#007 - Real Estate, Risk, and Social Strategy - Darson Grantham

Parkes: [00:00:00] Welcome back to The Hidden Hustle. Today, we're joined by Darsin Grantham, a real estate leader and entrepreneur. From getting fired from his W 2 to launching businesses, Darsin shares how he builds his real estate career, mentors new agents, and builds a strong team. We also dive into marketing, his take on social media, short versus long form content, and using Facebook ads for first time homebuyer seminars.

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Darson welcome to the podcast. Yes. Thanks for having 

Darson: me 

Parkes: Technically is this a joint podcast? 

Darson: I don't know. We'll see we can you can edit anything these days We could probably put another person in the middle if you want 

Parkes: He's laughing cuz he's like he can do it [00:01:00] So what are you currently working on in your business?

Darson: So 2025, it's for context, February, early February 2025. Uh, six months ago, I was ready for my next adventure. Selling real estate was fun, but selling more real estate didn't sound like that much more fun And so I thought it'd be fun to explore what it looked like to hire agents to join Me and help them and help their business And so that is that's what I've been exploring for the last six months and so the last month and a half I've been meeting with people that want to be real estate agents want to know what it looks like to be an agent Maybe they're currently an agent that they don't get the support or don't have the numbers they want.

Gotcha. And want to kind of plug into my system. So, 

Parkes: so how's that been building a new business? Uh, any challenges this far? 

Darson: Uh, sure, man, there's [00:02:00] challenges every day. Like I struggle with that because I'm super optimistic Like when I decided I was gonna do this my admin Peyton She's she's like behind the scenes runs all my stuff cuz I'm terrible at details She's she's you know, it was Christmas about Christmas is when I told her maybe Thanksgiving in between there It's like Peyton.

I think I have my next vision. She goes. Oh, yeah Yeah, we're gonna have 25 agents and she goes No, we're not. I was like, what do you mean? She's like that. We don't have that. How are you going to do that? I'm like, I don't know how I'm going to do it is not the important part here, but like you had to shoot for something.

And so then I explained everything and she's, she's on board. She gets it. 

Parkes: So tell me how you first got into real estate. 

Darson: Yeah. First got into real estate 20 I've been fired. So I got fired from a W2 job in 20. 716 or 17 Which is a company that I thought I was going to it was employee benefits insurance. I thought I was gonna take it over [00:03:00] I literally thought the owner is 20 25 years older than me And I was like she owned the business outright and I was like I told her I'm going to do this for 25 years and Buy the business from you Is that okay?

And she's like, yeah, just do, we can do that. So I was like, okay, worked, worked, sold, managed accounts, started marketing in a way that she didn't agree with, or the company didn't agree with, someone didn't agree with it. Went to do my annual review, which I should have known it wasn't an annual, annual review in March, but annual review and she's, they let me go.

And I still remember this day is so, so out of the blue. Because I hadn't, I had a plan. I was like, this is what we're going to do. This is the plan. Going well, making money, making the company money. Didn't do anything wrong, in my opinion. He fired me and I was like, okay. Next. Were you blindsided 

Parkes: by 

Darson: that? I thought I was going for an annual review.

I didn't, I was never, there was no, hey you need to do this [00:04:00] differently. You need to do, like, so anyway, my point in that is, that's when I, and I'd always owned small businesses, and like knew that I was an entrepreneur, but I never like, Grand I got that job in 2008 when the crash hit and so this was 2017 So I've been working for the company same company Learned the ins and outs of it and But yeah, I was like at the LA at that point.

I said no one will ever control my paycheck Yeah, and so that's that kicked that off and had an year non compete But I had a couple other small businesses, started up a Mosquito Spring business, started up those Zorb inflatable bubble ball business, uh, business, and did that, and then, um, 

Parkes: Was the Mosquito Spring, was that your first entrepreneurial venture?

Darson: Oh, I, I mowed, I mowed 14 or 20 yards as a kid in high school. Like, I knew what my hourly wage was in high school. Was terrible at billing my clients. I knew that at a very early age that I was even though like if I billed them [00:05:00] I got paid. I Hated billing. I hated that paperwork so No that I mean as a kid kid I I can remember selling sunflower seeds for a penny apiece, and if you do that math you're making out like a bandit I didn't know that because I was just like, this is an easy way to think about it.

Kids were paying me that and it was, it was, I'd go to Casey's four blocks away, go buy a bag of sunflower seeds and make 15. 

Parkes: Right. Uh, what's your approach to, to real estate investing? 

Darson: Real estate investing. So that, let's just tie back to the story of how I got into real estate cause I didn't really finish that one.

Yeah, sorry. This, this ties into that. Uh, got fired from the W2 job. One of my clients hired me and said hey come do w 2 insurance work in our HR department. That was work even up in Ames and At that same time my wife and I did the Dave Ramsey get out of debt plan and so we didn't have any consumer debt or not very much probably none at that point and But we [00:06:00] needed like was either pay off your house or put more in the stock market and I hated both of those options So I realized that if you put 25 percent down on a investment property as a rental You, you, you don't, you can't lose more than 25 percent unless you buy a bad property because it's, it's a down payment.

Like there's that much equity. You can just go sell it on the open market. Once I realized that, that it wasn't like doom and gloom to own real estate, cause that's what I'd heard for eight years, like, I mean, I bought my personal house, but owning real estate was not a sought after thing, at least in my circle.

So anyway, did that. Uh, so once I understood cashflow, like the rent's got to be over X dollar amount above the mortgage and taxes and insurance, blah, blah, blah. Then it was just like, how much, how much down payment can I get to buy more rental properties? Right. Instead of investing. Cause I, I still, at that point I stopped investing in anything stock market.

Parkes: Yeah. And that, that was your catalyst into more real estate. Yes. Yeah. 

Darson: [00:07:00] When I go into something like I don't, I don't like, I'm not half pregnant, like it's all the way and like you're, I'm in it and I have a net, like I've never not been in real estate, real estate and business. Like I kind of look at those as I run them very simultaneously.

They can be ran differently. 

Parkes: Yeah. 

Darson: So, investment property, it totally depends on who the person is and what their financial goal is, right? Does that make sense? So like cashflow, if you have no money, you're trying to replace a job, you need cashflow because cashflow is what's going to replace your W2 job, 

right?

Darson: Used to be able to buy 50 properties and they'd all cashflow enough to replace a hundred thousand dollar job a year. No longer, like there's not that much cashflow, not in my experience. So now it's, you're, you're forcing equity upon properties to make a good investment property and then it's going to cashflow.[00:08:00]

Parkes: So you're saying your down payment has to be larger now than before? It could be the 

Darson: same, but you force equity. So, you buy a shittier property. Sorry, sorry if I can't cuss. You buy a worse property and then you fix it up. And then your rent is more than the mortgage plus whatever investment you have into it.

And if you do that, then basically you've forced sweat equity into it. 

Parkes: Right. 

Darson: And if you do that correctly, you can't buy a bad property. Cause you have more equity than you, the cash you've put into it. 

Parkes: Gotcha. Okay. So do you think there's a misconception on the internet about real estate investing and people make it seem easier than it is?

Darson: Uh, depends who you listen to. Like there's a lot of people, a lot of straight shooters. In real estate investing, there's also, yes, a lot of, I mean, sell this course. Honestly, I didn't realize that it was, it's every industry. Oh, the [00:09:00] sell my course, this is easy. It's in every single industry. So if you want to learn real estate, like watch 50 videos on it of people that have done it that aren't selling courses and you'll know.

And it means there's a million ways to do different to do real estate. I started as an investing and then I became an agent and now I don't invest in real estate. Why not? Right? Like, why not? It's because me putting money into a business to turn that volume up makes way more sense than putting 50, 000 into a rental property.

Yeah. Because the rental property cash flows at most 200 a month. So that's 20, even if it was 5, 000 a year. It's a terrible investment of 50, 000 if you can turn it on to a business and spend How much can I if I gave you? 50, 000 in marketing how much could you turn around and make for me 

Parkes: a lot more than 50, 000, 

Darson: right?[00:10:00]

Like in in a year right and in real estate you put 50 grand into it and you get 5, 000 back a year So it takes 10 years to beat that I've talked a lot of business owners out of buying real estate hmm If you trust your business and you want to grow if you don't want to grow and you're super happy with your family life and Your bit like your business is going well, and there's no kinks.

You don't need to hire anyone But buy real estate better than the stock market my thing 

Parkes: no right and my dad's a financial advisor he talks to business owners and says that business owners will come to him and they're like, you know, I want to get a financial plan. I want to start investing. And, um, so what's your advice?

And he'll say, well, what's, I mean, what's the worst deal you do on, on a product or a service? And 20, 30 percent is the low profit margin. Right. And he's like, well, you could do more of that or you make 10 percent in the stock market. So same concept. Yes, 

Darson: [00:11:00] it's exactly the same. 

Parkes: Yeah. Yes. A lot of people don't understand that they see.

Um, stocks and investment as safe, safe, or the, or some people even like the day traders is to the quick fix or 

Darson: get 

Parkes: rich quick. 

Darson: The day trading world. Like, I don't know that world. I've seen it. I like, I've, I've watched people get consumed. It's so, it's so dumb. If you're a business owner, unless you like, it's just gambling.

You might as well bet sports. 

Parkes: Yeah, very time consuming. 

Darson: And it's just a guess. It might be less, It might be less easy to do than truly gambling and betting on sports. Like, this team is better than that team. I guess if you're betting a spread, it's a 50 50 shot. But, yeah. Day trading is, 

Parkes: I don't know. Uh, let's see.

How do you manage risk when, um, Making an [00:12:00] investment or helping a customer make a purchase on real estate. 

Darson: You can't ever eliminate all of the risk. So like, at some point when you spend money, there is a risk. You're gonna lose that money and not get the value of whatever you're buying. But it is, is, and some people are over analyzers and some people are, shoot from the hips.

Right? I'm going to shoot from the hip, like I'm just, I'm going to risk it. I'm not going to risk it to where I'm going to go homeless, but like I will inevitably shoot, shoot for more risk. And so I tell my, like I always say, like my clients, you need to know all the facts and you will make the good decision.

The worst thing I could do is not give you all the facts. If you want to tell me, if you want me to tell you my opinion, like, I need to know what's going through your head. I need to know what keeps you up at night, what keeps your spouse up at night, what your total financial picture is, and I, I can't.

What's your risk tolerance? Yeah. It, it, I, mine's high, [00:13:00] cause I, I could, I could, I could live on nothing. I don't, I don't drive nice vehicles, I, we don't fix up our house, we don't keep it super nice because we have four boys at home, like, it's pointless. So, like. The risk in, the risk in business, I don't know, like, if you failed in business, you'd have a scarlet letter, right, you'd have a loss, but does anyone actually ever care about that anymore, like, there's a little ego, right, I don't want to lose, but like, I don't know, is it that important?

It's up to you, I don't know. Right, yeah. Have you ever lost in your business? Definitely. Like what? You can put me on the spot too, but I'm putting you on the 

Parkes: spot. Um. Probably. Go ahead. Probably just like, I mean, even bad ads, I mean, it happens sometimes. Yeah, but didn't you learn from that? Definitely learned from that.

And it's like, so, oh, I remember what it was. [00:14:00] I was doing a production and I had the two guys mic'd up. We were doing a shot of both of them. Um, and. After that shot had ended, one of them had gone out of the room for a break and was still mic'd up. And I started filming the other person in this video. And I could hear background noise, doors slamming.

It's that little kind of thing where it's like, and now this clip that I just had, I might be able to salvage it, but it's worthless. At its current value because there's a bunch of background noise that I couldn't that I didn't Foresee before shooting it so things like that small things like that Or like I was saying even bad ads like sometimes you have a client that's I don't like that.

Can you change it? can you do this this and this and like I can I can do this and that but It might not perform the way. I think it should I think we should do this and it's like So I think a lot of that for me is Um, learning how to better [00:15:00] guide a client in what I know works versus what their preconceived notion of what they think works.

Yeah. So, 

Darson: yeah, I mean, that's marketing in general or ads and you, you aren't, you aren't right either. Right. Right. Like it's, it's until you put it out there and let the public determine, Hey, did it work or not? And that, yep. Is, is who's right. Mm hmm. 

Parkes: Yeah. How has social media played a role in growing your business?

I hate the word social 

Darson: media. Can you be more 

Parkes: specific? Okay, how has producing content impacted or um played a role in growing your business? 

Darson: Any Uh, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. You 

Parkes: want a, you want a specific platform. 

Darson: It's all different. 

Parkes: Okay. [00:16:00]

Darson: Wouldn't you agree? This is my struggle with today's world. I would agree.

I would agree. Like, everyone should be on social media. What the hell does that mean? Everyone should be on YouTube. What does that mean? I hate it. And then people put clips out there and like, they try to educate and they're like, I, and I'm not a detailed person, but in this, in this instance. In order to give any educated answer.

I'm not being nasty. No, you're okay. You're okay like it's I struggle with it 

Parkes: break it down So what do you use? 

Darson: Perfect. I can answer that and how do I use it? Yes, so YouTube I have a YouTube channel called living in Des Moines. Don't go to it though, please I'm serious. Don't go to the YouTube channel.

It's it. I don't do any. I don't hardly ever talk about it and it's for people that are outside of the Metro that are looking to move to Des Moines and it, it, it, the algorithms catches them and they want to see what the neighborhoods are like, what it looks like to move to Des Moines. They'll find that YouTube channel.

Um, [00:17:00] that, I did that four years ago, started four years ago, and I do maybe half dozen to a dozen, um, real estate transactions from that specific, um, and if you do the math on that, it's very good ROI. I mean, the videos are not, they're not, some, some are more professional than others, but they're not anything more you can't do with your cell phone.

Um, just hot dog style, whatever, hor what's it even called? Vertical or horizontal? Yes. Horizontal. Yeah, horizontal. And uh, yeah. Um, I do, I could dj I Mike and yeah. Talk about all the met on the, all the neighborhoods. I could do so much more. 

Parkes: So is that mostly 

Darson: all long form? All long form. Gotcha. Yep. Zero shorts.

Mm-hmm . Shorts are worthless. Okay. I've yet to see anyone who has an ROI on shorts. Have you seen it? 

Parkes: What makes you believe that? 

Darson: I've yet to see anyone have an ROI on shorts. 

Parkes: In what? 

Darson: Anything. 

Parkes: Well, it wouldn't [00:18:00] be a thing and business owners wouldn't post on it. Oh, really? It wasn't. No way. You don't believe that.

You don't 

Darson: think shorts or reels are Produce income? I've yet to be seen. I've yet to see it. Maybe just in my line of interest, my industry. They can build a following. I mean, 

Parkes: I could say I was targeted this morning by a boot camp, not a boot camp, but a, um, It was a education, um, it was a fly out to Boise and they would teach you for two days about ads.

Yeah, did you buy it? I didn't buy it, but I clicked on it. I went through the form and I that's because you're a nerd. 

Darson: That's because you're a marketing nerd Hey, don't get me wrong. It can work but like in general like shorts Shorts can grow your channel to get them to the long form where the people actually spend their money Because they will net very few people will [00:19:00] transact on shorts You can you can push them to your long form channel to your channel to get long form In my experience, and then they build a relationship with you on the long form, that's where you sell them.

And not even sell them, you just show them who you are, have a call to action.

Short, I just can't, I, 

Parkes: very few. What do you think shorts, how do you think shorts plays a role in advertising, marketing for your business? Or not your business, but business in general. It's 

Darson: a loss. It's a, it's a. It's a magnet, like a downloadable PDF. 

Parkes: You see it as more of a lead magnet kind of tool rather than a converting tool.

Darson: For, this is not like, I'm not going to say it never happens, clearly it happens sometimes. But in the grand scheme of things about what people should and shouldn't be doing to spend, [00:20:00] like, I'm an efficiency nerd if for lack of better terms. Okay. I've I've done that I've done a lot of the short stuff and like it just doesn't produce Like long term, maybe it's just me.

Maybe I'm bad at shorts But I know a lot of research that's been done that shorts don't convert when you compare to a long term long long form 

Parkes: in real estate or in general in general I would disagree. I think it has its place. Tell 

Darson: me how you'd use a short in order to convert and make a sale. Building brands is different.

Parkes: Right now we have several companies that, um, we run, Ads for them. We're running the same creative in a lot of different formats. Yeah, so it's a horizontal video But it'll run as a real as well. [00:21:00] It obviously I mean, it'll be horizontal. So it's not a full screen, but These are these are shorts They would be considered.

I mean, it's ran as a real on meta. So Instagram real Facebook real Okay, do you differentiate shorts verse reels? Yeah Oh my gosh. Well, we're, we're not on the same wavelength. So a YouTube short is what you're referring to does not generate ROI, but you think a reel is different. 

Darson: Yeah. You have, you can do different calls of actions.

I believe you can have, like their ad platform is way better on meta. 

Parkes: Yes. Yeah. 

Darson: So like it can convert. 

Parkes: Yes. Yeah, that's where I was getting way off track. Okay. 

Darson: Okay. See, this is why it's so it's so nuanced and people lump even professionals lump it all together. And he just, 

Parkes: I talked to a lot of business owners.

They don't understand the difference between real shorts, tick tocks [00:22:00] and everything in between. So this is why it's very important. I talk about them. It's, I kind of, I'm referring to all of them as a general, just vertical videos. I get it. Okay. Okay. Okay, so what about that was fun by the way Challenging me.

Darson: Well, it's just not The clarification. Yeah, like it'll be better for the business owners now that you're able to articulate that too Yeah, because then and you don't see anyone watching and we'll hear that and be like, okay this it matters that much because you can't throw One video up. I don't say you can't you can it's just less effective you throw one video up on all the platforms and just be like 

Parkes: Yes, they all like a LinkedIn reel versus a meta reel.

Yeah. Those are two very 

Darson: different LinkedIn reels. But 

Parkes: if you talked, if you listen to any Gary V, I know he, uh, he, 

Darson: he preaches it. I know. I just haven't, I mean, I'm dabbling with that probably Q2 or three. 

Parkes: Yeah. Nice. So [00:23:00] for your business, you have a YouTube channel. Do you what else do you use? Oh back to that question.

Yes. Yes 

Darson: I'm gonna break this up year 20 so I got in the business 20 21 Gonna be in the business year 2020 And my mentality was, I'm just going to have as many real estate conversations as possible. So I'm very active in a real estate investor Facebook group. And then on Facebook, just friends and family stuff, like I post on stories and on my Facebook feed, I think it's called now or whatever.

Um, but like just, just comment stuff, right. And. A little bit about real estate, a little bit not. Uh, and the Facebook group for investors, I started basically presenting and running the group. I don't own the group, but I run it. And when I did that, I realized everyone in there wants to buy real estate. [00:24:00] And I was like, okay, this is an entire pond of people that want to buy real estate.

Now all I have to do is find some. And that will tell me exactly what they want to buy. That would use me as an agent if I find, found that deal for them. And if you know anything about investors, they are not loyal to an agent. Almost none of them are because they just want the deal. They just want the best, best deal for whatever that means.

And as a new agent, like that's, that's perfect because I love finding deals. And I'm spending other people's money, but I'm finding a good deal that they're as pumped as I am. And they could care less about my commission because it's the deal. And so then I just watched that group, made relationships with people in that group and had a boatload of conversations about real estate with them.

Sold 50 houses my first year. First [00:25:00] 12 months. Um, what was the question again? What other platforms do you use? And then the rest is your database. Um, meaning people that already know, like, and trust you. Staying in front of them talking to them about real estate. What's going on in the trends national local neighborhood?

Parkes: What would you say the percentage of of? Deals you do are they with homeowners looking for a home or investors? 

Darson: 5050 

Parkes: 5050 I try 

Darson: if I'm an I'm not a detailed person, but I track the lead stuff Not on the front end, but the what closes front end. I'm not good at it. But what closes I know where they came from if they're in state or out of state Investor non investor and Then what yeah, what lead source they came from?

Parkes: What do you use to track those 

Darson: Excel spreadsheet? Super nerdy. Yeah, because in real [00:26:00] estate like 50 50 deals if you think about 50, that's only one a week Which in the real estate world, like that's a lot of transactions, but in a, in a sales org, that's like, that's not very many. So I can track those pretty easily.

It's not like it doesn't have to get, we don't have to get super, super complicated.

Parkes: Are there any mistakes you see agents, um, or businesses making with their marketing? I mean, you, you're very vocal about shorts, but, um, are there any mistakes you see other agents or businesses, uh, with making content from their marketing? 

Darson: Oh, I've, I'm not an expert with other people because I, I've not marketed that much.

Comparative to other people so I can tell you what I've done, which is I've done the shorts in 2020 I Went like I did [00:27:00] all the short stuff when everyone else just after everyone else is doing I was like, oh I'm gonna do tons of shorts on shorts reveals all of them shorts real reals I did Facebook Facebook room in whatever meta reels.

Yeah, they're on both I did tick tock it like It was dumb. It didn't, for me, it didn't do anything. Um, and it very likely was the content. Wasn't all that compelling. I got a couple, I mean, I had one that had, I don't know, 200, 000, 200, 000, 200, 000 views, just like a stupid rant in my truck. But I mean, it. I don't know that much, so I can't really speak educated on, on that stuff.

What I typically see is people have not squeezed all the juice out of what they already have before they go on to the next thing. 

Parkes: Trying to do too many things before mastering one. Master is probably a tough 

Darson: word. Okay. Right, but [00:28:00] like. Getting, getting the most out of it to, or even just a process. So like, Hey, aren't my process with this one thing is so good.

I can now go on to the next. Usually they cut off like halfway through that one thing. I say they, that's how I've worked and I'll just cut it off. Um, when I know if I just do the things that already work in real estate, specifically agents are. Terrible at it getting sidetracked with oh my everything.

Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of why we become agents like we can't work for anybody Yeah, really? And so, you know you you're just like, oh, what's the next bright and shiny thing agents are terrible and I I was bad until 2022 and I had a, and then I had a senior agent come basically like, Hey, this is what you need to do.

Look at these other good agents. That's all they do. And you're not doing any of that. You're doing all the bright and shiny stuff. 

Parkes: Right. I see that a lot with [00:29:00] clients that we work with is one, they want to do it all. They want to do Google ads, Facebook ads, Groupon. They want to do every single little thing that instead of focusing on one and making that one work instead of dispersing all of your.

Marketing income or mark marketing budget. Yeah. How 

Darson: do you pick that one? How do you advise someone advise me on picking that one? 

Parkes: What I like to tell prospects and clients is We start with meta ads and meta content because we want to build social credibility for your business. We want your prospects and viewers to see you're a real person and that we want to build that connection and build that value for the customer, the viewer, um, and for your business in a way that is going to bring you that credibility.

So that's where we start after we can master. Making content for you. So whether we're making content for you flying out there making [00:30:00] content for you, or you're sending us content that's where we start and when we have squeezed all the juice out of Facebook ads, which you could say is never never Then we can move on to Google Ads if that's really what you want to do and Google Ads has its place Are you familiar?

Do you work a lot with Google Ads at all? I mean, I'm not in your industry 

Darson: Oh, the industry does, but you don't, no, I would say no. 

Parkes: Yeah. Our rule of thumb or our example would be that the industries that are urgent matter. So an emergency service contractor, Oh crap, my basement's flooded. I need a contractor.

That's where they go to Google versus an automotive shop. It's like, ah, something's been squealing for a couple of months, but I don't need it right now. But then they see your ad on Facebook. It's like, Maybe I should go to get it checked out. That's kind of the analogy I like to, to use. Do you not agree with that?

No. Why don't you agree with that? Because they're going [00:31:00] to Google the same thing. Yes, I mean it has its place. They compliment each other.

Darson: You're the market. I don't know, like I would love to see the results on it. Right, like, what, what, what, what, Someone searches for, a lot of people search for Realtors. A lot of people just see them in their feed. 85 percent of the people would use the realtor. What's the rule? 85 percent of the people would use the realtor that sold them the house if they remembered them.

15 percent do. That's bonkers. And you're just like, drop all the people that you've done business with, and we go focus on these new bright and shiny people. That's the realtor world.

Parkes: Can I give you an example as where an insta reel actually targeted my fiance for real estate? 

Darson: I get it. I'm currently running them for first time [00:32:00] homebuyers in a homebuyer seminar. So like I, they work. We have 15, 15 people signed up. We'll see how many people show up. I get it. They can sell. The brand thing is what I struggle with.

Like, how can you prove? That, that's why like the social credibility, I struggle with that struggle with social credibility. Yes. 

Parkes: Okay. If you had two businesses side by side, two companies, one runs Google ads only one runs Google ads and Facebook ads and Facebook content. You see them both in the search.

You click one. They have zero content. They look like a shell company. You click on number two and they actually have. Stuff posted. That's social credibility. 

Darson: Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, but that takes five posts because no one is scrolling past five posts anyway. 

Parkes: You want current content. You can't have a post from five years ago because they're like, Are they still in business?[00:33:00]

Darson: They're going to go to Google and see your reviews. Okay, maybe not prove me wrong. I could be wrong. I I'm old right like I'm a 36 year old so like maybe the 25 year olds like no, I'll go to tick tock and I'll look at maybe I don't know I just You it tons of people sell a lot of business on Meta I don't think every business Is perfect for a meta right, like That's yet to be proven that yeah or not.

Um, I would love for my business 

Parkes: That's the emergency situation where it's like an emergency service contractor shouldn't be running facebook ads, right? Because it's like You're marketing to people that don't have an emergency right now. 

Darson: Yeah. Well, that's just like a That's just AdWords. That's an AdWords game.

Like, you just figure out what the Google AdWords are that, yep, that trigger.[00:34:00]

But, like, as Realtors, you can throw, like, figure out what your AdWords spend is and figure out what your lifetime value of a client is and figure your CAC and, like, go spend money.

Right, like, the rule of marketing is, yeah, like I'll spend as much on marketing as I need to, to make sure I still make money in ROI. If you know the lifetime value of your client.

Parkes: You and Grantham Group, do you see you guys investing in Google ads or Facebook ads down the road? 

Darson: Currently, currently I just do Facebook ads actually, just, I just started that in the last couple of weeks. Um, we ran a first time home buyer seminar. We're just testing, messing, messing it out, messing around with it a little bit.

Uh, but it's, I mean, That's a, I do, I wouldn't stand behind it at all because I have no idea what to compare it to. Um, but it, it's a, [00:35:00] I think that's a perfect example of, I don't think people are going to go to Google and say what's a first time homebuyer seminar near me. But if they see one that's happening in a city near them, like on Facebook, that makes more sense.

Like selling that. Web like workshop style content but But like the Facebook page that it has if you look at it, it's terrible. 

Parkes: I Get it's generic. Do you think if it was better you'd get more? I have no idea 

Darson: and you can't you can't prove that Can you, I think, I think the consumer is going to sign up for a workshop.

They're going to see that on a Facebook ad. So it's a loss leader. So it's straight education. There's no sales pitch at it. It's straight. Hey, this is how you buy your first house. This is how you finance it. This is how you get insurance. This is how you pick the house. Is this a free 

Parkes: seminar? Yeah, free.

Darson: We'll buy, we have lunch and appetizers at it or appetizers and drinks on it. Local West Des Moines. [00:36:00] Uh, we're like very much testing it out. I have no idea how it'll perform. Um, I want to say it's 15 people signed up, maybe 20, but I mean, no idea. We're also running it to my, uh, 1500 like people in my database.

Parkes: So are you, are you hoping that one of those people at that seminar buy a house with you guys? 

Darson: So I've been told by other people who have done these is 25 percent will end up using the realtor that's there to help them buy a house. And so like, if that happened, like, that's worth way more than what we spent on it.

But I, like, there's not, it's not formulated, it's not systematized out to me to be like, this is exactly how to do it. And until that happens, like, I don't trust anything.

Parkes: It's hard for me to hear you say that this stuff doesn't work, but then you're doing it. 

Darson: I'm testing it. [00:37:00] I'm very much like, I don't know that it works, but I'm testing it, I'm trying, I'm dabbling with it. The YouTube stuff, I didn't know it worked for the first two years cause I didn't, my YouTube channel, I didn't have any, I mean, very limited success now, like the last two years I've had eight and 12, 15, 12, 15 transact like, and I keep getting calls in and I have like, it proves it works.

Like, if you, like, I want to be, I want it to be modeled and proven. If you told me, Hey, I've got a realtor in Cedar Rapids, even Des Moines that does this, I will guarantee you this number of leads. If you give me this much money, I'll pay you all day long for it. 

Parkes: So, where do you have your leads flowing? So, you're advertising for your seminar.

Is there a landing page they're going to? Is it just, uh, Oh, that's a good question. 

Darson: [00:38:00] Uh, it's Facebook, and then it goes to, they have to answer three questions. So, you've got an instant form. Yes, instant form. That's the word. Uh, and then we have a, like, one of the agents, immediately when they come in, he shoots them a text.

And I think he calls them. It's kind of his baby and I just said, okay, I'll test, I'll test the waters. Sure. How much are you spending? 200 bucks for two weeks. I don't think people personally, I don't think people will sign up further than two weeks out on a workshop like this. So I'm not going to run it for four weeks when someone's not going to sign up for something four weeks away.

Parkes: I've done enough events. How many of you, how many leads have you gotten? How many sign ups do you have so far? I think it's 15 or 20. I'd have to go back and look. What's the capacity? Hm? What's the capacity for the event? I'll take a hundred if I can get it. Like where, where is it at again? 

Darson: Uh, Nick's Bar and Grill, north of Valley West.

Parkes: Okay, so like it, [00:39:00] I mean. So what's a comfortable number of people to be at? Nick's Bar and Grill for your seminar. 

Darson: Oh, if we got, if we got 10, it would be a success. 

Parkes: So like, could you add an element of scarcity of we only have 20 spots available, sign up and then they come, they go through your form, they give you their email number and 

Darson: we get all that.

Um, it could like. In year in in future, we will do something like that, right? This is totally like literally we just put this together. Yeah, that's all go Because the agent came on and he's like, hey, I want to do first time homebuyer Workshop and I was like never done it. I don't I mean I can send out to my database but Facebook seems like a pretty legit way to Try that out.

Mm hmm. 

Darson: I Hope you have some success with it Yeah, I mean, I we've committed to six months. So like I'll do it for six months And if I if it doesn't work out no every month for six weeks [00:40:00] six months. Yeah It just I mean I Want to what's fun about that is if it works you can scale that to different investor workshops Homeseller workshops Just different types of those And then, I don't know, I love testing stuff.

Yeah.

So, yeah. 

Parkes: That's cool. That's good that you're testing. I mean, you can't know unless you try. 

Darson: No, like, in any of it. Marketing is the heart, like, What is that saying they say? It's like, Out of 100 percent of, like 100 of marketing, 80 percent is, 80 percent you have no idea where it went, and 20 percent is what matters, you just don't know which 80 and which 20.

Have you ever heard that one? Where they're like, you spend 100 on marketing, 80 of it is worthless, [00:41:00] 20 of it is the most important, but you don't know which one is which, and you don't know where it went. 

Parkes: Yeah. 

Darson: It's like, it's just. Prove it right or prove it wrong. I really don't care. Once I know it's wrong, I'll just stop using it or twist it or change it up.

Parkes: What do you think is a Appropriate time before you decide that it's not working. I think you, at least, 

Darson: it depends I guess. Six months would be like, I think that makes a lot of sense. Six times to try something if, if, it depends a lot though on your, your um, Well, your profit margin would be on the product.

Like as real estate agents, your profit margin, probably like 30 to 40 percent of the commission. And so you, like, you can mess up one out of, you can mess up half of the six times as long as you get a [00:42:00] couple deals. That's good. If you're selling a widget that you're only making two bucks on, better not be spending very much on that or have way more volume.

So I don't know that. I don't know that answer. Yeah.

Parkes: Where do you see your business in the next five years? How do you plan to get there? 

Darson: I hate these. I hate these. I don't know if we've talked about this. I can switch. I know it's fine. And the reason I hate it is like, I, I just want to work like, I'm sorry, 

Parkes: I just want to work. We were talking about this the other day.

I asked you, uh, how do you set your goals? You're like, I don't set goals. 

Darson: I started, this is the first year I've ever set my goals. And really it's cause I have other people now involved in my business and they need to like, they need to know what I'm shooting for. See your vision. Yes. Otherwise I'll just, just let me work and shoot generally in this direction for more and I will work as hard as I can.

And actually I don't really have hobbies. I don't, I [00:43:00] don't have a big family. We do, like I don't spend very much nights and weekends on business, not very much. Um, but for 40 to 50 hours a week, like I'm working and I ain't, I'm not pissing around. So, 

Parkes: so why didn't, why in the past have you not set goals?

Tell me about that philosophy. 

Darson: My gut says like, I don't. I don't have anyone to hold me accountable. And so I'm like, I'll just work hard and whatever happens, happens. And if I, if I'm watching it every day and I'm, I'm noticing how many leads are coming in. Cause like when I say I don't set goals, I can in real estate, you can see your pipeline or in sales in general, you know, like generally, you know, the, the time that it takes for a sale to happen and what the income is going to be for that sale.

And so if I don't have any deals, like right now I've got from 14 deals to close in February, which is bonkers, but I only have one in March. So I'm like, okay, [00:44:00] uh, March feels slow at where we're at right now because it takes 30 to 60 days to get a property under contract. So like I need to make sure that, Hey, what do we have going on?

Well, I know that my pipeline is, I've got six listings coming up mid February, mid February. If they sell, they'll close. Around March or April and so like if I can get five to seven every month like that hits my number of like Pretty normal if I'm above that great awesome if I'm below that okay, I need to change something of what I'm doing in business Which is usually I can have more conversations with people that want to buy or sell mm hmm, so It's not that I don't set goals.

I hate the big picture goals because like I don't know what I'm gonna be at in five years Right now I'm trying to fire 25 agents. I don't know that I'm gonna like to have 25 agents 

Parkes: But like do you think you'd be more efficient with less than 25? [00:45:00] Why do you need 25 

Darson: 25 agents doing 25 deals would be 525 transactions, which would be the biggest team in Des Moines It's the only thing that I've found that sounds fun, and it's like, I don't know what the money would be.

I truly, I haven't, it would be a lot, but I have no idea what it would actually be. But like, for all the agents that have done business for so long, nobody has that big of a team. Seems weird. Like there's either I'm missing something. But, uh, something is, so that challenge of like, let me do something that no one else has done is way more fun than any, like, dollar amount.

Like, I make enough to feed our family and have a good life. I got, yeah, more good, but the money isn't. 

Parkes: Right. What is the benefit of being a part of a team versus being on your own? Um. [00:46:00]

Darson: I've done this one before. Um, I fought myself on this for four, not fought, I've been anti team real estate for four and a half years, until six months ago when I started studying it.

Uh, from my experience teams seem not to provide the value to agents that they want out of a team. And so team agents leave. Um, agents leave teams. So If you are a self starter, don't take authority well, don't take accountability well, but you like, you want to, you want to drive the boat, drive everything like a solo agent is perfect.

Um, if you, if you like support, if you don't want to do the things that you're bad at or not as efficient at, and you understand jumping on to a team that can do those things. [00:47:00] Like, you're going to make less commission, but you're not going to have to do stuff that you're bad at, like, or stuff you don't want to do, or work nights and weekends.

So I transitioned to like pro team after I. I laughed. I looked at my commissions, um, as an agent for the last five, three, four years and my gross commission income revenue commission that came in as like 400, 000 paid taxes on 180 to 210, 000, which is about 50%. Of what the gross is, right? And you could join a team, any, any team in Des Moines for a 50 percent commission split.

And, and they would do the majority, they should do majority of the transaction. All you have to do is find the, find the lead, find the house or get the house listed for sale. And you as a sales agent are on to the next. If I would have done that, I would have been a part time agent working 15 hours a week.[00:48:00]

And still made, paid taxes on the exact same amount. That's bonkers. So that's what made me realize that a person that could handle someone else taking off, like taking all of the marketing, the, not all of the marketing, but a lot of it, the administrative load to be on a team that didn't want to build the business.

It makes so much sense to be on a team. I couldn't do that. I'd have got fired.

Parkes: How do you think your

career would have changed if you would have known that? 

Darson: If I would have known the team thing, I couldn't have joined a team. There's not a person that would have talked me into it. Cause I, I've been, I was fired twice. So I got fired from my previous job and [00:49:00] before real estate too. So that was twice. And I was like, I'm not trusting.

Anybody else to make me money or help me make money. I'm it's gonna be on me or none so it was uh Probably my own self sabotage burn the boat type thing and I had to provide for the family and Yeah, my wife my wife knew it and she was comfortable with it Somehow she trusted me You're gonna learn that soon 

Parkes: Um,

what's one lesson that's stuck with you throughout your career?

One 

Darson: lesson? Can you, oh man, one lesson. If you show up, you beat 90 percent of the people.

I met with an agent this [00:50:00] morning and he wasn't at our brokerage and he goes, what can I, what can I do to, you know, he hadn't sold anything in six months, new agent. He said, what can I do to like, like be better sales? I was like, do you ever go to the office? No, it's not really much going on there. I was like, go to the office.

He goes, yeah, but there's not much going on. I was like, somebody is there. Someone's paying rent there. There's somebody there that is probably making a lot of money. Go sit your office right outside their office. And just call that work until you figure out what to do. And that's just showing up.

I've done it my whole life. Like, basketball in high school. Like, I was not good. But I showed up. My household, that was not good. We won state. So, showing up, I had done it in real estate. I did it in real estate investing. Dozens of meeting, dozens of lunches and coffees. Just showing up. [00:51:00]

Parkes: So if listeners could take action on one thing that we've talked about today in this conversation, what do you think it should be?

Darson: Listeners could take action on one thing. Who's your, who's your listener? 

Parkes: I should have asked. Probably a business owner, or for in, in this instance, somebody in real estate. They're, they should be business owners. 

Darson: I know, it's funny, because they're mostly are not. My favorite would be then, the, uh, squeeze, squeeze the juice out of whatever you're doing.

Whatever you're doing well, or almost well, like make sure that there's every pinch of that is to getting taken care of, or hire people that are. And, and just twist it as far as, like, it's why I like the Facebook ad testing is because once you figure it out, then it's just like, turn up the hose. Right. But like, until it's figured out, don't go on to something new.

Like, that's, that's probably the first new thing I've [00:52:00] done sent for three years. 

Parkes: What compelled you to want to do that? 

Darson: I've wanted to do it for three years, but a new agent on my team came on and he wanted to do first time homebuyers and I don't do. I almost do no first time homebuyers unless they're house hacking, buying a duplex, living on one side.

Um, I'm not, I don't know, I might not be that patient for first time homebuyers or something, but he really wanted to. And so I was like, well, how are you going to get first time homebuyers? And he had no, like, he's just no idea. And I was like, well, I think that this model could work. I don't know very much about it.

Um, but I know people used to do it before COVID I do first time homebuyer workshops and it did pretty well. So I reached out to some people that I knew that's where I got the 25%. So I was like, if that's actually true, it'll be very lucrative. 

Parkes: What's the ad you're running? Is it a graphic or a video? 

Darson: Two videos, two videos and two graphics just like 

Parkes: [00:53:00] just right here.

You talking? Yep. Just inviting people to the workshop. 

Darson: Uh, yeah, calling them out. Well, I, like, yeah. Yeah. More, so the way I've always learned marketing, tell me if I'm wrong, is when you're reading a newspaper, they make, used to make those, your ad should just feel like another Add in the column, another paragraph in the column, another editorial.

And so I look at his Facebook is like, as I'm going through Facebook, I want to, I want my video to be like, Oh, that's just another video. It's not actually a sponsored video. So that's my, that was my goal. 

Parkes: Yeah. Genuine and authentic. That's, that's a good strategy when it comes to ads. 

Darson: I think so. I want to play it out.

Right? Like, so I, Eric is the one he, Eric has an ad and I've got a video ad and I was like, okay, you know, whoever, whoever gets more signups on their video wins. [00:54:00] And then the next month, the next person has to try to dethrone them with a new video. But the other person doesn't have to do a new video if they don't want to.

Parkes: You guys need to make a little trophy. 

Darson: Yeah. Right or wrong. That's what we're testing out. 

Parkes: Yeah. I pulled a couple quotes from your Facebook. Oh boy. Do you remember them? 

Darson: Were they yeah, 

Parkes: no, 

Darson: I mean 

Parkes: maybe One who lives in a glass house not 

Darson: throw 

Parkes: rock 

Darson: is my favorite one of my favorites. Why I tell my kids this all the time There's probably a bible verse, I know I shouldn't say probably, I don't know the bible verse, but it's the one who has a stick in their eye shouldn't, shouldn't, no, shouldn't, what is it?

Parkes: Do not, do not, um, criticize the speck in one, one's eye without examining the two by four. Yeah, yes. That's it. Something like along those lines. That's 

Darson: it. I mean, I try hard not to, like, I probably did on this podcast. [00:55:00] But I try hard not to be like you shouldn't do that But more or less like I wasn't successful on that.

I haven't seen that it works. You can prove me wrong I tell the people I would love for you to tell me and prove me wrong that Facebook ads or whatever kind of marketing works Because I will spend an enormous amount of money on something that works, but until it's proven that it works I'm not wasting my money on it, or it's just gonna be a very dabbling piece of it What other, what other ads or what other, what else did I write?

That was old too, by the way. 2012. 

Parkes: This, this one's, uh, this one's pretty funny. I, I don't know if I understand it, but. A blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while. Yeah. Tell me about that one. Well, just 

Darson: think about like, if you're a blind squirrel, how do you find a nut? Smell, just other senses. You're just, you're just out there looking like you, but it doesn't like just sit up in a tree and cry about it.

thing coming to [00:56:00] anything, the nuts not coming up there and go find it. 

Parkes: Right. Do you think after like, relate that to business? 

Darson: Uh, try, well, just don't sit back on your, don't sit back and wait for someone to come to you. 

Parkes: Would you say a new entrepreneur is a blind squirrel? When they find their first nut. I think you're thinking way too hard or when they find a few nuts Do you think their blindness is lifted and now they have a they see a bigger picture of of yeah?

Darson: Well if you find one it another one's probably dang close So like don't go once you find one don't go on a sprint for a mile and be like oh, where are they out over here? Probably not there Just look closer to you. I don't know I've never thought about that in a business aspect There's more 

Parkes: no, [00:57:00] there's no more.

There's only those two Uh, do you have any recent more recent quotes you like? Or a Bible verse that you've 

Darson: resonated with lately? Well, the Bible verse is going to be, be fruitful and multiply in all, like, in all aspects. We have four kids with a fifth on the way. So I like that verse for that. But in general, like, if you're a business owner, like God, God tells you to create, like he, he says that we are creators.

Be like me. I'm a creator. Be like, be in my image. And like, I never looked at myself as a creator before I became, before I real estate. Cause I was like, I'm not creative. I hate drawing. I hate artsy stuff. Not my cup of tea. I'm not, I'm not fancy like that. In art gallery is the most boring thing I could ever see.

I had to get careless. But when they, when someone was like, you do know as a business owner, you're very creative. [00:58:00] I was like, I never thought of it that way. So, um. Yeah. Does that answer your question? 

Parkes: Yeah, I mean, as a business owner, you're creating a machine. You're creating an organism, something that can operate without you.

It's an engine. It's always running. 

Darson: You're fixing things, you're creating. Yeah. 

Parkes: Do you have a website? DarsonGrantham. com I knew you had a website, but I didn't know if You want a better one than that? If it was something that you, uh, put a lot of time into? Or if it's just, you have it because you were supposed to have it?

Darson: Um, I think websites are mostly a waste. As you can, as you can imagine, it's hard to, it's hard to pull an ROI from a website. There are ways and companies that can do it. Um, but, I struggled with that for a long time. I had a crappy [00:59:00] website. Um. And I still like it's a decent website, but I expect zero leads from it We're building out communities and more or less so that we can do YouTube videos for those communities And I think at some point that will start pulling some web traffic especially on YouTube Just like connecting the YouTube video with the web a web page, but 

Parkes: Where should we direct listeners?

Darson: hmm I don't have a good answer for that. What if you want to buy a house just text me if you want to sell a house text me if you want to know About real estate investing text me if you want to know about real estate investing. There's a Facebook group called DSM real estate Investor meetup investing meetup.

I don't own it But I run it and like it's it's by far the best community of people that invest in real estate in Des Moines Like it's way cool 

Parkes: for somebody that wants to invest or find a home with you How should listeners connect with you? 

Darson: Find me on any of the socials and [01:00:00] message me. I'll, I'll message you back.

Uh, and what's your Darsan grant them because it's Darsan. It's a really like, just go find me, Google me, Google. I don't know. Yeah. There's not very many of us. 

Parkes: All right. Well, listeners check out the show notes below for Darsan's website and socials. And if you got value from this episode, leave a review and keep hustling.

Cool. 

Parkes: Thanks. Any other. 

Darson: Thoughts. See you at the next transaction.

Parkes: Hey guys, real quick. Thank you for making it all the way through the episode. We appreciate you taking the time out of your day to listen and learn from our incredible guests. If you enjoyed today's conversation and want to support the show, the biggest thing that would help us is if you subscribe, share, or leave us a review.

Until next time, keep hustling.