Epic Real Estate Investing - How Might We... Create a Better Episode Than This? with Brad Costanzo | 781

Episode Date: September 20, 2019

Before you become a great real estate investor you have to become a great marketer. Therefore, Matt Theriault is joined with Brad Costanzo (aka Oppurtuneur), a founder of Costanzo Marketing Group, a principal of Costanzo Capital LLC, and a host of Bacon Wrapped Business podcast. Tune in and find out what are the key advertising opportunities for Brad, what is Chain Reaction, and how it can be used for podcasting, and what is commonly held truth about marketing that Brad disagrees with. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Terrio Media. Success in real estate has nothing to do with shiny objects. It has everything to do with mastering the basics. The three pillars of real estate investing. Attract, convert, exit. Matt Terrio has been helping real estate investors do just that for more than a decade now. If you want to make money in real estate, keep listening. If you want it faster, visit R-E-I-Ase.com.

Here's Matt. All right, welcome to another episode of the epic real estate investing show. Got a hot show for you today. A great guest. He's been called an operanur, which is an entrepreneur who is able to quickly spot, create, and capitalize on multiple opportunities. He is a seasoned entrepreneur, growth strategist, marketing consultant, an investor with an insatiable curiosity about business ventures and the mindset of entrepreneurs.

Since 2014, he has been hosting the bacon-wrapped business podcast to deep dive into what's working now and sharing his business. and sharing his insights along with his guests to help listeners discover actionable strategies that they can use today. And he believes that good marketing solves most business problems by injecting that business with cash and good marketing centers on proven campaigns, sound, scientific advertising, unique positioning, and strategic relationships that provide maximum leverage. I invited them on today because, as we've said, many times before on the show,

before you are a great real estate investor, it would behoove you to become a great marketer because you can't really have those opportunities to invest in unless you're attracting them to you. So he is the founder of Costanzo Marketing Group, principal of Costanzo Capital, and loves helping entrepreneurs succeed because the road is hard. The odds are stacked against them and he knows how that feels. So please help me. Welcome to the show, Mr. Brad, Cassanzo. Brad, welcome to the Epic Real Estate Investing podcast. Thanks, Matt. It's good to be on the other side. I've had you on my show. So it's awesome to flip the script around. But yeah, super happy to be here. It was totally a weird thing because I stumbled upon your podcast because I was listening to the hustle and flow guys.

Oh, yeah. And you're a guest and they talk very highly over you. They better. And I've seen the podcast title in the charts before. And I was like, bacon wrapped business. That sounds pretty cool. Is the inspiration for that just because everything tastes better with bacon wrapped around it? No, it's funny.

The inspiration in that was about three months before I started my show back in 2014. another buddy of mine who had a podcast. It was a really good episode and I was sharing it on Facebook and I typed in, hey, go listen to this episode right here. This is awesome. This is some bacon wrapped business advice if I've ever heard it. So I just kind of came up with it off the top of my head just like it was just a fun adjective. That's some bacon wrapped business advice. And at the same time, it just so happened at the same time. My buddy who I was sharing this was telling me, man, you should start a podcast. You've got a lot of cool stuff to say. And I was like, I don't want to start the Brad Costanzo show. That just doesn't sound fun. But then when I stared at that, I was like,

bacon wrapped business advice. And I was like, there's something there. And I was like, bacon wrapped business with Brad Costanzo. And I was like, all right, if I ever start a podcast, that's what it would be called. And then about two months later, I was being interviewed on my buddy Nick Unsworth's show, Life on Fire. And I had, and I had, told him this off camera or off the audio. Yeah, you know, if I ever do it, I'll, that's what it'll be. And throughout the interview then, he was talking to me and he, you know, and put me on the spot. And he goes, oh, by the way, you said you've got a podcast either coming out or live right now. Where can people go listen to it? And I hadn't even bought the URL. And I was like,

baconrap business.com. And I would just cross my fingers that nobody owned that URL. Right. And at the end of the show, and we laughed, and he goes, see, now you got to do it. I was like, all right. So how long do I have to do this? And I've been on other podcasts where they're like, okay, this will come out in one or two months. And he says, you've got 10 days to get a podcast launched. Now, USOB.

But that was good. That was like baptism by fire. You just got to get it and go. And so what it allowed me to do is just figure out how to create a minimally viable podcast launch, recorded like, like, you know. three episodes, got my graphics done, my, et cetera, just recorded it on Skype with my Apple earbuds and off to the races. And that was five years ago. And it's been the smartest move I've ever made because of the opportunities this afforded me. So that was kind of the genesis of bacon wrap business. But yes,

I get a lot of comments saying, man, I was I was scrolling through this and you had me at bacon. I was like, I got to see what this is about. Right. The magic of e-words, right? Yep. Well, I'm a big fan of your podcast. You're a great host. You're a great conversationalist. You've got great guests.

I think what I like especially about your show is you've got a real knack for extracting actionable nuggets from them. You know, why? Because I claim to have the most selfish podcast on all of iTunes. Like, if I only have people on the show that I actually have legitimate curiosity about, like, I want to hear what you're doing, how you're doing it, et cetera. And I've got clients and I've got my own businesses. So if I have somebody on the show, I'm asking questions that I want to take action on myself. I'm not just trying to create a platform so people can pitch their stuff or build their personal brand. I was like, no, if you're going to be on my show, all of us are going to walk away from here with actionable stuff.

So I've been told that my show is, you know, that I should be selling various episodes. Like, you should sell that for $100. That could be a course in and of itself. I'm going to spend the time with you. I want to walk away with more than just content from my audience. Well, good. So now you're on the other side because that was the reason for having you on. Happy to share whatever I can.

Awesome. Because it was really interesting because I was like really like once I had introduced, was introduced to your show from another podcast. I just started diving deep into all your episodes and was scrolling. And I saw my name there. And I'm sorry. I felt so bad that I'd actually been on your show and forgot about it.

That's hilarious. It's kind of hilarious. Oh, look at that. At the risk of just sounding ultra douche. I mean, there was a good run of about 18 months where I'd hired somebody to kind of promote me on other people's podcasts. And I got on so many of them. And so many of those shows were like, like I was their first episode or maybe in their

first month. And I never really heard from them again. And so I kind of, the name's blended together. But here we are. So I'm glad we connect. me too me too so let's dive it you know you said something really interesting in the very beginning I don't know if you had a first question but I can hit on that but you mentioned that you suggested that in order to really be a real estate investor you got to be a marketer first

and man that hit home with me from my real estate investing in marketing experience as well and that was a huge realization and it was one of the reasons that I actually failed in my early attempts way back at the turn of the century to be a successful real estate investors. I didn't come at it with the marketing chops. I had none. So that what you said there really resonated. Oh, awesome. Well, let's just dive in right there.

If you had to do it all over again, knowing what you know now and having accumulated all of this marketing and just experience and conversations that you had with all of your guests, you know, how would you use your superpowers today to go and find discounted real estate? You know, okay, so I'll circle back to that exact question, but for more context for my history as an entrepreneur, as a real estate investor, back around the year 2002, I was in the financial services business. I was a financial advisor and I was working for prudential investments. And at the same time, I had a decent amount of spare time. I was doing okay, but I had spare time. And I think it was 2002 or three, when, And a lot of people were making money flipping houses. And I was like, all right, this was kind of new to me. And I googled it.

And I found an online info product. Dave Wisnant, I think. I don't know if he's still around. But I bought it and I started reading the book or the info product. And then I happened to stumble across some woman at my work, a friend of mine, knew of a guy who was about to face foreclosure, et cetera. And it just so happened, he had three houses. He had, I actually had four houses. He was about to be let go.

And I was like, well, put me on the phone with him. I want to use my newfound real estate knowledge. And it turned out I bought three houses from this guy with zero experience. I was still renting. I was probably $15,000 in debt. But I figured out a way to how to buy all three of these houses. And I turned them around and I made a nice six figure profit over the course of a year. And then I was like, man, I'm hooked.

This is amazing. Let's do this again. The problem is I stumbled into these. houses. I successfully stumbled into this, but it was, I guess you could call it beginner's luck. But now I was hooked and I was like, okay, now I'm going to find some more stuff out. And I started to send out some direct mail. And I mean, I was personally licking envelopes and coming up with all this stuff. I was doing it as manually as you can get because that's really all I knew how to do. I wasn't measuring anything. I didn't really have an understanding of what

you know, follow-up meant and marketing messages. And I was just kind of throwing the most basic, minimally viable thing out there and hoping that I would stumble across something else. I was disorganized. I didn't have a good CRM and lead management system, et cetera. Now, granted, back then at the, like 2003, the software solutions were not as robust as they are today. So chances are, if that all happened today, I would have a lot more opportunities to be a more organized marketer. But my strength was always in sales. I mean, that was what I did.

So you put me on the phone with a motivated seller. I felt pretty confident in getting a deal done. But it was all of the, it was all of the understandings of really marketing and how to get people, like how to target the right list, how to get the right, you know, how to get them to respond, how to keep track of it, how to measure my key performance indicators to say, okay, what's my response rate, et cetera. None of that was going on. I was just viewed this as a salesperson. So I stopped and I was like, all right, screw it. I don't know. This is just too much work. I'm doing everything myself. So fast forward a few years, I discovered a book called The Four

Hour Work Week and it was really all about, you know, marketing and information marketing and how you can create a business online, et cetera. So I dove into that and thus became my other baptism by fire in online marketing and understanding copy and getting people to be interested to come to you to ask, you know, to either buy what you're selling, et cetera. And it wasn't until I understand some of the, or understood some of the essentials of direct response marketing, which hopefully a lot of people on your show understand what that is, but it's really putting a message in front of the right people at the right time with the right call to action to get them to take an action.

Now things started to make sense. And since then, I've done some other real estate investing in the background whereby took a lot more time picking the right list, sending out the right message in order to really craft a better response and then creating a follow-up system in place. Going back to your original question, if I was a question. to do it all over again. And especially if I was to start from scratch, the model I would take would probably be starting with the wholesale side of things and then just cherry picking the ones that I wanted

to do the best. But then I would find a company that could handle a lot of the marketing grunt work that I didn't want to do. Now, I'm going to make a quick little plug here for one of my longtime clients who actually does this. and you're familiar with Gary Boomer Shine from REI Vault, they actually have a tremendous system whereby they do, they handle all of the direct mail and calling and filtering, etc.

That makes it easy so that I as an investor could just focus on the sales aspects and dealing with the motivated sellers. But understanding the mechanisms of the right market, the right message, the right follow-up sequence, and then keeping everything organized, I think is so critical because it is so super competitive out there. And there's a lot of people chasing these deals that if you don't have a handle on that, then you're just, I mean, it's going to be an uphill battle. And one of the things I've told my clients as well that circles back to what you said

was that, you know, I've got a friend of mine that I'm helping, I'm consulting him on how to be a consultant in the hospitality industry because that's his forte, right? He helps hospitality businesses really ramp up their revenue and improve their culture. I go, that's not your business. You are not a hospitality consultant. You're a marketer who markets hospitality services, but get that identity down straight, even if it doesn't feel right. You're a marketer first because without that, you know, bills aren't going to get paid.

Right. You know, speaking of, I don't know what's actually caused it or if this has always been the case or maybe just because I'm privy to it over the last decade or so. But, you know, the platforms for marketing and advertising have changed significantly in the last decade. And so I think it's made a lot of people aware that how important marketing is. It's a lot more accessible. It's a lot more affordable. You know, and it seems like to continue to change rapidly.

Where do you see the next opportunities in marketing and advertising? That's a great question. It's something I try to keep my finger on the pulse of. I think the biggest opportunity really falls into all of the avenues to create a much deeper, more intimate relationship as opposed to mass broadcasting and media. So what I mean by that is, you know, if you go back throughout time, and really up until maybe the last five years, it was a lot of mass media, right? mass communications, TV, radio, broadcast, you're just putting it out in front of everybody. And you just

hope you're casting a really wide net. And as Google and Facebook and YouTube and all the other social media channels have started to mature, your ability to target people by interest and by demographics and by intent is obviously gotten much, much more robust so that I can put, you know, I can put it like on Facebook. I can put my ad in front of people who say that they are a chief procurement officer. This is another one of my friends. I helped him set up a strategy at, you know, at these companies. Like, oh, wow, by their job title, I can do that. But so that's already happened, your ability to micro-target segments. But I think the next step really is bringing them into a much more intimate environment to where it doesn't feel as though you're

just broadcasting things out to them. And we can already do that now with, for instance, chatbots inside Facebook chat bots and there's other types of chat bots we can do to where we're getting people into an actual conversation. We can do that by text message. We can bring them into private things like a Facebook group. We can bring them into places that feel like it's a place for them whereby we can have these intimate conversations with people at scale. And I think that's really what it is. Intimate conversations at scale becomes the next level because at a time where we're so connected, we've got all the social media, but everybody knows that the negative is we're so connected, but we feel so alone that creating these intimate opportunities for communication

with the business dramatically increases the response rate. And it's also more work. It takes a little bit more thought. It takes a little bit more of you giving a crap about what's going on. So less people are going to do it. And that because of that, I think it creates more opportunities. So, you know, as a real estate investor, just as an example, you can send out all your postcards and you can send out all this, you know, you can do Google ads and Facebook ads and all of this other stuff. But ultimately, people want to deal with people. And you can give them more opportunities than you ever have before, from email and phone to chatbots to groups to in-person, you know, events. But I don't know.

I think the biggest trends is just going much more intimate and personal for being more effective. Yep. Yep. Yeah. The book, Gary Vaynerchuk's book, I think it was the thank you economy. And he had said something in there. That was years ago. But we adopted it and embraced this one concept.

He said the more high-tech business gives. it's the more old fashioned your customer service needs to become. Absolutely. And that just resonated with me so much. And I think it's probably even more valid today than it was, you know, five or six years ago when he put it in the book. Gary's got some great advice on that too. Like along those other lines,

he gives us advice to people all the time. And nobody wants to do it, including myself, because it's a hell of a lot of work. But go out, manually look for people posting on certain topics on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever. And there's ways to,

especially on Instagram, search hashtag, search in areas, and comment on their posts, get in there manually. Like, instead of scrolling through the feed like that, actually do it intentionally and go out one by one. I mean, everybody can be reached now through some channel, with the exception of people who are totally off the social grid. You can reach out intimately and say, hey, I saw you posted about X on this. Here's something in common.

Here's a piece of value. DM me if you have any questions. about that. I mean, you have the ability to get intimate, but all of us, because of technology, we just, we want to scale it out without any involvement. And because of that, and everybody else is doing it, we feel more alone. But yeah, if you're willing to take those extra steps and, you know, that's critical. And customer service, like you mentioned, that is now one of the biggest key drivers of success, especially if you start to look at what private equity companies and VC companies who are investing in all different types of businesses are starting to value.

Because I do some acquisitions in business as well. So I pay a lot of attention to this. And PE firms are putting significant value on the customer relationship and customer experience. And they're adding a big valuation to that. So they're recognizing it's not just about customer user growth and acquisition, but it's about the experience because they realize, how critical that is to the longevity of a business. You know, after listening to your podcast for a while now,

and you're a well-rounded dude, we've got some mutual friends, and I can just tell you, like, you've got a little bit of, I mean, I'm experienced, but just well-rounded experience. What is your core business? Who do you help and how do you help them? So I've actually struggled with this for the exact reason that I'm so well-rounded. I consider myself an expert generalist. But the core business I have really falls into two, I'd say two primary areas.

So there's the area where I'm building my own business or businesses. So I've acquired a couple of businesses and doing kind of roll-ups in both the craft beer, like media spaces in the craft beer space of all things like home brewing and craft beer. So we're trying myself and two of my partners from the Hustle and Flowchart podcast, Matt and Joe. we are actively out there trying to purchase audiences, like website audiences, et cetera, in the craft beer space and do a roll-up because our goal is, we know of a couple big buyers of this, and our goal is to sell that portfolio up to chain. And then we're also doing this with another group in the CBD supplement space.

We're doing a roll-up there. So that's kind of the behind the scenes. that's not working with clients. That's some of the more opportunistic, opportunorial things that I've been working on. As it applies to working with clients, the clients that I work with tend to be in a couple categories. So either they are big personal brands who've got some good attention on them, but they don't really understand how to monetize that and how to expand that. So, two of my higher profile examples are Jesse Itzler.

He is the author of the book Living with a Seal. He sold a private jet company to NetJets. He helped sell, or he was one of the early investors in Zico Coconut Water, and they sold it to Coca-Cola. He owns the Hawks, the NBA team. And he's this huge billionaire, amazing personality. but when we started to work together, he just had released his book and he started to get some attention, but he didn't understand marketing, automation, personal branding, getting the message out,

building a tribe. And it was something he was really passionate about doing. So he hired me to help channel a lot of the attention he was getting into a different business model from coaching and live events and some stuff that he really liked to do. And it's helped to build his brand. And then I've been working with Frank Shamrock, the five-time former, of C champion in helping him to transition from, you know, retired world champion athlete to public in keynote speaker and like a leader of a new tribe of his, in the personal development

world. So I've worked extensively with some high profile people on their personal brands and business models. But then on the other side of that, I work typically with companies who are doing about a million dollars in up, who are, who've got a great product or service. And they're just not completely clear on their marketing plan. And they don't quite have their finger on the pulse of what's working, what's not working. They end up just throwing money at the wall and seeing what sticks.

But what I come in is I create a marketing and growth roadmap for them and help facilitate that, as well as help them develop new profit centers in ways to maximize their customer value. So it's a lot of growth and profit optimization consulting that I do. So part of it will be like, how do we get more traffic to your offer and how do we improve the offers economics? And these are the companies that I know I can move the needle with and that I really enjoy working for. But I'm not a specialist in the case.

Like you don't come to Brad Costanzo to just like to manage your Facebook ads or to do one little aspect. But I'm kind of the quarterback or I guess the head coach, if we were going to think about football terminology, and that I know which pieces to put in place and in what order to kind of give you the most leveraged results possible. And that's what I do over at Costanza Marketing Group on the client facing side.

Got it. I hope that long non-corbrate. business. And I think maybe I can simplify just a little bit and correct me if I'm wrong, but you know, it seems everybody has an agency today because they bought a subscription to ClickFunnels and got a little info book on how to run a Facebook ad and now they can run everyone's business. And so there's a lot of people out there that can essentially, quote unquote, push the buttons. But without the strategy behind it, without the coordination of behind it, I mean, it's easy to waste and blow a lot of money doing that, right?

I'm a strategist through and through. That is my key thing because it's, yeah, it's pushing the buttons is one thing knowing which buttons to push in which order is, I think, the higher value activity. Sweet. What do you like best about what you do? I like the fact that it satisfies my entrepreneurial ADD quite a bit because that's the aspect I love about working with clients is that no two clients are exactly the same. I get to solve new challenges. I get to take on new opportunities, meet new people. And that's really what I get the most, you know, professional and personal fulfillment from are the relationships that I've been able to develop. It's one of the biggest benefits to the podcast, Bacon Rap Business,

is just the people I get to meet and the things I get to learn and the relationships I get to nurture. Right. On your podcast, who would you say has been the most impactful person for your business? What's your biggest takeaway from and how did that impact your business? You know, I'll throw two people out there. So one of them was Jesse Itzler. So he was the client I had. Now, if I hadn't interviewed him on the podcast,

it would not have given me an opportunity to stay in contact with him and then have him ask me if I can work with him on his business. And that added not only significant enjoyment, but significant financial rewarding and everything else. So that was probably the most significant as far as that goes. As far as helping to, you know, more tactically, et cetera, one of my good friends and I consider my mentor as well, Roland Frazier, who is one of the three partners in Digital Marketer.com.

He's one of the smartest guys I know in the way he approaches and thinks about different principles in business has really helped shape me. It's given me a lot of advice in the world of acquisitions, still new at. I'm not a, I'm not a seasoned M&A guy or at least not yet. And I really, but I really like that. So in talking with him, that's been a very eye-opening shift that's helped change the way I do a lot of things in business. A lot of times I think what would, what would Roland do? Or what would Roland not do in this case. So, yeah, that's actually what led me to you was his podcast, led me to the hustle and flowchart guys that led me to you. That's hilarious. I was trying to

figure out how I got to the hustle and flow guys. Yeah, because they had Joe Fier on the show and on his podcast and, yeah, and then Joe and I are partners. I was actually just on the phone with those guys right before we got on. Sweet. Yeah. And they drop your name here and there. They want you to produce more podcasts because they really enjoy your show too. Yeah, I actually, this year, I, I was so busy with some acquisition stuff and some other client work and a broken wrist and all this other crap that I ended up publishing like one episode a month for the first part of the year. And then I got a lot of my podcast subscribers emailing me. Man, what's this once a month crap?

Like, do more. So I've turned the heat back up and got some cool things going on and probably going to be launching another podcast here in the next few months as well on a similar but slightly different theme and looking forward to that. That was actually my very next question, so perfectly timed. After talking to so many people about their various subjects and stuff on the podcast, what is it that you wish you could talk about more? And this actually may end up becoming two podcasts,

although the idea of having three podcasts out there simultaneously makes me want to, you know, drink bleach. I have a comment on that when you're done. Right. But there's two topics near and dear to my heart. So the first one is a concept. And I may start to test these out on my show, but I refer to them as my cognitive keys. So back at the end of the year, this year, I have a business coach and he told me, go back to

some of your clients and ask them, why do you really pay me money? Like, what do you really pay in me for? And I did that. And the theme that came through was not, didn't have anything to do with certain results that I got them or activities, but each one of them said in one way or another, it's the way you think. Like I approach problems and challenges and solutions in a completely lateral or different perspective than most people they've met. And that oftentimes those things, you know, create really highly leveraged results. And like, I can't access this type of thinking

from anyone else that I know. And that made me feel really good, but it also made me confused because I was like, well, I don't know how to codify the way I think. Like, how do I think? Like, how do I package that up? So I sat down at the beginning of the year and I start, I started to write out a list of what I call mental models, principles, rules of thumb, quotes, just things that I've relied on in the past to bring me great results. And I came up with a list of like 70 of them. And then every day for the next couple months, I just started to write a little blog post or essay about here's what this key or this model is.

Here's how it applies to certain problems. Here's how I've used it. And here's how I would suggest somebody else do it. And I'm really proud of this list of, as I said, cognitive keys, ways of thinking about the world that can solve a lot of problems, almost like a skeleton key. And I've got so much content on this right now and I want to start to build it out. And before I write a book on it, I want to kind of build it out in an audio way. So I may create a podcast called Cognitive Keys. And that's one aspect.

And then the other one came up when I was actually talking to Jim. Joe and Matt from Hustle and Flowchart. And I had this idea. You know, all podcasts that I know of, if it's not just a solo cast, it's interview-based, they happen like, hey, I interview you, Matt, and then I interview somebody else that I'm interested in. And it's kind of random who you interview. Maybe they're all around business, marketing, real estate, et cetera.

But I started to think, so what if I interviewed one person, right? What if I started off and I interviewed you? You are the very first guest. And now the only way that somebody else could get on this show would be that you would in essence nominate them. And obviously, you know, we would want it to be somebody with a certain theme. But you would have to nominate the next guest and you would get to invite them, almost like you get the golden ticket to pass it on. And then that guest would do the same thing. So that the only way to be on this podcast would be to be in essence like let in by the previous guest.

So it creates kind of a chain reaction. By the way, I did buy thechainreaction.com. So this is in the process. So that's gimmick, if you would, number one. The second theme of this is that our conversation would revolve around, like, Matt, tell me your journey through the lens of the events or people by good or bad that have happened to you. Maybe these are synchronistic coincidences that have created a chain reaction of events

that had you not sat next to that guy in a bar and had a conversation about whatever, you never would have done this, right? And I think all of us can go back through our lives and notice those coincidences that created a chain reaction. And I know when I think about them, I get excited. I'm like, oh, man, I never thought about that that if I didn't do this, that wouldn't have happened. And so that would be the theme of the episode. You would ideally nominate somebody to be who was in your chain reaction, who was kind of impactful for you. and ideally not like your grandmother or somebody where it would eventually just die. But the third gimmick, if you would, that I'm brainstorming on is, what if there was a season?

So season one would be there's a target. My goal is to get to, I don't know, Bill Gates or somebody like that. Like how many links in the chain would it get of people passing it on to get to somebody really, really audacious that I might not be able to get on my own? Because if it's true that we're all six degrees of separation, maybe every season would be six episodes. You never know. But I think that would kind of gamify the podcast a little bit. And this is something that it wouldn't necessarily be that commercially viable. But I think it would be fun and I would enjoy doing it and it would be different than what every other podcast out there is doing.

So that is the other crazy idea that I recently had and I'm taking some action on it. Got it. It's kind of like the trading the paper clip for the house thing. Exactly like that's what everybody says. It's like, okay. And I don't even know if his goal on that was to get a house or maybe it was. But like, yeah, what chain reaction can this create? And one of the other ideas started because in the very beginning, I stopped doing this.

But in the beginning of my show, I would ask people so like Matt, who's somebody you're really following or who is really inspirational to you? Maybe a mentor, maybe something like that or who you think is just doing kick-ass things in the world. and they'll tell me and then I would say man can you introduce me I would love to have them on the show so that was a great way for me to get guests but I was like what if that becomes the entire theme of the of the podcast because I think it would be PR worthy and I think it'd be fun and it would mix things up from just talking about tactical business strategies let me kind of attack the human element a little bit more right I like all of that all of them sound great yeah definitely the one thing I like I started the podcast what was our 11th year

year ago or 11 years ago, I started the first podcast. And it was like, it did okay. But when I branched off and did a real estate specific podcast, that's when it really took off. And I was like, well, if one podcast is good, more is better, right? So I started like, I don't know, I had like famous last words. Say again? Famous last words. Yes. So I like five or six at one time, but nothing. And I did the exact same thing, exact same marketing approach and promotion approach and put all the same amount of time in the branding and the content. But nothing took off like. the epic real estate show. Were they all real estate related or are they?

Yeah, they were. And it was different aspects. Like flipping, wholesaling, landlording, different stuff like that. Yeah, let's see.

We did one on turnkey investing. So just for the busy professional that wants to get into real estate, but too busy to do all the work. And then we had another one around kind of general wealth creation, but using real estate as the vehicle to really expedite and accelerate your journey to wealth. And it just,

it got so overbearing. and the results weren't that great. But when I incorporated them all in just started doing themed days on one podcast feed is where now this one has grown exponentially since I did that. That's awesome. Yeah, the other two, the cognitive key, if I do the cognitive keys one, that's really because I do plan on writing a book on the topic

just because I've created so much written content on it. And this is a way to just kind of work through the content where I, it'd be great if people listen. And if they don't, it'll still be cathartic for me to just kind of get the content out. And then on the chain reaction one, it's like I don't even know what the, you know,

real monetization option there would be. Maybe it gets sponsored by LinkedIn, right? LinkedIn chain. But that's almost one of those, like I see it as almost like an art project, like a passion project of something that I would like to bring into the world and not even think about the money of it. Because luckily I make money and I make enough money with the other stuff I'm doing

that chain reaction wouldn't be a business. It wouldn't have to make money as long as it doesn't take up too much time. But now, you're absolutely right. Like having too many podcasts out there, it could be crazy. Granted, on that subject, do you know, you follow Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach? Yeah. He's done some cool stuff. I don't know if you've paid attention where he has been, he's like a co-host of, I don't

know, like three, five different podcasts right now. One with like Joe Polish, one with Mike Kainigs, one with a couple other people I don't really know. And I thought that was actually brilliant in that, I mean, he's got a lot, his name carries a lot of cachet in the, in the business space. So by just showing up to record multiple episodes a month or whatever, these other people, but not actually taking all the production of it, letting somebody else do it. He lends his name and credibility to somebody else and his following, and he gets to be in a whole lot of places at once. I've always thought that was kind of brilliant, especially if you have a good name,

is find other people who want to do the podcast and you just have to show up, record it, and that's it. Yeah, leverage what you've built, right? Yeah, exactly. Super. Let's shift gears just a little bit. Yeah. You being, having talked to so many experts and coaches and entrepreneurs

and I know you're in the space of advertising and marketing and consulting, what's a commonly held truth that you disagree with in that space? That's a great question. A commonly held truth that I disagree with. Well, there's one that super, I'm close friends with Russell Brunson, love Russell, click funnels and all that. And he talks a lot, he's not the only one, but a lot of people talk about the sales or the marketing funnel is like the holy grail.

If you have the right marketing funnel, I don't think that's accurate. I don't think it's not about the funnel. And you hear that everywhere. I mean, it's a good marketing tactic. But it's a little bit more to me like a flywheel than a funnel. So a funnel is kind of a, it feels transactional to me. It's like people go in the funnel and then, you know, a lot of people come in the top of the funnel where it's wide. And then a few of the customers come out at the bottom of the funnel.

In real estate investing, you know, you send a piece of direct mail to a thousand people. a couple percentage of them are going to respond, and then a couple percentage of that are going to be qualified, a couple percentage of that are going to be interested and motivated, and then maybe you get one deal. So that's like a funnel. A flywheel is different. So mechanically speaking, a flywheel is a mechanism like in a car, etc.,

whereby you get the wheel turning, and a little bit of force creates more force on the other components of the flywheel. So that it's like, and it's really built upon momentum. So the more momentum you get, the more momentum that creates. And one component feeds the other, which feeds the other. And it's not like perpetual motion, but it creates, there's a lot less force needed once you get it going. So a lot of force up front to get it going. And then after that, the momentum kind of carries it over.

In business, I believe that it's really, you know, it's the marketing. it's the sales and then it's the customer service are the three probably biggest components of that or the customer experience, I should say. So your marketing will get people interested. Your sales will get them taking action and committed, but the experience will then dictate how long you're going to be around and if the better the customer experience gets,

the easier your marketing gets because people start talking about you. There's great word of mouth. There's great PR and publicity. and there's less crappy reviews about you out there, which makes your marketing get less expensive. And as an example, like in just in the world of Facebook ads, if you've got a really active Facebook page and a lot of people are liking your stuff and just generally they're having a good experience, your Facebook ads will be cheaper.

It's part of the algorithm that Google and Facebook does, is that, oh, if your experience is good here, we're going to reward you with cheaper marketing costs. And then as your marketing gets better, people have heard about you, your sales get a lot easier to do. So, I mean, a lot of that ties back into the whole customer experience thing that we were talking about earlier. But I think of it as more of a flywheel than a funnel. And I think that's if I was being put on the spot as once one thing I disagree with, that's probably it. No, that's good. I like that one.

I wasn't expecting it. I wasn't expecting it either. You pulled it out of the recesses of my mind. If there were three guiding principles for your success, what would they be? Oh, well, hey, I can answer those pretty easily. So those kind of tie back into, as I mentioned, of keys. So I think one of the very first ones, because it was a very first key, if you would, that I wrote down was that I don't have to know everything if I can access the people who do. and that's a lot, there's a nuance there between I don't have to know everything if I know the people who do,

because that means I have to actually already know them. But there's a lot of different ways to access those people. Like for instance, and a great example is my podcast. So if I want to know something about real estate investing and I don't know much about it, but I want to, I could reach out to you, I could have you on my show and I can do whatever I can to build a relationship. and in the hour we've got, get the minimally viable strategy to go, okay, Matt, I need to invest in real estate. What are the top three or four or five, ten things that I need to focus on right now to get me my first deal? So that's one way I can access people. So then I have to start

thinking about how do I build access. And that brings me to number two, which plays onto this, almost like a chain reaction, is this combination of access and influence. So access, as I just mentioned, it doesn't mean you have to own it if you can access it. I mean, I don't have to own a car if I can access an Uber on my app. I don't have to have money to build a business or to buy a house if I can access private lenders or other people who've got it. So I'm always thinking about how do I build access to assets that I might or people or knowledge that I might need even if I don't own it. And it's a lot easier to get access and ownership. But in order to do that, this is the other hinge in this door, access is one hinge, the other is influence. And how do I build influence with them?

Well, there's mass influence. Can I get famous and can I build a personal brand, maybe through my podcast, et cetera? So the more influence I have there, but also there's interpersonal influence. You know, how do I understand the nuances of whether it's sales and persuasion and making people know, like, and trust me in every way? Because it's one thing to get access, but if I don't have influence with that person to give me access, then I'm just kind of, you know, spinning my wheels, if you would. The third one, if I was to really kind of break this down, I would have to say it's the, and this kind of goes the way I think, it's the idea of how might we?

So innovation theory, people who are like some of the top innovators and design thinkers in the world. So people who created, you know, from the designers, the iPhone and all this other stuff, this how might we question is a critical mechanism to help unlock opportunities or methods that might be closed off because of the way we think. Let me get a little bit more clear on that. So if I was to say, if you and I were strategizing to say, hey, Matt, how would you or how could you create the number one podcast in all of iTunes or how do you how do you let's come up with a plan to create the number one

podcast in all of iTunes overcoming joe rogan and you know all these other people that's a pretty daunting strategy right how how do we like god i don't know like a lot of luck but if i were to say how might we how might we do this hopefully you and the listeners are feeling a shift in the energy of that question from how do we to how might we because how might we means it might not happen but it might, and it allows us to engage our imagination devoid of planning out how do we? So how might we? We might say, well, we might do this. We might access these people.

We might do all these other strategies. Top of my head, I can't think of the tactics. But these are things that you might not ever be able to do. But if you could, this is what you would do. And it comes up, you come up with these outrageous ideas. Right. Because you've allowed yourself to do that without planning, how do we? So how might we? Then it turns to how do we? Right. So how might we first? And then let's look at them and say, are any of these actually possible? And you might just be surprised. They're like, I'll be damn. We might be able to do that. So in the real estate space, you might say something like, well, how might we become, you know, how might we do, if you're doing 10 deals a year, how might we do 100 deals a year? Well, that's big, but it allows you to plan it out without worrying about how you are going to do it. So hopefully,

Hopefully that makes sense, but I think if the big takeaway there is no matter what you're trying to accomplish, start it off with how might we versus how do we. And that has unleashed a flurry of brainstorming ideas that have been really effective for me in the past. Right. No, I like that a lot. There is a shift in how you think about it, right? Yeah, and you should feel it energetically when you hear like, how might we? This becomes fun. Yep. I mean, if you say how do I and it removes the possibility of you saying, well, I don't know, right? And the whole conversation ends right there. Yeah. And, you know, Walt Disney had an entire strategy around this that connects this is a thread that connects these two pretty well. I don't know if Walt ever said,

how might we, but in general, he had three offices in his, when he was building out his empire, and one was the dreamer's office, one was the doer's office, or the realist, and one was the critic. and in the dreamer's office, this is where they would come up with an idea for like a theme park or something. Like, can you imagine, you know, the planning that had to go into that and the dreaming? So in the dreamer's office, they're basically saying, how might we create this amazing experience? And there's only two rules when you're in the dreamers office, which is don't plan anything. This is not planning stage and this is not the critiquing stage. So you're just free to dream, but you're not free to plan or critique.

Because when you've got the dream, then he would take everybody into the office where all the storyboards are and whiteboards. And they would say, okay, how do we make this happen? And the only two rules in the realist or the doer's office is don't add any new stuff to the dream and still do not critique it. Because that'll ruin everything as you're planning. Because the very final room is they would go into the critics office. And everybody's job there was to obviously critique it. But it wasn't just to shoot it down. it was to say, okay, what are we missing? What could go wrong? What are the speed bumps? Do we have the money? And all this stuff that, you know, feels like you're party pooping, but it's really critical to making sure you don't get run over. And you can probably guess the only two rules here is don't add any new stuff to the dream and don't plan it. And don't try to solve the critiques when you're coming up with them. Take those critiques and say, okay, well, how do we find the budget for this? Take it back to one of the other offices and do it there. So by segregating out the way you're,

thinking and the modality of thinking, it allows you to think of each one much more clearly and robust. So, yeah, how might we? How do we? And, you know, what are we missing? I guess would be the other question in the third office. So I think those all tie together pretty smoothly. They do. How might we? You want to post that on the wall. I like it. Sweet. All right. So we've been talking to Mr. Brad Costanzo today. Having a great time. He's got the bacon-wrapped business podcast. You can also find them at baconwrappedbusiness.com. Brad, if someone wanted to get in touch with you, would that be the best way or be there's a better way to do it? They can easily send an email to ask Brad at baconwrapped business.com. There's also a little button, a speak pipe

button on the website. They can leave me a voice message so they can click the button. They can leave me a quick little audio note and with either a question, a comment, a concern, and I'll get that. sometimes I even play those on the air. But that's, you know, one of the best places where they can go to Bradcustanzo.com, either one. Perfect. Well, thanks, Brad. It's been a pleasure. Let's do it again.

I'd love it. Thanks, right, Matt. Super. All righty. So that's it for today. God bless to your success. I'm Matt Terrio. Living the dream.

Take out. Yeah, yeah, we got the cash flow. Yeah, yeah, we got the cash flow. Yeah, yeah, we got the cash flow. You didn't know, home boy, we got the cash flow. This podcast is a part of the C-suite radio network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-sweetradio.com.