Resurrecting Place and Redeeming Cities Through Redemptification with John Marsh – Ep. 53

About the Guest

I am extremely excited to share this next conversation with all of you. Today on the show I have John Marsh. John is the Co-Founder of Marsh Collective and host of the Redemptification Podcast, serial entrepreneur, a consultant helping steward over $1b in redemptive real estate in 9 small towns (with populations of 800-180k) around America, with love for building things that are beautiful and meaningful.

Over the last 25 years, John and Ashely have guided over 40 startup businesses in various industries, such as Construction, Real Estate Investing, Advertising, and also multiple Restaurants. John and his wife have renovated 220+ buildings within 10 blocks of downtown Opelika to help save their city. Today, John’s current focus is on helping others make generational differences in their communities and companies by helping patrons bridge the gap between redeeming vision and execution.

Marsh Collective is a collective of entrepreneurs who empower businesses and leaders to make an impact in their companies and communities. They help others to reach their goals through redemptive vision consulting. They believe in creating Emotional Architecture, where stories are considered before structures, where people are truly aligned with profits. They provide consultation services for clients from small towns to mid-size towns all over the United States.

In this episode, we take a look at the importance of establishing a “Sandbox” in your own town, understand that people love things that are loved, and the importance of establishing a vision for you and your developments going forward. There is loads of great information in this episode and I greatly appreciated John for taking the time out of his extremely busy schedule to discuss this topic of redemptification with me.

As always, if you have enjoyed the show, please subscribe to the show and share it with your friends in the industry. There will be more exciting conversations on the shows to come.

Main Take-Away’s From This Show

This episode was so much fun to record. John was an absolute pleasure to interview. He brought so much wisdom with a big dash of humility. We dove into the method behind his work in great detail throughout the episode. He showed us that this type of work could really be done anywhere and at any starting point. His love for his town and the structures that he works on show through with each new project. There were so many great talking points that Todd made throughout the discussion, so it is hard to just pick three for my main take-away’s this week. The following main topics of the show come from an understanding of placemaking and redemptive real estate that he possesses.

People Love things that are Loved
Work Hard on your Vision
Pick a Sandbox and Stick with it

As always, I will dig into each of these “take-away’s” every week on the blog. So, without further a due, here we go!

People Love things that are Loved

What I loved about this discussion with John is that all of the principles we discussed were simple but extremely impactful. He understood the basic principles that make development and redevelopment in a town very successful. All of these principles or doctrines can be implemented in your strategy with real estate development going forward. They aren’t necessarily hard to implement but do take initiative to make happen. This is what sets apart developers working within the same town.

One of the principles discussed is the one listed above; People love things that are loved. People can identify “love” in a place just by simply looking at the structure and surrounding areas. Love is that intangible essence that most people that look at real estate can’t quite put their finger on when looking at a property but can tell something is different. It’s that “special sauce” that gets people to really connect with a property.

There are many ways that you can achieve this appearance on your next project. Essentially it boils down to paying attention to the details. In a nutshell, a property that is loved is understood and given attention that others may not give it. By paying attention to the details, you show that you are truly trying to create great spaces. This additional detail can come in the form of special hardware on the various cabinets, period-specific fixtures, or even the way that you wire the house as John mentioned. By doing so, you will attract others to love the structures that you already put so much love into yourself.

Work Hard on your Vision

Famous businessman, Jack Welsh, is often credited with this quote: “Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.” I find it extremely fitting based on the discussion I had with John. John and his wife have worked hard to home in their vision for their sandbox (next topic) by really digging deep to understand what truly makes City’s successful. Over years they have created a clear and compelling vision that people all over the United States are really buying into. You can tell that he has dialed in his vision by the passion with which he speaks of it.

Vision isn’t the only key to his success over the years, but it is a very important piece of the overall formula. Without vision, you don’t have direction. Without direction, you can’t build momentum. Without a vision, you can’t build a team because who would want to follow someone that is constantly changing course and appears to have little direction? A clear and consistent vision is one of the first pieces you must have in place before you can truly build something special.

Pick a Sandbox and Stick with it

This last main point is one that is almost too simple, but often overlooked by those in the real estate industry and potentially even harder to actually adopt when you are starting out. This concept isn’t a new one to the show. We’ve had a couple guests that have mentioned this type of concept in the past. They may have used a different metaphor but ultimately it was referring to the same ideology. Monte Anderson of Options Real Estate in Dallas referred to this idea as cultivating his own farm. Monte has picked an area in Dallas in which to focus his efforts and it also pays off dividends as well for not only his business but the surrounding community.

Essentially you are picking a location in which to focus your efforts within a town or city. This gives you focus and provides for forced appreciation from other assets you own when you improve the area. That is why this idea has so much power in my mind. You’re not only narrowing your focus on potential opportunities, you’re creating additional value to your other properties within your “sandbox” when you make improvements in the area. This can be a powerful mechanism in which to build transformative growth in the community.

As you can see from the takeaways above, this podcast episode was absolutely full of great information on making it in real estate development and the benefits of redemptive real estate development in your town or city. If you have enjoyed the content and the show, please subscribe to the show below and share it with your friends in the industry! We’ll have many more great discussions on the shows to come.

Resurrecting Place and Redeeming Cities Through Redemptification with John Marsh – Ep. 53

About the Guest

Main Take-Away’s From This Show

People Love things that are Loved

Work Hard on your Vision

Pick a Sandbox and Stick with it

To Learn More About John Marsh and Marsh Collective, Check out the Following Websites:

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