Social Media for RE Investments and Small Businesses
On this episode of Next Level American Dream, Abigail and Sean are joined by Josh Culler. Josh has been in the real estate investing industry for over 7 years and has been apart if 1,200 deals as a Marketing Director. Currently, he owns Culler Media, a company that produces over 1,000 pieces of content per week for real estate influencers and active real estate investors.
Key Topics
What platforms are most effective when first starting business social media accounts?
How do you maximize the content you put on your platform?
What platforms are best suited for small businesses and REI?
Connect with Josh:
cullermedia.com
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, platform, Instagram, content, American Dream, demographic, Facebook, Tik Tok, videos, business, works, important, Josh, Sean, submit, podcast, life, format, podcasts, target
SPEAKERS
Sean Thomson, Abigail Thomson, Josh Culler
Abigail Thomson 00:00
Welcome to the Next Level American Dream Podcast brought to you by Thomson Multifamily Group. Your hosts, Abigail and Sean, will discuss how you can take your American Dream to the next level through real estate investing, business practices, and personal development. Join us as we share our experiences as a father daughter duo who are trying to accomplish our goal of financial freedom. We hope you learn more about how to define and achieve your American Dream. Here's another episode of Next Level American Dream.
Sean Thomson 00:34
On today's episode of Next Level American Dream, our guest is Josh Culler of Culler Media. Josh is a social media content creation expert. Josh has also been involved in 1,200 real estate deals. He now runs Culler Media, which produces over 1,000 pieces of content each week for real estate influencers and active real estate investors. One of the most helpful services Josh offers his REI.Video, where you can submit your unedited video to Josh, his team edits it, and gets it all set for distribution on your social media platform.
Sean Thomson 01:06
Hi, Josh. Welcome to the Next Level American Dream Podcast. Thanks for being on!
Josh Culler 01:10
Hey, thanks for having me on, Sean! I've been looking forward to this ever since you guys reached out to me to actually get me on the show. So, I've seen some of the episodes that you guys have been pushing out -- great stuff! I'm looking forward to chatting with you here.
Sean Thomson 01:23
Yeah, well, thanks for being on. I really appreciate it. I'm glad you like the show, too. So, Josh, I want to ask you a little bit. I know you work with a ton of my you know, people in my network. They're just high-level investors. Very successful. Guys. I know you work a ton with john Martinez in the past, and I know what you're studying with him, but still there, you know, and he's got, he's got a social media presence. That's amazing. And so tell people a little bit about what your businesses that you have going now. So they understand what your specialty is.
Josh Culler 01:52
Yeah, absolutely. We actually just got a couple videos submitted from John and his team this morning. So I'll get to that in a second. But yeah, basically, we do content marketing for real estate masters. So I tell people results driven content marketing, right. So a lot of times people think content marketing is this, like you just posting social media. But at the end of the day, it does have the word marketing at the end of it. And so that's what we really focus on. So with the clients, we have really two models, we've got one that we do with, you know, active investors. So that's REI.Video, which is the platform where you can film your own video content, whether it's with their cell phone, camera, or whatever. And then you could submit it to the platform, we get it edited and produced do the heavy lifting for you get a return in 48 hours with unlimited revisions. So that's great for people that you know, want to film, some maybe testimonial videos, property walkthroughs whatever, you know, John Martinez submitted a few videos this morning, just given a rundown of some like, you know, objections that clients have and you know, that kind of thing, just educating people back on how to deal with the objection and, and stuff like that. So whatever videos you want to shoot, you send it that way. And that's what we're able to do. And then the other clientele we service is more of the influencer. So guys like Mike Hambright, where we're actually, you know, putting content for them out on their platforms every single day. So we did the math and a couple weeks ago, and right now we're distributing over 1000 pieces of content every single day across all platforms to get that content out there for the clients that we serve us. And so most of those clients are going to be active, active real estate investors buy in the influencer stage. So maybe they got podcasts, or they have videos that they like to create, or whatever, they have some sort of a mentorship or coaching mastermind program or whatever. So that's really what we're doing. I've got 8 people on my team and loving life with it. It's a lot of fun and just looking to grow that!
Sean Thomson 03:34
Yeah, that's good. I want to circle back to your video editing service, because I know a lot of people that I especially friends of mine can use that. So maybe we'll talk a little bit more about that a little bit later if that's okay.
Josh Culler 03:44
Yeah, absolutely.
Sean Thomson 03:45
I want to talk about some of the platforms, you know, there's there's Facebook and Instagram, there's just there's tons of platforms that people can go to, to to get the message out that they're trying to, you know, get out to their audience and stuff. So talk about some of the platforms, what if someone were to get started today, you know, what would be the top platform they would start with, and then kind of the hierarchy, if you don't mind, just maybe lay out the different platforms and the importance of them?
Josh Culler 04:08
Sure, thing. So the first thing I want to build a foundation on is not every platform is equal and and that's for every single person, right? So your audience, Sean is not gonna be the same as mine. So therefore, you know, you're where you should start may not necessarily be the right place for me to start. So the biggest importance when it comes to actually figuring out what platforms to actually go after is to know your target demographic, right? Let this is marketing one on one, like, if you're a business owner in any way, shape, or form, you ought to know your actual avatar, like, what age groups are in, what are their occupations, what are their interests and all that stuff, you know, location, like, digitally and geographically, like where are they actually located? And so like, that is the things that you need to know when it comes to actually building your avatar and figuring out who your target demographic is. Then from there, it's important To go to the platform where they're the most active, like I like, I emphasize that word active, because if you're trying to go to a platform like and, and who knows if you know, whenever this podcast goes out, like who knows if this is going to be around at this point, but, you know, a lot of people are talking about Tick Tock and and that's been a lot of people's minds lately. And by September 15, we're gonna know if they're going to sell the Microsoft or if they're gonna be buy in the US, right. So a lot of people are going to tick tock and I think that's a bad move for some people, because even though it may be a hot item right now, their target demographic, target demographic is not fully active on those platforms. And then they have poor presence, on the platforms that, you know, the target demographic is on and active. So the biggest thing is understanding where they actually hang out. And it's not always like China, we're talking about social media. But it's not always social media. Sometimes it could be podcasts, sometimes it could be YouTube, sometimes it could just be your straight up a website. And if you're an active real estate investor, depending on the market you're in, it may not be anything digital, it might be needing to put newspaper ads, radio ads, TV ads, stuff like that. And so that's like how deep and granular you need to go. Because the last thing that you want to do is put effort towards a platform. That is your audience has not existed on and they're actually using it, they're actually consuming content. So that's the thing I would challenge you with is figuring that out. Now, that being said, to give you a little bit more straightforward answer, again, like considering who your audience is, most people that are above the age of 25. So I'm 27. Most people that are age of 25 or older, are going to be on Facebook, right? Facebook is a pretty important platform to have a presence on and we could go deep into like using your personal profile versus a business page or whatever. But bottom line is building a presence on Facebook is vital. It's very important. It's my biggest lead source by far, like it's not even a competition. I'm working hard on building my Instagram presence right now. Because one of my podcasts the content marketing playbook, my audience is heavily using Instagram. And so before we jump in and show you we're talking about reels, and Instagram reels is a new feature that came out to Instagram. It's not a brand new platform, it's a platform inside of Instagram. And my target demographic is using Instagram. So therefore I need to utilize the new features that they have coming out and figure out how to actually use it to reach my or my target audience a lot better. So I know that's not a straightforward answer, Shawn. But that's that's the answer that people need to hear that may not be the answer that people want to hear, but they need to hear it. Because, you know, even if you're putting out podcasts, if your target demographic doesn't listen to podcasts, then don't put out a podcast, even though podcasts are huge, right now, they're massive. Those are the things that you need to be thinking about. And like I said, knowing your avatar should be like one of the first things that you know, when it comes to starting your marketing job. And that's where you channel the platforms, you know, you push the platforms that your target demographic actually use interactive on
Sean Thomson 07:59
So when you're engineering, your social media sort of presence or your marketing presence, your recommendation is first to understand, like you said, your avatar or the person you're trying to talk to the most and then and then sort of reverse engineer from there. What platforms you would go to, to sort of get that convey that message across. Yes. But is there a you know, Facebook's the biggest right? So almost everybody has a presence on Facebook and use, like you said, except for maybe people under the age of 25. So if you're if you're trying to, let's say you do have your avatars figured out, and you're trying to decide, okay, do we have do we go all in on Facebook, we go all in on Instagram, you know, that sort of thing? or LinkedIn? Which one is it that we're doing? How do people kind of determine that? avatar fixed?
Josh Culler 08:46
Yeah. And I know, I'm kind of like not giving direct answers to you. But there's like, there's things outside of this that people need to know, right? So the first thing is like I'm trying to like I'm trying to break it down a little bit. Right. So a lesson mentioning Tik Tok is if somebody only built a presence on Tik Tok, and September 15, Microsoft doesn't buy, they're going away that person that only, like utilize all their energy to check talk just lost that entire audience. Yeah, because they didn't focus on building on other platforms now. So I tell people don't build on just one platform you need to utilize each platform with in mind understanding like where your, your, your target demographic is actually using because all demographics use more than one platform, people just like to use different like, even if even a teenage girl that's 15 years old that uses Tik Tok, she's still gonna watch YouTube videos, and she's still gonna use Snapchat and like other platforms, right? So you need to get that figured out and figure out what are the top I would say the top three platforms to go after and utilize those right so as for going all in onto one platform, you know, like I would say push hard so like, I know my target demographic is on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and podcasting. So LinkedIn not so much that would be the bottom of the list for me, because that's not the exact demographic I'm going after. It's just, it's just the way it is that the active investors, even the influencers that I market to, they don't hang out on LinkedIn as much as like people say they do. I have done my own analytics, my own data, and looked as hard as I could. And it's just not happening, right. So I'm going all in on YouTube and going in all in on podcasting, all in on Facebook, all on Instagram. And that's what I'm doing. It's like I'm diverting all my energy to those four platforms and pushing them as hard as I can. And it works. So don't go after all platforms. But don't go after just one, I would say, three platforms is your sweet spot. And that allows you to not get, you know, shiny object syndrome. And it allows you to stay consistent with the platform, because if you spread yourself too thin, then at that point, then you're like, you know, you're gonna, because every platform requires different types of content, you're gonna spread yourself too thin, and then you're not going to be keeping up with content staying consistent. And then, you know, pushing it out when you're supposed to. So three is the sweet spot, I would say. So Facebook, you mentioned, if your target demographics on Instagram Instagrams, a great platform to go hard after right now, because it is a discovery platform. And you do have to format content very specific to Instagram. But at the same time, like Instagram is a great platform for discoverability. It's not a pay to play platform, if you're a brand or if you are a business in any way, shape, or form. Whereas Facebook, right now, you know, I just attended a Facebook summit online summit last week. And Facebook is definitely a pay to play platform when it comes to businesses, like if you're even somebody that's got a million likes or followers on their Facebook page, their reach organic reach is just so way down even from you know, a couple months ago. So that's why I like Instagram so much. And then obviously LinkedIn would be another great platform, great organic reach there right now. But then from there, figure out what the next platform would be that your target audience actually uses.
Sean Thomson 12:09
Yeah, so that's, it's complicated.
Josh Culler 12:11
It is a little bit and but it all boils down to knowing who your your demographic is, if you know your demographic as well as you should, then it's not complicated, right? It's not It's not like, you know, guessing where they're at and try to figure out what's hot. You know where they're at. So go there.
Sean Thomson 12:28
Yeah. So you would some of your, we're gonna build our avatar first. That's what we're starting with. And then and then your recommendation is maybe pick the top three sites that those people are active, most active on. And you know, like you said, Facebook, Instagram. LinkedIn was the smaller one. And then YouTube, YouTube's not really a social platform, but it is a you know, it's a content distribution platform. Yeah. So it's a very important part of I know what it's important to what we do we also do web, you know, web distribution for our stuff, too. Yep. So we're on like a more for our business. We're on Facebook. Mostly, that's sort of our primary one. And we use our website and YouTube for content distribution. And then we have, you know, sort of an instant Instagram presence as well, that we're just sort of developing. Yeah. And then last for us is LinkedIn. Of course, we do have some, I guess a, you know, our avatar is someone in the LinkedIn space, but it's not very, very much.
Josh Culler 13:23
Like, my demographic, like, even if you look at LinkedIn is a good example. But even if you look at something like Tik Tok like, just because everybody's been saying go to tick tock, my target demographic there, they've created Tik Tok profiles, but they're not actually using it, you know. So that's the, that's the thing. That's why I say active, you want to make sure you're on an active platform that they're using, not just that they created a an account, and then they're going to follow all the influencers, like you definitely want to make sure that they're active on a specific platform, because you don't want to waste your time and your effort.
Sean Thomson 13:55
So once once you kind of determine your avatar, and you've got your top three sites, you're going to you're going to target talk about some of the content that you recommend creating for, let's say, a Facebook versus Instagram versus, you know, YouTube or kind of how those differ, and then how you can layer those together. So if you'd like you said, You're not just creating content 24 hours a day, you know, can you shoot videos for Facebook, and then and then reformat those and use them on Instagram and talk about some of that stuff?
Josh Culler 14:25
So, there's a lot there's lots of impact there, Sean. There's a lot of different layers to unpack, but like I'll do my best to keep it simple. Keep it short and sweet. The first thing I always say is yes. Like if you say for instance, Sean, you have this podcast, just go out on YouTube, maybe did the full interview, go on Facebook your page, maybe you can't really put it on Instagram, the full podcast episode, but you can take that and chop it up. And then what he's going to do is he's going to actually like take the audio from this podcast and put it into the podcast format. So you can take one color piece of content This recording can go out on multiple different platforms and multiple different formats. Because so what he can do on Instagram is actually take little segments so he could take, you know, me speaking for the last 30 seconds all the way up until another 30 seconds me talking about this strategy as it is, you can chop this up, turn it into a square format, and post it as a as a little like nugget video from Instagram. And then what he could do is take a couple of quotes that have come out of this. So a quote that comes out of my mouth and create a quote card, a graphic image that goes on Instagram. So I'm understanding that like, the efficiency and the content is like that, that's, that's the most important thing, especially like, not everybody is, for me, I'm a content like monster, right? Like, this is what I do for a living. And I only record two videos a week, like two videos a week is what I record on a consistent basis. But the reason why I'm only doing two videos a week is because I'm smart about utilizing each and every second of those two videos, and redistributing those two different platforms formatted for those specifically. So yes, you maximize like if you if you have an hour long show. Normally, if you're like if you're creative enough, you can actually like make it happen. You could probably chop up 30 to 50 other pieces of micro content out of that. And then you could transcribe the audio, get it cleaned up. Now you got an article on a blog. You know, like there's there's endless possibilities when it comes to that. As for the different platforms and different formatting that that's that's it can get complicated. But the bottom line is like Instagram is going to tell you it's a simple Google search, like what, what's the best format for videos on Instagram, what's the best format for Facebook videos, at the end of the day, I would say the best thing that you can do for yourself in order to determine what works on one platform is spend time consuming the content yourself. So if you are trying to get started on Instagram, and you need to figure out what like formats of what videos how, like the length of videos, the looks of them, the types of content, whatever, go to Instagram, and you need to be spending at least an hour a day. You know, go follow some influencers go follow some of your favorite athletes or some of your favorite influencers go follow Tony Robbins or Gary Vaynerchuk or Dean Graziosi, like these guys that are putting out daily content and see what they're doing. consume the content. And that's that's what I normally do when a new platform comes out. Like when tik tok came out, I was on tik tok for at least a month consuming the content trying to figure out as my target demographic here. And then same thing I do that normally once every six months to just see because Instagram when it first came out it you know, active investors were not on Instagram when it first came out. But they've migrated that way. And so you know, reevaluating that is important. But boiling it all down. spending time on the platform is the best way like I can tell you, one of my favorite things I hear Gary Vaynerchuk talk about is like, I could tell you how to do push ups. And you could tell me how to do push ups. But until you actually do a push up, you don't know how to do a push up. So like you actually got to consume the content, figure out what works, what what people actually consuming what people are biting on like, analyze, like, is this square video getting better traction than this igtv video that's vertical, like, analyze that data and figure out what actually works. And that's Sean, that's the best way for people to learn, because I could sit here and tell you all day long. But until you actually go out and do it yourself and consume the content, you're not going to be able to contextualize what actually works for each platform. Because if you're on Facebook, and you came across the video, that was landscape format, meaning you actually have to watch it with your phone sideways like this, you would know that you're not going to do that on your Facebook, when you're scrolling through, you want to be able to consume content without holding your phone up right in the vertical position. So the formatting of video landscape for Facebook is not a good idea unless it's over maybe 5-10 minutes long, because that's when you need to do it. But then you got to think about should I be putting five to 10 minute videos on Facebook? So there's a lot of different thoughts about it. But the bottom line is figuring out again, this is why knowing your target demographic is so important. You need to figure out like does my target demographic enjoy consuming 60 minute plus content on Facebook? If the answer is no, then don't put it out there. You know, it's it's obviously like determining what platform works. For what because if you put a 60 minute video on YouTube, it's gonna work. But if you can't put a 60 minute video on Instagram, first of all, they won't take it. Secondly, people aren't on Instagram to watch that long of content. So I know it's a lot of information, I could unpack that so much more. But again, those are the foundational things that people need to be thinking about when it comes to formatting your content for specific platforms is thinking about like, how do other people consume it how to people that are in your demographic actually consume it, and then you know, how would you consume it?
Sean Thomson 19:54
Yeah, you know, I was just listening to you talk about this stuff. It's sounds really complicated. You know, the way we've approached it. For us, you know, I'm a simple guy, right? So I try to get, I try to get everything down to where I can understand it. And so for me, when we started our podcast and started doing our social media and stuff, I just look for things that interest me, right? Yeah. And then I try to I try to have a conversation, like I want to have, I called me and said, Hey, you know, can you be on the show? Cuz I want to have a conversation with you about this, right? Because it interests me. And it's something I like, and I thought, well, if it interests me, maybe someone out there was gonna is gonna like it. Right? So that's kind of how I've determined if if the content is going to be in our podcast, I just say I this is this somebody or something that I want to talk to, and learn more about and hear more about their life or their story, or whatever it is? So that's kind of how I've decided that the, I guess, not the, not the format of the content, but the the content itself. Yeah. And then we, you know, we kind of determined our social media platforms in advance and you know, in the podcast is pretty simply, you know, it has a format in itself. And you know, you put it on YouTube, you have an audio and things and then we just promote everything through our social media. But Yep. So I think one of the things that that was important for me initially was, once we did decide to kind of, Okay, here's what we're going after, a lot of those people tended to look a lot like, like I do in love, like my daughter does, anyway. And so we just found things that we that we kind of enjoy, and then we've sort of built our content around what interests us. So that's what we've done so far. I don't know if that's gonna be good.
Josh Culler 21:26
And that's good. And then that's a good thought, right? So like you, you know, your target demographic well enough to know that they are very similar to you like interest wise, and where they hang out and that kind of thing. But again, like, that's not always the case, right? So, you know, just think about like a toy company, a toy company makes toys, the CEO of the company is probably not playing with those toys that he's making. Right? So his target demographic is not the same as him. So that like, what that works for you, right. And then for me, my target demographic, it kind of crosses over a couple times here and there. I'm like, with my content marketing playbook that podcasts like, I'm my target demographic, but the Rei marketing weekly, I'm not really my target demographic, the active investors that are fixing flipping homes and wholesaling, like, I don't wholesale, I don't fix them flip homes. So I am not my target demographic in that regard. So that's something you can think about, but that's a really good way that's, that's an easy out. Because if you are your target demographic, then you already know what you need to do. And then if you if you're not your target demographic, which that's a lot of times the case, then you need to figure out like get put yourself in their shoes at that point.
Sean Thomson 22:33
Yeah, find things that interest them, not just anything. Yeah, so I've been I guess I've been lucky. I just do what I do whenever.
Josh Culler 22:39
That's, that's the easy way, man!
Sean Thomson 22:41
Well, I was gonna ask you, so give us sort of like a little nugget that that helps you take things to the next level. But I want to talk about your REI.Video, cuz I know, I have a lot of friends that they're doing podcasts, they're trying to create content. And I know video editing is one of the big struggles and you mentioned it earlier, your service that you have, can you tell me I kind of know what it is. But if you don't mind, just explain to me so if I do, if I'm an independent business owner, solopreneur, whatever it is, and I'm not trying to create content, and I'm shooting videos of me walking houses are out doing my thing. And then now what right so I have to create that content into something that can be consumed on the social media or YouTube. So tell me what are your videos? Because that's kind of what that is, right is supposed to take the raw stuff and then produce something good?
Josh Culler 23:27
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty simple. Basically, you're shooting your own video content. And I'm willing to jump on calls with people like if they don't know what type of video content they issue, I've got plenty of education out there. I got plenty of podcasts, you know, I've got over like 300 podcast episodes that talk about content marketing. And you can follow me on Instagram and Facebook and see all the stuff I teach about, you know, how to how to actually do content, marketing, and do video content as a whole. So basically, whatever type of video you're going to shoot testimonial property walkthrough, I mean, we've had just about everything you think of, and we've even had people that aren't in the real estate investing industry, you submit videos, and that's great, too. So you take the video, the raw footage, whether you shot it with your phone, a camera, or you shot it through zoom like we're doing here, you submit the raw video footage, when you do that, it's going to give you the option for the length of the actual video and how long it's going to be. So for this, you know, if Sean submitted this video over to the platform, he would select 60 plus minutes, the price would adjust to that and then you know, vice versa like zero to five minutes, five to 15 or whatever. And then from there, a little form is going to pop up it's going to give you options to be able to select like what you actually want done to the video. So do you want music attitude? Do you want captions? Do you want a video wrapper and inside of that it's going to explain like what those things are and what you'll get. And then it gives you the option to link your raw footage whether that's in a Google Drive folder, Dropbox folder, or whatever. And then you'll be able to link any sample video so if you see a sample like somebody else has done a video that you really like what they've done, then you can always like link that there and say, hey, I want the video done just like this. And then it'll give you a pretty lengthy description box for you be able to type up what you want. So then from there, once you place the order, you get the first draft back to you, within 48 hours. Normally it's done correctly right off the bat. But then you get unlimited unlimited revisions. So then you if you have a revision, say you didn't like the music you like handled like the music selection, give me another, give me another one another track that may be better, you submit that revision, we send it back to you. And then we just keep going back and forth until you get to the exact video you're looking for. So it's pretty simple. We're just doing the heavy lifting, which is the editing and the production process for you. So you know, it's it's just it's that plug, because everybody knows how to whip out their phone and hit record on their camera, right? Like, that's the easy part, the editing is the more difficult and people even know how to write a decent post description. And then they know how to actually post the video to Facebook or post the video to their website. But very few people know how to add it and actually do that correctly and done efficiently. So that's what we're servicing.
Sean Thomson 26:04
So once I submit everything, I get it back, and can you guys, you guys would do it to where it works on Facebook, YouTube, although I can get all the different. Yeah, I'll put formats.
Josh Culler 26:12
Yeah. So I think on the forum, there's actually an option for you to be able to select which format you want. And I think you can choose all three if you want. I think that's what the way we have it. So if you want that video formatted for Facebook, if you want it, you know, so a vertical video if you wanted it for Instagram and square video, if you want it for YouTube, and it's a landscape video, you're able to select all those, and then we send it back to you and that format.
Sean Thomson 26:35
Yeah, that's awesome. So someone like me could start a podcast, get all the assets sort of lined up. And then you know, every time you get a podcast, you could just submit it. Yeah, you guys would produce the different formats for me, so I could post it on YouTube, my website, Facebook, all those things. That's awesome. I think that's a great service. I know a bunch of people. You know, I have my own video editor. He's a good friend of mine. I'm fortunate in that regard that I have that you know, if I didn't have that, because we started off trying to do it ourselves. And it was just a real big struggle. And that that solution that you have would have been a game changer for me to get things started for surely. And I know a lot of my friends that are there. They're producing good content, they're doing good shows, but they're struggling to kind of get that that part of it produced. Yeah. And then they can focus on like you said, start with their avatar, and then they can focus on distributing those things on the on the social media platforms that they've chosen that that's really silly. Well, I just I really appreciate it. We talked about a lot of stuff. And we only really scratched the surface of what's necessary to really dial in this these things. And I appreciate you coming on and kind of keeping it simple for everybody. Because this stuff can get pretty complicated in the weeds quick. But, you know, we always ask that the name of the show is next level American Dream, right? So I like to ask people, you know, for us the the American Dream has kind of changed from what it used to be, you know, you go into college, get a house get a job, this doesn't exist anymore. I don't think they're the American Dream is still alive. And well, you know, but it comes in different formats now. So I always like to ask people, you know, what is what is the American Dream mean to you? And then the second question is for the really to kind of help other people is, what do you think that you're doing everyday or that you're doing in your life that can help somebody else, help them level up their American dream that you've used to level up your American Dream, too? So if you don't mind, your American Dream? And then what are you doing to level it up?
Josh Culler 28:23
Well, let me start with what I'm doing to level it up, because I think it feeds into the American Dream, right, like so. So for me, what I'm doing to level myself up is just taking care of myself. And that sounds like extremely selfish, but I've heard it from a wise man once that's far beyond my ears. He's forgotten more than I can learn in my entire 27 years of life, told me that if you don't take care of yourself, how do you expect to take care of other people, and the goals and dreams I have that, you know, I'll talk about here in a second, I'm not going to be able to achieve those unless I take care of myself. And in that regards of like, like taking care of myself, I focus on my health I focus on you know, my supplements, I do a lot of like healthy eating. We had McDonald's last night as our cheat meal nuggets. And that's like what we want, but I haven't had fast food in probably four months. So like, and even then I had stopped at like Chick Fil A to grab a grilled chicken sandwich, right? So like, even then I'm being conscious of that. So I think taking care of myself from a health perspective is really important, but then also spiritually. So I'm a Christian. And you know, I believe in Christ as my Savior. And I very much focused on taking care of myself, I made you know, God, the CEO of my business and making sure that I'm always keeping my eyes on that prize and that and that direction and allowing God to guide my direction is probably the most important thing when it comes down to it. And then also, you know, mentally physically, like, that's all important. I don't do a lot of like heavy exercising, I'll you know, normally I'll walk on the treadmill, you know, I'll do two miles out of 5% grade and stuff like that. I'll do a little bit of lifting and that kind of thing, but nothing too crazy. But I'm mobile enough to be able to perform at the top of my game at all times. Right. But a big thing that plays into that. I think this I think, and this does play into like the American dream for me. A big thing that people struggle with nowadays is deciding whether they're going to, you know, work 80 to 100 hours a week or work like less than 20 hours a week, right. So this is like the great debate right now, because you have influencers out there talking about hustling, grinding, and like a 24, seven hustler, and stay up till 2am and wake up at 6am. And work from sunup to sundown and that kind of thing. And if that works for you, fantastic, like, do your thing. For me, I've gotten to a point where I want to be an actual business owner, and I don't want to, you know, be in my business day to day, I want to be able to step away for five to 672, you know, days in two weeks or whatever, and the business is still running, it actually still works on that's a true business owner, I even when before we even jumped on the show here, Sean, you asked me how things are going. And I was like, yeah, things are great. I mean, I'd be able to pull myself out of the business like, because probably the last time we saw each other, I was traveling two to four times a week. And that was not fun. The wife did not like that. Because when you're gone, you know, four out of seven days, every single week, it gets tiresome. And luckily right now I don't have kids. And so I'm setting myself up for that when I have kids, I'm not going to miss any ballgames. I'm not going to miss any, you know, dance recitals or you know, stuff like that, like I'm not going to miss that stuff. And I'm setting myself up for that right now. And I've definitely been extremely blessed to be able to start at a young age, because you know, Gary Harper, I mean, he was my mentor for a very long time, and still really is, don't get the same as much as I would like to. But I've known him since I was really, really little. But he got me into this, like this whole business world. I was 19 years old, and really, like helped cultivate to who I am today. But for me, I just don't think that the hustle and grind. Life is it's definitely not for me like I hustle. 24 seven, right, but it's a different hustle. So I hustle. When I'm at church spending time with Christ like I'm I hustle there, I give it my all there. I hustle when I'm on a date with my wife. I'm there 100% there, I'm present on the phones off. My mind is with my wife. I'm hustling when I'm sleeping, like I'm the hardest sleeper you're ever going to be right. So like, these are things that play into who I am. And I've seen a lot of people, especially lately with this COVID thing going around. I've seen a lot of people just stretching themselves too thin working 80-90 or even a hundred hours a week, and then they burn out. And even worse, like they're not building scalable businesses. So they're there, they've literally trapped themselves in this business. That is really a job that they've given themselves. And they've not they're not able to pull out of it. And then it consumes our life, it becomes the only thing that they actually do. They miss ballgames, they miss family time they miss like the date nights and all that stuff. And that's just not a life that I want. And so that leads into what the American Dream is for me like for me, there's there's a couple of things, the biggest, the biggest one that I have is my mission for being on this planet is one of the representations is that big world map. Let me see if I can, if I get my coordination right, there we go. That big world map behind me there that that was presented to me from a mission board that I actually support. So one of my goals in life for me is to support 100 missionaries across the globe. And we're at 13 missionaries right now we're spending about six grand a month supporting missionaries. But that's like what I want to do with my life. That's what that's that's the one of the purposes the reasons that I'm here and that's my American dream. And you know, obviously I got multiple other dreams. So one of my dreams is to own a Tesla, I bought a Tesla last month, it's absolutely best purchase I've ever made in my life. And then I also got to retire my mom on my birthday. Like that's a that's an American dream that I've wanted for a very long time when I was a little kid, I heard of you know, my great grandparents retiring and I'm like, that means you have to work. And so I wanted that for my mom, my mom's been working her ass off for a very very long time and finally got to retire her and she's going to be starting actually next week to Monday of next week. She's She's done working for the rest of her life. That's a dream for me right and then getting my business to a point where it actually is running on itself and running running its own so I can spend time with my wife I you know, we made a smoothie run for lunch today. And you know, we were able to do that I didn't have to worry about like clocking out or masking my boss via go or even telling my employees like hey, I'm headed out I just went and did that and spend that time with my wife. So all that wraps into each other and I know I went maybe a little bit different direction than maybe you were looking for but that's to me that's what it is man that's that's the life that I that I strive for and work hard for every single day.
Sean Thomson 34:44
You did it. That's perfect. Your American Dream is to have freedom enough for yourself and your family. You want to give back to your community and your your religious beliefs and your the thing that's making the difference for you is watching out for yourself primarily and taking care of your health and your well being so that you can be successful. Right? Do I have that summed up, right?
Josh Culler 35:04
Yeah, and a lot of people, like I said, a lot of people just don't focus on themselves and I, and again, it's gonna sound, it sounds selfish, but you know, I'm reading books every day I'm learning every day, I'm learning my industry, my services, making them better, and that kind of thing. And really not just business development, but development of myself is just so important. Because how can you expect to perform at the top level that you can perform at, and the more the more I can perform, the higher level I can perform, the more value I'm able to bring to my team, so my family, to my clients, to my network, my friends, like, if I take care of myself, I'm able to do all that at the peak performance that I can. But if I'm eating unhealthy all the time, if I'm not exercising, not taking care of myself, I'm sluggish all the time. I'm not, I'm lazy, I'm not taking care of myself, like, I'm not able to perform at that level, I'm not able to achieve the dreams that I have, you know?
Sean Thomson 35:58
Yeah, I'm the same way now. I used to not be that way I am that way. Now. I that's a theme with a lot of people I've talked to lately is that they're they're starting to, they're starting to re analyze, you know, kind of what it is to be successful. And it's a lot of it starts with with themselves. So yeah, that's a common thing. So yeah, well, Josh, I don't want to keep you any longer. We've talked a ton about these things. And but I do want to mention a few places where people can kind of connect with you. And if they want, you know, help with their marketing or their social media, how do they How do they find you and where's what's the best sources for them to go to.
Josh Culler 36:30
The best place to go because it's kind of the bridge for every other thing that I have is you can go to my website, you can either type in Culler, culler.media, or www.cullermedia.com. It's gonna take you to the same place, but now bridge you to just about everything that we got going on. So I've got two podcasts, the content marketing playbook, I've got the REI marketing weekly. So if you're a real estate investor, listen, that podcast because I got some rock stars on on there, I'm going to get Sean on there too. And and they talk about the marketing that they're doing in their business. And we've actually got a cool book that's coming out called The REI Marketing Book. And so if you go to my website, you'll be able to sign up for a newsletter that I've got going on be the first in line to be able to grab that book. But then you'll REI.video on that website too. So you can go to cullermedia.com and, and get to REI.video from there. Or you can just type in REI.video and your web browser and it'll pull up. So those are the ways and then you know, obviously, there's a contact page on there. Reach out to me if you have any questions regarding anything kinds of marketing, anything, real estate, investing, marketing, and happy to connect with anybody that reaches out.
Sean Thomson 37:30
You have some great content. So I recommend people go see that and you the stuff that we kind of touched on on a high level today, you go into great detail on a lot of those things in the videos that you do. So people are going to be able to find the information. Maybe if you had a question from the stuff we were talking about just now made, they probably could find it on your site anyway. Absolutely a great place for people to go for sure.
Josh Culler 37:49
Absolutely. Everything that we talked about today, I've got like full podcast episodes on it. I just didn't want to shamelessly plug during the show. I'll allow you to do that.
Sean Thomson 37:58
Yeah. Well, Thanks, Josh. I really appreciate you coming on this stuff is important for you know, so that's the only way to get your message out nowadays is social media and all these different contents, methodology. So a lot of people that are in this business to solopreneurs not just in real estate, but in any business. This is really a critical thing for success. So I'm glad you came on and shared what you know what everybody and and I think you can be a good resource for more information even further down the road. So I really appreciate you!
Josh Culler 38:25
Yeah, I appreciate you, Sean. Thanks for having me on. And hopefully we'll get to see each other and connect again soon!
Sean Thomson 38:30
Yeah, for sure. Definitely. I'm looking forward to it. We'll talk to you soon!
Josh Culler 38:33
I'll see ya!
Abigail Thomson 38:34
Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level American Dream. If you would like to learn more about what we talked about today, want to contact the team directly, or are interested in passively investing and being a part of our deal room, head over to our website at www.thomsonmultifamilygroup.com. Before you go, please leave a review! Your comments help us create more episodes for you to enjoy.