Royce King, Founder of Your Startup Coach, joins us to discuss how to position your brand as a world class leader. We discuss outsourcing marketing, common entrepreneurial mistakes, Rocye’s real estate investing, and much more.
Connect with Royce at https://yourstartup.coach/.
To join the DJE Investor list visit https://djetexas.com/access
For multifamily mentoring visit https://www.apartmenteducators.com
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Transcript
Devin Elder:
Royce, hello and welcome. Thank you for joining us on the DJE Podcast. How are you?
Royce Gomez-King:
I’m great, Devin. Thanks for inviting me.
Devin Elder:
Yeah, absolutely. Looking forward to diving in, on some marketing stuff today. Those of us that are out there doing deals, putting deals together, buying apartment communities, there’s a whole lot on the operation side that happens, but on the front end, before anything happens, typically there’s some building of the brand and getting some investors on board and all that’s got to happen first. And so I’m excited to dive in with you on that since that’s your specialty, but before we get into that, how about a little bit about your background and how did you get into what you’re doing now? What’s your connection with real estate? Love to learn about all that stuff.
Royce Gomez-King:
Okay. I’ve been a serial entrepreneur since 1989, since I can remember. Learner is one of my core strengths on the strengths finder.
Devin Elder:
Sure.
Royce Gomez-King:
And so I love learning about different things. And so I’ve not had a linear journey as an entrepreneur. I graduated with a fashion degree and did image consulting for about 10 years and then got into playing with horses and created programs around the at-risk youth, which is one of my passions. And while I was playing with horses, horses eat money and real estate produces money.
Devin Elder:
Right.
Royce Gomez-King:
To feed my horse habit and to support my horse business, I got into real estate investing and owned and managed about 30 properties.
Devin Elder:
Oh, wow.
Royce Gomez-King:
To, like I said, fund my horse love and real estate became a passion of mine from that point on. And I have to admit that as with every entrepreneur I’ve had failures and I crashed and burned that first time in ’08 and ’09.
Devin Elder:
Sure.
Royce Gomez-King:
With a lot of real estate investors and learned from that experience and have started rebuilding my portfolio the last few years. But real estate is my favorite niche. And I do a ton of marketing copy for real estate brokerages, wholesalers, investors, because marketing is what I know best after owning and operating 12 businesses. Anyway, two of my favorite subjects combined. Personally, my husband and I live in the mountains of Colorado in a very small town, about three hours from getting anywhere to an airport.
Devin Elder:
Right.
Royce Gomez-King:
And we have three dogs, hopefully you won’t hear them in the background at any point, but if the UPS guy shows up that’s part of working from home.
Devin Elder:
Indeed.
Royce Gomez-King:
And I enjoy hiking and snowshoeing and despise the cold. Despite the fact that I’m in the mountains, I have a beach house in Florida and try to get to Florida four to six times a year and feed my real estate fetish by looking at properties around the country.
Devin Elder:
Oh, I love it. I love it. The single family house portfolio that you built, were you managing all those? 30 is a lot to manage. It seems like 10 or 12 is the point where people start to struggle with self management. How did you handle that?
Royce Gomez-King:
We did. We owned, managed, cleaned, maintained, were the handyman, the cleaning crew, everything. And so how can we handle it? Overall pretty well.
Devin Elder:
Right.
Royce Gomez-King:
But that being said, we did crash and burn. There were some mistakes to be made and learned from. I don’t think 30 is too many if I were to do it differently today because I’ve also consulted a vacation rental company and helped them grow about 18% within 90 days. And they have a portfolio of, I think, 52 properties that were single family vacation rentals. I think it can be done. It’s not something I want to do anymore. I want to move more into passive investing in multifamily.
Devin Elder:
It seems to be a common path and the single family rental as an investment, it can be fantastic. I think everybody should have one if they’re inclined to. It really opened my eyes when I did my first single family investment. But then there is a progression that happens too, where people are in it for a while and they start to see some of the limitations which naturally can lead to looking at multifamily. We’ve seen that pattern over and over again. I’m curious, Royce, on the diversity of business types that you’ve seen. From a marketing perspective, do you see a lot of different approaches based on the vertical or industry? Or are there some fundamental marketing truths that you can focus on and work with the client and whip them into shape with a similar set of tools, if that makes sense?
Royce Gomez-King:
Devin, there’s always marketing principles and best practices.
Devin Elder:
Sure.
Royce Gomez-King:
However, you have to do some research on the niche. And that’s why I only have a couple of niches that I really focus on because you have to know the key word. You have to know how to get results for your clients. Otherwise, you’re going to have unhappy clients-
Devin Elder:
Sure.
Royce Gomez-King:
And that doesn’t serve you or them. And so while there are marketing best practices, right, there’s steps and a formulaic approach to writing a sales funnel that can be used in any industry, there are some niche specific things that you need to know to make it work and convert well.
Devin Elder:
Yep. That makes sense. How do you see entrepreneurs that are basically getting off the ground and maybe trying to start a new brand? We talked a little bit before we started recording about some of our coaching clients that are starting new brands and new businesses and trying to grow their investor lists and so forth. Are there some common mistakes that you see folks that are starting a brand make that you would caution against?
Royce Gomez-King:
There are two newbie mistakes that I’ve seen over and over again. And after coaching over 250 business owners and startups, I can tell you probably 200 of those have done these same two mistakes. Number one is they are building a business on a budget and so they try to DIY everything.
Devin Elder:
Yes.
Royce Gomez-King:
And I get it. After owning an operating 12 businesses, I tried DIY-ing everything several times.
Devin Elder:
Sure.
Royce Gomez-King:
Not a good approach. If you don’t have money to start a business, keep working a day job to support that business until you have the money to hire the experts.
Devin Elder:
I love it.
Royce Gomez-King:
Stay in your lane. You don’t have back surgery by a general practitioner or a nurse practitioner, right? You want to hire an expert that knows what they’re doing. And so the DIY method is the first mistake. The second mistake is after they decide that they need to hire someone, because marketing is such a broad term, they call me and they want me to do everything.
Devin Elder:
Right.
Royce Gomez-King:
Well, you’re a marketing expert, can you do paid ads? Can you write, copy? Can you design my website? Can you design a logo? Right? They want the whole package in one stop shop. And I have to say there’s not one single person on the planet that has that skill set that they can deliver. And so even if a marketing agency says they’re full service marketing agency, they outsource components. I know because I’m an outsourced content writer that white labels copy for some of these full service agencies. I can say when they call me that I tell them, look, I specialize in this service and this service, but I’ll recommend my trusted partners who do this, this, and this. And if you’re expecting a one-stop shop, you’re not going to get it, even with the full service agency that tells you they’re a one stop shop. They are really outsourcing different components to people like myself.
Devin Elder:
Yeah. That makes complete sense. Mastery of Logo Design, Photoshop is a completely different discipline than copy or coding HTML or whatever the case is. There’s a whole lot of different disciplines in there that get lumped under marketing. Where do you like to focus for your clients? What is your strong suit and where you like to play or stay in your lane?
Royce Gomez-King:
I love to help them develop the marketing strategy. I was on the phone with a five million plus dollar fashion brand this morning that out of a 30 minute session, we had two great marketing ideas in places where they weren’t optimizing driving people back to their shopping cart. And 30 minutes meant five figures in their pocket. That marketing strategy and finding their blind spots and their gaps is my expertise. And then in content creation for attracting your ideal client through a sales funnel, nurturing that client so that you stay top of mind and position yourself as the expert through emails and consistent communication. And then that helps you close more sales with ease because you are already attracting the right client that you need.
Devin Elder:
Right. Yeah. That makes perfect sense. And that’s a pretty good ROI, 30 minute call being able to demonstrate that’s directly correlated to changes in revenue. Because that can be tough in marketing, right? It’s tough to have an paid ad spend and it’s sometimes hard to draw direct correlations to revenue, which any business owner wants. That’s nice to be able to have oversight on the strategy that’s directly correlating to some revenue increase. Right?
Royce Gomez-King:
Absolutely.
Devin Elder:
What does the engagement process look like? Somebody comes in, how do you determine if they’re a fit and how do you start working with somebody?
Royce Gomez-King:
I like to start with an intake questionnaire that they fill out. And number one, that shows me that they’re committed to taking action if we were to implement a strategy. And number two, the answers to their questions shows me if I’m the best fit, because obviously you hear coaches and consultants that take on any client and they feel like they’re an expert in anything and everything. I don’t find that to be true. Again, after working with 250 businesses, I know which ones are right for me and which ones I can get results for and which ones I can’t work with and should turn away before it turns into a train wreck.
Royce Gomez-King:
And so that questionnaire vets them and makes sure that we’re a good fit and that we can get results. If we are a good fit, then I will send them a proposal of what I’m recommending. And once they get signed on the dotted line, we go ahead and book our first strategy call and get started. I know that getting quick results is something everyone’s looking for. We’re the microwave society and if we aren’t able to show some forward movement relatively quickly, then they lose heart and feel like they’ve been gypped and coerced into spending money. And that’s never a good place to be.
Devin Elder:
Yeah, yeah. Of course. Yeah. It’s tricky. You’re building a content strategy, which is not-
Royce Gomez-King:
Not quick.
Devin Elder:
Not necessarily quick, right, in terms of results or long-term strategy. Then you’re also needing to deliver some quick results to keep the client interested. It’s a tricky balance. You’ve worked with a lot of different businesses, a lot of different types of businesses, a lot of entrepreneurs. Are there some traits that you see a common thread among entrepreneurs that you’ve worked with that make them a successful?
Royce Gomez-King:
Yes. Being willing to fill out the intake really, again, shows me if they’re going to implement anything. I’ve been frustrated by taking on clients I probably shouldn’t have and seen red flags before we started that they weren’t going to implement anything.
Devin Elder:
Right.
Royce Gomez-King:
And secondly, trying to put them into a coaching package or a deliverable that I can provide when they don’t have the budget. I was working with someone like that last month and he was able to pay me for the sales funnel, but then he’s like, Ugh, I have to spend more on paid ads and on this and on that. And I need that and that and that too. I just was hoping that if I hired you to write a lead gen piece that magically business would come my way.
Devin Elder:
Right.
Royce Gomez-King:
Wrong fit. Needless to say, I severed that contract, did not collect payment, and knew that he would be sadly disappointed because his expectations weren’t aligned. And so I really try to vet clients during that first 15, 20 minute call to make sure that we are a fit. Because if they have unrealistic expectations or they don’t have the budget to carry something through, to see the results, I’d rather offer them some DIY solutions or some great books or YouTube channel or something. I do a lot of research on other resources that are free or low cost. And sometimes that’s where they need to start. My book, “Scale Up Your Profits” was actually written because over the course of two years of coaching, I found that I was getting some frequently asked questions. About 20 questions kept coming up.
Devin Elder:
Right.
Royce Gomez-King:
I wrote “Scale Up Your Profits” and I answer about 30 or 35 questions, and you can get all those answers for a mere $15 instead of several thousand coaching with me. And so I like to provide low cost resources if we are not going to be able to carry through until I can get a deliverable that’s going to make you a raving fan and give me a testimonial.
Devin Elder:
I love it. That’s such a great setup. We have a coaching business and we provide a lot of free content. High value, free content. And it was the same thing for us. My business partner and I started it because I was getting all these requests to go to lunch and coffee and pick my brain. And I’m like, well, you’re not going to learn this business, how to buy a $10 million building over coffee. You might get some ideas. We’ve set it up same way, lots of free content, plenty of stuff out there to get started, podcasts, resources, videos, events that are free. And then the people that we actually really invest time with and pour into, they’ve paid us a good amount of money. And it’s great because the people that are serious and we said, we didn’t build this coaching business to be a huge moneymaker.
Devin Elder:
We make our money in real estate, but boy, if somebody paid us the money, they’re paying attention. We’re paying attention. And we’re working with a small set of people that are committed versus that frustrating thing that you mentioned. Gosh, I want to help everybody, but most people are not ready to take action and they’re not going to take action. And it’s a nice, I call it a cover charge. If you pay the cover charge and get into our tent, now we’re all serious. As a coach or mentor or whatever you want to work with people that are serious only, that are going to love it, and that are going to take action and like you said be a great example of what you’ve got on offer. Right?
Royce Gomez-King:
Devin, I couldn’t agree more. And I think we learn that by taking on wrong clients first, don’t we?
Devin Elder:
Yeah, that’s right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. It’s a nice way to separate who’s serious from not, and everybody can talk about what they’re going to do and the dreams and the plans, but writing a check that’s the real differentiator, which is very simple metric to know who’s serious or not. Well, let’s talk about multi-family specifically. A lot of what we do in my company and in our coaching clients’ companies, and in my friends and colleagues’ companies is go out and buy apartment buildings. But these things require a lot of capital. And a lot of this is coming from investors. We’ll put in some money, but other passive investors are also putting in money. Talk to me a little bit about some of the marketing you’ve done for folks that are out there creating a brand around raising capital and what you’ve seen work and not work in that space.
Royce Gomez-King:
Devin, with the multifamily sector, you have multiple [inaudible 00:19:00]. Like you said, you’re initially raising capital from investors.
Devin Elder:
Right.
Royce Gomez-King:
You need marketing content and a drip campaign for them. And then you’re going to need an impact report or some summary statement to give to your investors. But then you have the stakeholders of people you’re actually moving into these apartments because most investors in that space tend to find properties that have some upward value. And so maybe rents are low because it needs to be rehabbed or updated.
Devin Elder:
Sure.
Royce Gomez-King:
It’s been let go, and there’s some deferred maintenance. And so you’re going to then rebrand and reposition yourself to attract higher quality tenants at a bigger price. And that’s an entirely different marketing campaign with a message to people that want to rent than you’re passive investors. And so there’s a continual campaign there. And then most multifamily investors go into it with an exit strategy of two to five years, once they’ve rehabbed that property and have a pretty much a full occupancy. And so then what’s your exit strategy and how do you market to people that want to buy a property that is a really good solid investment?
Devin Elder:
Right. Yeah. Two very different contingents there, your investor base and your renter based. Different pieces of that socio economic strata there for sure. That makes sense. Well, this is great, Royce. I really appreciate you taking some time to dive into some of the different aspects of what you do. I appreciate that. Is there a favorite client that you like to work with? It seems like a lot of small business owners have an ideal client. What is that for you?
Royce Gomez-King:
Yeah. I really love the real estate niche. And I’ve worked with wholesalers and syndicators and brokers. I have niched down into what I like to write more than the ideal client. And these are businesses who are big enough to have money to pay me, but small enough that they need to outsource a lot of their things. Typically that’s under 10 million, one to 10 million.
Devin Elder:
Annual revenue?
Royce Gomez-King:
Mm-hmm (affirmative) And I will write sales funnels, email newsletters, blogs, and your annual reports or your quarterly investor reports primarily.
Devin Elder:
That’s huge because that takes up a lot of time and mental bandwidth and a lot of times may not be this skillset of your operator. Your operator or your person that’s running and trying to buy multi-family deals, they really need to be focused on deals and dollars. Finding that next deal and finding how they’re going to raise capital. And it’s been my experience that people trying to set up a newsletter or things like that, the months go by pretty quick and here’s another newsletter and we got to get the content out. It seems like a lot of that marketing stuff ends up on the back burner if that wasn’t a core competency of theirs to begin with, or maybe they didn’t have it in their professional background. Being able to offload that stuff is a huge help for a smaller company.
Royce Gomez-King:
Yeah. It’s time-consuming. Research has shown that you can spend up to 33 hours a week on marketing pieces, not the strategy where you can set aside one day and plan, but those mundane pieces. And so the best use of your time is to hire it out to someone like me.
Devin Elder:
Right. Yep. Absolutely. And go focus on doing another deal that’s going to build equity and cashflow for everybody, right?
Royce Gomez-King:
Yes.
Devin Elder:
Yeah. I love it. Well, thank you for sharing with us today and coming on the podcast. If somebody wants to connect with you, learn more about your book, learn more about what you guys do, how can they do that, Royce?
Royce Gomez-King:
The best place is my website, yourstartup.coach. And no it’s not.com. It’s yourstartup.coach. My books are on there. It will take you right to the Amazon link. Contact me page is on there. That’s the best place.
Devin Elder:
Perfect. Well, we’ll link to that in the show notes and thank you very much for jumping on today. Really appreciate you sharing your expertise with us.
Royce Gomez-King:
Absolutely, Devin. Thanks for inviting me.
Devin Elder:
All right. Take care.