From Where I Sit: Season 2, Episode 6 With Former ICSC Creators Transcript

Tom McGee:

Welcome to From Where I Sit, the podcast where we explore the forces shaping America's built economy. I'm your host, Tom McGee, president and CEO of ICSC. In discussion with prominent leaders and innovators, we cut through the noise to explore the trends and innovations influencing the future of our communities.

If you've listened in the past, you know I typically conduct a one-on-one discussion with commercial real estate leaders who spent decades in the industry. But today is a little different. This episode is about a new generation of creators who are helping drive change with new ideas, digital fluency, and a deep understanding of how technology and social media are reshaping our industry. I'm thrilled to be joined by Fly Jamerson, Casey Calhoun, and Ray Kang, who are three past participants from the ICSC Creators Network, which highlights digital voices shaping the future of the commercial real estate and retail industries.

Each of them brings a unique perspective on community engagement, brand storytelling, and leveraging new technology platforms to reach stakeholders in fresh ways. Fly is a Social Media Brand Manager at MoVO Media Marketing, a social media marketing agency focused on elevating commercial and residential real estate brands online. Casey is the founder of Ranz Calhoun, a CRE technology consulting firm in Columbus, Ohio. And Ray is Principal at Resolute RE, a leading retail investment sales and leasing strategy across San Antonio and South Texas. We'll discuss how they see the CRE landscape evolving and what excites them most about the future of our industry.

Fly, Casey, Ray, welcome to the show.

Ray Kang:

Thanks for having us.

Tom:

I'm looking forward to this conversation and it's going to be unique because I have three guests as opposed to one. And so this will be very much an interactive discussion. But to get started, you're all at different points in your career and in different verticals, whether it's marketing, whether it's investment sales and leasing, and whether it's technology consulting. But what you all have in common outside of using technology is that you have a passion and an interest in commercial real estate. So let's start with that. What drove you to have this interest in commercial real estate and focus your career in that direction? And I'll start with you, Fly.

Fly Jamerson:

Absolutely. So I have been in commercial real estate for it has not even been two years depending on when this airs-

Tom:

The early stage of the career arc, yes.

Fly:

Right, and so this is a little bit of a second career for me, but let me give you a little bit of background then about where I started. I, for 15 years, was a writer, producer, and director in film, theater, and television, and worked professionally and also was teaching at a collegiate level. And so I had a set of skills inside of that specialty that when it came to the time to pivot into something else. And that was due to a lot of reasons, you know, the timing of, you know, certain things going on in my family, as well as with, you know, COVID accelerated rapid change in so many industries. And so I had an opportunity to figure out what I was going to do with the skill set that I had learned in teaching and in producing media. And I leaned into social media because that was very accessible to do no matter where I was digitally, didn't need to actually be in a physical location. And I happened to have an opportunity to take a job at a local brokerage here in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And so I didn't know anything about commercial real estate. I knew some things about social media. And what I found was that the stories in commercial real estate from the history of how communities are developed to the rise and fall of companies to just the individual stories of brokers and people who are transacting were far more interesting than anything that I had ever worked on before. And so I was like, there's something, there's something going on here. And what I found was a place where there was a lot of opportunity and a lot of people who wanted to lean in as well.

Tom:

All right. Well, great. Well, we're going to talk a little bit about that background and how relevant it is to what you're doing now. I'm going to go on the other end of the spectrum, Ray, you're not as mature as I am in years, but you've been in the industry for a long period of time. Talk a little bit about what's driving your interest in commercial real estate.

Ray:

Well, it started with understanding the dynamic of it all. This is like my fifth career. I was in retail myself doing restaurants and cafes and bars. And so I love doing that. I love creating the concepts and putting them together. I guess two things that I learned while doing that was one, I love starting new things. I didn't really love running the operations because it's a tough business. My hat's off to all the restaurant owners and those operators that are out there because it's a tough, unforgiving job, but they pull it off. And second was no matter how poorly or well I did that month, it was always a certain check that went out and that was to my landlord. And I was thinking to myself, there's something to this. So I wanted to study more about that, learned about investment. wasn't necessarily that I started out in commercial, but I dug into the Robert Kiyosaki books and fixing and flipping and all that other stuff and thought that's where it kind of get my start. So I got my real estate license and started looking for opportunities to invest. I started in residential real estate and it just wasn't for me. I tried it for about a year and a half. And then I took a class in commercial real estate. And one of the advice from the instructors was, you know, drive around your markets. You have the most signs out there, you know, give them a call and see if you can jump on board. So I think I was the oldest intern at that company, probably historically I'll have to check, but in my late forties and on an intern salary and doing research and these odd jobs for people. And that's how I got my start. You know, did a lot of retail leasing, moved into investment sales. ran with Marcus & Millichap for many years and built a team there. So we were selling shopping centers and strip centers throughout central and south Texas. And here we are now with Resolute and we're representing a lot of different landlords and retailers, also implementing the investment sales team here company-wide.

Tom:

And in a great and growing market there in South Texas.

Ray:

It's been good to us.

Tom:

And Casey, how about you?

Casey Calhoun:

I'm a little different. Real estate was my first career. Yeah. I was very lucky early on. I started knowing in high school that I wanted to get my hands involved in real estate. Luckily, my high school had real estate classes and real estate entrepreneurs as alumni. And I heard them speak and said, I think I want to do this. So ended up getting my license right out of high school. And then I went to Ohio state, studied real estate finance. Got an internship at a local development firm while I was sophomore and then COVID hit and my boss left the company and they promoted me to full-time and I've been in the commercial real estate industry for the last six, seven years now. Eight, I think if you include getting my license right out of high school. So it's been fun. I've had the privilege to work on a lot of different things between a large scale, mix use, development, asset management for $2 billion worth of real estate, modular housing, real estate technology. So the goal is to keep learning and keep going and hopefully one day it'll all come together. But it's been a really good industry to me for the last eight years.

Tom:

Well, and you're focused on technology consulting and the whole area of proptech is, won't say emerging because it's been around for a while, but it's highly in focus. And I think people are in the industry are starting to understand the opportunities associated with implementing a lot of these new technology tools where ICSC will be having a big proptech conference as part of our ICSC LAS VEGAS conference this year. We have the world's largest commercial real estate conference in ICSC LAS VEGAS. And we want to build the world's largest proptech conference as well.

You know, you each kind of navigated into real estate in different ways, but you have now commercial real estate in common. The other thing you have in common is the love of the use of social media to advance and grow your brand and your business. And let's start at the most basic before we talk about how it grows your business. Just talk about what tools are you using in social media? When I say the word social media, what comes to mind and what are some of the applications that you're using? The LinkedIns, the Instagrams of the world, but are there other things out there that you're using? So let's start with that and Ray, we'll go to you first.

Ray:

Wow. I'm using everything practically. I think I've tried everything. I've bought everything from mics to cameras and tried a lot of different software. You name it. I mean, I've tried it. I'm trying to stay on a lot of different types of platforms. I don't have enough time to create platform specific content in a way. I kind of spread it out with stuff that I've recorded, but I think my main focus is LinkedIn, which has been really great for me. I’ve been fortunate to be part of a certain community who are invited by LinkedIn called the Finance and Economy Voices. We cover a lot of macroeconomic news and I'm sharing our insights on that. And then also with TikTok, TikTok has been a lot of fun and a pretty good journey. Instagram is a little different, still can't figure that one out. And YouTube has been an interesting journey too. And I've been stepping more into doing a little more longer form videos starting late last year and going to be sticking to it this year too. So, everything's evolving, there's all these new things that come out.

Tom:

There’s Substack and other things like that too, right? It's interesting the different, even what you just mentioned, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn. They're all social media, but they're all very different in how you use them and how you discern your message. Fly, about you? What are you primarily focused on from a social media perspective?

Fly:

So one of my jobs as a brand manager with MoVO is to understand exactly how all of those platforms work and what are the native conventions and features and like why does something when Ray says, I have to figure out Instagram, right? It's like, well, what about that is different than YouTube than these other platforms. And so as much as I'm digging into specific tools, understanding how people are using them and understanding what their goals are, I really become—one of my roles is becoming the person who can translate that to get the result that you want out of it in the same way that if you are working with someone who's a specialist in an asset class, right? Or like you go to people who can kind of see the big picture in that way, then you know, so you can do what you do best inside of it. And so for me, the way really what I'm seeing in social media for myself and for the people in all of the different adjacent professions in this industry is what are your goals? What are you trying to do and matching them to a platform that's going to get them in front of the right people? But then how are you translating who you actually are into a media format? And there's no blanket prescription for a strategy or a platform or anything that is going to work for every single person. So how are we seeing people translate themselves into social media? All the different creators, all the different innovations, all the things that are happening. But ultimately for me, at the end of the day, social media is the purpose of it for us as people who are building brands, who are looking for people to transact with. You're increasing the surface area exponentially to start more conversations that will lead to that happening. So it's a very interesting time. I know it's still really early in this business, but if I had to name the platforms that I'm doing the most stuff on, I would say LinkedIn number one, X is the second, and then pick your visual platform, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube.

Tom:

Yeah. I am interpreting one of the things you said to say, you can go on social media and be active, but if you don't have a purpose or a set of goals of what you're trying to accomplish, it may not be all that fruitful. You can post whatever you want, but if you don't know what you're trying to accomplish, just like anything in business or anything in life, you need to have a set of goals or metrics to help guide you. Let's talk a little bit about growing your business through social media and Casey, you're running a emerging technology consulting firm. How are you using social media to help you grow your business?

Casey:

Yeah, great question. I think all of my consulting clients are either from my previous work in Columbus or they came from social media, either referrals or direct messages. Now I run the business where I don't need 10 referrals every week. I like to have a low amount of clients and get really involved in their teams and their technologies, but I think whether it's a modular developer I've worked with or real estate, proptech companies, they have all come from LinkedIn, whether it's directly from a post that I spoke about or someone who knew me, saw me post and then referred me someone. So it's kind of like Fly said, it's all about expanding your surface area and the amount of people that can see you. And one thing that I was probably stronger in was getting the reach, but not necessarily activating those leads and turning those into like real revenue producing opportunities. So then I kind of shifted and said, okay, well let's focus on limiting the amount of people that I need as leads. So I only needed to convert a handful and could spend more time with those. So certainly you have to see if the people that you want as leads are on LinkedIn, which when I was trying to buy 30 unit multifamily properties, a lot of those people weren't on LinkedIn. You'd probably have a better chance finding them at a coffee shop or finding them at the local YMCA or something than on LinkedIn. But the real estate tech people are pretty involved on LinkedIn, hence the social media technology piece. So that's been a key part to the consulting company.

Tom:

LinkedIn is like any network or community. There's a certain self-selection process. You've kind of have to be someone who's interested in something that's relevant to what the conversations are on LinkedIn for it to be fruitful.

Ray, I'm interested because you're in leasing and investment sales and there's a discipline around that. There's a lot of modeling that goes around that. How do you use social media to assist you in growing your business?

Ray:

Yeah. More so in that it's for us, I'm always on the phone and cold calling is like the biggest thing that we do and the number one thing that we do. So I spend a lot of time on the phone calling directly to people that I want to work with or work for the social media piece. I think what the intention of it is kind of ancillary in a way that it's there to build credibility and familiarity to the people that I want to work with. So it wasn't something that I'm directly trying to transact with, but it's something that's there too. It's kind of for me, like leaving a voice message on someone's phone or a billboard sign on the freeway. It's just something to remind people that I'm here, I'm an expert in my field. This is what I do. If you need help, I'm here. And that's basically the strategy for me with it and kind of how it started.

Tom:

It's interesting, Fly, your business is about growing your clients' social media presence and profile. And one of the last things you said, Ray, was to remind people that you're here and your expertise. Is there a difference between growing a personal brand using social media versus growing a company's brand on social media? I'll throw that to you, Fly, because that's kind of in your wheelhouse.

Fly:

I get this question all the time, especially from folks who are ready to put time, energy, and resources behind growing something. And they're like, should I do it for the brokerage? Should I do it for the company? Or should I put it all behind my personal account? And it is much, let me put it this way, it's much easier to grow a personal account on any platform more quickly than a company account. I'm not saying it's impossible or that you shouldn't do it, but it is easier for people to relate to and engage with the voice coming from a person who they can learn to like, know, and trust as opposed to the voice of a company. Now, companies who have a strong voice, when we look at some of these larger brands or when you look at brands that are built around a specific person, that's why you see a lot of companies will have founder content or even look like this is Tom McGee hosting the ICSC podcast. You are a person that is contributing to this voice, right? And so immediately people will engage with it in a different way because people don't do business with brands. They do business with people. And companies that have really strong brand voices always have a person behind it who has shaped it from the beginning.

If you look at all the major brands right now, like Apple, Nike, all of these things that these brands that come up as being these behemoths in advertising to get to that point, it all had to come from a voice that was developed by the people who were in the room. And one of the things for Ray, as an example, like all of your personal content supports and funnels and strengthens your company. Tom being here on the ICSC podcast personalizes and strengthens the voice of the company.

And then for other reasons that have to do with some technical nature of the platforms in terms of what the actual difference and how professional or business accounts are treated versus like personal profiles, there are other reasons that make it easier to grow. Some of that has to do with the kind of ways that the platforms monetize things. But really, again, people talk about the algorithm and social media and like all this stuff and how to hack it. There is nothing to hack. The algorithm is you. Is it a personal page or a business page? Like it's you still doing it. And so the stronger you are as a person in your own articulation of your brand and what you're all about, the actual task of growing it on social media is just figuring out how to lift exactly that and put it in a format that makes sense on those platforms. I could really talk about this all day.

Tom:

One of the comments you said, I'm going to delve into that in one second, which is people do business with people, right? Particularly commercial real estate, because we know it's such a relationship business. And I want to go to that in just one second, but before I do that, social media is changing so dramatically, right? Both how people use it is changing. Even the things that are posted on LinkedIn today versus what would have been posted a year ago, a lot more video. You see a lot more non-business stuff on LinkedIn than you ever used to see in the past. And then there's all new mediums that come on. I mentioned Substack. How do you keep up or at least be observant to all the different platforms that are out there, whether you choose to use them or not. Is that something that you're constantly monitoring new things that come out or is it just episodic? You could become aware of it through word of mouth. Casey, why don't you say first. You’re a CRE technologies consultant so I assume you keep up with all this stuff.

Casey:

I think what it comes back to is this is still social. And if you start compromising your posts to fall in line with metrics or try to do something that isn't in line with your brand, it's a slippery slope and you'll either get burnt out from doing stuff that isn't truly in line with yourself or your brand will start to disalign with the people you want to serve.

Tom:

Thank you, Casey. Fly, I know you have some views around how to keep up with all the different platforms. So how do you?

Fly:

Again, the way that I do it because it is my specialty and it's literally my job to know what's going on. What I would recommend to somebody who is trying to navigate keeping up is to always again, be very clear about what you're trying to do in your business and understand that things that look shiny and new, like all the different kinds of things that you can do with AI to create content, to make content or to find new things, right? Like this is, you know, as much as it's relationship business, it's the information business too, right? So going to all of the different places online that you can do that, does it make sense for what you're actually trying to do? Also understanding things are moving fast. The way that we were posting on LinkedIn a year ago is not how it looks now. Things appear and disappear really quickly. Five years ago in the beginning of COVID, everyone was on Clubhouse and doing something now that is closer to what-

Tom:

Yes, Clubhouse. I forgot about Clubhouse.

Fly:

You forgot about Clubhouse! As important as that was in that moment, you forgot about it. And so these things, like these, all the different platforms and tools and whether or not we're reading something on LiveJournal 20 years ago or now we're reading it on Substack, the format, the media, the packaging, that's always going to change with innovations of technology. What will remain the same is actually the function. So if you're trying to keep up with all the different tools, platforms, innovations, if you have a lot of clarity about how you do business and what are the current formats that will allow you to do more of it and also what your preference is. Some people really like making video. Some people would rather swallow a toad to then show up on video. It just really depends on what you'd like. And so if you can get really clear about what those things are, it will make it easier to “keep up.”

Tom:

Again, having your objectives front and center. Ray, going back to your business, investment sales, leasing, which is kind of core to commercial real estate. It's a big part of what many of members of ICSC do. I often say, and Fly mentioned it, is people do business with people and there's no more relationship-oriented business than commercial real estate. Does social media in some way replace that? Is it disrupting it or is it really just to support the importance of relationship development? And if it's a supportive, how does it?

Ray:

It's definitely, I think plays a supporting role. I don't think you could develop the type of deep relationship from a broker to an owner or a customer as you would from directly calling them or meeting with them and talking to them on a regular basis. But I think what the social media has done for me is they're no longer cold calls in a way. So they've been watching my content through for how many months, you know, just being consistent with it. And then next time I've called them or something, it feels like they've already spoken to me or yet like my name is just very familiar. And so that's been helping open the doors a lot in a lot of different ways for me. And it's still been very effective and it's even grown to where people outside of my markets will ask for advice about their shopping centers or with certain retailers from different areas asking about the Texas market and which I could help them. So again, it's not my main source of trying to drive leads or create business, but it's definitely something that really helps and warms up the whole situation.

Tom:

Would you say it helps grow and maintain awareness of who you are and your expertise?

Ray:

Definitely. It's just a great opportunity too. It's like, everything else will cost you some money or something, paid advertisement in a lot of different ways, but social media still to me is still very democratized. You everybody has access to it. The great thing too is like, you're not bound by your followers. Like if you have a good video that can have some momentum on it, it could go across the globe and you're going to get some exposure in many different ways and meet a lot of different interesting people.

That's the great thing about, especially from the ICSC Creators Network and also just all the other professionals out there, but the community is really fun. Yeah. I've met a lot of great other creators out there and it's been pretty amazing. And also that becomes a referral network, honestly. I mean, I've sent referrals to other brokers in other states and vice versa.

Tom:

You kind of said two things there. One, it's an opportunity to really cast a net barrier broadly, but it's also an opportunity to really be targeted too, right? Because people curate to the things that they're most interested in. Right. So back to that self-selection concept, if I'm interested in commercial real estate, or I'm interested in this topic, I'm likely going to be looking for those types of things or fed those types of things. I'd be remiss to not ask about AI and any views around the disruptive element of AI and or the additive element of AI as it relates to the use of social media. Fly, I can just see that you're jumping at the chance to answer this one. I'm going to ask you first because I know you have some views on it. So let's go with you.

Fly:

Well, I'm excited to hear what Ray and Casey have to say because I think that the way that they're using AI is likely very different than how I'm using it or I'm seeing people use it. But in my neck of the woods, a lot of time people are complaining about or worried about, everyone's content is going to be the same or people are just generating, copying all this material that doesn't really have any substance or meaning. And so the idea that that's disruptive or diluting in some ways, filling the feed with noise kind of deal, right? But I think that for me, it's very exciting because now that all of these tools are available, that can help speed up the process of packaging yourself into media formats and distributing them. The only way to stand out is by getting extremely clear about things that only you can do. And what I mean by that is going back to this idea that people do business with people. This industry, there's an extremely low barrier to entry. I find it very exciting because you have then all kinds of people from all different walks of life who are inside of the vehicle of commercial real estate. If you can, again, get really razor clear about your specialty, your expertise, your experiences, you can use AI as a thought partner to help you, again, articulate that and get in front of the right people faster with higher volume. So I think that the people in this room are probably very advanced users of AI. I think a lot of people in this audience are potentially run the gamut of just experiencing AI for the first time. And again, I would say the reason that it's disrupting is because it can make you move very fast and it makes the things that you used to need a lot of skills for, it makes it accessible to everybody.

So instead of figuring out what am I going to do with AI, figure out what am I already doing that AI can help me do more of faster. And that is the way that I'm seeing people like Casey, people like Ray, people across this industry utilizing it with that mindset approach. Those are the people who are going to see AI as an additive tool as opposed to this is a really big problem.

Tom:

I always say trying to predict what the future is going to look like with AI is somewhat like trying to predict what the internet was going to be like in 1999. I mean, we kind of knew it was going to be a big deal, but we couldn't have predicted the way it evolved. We all thought we were going to just have dotcoms everywhere and we were going to Pets.com and on and on and on. Casey, just before I leave AI as a technology consultant, that conversation around AI, whether it's related to social media or just the use of AI and there's a lot of different applications for AI and commercial real estate. Is that something that you're seeing a growing interest in among your client base and how to utilize AI for lease administration or site selection or redesign?

Casey:

Yes, absolutely. So two parts of this, one AI is another tool and the tool is going to help you do something very well and do it much better than we did the past decade, just like any other new technology. But it, likely won't change how humans behave. In a lot of real estate and a lot of this social media and networking and relationships is a human nature, which we've seen that over the last thousands of years. So there is a lot of change coming with the tool set. I think going back to your question, there's a lot of people wondering how we can give our teams the best tools. At the end of the day, what drives business is the relationships in a social media perspective. I don't think it will really change what people want to see on their end. think that is more of a human perspective and that goes through a bunch of cycles. For example, like if everyone's using AI to generate content, it's just not going to be good. And we've seen cycles over the past decades of, during these years, let's take YouTube for example, YouTube used to be Casey Neistat's daily vlog that was pretty rough and then it got super perfected and like documentary like. And then now I think we are seeing a lot more of a go back to just genuine content, less polished stuff. I mean, you're LinkedIn. I'm sure you've seen it. LinkedIn kind of looks like Facebook right now. Like not a lot of professional stuff. Less put together, less polished. I think over the next couple months or years, I think we'll go back to, we want polished stuff. And I think AI will allow people to have better, higher quality output, whether that's lease abstractions, YouTube content, marketing content, you name it. I think AI will do everything, make us a little bit faster, a little bit better, a little more accurate, but it won't fundamentally change the pieces that make real estate go.

Tom:

Okay. Final question. So let's just say you're talking to someone who's been in business for decades and is scared of using social media or just says, I don't know. That's not something I want to be involved in. And maybe that's okay. But if you're somebody that was scared of it, but would like to engage in social, but just doesn't know how to get started. What would your recommendation be to them? Fly, hire you, is that what you were going to say?

Fly:

I think that's probably a faster way to get over your fear, right? I mean, outsource it, right? If it's a matter of time, that's keeping you from getting into one thing. But if it's fear, then that's something else entirely. And I do a lot of mindset and coaching work around those things. And I do think that if you can get over that fear, it'll actually unlock other parts of your business that aren't with social media. But I do think that if you can find other people, again, this is social, right? And I think that the fear of putting yourself out there and being witnessed and being perceived and know I'm to say the wrong thing or am I going to look bad on video? The interesting thing about social media is that it entirely depends on engaging with other people, but the production of it, the writing of it, putting it out there, it can be very isolating. It can be very, you're doing it all yourself. And so if you can, find other people, other creators, other people in your network and be a part of those conversations if you have peers and accountability partners, people in your corner who can make it feel less alone. That really helps.

Tom:

Any final comments, Ray, on that topic?

Ray:

I think she said it so well. I mean, I think this is a very unthankful process doing social media and being out there, but getting to know other creators, just talking to them about it, like it's sort of having that support group in a way, because it's doing this stuff. It's not easy. It really isn't. But I will say like, if there's someone out there that's starting to thinking about doing it, it's just do it. Nobody's, there's no judgment. I mean, in the most part and frankly, it's probably not going to be seen initially as well. So just like start out and get to it and get going with it. There's nothing.

Tom:

You can learn while nobody's really watching, right? Casey, any final comments? Yeah, please.

Casey:

I'll add that one, you should find something that you're a little bit more confident in, not that you're going to be super confident in, but like I'm really bad at structured video. I can do some unstructured video, but Fly has helped me realize that I'm a pretty decent writer and I get a lot of enjoyment from writing summaries of things that I thought were interesting and that matches well with LinkedIn. So maybe someone likes really short pieces of real estate stuff and they just want to post what they did that day. Maybe they post that on X or they post it on LinkedIn or maybe they don't want to post something attached to their name and they just want to comment once every day for 30 days. Like come up with some low stakes system that gets the ball rolling and you can take it from there. Like worst case scenario, you posted for, you commented 30 times over a month. And you met probably five people from that who are cool people working on cool things that you wanted to learn more about. Best case scenario, it gave you a little bit more confidence to start posting and you started getting an audience and that started generating business for you. So I'd start somewhere small where you're more confident and just start the ball rolling.

Tom:

All right. Well, good counsel. Well, thank you to all three you. Fly, Ray, Casey, thanks for taking the time today. I appreciate it. We just touched on at a high level, a lot of different things. We could have delved in more, but time didn't allow that. But I really appreciate your input, your feedback, your counsel, and really appreciate your support and involvement in ICSC as well. So thank you and thank you to our listeners.

Please follow and rate this podcast five stars on Apple and Spotify and share it with others that might find it interesting. Thanks for listening.