Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Announcer: Where entrepreneurs come to grow it's passage to profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
[00:00:06] Richard Gearhart: What if the biggest mistake in commercial real estate isn't paying too much? It's making a deal that never makes you money. Todd Drollett, founder of Titan commercial realty group, has closed more than 1700 deals worth over $2 billion and built a career around challenging conventional thinking about real estate. Todd, season two of the A E show the real estate commission is almost here. And so what will people see this season that they haven't seen before?
[00:00:31] Todd Drowlette: It starts streaming and airing on March 20th of 2027. So it's kind of around the corner. What will they see that they haven't seen before? They're going to see. Sam is our newest cast member. Sam is 20, just joined us three months ago.
We're going to do bigger deals. You know, it's always bigger and better. And you'll see more corporate the first season, getting sign offs from, you know, corporations with the copyrights. Not only that, but using people's images. There's a whole thing behind it and it was just a nightmare. And if they don't know the show yet, but once you're successful the first show, it's amazing how much friendlier people are and how much more willing they are to, you know, have there. So I do a lot of corporate work with large franchisees.
So if you're filming but you can't name the company, you can't name whatever. So the first season was a lot of independent owners and companies. This season you'll see more national brands and just bigger transactions, bigger deals.
[00:01:24] Elizabeth Gearhart: That sounds great. So. So I do have a question for you too. What's the difference for real estate? There are a lot of real estate agents. What's the difference between a successful real estate agent and someone who has to hang things up after a while?
[00:01:38] Todd Drowlette: A successful agent is somebody who is persistent and just doesn't give up. No matter what.
People watch TV shows. It's always important for us this to be a docu series so people actually see what's happening in real time. Every show on TV that deals with real estate are generally reality shows. So a lot of things are conjured up not real. You're seeing the gloss like good size. You're not seeing the downsides.
So if you take real estate, you take today and you take 18 months from today, 90% of the people won't be in the business. The turnover rate is as bad, the failure rates as high as restaurants. It's terrible.
So it's literally Just getting in and saying, I don't have a place. Plan B, it's plan A, A1, A2, A3, A17, and just saying, this is my goal and I'm going to keep readjusting and keep readjusting. The people who can do that succeed in this business, the people who can't, sayonara and back to corporate America.
[00:02:33] Elizabeth Gearhart: Well, do you think to follow along those lines? Do you think providing education helps? Because I know that there's one real estate agent in our town who has seminars on how to get your house ready to sell for retirement or whatever.
[00:02:45] Todd Drowlette: So. So I think it's just marketing, right? So that's lead generation. So if you can educate people, whether it's social media, whether it's in person, I always prefer things in person. But anytime you get the opportunity to educate people, probably not unlike your show, right? If you can work in and explain to people how things work and then they reach out to you, I think it's good if you know what you're talking about. What's scary is the amount of real estate agents that, you know, firms refer to as experts, and they've been doing it two weeks and they literally are held out to be experts. And then the profession takes a hit because people are like, oh, real estate agents don't know anything. It's like, well, because the turnover rate is 90% of people only get 18 months worth of experience and they're gone. It's like, no, somebody's been doing it 10 years, 15, 20, 25 years. They know all kinds of things that you need to know. So if you can educate people, that's great as long as you know what you're talking about. Don't hold yourself out to be an expert if you're not.
[00:03:33] Richard Gearhart: So if you're in the market for a commercial broker or residential broker, what are the things that you're looking for? How do you interview them to make sure that you get a good fit?
[00:03:43] Todd Drowlette: So if you're looking for a commercial broker, you want to pay attention to what's their area of expertise, what are the things that they specialize in? So, like, I specialize in office retail investments. You would not want to hire me to do industrial properties because I don't have the connections in the industrial world. Like, everything is very connected in commercial real estate. So you want to make sure the person you're interviewing actually specializes and actually ask them, what's your resume? What are the deals you've done?
How long did it take you to do it? If you have Somebody that needs a lease. Hire a broker who's used to doing leases. Not a broker, only sells things. Residential real estate. You want to know how long have they been in the business? How many transactions have they done? What's their average time on the market? If they list a home, is it average time, 7 days, 14 days? If their average time, 6 months. You don't want to hire that agent. You also want to ask them typically how many price reductions do they have to do on average with a listing? Because a lot of people in the business want listings so bad and there's so much competition, they'll yes you to death just getting you to sign the listing. And then they're like, I'll worry about it in 30 days and I'll go, well, you know, the house isn't selling if the person's strategy is lower the price over the price. And that's the solution to you selling your home. Hire a different agent.
[00:04:57] Richard Gearhart: Right? So you shouldn't be shy. If somebody's not doing the job as a real estate agent, you should feel free to
[00:05:03] Todd Drowlette: hold them accountable.
[00:05:05] Richard Gearhart: Yeah, hold them accountable. And
[00:05:06] Todd Drowlette: especially, especially in selling homes. Homes sell quickly or they don't. Like commercial real estate takes a longer time to like generate the deals, the leads, committees, whatever. Selling a home or selling. Not if somebody wants to sign a one year listing, it's like, if you can't sell my house in 60 days, you're not the right person. Hire somebody else.
[00:05:24] Richard Gearhart: So what makes for a good real estate investment? If you're an owner, operator or you're acquiring commercial real estate, what are some of the factors that you look at in order to make a good decision about making a real estate investment?
[00:05:37] Todd Drowlette: So you make money when you buy, not when you sell in real estate. Right. Never buy something that you wouldn't want to buy yourself. So sometimes people buy something just because it's a good deal. It's like, well, if you're buying something because it's a good deal, that means you have to sell it for less. So it's a good deal to somebody else.
So you want to buy real estate that fundamentally is solid and where you could look at it and go, if the world stops, well, people still come here. So if I'm buying an office building, I want the nicest office building for the cheapest price. And that's like anybody, everybody wants value.
So if you are in the retail business, you want to look at traffic counts and demographics and do you serve inner cities, do you serve affluent suburbs? And you want to look for the demographics of who your customer is. And then you want to say, is the building attractive? Is there parking? All the things if you're a customer and the reasons you won't go to a business, don't locate there just because it's a good deal. That's the biggest mistake I see people make is they buy things because it was a good price.
And good prices can blow up in your face.
[00:06:37] Richard Gearhart: And actually, a good price kind of reflects the lack of market value of the property.
[00:06:42] Todd Drowlette: Yeah. The saying that's been around for hundreds of years, you get what you pay for. That's a saying for a reason. And it's lasted forever because you get what you pay for.
[00:06:50] Elizabeth Gearhart: Well, we were, I think, kind of educated, lucky when we bought the. The law firm building. Right. We had a good real estate agent who'd been doing it for 20 years. Right,
[00:06:59] Richard Gearhart: right. We ended up lowballing the owner and he ended up taking it. So it turned out to be a good deal. And then we got a good deal with the bank, too.
[00:07:06] Todd Drowlette: So you followed the right rules. You. You, you bought. Right. You made money when you bought it.
[00:07:10] Richard Gearhart: Yeah, but, I mean, the market hasn't been all that great over the years, but I think it's appreciated enough. And I just like, I, I like owning a property. I think that, you know, I don't have to deal with a landlord. Of course, all the maintenance and everything is on our ticket.
[00:07:26] Todd Drowlette: But you're picking up depreciation, you're picking up the fact you own it. There's a million benefits to own it.
[00:07:30] Richard Gearhart: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:07:31] Elizabeth Gearhart: Yeah. So, Todd, I have another question for you. We want to know how you did this.
This is not even real estate. Okay. You are about to launch a podcast. What's the name of that podcast?
[00:07:45] Todd Drowlette: Better Talk to Todd. Presented by the Real Estate Commission.
[00:07:49] Elizabeth Gearhart: You just interviewed one of the biggest comedians and podcasters on the planet, Adam Carolla of the Adam Carolla Show. How did you do that?
[00:07:58] Todd Drowlette: Luck.
Part of going into podcasting, it's like, you know, we have the TV show on A and E. We're in multiple businesses. I learned with time, you know, you need a bunch of different touch points to people. So it's like they gotta see you, then they gotta see you again. Then they have to see you somewhere else. They have to see you again.
Adam Carolla does a lot of blogs. He, you know, and he's a lot of times talking about LA and things going on. He was a contractor before he was a comedian, so he's super into construction. He's into old cars. And as he's touring around cities, you know, all over the country, he does vlogs. So his manager, Mike August, had asked me if I could tour Adam around in Albany and talk about. So the governor Hochul just did his $400 million budget to kind of bring back downtown. And so we were doing the vlog, and I'm like, well, if I do the vlog and tour you around, I need you to do my podcast. So one of our first guests is Adam Carolla, one of the biggest podcasters on the planet. So sometimes in life, you just luck out.
[00:08:57] Elizabeth Gearhart: I'm glad to hear that you're doing a podcast. We love podcasting, obviously.
[00:09:01] Todd Drowlette: Let me tell you a funny story about that. Actually. We filmed with him, and he's actually going to be on the second season of our A and E show also.
So we filmed with him, and they leave, and then a couple of days later, he goes back to L. A and he's on the show. And Justin, who's one of our producers, was like, hey, Adam Crolla was talking about you on his podcast, and he was talking about his manager Mike, and he was like, there. He must have said Todd, like, 97 times in, like, six minutes, because his manager, you know, they left and they went to the thing in Florida, and the manager's like, oh, that guy Todd. And he's like, todd, commercial real estate Todd. He's like, that guy owns an auto mall in Florida. He's like, no, no, it's a different Todd. The guy's named Todd. He's like, that guy's name's Dan. And he's like, no, no, the guy's name's Todd. And he was talking about how obstinate his manager will get when he decides something. He's doing it. So they're going back and forth for minutes. He's like, the guy's name is Dan. He's like, let me scroll through my phone. Dan. The guy's name is Dan. So the funny thing about it was Dan, Todd. Dan, Todd. I'm like, spoiler alert. The guy's name was Brad.
So his manager had told him the wrong name, literally from the moment he got there. And Brad is so rich and so successful in Florida, he didn't care that Adam Carolla was calling him the wrong name all weekend.
So
[00:10:16] Richard Gearhart: makes a story for him.
[00:10:17] Elizabeth Gearhart: I would die of embarrassment.
[00:10:19] Richard Gearhart: We have to take a commercial break. We'll be right back with more of Todd Drollett and Passage Profit after this.
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[00:12:24] Advertisement 2: Now back to passage to profit once again, Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart
[00:12:29] Richard Gearhart: special guest today, Todd Droulette. Todd, you've done 1700 deals. What have you learned?
[00:12:35] Todd Drowlette: I've learned during radio, I have to actually talk and not just shake my head when you ask me questions.
I've learned a lot. You learn a lot over 1700 deals. No matter how much of an expert, no matter how much you do deals will find a way of humbling you and finding a new problem that you thought you've seen every problem under the sun and you can be a magnet for continuing problems and finding new problems. And no two deals are alike. It's like, of 1700 deals, there's themes. So I can cut off a lot of problems before they happen. Because I'm like, I can see where this is headed.
Once in a blue moon, I still get, you know, just sideswiped by something that I'm like, okay,
[00:13:14] Richard Gearhart: you
[00:13:14] Todd Drowlette: know,
[00:13:14] Richard Gearhart: welcome to life. Right,
[00:13:15] Todd Drowlette: exactly like that thing you just didn't expect to happen to happen. But 1700 deals, I. 99% of things I can kind of take and just go, okay, I'm seeing where this is going. Sometimes when I have younger guys with me in a meeting, if they're saying something, I'll be kicking them under the table, you know, because they're, like, saying things that I'm like, nope, like, I'm leaving.
Yeah, don't interject or don't so suggest that. That's a terrible idea.
[00:13:39] Richard Gearhart: I think part of the experience is just working with a lot of different people and a lot of different personalities. And I think as you get to understand the personality, the same thing in the legal business, right? After a while, you start to kind of get the inventor mindset versus the entrepreneur mindset versus the corporate mindset. And so you learn how to communicate better having talked with more people and walk through more. More fact patterns.
[00:14:04] Todd Drowlette: And you can take a group of intelligent people that are all intelligent, but people who work for corporate America think differently. People that work as entrepreneurs think differently.
So you just need to understand who it is that you're talking to and assess it. Because in real time, my brain is constantly assessing, like, what do I need to say? Where's this going? You know, what do they. They're saying they want this, but what do they really want?
[00:14:26] Richard Gearhart: Yeah,
[00:14:27] Todd Drowlette: yeah, yeah.
[00:14:28] Richard Gearhart: Lots of times they don't really even know.
[00:14:30] Todd Drowlette: More often than not, Henry Ford, I think, was famous for saying, if I asked people what kind of car they'd want, they would have said, a faster horse. So a lot of times people don't know what it is that they need.
[00:14:40] Richard Gearhart: If you couldn't have been a real estate guy, what would you have done instead?
[00:14:44] Todd Drowlette: I, for a very long time, was planning on being an attorney.
[00:14:47] Richard Gearhart: Oh, really?
[00:14:48] Todd Drowlette: Yep. And thank God I did not.
[00:14:50] Richard Gearhart: Well, you would have been a good attorney, though.
[00:14:52] Todd Drowlette: I would have been a good attorney, but I can tell you, like, I think it would have been a good attorney because I'm good at arguing. And if somebody is one tiny little thing that's wrong, I can point it out and focus on it.
But as I've gotten older and mild out like I was a kid growing up, I would get hundreds. And if I got a 99, I would argue with the teacher and explain to them why their question was actually not right, to the point where I had a global studies teacher in high school. When I raised my hand in the middle of a test, he'd be like, oh, Mr. Drollett, tell everybody what question they're all getting credit for. Because he just didn't want to argue with me. He just, I can read something, and if I read it one time, I can remember it exactly to the detail.
So I was very rarely wrong. But I also found that's very irritating for people. And as I got older, my dad used to be like, todd, you can be right or you can be paid, but you can't be both. And I decided to be paid.
[00:15:41] Richard Gearhart: Yeah, well,
[00:15:42] Elizabeth Gearhart: that is so true. Yeah, I go crazy with stuff like that. So I love your show, the real estate Commission. We watched it after we met you, and we're like, wow, this is really good. You know, we. We weren't really sure what to expect because there are a lot of real estate shows. Yours is different than the other real estate shows. What excites you the most about it?
[00:16:02] Todd Drowlette: I think it's the opportunity. So we film in the capital region. So when I was pitching, you know, networks and trying to get someone to pick up the show, we ended up at A and E. A and E is known for doing docu series. You know, it's real documented stuff. I didn't. It was important for me to be authentic and to not like, I'm like, I'm not going to do some of these ridiculous things you see on TV of people, you know, just acting way I wouldn't act, whatever.
The fact that we have the opportunity to film in the capital region and the fact that a lot of people across the world think that New York is the capital of New York, but it's actually Albany. So the fact that we have an opportunity to put businesses on Albany on the map and give them a national platform, and the fact that I run a business, I own a TV production company, so I try to give as many opportunities to other people to get the opportunity to be on TV and promote their brands, that's probably the thing I'm most excited about, is if you do something over and over again, it kind of becomes old hat. I'm sure you guys been doing this show. We have, what, half a million listeners? You've been doing this for eight years. I'm sure you guys go, oh, God, we gotta go film the show. But when I have somebody, they're excited about being on the show or taping, it gives me a renewed excitement for the show. I imagine it's somewhere for you. How do you guys find it to be?
[00:17:14] Elizabeth Gearhart: Sometimes it's a struggle to get into New York, and we're like.
But once we're here with the people.
[00:17:20] Richard Gearhart: Yeah. I just find that being in the studio is great. Usually I have a pretty good time, and it tends to be the highlight of my week. And we get to meet so many interesting people, so many different points of view, different businesses, people in different stages of their careers.
[00:17:35] Elizabeth Gearhart: And hear about innovation.
[00:17:37] Richard Gearhart: Yeah, and hear about
[00:17:38] Elizabeth Gearhart: innovation. Innovation that we hear about on this show. We'll hear about things before other people do. I mean, we started hearing about AI before most people even knew what it was. We had this guy, come on. We're like, what?
[00:17:48] Todd Drowlette: You heard about AI before the Alphabet existed?
[00:17:51] Elizabeth Gearhart: Yeah, exactly.
[00:17:52] Richard Gearhart: We had one guy who said, oh, yeah, I know AI. His name is Artie Inga.
[00:17:58] Elizabeth Gearhart: So how did you get on A and E? I mean, I think a lot of people would kill to be on tv.
[00:18:03] Todd Drowlette: Anybody who works with me knows that I'm nuts and I just get ideas, but I'm crazy enough to figure out how to make that crazy idea happen.
When they announced Covid and said, we're shutting everything down, we didn't know where we're going to be closed for two days or two years ago, we should market something. And I'm like, we should do a podcast. And then I was like, ah, we should do a TV show.
And I said to Brandon, I go. I go, didn't you go to. Brandon went to SUNY Albany up in Albany. I go, didn't you go to somebody who's in tv? We got to know somebody. So he had a friend that had worked at Viacom, and the whole world shut down. So we reached out to him and said, hey, we want to shoot a TV show. And nothing. Like, life is all about timing. No other point in time. If we had done that, would anyone give us one second to even consider the ridiculous idea?
And we were filming Middle of COVID when you weren't allowed to. We were supposed to be filming.
The county executive was like, on the news calling us, like a super spreader event. Like, it was like, every bad press we could get, we got.
[00:19:01] Richard Gearhart: I was gonna say, but bad press is better than no press, maybe. Exactly.
[00:19:05] Todd Drowlette: And doing something is better than doing nothing. So we were filming a show, and so we filmed the show, put it on Facebook watch. And we got like 1.2 million views per episode.
And then we took that success and then went network shopping and pitch people, and pitch people, and pitch people and pitch people.
And it was important to me to produce the show, even though I only had that limited experience of producing the show. And we made a deal with A and E and it was crazy, but it's just persistent. You get told no, you know, even in regular deals, I get told no all the time. You just can't take it to heart. And if you believe in something, you have to just keep doing it until you get the yes. Or create your own production company. Prove it. You know, go out, do it, prove it. Because everybody wants the easy yes. So you give people an easy yes. It's a way so if somebody wants to be on tv, go make your own show and start promoting it and then pitch it once it's people want to get on the bus that's already left the station. As crazy as that sounds, nobody wants to watch you build the bus. Knows that bus even going to have an engine that's working. People like grabbing onto success. So you got to say, hey, I'm already successful and I don't need you. And then you get a better deal when you don't need people. Once you've already done it, you get a lot better deal than if they're going to, quote, make you, so to speak.
[00:20:17] Richard Gearhart: That is a great insight. We're with Todd Drollett and he is just been an amazing guest. Todd, how can people contact you?
[00:20:25] Todd Drowlette: They can go to the realestate commission.com if they're interested in the show or titan commercial realty group.com Instagram handles are better. TalkToToD and you can Google me. Fun fact, 360 million people in the United States. I'm the only Todd Drollette in the entire country. So good or bad, it's me.
[00:20:43] Elizabeth Gearhart: Wow, that's awesome.
[00:20:45] Richard Gearhart: If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the podcast and leave a quick review.
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[00:20:56] Announcer: Learn more at passagetoprophetshow.com.
