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Join us as we take a deep dive into the real estate market with insiders in the industry.
The Business of Homes Podcast
Episode #002 With Brandon Koechlin
Brandon Koechlin
Reverse engineering. Right. And that's a big way I look at it. It's where do I want to be? Let's say, from a yearly standpoint, But the amount of business I want to generate and then back engineering that out. So in order to get there, how many you know, how many relationships do I need to be creating? How many networking things do I need to go to?
Brandon Koechlin
How many mailers do I need to be sending out? How many landowners do we need to be talking to developers, builders?
Michael Conrad
Everyone, thanks for joining us here on the Business of Homes podcast. I'm excited to share with you today. Brandon Koechlin, who is a realtor and sort of a multifaceted professional that I've gotten to know here in East Nashville, where we both stomp around. And he's got a lot of really interesting things to share as well as I think, a really unique background that's made him successful.
Michael Conrad
And so let's welcome him here.
Brandon Koechlin
Thanks. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Michael Conrad
We were talking a while back when we first met up about this idea that where we come from matters not just because it gives us life experience, but because the things we learn along the way begin to author our steps and our practice in business as we go along. And you're someone that has yet another in the long line of sort of interesting backgrounds of realtors, yet another interesting background, because real estate doesn't actually feed from anywhere.
Michael Conrad
It's a funny industry like that. There's not a simple, Oh, I logically ended up in real estate because I started here. You know, it it kind of takes from a lot of folks. We see bartenders, we see schoolteachers, We see, you know, for white collar professionals. I mean, it kind of pulls from a lot of locations. And that's, I think, what makes the most interesting flavor of all the different real estate agents and practitioners out there.
Michael Conrad
So what is your background that makes you kind of the agent you are today?
Brandon Koechlin
Sure. And that's true. I think that real estate is one of those professions does pull from so many different backgrounds. I've noticed, and it's unique in that way. And there's not not a lot of other professions I think, that pull from so many varieties of backgrounds. But so my background stems from the fitness space. Hmm. I started a I started a gym in East Nashville back in 2012, and leading up to that, I was getting into that space coaching at some other facilities and, you know, just building my my resume and coaching individuals and, you know, small groups of people based on different fitness goals.
Brandon Koechlin
And we opened a gym in East Nashville before East Nashville was really like the cool spot in town. Yeah, Yeah. Kind of took a gamble on that just because, you know, just being being around Nashville, we heard a lot about East Nashville being up and coming and there's a lot of things happening over here and I kind of wanted to be around the side of town, but nice took that, took that leap and opened a gym in a small little like 1500 square foot garage right off of Gallatin.
Michael Conrad
Like an auto garage.
Brandon Koechlin
Yeah, It actually was a it was previously a moped or vesper shop, like a mechanic's shop. And then it was like a little moped scooter shop. Amazing. Yeah. So it was, you know, like the old school rustic type, like bay doors and very gritty.
Michael Conrad
So you're just grabbing big sort of weights and just. Yeah, when I'm up in the air right there on Gallatin Road for.
Brandon Koechlin
Yeah, pretty much I suppose. Yeah. We had three bay doors that opened right up and you know, right to Gallatin and Gallatin is a two high traffic road over here.
Michael Conrad
That's like super embarrassing or like the best advertising.
Brandon Koechlin
The best. Yes. Amazing. It was it was amazing the amount of people that would just like, you know, I'd get in conversations with people I would do, you know, what do you do? What are you guys doing? I'm like, oh, I got this gym over here. Like, Oh, the one, the one right over here by Kroger. Yeah, Yeah.
Brandon Koechlin
Like, Oh, you guys are crazy. We see you out there in the parking lot, like, pulling sleds and throwing bars around and, you know, running with sandbags and plates and. Amazing. But it was great. Yeah. I mean, for that, for that reason, I think that's kind of why it took off pretty quickly in the beginning, because it was a lot of basically like free advertising and just being so exposed right there.
Michael Conrad
I'm envisioning before like influencers, you're like paying some strong man to come out there and really like lift the big weights to inspire people to come to the gym.
Brandon Koechlin
Oh yeah, that's awesome. That's so funny. But yeah, it was.
Michael Conrad
You weren't practicing real estate at that time. No, we're just full time fitness, right?
Brandon Koechlin
Yeah, right. Yeah, I was full time fitness and I, I was full time fitness for probably the majority of. So from 2012 until about 2019, 2019 is when I decided to get my license and start kind of dabbling in real estate as a on the broker transaction side, just because, you know, we, I was in a place with the gym where I could sort of offset a lot of the operational pieces.
Brandon Koechlin
And I thought that was a good actually, it was a good supplement to the relationships I had in the gym. That makes sense.
Michael Conrad
Yeah, you guys are cross-pollinate, but.
Brandon Koechlin
Yeah, yeah, because, you know, there are just so many people that I would interact with on a daily basis and, you know, you people would be moving here. People would be usually one of the first things people in that gym space do when they moved to New Town or they're exploring moving to New Town is what gym am I going to go to?
Brandon Koechlin
So they would come into the gym, start having these conversations and come to find out they're looking for a home or, you know, they're just exploring different pieces in town. It's like, Oh, well, I can help you with that. You know, I'm I'm also in that world, so I can at least guide you in the right direction and start having a conversation around that.
Michael Conrad
So was that the plan from the very beginning? Oh, I have this natural place where I'm building a sphere. Or did you accidentally stumble into that?
Brandon Koechlin
Yeah, it was not at all the plan. There was a I always had an interest in real estate, but more on the investing side as far as just building, you know, generational wealth or passive income, whatever, whatever direction you want to call that. But there's a lot of different avenues, obviously you can take in real estate investing. But that was always something that I had been exploring even since, you know, like my late or late teens, early twenties from a long time ago.
Brandon Koechlin
So the transaction side of being a realtor, that didn't come until much later. Hmm. That thought didn't come until much later.
Michael Conrad
So when you got in, I'm sure you were looking at folks all around you, kind of trying to keep an eye of what an idea of what they were doing. But you had this background where you already had been in business. You knew what that entrepreneurial journey looked like a little bit and kind of what it took to carve something out of nothing.
Michael Conrad
So what were you seeing around you with your peers, by contrast to what were you trying to do?
Brandon Koechlin
Yeah, that's a really good question. I think that for for me and maybe it helped having that entrepreneurial background because for so long I was kind of on my own. It was, you know, my success was dependent on me and I wasn't being really told what to do by any kind of like boss or superior. So I already had that kind of internal drive where I knew, okay, if I'm, you know, if I'm going to, any kind of success I get is going to be on me and it's up to me.
Brandon Koechlin
Yeah, but I think though, to answer that question, it was just sort of something that it was easy to translate real estate from the fitness background with things like, you know, building relationships or building rapport. I mean, that's all we that's all we did. And fitness. I mean, of course, it's important to know what you're doing in the fitness space, but a big piece of it is almost more of like the psychology side of things.
Brandon Koechlin
Being able to understand what somebodies pain points are with, you know, maybe something they've struggled with certain goals to get to a better place, you know, physically or mentally from a health standpoint. And I think that translates directly into real estate in that sense, where it's people will like to work with other folks that they know and they like and they trust.
Brandon Koechlin
And I had I kind of had a I feel like from all my experience in the fitness world, it's sort of a a gift for that now in this space. So it was sort of easy to kind of translate that right into.
Michael Conrad
I'm curious, is this something that is learned or taught? Right. We're talking we're digging at this idea of drive and this idea of no one needs to tell me what to do. It's not that I necessarily know what to do, but I know I have to go out and do it or something to get myself ahead, to move the ball down the field, whatever.
Michael Conrad
So you talk about this, you learned it in the fitness world, but now you're also sharing that you had some of these ideas pretty early on. What has been your experience? Is this a learned skill, this drive, or is this something that is just kind of in you?
Brandon Koechlin
Man, that's a really good question. I think that goes back even further, and I think that kind of goes back in to the way that we're raised and upbringings. And I wouldn't you agree? In a way it's.
Michael Conrad
Yeah, I was modeled entrepreneurism all different version of it from a father who was in business for himself in the construction world. So that idea that you didn't have to have someone else tell you what to do, that you could write your own ticket. Yes, that was modeled to me, But I didn't go towards it right in the beginning.
Michael Conrad
You know, that was scary early on. You know, it's much easier just to sort of hit your wagon to somebody else. But yeah, that itch was always there. And when I finally felt like I got enough experience at a certain sort of late twenties part of my life, I was like, I think I can launch out. And I had either a healthy dose of stupidity or a healthy dose of bravery or some sort of combination of both that afforded me to ignore those questions because there is a bit of ignoring the the fear and the risk and the gamble that you kind of have to almost practically do to drive forward.
Michael Conrad
But yeah, I don't know, coming from a long range entrepreneurs, is it nurture, is it in my blood? I don't know.
Brandon Koechlin
Good question. I think so. For me, in at least in my case, my parents were not entrepreneurs. And they I mean, they would they would teach us things, I think, that were good practices for somebody who was, you know, would be an entrepreneur. But that wasn't their background and there really wasn't anybody else in my family that had a a strong entrepreneurial background.
Brandon Koechlin
So I think it was more of just me. I mean, there's so many angles I can take this, but, you know, I grew up in a kind of like very average middle class kind of American upbringing. You know, we didn't have like, I got a job when I was 12 and I really wanted to it wasn't it wasn't something that my parents were like, Hey, you need to get a job or it right away.
Brandon Koechlin
I remember seeing an ad in the Columbus Dispatch. So this is Columbus, Ohio, and it was an ad for paper out. This is back when the newspaper was still if.
Michael Conrad
They had a paper out. Yeah.
Brandon Koechlin
And I saw that ad and it was like, you know, you can earn $300 a month. And for me, as a 12 year old, I was like, Are you kidding me?
Michael Conrad
$1,000,000?
Brandon Koechlin
Yeah. I was like, I can buy stuff that I want. I can like all my hobbies, like, yeah, sign me up, call them, have my dad and I can help me call, you know, whoever was the person you to call and yeah, that's amazing. And it didn't take long at all. They called back and they were like, Yeah, we've got a couple, you know, routes that are open right now.
Brandon Koechlin
And, and it's funny, It's it's a, this is a funny story. I was so the ad said, you know, you could earn $300 a month. So right away I'm like planning out all the stuff like a $300 a month. That means I'm going to make this much in a year and here's all the things I can do to save.
Brandon Koechlin
Yeah, yeah. And when they called back, they're like, Yeah, that there is a route available. But their out was a smaller route and it would have been closer to like $200 a month. And I was like freaking devastated because it like ruined my whole plan. I had to redo everything. I was like, Oh no, it's terrible. But it turns out I got, you know, after like a year, I got moved up to a bigger out and how nice.
Brandon Koechlin
Yeah, but I think it was just like it was, it was more so the, you know, I didn't want to have to ask my parents for permission to, to buy something or to if there was something that I like really wanted. It was like, yeah, I'm going to go get it and figure out a way. How can I how can I get it?
Michael Conrad
Yeah, you're starting to make it sound like it really was.
Brandon Koechlin
And you maybe, I don't know.
Michael Conrad
But I also think that even if you don't have people around you that inspire you or that teach you how to be an entrepreneur, you learn the behavior of a certain stick to itiveness. A certain drive that is really comes in the form of not do my own thing, but like put in the effort. And that's something that I've seen in you that you model this concept of putting in the effort to bear out results, even if the results aren't coming tomorrow, you know that you have to kind of put the effort in and combine that with some level of patience, which does feel when you start to think about real estate, like, whoa, that
Michael Conrad
is very relevant because that's kind of like almost everybody's journey in real estate. So did you feel like that was what you experienced as well? Was that good for you? Easy.
Brandon Koechlin
It's not easy. I don't think easy would be the right way to say it. I think it's it's it's a level of understanding that that's what it will take. And knowing that it is a long game in many cases. And I don't think it's something that for the folks that think it does come easy, that's probably a big slap in the face because yeah, because it's I mean, I think no matter what it is you're doing in life, you're going to get out of it, what you put into it.
Brandon Koechlin
And in in the sense of real estate, it's this game of it's going back to the fitness cross-overs here consistent. See you mentioned earlier like putting in reps and sets and you know being super consistent with these with these plans. It's the same thing, right? Because it's hard, right? Yeah, because it's you know, it doesn't because it is specifically even where.
Brandon Koechlin
So I was we can get to this in a minute. But what I'm doing now in real estate is much different than when I started in 2019. I made that switch about a year ago specifically into commercial real estate as a commercial real estate advisor, and specifically the segment of land development, which is probably the longest deal structures in in real estate because there's so much to them, like.
Michael Conrad
Years.
Brandon Koechlin
Sometimes. Oh my gosh. Yeah. But the, the thought there is that that you're putting so much work in the front end and you may not see any reward from that work for quite a long time. And so in residential it's much different. But there's still that element of, you know, you have to you have to build a lot of relationships and you have to be the first person that people think about when they want to either buy or sell their home.
Brandon Koechlin
And that takes time. Yeah. So there is a long game there, I think.
Michael Conrad
Yeah. I think a lot of our listeners might be people that are new to real estate and I think a little encouragement that if you put in the effort and you take the time, it will pay dividends long term. But there's this holding your breath period that is undeniably difficult. You've got to be structured, you got to put in the reps or else it's not going to come out right.
Michael Conrad
You got to be planting seeds every day. And that is really hard. That was my experience getting in to sort of the general real estate side of the world was I went six months without making a dollar when I started out. Right. And so I had to go out and I had to be planting seeds and tending these little fledgling relationships pretty much almost daily for six months before we turned our very first dollar.
Michael Conrad
And in retrospect, I'm like, Oh yeah, that's just part of my story. Now. However, I'm like, Whoa, how did I do that? And I want to honor that. Yeah, I did a little planning and preparation for it, but I had a loving spouse at the time. Huge. Or we're still married. But, you know, at the time she was very supportive of that, both financially and emotionally.
Michael Conrad
And if you're not surrounding yourself with at least some form of support, you know, this journey and this holding your breath period can be immensely difficult because it is going to happen. And of course, we all love to see the rising stars. You know, they stand up in front of the brokerages or the events and they talk about how they sold X number of deals or X number of dollars.
Michael Conrad
You know, in a year, everybody oohs and ahs. But the truth is, for the rest of you know, the folks listening here, I mean, that's not going to be their story. They're going to have to put in those reps and that effort. And I got to tell you, I am not the guy that sticks to fitness quite as well as some.
Michael Conrad
And so that frustration and that tension relationship of like, I know I need to do it, but I don't and I kind of get frustrated at myself sometimes for not that can be an incredible tension. So what is something that you help your peers and those around you when they're struggling with that tension?
Brandon Koechlin
Yeah, that's huge. So and that's huge having the support of a spouse or because it was the same with me, especially making this switching to commercial because we understood that it could take quite literally a year before I'm paid right. A dime. And you know, having that support to make that call and this is a long term plan.
Brandon Koechlin
This is a long term career path. I think that time blocking is huge. And that was that was actually something I struggled with on the on the real estate side coming into it. I had a lot of structure in my fitness world just because I did that for so long that it was sort of like ingrained in me at that time where it was, you know, five, six days a week.
Brandon Koechlin
I'm doing a training program or some sort of I'm following a program in a system. And there really was never a question. And after a period of time where it was whether or not I'm going to do this, it's you wake up and you do it. If this is a day that's considered an on day where I'm supposed to work out, I'm I'm working out regardless of unless it's like, you know, you're incredibly sick or there's something else that's hindering you from doing it.
Brandon Koechlin
But I was never it was never like this question of you wake up and you're not feeling it. Put it off for a day. And that took time. I think that was something. It took time to build up to that kind of being such a deep habit that it never really was an issue, but it was an issue coming into real estate because I didn't I didn't quite have the time blocking management understood, I think, on the front end.
Brandon Koechlin
So that took a little bit of time to get familiar with. But, you know, things like figuring out a schedule for yourself and having specific days that you're doing specific tasks no matter what. And maybe that's, you know, you're you're Tuesdays in the afternoon, that's your time to network with people like doing like one on one type stuff.
Brandon Koechlin
Like when we first met, like we went and grab coffee and, you know, we ended up talking about fitness and business and real estate and crypto. I think it was a lot of things we talked about. But I think though it's having those those time blocks of, okay, I'm doing this piece that I know is important, maybe not for this reward right quick on the front end, but it's something that it needs to be part of my daily time blocking.
Brandon Koechlin
Yeah, and that could be, you know, typically it's like the prospecting, the networking, the follow up, the how are you generating leads, How are you? You know what, what part of what networking groups are you part of and what are you doing on a daily, weekly basis that still does it reverse engineering? Right. And that's a big way I look at it.
Brandon Koechlin
It's it's where where do I want to be, let's say from a yearly standpoint with the amount of business I want to generate and then back engineering that out. So in order to get there, how many you know, how many relationships do I need to be creating? How many networking things do I need to go to? How many mailers do I need to be sending out?
Brandon Koechlin
How many landowners do I need to be talking to you? Developers, builders.
Kyle Monroe
Hey, everyone, it's Kyle, producer for the Business of Homes podcast. I hope you have enjoyed today's episode, beginning with Brandon's journey from starting a gym to getting his real estate license in 2019, how he used his skills in relationship building to build a client base, and his most recent transition into land development. After the break, Michael and Brandon dive into the importance of following your passion, how specialization creates more opportunities for success, and how using your time to learn is incredibly valuable.
Kyle Monroe
You don't want to miss it. Don't forget to subscribe on your preferred listening platform and make sure to follow us on Instagram as well @thebusinessofhomespod. Do you have any feedback or want to suggest someone for the show? Email us at thebusinessofhomespodcast@gmail.com. Let's get back to it.
Michael Conrad
So there's a big piece of this that I'm hearing, and for all of you there listening where there's not only the blocking out of time, you've got to set aside and structure time to where if this is what you're working on, then you've got to work on a consistent and regular basis. I'm not even necessarily saying you got to do it for 8 hours a day, but you have to have consistency that builds regularity in your schedule.
Michael Conrad
But then you also have to not just set aside the time and then just sit there and kind of hope lightning strikes. You really need to be able to establish different types of activities or activities that can be done on repeat and then place those strategically like what you're talking about in those timeslots. And there's all sorts of different activities in real estate, you know, farming your sphere, managing your CRM, networking, taking extra classes.
Michael Conrad
I mean, there's so many things that you can do to bone up and grow and build early on, or even if you're a couple of years in, but you're not finding sort of a complete linear rise. And so I want that to be a big takeaway from today, you know, time blocking and really clearly identifying what those actions are and doing it.
Michael Conrad
When you talk about those actions back when you were starting out in real estate, what were you doing first starting?
Brandon Koechlin
Man Yeah, and it was it was like the Wild West for me in the beginning because I didn't really know and I didn't really have any mentorship in the beginning. Outside of maybe a little bit. I had, you know, there was a woman at the first brokerage I was with that was helping me. And I, you know, I did a few weeks with her just from like a coaching perspective.
Brandon Koechlin
But as far as, like operating my own, treating this as a business and going through my own, my own practices, I didn't really have a lot of support or systems in place, so I was just kind of winging it. But, you know, you start to realize and you meet tons of other people in the space. And I think what was helpful for me was I found folks that I could create relationships with that were that I regarded as highly successful in the space.
Brandon Koechlin
And I would meet them for coffee and pick their brain. And what you know, what are you doing? I'm like, How are you? How are you handling your day to day or week to week? And it's just start to get ideas from them.
Michael Conrad
And so if you had this sort of winging it period, and I'm sure that probably a lot of people identify with that, sometimes that sort of operation ends up having some sort of experience that was like dangerous or bad or, you know, costly or hurtful in some ways. And I feel like those are oftentimes big learning experience for sure.
Michael Conrad
Tell me about one of your early, big struggles or a big issue that kind of came up. We were like, whoa, this is a real job. This is a real career. And I got to take it seriously because that stung.
Brandon Koechlin
Yeah, for sure. So I can probably think of a few. But yeah, I mean, like a one that really stung in the beginning and because, you know, you're learning all this stuff in your new but you still want to present yourself as a professional, like you know what you're doing. You know, I don't think it's helpful for a potential client to see that you're this intimidated, you know, new, new guy in the business because they're not going to put their trust in that.
Brandon Koechlin
So there's this I hate I hate the saying, fake it till you make it. Yeah, absolutely hate that. But I think there is this element of at least not fake it to you make it. But having confidence, you know, because you do still you still learn a lot getting your license. You have to take the test with the state and you learn about the law and everything else.
Brandon Koechlin
So and most of the time when people start, they're probably going to be with a brokerage, or at least I would recommend that you start with a brokerage that has some sort of support and training. That way you have somebody that you can like fall back on for questions and things like that. But, you know, one of the things that I experienced in the beginning that stung pretty bad was there was I remember there was a client that I was working with that you know, we had a listing agreement.
Brandon Koechlin
Maybe I, I probably was too lenient on the expiration of that. It was pretty quick, but it was you know, it was somebody it was a client of mine from the fitness space. Yeah. So it's like, okay, this is cool. You know, we're looking for homes. And we started to look in and I didn't I don't think I was asking the right questions.
Brandon Koechlin
You know, I was just kind of like going with it, letting her sort of run the show and, and, you know, come to find out a couple of months into it, my listing agreement expired, but I was still even though it expired, I was still following up and, you know, sending her properties and things like that. And I come to find out like a month later that she saw she wanted under contract to with another agent.
Brandon Koechlin
Yeah. And she she closed on at home and I didn't, I didn't, she didn't tell me it was just like I just saw it, it was like social media or something and I was like, oh ouch, that hurts because you spent so much time. Yeah. Like driving around and, you know, on the weekends and.
Michael Conrad
Yeah, you got to, you got to set the expectations.
Brandon Koechlin
Yeah, for.
Michael Conrad
Sure. And if you go in thinking, okay, I'm, you know, I'm only a couple of years into real estate, I don't need to be like, you know, anchoring people down with the buyer's rep agreement. They don't need that, you know? Otherwise, I'll probably scare them away. Yeah, it doesn't take a couple more than a couple of times. If you get stung like that, you're like, Okay, I really need to have either a long standing trust relationship or a buyer's rep agreement, or probably both.
Brandon Koechlin
Right.
Michael Conrad
In place.
Brandon Koechlin
And it's business and you can explain it that way, even if it's somebody that you're really close with or tight with your friends, it's like, hey, this is you know, I've even I've even thrown it at him from an angle of like, Hey, my, my brokerage requires this and this is part of the practice. So. Oh yeah, I mean, you know, it's and they do, I think they that's actually something that they do require.
Brandon Koechlin
But yeah that stung and it was it was sort of like this wake up call of like, okay, one how how do I as a realtor, one create better expectations because they're never going to be met unless they're understood. And to how do I add more value in this space to where they trust me and they, they don't need to or want to go try to find somebody else.
Brandon Koechlin
So that was just it was just a lot of like, yeah, you know, the wheels started spinning of, okay, you know, you mentioned before you've in time blocking. You want to create space to continue to get education and grow and learn. And that was part of it for me. I thought, okay, maybe I need to learn more. I need to understand the space more, all the intricate pieces of it, not out, not even just like the deal side, but also the the sales side and in, you know, taking a person from that initial conversation through a listing agreements, you know, contracts and closing.
Michael Conrad
When you talk about working with these folks now, you've had all these years of experience. What are you doing that might be of help to the listeners here to acquire new clients? You know, some people are like hard core prospectors and some people are networkers, you know, and there's sort of everything in between. So what are you doing to overturn rocks and find new clients these days?
Brandon Koechlin
Sure, yeah. So in my space, it's it's probably a little different than the general real estate folks that are that are doing residential because now I'm specific to commercial and specific to land development. And industrial is a secondary piece to that, but mostly land development. So with land it's a lot of learning that went into that. There was a lot that went into understanding the political side of it with, you know, understanding what the city will allow, what the city council people will allow and what their, you know, what their opinions would be of what they want to see in certain neighborhoods.
Brandon Koechlin
But then also the planning department codes and zoning. And so a lot of understanding all of those pieces and how they all kind of coincide around what the highest and best use case for land would be. Yeah. So for me right now, what a lot of the pieces I focus on and when it comes to prospecting will say is, you know, I'm fortunate to be with a, a company who works with a lot of developers and builders and investors.
Brandon Koechlin
So we have a lot of buyers that are willing and able to buy land for development. So it kind of gives me a better segway to reach out to land owners.
Michael Conrad
When I have a buyer pool. Yeah, Yeah.
Brandon Koechlin
And that's been a lot of the the case so far. Or I'll do a lot of mailers even, you know we do I'll target a specific market. So a lot of North Nashville is what I've focused on and I'll send mailers to landowners and I can you can research, you know, all the different parcels and how big they are and how long they've owned it.
Brandon Koechlin
And if it's vacant and, you know, a lot of times there's there are specific parcels that have been owned by family estates and things like that that have just sat on them for generations. And they they don't know really what what one can be done on it or to what it's worth. So I'll try to start a conversation around those pieces, you know, and get and it's worked pretty well and I'll, I'll, I'll find yeah I'll send these mailers just introducing myself and let them know that we have folks interested in their land and, you know, they will call me.
Michael Conrad
And this is an area that I hear a lot of agents expressing curiosity and interest in the commercial space and the development space. But it's certainly shrouded in secrecy in a fog of information. I don't feel like it's really easily accessible to learn a lot of this stuff. So where did you get some of this education? Was it really in the brokerage or did you have to learn it elsewhere?
Brandon Koechlin
Well, so I'll I'll rewind a little bit. So when I was doing residential, I was attending a lot of the local investors groups in meet ups, and one of those was Ryan, and they do a multifamily, they did a multifamily meet up, I think like one one Thursday every month and kind of realize like my interest isn't in residential, it's in commercial, so what am I doing?
Brandon Koechlin
You know, the residential is good. It's, you know, it's got its perks over commercial with like the the timeframe of deals. But that's not where my passion was. I really enjoyed learning about the commercial side of things and specifically when it came to land, it was kind of like, it's funny, a lot of people think land are like, that's the easiest type of deal.
Brandon Koechlin
It's actually the hardest because of how much goes into understanding all those other things I mentioned before. You know, what is the highest and best use case? And then once you determine that, it's like what, what, what can the density be? What you know, you have to you have to understand a lot about zoning regulations and land use tables and, you know, and that that to me was just way more interesting.
Michael Conrad
Yeah, I think a lot of outsiders in just the general public, certainly even those that are new to real estate, kind of almost categorically put agents down as like one one category agent, you know, one guy, a realtor. And oh, this person does everything. When the deeper you get in, the more you realize, oh, there's an incredible amount of complexity here.
Michael Conrad
Property management. Realtors are wildly different animals than residential by side realtors, which are kind of a different animal than residential, less side realtors. And all of that's way different than development, which is all different than commercial. And so I think that there is just a lot of folks out there that need to what you said, follow their passion.
Michael Conrad
Yeah. And you almost need to be asking yourself pretty early in your career or heck, if your late in your career, you're just listening. You can still do it now. And that is you should be asking yourself those hard questions. Oh, what am I passionate about? And if you have been someone that's done no deals or you've done a hundred residential buy side deals, I think you owe it to yourself as a real estate professional to be going out of your way to touch and practice to in almost every different type of transaction.
Michael Conrad
Heck, you should be giving your services away to a fellow realtor who's working on a commercial deal. Hey man, I'll help you do whatever just so I can learn that. Because what if I stumble across the fact that this is what I'm truly passionate about? I'm really interested in if you've been doing residential, I didn't even know there's another world out there, and I think you owe it to yourself as a professional to sort of see what all the different flavors of ice cream out there.
Brandon Koechlin
Yeah, 100%. And that's totally true. And the thing about commercial that was also really intriguing to me was there are so many different segments in commercial. So as a commercial real estate advisor, yeah, I mean, you're licensed as an agent to do any of those deals. You can do residential or commercial, but we always preface those conversations, especially with residential agents.
Brandon Koechlin
It's that, you know, for example, ASV and Excel, we offer pretty sweet referrals for commercial deals that are sent to us from residential agents. Hey, that way they don't cost money. Yeah, that way they don't have to worry about all the intricate complexities of commercial. They can still get a fat check and stay out of realtor jail. So it's like one of these things that, you know, you move to the commercial space and you've got like we have people in our office that are specifically focusing on one segment of commercial.
Brandon Koechlin
So I mentioned mine as land development. We have a guy that's specifically focusing in retail business, brokerage office, industrial property management. Yeah. So in multifamily, so in each one of those has its own path that you can go down, that's pretty in-depth. You got to learn a lot. Yeah, Yeah. So that's why and even in our office, like we have guys that like if a land deal comes up across another, another agent's desk, they'll send it to me because that's not their space.
Brandon Koechlin
They know that I'll give them a referral, but they don't want to mess with it because it's just going to eat into their their opportunity cost on their time. Yeah, same thing with me. If I come across a, you know, retail deal, I would send it to them.
Michael Conrad
I think specialization is something that's not talked about a lot at the brokerage level or at the real estate school level. I think the way real estate schools set up, you really almost legally need to know a little bit about everything. And so you think to yourself, Oh, I'm new or I'm just a realtor and I've been doing it for five or ten years and I know how to do everything when again, the deeper you get in, specialization becomes so apparent.
Michael Conrad
And that's most obvious, I think, in the commercial world, like what you're talking about. And so people who are practicing realtors need to be moving toward specialization for sure. And really trying to get away from generalization. Nobody wants to work with a general realtor because you're generally only good at everything, right?
Brandon Koechlin
You know.
Michael Conrad
Specialization is going to probably be a more attractive place for your sphere and certainly for your ability to execute on a given transaction.
Brandon Koechlin
Yeah, Yeah, I totally agree. And if it's if it's in residential, there's still a lot of things you can specialize in, no doubt. You know, you can be first time homebuyers, you could be investors, you could be.
Michael Conrad
Neighborhoods. I mean, we've seen people that are focused heavily on Cleave Hall and really know that stock really well. And of course, different boroughs, East Nashville versus Murfreesboro is wildly different. And so specialization ultimately feels like a narrowing of the scope. But in reality, it widens the consumer base in a non intuitive sort of way because you have a greater level of magnetism, a greater level of attractiveness for a specific audience.
Michael Conrad
And and this is such a counterintuitive thing that we all have to go through as entrepreneurs, because the temptation is to try to capture the largest audience, the largest level of appeal.
Brandon Koechlin
Right. You know, I think anybody just starting out, they're going to take any deal that they get right, just because they want to get experience and they want to learn. But, you know, there were a couple of deals that it like in Christiana or Murphy, you're past Murfreesboro and it's like, yeah, you do those deals and you learn a lot from them.
Brandon Koechlin
But just, you know, going back to the whole like opportunity cost and the value of of time around a dollar, it's like focusing on that one niche is probably going to be better in the long run. Start working towards those things while you're working a couple of general transactions.
Michael Conrad
So your average listening to this podcast is probably a residential real estate agent. They've done a number of deals, but their feeling a little bit stuck and they're feeling like their spend their wheels. They're always going back to their library of fires and just kind of dealing with whatever at the top of mind right now. You've had a great track record of knowing how to build multiple things in multiple different business verticals.
Michael Conrad
And the big underlying theme I'm seeing is that you know how to put in the time, put in the effort, put in the reps. What's a little piece of advice that you can give someone who's feeling stuck right now to help them sort of get over that hump and get into something more regular.
Brandon Koechlin
Stay consistent. So have have a roadmap set out for yourself, for whatever it is specifically that you're working on. And just stay consistent and, you know, for for for example, my space and land in commercial real estate, I need to create relationships and network with a lot of builders and developers. So I joined two of the large networking organizations specifically for land and builders and developers.
Brandon Koechlin
One is you ally, the other one is NAP. And that gets me in front of these people. And the same can be done in residential. And maybe it's, you know, just whatever your specialty is, it could be focused on that. But you need to be consistent in be be putting yourself out there to be top of mind for people in your sphere for whenever they're ready to buy or sell a home.
Brandon Koechlin
You're the person they're thinking about. But I think is just going to be a big piece of it. And it's also connect with other people that you're part, part of your groups, your is teams or or so I think that there's this element of when you're getting into a new space and maybe you're not totally familiar with it.
Brandon Koechlin
I'm I'm all about this idea of just offer your time like get in, get connected with those people. And if it doesn't mean you're getting paid or in a way, that's fine because you're still learning and you're getting skills that that would be valuable in the future because you need to be valuable. You need to be able to provide value to people.
Brandon Koechlin
So find those top producing agents and just get in their ear and be like, Hey, can I can I just come follow you for a day? I can hang with you. I could maybe help you out with some things and maybe that just get around them.
Michael Conrad
Yeah, that's actually a really good piece of advice because real estate as an as a career is a non linear compensation sort of career. You know, you're not trading time literally hour by hour, day by day for money. And so if you spend your day doing X, Y, you're earning potential does change and your compensation over time will change.
Michael Conrad
But it's not having an immediate impact of change. And so in some ways, you could say that the greatest currency you have as a sort of a newer or even sort of a stuck real estate agent is your time. What you do with your time is the thing you probably have the most of, and it's the thing you have the most flexibility to do what you want with.
Michael Conrad
And so, yeah, I think that there is a prevailing sentiment out in the world out there definitely amongst younger realtors that like, oh, I can't give away my time because I have to defend and prove that my time is valuable, which I can appreciate that perspective to some extent. But ultimately, look, let's face it, if you're struggling in your business or if you're newer to real estate and your experience or your knowledge is just less than what it should be or what you know it should be, then giving your time away to acquire said knowledge or instead experience is literally the best transaction you can make sure and so that would be my big encouragement
Michael Conrad
and certainly something that I have benefited from, and that is talk to the right people and go do the things. Always say yes. And if you're not having opportunities to say yes, to go ask people who can say yes to you, that you can give your time to them.
Brandon Koechlin
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I did that. I think I actually leveraged my my fitness background to do that kind of thing early on. I would I would find people that I admired in the space and create a relationship with them. And, you know, hey, how can I help you? I would actually ask that question like, what can I do for you?
Brandon Koechlin
And many times it might be helping them with some programing around fitness or some nutritional advice or whatever. And then that kind of that kind of creative like. So maybe you're good at something else that's not in real estate. Leverage that a little bit and see how you're Yeah, how can you add value to somebody else's life because yeah, you know there's, there's, there's always that exchange of, you know people, people still are very generous in a lot of cases and will probably be happy to like take you in and just let you learn from them.
Brandon Koechlin
But I think it's better to try to find some way that you can help them.
Michael Conrad
I think that's a great way to put it, and that is look for ways to be valuable to others and then seek those that might be valuable to you and try to create a relationship there. And honestly, that goes even far beyond just mentorship or like learning the business that goes into clients, you know, how can I benefit my client?
Michael Conrad
And of course there is an obvious way that they can benefit me. Well, Brandon, thank you so much for being here and I appreciate all that you shared today.
Brandon Koechlin
Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you.
Michael Conrad
All right, everyone, thank you for listening to the business of Holmes podcast. This is Michael Conrad, and I am so lucky to be able to tell these stories and elevate the business side of real estate for you all. So stick with us and we'll keep sharing all the goods. Talk to you later.
Kyle Monroe
Hey, everyone. Kyle, again, producer for the Business of Holmes podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. A big thank you to Brandon Koechlin for being a part of our original launch. Go follow him on Instagram @BrandonKoechlin and let him know how much you enjoyed his story. Don't forget to subscribe on your preferred listening platform and make sure to follow us on Instagram as well @thebusinessofhomespod.
Kyle Monroe
Do you have any feedback or want to suggest someone for the show? Email us at thebusinessofhomespodcast@gmail.com. Thank you again for listening and we'll see you again soon.