The Power of Branding With Ryan Serhant

Foreign this is Real Estate Investing live from New York with James Nelson, the principal and head of Avis and Young's Tri State investment sales group. In this program, you'll learn about the world of commercial real estate and find.

Out why it's one of the largest.

Investment opportunities in New York and around the world. Now here is your host, James Nelson. Welcome to Real estate investing live from New York for show number 97. This is your host, James Nelson. I am principal and head of Tri state investment sales here at Avis and Young. And wow, we are coming up on 100 episodes and we have, we're dangerously close to eclipsing 250,000 downloads. What an incredible mark. And it's thanks to you all. It's thank you for your listens, thank you for subscribing itunes, Spotify, wherever you get the show. And your comments mean so much to me and it helps get the word out on the show. And what we are looking to do is to educate people to make you the best possible investor, to give you the inside edge. And this is the show that will teach you how and have a special treat for you. Today we're going to be rebroadcasting a conversation that I had with my friend and mentor Ryan Serhant on the power of personal branding. And you might say, James, what does that have to do with real estate investing? Well, look, some of the most successful investors I've seen out there, especially the new up and comers, are masters at this. And if you haven't listened to the episodes yet, I would go back and check out the ones with Stephen Kashanian from Closed with a K and then also with Alex Rabin and Alex Cascal from Peak this. They are masters at getting the word out there. I see them posting every single sale, every single deal and what that does is drive more deal flow to them because brokers like myself see that posting. They see how active they are. And so hopefully by listening to this interview, you're going to get a lot of good ideas for your own company and how you can brand it, how you can get word out there. And so I really hope that you will enjoy this. We're going to have a brief word from our sponsor and we'll get right back into that discussion with Ryan Serhant. Thank you so much. A different approach to putting our clients first. Avis and Young's Tri State Investment Sales Group sells multifamily office retail development and specialty sales throughout the New York metro area. As experienced thought leaders in their industry, our 35 member group is available to help you make informed investment decisions by advising you on your current holdings or identifying new opportunities in the marketplace. Our one unified team is built on an industry unique platform which promotes unparalleled collaboration and teamwork. We share core values of hard work, integrity and expertise. We put our clients first providing tailor made strategies to achieve superior results. Please Visit us at aytristateinvestmentsales.com and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram amesnelsonnyc to learn more.

Hey everybody. Thank you for joining. Sorry I'm late. It's 100% my fault as it always is, but my schedule is just back to back to back to back to back. You know me, I am Ryan Sirhant. I'm the Founder and CEO of sirhant, the greatest residential real estate brokerage in the history of the universe. The most followed real estate brand in the world. And I'm coming at you today from my office here, our headquarters at Sirhanh House, New York in soho. And I want to talk to you about how to build a multi dimensional real estate brand. We've got a lot of stuff to go through and I've done it for myself and I've helped other people do it. Like the beautiful man sitting right next to me, Mr. James Nelson, who's built an incredible brand all on his own even before I've known him. And I want to go through it. I want to talk about the brand steps that you need to take that we both learned through a program and both through trial and error so that you can scale your business and your lead pipeline. So that's what we're going to go through today. Thank you so much for waiting. We're now going to get into this. So first of all, I just want to introduce James over here. My man. A little context and background. So first of all, James is the number one investment sales broker in New York City. I've always known his name, even before we met. When I was a younger broker running around, I'd see him in the real deal, I'd see him in press, building would sell and it would be James Nelson all the time. And don't forget New York City is one of the most competitive real estate markets in the world. And not just for residential. Someone's got to sell all these buildings too. These individual buildings, these multifamily buildings, these development sites, these assemblages. And also not just in New York. James sells everywhere because his company and everything that he does is all over the place. He Sells something in, like, Nashville. Yeah. See? Crazy. And he's a huge investment sales broker. He's an advisor at Avison Young. He was one of the early adapters of the Salt Lake Sirhand pro program. He's an industry leader. He's an author that you're all going to hear about and find out about really, really, really soon. And so I wanted to open this up and just start talking. And the first thing that I want to ask you is, we started the pro program a year ago, right? We launched the course. We started it, we put it out there, and one of the first people to sign up. And I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to get brokers from other states, right. Alabama, different countries, which all happened. But then Kyle comes to me, and Kyle Scott, he runs our course program and runs ventures. Comes to me like, hey, I think this pretty big broker in New York City just signed up for the pro program and, like, wants the whole kit and caboodle. I'm like, really? Who? Like James Nelson in commercial? I was like, shut up. Really? No. And I actually. I was excited for a second, and I was totally nervous and freaked out. I'm like, oh, my God, I've totally oversold this thing. What? What is what. How can I help James Nelson? James Nelson is like, he's one of the biggest brokers ever. He sells entire buildings. What. What do I know that can help James? So I think it would help everybody if you could just tell everyone, set the scene. Take us back. What did your business look like in early 2019, before you started making investment into your brand? Because you were already doing good business and what did your brand look like?

Awesome. First of all, Ryan, this is amazing. Thank you so much for having me.

Here, and welcome to our headquarters.

Yeah, absolutely. Huge fan and just happy to be a member and part of it all. So, yeah, I've been doing this for over 20 years. As you mentioned, I'm an investment center, so I do what you do for residential, but for commercial. And it's really a business that, for the most part, is kind of below the radar. It's very heavy on relationships, and it still is, but it's very much just picking up the phone, dialing people, seeing people in person. But it's not a business where it's kind of out there front and center. And I've always been intrigued to see how you've elevated your brand new and how you've been out there as a thought leader, been there for your audience. And I said, this has got to work. For commercial. Right. The fact that no one else is doing it is an opportunity. So I wanted to understand how you did it because I was dabbling a little bit with social media and sure, I had.

Right, right, right. Yeah. I remember when we had like breakfast last night.

Yeah. And I think you quadrupled my audience after we had that nice breakfast. But I really wanted to learn how you set this all up and how you did it and. And you completely. 110% delivered.

Got it, got it. So you were successful. You've been doing it for 20 years, but you're selling a lot. And you were known as. How do you think the outside world and your clients viewed you? You were just James Nelson, the guy that sold a lot of real estate.

You know, there's a lot of other investment sale brokers in the city. It's a very competitive business like your world. But look, I was just a transactor. I was one of the many brokers you could call if you wanted to do a deal. Sure. But there was no one who's really taken that position to say, hey, I'm going to be the face of this and I want to be the advisor. I want to be the go to source of information when it comes to real estate investing. And still it amazes me to this day. And I know we're going to get to the book later and everything, but if you went and you searched for books on real estate investing right now, you'll probably get rich dad, poor dad. How to get rich quickly, but not how to actually invest in commercial real estate and how to do it today. There's a huge market opportunity for this and someone had to do it. And so what I found very quickly is your program that works beautifully for residential. You can apply all these things to commercial or for that matter, I would think any sales business.

Yeah. How did you work on your brand before you got into the program? You know, 2010, 2015, how did you work your brand? Or did you even think about brand as a way to build clients, build lead inventory, build teams.

Right. So not in the way, you know, clearly today, but the emphasis was always on providing value. And that has not changed. Right. And you've given incredible advice. You know, you spoke to YMWRA last week and you talked about the value of being an expert and being a specialist. And that is something from the very start, when I began the business was, hey, I'm going to focus on this neighborhood. I'm going to get to know everything about it. I know that you are meticulous about that. When you go and you're working with a new buyer and you need to figure out a new market, you're spending hours walking the streets figuring it out. That does not stop. Right. So what we're doing now, you're still the expert. You have something of value that you're sharing with the audience, right?

Yes.

It's not about like, hey, I'm James Nelson, I'm number one, aren't I great? It's, hey, how can I make you a more successful investor? How can I make you a ton of money? Right. So it's all about them. So, but the key part is really.

Having it was like client focused, not on your own personal success.

And it was very heavy on the research to it. It was like, okay, we're your source for information. Right. So because it's a very. The real estate investing business is very opaque, Right. I mean, you see the trades, you know, what apartments sell for. But, you know, when you're talking about an apartment building, you don't know what was the return it sold for, what was the, you know, what was the makeup of the tenancy?

Yeah.

So it's very opaque. And so to be able to be of service and kind of blow that wide open, say, look, I'm going to be your source for information. That's what we tried to do. But it was a very kind of one on one approach. It was a lot of direct mail back in the day and just was not. Was not reaching the masses. Right, got it, got it.

So you were very, very kind of. You were locally focused.

Yeah, right. For sure.

In a way, in terms of like, kind of your brand outreach.

That's right.

Because you were part of, you were part of a firm that became, I think, pretty well known for having like your neighborhood experts who had knocked on doors in that, like, four block radius. Right?

Yes. So I started at Massey Nackle, and this was when they only had 20 people. And I was only able to get the job interview because I went to Colgate, as did one of the founders, Paul Massey. I later found out there was only two people who applied for the job and I was their second choice. So fortunately, Bob Nackle said, okay, well, I'll take this guy if he can fog him here. So I got in very early and I was very lucky. But credit to them, they had this brilliant business plan where, hey, we're going to take the city, we're going to divide it up into territories, and we're going to focus on neighborhoods because a lot of brokers And I'm sure you see this in your world. They try to be generalists. They try to be all things to all people. And what is it? Jack of all trades, master of none, Right? So by focusing in on an area I found that was a really great way to start my career. Because if I just looked at Chelsea and I knew every single sale, I knew all about the new developments and the zoning changes within three months, I knew more about that area than the veterans who'd just been running around for 20 years.

Because you were super focused.

That's right.

But then you were hyper local. So then your brand pre2019 was top deal guy. Right. Hyper focused on New York City, if not just individual areas. But you were known as being incredibly successful. Why didn't you think that that was good enough? Why sign up for something that we put out there?

I knew there was something bigger. Right. And there's this huge opportunity. And you know, I'm sure you could have retired if you wanted to already, but it's like there's this massive opportunity where we can really change the way things are done. Right. So if you look at the commercial brokerage business, it's probably been the same for the last hundred years. Like, think about it, the elements of how this works. You know, people get retained, they call the people who they know, but. But they're gonna keep it quiet. Commercial is not as broker friendly as residential. Where of course you would send it out, you would share the information, you'd want it everywhere. But with commercial, it's, oh, I'm gonna keep this quiet. Right? Because I'm gonna. Which is code. I'm gonna keep it for myself. And I don't need to go out there and share it with the whole world. And why not just blow the doors wide open? Right?

Got it. Okay. So I think I have a pretty good idea and hopefully everybody who's listening and watching as well, it's kind of a good idea that you are incredibly successful. You've been doing it for a long time, but you knew you could take it to the next level. Because we meet with a lot of people. It was just with an agent downstairs actually, who. Great business, solid business. Could keep doing that the same way every day, but there is more. Right. And there's another way to really, like you said, like blow the roof off, no pun intended, I guess, to really unlock what a brand strategy system can do for your business. So can you take me back to then? Because I want to get to what your brand is now, but can you Take me back to, like, that first brand strategy session that you had with our team and kind of that discovery process of like, okay, what is James Nelson as a salesperson? He's not just James Nelson, the guy that sells real estate. He is.

Yeah. I mean, I wanted to be the advisor to. To give my clients the inside edge for success. And so how do I communicate that? So people just don't see me as just any other broker where you can go do a deal with. Right. And so I think the aha moment for me when I was sitting in the room with you and Joe, because I didn't understand you had all these different worlds, and I saw you doing all these different things, and obviously the show and the podcast and the book, and I did not realize that how all these worlds could clearly overlap and how they all feed each other. Right. And it's just like you're casting that much wider of a net. So, like, right now I've got my message, but I'm only delivering it to certain select people. Right. And some people, they might respond to direct mail, they might like the phone call, they might like to meet in person. But there's also ways to reach a new audience, and I wasn't tapping into that. I wasn't expanding my audience.

Got it. So you wanted to expand your audience. And let's more people know. So what was one of the first things that you started working on then as you went to rebuild and reconstruct and kind of give. Give, you know, new meaning to your brand as James Nelson, the greatest investment sales broker in New York.

So I think it always starts with content. So I had to be able to deliver something of value that people wanted to actually hear and understand. Right. So the podcast. And you know, your podcast, I mean, what you're delivering is incredible value, right.

Because you started yours.

Absolutely. Yeah. So I've been going a year and a half strong real estate investing. Live from New York.

Congrats.

And it's amazing. I mean, we were talking before this about how fun it is to sit down and have those conversations. You'd want to meet with these people anyways. But, you know, for the listeners, for the audience, for our network, to have that resource. Right. And to be able to, you know, share those tips with them. It's about making them better. Right. And that's really how I think you're building an audience for sure.

And that's one of the first things that you put out there. Right. So then you had that, the podcast, which I think is awesome. Now a lot of people know that they can listen to you and hear what you're thinking and know that you also have a lot of connections around the city, people that otherwise you would never even get in touch with. So you're creating that passive audience, which is a big thing there. What was the next thing that you decided to start building?

So, you know, the other thing is that you can get multiple bites of the same apple. Right? So you've done this podcast. You now have an hour of content, right? Now you can slice and dice it. And you're the master of this, Right. You can take one thing and you can do clips and you can post it through your social media feeds. And then the basis of my first book are those lessons learned. The keys to success of real estate investing are from the podcast. I have those interviews. So it's just taking that because it's a lot of work, you know, the effort that goes into this. So you want to get the most mileage out of it. Right. So it was taking that podcast, it was deciding to go with the book, and you were awesome to introduce me to an agent. That's working great. We're out shopping, actually, the second book now to find a publisher. So it's having a lot of fun, for sure.

Really, really cool.

Yeah.

So how do you then get the podcast out there to the masses?

Right, so. And we're actually pivoting now because I've got a very exciting announcement that I'd like to let your audience know is we've just launched james nelson.com.

Nice.

Which is because of you. Yes. So. So I would have. I would have never done that ever. Right. I mean, the whole idea of.

I mean, commercial, zero.

None. How many.

How many commercial brokers have their own websites?

None.

Investment sales brokers.

None. Right. None.

Like retail brokers. It's just like residential real estate agents getting used to creating their own websites because they feel like they have to. But it was. I remember when we first talked about that, and you're like, excuse me, what do I have to do?

Yeah, yeah. And I really had to think about. The purpose of JamesNelson.com is to give people the insider's edge to investing. So you can go there, you can sign up, you can get an exclusive video series. Of course you can get the podcast. You can go research key terms, you can get links to helpful stuff. And that's where I want to debut the podcast. So originally, I partnered with Voice America. They have 5 million subscribers. I've never done this before. I want to just plug in and help them get out there. And I'm going to continue to partner with them, but I want to launch it off of JamesNelson.com because if I'm sending out a link and I'm telling you to go listen to my podcast, I'd like you to listen to it@JamesNelson.com where you can actually engage with me, where you can sign up for more information. You can access my listings, you can sign up to be an ambassador.

That capability into the website.

That's right.

Got it. You just put it out there. But you started building it like in 2020 during COVID Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. Just like from home, right?

Yeah. And I remember I even hesitated for a while. I was like, well, James Nelson's dot com's already taken. I mean, look, there's someone out there and I don't know who they are, but you know, they're buying up all these names. I think you said there's only 11 sirhants in the world out there, but apparently there's a lot of James Nelson's or someone who said, hey, I'm gonna be able to really, you know, hold this guy hostage.

Yeah.

So say, what about James Nelson nyc? They're like, no, it's James Nelson dot com. So we bought it, we own it, it's out there and it's really exciting.

How long did that negotiation take?

It was just, you know, there was a little back and forth. So if you try to go buy a domain name@GoDaddy, I mean, I guess they're like the broker, right? So I don't know who I'm negotiating with, but clearly, I mean, how great is the market? Like, I mean, who else am I competing with? Other people that are James Nelson? I mean, maybe they're just saying, how bad does this guy want it?

I remember when we, we started the business, I wanted Sirhant on Instagram and someone else had it. I was like, really? Where? Like at Sirhant. And we found that it was a guy in Turkey whose name was. Was it Sirhan Tassarev? Something like that. And so his Instagram handle was his first name Sirhan last initial, which the last name started with a T. And we like dmed him everything over and over. The guy never replied. And I finally got a reply and we had to negotiate, basically a large donation to a children's orphanage in Turkey.

A donation, but I think it was legit.

We thought about that. We know where the money went. I mean, like, I think it was actually to a, an orphanage In Turkey. But anyway, like, because the brand name was so important, I didn't want anyone to have to say, oh, is it James Nelson NYC? Is it James nelson.org? what is it? Like, you want the dot com? You just want the simple app.

Yeah. Not.org co yeah.

You want to keep it as simple as possible. You don't have to tell people, sorry, no, it's james nelson123.org net, it could just be too complicated.

Parents, buy your kids their domain names now. Do it now.

It's a huge thing as we think about brand too. Thinking about also, like, you know, like your kids and, you know, kind of anybody else. It's one of those things you don't think about until it's too late. So totally off, slightly off topic, but a little bit. But if you're listening to this, you don't own your handle yet or your website. Make sure you go out and get it. Now, that's one thing that we talk to all of our pro members about. Because you want to own your identity. Right. A big part of figuring out what your brand is as part of our Sarhant brand strategy system is core identity, consistent content, shouting it from the mountaintop. And that core identity is really, really important. That it's also really, really, really clear. Right. So how do you then use your brand that you've now built? Not just to go, because you went from James Nelson, investment sales broker that everyone in New York knows to now James Nelson, investment sales broker in New York that everyone knows, and that grows every single day.

Right.

Do you have an example of a deal or something that's happened since you've started with us where you've noticed, like, wow, that happened because of the brand work that I've done?

Yeah. No, I mean, I think the podcast what amazes me is even though I might not get the immediate feedback, being out there now in this post Covid world where we're out there at events, people are saying, hey, I'm loving the podcast. It's what has kept me going. And they've been sharing it with their friends and it's just making the network that much bigger and what it has led to in the short term. And again, this is all about building is I'm doing speaking engagements as well and I'm speaking at school. So I've been a guest professor at Wharton at Columbia. So like now it's like, okay, well that's one more thing to add to my credentials.

Grow up. And they're gonna need somebody and they're gonna know you're the guy and you're the guy.

That's right. But it's all about planting seeds. Right. And you never know when you get that call where it originated from. Right, Got it.

So why do you think, like, why, why did you wait for us though? Like, you could have started a podcast 10 years ago, you know, you could have built a website, I don't know, in like 2000, 2000. The Internet came out in 95. So like, you know, you could have done this stuff a long time ago. What was it about our program? And this isn't to pat myself on the back, it's just if anyone out there is, you know, confused, et cetera. Yeah. Yes, you're in, you're in New York. So maybe people are saying, oh, well, he's in New York. So that's what made sense. But what was it about what we were positioning and offering to you where you said, okay, no, that's the program and now's the time.

Right. So I just, you know, I think part of it is you're so busy with the day to day that you're like, oh my, this is just going to be one more thing. I don't, I don't have the time. I can't figure this out. I'm just. It's not going to happen. And so the fact that you guys.

It'S overwhelming because you had a plan.

The fact that you had a roadmap. Right. It was step by step. Like you've done this before. Right. Okay. So we're going to tweak this because it's a different audience, but this has been done before and clearly it works. Right. And so I think, you know, knowing that and like, hey, here's a course. We're going to teach you how to do it and we're going to support you and your team again has been amazing because it's not like I just graduated from the program and that was it. Yeah. Like the constant support throughout, like whenever. A question.

Now you're with us for life.

Totally.

I'm in.

So no, that's been a huge part of it for sure.

Got it. That's so cool. How do you. A big part for me for brand is okay. I want to build my brand as large as possible so that Sirhant is synonymous with luxury real estate all over the world. And then I want business to come my way so that while I'm sleeping I can wake up and say, what leads came in that night that I didn't have to pay for.

That's right.

Other than with my time and my brand building that we've done over time. But it also enables me to really leverage the my time. Right. Because branding is now work for you. So how do you think about, you know, now you're doing all these things, building the website, you're adding content to it, you're writing the second book, you're doing the podcast, you're doing speaking engagements, you're doing social all the time. I see your videos all the time. Your LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, everything. Those things don't come with zero time. It's a lot of time, a lot of work.

Right.

How are you now justifying all of that work for either the short game or the long game and being able to sell more.

Right. So when I started in the business, I could call, you know, an owner, a client every week, Right. Time was you had plenty of free time. So. But you get busy, right? And then it's like, how do you continue to stay in front of your audience in a meaningful way? So if you really think about this, content that I'm going to deliver is going to be helpful, right? And I'm going to just. I'm going to stay top of mind, right? And the goal for me is if, you know, one of my clients, if someone is at a cocktail party or whatever and someone says, hey, my family business, we're shutting it down. We've got to sell our building, they're going to say, call James Nelson. That's the key. But I'm always trying to solve their problems. So right now, and it's a lot, maybe it's a little more boring than what you guys are doing, but we have to worry about taxes and what's going to happen with this tax policy. And so, you know, I put myself in the client's shoes, and what do they need to know? What do they need to look out for? Because they don't want to sit there and they don't want to interview or sit down with the head of the real estate roundtable. But I'm plugged into all that stuff, so if I just take that knowledge and I only share it with a couple people, like that doesn't do much good, right? But if I can really break it down and synthesize it, and so my audience always stays one step ahead of the curve. That's the key. And so it's amazing then that I don't always have to be the one reaching out to start that. Right. Instead of just always having to be proactive, then the Calls are coming to you. Hey, James, thank you so much for doing that webinar. That was really. It was a little painful to hear what's coming down the pike, but I needed to know that. And you teed it up so I didn't have to go look for it.

Got it.

That's the key.

Got it. I want to talk to you a little bit about results, obviously, because you can do all this work. You build your brand, you can put it out there, you can put all the steps into motion. You got to be consistent with it. And it doesn't happen overnight. It takes time. But it is about the results and generating deals and creating more awareness. But what would you say to anybody who's saying, I don't need to do that one. I have enough business as is. This seems like a lot of work. Ryan and James, or who's saying, yeah, that is a lot of work. Also, the best brokers in my market, they're not out there. They're not loud. Sirhant can do that. But in my market, the best brokers are quiet. They're ninjas, they're secret. It's just about the network. So I'm not going to do all that. I'm just going to know more people. What are you saying to the naysayers who say, I don't need to build a brand to do big business?

You're completely missing out. You know, this is a new world we live in. I mean, what you've built here, the foundation that you've built your company on, is that you don't have to do brokerage the way it's been done for the prior hundred years. Right. Every other business has evolved. Right, True. So, you know, either you're gonna be joining this revolution or you're gonna get phased out. Like, how can you not embrace it? You can't. Like that mentality where, hey, I'm gonna just keep everything for myself. Like, that doesn't work. You don't grow.

Yeah.

You know, so it's. It's a huge missed opportunity, for sure.

It's the blockbuster Netflix Conversation.

That's right. That's right.

Right. It's the. It's the Strand Bookstore, Amazon Conversation. You know, like, you can. You can really hold on to the past and the way you did things traditionally for as long as you want, but you're going to completely ignore the future and the possibilities of your business. I'll tell you, too, you do deals outside New York. But one of the biggest things that I've noticed about, you know, brand Awareness and creating it is, it's now not just New York, New York City, people that know me as somebody who sells real estate. It's people everywhere. So people all around the world and other agents reach out to me one to do deals in New York, but also reach out to me to do deals everywhere. Like I would not be selling hundred million dollar houses in Florida, Florida if it were not for the brand strategy system we put in place here. And what I work on with you, my whole team works on with you and we work on with all of our other pro members is just what we've learned. And we're just saying, okay, this is what works because we just did it yesterday at 4 o'. Clock. Now you do it. And this isn't from the 1980s, this isn't from a DVD we saw in the 90s. This isn't, you know, our parents idea of, you know, building a nice powerful brand. You know, brand is almost even the wrong word. We're building attention awareness, right? It's the new version of AA for us, Right. Love it. Yeah, it's just attention awareness all day long.

But you're also making it easy for your audience, right? So for your audience, everyone who's listening, if they have a question about commercial real estate, they can reach out to me, right? They can connect and if I can't help them, I can find someone who can. And that's what people want. They want easy. They don't want to have to look and search for the answers. So you're there from the top of a mountain, as you said, and the.

World is global now. Like you're, you know, we're following people, you know, who are having ideas in California and there are now our ideas 10 seconds later because we saw them in the palm of our hands. You know, the idea that like it's meme culture, right? It's the ideas that can totally transfer around the world so fast. Information can do the same thing and real estate can do the same thing and sales can do the same thing. So you're not just a specialist in this market, right? You're a global specialist in a global market now. And even if that means you'll do ten more deals, right, instead of a thousand, but ten more deals in other areas with other agents and other networks, with the forest fire that those 10 will create for your brand and your business are huge. But you're not going to do it unless you have all the brand pieces to together that we go through together. Talk to me a little bit about, you know, Thinking about brand, but coming out of the pandemic and implementing your brand strategy through COVID 19. And especially in a world where the commercial real estate world started to come back much slower than even our residential world, which came back a lot slower than the rest of the world, Right?

So, and I saw this back in 2009 when the investment sales market in New York dropped 90%. Right. And so I remember what that was like. I was sitting at my desk, I didn't even know what to do. Right. But I just kept showing up. Right. And meanwhile, a lot of my competitors said, I'm taking the year off, I'm gonna go travel, you know, whatever. Right? And it's the same thing now. I mean, we could have sat around and made excuses. Hey, nothing's happening. But your most valuable asset is your time, right? And when else would we have had a block of time to work on stuff, to build a company, to write a book, so, you know, to really use that time effectively. So when. Because we know this isn't going to last forever, Right? So when you come out of it, you come out of it that much stronger. But you're right, our market was decimated even into early this year. We have not seen sales activity that low since the financial crisis. The good news is our team, we looked at what we did in the first half and we compared it to our sales and our contracts for the second half. We're doing 7x for the second half of this year because there's all this pent up demand, right? Because last year, if you were an owner, you're saying, I'm not going to sell into this market. No one knows what's going on out there. And now maybe we're not completely out, but it is what it is. And you're either going to say, okay, I can either transact now or I can stay and hold 100%. And buyers aren't looking to steal things anymore. So we are as busy as we've ever been. But that's because we did the work, right. We spent the time. And the other thing is, we didn't stop talking to people.

Yeah.

So. And as much as, and you know.

We can get ourselves, you guys were the brokers here. You're like Forrest Gump on the boat, right in the store.

That's it.

You know, with Lieutenant Dan, that's what you're doing.

Ride champ, Right?

Yeah. All through 20.

That's right.

Every other commercial broker left. And I know that for a fact. But James Nelson was there starting the podcast, writing the Book building, the website, freaking riding through the storm.

And it works 100%. But I want to emphasize something really important for your audience, which is as important it is to have this brand and this digital strategy. There is still no substitute for picking up the phone and calling people. And you're a testament to that, because when I hear people talk about your success, they say, you're not all Hollywood. And I love how you talk about, hey, I'm on mdl, and now all of a sudden, my phone lights up and everyone says, hey, sell my property. It doesn't work like that. Right. That helps open the door, but you now can reach out. And now instead of making that cold phone call where like, here's just one more broker bothering me that's seeing your thing, they've seen your stuff, like, hey, awesome to hear from you. Right. And so you're teeing it up, and it makes that call and that conversation so much easier. So, like last year during the pandemic, I don't even know what was going on, but reaching out to people saying, hey, how are you? Hanging in there? How's the family? Where are you camped out? Yeah. And when else we're gonna have an opportunity to have conversations like that in.

The middle of the day, for sure. Right. And it's not like anyone was at lunch, like, where are you? I'm at home. That's what everyone was doing. Yeah. It was a. An amazing time to build. And, you know, as sad as the pandemic was, it was a time that I will always remember as an amazing period of fast growth, because we all kind of took a step back and said, let's stay healthy, let's grow, let's build. And how many listings are you working on right now?

60.

60?

Yeah.

Commercial listings?

Yes.

What's the most number of listings you've ever worked on, though, in your career, though?

40.

I don't get it. So you're working on more listings right now than ever before?

Absolutely.

Do you think that's just because of the market or brand or both?

It's both. I mean, we could never completely outperform the market.

Sure.

But doing all this work in preparation created this. But I want to also specify it's not just, hey, who can rack up the most listings. You know, we are still. We're very selective about what we take on because we're having really candid conversations with our clients saying, you know, look, this is what it is. This is the pricing, and this is what we can deliver on. And so what we want to Be known as is, you know, we are the most active shop for transacting. So if you want to invest in commercial real estate, you're coming to us because we get deals done. Right. We're not just putting stuff out there. It's overpriced. Yeah. So we want people to come to us to transact because they know that we're in the flow.

Got it, Got it. I love it. So we've gone through James Nelson pre brand work. James Nelson during the brand build out. James Nielsen now. Right. The brand that's out there. But what I love about you too, and the reason that I wanted to do this with you is I think a lot of people think like, okay, so I'm going to sign up for that program. Sirhan's team is going to help me build my brand, and then, boom, phone's going to light up. You just said that that's not how it works. Right. You still got to do phone calls, you still got to do the work. But you're, you're also saying, okay, that was all phase one and now you're doubling down. So talk to me a little bit about what you're doing now. Like, what does the next 12 months look like for you as far as brand strategy work goes into it that you know is going to pay off for future business.

Right. So I think all these building blocks, and again, it started with the podcast and then the website and the video series. And it's just, it all builds on each other. And you've been the master of this. And with the course and everything, all the additional support and all the offerings, there's multiple business lines. Right now I'm just trying to put it out there. And then the question is, how do you monetize it? Right now I'm giving away the product for free. The book will be for sale. But it's how do you build on that and then ultimately how do you monetize it? And maybe it's just keep giving this away for free because it's just going to fuel the brokerage business.

But you want those users, you want those subscribers, you want those people.

Yeah, but that role, and as I said, why I was writing the book is because when you think about commercial real estate investing, you'd probably be hard pressed to think of some names as.

Far as who's the go to for some scary ones. There's some ones that make me very nervous.

That's right. That's right. So I want to. That spot is open for the taking. That's right.

It's all about being the one who. And that's something that I put in this book when I wrote it three years ago, when we put it out was you want to be the one who. And you want to be the one who sells investment properties. You want to be that guy. So when people think about that, whether they're going to hire somebody else or not because they have a pre existing relationship or who knows what else, you're at least part of the conversation. And I want the same thing for me for residential real estate. I pitch a lot of things, I don't get them all, but at least I'm a part of the conversation. And if you do your job, you never know what else is to come. So even if you are honest, they'll come back to you, right? They'll come back to you. Oh, listen, man, this has been awesome. I'm super excited about everything that you're doing. You're an amazing, amazing example of like literally someone who is already so successful then unlocks the next part of your whole career by putting yourself out there as the one who does what you want to do. And you found that niche in your market. You can do that. And everybody else who's watching this, I wanted to have James here because one, he's a very real man, he's sitting next to me. Two, he's one of the first people to sign up and take that jump and jump off the diving board and take that risk. And three, he's proof is in the pudding, you know, and has done incredibly, incredibly well even before me, but incredibly well now. And it's just been amazing to watch you really, really, really build. And the amount of people who come up to me now without knowing that we do this together, but who like mention in a totally different conversation like, oh, you see that thing, you know, Jay Nelson put that out. Or who have shown me one of your videos talking about a building, like one of your listings property tours. And I just like, I just like smile. I'm like, fucking. That's awesome. I think it's just super, super, super cool. And so if this has been helpful to any of you, I just wanted to do this as a real, real testament to how important it is to think about yourself as bigger than just you, the salesperson, your entire movement, you're an entire career. You are a brand, whether you know it or not. And the minute you actually start finally working on, on refining what that brand is, what your and is what that identity is, and letting the world know about it, you will do more business than ever before. I am the testament to that. James is a testament to that. And if you want to know more about it, go to ryansurhant.compro and we would love to interview you, to bring you into that, to bring you into the process. It's not for absolutely everybody. You got to be willing to do the work and want to do the work. And the pro members that are a part of our program are really, really great hard workers. They refer deals to each other all of the time. But ryansurhant.compro, you've all been great. James, you're the man. Thank you.

Really look at this book.

And listening to your podcast and letting everyone else tell me how great you are as I walk down the streets in New York City.

Awesome. Thanks again and best of luck to everyone out there. Of course, sign up for your pro memberships. Thank you for tuning in this week.

To Real Estate Investing.

Live from New Join your host, James Nelson for another program next Tuesday at 7pm in New York, 4pm Pacific Time on the Voice America Business Channel. All shows are rebroadcast on Wednesday mornings at 7:00am Eastern Time and 4:00am Pacific Time, as well as always on demand. We'll talk again next week. It.