Episode 022 - A Conversation with Gabe Peterson

In most cases, the journey that you go on to become an entrepreneur is equally, if not more valuable, than the preparation or education you took to become that. The— today's episode, we speak with Gabriel Peterson, the creator of the Real Estate Investors Club podcast, host for Pursuing Greatness and the podcast The Real Estate Investors Club. Located in Seattle, he helps savvy business owners become investors through online training, as well as successfully running his own investment business. Let's take a listen to our conversation that we had earlier today.

Welcome to the Content Amplification Podcast, where you will gain insight into real-life tactical and strategic elements to help you scale and grow your business. Now let's get started with today's episode.

So Gabe, thank you so Thanks so much for being a guest on the podcast today.

Absolutely, Shaun. Thanks for having me.

So the reason that I wanted you to be a guest on the podcast, not only because, you know, you've got, you've got an experience in real estate, which is unlike anyone that we've had a guest on the show about, but also being a host of two other podcasts yourself. To get where you're at, obviously, there's been some work that you've had to do. In marketing, in, in ads and all that kind of stuff. I wanted to kind of dig into a lot of that in today's episode. Sound good?

Yep, sounds great.

Perfect. So let's, let's get to know Gabe a little bit. Give me and our audience a bit of a background as to where you're located and where you are right now in your business.

Perfect. Yeah. So I am up here in the beautifully sunny Pacific Northwest up here in Seattle. It's a joke. It's actually very rainy right now, but I'm up here in Seattle. My journey has been very— I mean, like a lot of entrepreneurs, it has not been linear. I got started—

shoot.

Well, first I got started in corporate out of college. I worked as a management consultant, and then from there, I needed to find a way out. I knew that was not the path for me, so I was kind of looking for things and I jumped from corporate. The first thing, you know, entrepreneurial thing that I did was e-commerce. So I jumped into e-commerce and then to digital marketing as an agency. But after that, I can go deeper into this if you want, but after that, I, you know, at the time I had done a flip with a friend and I realized real estate was really where I wanted to be. So, so that's where I ended up.

Awesome. Excellent. Yeah, we're sharing the same weather today.

Where are you from again?

Uh, we're in Nova Scotia, Canada.

So, oh, Nova Scotia. Nice.

Yep. Yep. For sure. Now, you know, before we actually got on the podcast, you sent over some information and the 3 things that you really look at, uh, you know, try to bring out in life and your business, you say, are how to live your life well, real estate marketing, and then also travel and sports. So there's quite a dynamic there. Um, let's talk before we get into understanding the real estate side. From the business side and also your e-commerce, what are some of the things that you really bring to what you do today that really you learned by the work on the streets, as we say it, right? Not something that was professionally taught, but a lot of this marketing comes to people through doing.

Yep. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that was, I mean, that was exactly how I learned it too. And I'm actually glad, you know, Whenever you're in a situation and it's not going the way you want, you're always, you know, it's always frustrating. But looking back, I'm glad I made the— I took e-commerce and then an agency as steps to getting to where I am because it really did teach me. I'm just a ninja when it comes to marketing. It taught me really good marketing strategy and tactics. So yeah, I got started in, as I said, in in e-commerce, and e-commerce is all about Facebook ads and a little bit of Google. I did some Google remarketing, but mostly Facebook. So I got really, really good at running Facebook ads, creating effective Facebook ads, and then creating remarketing campaigns based on lookalike audiences and all that kind of stuff. So the e-commerce side really taught me how to do that well. And so once I kind of mastered that, I realized there were other applications. And so I— that's when I started marketing for other people. And actually, the first client that I had for my quote-unquote agency— agency is kind of a loose term because it was really only ever me, so it was just kind of more freelancing. But my first client was a realtor, and having him as a client, he was a luxury real estate agent, so he sold, you know, houses $1 million plus. And it really taught me That going through that experience really taught me how to use Google remarketing a lot more effectively and Google Ads a lot more effectively. So those kind of set up the stage for where I am today in real estate, because we still— the main way we drive leads for off-market properties is through digital marketing, through different marketing sources. You know, we've added other things since then. We've We've added direct mail and we've added ringless voicemail and stuff like that. But digital marketing is still the kind of the backbone of the marketing plan to where we are today.

Now, you mentioned about when you got your start in e-commerce and how, you know, you learned how to make effective Facebook ads. Our listeners really are dabbling in Facebook themselves mostly. What would you say makes an effective Facebook ad?

Yeah, I feel like the mistake that most people make is they do just one ad, and that is— that's where you can really up your game, is realizing that Facebook is not just about first impressions. I mean, it is about first impressions, but you really— that first ad you do should really just bring them in. It should really just, you know, entice them to want to interact with you, to understand more about what it is that you're offering. After that, that first time they, they You know, that first touch point is never or rarely going to be the sale. It's rarely going to be where they actually, you know, click yes, click, you know, join your list, whatever it may be. It's all in the remarketing on Facebook. It's in getting those additional touch points by hitting the lists again, creating custom audiences. And then once you have enough conversions, once you have, you know, enough people join your list or enough people buy your product, then you can create lookalike audiences with the data that you've gotten from running those ads. So it's about retouching the people who have already expressed interest in your product. And then it's about creating audiences using the lookalike feature in Facebook that can really hone in on your ideal customer beyond what you can identify by creating your own ad. I mean, you know, you can set your, your demographic and all that stuff, but you really don't know specifically as well as Facebook does when it comes to your perfect audience, your perfect demographic.

Yeah, and what we found is Facebook does a lot with the behavior of people's action, right? Relying a lot on their algorithm as well to self-identify. Now, have you found certain types of ads more effective? By that I mean, image, video, carousel, anything like that that really works well for you?

Yeah, I mean, different ads work with— yes, in short, yes. But also, I mean, with every campaign, it really does come down to testing, especially, I mean, with real estate now, it really does come down to testing. With real estate, I feel like video works the best. Video, I feel like, is very effective overall, but I've had success with just plain images. If they're an image that isn't, you know, that for some reason somebody would want to click on, it can't just be something generic, but just individual images have worked. I haven't had a lot of success with carousel ads, though I have heard people have success with them. I personally haven't, but video really is, in my opinion, I feel it's the medium that works the best, but that's with a caveat in that Images also work. You just got to test around, figure out what works specifically for your audience.

Absolutely. Now, one thing when you were first telling us your experience that I picked up on was you started in e-commerce with Facebook and mostly Facebook and a little bit of Google. And then you said you started to work for that real estate agent and you did a lot more on Google. Would you say that Google is a better place for real estate?

Um, it depends. I mean, it always depends. Uh, for agents, Facebook is very effective. So what I do is investing. We do real estate investing. So we, uh, we buy, you know, single-family, multi-family apartment buildings, and then we reposition them and sell them. Um, or mobile home and RV parks as well. So we're really on the buying side. We try to identify sellers out there who are willing or looking to sell, find them before they put their property on the market and buy that property from them. Realtors are really— it's more B2C in my opinion. I consider what we're doing, it's not really B2B, but it's just a different kind of dynamic. I feel like Facebook works a lot better for realtors. For investors, I have a lot of success with PPC, so Google Ads. So if you really get the right keywords, If you really identify what it is people are searching to find somebody like you, in our specific business, somebody will be searching businesses that buy houses, sell my house for cash, something like that. And so being able to be there when they put that in the search engine, that is very, very effective for the investing side of real estate. But it's not just that one ad, it's everything that comes after that. As I said, we do remarketing ads after that, we do display play remarketing ads for Google. So it's kind of the whole ecosystem that works together. But for the investing side, PPC, we found a lot of success there.

Yeah. And one of the things that you— like, when you go to your website, it's very clean, very professional. You also have done two podcasts, right? The Real Estate Investors Club, which is obviously the name of the business and the website, but also you had Pursuing Greatness. Talk about your your decision to go into podcasting? How important was that for you and even, you know, in growing and scaling your business?

Yeah, so podcasting, um, you know, there's different— now that we've kind of grown, we have our portfolio, there's different things that we're considering, and, uh, me in particular. Um, so I, I really do like helping other people, you know, achieve financial independence. I feel like I came from corporate, I understand working the 9 to 5. For some people, that's perfect, that's a great way to go. For me, it wasn't. And so I want to help other people who want to achieve that type of freedom. So I've created a course and other educational things on there, on the website, like an ebook, et cetera, that is available there. And so the podcast really was a way to connect with other people. It was a way to connect with other investors. And then also a way to connect with other, just other people who want to get into investing, educate them, and then also grow that side of the business, the education side of the business. And it has, I love podcasting, which is why I have two of them. The second one, the Pursuing Greatness Podcast, that has nothing to do with business at all. It's, you know, I created the Real Estate Investing Club, ING. I created the Real Estate Investing Club, you know, that was a business move. I wanted to, to really get out there, get more involved in my niche, in my business. But Pursuing Greatness, I just like the investing club so much that I decided I wanted to do something around another topic that I'm really passionate about, which is living a good life. And so I started Pursuing Greatness. It has nothing to do with any ROI goal or anything like that. It's more of a passion project.

And it's interesting that you took the investing, I guess, business that you were doing and then turned it into an online business to help others, right? With being able to have that online course and teach them the knowledge that you have. A lot of times I find people that are really skilled in a certain industry, they get siloed in that and they think that's all they can do. And they don't know that they can take their knowledge and turn it into to an online business?

Yep, yep, absolutely. I mean, I think you can do that with pretty much any business. It is hard. I mean, you really do have to, you can't do it all yourself. You have to start hiring, you know, different things out. I tried to do it all myself, you know, in real estate. I have tons of different partners and tons of different people that I work with to help make the business successful. And when I went into the podcasting side and the education side, I tried to do it all myself. I was like, you know, I got this. There's no problem. And you just— it's just too much. And so I think anybody can make, make, you know, have success on in the online space. I really highly encourage people to, you know, hire VAs. If you need to do ads, hire somebody to do the ads because it just takes a lot of time. And if you're doing two businesses, having that additional business is— it's going to dilute your focus. And so, you really do want to try to get some help in there.

Would you say that it's something that investing in real estate, something that somebody could do in steps instead of just going full into it?

Yeah, absolutely. And that's why I think we have a book, an ebook on the website that kind of goes through, if you're just getting started, how to get into here. And what I really love about real estate is that there are so many different strategies and tactics that you can use to get involved in the space. I mean, most people, the only thing that comes to mind is HGTV, which by the way, flipping houses is nothing like those shows. So don't think it is. But there's a lot of other ways that you can do it without having a ton of capital to put down on a house. And so wholesaling is the biggest thing that most people are involved with. And that's essentially getting a property under contract for, say, $100,000 and then finding a buyer for that contract for $105,000. So taking that fee. And then there's also seller financing, which is a great, great, great way to get involved in a property without having a ton of money to put down. And that's just going to a seller of a house. We do mobile home and RV parks. So we go to to park owners, but you can do it for single-family too and just go up to Joe Smith and say, "Hey Joe, I love your property. I would really like to buy it from you. Are you willing to finance it for me?" And what that does is it puts Joe in the position of the bank. So Joe can be the bank, can act as the bank. You create a note that makes it official and you can negotiate with Joe and say, "Hey Joe, I'll put $10,000 down or $5,000 or even $1,000." Some people even do it where they put nothing down, give Joe a good interest rate. So it's in his interest, you know, he really does want to do this. And then you just rent it out and pay Joe as the bank rather than going to an actual bank and getting a loan, which most people— is the leap that most people can't get over.

Okay, excellent. So now in everything that you've learned through, you know, your agency, e-commerce to the real estate, the investing. What would you say to any business owner who's like, hey, you know what, I really need to do better at marketing my business online. What should they look at in your opinion?

Yeah, yeah. So that really comes down. I mean, there's a lot of things that you have to think about when you're talking about small businesses. Most of the time, if you don't have— if you're a small business and you really have no marketing budget, That is different than somebody with, with a decent profit margin who has a good marketing budget to work with. If you're really, really, really low on a marketing budget, then I, I would highly encourage you to do at least one campaign. So you have a website, I'm sure, as a business, small business owner, you got to have a website. So if you don't have a lot of money to put in the upfront ads, at least have a remarketing ad. So when people go to your website, when they find you through maybe a GMB, a Google My Business, or anything like that, you'll be able to retouch them. And the ROI on a remarketing ad is much higher than the front-end ads that you usually do. So get that campaign in place. And outside of that, find a way, an organic way to start generating traffic. Podcasts are great. They're a great way to do it. You can just post on social media. You could create blogs. There's a bunch of different ways to do organic marketing. I think podcasts are great, but start getting engaged that way. And then get that remarketing campaign up. And I feel like that's a, that's a really good starting point for anybody who doesn't have a huge budget.

Now, what are your thoughts on constantly creating content, being consistent in what you put out versus, you know, launching a new website? It's great. It's up there. You're running ads to it, but you're not actually putting out new ongoing content. Have you seen the importance of that?

I mean, in my own businesses, they both work. Constantly creating content works. Paid ads work. And so it really depends on what you want to do. And the great thing is that they work together. And so if you're creating content, you're constantly creating that content, pushing out there into the world. Say you make videos, you post them on your Facebook account. What you can do is kind of combine the world. So look at who has watched that video that you put out, that podcast of the podcast that you put out, who's watched that on Facebook, 95% of the video. If they've watched it 95% of the video, that means they're probably interested in what you got to say. So then you can run remarketing ads. And again, I'm like hitting a dead horse here with remarketing. And that's just because I really believe that those, when it comes to budget, they are very, it's a very effective way to utilize your budget.

Absolutely. You've got a warmer audience. And a lot of people don't, A lot of business owners that I've talked to that initially run into don't even know what remarketing is, right? They know, they know the experience once you explain it to them when they've added something to a cart on Amazon. Next thing, it's following them around every website they've been to. They finally get that concept. But a lot of businesses don't have that in play. And I really like what you say about that being, you know, your first step into digital ads. Yep, absolutely. Now, before we, we wrap up, uh, is there anything else that you're up to, future kind of cool projects that you'd like to, to just kind of let our listeners hear about?

Um, yeah, I mean, as I said, I'm, I'm really passionate about helping people achieve financial freedom. Anybody can do it. Um, so we, we have a course that we're, uh, we're finalizing now. It's, it's pretty much done. Um, we're also doing a a group coaching session if people are interested in using real estate as the method to do that. So you can check that out at therealestateinvestingclub.com. And also, I mean, Pursuing Greatness Podcast, I always like to plug that just because it's a lot of fun. So if you guys are into living a good life, mastering your health, wealth, wisdom, and relationships, then that's a good place to check out.

Absolutely. And you also have the ebook and the real estate investing bundle. We'll put the link to that in the show notes as well.

Perfect.

Perfect. Well, Gabe, thank you so much for joining me today and sharing this knowledge. And, and for everyone listening, if you want to get in touch with Gabe, the website is realestateinvestingclub.com. The link is also in the show notes. And again, thank you very much.

Thanks for having me on.

Thank you.

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