Brenden is the founder of MasterTalk, he coaches ambitious executives & entrepreneurs to become top 1% communicators in their industry. He also has a popular YouTube channel called MasterTalk, with the goal of providing free access to communication tools for everyone in the world.
Here’s some of the topics we covered:
- Public Speaking
- Confidence To Get The Deal
- Practicing The Correct Way
- How Life Would Change If Everyone Was a Good Speaker
- The Definition of an Expert
- Imposter Syndrome
- How To Deal With The Negative
To find out more about partnering or investing in a multifamily deal: Text Partner to 72345 or email Partner@RodKhleif.com
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Full Transcript Below
Intro
Hi. My name is Rod Khleif and I’m the host of “The Lifetime Cash Flow Through Real Estate Investing” podcast. And every week, I interview Multifamily Rock Stars and we talk about how they built incredible wealth for themselves and their families through multifamily properties. So hit the “Like” and “Subscribe” buttons to get notified every Monday when a new episode comes out. Let’s get to it.
Rod
Welcome to another edition of “How to Build a Lifetime Cash Flow Through Real Estate Investing”. I’m Rod Khleif, and I’m thrilled you’re here. And I know that you’re going to get tremendous value from the gentleman we’re interviewing today. Now, this is a different interview than, you know, a multifamily real estate operator. The gentleman I’m interviewing, his name is Brenden Kumarasamy. And Brenden is the founder of “Master Talk”. And what he does is he coaches executives and entrepreneurs to be great communicators. And guys, you know, in this business, we’re raising money from investors. We’re developing relationships with brokers, with sellers. And communication is one of the biggest components of this business. And that’s why I tell you, you know if you’re an introvert and you’re not a great communicator, it’s also a team sport. And you need to connect with a communicator or become better at it yourself as well. And so you’re going to get a lot of value today. I’m very excited to have Brenden. Welcome, buddy. I appreciate you being here.
Brenden
Thanks for having me, Rod. It’s a pleasure to be on.
Rod
Thank you. So, you know, talk a little bit about your background. How did you become an expert at communication and teaching others about communication? And where did that love for that come from?
Brenden
Yeah, absolutely, brother. So when I was in University, I used to do these things called Case Competitions. Think of it like professional sports, but for nerds. So while other guys my age were playing rugby or baseball or basketball or football or some other dangerous sport that I probably wouldn’t play, I did presentations competitively. That’s how I learned how to speak. And then I started coaching the students who were entering that program, and I accidentally gained the skill of how to help people with their communication. And that’s what led to “Master Talk”, the YouTube channel, specifically because I realized that a lot of the information wasn’t really available for free. So I started posting videos, and then everything went on from there.
Rod
No, I love it. I know there’s a lot of strategy around it. And I actually hired a story coach myself back in the day when I first got started and really added a lot of value to me and even a voice coach to make sure I don’t lose my voice. But, you know, a lot of people are terrified about public speaking. In fact, I forgot what they equate it to, but it’s like a morbid fear of it. Let’s start there. How do people get around that innate fear of standing up in a group or raising your hand in a group to ask a question? I even had that fear back in the day. You know, I was afraid of being rejected or humiliated. What is your advice for people getting past that?
Brenden
Absolutely. So there are two parts to that Rod, great question. So the first part is where does the fear come from? Where does it originate? A lot of people don’t think about that. So let me clarify it. Super simple. Even if you’re a real estate investor listening to this, we all start learning communication at school, high school, College, University. That’s where it stems from. But here’s the problem, Rod. Those presentations have three key mistakes or problems with them. Number one, all of them are mandatory. We don’t wake up one morning and say, hey, Rod, do you want to get breakfast and present all day? Says nobody ever. It’s the first problem. The second problem, you never get to pick the topic. It’s never hey, Rod, what are you excited to talk about? Do you like real estate? Do you want to speak about cash flow and properties? That’s not how it works. Can you talk about Shakespeare and you’re like, shake what? Like, what are we shaking? I don’t understand. And then number three, which is the most important one, is every presentation is tied to a punishment. So if you’re in school, it’s never okay, everyone, Josh is going to give this presentation. We’re all going to clap for him and celebrate. No. It’s you either present really well or you don’t do well. You don’t get a good grade. And then later, when you go to, you know, the corporate world or in real estate, if you don’t present well, you don’t close, you don’t get the deal. So there’s a punishment attached to it. So we see communication as a chore. Whenever we go into a presentation, it’s always high stakes, and that’s where the fear originates from.
Rod
You know I will tell you that that actually wasn’t my experience. For me, it was a fear of being embarrassed or being humiliated. And, you know, I had these limiting beliefs growing up from childhood experiences that I wasn’t enough. And so, you know, I was just afraid to raise my hand, you know, and be embarrassed or anything like that. And so, you know, the way I got around that was just drawing attention to it and really looking at it rationally and recognizing that it was a limiting belief. And there’s a reason the acronym for belief systems is BS because 99.9% of them are. And that’s how I got around that. But I love yours as well. I could totally see how you would equate that to punishment and have that be a challenge. In fact, speaking about the challenge, what do you think is the biggest challenge? Maybe it’s not that fear. What do you see as the biggest challenge around public speaking that people struggle with?
Brenden
Yeah, absolutely. And fear is definitely a big piece of that. Then the next question becomes, how do you get rid of the fear? And there’s one piece and then there’s another challenge we talk about as well. So we think about the fear, we have to reframe public speaking in our minds. And that’s why I loved your share, Rod. And the question we can all ask ourselves is how would the world change if we were exceptional speakers? This is a question nobody thinks to ask because if you ask yourself that you’ll say, wait for a second, there are a lot of positives to being a great speaker. I close more deals, do more sales, build better relationships with my family and the people around me. And we focus on those positives or life becomes a lot better, too. And the other piece around fear that’s important to point out is the idea of message versus fear. So let’s take a boxing ring analogy to demonstrate this. One side of the ring is the fear, and the other side of the ring is the message. So the fear is what comes with it. Fear of communication, anxiety, the stress. But the point that I want to drive you, Rod, it is not possible to remove the fear. Think of me. I’m professional in this space. Let’s say Elon Musk called me and said, hey, I need you to coach me tomorrow. I’d probably shit my pants.
Rod
Right.
Brenden
It doesn’t really matter how good someone is. There’s always a level above where there’s fear. But the key is not for the fear to go away. But when your message and your fear meet in the middle that your message gets the knockout punch, your message just needs to be more important than the fear that it’s associated with. And that’s how you overcome the fear of communication.
Rod
Nice. Nice. You know, I love the fact that you introduced a quality question. And the reason I love that is because we’re always asking ourselves questions. And you ask the question, you know, how would the world change? I mean, that’s a big question. How will the world change if I’m a great speaker? What an incredible question. And, you know, I learned a lot from one of my mentors is Tony Robbins. And so, I have a whole list of questions that I ask myself regularly. Some of them are personal, some of them are business-related. And really, you know, I think your life is driven by questions. So I really love that. And then, you know, another thing that we haven’t touched on yet. But how do you feel about practice?
Brenden
Absolutely. Of course, you know, every coach is going to say, every professional is going to say, look, practice is important. But what will I add on top of this is practicing in the right way is crucial. I’ll give you an analogy. Most people, when they practice, they usually start from beginning to end. So let’s say you have a real estate presentation where you’re selling to different investors, you’re trying to raise a fund, you’re going to practice it end to end. 30 minutes, 30 minutes, 30 minutes, 30 minutes, and then you’re going to get tired and get lunch. Not the right approach. Instead, what I recommend is to practice like a jigsaw puzzle. You know those puzzle pieces used to as kids, right, kind of putting those puzzle pieces together. Usually, when we start with the puzzle, Rod, we start with the edges first. And the reason is because those pieces are easier to find in the box. So we pull them out, work on the edges, go into the middle. But we don’t do that in presentations. Presentations would do the opposite. We shove a bunch of content, financials, slides. Why they shouldn’t invest, just shove a bunch of stuff. We’re on a tight deadline. We have to get to the client meeting, the next day we have to present to investors. So then we ramble through the whole thing, and then we get to the last slide and it sounds something like this. Yeah, so, thanks. Not the right approach. So instead, what you want to do is you want to practice like a jigsaw puzzle. Start with the edges first. Practice just the first couple of minutes of your pitch and make sure it’s absolutely perfect. So just present the beginning 30, 40, 50 times. It’ll take you around an hour. But you’ll exponentially see progress in your communication because you’re just focused on delivery at that point. Same thing with the conclusion. What’s a great movie with a terrible ending. Last time I checked. Terrible movie, right? The same thing with the close, last five minutes, really focus on inspiring the people that you’re communicating with, how their life will change if you invest in this property, if you do this deal, et cetera, and then tackle the middle.
Rod
Nice. Love it. How do you deal with imposter syndrome? Because that’s something I’ve struggled with as well, you know. Do I deserve to be in front of this room of 800 people, adding value to them or trying to add value to them? You know, does that come up in your coaching or your dialogue?
Brenden
Absolutely, Rod. I’m happy to answer it. As someone who joined the business myself when I was 22, trust me, I have a lot of anxiety because I was presenting to C-suite executives who have worked at the company longer than I was alive. How do I get over imposter syndrome? So here’s an analogy I would like to share with people. The analogy is this. Let’s say I came to your city. Okay, let’s say you live in, I don’t know, Fort Lauderdale, Florida or something. Okay. And I went to that city and I said, hey, Rod, what should I do here?
Rod
Right.
Brenden
You might say, yeah, Brenden, you’re in the city for a couple of days. Why don’t you go to that attraction, go to this restaurant, do this thing, do that? And you’ll probably tell me in the same way that if you came to Montreal and you said, Brenden, I’m new to the city, I don’t come here that much. What should I do? I’ll probably tell you a restaurant, go to this attraction, let me take you to this place. So why is it, Rod, that for something that we have absolutely no expertise in whatsoever? We are not tour guides. We tend to share that information very openly, very freely. Whereas with other pieces of information specifically related to our subject matter expertise, we spent years honing that craft. We’re afraid to share it. Why is there a disconnect there? And the reason there’s a disconnect is because most of us don’t understand what an expert actually means. The definition of an expert I’ve always believed, it’s not someone who has a Ph.D. or a master’s degree. That’s what society tells us an expert is. But the truth is an expert is simply one chapter ahead of the next person in that specific skill set. So in the same way, you could teach me a lot about real estate, how to host an amazing podcast, how to convey conversation. I could probably teach a little bit about communication techniques, strategies to help people with their communication skills. So there’s always something with learning from other people. So what is the solution to imposter syndrome? The solution is this. Start with the person you’re comfortable serving. I didn’t coach CEOs at the beginning. I started with people who are younger than me, 15, 14, 13. Then I did my age, then older, and I slowly worked my way up to the top.
Rod
Okay, no, I like it. I like it. How do you deal with that negative self-talk when you’re walking up to the stage or just in general? How do you deal with self-talk? What do you do about it?
Brenden
Yeah. So my perspective is a bit different on self-talk. My tough love on this is practiced so many times that you’re absolutely invincible so that self-talk doesn’t become an issue. And the other piece as well that I throw is always do the harder thing outside of the presentation. Let me give you an example of this. Let’s say an executive in real estate comes to us and says, Rod, Brenden, I’m really worried about this, you know, investment, deal, this presentation I’m giving in a few days to a group of investors. They’re going to ask me a lot of hard questions. I’m not sure if I’m ready for that. So instead of going, hey, you should tell yourself really positive things about life. I say instead, okay, let’s put you in a boardroom with executives whose only goal is to absolutely destroy your deck and make your life a living hell for three hours. And that’s fake, right? It’s not a real situation, but they don’t lose points for doing bad in that. And then they go into that meeting and then we’re absolutely slaughtering that person’s deck. So when they go into that meeting, they go, wow, you know Brenden, that was a really easy meeting. They didn’t braid me, they didn’t attack me. They just asked me how my day was. So that’s the way I think about it.
Rod
Interesting. Are there any rituals around speaking that you train people to do like little crazy stuff that they might do before they go up there or things that you know, I’ve heard about people that do this. These aren’t actually coming from my own experience, these last two questions, I’m just curious. I’d heard that you know, people will hold something in their hand or do something, you know, speak to that a little bit.
Brenden
You know, it’s funny you of all people ask you about rituals because I’m sure both of us are extremely hardcore straight shooters. It’s super funny that you asked about that, but yeah, absolutely. You know, my perspective is it’s kind of like morning routines. People ask me about morning routines. What should we do in the morning? Should I put shampoo on my hair and dance for 15 minutes? And my reply always is to test everything and find the ritual that works for you. Always. Whether that’s for morning routines or for speaking rituals. So what I always recommend is to try a bunch of them and stick to the ones that work. I’ll give you mine as an example. If I have a really important presentation to give, like a keynote in front of a bunch of people, I don’t speak during the day. So I wake up early, early in the morning, and I talk to nobody. I don’t answer calls, I don’t text anyone, and I just breathe for five hours. Another ritual that I do is I always wear a new suit. And this usually happens every year or so, like a really, really important presentation that will make or break my career type of presentations. I would always get my tailor to buy me a new suit. So I wake up in a different character because like the first or second time I’m wearing a suit. And then the third thing is I cut my hair exactly two weeks before the– by the same barber.
Rod
You have some rituals. Okay? You absolutely do.
Brenden
Correct.
Rod
Okay. I love it.
Brenden
But I don’t preach them, right? That’s the point I want to drive. It’s just because it works for me doesn’t mean it works for you.
Rod
They’re personal to you. Yeah, you know for me, I spend a lot of time with Tony Robbins and I do this movement, you know and I get myself pumped up. By the way, if you didn’t hear me if you didn’t see me, I just hit myself in the chest because it fires off all of my neurons. And so I’m awake before I go on stage. So if you see me behind the stage, I’m doing that a couple of times, sitting my chest, you know, and breathing, and I may bounce up and down a little bit. And that’s probably about the only ritual, I’ll stretch a little bit before I go on stage, just so I don’t tighten up. But I’m old, old as dirt, but that fires me up when I do that movement. So let me ask you this. Are there any myths or misconceptions around public speaking that you’re aware of that, you know, people might think are real?
Brenden
Yeah. Beautiful question. I mean, there’s a bunch of them. That’s mainly why I started making videos in the first place. Picture everyone in your underwear. That’s totally going to help with your nerves. Yeah. The last time I checked, it doesn’t. I’ve tried it with a bunch of people. It doesn’t work.
Rod
They’re naked. They’re all naked out there, right? Yeah.
Brenden
They’re all naked. So, yeah, that doesn’t work, unfortunately. Let me give you a couple that is a bit more controversial in my industry, to make this a bit more fun. So another myth that I say that people say is focus on storytelling. And I think that’s actually not correct. And let me explain why.
Rod
Wow, we’re going to debate that one. But okay, please continue.
Brenden
Let’s debate.
Rod
Okay.
Brenden
Let me be very specific about what I mean here. So you can fully understand.
Rod
Okay.
Brenden
Storytelling without the right foundation will not work. For example, once upon a time, I remember I was waking up in the morning and I thought to myself, doesn’t work. Most people should not ever start with storytelling, okay, in my opinion, because if you don’t have the right technique, you’re not getting rid of your filler words. You don’t have energy, you don’t have enthusiasm. Your story is going to fall flat. The other piece as well is storytelling is extremely vague to learn. What does storytelling even mean? Sure, we have some great frameworks on it, like Donald Miller’s StoryBrand, who’s a great example, good mentor of mine. But these concepts are a lot harder for a beginner to grasp. And by my book, most people who haven’t fixed their filler words are beginners. So you want to start by mastering your communication technique first and then think about storytelling.
Rod
I completely agree with that. No, I use a lot of stories in my presentation to get points across. You know, in fact, I have a T-shirt that says, #AskedMeHowIKnow because I made every mistake in the book, and I share my mistakes. And people, you know, love that authenticity. You know, I tell a lot of stories of positive and negative things, actually probably more negative things that have happened in my life because there are lessons in all of them. You know there’s a message you know, and what I do with storytelling– and I agree with what you just said, the description, and the tone that you started. You know, the “let me tell you about it” you know. That doesn’t work. But what I do is I look back on my life because I’ve had so many life experiences, and I look at these different experiences, and I think, you know is there a message in that? Is there a lesson in that? And I’ve incorporated a lot of them. I mean, even playground experiences that I’ve had, you know deals that I’ve done, people that I’ve met, partnerships that haven’t worked out, you know, you name it. And so, you know, that’s why I was going to go toe to toe with you on that one. But I completely agree with the way you just described it. So that was one myth. Was there another one? I think you said there might be two. Yeah. Please continue.
Brenden
Yeah. I’m happy to share one more. So we already talked about the underwear stuff. Let’s get rid of that.
Rod
Right.
Brenden
The third piece that I would say is around the idea of, you know, drinking water, breathing deeply to get the confidence you need. I think that’s okay if it works for you. But I would say for most and I got this from a great coach named Dan Hendry. He says “competence leads to confidence”. Right. So even if some of that is true, at the end of the day, everyone, it’s important for us to build that confidence through real experience. And it’s okay if you don’t have experience. The key is to find– going back to what we said earlier, finding the areas where you can build that over time. But the key is to really always be in movement. Same thing with this podcast, right? Why am I able to answer questions efficiently and effectively? It’s not because Brenden is special. It’s not because he’s unique. It’s because he’s already thought of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of questions that I could ever get asked on my subject. So if any question comes up, I can quickly answer and or defend anything that I’m saying. So that’s not something I drank water to get. It was really I spent the hours to go through 600 questions and answer them and make them a fool of myself on 50% of them until I perfected each one.
Rod
I’ll give you another example of that that I incorporated myself as well. And my listeners have heard “competence equals confidence”, ad nauseam. In fact, you know, I equate that to learning the multifamily real estate business. You know, you can’t dabble. You’ve got to be competent. And then that equates to confidence, which then equates to your ability to influence. And the same thing is with storytelling. So that’s the natural progression. So what I would do is I’d go to local meetups, I’d drive to Orlando, even far away, two hours away, and go talk to, you know, as little as 20 people to hone my ability to communicate, to see what fell and crashed when I was talking. Like a comedian might do in front of, you know, with jokes. It’s the same dynamic. Yes? Is that what you’re– kind of the same thing? You practice enough and you get in front of enough people, then when you’re in front of 800 or 1000 people like I’ve had, you know, been blessed to do, you’ve already done it enough times that’s, you know, you can do in your sleep. And that’s what we’re saying here, right, Brenden?
Brenden
Oh, yeah. We’re absolutely on the same page.
Rod
Okay.
Brenden
The only thing that I would add as well, Rod, to make this even easier, because some people are probably listening to this and go, oh, but where do I drive? What place should I go? Right. We’re always going to make excuses. And there are some great questions I’ll add here that might have not been shared on the pod. And I got this from a guy named Barry Solomon. And what he said, which was great. He said, “are we making an excuse to do the thing or not do the thing?” Because many of us are always making an excuse not to do the thing. You know, Rod, I’m busy. Maybe I can’t practice this week. Or are we making excuses to do the thing? You know, I’m busy this week, but let me book it on my calendar on Mondays. Always ask yourself, not just in communication, but in every area of life. So how do we make an excuse to do the thing if you don’t want to drive somewhere and speak. Literally, open a Zoom call and invite five people who are friends. That’s literally what I did five years ago and I started speaking. Come on, the Zoom call, I’ll do a presentation and give me feedback and then come back again next week and keep doing it. And eventually, five will become 500.
Brenden
Yes. No question. Same dynamic. So let me ask you this. Why do you think– are there some reasons that people crash and burn when they publicly speak? Because I’ve been in some where I just want to blow my brains out. What do you think is the reason for these horrific presentations or, you know, where people really fail at this?
Brenden
100% lack of preparation. Almost, always. And the reason is simply this. Right. When we think about lack of preparation, it usually falls into two different categories. Either the person is a great speaker but is practicing that specific deck for the first time, or that person has presented it multiple times, but they’re not reflecting on that progress. Let me give you an example that you mentioned because I’m a big fan of Tony as well. Right. Tony Robbins has been doing the same events for 40 years. 45, actually. I think he started with–
Rod
No, it’s 40. He and I are the same age. Yeah.
Brenden
Okay. 40, 45. Right.
Rod
No, he started when he was 18. So he’s 44. You’re right. Absolutely. I was wrong. You are right.
Brenden
Anyways, whether it’s 40 or 45, he’s been doing “Unleash the Power Within” his entry-level conference. Same three days, same experience, jump on the calls, you know, talk about the different programs on day two, come out with tickets. It’s always the same thing. Every single day. So if Tony is doing the same experience for 44 years, it’s probably something that we can learn from that experience, too.
Rod
Better believe it.
Brenden
Right? Are we practicing the introduction 50 times? If not, go back to the drawing board. Have you thought about your conclusion 50 times? If not, go back to the drawing board. Same thing with your content. What are we doing to keep reflecting on the information to make sure that we’re perfect?
Rod
Yes. No question. That’s who I learned that from. I spent 20 years following him around the planet. I was on his team for a bit.
Brenden
Oh, that’s awesome.
Rod
You know his famous quote is, “repetition is the mother of skill”. And he lives it. Literally, his events are like that, and, you know, he has condensed them, actually, and made them more efficient over the years. But they’re very, very similar like that. How does someone get started, you know, going out there and pushing through the fear and give us some action steps for somebody that’s listening to this and like, terrified that they have to go present to investors, give some action steps. The first few things that someone should do to go do this, to go speak about any topic.
Brenden
Absolutely. So I’ll mention the three highest ROI, exercises that will easily get people results.
Rod
Perfect.
Brenden
Before I do, let me see a little bit of context. So for those of you who have made it this far in this interview, there are three different types of people listening to the show right now. Person number one is going to write these tips down. Actually, no. Person number one is just going to listen to the tips and be done with it. Person number two is going to write the tips down and do nothing with it. But that would still be 5% to 10% of the audience. And then there’s person number three. Person number three is listening to this. They’re ready for the three tips. They’re going to write them down, and then they’re going to implement them right away. Be person number three and you’ll get the results.
Rod
What a great pre-frame. What a great pre-frame. I’m sorry. That’s awesome. Okay. Please continue.
Brenden
I’ve done too many of these to know that.
Rod
That’s awesome.
Brenden
Of course. Number one, the random word exercise. All you have to do–you don’t even need a practice partner for this because accountability is another piece to this as well, where all you have to do is pick five words at random. Happy to demonstrate if you need to. And you practice each one for a minute. That’s it. It takes you five minutes, every day. And what this does–
Rod
No, wait a minute. Pick five words and practice each one at random. Please elaborate on what you mean by that. I don’t think people understand it.
Brenden
100%.
Rod
I saw this YouTube video you did. So I know what you mean, but I don’t think some of the listers do. So please elaborate.
Brenden
No problem. Give me any word and I’ll just demonstrate.
Rod
Okay. Pen.
Brenden
Pen. So now, Rod, for those in the audience who are listening. He’s just given me a pen. He did not give me this word prior to this interview. But now I got to present something random for 36 seconds. So here I go. You know we think about pens. The first thought that comes to mind was that scene in “Wolf of Wall Street” where the main character came up and said, sell me that pen. But for every great salesman who knows the answer to that question, the question is to not sell the pen, but rather spend time explaining why you need more context, why you need to understand who you are speaking to, why the pen is important for them, why it changes lives and then you sell the pen. So even as something simple as an instrument, like a pen, can lead to so much deeper lessons that are greater in our society. So every time that you look at the world, always ask yourself, what can I learn from that word? Even if it’s as simple as a cup, to the simple thing that you used to write every day. So this is an example of the random question–
Rod
Listen. That is a great example because that’s an awesome way because I think he says, you know, it says something like, you know, please sign a contract. He’s like, I don’t have a pen. There was a punchline similar to that that was awesome. That was a great example that you use for pen. Okay, so that’s number one. What’s number two?
Brenden
Yeah, that’s number one. And going back to the first tip really quick, all I’m asking for everyone is five minutes every day. Do it five times. That’s it. Okay. I’m not asking people to do this a hundred times a day. And for those of you who think this is silly in real estate who are listening to this, let me tell you, it’s not. Because if you’re the person who does this hundred of times, since real estate is a people business, sometimes this big investor is going to ask you a super random question about your kids that you won’t expect. But since you did the random word exercise, you’ll be able to navigate that conversation easily and efficiently. So do the exercise. Number two is the one we talked about earlier, practice presentations like a jigsaw puzzle. Most of us just do it end to end, and it’s not efficient. Get the intro done. That’s what builds momentum over time. So next time, let’s say you got like a real estate deal, you’re talking about your properties, what the location looks like. Start with the intro, then go to the close, then go to the content. Finally, number three is an exercise called Question Drills. So Questions Drills is just an attempt to preemptively guess every question that you’re going to get asked in a sales conversation or like a speaking engagement or an opportunity, let’s say, to be on a podcast so you can prepare yourself well in advance. So I’ve applied the Question Drills exercise to the very show that we’re on right now where I’ve already thought of every possible question. And the way that this exercise works, let’s say, specifically to real estate, is you give a presentation in front of the five worst critics that you know in your life. Like that are very harsh, very straightforward shooters, maybe even call Rod to do that or something with me. Like for fun over pizza. So this is not meant to be stressful, but the goal is every person in that room needs to find a hole in your deck. Let’s say you’re talking about, I don’t know–
Rod
Their goal. So you test them with a goal. Hey, tell me what’s missing here. Got it. Okay.
Brenden
Correct. So all five of them are listening to your pitch and it could be 50 people. I used to do this with 50 people. It’s pretty intense back in the day, and their only goal is to rip your deck apart. That’s the only goal to be your worst enemy. So what happens is for three hours you’re sweating, you’re painting, but there’s no investor who can ask you a question that you don’t know. So when I started podcasting three years ago or something, I was terrible. Absolutely horrid. But then I got a couple of my friends to just drill me on a bunch of questions to a point where I was super comfortable on shows.
Rod
Nice. No, that’s great advice. I love that. In fact, I may incorporate that myself. Oh, God. I just had a question. Now, because we have gone so virtual in life right now. A lot of presentations are done in this format where we’re on Zoom right now and we’re virtual. In fact, I’ve got a live event, a virtual event coming up here, in short order. I do both virtual and live now. I had to do all virtual, obviously with Covid for a while. And so we became very, very good at Zoom and all the nuances of it. But, you know, how can we do a better job online doing a presentation? Brenden, talk about that for a moment.
Brenden
Absolutely. Happy to, Rod. So there are three key differences between the in-person in the virtual world. So the first one is eye contact. When you’re in person in a room, you want to try your best to allocate your eye contact based on the number of people in the room. So you look left, right, center. Virtual, you actually don’t have this problem. All you have to do is look at the camera lens. So whether there’s one person on the other side of the Zoom or 10,000, you just have to keep your eyes on the prize. So a trick for you to keep your eyes on the camera lens, a couple of things, I’ll give you a menu, and then you just pick what you want for the menu. So the first thing that you could do, you could put a picture of your family, your kids, a favorite food next to the lens. Another strategy you could do is you could put a post-it note, and another one is you could write on the post-it note and point an arrow that says “look here or else” just pick the one that you like and just do it. That’s the first difference. The second difference is energy. So when we’re in person, it’s a lot easier for me to feel the energy that Rod is saying, but obviously, we’re virtual. It’s harder to do that. So the way that you practice it simply is to get better offline. So as you present better in person, you’re able to bring that energy more. You can transfer that energy back to your virtual. So the reason I can bring a lot of energy now in this podcast is because I’ve already done it in person and I know what it looks like back virtually.
Rod
Okay.
Brenden
And then the third key difference is audience interaction. When you’re in person it’s easy for you to grab dinner with someone and get feedback on your presentation. It’s much harder to do with a virtual call. So what I recommend is to try and get on a call with one or two members of the audience so you feel more connected to them. It will be a lot easier for you to bring out your energy in those settings.
Rod
Very nice. Very nice. Well, listen, this has been very illuminating. It’s never been discussed on this show before. I really appreciate you coming on, Brenden. Check out his YouTube channel, “Master Talk” guys, and thank you for sharing your wisdom with us today, my friend.
Brenden
Pleasure, Rod. Thanks for having me. It’s great.
Outro
Rod, I know a lot of our listeners are wanting to take their multifamily investing business to the next level. Now, I know you’ve been hard at work helping our warrior students do just that using our “ACT” methodology which is Awareness, Close, and Transform. Can you explain to the listeners how they can get our help?
Rod
You bet. Guys, we’ve been going nonstop for three years building an amazing community of like-minded people, and our coaching students which we call our warriors have had extraordinary results. They’ve purchased thousands and thousands of units and last year we did over 1000 units with our students. And we’re looking to grow this group and take it to the next level. We’re looking for people who want to follow a proven framework that’s really step by step and then leverage our systems and network to raise equity, to find and close deals, and to build partnerships nationwide. Now our warrior community is finding success in any market cycle. So if you’re interested in finding out more about how you can become more of our incredible network and take advantage of the incredible opportunities that are coming very soon, apply to work with us at “MentorWithRod.com” or text “CRUSH” to “72345” and we’ll set up a call so you can check us out and we can check you out. That’s “MentorWithRod.com” or text “CRUSH” to “72345”.
