Building a Real Estate Networking Brand | Josh Buchter of Wolf of Broad Street | The Brainiac Blueprint
Updated: Oct 14
Today on The Brainiac Blueprint Podcast by Left Brain AI, we sit down with Josh Buchter, Founder of Wolf of Broad Street Real Estate Events, one of Philadelphia's most recognized real estate networking brands.
Josh shares how a single event at a Philly dive bar in 2016 grew into a full events and guerrilla marketing company, complete with LED billboard trucks, a 15,000+ contact database, and partnerships with some of the city's biggest real estate organizations.
He also opens up about why givers gain has guided him from day one, why less is more when it comes to events and automation, and how AI became an unexpected source of additional income.
Full transcript below.
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⏱ In this episode, we discuss:
00:00 – Intro
00:49 – Who is Josh Buchter and Wolf of Broad Street
02:36 – What's coming up for Wolf of Broad Street
03:40 – "I think AI is..." Josh finishes the prompt
05:05 – From credit repair to an events business
07:52 – The first event: a Philly dive bar in 2016
09:53 – Givers gain: what makes a great networker
11:12 – Building relationships with big organizations
12:57 – Guerrilla marketing you can't scroll past
15:41 – 1,000 people or the right 100?
16:43 – What makes a great event
18:48 – Lessons learned and a rained out happy hour
20:37 – How Josh measures event success
21:51 – Selling tickets: Eventbrite, email and social
22:55 – What's happening in Philly real estate
25:20 – Making money by teaching AI
32:07 – How Josh uses ChatGPT day to day
37:29 – Why less automation can be better
42:09 – The future of Wolf of Broad Street
45:20 – Rapid fire: automation, billboard trucks, memorable guests and more
51:13 – Open forum: get involved
52:35 – Where to find Josh and Wolf of Broad Street
🔗 Josh Buchter
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshbuchter/
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/wolf_of_broad_street/
🔗 Wolf of Broad Street
Website → https://wolfofbroadstreet215.com/
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Episode Full Transcript:
Kyle: All right, welcome back to another episode of the Brainiac Blueprint, where we discuss the intersection of AI and how it impacts business and the world around us with our esteemed guests. I'm your host, Kyle Lambert, founder of Left Brain AI and Action Hero Marketing.
In today's episode, we're gonna discuss being a successful networker in a competitive industry like real estate. With that being said, today's Brainiac is Josh Buchter. Welcome to the show, Josh.
Josh: Thank you, Kyle. It's great to be here. Thanks for the invite.
Kyle: Yeah, of course. Happy Friday. Josh, you are the founder of Wolf of Broad Street, an event and networking company in Philadelphia. If you don't mind, tell everybody about you and the business and who you are.
Josh: Sure, yeah. Wolf of Broad Street Real Estate Events. Wolf of Broad Street is my brand. It's a spin-off of one of my favorite movies, Wolf of Wall Street. Back when the movie came out, my Instagram handle was JBuck215, and then I looked it up, it said that Wolf of Broad Street was available.
I grabbed that Instagram handle and basically built a business around it. My background is all about business development, marketing and sales within the real estate industry. I'm 39 years old. After graduating from college in 2010, I found an opportunity in credit repair and then property management and then title insurance, and you know, was going to every industry event out there, even if it was a general business card exchange, network after work type of situation.
And I found an opportunity to kind of narrow that focus down with events to real estate industry, happy hours, and it's since grown from there. I ran magazines for five years under a franchise model, which was a great experience.
And now it's just all about corporate event strategy. If it's not our events, it's private client events. We do some really cool guerrilla marketing in Philadelphia through our Wolf of Broad Street LED billboard trucks.
And yeah, we still love to host events, but more and more we're aligning ourselves with organizations to kind of white label their events and take care of the planning, promoting and executing, which can be a full time job.
Kyle: For sure. For sure. You have anything exciting coming up that's on the schedule?
Josh: Yeah, we're looking forward to our second annual Montgomery County Market Movers event at the Bluestone Country Club in Bluebell on October 8th, 2026. And then you know, we're coming up on some recurring events, our fourth annual Philadelphia Real Estate Symposium, first quarter 2027.
It's one of our biggest events. We do fun events as well, like our Royal Rendezvous, Real Estate Networking Parties, which was at Ballers, Philadelphia this year. So we're excited to announce the details of what's to come, but definitely a lot of things to be excited about.
Kyle: Very cool. Very cool. I you've gotten me excited as a fellow Philadelphian. I've been seeing like, you know, your newsletters and all that kind of stuff. I love that you're doing those digital billboards at the tailgates.
I saw that you had I think you got one for the home opener for the Eagles, right? And one for the Sixers too. I saw you gotta carry piggyback off the LeBron you know, news and following, right?
Josh: Yeah. Sure, for sure. Yeah, it's good for the city, it's good for business.
Kyle: That's right. That's right. I love it. Awesome. Well, I want to dig in a little bit more, but before we do, as you know, I always like to kind of AI is such a hot topic and you know, whether or not you use it, I kinda like to see how people think about it. So if you wouldn't mind finishing that prompt, I think AI is.
Josh: To me, I think AI is additional income. I make money with AI. I teach AI. I don't teach AI to humans. I teach AI the real world, and we all do. You know, we're every single day we're teaching AI. But as far as additional income goes, I have found a way to make money by teaching AI.
We all have different domains, you digital marketing. I've listened to some of your podcasts from like archaeologist backgrounds and doctors and writers and like all this cool stuff. That's your domain, which you specialize in.
And instead of worrying about AI taking your job, I say if you can't beat them, join them. There's an opportunity there. AI is only as good as what we put into it. You know, AI doesn't know how to AI could tell you how to run an event, but just telling you how to do something is not enough to actually make it happen.
So It's pretty interesting and it pays ridiculously well. A lot of people aren't aware of it. So I always try to find the silver lining and I found it with AI. I'm all for it.
Kyle: I love that. I love That additional income's always the goal, right? So we'll definitely be diving into that a little bit more. That's great to hear. But I do wanna jump in and get into your you know, one of your main expertise here, which is you know, the wolf of Broad Street.
You mentioned you've had a lot of different jobs that have kind of led you to here from credit repair to some, you know, the broader real estate ecosystem. Now you're a you're a connector and an event organizer and obviously Wolf of Broad Street kind of handles all of that.
So if you don't mind, can you just expand on a little bit that, a little bit about that? And you know, was there a moment that you realized like networking and this relationship building is something that can be a successful business for you?
Josh: Yeah, I mean, like you, activity creates activity and being a business development guy and having a reason to always have something to talk about. It's never same old, same old, nothing new. It's you know, it's I got this coming up, that coming up.
And my business development background, I didn't initially think I would have an events company. I was hosting the events to drum up business, to bring in leads for whichever company I was representing. The company I was representing at the time when I started events was better qualified credit repair.
Which I owe a lot to because it was their corporate credit card, their company car, like I I was making things happen, bringing business in for better qualified, but at the same time unknowingly building out an event planning sort of company in the real estate space.
And, you know, being a business development guy, I know what companies and vendors are looking for. Like I know title insurance companies are looking to meet realtors and I know how to bring them together through events and I know like you know how to make that event pop and be something that you want to continue to be involved with and hear about.
So I think it was just the momentum of consistent events, not for a profit. I most of the events were free. I would get sponsors to barely cover the cost of the event and maybe I get a fresh outfit out of it. And I just kept going like that.
But then, you know, I actually got recruited to New Jersey's largest title company, through the events and through what I was doing. And being able to bring hundreds of people together, they identified it and, you know, I've gotten nice packages with different companies in my in my past years.
Where events has always been the engine to that. It's been a it's been a machine. It's a content creating machine. You know, before, during, and after, there's all types of levels of promotion that go along with it. And just doing it right and being able to leverage everybody's positive feedback and continued support has like kind of you know duplicated itself.
Kyle: Yeah, very cool. Very cool. When was that first that first event that you did for the credit repair company?
Josh: It was spring of two thousand sixteen. It's ten years ago.
Kyle: Okay, all right. So solid 10 years ago. So obviously you went through COVID and had to, you know, handle all of that. So I'm curious, what is like the biggest thing that stands out to you that it was like different from 2016 from that first event and what kind of is the same?
I have to assume there's some things that stay ten years a long time, but there's still like you know, relationships being built and some of that. So what's the biggest difference and the biggest thing that stayed the same?
Josh: The biggest thing that stayed the same was some of the people who came to that original event are still coming out consistently to these events. A lot has changed. That venue is now my dry cleaner. It was a you know, it was a dive bar when I when I hosted an event there.
It was called the Bridge Philly 100 Spring Garden, right next to Delilah's and Z Bar. Right on the end there. And yeah, so it wasn't anything upscale, classy or, you know.
Kyle: Ha. Amazing.
Josh: Mil it was mildly professional, but it was a party. It was a it was a real estate industry networking party. And we still do those, but now we've become a lot more legitimate and are, you know, making impacts for different charities and we're bringing out you know, folks from the mayor's office and the mortgage bankers association and Greater Philadelphia Association of Realtors, these are all new clients and partnerships of ours. So it's come a long way since that first dive bar event.
Kyle: That's so cool. That's I love that. Thinking about, you know, these little dive bars, I'm sure you can you can get a little rowdy. It helps to you know
Josh: I used to go there. I used to go there after work and I got friendly with the bartender, Chris Redd, who's an awesome guy. And he seen me going in there after I've already been to networking events of others and he said, Why don't you host your own here? And he actually planted the seed in my head and I did it. Yeah.
Kyle: That's awesome. Yeah, it's about that's cool. So I mean, I think that's a great segue. I think that you obviously especially considering people from 2016 are still coming today, right? So you I you know, I'd say you're very skilled at relationships, right?
So what and real estates and advanced are both very big in real estate management and bringing that value. So I'm curious, i do you have a philosophy or you know, what do you think makes somebody a successful networker, a successful connector, a successful relationship builder.
You know, what's been the key to your success in maintaining these you know these contacts?
Josh: I was part of a networking group called BNI for a few years and their motto was givers gain and that always stuck with me. 'cause I I find that to be a philosophy before I ask for anything or I really even say what I'm out for or what I do.
I try to listen more than I speak and identify a way that I could add value to a person before I come off like I'm just trying to get something and keep it moving. So being authentic is really important in building relationships and listening, you know, more than you speak.
Kyle: Sure. That givers gain, I like that. That's a nice easy, you know, slogan there to remember.
Josh: Comes back. Yeah. Yep.
Kyle: Yeah. So you know, you mentioned that you have some people coming from like City Hall and you know, big organizations. I'm curious how you handle those relationships even differently. You know, obviously there's levels to the game, right?
I'm not trying to discredit anybody, but there's difference between a real estate agent and the mayor or something like that, right? So I'm curio or, you know, someone an executive at Comcast. So I'm curious how you know, maybe approach these, you know, big deal.
Josh: A lot of the like quote unquote big deals have a, you know, request form before you even get in touch with them. You know, you have to s you have to submit a form to tell them what this is about before they even consider answering or having a conversation with you.
But I think once you get past that, you're kind of golden. Once you're now, you know, with the, you know, personal work email of the person that you need to talk to and their executive assistant and team, then you're kind of golden.
And it's More transactional than you know it might be with like a loan officer buddy who you know we do events and collaborations with where we're just texting and calling and things like that but yeah differ different levels different devils you know you gotta you gotta figure it out but I'm fine with both you know I'm cool with less meetings and less conversations and things like that if it can just be you know this is how I want to add value to you this is what's in it for you this is how I see us benefiting and it make it a win then it should be should be no question especially if your like reputation can precede itself a little bit and they could kind of see your digital resume.
Kyle: Very cool. Yeah. I mean, and I like right you got some good sayings here. What was it? Different levels for different devils or something? Yeah. That's great. Clearly a marketer. Clearly a marketer. Do you consider Wolf?
Actually I think you guys you say WOBS a lot in your mark W-O-B-S, right? So do you consider WOBS to be an event company, more of a marketing company, like a real estate community, all the above? Like how do you think about it in your head?
Josh: Well. Yeah. Marketing and events. Yeah. I mean we're not digital marketers, we're not SEO, we're not, you know, all of that necessarily. I mean we're busy on social media. We know how to work social media.
We manage a you know mortgage company social media for a long time now. But it's not something that we kind of like lean into as far as like web developers and things like that. We're guerrilla marketing, like you know, we talked about the LED billboard trucks a little bit, but when I first got into credit repair, for example, this was in the early two thousand tens.
I got a cardboard box. I put bright orange paper around it and I printed out lettering and it said, Don't be a sucker, get your credit repaired. It was full of glow pops with my business card on it. And I used to stand at the top of the escalator at City Hall as people were coming out from the subway and was handing these out on my way to work and on the bus at to work.
You know what I mean? And these things you'll will never will never go old and they'll remember that type of stuff, you know what I mean? So as far as the market Marketing goes, I want stuff that's like you can't scroll past, like it's hard to hard to miss.
And you know, it's tangible. We can't guarantee you know a certain amount of business or leads come out of our marketing campaigns, but everybody and their mom's gonna see about it. And you know how statistically it takes, you know, a dozen times seeing somebody's brand before they even think about calling you.
So I feel like the way we do things, we're checking that off multiple of those boxes and keeping our clients top of mind. Mind and we just do that to tie it into our events, which is our bread and butter, you know. So yeah, but
Kyle: Yeah. Yeah, I and like you said, you know, it's so easy to scroll past today. Like, you know, all of our Content meters are so dialed in and we should be like, No, this isn't for me. So when you do something that stands out, whether it's actually handing somebody something or having like a bold message, it cuts through.
And to your point, you know, you might not immediately get the ROI, but you know, you play this for the long term game, you establish that relationship and they'll be yeah, what was that guy that handed me that card? Or whatever it is, it'll resonate. Yeah.
Josh: If nothing else, brand awareness, right? Yes.
Kyle: That's right. That's right. So, you know, you've been doing this for a while now, and obviously, like I said, you've got some expertise in terms of being that connector. I'm curious, what do you find to be more valuable?
Getting 1000 people in a room or getting one hundred or knowing the right one hundred people to put in the room? What is what is more valuable to you?
Josh: They're both very valuable, you know what I mean? Because to get a thousand people into a room you're gonna have to have multiple thousands who have registered for that event and that's all good data there, you know what I mean?
It they're both important 'cause it we have over fifteen thousand and growing real estate industry professionals in our database, all grown out organically through things like registration lists over the years. So, it's a very important part of the process to extend your net very wide to be in the position to then narrow down those top one hundred to do a di a s a different sort of event or level of event, you know. So they're both super valuable.
Kyle: Gotta get the a lot of hooks to find the right fish, right? So that makes that makes perfect sense. So you know, once you have everything set up and you have those people in the room, I'm sure there's a level of kind of like quality to the event.
So from your perspective, what makes a great networking event or just a great event in general, whether it's networking or otherwise? And like what are some must-haves that you always have to implement or at least be thinking about for your guys' events?
Josh: Yep. Yeah. Yeah, we wanna make it as like convenient as possible for folks to attend our events, you know, so scheduling and location and parking and you know, checking to make sure it's not conflicting with anything big going on in the city.
Like these are all logistical things that are very important, but you know, making it easy for people to get there and then the wow factor when they do get there, you know, from warm welcomes and check-in, the LED billboard trucks outside, pumping our sponsors' brands, the red carpets, the step and repeat banners and professional media, entertainment, great quality food and, you know, at least a couple of drinks.
It's it's all like, you know, pretty cookie cutter after a while, but you know, these are things that kinda set the bar for Wolf of Broad Street events and then we kinda, you know, dependent on the theme and, you know, what type of event it is, always find ways to make it stand out.
Kyle: Do you find that the entrance is more important, or do you think like actually being in there? You know, I think about the entrance as almost like the ad, right? Like what is your click-through rate? Like, what is that first impression?
So do you find that red carpet and like you know getting that you maybe that swag bag or whatever it is, do you think that has a bigger impression, or do you think like the rest of the time that's in there? And obviously they they're both important, but I'm curious how you approach it. Think about it.
Josh: Yeah, I mean people are impressed once they check in and they see me, I'm like, You haven't seen nothing yet? Come in, like let's get to it 'cause that's it's that's nothing compared to the whole thing. Yeah.
Kyle: Yeah. Yeah, set the stage right. Get them in that right mindset. Yeah. I know people don't like to talk about their mistakes, but I'm curious if you've ever had like a big oops at any of these events that has been like, well, I'm never making that mistake again or something like that.
Josh: Yeah. Yeah, mean we are like constantly learning, you know, and narrowing down our events. Like we used to do way more events than were necessary. We identify those more accurately now or review, you know, our objectives and how far we got with this event.
And if it doesn't make sense, we're not gonna do it again. So it's all learning lessons and less is more anymore. You know what I mean? Like we don't we don't need to do multiple events per month. We can, you know, spread it out or, you know, focus more effectively.
On bigger projects. So that's always been a learning curve. And, you know, we've definitely taken some L's where, you know, we didn't have the you know, sponsorship commitments that we needed to even break even on some events.
And then it takes a little bit to get that back and keep that momentum going. So it's not an easy game. You know, it is certainly risky. It could our highly acclaimed heat wave happy hour this year got rained out and it wasn't just rain.
It was like thunder. It was tornado warnings and like crazy stuff and we you know finessed it so that we can go inside and take over the whole venue and you know have the bar and everything which was cool but it was really the outside patio that people are used to.
It's our fourth annual with like DJ and everything like that. But the folks that didn't make it loved it. And you know, but what are you gonna do? Most of the time the weather gods look out for us but you can't win them all.
Kyle: Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say, I can't believe you haven't figured out how to control the weather yet. I mean, what are doing?
Josh: We're usually pretty good. Yeah, we usually can bet on it, but not every time.
Kyle: So you mentioned something interesting there that I wanted to ask you about. Well, one was sponsors, and two was just you know, you mentioned like you didn't break even on the one event. So, you know, how do you measure success for these events?
Obviously, there's a dollar amount that you're looking for, and obviously you're always looking for new leads and stuff like that, but it's not always easy to measure and you know it's not always like immediate, right? So I'm curious how you measure the success of these different events and again, sponsors too.
Josh: Yeah, totally. I mean, if we can at least break even and make the people happy and our make our sponsors, you know, feel good, and be pleased with all
Kyle: And that's just from ticket sales.
Josh: Ticket sales and sponsorships. Yeah. 'Cause it between the ticket sales and the sponsorships we'll at least want to break even. Some events we do crazy good on, you know what mean? Which we're blessed to have those, you know, opportunities.
But as but as far as like the break even ones, they're perfectly fine with us and a win as well because, you know, we're gonna have more events to and we already have more events in the pipeline and like I said, like if the guest and the, you know, sponsors are happy, it's you know
Kyle: Okay. I see.
Josh: It's all good 'cause it's just gonna roll in into the next one.
Kyle: Yeah, absolutely. Do you guys have a magic bullet for ticket sales? Is it just your you know, your newsletter and your contact list or you know, are you guys posting a bunch of content? Are you running ads? What's working for you?
Josh: We're heavy on Eventbrite. All of our events are through Eventbrite. And then our email blast to our database is through Beehiiv, which is pretty cool. And then heavy, extensive marketing campaign on all of our social media platforms, you know, breaking down the event, you know, in every like value added asset piece that we can highlighting each sponsor, like a whole marketing calendar.
I haven't gotten a chance to mention my partner Bethany, who I couldn't do this without. She's my partner in Wolf of Broad Street. So it's a it's a lot of moving parts and juggling, but it's a c it is a content creating machine.
So it's a good thing. And when you're able to you know properly tag and collaborate with partners, you the campaign is basically doing the work for us as far as extending our reach as must possible through social media. Yeah.
Kyle: Absolutely. Yeah, that's awesome. Yes. Social media is so powerful. It's yeah, businesses live and die by it. Yeah. Cool. So I want to pivot slightly into real estate here. And then we'll jump into some AI stuff.
But obviously, you have a good pulse on Philadelphia real estate. I'm curious, and I coincidentally am in the market. I'm looking to move and to buy. So I'm curious, you know, what trends are you hearing? What challenges? Like what are people talking about? In Philly real estate.
Josh: I mean as of recently a lot of the, you know, conversations that I'm hearing is that it's incredibly slow for a lot of real estate agents out there. You know. It's gloomy, but you know, the statistics about how many agents actually closed a deal in the last twelve month are like, you know, mind blowing how low those numbers are.
So it's not easy, you know, high interest rates, low inventory, you know, tough market, tough economy, wars, you know, people holding on to their houses and you know, but The you know, the cream always rises to the top.
I've seen multiple market downturns. I've seen the same agents absolutely kill the game consistently since I got into this real estate. And there's constantly rising stars that are figuring it out and finding their niche and doubling down.
So there's opportunities out there everywhere. And, you know, this the smart dedicated ones are figuring it out and there's nothing wrong like to be a part time real estate agent either. You know what I mean? Like many people are dual careered, you know, with this and I give all the power to you know what I mean?
Like they're knocking out their day job, nights and weekends they're doing their thing with the real estate. So it's not easy. It's super easy to get your real estate license, but it's not hard to be it but it's super hard to be successful at it. You know what I mean? So
Kyle: Yeah. It's a hustle game. It's definitely one of those things like the more you put into it, the more you put it you get out of it. So yeah. Well good. You confirmed I was I've been struggling to find the place that I that I want to move to, so it makes me feel a little bit better.
That's awesome. Well hopefully a good I like South Philly, so hopefully a good South Philly spot will pop up for me.
Josh: One thing. Yeah. Check out the Navy Yard. They got they got thousands of apartments coming to the Navy Yard. It's crazy. Yep.
Kyle: True, yeah. They're really building up the Navy Yard too. That's gonna be very cool. I'm looking forward to that. Yeah. All right, awesome. So I do want to jump into some AI stuff. You know, you said that you've been able to use it as some supplemental income, you're teaching it.
Just if you don't mind, expand on that. You know, how are you using it either for Wolf of Broad Street or for additional things? You know, you know, tell us about your journey here into AI.
Josh: Absolutely. Yeah, I mean I'm Beth and I are big on traveling, so we always try to like find ways to as of recently look for like remote work to kind of supplement everything else we got going on. And apparently there are, you know, like Billion dollar companies out there that are basically AI recruiters.
Like for Indeed, for example, you know how they have all these different categories of jobs. There's, you know, recruiters out there that pay out millions of dollars per day to their contractors. And I'm lucky enough to be a contractor with this company.
And basically, I had an interview, it was an AI interview, but it wasn't like corny. It was like, you know, a r it was a real interview. I had to submit my resume. I haven't submitted a resume basically in my whole life.
I've always gotten jobs off of, you know, just doing what I do. I my degree has not helped me get a de get a job since I graduated from college until now with AI, which is absolutely crazy. You know what I mean? The big, you know, talk is that college kids can't find jobs.
AI is taking people's jobs and things like that. But I think that's like a little exaggerated and kind of an excuse. You know, when I graduated in two thousand eight with a finance degree, the last semester of my
Kyle: That's funny.
Josh: You know senior year of college all my finance professors basically telling me how screwed I was to have gone through four years graduate with a finance degree in so it was nine and you know I didn't have any experience the economy was down like you know no jobs I identified the silver lining everybody's credits messed up so I got into credit repair it kept me busy for eight years you know there's always different ways to figure it out but yeah I mean I have an NDA signed with the company
Kyle: There you go.
Josh: Who I have a contract with. I can talk about it a little bit. But I'm happy to make an introduction to anybody interested in learning how to make money with AI. Like I said, I'm not teaching AI to humans, I'm teaching the real world to AI.
It's boring, it's late, it you know, it's hard, it really juices your brain. But being able to point out AI slop, being able to identify, you know, ways that AI language could be more natural and, you know, relevant. There there's money in that.
And we're all teaching AI anyway. They're listening, they're, you know, taking note of everything we put into ChatGPT. And so on. It's just it's a it amazes me that I actually found an opportunity where I could write. I'm a good writer, I'm a good reader, I can follow direction, I'm good under time constraints.
It's all attributes of, you know, having that bachelor's degree and you know going through a lot of, you know, educational struggles through my life to be able to put it into use now. And you don't have to have a degree to make money with AI.
And I have no shame in saying it. I'm not gonna gatekeep it. I've done it all summer. I haven't told anybody about it, but it's a vi it's it works. I get money, you know. They pay ridiculous money and you you get paid every week.
Kyle: Interesting.
Josh: It's a domain. It's like we talked about, you know, we all have different specialties. You know, whatever your domain is, and you could have multiple domains. I have, you know, hospitality specialties and business development and marketing and sales and consulting and publishing and social media.
What whatever there's all different things that, you know, companies will pay good money to have you help them with. You know what I mean? It's
Kyle: So it's asking you specific questions about specific topics and you're kind of relaying your knowledge or expertise or experience so that it can kind of learn from you.
Josh: Even simpler than that, most of my work so far has been PowerPoint slides. You're looking at a slide and you're going through every single phrase, sentence, structure, you know, footnote, title, header. If you can point out what is too vague or what sounds unnatural, or you know, obviously all the punctuation with the dashes and the semicolons and the vertical bars and every AI and the dots, every AI indicator out there.
You know, it's interesting. I said it I said it's boring, but you know, it actually, you know, keeps my brain stimulated. I've never been able to type faster in my life. And yeah, there's you know time constraints. There's about thirty five thousand people from a around the world in my group or my contract that I'm working with.
And there's a Slack channel that's going crazy all day and night. And You can't just necessarily, you know, pick up hours whenever you want to. You have to be able to claim a task. You know, you go you log in, you claim the task, and then you hit the time clock where now you're starting to get paid.
But you can't just, you know, expect to work in nine to five this way. You have to hustle. You have to, you know, be graded on what you're submitting and do revisions when they kick it back saying, What did you mean by this?
And, you know, the lazy people that get pushed by the side, the people that can't figure out how to log in getting pushed by you know, it's just like you gotta be able to it's It's like the hunger games almost. You know what I mean?
Kyle: Okay. That's so interesting. I haven't heard about that. I mean it makes perfect sense. You know, what they're trying to accomplish. But I mean to your point, I think it think it's funny, like you said, you graduated with a finance degree in eight, which is the worst time for finance, you know.
So I graduated in nine with marketing, so I totally get it. And then yeah, being able to pivot that into a new job and now you're here, you know, sharing your experience with AI and pointing out your knowled like different things and sometimes it's simpler like you said, but that's such an interesting kind of journey and interesting kind of you know, task I guess that you're that you're working on. But
Josh: Yes. I mean if you or anybody else listening is interested in more information, I'm gonna get you the information, Kyle, but just drop a comment wherever you see this shared and I'll follow up with the details and make an introduction for you if it makes sense.
Kyle: Yeah, I mean my curiosity is off the off the charts right now. I absolutely have to check it out. Yeah. That's so interesting. Well cool. Yeah. So how about in terms of your day to day here with WOBS? Are you using it or even just automation?
You know, obviously, you know, I'm getting your newsletters. I assume there's a level of, you know, automation or maybe some content creation and stuff like that. But how about from you know just the day to day stuff? Is it as simple as just asking chat GPT questions or are you guys getting more advanced? What does what does that look like?
Josh: Yeah, I mean chat is you know, my best friend, you know, like we if chat pro version gets you know, gets paid before the rent. That's like the biggest tool I have. You know, I got my Spotify A AI DJ X that rolls with me throughout the day, constantly, you know, drumming up the tunes and keeping the vibe right.
But yeah, I mean it's the only tool that I need. I haven't really dabbled with anything else. I get creative with With you know how I ask for things from chat most of the time it's always in like it used to be called like deep research or agent mode but now it's just work mode and it's turned up to like you know the highest level of, you know, ability that they can do.
It takes longer for the results to come back. But, you know, just trying to figure out how to effectively ask for something. So I'll typically, you know, ask chat what's the best prompt in order for me to achieve this goal.
Cover all the, you know, stuff. It could the prompt could be pages long. It comes back when I was originally thinking just a one or two vague, you know, request and now I put it back and the output is like is super strong that way.
Even with image generation, I'm constantly asking chat what's the image generation prompt for me to get this you know, Roofer's billboard designed with like, you know, an Eagles theme and this contact information and a catchy tagline and what are what are what are things that you know should be included in this prompt and the dimensions of the billboard or this and you know, get the prompt back and then I resubmit the prompt under create an image.
And it comes out like commercial grade, like, you know, I'm heavy on the prompt. It has to be, you know, top quality commercial grade, the best, the absolute best. If it if you can make it anywhere, like make it better, like, you know, just super crisp, all the lines filled, everything, and it'll just come back and, you know, stuff like that.
You know, going the extra step and not being lazy and not accepting the initial like slop that you get back and that people are too like, you know.
Kyle: Yeah. Ha.
Josh: Free willingly like sharing being unprofessional like it is a tool you have to know how to how to use it.
Kyle: Yeah. It's so funny. Like I feel like people overthink it and you know, kind of like get overly like anxious about it and stuff. And it's and to your point, like literally ask it. You know, like when my AI kind of journey went to the next level, when I started saying, kind of like you, like this is what I'm trying to accomplish.
This is your role. What do you need to be successful? You know what I'm saying? And then it'll list out anything from like one to One time it would ask me like 18 questions and I was just like, All right, let's go to work.
And then I mean, now I'm using it to code things and stuff like that. So have you jumped into anything? So you said image generation and some content. Are you using agents and you know, your own GPTs or coding or anything like that? Or just kind of like, you know, conversating with it and getting what you need.
Josh: I did do a website recently through chat just like a few days ago and I was blown away with, you know, what came back, you know. It's actually pretty crazy. But Agents, no, I mean I just I do memory. What I what I do is like if I find myself repeating having to repeat myself or explain, you know, who I am and where I'm coming from, I'll just say like okay, make that a memory and chat will actually say, Okay, memory saved, I'll remember this, blah, you know what I mean?
And that seems to help narrow it down. It's not foolproof, but you know what I mean. Or I might get creative and say, like, you know, this event coming up is gonna be huge. I want you to get the mindset of like Inman Connect or the biggest you know type of conferences from across the country or even world and they'll you know be able to go do their research and you know identify the people who make these things happen and scrub the whole internet for everything and you know help to influence you know my angle or messaging through you know through other people's experience.
So it's definitely powerful. I mean I could you know I may maybe I have a insurance agency sponsorship table that's open for an event. I can go through and, you know, in a few seconds scrub all the insurance agencies in that in that zip code or county and, you know, hit with the invite to the event and see what comes out of it.
You know what I mean? So there's when I say AI additional income, it's a lot of ways to do it.
Kyle: That's awesome. Yes, that's what I was gonna ask. I mean, it seems like you can kinda make a second brain for yourself to almost manage these relationships. And, you know, I'm like have you like connected it to, you know, your CRM or your contact list and, you know, kind of built that memory out or anything like that?
Or is it kind of like a specific use case like you said if there's like an insurance event?
Josh: I'm sure I've ran, you know, some of my lists through there before, you know, for like sorting purposes or identifying different things. I don't I'm not too automated. Like, you know, back in the day I used to do text blast before everybody did it, and now like, you know, everybody's inundated with text and stuff like that.
So I don't I don't do that anymore. I got a email from a lady this morning, or she sent it last night. I woke up to an email this morning that said, I've subscribed from your newsletter three times already, and if I get it get it again, I'm gonna report you.
I don't I don't I my bad. I if you unsubscribe I don't thought you would stop getting it. People unsubscribe from my emails every time I do it, but when you have you know tens of thousands of contacts it's to be expected but who you she's gonna report me to the cops or the email police?
I don't know but it's just you know so I'm okay with the automation stuff. I don't I'm good on that. I don't like to overdo it. I probably do enough just manually, you know what I mean?
Kyle: Yeah. That's right. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I feel like if you're in marketing, you have to be able to accept that you're gonna piss some people off. You know, it's just it's just gonna happen. Yeah. Is the I'm curious.
So is there anything in your head that I guess kind of another two-part question, is there anything that you're, you know, on your roadmap that you do want to automate? And then is there anything that you're like, I will absolutely never
Josh: Yeah, of course.
Kyle: Give AI this or never automate this. You know, kind of the two opposite ends of the spectrum here.
Josh: Yeah, I think, you know, less automation is actually a good thing these days. Give the people what they need and, you know, do it in a timely manner. Like, you know, sometimes you automate things and the timing could be off.
Like you don't know what's happening in real time every single day. There might be a tragedy, there might be, you know, a s you know, a big you know, something to do. You know, it's just always I try to like be respectful of, you know, when people are getting the messaging and try to, you know, make it be valuable.
Like if somebody's coming to my event, they're gonna get an email from me the day before, not only like reminding them about the event, but explaining like the logistics and, you know, here's the address again, here's what time it starts, here's the parking situation, we're this is what we're gonna be eating and stuff like that.
You know what I mean? Just like give them the information that and then they'll wow, nobody does that. Thanks, Josh. They're used to getting like the automated eventbrite reminder, tomorrow's the this the this, that and the third event. But you know what I mean? So Yeah, I think
Kyle: Hey, I mean again, you like we just said, some people are gonna get pissed off, but if you're providing value, you know what I'm saying? And like again, like the parking, like stuff that like normal humans would be asking about, they're gonna be okay with another text or another email coming into their inbox. You know, again, there's usefulness to it. So
Josh: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But every you know I don't want it to be too cookie cutter and too duplicatable. Like I want it to be fresh, you know, I don't want it to be feel like people are getting the same, you know, message from me every week and stuff like that.
You know, there's ways I like to you know, research venues and themes and different types of like back office things are good for me. You know what I mean?
Kyle: Sure. So you said that you your partner's name was Beth, was that right? Yeah, I'm curious. Do you guys discuss this type of stuff or do you have like your own you know like your own silos and stuff like that?
Like does she like to use this kind of stuff in AI and a little bit different from you, or do you guys just try to like be consistent from a brand perspective?
Josh: Yeah, I mean we give each other different ideas of how we could better use AI. I'm able to like, you know, being more in involved with these AI writing companies and things like that. I'm able to sometimes identify, you know, different tips to pass on and whatever's working for me, I let her know and vice versa, you know.
Yeah, w 'cause there's we I think we just haven't really like even tapped the surface of, you know, the different ways that we could be
Kyle: Very cool.
Josh: Utilizing it to improve our business and lives. Like there's tons of ways and we do it every single day, but you know, if you were to ask me like what what could AI be doing for me, I'd be probably would be hard for me to identify something that's not already out there or possible, you know.
Kyle: Yeah. And it's changing so fast and just you know, so there's always gonna be like, well, I just did this and now it's even better over here or whatever. So cool. The last thing I wanted to ask, just from a high level perspective.
Excuse me, is what does the future look like for Wolf of Broad Street? Is there any new obviously only share what you want to share, but is there any new services or expansions or just ideas things you're excited about, maybe in the next year to five years?
Josh: Yeah, I mean, we're really excited about new alliances and partnerships with big organizations. Some have been around, you know, over a hundred and ten years. We're excited for the opportunity to work with GPAR, the Greater Philadelphia Association of Realtors on their annual meeting in October at Live Casino.
We helped with the Mortgage Bankers Association Summer Tri Fecta event this year and right after that event they said you're on for next year. I I recurring annual situations that is enough to keep you busy versus trying to recreate the wheel every year.
So I think you know let less is more going on a bigger scale, Philadelphia Real Estate Symposium, Royal Rendezvous, MontCo Market Movers. Bucks County Market Movers, GPAR, like it's starting to, you know, cut come together where that's where we want to go with the events.
And still keeping our opportunities open for more corporate event strategy opportunities. I just got hit up by TD Bank yesterday. We've done work with them over the years, so a lot of opportunities on the corporate event strategy side.
Continuing to have fun with the LED billboard trucks, travel as much as possible. Bethany and I have been to Southeast Asia three times together already. We typically go every other year. I went solo the first time for seventeen days, met Beth, we went for twenty three days and then the next time was fifty days and then last year was seventy one days.
So it's just like continue to extend. The more that we can, you know, automate, delegate, regulate and you know, figure out what we got going on with the business, the more we can travel and work remotely. It's really fun.
We love to travel, so that's a big thing. And talk about like efficiency, like waking up in Thailand. You're 12 hours ahead of everybody here in the US by the time 6 p.m. Rolls around and I'm at happy hour. Folks are just waking up and checking their email.
I feel like it's a you know a life hack like that. And then you know, just being doing the whole currency arbitrage thing too. You make US dollars and you go somewhere else and live like a king. So that's honestly what we're all about, know. Philly will
Kyle: Yeah. So sounds like Wolf of Wolf of Thailand is coming soon here, huh?
Josh: Yeah, but Philly will always be home. We we're always happy and you know, excited to come to come back here. So this will always be home base, but the future, five years, a lot more a lot more travel and empower moves, you know?
Kyle: Incredible. That sounds perfect. Yeah. That's a that's a dream right there. Well awesome. Cool. That was great stuff. As I told you, I always like to end with five rapid fire questions, just you know, kind of just have some fun and go through things.
So I ask everybody the same first question just because I'm so curious about it. You know, we talked a lot about AI and automation and this could be a personal thing, this could be professional, whatever it is, but if you had like a magic genie and you rabbed rubbed the lamp and it would give you like one fully automated process in your life, just like you didn't have to worry about it anymore. What would that be?
Josh: Thanks. I think it would be fun and interesting to have an automated process that drummed up specific content creation ideas based on me. You know what I mean? And I don't want it every single day or, you know, multiple times a week unless it's good.
You know what I mean? So if they if they can really research and see the trending content ideas or spin offs of it that are in my lane and serve it up to me and even make it a challenge and say, do this, then that would be a pretty cool thing that I would implement.
Kyle: Yeah. Very cool. That's awesome. So we talked about the mobile billboards already. I'm curious, what was the like the moment that was like, this is a great idea? Like what kind of prompted you getting into the mobile billboard game?
Josh: It was originally to shine more light on our sponsors at events, you know, having them pull up and see their brand and the bright LED lights of the billboard trucks. That we don't own. Sorry, that's the Amazon guy.
But yeah, it's just so It started out just seeing the value and the well factor that was involved with those billboard trucks and then having the opportunity to partner with the operator to then carve our own type of business out of it.
So it's not just the billboard truck. It's the we do the design in-house. We do the video production and all the promotion around the billboard truck. So there's gonna be tens of thousands of people in person that see these trucks, but we're duplicating that number through our marketing initiatives.
Kyle: That's very cool. I'll be I'll be tailgating for the home opener, so I'm gonna keep an eye out for it. Yeah. Awesome. Number three, question number three. Do you have a memorable guest that's ever been to any of your events? Like had someone show up that was like, Wow, I can't believe they're here or something like that.
Josh: Yes, yeah. No. Yeah, I mean, we've recently got a gubernatorial proclamation from Governor Josh Shapiro for our County Real Estate Collaborative, which was pretty cool. So he wasn't in the building, but there were some, you know, high up state representatives there.
Mayor Sherelle Parker's right hand woman, Angela Brooks, was on a panel of ours this year at the Philadelphia Real Estate Symposium, which was huge. I remember at the way back in the day at the Vesper Day Club, he wasn't a guest of our event, but it was overlapping schedules and machine gun Kelly pulled up to the party, which was really cool. We got we got some issues, yeah.
Kyle: That's cool. That's awesome. Very cool. All right, question number four. What is or do you have a favorite, you know, venue or bar or restaurant in Philly? I think it's so hard to pick just one, but
Josh: Yeah, it is. I would have to say my favorite, you know, water and hole is Paddy's Pub, an old city. You know, it's we're not talking about cuisine or anything like that, but that's where I met Bethany originally.
That's it's in my it's in my neighborhood and it's you know the first thing that comes to mind as far as favorite bars in the city. But I've been to most of I have meetings everywhere, but that'll always hold a place in my heart.
Kyle: Yeah. Nice, yeah, that's a great spot. Yeah. Question number four. You probably get asked something about this all the time, but how long did it take to grow the beard and what's the maintenance like?
Josh: Yeah, so I would say Probably been about eight years since I shaved the beard. I always say, you know, gotta make up for what's not on top. So maintenance is relatively easy. You know, I beck my head and then I just try to try to maintain my beard and get over to see my barber Izzy with blueprint barber lounge, you know, every chance I get.
Not often enough, but you know, yep. Just shampoo, conditioner, beard bomb and combing it out, you know. It'll get
Kyle: There you go. There you go. Ha incr eight years, that's a long time.
Josh: Yeah. I don't even feel It doesn't even feel like it's there, you know? Yep.
Kyle: Yeah you gotta get used to it otherwise yeah you lose your mind. Awesome. Fifth and final question. Any hidden talents?
Josh: Hidden talents. Yeah, I used to DJ from two from when I was sixteen years old. No, actually before that, probably fifteen years old before I could drive or a permit. We had a mobile DJ bus business, me and my best friend Ray Jones.
We used to have a recording studio where we would make beats and have, you know, the neighborhood come through and record songs. So, you know, that was all in the analog world. It was, you know, beat machines and eight track recorders and turn tables and vinyl and you know All that all that fun stuff.
You know. It's been a it's been a long time, but in the future I'm I want to get it all back and get back to the back to the roots a little bit with the you know, music production.
Kyle: That's incredible. What's your like go to genre?
Josh: Mostly, you know, on a day to day basis, a lot of like global funk and reggae and hip hop. Yep.
Kyle: Nice. Awesome. Yeah, a lot of lot of a lot of range there for you to play. Yeah. That's incredible. Well, awesome. Those are the five rapid fire questions. I always like to give an opportunity here for open forum. Is there anything that you are excited about or passionate about that maybe we didn't discuss and you want to share with everybody?
Josh: Yeah, I mean, if you've been following what we've got going on at Wolf of Broad Street and you've ever been curious about getting more involved, if you want to join our mailing list or get information on the billboard trucks, if you want to learn more about AI as far as additional income goes, you know, definitely reach out, drop a comment and we welcome you to get involved with our community and just looking forward to, you know, continuing to grow and keeping the Momentum going forward, one foot in front of the other.
Kyle: Awesome. Cool. Josh, I forgot to ask. We obviously got connected through a friend, Anthony Kazazis. He does the New York Real Estate Expo. Are you planning on going this year? Or well, I guess next year. Nice.
Well, I'll definitely catch you there. We'll have a booth. We'll have to grab a drink or something like that. Well, cool. Josh, I appreciate it. Everybody can find you on LinkedIn. Do you have any other socials that you like to plug or interact with people?
Josh: Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. In May. We'll be there. Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks again, Kyle. At wolf_of_broad_street, with an underscore in between each word, on Instagram and wolfofbroadstreet215.com or shoot me an email, josh@wolfofbroadstreet215.com.
Kyle: Cool. And just everybody knows the street is spelled out. It's not S T, so wolfofbroadstreet215.com. Josh, this was awesome. I appreciate you taking the time here to share your knowledge and your expertise. If you don't mind, look at the camera and say, stay brilliant, Brainiacs.
Josh: Yes. Stay brilliant, Brainiacs.
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