AMA – Which Brand To Promote?
Welcome to the Real Estate Espresso Podcast, your morning shot at what’s new in the world of real estate investing. I’m your host, Victor Menasce. Today’s show is another AMA episode. That is, Ask Me Anything. I love answering your questions. If you have a question you think is going to be of broad interest, send it in and I’ll answer it live on the air. Send your questions to victor at victorjm.com.
Today’s question comes from Ramon, who writes, “Your podcast continues to be informative and entertaining all these years later, thank you for all you do for the real estate community. I do have another AMA for you, it’s not exactly real estate related. So I completely understand if it’s not appropriate for the show. So here goes…In your journey to becoming a business-focused media influencer, how have you thought about building your company’s brand versus your personal brand? For instance, if you’re on a podcast or at a conference and asked how do people find out more information about you, how do you make the decision whether to give your personal website versus the business website or both?
Well, Ramon, this is a great question. The purpose of the podcast is to educate — it’s a form of educational marketing. The purpose of marketing, of course, is to generate interest. That’s very distinct from sales-related activity, which aims to drive revenue. We’re not out there soliciting on the podcast…quite frankly, people don’t want to be sold. Companies are out there trying to vie for people’s attention. Companies are getting louder and louder to try and get above the noise. It’s as if yelling even more is going to work when merely being annoying wasn’t that effective.
With the advent of artificial intelligence, it’s become easier than ever to generate more content and bombard people with more marketing collateral than ever before. I don’t believe that people want to be annoyed into making a sale. That’s not how it works. My friend, Kyle Wilson, was president of Jim Rohn International and worked very closely with Jim Rohn for over 18 years. Kyle has a wonderful saying when it comes to marketing: Never employ a tactic that violates a principle.
Principle-centered marketing means building a relationship first by adding value to potential clients. Principle-centered marketing means maintaining that relationship throughout a lifetime. It’s not a bait-and-switch that we see so often in the business world.
As a company, we’re working hard on expanding our reach and the podcast plays a role in attracting people into our orbit. I don’t actively promote our capital on the podcast, but I’m not trying to hide it either. The role of the host of the show is complementary to my role at YStreet Capital. I’m not thinking about branding so much as I’m thinking about building a relationship with the listener.
Many of our listeners do reach out to me directly; a subset go on to attend events like our goal-setting retreat that we just held on board a cruise ship from New York to Bermuda and back. Some go on to become investors in our projects. In fact, about a third of our investment dollars appear to come directly from building a relationship through the podcast. The podcast is also a source of interest in our consulting division. We, as developers, end up connecting with people out there that own their own land that has development potential. They don’t know necessarily where to start or whether their land is economically feasible to develop.
By listening regularly to the show, we have many people reach out to us to discuss development opportunities for their land. In fact, it’s funny, I don’t consider myself a media influencer, which you referenced in your question. But I suppose if I think about it, I could be in that category. I really consider myself more of an educator than an influencer.
If you look at many of the most successful media influencers like Gary Vaynerchuk, many people know Gary as Gary V, as well as his affiliation with VaynerMedia and his parent company, Vayner_X. There’s no conflict between Gary Vee and VaynerMedia. When Gary’s on stage or on YouTube, he’s not presenting himself as VaynerMedia: he’s just himself.
I could use numerous examples: Grant Cardone is not Cardone Capital, there’s clearly a link between the two. Ken McElroy is himself, and he’s also branded as the MC Companies. There’s no conflict. I think about my mentor, Dr. Kubane, he’s got many roles. He’s on the board at La-Z-Boy Furniture, he’s on the board at Trust, the sixth largest bank in the US, he’s chairman and 93% owner of Great Harvest Bread Company, and he’s president of High Point University to name just a few of his roles. People think of him first as Nito and then his roles second.
When people think of Elon, they might think of Tesla or SpaceX or The Boring Company or Twitter, to name just a few of his roles. But they actually think of Elon first. Yes, I know it’d be easier to make my name synonymous with YStreet Capital and to promote that brand exclusively on the podcast. But I don’t see a conflict. Our company is making investments to grow its marketing reach and we’ve recently hired a new marketing agency. Some of those efforts include promoting the podcast since much of the content on the podcast is relevant to our company and our clients.
One of the strategies is a social media strategy. But, I have more than 8,000 connections on LinkedIn, for example, whereas the company comparatively doesn’t have that many. So, it makes sense to actually maintain both brands and frankly just to manage the minor inconsistencies. I used to carry two business cards, one for the podcast and one for my company, and today I only carry one business card and that’s the company business card. From all the studying I’ve done, the company vs. personal is not in conflict. We want to promote both. Such that there is sufficient brand recognition for one or the other and if they find one, they’ll discover the other and vice versa.
I want to thank you, Ramon, for a great question and for the listeners at home,
have an awesome rest of your day. Go make some great things happen, and we’ll talk to you again tomorrow.
Stay connected and discover more about my work in real estate and by visiting and following me on various platforms:
Real Estate Espresso Podcast:
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Y Street Capital:
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