Christian OsgoodCEO, Multifamily Strategy · CEO at Multifamily Strategy

You Gotta Work with Operators, Not Gurus

9 Jun 2026 · 1 min

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1:15

Christian Osgood argues you should learn from people who actually run businesses, not famous personalities. He points to Brandon Turner, who made money with rentals but lost millions as a syndicator, showing how fame doesn't mean competence. Find someone who's done the exact thing you want to do and can explain how.

Chapters

You got to work with operators, not gurus. I'm so sick of this. If they have an award-winning podcast, if they have like 50 bestselling books, if they're the biggest name in the space, the loudest person, the likelihood is they're better at marketing than operating. You're looking for someone who is an excellent operator but who can also articulate what it is they're doing. Work with people who have actually literally done the thing you're trying to do, not someone who tells you how to do it. I don't know why this isn't common sense, but people seem to gravitate to whoever the biggest social media person is. Just find the person. They could be in their market. It could be someone online, but someone who specializes in operating, who makes their money in operations. Emulate what they have done. Do not try to find the next guru. We've just seen this happen with Brandon Turner, where he's a great small town investor and he made all of his initial money doing small rentals, stacking a portfolio over time. Then he became a big syndicator and all of a sudden, look at that, losing $15 million over here. I saw in another post there's another $30 million at risk. My friends who've invested with him have not seen distributions in years. Do I think he's a terrible person? Christian? Absolutely not. In fact, his book helped me get started. However, work with the people who have successfully done the things that you want to do. Operators over podcasters. Do that, you'll probably do a lot better.