The Freq Show

47. Business: Refining our Business approach after market changes and road blocks

• Sam Thurmond & Jaclyn Steele Thurmond • Season 1 • Episode 47

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In this episode of The Freq Show, Sam explores the ever-evolving world of business—how markets shift, industries transform, and strategies must adapt to stay ahead. Sam breaks down key insights on the state of business today, the importance of evolution in entrepreneurship, and the success strategies that keep businesses thriving through uncertainty.

If you're navigating change and looking for ways to refine your approach, this episode is packed with value.

Tune in now and calibrate your business frequency!


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Sam:

All right, my fellow Americans, episode 47 of The Freq Show. I'm doing my first solo here. I feel like I'm giving my State of the Union address, and I kind of am, because today I'm going to talk about the state of our business and what I mean is the evolution of our business. So, to get into it over the last eight years and this is I'll talk about what Jaclyn's doing and what we're doing together, but what I'm mainly going to talk about is kind of what I'm in charge of, what I'm leading the charge on in our business today. Over the last since 2016, I have been 100% focused on residential real estate single family homes, small multifamily duplexes, quads, that sort of thing, buying and selling, flipping, buying rental properties, creative financing, owner financing, notes pretty much everything you can do in a single family space. It's been great. We're going to continue to do that. But we're at this place in our business where we have talked a number of times that our goal would be to graduate into commercial real estate, whether that's multifamily storage, mobile home parks, rv parks, all the different asset classes, office space on the commercial side, and it's been this thing of, we want to do that. We're going to do that. It's in the future, but once we, it's always kind of been this thing of well, we need to have this amount of money before we take that leap, or we need to understand this and be educated in this before we take that leap. And what's kind of happened over the last, I'll say, six months or so is I've felt a bit stagnant.

Sam:

On the single family investing side. We've had a lot of really good success. We have a decent portfolio of rental properties, but it's been very hard finding projects that really excite us and also make sense, like we can go find houses that would be super cool, you know, any day of the week. But it's a matter of finding those projects and also being able to get a good deal to where the numbers make sense. Ultimately. That's been the challenge. It's still so competitive, especially out here in Phoenix and the Scottsdale market. It's just been really hard to find those deals and we've been marketing directly to sellers, buying from wholesalers, going through all the channels that we always have. It just has felt like there's been a bit of a block there and I've kind of been feeling like I've been hitting my head against the wall because I want to get that next deal but at the same time I don't want to jump the gun and get into a bad situation and overpay for something just because we want to get another project and get another deal.

Sam:

Time has taught me, experience has taught me to never get deal heat and always make sure that you're doing the diligence and staying within the fundamental parameters of your buy box. And that's super important with real estate. Regardless of what else is going on or what other pressures they may be out there, the deals will come. So we're still working that, we're still doing some flips and have projects in the Southeast, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama. We're starting to steer away from some of those doing a lot more of those projects because it's just so hard to do the quality of project that we want to do without being there in person, being able to put eyes on the project. And some of the projects recently just haven't turned out the way that we had hoped and we're also in a position in the market where, unless you do something really well, it's going to sit there. So, admittedly, because we've been doing some of those projects remotely, they haven't exactly turned out the way that we wanted, and so we've had trouble selling one of those deals and we're ultimately going to keep it as a rental property, which will benefit us in the long run. But it's been a challenge. So I say all that to say that it's been a challenge, and I've been in this mode the last six months, like I said, where I feel like I've just been banging my head against the wall because it's just been difficult to find our next big project out here. I feel like I'm doing everything I know how to do and the energy is just, I don't know, there's a block for some reason. Jaclyn and I have always talked about getting into the commercial side, so we are going to do that. Our business is evolving. Now we're still doing single family.

Sam:

Jaclyn's still having major success on the design side of the business. She has some amazing clients that she's working with and she'll be sharing more of that online and she's really operating in her genius in that space. She's fantastic at it. She has such a design eye. She's actually very good at managing contractors and holding people's feet to the fire, not that that's what she loves to do. The design stuff is what she loves to do. The design stuff is what she loves to do. But on a whole she's really operating in her genius, which is fantastic because then you're having fun doing work and it doesn't feel like work. There are always be aspects administrative stuff that you can systematize or form out or delegate, but on a whole she's having a lot of success operating in her genius. So we're still doing the single family stuff. She's doing the design. We have the podcast. Obviously. We have our app that we kind of Jacqueline led the charge on, that as well and got it developed and got all of content in there. We kind of hit a wall on that as well as far as the final touches, the payment processing, that sort of thing to get that released. But we're back to working on that after we've been out sick and had the holidays and those sorts of things. So that's coming online.

Sam:

But the big development for me that I'm leading the charge on now is the commercial side of the business and this has been something that's re-inspired me. It's always kind of felt like something that was further down the road and not really knowing how to make that leap, but we have decided to you learn by doing so. That's what we're going to do. I've started working with a group here in Phoenix who specializes in commercial real estate. They buy and sell nationwide. Now I'm not a broker, but what I'm doing is I'm starting out kind of going back to the basics.

Sam:

While we have everything else that we're doing running, I have enough time to kind of go back to the basics, and generate some of these these deals. So, I'm back to picking up these calling all of phone, and cold calling these RV park operators, the mobile home park operators, RV storage, Self-storage, Multi-family, office space, owners and generating some off-market deals. Already having some success doing that, which is great, have a few potential deals that are out there. But more than anything, it just feels good to kind of be back doing the dirty work. You know cold calling. If you've ever cold called before, you know that it's not the most enjoyable thing in the world. But I'm at in a headspace now where I can look at it from a perspective of man. All I have to do is do the work. It's a numbers game and this will pay off. Single family pays off this much. Commercial is much bigger and it's going to pay off this much. So that part of it is exciting. Also, getting the education on underwriting, being able to truly understand how to underwrite these different asset classes, and figure out what it understand, what a deal is and what a is, isn't is extremely valuable and it's.

Sam:

The cycle is kind of repeating itself. When we started in real estate, we started wholesaling because we didn't have a ton of money, didn't have a ton of connections, didn't have contractors to be able to go out and buy the single family house and renovate it and sell it. So we started out wholesaling it, finding the deal, connecting that with somebody that was a little further along, kind of like we are today, to buy it and then selling them that contract. So that's where I'm at with the commercial right now. Now there's opportunities to creatively keep our interest in these deals. But I'm happy to say that I'm back to wholesaling.

Sam:

This time it's on commercial and it's reinvigorated me with this new challenge and what I see as the future in doing this side of the business and learning with a lower level of risk on the wholesale side and being able to truly understand deals, see how these things actually operate and learn the X's and O's and then, sooner rather than later, maintaining interest in these deals, taking these deals down ourselves and building our commercial portfolio, which is super exciting because all you do is add zeros to the numbers which you know. Same amount of work takes me, the same amount of work to call 50 storage operators, to that would to call 50 single family home sellers off market. So same amount of work, more zeros. I'm pumped about it, and one of the reasons where I wanted to share that was one just to kind of give the state of the union, of where we're at with our business today, but also entrepreneurship. It goes like this, ups and downs and you need to evolve. From a business standpoint.

Sam:

Flipping is great. Flipping can make you a lot of money, but it can also be inconsistent. Now there are people out there that are doing 100, 200 flips a year and they're doing that by volume. That's not the way we operate. We would rather do a handful, five to 10 flips a year, and have them be beautiful, not that those other people aren't doing beautiful flips, but have them be designed to the nines and something we really love and stand behind. So we're not doing volume, but what that means is there are peaks and valleys and it's not very consistent. So that's why we added on the design side of the business with Jaclyn, that's why we have the app that we're releasing, that's in development, that's why we're doing the podcast, and that's now why we're doing commercial. We're getting in on the commercial side.

Sam:

So we have all these different arms of our bu siness that fall under the same business, under the same brand, but they're vertically integrated. And we've got the time to do it. We have to be organized. It's been kind of like herding cats around here with everybody being sick. Roman started school, we have some other life events that are taking place, but as long as we can kind of hone in and be disciplined and get our schedules together to be able to focus on this stuff, we're going to knock it out of the park. So I'm super, super excited about where our business is going and how it's developing and just communicating the importance of being able to vertically integrate and grow and have all these different areas where you can create potential revenue and income streams. So that's really what we're doing and we just want to be honest and be open and share where we're at in our business and what we're doing, because I know a lot of you out there are doing the same things and you're just figuring it out. That's all we're doing. We're learning by doing and enjoying the process. So with that, that's really it. That's the state of the union, the state of Beckon.

Sam:

So the question for you is, let's go back to what I referenced with Jaclyn and design, because I think this is really key, what's your genius? What is it that you can do that nearly no one can do as good as you can do, and you can get paid for it. You can get paid for operating in your genius, because that's the sweet spot. So you figure that out, you'll be riding high. Good luck! Appreciate it. Have a great day!

Sam:

Live on purpose! Live on frequency!

Sam:

Thank you so much for listening to The Freq Show with Sam Thurmond and me, Jaclyn Steele Thurmond. We would love to connect with you via our website, beckonliving. com, and on social media. You can find us on Instagram and TikTok @beckonliving and you can join our email list to receive uplifting messages, podcast and business updates, and discounts on high-frequency products just for our freqy community.

Sam:

Cheers to high-frequency living!