NXTGEN is a movement created by a unique blend of real estate entrepreneurs: Natalie Contreraz, Ismael Sanchez, William Castillo, and Alex Contreraz. Natalie Contreraz helps commercial real estate investors build their personal brand on social media to build and educate a community of limited partners and William Castillo will help you fund your investment properties. NxtGen Meetup is a community for people wanting to create, innovate and connect with other NxtGenerators. I’m excited that two of the members, Natalie and William, agreed to sit-down for a conversation.
Could you expand on what you guys do in the real estate industry?
Natalie: I help commercial real estate investors build their brand on social media. I also do coaching for real estate entrepreneurs trying to make an extra 10K a month by building their brand and developing a course or coaching model for their platform. Will and I actually started in real estate at the exact same time working for a hard money company. I did the marketing for that company, and then I hopped into a little bit of wholesaling in the industry. I then just decided to go all in on the commercial side. Today we have Alex Contreraz, who is also on the hard money side, and he helps out with the systemization of that business. We also have Ismael Sanchez, who was born and raised in Mexico, came here and has really made a presence for himself on the single family real estate investment world through wholesaling and fixing and flipping.
Will: I came in originally as a producer, bringing in business and also growing the business. So fortunately, I was growing up speaking a lot of Spanish at home growing up. So our product was actually very niche for the borrower community and as a producer at the company, I was always looking for creative ways to provide value. We had a very expensive product that was very niche. Ultimately, when you are in a production role, you want the clients that are going to keep on coming back even though the price might look at a specific value. I think we all pay sometimes some ridiculous amount of prices for products like Apple, but ultimately we’re paying more for more than just a phone. That’s kind of a little bit that went behind the influence of NxtGen and that’s what influences the way I do business a lot as well.
Has there been any specific marketing strategies that you’ve recommended for clients with social media?
Natalie: We’ve seen in the past, about a year and a half ago, a lot of people are moving from Facebook to Instagram for business. Facebook has been saturated with a lot of spam and mistrust, so people are going to Instagram because it’s easier to build trust and see what somebody’s doing. As we see in just the other industries, there’s a lot of duality now, and the duality is succeeding now. What does that mean? That means that you’ll see fitness trainers who only work with executives or beginner entrepreneurs. As they’re targeting potential positive investors or potential partners, they’re leveraging their story to attract a certain group of people. An example would be the network nurse, who is somebody who is an apartment and single family investor who focuses on educating other nurses on how to build wealth through real estate. She’s one of the first people who has been using their strategy and it’s because the real estate space is always behind with innovation and technology.
Was there a specific demographic or target audience for these first events?
Will: The creation of this event really came behind recognizing an issue that I think me and Natalie related to, which was the importance behind networking. Recognizing the high value in that, but then also where the other side is maybe sacrificing a bit of authenticity because you’re having to sell yourself on maybe three to four nights a week depending on how intense you are about networking. Sometimes you can’t be as authentic as you’d like to be, so it can be energy draining. When you’re putting yourself in front of all these people constantly, you kind of get depleted. Why couldn’t we just go to an event and have a good time, be ourselves, and build genuine relationships with genuine action takers and ambitious people? At the same time, we still were trying to attract a specific type of people that had the ability to be themselves and also give a tremendous amount of value and be resourceful.
Was there anything you were trying to get away from when it came to the traditional networking experience?
Will: Absolutely. I think there was a couple of things, and I’ll kind of walk through them. The only way that really helped me be successful was going to networking events. Your job when networking is to understand that purpose and understand how you can provide value for that purpose that evening. I think what you often find yourselves is that everybody this is uncomfortable for everyone. Everybody’s a stranger here. We are all kind of in this awkward thing, and it really does force you to double down on your communication skills and how you can really navigate those conversations. I took a business ethics course, and we covered a lot about the OA crisis, mortgage crisis, and a lot of people separated themselves from their work. I believe that you’re not separate from your work. You and your work are the same person. The ethics you carry in your life for the ethics you carry at work. How do we create an energy where people are naturally stepping into natural conversations and engaging on an authentic level with each other without having to put themselves in that mindset?
What is the logistics like within networking events?
Natalie: I’m looking to create when I am organizing these events is an experience. So with the venue, we want to take kind of people out of their element. We did that very strongly at our last event where we had it at an interactive art museum. We get a DJ in real estate, it’s very common to have drinks going around as well, just to have people mixing and mingling. We’re just trying to find stuff that you wouldn’t necessarily find at a real estate event or at a professional event. That way it’s almost like a shocking effect. One thing that we do really well is we have an ice breaker, and that ice breaker kind of forces you to go around the room and have these conversations with people. We set the mood and set the tone, with free drinks and a DJ that’s playing up music. Those are some of the components that we look at when creating the event.
Can you expand on Innovation Oasis?
Natalie: An Oasis is a tropical part in the middle of the desert, which is where life blooms. You’ll literally see palm trees or a whole Lake, all of that stuff in the middle of the freaking desert. That’s what we want to be in a real estate realm. We’re bringing a local virtual reality and augmented reality company here in GSW to come showcase their products that they’ve been using with real estate investors. What it does is it’s a virtual reality or augmented reality set and you can literally gamify the renovation process. You can change the color of the walls or change the color of the floors. You can add a wall here, you can take that wall down. It’s going to save people a lot of money, especially in the commercial real estate side with renovations. It’s going to help developers plan out and visualize the property. That way investors will want to invest in it. Really. The possibilities are endless. We’re going to be showcasing that at this event.
Any upcoming projects you guys are excited about?
Will: Absolutely. I guess more than anything, we would just like to share that starting this has definitely opened me up to a lot of opportunities. Getting out of my comfort zone and getting into situations where you kind of step up or you step down and ultimately choosing to step up and choosing growth. One thing that I’ve discovered is that anything you want, anything you want to make you happy, you can. You just have to take some action steps towards that and get with the right people that will help you do it. Some people have friends that just let them be complacent and let them stay in the way they are and have comfortable conversations. That’s not the type of people that show up at NextGen. If you are not taking action, you’re going to feel intimidated and you’re going to be provoked with purpose to accomplish your mission. I know whenever we first started this last August, I was making the transition from wholesaling into full time real estate marketing and it was a really hard time and having this type of community has really made a huge impact on my life.
