Latest / Carson's Corner: Entrepreneurship & Investing / The Real Estate Goldmine Nobody Talks About: Bad Management | Weston Wappler

Transcript

The Real Estate Goldmine Nobody Talks About: Bad Management | Weston Wappler · Carson's Corner: Entrepreneurship & Investing

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: There is no said forget it.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Today's guest is Weston Whopler of Whoppler Capital, who started his first company at 12, sold it before he finished college, and now buys RV parks most institutions have never looked at.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: I remember my dad telling me you're gonna work for everything you have, and there was gonna be no handouts.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so at a young age, started a landscape company at around 12 years old.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: Started, you know, on the cool stack of servicing different residential and commercial customers around Austin, Texas.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then eventually we sold that to a larger operator.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: Went to Baylor.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: I spent a year there and just decided I wanted to go build a business.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: Most of my professors never built a business, and it kind of always threw me off listening to someone who you know never builds something with value.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_03: What do you like about RV parks over mobile home parks?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: Most mobile home parks that are above 150 packs are already consolidated by large institutions.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: What I like more about RV parks is higher cap rates, less consolidation across the industry, way easier operational efficiencies to tap into, and also weave down higher cash flow.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_03: I think there's a lot more tax benefits involved in RV parks than most people realize.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_03: Without being a CPA, what are the high-level tax benefits?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we buy a park for a million dollars and we put 20% down, typically with bonus depreciation and a cost segregation.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: Year one, we can get about 800,000.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: And year one, a depreciation capture.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_03: Well, what are you seeing?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how do you upgrade these sites?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: What all are you y'all doing to add value to the park?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: Website is huge.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: Google business profile is huge.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you're driving down the road looking for an RV park and a park doesn't have a good website, most likely you're not calling it.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no mom and pops really ever think about that.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: One of the key drivers to our success is we actually built in-house call team when people call in the book.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_03: We pick up.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_03: Is that gonna be your bread and butter asset class going forward?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: Are you are you staying in RV or are you venturing off into like multifamily 50% of our portfolio through probably are there specific areas that you like better than others, or what what exactly are you looking for?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: We're looking for Welcome to the Carson's Quarter.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome everybody.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sitting here with Mr.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: Weston Wepler, RV park investor and multifamily investor.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um to talk about his journey, how he got involved in uh RV parks and where he's going now and all that.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_03: How are you doing, Weston?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_03: Good.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_03: How are you today?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_03: Pretty good.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: You're joining us from Fort Worth, Texas, or Austin, or Fort Worth today.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: What about yourself?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_03: I am in the Nashville area, metropolitan area, and uh enjoying the weather.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: It's finally uh nice outside.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um are you originally from Austin or are you from Fort Worth?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: I like both towns.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_03: I like Fort Worth a little better, to be honest with you.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: But I do too.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's why I'm up here now.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um originally from Austin, so eventually moved up here.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um Fort Worth's been great to us better than Dallas, I like to say.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I lived in Dallas and I don't I don't disagree with you.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_03: You know, Dallas pulled me there for uh, you know, business reasons, but um I love Fort Worth, it's a booming town.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um so how did you get into uh RV parks?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: So kind of a funny story.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um when I was younger, I remember my dad telling me that you're gonna work for everything you have, and there was gonna be no handouts.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so yeah, at a young age, um started a landscape company at around 12 years old with my twin brother, and he's actually a founder at Whopler Capital today.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: So we've we've seen it all together, but grew that company, we scaled it, um, started, you know, on the cul-de-sac to servicing different residential and commercial customers around Austin, Texas, where we grew up, and then eventually we sold that to a larger operator there in Austin and went off to school, you know, just kind of the traditional route most people go.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: Didn't know exactly what we wanted to do.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: Brother went to AM, I went to Baylor, um both great schools.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: I spent a year there and just decided, you know, I wanted to go build a business.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'd already exited.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh most of my professors never built a business, and it kind of always threw me off why I was listening as someone who, you know, never build something with value.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um and nothing bad to say about Baylor.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: It was a great time, uh great community, but eventually left and got into an entrepreneur and was with an older mentor out of Austin.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: He owned a large engineering company.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um we were doing energy uh storage systems, and then eventually I left as a partner um and formed what we have today, Walfler Capital.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: And kind of the the major driver was, you know, I spent all these years building a startup and realized that there were assets that we could go buy cash flow day one, could come in, improve operations, increase value, and then we just be consistent over a 30-year time horizon and it treat us well.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: And so Yeah, most people haven't been involved in a startup.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I've done mobile apps, I've I've uh gone in and renovated uh restaurants and started those from you know day one to where there's no revenue, you know, the first six months are basically free labor.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, it there's gonna be a little bit of that in any occupation you do.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_03: It's not like even if you go work for somebody, there's a little bit of break-even period where you don't make a whole lot of money in your initial years.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, I I I feel I have the I feel you on the cash flow day one, but um so you so you looked at R V parks and found those to be attractive from a cash flow standpoint, and how how'd you get into that?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: Did you just decide one day, hey, let's go buy an R V park, or did one flop down and land on your doorstep, or you know, how did that happen?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we were looking for different um either businesses or real estate assets that we could roll up and eventually exit as a portfolio.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I was just one day looking at, you know, what are the most unconsolidated asset classes in real estate?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: And RV parks is I mean, it's up there.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's yeah, probably one or two.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so started looking out RV parks.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: I saw that they didn't have cap rate compression like multifamily industrial self-storage.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um saw a lot of ways to increase value, so just started looking for RV parks, had a really good friend who was in the mobile home park business and kind of shed some light on you know getting that first deal and eventually just acquired her first park.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_03: What do you like about RV parks over mobile home parks?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: So most mobile home parks that are above 150 pads are already consolidated by large institutions, and I mean they're a great assay class, but what I like more about RV parks is higher cap rates, less consolidation across the industry, way easier operational efficiencies to tap into, and also we found higher cash flow.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: We own a little bit of mobile own parks, um, or I guess pads, just because some RV parks have a little bit of both.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: But we've just kind of stayed in our lane and found a niche that works well for us.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_03: Awesome, man.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um so what uh I think there's a lot more um tax benefits involved in RV parks than most people realize.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um with cost segregation and everything involved.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you know, they they typically think of you're just buying a piece of land with electricity hookup.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: You know, what what are what are without being a CPA, you know, what are the high-level uh tax benefits, you know?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I'm not a CPA, so consult one prior.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um typically, so if we buy a park for a million dollars um and we put 20% down, typically with uh bonus depreciation and a cost segregation, year one, we can get about 800,000 in year one uh depreciation capture.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so we have a lot of very high net worth families um really across the country who they're not even looking for the return.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: The the number one expense for family offices and very wealthy families are taxes, and so for them, if they can come in, partner up with us, they bring the equity, and then we operate, they get this massive tax write-off year one that they use to offset other active income.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: Most of these families are uh real estate professional status, and so typically it's all pretty situational dependent, but they can offset active income from other businesses, other jobs, other investments, uh with this depreciation.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's a I mean, probably the most important thing to the investment, one of them for sure.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_03: So what operational inefficiencies do you see?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's gotta be a lot of them.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I I don't expect you to list every single one of them off, but you know, when you're going and you're typically probably buying this from a mom and pop operator that may not even, you know, they have very a lot of them have very, very, very old websites and stuff like that.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_03: And they're kind of like you still have to dial a number to call, you know.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_03: What what are you seeing?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how do you upgrade these sites?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: Are you make just making them more searchable or is it the operations on the ground, or what what what what all are you y'all doing to add value to the parks?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so just at a high level, I mean website is huge.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Google business profile is huge.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you're driving down the road looking for an RV park and a park doesn't have a good website, doesn't come up on Google, most likely you're not calling them.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: And no mom and pops really ever think about that.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: So we come in to a new website, um, make sure our phone number is really visible, and then one of the key drivers to our success is we actually built in-house a call team, and so they field our calls, so we have a very high pickup rate across the portfolio of when people call in to book, we pick up.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and if you you know call most RV parks, they'll probably call you back, but they probably won't pick up on the first time.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: And we saw that as just a huge operational inefficiency that we could fix fairly easily with our scale.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um so if somebody's driving down the highway in Alabama, I know you got an RV park somewhere there, and they pull up your thing, somebody's probably answering the phone from Texas.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um, they book it with y'all, and then on the ground, what do they do?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_03: Just email and the person on the ground and say, Hey, this person's showing up.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_03: How how does that work?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: So we have just a communication channel that we built in-house um that from our people fielding our calls, it they'll just pretty much text, auto-text our on-site staff to pretty much say, Hey, John's coming tomorrow at noon, he's checking in at noon and has a 30-foot camper.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, it's nothing really elaborate there, just making sure the communication stays good.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and it's prompted, so it's like, you know, right away, you know, they know they have a booked client and all that.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um I don't think people understand how far behind some of these companies are, you know.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_03: I used to have a camper and you're looking for sites, and it's like you have to do like deep internet searches to find them.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's kind of surprising, to be honest with you.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_03: But um, and then you're like, I can't believe they're like even in business, and then you go there and they're like 70% full, and you're like, they they would be a hundred percent full if they knew what they were doing.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_03: So exactly.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_03: I I could see that from an operation standpoint, being able to boost them.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_03: So is that gonna be your bread and butter asset class going forward?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_03: Are you are you staying in RV or are you venturing off into like multifamily, or what what are you looking to do?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll exit probably 50% of our portfolio through probably Q2 of next year.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: Some will be sold this this year.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think we got two or three under contract right now.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then we'll eventually sell most of this portfolio, probably key parks we want to own for a long time.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then we'll pr we're launching a multifamily vertical and focusing on secondary markets that haven't been affected by new supply and taking a lot of our operational efficiencies on the RV side and applying them to multifamily.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think long term our kind of main vertical will be multifamily, just with the scale um and also deal size, it's a lot easier to own, you know, three 20 million dollar deals than 20 2 million dollar deals.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, I understand.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um every property probably, you know, they have their headaches, but when they're spread out across the country and they're that small, it's kind of like okay, it's kind of harder to deal with.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um you know, it and you don't realize that at the time when you're getting in.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_03: So it looks like you just acquired a um what did you just acquired a 252-unit apartment complex?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_03: Is that correct?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: So no, we'll be closing on that um probably first week of December.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll be, I mean, we own another asset, and then we also have some JV partners that we have some ownership and some multifamily, but kind of going down this new vertical, this will be kind of our first um benchmark asset, if that makes sense.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so on this multifamily, it looks like it's like what what class are you buying in?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: Me.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: I was about to say this looks kind of like a class B, but it's it looks like it's newer, a newer build, right?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's I'd say most of our transactions will be 80s to 90s vintage, probably class B assets, but we really want to buy in class B plus to Class A locations just because it I mean, when you look at a PL for a multifamily investment, a lot of issues can be fixed with being in really good locations.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_03: So you're banking on, hey, the class B and a class A location, but you know, you're really banking on improving the operations kind of like you do with the RB.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of that's true as far as like you call the lease an apartment and nobody calls you back and stuff like that.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_03: Is that what you're getting at?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, it's kind of shocking to be honest with you, you know.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's a lot of improvements, especially third party management.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think there's just a lot more proactive management that people in the space can be doing.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because we see a lot of operators who will buy assets, put in third party, and pretty much just sit and forget these assets.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: And with the RV side, I mean, people are coming in, you know, every other day, sometimes every day.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: There is no sit it and forget it.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: They're a live breathing machine.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: So we're kind of taking the same approach to multi-family, and you know, we're not betting on the market, we're not betting on rates, we're betting on our operational skill set to increase value.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like that's your goal from day one is we have to improve operations in order for this to work.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_03: Interest rates are gonna go up and down, but we have to uh improve this.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's a value add from an operations standpoint, because these the ones I'm looking at online for you don't look they look like they're you know don't need a lot of uh physical maintenance, and that's not always true.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_03: There could be, you know, hidden stuff, but you know, that that's with any complex.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: There could be deferred maintenance, but you know.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_03: So what markets like Albany, Georgia, where is that?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: Is that outside of Atlanta or is that like a smaller town?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: So it's about an hour south of Columbus, it's about two hours south of Atlanta.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's about a hundred and fifty thousand people in population.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: So is it on the way to Florida?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: Or Alabama.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: So it's on the way to Florida.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: If you're going south from Atlanta, you'll drive through it going to Florida.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: Are there any gators on the property?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_03: Not that I know of.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: You're supposed to pull up your arm and be like, well, I only have one arm.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_03: What's the guy on uh on uh Happy Gilmore or or Chubbs Peterson on the Happy Gilmore had one arm, a gator bit my hand off or something?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_03: Oh man.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: No, I was just curious.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: I've driven that uh highway down there.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: I I I was at a conference down there in Tampa and I drove through there.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_03: So and then I had my dog with me, and I was like, in it was in southern Georgia.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_03: I was at a hotel and I was walking my dog out by this pond, and I was like, uh is there a game?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: I had to look it up.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_03: So southern southern Georgia, I think, does have some, as well as Mississippi and uh Louisiana.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: So that's a bad subject, man.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: We shouldn't talk about that.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_03: You're not tennis.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_03: What Weston's phone, Weston's phone just quit ringing uh for his apartment since I mentioned gators.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_03: They're like, no.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_03: Oh man.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so what what what uh markets are you looking at?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_03: So you mentioned these tertiary markets are kind of like uh out on the outskirts, and I kind of like that because if you look at areas like uh Austin and and Nashville, and there's just so many people trying to develop, and there's so many builders that you have institutional capital pouring into where it gets way oversupplied.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um, are there specific areas that you like better than others, or what what exactly are you looking for?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: So we're looking for secondary markets with great demand drivers, great employers, um a stabilized population, like most cities that aren't gross cities that are in the sunbelt have a small decline in population, but that doesn't scare us because at the end of the day it's all a supply and demand equation.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: But if this yeah town's losing you know point oh three percent a year, but there's no new supply, it's like we're confident that won't affect our occupancy.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um but Markets we like in Texas, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, um, Tyler, Midland, Lubbock, um Tulsa and Oklahoma, and so kind of these cities that won't be going anywhere in the next thirty years.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um and also is an affordable option for renters and you know, business owners.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: How how big is Tyler now?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: Don't quote me on it, but I think um off the top of my head, I'm not sure.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I I was just thinking.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_03: I remember going there 30 years ago as a kid, you know.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_03: I'm 46, about to be 47, so I just remember going there and it was it was kind of small, but I'm I know it's just grown.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_03: I I'm pretty sure it's probably surpassed a hundred thousand, you know.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_03: I'll have to look that up.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_03: I know Lubbock has is the just the whole state of Texas is absolutely uh you know boomed.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, I need to get back down there.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_03: So I'd be curious to see uh Fort Worth and all that and how how much it's grown.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_03: I I grew up in the Arlington area, and when I go back there, I don't even recognize it anymore.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_03: So anyway.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: I believe that.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so besides multifamily, what else are you getting into?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: Are you just staying in RV?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_03: You're you're kind of like trying to consolidate RV to like your favorite ones, and then you're going into um multifamily is gonna be your main thing going forward.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yep, that's correct.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_03: Are you gonna do any uh development or redevelopment?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: No, we might do some like opportunistic deals, um, you know, deals that aren't stabilized or an REO deal, um but no new development.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: We're not developers, and our kind of risk tolerance doesn't fit our appetite.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I understand.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's kind of like your your bread and butter is to increase the operations, go into the go into an area where it's a good solid asset, and it probably lacks the operation execution to bring in renters efficiently and execute.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_03: So let me ask you this on your uh like call center for the RB thing, where is that based?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_03: Is that like where's your call center based?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_03: Are they all working from home or do you have like a call center or how does that work?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_03: All from home, but most of our teams out in Utah.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_03: And is that a I have to ask this, this is kind of nosy.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_03: Is that a third party that does it or do you do it?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: No, we we built it in-house.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um wow, and then we used to use and like for our marketing too, we were using a marketing team uh that was a third party for our SEO, and then we brought that in-house.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, as we get we as we got scale, we could do those types of things.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: Just in the early days, we didn't have the quite frankly, the bandwidth or the scale.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I was just curious.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_03: I I had a partner, you know, and I he was trying to start the call center in the office, and I said, with what you pay, you need to let them work from home.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_03: You know, let them log in.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_03: It has to be clocked in, you know, to where you know when they're there and when they're not, and then, you know, give them breaks, let them do what they want, but you know, just just and then reward them based on performance, you know.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_03: I said, you're you're trying to get you're going through a hiring process and bringing people all the way in.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_03: And as big as like some of these metros are, they're having to commute 35 minutes for an hourly wage job, and then the ones that do perform, they're gonna get tired of the commute.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_03: So the ones that do perform, if they're working from home, they won't want to go find another job, especially if you're rewarding them based on performance.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: They won't, they'll say, Okay, um I can go work somewhere else and make a better wage, but I'm gonna have to use my car, drive all the way in, and they're just way more likely to stay with you.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_03: So I I think the business model you have there is the right one.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_03: So do you agree?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's it's hard to like, you know, get everybody to the office anymore nowadays, uh in my opinion, you know?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I agree completely.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um I mean, most of our team today, even at the executive level, I mean, we don't have an office, we're you know, spread out across the country.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: And actually one of our uh team members is in internationally, um in Bali.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I think you know a lot of people are going to this, you know, kind of remote work.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: I think eventually as we scale, we'll probably uh drop the pin here in Fort Worth and open up an office probably here and possibly um Atlanta.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: But right now it's like no one wants to move here to come work.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, so yeah, they're like that's all the way across the country.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: I think if they visited, they would.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_03: Fort Worth's a fun town.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_03: I'd move there.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_03: That's great.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_03: If you offered me a job, I'd move there, dude.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_03: But I know the town, I like it.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_03: It's a fun town.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_03: I I miss the Texas Rangers going to the games and stuff.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_03: They miss the playoffs by like one game this year, you know.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_03: But just stuff like that.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_03: It's uh uh Joe T.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: Garcia's is that restaurant still there?
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's been there like 190 years or something, it hasn't it?
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_03: And still here.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_03: Still here.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: That's awesome, man.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: I bet you it's is it still busy, like packed all the time?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_03: It's crazy.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I don't even eat there because it's I got my my places that not every tourist is going to.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_03: There you go.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_03: You got your hole in the wall you found that's got good food that nobody knows about yet.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I was gonna ask you, when was the last time you've been to uh Waco?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: Probably about a year ago, but I'm going back um like next month, early next month.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_03: I was gonna ask you if crickets is still there.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_03: That's there's no way that's there.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, it's there.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_03: Is it really?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: As far as I know, yeah.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's still there.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_03: Uh they knocked down uh there was a bar there back in the day that was by my apartments called Scruffy's, I think.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_03: And it was a hole in the wall, and they knocked that down and put some apartments in.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_03: So anyway, yeah, it's just kind of I I need to go back and uh check it out.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_03: I j I drove through there.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_03: I was going out to an oil field in South Texas, and I and it was during that winter freeze, so I didn't I was like, I'm not stopping, I'm gonna keep driving.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_03: And it was it was pretty miserable weather.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_03: So I appreciate you coming on.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: This is all interesting stuff.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_03: I love the operational side of things, you know, and focusing on execution and stuff like that.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um what's the best way for you know people to get a hold of you if they want to partner up on something or you know, have opportunities for you to look at, whether it's an RV park or multifamily opportunity, um, you know, to get a hold of you?
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_02: So LinkedIn's a great way to reach me.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: Just message me on LinkedIn or go on our website, WhopplerCapital.com, okay.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: You can schedule a call with me or fill out a form and we'll get connected.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome, man.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well, um anything else you want to talk about?
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think that does it for me.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me on.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: It was a blast.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_03: Awesome, man.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate you coming on.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_03: I always enjoy talking to a Texan.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_03: So anyway, great having you, man.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, appreciate it.