2023 STR Wealth Conference Recap

Guys, we are here in the creator house. Shout out to boost Lee for making this happen and bring this group together. Always get your short. Your book. Direct site. Game strong with this man right here. But I'm. I'm honestly honored to be here with this group. Shout out to the whole squad here behind us. Shout out to Celine over here and my man Tommy. But we got Will Slicky, man, you killed it today, man, with the MCing. Thank you. And obviously, being a practitioner in the space, we've all respectably been in the lab together. We got Natalie Palmer in the building.

The one and only. No vacancy.

Thank you, guys.

You're still on, like, cloud nine from the living it up level.

I don't know city I'm in or what.

I know, right?

I'm at. But it's all great.

We got the real estate hacker in the building.

How's it going?

My right hand man here in Georgia and your boy, the real estate experiment, the lab. So we took the lab here and we took it here in Nashville. Guys, like, I gotta say, if there's a key takeaway that kind of stuck out to you, I'm gonna start with Mr. Hatcher here on my left. You know, you come to these conferences, you come to create connections with people, continue to foster deeper relationships that we've already had. At the same time, there's some nuggets that come back that we can apply and implement in our respective spaces. What's one thing that kind of jumps out at you or maybe a reoccurring theme that you got from that wonderful event that again, Bill Faith and Michael Sjogren put together?

Yeah, I think one of the. One of the key takeaways that I took away was you gotta have your assets protected correctly. I know that that's something that I neglected for a little bit, but the sessions with Jeff, the sessions with Safely, where they talked about having the right insurance, having the right structures, making sure that, you know, you're not. You're covering your liability on all fronts. I think we are all working hard to build really big portfolios, and we're trying to protect that. And I think that's something that everyone needs to pay a little bit attention to, a little more attention to in the space.

For sure. For sure. Natalie, I got to ask you, I mean, you. You guys cover a lot of topics at your recent summit. Is there anything that you see as, like, a common denominator, a common topic that we should be keeping top of mind or even common, maybe insight as you've kind of gone from now that you're here in Nashville from having just your own summit.

Yeah, I think my biggest takeaway was really the, you know, the imposter sit syndrome side of things. It's crazy how many people came up to me at this one and at level up and just were saying, like, how are you on stage? Like, what are you doing? And then I would hear their story and I would genuinely be like, you should be speaking. Like, all these people are so impressive. And I just hope people take away that all. I hope seeing the wide perspective of all the stories and all the speakers just shows how many different ways there are to do this. There is no starting point that's better than another. I look up to some people because they've got their bookkeeping and their legal stuff in place, and maybe they look up to me for social media and everyone can learn from everyone.

That's fine. I mean, on that topic, I feel like if you come here, you can kind of absorb a lot. But then coming back down to the. I think we got a good framework game plan. One day, seven day, 30 day. There's so much that you learn. I think there's some of us. My key takeaway, just to piggyback that comment was like, okay, yeah, great. Social media game is strong. I'm not even telling people to partner with me. So when Tony and Sarah said that, I'm like, there's a little gym here. And I'm like, wow, I could just. On to what you're already doing. So the grass is always greener, but, like, just getting that. That reminder, that's how I look at it. It's like going to the gym. Like, I gotta flex this muscle a little bit more to get some extra reps as well. So. Very interesting that you picked that up. Well, Slicky, man, I know you were doing a lot of talking, but you also got a lot of chance to listen. And I don't know if you. Do you get a chance. I'm curious, like, when you're on stage, do you see people's faces in reaction or is it a light too bright?

That bright light for sure. Especially at this venue. But there was a couple people you can pick out from the crowd that you're like, all right, I gotta. I gotta keep watching you. Like, they were my indicator of, like, how things were going.

So. And the reason I asked that, I'm wondering, like, if. Because when you're out there, you see reactions. Any, like, light bulb moments that you see or people are just, like, taking extra notes. I don't know if you picked that up. I'm curious. I haven't MC before, but I don't know from your perspective, what you were able to pick up on, what was like, maybe you kind of sensed a common theme.

It would be like behind the scenes, listening to the speakers, and I couldn't really see the faces. But if I did get to go out and I could see people taking notes on specific, specific things or topics, I'd be like, okay, like, that is something me and Julie can tie when we come back on stage. Like, how do we get people more engaged rather than just like, talking to them? Being like, how was that one session? Or how is it not that one session, but that one topic that, you know, Boost Lee talked about? Or that one thing that Vintory covers? Like, just kind of getting something that can captivate them back into the stage. Because I know sitting down for that long as an mc, you get really nervous. Cause it's like people are getting antsy. They're excited to maybe chat about the session. So trying to find a way to make them captivated back again is the important piece.

Can I add a note on that, too? I hope that whenever the speakers, you know, people would ask questions and be like, how many of you are using social media? How many of you are protected? I really hope people actually paid attention to how many people raised their hands, because I would watch that and be like, oh, that's clearly a missed opportunity that I can now tailor my content to or do podcast episodes. So just even looking around the room, like, you learn a lot about where the gaps are in the industry. So, yeah, feeding off the audience is for sure.

Couldn't have said that better myself.

Data. Yeah, data. That's segue right there.

Real life data.

Real, real time data. Just like from people you're sitting next to. Yeah.

Speaking of data, Mark, what's the data telling you? You got to meet the data in the flesh. Because we know, Mark, you. You always giving us the game on all this tech and all that. You're giving us the statistics. Excuse me. And so when you come in in person like this, what are you hearing? Because I know you're one of the savviest marketers. I see everything you do, and I watch you very closely, brother. So you know what's kind of like, what are you seeing? Or is the. The way people are talking? What are they talking about? What are they asking you? What's a common denominator that we should kind of the.

The common thing that I get is overwhelm. There's so many people who come up to us and they were saying like, I know I need to do X, I know I need to do Y, but I don't know, nowhere to begin. And it's a mindset. And this is why I love coming to events like this, is that we get to chat to people live direct and it's surveying and get live feed and reactions. And I was very lucky. I got to do the talk today and I got to do the four hour workshop with Bill on Monday. And through the most biggest theme that I get from everything is there's just so much to do and there's so little time to do it. And that's why I'm so glad that we had Mike McCallowicz speak at this event who was obviously a massive impact to me with Clockwork. And we're able to show people that I came up with a hashtag, hashtag do the dishes, right? And it's do the dishes. And what that basically means, in summary is that when you go and have a coffee in the morning and you have a bowl of cereal and you leave it in the sink, right? And then you go away and at lunch you have a sandwich and have another plate and just pile it on top and you come back at nighttime and you have like dinner, so you have like another plate and you pile it all up and that sink gets really full of dishes, right? And then you come back to the tidy up later at night, but it's so full, you get overwhelming. Just leave it to the next day. Nothing gets done. So instead in the morning when you have your coffee, you have your bowl of cereal, you clean it, you do the dishes as you go. So little bite sized chunks, you do it at lunch and at dinner and you do it as you go. And so it's much more manageable. And it's the same with your marking. And I say to everybody, just do the dishes. Just do little bits every day. And you know, I saw people today doing the tactics, doing the tips that we were sharing, doing one little thing. And I guarantee in a week or in a month they'll come back to me and say that's had a, had an impact. So it's good. And this event is a massive part of it.

Yeah.

Now to piggyback off that, especially talking about people being overwhelmed, I think Bill had a really good session today. Talking about what, creating your plan, you know, what does that look like? What do you actually want out of this business? What kind of life do you want to create? You know, and getting really tactical with that down to the number, what number do you want to hit? And Mike talks about that too in terms of, you know, why do you want to get into that specific space, why do you want to get into that asset class? Or why do you want to get into boutique hotels or whatever it may be. And I think a lot of times we can easily get overwhelmed by not having a plan, not knowing exactly where we want to go, how we want to get there, what that actually looks like.

So yeah, one thing to piggyback, and I want to get your opinion on this Ruben, is when Mike Michalowicz, I don't know why this took so long to actually click and be like a light bulb in my head. But we all come into the space of like, this is short term rentals, this is hospitality, this is like boutique hotels. But then Mike goes, you know, as entrepreneurs our job is to create jobs, not to give ourselves more work. And then I was like, damn dog, I need to be firing myself more. Like I need to like replace myself and then just like yourself. Yeah, like in the sense of doing one thing and becoming a master at it, training somebody, hiring for it, filling that position and moving on. And you know, as an entrepreneur we don't, I think we all focus very much on the short term rental side, hosting how many properties you have, what's your systems, which is great. Like it's good to have systems. That's part of being an entrepreneur. But like going beyond just our industry. Can we take this and go out and duplicate it in a completely different industry? Like that's my question now is like if we replace everything hospitality related, can we go and, and create something similar? So Ruben, I would love to know what's fun.

It's, it's good timing because I invested in this mastermind. I was telling this to Mark, right? I'm in the mastermind of buying businesses, right? And I'm like, when I was in the workshop of boutique hotels, my mind was going crazy because it's all about, it's the exact same. Like we're talking about SBA loans, we're talking about value add, we're talking about like no systems AKA like in boutique hotels or people are still booking people on pen and paper and it's the same thing. Thing for other businesses is like when Mike really said systems and teams, it's like it's applicable across the board. And so when I, when to my thought is there's a few things that happen because when I, when I was speaking to someone in line. It's like, yeah, I know I need to do SOPs. I know I need to do all that. But I think it's like breaking it down a little bit. The foundation, the foundation of business. It's, it's understanding, okay, what is our core competency? What are some of the repetitives. Steps, right, that came from, like, the airline industry. What are some. Some checklists that need to happen? Am I the one that's most suitable to be doing those things? And if I'm not, who is the person I should be finding to do those things? And then, you know, when we go back to that Masterminds that talks about buying a business, there's two options. Either you want to be an operator, rightfully so. Which you can be. Like, if you want to be in your business, you can be. And this goes back to the question, like, what? Cause if you want to be checking people at the front desk, right? Kind of like White Lotus. What's her name? Shorty there. What's her name that she's in. She's always there. Anyways, she's in the business. She likes it. I mean, that's. Maybe it's not her own business, but she wants to be an operator. Or do you want to be. It was two questions. Do you want to be an operator or do you want to be in an investor? Right? Which means that you're. You own the business, but then you hire a CEO. So it's kind of like tying it all together. Like, first identify what you want, what you want your data look like. Then identify like, what are gonna be the tasks that, that you need to outsource so that you're not in it. And then essentially you get to your number, which is what Bill talks about. And I remember Bill did this in the Mastermind in Miami, where it really came down to what is your number and what do you want your life to look like. So, yeah, it's, it's. It's the thing to do to do it. But now I'm curious, guys. Cause I go to a lot of conferences. I invest in myself a lot too. And then it can get very overwhelming, right? And so for you guys, we're all different phases in our business. Like, we hear it all the time. Networking, Mastermind Add value. It sounds cute. But like, for, for us who are here, like, what does that actually look like? Like, I'm curious because me, like, I take notes on my phone. That's what I do. And I use Evernote, right? And then in my business, I use Slack. Can you just open up the hood. Like, what does it look like for you guys when you go back home? I'll start with you, Mark, because I know you have a whole team in operation, like you as the boss. What happens when you get a nugget? How does that actually implemented in your business?

So the first thing I do from anything doesn't matter if I listen to a podcast or I watch a YouTube video, read a book, or go to a conference. I just literally saw on the flight back tomorrow, I'm gonna have my pattern paper and I'll just write the one thing that just comes top of mind and that's my main takeaway. That's like my brain saying that's my main takeaway. And I make sure when I get home that's the first. First thing I implement.

Okay, implement. Let's talk about that. How do you implement that? Because I know you have a team. So when you say implement.

Yeah. So whatever it is, whatever it's going to be, whether it's something that I personally need to do. So I level, I list everything in terms of numbers. One is like business and time critical. That means only I can do. Two means that I could do, but somebody in my team could do. And number three is I shouldn't be doing even looking at it. So I will look at whatever that is and I will number it 1, 2 or 3. And if it's me, then I make sure that what it's next week when I get back, started again after a few days chill time, then that's the first thing that I do. If it's a 2 or 3, then Friday morning I'll send a voice note to my team and I'll say, this is what we're doing. So.

And I'm curious, do you do this? And I'm getting real tactical, guys, so I'm sorry. This is gonna help a lot of people. Is it. Do you pick one thing or is it like all these are three nuggets that we can implement? How do you. How do you decide one thing?

So it's my. It's like literally when you have a night to sleep on it and you wake up the next day. And this is why I do on a pen and paper and not like phone or on a laptop. Because when you've got a pen and paper and you just literally let your brain just go, it will come to you, whatever that may be. And you may have to like do a little mind map or whatever that may be, whatever that strong thing is, that's the thing that's my brain saying, we go and I take one thing doesn't matter, and I do it every day and go on that.

I like that. Will, is it. Do you have a different approach or maybe even, like, if it's vulnerability of, like, too much info and, like, how you implement what has worked in the past, what's currently working for you now to actually execute what you learned from, like, a conference like this, what do you do?

Well, I went from a team of two for like, a year and a half to, like, way more. Now we're at 6 or 7. So this is a little bit different from now to today. But I would say brain dumping. I don't do Just do one. I kind of have to, like, vent or vomit everything that I learned and just be like, all right, this is all of it. And then usually depending on our business, if I'm seeing a certain pattern of the number of requests we're getting from either content creators or sponsors, or if we're just hearing one thing, if there's a mass majority push or shift, I usually kind of tackle that first because it's the biggest thing. It's the one thing that's, like, the commonality of all of it, right from one side of our business to the other. So it's more of, like, finding the pattern of what's kind of happening. Then I'll tackle that first and then let everything else kind of follow forth.

I'm put you on the spot player. What you gonna do? Is there any key takeaway that you think the next seven days, is there anything that stuck out at you that you want to execute or even a gem that you want to implement?

I think it's more of the trust but verify system, like building the systems, letting the team run with it, and not having to be involved. Like Mark is saying, like, there's some things I shouldn't have to look at, but for me, I'm definitely a trust but verify. Like, I know today Mike and Bill, I think, were the ones that were talking about it. I could be wrong. So sorry, Mike and Bill, if I'm butchering this, but it's more of like, I or no. It was on the midterm panel. You know, I am that mother. You know, I'm that guy. Like, I'm really good on one thing, right? Like, no one can replace me. I'm just too good. And finding a second, like, finding, like, a Chris or finding a Danny or finding a this, like, I just can't. It's really hard. Those are really hard. So I think if I can build everything around it, that can get me to the point where I can spend a lot of time and money and investing and finding that secondhand and buying that extension of me. So that way, then the visionary that I know that I am from the book Rocket Fuel, can be really just full on. Let's go. Like, I don't need to worry about the. The systems and the operations. Like, that's going to be handled. And I just know that my team, as the vision continues to move forward, they're going to be setting the stepping stones ahead of me.

I like that. Yeah. Next. What are we going to implement? Any. Any. Any key takeaway?

Well, definitely everything Mike Michalowicz talked about. We already met today. We were sitting at a table next to someone who's a Profit first consultant and just sat next to her as Tatiana and I were talking about how we need to get this in order, and we booked a consultation with her for next week. So that's. That's a big one. Like, I was like, I'm not leaving without time on the calendar with you. So that was a really big one. But I'm also in a phase right now where I. I kind of don't know what I want next. And so for me, I think I need to be, like, still for a week. I'm gonna give the opposite advice of everyone. I need to, like, be still and really think about the fire hose we just drank from and, like, all the people that I'm inspired by and, like, kind of figure out which path to go, because I feel pulled in a lot of different passionate directions, and I need to narrow it down.

I'm gonna put you on the spot. You were gonna ask me.

I was, like, having your own concept conference, too. Like, right before this. I can't imagine from going from all the learnings and takeaways there to now today, like, you probably have three weeks worth of soul searching.

Yeah. Literally.

What does that actually look like, though? Do you think you're gonna. Is it best to, like, I don't know how you work. I'm just curious. Are you gonna carve out time on your calendar? Be like, hey, I just need to just digest. Or do you think just mentally to time away, like, oh, what works for you?

I need to talk to my husband and just talk his ear off and literally not have him respond. Respond anything to me.

But men, listen.

Just absorb it. Literally, just absorb it. Because he's not in the industry. And so when I talk to him, that's the thing. Sometimes when you talk to people in the industry, they come out with all these ideas and sometimes it's good to find someone on the outside because they're just. You can just like throw things at them and then you'll sort of process it on your own without even the feedback. So, yeah, that's. Yeah, he'd better be ready for me to talk his ear off for a straight up month right now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, like one of our accountability calls. Absolutely. It really is. It really is. I think, you know, the next two days is going to be debriefing. I'm going to take a look at all the notes, all the different sessions and see which one of those align. Going back to the plan thing, like, I have my plan, I have the steps. I know what I want to be doing. I know where I want to be going. But of the actionable things and the moments that stuck out from the different sessions at the conference, which one of those best align with where I currently am in my plan to act on first and to implement first and kind of create that, like, prioritization framework of. Okay, like, I know right now, for me, like, Tony and Sarah did a great session on diversifying social and leveraging it as a tool. And I know, like, that's something that I need to do a lot better at. So I know, like, that's going to be top of mind. And then after I kind of break those things down, I think it comes to figuring the who, like, who now can best help me implement these things within my business to figure out how it's going to get done. So I think that's kind of how I plan to debrief.

Yeah. All right, well, this is. I'm going to be an open book because the lab, there's no, you know, there's no secret to the lab. So I'll tell you what I do is I take notes. My Evernote and I go ahead take notes on my Evernote and I'm going to go to Relay. That's one thing for profit first. We got that set up and I'm going to go ahead and go ahead and get safely. That's real important for my business right now. And those are things. Just scheduling a call is going to be one of the things that I do. And then at the same time, I already talked for email templates direct. We have that going on for me. I'm actually going to do the email templates first before I delegate. I want to play with the Chrome extension. I want to play with the copy. I want to play with the. The how it moves around, and then I'm going to go ahead and record a loom video and assign it out.

Boom. So, everyone, well done.

We have a plan. We have a game plan. And just like that, we are going to dinner.

Yeah. That's a fantastic work.

Thank you, brother.

Yeah. Thanks for doing this with all of us. Like, just for anyone who's listening to all of our podcasts on this episode, thank you for listening. Thanks for taking our advice. And if you were at the conference and you're going to other conferences, let us know because we'd love to see you there.

Absolutely.

Stay plugged in.