kind of how are you doing and, you know, how's your job going? but it's also thinking about how do we continue to level you up professionally? How do I find opportunities? And so, yeah, a lot of it's around that professional development.

And then, you know, to the degree that we're recognized as a thought leader and we're out there. And some of the content stuff that you're doing, I know is a great magnet for mortgage capitalized. So we're on that journey as well. We're not as far along as you are, but we really want to ramp up kind of our content creation game. And I think that that'll also be a great. You'll get a lot of content today from this. Yeah. Yeah.

This is going to be like, we do a lot of content creation as you see. We put out five, six pieces a day, I think. It's fantastic, yeah. On 15 platforms. So people were like, I heard it. You mortgage capital? Where'd you see us? I saw Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter.

You're like, well, kick Twitch. What did you see us on? And then they'll see this episode. How did you see it? Do you see it on YouTube? you see it on or did you hear it you know did you hear it on spotify iTunes SoundCloud so it the idea for us is we just want to be everywhere all the time all at once with as many different ways to entertain you without selling you anything yeah I like that approach I mean we're

doing a bit more now I've got a pod that I run it's kind of just focused on small business and entrepreneurship things like that we have more purposeful content that It kind of speaks to our ICP and then also to kind of our core value propositions. But yeah, I'd like to get more into that game. I've been watching yours. Yeah. I get a kick out of it. It's done really well.

You get your team and produces it really well. And it also, I mean, I think it's not only the Coffee for Closers brand. It's your brand. It's EMC. It's serving multiple. Yeah. So I did a presentation. I'm continuing to do this presentation on personal brand.

and the power of personal brand. And I use the example. I was at a Mastermind's event with a gentleman named Dave Mizelle. Do you know who that is? I don't know, Dave. Do you know who Stan Lee is? Yes. Everyone knows Stan Lee, but no one knows Dave Mizel.

Dave Mizel is actually the founder of Marvel Studios. Okay. But he said this. He's like, my biggest regret was I never built a personal brand. Stan Lee built a personal brand. Everybody knows Stan Lee and no one knows me, you know, but he was the founder of Marvel Studios. Not no one knows him. Everyone, he's still the founder of Marvel Studios.

You know, he's still sold it to Disney for $10 billion. You know, he's okay. He did okay. He's still, you know, a powerhouse. You know, it was the biggest, the second biggest announcement at Comic Con other than Dr. Doom when he has a new comic coming out. But he was talking about personal brand, how he didn't build a personal brand, but Stan Lee was like the creator of a personal brand.

I mean, he was so much of a, like that wasn't even his real name. Stan Lee, it was his name was like Stanley Limeberg, but he created this like persona of Stan Lee and everything was branded Stanley. And, you know, so I went on a, you know, a rampage to build a personal brand this year. And I created the copies for Closers personal brand, a mortgage capital brand, Joseph Shelby brand. And it all just kind of feeds into, you know, the entity. So, but personal brand is just so important. because they all kind of stand outside of each other.

You know, like they could live, and everyone should build their brand and not be dependent on their company. You know, it should live outside of the company. Like something happened to my company, well,

my personal brand still stands, still there. It's something I recently just got religion on. And so I'm very much bought into that and now starting to fire my own efforts up for that reason, exactly. Yeah. In the past,

I could look back at some prior endeavors and I went so focusing on just the business brand just the business success. Yeah. The Mark Hockridge brand just kind of was... Nothing, yeah. I mean, I had history, luckily,

because I had some prior successes and things like that, that created brand for me. But I saw that it got stale, or just kind of became absent, and so that's not something I'll do again. And it moves at the speed of light. Like, you're forgotten quickly, unless you're staying relevant.

Absolutely. And one thing I note to everybody is like, you know, and I heard this on, a podcast from the from the CEO of liquid death is like you don't uh liquid death is the water uh his whole pitch was to never market to like older people he only marketed to youth like so he was at you know different you know uh festivals or concerts or whatever the case was or uh you know different social media things and so i took that philosophy and i implemented that in my own

marketing strategy. So my content is like, I don't even tell people I'm on Facebook. I tell people look me up on Snapchat or TikTok or Instagram. You know, so it's all like the, I start from the youth all the way, you know, because I'll use this example. I was standing at church. I've said this before. And there's four people in line and they all were following me. And they're all, they're all four different ages. One was 10. One was 18. One was, uh, one was, uh, 40 and one was 75 and they were all like hey I follow you and I'm like oh what do you follow me on the youngest kid said he's followed me on YouTube he's he subscribed to me on YouTube the the teenager was like oh I follow you I'm like what you follow me on she's like I follow you on on TikTok

oh that's cool and then you know the the 40 year old she she was like yeah I follow you I'm like what do you follow me on she said I follow you on Instagram and then the grandma said she follows me and she she followed me on Facebook. It's great. So it's so that platform, multi-generational. Multi-platform,

multi-generational. Everyone's watching me somewhere on something. And then you know, you probably, you see me on LinkedIn. It's what I'm assuming. I also catch you on TikTok a lot too. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. And yeah, I was talking to the content team earlier. I mean, I get a kick out of it because you're, you've done a couple of things where you're kind of just, you know, man about town, right? Yeah, yeah.

It's man. on the street stuff. Which is great. Yeah. It reflects really well, not just on the company brand, but also on the personal brand. It makes you just appear very human and approachable and funny. And so it's great. It's a great tool and you're doing a good job with it.

Yeah, yeah. Man on street content, I will warn everyone. And if anyone does want to like go viral, you just have to be super uncomfortable. You know, like if you're going to walk up to a stranger, be ready to be rejected. Yeah. You know, because 90% of the time you're rejected. Well, that's kind of what I like about it, too, because you show that, right? I mean, you'll show maybe the last take.

Somebody does recognize you or they follow you, but you get plenty of doors slammed in your face. Yeah. And that's humanizing. Yeah, yeah. And when I film with, like, I work with some big YouTubers and they'll be getting rejected, you know, and we're looking for people who don't know them, you know, and we'll walk up to people who don't. And while we're walking up to him to get, like, to get them to agree to do content, there'll be fans walking up to, like, take a picture.

You know, can I get a picture? Like, while, and they'll see him getting rejected, you know. So it's pretty funny just to see how much the bigger YouTubers go, the extent that they go to in front of their own fans, you know? Yeah. So, so what are like some hobbies, interests that you have personally? I, I, um, outdoor enthusiasts. I do a lot of skiing.

I live up in Lake Tahoe, so it's an outdoor recreation mecca, right? So skiing and hiking, like biking, water sports. So, I mean, a lot of outdoor things. And, yeah, as boring as it sounds, like I love reading, but I tend to read only business books. I mean, my wife drives her crazy. She's like, I pick up a novel, and I do occasionally. What's your favorite business book? Oh my gosh, I don't know.

What if I was reading most recently? So I don't know if I have a favorite. I mean, God, I was such a student of them. I'll say that I'm a big believer in kind of devotee of the entrepreneurial operating system, EOS. And so I often go back and we'll reread like traction and some of the books that surround traction. And yeah, because I found them very, well, they're kind of an amalgamation of different business theories like Gina Wickman who wrote that. I don't think he owns any of the thought, really. He's pulled all these thoughts together from, you know, all the kind of famous writers

of business books. But what I like is it's super actionable. It's very prescriptive. And it's a model that I've now deployed a number of times and have good success with. So I tend to go back to that quite a bit. Nice. So Gina Wickman's one of your favorite authors then? Yeah. I mean, again, it's not like he's a necessarily a individual thought leader, but I do like that framework. And so I tend to go back and reread that or read pieces of the supporting materials because I want to continue to refine our execution of it. So very nice. Okay. So is there a, a specific mantra that you live by. I don't have a mantra per se, but I mean, I think just, you know, I go all in.

I go all in on whatever it is I'm pursuing. And again, that goes back to that's a mantra or whatever. It's, it's all in. And I also kind of live by the no plan B sort of concept. But I think if you have bailout options at the ready and it makes you less committed to the thing you're focused on. Nice. Now, what's your favorite quote? Oh, gosh. You're killing me. My favorite quote.

Well, I, and we tend to use this a lot with clients and such a simple and you probably use it here. I really like the riches are in the niches. I like to explain, as a matter of fact, I was meeting with one of your employees just when I was waiting and talking about how the absence of data can be an amazing tool. So as an example, if you're doing lead generation and you're coming to a platform like ours and you notice that it doesn't have phone number or email data, well, then you know your competitors don't have that access either. So how do you circumvent that? how do you approach them through mail or door knocking or some other mechanism because you know you're going to get a good at bat versus chasing the same thing that everybody else is chasing so whether it's that or hyper-targeting i i really believe in that riches and the niches

nice i like that riches are in the niches now what would you tell you what's the best piece of advice that you've ever received hmm i've got so many but One that I think about often. When I was with IBM, one of my early managers took me to lunch and told me like to set a frame around each job or endeavor that I did. And he said set a learning target, a financial target, and a time target. So he suggested like, you know, how much do you want to make over, say, the next two years and what do you want to learn in that process? and at the point at which you reach one of those three, done, move to the next thing.

And I guess at its core, it was really saying, be intentional about what you're doing and be in control of your own destiny. Because if you don't, somebody else is going to determine that destiny for you and you're just going to be on their ride. And so it's something I've lived by, and it doesn't mean necessarily prescription for job jumping

and hopping around, but just being very intentional about what is that I want to get out of this experience. And that served me very well. Nice. Now, what would you tell your 20-year-old self to build wealth? First, I would say relax a bit and don't be so overly eager to get there. And I guess to diversify interest, and that would be my recommendation, I think there, you know, I've fallen into this kind of entrepreneurial path, and I really think that that is a great opportunity for wealth building, but you also need to diversify that. So as you're building wealth there, make sure you're doing something maybe in real estate or other investment mechanisms, so that you're not all in on one area.

Yeah. Nice. Now, what's your most popular business principle? It's going to sound, maybe try it, but ultimately it's respect for the individual. Like, to the degree that you treat your customers and your team with respect and professionalism, I think this comes back to you, you know, tenfold. It does. It absolutely does. Now, what do you think the biggest obstacle has been for property radar and building property radar to what it is now? Property radar has been self-funded.

It's not a venture business, and so it grows to some degree at the pace at which you can invest behind it. But property radar is a great case of a platform and product that is greatly superior to anything else in the space. Yeah, it is. But it also comes with kind of that the baggage of being very robust and complex. And so it requires learning.

It's very much an early adopter platform. It's people that are willing to put in some work. The AI bot will help a lot of it. Will. A lot of these things that we're doing will help. And that's part of the arc. If you think about like that Jeffrey Moore is kind of crossing the chasm concept.

Like, you know, these early adopters are willing to put in that work. they're willing to suffer through, you know, bad design. Not to say that that's where property radar is, but we were very purposefully in that early adopter. Man, we've been on property radar for four years. Yeah. Five years. So as it goes, I mean, we'll continue to become the tool of the masses.

Yeah. But it was important for us to set the foundation and have the right underpinnings of architecture and robust data sources. There's plenty of companies that compete with us, on the periphery that just go to one data source, buy it, and resell it. And they get stupid, simple, and they get great adoption. They're able to grow really fast.

But that doesn't set the stage for the future. And I think that we've taken a different approach there. We've definitely spent the time on the right architecture and the right data sources. And now we're hitting stride. And so now we're catching up. Yeah, now you guys are hitting a big stride. Yeah. Now, a couple last questions I like to end the show with, and it's, what's a personal goal that you have for yourself?

A goal that you have for your family and a goal that you have for property radar. Yeah. For myself, I have a desire to continue to live an integrated life. Right. So as we were talking earlier about, you know, you're not retired. If you love what you're doing and you're passionate about it and you get value back, not just monetary value, but intrinsic value, then you never have to retire. And so that's part of a goal for me is to live that integrated life.

And that kind of spans across a number of things, including family. But on the family side, it's pretty basic. I mean, I just want to continue to nurture the relationships that are important to me. and create environments where we all want to be a part of it, whether that be through travel or experiences and sharing those together. They're a pretty small family, and so keeping that tight is important to me. How many people? Well, it's just my wife, my son, and I are immediate family.

We have, of course, parents that are still alive and things like that. But even there, we don't have a super expansive family. So, yeah. So how are you instilling that same level of grit that you have right now into your son? I certainly try, right? I mean, I tried to share experiences and thoughts and be there as he's navigating his journey. But, man, my wife is also a very competitive person. And when our son was born, he shot out the womb, competitive is all get out.

He crushes. So he's on a totally different path, but he is a competitor to the bone. So I haven't really had to do much to nurture that. If anything, it's kind of pulling him back, you know, and kind of trying to... The same thing that I was saying about my 20-year-old self, like, slow down, just like, enjoy the ride. It doesn't have to happen right now. And it all doesn't have to be, you know, at 110% across multiple fronts. Like, focus on one area and go down.

deepen it. But yeah, I always joke my son's all gas pedal, no break. Oh, God, that's awesome. Just a born winner. Now, one last question I have, and I end the pod. You probably heard this before. It's when you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you? I would hope that it's some recognition of just how I've lived life with integrity and trying to be there and help others and help others rise up. I mean, hopefully that's what I'm recognized for. I mean, your whole intention with your business is just to serve small business,

which are the people that need the most serving. So God bless you. God bless your work, your family. I hope you had all the strides of your goals for the company. Guys, property radar. If you guys aren't on this system, you are missing out the most innovative data technology on the planet. And we didn't even talk about this, but it's also most affordable.

So get on it. Propertyradar.com, let's go. Mark Hockridge, CEO, you heard it live here. Direct. Thanks, thanks, Mark.