David: Alright guys, welcome back to the Discount Property Investor podcast. I am your host David Dodge. Mike is out in the field today looking at some of our rehab projects. I have a special guest on the show today, Mr Josh Culler. Josh, how are we doing, buddy?

Josh: What's going on, man? Glad to be, appreciate you jumping on, or having me jump on your show. You have been on my show. That's why I went that way. Thanks for having me on, man.

David: No worries, Josh, I am happy that you are here. I met Josh at a mastermind meeting. He was doing some [00:01:13.15 - inaudible], stills, editing, all types of good stuff like that. We really hit it off, he is working with a lot of the big names in the real estate industry. He is also an investor himself. I wanted to have him on the show and talk a little bit about what he has been up to, what he is doing and also talk about some of the services that he provides. I think it would be good value to anybody in the audience, any of the listeners, any of the viewers that are looking to grow their influence on social media, as well as put together some really killer content. Again, Josh, thanks for coming on the show, how the hell are ya, buddy?

Josh: Man, I am doing good. Trying to figure out how to navigate this whole Covid19 thing. It has been helpful-- you mentioned the mastermind, but it has been helpful being around people that have been through the previous market cycles, especially 2008 and even before that, 9/11 and stuff like that. A lot of my clients like you mentioned there, they have been through multiple cycles. I think of a couple of clients that have been at it for twenty plus years. Just being able to tap into their brains and figure out, hey what are some directions we should be going in marketing wise? But also real estate or business wise has been extremely helpful. That's what I've been up to, just trying to navigate this, this whole thing has pushed me into a corner to build out this whole-- digital business that I am working on like you mentioned, REI.Video, that is something I have been going after really hard the past couple of weeks. I am a traveler, I do a lot of traveling to active real estate investors doing onsite video production. That is obviously halted quite a bit. That's what I've been working on.

David: I love the domain, man, REI.Video, that is a killer domain.

Josh: I have to get REI.Video.com, so don't go there yet. We are in a bidding war right now.

David: REI.Video, it's a great domain. I love that, man. That's really awesome. So you have been primarily working with other individuals and helping them build their influence by putting together creative content. So what are some of the things that you are focusing on, or have been focusing on prior to the pandemic we are in the mists of today, today is April 6th, and this will probably publish in a week and a half to two weeks. So I will imagine we will still be in our pandemic date at that point. I would imagine some things have changed a little for you, yeah fill us in.

Josh: Well specifically-- I work with really two demographics. First one is the influencers, kind of like yourself, you have your podcast, you have your 90'000 plus Instagram followers, and going to get to 100'000 here very shortly.

David: Next week.

Josh: That's right. But you're in that influencer stage. I have clients like Don Costa, Mike [00:04:33.23 - inaudible], [00:04:35.20 - inaudible], plenty of other influencers which are more the teaching and educational stage, and I also work with the active investors. So one thing-- I assume that most of your audience are active investor, are at least interested in actively investing whether that is wholesaling, flipping or whatever. So maybe-- something that has been on my mind a little bit that is kind of like making us pivot in some of the content marketing we are doing for these clients. Before this whole pandemic going down-- I think we talked about this on my show, David, but a lot of people are going to acquisition marketing for the past three to four years. I have been in this industry for seven plus years. When I jumped in, people were doing a lot of dispositions marketing, because there was an insane amount of deals out there. MLS was hot, not a ton of for sale by owners, but a good amount.

David: I love that you are breaking it down like this. So yeah, keep it going, this is good right here.

Josh: Absolutely. That was the marketing that we did was disposition. We are going hard at building our buyers list. I mean I think the company I was working with when I was the marketing director, we had built a buyers list because we were marketing in five different States in the Midwest. We had built a buyers list of roughly four thousand people. That was anybody from landlords to cash buyers, to people who just want to buy a house cash then flip it themselves and live in it, whatever it is. We built that buyers list so we were doing all our marketing specifically for that. Obviously we were doing acquisitions marketing too, but nowhere near the amount of effort as dispositions. That has transferred possibly the last three years. People have been going harder acquisition marketing, because it is easier than ever to jump into this real estate investing game now, because just the source of information that we have, mentors and all that kind of stuff. It's just easier. So people have been eating up deals left and right which is causing the market to shift from that when I was in it seven years ago when I first started it was dispositions-- kind of trickled back into, I remember when the faucet got turned off, it was almost-- almost felt like it was overnight when Hud went dark on us, deals were almost gone. So then we had to shift our marketing into acquisitions marketing. That's what it has been for the past three years, two to three years has been specifically acquisitions marketing. Now I just had a conversation with a guest on my podcast I interviewed this morning. Paul [00:07:11.29 - inaudible], we were talking about this and he does all-- he doesn't do any direct to seller marketing. All of his stuff is bank owned properties. He buys, then he does all dispositions marketing. His business has shifted and kind of evolved over time as well. He has been in the real estate investing industry since 2001. So what I am seeing right now, David, previously the past year and a half to two years that I have been doing this full time for active investors outside of the company I actually work for, we have been doing acquisitions marketing. Which is what's been needed, you have been having to go after to get the deals under contract. There are more buyers out there than there are sellers.

David: Right.

Josh: There are a lot of people out there looking to buy properties. I think that after coming out of this pandemic, this is not my crystal ball, I have not been in this long enough. This is just what I'm seeing and I am observing from other people that have been in this, and in other cycles before. What I feel like is going to happen is we are going to have this insane-- we are almost up to ten million people that have filed for unemployment in the US. If we learn anything from the previous crash, I think the number is like 13% of people that filed for unemployment also lost their homes, which is where we came out of that boom where Hud was hot. They had all these foreclosures and they were selling them. I think that might happen again. This is--.

David: I do too.

Josh: That is just kind of what I'm seeing, and what that is causing me to think is-- when-- what I want real estate investors to not stop doing but do less of is acquisitions marketing, and go hard at buying your cash buyers list. I feel like because of that we are going to have this surge of deals that come to the market, and it is going to be easier to get deals under contract than it has been the past three years. You are going to hold them, you're not going to have any buyers on your buyers list and not know what to do with the properties. I think that's what people need to be going after right now is building-- specifically what my business does, we are content marketers, right? That's what we do is content marketing. We don't do web development or funnel building or stuff like that. We are focused on content which is basically what is front facing to your customers.

David: Right.

Josh: The content on your website, your social media like you said, Google my business, all that stuff. So I think people need to be building content-- almost like a portfolio of content, like what you have, David. You have this podcast, you have Instagram. You are on other platforms as well. It's almost like your resume in a way.

David: It's your digital real estate.

Josh: That's exactly what it is.

David: I was thinking about this last night. I was thinking about a couple of guys that are mentoring me. Right now I pivoted 100% of my focus-- not quite 100, but 99, let's say all of it almost over into creating my YouTube channel. I look at it like-- this is my digital real estate. I already own a ton of real estate that is real real estate, but this is my digital real estate. People are going in and they are searching-- learn how to flip houses, how to buy a rental with no money, or how to use a wholesale contract. I know all these things, so now I am trying to share these things, build my influence so I can monetize that.

Josh: Right.

David: Once you are able to monetize the influence, that is some of the easiest money you can make, and it is passive, and it is residual. It is just the best.

Josh: Absolutely. I am not telling everybody to become influencers. In a way I am, right? For instance, if you're a wholesaler--.

David: Let me just interrupt you for one second. It is very difficult to be an influencer.

Josh: It totally is.

David: You have to spend a lot of time, a lot of money, to put out good content, to get it to be liked and shared, for you to build and grow your audience. Audiences will grow organically, but they are going to grow very slow organically. You have to light a fire somewhere in the process to really get it growing. The people that are influencers, that are making tons of money-- you see them now, but you didn't see them along the journey where they were putting in hundreds if not thousands of hours at their trade and at their craft as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars to build their influence.  It doesn't just come overnight, you don't wake up one morning and have 500'000 people following you on all your platforms. You have to build loyalty and trust with these people to get them to want to-- to watch you and look at the crap you're putting out there, right? Absolutely. Again, I am agreeing with you. Not everybody has it in them. Everybody has the ability to if they wanted to, it just takes a lot of work.

Josh: Here's why it's important; let me cap off what you just said, and I want to go into another piece of this about being the influencer. What I tell people, contact marketing is a marathon, it is not a sprint. Advertising is a sprint, because you can get results like that if you hit the right lists, if you target correctly, if you are creative on your ads correct, that kind of thing. You can convert people just like that. Advertising can be a sprint, but content marketing is a marathon, exactly the way you just explained it, especially if you're going to grow it organically. You may need to light a fire underneath it, pour some fuel on it-- on maybe the sparks that you have in order to get more fire going. But that's what it is. If you're going to become an influencer, if you are doing any kind of content marketing which is-- content is what feeds your influence, because you don't have an influence if you don't have content. All the YouTube videos, all the podcasts, the Instagram posts that you put out; it's all content, right?

David: Yeah.

Josh: It's a marathon, it's a long term play, because you are building rapport with the people that are following you and latching onto you. That being said, the reason I said that I am not telling people to become influencers, but I am kind of am, is because of of my clients Michael Zoober, he is out in Fresno California, he has a brand called One Rental At A Time, we do all of his-- maybe a good person to have on your show, David.

David: I know Michael, he has interviewed me twice.

Josh: Oh yeah for sure. We do all of his content marketing for him. We post all his stuff for him. What he always likes to say is, the reason I am putting my content out, is not just to become that influencer and monetize everything I have going down, it's because if the market ended up turning and dumped out all the newbies, all the inexperienced investors, the people that don't really know what they're doing, the people that are bidding too high on properties, getting caught with their pants down and that kind of thing. He said, when that happens, people are going to latch onto those that have experience and know what they are doing. If somebody were to come to him and say, if he wanted to get a loan for a property, and a bank or a lender comes to him and says, how do I know you not one of those newbie investors that doesn't know what they are doing? You just got dumped out this market. He can point to his YouTube channel and say I have 4000 videos talking about my experience for the past 15 plus years, go check it out. That's the power--.

David: Right.

Josh: That's the power for that. That can happen for anybody--.

David: Digital resume.

Josh: That's exactly what it is. It's not just for the influencers, it is also for the active investors. So if you are at a property and you are doing a walkthrough, just video yourself doing the walkthrough. Talk about what you are going to do with the ceiling, talking about what you are going to do to the floors that have holes, the bad foundation, how are you going to get that fixed? Talk about that stuff, because when you do, you will be able to trap people that are looking for those who know what they are talking about, especially if the market goes in the direction I just described it. Again, that is just what I'm observing, observing from people that have been through multiple cycles. Like I said, I just talked to Paul [00:15:28.27- inaudible] and we were talking about this on my show. That's kind of what happened in the last recession. Whether we are going through another recession or not, the numbers don't lie. If you hit a certain amount of unemployment, people are going to lose homes, because they are not going to be able to pay their mortgage because they lost their job. Houses are going to go in pre-forclosure. Who is going to pick those up? It's going to be the investors. So that's kind of what I'm looking at. I think people need to be building out content, putting it on their website, on their social-- even person profiles, and showing people that you are wanting to build this buyers list so when the market-- if it does take a dump-- worse case scenario, David, if the market doesn't take a dump and it doesn't go the direction-- you have a cash buyers list that is a rock star cash buyers list. So it is a win win. There is no lose in this.

David: Yeah I look at the audience as a cash buyers list. They are not necessarily going to be a cash buyer for a piece of real estate, but they are going to be a cash buyer for a product or a book or a course, or an event. There are so many things; a seminar, a webinar. The list goes on and on. If you have the ability to reach these people cost effectively or even for free after you have them on your list-- they are a buyer. So yeah, Josh, totally agree, I love that. Let's talk about some of the products that you have an that you offer to your clients at this point, and how somebody would go about getting in touch with you if they wanted to learn more about those, and or hire you. I know REI.Video is a great place to do a little research on Josh. We are going to put that link in the show notes here. But yeah, what's hot right now? You mentioned and I think I interrupted you, I have a really bad habit of doing that.

Josh: I do too, it's okay.

David: You mentioned earlier that you are not traveling a lot right now, which obviously-- we are April 6th, right in the middle of this pandemic. So I would imagine that you had-- when you were traveling you were doing a lot of these live events, or just going to people's places of business and following them around and making really cool content. But now that you are not doing as much traveling, are you encouraging them to just shoot it and send it to you for the editing? Where do you stand?

Josh: Sure absolutely. So the first thing I want to do-- thank you for allowing me to talk about this stuff on the show, I definitely appreciate that.

David: That's why we're here, man.

Josh: The first thing is I want to make sure I am providing value before pitching anything. I have two podcasts that I run, and David has been on one of them. The first one is the called the REI Marketing Weekly. So just go to the podcast platforms and you will find it there. Type n REI Marketing Weekly. That's some rock star real estate-- the top people in the country that are investing in real estate, and I just saw the list of people that were on my schedule to interview in the next coming week and it's insane. We only talk about marketing in the real estate investing business. We don't talk about anything else, just marketing. You guys go check that out. Then I have another podcast called the Content Marketing Playbook. Everything I have talked about with content marketing I-- that's all I talk about on that show. So the Content Marketing Playbook is the other one. We talk about shooting videos, we talking about transcribing videos, talk about starting podcasts, all kinds of stuff. Building out your landing pages with content the right way, and just about anything you can think of. Those are the two podcasts. Yeah-- so to cap off what you're talking about, my original service has kind of been on site video shooting for either influencers or active real estate investors. So I will go to their location, spend a full day with them. In a week in advance I sit down with them and strategize a plan for the day that I come in. I am not just your typical videographer that is going to come in and hit record. I know real estate, I know marketing. We strategize it. What I like to tell people is I do content marketing that is driven on results. We are not just getting brand awareness. We are creating content that is actually going to create a lead and close a deal. That's the first thing I do, and you said, yeah this whole pandemic has put a big restriction on my travels. Holding off on that for now, but like I said at the beginning of the show, it has cornered me into building out digital services, which REI.Video is one of them. If you go to type in REI.Video, you will find it there, in your web browser, just type it in-- what this basically is-- you can shoot your own videos whether it is with your cell phone, camera, digital camera, whatever you want to shoot with. Web cam, Zoom or whatever-- you upload the raw footage to the platform and we can do just about anything video editing wise that you want. [00:20:30.19 - inaudible] vision so you get the exact videos that you want, and 48 hour turn around time. That's what that platform provides. You can add closed captions, music, graphics, all kinds of crazy stuff to your videos, and that's what we will do for you. The other thing I guess, David, we can also jump on calls with you to strategize your content plants. So if you are a real estate investor and you want to utilize content marketing for your Google my business website, your social media stuff, happy to jump on a call with anyone to help them establish that content marketing plan-- so they can capitalize on what's going down right now, and just digital marketing all together. If you guys want to connect with me, REI.Video is the platform, but you can e-mail me directly, [email protected]. I would be happy to connect with anybody that wants to connect.

David: Nice. Now what is Culler Media? Is that another site that is similar to REI.Video? Or different?

Josh: Culler Media is kind of the mother brand, and that is the brand I operate under when I am doing these on site video production shoots with active real estate investors. REI.Video is kind of a sub brand--.

David: Gotcha, more of a digital service?

Josh: Yeah, so it is more-- a product that is the video editing product. If someone wants a single video edit-- just a one off then they can go there. If you are wanting more of a suscription based style-- like Don Costa, we do monthly services for them-- that operates under Culler Media. Yeah that's the difference. You can also visit CullerMedia.com-- the site is under construction right now. We are revamping it, it's going to cool incredible. So you will just be greeted with a web form and that is just about it right now.

David: Awesome. Well guys you heard it from the man himself, Mr Josh Culler, Josh, thanks for coming on the show. If you guys are looking to put out content. You need somebody that is a professional at editing and putting this type of stuff together. I know, because I work with guys just like Josh, and I actually have a proposal for Josh which I am going to give him once we get off this podcast. I highly recommend that you look at social media and driving content as building a cash buyers list. Josh brought this to light earlier, I didn't think of it this way until now. But you are essentially building a buyers list of somebody or people that are going to be interested in buying products from you; courses, come to webinars online, or even seminars in real life. There is a lot of value by having these individuals be a part of your audience. Other than that, it's not just that, there's more. Like Josh said as well, if you go to a bank and they say, what is your experience? And you have months and or years, or in some people's cases, decades, of videos-- things of you doing this trade, that is your online resume. So I highly encourage everybody to start focusing on putting out quality content, and start now. If you're listening to this and it's-- mid to late April or even early May, somebody may stumble across this in 2047, who knows? But if you're listening to this-- and it is current pandemic, or post pandemic, the time is now. I am going to repeat that. The time is now. This is the time you have all the time. Once you're back to work in a month or two, nobody has time anymore. Now is the time to get the ball rolling on your content creation. Again, check out Josh REI.Video, or you can e-mail him correct, and I appreciate you giving out your e-mail, Josh, [email protected]. Josh, any parting words for us, my man.

Josh: First of all, I appreciate you having me on again, and I just want to cap it off with-- if you are stuck on the video stuff because you think you might not have the right equipment or whatever. Just understand thanks to platforms like Facebook and Instagram, SnapChat, all these other platforms-- YouTube definitely, people are more okay than ever with consuming raw content. Unprofessional produced content. That is a powerful driver for content marketing. Start somewhere, just start.

David: Just start, it doesn't have to be great. When you are ready to graduate and get someone in that is a professional to help you, that's a great point, Josh.

Josh: -- just raw videos with maybe captions that we added, or a video wrapper and that's it. No lights, no massive production.

David: You don't have to have much, guys. If you have a decent high quality camera on your phone, a nice phone let's say. Yeah that's it, that's all you need.

Josh: A cell phone.

David: I love that. Guys, don't forget that you make your money when you buy, you get paid when you sell. This is going to be posted as a podcast. It is also going on the YouTube channel. If you're listening to this, we appreciate you guys listening. Do us a favor and like this video-- not like this video, leave us a positive review if you haven't already, I am really trying to build these reviews. We put out a lot of quality content for all of you, so do me a favor, don't be a dick, return the favor. If you are watching this on YouTube, leave a comment down below and tell us what you thought. I love chatting with people after the show, and listening to their feedback. So I am dead serious; if you're listening to this on YouTube, leave a comment down below and we will have a conversation with you about this show. You make your money when you buy, you get paid when you sell. We are all in this business together. Signing off. Thanks again, Josh.