← Coffeez with Joe Shalaby
Coffeez with Joe Shalaby
Revolutionizing Real Estate Data ft. Mark Hockridge | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 58
00:50:53
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. What's up, everybody? And welcome to another episode of Coffees Foreclosures, 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 PropertyRadar, 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 of Properradar himself, Mr. Mark Hoch. All right, Mark, thanks for coming.
- [00:57]
B
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
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A
You flew in special for me, man. Thank you.
- [01:01]
B
Yeah, well, thank you. 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 face time with you.
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A
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.
- [01:18]
B
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 scrappy and so they've been needing to get more inventive and creative about how they approach their lead gen. Nice.
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A
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. What's your morning routine?
- [01:53]
B
Morning routine. So I typically get up around 5:30. Kind of starts with this, 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.
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A
Yeah, it's always a big day.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So you guys are all. Property Radar is pretty much, for the most part, decentralized. Everyone works remote.
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B
We are fully remote at this point. Yes. Right.
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A
Were you guys ever.
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B
I feel like we did have. We have an office and we did have more folks in the office for. For a period of time. We've always had a decentralized component to the business, 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.
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A
Yeah.
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B
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 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.
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A
That's awesome. Now, has Property Radar really grown in the last couple years? You would, you would say.
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B
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, so. And we're continuing to kind of be on a tear right now, so.
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A
Love it. Love it. Now, when did you start with PropertyRadar?
- [03:37]
B
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 and. But he's kind of the guy wearing all the hats. And as, you know, as a entrepreneur, it's. 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.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And so he recognized that and also recognized at the same time, like, where did he want to really spend his time? And, you know, 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.
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A
Yeah, he's. He's just the guy in the back end making it. Making the product happen, huh?
- [04:31]
B
Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't categorize him as back end at this point. I mean, he's definitely in the business day in and day out and has a strong voice about a lot of things. But yeah, we have a really good relationship in that we, we complement one another very well where he has really strong capabilities. You know, I'm weaker and vice versa. So it just works out really well now.
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A
Now we'll type it like when, like, why did you decide to enter the data business, you know, from coming from commercial real estate?
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B
It's a great question. In fact, I think it wasn't the data that, 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. 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.
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A
You know, the beautiful thing I love about. About what you guys are doing is you guys give small businesses the opportunity to have what big businesses have.
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B
Exactly.
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A
Which is like incredible data intelligence.
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B
Exactly. That's really kind of been the value proposition for us, is like empowering small businesses with the strengths in public records and in just data in general that big businesses have enjoyed for many, many years. The other thing that we are 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 chasing them on. Like, 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 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. They just can't scale that across the entire population of the United States.
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A
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.
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B
That's right.
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A
That's your market.
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B
Yeah. I mean, beyond the ones you mentioned, then home service providers, I think solar H Vac, anybody that's able to leverage business and also needing a constant flow of leads. That's our ideal customer.
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A
And you guys also just are outside of data. You're also offering, like, mail solutions.
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B
That's right. So that's what I was talking about with the Last Mile. So in the past, people would come to PropertyRadar and build an audience of potential leads and then they would go take it away from the platform and do whatever they were going to do with it. It could be door knocking or 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. Seem to be programmatic ads and email. And so trying to create this whole ego system of outreach to help these small businesses to connect with their next.
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A
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 will you take the data from here?
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B
Right.
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A
And then put it there. And they're like, oh, right. But they're like, they don't. Even getting them to step one is hard enough then making them execute on step two.
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B
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 just 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 had no idea when they signed up for that that 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 the surprises 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.
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A
So that's good that you're thinking 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.
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B
That's right.
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A
So you guys are just on step one of that milestone now, which is the mail and you're going to add the dialing.
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B
So we have, 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.
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A
So and the driver, you have a dialer built in where it's just like a penny a minute or something or.
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B
Just sign up for. We have a partner firm that provides both a single line as well as a multi line dial.
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A
Awesome.
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B
DNC scrubs and all of the rest. And so you can just dial right from the application.
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A
That's amazing. Yeah, that's great. When did you roll that out?
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B
It's actually been in place for a while, but we've retooled it and are about to relaunch it with some new capabilities.
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A
Yeah, once you relaunch that, we got to do another demo to show people how to really leverage that 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.
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B
Yeah.
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A
For free. Or 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?
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B
Exactly. That's very, very common. Yeah.
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A
And then what about texting? And does the dialing solution offer.
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B
Yes. We also have SMS capability built into.
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A
That as well through the dialing solution. That's. That's amazing. You're figuring this all out now. Obviously the, the API is integrated with folks CRM. So it's all.
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B
Yeah, so we have two forms of integration. We have zapier connections already built into the platform so that anybody can come in to 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.
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A
Forth, back and forth. Yeah, two way integration. I love Property Radar. I love that what you guys are doing with it. I love the perpetual innovation behind it. Now I'm gonna 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? You know, at what age did you realize that you're gonna be an entrepreneur?
- [11:53]
B
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 just thinking that was normal. But as it turned out, when I actually was going through college and then 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 gotta deal with these people, I gotta deal with this state bureau of automotive repair regulations, all these things. And so I was thinking on the way back like, boy, it'd be so cool if he could take advantage of these top tier technologies that I'm promoting and selling at IBM. And so I guess because I had such a long flight home, 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, you know, 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 Customer Link, which was again helping small businesses with marketing capabilities, automating their marketing. So from that point forward it's just been entrepreneurial endeavor.
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A
After how old were you or how many years ago was that?
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B
Um, this was in 99 was when they did that. And so, so yeah, I was like 30 years old just about. And, and 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've had a number of turns on this and this flywheel and it's been a lot of fun and I really love it.
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A
And not just this is the ticket though, right here. This might be the.
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B
Yeah, well this is great. And I, I really enjoy this. And again it has that, 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, I can't even think about the next phase. Honestly. I just like, of, of like being done or retiring. Like I'm just, I think in the, the groove of business. I like it, I enjoy building teams, I enjoy process and, and technology and so yeah, I mean I hope this is the, 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.
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A
Yeah. I mean, listen, if you love what you do, you're still not working, you know.
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B
Right. That's exactly right.
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A
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.
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B
Yeah, it's a little of everything. I mean, work ethic wise. I mean, I'm, I'm a hard worker. I don't know how not to do that. And, and that comes from that, 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, 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 develop or helping one individual professionally develop, you know, so I, I get a lot of reward from that. And so those are the things that I lean into on a daily basis.
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A
Nice. Now after like all this success, you know, like, how do you continue to find motivation?
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B
I, 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. Right. And everybody wants to succeed and they want to do well. Some people mobilize around that and, and others don't. And I'm maybe one that mobilizes more on that. I, I just look at each thing that I'm doing and want to do it well. So, yeah, that's my motivation, I guess.
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A
I love it. Now you've been like the data technology space for a few years now, and prior to that you were still in technology. 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?
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B
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.
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A
It's so fast now to that point, especially because AI is just coming in like a storm.
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B
Yeah.
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A
How are you guys leveraging AI to really optimize your data technology and, and really solve for, you know, various problems?
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B
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 I'm talking very, very deep data. So in, 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 then can go act on it. Right. This is the same problem that you were describing with the folks like, okay, I have a list. What now? Yeah, well, even the, 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. So it's complex. So our first foray into AI was creating an AI 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.
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A
That's going to be great. Is that live?
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B
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.
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A
Again, another technology we didn't dive into. We should do a presentation just on that as well.
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B
Absolutely.
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A
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, that's it's not easy.
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B
No.
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A
You know, so you have to be pretty savvy with the software. But an AI bot just cuts out all that time.
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B
Yeah. So that's where we will. 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 solopreneur, whatever it is, to then tailor your experience and make recommendations for you.
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A
So that's going to be the second iteration of the AI bot?
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B
Yeah, that's some we're working on at this point and that's a 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 to then say, how can we apply technology, whether it's AI or something else, to make that better.
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A
And this data, it's not limited to just homeowners. You guys also are. Have renter data. You have, you know, everyone who's lives in a specific sector of apartments.
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B
Correct.
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A
You know, so it's, it's very, very, very broad and, and even land data.
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B
Right. So even where there is no structure or nobody living, we also have the data on the land as well. So.
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A
So yeah, just the deeds on land. Yeah, I mean, so robust. So. 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 uptick, so we see that. How are, have you. Are you guys seeing a huge uptick in foreclosures? Because we're seeing steep declines in real estate values in Texas.
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B
I mean, not yet. I mean, there are areas that seem to, you know, start getting more traction there or starting 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.
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A
I had a friend personally call me the other day in Texas and she told me she was underwater 50 grand and she bought her house in 2022. And I'm like. And she wants out of 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.
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B
I mean, we are seeing some increase. We're seeing more activity than when we had. But it's, but it's still not. Is frequent and with the volume that everybody is kind of expecting or talking about, that may happen, but we're not seeing it yet.
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A
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 were everyone was betting on and the bets just didn't materialize.
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B
Right.
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A
You know, like, like Texas specifically, we had. Everyone had big hopes on, on Texas, like, hey, it's going to double because Dallas doubled and.
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B
Right.
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A
Austin doubled.
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B
Right.
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A
But all these outskirts cities just didn't hit.
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B
Yeah, yeah. And I think there's. There's been a couple locations like that and, and you know, there was kind of the exodus during COVID where people were moving to these other states for all sorts of reasons. And.
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A
Yeah.
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B
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.
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A
Now, do you think AI can predict some or model some, you know, some of that?
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B
Yes. And, 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 that they. Yeah, 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.
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A
I mean, a predictive AI data model would be awesome just to just give us some sort of insight accuracy. No one's expecting accuracy, but just so we could see, like, hey, this might happen.
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B
Right.
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A
It may happen. Like, it's like reading about the stock market. I mean, no data AI tool is going to tell us if Nvidia is going to go up to three grand. But it'd be nice to know.
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B
I wish it did.
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A
I wish it did. But it'd be cool to see what cities in Texas are declining or where there's short sale opportunities because it just presents more opportunity for investors. I mean, for me to hear that at a personal level from someone that I personally know is just, you know, it's crazy to hear, Right? So that was just one person. That means her whole neighborhood is wiped.
- [24:39]
B
Assuming that they bought in in that time.
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A
Yeah, it was, it was. It was a construction, new construction.
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B
So yeah, they could all be in trouble.
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A
Yeah, it was all new construction that was purchased in 20, 22, 50 grand underwater. That's like. That was crazy.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Now, well, it's not a loss if.
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B
You can hold, right?
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A
So, yeah, it's not a loss if you can hold, but you might have to hold for three, four years.
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B
Exactly.
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A
Yeah. You know what I really noticed about and what I really love about PropertyRadar is that you guys have great talent and to have great talent in 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 really just bring them up within property radar?
- [25:26]
B
That's a great question. I mean, I think, and I don't want to 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. I mean, 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, 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. 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 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, it's like it's about, 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 I continue to foster an environment that makes it fun for them where they can thrive and that they can develop?
- [27:26]
A
And, and again, data is not that fun.
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B
No, it's not. But talking to a small business person and helping them achieve, when they talk.
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A
To us, they have fun.
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B
They. Absolutely. So I think that, you know, that's the, that's the thing that drives folks. There are people in our organization that really love data and they, you know, geek out on that and, and that's cool too.
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A
Yeah, data geeks are cool.
- [27:50]
B
But, 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. 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.
- [28:16]
A
Can property radar be used for insurance agents too?
- [28:18]
B
Yeah, sure. Yeah.
- [28:20]
A
In what way?
- [28:21]
B
I mean, depending upon what you're trying to seller position, I mean, you might be looking for higher affluent homes or people that have, you know, other assets. I mean, you can start to look for those sorts of attributes on people.
- [28:37]
A
Wow, that's crazy. It's like it could be used for anything.
- [28:41]
B
It's, it can be used very broadly for targeting. And 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, that's where we see the future for ourselves.
- [29:09]
A
Yeah, it's like, like, like what's the future for PropertyRadar? Can it help a restaurant, for instance, attract more people to eat at the restaurant? Or is that something on the roadmap?
- [29:21]
B
It's not really, I mean, it's not super essential because 1, the transaction volume is super small or 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.
- [29:37]
A
Yeah. You'll continue to keep that customer.
- [29:39]
B
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, little boutiques. So we've, we've had use cases that work in these other areas. But it's not going to be our core focus.
- [30:03]
A
Right, right. A high end. I could see a high end restaurant basically catering to like a certain zip code.
- [30:09]
B
Correct.
- [30:09]
A
Just mass mailing them, aggregating the data. Like hey, I want million dollar homes and exactly the city mail.
- [30:15]
B
You don't need to go super hyper targeted.
- [30:17]
A
Yeah, mail them all a coupon to this restaurant.
- [30:20]
B
Right.
- [30:20]
A
You know, and yeah, I just. But you don't market that. You know, you know, you see it, but it totally can make sense that you, you could use it for that use case. Now how do you guys continue to foster talent at PropertyRadar?
- [30:38]
B
Part of it is having, you know, a development plan and program for people. And so we have, I'm sure, as you do too, very regular cadence of one to ones. And, and it's not just about kind of how are you doing and you know, how's your job going, but it's also thinking about how do I continue to level you up professionally, how do I find opportunities? And so, so yeah, a lot of it's around that professional development and then, you know, to the degree that we're recognize as a thought leader and we're out there and some of the, some of the content stuff that you're doing, I know is a great magnet for. Yeah, mortgage capital. Right. So, 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.
- [31:26]
A
You get a lot of content today from this.
- [31:28]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [31:29]
A
This is going to be like we, we do a lot of content creation. As you see, we put out five, six pieces a day.
- [31:34]
B
I think it's fantastic. Yeah.
- [31:36]
A
On 15 platforms. So people are like, I heard it. You mortgage capital. Where'd you see us? Oh, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Kick, Twitch. What'd you see us on? And then they'll see this episode. How'd you see it? Did you see it on YouTube. You see it on. Or did you hear it. Did you hear it on Spotify, itunes, Soundcloud? So 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.
- [32:13]
B
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 kind of speaks to our ICP and then also to the kind of, you know, our core value propositions. But, yeah, I'd like to get more into that game. I've been watching yours, and yeah, I get a kick out of it. It's done really well. You got. Your team produces it really well. And. And it also, I mean, I think it's not only the coffee for Closers brand, it's your brand. It's emcs. It's serving multiple.
- [32:47]
A
Yeah, so. 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 masterminds event with a gentleman named Dave Meisel. Do you know who that is? I don't know Dave. Do you know who Stan Lee is?
- [33:07]
B
Yes.
- [33:07]
A
Okay. Everyone knows Stan Lee, but no one knows Dave Meisel. Dave Meisel is actually the founder of Marvel Studios. But he said this. He's like, my biggest regret was I never built a personal brand. Stan Lee built a personal brand. Now everybody knows Stan Lee and no one knows me, you know, but he was the founder of Marvel, not no one knows him. Everyone. He's still the founder of Marvel Studios. You know, he still sold it to Disney for $10 billion. You know, he's.
- [33:35]
B
Okay.
- [33:35]
A
Did okay. He's still, you know, a powerhouse. You know, he was the biggest. The second biggest announcement at Comic con other than Dr. Doom when he has a new comic coming out. But. 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 Leinberg, but he created this, like, Persona of Stan Lee. And. And everything was branded Stan Lee. And, you know, so I went on a, you know, a rampage to build a personal brand this year. And I. I created the coffees for Closers personal brand, the mortgage capital brand, Joseph Schelby brand, and all just kind of feeds into the entity. But personal brand is just so important because they all kind of stand outside of each other. They could live and everyone should build their brand and not be dependent on their company. It should live outside of the company. Like something happened to my company. Well, my personal brand still stands still there.
- [34:38]
B
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.
- [34:46]
A
Yeah.
- [34:47]
B
In the past, I could look back at some prior endeavors and I went so focused in on just the business brand or just the business success. Yeah, the Mark Hockridge brand just kind of was nothing. Yeah, I mean, I had, I had history, luckily, and I had some prior successes and things like that, 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.
- [35:12]
A
And it moves at the speed of light. Like you're forgotten quickly unless you're staying relevant.
- [35:17]
B
Absolutely.
- [35:18]
A
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. Liquid Death is the water. 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, festivals or concerts or whatever the case was, or 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 that. I start from the youth all the way. Because I'll use this example, I was standing at church, I've said this before, and there's four people online and they all were following me and they're all, they have all four different ages. One was 10, one was 18, one was 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, well, you follow me? She's like, I follow you on, on Tick Tock.
- [36:40]
B
Oh, that's cool.
- [36:41]
A
And then, you know, the, 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 says she follows me and she followed me on Facebook.
- [36:54]
B
That's great.
- [36:55]
A
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. That's what I'm assuming.
- [37:07]
B
Catch you on Tick Tock a lot too.
- [37:08]
A
Yeah. Okay.
- [37:09]
B
So, yeah, yeah, I was talking to the content team earlier. I mean, this. I get a kick out of it. I mean, because you've done a couple of things where you're kind of just, you know, man about town, right?
- [37:19]
A
Yeah, yeah. It's man on the street stuff, which is great.
- [37:22]
B
Yeah, it's. 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. And so it's great. It's a great tool and you're doing a good job with it.
- [37:36]
A
Yeah, yeah. Man on street content. I. I will warn everyone. And if anyone does want to like, go viral, it. You just have to be super uncomfortable, you know, like, if you're gonna walk up to a stranger, be ready to be rejected.
- [37:48]
B
Yeah.
- [37:49]
A
You know, because 90 of the time you're rejected.
- [37:52]
B
Well, that's kind of what I. What I like about it though, too, because. Because you show that. Right? I mean, you'll show maybe the, the last take.
- [37:58]
A
Yeah.
- [37:59]
B
Somebody does recognize you or they follow you, but you get plenty of doors slammed in your face.
- [38:03]
A
Yeah.
- [38:03]
B
And that's humanizing.
- [38:05]
A
Yeah, yeah. And when I film with like, I work with some big YouTubers and they'll be getting rejected and we're looking for people who don't know them, and we'll walk up to people who don't. And while we're walking up to them to get, like, to get them to agree to do content, there'll be fans walking up to take a picture. Can I get a picture? And they'll see him getting rejected. So it's pretty funny just to see how. How much the bigger YouTubers go, the extent that they go to in front of their own fans, you know?
- [38:38]
B
Yeah.
- [38:40]
A
So. So what are like some hobbies, interests that you have? Personally, I.
- [38:45]
B
Outdoor enthusiast. I do a lot of skiing. I live up Lake Tahoe, so it's beautiful, snow there. Outdoor recreation mecca. Right. So, yeah, 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. My wife drives her crazy. She's like, I pick up a novel, and I do occasionally, but what's your favorite business book? Oh, my gosh, I don't know. What have I been reading most recently? So I don't know if I have a favorite. I mean, God, I'm such a student of them. I'll say that I'm a big believer and kind of devotee of the entrepreneurial operating system eos. And so I often go back and will 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 has pulled all these thoughts together from 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.
- [40:21]
A
Nice. So Geno Wickman's one of your favorite authors, then?
- [40:24]
B
Yeah. I mean, again, it's not like he's 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.
- [40:41]
A
Very nice. Okay, so is there a specific mantra that you live by?
- [40:52]
B
I don't have a mantra, per se, but I mean, I think just, you know, I. I go all in. I go all in on whatever it is I'm pursuing. And again, that goes back to.
- [41:04]
A
That's a mantra.
- [41:05]
B
Whatever. It's. It's. It's all in. And. And I also kind of live by the no plan B sort of concept. Like, I think if you have bailout options at the ready and it makes you less committed to the thing you're focused on. So.
- [41:20]
A
Nice. Now, what's your favorite quote?
- [41:23]
B
Oh, gosh, you're killing me. My favorite quote. Well, 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. Right. 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, right? Versus chasing the same thing that everybody else is chasing. So whether it's that or hyper targeting, I really believe in that. Riches in the niches.
- [42:28]
A
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?
- [42:37]
B
Hmm. I have 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 something I've lived by and it doesn't mean, you know, necessarily prescription for job jumping and hopping around, but just being very intentional about what is it that I want to get out of this experience. And, and that served me very well.
- [43:47]
A
Nice. Now what would you tell your 20 year old self to build wealth?
- [43:56]
B
First I would say relax a bit and don't be so overly eager to get there. And then I guess to diversify interest. That would be my recommendation. I think 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.
- [44:32]
A
Yeah, nice. Now what's your most popular business principle?
- [44:40]
B
It's going to sound maybe trite, 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 it, this comes back to you, you know, tenfold.
- [44:59]
A
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.
- [45:14]
B
You know, Property Radar has been self funded. It's not a venture business. And so it grows, you know, to some degree at the pace at which you can invest behind it. But Property Radar is a great case of a. 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.
- [45:55]
A
The AI bot will help a lot.
- [45:56]
B
Will. There are a lot of these things that we're doing will help, and that's part of the arc. If you think about the Geoffrey 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.
- [46:14]
A
Man. We've been on Property Radar for four years. Yeah, five years.
- [46:18]
B
So as it goes, I mean, we'll continue to become the tool of the masses.
- [46:22]
A
Yeah.
- [46:22]
B
But it was important for us to. 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 it's stupid simple, and they get great adoption and we'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, and. And now we're hitting stride. And, and so now.
- [47:01]
A
Now we're catching up now. Yeah, now you guys are hitting a big stride.
- [47:04]
B
Yeah.
- [47:05]
A
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?
- [47:18]
B
Yeah, for myself, it's. 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. You know, 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 pretty small family and so, you know, keeping that tight is important to me.
- [48:19]
A
How many people?
- [48:20]
B
Well, since my wife, my son and I are immediate family, we have, you know, of course parents that are still alive and things like that. But. But yeah, even there we don't have a super expansive family. So. Yeah.
- [48:31]
A
So how are you instilling that same level of grit that you have right now into your son?
- [48:38]
B
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 to make he gets shot out the womb competitive is all get out like 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 is kind of pulling him back, you know, and kind of trying to winning. Same thing that I was saying about my 20 year old self, like slow down, just like enjoy the ride. Like, you know, it doesn't have to happen right now and, and it all doesn't have to be, you know, at 110% on across multiple fronts, like focus on one area and go deep in it. But yeah, I always joke, my son's all gas pedal, no brake.
- [49:36]
A
Okay, that's awesome. Just a born winner. Now one last question I have and I end the question, 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?
- [49:52]
B
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.
- [50:09]
A
I mean your whole intention with your business is just to serve small business which are the people that need the most serving.
- [50:14]
B
Right?
- [50:15]
A
So God bless you, God bless your work, your family. I hope you hit 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.