Apr 6, 2022
Can an events planner succeed in real estate?
If we are to ask Ben Nelson, he will definitely agree as he is a prime example of someone who had organized record-breaking events worldwide before diving into real estate projects.
In this episode, he will share some lessons he learned from organizing events and how he applies them in making real estate deals. He will also share a bit about his humble beginnings back when he was still not into real estate and the reason he made the jump even if he already had a lucrative career.
[00:01 - 02:19] Opening Segment
- Ben Nelson was not really into real estate, but his brother was
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- How his brother convinced him to take the jump
- He shares how the COVID-19 pandemic affected his real estate education
[02:20 - 12:02] From Planning Events to Preparing for Real Estate Deals
- These are the skills under events management that Ben has brought to real estate
- Here are some tips from Ben to manage tasks happening simultaneously
- This is the most influential part of being a leader according to Ben
[12:03 - 13:50] Raising Capital for Real Estate Deals
- Ben talks about the roles and responsibilities within their team
- Why they adopted a “people first” philosophy for their real estate business
- He shares some strategies that they apply to raise capital for a deal
[13:51 - 18:59] Closing Segment
- A real estate mistake you want the listeners to avoid
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- Not asking questions
- It’s better to be honest and proactive in looking for the answers
- Your way to making the world a better place
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- Building self-sustaining communities
- Reach out to Ben
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- Links below
- Final words
Tweetable Quotes
“I built in this habit of writing down exactly what the next day is going to be like, not just for my time…but all the tasks and what we want to do. So when you get to the day of every single day…you don't have to think very much.” - Ben Nelson
“...knowing that you can continuously walk through your day without having to remember or think about what's going on makes you super effective.” - Ben Nelson
“People will react to you how you allow them to and people will come to you and act as you act.” - Ben Nelson
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Email ben@wildoakcapital.com to connect with Ben or follow him on LinkedIn. If you want to work with a company that understands the ins and outs of the real estate industry, check out Wild Oak Capital now!
- Listen to the Real Estate Mindset Podcast to learn more about their work.
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I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.
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Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com
Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:
Ben Nelson 00:00
It really depends on the property. Obviously, I'm painting with a broad brush here. But that's kind of how we think about is we want to be well-capitalized on the front end. And if that leads to great returns, if we end up putting some of that money back, fantastic, and we're very happy to return that. But we'd be far, rather be able to look folks in the eyes and say, hey, we're asking for a little extra money on purpose. We've underwritten this, and it's a deal in this way on purpose, because we want to be able to weather the storm. We'd rather don't ever want to go back to the bucket if we well, no, we don't go back to the well.
Intro 00:29
Welcome to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we will teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.
Sam Wilson 00:41
Ben Nelson has produced multiple world records setting and breaking events and productions, and he's used that detailed planning style in his asset management and planning. He's now a multifamily syndicator as part of Wild Oak Capital. Ben, welcome to the show.
Ben Nelson 00:53
Thanks for having me. Sam. said here,
Sam Wilson 00:55
Hey, man, the pleasure is mine. I know I met you just a little over gosh, what me a month and a half ago at a conference, which was a blast, getting to know you at that conference. But for our listeners that don't know, in 90 seconds or less, can you tell me, where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?
Ben Nelson 01:09
Sure, I actually give most of the credit to my younger brother, Eric. He's been playing the real estate game for a long time. My dad had dabbled a little bit in small multifamily and some rentals back in the day, but Eric really kind of lifted it up. He's been bugging me for a long time. I come from, like you mentioned from large action sports and producing large difficult projects, he kind of been putting the bug in my ear for years and said, hey, a lot of what you're doing makes much sense. And then our friend COVID came along, Eric and I had, you know, gone together and a couple small multi families and, you know, kind of got my feet wet into the real estate market, but COVID came along and shut everything down. And quite frankly, the majority of that in my world, you know, we made a living gathering people together. And as soon as we could do any of that, it really made me focus on what that means. In the long term, you know what trading time for money means, especially when you can't trade time for money, and there's no other source of income. And really kind of looking at what that means. You know, I'm always building things for other people, other places, and really changing my focus where I can start building something for my family and for myself, but also help the communities as well and build something that lasts more than just a couple of moments and fleeting moment in time, if you will. We're really proud of stuff we produce. But I'm excited to use those skills and translate to multifamily.
Sam Wilson 02:20
For sure. Yeah, certainly. And just to give kind of our listeners a scope, or scale of some of the things that you were doing, I mean, just for fun kicks and giggles here on the show, tell us maybe one of the more fun world record, some things you mean, you weren't just putting on like, “Hey, we're gonna go out and you know, do an event over a weekend.” You're doing some pretty nutty stuff.
Ben Nelson 02:39
Yeah, we have the opportunity to work with some fun people, for sure. So we've broken world records in snowboarding, skiing motocross, for height, distance, we've jumped trucks for distance, you know, most people are familiar with Red Bull Stratos. We were really fortunate to be able to participate in that program and work some event ops on the ground there and help put them in into near space, I'm happy to say that I have a very small piece of something that lives in the Smithsonian, which is something I'm pretty proud of for the rest of my life so well.
Sam Wilson 03:05
Yeah, man, that's absolutely fantastic. Are you doing anything in the event space now or is that completely behind you?
Ben Nelson 03:11
No, I think I'll always have my foot in there. It's a passion of mine. And something, you know, you build skill set in a certain place, you build relationships in a certain place. So I've transitioned from, you know, producing those things full time and really spending, you know, project like worked on a race in Brooklyn this last year. And it really requires a lot of energy and time, and I was gone for, you know, 30, 40, 50 days a year with my family. So I've transitioned into building some stuff, we've you know, we're producing some smaller real estate conferences, but also some things for fun in town, I planted some seeds during COVID. And, again, started reestablishing relationships locally. So we're doing some things. You should come out. There's a, there's an event called chicken fight May, or basically, it's a fried chicken and whiskey festival, and we shut down an amusement park and we invite all our friends to come have a good time and taste the best chicken in town is about 40 or 50 restaurants that I'll compete for a couple of different titles. So it's more about transitioning the time that I how I choose to use my time and really taking control and ownership of where and how I use my time. So I'll do some smaller events for fun. And we'll you know, we'll gather some folks, but I'll spend most of my time focusing on building a legacy for my family. And for those folks in the community we work with
Sam Wilson 04:17
What has it been what have been some of the skill sets, because a lot of this industry for real estate is built on two things. I say it all the time on the show deals and money, like you need both of those. But marketing is a component of both of those in a very heavy way. And the industry you've come from is a heavy marketing industry. What are some of the skills that you've used that have kind of crossed over?
Ben Nelson 04:38
Well, I think you need to be scrappy, and it's just like a lot of industries as well. So it is deals is deal flow, but a lot of this is relationship right? So a lot of the ability to have conversations with people, the ability to ask questions, perhaps that normally people don't ask, you know, everybody knows how to call a broker. Everybody knows how to follow up with a broker but building relationships in such a way and I know I'm not the only one says this what value are you adding to folks on the broker side, you know, we also do try to source quite a bit off-market, we've got our own sources and some things that we're doing there that we build in. But I think the biggest thing that I've found, and the thing that translates the most from events to how we operate is game planning. And what you know, it's can be called production schedule, it can be called run a show, it can be called, you know, battle plan, if you come from military, what we found is running with a script that you pre-plan. So I built in this habit of writing down exactly what the next day is going to be like, not just for my time, blocking out the time, but all the tasks and what we want to do. So when you get to the day of every single day, it's you don't have to think very much, you're just going in with the planning setup. And I've found that it saves me a tremendous volume of time, and efficiency to do that. So whether you know, and if we have to shuffle things around and adjust, but that's been huge for me. So marketing is one thing, but I think to me, it's a really low hanging fruit idea, but very few people actually take the time to truly plan out and the day for me, it's the day before I wake up in the morning, like, I don't have to think about anything, I just execute my day. It has truly saved so much time.
Sam Wilson 06:04
When do you do that game planning? Do you do that the night before the morning before? Like, do you think in 48 hours in advance? What's that look like?
Ben Nelson 06:12
No, I usually do about 24 hours. I mean, it's the excuse me, it's about the night before. So that's a part of the rhythm My day kind of closing down. There's a couple of different journaling tactics that I've kind of put into my life. I use the Daily Stoic. So Ryan Holiday has thing if you're familiar with any type of that stoicism, but it's just really is kind of more thought starters. And thought enders, at the end of the day, it's kind of following his lead, there's an end of the day journaling. And then I'll just sit down and for 15 minutes, go through my calendar and what's on the horizon for the next day and figure out you know, what, what's the plan? What do I have time? What am I going to fit in? What are my top three priorities, what other things I need to do? And then I have, like I said, I've got a game plan for the day. And I write in pencil, I become a pencil guy, for sure. And it's the ability to adjust but knowing that you can continuously walk through your day without having to remember or think about what's going on makes you super effective.
Sam Wilson 06:59
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that cuts down on the mental fatigue. And that is where you know, so much of the time we lose countless hours in the day, just from transitioning from one task to the next to the next. Do you time block particular items together? Do you time block? What's that process?
Ben Nelson 07:15
Yeah, I mean, I think I'm like a lot of people in this space, right. Like, I've got multiple projects and multiple rounds going on, you mentioned events, you know, and there's other projects I'm working on that we're trying to kind of cross over. So I do try to block those out. But it allows me to not have to shift back and forth. Like I'm going to work on this thing for three hours. And most of the people that work with me understand that, hey, I'll get back to you at 11 am. And then from 11 to 3, I'm all yours. But in the morning, I'm working on something else. And as long as you set those understanding barriers up with folks you're working with to you can be difficult, you know, like everybody wants everything from me all the time, like we're gonna give it to me as soon as you possibly can kind of space and with the internet, everybody wants everything out. But it's up to you. I mean, that's something I've learned, I mean, people will react to you how you allow them to, and people will come to you and acts as you act. And I think the most important thing there is it allows me to be respectful of other people's time. That cuts down on you running late from meeting to meeting and it cuts down from you having to constantly shuffle and like oh, hey, can we reschedule this, if you're thinking about it, you know, the night before, and you know exactly what your day is. And you can send it up the night before if all of a sudden you come across something, then you can be respectful of people's time and you're not reacting constantly, you can be proactive about what that is. You know, there's a story that I tell sometimes is a guy that I met, he actually works, he was my wife's boss. And we were sitting with him for some reason. And he excused themselves that I'm very sorry, I have to lose me, there's somebody who's very important that I need to speak to. And it says in such a way that we thought it was like a president of a company or something like that. He said, I came to find out later that day, it was a new hire, like one of the most junior people he was putting on his team. But the way that he thought about that, and the way he prioritize that in his day, and he excused himself from a meeting saying I'm very sorry, but I have a very important phone call that I have to take with a very important person sets the tone. And it's like he didn't tell us that, we found that out from somebody else. But the respect volume that I got from that one interaction, and the way that I try to put that into my days is enormous.
Sam Wilson 09:10
It's interesting that commanding your own calendar the way you want it and saying, “Hey, look, I'm time blocking, I'm taking care of the things that I have to take care of now in its own right,” really helps you value other people more. That's a, that's a really unique twist on that. And I like that because then when you're on, you're on, and when you're off, you're off, like, “Hey, I'm not here, I'm doing the things I've set out for me to do.” And you probably are way more efficient that way as well.
Ben Nelson 09:35
Well, you also set an understanding and respect level for the people to show up prepared, right? Like we don't take meetings unless there's an agenda, like it just the way that it goes. Like we will respect your time if you respect ours. I promise that I'm gonna show up. I'm gonna show up on time and I'm sure prepared and I expect the same of you. So it's just again, it's a way that you treat people. It's the way that you put that out there. You know, you go back to events. The reason that this is really important on a large-scale event is, I go back to the racing example, you know, we're building this race in Brooklyn, we may have 50 different vendors on site all trying to accomplish things at once. And if you haven't in advance, orchestrated, who goes where with what materials and machines, and which people and you're not taking care of making sure that people are doing it safely. And all of a sudden, something breaks down his machine, you have to have the ability to pivot, if you don't have a plan, understand what happens down the line from that, you can get in some serious trouble because most of these, you know, we're working 18, 20 hours a day, if you lose five hours, then you can legitimately lose a day by the time you're done. So you know, and you've got lots of money on the line is just like real estate, right? You have other people's money that you're trying to take care of, and do a good job. So by planning efficiently by thinking through the what-ifs by thinking, actually writing it down, and sharing that with somebody else, you're not only holding yourself liable, but you're also putting it out there like hey, this adds together, this is what we're going to go about. So it works in asset management, it works in birthday parties, it works like all the way down the line, man, just depends on what you're looking for, and how you want to how deep you want to get in the planet. But it's been super important. For me, it's been really helpful for me and how I operate business.
Sam Wilson 11:07
What role have you taken inside of the multifamily real estate business?
Ben Nelson 11:12
Mostly asset management. I mean, we're a small group, it's a team of four. And I will say, you know, team building has been the most influential part of my development as a leader, also, the ability to give and take. So we're fortunate in the sense that we've found all of us found for people and again, the credit goes to my brother, he's really done the most work putting these folks together. But we have overlapping skill sets, we have the ability, so any one of us can underwrite, any one of us could do asset management. But we kind of have our lanes in that sense. So Eric, and I focus primarily on you know, asset management and fundraising. Eric's kind of out front, he's got the podcast, we'd love to have you on the podcast, and really kind of that public-facing side. John does a lot of the sourcing and deal sourcing and Shane is smarter than any human I've ever met at math the guy can underwrite in his brain, and it's insane to me. I'm more words than the math on my side.
Sam Wilson 12:03
That's absolutely intriguing. Tell me about the formation of your team and then I want to hear what assets you guys are buying right now.
Ben Nelson 12:09
Sure. Eric really was sort of the central wheel here. He knew some folks like we're all participating some masterminds, Eric's involved in some we both actually Eric and I both utilize the same business coach, also, which I would plug that also if anybody's thinking about it, you know, there's tons of programs everything else I think two weeks is own, but I focus on a kind of a bi-weekly business coach. Through that Eric and I met John introduced that and Eric and met Shane, actually, just through a meetup in Durango. Eric was in Durango, Colorado. And Shane has a couple properties there. And as by chance, they struck up a conversation, start talking. And we kind of made this Voltron and they those three together and met each other. And then I kind of came into the mix, especially at the end there because it was right when we were finishing that big race. And like I said, I disappeared for about 30 days, they asked me to just sit and have a conversation with them. And it just seemed to work. Like we have, like I said, we have overlapping skill sets, we have overlapping personalities. So what's really, really nice though, is it allows people to have a life that allows people working on the projects and allows people to pay attention to multiple things. And we consistently can keep pushing, right, like we picked up, we went through a really dry spell and to bleed into your second question. It's really tough out there right now. There's a lot of money in the game. And there's a lot of people throwing good money after bad and underwriting deals in such a way that I honestly don't understand. And I think it could be a little bit dangerous, especially if you know, it's assuming that everything was gonna keep on rolling the way it's gonna roll. If there's a shift, I think there's some people gonna get water. So we were playing really firmly in the multifamily space, we kind of a B2C category, a lot of value add is what we're looking to produce. We've been heavily into Texas and Oklahoma, we've just been reaching out some deals here in Colorado, looked at some in Louisiana, but Texas in Oklahoma has been kind of our bread and butter. And there's a lot down there that we understand. We've had to develop some great relationships, we're not opposed to moving to other places, again, Colorado, mostly because I'm here and I have the ability to develop relationships in person. Shane and John, both live in Texas and they've been able to do the same. But I think we have to be really smart about how the shift in the market is coming and what that actually means. And again, we're really conservative. I know, everybody says they're conservative, but I've seen some people's numbers. And I think that we're actually conservative, but we really want to make sure that we're building this for the long term. And we're really focused on community. We sat down together as a team in Mexico, we just took a couple of days and disappeared and said, “Hey, we just need to spend some time together.” And the one thing that I remember coming out of that meeting and the formation of what we're going to do this year is that we've decided “people first” and we say it all the time internally. So it may be a great deal. We may be able to make some money on it. But if it doesn't help the community if it doesn't raise that community up if we're not providing a quality product, then we don't we've said no to a bunch of things that probably could have made us money already this year. It just didn't make sense for us to to help in that community though.
Sam Wilson 14:52
That's really, really intriguing. Absolutely fantastic. I love that and I guess what are some strategic steps you guys are taking right now to prepare for a potential recession or change in the market wins? What does that look like?
Ben Nelson 15:05
Yeah, I mean, it really depends on who you talk to you, right? Like half of the multifamily group thinks it's going to be a rock chip and never gonna land and the other half is doom and gloom, and everything's gonna go wrong. I tend to swing somewhere in the middle there. So a lot of it is really just being smart about capitalization, our ability to fix things, and again, it goes back to that planning for the what-ifs, right? When I look at some people's underwriting, there's sometimes very few what-ifs, it goes back to production planning to battle planning, our ability to pivot, we say, hey, we want to turn all of these units out to be X. And also we're going to add a dog park. And also we're going to add a playground, for example. But we also know that we have a margin in there that if we have to say, hey, we're gonna hold on that dog park, everybody's gonna get units turned, or we know that if we project rents and if we get to a downturn where we have the ability to cover our ratios, we have the ability to still do some things we ride into, like, yeah, we'll do gifts at Christmas, we want to do some community engagement thing. So we add in a couple of these additional pieces, and we're really open about it with our investors, like, “Hey, this is what we want to do, you can take a look, we'll go through the PPM like where our money goes.” And it really depends on the property. Obviously, I'm painting with a broad brush here. But that's kind of how we think about is we want to be well-capitalized on the front end. And if that leads to great returns, if we end up putting some of that money back, fantastic. And we're very happy to return that. But we'd prefer rather be able to look folks in the eyes and say, Hey, we're asking for a little extra money on purpose. We've underwritten this, and it's a deal in this way on purpose, because we want to be able to weather the storm, We'd rather don't ever want to go back to the bucket. It's we well, no, we don't go back to the well,
Sam Wilson 16:39
Right. What is the percentage, do you have a certain percentage over that you are typically raising for a deal?
Ben Nelson 16:46
That's a tough thing because it really depends per deal on what that deal needs. Were mostly in the value-add space. And I think it depends, because it's a really volatile time right now, too, right? Like the volume of dollars that it takes to build attention two years ago versus the dollars it takes to build that today are dramatically different. So we take a look at the prevailing winds, we take a look at what we're looking at for, you know, for example, we're looking at a group of units up in the mountains. And for us to get labor up there for us to do some of the turns up there is exponentially more expensive than it would be in say Lubbock, Texas. So it's hard to put a percentage. I know that's kind of dodging the question, but it really depends on the market. And it really depends on the project. You know, we look really heavily a debt to income or student debt coverage ratio. And we want to make sure that we're in the green pretty strongly. They're both from anticipated rents, but what we think we can do in the short term as well.
Sam Wilson 17:35
Right. I love that. Ben, thanks for coming on today. This has been a blast. Last three questions here for you. What is one mistake you can help our listeners avoid and how would you avoid it?
Ben Nelson 17:43
Ask questions. Never be afraid to say, “I don't know the answer to that but I'll find out.” The ability to be honest with people and the ability to go and find the answer and ask questions. Building those relationships is the number one lesson that I've learned across all of the industries I've ever worked at.
Sam Wilson 17:57
Right. I love that next question for you. What is one way you're making the world a better place
Ben Nelson 18:02
Just talking to you man, I every day I get to see you and makes me, my heart glow. Oh no, we try to do whatever we can to lift people up. And again, that's a variety of things. But we really want to build communities that can help themselves and support themselves with building better places for people to live and raise their families is important to us.
Sam Wilson 18:17
Right, Absolutely. I love that last question. If our listeners want to get in touch with you or learn more about you what is the best way to do that?
Ben Nelson 18:23
Look us up, wildoakcapital.com. Take a look. We've got a couple of deals coming through. Please sign up. We'll send you out information every time we get a new deal.
Sam Wilson 18:31
Awesome, man. Thank you, Ben for your time. Appreciate it.
Ben Nelson 18:32
Thanks, Sam. Appreciate it.
Sam Wilson 18:34
Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Podcast. If you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, whatever platform it is you use to listen, if you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories so appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.