Noob School - From Tennis Courts to Building Dreams: Drew Parker’s Journey in Real Estate Development

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

On this episode of Noob School, we're joined by Drew Parker, owner of The Parker Group, a leading real estate development company based in Greenville. Drew shares his journey from working as a tennis pro at Greenville Country Club to making a name for himself in real estate development. He reflects on his time playing tennis at Furman University under Coach Scarpa, where he learned valuable lessons about dedication and teamwork.Drew emphasizes that success is a gradual process and encourages listeners to find a field they’re passionate about and work diligently towards their goals. We discuss the significance of patience and waiting for the right opportunities, as well as the importance of surrounding yourself with good people who inspire you. This episode is packed with insights for anyone interested in the intersection of sports, business, and community development! Join us for an inspiring conversation that underscores the power of resilience, community, and the relentless pursuit of success. Get your sales in rhythm with The Sterling Method: https://SterlingSales.coI'm going to be sharing my secrets on all my social channels, but if you want them all at your fingertips, start with my book, Sales for Noobs: https://amzn.to/3tiaxsLSubscribe to our newsletter today: https://bit.ly/3Ned5kL#SalesTraining #B2BSales #SalesExcellence #SalesStrategy #BusinessGrowth #SalesLeadership #SalesSuccess #SalesCoaching #SalesSkills #SalesInnovation #SalesTips #SalesPerformance #SalesTransformation #SalesTeamDevelopment #SalesMotivation #SalesEnablement #SalesGoals #SalesExpertise #SalesInsights #SalesTrends

New School. All right, welcome back to the Noob School. This is podcast 135, we think. 135. So we should be getting pretty good at this. I've got a good friend of mine going back. How long, Drew? Probably 15 to 20 years.

Yeah, at least 15. At least 15. 15 years, Drew Parker. Drew started and runs. Parker group, which is one of the best real estate development groups in Greenville, at least in Greenville. I don't know, are you outside of Greenville? I'll take Greenville. Greenville, okay.

We do stuff outside of Greenville, but. Yeah, but Drew, you know, it's another good example, I think, of someone who knew something about real estate from growing up around a family that was doing development and doing things. things. And then when you started, you got into real estate yourself, it's just been a steady, a steady glide path forward. I'm sure there's been some chags along the way. But I mean, you found something you liked, knew something about, and you're just working it, right? Working it. That's pretty accurate. Yeah, ever since, almost ever since college. But anyway, we'll get back to that. So what we typically do is back up to the beginning, trying to figure you out a little bit, like where you're from and things like that, and figure out how you got.

to this point and how sales played a part in it. So where did you grow up? Kind of split earlier in my childhood. I'm from St. Simon's Island, Georgia. So that's in the southeast corner of Georgia between Savannah and Jacksonville. This is where my family's been for many generations. And when I was two, my parents had the idea that they wanted to own a tennis club. Yeah.

They were set on finding one. They looked in Texas. They looked all over the south and settled on Brevard, North Carolina. Okay. So we moved up to Brevard. At the time, it was 5,000 residents in a sleepy mountain town. Yeah. And I couldn't have, I can't imagine a better upbringing than being there for my formative years until high school when we moved back to St. Simons to be closer to some.

aging grandmothers and be close to family again. Yeah. So you grew up not only in Bervard, but in a tennis club. In a tennis club. We literally lived and breathed that I was, if I wasn't at school, I was at the tennis club. Right. So and that's naturally where my friends started coming. So we had a very wholesome place, I guess, to be able to hang out and we just could do whatever if we weren't on the court. We were out doing odd jobs for my dad. Yeah. Or making forts in the woods doing what kids do. Yeah. Well, Brevard is a wonderful, wonderful place. So you went back to high school at St. Simons and then obviously played on the tennis team. Yeah, finished high school in St. Simons and then went to Furman. Yeah. Under coach Paul Scarpa

played tennis there. How did you pick Furman? Coach is a good salesman. We're talking about sales. He's good. If anyone's met Paul Scarpa, they know that he can, he's pretty convincing. So I looked at several other schools, and I just kept coming back to Furman. They play an amazing schedule. I wanted to come in. I had some criteria.

I wanted to play in the lineup as a freshman. I wanted to play SEC and ACC competition. Furman definitely fit that bill. There was also the brand new tennis center that was my freshman year was the first year they used it. The Mickleson? The Mickle Center? Yeah. Mickle. Mickle, yeah.

So for indoor courts, beautiful new locker rooms, at the time, it was when we had SEC and ACC teams coming to Furman, they were wowed by our facility. Right. So it was a nice place to start. Do you remember what Coach Scarpa said? Anything specifically he said to draw you there? He said a lot. It was more of a feel. His style of coaching is old school, which resonated with me.

But it's also he cared. And he cared about your development on the court and off the court. And you just sense that. Whereas some of the coaches that recruited me at the time, I didn't get that feeling. It was a transaction. And with coach, it felt more like family. Yeah.

He certainly proved that over a long period of time. He did. And I think if you taught any ex-player from Furman, it's still a close-knit group of guys. Yeah. Yeah. And did he invent a lot of things, too? Like tennis things?

He did. He invented the most common clay court line tape that you will see on any clay court today. Yeah. The herringbone pattern. He invented that. the way that NCAA tennis is played today, he invented that format where we played doubles first. Okay.

So the singles matters more now? Singles, yes. Well, doubles matters more now. Doubles matters more. Yeah. So I see what you're saying because if it's over, you don't, the number one player might not even matter. Correct. So until he changed it, which is right before I got to college, they played all six.

singles first and many times the match was already over and so doubles was never played. Coach who loves doubles and I love doubles so I was happy to see it. He moved petitioned the NCAA and came up with this format for doubles to be played first. Three doubles matches count as one point. So you'll hear college players now when they talk about doubles, they want the doubles point. They want the point. Two out of the three to get the doubles point. Okay.

Then you go into the singles, and if you're outgunning singles a little bit, you still have a chance. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Yeah, it makes for some exciting if the match is four, three, and there's a comeback if you lose the doubles point and get four of the singles, and it's pretty exciting. That's cool.

And didn't he also, either not a vet, but it'll push the I formation on the... Yeah, so funny story about that. That was, he calls it the switch. Switch, okay. Format. And that was my, that was my freshman year that we started using that. And I wish we could dig up the film from the first few practices of doing it. Yeah.

It's a crazy format for no one, I'm sure, listening knows what it is. But it's, you basically start your server and your partner at the net are on the same side. side. And the server, right when he's going into his toss, is going to yell switch. And you've already called your signal. So you're at the net, you're either going to go, you're going to cross and stay. Or you're going to cross and come back. Or you may just get to the center and drop down on one knee and go to a more of an Australian

formation. And so it's very confusing when you're first learning it. So we were filming it the first couple of times we were running the formation so we could go back and review, see how it worked. And I happened to be paired with one of the fastest servers on the team who had a 140 mile an hour cannon. And he called Switch Late and just in time for me to get in front of him and clocked me in the back of the head. Oh, my gosh. The ball, we were on indoors. It hit my head so hard.

It bounced up, hit the top of the indoor building, which is 40 feet in the air. Damn. And the sound was just very loud. So it sent me down. I hardly remember the hit. I kind of came to on my knees on the ground with my teammates laughing at me. And then it became a favorite thing to do before practice for the next few weeks to watch that video. Oh, that's funny.

Well, that's what teammates do. So I provided some humor. That's what teammates do. Well, what an interesting. I think it was a good choice, you know, because he, he, he, he, He was one of the, I think, one of the best coaches in history in Division I. I think he's still the winningest coach in NCAA history. Yeah.

That's pretty cool. It was at a relatively small school. Yeah. That's cool. That's cool. And he went, when he left Furman, did he go to, Citadel Carlson? He went down, did something. He, um, so when he retired from Furman, he did, I think, volunteer.

So, um, his longtime rival, but someone he highly respects. Chuck Creasy, the Clemson coach. Right. Had retired from Clemson and then he began coaching at Citadel. Okay. And then coach retired and went down, he had a house, I guess they retired to Mount Pleasant area for a while and next thing I know, coach is out there helping Creasy at Citadel. I don't think he ever held an official position there.

Well, how lucky those cadets are to have those two guys. Oh my goodness. two guys on the court together that's a lot of that's amazing a lot of knowledge well we talk a lot of tennis because Drew is obviously a great great tennis player and I'm an okay tennis player and we got to play you and your dad and you're selling yourself short we got to play you and your dad a couple times and it was it was a real pleasure to see someone so good you guys were great team thank you thank you and you have your son now who's coming up

You're saying he's going to, you and he are playing father's son doubles now. Yes. My father has passed the torch on, and so my son James is now my partner, and I'm having to learn and be the father and the father's son team and play that role. So I'm now, I'm going to my dad and saying, all right, I didn't realize all you were doing out there as a father. I thought I did everything. Yeah, that's so funny. It's fun to transition.

That's funny. Well, I look forward to watching you all play. Thank you. You went to firm and you had a great career there. What did you major in? Communications. Okay. And what was the idea about major in communication? What were you thinking? I had no idea. Okay. I chose it because I went through a process of elimination of what could keep, what major would allow me to be on the court the most. And I chose communications. That's good.

That's not all true. I was interested in that field at the time, but it did not have labs. And I think 75% of my teammates were doctors, become doctors. They were all in labs. I don't know how they did it. I was very focused on tennis at the time. I thought they're crazy. Why would you be thinking about anything other than playing tennis?

And so I chose communications and ended up loving it. It was a kind of the time, we were the first graduating class. I was 2000. That was the first graduating class for communications. So I think some of the professors at the time were still figuring out the major, which was kind of fun because some of the classes were really well done and others were a little bit unorganized. Yeah.

As a student, I didn't mind that too much. But it exposed me to some media, some corporate human resources kind of stuff that wasn't that interested in. But it gave me kind of a broad view of business and just being able to communicate. I mean, I was terrified of public speaking. And that was part of the reason, if you really want to get down to it, that was probably the reason I chose it to hit my fear head on and said, hey, this is not something I'm good at, but it looks like,

If I do that, if I'm in this major, I'm going to have to give a lot of speeches. Right. And every class you were giving speeches about something. Right. So I went from being terrified to mildly scared of getting up in front of people. And then, of course, what I do now, I speak a lot. So I can't say that I'm, I have not mastered it, but it's, and I haven't gotten over the fear, but the fear doesn't stop me.

You do it anyway. Yeah. It doesn't freeze me up like it used to. Yeah. Well, good for you, man. That's good. I don't think, I don't know anybody who, like, doesn't have a little bit of nervousness about public speaking. Well, it's the same way with tennis.

Yeah. I love the nervous feeling before a match. If I don't feel that, then probably shouldn't be playing the tournament. Right. Well, I was just going to hit some. Yeah. So I know that when you graduated from Furman, the first thing you did was you were, pro at the Greenville Country Club, right?

Yes, I did that. Well, the first thing I did was play on the tour for several months. And by that point, I was starting to realize that I was good, but I wasn't that good. But, hey, I've invested a lot of time in the sport. I want to get out there and play. So I did that and got around and saw some cool places and met some, met some, met some great people. And when I finished that, that's when I came back and started at the country club.

And so what tour was that? They called the Rabbit Tour? It's an ITF pro circuit. So tennis is, there's three layers to make it to ATP. So you have the future circuit, challenger circuit, ATP. I was on the future circuit. So it would be equivalent in golf to like the Hooters tour if that's even still around. on a, so one of those lower level tours.

You're trying to work up to that, win those tournaments and go forward. But it's where everybody starts. And so you go from playing college tennis to you jump out there, and every match is the toughest match you've ever played. But you're on a public court in Lubbock, Texas, and the wind's blowing 30 miles an hour. Not one fan within 100 miles of the place. And you go back to your quality in and come back and do it again

the next day. Yeah. So it's not a glamorous life, but it's it's gritty and fun. And you the guys that are out there, you just, one day your practice partner might be an NCAA champion and the next day is some guy from Germany that can't speak English. And you just, you just, it's a, it's a really weird and cool experience at the same time. How do you handle it if the other player is like cheating? What's your approach? Cheating is prevalent in tennis, unfortunately. It's not as prevalent as people make it out to be, but there are people that cheat. I think the older I've gotten the more of the philosophy that there's certainly not as many cheaters as people that just, they want to win so bad that they believe the ball is out.

They see it out. They see it out. And so there's certainly guys that do cheat. And everybody knows who they are. Yeah. And there's unfortunately, at the futures level, and you don't have a chair empire for every match. And so there's roaming umpires similar to college.

You have umpires that will come, they'll stay on the court for two games. And then they're gone. So the player will quit cheating for a couple of games and then they start again. There's tactics that you can employ to stop someone from cheating, which if they're really cheating you bad than if you need to call one of their balls out that's two feet in and tell them if you keep doing it this is this is how it's going to go sometimes that settles them down yeah yeah but generally in those matches i'm aiming a little bit not as not as close to the line don't don't give them the chance we yeah you can't give them the chance and yeah well it's

I'm glad you did it because you always would have wondered, you know, if you wouldn't have gone out there on the tour and tried it. Yeah. It opened my eyes. I mean, I realized that I think given – so tennis is one of the sports that you're not signing a contract. You don't just get a pro offer and join a team. And you've got to be out there for a period of time just to climb that ladder. And that period of time washes most people out because it costs a lot of money to try. It's a world tour.

It's not, you're not just traveling around the south. And so today's dollars, it probably cost a tennis player $80,000 a year just to stay out there. And that's not insignificant when you're not making any money. Even today, if you win a futures level tournament, you're probably making, I don't know, three or four thousand dollars. And then you're playing pro ams whenever you can to try to make a little extra pocket money. So my time out there just taught me that anybody can do it.

It's just you've got to be willing to put in the time and you've got to have the resources necessary to keep you out there. But it taught me a lot about, I've used that to translate into a career. And it may seem insurmountable if you have a goal of achieving something and whatever career you're in, especially sales, until you realize that you can methodically work your way. Give yourself time. It's not a get-rich-quick scheme.

Give yourself time and inch by inch. If you stay out there and keep putting in the work, you're going to get there. So when I was in my early 20s in a hurry to be successful, which is not good, I asked my dad, I'm like, I'm not successful yet. you know, what should I do or whatever? So he waited and he thought about it and he sent me a written letter, which I wish I had. But he goes, I don't know, John. He goes, but I know that these are the 10 people I know in Greenville that are all really successful business people.

And he listed what they did and how long it took them to be successful, to like go public, sell their business, you know, whatever it was that made them successful. and the average was 20 years. And I was like, you mean, I got to wait until I'm 40 for this, you know? But I mean, it's such a great message for people. Yeah. It's to say, just like you put it, it was so good. It's very doable.

Yeah. Find something you're pretty good at, you like, good market, Greenville, you know, whatever, and just start working a plan. And it's going to happen when you're 35, 40, 40, 50, 55. I don't know when, but I mean, you're going that way. I love that message. And you can imagine if you or I thought 20 years sounded like a long time, imagine kids coming out of school now.

That must sound like an eternity. They won't do it two seconds on the phone. Right. But the thing that is not in there is it's the ride is what are you doing in that 20 years? Yeah. I mean, for me, I remember some of my first sales and those were excited. And there were teeny little sales, but I'll tell you about my first sale, if it's appropriate right now. So did you start after the Greenwood Country Club transition thing where you were a pro while you were kind of figuring it out?

Did you start with the development company right off the bat? So I went to, I worked for, do you remember William McKee? He developed Wade Hampton Golf Course, High Hampton, a lot of the golf courses up in the mountains. Unfortunately, I don't think I know him, but he's a good one to know. He was a good tennis player. He's since passed away. But I went to work for Lloyd Fisher, who owned Fisher Realty in Brevard, who was in one of William McKee's developments.

So I wanted to get some development experience, but really I was in a sales role and became licensed real estate agent for the first time. and started selling just mountain lots and homes in that neighborhood. So I went there with the intention of having more development experience, but ended up in a sales role. Yeah. And that wasn't all bad. I was there for a year and then began talking to Kane Halter here in Greenville.

And Kane said, I don't have a place for you yet, but give me six months or so. And I think they were at the time building out there space when Coalbaker moved into the new Broad Street building, where Elliott Davis was. Yes. And so that's, yeah, I moved into that building when I started with Colwell Banker commercial Kane. Okay. And Kane became my mentor. And then several guys there really took me out of the wing.

and I learned the commercial brokerage side of the business. Okay. Wow, you can't get much better than that. No, I was very lucky to have been introduced to him and then given an opportunity to work under him. Who introduced you? It was my mother-in-law who knew, trying to remember her name. She worked for Caldwell Banker.

She was a residential agent. She's passed away. I can't remember her name. But she was good friends with Kane. Yeah. And it made the introduction and the rest is history. He was a high school classmate of mine. Really?

Yes, I could have introduced. Yeah. Yeah, but he was, I would like to, Greenville would have liked to have seen what he would have done with the extra years had he had him. Oh, yeah. He was an amazing person. Yeah. He was good.

Good football player. That's what I hear Yeah And pretty good Basketball player too He was just good All around athlete Yeah he was good

Play tennis Yeah A little bit Well that's great So I think that's another Smart thing you did You know When I met you

You know You were the I guess the first time I met you You were the pro At the club tennis pro And you didn't seem to be In an incredible hurry

Like To go out and do it But you The first move you made was with this really important guy up in Bervard to start to learn the business. You can just go get a job somewhere. You got the right job. And then you waited and you got the right job with Kane. And so you learned what you need to know.

So when you're ready to have your own thing, you're good to go, right? Yeah. I mean, I've always been taught. Surround yourself with good people and surround yourself with the people you want to learn from. and things will happen a lot quicker that way. Yeah. Well, nothing happens quick, but you don't take as many wrong turns, I guess. Yeah. Interesting.

So Scarper was one of the first good choices there. Yeah. He was the one that encouraged me to take my real estate course. I had my wife, Annie. We were dating at the time. She was a year behind me at Furman. and I wanted to figure out a reason to stay in the area and not leave. So coach, he said, you need to sign up for the Wyatt Institute of Real Estate and go get your license.

I said, Coach, what am I going to do with that? He convinced me to do it, so I signed up for it and became licensed and then I was able to transfer that to North Carolina. And then in North Carolina at the time, they didn't have any waiting period to become a broker. Okay. So when I transfer my license from South Carolina, this loophole has since been closed, but I got a license here, moved it to North Carolina, jumped into the broker's class with no experience in real estate. Broker. Got my broker's license. And then a year later came back to, after working with, in Brevard, came back to Greenville, started with Kane as a broker here and didn't have the five-year waiting period or whatever that is required now. Wow. And so how long were you with Kane before you went out on your own? I want to say seven or eight years.

Okay. Long enough to get experience in just about every asset class. And then really worked a lot with John Gray, Harry Croxton, two great guys. They were developing a lot of retail strip centers at the time. I found that fascinating. I did any grunt work they needed. And then I was assigned to Greengate Office Park to be the leasing broker for the office park. And when I got the assignment, I thought, man, this is amazing.

I've gotten this 100,000 square foot or 112,000 square foot listing and got into it and realized that it was a bunch of just very small office spaces. And so an average leasing commission. there for me was probably $300. And over the years, though, while I may not have enjoyed every minute of it because I was going out there, there was always turnover. I was going every single day. It was back and forth to Greengate Office Park. But I did hundreds of leasing transactions.

And it was a great way to cut my teeth on. Yeah. I mean, I don't know any other way to get that. It's like hitting balls. Yeah. Yeah. And just meeting that many, meaning that many tenants and learning to kind of pick out the winners from the losers. Because you get a little bit of everything there.

You get some highly successful companies that come in there and want just not Class A space. And then you get a lot of people that aren't above board that are going to be there for a few months and leave. And so you get better at reading people, but just the volume. I mean, that took me from point A to B a lot quicker than if I was just doing larger transactions, but less of them. Yeah, that's another good lesson. It's just getting the reps. Yes. Getting the reps.

I think that's good in any field is to get the, even back to public speaking, you know, if you make a lot of, if you get 100 public speaking, is in, the next one's not going to be that difficult. That's right. But the first one, the second one, pretty hard. Yeah, and you learn, I learned without, hey, it might be good to prepare for the speech. Yeah, yeah. And that's something I didn't always wanted. I thought, I was one that prided myself on, I don't like to use notes, I just like to speak from the heart.

Right. That's a terrible idea. Terrible idea. I mean, I've seen people give pretty good speeches reading every line. Yeah. But it sounds pretty good, you know, but they're literally reading it. And, you know, they can't mess up too bad. So tell us about, you know, you're doing well in commercial real estate with the best firm in town, the best mentor in town.

How do you transition to going on your own? So I don't, at the time I was, we were coming up on the recession. I don't think I was exactly ready to make the jump. but it was when Kane passed away. And kind of took the wind out of my sales in that office. It just, I think for a lot of us who were very, very close to them, it felt we were just deflated. And so I thought, let's make a change and go out of them on. So I was, I had everything set up.

I was going to transition into a boutique investment, commercial real estate investment company. I had some investors at the time, and I thought that would sound like a good idea. The recession, in hindsight, was looming. But at the time, none of us, I mean, we knew times were really good, and there was talk of it could be too good, but I don't think anyone expected what was about to come. And so I made the jump right before that, and it couldn't have been a worse time to do it. but today I'm glad I did it. Yeah. It was some of the hardest.

We were going to have our first child. It was just, it was a hard time to be struggling. And I mean, when that was, when the, and you remember, when the recession hit, my plans went out the window. There was, there was no one buying investment real estate at the time and no one could get a loan. saying, man, this is a terrible idea. But I pivoted quickly. I was like, well, I've got a real estate license.

So let me look at residential real estate. I think somebody called me just out of the blue, said, hey, we're looking at a house. Can you help us with it? And I said, well, you're out on license. Yeah, yeah, I can. Let me check my schedule. I'll clear it.

So I went out and showed them a house and it went well. I actually ended up being there, they wanted me to be their buyer's rep. And so I ended up getting a little commission for it. And that led to being introduced to somebody else. And then I tuned in on no one's buying real estate except for young first time home buyers. And so I just went on this tear of helping young first time homebuyers. because they were the only ones that could qualify for any debt and they were we had a lot at the time we had a lot of pharmacists moving down here oh felt like I did a ton of deals with cds and walgareings pharmacists moving down here and they were all

30 years old and had good salaries and could afford it could buy a house so did a lot of residential first-time home buyer transactions and um that's that's how Parker Group had a residential brokerage division. It just kind of grew out of that because my interest was still in trying to meander back to development at the time. And that's something we haven't really talked about, but a big part of what I wanted to do in real estate is development, which is what I do now. Right. So as the brokerage started growing, and I'd done so many. I guess residential sales and really getting to understand the buyer psychology.

What are they looking for in a house? In a house, just the little things that matter. Is there a broom closet in here? Could the design be better? So I thought, well, I can work with an architect. We can design specifically townhomes that are better than most of what I'm seeing these guys buy. to heck with finding listings or buyers, I'm going to create my own product and sell it. So I was able to start with a real small project called West Parking Towns.

So what year was this when you started building on your own? That was in 2000. We started parking towns during the recession. And that's so it honestly, it was a bust. We built the first building in 2008, I think. And I had the launch party and no buyers. So ended up selling my townhome that I was living in, newly married. My wife and I moved over to one of the units of West Park in towns, one of the two.

And then we leased out the other two pharmacists. Yeah. And made good money on the rental and able to weather the storm living there. So the joke about Park in Towns is one of the smallest developments we've done, but it took me 10 years to complete six units. And I did other projects in the meantime as we came out of the recession, but by the time we got back to West Parking Towns and finished it, it took, I think, a total of 10 years.

And so you're rolling along now, you're building your own townhomes and selling them. And then did you do a lot of that before you started doing like commons and things like that? Yeah, I mean, well, projects take a long time and I'm still only 46, so it's not like I've got hundreds of projects under my belt. But we were doing, we've done probably over 100. townhomes downtown at this point. The commons came along in 2016, 2017, around there. A friend of mine owned a couple of the buildings, and he was, wasn't really looking to sell, but I approached him the right day when he thought maybe it would be a good idea to sell it.

And about two buildings, and then we've added several more buildings over the years. And now it's close to 100,000 square feet and over 30 tenants in there. Wow. So, yeah, I think everyone who's from Greenville watching knows where the Commons is, but it's a strip of buildings along the Ritty River. In Unity Park. In Cross Community Park, right? And it's got a food court in there with Disman.

different kinds of food. Yeah, and most people know it for that reason. There's, we now have, we just added seven more, so we have 12 food tenants in there that make up the food, the food hall. Yeah. But we've also got some really high quality great people there as office tenants that are part of the project as well.

Well, that's a great one. Now, so you've done over 100 town homes downtown Greenville, you've got the commons, which is a really cool hangout. What else? What are you working on? We did a, I love adaptive reuse. That's kind of another focus of what we do, finding underutilized buildings.

So we did a, there's an old Rite Aid in the center of Malden, South Carolina. We converted it into a retail restaurant development called Maverick Station. Next to that, we're about to start what we're calling the Pickle Yard, which is a conversion of a 20, 25,000 square foot, former city public works metal warehouse building.

Yeah. Into eight indoor pickleball courts, restaurant bar, plenty of outdoor space for families to hang out. Next to that. Pickle yard? Pickle yard. That's a great name. Yeah. Love it.

Next of that would be 42 for rent townhomes. Okay. That we're partnered with Long Branch Development to do those. Great. So this is a big development. Pretty big. The biggest one you've done, right? Well, I think the commons is probably the biggest, but that's taken a long time.

This would, yeah, the one in Molden is going to be Maverick. We're calling Maverick Yards. When it's all of a sudden done, yeah, that's a pretty big deal. Okay. Now, why does it call Maverick Yards? That was the play on the Molden Mavericks. Okay. And then we're creating a lot of yard space for people to come together.

Okay. So the Malden team is called the Mavericks? The Mavericks, yeah. Okay. All right. I was thinking Goose and Maverick. Yeah. So are you still doing townhomes?

We are. You are? We've got downtown right now, we've got close to 80 townhomes about to go under construction. Jeez. That's awesome. Yeah. Well, it sounds like, you know, that you picked good career for yourself and you've had some good mentors and when you started out on your own

it was hard you know and you just didn't give up and you figured out a path forward and now you're starting to just starting to I wouldn't say it's easy but you have a process now you can follow yeah I think so it's finally I don't think it'll ever be easy, especially in the sales and development world, I don't think there's, there's not always a place. Everyone should get into their niche, I guess is what I'm saying, because there's, even in your niche, I feel like I'm dealing with the unknowns on every, every project or every sale. There's not really a standard way of doing it. You've got to do it the way that works for you. Yeah. But I would, I would, I would,

intend that it is easier for you to do a townhouse in downtown Greenville than it would be to do, you know, a full house in Scranton, Ohio. Yeah. You know, Scranton, Pennsylvania, wherever it is. I mean, different laws, different subcontractors, you know. So you're sticking to that thing you know. Yeah, that's, I've been fortunate in what I do. I'm in a pretty small sandbox.

and it definitely can expedite the process. I can't imagine jumping out of this sandbox and going and doing it in Scrant, Ohio, or any other market. Wherever Scranton is. Yeah, wherever that is. How about social media? How are you using social media? So Parker Group, the residential division,

we used it to market the, yeah, to market list. It was very necessary. or anyone who did business with us, especially if you listed a home with us, the expectation was we were on social media, especially at the time, Instagram. So it was heavily used. Okay. And very effective. I think we had to learn how it was effective and how you could use it to the best advantage. But that took some time.

I guess the old days, it was Ebro's still figuring it out. And I'm fairly ignorant, though, when it comes to that way. I had a good social media team that helped us with getting our listings out there or the messaging we wanted to get out to the public. Well, if you're not doing much yourself, you're in good shape. It's, you've got better use of your time than scrolling around the Internet. Yeah. I see the value.

I don't use it for development to a large degree. But 100% on the sales side, it's a necessary evil. I mean, it's there, and you've got to utilize it because your competitors are. Well, hopefully you'll let someone show you this video when it comes out. Of course. On LinkedIn or something. Well, let me ask you a couple more questions. What's your favorite all-time book?

Lord of the Rings. Oh, wow. Yeah. Does that one book or several books? Several books. Okay. Yeah. You love that?

I love it. Do you believe like one man wrote all that stuff? It's unbelievable. How about the movies? Do you watch those? I've watched them, but of course I'm disappointed with the movie. The book's better. Yeah.

Always. Yeah. I'm a big reader. I will always choose the book over the movie. Good. Are you reading real books or are you reading the iPad? I don't have an iPad. I read books.

Books. Yeah. You're a throwback, man. Probably use a wood racket. I have one. It's good for training. Wood racket, yeah. But you hit the ball square, doesn't it?

You have to hit it right in the center. All right, what's your favorite word? Courage. Courage, wonderful. And favorite band? Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam.

PJ. I love it. I love it. Well, is there anything else that you want to promote today or any way if they're looking for townhomes downtown what were they going to the parkergroup.com or parkgroup services.com you can see some of the projects we've done and what we're working on no we're just in the middle of a website refresh so it's not everything's not on there yet but yeah but yeah I would I would say that we nothing to really promote but we've I like to think we're a

fairly established brand and someone that can be trusted so if you are looking for a great place to live downtown Greenville. We likely have something under construction right now. To parker group services.com? Yes. Okay. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate you being here.

I'm proud of you. Cain would be proud of you. Thank you. And maybe you come back in about a year and give us an update on everything. That'd be fun. All right. Let's plan on it. Thank you, John.

Okay.