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Rich Helppie
Hello. Welcome to The Common Bridge. We’re continuing our series with entrepreneurs. It’s a much different world these days from getting an education, finding yourself a good job with good benefits, and putting your time in and moving up the ladder. But there are lots of seams in this economy, and today we’re going to be talking with a successful entrepreneur from Florida. We welcome back to The Common Bridge, Mr. Sam Caudle. Sam, how are you?
Sam Caudle
Hey, Rich, thanks for having me. Doing great, doing great, trying to survive the cold winter of Florida.
Rich Helppie
Indeed, we have been eliminating iguanas over here at a fairly impressive clip, but I will say it was news to me when I was watching a local weather report and they said be careful for frozen iguanas falling out of trees. I had never heard of that before, and part of the weather report did put that danger out there. So here we are. [Laughter]
Sam Caudle
Yeah, good chance to get rid of a bunch of invasive species, I guess.
Rich Helppie
Yes, indeed, and I’ve become quite practiced at that thanks to the guidance of some friends and neighbors locally. Sam, it’s been a while since you’ve been on and I know you’re successful as an entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, I’m also going to remind the listeners, readers and viewers of The Common Bridge that we’d sure like to have your support - not only with your membership in our audience - but a subscription would be great. If a subscription is not in the cards, you can support the show through Venmo or through Zelle or through Buy Me a Coffee - all of that information is in the show notes. Sam, as we get going, let’s remind our listeners, readers and viewers who you are; a little bit about your personal background, career arc, and what’s brought you to the point of where you’re at today?
Sam Caudle
Yeah, absolutely. The shortest version of it is, I’m a local realtor with a YouTube channel. Now, my kids interpret that as I am a celebrity and my wife laughs about it, but the reality is YouTube is just a lead generating engine. Me, I’m just a small town kid from Oklahoma who ended up getting a real estate license and figuring out a way to get leads and it’s gone great.
Rich Helppie
What’s the name of your website and your YouTube channel?
Sam Caudle
Living in Tampa. It’s all about living in and moving to Tampa.
Rich Helppie
That’s how I became acquainted with you, some very informative videos on living in Tampa, and then at the end, a very subtle offer: hey, if you’re thinking about buying real estate or renting real estate, you can get in touch with me about that too. And what I was really impressed with... and several of the entrepreneurs on our show so far, have really made use of the technology and the social media which, of course, didn’t exist in the era when I was starting companies. We kind of invented it during that run. But have you found others following you, or have you been able to take it to the next level?
Sam Caudle
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s free attention, and different generations get free attention different ways. When my dad was growing up, it was your centers of influence, and he was doing Toastmasters classes and all these other ways. And to me, it’s the same thing. It’s, how do I get in front of people? How do I build rapport to where they feel like they can trust me and they want to work with me? Now I think my generation, and the younger generation even, is just doing that on social media more and more because we grew up with it. We’re comfortable with it. We can navigate the little details - that may be the tech side - and then we can really find our way there.
Rich Helppie
Is your scope of practice residential, residential and commercial? What are you working on?
Sam Caudle
It’s really just residential. Most of my clients are moving from across the country, where they’re buying a second home from across the country. We’re helping them buy and sell real estate here in the Tampa area.
Rich Helppie
Is it condos, single family, big places, mansions, little bungalows? What kind of products are you selling?
Sam Caudle
This is an interesting thing about YouTube. You’ll find this interesting, Rich. When I first started, my first deals were $300,000-$400,000. Now my average is over $700,000 and with that comes the occasional, two, three, four million dollar buyer that just behaves differently. But I’ve built enough rapport on camera to where they feel like, I’ll like that guy.
Rich Helppie
That’s very interesting, because you’ve discovered a slice of the market that says, I want to be informed, tell me what living in Tampa’s about. And for those of you that haven’t viewed Sam’s YouTube, I’d really encourage you to do that. He’ll go into a specific area and tell you what the pros and cons are of the area, what you can expect when you live there, and it really gives you a leg up. It’s kind of like driving around with your best friend that knows what they’re doing and what each neighborhood’s all about. How far north, south, east and west do you go in homes that you’re listing?
Sam Caudle
Tampa is really a three county area: Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco. I cover a radius of 60 miles. We go out pretty far. We’ve got agents that we can refer out too if we get a little further than that, but we work a really big area, because people are used to looking to a realtor that’s focused on a neighborhood. Our job is making sense of all the neighborhoods and helping piece it together, like this one’s similar to this one, but this one’s closer to the water and this one’s closer to the airport, and really piecing that puzzle together.
Rich Helppie
Well, what I was always impressed with regarding your business is that real estate has been around a long time, and it’s developed lots of practices, and people have been very successful with it, but you stepped back and said, How can I give better service to customers? What value can I deliver? I think you’ve really hit a great scene, and that’s very entrepreneurial of you. I’m curious, do you have a definition of entrepreneurship that you carry around?
Sam Caudle
I was thinking about this earlier today. For me, it’s really betting on myself. That’s it, I’m putting all the chips in on me, not that I have the answers, but that I can navigate it and figure it out and ask for help when I need help, and do all those things.
Rich Helppie
Sure, like every entrepreneur, you’ve had those moments of apprehension or terror and said, maybe I just want a good paycheck someplace and not have all the worries.
Sam Caudle
Absolutely. When I was building this I was still looking for jobs, and my wife constantly... I mean, now we make great money but my wife still sometimes says, don’t you just want a normal job?
Rich Helppie
Well, I am in a single family rental business, and one of my partners in his mid 40s, always quips that there’s no clocking out. And that’s right, there is no clocking out. What are some of the lessons that you’ve learned along the way that might be valuable for other people considering whether or not to take the plunge into entrepreneurship?
Sam Caudle
I heard this story recently about military recruiters. They were out of high school, and the Air Force guy gets up and gives a pretty good PowerPoint, Navy guy, a PowerPoint, Army guy, a PowerPoint. And the Marine recruiter gets up and he just starts looking out over the audience, and he says, No, there’s none in here. Nobody in here is going to cut it in the Marines. He’s like, but if you think you can, I’ll be at the back. At the end, he walks off. Entrepreneurship is kind of the same way, you either have it in you or not. And I think you know, I think you know if it’s in there.
Rich Helppie
It’s not safe, you know that. And then you said something else that I think is important that you’ve got to have support from your family. It can’t be done if the significant other, your spouse, says, Hey, why aren’t you back home at five o’clock? Why are you taking this call on a Sunday afternoon? Why is it that even when we’re on vacation you’re picking up your cell phone? It is a full time commitment. It is not defined hours. It’s like, you’ve just got to be there all the time.
Sam Caudle
Absolutely. I just finished a long stretch where it was 30 consecutive days I didn’t have a day off. So Saturday, Sunday, I finally didn’t have any any client work to do. But Saturday morning - I counted the phone calls - I had 40 phone calls before noon on Saturday morning. None of them were that big of a deal. A lot of them were quick, trying to keep deals together, trying to touch base with a couple clients. But still, on a day where I thought I was going to be pretty free, I had 40 phone calls that morning.
Rich Helppie
Well, listen, I’d also encourage entrepreneurs that if you’re running your own business, put that family time in the calendar, those commitments and turn off the phone. It’ll be terrifying at first, but you’ll find that you’ll be refreshed when you get back. And when you go on vacation, go on vacation. I recall a time when the technology was corporate voicemail and email, and I was leaving on a family vacation, I told my assistant to change the passwords on both of them. I put in a dummy password and said, Here’s what they are, now change them and don’t tell me what they are. And that way I couldn’t check in. It was forced disconnect. It was a great vacation and I was so rested up when we came back online.
Sam Caudle
Yeah. I have a little list of the lessons learned, and that’s one of them, be unreachable on a regular basis. That’s really valuable for me and for my family.
Rich Helppie
That’s a great rule. Be unreachable. But when you do want to reach out, I would encourage you to think about subscribing to The Common Bridge, think about us. If you don’t want to be a subscriber, the suggested retail price is $2 because $2 is just a nice round number and everybody has $2 in their pocket. Again, that’s through Zelle or through Venmo or through Buy Me a Coffee. Sam, are there other lessons besides be unreachable that you began to codify?
Sam Caudle
I operate as an entrepreneur with a couple employees, but most of my employees are based on deals. So I have a virtual assistant in another country. I have a video editor in another country. Everything runs pretty lean, but still, as much as I can save money and as much as I can keep fixed costs low, when you’re running a sale, a commission based business... I’ve had seasons where I’ve done really great at that and seasons where I haven’t done as great at that, and that’s really written down all over the place in my office now; save money, keep costs low. Because it’s such an ebb and flow and every entrepreneur experiences ebbs and flows. That’s become a hard rule for me.
Rich Helppie
I would heartily endorse that as a point of view. I’ve heard people say, Oh, I’ve got to have a fancy office to start with, or I’ve got to hire two assistants, or I need to hire someone for this. Basically what you’ve done is dug a hole that you’ve got to create enough revenue to fill that hole in and then overcome that. It is much easier to add as you need it than it is to cut it back. There are certain business models that you do have to invest up front and hope that the revenue line catches up. I’ve had two ventures that didn’t work. Both times were in that structure, and both times we didn’t get the revenue line high enough, fast enough, and the ventures failed. So that’s also part of entrepreneurship, knowing when you’ve been defeated.
Sam Caudle
I have some peers in real estate that have big real estate teams. They’re typically more in the franchise model, like a REMAX, or something like that. They have staff, and they have all these lead sources they pay for. And as I’ve built these friendships, they’re really jealous of my business, because it’s really lean. I’m in my third car garage right now. My staff works overseas, like we’re good, and some years I make more money than them.
Rich Helppie
Yes. Living in Tampa. What are some other lessons that you’ve come up with along the way? Be unreachable part of the time, keep your fixed costs low. What else?
Sam Caudle
Much of it is for myself; how quickly I can adapt and grow. How quickly can I reflect on what happened, whether it was a phone call, whether it was a bad week, whether it was a great week. How quickly can I reflect and learn some lessons and then apply those lessons? I’ve often had performance coaches or mentors that I keep in touch with very regularly. My performance coach is no longer my coach, he’s my business partner now, but we talk every single day. I know at 9:30 he’s going to call me on his way to the gym. He’s two hours different than me and we’re going to process a couple of things, and we’re going to see how we can help each other throughout the day. But having that constant cycle of reflection is something that I would encourage every entrepreneur to seek.
Rich Helppie
And thinking about someone considering being an entrepreneur... I guess broadly, whether you would encourage them to become an entrepreneur - why or why not? And if you were going to advise somebody that has decided this path, what would you tell them to expect?
Sam Caudle
Somebody asked me recently about real estate specifically, like they wanted to get into real estate. I told them, if you can expect to not make money for six months, then it might be worth trying. Beyond that it’s not even worth trying. But I think for entrepreneurs, you just have to choose what hard thing you want to do. If you’re okay with the business being hard and feeling hard most of the time, entrepreneurship is going to be great for you. But if you’re expecting this kind of comfort, this clock out mentality, this kind of employee mentality, where you get to blame your boss, you get to blame your salary, you get to blame your insurance; if you’re coming into it with that kind of mindset, entrepreneurship is not going to work for you, because there’s no one to blame but yourself in entrepreneurship.
Rich Helppie
That’s an outstanding description. Sam, how about the impact on your young and growing family? How has that been to interact on the personal level, if you don’t mind?
Sam Caudle
Yeah, absolutely. One of my favorite things about running the business the way I do is being able to integrate my kids in it. Now, whether they’re hosting an open house with me, which I do that all the time and they love to give tours of a house, or it’s just allowing them to hear conversations. But more than all of that, it’s that I get to see them multiple times a day. Maybe I work more overall, but I’m going to step in and like, the two year old is going to run up to me if I’m walking to my office. She wants a hug and kiss four times a day. So the fact that it’s not like I’m leaving for work in the morning and I’m getting back at dinner time. That kind of integration throughout the day is the biggest benefit. Now, sometimes I’m in a work headspace and I’m not that present in that, but still, just getting to touch them and getting to see them throughout the day is so valuable to me.
Rich Helppie
That’s that work/life balance in this technological age where we don’t just go to work and leave work at work. There was a day when [you had] no personal calls at work and you couldn’t be reached. If you were called at work there better be blood, flood or fire, because you didn’t call the breadwinner at the office. Sam, what are your future plans? What are you thinking about?
Sam Caudle
We started a real estate team specifically with other YouTube channels. We’ve helped a lot of agents grow this. And so, that’s a very loose model. We get paid on their deals. We assemble the people we like to coach, the people we like to work with. It’s application only. Not everyone can join the team. We’re really looking for a specific type of person that’s already doing certain things. But it’s continuing to grow the local real estate brand as well. There’s a lot of potential on the table for that. I’ve hardly tapped into how big the market actually is.
Rich Helppie
Oh, so if I understand this correctly, maybe somebody says, living in Jacksonville, but they don’t know how to do YouTube and so forth, you help them with that part of the business?
Sam Caudle
Absolutely. We’re working in a few luxury mountain towns now with a couple of different agents that have been there for a long time, people that are already really good on camera. We can teach them the basics. We can take over... When I break it down, kind of a beginning, middle and end - learning the systems and coming up with the video ideas, shooting the videos and then editing and publishing - all we need them to do is the middle part, shoot the videos. We can tell you, we can give you your outline, we know the YouTube system. We can send them to our editors and we can get it all uploaded for you and have them calling your phone number within a few months. We’ve found a few partners in a few different markets where we can really partner together. They’re on camera, we’re building their local brand, but we’re integrated into the whole thing.
Rich Helppie
That’s fantastic, and you’re just getting paid on the upside if they get a successful deal. (Sam Caudle: Correct.) Yeah, great. Maybe at another time we can talk about the way you can track that, to make sure you get that. I know the tools are much different these days. Sam, appreciate the update first of all, and appreciate the education for our listeners, readers and our viewers about entrepreneurship. In this economy, I always encourage people, particularly those younger than me - which just about everybody these days - go look for work. People say, I can’t find a job. It’s a great look for work. And we’ve had folks that have been able to launch businesses just thinking, today I’m going to go find something to do to make money, and it’s kind of blossomed into that. As we come to our close today, what are some final thoughts that you want to leave for the audience of The Common Bridge?
Sam Caudle
I think if anybody wants to pursue entrepreneurship, embracing it being hard is an important mindset, but just know that it’s possible to build it, it’s possible to build the business in a way that you actually enjoy. Yeah, I work a lot, but I genuinely enjoy my work. It’s not taxing to me. It’s actually really exciting to me. My wife is asking me about work because she knows I enjoy it. And it really is possible to build a business and a team that you enjoy. But it takes embracing all of the hard stuff to get to that point too.
Rich Helppie
We’ve been talking today with Sam Caudle of Living in Tampa. I encourage you to look up his Youtube channel and to see the videos he’s putting out. And of course, if you’re thinking about living in Tampa, you couldn’t find somebody better to work with. This is a great country for people that are willing to be innovative, to put in the hard work, to take the chance and earn a reward. And so with our guest today, Sam Caudle, this is your host, Rich Helppie, signing off on The Common Bridge.
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