Huey Magoo’s Chicken Tenders in Ocoee, Florida
Guest: David Cobb
Topics: Restaurant real estate, leasing
Transcript:
Chris Ressa 0:00
This is retail retold the story of how that store ended up in your neighborhood. I’m your host, Chris ReSSA. And I invite you to join my conversation with some of the retail industry’s biggest influencers. This podcast is brought to you by DLC management. Welcome to retail retold everyone. Today I am joined by David Cobb. David is the owner and founder of Archon commercial Advisors, a commercial real estate company is an entrepreneur and author. And he’s involved in a lot of other things. I’m excited for him to share his story with you today. Welcome to the show, David.
David Cobb 0:40
Thanks, Chris. Really glad to be here. Love what you’re doing with DLC really enjoyed our chat the other day, your pot your podcast is great. And I really liked what you’re doing on LinkedIn I took I did a pretty deep dive on your on your profile. And you’re doing some great stuff in digital that I love to see.
Ressa 0:56
David, tell us a little bit more about you because I found some interesting facts that I think our audience will really enjoy. And let tell us a bit more about you and what you’re up to.
Cobb 1:06
Yeah, I’ve been in the I’ve been in the retail commercial world for about about 16 years, I started and founded a boutique firm development brokerage, you know, pretty much fully facet, a real estate firm here in Orlando, Florida. Florida is a great place to be in the in the real estate market right now. And as a part of as a part of my journey. You know, I went out on my own about seven years ago. And then about four years ago, I had to have an amicable business divorce from my from my partners, things just didn’t work out. We were in different cities. And as a part of that I needed to rebrand start a company in a matter of months. And that led me down the rabbit hole of a trend that I foresaw this was 2018 with digital and specifically what I thought that social marketing and especially LinkedIn, how it was going to revolutionize our business. So in in 2019, I started writing blogs, which I really enjoyed. And I found that I had a bit of a hidden talent in 26 blogs later, I got the idea to write a commercial real estate focused will b2b and commercial real estate focus book. And in 2019, I locked myself in my dad’s my dad’s Mountain House, I thought I was gonna get a few chapters done because I’m a pretty prolific writer. But all I really got done was a very detailed outline. And that took me down the path of writing a book that I recently finished, called Tactical LinkedIn secrets, rantings from a superconductor. And there’s a lot of people even that you’ve interviewed in commercial real estate that are in the book like like John Crossman is a great example. And COBOL from the Barlow development is in here. And it’s a it’s a LinkedIn and b2b high level networking book that really focuses on our industry. And that’s why I’m really excited to get on your industry focus podcast, and just really collaborate and I love what you’re doing on LinkedIn.
Ressa 3:04
Yeah. I think it’s really interesting book, a really cool angle you take with the book. And there’s some nifty things in there that I think the whole QR code, I think is really cool that you have in the book. I haven’t seen that in a book before. Yeah, people should definitely check out your book, no doubt.
Cobb 3:21
Yeah, I think the QR codes really neat. Because, you know, unlike a lot of books that you just sit down and read, and my book isn’t the type of book that you listen to with Audible, it’s got a lot of different, you know, graphs, examples. But the thing that’s great about it is it’s a short read. It’s, it’s designed for people that are just getting into our business or looking for a job all the way up to the C suite guys that want to work on their personal brand, connect with other leaders thought leaders dream accounts, that whole deal. And that what the QR codes do is they make it a really neat, immersive experience. You know, it pulls the reader into the content. And like, I mean, one of the cool things that I love in there, it’s actually my favorite page is on page 89 of it. I played a lot of I was a college basketball player, I played a lot of hoops against Vince Carter as a kid, you know, to me, Vince was the best dunk or in NBA history. And on page 89 In my book, you can click on that QR code and see Vince Carter dunking on me in high school.
Ressa 4:21
That is incredible. Really cool. Yeah, that QR codes do that in the book. So so so cool to connect the book in physical to digital, so just like what’s happening in our business, so really cool. But athletics are pretty prolific in your family. You were a college athlete, but athletics run in your family and I just recently found this out and why don’t you tell the audience a little bit. All right, I’ve
Cobb 4:45
got I’ve got an interesting I’ve got a little bit of an interesting family lineage. I try not to, you know, broadcast it and use it but as as a way to bring in traditional business but I do like to promote my great grandfather. his philanthropic ventures, this is his little bobble head right here. Ty Cobb is actually my great grandfather. And I’m on the board of his museum. And that was actually one of the one of the things that really got me into digital marketing is I knew there could be some really neat stuff that we could do. And he’s and he’s got somewhat of a notorious reputation. He was slandered in the 1960s by by a hack writer. But one of the one of the things that people don’t know about him is he was a big time philanthropist. He started a hospital in rural Georgia, that service, a very, very underserved area in the 1950s. And he also started an Educational Fund, that’s given over $20 million to Georgia College students since he started it in the 1950s or 60s, I think it was 1960s. And so I wanted to, you know, as a part of being a steward of his legacy, I wanted to figure out a way that I could help. And so I joined joined the board, and I brought in Alex servoz. Co, who’s also in my book, he’s a high level digital consultant. He works with a lot of professional athletes, coaches, authors. And so we’re really making a push to do some neat things with digital and bringing the Ty Cobb Museum, which a lot of people don’t know about, it’s a neat little museum and Royston, Georgia, bring that into the 20 into the 21st century and get their digital, you know, kind of reputation prowess out there. And it’s just been really cool to see the reaction of people designing the new website, you know, the Twitter, the Facebook, all that kind of stuff. So, you know, I’m tied to a neat piece of history. And I would recommend if you’re ever in whatever invoiced in the Royston, Georgia spent an hour and a half outside northeast of Atlanta, it’s a cool little museum to check out. And it’s a nonprofit. So everything that you buy or your entrance into the museum all goes to charity.
Ressa 6:54
That’s, that’s incredible. And for those who don’t know, Ty Cobb is considered by some one of the greatest Major League Baseball players of all time. His batting average is unbelievable. It was 367 lifetime. 367 lifetime batting average. I know he was a stolen bass leader, like six times Triple Crown winner. He’s gotten over 4000 hits, and his baseball card is one of the most sought after baseball cards. Yep. In the world. Right. I don’t know what it is today. But it used to be seven figures is baseball card.
Cobb 7:31
Yeah, there’s a couple different versions of it. I think that Ron Cobb who who’s the who’s the the historian at the museum knows a lot more than me, but there’s there’s a certain type of tobacco card that is extremely rare. And you know, back then they would put the baseball cards a little tobacco pouches and stuff. And there’s there’s one of them. That’s extremely rare. I think. I think that there might be there might be one at the in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. We’ve, I some of my family has a couple of them. But yeah, his baseball cards definitely worth some money. So it’s pretty cool.
Ressa 8:01
It’s really cool. Okay. Really cool story. All right. The next part of our show we call clear the air. Yep. It’s a little way for people to get to know you a little better. David. Yeah. Questions for you. Are you ready? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Okay, here we go. Question one. What is one skill you don’t possess? But wish you did?
Cobb 8:23
You know, I, I see people that run large organizations. And even if it’s even if it’s like, you know, and you’ll like this, because they’re from your neck of the woods, we’ve done a lot of work over the past 10 years with Jersey Mike’s subs. They’ve been, they’ve been a great tenant rep client of ours, I did the first handful of deals. Now. I think my partner John Helene has done over 60 of those. I think anybody that in my, and I run a small boutique firm here with phenomenal partners, you know, I don’t really need to manage that many people. But for the people that that run these, whether it’s a large company, or even multiple stores that can oversee that many people and change those lives, but also, you know, manage that many personalities. I have a lot of respect for that skill. I mean, I just think being able to oversee that many people and be a leader is a really cool thing. You know, i i Maybe I would possess that skill if I was in that type of situation. But I never have been and it looks extremely difficult to me. So I have a lot of respect for people that oversee large organizations with you know, multiple layers and multiple people. I think it’s it’s something that’s really dynamic.
Ressa 9:32
Yeah, I think it’s it’s interesting. I, I haven’t talked about when I when I grew up the corporate ladder you went from I went from just being a line person to managing people to then managing people who manage people and managing people who manage people and don’t Yeah, word manage, but yeah, so it’s, to me, it’s about you need a lot of support because one person can’t do it all you need him place you need, you need to really enjoy the people part of the business. So even for me, I often say, I’m in the real estate business, but I’m really in the people business, right? I have a pretty large team anytime, on my side of organization, 6070 people, and I’m in the people business way more real estate business. So,
Cobb 10:19
yeah, yeah, you’re one of those guys that has that skill that I that I definitely envy. That’s really cool that you ever see that many people, man,
Ressa 10:26
that’s great. So, okay, next question. When is the last time you tried something for the first time? I would have
Cobb 10:32
to say that that would be writing a book. And, you know, and for people that don’t, you know, that haven’t ever written a book before, or want to write a book. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s such an interesting process, you know, it’s a labor of love, I think, to really write a book and do it right, you have to have a lot of persistence, you have to be able to break the mold a little bit, because, you know, one of the things that, you know, you know, it probably going to lead into the next question, but, but, you know, people ask, like, you know, why are you doing that? Why would you, why would you write a book, are you doing this because you want to have, you know, because you want to gain attention, you want to be known as an author. And for me writing the book was really about, I consider myself a leader to just like you are, I think that’s really glad to know, you ever saw that many people, that’s awesome. By the way. I consider myself a leader of people as well. But what what one of the things that I’m very passionate about, is sharing knowledge. And I’ve always been the type of person in commercial real estate that that I like to collaborate with the other other developers, other brokers, everybody in our industry, I don’t think that a good team or a good culture can be run by, you know, putting screen savers on and locking your filing cabinets at night, and being clandestine. I think that the more creativity we can share, and the more knowledge we can share, it furthers our community and raises everybody up. And so you know, that was one of the main reasons that I wrote a book is I just enjoy writing and sharing knowledge. And it was, it was such a cool adventure that’s led me down a lot of really neat paths. You know, I’ve met so many cool people. I’ve got awesome endorsements like Pat Williams, the founder of the magic, I reconnected to old friends that went to middle school together that hadn’t seen each other in decades. One was a friend of mine, from my golf club. His name was John Mobley, he was a really good linebacker for the Denver Broncos. He won a Super Bowl with John Elway. And then his good buddy was a guy named fly Navarro, who’s one of the top offshore fisherman in the world. He’s huge on Instagram, those two went to middle school together. And because of authorship, fly, I ended up finding me because we had the same publisher, and I ended up reconnecting him and John Mobley. So the books been an amazing experience. I’m also passionate about connecting people, like I’m glad I connected with you, I’d love to introduce you to any of my contacts. And so, you know, it was just a really neat adventure. That, you know, I’d be happy to delve more into if your any of your audience would be interested in what it’s like to write a book. But it was a labor of love. It definitely wasn’t easy, but it’s kind of like running a marathon. It’s like you get across that finish line. And there’s a big, you know, sense of accomplishment? For sure.
Ressa 13:23
Really cool answer. Last question. What is one thing most people agree with, but you do not.
Cobb 13:30
Okay, this is probably very applicable in commercial real estate. I think that most people gauge their success. By or not most, I shouldn’t say that. I that’s kind of speaking for everybody. But I think a lot of people gauge their success by by how much money they make, okay. And in commercial real estate, there’s great opportunities to make money, it’s treated, it’s treated me well. But I think as a part of your work day, and I think you understand this, too, are you wouldn’t have done how many podcasts? Have you done now?
Ressa 14:06
We’re almost at 150.
Cobb 14:08
Okay, you see, that’s awesome. That’s a labor of love to that’s like, that’s the same level, you know, as writing a book. And I think that I think to really find true peace and success at work, you can’t just you know, you can’t just be in tabulation mode of how much money you make, I think, you know, we all want to do good we all want we all have a fiduciary to our real estate clients, partners, investors, whatever, to make it to make money but I think that a lot of the a lot of people in commercial real estate asked me why I was writing that book and I think that that a lot one people something that people might not think about or agree with is I think you need to fuse some sort of passion with your daily business activities. And I think that’s where you find you know, you know, real success, you know, that it’s it’s very rewarding, and for me, being able to fuse writing I’m blogging in you know, even even the the video interviews like this because I do an interview series, being able to share that knowledge combined with my daily activities and not just trying to walk out walk out as many deals as I can. And being able to find that passion is something that I think is a little unique in my mindset, but I you seem like the same type of guy that has that mindset as well. Because I can tell you’re very passionate about your podcast, just with the way that you prep and everything that you sent me, and just some of the ones I’ve listened to. So I think that you need to find a passion, infuse it with your daily activities, and that’ll lead to a lot more of a rewarding life.
Ressa 15:37
I like that find a passion infuse it with your daily activities. That’s really cool.
Cobb 15:41
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Ressa 15:44
It’s one of the clients of yours. Show him a goose. Yeah. Once you give us a little, you know, a little bit one liner on shoot who they are and then about how they ended up in a location they did and and what market are we going to?
Cobb 16:01
Yeah, we’ll be talking about the Central Florida market, the Orlando area, which is what wishes where they started Orlando in Orlando. Yeah, that’s where my that’s where my company is based out of they have. They have a really neat story. The founders of Huey mongoose both played golf together at Ole Miss. They they both went and they made many tours and things like that. But they’re Phil Memphis and Tiger Woods, dreams didn’t necessarily work out. So they knew they needed to get a day job. And there was a lady at Ole Miss that made these this had this really awesome chicken tender recipe. She would cook it before football games and stuff. So they went and paid her for the recipe. And then they started their first location over by the University of Central Florida. Now the founder of it that Hutchins and Matt Armstrong, who are both really good golfers, they remember is that my golf club and I just got to know them over the years when they only had two or three units. And in a gentleman named Andy Howard, who’s the CEO, now he, he’s the one that brought Wingstop public, he came in and sample the sample the product, and just thought it was phenomenal. So he brought his expansion and franchise expertise in and it just added fuel to their fire. And so we’re doing that all the other brokerage here in Florida, in most markets, and then we’re handling their master brokerage as well. And they’re blowing up all throughout the Southeast, and I’m pretty sure there’ll be in your neck of the woods soon, with the way that the franchises are selling. And, and it was pretty cool. We actually did their first drive thru deal. So initially, they weren’t they weren’t doing drive throughs. And we just had some discussions with them and ran the numbers and say, Guys, listen, we, you know, we really think this is the next step. And, and we’ve been, you know, we, you know, we basically placed their first drive thru store, we signed the first lease one actually opened in a second gen restaurant in Georgia before, but once and then it was right before COVID. And then once COVID hit, you know, they pretty much switch their model all the way to drive throughs and their revenues, like just skyrocketed with the drive thru model. So, you know, we’re really proud of being a part of their early growth. And we think that they’re going to be a brand that you’re going to see in most major metropolitan areas soon. We’re blowing them out through a network that I’m a part of called sight source. It’s where it’s a broker network. Neil shore is up in New York, where just a great group of people were blown them out through that network and we’re super excited about the concept.
Ressa 18:31
So let’s go back to this drive thru location. The drive thru location,
Cobb 18:37
it’s in Ocoee, Florida, it’s just west of Orlando. It’s on a major thoroughfare. It’s in it’s in a multi tenant building.
Ressa 18:46
Okay, and so did they had decided to be in Ocoee, Florida before and then you just came across the drive thru?
Cobb 18:56
No, we we actually were telling them that you know, that we really recommended that they find a drive thru site. There’s a developer here we do a lot of work with on the tenant side, his name is Greg Hill, great developer. And he was doing a build to suit deal and you know, obviously when you go from doing in line to drive throughs your your rents go up a lot. So, you know, there was definitely some, you know, some uncertainty there, you know, they were they were nervous about paying that much in rent. And you know, we just had to you know, we just really had to, you know, do our research you know, talk to other drive thru operators that we were friends with we actually got one of the head guys at Firehouse Subs who’s one of our clients as well we got him on the phone and had with them and had him run them through you know how much their revenue increases once you do do a drive thru or in their case I think it might be a pickup window and and you know, it was definitely a process getting them comfortable with it. But Chris, I’ll tell you once it opened it was like boom off to the races. They’re they’re doing like all drive throughs now What’s really cool?
Ressa 20:01
So we’re talking about a Kobe, Florida. They’re gonna open up location there and you told them Listen, guys, this has to be a draft there. And they’re like, we’re not a draft your concept and you said you need to drive through concept. And one of the things that I find interesting is one of the things you did is you got another food operator on the phone with him. Yeah. Explain to him, you know what it’s like to work a drive thru concept. And would you say, that was the point when he came away? Or they came away and said, Alright, let’s pull the trigger.
Cobb 20:35
Yeah, these are, these are, these are pretty smart guys. And they saw the numbers that Chick fil A was doing and all that kind of stuff. And they, I think they knew they needed to go there. It’s just, you know, it was so early in the beginning that it was a lot of capital for them. But I really do think that getting getting the other operator on there. And, and, you know, getting him to validate it for him. I think it definitely led to them getting more comfortable with the overall deal. It wasn’t like we really had another option in this. It was like, Okay, do we do this deal with a drive thru? Or do we do another one, you know, in another location that significantly cheaper? And, you know, ultimately, they pulled the trigger on that one, and it’s been a great location for him.
Ressa 21:18
It’s interesting, because I don’t think landlords or brokers enough, get other tenants on the phone with tenants. Yeah, I don’t think so. I’m stuck on that. Because I think that’s like that referral, or that knowledge base is interesting, because you don’t see that a lot, right? I think, I know, tenants. I know, tenants, and I have friends, or retailers often will call their peers and say, How do you do in this location? Thinking about this market? What do you think of this market, those type of things. But I don’t think something facilitated by landlords and brokers happens enough in our industry. And so I think that’s an interesting point that you bring up that you got them on the phone with other operators, you mentioned your connector, and that’s probably why but you don’t you don’t see that enough. And I think that would probably, it would probably do a lot of landlords and brokers. Good. If that happened more, where, you know, other people, other retailers got on the phone together connected through landlords and brokers. I think that’s, that was interesting.
Cobb 22:34
Yeah, you know, I think the more collaboration and like I said, the sharing of knowledge, and Intel, and all that, you know, you learn you learn from other from other people’s other people’s successes, and you know, and their mistakes. And, you know, I think that you get, you get two solid, you know, real estate minds on the phone and let them pick each other’s brains a little bit. And you know, only only good things can happen when you when you collaborate in a creative way.
Ressa 22:57
For sure, when they was there a point in time where you thought that, I don’t know, if they’re going to do this, they understand the numbers, they’re seeing the numbers, but they’re not sure they might do they want to do this drive thru thing I was, I was pretty
Cobb 23:13
confident that if I put a game plan together, and just laid it out, and just showed them, you know, the whole the all the steps, the whole way through the developer was really good, too. Because this was a, this was a ground up project. So and I know, you know, you know, a lot about development and redevelopment is what you do. And so, you know, as a part of it, there was also they were also nervous about the new construction process, and all that kind of stuff, but I had a feeling that that we’d already kind of gotten them teed up to go there, so I was pretty certain that they would, they would, that they would pull the trigger on it, but I just wanted to make sure that, you know, my fiduciary to them, and I think there’s too many brokers that that you know, really just try and push deals along, without without doing all of their due diligence and necessarily getting their clients comfortable. You know, I think if I would have just gone up to them and said, Hey, drive throughs do awesome, you need to do this, they might not have but since I walked them through the whole process, how long the construction would take, how much TI we were getting, how much the build out was going to be what what a true occupancy cost was what the cam estimate was and then I gave them you know, they were like listen guys you’re doing you know you’re doing you know, over you know, a million out of a non drive thru location here, you know, you know, if you if you do that you’re still within your occupancy costs, it could only it could only be better. And so I basically walked them through the best case and the way this is what we do with all of our clients, but I walked them through the best case and the worst case and the worst case just really wasn’t that bad. And we knew that there was just the downside I showed them that the downside risk was minimized and the upside risk was so much there. And and you know, it really kind of got them on board and their their thinking is great now about how they do it.
Ressa 24:59
One of the The things that I think and this is kind of the last piece, I’m curious how this went. That happens with new brands, especially ones that have some dry powder and looking to grow quickly. Yep, one of the things that happens is they lean way, way over toward already existing real estate or improved real estate. Because it’ll take too long to get unimproved real estate, right? If they got to go into a development, right, I met store too, by the end of the year, I want to get to 20 locations or whatever it might be for some concept. So like, I can’t open this location till you know, for who knows how long, right. And so where’s that ever concerned, because that we get that a lot where someone wants to be, they want to be open, like within this calendar year. And sometimes with a new development, that that’s a challenge, no matter how good the developer is, there still has to stuff to build it stuff to go get the approval stuff to do a bunch of stuff. And I’m sure you see that from time to time, with new with mature brands, it’s a lot simpler, right? We see with mature concepts, right, they understand the development process, they are, they have pipelines that are mature, and therefore they you know, if it’s not in the next 90 days, they’re okay, they can wait because they want that right location, something just trying to get their boots off the ground and get going. And that means existing real estate often for that brand.
Cobb 26:24
Yeah, we’ve seen that, you know, in within, we had it staggered out pretty well. But I would say we’ve, I’ve seen out a ton over the years. And you know, and what, you know, what I tell them is, is you know, when you when you’re opening a location, you know, especially if you’re if you’re a franchisee, or a new concept, you know, your your fixed costs are going to be there, you know, you’re you’re going to have your build out your rent, you know, you know your time your legal architects, all that kind of stuff. And so if you’re going to spend $500,000, on a build out, those costs are going to be there, no matter how solid the real estate is. But you know, you need to think in a long term time window. Because if you’re talking about, you know, you know, getting open quick because you’re bored, or just because you’re antsy, you need to think eight years from now, if that location is going to be a $2 million store versus a $1.5 million store, how much money does that equate to, versus waiting a little bit of time for that new construction, and you just really need to coach them on the long game. Because, you know, as good as anybody, you acquire shopping centers, and I actually met with Brad Peterson this morning, I mentioned your name. But you know, if if you rush and pull the trigger on a bad deal, it’s just going to cripple you, you’re going to have all those same fixed costs. And it’s just going to devalue, it’s going to devalue it, if you ever want to sell it significantly, because they sell on a multiple. So yeah, you might lose a little bit of revenue in the in, you know, for six months difference or a year difference. But if you think over the long term time horizon, you know, it’s better to just be patient, get the right real estate, get the right occupancy costs. And, and just don’t be too you know, don’t don’t be too quick to pull the trigger on a bad deal. That’s what scares me the most when, you know, when when we’re helping tenants with our tenant rep. And, you know, it’s the same thing on the development side, you know, I’m doing some development as well. And you know, you want to just wait for the right deal, even though even though everybody wants to get going and get busy.
Ressa 28:29
Yeah, for sure. Okay, well, that’s Huey mkuze. In Ocoee, Florida, and what next time I’m in Orlando. I want to go see their first draw. You got
Cobb 28:39
to check out the product. Check it out, for sure. Yeah,
Ressa 28:42
yeah, absolutely. I’ll do that. I’d
Cobb 28:44
love to get Amy Howard on your show, too. He’s great. Yeah,
Ressa 28:47
we’ll do. Yeah, yeah. Set it up. Okay. Keep it moving. You know, I think the last thing I wanted to talk about is, you’ve, you’re doing a lot in real estate, you’re working with a bunch of clients. But obviously, you mentioned before you wrote this book, which is really interesting. And you talked a little bit about it, I guess I would just say anything else from your experience writing this book that you think is noteworthy for the audience?
Cobb 29:16
Yeah, I would love to give them kind of, I’d love to give them some of my my main advice on on on LinkedIn. And, and there’s, you know, I know you’re going to have two types of listeners out there, okay, there’s going to be there’s going to be people out there that just don’t have the time in the day to necessarily post three times a week. That’s, you know, that’s ingrained in them and I’ve got friends that are like that, and I completely respect them, that they’re the ones that aren’t going to be content creators, they’re going to be content consumers, okay? And then there’s also the people that want to be content creators, creatives, whatever so I’m gonna at first I’m going to talk to the people that just want to do content consuming Okay, and that’s fine. You know, if you’re if you’re going out slinging it on your Real Estate job that’s awesome. You know good for you hope you’re making a ton of money. Hope you’re you’re sending your kids to a great college, whatever you suggest to them. I,
Ressa 30:10
you’ll laugh at this. I get I feel antsy and like, I’m not doing my job if I don’t stay on LinkedIn every day. Yeah, no, totally, totally. debt free. That’s, that’s like, to me that’s like, I didn’t respond to an email about a deal. So yeah, yeah,
Cobb 30:29
exactly. You and I are both you and I are both creators and you’re a creator just doing this podcast, which is awesome. Okay. But you know, not everybody’s wired. But, but here’s what I’ll say at a minimum. Okay. You don’t want to have what I call a skeleton profile. Okay, that’s where you’re like, you know, that’s like where you’re in like, like a wedding boy cropped wedding picture from 10 years ago, you know, where you look completely different. No background banner, no bio, all of that. I was talking to Tyler Carlson, who’s the CEO of RI squared. It’s a really cool app that they’re either Yeah, yeah, Tyler’s great. And so him and I are buddies. I’ve interviewed him for, for my LinkedIn interview series. And I told him and I and I gave a presentation at the retail live was Stacy Mooney in Austin, Texas, about a skeleton profile. Okay. So what Tyler told me is he said, Now, anybody who sends him a resume, he looks at their profile. And if it’s a skeleton profile, he throws out the resume, you know, and I think that’s one thing where people are going in the second part of that is, even if you are somebody that doesn’t want to post every day, that LinkedIn is your new resume, it’s your new business card, and you at least need to have have a strong and dynamic static profile. And you can do that with little to no effort, it doesn’t cost you anything. Because I mean, Chris, if you, if you go on Google right now, and you put in, you know, Chris ReSSA DLC, I guarantee there’s going to be maybe an ad or two, but then your LinkedIn profile is going to pop up and number one, two, or three, okay. And so I don’t know about you, but just about 90% of the people that I know, when they want to go do some research on somebody, they go hop on LinkedIn, or they go hop on Google. And that’ll take them straight to LinkedIn, because that’s usually where you can find them first. So at a minimum, your dream relationship, your next your next big account, hell, maybe your next, you know, husband or wife, Google’s your name, LinkedIn pops up, you don’t want it to look like a skeleton profile with no picture, you know, all of that kind of stuff. And so, you know, 100%, for the, for the content, consumers, at least have a good static profile, you know, then for the content creators, that that, that want to get out there and do more, there’s a couple of things I would recommend to them. One, instead of, you know, posting on the fly every day, go get it go put together a content calendar, you know, and decide, if you you know, three times a week is fine, go ahead and get ahead of those posts, do them all at once to where you’re not doing it on the fly, you can put some thought into it, get a few weeks ahead. And then if something really cool and timely comes in, you just you throw that in there, and then you just stack it out, and it puts you out a week ahead. And then the other thing I recommend is I highly recommend everybody getting LinkedIn premium, there’s a ton of advantages to it, one of them is just you want to see who’s viewed your profile. Because if you’re putting yourself out there, you want to know who’s looking at you, it’s the best warm lead ever, you know, they checked out your profile. And on on the LinkedIn standard, you can only see the last five people that viewed your profile, then they put the six months like a blurry face, like, you know, that could have been Jeff Bezos looking at your profile, you would never know. And and then, you know, but with LinkedIn premium, you can see the last 90 days. So you know, I think it’s a little bit different for how everybody approaches it. And there’s a ton of you know, tactics and, and just hacks and you know, things to do in my book that will that will show them all that. But those are, those are just some tips. And getting back to the QR codes. You know, your, your listeners might not know this, but everybody on LinkedIn, you go to the search bar on your phone. And there’s there’s a QR code, a free QR code for every single person. That is that’s on LinkedIn, you can kind of you can see it, you can see it right there up in the up in the top right. Everybody has their own free, free QR code on LinkedIn, they can throw on their marketing literature, you know, do all that kind of stuff. So there’s a lot of little there’s a lot of functionality that people don’t know about on about LinkedIn that you can use for your business and really use it to connect with people, which is ultimately what it’s about, you know, it’s not about being good at LinkedIn, it’s about it’s about using it to establish relationships, following up in person or via zoom, and then maybe in Vegas or one of the conferences and then executing on the deals and monetizing it. Are you going to Vegas? Yeah, sure. All right.
Ressa 34:54
Love to connect out there.
Cobb 34:54
Yeah, let’s definitely get together man love to do it.
Ressa 34:57
I’ll give a tip for you mentioned The content creators and the content consumers, I’ll give a tip for those who are in between who are trying to be caught they’re consuming, they want to be creators and don’t know where to start. place to start is on engaging in the platform and on the comments. So definitely is to start is in the comments, find your top 15 people that you want to follow and that you like and that you might want to connect with, and start commenting on their posts. And then and if you don’t have anything to say that don’t comment, but I would the more thoughtful, not just the thanks, or congrats, those are fine if you’re genuine, but something thoughtful and oftentimes what you find is you go back some of your comments and the conversations through them are your best posts later on. Yes, ways. That’s one of the ways to start is to comment, if you don’t feel great about posting it, you don’t know what to do to comment. That’s number one. One of the ninja tactics on LinkedIn that’s done me well. And my friend, Barry Wolf, and I think are sworn to are the ones who use it the most that I see on LinkedIn space, which is creating your own hashtag, and creator hashtag on LinkedIn. And this is a little bit of a ninja tactic. And, you know, it takes a lot to get a lot of people to follow your hashtag. Yeah, I have about 250 followers of my hashtag, which I would tell you. For some people, there’s a lot of hashtags that are under 100. Yeah, but it’s, it’s not easy. I throw it I’m pitching that hashtag. And like every post for more, follow this hashtag. Yeah. But every time I post, if you’re following that hashtag, I show up in your feed now or hopefully show up in your feed because you’re following and hashtag as long as I tag that. So it’s a built in 250 people that I show up on? Yeah, and I’m constantly trying to grow that. So anyway, if you want to try to get more in the LinkedIn, creating tactic, and then a ninja tactic is to hashtag
Cobb 36:59
Yeah, no, I love that. I talked about hashtags a lot in my book. And I think a lot of people don’t understand that if you put like, you know, if you just put like a random hashtag, like, oh, you know, hashtag Dave Cobb is awesome. That, you know, no, no, there’s no followers to that. The best hashtags for our industry. Last seen is I love hashtag CRE, I think that’s like maybe around 20,000 Hashtag commercial, real estate’s in the 10s of 1000s. And then hashtag development. And then there’s, there’s other big ones like hashtag marketing, which is millions and hashtag technology, stuff like that. So hashtags are very, very important.
Ressa 37:32
So the biggest hashtag that’s in retail real estate, is shopping in the real retail industry shopping in the retail industry. Like, let me really very cool. That’s the biggest hashtag, I look right now. Hashtag shopping, retail industry that has 4.4 million followers. No way you learn something new every day. Yeah. So that’s the largest in our shopping in the retail industry. It’s a large hashtag. But I would say there’s a lot of strategy, you can look up about actually creating hashtags that are in the are not creating or hashtagging things that have about 100 to 200 followers. Yeah. Typically, those which you find those people are extremely passionate about that hashtag, and they engage on that hashtag more. So there’s something to be said with that, if that’s what you’re looking for. Anyway, shopping in the retail industry is a great hashtag, but my hashtag is ReSSA on real estate. So if you’re not following it, please do.
Cobb 38:38
Yeah. Awesome. Restaurant real estate.
Ressa 38:40
Cool. I’ll start using that. Thanks, man. Anyway, so there are, this has been great. I really appreciate it. Cool. On on your on your story on the story about that deal as you reduce on your story about your book. Last part of our show, we call retail wisdom. I got three questions for you ready? Sure. Yep. All right. Question one. What extinct retailer Do you wish would come back from the dead? Oh,
Cobb 39:06
you know, it’s, it’s funny. This is epic. You’ll think this is cool. I use props in my presentation. This is a Kodak digital camera. You know, so So Kodak actually thought about doing it and then they and then they never pulled the trigger. You know, it’d be cool to it’d be cool to kind of be able to you know, take your film and every now and then and still get some old school pictures, man, you know, I’m just I’m an old school guy I grew up with with those type of pictures. So you know, I’d love to see Kodak and and then you know, there’s all I liked the stories about about the companies that didn’t adapt and became digitally obsolete. So I don’t know if it’s I’d love them to come back. But you know, there’s an awesome slide that I emailed you that you might want to use in the future that was a it was a blockbuster slide against Netflix and it shows all the different blockbuster arms and then all it had was Netflix was male and digital and it had blockbuster sick. See, and Netflix seven. So I just thought that was that was really cool and that was a retailer that went extinct real fast I actually backfield a couple of blockbusters back in the day. So that’s those are kind of the two that I found more more interesting that that are extinct.
Ressa 40:16
All right. Kodak no one’s ever said codec. That’s an interesting one. Okay. Question two. What’s the last item over $20 You bought in a store?
Cobb 40:26
My daughter’s Halloween outfit? Store. Spirit Halloween. Awesome guys wrote about it. I wrote about it in my last newsletter. I love those guys. It’s cool what they do to help help landlords get a little extra little extra juice on their vacant spaces. So yeah, so I bought my daughter. Which outfit and then I was a giant beef taco.
Ressa 40:52
I was the Riddler. We were super nice.
Cobb 40:55
You’ve got that personality man.
Ressa 40:57
We were the superhero theme. And yes, spirit. Halloween is a client of ours. So we love them. Okay, very cool. Last question, David. If you and I were shopping at Target, and I lost you what I would I find you in?
Cobb 41:10
Okay, cool. So So you would find me in the wine aisle, but not necessarily for the reasons that you that you think I think we have another common friend in. In John Crossman, and back when, you know, back when I was doing, you know, this was a long time ago, I had this conversation with over his shop. But they said what they do is when they walk into a grocery store, they go and they look at the wine. And if you and depending on what kind of what kind of mix they have in the more expensive bottles are a great indicator of the customer base and the demographics. So a lot of times when I’m out there looking at markets, I’ll stop by the grocery store, go in and see what their most expensive bottles of wine are to get a good feel for the disposable income of that area.
Ressa 41:55
Very, very cool. Yet John actually helped. I’m really proud of our internship program here at DLC. We have a really strong internship program. I think it’s one of the better ones out there. So anyone knows anyone looking for an internship in commercial real estate? We’re starting to market it now. Please reach out to us. Awesome. And, John, when we were starting it, John was really helpful in thinking through what our long term strategy and how we would recruit for it. So yeah, so yeah,
Cobb 42:33
he does some great stuff with the college kids. And he introduces me to a lot of them. And I’m actually going to be doing a free LinkedIn webinar that I’d love for you to check out if you have the time after the Vegas ICSC. So yeah, John has been great to me as well. He’s been a huge supporter of me of me taking the authorship jump and stuff. And you know, he’s good friends. So he’s, he’s an awesome guy.
Ressa 42:54
Yeah. And I’ll give you in this kind of suits you on the connection, like one of the things, we were at a time, we were going to a lot of universities, and we were like, you know how to, you know, send your kids to us. And it wasn’t like working like I thought it would work like, oh, we have jobs for kids like and they’d be just giving us so many resumes and it really wasn’t happening. And he in John was like, yeah, that’s not going to happen. He goes, like anything else, you’re gonna have to build a relationship to marathon with the university, if you want them to think of you first. You’re not the only employer reaching out to them. Right? You’re gonna have to build a relationship with the university spend time so that when they think they’re constantly doing that, and so we’ve done that with schools, that was a lightbulb moment in our industry. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. But clearly, that’s been really helpful. And we’ve got definitely key schools that we work with regularly now to recruit out of college. So
Cobb 43:45
yeah, that’s phenomenal, man. That’s great. That’s awesome for those kids and awesome for you.
Ressa 43:49
Yeah. Okay, well, listen, man, this has been great. Thank you so much. And I’m gonna reach out to you. Let’s connect in Vegas. Yeah.
Cobb 43:58
Awesome, man. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for letting me let me pitch my book to your audience. You know, if any of them ever want to reach out to me via LinkedIn InMail I’d be happy to give them any LinkedIn tips. And yeah, man, I really appreciate you having me.
Ressa 44:14
Thank you for listening to retail retold. If you want to share a story about a retail real estate deal that you were a part of on our show. Please reach out to us at retail retold at DLC mgmt.com This show highlights the stories behind the deals from all perspectives. So it doesn’t matter if you are a retailer, broker, entrepreneur, architect or an attorney. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to retail retold so you don’t miss out on next Thursday’s episode.