Grant Warrington: And a friend asked me, like four years ago or something, he's like, hey, why are you doing what you're doing? Why are you putting your stuff out on social media? And I told him, you know what, I don't have an answer for that. But I do know one thing, in five years from now, I'm gonna be happy that I did it, as opposed to upset that I didn't.
Whitney Sewell: This is your daily real estate syndication show. I'm your host, Whitney Sewell. Today, our guest is Grant Warrington. He's a principal at Warrington Capital. He's a co-owner at Property Professionals. He quit his construction job to go full-time into property management, overseeing 800 units and 100 plus rehabs. He did that, but now he's a BiggerPockets contributor. He's accumulated over 50,000 subscribers across social media. He teaches people how to find, buy and rehab apartment buildings. And he's going to dive into today on how he has created such a large following and why you should consider it as well. Grant, welcome to the show. Honored to have you on.
Grant Warrington: Hey, Whitney. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. I was looking forward to doing this all day. So excited to be here, man.
Whitney Sewell: Yeah, I'm excited for you to be here. I know you have reminded me, you and I met at a, at an event or at a conference a few years ago, and I'm surprised it's taken this long for us to connect again, but I'm grateful to have you on. You definitely have some skillsets that I alluded to in the intro that we want to bring out right to the guests in a number of different ways, even from the folks who are raising money to the guys who are in the trenches, you know, working on these apartments. You know, you have some expertise that we want to get to.
Grant Warrington: For sure, man. Looking forward.
Whitney Sewell: Well, you know, Grant, you know, you have, uh, I want us to actually, I want the listener to know you're going to be here for a couple of segments here. So, uh, stick around for a couple of days and we're going to dive into a number of topics with Grant. Uh, but Grant, you know, you have had a lot of success on social media, I think recently, and, and you've been doing a ton of networking and I kind of want to bring that together in this segment. So you can elaborate on how you've done that, maybe some tips and whatnot that we'll get into. Uh, but even why. Why is that important? I've received pushback from people when I've said, hey, you got to be putting yourself out there. You know, you get people have to know who you are to build trust and all these things. But, you know, we'd love to hear your take on that, even why you started that. And we'll dive into some technicalities of it as well.
Grant Warrington: Yeah, it always reminds me I had a friend asked me like four years ago or something. He's like, hey, why are you doing what you're doing? Why are you putting your stuff out on social media? And I told him, you know what? I don't have an answer for that. But I do know one thing in five years from now, I'm going to be happy that I did it. as opposed to upset that I did it, right? So I did know that, but I didn't know, I still don't know really what the future is gonna be of it, but I do know one thing that it builds social capital. So on Instagram, I have 35,000 followers right now. I make $0 off that, but it's social capital. What that means is to me, like Ryan Pineda is, I'm friends with Ryan Pineda now, and I paid to be in his program around him. And have some questions for him. But now, him and I know each other right so so that counts for something right, and, and through my social media growth. I bigger pockets reached out to me asked me to be a contributor. And they post some of my stuff on their site, which was huge for me because that's how I started listening to BiggerPockets like a lot of us. So it's just people noticing what I'm doing. And again, on New Year's Eve, a couple of months ago, Grant Cardone sent me a message. on Instagram and my DMs. And I'm like, is this really him? And I looked, yeah, it's his account. And he said, hey, I am looking in 2024, I'm setting up all my podcasts and I want to be on your podcast. And he said, I love what you're doing. And I was like, wow. All right, cool. So I said, great. I I was all in. I was excited about it, but I didn't tell him at the time, but I didn't have a podcast. Like I was telling you earlier, I reached out to Jamie Gruber. That's a great entrepreneurial move right there, right? Yeah. I'm not going to tell Grant Cardone, no, but I reached out to Jamie Gruber at the Tribe of Millionaires podcast and him and I went and met Grant in person in Miami at his studio and recorded with him. For the people that say, well, why, why are you doing it? Why, you know, why get out there? It's just overwhelmingly now I'm starting to see like, well, this is why I'm doing it. It's for that social capital. And someone, someone asked me the other day on a podcast, what are you going to get now from having from Grant Cardone knowing who you are? What, what's your benefit now going to be with Grant Cardone? I said, absolutely nothing. But. I'm not looking, let me clarify, I'm not looking to get anything from Grant Cardone or anything like that, but he knows who I am. What's that worth? I think it's worth something, you know what I mean? And again, I can't put my finger on it, but I know at some point in my life, I will meet him again. And just these people knowing who you are is a huge step, no matter what you're gonna do in life. So that social capital to me is just so valuable. So now I can start to see it, you know, from everything I've been doing over the years. And it's just consistency, man. You know, people ask that too, right? Well, what changed or what do you do? I just decided two years ago, I'm going to post every single day. And and I never got off that. And I started posting three times a day and then two times a day. But you just got to start once a day and just be consistent. And that's how things start to change and people start to notice.
Whitney Sewell: Love that. And no doubt, I've also benefited from just major consistency, right? You know, every day for like five years, you know, we've produced a podcast. So it's, it's a very similar story as far as that, you know, that goes, you know, and just the, the what you call it? You know, just the value, right? The social capital. I love the, you know, building social capital comment. You know, one question, you know, why haven't you monetized, you know, the followers say, you know, of Instagram or something like that?
Grant Warrington: It's really difficult to monetize. You could do it with a brand, could sponsor you or do things like that, but it's really difficult. I don't know how I would do it, actually, to tell you the truth. But yeah, for me, I'm really happy where I'm at. I'm not looking to make money off it. I'm just looking to help people out, put some videos out there. I just put stuff out there that here's the stuff we went through. Here's how much it cost me. Here's what I learned. Here's how you can not make this mistake. And I try to just do it in kind of an entertaining way. But yeah, the monetizing, I don't know. I guess it's just the opportunity hasn't presented itself yet.
Whitney Sewell: Yeah, no, that's awesome. I just, I knew I was going to get that question. Uh, you know, why haven't you? Uh, but no, that's great. And no doubt you're going to have more opportunities even because more people are going to know you, right. Even just like Grant Cardone or other people like him, right. That are going to want to be in your network because of your, of your reach, right. Or your influence, uh, initially, but then they're going to get to know you and hopefully, right. You never know what kind of partnerships or things can happen, you know, after that. But one thing's for sure, if they don't know you, it's not going to happen.
Grant Warrington: For sure. And I mean, look at look at Brandon Turner, for example, right? He he's raised, you know, how many millions of dollars through his network and social media. And for you, too, I've known you and your podcast for years since before I even knew who you were before I met you. Um, you know what I mean? Because I, I just knew your podcast has been great. And, uh, I I've known that for years. So even when I met you, I'm like, oh, wow, I'm getting to meet Whitney. You know what I mean? So it's again, that social capital, I was like, wow, this guy does big things. He's got this amazing podcast. So. Um, you know, it's just tremendous. And to be here, that's why I'm excited to be here with you.
Whitney Sewell: I think the same thing about you, Grant. So I I'm, I'm grateful to have you on the show, but, uh, but I want to dive into, I know I'm going to get questions about this or I get questions about this all the time. I'd love to hear more from you on, you know, some of the technicalities behind, you know, building the platform. Uh, and I get questions like what platform should I be focused on? Obviously you have a big focus on Instagram, but maybe why Instagram, or are you focused on others as well?
Grant Warrington: Well, um, I'm focused on Instagram now. The direct messages are great there. It's easy to communicate with people. I can set up automatic DMs. So for anybody out there, you want to grow your email list, right? That should be everyone's goal. So I created a lead magnet. And what that is, is that's something I give away for free to people. I shoot a video and I say, direct message me or DM me the word best, B-E-S-T. And when they do that, that signals through ManyChat, that's an app. They'll DM me that word in many chat. We'll send them the link to my lead magnet. And then they'd have to put their email in and they get a free, you know, one of my free tools and I get their email and they're my system. So that's a great thing with Instagram. Um, but what I do and how I started, um, is I just started with my phone. So, you know, I have, I have a nice camera. I have, I have lights. I have all kinds of different things now, but I just started with my phone and that's what people should do. Um, I suggest Instagram and you just shoot a video, but then put it on all the other platforms, put the same video on all the other platforms. And that's how I started out. Um, you know, I'll, I'll put it on Instagram. I put it on Facebook. I put it on Tik TOK. And then I would share it as long as I wasn't plugging anything. I'd share it in the BiggerPockets group. I'd share it in other groups that I thought that it might be helpful. And that's what I suggest. So, you know, you shoot one video and you just share it to every platform. And Instagram's where it's really taken off the most. And that's probably why I focus on it there the most too.
Whitney Sewell: Yeah, no, that's very helpful. And I love this strategy behind the app and the mini chat and, you know, and it following up on its own and automating those things. Speak to the content creation piece. A lot of people get held up on, uh, you know, well, I, you know, I don't want to be in front of a camera or, Hey, what do I have to say? You, you even mentioned, you know, two to three pieces a day, uh, you know, speak to just the mental process, uh, you know, or even physical process of how you create that much content.
Grant Warrington: So I'll give you really behind the scenes stuff. So I was at a restaurant the other night, and they have a floating toilet in the bathroom, right? And I noticed a cock was cracked away, and it was leaning off the wall. And I'm like, oh, man, that would suck. Somebody's gonna have to fix that, whatever. So I took a video of it. I didn't say anything. I just took a video of it. And then I come home, right? And I'm gonna put my voice over it. And I'm gonna say, this is why you don't put a toilet like this in one of your rental properties, blah, blah, blah, right? Because it leans away from the wall, blah, blah, blah. So it's just something like that. My brain, when I see something like that, I just suggest to people to shoot a video about it. And then you can put your voice over it. Even in your apartments or anything else, if you're doing a rehab, you're doing any kind of work, shoot videos and take pictures of everything. You can always talk over it in the future, And you just never know when you're gonna use that stuff. It could be two years from now. I have videos from three years ago I still haven't used yet. So always record your stuff. The other thing you can do is, I use Trello. And what I do on there is I kind of script my videos. I write down what I'm looking to say. And, excuse me. I'll look at Trello, it'll be on my screen here. So I'll look down and I'll get my line, right? And I look up at the camera and I will say, you know, I'm going to tell you the top five reasons why you should not use a floating toilet in your rental property. And then I'll look back down and I'll grab my next line. You can cut all that out of your video. People make things. they make it too difficult where they think they have to be perfect on camera. You don't, you need to just say what you need to say into the camera. You can pause, think about the next thing you're gonna say, and you can cut out all that dead space for real. And it just, it makes it look so much better, but you don't have to be perfect. That's what editing's for, you know what I mean? So that's a trick I use.
Whitney Sewell: Speak to the team required to produce that much content.
Grant Warrington: So I have two virtual assistants. And again, when I talk to the camera, I talk to the virtual assistant and I tell him, hey, in this one, this is going to be the you know, I talked to my video editor. This is what the title is going to be. This is, you know, blah, blah, blah. Here's my first hook. I'll do three hooks and then the body of it usually. And I talk right to him and then When I'm done with the video, it goes into my Dropbox folder, and my video editor's in there. He pulls it, he edits it, and the social media manager oversees it, and she's the one that approves everything. She has to watch it. They watch for mistakes, misspelled words, things like that. And when she is okay with that, she okays it and she puts the video up on my page. She writes copy to it. So she just listens to what I say in the video. Might use AI a little bit and just write some copy. You know the words in the description, that's what copy is for if people don't know. And she posts it. So when I shoot the video, that's the last time I see it. So the video might come out two weeks. It just depends how much content I have in there. Um, it could come out a month later. So I've had people say like, Hey, I love that video that came out today. And I'm like, I, uh, which one was it? I, I don't, I don't know which one it was. Right. Because the last time I saw it, I'm like, tell me about the video. Cause I remember shooting them. I just, I haven't seen a lot of them. Right. And that's a beautiful thing about it is once you're doing enough content, I don't have to touch it anymore. So I've, I've taken myself out of that equation. I used to say, well, I need to approve everything. And now I'm like, just run with it. You guys are good. Um, you know, and if I see something that comes out, then I'll, I'll say, okay, guys, we did something this way. Let's, let's not do it that way anymore. But, you know, I, I really give them free reign because they're, they're good at what they do. And, um, that's the best part about it is, uh, you know, I'm, I'm more hands off on it now.
Whitney Sewell: Yeah, no, that's, that's the best way to do it. Right. People are usually astonished when I say I've never edited the first piece of audio or video and I don't know how to do it and I don't want to do it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You know, even after this mini, but, uh, but no, that's, that's awesome. Right. It just to be more hands off. And that allows you to, I think, be creative more often, right. Be able to produce more, uh, you know, of the raw content and let them run with it in a big way. Uh, you know, speak to the time spent, you know, how much time is focused on that kind of content?
Grant Warrington: Um, well, one thing I do is, um, I have a notes app and, um, or in Trello, I'll pull that up. Anytime I have an idea like that, or I shoot a video, I'll just put it in my note. Um, if I see, uh, molding or I see something that catches my eye and I'm like, Ooh, I could do a video on that. I'll, I'll put it in my notes and it just sits there. And then, um, you know, beginning of the week or whatever, I will, I'll I'll try to edit like five videos, usually 15 a week. I try to do like five on Monday, five on Wednesday, and maybe five on Thursday. And then I will shoot 15 videos on Friday. So really editing them and thinking, I'm always thinking of the videos, but kind of putting my mind to it and just putting some words to paper, that takes a little bit longer. But shooting the videos, it takes about an hour to shoot 15, maybe an hour and 20 minutes. So it doesn't take long. I just do them right one after the other.
Whitney Sewell: The hard work's been done at that point.
Grant Warrington: Yeah. And you know, like I'll just, here's another little, the background here, you can see I can change my colors, right? So it just looks a little different. Maybe change my shirt if you're shooting all those videos in one day. So it doesn't look repetitive when they all hit your, uh, your feed, right? So you just kind of change it up a little bit, but yeah, the hard work's done shooting them. You just shoot them right in a row. Um, so it's, and this is my, my full-time job, right? I mean, it's, um, it's this content creation and then, uh, you know, I have a course that in coaching, that's my full-time job. So, um, that's a beautiful thing about it, but you can make time for, for really, you can make time for anything that's important. You know, we always do.
Whitney Sewell: That's right. Whatever's most important to you is what you make time for, right? Yep. Yep. To say the least. Any thoughts on how you, you know, we were talking really ultimately about networking here, right? You know, and extending your reach and meeting new people and the value of that. Any other ways that you've recently grown in networking or meeting the right people or, you know, whether it's through the social media platforms or not, but what's been, because that changes over time, right? As you grow as an entrepreneur, the first ways you were networking are probably not the same ways you're networking five years later, right? And same people or groups. So what does that look like now for you?
Grant Warrington: Uh, well, networking is huge for me. I just, I just put a picture up the other day of, uh, two guys in there. And again, one was Jamie Gruber that we, we both know. And, um, I met Jamie at through networking in 2019. It's just, you, you, it's just incredible. Um, again, I go to, um, you know, I go to, um, video editing, content creation. I'm in GoBundance. That's where I do a lot of my networking. That's a lot of high level, it's a high level men's networking group. And that's where I meet, that's probably my strongest networking point. That's a paid networking thing. And really everything I go to that's paid, that's where the most value is. Because a lot of the free stuff, you get a lot of tire kickers and you get a lot of that there, which is fine. That's how I started out. But once you start breaking into those paid groups, you meet a lot of people that are doing things at a much bigger level. I met this woman. at an event just last month. And she is the private money lender for a real estate investor and content creator that we probably all know. And I was blown away. And here I am having a chat with her and she's like, yeah, I'm the one that lends him the money. And it's just like, wow. But again, it was a paid event and I hit it off with her. It was a great conversation. Her and her husband were there. So it's just, you know, when, when you go to these and you put yourself out there and you, you pay to play at these things, you meet some really, really amazing people.
Whitney Sewell: Yeah. I could not agree with you more. It, and that's a, that's a progress or a transition you go through, right. You know, as you progress as an entrepreneur and, and then you, uh, it's even a learning thing, I think as well, you know, initially you think, well, I'm not going to spend that much money to go be a part of a group, but That is such a mindset shift that needs to happen as soon as possible, right? Because that is exactly what you said. And GoBundance, and just so the listeners know, I have been one time, and actually I hosted a number of shows a few years ago. That's when Grant and I first met for GoBundance or with GoBundance. And that was part of the podcast a few, yeah, two or three years ago. But man, that was a great event. And I probably will join in the future and go abundance. But there's other groups like that, that I've been a part of. And you almost want there to be about an expense, right? A cost, because it does weed out the tire kickers, you know, like you mentioned. Are there other groups that you recommend? I get asked that all the time.
Grant Warrington: You know what, I will, but I do want to say this because I remember listening to podcasts in the beginning and being like, oh yeah, that's great. Great for you to say that. You know, I don't have the money to join that. I want people to know. Um, I never did either. So in the beginning I was the same way. So if somebody's listening to that being like, oh yeah, great for you, but I don't, I can't do it. Well, I was the same way. I didn't have the money. I didn't join. It took me years to get to this point. So I just tell people, have it on your radar. If you can't do it now, I understand. Have it on your radar. I joined GoBundance and I had to put it on my credit card and pay it off. every month a little bit and then the next year it came up again and I had to do the same thing. But just put it on your radar that this is what you need to do and those are the rooms you need to get into. So I just want to say that because I remember getting pissed off hearing that stuff when I started. But local Facebook groups, so like in Michigan, I was in Metro Detroit Real Estate Investors It was a local Facebook group. It was fantastic. It's still running. So if you're in the Michigan area, I suggest you join that. But those have been very valuable groups for me. So again, that's a free one. But there's a lot of guys in these in whatever wherever you live, there's a group, you know, your your local RIA. Anything you can get, go to meetup.com, right? You can go to bigger pockets and see what groups are in your area. And if you don't have one, create one. I mean, it really is that simple and people will come because there are so many investors out there that want to network.
Whitney Sewell: You know, as we're thinking about even the social media stuff to growing your network to growing as a real estate investor, all these things, you know, even paying money right to be a part of a group, the same kind of mindset often applies to people think about coaches, right, and you're hiring coach paying for somebody like that to help you. Uh, and, and it's, it's, it's such wrong thinking. Right. And I had to go through that as well early on. And, and, uh, and it was some of the best money I ever spent. Right. And has been right. It's short. I mean, it's, it's been a, uh, I mean, such a quick, it's sped my path up in a big way in so many areas of my life. Now, the more times I hire a coach for different things, but I wonder about you, like where have you seen areas in your life? Hey, I need a coach for this. I, or I've paid, you know, been willing to spend money for this type of thing.
Grant Warrington: Um, I have, um, I've gotten into programs, um, and I've paid for a lot of different programs around, uh, online courses. Cause I have that, um, things like that. I don't have a business coach yet. That's like my next goal. I do have a mindset coach. Um, and that has been tremendous just to help me with the way I think, um, how I react, how I look at money. I had to get over a lot of things. I was a blue collar construction worker. My whole family was. I didn't know people that owned real estate. I didn't go to college. It just wasn't in the cards. And I had a lot that I had to get over and having that mindset coach has just been tremendous. But I have a lot of friends that have business coaches. In fact, I got a guy visiting us here and staying with us this week and he pays his coach $20,000. And he was telling me just some of the impact it's had on his business. It's like tripled his revenue. And it's just incredible. I mean, so that is my next step, because just like you said, we all need them. And it's just have it on your radar. But that's, again, that's on my radar. And that's what I need. I need a business coach just to help me get to the next level too, because there's things I don't see. And I need somebody to point that out to me.
Whitney Sewell: Yeah. You know, having somebody that's been there, done that, but that can look in and just ask some good questions, just shifts things for you that you haven't seen before. Just like you're talking about it. Yeah. It's so worth the investment. Uh, so worth the investment. Well, uh, Grant, anything else you would leave us with, um, say social media, how you've done that so well, or, or anything that we've talked about around networking before we have to end this segment.
Grant Warrington: Um, I would just say consistency, just start, start making videos, but just be consistent, post a video every day, but shoot them, um, you know, seven, shoot seven videos in one day and then post them throughout the week. So don't overwhelm yourself. But, um, I would say start because it's, uh, it's just tremendous and you'll see things start to change with consistency.
Whitney Sewell: And so thank you so much. Uh, you know, tell the listeners how they can get in touch with you and learn more about you.
Grant Warrington: Yeah, you can find me on Instagram. That's the best way at Grant Warrington. I'm all over social media, YouTube everywhere, but at Instagram at Grant Warrington, you can send me a DM there and the apartment buying blueprint. That's my course. You can click the link in my bio on Instagram and you can find it there or apartmentbuyingblueprint.com.
Whitney Sewell: Thank you for being with us again today. I hope that you have learned a lot from the show. Don't forget to like and subscribe. I hope you're telling your friends about the Real Estate Syndication Show and how they can also build wealth in real estate. You can also go to lifebridgecapital.com and start investing today.
