Latest / Massive Agent Podcast / Knowing When To Pivot w/ Jayson Siano

Transcript

Knowing When To Pivot w/ Jayson Siano · Massive Agent Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: If you guys have been paying attention to national real estate news at all, you know, and it will not be a surprise to you that New York City real estate is dead.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: New York City has been hit by COVID and the economic repercussions thereof harder than damn near anywhere else, but probably the hardest.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're talking with somebody today who is New York City commercial real estate, okay?
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody who has had to make dramatic pivots in their business to survive.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: And this is not just a solo agent in the commercial world.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking with Jay Ciano, the co-founder of Sabre Real Estate.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: He represents Starbucks in New York.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: He is one of the reasons I would venture to say we may not know about Chipotle if it wasn't for Jay Ciano.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: We may not know about Orange Theory if it wasn't for Jay Ciano.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: So this is an amazing episode with a very, very high-level real estate agent and real estate commercial real estate broker.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to talk about the pivots that he's had to make, and we'll talk specifically about New York.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: What does New York look like right now?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Is is New York dead?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Is it coming back?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: When will it come back?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Very interesting episode today.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think you'll like it.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: So pivoting.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: If you guys have had to make pivots or you know you need to make another pivot, this is going to be the episode for you.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: The motivation podcast.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: I love to buy houses.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: I like to sell houses.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: I've got better.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Here's your host, Dustin Brohm.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: What is up, everybody?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to episode 143 of the Massive Agent Podcast.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: This is Dustin Brohm, your host.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: We have a doozy of an episode today.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: This one's a little longer than normal.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we usually try to keep it 45 minutes, maybe an hour.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: This one went a little longer, but I think you will enjoy the shit out of it.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: And uh just giving you a heads up, like be patient with this one.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: It takes a little bit of time to develop.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And at uh full transparency, as we were, as we were recording, Jason, uh, our guest, JC Ano, he was um he was laying the table about like, you know, where he where he was in his career, like how he got to where he's at now.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: How did he get to representing Starbucks in New York?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: How did he get to um you know help Chipotle expand into the company they are today?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: How did he help take Orange Theory Fitness from one location to this massive fitness company they are today?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like he did that.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like he he helped do that.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: So how did he do that?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: He really takes time to um to develop the story, to give you a good background and foundation.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: So be patient with it.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: When we were recording, I was like, I wonder if I should cut some of this out because I want to get to the uh the COVID pivoting faster.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: But then afterwards, I'm like, wait a minute, you really understand the pivots that were made and specifically what he did and why.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: You only understand those when you know the background story.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: So uh just a heads up, it's a little longer.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: If you need to listen to this over a couple different listening sessions, that's totally fine.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: But this is well worth it.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we're bringing on Jason Ciano, the co-founder of Sabre Real Estate.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, the founder of Sabre Real Estate, a very reputable uh commercial brokerage in the New York, New Jersey area.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Guys, he represents Starbucks exclusively in New York.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, like that that's kind of a big deal.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: We're like Manhattan, you know, New York.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: He represents Starbucks.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Whenever there's a new Starbucks that opens in New York City, Jason Ciano is the guy that makes that happen.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Crazy.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so he knows a thing or two.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: He helped Chipotle expand, he works exclusively with solid core, orange theory, and he's really diversified his business.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: So you're gonna hear how COVID has hit them pretty damn hard, but how because he diversified in certain ways, which he goes into very in a very detailed way, which is awesome, you're gonna hear how he when one thing gets hit hard, another area of of his business actually thrives.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, guys, agents, I'm I have a I have a bug at my ass about this, and you know it.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: If you are, if you the only income you have is commission income, and you have to keep closing deals one at a time, one at a time, one at a time to get paid, it's dangerous.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's dangerous, guys.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's so dangerous.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many other ways you can earn income in the real estate business while still selling homes.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many different ways.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: You just have to put a few things into the work.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: So hopefully this conversation will give you some ideas on how to do that.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's no one way.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many different things you can do to diversify where your income's where your income comes from as a realtor.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: So you just need to do them.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: And hopefully COVID has been the swift kick in the ass that you need to realize maybe I should actually do that too.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's not so sustainable and safe and secure for me to just, you know, rely on closing after closing after closing into perpetuity.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like, sure, you can make a great living that way.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not arguing that.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Of course you can make a great living relying solely on commission.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: But what happens if the commission stops or if it slows down dramatically, uh, if it's outside of your control, right?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: You see where this is going.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: So pay attention, let this one develop, really listen to the background story of Jason.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's incredible.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: He is one of the um he's one of the most successful real estate people that I've ever met, and he does it at a very high level.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: But as you'll see, he's cool as shit.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: He's an open book, and he'll he'll lay it all out for you.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of wisdom in this episode.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's a little longer.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: That just means there's more wisdom.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: So before we get started with Jay, welcome to the show.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: If you are new, my name is Dustin Brohm, your host.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a realtor in Salt Lake City, Utah.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: I am the co-founder of the Industry Syndicate Podcast Network, the first, only, and uh largest podcast network for the real estate and mortgage industry.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: You can find out which other shows we have on the network so you can discover other great podcasts over at industry syndicate.com.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: I am a national speaker on all things real estate marketing, lead generation, podcasting, and social media.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: I am the founder of the upcoming Massive Agent Daily, something that I've teased in the past, and I'm just gonna leave it at that.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: We'll tell you more about that next week.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Massive Agent Daily is coming soon.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And uh founder of the Massive Agent Society, our one agent per market lead gen training coaching system, part online course, part coaching program, part Facebook ads database that you can copy and paste.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, my team gets that for free.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: Any anyone on my team or anyone that they bring to the team, or anyone they bring to the team, or anyone they bring to the team, all the way down the line, they all get free access.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: So uh if you are looking at linking arms and partnering with me and my team, uh, let's chat.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh all you have to do is reach out.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: So hit me up at Massive Agent on Instagram or Facebook.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: And if if you'd like, email Dustin at MassiveAgent.com.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Try not to, because my inbox is a black hole, that many emails don't survive.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: And if you've emailed me before and didn't get a response for two weeks, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: It is what it is, guys.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's a weak spot.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh email response is not my strongest it that's not my strength, okay?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Anyhow, let's get into it with Jason Ciano, founder of Saber Real Estate.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: This is one of my favorite episodes, just because of how much has changed in six months, and we get to hear from somebody on the ground who's made dramatic changes to their business.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: They've made cuts, they've made pivots.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: He talks about how, why, what, all of that stuff.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: He talks about the future, what to expect, what he thinks is gonna happen.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about New York.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Why am I having such a hard time saying New York?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: New York, New York, New York City specifically.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about that and all the craziness that is New York City real estate right now.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: So you're gonna learn a lot.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get into it with Jay Ciano from Saber Real Estate in New York.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: All right, guys, I'm here with Jason Ciano.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Massive Agent Podcast, my friend.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: How's it going?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's going well, my friend.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: Good to uh good to reconnect here.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, as we were talking before recording, a lot's changed since the last time I saw you in Manhattan.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: Under understatement of the century, right?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Seriously, which is what we're going to be talking about today.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I follow you on Instagram and I've seen some of the adjustments that you've had to make in your business since COVID hit, and I can only imagine.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I think this is so important for residential agents, especially to think about because nine out of ten, nine point nine out of ten agents, they're just killing it right now.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like hand over fist, like they have more business than they than they can handle.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, even those that that are new to the business, like they're able to get success fairly quickly.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's I don't think that that's normal.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not a positive thing to get used to that or to think that it's always going to be that way.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: So this episode will be a great wake-up call.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, I I want to hear about New York City real estate because it, I mean, it just looks like an absolute bloodbath over there.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I want to hear what's happened to your to your business, to your brokerage, all that stuff.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you've done some big shit in the commercial world.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: So um Jason and I got connected through Chelsea Pitts, I believe, at Agent 2021.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's exactly right.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I assume you guys met through Instagram.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: We did.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's crazy.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Social media bringing people together.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, we we've stayed in touch, we've met in New York City a few times when I've been in town, and uh, I've been impressed with your resume to say the least.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: You represent Starbucks and you have for like 17 years.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: You brought Chipotle to New York, and you represent and have helped uh some of the biggest brands out there, especially in the fitness space.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't you take you know a minute or so and just let people know who you are, you know, what you do for a living, and then let's jump into pivoting um in whether it's COVID or whatever.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: You've made some major pivots, and I want to talk about that.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_03: Well, first off, thank you.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate obviously the opportunity to connect again and and jump off on a podcast together because it's always good to hang out and uh we're very like-minded.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, so I started in commercial real estate um uh in 2001.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, you know, I gravitated to the retail segment of commercial because I was a DJ in a past life, um, you know, always was interested in restaurants and nightclubs, uh, also, you know, fashion, music, all things that kind of uh point towards the retail side of the real estate industry.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_03: So my first opportunity in the business was uh was pitching the Starbucks account.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_03: I was brought along as a an associate basically on the pitch.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: The senior level broker completely like fumbled the ball mid-meeting with very high-level Starbucks people.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_03: And I picked up the ball and just did what I can talking about the company that I worked for and not about myself because I had no track record.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, long story short, they gave me an opportunity, and you know, it was an opportunity that I would not fail at.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so that's kind of how I got started.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: You started with Starbucks?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_03: I no, I mean, I I had uh I had you know a couple of folks that I was working with that were just like local mom and pops got it for that.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_03: I would say Starbucks was about, you know, I was in the business for probably a year and a half to two years before that opportunity was presented to me.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_03: Got it.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, so it's important to do that.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_03: So pretty new.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, you know, listen, it it and my industry is very, very niche, right?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_03: Like when you're representing retailers and designing their expansion program and negotiating their deals, you're you have a very long deal cycle.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_03: So if I start negotiating a deal, just since we're on the Starbucks topic, if I start negotiating a deal today with Starbucks, chances are through the LOI negotiation, the lease negotiation, the permitting, the zoning approval process to get Starbucks open and operating for business, we're not getting paid on that deal until typically they're open for business, right?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_03: That's anywhere from like 18 to 24 months in most circumstances.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: So not the 30 days that agents are using.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: Not even close.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: So there's a lot fewer folks that grab or gravitate as a result of that to our you know specific niche in the commercial space, right?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: Very different than office, very different than industrial, um, you know, mixed use obviously as a combination of all of the above.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but not to belabor the story, from there, you know, I went to college in Arizona, so I'm visiting friends 2003-4 in LA, and I'm working at a uh at a Kinko's because I had stuff to print out and whatnot.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm staring at some really interesting storefront across the street on La Cienega, walk across the street, walk into my first Chipotle, and right the moment I walk in, it was like lightning struck me.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_03: I was just blown away by the concept.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_03: And from there, I just called them, you know, religiously uh several times a day, several, you know, just spoke to them, made contact with them, uh, and then eventually, like word down, the guy in charge of real estate for New York uh presented a full strategy and plan for my market to him.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_03: And uh when they were ready to come, you know, I was fortunate enough to be able to get involved and work directly with Steve Ells, the founder of Chipotle.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, those are my two uh biggest feathers in my cap at the beginning of my career that have eventually you know kind of led to where I am today.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I mean I I assume this, but I'm gonna ask because you know the commercial world and how you guys get paid is is just so different and there's so many variables to it.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: I assume getting an account like that with with that many, you know, that much growth opportunities probably fairly lucrative.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_03: It is.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, if if you you know the it's interesting though, because the the deal is changing, right, based on COVID, right?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_03: So there's there's uh a lot of factors that we're just starting to to you know obviously come up against with the way that deals are structured.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_03: But yes, typically uh most deals I would say are 10-year deals.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: We're paid a percentage of the base term, the base rent over the base term.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_03: Uh industry standard in our neck of the woods is about four or five percent of the base rent aggregated over, let's say, the 10-year term, right?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so yeah, they're they're lucrative transactions.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_03: I would say, you know, on the small side, from about$20,000 as a fee to, you know, uh, let's call it about on average, I'd say$15,000 to$300,000 on each fee.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Nice, just depending on the location and the size of the lease and all that stuff.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: Everything that obviously has to do with the rent, right?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_03: So square footage being one of the biggest things.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, a deal in suburban Long Island uh where I live versus Manhattan, right, is uh substantially different because an average rent in the burbs is let's call it 30 to like 65 a foot, depending on where you are.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: In Manhattan, you're talking about, you know, a hundred uh a thousand a foot, right?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_03: So if you're doing those larger square foot uh Manhattan transactions, your fees can easily be seven figures.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Is Hudson Yards one of the more expensive areas to rent in Manhattan?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_03: Today or in February?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: Pre-COVID.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um pre-COVID, you know, it's the type of thing where when you're leasing a big project like that, a unique project like that, you have to give better tenants incentive to come on board, right?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: Uh related companies, one of the biggest, you know, real estate companies in the world who owns uh Hudson Yards has you know better relationships with retailers than most folks.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_03: So the short story is that they have those existing relationships with almost everybody out there, and they're able to cut creative deals that allow those tenants to take some risk, come in, ramp up their business, and then ultimately start paying them the premium rents that they're looking for.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it's you know, the west side of Manhattan where Hudson Yards was built uh was just a basically a railroad, you know, station where they stored cars.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_03: Uh the platform was built over that to create the superstructures.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that boggles my mind.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: That fact alone is so crazy.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's unbelievable.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_03: And um, you know, I urge everybody to watch like a time-lapse video of them building that project that's out there.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, you know, but but it was also no man's land for quite some time.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_03: It was uh, you know, one of the very few undeveloped areas in Manhattan, right?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_03: So uh and it's only a stone's throw away from Penn Station, which is a you know a pretty uh major hub and a lot of other things.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_03: But um, you know, it just uh it continued uh everything north from like the High Line and you know uh other areas that gentrified became really cool and were uh commanding premium rents.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, Hudson Yards was that work, live, play kind of city within a city project.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: So um, yeah, the rents are not as crazy as other parts of the city.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's such a fascinating world that you're in because there's a million variables that don't exist in single family home sales.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like we're worried about does the kitchen have granite or not?
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: Or what the size of the backyard?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a garage or not?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like all that stuff.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what's the HOA?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it seems pretty simple actually compared to the world that you play in.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's why I love to kind of download your your wisdom and experience.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um I want to hear about what the last six months has looked like for you and and your company and your people.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um you want to start at the beginning.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, did when did you first start to see that, oh shit, something's coming?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then what's happened since?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so let me back up a little to put it in context for the folks that are listening.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, when I started in commercial real estate, I I worked for a smaller boutique family office that was really well known in the industry.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_03: I had a major opportunity to pitch the Starbucks account, did pursue Chipotle, you know, discovered in some ways, you know, where from where I uh where I lived at the time, discovered and then brought Chipotle to my market, uh, designed and executed their expansion strategy.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, at that point I kind of started to make a name for myself.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: The bigger companies were pursuing me.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_03: I ended up uh cutting a deal to go to CBRE to head up their retail services group, um, one of their retail services group.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_03: And um I ended up leaving my accounts, the Starbucks and Chipotle accounts behind because the owner of the of the company I worked for was a good, became a good friend of mine.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: And I felt like, you know, gave me the opportunity to even, you know, put myself in the position to win those accounts.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_03: So I didn't want to burn a bridge, left, went to C VRE.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I also saw, you know, something very important that I've timed really well in in my business and my career has been understanding when there's a cycle change, right?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's pretty, it's pretty easy to realize that every 10 years, you know, you're going to obviously go through some sort of a cycle.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_03: And every year that you get past that 10 years, you're just waiting for the next year to either be a correction.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_03: You know, obviously right now we're dealing with a uh an election year, which is always interesting.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so you know, for me, I saw the writing on the wall with how great everything was going with uh in the industry, the economy, et cetera, et cetera.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_03: So I knew that wasn't gonna last forever.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: So I made the uh the the game time decision essentially to move on and like I said, not burn bridges because I I know that good things don't typically last forever.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_03: Created a really good opportunity for myself at CBRE, which afforded me some uh additional uh support that I'd never had.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't have health insurance, I was a 1099 broker, uh just living, you know, deal-to-deal basically, living off of a draw, you know, essentially borrowing money at a higher interest rate from my from the company I worked for to have continual income.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_03: And that each time that checks would come in, you pay that down.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_03: And then when you get ahead of it, you put checks in your pocket.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: So um I had to go to CBRE with no accounts.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, I've always been really good at business development.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_03: But to give you a little background on myself, the first phone call that I make is to Massage Envy Corporate.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_03: And uh Massage Envy Corporate gives me the uh phone number of a gentleman by the name of Jerome Kern, who's an area developer that owns five different states uh across the US.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: And that was my first foray outside of New York Metro, essentially.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: To having the opportunity to work with somebody who controls more territory than essentially my backyard and what I'm really used to.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_03: And that's where I started to become a national advisor for companies.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: So I ended up working with Massage Envy in 2007.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if you if you remember this, but Starbucks ends up closing 600 locations.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_03: I timed that absolutely perfectly.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: I remember that very well.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, one of my favorite spots was closed down here in the Salt Lake area.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_03: Crazy, right?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_03: So like that, they closed 600 stores.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm off to the races with Massage Envy.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_03: Long story short, uh having a great, great um time working with these folks and learning a lot.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_03: You know, understanding to your point, like we're very data driven.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_03: I can tell you everywhere across the country, essentially, you know, where the 18 to 54 female demographic is strong, what volume, how many classes an Orange Theory Fitness has in any market on a random Thursday.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's all here.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_03: And that's a result of like all the work that I've done over the last 20 years of my career, almost 20 years of my career.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but that story is interesting because with Massage Envy, it was all about qualified households.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_03: So we had to have X amount of qualified households within a certain drive time from the location, right?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_03: That's how you design a territory for not only corporate locations, but on a franchise basis, it's a little bit different because corporate companies are basically there, if there's any cannibalization from one location to the next, they're stealing from themselves.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_03: When you're cannibalizing a franchise location, it's one franchisee stealing from another one.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_03: So it's extremely important.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_03: Uh from there, Massage Envy, uh my my my contacts and and friends ended up stumbling upon a new concept in South Florida where they lived called European Wax Center.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_03: So I went down to Florida at their invite and toured the first European Wax Center location in uh in Fort Lauderdale area, and ended up uh they ended up partnering with the founders and turning that concept into a franchise and growing it, you know, selling licenses very fast across the whole country, which expanded my you know horizons now beyond those five states with Massage Envy, uh, looking at you know the whole country.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_03: And then from there, one of the most fun stories that I tell about my career is this same gentleman who I started with with Massage Envy, then went to the European Wax Center with his wife.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm touring, site touring New York City with his whole family on a Saturday.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_03: And his wife keeps telling us about this concept called Ellen's Ultimate Workout in South Florida.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_03: And he and I are just laughing at the name.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: And she's like, No, I'm serious.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: I keep telling them that you're in the franchise business, so on and so forth.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I forget about it.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_03: You know, eight months later or so, I get a call from Jerome, hey Jay, I got something I want you to check out.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_03: I head down to Florida and work out at the first Orange Theory Fitness.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_03: So another exciting thing in my career was you know working with Orange Theory from the onset of the company, which is one of the most successful franchise businesses to date.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_03: And then that sparked that fitness thing that you were referring to earlier, where, you know, at this point I know almost every fitness concept uh out there, large and small, and you know, work with a lot of the founders and C-suites of those companies uh in a lot of ways, not just real estate, by the way.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I've I've become a trusted advisor to founders of companies and I help them scale their businesses.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um I'm involved in a lot of other things as well.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_03: But uh, and I would say to the listeners out there, there is a lot of stuff that we could do together because if you have a unique concept in general that's in your market, please reach out to me and let me know because there's money to be made.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and we're happy to share in that, right?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_03: We're all uh we're all licensed and there's no difference between residential and commercial.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm happy to pay referral fees.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_03: Bring us some good opportunities, good uh concepts that you think should grow uh even you know in in your market and beyond.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: That that's really interesting.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so when if somebody's like, hey, there's this really cool spot that just opened, um most people don't have any clue if they're willing to franchise, if they even know what franchising is or understand it.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really understand it, like not like kind of, but not really.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: Is a lot of what you do is you go and and kind of make a presentation and say, here's what it looks like, here's why this may make sense to you, and you kind of teach them about the whole concept of what you're offering of franchising.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, but even even uh kind of more macro, what we do is we I want to understand what their what their end goal is, right?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_03: So I I don't come in assuming that somebody wants to franchise uh because a lot of our clients grow, you know, uh like to grow corporately, and there's different advantages to both.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but so basically it's just an introduction.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and I'll, you know, myself or one of my team members will get on on a call or a Zoom uh with the the owners of the business, and we're able to help them, you know, a lot of them don't know what they want.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_03: And when we have these conversations, you know, they learn a lot from them and uh from the conversations and it forces them to think about their you know one, three, five, 10-year strategy.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_03: And the only way to successfully exit your business is to actually understand what your goals are and then reverse engineer them, right?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of folks who start up uh a concept and have something special are not thinking much more about anything other than running that business, you know, and maybe possibly opening one more in another area near them, right?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and and we help with all of that, right?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: So you it's the biggest thing that I pride myself on is, you know, doing the right thing is always the right thing.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not the first person you've heard heard say that, obviously, Dustin, but um that you don't want to pull a Jay Shetty and and take credit for that one?
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm not gonna do that at all.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um so it's funny because the book I'm reading uh for 75 Heart is Jay Shetty's book.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_03: So is it?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so you know it's it's really like what we do, which is very different than a lot of the other folks that are, you know, commercial real estate brokers.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, we're we're advisors to to business owners.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_03: And we're not gonna tell them what's in our best interest.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_03: So they'll expand and we'll make more deals and as a result make more money.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_03: We will truly advise them on what is the best strategy in order to achieve their goals.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_03: And by the way, whether it includes us or not, you know, we're happy to give that information to uh absolutely anybody.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and usually it comes back to you, you know.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_03: So that's it's fun.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, working with the Starbucks of the world, the Chipotle's of the world, the orange theories of the world, always exciting, obviously, but you it's it's even more special when you're working with, you know, smaller mom and pop, you know, emerging concepts that have something special about them and you can be involved in from you know the beginning.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: It's cool.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and that's probably the most similar thing to the residential thing, right?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_03: Because you know, when you're doing corporate uh rollout strategies, like office real estate was never of interest to me because it's like the CEO lives in that area and wants X amount of square footage there, like you know, um, so there's no real emotion side to it, and there's no um, you can't really see the results of your work, which is probably the coolest thing about what we do.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're working with entrepreneurs.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_03: Fully.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_03: Entrepreneurs, you know, uh very smart business people.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I'm I'm just I'm so fortunate to be able to to, you know, people who are way smarter than me and way more successful than me somehow typically happen upon me and I'm able to provide service to them.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_03: So you know, it's really cool to be able to, you know, speak with and and work with and become a team member of exciting companies that truly change, you know, the the uh downtowns and and neighborhoods and shopping centers all across the country and beyond.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: I bet that's super cool.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, what we teach agents is if you focus on the relationship instead of just the transaction, it will lead to more business later on.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, maybe not right this second.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: You may lose out on a deal today, but had you just taken care of somebody based on what they need, not what you want, they maybe two months later they might have referred you to their cousin Sally, and that cousin Sally referred you to six other people, and and that completely changes everything for you.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: And it's definitely gonna happen.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, if you do the right thing all day long somebody, you know, the word of mouth is the absolute best way to source business.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, when you get to a certain stage in your career, if you truly do that and you you know create you establish a reputation for yourself, uh, you don't really have to go out prospecting much anymore.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_03: You know, if I wasn't trying to feed 30 mouths, right?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_03: Like with all of the agents that work uh at Sabre, and I was just solely trying to, you know, run an independent uh you know company for myself, I you know, I'd I wouldn't really have to prospect much at this stage of my career because you do the right thing by people.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_03: The next person's like, oh, you have to speak to Jay, and you know, so on and so forth.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_03: Same exact thing in the residential world.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_03: The only difference is actually you have the benefit of really working with anybody.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I I always, and it's funny because my business model as Jay Ciano, not just Sabre, right?
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: I have several several different companies, and they're all about being able to service any business anywhere, as long as they're looking to optimize their business or grow in any capacity, right?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: So real estate's just a part of that.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_03: Real estate is one part of it.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_03: Now, mind you, it's the absolute nucleus of everything that I do.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, it's the backbone of who I am being in the business 20 years.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but you know, there are so many other things that I've learned really well uh along the way, like franchising, right?
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_03: Like staffing, like uh capital raise, you know, all these things that are extremely important to uh scaling businesses.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_03: So it's uh yeah, it's it's it's great.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_03: I I really enjoy what I do.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so let's get back to the the the COVID pivot.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you saw COVID coming or or when did you see COVID coming?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then what adjustments did you start to make?
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: And let's take it from there.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so I actually I was uh leaving a meeting in New York City end of February, and my client uh Byrne, which is a fitness concept, in a 50-degree uh refrigerated room, B-R-R-R-N, three Rs, make sure I get that right.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and we're leaving, and one of the founders, one of the partners, is uh worked uh under the governor in um in public health and was educating me on COVID and you know what's going to happen from here, so to speak, in again, February.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_03: And actually on my Instagram, I uh after he and I have like a 20-minute discussion about it, and his other partner is like freaking out, like trying to get him to just stop talking about it, like acting as if it's not really gonna happen.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, no, no, this is fascinating.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_03: I need to know this stuff, right?
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_03: So I literally turned my iPhone on us, and I'm like, you know, Jimmy, tell us your thoughts, and you can go back to my Instagram and uh and see when I first had this discussion, and I, you know what, it's so important that I'm actually gonna do it because the date is so important.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: This is just so crazy.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's been six months.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's been six months, it's insane.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I was in Orlando, Florida in early March, and you know, I was careful to, you know, like not go shaking people's hands and stuff, but like it wasn't really like shut down.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: But the fear was there.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_03: So this was so this was a follow-up discussion that I had with him.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_03: It says that this post was from April 26th.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_03: So he and I are leaving a meeting and he starts to talk about what's what's going to happen from here, which became, you know, a shutdown of basically everywhere.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_03: But we were talking specifically about New York City and and how it's going to close down all businesses and close down schools and you know, things of that nature.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_03: And he starts going into what you could do to help prevent um, you know, prevent the spread of it and wearing face masks and washing your hands and all types of stuff like that.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, right when I had that initial discussion with Jimmy, I came back to my office and and uh pulled my business partner into the conference room and I said, listen, this is, you know, this is what's happening, this is what's coming down the pike, and we need to start preparing for it because in our business, you know, we have a very, very big overhead.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um, we have access to every single tool and resource and technology that we need to have in order to be the best at what we do.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_03: In addition to that, we have a tremendous amount of staff that are operating all of these different, you know, uh tools and and so on and so forth.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_03: So if anything's gonna shift and shut down the even a fraction of what he was suggesting, I know that we're gonna have to trim fat to weather the storm, right?
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um so I went right into action mode, honestly.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_03: And he thought I I if if he was on the Zoom with us, he would tell you that he thought I was nuts and that I was an alarmist and all these other things.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_03: In addition to that, reducing our overhead um and starting to streamline the business, I uh I actually had us set up an additional account for us to invest in uh in businesses uh along the way, in stocks uh that I thought would benefit from from you know what was coming down the pike.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um so that was like the first kind of iteration of the adjustment.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_03: And then from there, as you know, it just you know, everything that you could never prepare for started to happen.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, we ended up having to furlough some folks.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_03: We had to um we had to just continue like through phases of more or less downsizing, consolidate, consolidating, reducing overhead, um, and then you know, applying for the PPP loans, all of that stuff, you know, and I was in my office every day as if, you know, as if it was never shut down because I had to uh I had to stay focused.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I think that's when you stand to potentially lose everything that you've been working so hard for for, you know, two decades, um, you go into this, you know, over overtime uh mode of what can I do to make sure that I'm positioning myself in the best position to not win, right?
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_03: But to keep my head above water, right?
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's more what it was about.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but I started to also think long term about how to win, right?
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_03: So what I didn't say so far is that, you know, listen, I I got very involved in in social media and video three and a half years ago.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_03: I launched my vlog in January of 2017, right?
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_03: So, like that's early, and especially in commercial real estate, because you know, you and I both are friends with Ryan Surahan.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I was doing it before Ryan.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_03: I remember at age in 2021, the first year Gary and Ryan were talking about, you know, and I asked him a question about getting your folks to use social media and video more.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_03: And Ryan plugged his vlog that was dropping like that day or like that week with Adrian, his videographer, who's an awesome dude.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_03: You know, so it I really I've been preparing for the world to change for a long time.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_03: But I always thought that evolution was gonna be a consistent kind of thing that over time had a drastic effect on the industry.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but the same way that I timed transitioning companies in 2007 and saw that, you know, the writing was on the wall with these companies that I that have been uh expanding so aggressively so well, like Starbucks then.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_03: In 2019, I literally dubbed 2019 Lean and Mean and 19 with my entire company because I sensed something happening.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_03: And that's when I pivoted my vlog to future proof, right?
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_03: So my my vlog prior to that was Real Sabre, which was just the introduction of Sabre to the world or anybody who wanted to see what we're about and who we are, follow us more like a reality show.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_03: And then it became more specific about how to develop a personal brand in business and how to future-proof yourself.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_03: So, in the event these things continue to happen and the evolution continues to change the way we all do business, that one day if the lights go out, you still can capture people's attention, which is exactly what happened to me when everybody was forced to work from home.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_03: I was one of the only folks that were still creating content at scale and had my lights on.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_03: So I was super prepared for a disruption.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so what are some of the things that you guys I know you furloughed some people.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you you know, you had to reduce your expenses, of course, but I assume you had some deals fall apart that were in the works.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, what did that look like?
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like how hard hit were you?
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, what's happened since then?
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so you know, of course we had deals fall out.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, anything we basically hit the pause button for uh for you know several months, really, you know, May, June, July, especially in New York Metro, um, you know, everything was was shut down uh almost entirely.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, as such a bizarre concept, man.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_03: A very bizarre concept.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I actually in June, you know, after working straight through May, uh, again, being in my office every day, filming uh one or two episodes of a little show that I created uh called At Home with Our Homies, where I would just get anybody, you know, my clients, friends, interesting people, and I would, you know, have them jump on for 10 minutes from their house and like, you know, ask them rapid fire questions and then have them tour me through their refrigerator and like fun little show that kept people like you know, it just kind of happy and like such a crazy time, right?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um so you know, always trying to do stuff like that to stay in in in, you know, stay relevant and stay uh out there.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, from there, I actually I decided to hop in the car with my family in uh in the beginning of June.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_03: And we reload we relocated to South Florida for the month of June.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I was working remotely from there, and I learned a lot by doing that, by the way, and driving, you know, down the coast uh at that time.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_03: But uh, you know, I just realized that uh fortunately a lot of the deals actually didn't just completely die.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_03: They just were paused as long as you know the government put a pause on everything.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you couldn't, if you were, if you had a signed lease and you needed to commence construction, you couldn't do that.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_03: If you needed to go through the permitting process, you couldn't do that.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_03: You know, so everybody was on hold, basically.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, I that drove me nuts initially.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_03: And then at a certain point, I started to realize, you know, I'm because I am a workaholic and I can't shut my brain off.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, that it drove me nuts initially, but I got to the point where I was like, you know what, let me focus on the future now.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_03: Let me let me think about three, six, nine, you know, 12, 18 months from now.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I started to do that.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_03: And then from there, I focused on five years from now, right?
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I started to realize how fortunate we are at Sabre to have the benefit of three and a half years of social media heavy, right?
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_03: And and growing my company on a national basis, right?
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_03: So the amount of time that I spent in the last two and a half years jumping on a plane every other week and touring every market, I can't do that anymore, right?
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_03: So if I didn't build that service, if I didn't build that line of business pre-COVID, I wouldn't, I don't know where I'd be right now, to be honest, Dustin.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_03: Like when New York shut down and it's such a big part of our business, I can't afford, you know, a shutdown.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_03: So fortunately, you know, we had done uh the rest of our business as the hot spots started to change throughout.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: The US, certain markets were less affected and we were still transacting, right?
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_03: So fortunately for me, the preparation for the disruption and the overall business model that I uh that I uh you know decided to adopt and pivot into years ago really saved us at the depth of the closures in New York.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: See, this went in a direction that I wasn't anticipating, but I love it.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: You made certain decisions years ago, some of them recently, some of them many years ago, like diversifying the markets you work in.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you were just in Manhattan, yeah, I mean, I'm sure you have a lot of friends that are just dead in the water.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_03: Out of business.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_03: Listen, it's very sad because you know, by first off, I am not at all suggesting that I'm immune to any of this.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_03: All I'm saying is that I I live in such fear of going out of business every day, and I always have since I've been in business, whether I owned the company or whether I was an agent, you know, an associate on a team.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_03: I've always lived in fear of going out of business and somebody having having the ability to take everything away from me, right?
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_03: I live in fear of that every day.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_03: So that's why I ended up creating what I've created, why I've diversified the way that I've diversified, not only at Sabre and the core business of real estate, but let's just say Saber went away.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I have other things that I'm working on that, you know, make sure I'm not completely out of business and can't pay my mortgage, right?
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_03: So I think you have to be diversified.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_03: You have to think about um, you know, just the the it's it's very sad that, you know, I just got a an update, uh a news article today in a publication uh that's you know, the a very big publication in commercial real estate called The Real Deal.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_03: They just announced that, you know, one of the pioneers in New York City retail brokerage, a guy by the name of Jeff Winnick, who is just you know been in the business, who knows, 35 years, whatever it is, huge brokerage company, really only New York City.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_03: And he just announced that he's filing, you know, going bankrupt and and you know, is in all types of debt and everything else.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_03: And it just makes you realize that everything that you knew that was normal pre-COVID is no longer normal.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_03: You can't, you know, and and and again, regardless of how much I planned for a disruption, again, I'm not safe.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, I'm at the mercy of all of my clients, I'm at the mercy of my agents, I'm at the mercy of so many factors that I don't truly control.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, what's interesting is you know, the resin residential markets on fire.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_03: You you pointed to that earlier.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: For nowadays, yeah.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and my but our our business is is in jeopardy, you know.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_03: Again, if I didn't have, if I didn't diversify and, you know, and and advise companies on their real estate strategies from the top down anywhere, uh, you know, I don't know where I'd be right now.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_03: And it's a scary thought.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_03: And um, you know, I feel terribly for uh even the the the biggest conference uh companies in our industry are in jeopardy of going out of business.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_03: You know, the ICSC, which stands for the International Council of Shopping Centers, the real deal just announced that they're like basically out of business.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_03: That's the that is literally the the the backbone of the industry is the ICSE.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_03: As long as I'm in the business and way longer than I'm in the business, right?
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: Do they do their big thing in Vegas?
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_03: The big thing in Vegas, since that didn't happen in May, you know, and now uh the second largest conference in New York in December is happening virtually.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they make all of their money, generate all their revenue.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they've had a layoff, I think like 90% of the staff, something like, you know, don't hold me to it, but uh almost everybody.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, you know, I don't see the the the biggest thing about that is those conferences are not necessary today in the same format that they were pre-COVID.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_03: They hadn't been necessary maybe for the last decade, but ICSE became such an institution that you felt like if you weren't getting a booth there, you were out of business.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_03: I stopped taking a booth and I've had so many arguments with folks in my industry who are so old school, by the way.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, explain to me why I should have a booth when I can invest that same amount of money on a videographer and producing content all across the world for a fraction of the money I'm gonna spend on a booth.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_03: Convince me why.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_03: And guess what, Dustin?
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_03: I hate to say it.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_03: The people that were trying to convince me why are the ones that are going out of business.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the shocker, real shocker there.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it it's sad to see, but at the same time, like when you make certain decisions or don't make certain decisions or avoid them, there's consequences.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it I've made, I've had a bug up my ass the the last few months about, well, even before COVID, about teaching agents to diversify where their income comes from, have multiple revenue streams.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like I chose the brokerage I'm with, thank God.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, like my income has gone through the roof since COVID uh because it diversifies where my income comes from.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh agents, anyone that uh if all they do is transactions in one city in one market, I mean what happens if something happens to that market, if a natural disaster comes in.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and who the hell would have predicted a pandemic and certain and certain areas would shut down every business?
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's not even that's so ridiculous that if you said that a year ago, you'd be laughed out of the room.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, especially New York City.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: And look what's happened.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like New York City is still shut down.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um let's talk about New York.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_03: Let's talk about that because you know that that is that's a great segue because you know, New York City is most people and most folks in my industry and the residential side, most folks.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_03: How about this?
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_03: Let's let's make it more general.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_03: Folks who practice real estate in Manhattan proper, for the most part, only do business in Manhattan.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_03: They're they refuse to actually cross bridges and tunnels and frown upon it to the point that they're way better than people who either live on the other side of those bridges and tunnels or focus on those markets, right?
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_03: Because they're not as cool, they're the rents are not as high, right?
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: So then I've met these suit wearing douchebags.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's a bunch of them in the uh residential side of the industry that that their marketing is like having cocktail parties in a penthouse.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's it.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, they look down on outside of Manhattan.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_03: Well, completely.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, so and I when building Sabre, I was so mindful of how I would build it.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, listen, I have a lot of friends that are brokers in New York City that I respect and admire that are really good at what they do.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, there are a lot of douchebags that I will not say the same about.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and there's everything in between, right?
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_03: Manhattan's a big, big market.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and and that's in any industry and that's in any area, right?
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_03: But uh Manhattan just happens to you know churn out more douchebags than most areas because everybody's too cool for school.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_01: They have a higher quota for sure, and they meet it.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um so you know, based on the fact that that you're there's you spend a lot of time learning your market and becoming an expert in your market as a real estate professional.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_03: The main differentiation between you, Dustin, and myself and everybody else who's operating at the top of their game is how much they know.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_03: How, you know, like you could talk to any market in your area that you do business in inside out, as good, if not better than the next person, right?
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_03: And that's why you're gonna win a listing.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_03: And it takes a long time to get there.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_03: And in my business, it takes a really long time to get there because you're also, I have to learn about the you know, the volumes that these different tenants do because of the fact that there's a high daytime population there, and you know, the train station is, you know, the stop is there.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_03: And so I have to learn everything uh under a microscope.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, when you become an expert in Manhattan, which has so many different areas and sub-neighborhoods and sub-sub neighborhoods, right?
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_03: You don't have time to focus on learning the rest of the world.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, that's what's really scary to me right now about what's going on in New York City.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, if you ask 10 people the the state of New York City, you'll get 10 different answers.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_03: Five will be now is the best time ever.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, everybody should go in to New York City, buy whatever they can, stay there.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_03: It's the best opportunity ever.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_03: And then another five will tell you, I already left.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_03: I left three months ago because I couldn't stand walking past a homeless person peeing on my stairs when I was bringing my kids to school, right?
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and everything in between.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_03: So, and the media clearly, we know, shows whatever they want their audience to see, right?
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_03: So what you see in the media is definitely uh uh, you know, again, kind of spun in a certain direction.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of that, we're not getting political here, but a lot of that has to do with the election, right?
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_03: So uh so what I will tell you is the majority of the people that I know that live in Manhattan are, first off, they're they're they're they are affluent, right?
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_03: So the majority of those people already have access to a second home, a vacation home that is somewhere in suburbs outside of Manhattan, right?
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_03: The bulk of those people left at the beginning of coronavirus and went to their homes in the in the Hamptons, in Connecticut, in Westchester, wherever those homes are.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_03: So they have escaped the the bulk of what's been going on since and have had no reason to go back, okay?
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I will tell you that New York City is dead.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_03: There are no people in New York City, okay?
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_03: So businesses can't survive when there's no people.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_03: It's just not possible.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_03: Now think about this from my perspective.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_03: When I do a deal with one of my clients in New York City, we're forced to pay some of the most premium rents in the world, right?
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_03: So you're already, depending on what your business is, and a lot of businesses like restaurants are operating on a very small profit margin, right?
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_03: So when you have this, the highest rent in your portfolio is definitely in Manhattan if you're there.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_03: So now you have these crazy rents when you're closed for business, and if you're able to reopen at 30%, 50%, whatever the percentage is, you still have to pay 100% of the rent.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_03: How is that gonna work, right?
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_03: How is that gonna work?
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't work, and it's not only a problem for the tenant, it's a problem for the landlord, it's a problem for everybody because you're not now the only way to solve the problem would have had to have happened at the beginning of this, where everybody was forgiven.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_03: The government stepped in and said, Mr.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_03: Landlord, you don't have to pay your mortgage for three months.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_03: So your tenant doesn't have to pay rent for three months.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_03: And that means that's that means that everybody, while they're making no money, does not have the expense, right?
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_03: What's happening instead of that is landlords still have their mortgages to pay, even if they're able to tack on some months on the back end of it and they get relief in that fashion.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_03: The issue is the tenants have to now do the same and tack on that rent for the months they weren't open to their already premium rent, right?
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_03: So their business is not coming back in January 1 to 100% of what they were doing pre-COVID.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_03: It's not happening.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_03: So the biggest issue right now is those tenants can't afford to pay the rents that are in their lease, no less the rents in their lease plus the three months tacked on amortized over the rent term or on the back end of the term or whatever it is.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_03: The formula is broken.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_03: Retail has already been shifting, retail restaurants, everybody have already been majorly impacted by Amazon, by the internet, by everything else.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_03: My company, again, in a thoughtful way, is built on companies and businesses that are more internet-proof.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_03: That's just where we reside.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_03: You have to go to Massage Envy to get a massage, you have to go to Orange Theory Fitness to work out.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_03: You have to go to Squeeze, Dry Bar, all these, you know, restaurants that we represent.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you have to go there for your experience.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, you could take it out, but not fitness, not health and beauty, not you know, stuff like that.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um medical.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, we built a great business pre-COVID for the evolution of what was going on in our industry.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_03: Here's the compounding effect.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_03: The most disrupted segments by COVID are the ones I just mentioned to you because nobody can touch anybody.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_03: You can't work out next to somebody, right?
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_03: So the fitness, the wellness, uh the restaurant, hospitality, all of those industries have been holding up retail real estate for the last decade, right?
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_03: Gyms have backfilled every large retail space, right?
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_03: Now, New York Sports Club, Town Sports International just filed today.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_03: 24-hour fitness filed already.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_03: You know, so you know what's happening with all of these entertainment concepts, fitness concepts that have been the answer to who's gonna take all this space.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_01: It it's crazy, man.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so we is it fair to say that we have not even seen the the last shoe drop in New York?
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_03: How about we're at the top of the second inning?
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds more accurate and scares the shit out of me.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_03: We're at the top of the second inning.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, the market hasn't even begun to correct because the market can't correct until businesses are open and operating, and the tenants and the landlords work out what a fair market rent is.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's that simple.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_03: If you're not working that out and it's not fair for both parties, everybody's just getting their space back.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_03: Not everybody, not everybody wants their space back.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_03: If a tenant's paying$200 a foot in rent and the landlord can get$100 a foot in rent right now from a new tenant, they don't want the new tenant.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_03: They want the tenant that's paying the$200 a foot, they want to give them a discount as long as they can, right?
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_03: To keep that tenant there, not have to pay a broker fee again, you know, so on and so forth.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but again, back to the fees of how our business is built, and this is what's also interesting and what's changing drastically, is there's gonna be a lot of percentage rent deals where tenants are only paying rent based on the revenue they're producing.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_03: So they'll pay X amount of their sales, X percent of their sales.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_03: And that's gonna happen for the next 12 to 24 months.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_03: I would say there's gonna be a tremendous amount of new deals that it's not year one is not fair market rent, year one is percentage rent.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_03: How do we get paid on percentage rent as a as a real estate broker?
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_03: We don't know yet, you know.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_03: So um we have ideas, you know, and and we we're having those conversations, uh, but it's this this affects everybody.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_03: And even more so, I'm sorry I'm talking a lot, but it's so it's so interesting to talk about, you know, this is a major reset, you know.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_03: When people started talking about COVID and, you know, when things are going to start to normalize, you know, depending on who I spoke to and how they framed this whole thing going on in their minds, told me how much a chance they have of surviving in it and thriving on the other side of it.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_03: Anyone who was talking about the normalization, like, oh, we should be back to normal in the 21, I'm like, oh man, you're in trouble.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's wishful thinking.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and it it's so like I love New York City so much.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the reasons why was it so many people and so many, like, there's so many restaurants that have to support those people and just so much to do.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_01: And like hearing that it's just a ghost town, like I've I've had some, I've seen some people visit Times Square, and there were like 10 people there.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of 10,000.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_03: The last video that we did, Rich, my videographer and I, that we did in person in New York City was on St.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_03: Patrick's Day, March 17th, right?
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_03: So we went in, we filmed.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know what?
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_03: The post on Instagram is definitely not from April because it was way before that.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_03: The post on Instagram that I was referring to was definitely in February.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but uh, so on March 17th, her and I went in, man, and I would just jump out of the car and we'd record a segment.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_03: Obviously, Times Square is one of them, and you could see in March, you know, what it looked like.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, in the next week or so, we're gonna go back in and do the same thing for folks who you know haven't had a chance to be in Manhattan since and kind of report on exactly what it looks like now and so on and so forth.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_03: But um, you know, I'd like to see that.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, for sure.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, what's that just to give you more insight onto what's happening?
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_03: So the folks who left New York City for their for the summers, right?
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_03: So let's just say the Hamptons for for entrance uh for for um uh it's an easy example, right?
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_03: So so a lot of the people who own homes in the Hamptons that live in New York City primarily and just summer in their homes in the Hamptons are still living in their homes in the Hamptons, their kids are working remotely.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um there has been such a major influx of people renting, obviously, just to escape.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh those people are trying to rent as long as possible uh and have no interest in in uh in leaving the homes that they rented.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_03: They're enrolling their children in the schools um in uh in the Hamptons.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, certain school districts are allowing that to happen.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and you know, as you know, you can still work remotely uh in a lot of cases.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_03: Kids can, you know, school remotely.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_03: So that's going on.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't think some of my friends have gone back.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_03: Uh families are staying behind, you know, the husband's going into Manhattan and and during the week and then heading out Thursday morning for the weekend to be with the family, things of that nature.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but uh the the season that typically ends Labor Day in these more seasonal areas where these vacation homes are, uh, have been extended throughout the year.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_03: Restaurants who open up pop-ups for the season are staying.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_03: Uh retailers are staying, you know, the people are not coming back to Manhattan.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_01: Are you optimistic about the future of Manhattan in the next few years?
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um do you think, or do you think there's going to be somewhat of a a depression in the area?
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't mean depression like breadlines, but um like I just don't understand how all these businesses that support the people in Manhattan, how they are even surviving today.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because last I heard from um de Blasio, he's like, Well, I I I have no idea when we'll reopen.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's like whenever whenever COVID's over.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, when the hell is that?
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what does that look like?
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_01: Zero cases or what like he he has no freaking clue.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_03: It's terrible.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I will tell you that uh I will tell you that uh the the short-term you know effect of this is catastrophic.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_03: Uh the what the biggest thing that I that I don't understand how is gonna play out is you know, look, the the for the most part, the ground floor of these buildings are retail, right?
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_03: I'm focused primarily on the ground floor of these buildings.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_03: In some cases, sublevel, in some cases second floor.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but uh it's really primarily.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_03: Primarily the ground floor.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_03: What is everything above the ground floor in these skyscrapers, Dustin?
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_03: What's above the ground floor?
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_01: Office.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_03: Office.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_03: Residential, but primarily office, right?
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_03: I can tell you that I'm personally downsizing my office space, right?
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_03: Because why would I keep the same amount of office space when I'm perfectly happy with my team working remotely?
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and again, my agents are working remotely anyway, right?
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_03: So they're they're never pre-COVID, they're never all in the office at the same time in each office.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_03: Never.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_03: It's not the nature of our business.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm downsizing offices.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, I I my office space right at the beginning of this, my office space in Manhattan, where you and I met last, I threw the keys back to that as quickly as I could.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, yeah, I'll take new space when I'm ready to come back in.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_03: I had that luxury, right?
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_03: I had a short-term deal.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_03: I had to pay a month in advance to get out.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_03: Fine.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_03: So if I'm doing those things and I'm used to officing, I'm in the city.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_03: I have three offices in New York and New Jersey.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_03: I'm in the city a minimum three, four days a week leading up to COVID, right?
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_03: So if I'm one of those folks, like, you know, I'd have to imagine a lot of people like myself feel that way.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_03: And when you have companies that are saying, you know what, we don't even want the liability.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_03: Stay at home, please.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_03: You know, work from home, work remotely, which a lot of the folks that I know that work for big companies have been told, don't come to the office.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_03: Well, let me know.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_03: We'll keep you posted.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_03: We're looking at January 1st now.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_03: Like there, there's no shot you're coming back in 20.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, some people, I have I disagree with some people who think companies are going to take more office space because they want to space people out more.
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's a ridiculous argument.
• 1:07:59
  SPEAKER_03: They must be office leasing brokers that are just lying to themselves.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um, or, you know, owners of buildings who are just lying to themselves.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_03: It's ridiculous to me.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that is ridiculous.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_01: Fewer people in more space at a premium.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_01: At a premium.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_03: Expensive space in the in the world.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um that's absurd.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_03: It's absurd.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_03: So I honestly, you know, I believe that uh look, I have a lot of clients that are opportunistically expanding in New York City.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_03: Because if you are a bel New York City's never going to be knocked out and down and out for the count, it's coming back.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's not a matter of if, it's when.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_03: So I would argue it's a three to five year process, right?
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_03: And and there will be some good stuff to come out of it.
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_03: Dude, I can barely afford to go get an apartment in the city if I decided to relo relocate my family there.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_03: That's a problem, man.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_03: Like if you have to be like a bazillionaire to afford living in an apartment in the city, you know, maybe it's like time to correct itself.
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_03: So you know, so I think as a result of that, there will be a lot of cool things.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_03: It'll open up uh opportunity again to folks who for the last decade couldn't even think about affording living in Manhattan, which is awesome.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_03: You know, everybody should be able to uh live that lifestyle if they choose.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so I think, and in the same way that, you know, listen, man, I came up with some really cool concepts with clients of mine and really, really uh, you know, interesting ideas that uh that will change what things look like on the other side of this.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um and we're not the only folks that are, you know, just uh figuring out what what where the voids are and what opportunities there are.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_03: There's gonna be a lot of cool stuff to grow through, you know, a lot of a lot of flowers to grow out of the concrete.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, you and I kind of think the same way.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_01: And you mentioned this earlier when you were saying that, you know, as you are preparing and you were talking to your business partner about what do we do about this pandemic and the shutdown that's coming, you were it you mentioned buying stock in certain companies.
• 1:10:07
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like you you were already thinking, hey, this is gonna be bad, but that creates opportunity.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_01: So even though it it pains me to see New York City just dead and I mean, it used to have such a buzz and the smell of piss, let's be honest.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_01: But uh you you come to like it or or you uh you you respect it.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_01: And the fact that that's just gone temporarily is bizarre, but I'm really excited to see how clever people get to deal with these issues, what opportunity that creates, what new companies come from it.
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's that's the cool part.
• 1:10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Is you know, a forest fire burns the forest down and regrows something even stronger, even even thicker.
• 1:10:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um so yeah, and I think I think you know, to to piggyback onto that, you know, again, the way that I said that, you know, this is not um us waiting to see when things go back to normal.
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_03: This is a master reset.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, you know, and and and uh I would think one of the biggest opportunities of our lifetime to get ahead.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_03: As long as you're like taking, you know, as long as you're paying attention, innovating, thinking, not being afraid to do things that you know were always done a certain way forever, and that's the way it's supposed to be done, that's not a good idea right now, you know.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_03: So I think I think that this reset for our generation, Dustin, is is is absolutely the biggest opportunity of our lifetime.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_01: I could not agree more.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh I'm involved in a couple projects that uh were made much more exciting because of COVID, you know, like conferences being canceled all over the place.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_01: There's all these vendors that still need to reach those people.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_01: How do they do it?
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Podcast advertising, you know, like there's so many different things.
• 1:12:05
  SPEAKER_01: There's I would just challenge anyone listening.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_01: If you you have to diversify where your income comes from, and there are ways to do that while not like doing something completely different, you know, like you don't need to go start an ice cream shop and sell homes and drive Uber, you know.
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I imagine Uber's dead in New York too.
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_01: My God, I can't even imagine those poor drivers.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um but you've got to start thinking about that.
• 1:12:31
  SPEAKER_01: And if you haven't yet, my God, there's there's options out there, there's different brokerages with better models for you.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's other ways of monetizing your attention online.
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh, if you have a blog, if you have a website, if you have a social media presence, you can have sponsorships, you can do affiliate marketing, you can have ad space, it's so many different things.
• 1:12:51
  SPEAKER_01: It just takes some action.
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think the biggest thing, Jay, in the next few years is we're gonna see who is willing to to do some work.
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, for sure.
• 1:13:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I don't know if it was Buffett or or Churchill that, you know, you you know who is skinny dipping when the tide goes out, something like that.
• 1:13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, I think that's gonna be so freaking true in so many ways over the next few years.
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and you're kind of at ground zero for it all in in New York.
• 1:13:20
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, you know, I I wish you luck.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_01: I wish you and your your family luck, and and you know, but knowing you, I think you're gonna you're gonna thrive like never before um coming out of this.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I will say, thank you, thank you very much for that.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I and same goes to you and your family.
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_03: I will say, you know, um again, just this this disruption that, you know, regardless of the fact that I was preparing for things to change, I wasn't prepared for a pandemic.
• 1:13:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like this is, you know, yeah, who the hell was?
• 1:13:50
  SPEAKER_03: You can't prepare for this, but no, um, but uh I will say, man, some really cool things have happened as a result of it.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_03: You know, a mentor of mine in the industry joined Sabre, you know, uh a month and a half ago as a result of this happening.
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I think that's what I would challenge folks with, you know, are you really in the right position to thrive, even if you're solely focused on your real estate business?
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_03: Are you in a place that understands kind of the new way of doing things and how things will be done in the future?
• 1:14:26
  SPEAKER_03: And not only understands it, but provides resources to you and helps you do that, you know.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um, because I know in my industry, you know, honestly, like Sabre's like an anomaly.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_03: So I know anybody, it's so funny, man.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_03: So many people have joined our company in in 2020 because they're getting uh reprimanded for using social media.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_01: That is a that's a more bizarre concept than Manhattan shutting down.
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_03: I would agree with you, but I how amazing is that?
• 1:14:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's amazing for you, for you guys.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_01: You're like, shit, we'll help you do it.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_03: That's exactly right.
• 1:15:03
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, it blows it, you know, it blows my mind.
• 1:15:06
  SPEAKER_03: So listen, as much as again, I would never uh ever glorify the the terrible stuff that that came with this pandemic because it's horrible, and a lot of people and a lot of people I know have been affected by it very uh negatively.
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but once you, you know, you you have to see the the forest through the through the clouds, uh, the the florest through the trees, the the uh the silver lining of the clouds, really, you know, and and and you have to focus on the positive things that that will you know can and will come out of it.
• 1:15:41
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of that's mindset, man.
• 1:15:43
  SPEAKER_03: Like you have to be able to focus and see the opportunities, but it's all about the execution, man, right?
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_03: Like you said, at the end of the day, you could talk about all these ideas you have, you could, you know, talk about what you're gonna do forever.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_03: And if you don't implement them, you're just uh you know not gonna rise to the top.
• 1:16:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 1:16:02
  SPEAKER_01: You just that's putting it lightly.
• 1:16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 1:16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you won't be in this business very long.
• 1:16:07
  SPEAKER_03: That's even better.
• 1:16:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_01: Cool, man.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, any any last words or any like let me ask you this, okay?
• 1:16:15
  SPEAKER_01: We do see these rapid fire questions to to wrap it up, but I'll get to those in a second.
• 1:16:18
  SPEAKER_01: But the the last question I want to ask you, considering most people listening are agents, residential real estate agents, what's the biggest opportunity you see right now based on anywhere?
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, like online or uh you know locally, what's the biggest opportunity that they should have their eyes open for?
• 1:16:38
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I I would say to set up a network of folks that are in allied trades that you already need to be able to have access to folks that are whatever it is, appraisers, attorneys, you know, all different types of folks that are touching your real estate transactions already.
• 1:17:01
  SPEAKER_03: I would say to lean in on that and maybe create some sort of uh um, you know, business outside of your commercial outside of your real estate brokerage business that is, you know, a consulting or referral network kind of business that that allows you to generate additional income from referrals and things of that nature.
• 1:17:24
  SPEAKER_03: I think you'd be surprised.
• 1:17:26
  SPEAKER_03: You're already, you know, having these conversations with folks.
• 1:17:29
  SPEAKER_03: It's mutually beneficial.
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_03: And at the end of a 12, 12-month calendar year, you'll be like, wow, I didn't even realize I made another$75,000 without even trying.
• 1:17:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so that would be my that would be my biggest uh tidbit because you don't really, to your point, you don't have to go out and open an ice cream shop.
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_03: If anything, that ice cream shop will lightly take away from the time and energy you could put into your real estate business.
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_03: So my my suggestion would be to swim with the stream as opposed to against the stream.
• 1:17:59
  SPEAKER_03: Don't get into anything that's gonna have a negative impact on your core business and your uh you know, your stream of income generated by that.
• 1:18:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's such a great opportunity, opportunity to reduce your expenses, make sure your your brokerage is the right business model for you.
• 1:18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Do they embrace you and your marketing efforts?
• 1:18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Do they do they let you brand yourself?
• 1:18:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's unbelievable.
• 1:18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Even in the residential world, like I know on your side of the business it's like it's common, but on the residential side, there's still a lot of brokerages that they won't let you brand yourself.
• 1:18:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you've got to be, you know, you've got to have the the hot air balloon, you know, you you got you gotta okay.
• 1:18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Remax is not one of those.
• 1:18:42
  SPEAKER_01: They're cool, but um, there's a lot of brokerages that won't let you be yourself, they won't let you use social media the way that you should be, and that's a problem.
• 1:18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Why the hell are you there?
• 1:18:52
  SPEAKER_01: And you're probably paying way too damn much for it, anyways, because they're they have to pay for their office space that nobody uses anymore.
• 1:18:58
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 1:18:59
  SPEAKER_03: And I think to your point, you know, I was going a different direction with the question, but yeah, I I will say that on the, you know, listen, the reason that I know you has to do with social media.
• 1:19:10
  SPEAKER_03: The reason that, you know, it uh there are so many people that are very close to me that still have no understanding of why I'm on social media at all.
• 1:19:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it's amazing because they think you're egotistical.
• 1:19:21
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, you gotta see yourself, yeah.
• 1:19:23
  SPEAKER_03: Completely and that funny, even even down to you know, the people that you you are closest to you, right?
• 1:19:30
  SPEAKER_03: And your family and stuff like that.
• 1:19:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's comedy because you know what a lot of people don't realize is, you know, I I said to you earlier, man, I truly don't know where I'd be right now, where Sabre would be as a business if I didn't stick my neck out and do something really uncomfortable three and a half, four years ago.
• 1:19:50
  SPEAKER_03: And that's my biggest piece of advice because if you're if you're not visible, you're irrelevant.
• 1:19:59
  SPEAKER_03: It's very simple, right?
• 1:20:00
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, and and how, and by the way, I'll flip it.
• 1:20:04
  SPEAKER_03: I think egotistical people are afraid to see themselves or hear themselves on camera and on you know, on podcasts and things of that nature.
• 1:20:12
  SPEAKER_03: You have to be pretty comfortable in your own skin to uh to do stuff like this, in my opinion, right?
• 1:20:18
  SPEAKER_03: Because you I'm not concerned about if I look bad or say something dumb.
• 1:20:22
  SPEAKER_03: I don't care.
• 1:20:23
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just being myself.
• 1:20:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't think that's a very egotistical quality.
• 1:20:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, I think that I think that having faith in your abilities is oftentimes you know confused as ego.
• 1:20:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but in my opinion, if you back it up, you know, that's that's that's what that's the most important thing, right?
• 1:20:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um so I think people if people are too afraid to use social media in business, I think honestly, to your point earlier, that you know, you can't it's no longer like a luxury of something that's not a necessity.
• 1:21:00
  SPEAKER_03: It's not like at this stage of life in this post-COVID world, if you're not on social media furthering your business, you're going out of business.
• 1:21:09
  SPEAKER_03: It's very simple.
• 1:21:11
  SPEAKER_01: Just a matter of time.
• 1:21:12
  SPEAKER_01: I I believe that it's no longer an option to use social media.
• 1:21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, if you don't, you literally don't exist.
• 1:21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 1:21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because they can't see you, and if they can't see you, like how the hell do they even know you're there?
• 1:21:25
  SPEAKER_01: So correct.
• 1:21:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it it's a very simple concept.
• 1:21:28
  SPEAKER_03: And people want to do business with people they want to do business with.
• 1:21:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:21:32
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 1:21:33
  SPEAKER_03: How would I I would know if I didn't follow you on social media, regardless of the fact that we talk and we've met, I wouldn't know a fraction of uh of what I know about you.
• 1:21:45
  SPEAKER_03: Like how would you?
• 1:21:47
  SPEAKER_03: How would I?
• 1:21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 1:21:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like you get a uh, you know, a Thanksgiving card from me like every year, like a hand, you know what I mean?
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what does that tell anybody other than like, oh, you know, at least he thought about me?
• 1:21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:21:59
  SPEAKER_01: Without social media, like what do I write you a letter and say, okay, I took the kids camping this weekend, my son learned to ride his bike, um, I'm going to Dallas, you know, whatever.
• 1:22:10
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's such a power.
• 1:22:12
  SPEAKER_03: No, you're saying to me, hey Jay, how was the trip to Dallas?
• 1:22:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:22:16
  SPEAKER_03: Why would I write you a letter about my trip to Dallas when you saw it in real time?
• 1:22:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:22:20
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I mean, the power of it is I can't even put it into words.
• 1:22:25
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, it's literally, I'm at the point where it's like, you know, I don't want to sound mean, but it's like if you have to cross-examine me on why I think it's important and the relevance of it when I could tell you seven figures worth of deals and business easily, like like roll it off accounts that I've won because I have a presence.
• 1:22:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um honestly, at this point, it's like you can't even like, you're just not that smart of a person, you know.
• 1:22:58
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's how at this point it's like, really?
• 1:23:01
  SPEAKER_03: Are you that stupid that you don't like three years ago?
• 1:23:05
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I had the patience to sit down and tell people, you know, and then I started to educate people through ICSC and speak on panels and stuff, things like that.
• 1:23:15
  SPEAKER_03: And Gary's point of you can't sell the unsellable, I'd be sitting in a room, like I'd fly to Atlanta for the day to sit on a panel, sit in the room, talk about it, be passionate about it.
• 1:23:28
  SPEAKER_03: At the end, there'd be like one person raising their hand.
• 1:23:31
  SPEAKER_03: You're like, uh, should I use like Twitter or like Instagram?
• 1:23:37
  SPEAKER_03: You're like, that's what this room got out of this whole entire thing.
• 1:23:41
  SPEAKER_03: One person wants to raise their hand, and that's the question.
• 1:23:44
  SPEAKER_03: All of the above, and that goes for all of you in the entire audience.
• 1:23:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:23:49
  SPEAKER_01: I I really don't, it's not a lack of intelligence.
• 1:23:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it sure seems like it, but it's not, it's comfort.
• 1:23:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's comfort.
• 1:23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're they've been able to do business their way, and so they think it's always going to be that way.
• 1:24:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but I think that like I think that people who don't who can't in September of 2020, people who can't understand how it could have a positive impact on your business lack intelligence.
• 1:24:21
  SPEAKER_03: I agree.
• 1:24:24
  SPEAKER_03: If you're if you understand it could benefit your business and why, and you're uncomfortable doing it, DM me, and I'm gonna help you do it.
• 1:24:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, because you understand why it's important and you're gonna make an extra hundred thousand dollars in the next 12 months as a result of that.
• 1:24:41
  SPEAKER_03: I'm happy to help.
• 1:24:43
  SPEAKER_03: But the people who do maybe they're just lying because they're actually don't want to use it, and they like pretend not to realize what maybe that's it.
• 1:24:53
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 1:24:53
  SPEAKER_03: For some of them, but for some of them, I think it's like, you know, let me just keep telling myself it's not important because I really don't feel like doing it.
• 1:24:59
  SPEAKER_03: I'm scared chills.
• 1:25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I'm sure that that's more common than we think, but you're right.
• 1:25:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's people out there that are like, well, why would it the people who don't understand why?
• 1:25:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's a certain lack of intelligence around the around the topic, that's for damn sure.
• 1:25:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:25:14
  SPEAKER_03: And that's no disrespect to to the folks who still in 2020, post-COVID, don't understand why social media is important.
• 1:25:23
  SPEAKER_03: No disrespect.
• 1:25:24
  SPEAKER_03: You're an idiot.
• 1:25:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh some disrespect.
• 1:25:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's warranted.
• 1:25:28
  SPEAKER_01: But whatever.
• 1:25:29
  SPEAKER_03: That's what makes the world go around.
• 1:25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they'll learn.
• 1:25:33
  SPEAKER_01: They'll learn.
• 1:25:34
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate your time today, man.
• 1:25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we've gone uh we've gone a little longer than normal today, but do you have time for some rapid fire questions that'll wrap it up?
• 1:25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 1:25:43
  SPEAKER_03: I missed my two o'clock already.
• 1:25:44
  SPEAKER_03: Let's rock.
• 1:25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 1:25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um I th either or just pick one or the other.
• 1:25:50
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to elaborate, you can, but you certainly don't need to.
• 1:25:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then at the end, we'll let you um tell people where they can find you, where they can learn more about you and Saber and your your cool concepts that you're working on.
• 1:26:01
  SPEAKER_01: I I just love following your shit, man.
• 1:26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're I love seeing new businesses pop up, and I love seeing this new restaurant opening or this new coffee shop or this new whatever.
• 1:26:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I learn about a lot of that stuff from watching your Instagram stories, stuff that we don't have in Salt Lake yet, because you know, we're we're not Manhattan and we're not Miami, we're not Vegas, so you know we we lag on some of that stuff.
• 1:26:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyhow, uh Facebook or Instagram?
• 1:26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Instagram.
• 1:26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Instagram or LinkedIn?
• 1:26:29
  SPEAKER_01: Instagram, books or podcasts?
• 1:26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Both.
• 1:26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, pick one.
• 1:26:35
  SPEAKER_01: A physical book or a podcast?
• 1:26:36
  SPEAKER_03: How about this?
• 1:26:37
  SPEAKER_03: It's podcasts up until 75 Hard, where I've been forced to pick up a book again.
• 1:26:42
  SPEAKER_03: There you go.
• 1:26:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I got really back into it.
• 1:26:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um but having said that, I would still pick podcasts if I'm being honest.
• 1:26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Fair enough.
• 1:26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I agree with you, man.
• 1:26:51
  SPEAKER_01: I was audible in podcast only until 75 Hard made me read.
• 1:26:55
  SPEAKER_01: And there's something about physically reading a book that stimulates your brain in a different way.
• 1:26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Completely for sure.
• 1:27:01
  SPEAKER_01: I still pick podcasts.
• 1:27:02
  SPEAKER_01: Me too.
• 1:27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Podcasts or audiobooks?
• 1:27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Podcasts.
• 1:27:08
  SPEAKER_01: iPhone or Android?
• 1:27:09
  SPEAKER_01: iPhone.
• 1:27:11
  SPEAKER_01: Alexa or Google Home?
• 1:27:13
  SPEAKER_01: Neither.
• 1:27:14
  SPEAKER_01: All right, burgers or pizza?
• 1:27:16
  SPEAKER_03: I'll and I'll elaborate for a second.
• 1:27:18
  SPEAKER_03: I just I do not want my kids to have that much much access to stuff.
• 1:27:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I've enough already.
• 1:27:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, if if I didn't have kids, I would be into I have like three Alexa's that are just not plugged in, so I would say Alexa.
• 1:27:32
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 1:27:33
  SPEAKER_03: Uh what was it, pizza or burgers?
• 1:27:34
  SPEAKER_01: Burgers or pizza.
• 1:27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Pizza.
• 1:27:37
  SPEAKER_01: But what's funny about Alexa?
• 1:27:39
  SPEAKER_01: So my son, he's six, still super frickin' innocent.
• 1:27:42
  SPEAKER_01: He'll ask Alexa all the time, like, how tall is Mount Everest?
• 1:27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Or what's the what was the biggest tsunami in the world?
• 1:27:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like really like brainy questions that he's really curious about.
• 1:27:53
  SPEAKER_01: And and Alexa's, I don't know that shit.
• 1:27:56
  SPEAKER_01: So Alexa saves the day sometimes.
• 1:27:59
  SPEAKER_01: But you He gets a few years older and I'm gonna be like, yeah, let's let's get that out of the room.
• 1:28:04
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 1:28:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um maybe a dumb question.
• 1:28:09
  SPEAKER_01: New York or LA?
• 1:28:11
  SPEAKER_03: It's not a dumb question because I absolutely love LA.
• 1:28:16
  SPEAKER_03: I miss it.
• 1:28:17
  SPEAKER_03: The fact that I uh was supposed to be there already this year and have had not been able to as a result of COVID.
• 1:28:24
  SPEAKER_01: LA Wow, fair enough.
• 1:28:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:28:28
  SPEAKER_01: NFL or MBA?
• 1:28:30
  SPEAKER_01: NFL.
• 1:28:31
  SPEAKER_01: NFL or Major League Baseball.
• 1:28:33
  SPEAKER_01: NFL.
• 1:28:35
  SPEAKER_01: Mountains or beach?
• 1:28:37
  SPEAKER_01: Mountains.
• 1:28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Podcasting or vlogging?
• 1:28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Vlogging.
• 1:28:44
  SPEAKER_01: YouTube or Facebook Live?
• 1:28:46
  SPEAKER_01: YouTube.
• 1:28:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uber or Lyft?
• 1:28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uber.
• 1:28:50
  SPEAKER_01: Gary V or Grant Cardone.
• 1:28:52
  SPEAKER_01: Gary V.
• 1:28:54
  SPEAKER_01: What's the most impactful book you've read?
• 1:29:01
  SPEAKER_01: Find your why.
• 1:29:03
  SPEAKER_01: Simon Sinek?
• 1:29:04
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's Start with Why.
• 1:29:06
  SPEAKER_03: Start with Why, that's what I meant.
• 1:29:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, Simon Sinek?
• 1:29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a damn good book.
• 1:29:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's the most recent book I finished.
• 1:29:12
  SPEAKER_03: And it, you know, reading it at this point in time has been awesome.
• 1:29:17
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, what a great book to read right now.
• 1:29:22
  SPEAKER_01: Great advice.
• 1:29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Great advice.
• 1:29:24
  SPEAKER_01: Where can people find you?
• 1:29:25
  SPEAKER_01: Where can they watch your vlog?
• 1:29:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so uh the easiest way place to find me is on Instagram, Facebook, Jason Ciano with a Y, J A Y S O N S I A N O, uh Sabre.life, S-A-B-A Zimboy, R-E.life is uh is another good place where everything's listed.
• 1:29:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I again encourage everybody listening to this to please reach out to me if you have any concepts that you think are remotely interesting.
• 1:30:00
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and if anything happens along the way, you will earn passive income as a result of that.
• 1:30:07
  SPEAKER_03: So, and by the way, I've never said that to anybody before, but I realized, based on your audience, what an amazing network of folks to actually that have their local retail, restaurant, whatever it is that they love, and wouldn't know the first thing about how to help that that business scale.
• 1:30:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's a great offering.
• 1:30:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, you offer a service that any business needs, you know, it so yeah, I'm now you're in the front of my mind every time I go to a new concept, or like, damn, this place is cool.
• 1:30:40
  SPEAKER_01: They should open another one.
• 1:30:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if you've ever thought, oh, they should have another one, you should probably tell Jay about it.
• 1:30:47
  SPEAKER_03: That's exactly right.
• 1:30:48
  SPEAKER_03: And and you know what?
• 1:30:49
  SPEAKER_03: In my Instagram in the bio, you'll see the other businesses that I am a part of.
• 1:30:54
  SPEAKER_03: One is called Fit Well Advisors, which is a consulting business for uh specific categories health, fitness, restaurant hospitality, uh uh beauty wellness.
• 1:31:07
  SPEAKER_03: And uh that is all things scaling a business, including franchising.
• 1:31:12
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and then Generations Beyond, which is a marketing company that does the bulk of my work.
• 1:31:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that I I sold my Be Creative uh digital marketing company to at the beginning of the year, and um you know, full service marketing company, websites, social media management, all types of stuff like that.
• 1:31:33
  SPEAKER_03: Very well done inexpensively.
• 1:31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 1:31:37
  SPEAKER_01: Love it.
• 1:31:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I will link up your usernames and the the URL, saber.life, in the show notes of the podcast.
• 1:31:45
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 1:31:46
  SPEAKER_01: Jay, appreciate it, man.
• 1:31:48
  SPEAKER_03: Listen, man, I appreciate your time as always.
• 1:31:50
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for thinking of me.
• 1:31:51
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 1:31:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'll talk to you.
• 1:31:52
  SPEAKER_03: See you well, everybody.
• 1:31:53
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you guys so much for listening.
• 1:31:55
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that was worth it to you.
• 1:31:56
  SPEAKER_01: That was one of our longer episodes, but I didn't want to cut anything out because I thought the context was really valuable.
• 1:32:03
  SPEAKER_01: It really helped to drive home why he did certain things once COVID hit.
• 1:32:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, if if it was just like, hey, here's this random guy, he he's done some successful stuff, and here's the changes he's made, it wouldn't have had the impact.
• 1:32:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you would have learned as much, or it would have really made the impact had we not really uh, you know, let him develop the story.
• 1:32:24
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks for hanging with us.
• 1:32:25
  SPEAKER_01: If you guys have made it this far, thank you.
• 1:32:27
  SPEAKER_01: That means you probably like this show.
• 1:32:29
  SPEAKER_01: So all I ask, and we're gonna keep doing this podcast every single Thursday morning, every week, into perpetuity.
• 1:32:36
  SPEAKER_01: We're episode 143, we're gonna go to episode 443, we're gonna keep going.
• 1:32:41
  SPEAKER_01: And all I ask in return is you help us to share this podcast with somebody else.
• 1:32:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you found this valuable, please share it with a real estate friend.
• 1:32:50
  SPEAKER_01: Share it with your broker, share it with one of your team members, share it with someone else in your office, share it in a real estate Facebook group, share a screenshot that you're listening on your Instagram story.
• 1:33:01
  SPEAKER_01: Just help us to spread the word.
• 1:33:03
  SPEAKER_01: If every one of you guys would just share this with one other person, we'd double our audience.
• 1:33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what we could do with an audience twice as big?
• 1:33:10
  SPEAKER_01: We could attract really big guests.
• 1:33:12
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking those that charge$100,000 for an hour of keynote speaking, like a Gary Vaynerchuk and Andy Frisella, and you know, so on and so forth.
• 1:33:22
  SPEAKER_01: We can do that with a very large audience.
• 1:33:25
  SPEAKER_01: So you can directly help us to do that.
• 1:33:27
  SPEAKER_01: We have some amazing guests, no doubt, but you know, we're going for we're going for uh for Gary Vee, for Tony Robbins, for Andy Frisella.
• 1:33:35
  SPEAKER_01: We're going for all of them.
• 1:33:36
  SPEAKER_01: So help us out.
• 1:33:37
  SPEAKER_01: Share this with somebody who is look, if you found this episode valuable, share it with somebody.
• 1:33:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like, hey, this is a great episode.
• 1:33:45
  SPEAKER_01: Here's why.
• 1:33:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you're gonna love it.
• 1:33:47
  SPEAKER_01: Boom.
• 1:33:47
  SPEAKER_01: Share it.
• 1:33:48
  SPEAKER_01: Help us out.
• 1:33:49
  SPEAKER_01: You help us out.
• 1:33:51
  SPEAKER_01: We'll keep coming out with these podcasts every single week.
• 1:33:53
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you guys so much, and we will see you next week.
• 1:33:56
  SPEAKER_01: If you are interested in what it looks like to join my team and be one of my partner agents anywhere in the country, um, all you need to do is reach out and we'll talk.
• 1:34:06
  SPEAKER_01: We'll show you the business model, we'll show you uh, you know, why we're able to do things the way we are, and to show you how we actually become partners.
• 1:34:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm not your boss, I'm not your, you know, I'm not gonna tell you what to do, I'm not your anything else but a partner.
• 1:34:21
  SPEAKER_01: We become financially aligned when you join our team.
• 1:34:24
  SPEAKER_01: If that makes no sense to you, cool.
• 1:34:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'll show you how.
• 1:34:27
  SPEAKER_01: Just reach out and let me know that you have interest and we'll go from there, guys.
• 1:34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Have a great rest of your week.
• 1:34:31
  SPEAKER_01: Have a great weekend.
• 1:34:32
  SPEAKER_01: Go close some loans, go sell some homes, take care.
• 1:34:35
  SPEAKER_01: See you next week.