How to Promote Real Estate and Attract the Right Investors
Speakers
Peter Daneyko 00:50
Well, welcome back to the rest of today’s session. Our focus for the week has been real estate and tokenization fractional ownership. And now we’re in the session on how to promote real estate and attract the right investors. I’m very excited to have two terrific marketing and investor acquisition firms with us. I’d like to welcome aboard Jillian Banister from Exp Marketing, and Andrew Corn from E5Aim Marketing. Welcome, guys. This is one of my most this is the most fun topics for me when we talk about marketing because it’s, it’s part science part mad science and a lot of analytics, and a lot of trial and error. And you guys have been extremely well-versed and experienced over the years with all the changes going on. So first and foremost, I want to welcome you and I’m going to invite the audience to ask all kinds of questions. This is probably the biggest challenge that anybody taking advantage or when I say taking advantage utilizing the opportunity of, of Reg, CF Reg A and Reg D. The exemptions themselves afforded the ability to cast a wide net to the marketplace when it comes to presenting offers. And now specifically, we’re going to talk about real estate presenting your offers to the public, and there’s a lot of education that needs to be done. So kind of a jumping-off point. Maybe you guys can give me and I’ll start with Jillian first if you get when we look at the real estate space. And the marketing outreach where do we begin? I’m a company I want to raise capital, I’ve made a decision on a regulation or perhaps I haven’t, and I’ve already spoken to you. Take me through a little bit of a journey first and then we’ll dive into the fine-tuning of this.
Jillian Bannister 02:53
Yeah, sure. Thanks, Peter. So yeah, I mean, it is a journey, I think that’s well said. We always start with, you know, the core. First of all, Exp is a full-service marketing agency we specialize in, you know, all aspects of the financial services stack. Say, including capital raising for issuer. So what we always start with is looking at key messaging, looking at clear objectives, looking at your brand, and making sure you have those foundational things, we work with all platforms to make sure that we’re on the same page and whatever structure you’re deciding to go with, that really does help us inform the kind of key messaging and who your target audience is. So you’ll probably hear Andrew and I come back to many times in this in this segment where you know, the message really matters, and understanding your audience is critical. And the other piece is your audience in a lot of different places. So our job is really to orchestrate all the very, you know, avenues and strategies to help optimize getting your message out there. And that can change, it can change with the markets, it can change, obviously real estate, the sector, the geography, where your projects are, so we really want to do a deep dive and understand what you know about your business. So you know, that is going to be a huge part of our the first part of the journey is really unpacking all those things which are, you know, strategic discussions and getting you on board before we jump into building and executing on a plan. Once we have the strategy, we move to the next gait, which is creating the assets and then activating the plan.
Peter Daneyko 04:52
So okay, so I’m hearing a couple of things here. I’m hearing understanding the business. I mean, we’re talking about real estate here, so I guess it’s not quite as simple as say, Hey, I’m doing residential properties, or I’m doing a REIT, or I’m doing something else or I’m, I’m targeting accredited investor or nonaccredited investors. There are a lot of pieces here and then you have to figure out, okay, what are my marketing channel’s social media email? How do I go about it? So I’m going to jump over to you, Andrew, where do you begin in this journey? Is it understanding how I’m a guy that I want to, I want to use a Reg CF or Reg A or Reg D for real estate, and I need a marketing guy? I’m jumping off the bridge here. So catch me.
Andrew Corn 05:42
I think that’s great. And, you know, we have a very different approach than most agencies. Let’s start with, we are a systematic data-driven investor acquisition firms. So 98% of our work is aimed at acquiring investors. We do work across asset management, as well as doing cap raises. But it is our only work. And we aim institutionally, we aim to advisors and then we aim, of course we do direct to retail. The first thing we want to know is how much money you’re currently raising, that you want to raise, and how much money you currently manage. Because if you’ve done three, one off deals with buildings, and now you want to create your first fund, in our opinion, are not a great candidate for Reg A plus, so the track record needs to be there. We need to know that you’ve delivered things specifically to investors, and you’ve delivered yield, preferably monthly, but quarterly is fine. That there’s been growth in the investments as well. So a lot of what you’re marketing with real estate, you know, keep in mind, no one’s buying it, or investing to live there, or to store their materials. But you know, they’re doing it because they want steady income, they want inflation fighting, and they want some growth on the back end. So we want to make sure that the issuer is capable of all those things. Second, we don’t touch Reg CF, we don’t do any small raises. And the reason is, and I’m confident that Jillian’s firm does the same thing. We put our heart and soul into this work. We work on it morning, noon, and night. Even when we’re not physically at work. It’s rare that something doesn’t come up where it’ll be good. I use that for one of my clients. So then with that, it will be who have you raised money from before? And why do you want to go Reg A plus, because now we’re talking all the way down to nonaccredited investors? So we do a bunch of audience identification. And then we see if we can acquire that audience. Meaning can we get really good data on that audience? So we have a lot of proprietary datasets, we’ve got nearly a million doctors and dentists in our database which is in the five databases that we use for our clients. We’ve got people with a pilot’s license, which we find to be very self-directed as well. And then others it’ll be this should really be a reg D, it should be aimed at advisors, let’s go independent. What custodial platforms are you on? Or do you need help getting on? So that’s a completely different type of raise, or we’ve done this to where the raise is over a billion dollars. And it’s purely institutional. And then it’s, we’re going after public funds. We’re not going after signs at that point, because it’s too small. But are we going after endowments and foundations, family offices? So each of these is different types of raises. And we need to make sure that there is an audience issuer fit before we’ll accept the assignment. In way of background, I am a former multifactor model portfolio manager, I managed to over a billion dollars actively and then had well north of 2 billion in ETF assets where we designed the indexes behind the ETFs. So it’s a slightly different perspective. We want to make sure that we are going to be successful when we accept the client and get into the race. Also, our firm only works in three areas. One of them is yield. One of them is innovation, and one of them is ESG. So frequently, real estate will cross a bunch of those, but you know, is it multifamily? Is it self-storage? Is it industrial, or is it mixed use? Is it hospitality? I mean, every one of these medications they all have slightly different pluses and minuses and who we would go after. And then the structure you mentioned read. So I could go on just about what we do before we even are engaged.
Peter Daneyko 10:12
Well, what No. And this is, this is excellent, what I’m hearing from both of you is, and I like how you put, you know, the audience’s shoe in the fit. So on one hand, you’re articulating the fact that you’re selective on the clients that you guys bring on with your firm, I’m going to make some assumptions to that’s different from business decision. You can be as effective but there are also likely bandwidth issues that every firm has we experienced with whether it’s the legal community, whether it’s a broker, dealer community, they say, we were optimized right now, we can do this. And then other ones are strategic, I want to be the best in a category that I can address. So audience issue fit, no, you’re knowing your client. First, what I’m hearing is, and what I would suggest to our audience, then is when you’re having conversations and to engage, engage with investor acquisition, marketing. I use the term as it bounces around a little bit, but But ultimately, your, you know, your, your, your marketing firms, I mean, you’re marketing on behalf of a company to acquire individuals to have a better understanding of whatever that value proposition may be. So that being said, you like the Reg A’s, Jillian. So from your perspective, as I look at, I know from a bandwidth perspective, sometimes the CF is smaller, and it’s a bit of a sprint, but we’ve seen companies go from a CF, even in the real estate and jump into a Reg A and have a sidecar reg D on the side, I have no good, bad or indifferent. I’m just saying that does live and breathe. Where you’ve got multiple regulations at the same time too I guess, touch a little bit of one ad or just said somebody says, I’ve got an audience over here for this. But I may have a larger audience on my Reg A based on structuring the deal a little bit differently because maybe these individuals, this family office just feels that I’m going to put a bigger investment in this. And I guess it’s not in the case of a REIT, for example, you have a little bit less control over that. What any take what are your thoughts on that? Like, are you
Jillian Bannister 12:22
Yeah, yeah, I mean, we do work on reg CF. In real estate, we do see a lot of sidecar strategies where, you know, people are running a CF and a D. Simultaneously, they’re both totally different profiles. Right. So really understanding that and that the accredited investors like you’re going for the whale and the CF, you’re, you know, trying to attract a different audience with smaller investment dollars spread around. So, you know, I think, again, that really helps for you to understand the differences between the various regs are the structures out there. Because that does have a huge impact on how you’re going to go about your marketing plan. You know, Reg, CF, and Red D are easy to get structured, get the administrative stuff done. Reg A takes a little bit longer. So we do see, we have seen a trend actually in more reg CFs, and that sort of dual raise between the Reg CF and the Reg D.
Peter Daneyko 13:30
So not and I’m seeing that as well. It doesn’t mean they’re effective, by the way. And I say this to the audience, hey, just, this is hard work. It takes a team, just because you can we get a lot of companies that come and they say, Hey, I want to flip houses, I want to buy a bunch of properties. And my first common sense. The conversation is, hey, we’re the tech provider, we can facilitate anything. But ultimately, we want the issuer to be successful. I want it as low as possible costs. I want the issuer to be effective but go in with eyes wide open. So if I’m somebody that just says, Hey, Peter is going to go start buying houses and flip them and I would do a Reg CF and, and put up a webpage. I strongly recommend that boy, you better be ready for a very tough sled because you have to ask yourself a simple question. What right have I earned for that investor to participate in my raise? And if you can articulate that message, it’s not to dissuade that CF because I’ve seen companies start with a CF and become literally a billion-dollar unicorn, not in the real estate space specifically, but to say that they can’t do something I would never take that away. But recognize that the investor community they better like what you have and it’s getting more and more competitive. So if I’ve got CF, or you’re gonna see more CFs come out there and you’re gonna see Successful CFs and lots of what I will say soft raise CFs because they’re not going in, you know, eyes wide open. On the Reg A side, my comments or thought process to Andrew’s comment would be a little bit of a sophisticated offering. If I’m going to spend, you know, a quarter of a million dollars to get this off the ground, and I’m going to dovetail into potential costs because the marketing is your biggest cost. I’m likely more committed to measuring twice rather than, you know, dipping my toe into a category would that be fair, Andrew?
Andrew Corn 15:36
Yeah, I mean, one of the reasons we don’t want to do CFs is that there’s just a bunch of upfront costs that have to happen to get a see-off to get any campaign off the ground. So when you look at fixed costs and variable costs, the biggest variable costs are buying media and paid media. And, you know, with that, we don’t want to be a high cost of capital. So I’ve been involved in so many IPOs, mostly in the mid to large cap range, earlier in my career. And when you look at cost of capital, it’s got to be counted on one hand, maybe a couple of extra fingers. But you know, if you’re 15 20% of the raise, that’s not a very good place to be then crowdfunding was probably not the right route for that client. So you know, there can be no guarantees and work done by an advertising agency or a marketing firm. But there is a historic precedent. And there is the opposite of what we learned. As money managers, when you’re managing money, you’re looking over longer time horizons. What we’ve seen since the pandemic started in 2020, is every three months, the entire country is different. And we’re going to have different datasets, we’re going to have different types of returns, depending upon what our tactics are and what we’re going for, and it’s going to adjust your strategy. So, you know, dynamic strategy is something that I think we’re really good at. And it’s funny, sometimes I have to get the young people in my 20-somethings in my organizations. Yeah, that worked last time, it’s not going to work this time. You gotta be more flexible than that. Thank goodness, there’s an old person here to show you how to be flexible.
Peter Daneyko 17:33
So respectful. And as young people though, they bring a lot of tremendous insights I, I’m proud to say.
Andrew Corn 17:42
Well, I can see I’m the oldest member of my team. And
Peter Daneyko 17:46
I’ve heard, I’m teasing you in that regard. I mean, I’ve got younger, well, my kids are obviously all younger than me. That’s just how that works. So but but but the commentary and what surprises me as is there also immersed in these different channels, they’re in from marketing and so it might be might be more relevant outside of the real estate to a degree. But I think that they’re becoming more educated and you touched on change, you touched on, and I want to get into the change, and then marketing channels and what your experiences have been. But the change, I guess I’m referring to is, so COVID comes out a lot of people sat on, you know, we’re sitting at home and in the public marketplace, all of a sudden, you know, everybody was on Reddit, you know, and I’m talking to younger than millennials, right? Wrong or indifferent. I mean, there’s nothing wrong, they’re becoming more educated and they want to be participants in the capital markets. It started with, you know, with the Robin Hood’s on their cell phones. And I personally start to envision because when my daughter hears all these conversations and presentations, you know, around the house when she’s not at school, and she goes, Oh, wow, Dad, I invest in that she’s 21 years old, and I said why she goes because I like what they’re doing. And she didn’t have financial acumen. She’s, she’s in the med-tech space, but she’s going she was having emotional connection and asking the question, so I bring that up because that’s going to be a new generational audience that I think, look, we know that the average investor is is was surprisingly higher age than I would have thought because of that, again. I use the Robin Hood quotation side of it, I expected everybody. But I do see a growth aspect coming from, you know, from a younger generation that says, Hey, what are the financial vehicles like invested and not even asking the question, what’s a REIT? For example? They’re gonna say, wait, I can make this money doing that, you know. So that being said, what kind of big changes have occurred I want to start with social media. I know in the E-commerce world what worked three years ago, it’s not working today. What are you guys both experiencing any One want to jump in on that?
Jillian Bannister 20:00
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s, you know, more than just social media. It’s like, you gotta think it’s we’ve moved past just ads on webpages, retargeting, and social media, like it’s every channel, it’s every lever you can pull. And that’s, you know, to Andrews’s point there is an investment that needs to be made. Because to be successful in, in the world’s changing markets which do change on the quarter, you need to be trying everything, you know, with the right data and analytics backing up those choices and people have done, you have the experience and knowledge, you know, where you’re going to garner that success. But, you know, it’s not just about media buying, it’s about having an email nurture campaign, it’s about having the right kind of content, you know, having a narrative that’s going to connect with those audiences, you know, when you’re speaking about your daughter. Peter, like, they want to connect with the brand, they don’t care about, we’ve seen tons of reports of, you know, the way we used to value companies and was looking at, you know, backward-looking financial data. Today, people are evaluating companies based on their connection with the brand. And that is not, I don’t see that changing anytime soon. So it is about the storytelling, it is about the narrative, and really being tight on that. And then pulling it all together with all the different options, which there are many, and that’s why you need to work with a marketing agency, because, honestly, every quarter, there’s a new lever to pull, and you know, or a new area to test. And the other sort of part of that is what I would say is that you know, you do have to plan to stick out, you know, stick out and stick with your campaign. You know, expecting to have, you know, the, you know, angel or you know, the unicorn investor in the first month, it’s not happened. But you know, being able to commit to a time period to be in the market, and use that time to optimize and figure out where you’re getting your best leads from is hugely important. And something to really think about. And again, it goes back to the idea of being willing to invest. And when you’re jumping off the cliff, you’re, you know, jumping off and believing in yourself, and you have to put some dollars behind that. To make it all this, you know, any raises success.
Peter Daneyko 22:37
Where you touch on brand. And, you know, I think from an emotional connection. I mean, everybody looks at two things. You look at the there’s the bit, certainly the business side and financial returns the brand side, I think in this case for real estate, it’s the operators behind this. Oh, yeah. And what’s their narrative associated with it? And we’ve worked together on projects and, and, and we’ve touched on something like a REIT, for example. And I think in the past, you’ve shared with me and Jillian’s point of better be ready for this journey. It’s not going to win the lottery in the first 30 days. And that’s the scariest part, I think, from any, any issuers to say, okay, when do I start seeing some traction? And how do I measure that traction? Maybe give me some insights on that. I’m going hey, wait a sec. I’m going to do a Reg A I know it’s going to cost me a quarter of a million dollars. I’m doing a REIT, for example. And I go, I got to be taking a deep breath when I’m 60 days in, I don’t have any investors, or am I going after investors 60 days in or I’m earning the right to get an investor? Maybe you can give me your thoughts on that.
Andrew Corn 23:52
I can and I just made a note. So I don’t forget, but I want to go back to your daughter for a minute who I’ve never met. So I have no bone to pick with your daughter. I’m sure she’s lovely. But if she’s anything like me I have a 22-year-old daughter, who is invested in Reg A plus real estate. She’s invested in two deals, and I’m 100% sure that because I made the investments for her and paid for them and make sure that she is they’re receiving passive income and eventually growth. So, you know, the sad truth is that in real estate is that we don’t solicit 21-year-olds or even 23-year-olds who were at a college. When you look at income, and then you look at what people are looking for in their investment portfolio. We’ve got things like meme stocks that you guys talked about, and we’ve got Robinhood so people who are looking for monthly or quarterly income and then longer-term growth and inflation-fighting are generally older. So you know We’re looking a lot at demographics and behavior. And then last goes back to what Jillian was talking about, about storytelling. So it’s not just behavior, but motivation. What’s going to motivate them, we refer to as getting to that aha moment. And where they say, gee, I need to get into this, this is something I want to be a part of. But a lot of it is kind of like building any other kind of relationship, which is how far into they want to get to they want more information, are they willing to watch a three-minute video, are they willing to start receiving some emails are there ready to click that KoreConX invests button. But even then, as you know, 90% of everyone that clicks, that button doesn’t complete if not higher. So what gets them from clicking the button to sign in finish, and then ACH in their money? And so the timeline is really important because I want to make sure to come back to that. You know, we take about 60 to 90 days to prep the launch. It’s everything from building a web presence for the offering to the literally 125 elements we need to build to do the launch. So all that takes a lot of planning and execution and working with the client getting through compliance, the whole nine yards. From there, we’d like to see investors, how about the first day because a little luck would never hurt. But in reality, I think your timeframe after the 30th day, when money starts to come in is a little more realistic, after 60 days, we’ve done enough testing to start to really scale. And there is that moment for the issuer, where they’re holding on where they’re spending more money than money’s coming in, let alone being a small percentage, where they need to have the faith that this is going to work. And frankly, it doesn’t always sometimes it takes 120 days before it really works as opposed to 60. And with that, you need an issuer who’s got the wherewithal to stick with it. We’ve seen some really good offerings go from zero to 50,000 to 100,000 to 500,000. Keep in mind the size of the raises we’re working on. Once we get to five, 6 million a month, no one is looking back and no one’s gonna know, all of a sudden, we’re geniuses as opposed to we’re making them nervous. You know, and that’s another thing about the whole Reg CF thing. Once as an agency, you’ve seen six, 7 million come in in a single month for a single issuer. You don’t want to do a race that is capped at 5 million, you want to continue swinging harder and getting smarter about your audiences smarter about your messaging, and smarter about what channels you’re using to get to them. So you know, the whole idea of making tic-tock videos, we do them. But we do them more so that someone checks they’re there. We don’t see a huge number of people going to the YouTube channel and coming back and dropping 100 grand. But we excuse me, do you see people going and looking and checking? So it’s an important credibility piece.
Peter Daneyko 28:37
So it sounds foundation a little bit your comment on? I’m not out on the millennial because I have three kids. And I would say yes, one of them would have wanted in the meme investor. The other ones are in between and the other ones are the far-right investor. I mean, he’ll save every nickel that he’s got. So he would love to see what exists in the case of a REIT. He goes wow, that’s I like the low-risk factor with the nice stable long-term income. So I think there’s a lot of that you know, not to pigeonhole demographics
Andrew Corn 29:09
I need to jump in though the risk has nothing to do with the monthly income the risk has to do with the quality of the issuer and the type of real estate they’re investing at. So and you know, is it already income-producing the day they put it in? One of the big questions investors should ask is, what is the lag time from the day I invest to the day I got my first dividend check? Is it truly a dividend or is it a return of capital? Because you’re a capitalist just be us. So sorry, no.
Peter Daneyko 29:40
Fair statement. So I’m hearing It’s okay. We’re going into this 90-day cycle. My analogy often is you know, stay away from pray and spray I get people that say okay, I’ve got an email list of 50,000 send that email list out and everybody to come to invest I personally just look at it as you know, I’ll come back to a past life in the E-commerce space if I had to earn the right I to earn the trust. I saw that pair of shoes 10 times before I bought that pair of shoes, and I got halfway through the checkout cart. So each stage along the way, the issuers there are simply touch points, are they not? And trying to make some sort of connection with me that elevates to a level of trust. What’s your take on this? You know, I hear that, you know, the traditional case, you need X amount of touchpoints, whether it’s seven, whether it’s 8, whether it’s 10. You talk about, you know, we talked about email, we talked about sales funnel, we talked about social media channels. between the different regulations are using all of them all the time, some of them all of the time, what’s that journey look like?
Jillian Bannister 31:02
We we always try to start using most of them all the time, again, because we have probably the same approaches as Andrew. Like, we will want to do serious testing and find out where we’re getting the most success and then, you know, optimize the investment, the media investment dollars to that place. Right. So that’s, that’s sort of the first I, I would also say, it’s the placement is one thing, and it’s an art and a science on its own. I will go back to the quality of your narrative, and the quality of your content. You’re right, people want to see your roadmap, they want to understand where what this money is for. Right? Those are really basic things, but that, you know, we may be over overlook, or say, yeah, it’s just in this deal. But what is it for, especially when you’re doubling up on, you know, doing the sidecar, Reg, Reg CF Reg D, like, you’ve got to explain what you’re doing it for, and what that roadmap looks like. So you need to be providing, you know, a high-level business plan to help us this is a sophisticated investment, it’s a sophisticated asset class, and people, you know, and it’s, it takes time, right, these things don’t go up overnight. So, I think, you know, really providing that level of information and detail is important in order to get those conversions and Peter to whip our, our analytics show that you know, it takes between, in real estate, about seven touch points, you know, to do that kind of conversion, which means through email, it means through ads, it means through, you know, an email list, your website and all those things, but about seven touch points.
Peter Daneyko 33:04
Somebody, somebody just made a comment, I think it’s now 21 touchpoints. So it just says it’s getting harder and harder and trickier. If you’re not navigating. I’m hoping it’s not 21 or the issuer’s expense of marketing may be going up exponentially, but maybe it can be done cost-effectively. I got a question here that somebody was asking this to do with this space. And one wants to know if either one of you have experienced with this? I mean, I got my commentary on it. But can one raise funds before identifying a specific property? Well, the answer to that question from a legal perspective is yes. But more from a marketing perspective, my take away would be more of Sure. But why do I want to invest in you? And how do I market that proposition? Do I have a track record? I see that in REITs. With Yeah, a lot of projects where it might be fun that’s going to say, I’m going to do a rental storage unit, for example. And the company’s done this project a number of times and they say, Hey, we’re raising a fund to do storage units. They don’t have the storage units yet to send the property there. But they’ve articulated something that they have a track record, or credible in a past life to go into this new sector that Hey, is it may be worthy to the investor comments on that for this.
Andrew Corn 34:29
For whenever we’re sure. So land deals are near impossible.There we go. So two reasons. One is, is that there’s too much risk involved and there’s too long of a time horizon involved before there’s going to be any kind of payout. And then last is the unknown of all the things that can go wrong from regulations. Not in the offering, but in regulation. In building, we had a land deal, it was an 18% deal. We got 1000s 10s of 1000s of bites. And when we told the client, the deal can’t be done, which was a huge, humbling experience for everyone. It couldn’t be done the way it was being done. It had to be repackaged as a Reg D, it needed to go institutional needed to get bigger. But individual investors, they see 18% They’re all over it until they realized 18%. That’s not even real. We had another deal almost did 18. And I made them drop it to 12. Deliver 14 and pocket the other four, because no one thinks that 18 is credible. So you’re looking at an ad somewhere, what is in the realm of possibility, what’s the standard deviation away from it? So storytelling is so important to this to underscore what Jillian was saying, which I agree with completely. But it’s going back to your journey thing. It’s the right message to the right person at the right time and in the right context. And you need all those things to align. And then I don’t believe I forgot what that 20 Something number is, it’s way less. We’ve seen people. I don’t know how many ads they saw. But I know it’s the first time they clicked and they’ve dropped 100 grand. I’ve seen it where they’ve gone in, they’ve been nurtured. And then they put in $5,000. And they did it six months later. So the patterns change. And the pattern is different for each issuer. There’s a lot to be learned from every single campaign we’ve done. There are huge amounts to be learned. But expecting something to happen exactly the way something else did. I think it’s called past performance is not an indicator of the future. And I would say that’s true in marketing, not just in investing. Anyway, no, we don’t care how many times someone has to say that.
Peter Daneyko 37:12
We’d all like for me to do an email blast. And I’ve got a database and I click on a button and I make my investment. But but but being being a realist and practices it does it definitely,
Andrew Corn 37:23
I’m gonna interrupt one last time, and then I will shut up. So don’t overstate my time here, there’s no such thing as doing that, you would have to have an issuer who had a database where they had a double opt-in relationship with everyone where they could do it. If you’re doing a list rental, good luck. There are so many other ways of getting to people. And we’re huge proponents and use email every day. Just not like that. And then last, it’s 50,000 is such a tiny number. I don’t even think we would waste our time doing it with a list that small. Unless it was the client list, in which case, then it’s very valuable. So
Peter Daneyko 38:02
or you’re simply you’re starting the journey, you’re saying I want to filter the icon. I’m not asking you for anything. Maybe I’m as I’m providing education, but recognizing that however, I use these tools, I’ve got to earn the right. I’ve got to whether it’s a sales funnel, landing pages, or splash pages, we live and breathe in the educational marketplace at KoreConX and do panel sessions like this and discovery sessions like this. We don’t do these, because we’re expecting to get you to know, oh, wow. But somebody saw this once and they’re gonna buy it. It’s a journey. And I think that’s the same, you know, capital raises, it’s building those relationships and building those trust levels. Let me ask you both a question. So we touched on different audience sectors and the difference between a Reg D and Reg A, for example. The Reg A I mean, I certainly have a wider net to have the potential but also the potential to spend more money. I get a lot of clients that come and say, Oh, I’m going to do a reg D because my offering is ABC and my first question is, do you know anybody who hasn’t? Like there’s this belief that Oh, my value proposition put it up there is so compelling that the accredited investor just comes is the marketing on the reg D side of it different than your Reg A side of it or there’s a lot of overlap. I don’t want to who wants to jump in on that side?
Jillian Bannister 39:36
Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. It’s a myth that there’s some website that all accredited investors go to the reg D, they’re there. You know, it’s a, you know, typically a sizable investment. These people need to be educated nurturers. They need to be laid out in the plan. They’re usually pretty sophisticated. If you’re investing that kind of money. So they’re really looking at your business. And so that’s going to be an important aspect of it. But the reg, you know, Reg D, the Reg D, people are not in one place, they’re everywhere, you have to orchestrate the same mechanics and thought and strategy for Reg D as for, you know, any other raise and puts, I think what also, for me, the the big nuance there is the messaging for that, that audience and, you know. Think about maybe even having a different landing page, different content, maybe more, you know, sophisticated content. So more like, we know, video is huge, and especially in real estate, to have, you know, the people do, developing the property, speaking to it, you know, builds a lot of trust and credibility. So that’s a great tool. But I think you do need to think about that when you’re, you know when you’re trying to attract that Reg D investor.
Peter Daneyko 41:11
So, so again, it’s identifying your audience and what your reach is, and where those where those members do I leverage the existing databases that I may have that have value versus just a list or if I have a list, I nurture that list without a praying spray mentality. So let me ask you a question on if I’m doing a Reg D, and I’m going after the accredited, my Reg A plus allows me to go after the accredited and the non-accredited from your experience? I just know on top of mine, Andrew, there’s an offering that you have currently that it’s a Reg A? Do you know, what do you know what percentages is accredited versus non-accredited in that raise, it’s a little more expensive raise in the real estate as far as minimum investment goes?
Andrew Corn 42:05
So it’s a timeline, we launched at $500. And we had nonaccredited investors mixed with accredited I would say the typical investor now is qualified, not even accredited, above accredited. And now it’s a $5,000. Minimum, it’s probably going to go to a $10,000 minimum. So why do you reg at all, at that point, two things. One is, is they want to be open to everyone. You know, they actually have done an institutional raises where Goldman Sachs was the selling agent. And now they just want all their investors directly. And that is why I created these different datasets of, you know, we’ve got over a million people who have a Ph.D. in our database. So that type of, you know, the educated audience is looking for something specific or has the ability to grasp it. And I can tell you right now, they love anything. Oh, this one has solar panels on it up, that audience is going to like it more. We’re this audience has eight. So, you know, we advertise on MSNBC. See, and on Fox News, and you need to know who’s watching both, and it’s totally okay. So, we do, I’m going to contradict myself and say we’re about to do a raise, which is a Reg D. And it’s affordable housing, it’s in an opportunity zone. So it’s got huge tax benefits, the reg D crowd is going to love that. We will not be going after accredited investors, though. We’ll be going after professional investors. So endowments and foundations, family offices, public funds, Taft Hartley, etc. And then a CF, yeah, because we want the community to be able to invest as well. And this issuer is tough, they’re like no CF getting the same damn terms as the Reg D is there just because they’re writing bigger checks, they’re not going to get something else. But it’s only 5 million north of 100 million raise. And that’s another reason not to do an April.
Peter Daneyko 44:16
I think we’re closing out on something, just what I love to hear, which is brilliant that the concept of the jobs act was to democratize capital C apps Reg Ds Reg A’s. The ability to solicit the public at large didn’t exist, for the most part for general solicitation, and hence your businesses are growing from the perspective of hey, we can have general solicitation but but but to do it smartly. And I appreciate that final comment, Andrew, because you kind of had me going and were only really selective on that. But you do see the other side of the right project. And I do get a lot of communities saying hey, we’re going to do something, specifically to be better and better that better a community and have the have small investors large investors participate, a little bit of ESG going on in that space. But it doesn’t mean it’s not intelligent and sophisticated. But there’s an emotional connection, which is really what marketing is all about. Let’s be honest, we donate to certain charity charities that have an emotional connection, that doesn’t mean I can’t have an upside to the fact that I invested in my community. But that may be a particular reason for me to invest in my community. So I think all the regulations can afford, you know, afford that opportunity. And that’s, that’s exciting. And again, it’s I don’t know who said it, went talk to it earlier in my perhaps past session, whether they thought we’re on first base, and maybe I think he said it, Andrew, I think we’re just building the stadium right now when it comes to this marketing.
Andrew Corn 45:59
But that would have been months ago.
Peter Daneyko 46:02
So I think the regs are transformational. I think the insight that YouTube provided today is not only inspirational and educational but hopefully noteworthy to our audience. It gets me excited when I end the day on these kinds of conversations, because it’s, it’s changing the narrative changing the landscape. And it sounds like Measure twice know your audience and make a connection. But be prepared, it is a journey and and hire the right firms to assist you because you need a team. So any closing comments before we close off the session?
Jillian Bannister 46:45
Go ahead and dance.
Andrew Corn 46:46
So I just wanted to give Reg A plus another plug, which is people have come to us in wanting to do a reg D and they’re raising $55 million. I’m like, oh, spend a little bit more money and do a Reg A and then you’re gonna save it on the back end because you don’t have to do an accreditation check. So all of a sudden, the paperwork for the investor becomes an awful lot easier. And for you as an issuer a lot easier. So or they say they’re raising 200 million, well, you can’t be doing a Reg A doesn’t matter who you want to raise from now you have to do a combo. And so mixing and matching and structuring these, I’m not a 79, meaning I’m not an investment banker, nor am I a lawyer. But I’ve seen an awful lot of deals. So we love to get in early with the issuer and make sure that they’re in the right structure, aiming for what they’re doing. So thank you for inviting me to this. And it was really nice meeting you, Julie.
Peter Daneyko 47:50
Thank you. Any closing remarks? Jillian, I’ll end on you.
Jillian Bannister 47:55
Yeah, I mean, I’ll go less practical more. But, you know, I think the choice is something that we need to be embracing with looking at various, various regs and various structures, but also even incentives, like, you know, if I’m, you know, that’s a huge part, I totally love what you’re saying about the democratization, this is where we’re going. And we’re, you know, I think, a huge trend in the market as a whole. And so giving people choice to what vehicle they want to, you know, invest in, I think, is a is, is a really interesting thing to think about. And consider when you’re trying to figure out what structure to go with. And maybe even tie in some incentives, which, you know, for certain noninvestment, dollar value, you’re gonna get x like, you know, we’re working with a firm where it happens to be. You know, a gift card to go to that particular place, you know, once it’s, it’s developed. So those are other trends that we’re seeing that can be quite interesting and engaging for people interesting for and they look twice, so.
Peter Daneyko 49:15
And to close out on that’s a direction for the next session. We didn’t even get to touch on that from a marketing, what are the different marketing avenues that one can do? And to close out? The ability to incentivize investors and wide and far-reaching approaches is extremely interesting when it comes to these regulations. And, again, that’s a whole long conversation in itself that a lot of I think the audience might not be aware that I didn’t know that you can incentivize investors in a very number of sense of urgency, dollar values, gifts, whatever it could be. Whatever it connects with that audience is a very, very compelling thing that can be done from a marketing perspective for all these rags. So on that note, I bid you farewell Jillian Andrew thank you very very much for the afternoon and I appreciate your insight as always thank you
Jillian Bannister 50:08
Thank you Peter great to be bye bye bye bye bye