Say you wanted to build an audience like this, you can do it so much faster, like messenger, because you can create one introduction and all you, all you're doing is changing the name so you can just copy it and just keep pasting, pasting, pasting, pasting. And then when somebody reaches out to you, then you can have a fluid conversation with them. But many people, they're afraid to have a conversation. I think they're afraid to actually interact with some people. You know, I always tell my kids, you just need 30 seconds of courage. Just don't think about it, just do it. You end up with some amazing relationships. You just never know who you're going to reach out to. Now, I hang out with people that I never would have guests I would ever even know or hang out with just because I reached out to them. They connect me to their friends. And so I would just say, start reaching out to people because it's free. You just don't know where it's going to go.

Well, what is up to all you listing legends and networking ninjas out there? So, as a realtor in today's market, are you feeling like you are the last one without a date to the hoco everyone else has buyers and sellers and you are left hanging out by the punch bowl. Well, it's time to lace up those dancing shoes because we're about to show you how to become the life of the real estate party. We are talking about building online communities today that don't just give you a polite smile, but actually turn into real dance floor worthy leads. This isn't your average social media tips episode. We are doing a deep dive into strategies that will help you build a network that practically throws itself at you. So if you're ready to stop being a wallflower and start attracting the right crowd, grab your favorite drink and settle in because we've got some serious insights coming your way that will change the way that you build your real estate network. Welcome to the Texas Real Estate and Finance podcast, where we help you get off the sidelines and make sure that you're always the center of attention in your real estate party. Each week, we bring you expert tips on growing your business, attracting more clients, and living, living that dream life that you've been working so hard to manifest. Whether you're here to snag the realtor crown or you just want to make sure that you never get left without a date to the real estate dance, well, we've got the insight to help you stand out in the crowd. I'm your host Mike Mills, a north Texas mortgage banker with Geneva Financial. And when I'm not here rambling stupid hoco references into this microphone, I'm out there helping you and your clients score the perfect home loan. Think of me as your homecoming chaperone, guiding you through the process so you don't miss a beat. Whether it's a conventional FHA or VA loan loan or something unique like a construction or rehab loan, my team and I have you covered from start to finish. So if you're ready to make the next big move and you don't want to miss the dance, give me a call and I'll help you and your clients explore all your options. All right, before we dive into the real fire of today's episode, I got a quick favor to ask. If you're vibing with what we're throwing down, whether it's a light bulb moment or a tip about, or there's a tip that's going to change your business, don't forget to hit that like, button. Subscribe and share this episode with a felt with a fellow realtor or a friend in the industry. Your support is what helps this podcast keep rolling, and it helps our real estate community grow stronger each and every week. You guys are the secret sauce of this show, and I appreciate every single one of you. So spread the love. And who knows? You might just help a friend land their next big deal. And hey, it'll put a big grin on this shiny dome of mine. All right, enough about me. Let's get into why we're here today. So my guest this afternoon is a real estate entrepreneur who's mastered the art of building communities and growing businesses. He is the driving force behind a real estate Facebook group network that has over 300,000 members. It connects investors, agents and enthusiasts, enthusiasts across multiple states. And not only does he lead several successful ventures, but he also built an exclusive network that links real estate pros with capital for high impact investments. He's a visionary in both real estate and signage industries. And if there's anyone who knows how to leverage connections and turn them into opportunities, it is this dude. So without further ado, please welcome to the podcast Chris Saklebin. Chris, how we living today, man?

Hey, Mike, how are you, man?

I'm doing great. I'm doing great.

Yeah.

Well, done it a few times and then also to it. You know, it's helpful if you, if you get your thoughts in order before you get out there. And then we'll get to the rambling part as we go through this. But I always kind of. Before we get into your background a little bit, I want to get like, you know, right into the meat and potatoes here. So you've built a network of over 300,000 realtors in buyers, wholesalers, fix and flip investors, and multifamily apartment complexes, strip centers, storage facilities, mobile park owners, and all kinds of stuff. So how did you do it? And why did you go the Facebook group route, you know, to go down this path?

Well, I guess as far as how I figured out all the different pieces in the real estate lifecycle and I tried putting all the pieces together. So when I would build a group, or even today when I build another group, I try to figure out who all the pieces are so that somebody would go there, it would flow from beginning to end. So for example, like a lender, an agent, maybe a wholesaler. So those or kind of the bulk of what's inside the groups. And what happens is the way the groups actually work. Say you had a property you wanted to sell. You could take that piece of property, say a relative passed away, you could throw it in the group, and then agents are sitting, there are investors, and as these properties come through the groups, they might have a client that's looking for one of those properties because it's not on the MLS yet. That person that puts it on there, they might need an agent because they just came across this property.

Right.

So what happens is the investors are the agents jump onto the post as it comes through to see if it might meet their clients needs or if it's something that they want. So the people are constantly just buying and selling, and it goes anything from like a single family house to land. I mean, we, I think in my Florida group, it was like a billion dollars. Somebody was asking for one of the properties. So it's not just $100,000 single family houses. I mean, it goes all over. So. And like you said, it could be strip centers, mobile home parks, storage facilities, tons of single family houses, but they're pretty much, they're almost all not listed. And, you know, as I was building them, I would, you know, say I was listening to a podcast, or say I was driving down the road and I would see maybe a billboard or I'd see an ad of somebody doing something in the real estate space. I might reach out to them and be like, look, I have this group. People are buying, selling properties. Then I think it'd be a great fit for you for these particular reasons. And the next thing you know, they're there and say it's a wholesaler. Now all of a sudden, they're putting all their deals inside there, or an end buyer, you know, I do the same to them. They're in there and then, so they can grab it. So, pretty much. So that way, I found that if you just have one piece in there, the group doesn't grow.

Okay?

But if you have all the pieces in there, it just grows organically.

So. So what you did, essentially, was, as you were growing these groups, you would come across somebody in that world, you know, and it could be a lot of different things. Realist or wholesaling. It could be investors, it could be realtors, it could be lenders, it could be probably title people, insurance, anything essentially related to real estate, period. Right. And then you would then engage with that person, invite them to the group, give them reasons why it would be beneficial to their business. And then what that would do is then that would take their network, I would assume, and help add to that group as well. So you're building the group organically because you're inviting people in, but those people then help build those groups, and it kind of just snowballs on itself. Is that right?

Yeah, that's really accurate. And to take it one step further, I think we came across each other through Josh. Was that right? Josh Diskin. Okay. A buddy of mine, the way I met Josh in my Florida group, I ended up becoming friends with a lender. I name is Dana. She lends anywhere between, say, a million and a couple billion dollars. Well, we it off in my group, and I actually found her probably in a different group, and brought her to my Florida group. Then we hit it off. She invited me to an event called jets and capital down there in Texas. So I go down there, I meet Josh, and then Josh introduces me to you. And as I go to these different places and get these different connections where each person is doing something different, they end up in my groups, and each one's doing something, whether it's a lender, you know, or a podcaster, by you coming to the group, then your audience comes, right? Or the lender, she's in there because she's looking for people to finance, because all these people need money, right? So my. My whole day I spend my time is having conversations with people in the real estate space, you know, and a lot of it is me actually reaching out at the beginning, introducing myself, and inviting them to come to, you know, be part of my network.

So, you know, I've heard this, and I honestly, I kind of thought this to some extent, too, until. Until I met you and saw your groups, which is like, amazing how many you have and how big they are. But, you know, there's, there's a kind of an idea, especially when it comes to Facebook groups, you know, and part of this, I think, is just human nature because we get bored of stuff and we move on to something else. But, but, you know, if this was, say, five years ago, six years ago, you know, it'd be like, oh, you got to start a Facebook group. This is how it works. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then you go to today and you're like, ah, you know, there's all kinds of Facebook groups. I don't need to be a part of that. You know, or there's no real, there's no real benefit to it because they're overdone and saturated or whatever, you know, obviously that's not the case because you've grown these and built these. So what would you say to someone who would have that opinion about these groups and that they seem old or outdated in the realm of social media channels?

Well, I mean, it kind of depends what they're looking for. I can tell you this. Just my Florida group right now, there's probably 3400 posts just sitting there waiting to be approved. So the moderators who are in Vince in Florida who are helping me, they'll go in there and they'll approve these posts. Each one of those is a property that nobody knows is for sale, most likely, right? So if they were a member of that group, all of a sudden all these posts are going to get approved. So you might end up with 200 properties that you didn't know existed that you can take part in, whether it's for your client or, you know, say you're looking to buy it. I mean, so there's tons of opportunities there. So I would say, you know, plus it's free. It doesn't cost anything, right? So I don't, I think people would make it a great mistake if they would look at it that way.

Do you think? Or actually, I want you to speak a little bit to the building, your database aspect of this because, you know, I don't think, I think people know this, but I also don't think they fully understand the power of it, which is, you know, adding people to your network, adding people to your database that you can constantly, you know, email to market to connect with, you know, whatever the case may be. Obviously, you know, you've, you've perfected this to a great extent on getting these connections and adding them in. But can you speak to, you know, especially in the world of real estate, why these connections and how these groups can help you build that and why it's so important?

Well, I mean, people are creatures of habit. So if you can, I mean, if you kind of find the people that are doing one thing, they're doing it over and over again. So as an example, I got friend Steve. He's in Ohio. He's flipped, I think, 100 houses last year. He's going to keep flipping. So that one connection, just by having his contact information, you can reach out. He might not have what you need today, but who knows what he's going to have tomorrow, the next day, the next day. And when you multiply somebody like him by thousands or a hundred thousand, I mean, the opportunities are endless just by reaching out. And when you go to these groups, what happens is you see the same people over and over again. I mean, every day there's thousands and thousands of new people joining, but you can see the same people over and over that are, you know, hustling, working a little bit harder. Whether it's an agent or a wholesaler, lenders, or whatever it is, right? If you reach out to them, I mean, they're right there. You see what they're doing now. They're in your network that you didn't know they existed.

Do you think that, that as a, like a, any type of real estate professional in general, that, you know, when you get into these groups or you start these groups, do you think there's a particular strategy that is best? I mean, you've done so many of them at this point. Like, how would you go about getting your first one started if you hadn't done it? And let's say you were in, you know, I'm in Texas. So let's say you're in Dallas Fort Worth, and you're a realtor, and you're like, all right, I want to do this. I want to start my own group. I want to get it going. Like, what do you do? Like, what are the steps? How do you move through that to start building? Because obviously you're at a scale where, you know, you're getting thousands of people every day. Not everybody's there. Some people are like, hey, I just want to start. I want to. I'd be happy if I had 50, you know, so, so how do, how did you start and how did you build it?

Um, now it's easier than when I started. And the reason being for sure, you know, I have 20 plus groups, and they're primarily all across the south, and I can grow them, you know, go the next state, you know, because they butt up to each other and just keep working my way across. So when I create a new group, I can just advertise it to my other groups. So that's how I can rapidly grow something. But when I go to an area and I do this where I don't have a neighboring state and go to build a group, what I do, I find existing groups in that state, and I go to those groups and I scan them, and you can find out real quick whose names you see over and over again. I actually send them a message, and I just introduce myself. I'm like, hey, I'm Chris Ockleyben. I'm starting a brand new group here in real estate. I'm going to have all these different types of people here. I would love for you to come join my group, but then besides that, what I do, I mean, and I was doing this at the beginning, too. Once you start putting the pieces together of who these people are and what they need, you start connecting them. That's how I did it. So as you, as a lender, you need people that are buying. So I would connect somebody like yourself with, say, investors that are buying a lot of properties because they need money over and over again. So I would always think of them first before I think of me, I'm like, what do these people need that would help them? And I provide those contacts. Just because I've reached out to so many people, I know what all these people are doing. They can do the same thing. So just spending the time having conversations with people, and some people don't want to talk, but other people, they're great, and they want to grow their network. So that's the easiest and the best way to do it.

Yeah, it's crazy. It's, it's, um, I, you know, it's. It's one of those things where, as you know, we're, we're older, we're not, we're not Gen Z's these days, right? And, you know, we lived in the world, the analog world, where you go to a networking function and you go to a local restaurant or a bar, and there's 30 people there, and you've got to get everybody's business card, and you've got to talk to them and, you know, try to go back and put it in your database and all this. And. And that was never like these days. Anybody our age wouldn't, if someone was like, hey, do you want to go networking event they're like, yeah, sure, let's go, you know, but then when you're like, hey, you can, you know, sit at your house in your pajamas and you can network with a thousand people simply by going to messenger and sending them a note and coming up with a plan on what, what your pitch is, what you're trying to say. You know what it is, what value that you're going to bring. You got to think about it a little bit, right? But you'd have to think about it going to these face to face groups, too. So now we have this incredible tool in front of us, but the value, people don't see the same value, or at least understand, even though, like, what I just said isn't rocket science, like, there's nothing earth shattering there, but it's just something that doesn't. Why do you think that doesn't resonate with people? That this is such a more powerful way to create groups and get networks of people together than the old fashioned, like, sit in front of them and shake their hand.

Oh, man. I mean, you can say you want to build an audience like this. You can do it so much faster, like messenger, because you can create one introduction and all you're doing is changing the name so you can just copy it and just keep pasting, pasting, pasting, pasting. And then when somebody reaches out to you, then you can have a fluid conversation with them. But I think this is just what I see is many people that are afraid to have a conversation. I think they're afraid to actually interact with some people. And, you know, I always tell my kids, you just need 30 seconds of courage for any. Yeah, and just don't think about it, just do it. And you end up with some amazing relationships. You just never know who you're going to reach out to. I mean, I mean, now I hang out with people that I never would have guessed I would ever even know or hang out with just because I reached out to them and they connect me to their friends. And so I would just say, start reaching out to people because it's free and you just don't know where it's going to go.

Do you think it matters when putting these groups together whether or not, like, there's a, you know, if you're searching for a particular group in your area, say, like, you have a topic or a niche or whatever you want to call it. And I think yours are pretty general. I mean, your off market properties is kind of where, you know, where you kind of put a lot of yours. But whether you say you want to do rehab jobs or whatever. The niche you decide to, is it more important to be more general? Is it more important, do you think, to be more specific on the topic, like, where do you think, like, when you're titling the group and what you're calling it or what the people that you're looking out for, what do you think is more important there?

Since I'm trying to grow all across the country, I find it's easy. I have systems of processes, so I pretty much try to use the same names over and over again. Okay, so. But it's just state. For example, it might be Florida off market properties, or it might be Tennessee off market properties, Texas off market. So then it's the same concept, and I'm just duplicating. I just got to change one. One thing, which is the state. So whatever your niche is, I would do that. And actually, one of the questions you asked me earlier is how I kind of came up with this. I was with the guy one day at a funeral, and we were just having a conversation. And I'm a car guy. I love cars. And this guy's a car guy, and he's like, man, a friend of mine did something amazing. He was trying to find cars, and it was like some kind of classic cars, and he was having a hard time finding them. So he's like, man. He discovered he'd make a Facebook group for those particular cars, so then he would reach out to other car guys, so they would sell their cars on there. And then every time somebody would post one of the cars for sale, he would see it first. So that's how he was able to find cars. And I'm like, man, I can do the same thing with real estate. So that's where my idea actually came from, is hearing somebody talk about a friend just at a funeral, and then I've just been tweaking it as I go.

So what you did then, essentially is like, you just asked yourself a question, like, what am I looking for? What am I trying to find? I'm trying to find off market deals. I'm trying to find, you know, strip centers, whatever it is. But you just ask yourself that question like, okay, I'll just make a group, and then I can find that. So if you're. If you're a real estate agent, you're looking for relocation, you know, buyers moving from California or wherever, then you just start, you know, a relocation to DFW group. And that's.

That's what your group is, 1000%. And you know, I got 20 plus groups, and in every one of my groups, almost everyone I have agents helping me, and a lot of them have their own groups, too, and it's perfect for them to because, I mean, they're just building up their audience. All these people are going to be buying and selling properties, you know, depending on how often. So some might, you know, I just added two in Florida that are helping me, and they're looking to specialize, or they do specialize in luxury listings. So this is perfect because as these come through these groups, they can see, you know, who the people are or who the investors are that are looking for properties or out of state. And a lot of these people, what I notice is people, they kind of think in their local market only. But when I look at a lot of these groups, buyers are coming from other states. So these groups allow you to grab people from, say, California because there's a lot of money there. They might be wanting to move to, say, Texas. By creating that group, somebody in California can just sit there and scan looking for properties for sale, whether it's on the MLS, because, I mean, a lot of my properties in my groups, or majority are off market, but there's a ton of them that are on market on the MLS. So these agents are putting their properties on there because Florida, there's 90,000 people in that group. Tennessee, 150,000. So they're putting it out there. People are seeing it for the first time and they can jump on it or they can work with other agents. I mean, so there's lots of opportunities outside of your local market just by creating one of these groups.

Yeah, well, you said something a minute ago, two things, actually I want to put together here, and that was you were talking about systems and processes, which I'm a huge proponent of that. You can see my little book in the background here, Tom McKavitz, one of my favorite books. And it goes very in depth into that kind of stuff. But also, are you familiar with the founder of Angel Invest? His name is novel Ravicant. Do you know who that is? I talk about, he's a, he's real big on Twitter or used to be. He puts out like he's kind of a, let's call it like a philosopher investor sort of kind of a dude, you know. But anyway, one of the things that he talked about and has written about is using leverage, and he has different types of leverage that he refers to. Capital is one form of leverage. People are another form of leverage. Coding or software is another form of leverage, things that you can use to grow and build something that is going to help you get there a little bit faster. Right. Money obviously helps you get there faster. But one of the things you touched on was people and talking about these people running your groups. So this is another form of leverage. So I want you to talk a little bit, and we talked before we came on about how you use virtual assistants and other things to kind of help manage your time and organize your day and how the cost of that is so low. But specifically on the groups about reaching out and connecting with people that, hey, say, look, you're going to start the group. You're going to do a lot of things to get it off the ground, but you have so many other things, you know, so many other hands and so many other pots that you can't monitor that thing all the time. And I think a lot of people, we get into our little silos and we're like, I'm going to do this all myself. I'm going to handle it. And you're like, that's fine, but if you want to grow, you're not going to be able to do that. So I want you to talk a little bit about how, you know, you create those relationships to get those folks to help you manage these groups, run this stuff along with, you know, any other thing in your life that you've built processes around.

It's, it's kind of like what I was saying as far as, like, reaching out to people as I build these groups. Yeah, I'm looking at it from the mindset of is, how can I help them?

Right?

And that's how I'm building it. But as far as how I maintain them, it's the same mindset. I'm like, I have 150,000 people in this group. They're all buying and selling properties. Just as an example to keep the group better for the people that are using it, I bring in more moderators. And who would benefit from being a moderator in that group? So a lot of times I just ask. I figure out who the top agents or who are agents in that market that are looking for more exposure. And I'm like, look, I'll set you up as one of my moderators. I'll introduce you to 150,000 people. Now all of a sudden you got 150,000 more people that didn't know, you know, you, you're going to be set up as a group expert. Every time you post something, you're one of, like, four people, three people in this group. You have full access to put your listings inside there. All you got to do is help keep the group clean. You see spam, just delete it. And I've gone across the country with that same model, just finding people to help. I bring them in. The group might start with, say, 100 people, and I'm like, listen, there might be 100 people here, but just six months from now, there might be 50,000. And they watch it grow. And then in my Tennessee group today, one of the girls there, she's also a lender. She's having an event tonight. And I reached out to her, and I'm like, look, there's 150,000 people in this group. You got an event tonight. Go live in the group. Let everybody know about your event. I mean, it's a, it's not going to hurt me. It's only going to help her. So I try to do that with the different agents that are helping me. It just gives them free exposure. And then when they got time, you know, they just helped me delete any spam post.

Yeah. Yeah. So if you were a realtor, for example, and you wanted to start a group and get one going and you needed help moderating it or something like that, well, then you reach out to your network of people, which could be your lender, it could be your insurance person, it could be your inspector, it could be your title agent, anybody that wants to work with you and do business with you, that you have equal benefit of monitoring and running this type of thing could very much help you manage and run that. Not to mention, I would imagine, from when you run these groups, you probably have people right away that are the most active and most involved in the group. And those, the ones that you're like, okay, that's the one I want to help me moderate this thing because they're in there every day.

A lot of times what happens is I see them over and over again. And what happens is I'm reading their posts and I'm watching what they say. So they don't even know that I even know they exist. But since I'm monitoring, so then I reach out to them. A lot of times what happens is I get so many people reaching out to me that sometimes when people are really heavy reaching out to me to be one of my moderators, I'm like, man, this is kind of weird. You know, what's their alt, you know, what's their motive?

Yeah.

So it's easier when I reach out because then I know they don't have any ulterior motives right. And you know, but sometimes they're like, okay, is this real? You know, are you. Do you want me to pay you? I'm like, no, I mean, it's free. I want to help you. You just help me. And it ends up working out great for them.

Yeah. Okay. So I want to get into a little bit of like how you got here. Okay. Because obviously, you know, when I, when we first talked, you told me that you started off in the sign business, essentially. But how did you go from starting your business in that science company to getting to where you are now? And we're going to touch on in just a second. And we kind of build to this all the other stuff that's come from all of these groups because now when we first talked last time, you've got a page that's strictly designed for, what do you call it, helicopter parts or airplane amenities?

Travel. Yes. What happens is in these groups, you know, there's 300,000 people and a lot of them are on that topic, there's people that are flying all over the country because they're maybe they're buying strip centers and they got to move quickly. I ended up setting up a deal with a company that specializes in jets, you know, private travel. So say you need to jump on a jet and go from California to Texas. He can set it up. It's actually advent jets. It's great. And so in my groups, I have a thing, a bunch of different things that would help you. One of the things, you can click on that and you can schedule it if you just want to jump around. But besides that, I also have leads. So say you're a real estate agent, or say you're an investor, you can go to one of my groups, you go to the featured section, and I have a deal with batch leads. So you can get 1000 free leads. So you just click on it, sign up, they'll give you a month for free, and you get a thousand leads that you can call. I also have the lending platform that you kind of touched on earlier. So say you want to buy a strip center, say you want to buy an industrial complex, say you need a business, you can go to the features section of my group you can click on, and there's a lending platform that I partnered with that's DFX exchange. And it's made up of hundreds and hundreds of these like family offices or hedge funds managers.

Yeah, private investors.

You can. All these private investors and they're looking for deals of fund. So what happens is you can click on that link you can go there like say you need a $10 million for strip center or whatever it is. You list what you want. As soon as you list what you want, it automatically pingshort all the different fund managers or the private offices that are looking to fund in those areas. So I have the lending platform in there. And then we also have work another deal with a company, a nationwide prime. They do like llcs, taxes and stuff like that. You can go to my group, I have accountants that are in the groups and a private chat. So you can go there. You can ask a question for free to an accountant about your taxes and for being a member of the group, you can also click on a link. You can go to that company and they'll give you an hour free phone call. They'll answer all your tax questions, your LLC questions. So I have lots of different relationships like that where members of my groups can just click on and get free stuff.

Yeah. There's a question that came from our group, Michael Zhao. He wants to know, are you specific on the ask? And he's talking about the moderators and the people that are running it. You know, basically he wants to know how, what are you saying to them when you're asking them? And then, you know, just basically, like, how do you help me help you? So, like, what specific, like, are you saying, hey, I want you to run this, this, this site. And here's why. I mean.

It depends on the level of the group.

Okay.

You know, some of my groups have 5000 people, 10,000, but still it's 5000 more people than what they have. And all these groups are growing organically. Plus I'm still growing them. So when I reach out to somebody, I just say, look, I understand you're an agent, you know, because I see you marketing maybe in another group or on a billboard or something. I would like you to help me and I'll help you. So I'll introduce you to the 5000 members of my group, the 500 members in my group, the 10,000 members, 100,000 members. In exchange, you know, you'll be a moderator. But if you see something that, that does not look like it's a legitimate post, you're going to have the power to delete that member from the group are to delete that post. And I also tell them, I say, look, I know you're busy. You don't have time to just sit there all day and manage these posts. So in your free time or when you're in the group and you're adding properties that you have for sale. You know, just take a look because you can see the background just like I can, and. But it helps them, too, because I'll tell you what happens as an agent. Somebody will post something in one of my groups, like, say, hey, I inherited this house. I have to sell it. That post sits there. Me and my agents, or the people that are helping me see that before the group does. As an agent, I tell my agents, I said, hey, if you see that, reach out to them, you know, get the listing, you know, and then release it to the group or something like that. So there's lots of different things that are beneficial for them, and I just, I tell them all the things, and they're true. So it's not like I'm, I'm trying to talk somebody into anything. I'm just presenting an opportunity. If they're not interested, there's. There's a bunch more. I could just ask.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's. I can't imagine. There's too many people that you reach out to, and you're like, hey, I've got this group I need some help with. And you get first access to anybody that starts posting stuff. They're like, nah, I don't have time for that. It's like, okay, well, I'll go ask 500 other people. That'll.

Absolutely, yeah. If they say no. Yeah. So somebody would say no, I'd be kind of surprised. And usually that tells me they don't think it's legitimate or they don't, or they don't think I'm real. And I'm like, look, yeah, I'll send them a screenshot of the group instead of a link, because a lot of times people are afraid of the link. So I'll send them a couple screenshots. I'll send them a screenshot of the group so they know, okay, it's a real group. And then I'll send them a screenshot of me showing that I'm on the admin. I mean, this is my group. And then they're like, okay, this guy is real. And then what I always try to do is I try to go get them on a zoom because I want to make sure the person that I'm telling everybody, hey, here's an agent, or, you know, a lender or whatever it is, that they're a legitimate person and they are who they are. So I make sure we get on zooms. And, I mean, I talk to these folks all the time.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I imagine, you know, whenever you find somebody, I mean, it's one thing to see someone active in a group and work with them. It's a. It's another thing to have them moderate your group and not have communicated with them on a direct level at all, because, you know, people can be one thing online. It could be crazy otherwise. So, you know, you gotta. You gotta vet them out, right?

Yeah. And then, plus, like, you know, one of the girls in my Florida group, she's a private lender, but she can all across the country, so she's in all my groups. And what happens is a lot of times people try to advertise in my groups and I delete the posts. But if you're part of my network, you're working with me. They're posting all over, so they get access to everything. I have access. And what I tell them, I said, look, I'm having a lot of cool conversations, you know, like, with you or talking to a lot of people. I want to bring you along, so I want them to be able to meet everybody, talk to everybody. So I just think, you know, what am I doing that would be beneficial, that I could help somebody else.

Yeah, well, I want to get back to your origin story. So, you know, what's your, what's your superhero origin? How'd you get here, man? Where'd you come from, and how'd you get to this place?

My expertise was in the creation of billboards. And I really. I mean, I've never met another guy. They would do what I would do. So basically, I would be the guy that would go in and pick where a billboard would be installed. Like, when you drive down the highway, you see these different billboards there. That's what I would do. So I would research the traffic counts, and then I would figure out, okay, this would be a good spot for a billboard. And then I go to all the cities and figure out the rules and the zoning. And now I'd be like, okay, here's a road with a lot of traffic. Here's the rules. And then I would figure out who the landowners were for these billboards. I would go in and negotiate land leases, and then we'd come in on, like, say, a Friday night with semis and put up three or four billboards. So when people go to work on a Monday morning, there would be three or four brand new billboards there. And during the construction process of these billboards, I had salesmen selling the advertising. So these billboards would go up, they'd be filled with ads. What would happen once those billboards went up? They were filled with ads. They were sold to investors or other billboard companies, and they would just, you know, slap their name on it. So, basically, my expertise is in development, but on the billboard side, okay? And as I'm doing that, my buddies were doing houses, flipping houses. So a couple of my buddies each flipped 100 houses while I was flipping. So I was flipping billboards. They're flipping houses. But then Covid hit. But I adventured into creating a sign company, too, that also did bid development signs. So for, like, a big strip center or awnings. So that way, you know, I didn't have to travel. I could stay in one spot and supply an entire strip center with all the signs. So, basically, Covid hit the government, said, hey, everybody needs to stay home. No restaurants, no gymshe, no bars. Most of my clientele couldn't open. So I'm like, what am I going to do? So I'm like, my buddies were flipping houses. I could do the same thing. But instead of flipping 100 in their career, I was going to try to figure out how to flip 100 houses a year. So I started studying people like Max Maxwell and Brandon Turner and just digging into all these podcasts, trying to figure out how these guys were flipping so many houses. Because I couldn't leave my house. I couldn't do anything. So I might as well study. And I figured out, you know, they were buying leads, they had cold callers, they were doing everything like that. I started that process, and I realized real fast that it was very difficult to maintain all these leads. And that's kind of how I progressed into the Facebook groups, because then instead of me or my team that I have in the Philippines reaching out to people and then me trying to go through all these notes and all these leads, everything would come to me for free. So that was kind of the progression to where I ended up with the groups or the mindset behind it. I wanted people to come to me so I could be the guy with all the deals. And it wasn't costing anything.

Well, I mean, really, truly. Like, if you think about it, the year you're where you started, about, you know, finding places that billboards would have the most success, the traffic counts, the real estate, the land where. Where eyeballs were going and. And how to get to them. I mean, it's the exact same thing that you're doing with the Facebook groups. It's just a different. You know, instead of driving down the highway and grab an eyeballs, your people on the Internet grab an eyeballs. And that's exactly what you did. I mean, you've, you took the exact same skill with attention. You're trying to get attention. You know, when you're figuring out where billboards should go, that's, that's exactly what you're doing. And now you're putting it on the digital highway and snagging attention that way. So you just transferred those skills right over to the online realm.

Yeah, it's the same concept, but it's much easier because everything's coming at me so I don't have to go anywhere. And as I'm sitting here, I mean, just property after property. And the groups, if you'll notice, are primarily all on, you know, across the south of the country or southeast. And that was by design because. Yeah, a lot of the people that I were study, I was studying that were doing the single family houses, they started switching over to multifamily. And so I got more into that space and became friends with lots of people that were doing multifamily, and they were primarily all looking far in the southeast.

Well, I mean, your skills and what you've been able to do as far as developing, you know, these groups and where you came from on that, you know, the benefit that you've had, and we kind of touched on it a minute ago, is that it's led you to so many other things. You know, I mean, we, I told you, the very first time I ever heard the term super connector was when I, when I met you and a few others that I've spoken to about this and was not a term I was familiar with. But your talents as a super connector, as they may call it, have kind of pushed you, like I was saying earlier, into, now you have these other businesses that you've started to develop. And I want you to speak specifically about with the private airline thing, where you created, like, a store where now it's like, accessories for these jetse, because you just got into this thing. So, so talk a little bit about that and how that organically kind of created itself. And, and it's more just about how when you connect with so many people, you never know where life's going to take you and where these things will lead to, which is why it's so critical that you do this kind of stuff.

Yeah. On the jet thing, it's more like through relationships, just like how we met. I met somebody in the jet business, and he does, like, private travel security detail. Say you need to say you want. I mean, it could be all over the world. Say you want to fly to Europe when you land in Europe, you need a supercar, like a Bugatti sitting there. You need private security to protect you while you go somewhere. I mean, it could get really elaborate. More so than just, hey, I want to fly from Orlando to, you know, Detroit. I mean, it's all over that. And so I just ended up meeting the guy who owned the company one day, and he's like, look, you have 300,000 people. A lot of them, they're traveling around. They need transportation. Let's put it together. He has all the contacts, the jets, the supercars, any of that. We just put it together. And now members of my group, they can just click, and they can just go there and try to charter a flight. They can even buy a jethe.

Yeah.

So, in pretty much, yeah, I just facilitate. Facilitate how to get there. And then once they get there, you know, they take. You know, it's taken care of, you know, by advent jets. And, I mean, it's. So it's a pretty good deal.

But then you also created a separate thing where, like, you have, like, a side, like a store for these, you know, for these luxury jets that you can give, sell accessories and things.

Well, no, I have an Amazon store with a couple hundred products that might be what you're thinking of. So, yes, okay.

Yes, that's what I'm thinking of.

Yeah. So what happened is, when you go to create a short term rental, or you start a short term rental, you need anything from, like, bath towels to hand soap to shampoo to patio furniture, security alarms, ring door, everything. So.

Right.

My team put together every single product that you would need. So if you create a short term rental, all you gotta do is go there and just click on the product, and you got the whole store, everything you need in one spot. So you can just go right down the line. Everything's a four star review on Amazon, and you can get that through my groups, which makes it easier. So I'm pretty much anything I can think of somebody in the real estate space would need, I try to provide in the group. You know, I got, you know, relationships with a company that does, like, cold calling. Yeah, they got Vasdev, you know, so that. That'll run through my group. So then if you need somebody to hire to make calls for you, you can find them in my groups. But pretty much if you go to the website, I don't know.

Right. Yeah, you're like the master middleman. You've got.

Yeah. I want it to be kind of like whatever you need, you can find in one spot. So if you. It's kind of like, if you go to a store, you don't want to leave and go to another store to get something. If everything's right there, it's a lot easier to stay there, and it makes you want to be there and makes you want to bring your friends in. So that's kind of the mindset. And honestly, a lot of these ideas, they didn't come from me, but they came from me. Surrounding myself with people that are smarter than me, I always try to, you know, you hear about, go to a room and make sure you're not the smartest guy in the room. I go to these rooms, and the people that I'm in these rooms with, man, they're super smart, and I try to learn from them. And a lot of times, becoming friends with them, they're like, hey, Chris, you need to be doing this. I'm like, man, I never even thought of that. And actually, a lot of this stuff that we're talking about, a friend of mine, Philip, he runs a thing called mom's house, and he's like, man, you need to do more with these groups than what you're doing. I'm like, what do you mean? And he gave me some ideas, and I just kind of was off to the races with it, trying to expand on it. And if I wouldn't have been hanging out with somebody like him, I wouldn't have had that idea. And so each day, I'm trying to learn to from some of my friends and actually, some of the companies that I'm working with, there's a guy named Sam Prim. He's flipped over a thousand houses that I'm friends with, and some of my relationships, he's got the same thing. And he's like, Chris, you got to be doing x, y, or z. And it just comes back down to those relationships.

Well, again, that just reiterates the point even further about why it's so important to build these networks, because, yeah, you build it for your real estate business, build it for lending, build it for whatever. But the connections that you make and these relationships that you create lead to so many things that you just don't even know what direction they go in. But if you don't take that step and like you said, you know, get that 30 seconds of courage or whatever it was, you know, to ask that question, reach out to that person, then you never know what you're missing. And that's the. You know, I think that's the true takeaway from all of this, is like, hey, you know, if you want to build these groups and build these networks of people, you know, it's not, it doesn't just happen magically. There's no secret sauce. You have to reach out. You have to connect. You have to introduce yourself. You have to, you know, come up with what. What value you're bringing to the situation and then be able to express that to someone to help them, help you. Right. Because the idea is, like, you can't tackle everything alone. You need help, but in order to do that, you have to create these relationships and meet these people, and. And this is a great, you know, a great way to do it and can build your network. And if you want to do more in your business, you know, this is. This is how it goes. Um, is there anything that you're looking at right now? Because, you know, obviously you've got the Facebook groups that are growing, but is there any other social platforms or any other similar avenues that you've been kind of playing with a little bit to try to develop, or is this just eating up all your time? You don't have time to do anything else.

Primarily, these Facebook groups. I've been opposite a lot of my friends. A lot of my friends were more their social media presence. My focus is primarily on building out these groups instead of me personally. So a lot of people might not know I'm the guy behind these groups. So the phase one was kind of build the groups, and then phase two was kind of, like, figure out how to maintain them so they run smooth. And then the next phase is more, you know, my social media and, you know, some other actions that I can do, you know, with properties and stuff like that from these groups. But in my brain, it's all over the place. I feel like I'm in an asteroid belt. I have so many things coming at me. And, you know, because, I mean, when you do, when you have so many people, you have so many people messaging you. You have to respond to them or say they have an issue or you're meeting new people or you're adding new moderators, it's like, it's hard to just do exactly what you want because you got to maintain what you have as you grow. So it's kind of like a little bit forward, a little bit back a little bit further, and I go through that a lot. Plus, running a completely separate company, I still have my sign company. I mean, we're doing signs between Kansas and Chicago, and so I still have to run that business, but it's just kind of hard to do everything as fast as I'd like to.

Yeah. Well, that goes back to the whole human capital, having people to help you and having assistance and I, and knowing how to find those people that can help you run those things because you can't do it all yourself. And, you know, it's a real challenge. I did. One thing I forgot to ask you or forgot to get specific on, which I wanted to know, is when you first started the groups, because you're working on moderators or whatever, but in order for a group to grow, you have to have posts, right? You have to have stuff coming into them.

Yeah.

So what were you trying, were you coming up with posts? Were you asking them to do it? Like, how were you making sure that there was content constantly going in?

And I still do the same thing once again, since I had, I didn't have a playbook, so I just kind of had to figure it out by myself.

Yeah.

So I would go to other groups. I would figure out who the key people were who were doing a lot of the stuff because those were the people that I said that I eventually would reach out to. But what, the first thing I did, I started sharing their post.

Okay.

So I would take the post in the existing group and I would share to my group. And then what would happen is I'm sharing all kinds of posts. So I filled my group with people I never even met, posts from people I never knew. And then now all of a sudden, people are getting notifications that this guy is sharing their post, and I think they're seeing where the post is landing to now people are interacting. They're like, hey, I'm interested in this. Well, then I would message that person who actually did the post in a different group and said, hey, I shared your post to a group that I created. Somebody's interested. And then I would connect them. So I was doing all the legwork in the background by grabbing posts from other groups, putting them in my group, and building attention for them, sharing them and stuff like that. And I still do that when I build other groups.

Yeah.

So you're, because then you have, you instantly have maybe 100 posts in there. So if somebody comes to the group organically, there's all these posts in there.

So you're taking, you're going out to these other groups. When you're building it up and you're just sharing directly into your group, they see that it was shared in there. They're like, huh, what's that? And they go over and they're like, okay, I'll be become a part of this one. And then, so you're just building yours by sharing from other groups into those posts because you're looking for the type of stuff, obviously the type of post that you want to be into your group. So that's how you build them up. And, and does it, do you feel like it took, I know it, obviously, the time, uh, the time that, you know, you do it now versus when you started. Do you feel like, you know, it would take you maybe a month to really get one to where it was kind of churning on its own? Or would it take you a couple weeks or a couple days? Like, how much time did you have to focus on it in the beginning to kind of get them really moving and going?

It seems like it's really hard to get the first like hundred people.

Okay.

You know, but some people, you know, they're more, they're more savvy. They're, they might look and be like, there's only 100 people there. It's not worth my time. But other people, they don't understand member counts and stuff, so they don't care. They're just excited that their post got shared. So, and then what happens is you get 100, then you get 200, then, I mean, I was so excited. I have 300 and then you have 500. The next thing you know, you have a thousand. And what happens is it gets to that point. You start having people in the post. Somebody will make a post and they're like, man, that would be great for my buddy. So they might tag their buddy in the post and now their buddy gets a notification and then they join the group so they can see that post. And then it starts growing more organically and, you know, like my Tennessee group, it might be growing at, you know, thousands a day without me doing anything. But it's, yeah, it's more so upfront where I was reaching out, sharing people's posts, then sending them a message saying I shared their post. And then when somebody would respond, letting them know, somebody responded.

Yeah.

Until eventually I had a great connection with this person and then they're reaching out to me all of a sudden.

I'm curious because I'm kind of a nerd on this and we, about the process stuff. Did you, when you did your first couple ones, like, do you have like a document or anything online where you're like, step one, I'm going to do this. Then step two, I'm going to do this. Like, you know, do you have something written down where you're like, okay, I'm going to start a new group in Tennessee. So first I got to start the group, then I got to share these five posts. Then I got to find the moderator. Then. I mean, do you have anything like that?

I had the initial idea, but it grows every day. My ideas would get bigger and bigger. And so I have notes, you know, just in my phone that I'm like, okay, I need to do this and this and this. And then it'd be like, I would have many goals, you know, like, okay, I gotta get this to a thousand. I gotta reach out to, say, 100 people. And then all of a sudden I'd be like, all right, now I can do this. Now, to make it faster, I need to create, like, one message that I can send to a bunch of different people. So then I would create that. But then say I would create a group, and I'm like, okay, I want to duplicate this group in multiple states. I would create, like, a template of what the introductory post would be to every single member. Then I just change the state name. And then when it gets to the groups, you start having to deal with spam. So then I started figuring out ways to keep that spam out. So I would create notes of, like, keywords that I would not allow in my groups, and then I would duplicate that over and over into each group. So I have tons and tons of notes, and I can see the progression as my notes just keep getting longer and longer from when I started to where I'm at. And I can see how my mind has changed, but, you know, it's basically just me beating my head against the wall trying to figure out, man, this isn't working. Let's change what I'm saying to people. Oh, wow, that worked. Okay, let's try that. And then tweak it up. And then, so I have all these iterations of different messages that I might originally sent to people and which ones would work. But then after the first message, it's just organic. It's just me having a conversation. And eventually a lot of these folks, we just jump on zooms, and now they're my friends and they're all over the, all over the country.

One last thing before we go. We have talked a couple times about you're kind of getting heavier into, like, events now, right, where you're actually having, whether it be seminars or whatever you want to call them, these large events that are being put together. Some of them, I think you maybe have done a few yourself, but then also you're being invited to speak at some or participate in some. Tell me a little bit about that.

Yeah, so one of them, it's kind of like what you're talking about. It's, it's coming up. It'll be a Facebook live, and it'll be basically just like a conversation like this with the CEO of Prime, which is a company that does, like, nationwide LLC creations and taxes and stuff like that.

Okay.

It should pretty much be a live question and answer session. So my members will actually do it in the Florida group. So my members can just jump in and ask any questions they want. So it'll pretty much be live with the CEO of that company. Last week, there was one with Jesse, who was with DFX, who we partnered with on the lending platform, so people could pretty much chime in, ask questions. You know, he deals with all these funds, you know, any advice he has, you know, how the lending platform works. So different events kind of like that is, is kind of what we got going on, so people can ask questions and kind of learn how these things work.

Yeah, that's great, because that keeps your. It adds extra value to being a part of the group. It adds people's ability to learn more while they're there. And you can build more relationships by giving people a platform to speak on those groups. So then that way they have access to your members as well. So it's just everything's kind of interrelated.

Right, right. And then, plus, I mean, my groups, they're made up of superstars. I mean, there's a lot of people doing big things in there. One of them is guy Sam Prim. He has a million people on social media following. He'll get in my groups and he'll just go live and he'll just, he'll talk a little bit. He'll teach you. Hey, this is how I do. This is how I do the bird. This is how I find properties and buy properties. And he'll just answer questions, so he'll jump around between the different groups just as a way to add value. So I have another friend, her name's Hillary. She has over a thousand units in the multifamily space doing syndication. So, I mean, she's there. She can answer questions. But I did like a question answer with her where she tried to help people. So I'll run those videos through, so that way people can kind of learn different facets of real estate investing.

Yeah.

So we'll do different things like that.

Well, Chris, I can't thank you enough, man. This is, this has been incredibly helpful. I, you know, every time I talk to you, I learn something new. So I'm thrilled to just get the opportunity to chat with you a little bit. Whether, whether two people hear this or 8000 doesn't matter to me because I get to learn a lot. So it's a benefit for me. But I really appreciate you coming on and going through all this. You've built an incredible network. It's obviously benefited you in many, many ways, but it takes a lot of hard work and a lot of organization and being able to leverage individuals to help you out and grow this kind of stuff, and you truly are a master networker. So kudos to you for being able to do all this because I know it's not easy and I know it takes time. And like you said, you didn't exactly have a, a how to guide that was given to you, so you know exactly how to do everything. You had to kind of figure it out on your own. And that's, that takes a lot of time and effort. So. So kudos to you. But before we go, just kind of let everybody know, you know, where to find you if they want to learn more about your groups. Tell them what to look for in general, and then we'll wrap it up.

Yeah, the easiest thing you can go to grandchateauproperties.com, grandchat properties.com, and what that'll basically do, that'll just give you a link to every single one of these groups. And they're, I think, 23 different states and they're going to be going across the country, adding more. So you can just, they're free, you can join and then you can also see, you know, by going to that link, you can join like the lending platform and, you know, learn about llcs and all that stuff.

Well, it's awesome, man. Well, I thank you for your time, as always. I know you're a busy guy running around the country, so, you know, thanks for popping on with me for about an hour here, and I know everybody at appreciate it. And we will be back, or I'll be back on Tuesday next week for another market update. Keep talking about rates and where all that fun stuff's going and our national debt and how that's exploding. And we're running real fast into election time, so everybody's holding their breath. So we'll see how all that goes. But otherwise, everybody have a great weekend and we will see you back here next time. Thank you, Chris.

Awesome. Thanks, Mike.