Latest / The Hannah Hammond Show / What People Should Learn About Ownership, Rent, And Real Wealth | Aaron Zucker

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What People Should Learn About Ownership, Rent, And Real Wealth | Aaron Zucker · The Hannah Hammond Show

• 0:00
  Gary Vaynerchuk said this once and it's really resonated with
• 0:03
  me. People think entrepreneurship is
• 0:06
  about being the boss and setting your own schedule and having
• 0:08
  people work for you. It's the total opposite.
• 0:11
  It's never being off. It's survival, and you work for
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  your employees, you work for your teammates, right?
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  When we are entrepreneurs, it's feels so unsafe and it feels so
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  lonely and then there's so many unknowns and uncertainties and
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  like you're always walking a path that you haven't walked
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  before. Don't go into business with your
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  friends, go become friends with people you do business with.
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  Just being able to confide with other people who don't have
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  anything in it to gain other than just helping, That's it it.
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  It's quite the blessing. What's the number one thing you
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  attribute your success to over anything else?
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  My why? What's your why?
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  My dad paid for my education. I walked out of college with no
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  debt, and I'm going to do something average.
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  That mediocrity is not interesting.
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  It's it's unacceptable. It's it's not going to happen.
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  Welcome back to the Hannah Hammond Show.
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  I'm here today with actually one of our clients at HB Capital,
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  Aaron Zucker, who's the founder and CEO of Zucker Investment
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  Group, also known as Zig. And you are based out of
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  Charlotte, NC and flew all the way in for, well, this.
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  And yeah, exactly the open, right?
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  Yeah, the open you, you're meeting with a bunch of your
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  clients and we were just talking offline about your strategy.
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  But what he focuses on is retail investment real estate.
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  So excited to dive into your story.
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  Your company's not super old, but you've done over 50 million
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  in deals already. And you're, you've mentioned
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  that you are a naturally screwed up in the head entrepreneur.
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  So I really want to dive into that because so am I and so is
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  everyone else. But thanks for coming on the
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  show. Yeah, You know, it's
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  interesting, like the entrepreneur thing.
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  Thank you for having me. First of all, the the
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  entrepreneur thing, I think that's what the label is of
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  naturally screwed up in the head, but still like driven and
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  attempting to be successful. I think that's really what the
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  definition of entrepreneur should be in the dictionary.
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  I think so too. Let's roll with that.
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  Yeah, we should tell Grok. What is it, Grokapedia, that
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  that is the definition of entrepreneurs?
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  Get the copyrights going. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  No, that's awesome. And so let's dive back into kind
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  of the beginning and where you came from because you said you
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  were you're a first generation American.
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  I am. So.
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  Technically speaking, yes. Yeah.
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  So like what was your background like when did you figure out
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  that you were going to be an entrepreneur?
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  When did you, what was that catalyst moment where you got
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  the bug of I'm going to be, you know, a founder and CEO and a, a
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  real estate investor and what was what did that generally look
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  like? Yeah, So I had a pretty business
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  plan going coming out of high school.
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  I went to a big state school and started pursuing a degree in a
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  communications. It's not really like a recipe
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  for a guaranteed success in life.
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  I did. I thought communications degrees
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  meant like all you do is communicate with people, which
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  that part I kind of like. And I was doing some
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  communicating all night over a few drinks with some friends in
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  college and we started talking about and just to be very clear,
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  young boys turning trying to turn into men while drinking in
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  college conversations happen and this one's pretty common.
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  We should buy a bar one day difference wise between me and
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  my three friends, we decided to actually do it.
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  And so my junior year in college at the University of Alabama
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  Roll Tide for anybody out there listening, I was a business
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  owner kind of overnight. We canvas.
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  We went to a couple different bars and ran into an old guy.
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  I use air quotes as I say this because I'm now older than he
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  was at that time. Major pain to the shot to the
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  gut. But and we bought his at that
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  time failing business from him for not a lot of money, but it
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  was really cool because we I say structure to deal.
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  We basically just said yes to whatever he said because we
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  didn't know any better. And he offered seller financing
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  because he knew that we would never get a bank loan with this
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  was for idiotic college kids. Like he knew exactly what he's
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  getting into. And he was thinking probably
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  like, hey look, I get a down payment from these schmucks I
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  pocketed if they don't pay me. If they do pay me, then like I
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  can move on with my life because I'm in my mid 30s and operating
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  a bar in a college town may not be for me anymore.
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  So one thing led to another. We got the deal done, some crazy
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  stories behind how that all went down, some probably equally
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  crazy stories about what you think may have happened after
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  buying the bar. It's exactly what you think it
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  was. A lot of, you know, we talk
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  about cycles and real estate and financial cycles.
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  Well, my world at that time, the cycle was you get the girls into
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  the bar of age, not of age doesn't really matter.
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  That'll bring in the guys. The guys are especially at a big
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  Greek school, Greek system school like Alabama, they'll use
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  their parents money and it just flows.
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  You know, the OPM like I've heard you reference and
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  something that we use a little bit of, it's Zig.
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  And so that was my first, that was my first real education.
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  I went to a grade school. I had an amazing childhood
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  growing up, I should say, went to a great college, learned a
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  ton in the classroom. Maybe, maybe not.
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  I learned a lot in three or four months even of owning a bar then
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  I would have ever learned in any classroom.
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  And so from there, one of my responsibilities, we just took
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  turns doing different things. In one month, it was my turn to
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  walk the rent check to the landlord's office.
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  You're laughing because I've walked a check over to an office
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  that that did used to happen for people that are younger than the
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  business. Though it's funny that just
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  started to interrupt here, but it's one of my, one of our
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  clients at HP Capital, they do a lot of mobile home parks and
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  they find these value add assets and they'll be like, yeah, they
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  still, the tenants still like hand delivered checks.
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  Like for these storage facilities and mobile home
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  parks, they still hand delivered checks.
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  There's no tech and all that. So some people still do that.
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  Yeah, well, in 2010 it was certainly a thing.
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  And the landlord's office, he was down the street.
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  He was never there, though. In fact, I learned that because
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  I went on a Thursday afternoon at like 2:00, there was no one
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  there. And I'm like walking back with
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  what feels like $1,000,000 to me.
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  It turned out to be $3200 for a rent.
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  And I went back and asked my partners and some of our our
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  staff that was there, like, what's going on here?
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  And they're like, Zuck, do you not know the deal here?
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  And I was like, if I knew the deal, guys wouldn't be asking
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  about like, what's going on? And they said that that guy is
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  on the golf course all the time. Well, how does he do that?
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  Doesn't have to work. And they were saying he takes
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  the rent money from 400 properties that he owns in
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  Tuscaloosa and lives on that. And I said, time the fuck out.
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  We're busting our butts and getting in underage girls and
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  taking risk and kids. I should say there's plenty of
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  underage guys there too. Believe me, we didn't
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  discriminate. Broken beer bottles, you know,
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  all the risks associated with owning and operating a bar, all
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  to just pay this guy rent so we can play golf.
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  And they're like, yeah, I was like, I want to be the guy that
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  collects rent. So you asked, you know what
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  inspired me to get into it? How did you trip and fall into
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  it? Because you know, of course,
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  real estate as you well know, there's really generally 2
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  passive people get into it. The first one is through family.
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  They're educated and are taught to.
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  This is a great business. Get into it, whether it's just
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  been brokerage like an advisory business like you have or is a
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  developer or whatever it may be or the other compartmentalized
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  route is. I kind of tripped and fell into
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  it and I didn't know it was a thing, but it's pretty cool.
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  And that was my route and I haven't really looked back
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  since. One of my business partners
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  agreed to stay back and and run it.
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  I eventually got a job as a leasing agent with a large
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  shopping center owner. And you know, eventually couple
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  jobs, couple success stories later ended up starting Zig.
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  That's awesome. Yeah, that's cool.
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  It's funny because that's I kind of tripped and fell into it too.
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  I mean, I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad at 13.
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  So that gave me the bug of real estate pretty early.
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  But when I was 18 and I got my real estate license and held an
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  open House of residential brokerage, residential home and
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  then got $1,000,000 commercial listing.
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  And so I was like me tripping and falling into commercial
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  because I didn't know I could actually get into it, especially
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  at 18. I was like, I'm going to have to
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  make all this money and do residential and do investments
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  and in residential housing and all that and, and just happened
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  to get started with it and then realized I could do it.
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  Your show, but I'm going to ask a question.
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  How often do you get, because I'm sure people are reaching out
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  to you all the time for mentorship or just like, hey,
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  how do you get into do it or what you know, what did you do
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  to be successful at a young age? And the speaking that I do,
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  particularly on campuses or whatever, when that comes up,
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  people will ask me often would that have when they think they
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  they think they want to become a real estate investor.
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  It's not for everybody. Let's be abundantly clear about
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  that. But everybody seems to want to
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  do it. I often get asked like, do I
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  need to go into residential first to do it?
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  I'm curious, do you do you get that a lot?
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  Because the two as you know, I mean, there's like no 0
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  correlation. I would say basically, yeah.
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  So. Definitely a misconception out
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  there I find. It is and it's the path of least
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  resistance, right? Like I always pick the harder
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  thing, the thing that has a higher barrier to entry because
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  then there's less competition. And Alex from Mosey talks this,
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  talks about this too is like the harder something is, the more
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  excited I get because that means most people aren't going to
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  freaking even attempt to do it. And so residential is like the
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  easy thing that everybody can do and they drop out of high school
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  and they don't know what to do with their life.
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  They're like, let me get a residential license and let me
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  start selling houses and there's 100,000 agents in a city that
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  needs 5. But you know, that's just the
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  easy path. And most people don't think that
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  they can do commercial. And so I jumped right into
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  commercial. I have done residential, I've
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  done both. I have residential properties as
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  well. And I was always, I just want to
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  learn everything when it came to real estate investing And my
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  residential properties did really good and I've sold
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  residential houses as well. And at my real estate brokers,
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  we do residential as well as commercial.
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  But, you know, I know lots of people that jump straight into
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  commercial. Like that client I was just
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  talking about does mobile home parks.
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  He made $10 million from being a broke kid living on somebody's
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  couch in the great financial crisis and then made $10 million
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  from cold calling lists of data that he got online for mobile
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  Home Park owners and assigning the contracts to a mobile Home
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  Park, You know, a value add investor developer that had the
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  capital to buy it. And he's like, here's my
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  underwriting criteria. Find me deals and you'll make
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  money. He made $10 million.
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  He negotiated equity in the deals, plus wholesale fees like
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  assignment fees and commissions. So it makes this place
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  unbelievable, isn't it? Yeah.
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  This place in this industry, you put those two things together,
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  it's tough to really pout and be unhappy.
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  It's, I know. It's an amazing business.
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  You have all the opportunity and if you're born or if you live in
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  America, you don't have to be born here.
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  If you if you can get into America, you have every single
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  opportunity in the entire world to become as wealthy, as happy,
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  as free, like whatever you want to create, you can create it.
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  And so I absolutely, I get passionate about this because I
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  absolutely hate victim mentality for the.
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  Words out of my mouth, yes. It's like it doesn't matter what
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  where you came from, what country you came from, what
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  language you speak. I know so many people that
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  migrated here at, you know, 17 years old, didn't speak the
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  language, had a dollar to their name and they went off to become
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  massive CE OS and successful entrepreneurs.
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  Or is it any, any different races, like different
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  backgrounds, didn't know the language.
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  There's literally no excuse. And then when I mean, real
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  estate has just been such a blessing.
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  And then all the tax codes and tax strategies that you get
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  through real estate and the appreciation and it's just, you
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  know, real estate, whether you're a real estate operator
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  like you are, or you're a real estate investor, which would be
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  more like what I am, right? I'm a business owner, but I'm
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  not, I'm not a real estate operator.
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  I invest in real estate. Both of them are so incredible
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  and they're both great paths to success.
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  And you don't need to be in the business of real estate to
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  realize all of the amazing benefits of investing in real
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  estate. Because that's how I became a
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  millionaire so quickly was because I just invested in real
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  estate and the government kept printing money, bread prices
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  kept going up, asset values kept going up, renovated the
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  properties, you know, in my spare time when I was working as
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  an engineer. And then all of a sudden, voila,
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  you're a millionaire. And it didn't take a lot of
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  effort to get there. I mean, yes, it takes effort,
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  but it wasn't like I was some genius.
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  Well, and your peers don't do enough of what you're doing.
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  When I say your peers, I really mean high income earning full
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  time real estate practitioners. So whether you're the SVP of
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  leasing at a REIT all the way or if certainly in particularly a
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  1099 contractors or broker either working for or owning
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  your own firm. I empathize with my friends in
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  the business because they're like being fiduciarily smart for
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  themselves and saying I got to save for taxes and and do that.
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  And I'm, I get that, but but I don't, but I struggle to
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  understand, especially if you're really good and making real
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  money is why pay that check to Uncle Sam?
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  I mean, you know, and, and again, I obviously have a high
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  risk tolerance. Like you've talked to me for a
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  couple minutes and you've probably picked up on that,
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  especially knowing what I do. But to me, if you're going to
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  pay that check to the government, it's gone.
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  It's not coming back. The money's lost, period, end of
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  discussion. I don't know one person who's
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  called the government back and said, hey, I paid taxes seven
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  years ago. What's the return been like on
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  that since you got it? May I please have that return
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  back? Whereas if you invest and even
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  as an LP, if you don't have the bandwidth, which it sounds like
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  it's a little bit more of what you're doing.
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  And I recommend that. A lot of my friends and
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  brokerage did it. That's how I got started as an
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  investor. I invested as an LPA couple of
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  times. Big fan of that by the way, even
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  if you want to become AGP just to get that education.
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  But. And for for those who don't
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  know. Sorry, yes, a limited partner is
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  someone whose risk is totally in on just the check that they
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  write. They typically are not more than
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  typically almost virtually all the time or not signing on
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  personal guarantees. They aren't putting the deals
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  together. It's your, the hats being passed
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  to you, metaphorically speaking. Whereas the GP, the general
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  partner otherwise known as the sponsor, is the one who's
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  putting together the deal, is responsible for when an LP
• 13:21
  leaves them at the dance. They got to fund the money when
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  the bank calls when there's a personal guarantee due because
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  shit hits the fan. They're the worst ones
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  responsible for it. So when I alluded to my risk
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  tolerance before, here I am, the schmuck saying, Yep, I'm the GP
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  now. We also as GPS have the
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  opportunity to make more money than our LP compadres,
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  especially if deals are structured properly.
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  Yeah, if all goes well, you know, knock on wood.
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  This place is so nice. I'll knock on glass.
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  We've been fortunate to not have any major fuck ups yet at Zig,
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  but I'll tell you the same thing I tell every perspective
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  investor, every bank, every operating partner we work with,
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  every otherwise known as tenants.
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  We're one bad deal away from going out of business.
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  And that's. So we were super aggressive and
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  I'm considered aggressive by almost everybody I know.
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  Like I want to grow my business, I want to scale, I want to do
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  whatever it takes. But it when I isolate each deal,
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  it's about scrutinizing it to a point and looking basically
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  being a detective and trying to figure out a reason why not to
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  do it. And if a deal comes across as
• 14:24
  perfect, don't do it because that doesn't exist either.
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  It's about assessing what could potentially go wrong with the
• 14:30
  deal, right? And being OK and assuming that
• 14:35
  that risk is acceptable in comparison to the upside
• 14:37
  associated with it. Right?
• 14:39
  I know, riveting stuff I'm offering.
• 14:40
  Obviously no, I I love that it is so good because I'm in Scott
• 14:44
  Shields mastermind commercial Academy and their quote is 1
• 14:48
  deal one time can change your life forever.
• 14:51
  And we were all joking because a lot of people are in tough spots
• 14:53
  right now, right? They got overpaid for assets,
• 14:55
  low interest rates. Mind you, that's 2026 right now
• 14:58
  as we record this a lot of rent loans or five year maturity
• 15:01
  loans from 20. I mean, what am I telling you
• 15:02
  for you know this, but speaking why you should be in touch with
• 15:05
  Hannah and her team at HP Capital who were obviously
• 15:08
  advocates for we we work closely with them.
• 15:10
  We're doing several transactions right now, which is probably how
• 15:12
  I was able to calm my way on this podcast maybe, but the one
• 15:16
  of. The perks of being a client.
• 15:18
  Yeah, for sure. But you know the 20 and 21 loans
• 15:21
  when the money was free, those loans are coming due.
• 15:24
  And so if you were over stretching and over paying for
• 15:27
  properties and you haven't sold them yet, you have to refine.
• 15:31
  Can your refine meet, you know, the debt service coverage ratio
• 15:34
  that a lender is going to require moving forward?
• 15:37
  Some will, a lot will, but not all of them.
• 15:39
  And that's where there's opportunity.
• 15:41
  Right. And that's also where one deal,
• 15:44
  one time can change your life forever in the negative too,
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  right? Just like you said.
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  Oh, I thought that's what you meant when you said it the
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  first. Time no no like that's they're
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  they're positive like one deal one time to chase your life
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  forever because when he first got in real estate, he did his
• 15:56
  first deal on seller financing put no money down.
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  I think he made $2,000,000 on that deal and that kick started
• 16:00
  changed his whole life. But on the flip side, you can
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  also do one deal one time and lose everything totally.
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  And you could be upside down. You know, that's the thing
• 16:08
  about, you know, in the residential side with some of
• 16:10
  like the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac products with like 2-3 percent
• 16:14
  down or even the high highly leveraged commercial real estate
• 16:17
  operators like you go in with no equity.
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  That's exciting. And the return can become
• 16:23
  Infinity. That's cool.
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  But if the property depreciates for any way shape or form
• 16:29
  anytime after closing you, you now are literally it's become a
• 16:33
  full blown liability not only with the debt that you own it,
• 16:35
  but like you now in order to make yourself your asset hole,
• 16:38
  you have to write it Jack in order to be able to do that.
• 16:40
  Yeah. And if you don't have enough
• 16:41
  cash, it burns fast. And yet, and yet, here we are.
• 16:45
  At the same time, people like you and I are trying to get rid
• 16:47
  of our cash as fast as possible. So it's weird dichotomy that
• 16:50
  we've signed ourselves up for, which makes us screwed up in the
• 16:52
  head entrepreneurs coming back to the beginning of the show.
• 16:55
  Yeah. No, it's crazy.
• 16:56
  And that's where I did a short form video on that is it is such
• 17:00
  a skill to be able to understand and balance cash versus invested
• 17:07
  assets because we want our money making babies all the time.
• 17:11
  We want our money going to work because if it's sitting in the
• 17:13
  bank account, it's losing value. But the same time if we over
• 17:17
  leverage and we have all of our money in assets and all assets
• 17:20
  drop in price and we have no cash, we also lose everything,
• 17:23
  right? And so it's always that balance
• 17:25
  of like how much cash are we sitting on or in at least money
• 17:28
  markets or interest bearing accounts.
• 17:30
  But we can actually have money to take advantage of the
• 17:33
  opportunities in times of distress and not have everything
• 17:36
  tied up in assets. So I was trying to be cautious
• 17:37
  about that message, right? Is like, have your money work
• 17:40
  for you. Don't keep your money in the
• 17:41
  bank because I say that all the time.
• 17:42
  But there's a flip side, right? There's definitely a flip side.
• 17:45
  And like you, cash is also king to be able to take advantage of
• 17:48
  assets and buying assets. You don't just want your cash
• 17:50
  never working for you for as long as you live, but it's
• 17:53
  working for you in a position to be able to pounce on
• 17:56
  opportunities when that time arises.
• 17:58
  And then you have to be able to dictate when are the approximate
• 18:02
  timelines based on indicators that I think it makes more sense
• 18:05
  to go more heavily in cash to be able to take advantage and
• 18:07
  protect myself in times when tenants don't pay, there's
• 18:11
  bankruptcies, you know, now, now you have a vacant building or
• 18:13
  your construction goes way over budget or your interest rate
• 18:15
  double s. Overnight or there's pandemic?
• 18:17
  Exactly. You name it, the plans, Demic,
• 18:19
  Yeah, which I'm sure we'll see more of those in the future.
• 18:23
  So I think that's good. And that's the thing with real
• 18:25
  estate transactions. You can't get out of them, you
• 18:29
  know. They're not.
• 18:30
  It's. Yeah, it's.
• 18:31
  I'm so glad you brought this up, hot button.
• 18:33
  I get asked this for people who are interested in becoming LP.
• 18:35
  So like, all right, Aaron, I subscribe to your idea.
• 18:38
  You are saying to be an LPA couple of times.
• 18:42
  First, I did it three times before becoming AGP.
• 18:44
  I invested in other people's deals 3 times.
• 18:46
  That was perfect for me. It was awesome.
• 18:48
  I got to, I was paying for an education, right?
• 18:50
  Because I wrote a check. Now, in theory, like you want to
• 18:53
  talk about, oh, an education is a good investment.
• 18:55
  It'll pay off. Like there's nothing qualitative
• 18:57
  about this X was going to turn into Y that 25,000 bucks or that
• 19:01
  50,000 bucks that I was investing in my friend's deals
• 19:03
  was going to turn into Y. And because I was writing that
• 19:06
  check, I kind of, you know, used a little good old fashioned
• 19:08
  guilt and I was like, hey, man, like, how are you looking at
• 19:10
  this? Why are you doing this?
• 19:12
  Like obviously I'm about in enough to say yes, but like,
• 19:14
  teach me how you're doing it. And that was that was huge too.
• 19:17
  So I was getting, even though I had to write a check, I was
• 19:19
  getting paid to become educated on how to become AGP, which was
• 19:22
  which is really interesting. And so I rant on that coming
• 19:26
  back to the point of the concept of like, all right, I'm cool to
• 19:29
  be an LP. The biggest thing that I tell
• 19:31
  people that are considering becoming an LP first time,
• 19:33
  whether if it's in a Zig deal or not, whether if it's, you know,
• 19:36
  in Zig or Haig and investment group, Hammond investment group,
• 19:40
  whatever it may be called, is you need to understand the yes,
• 19:45
  it's, it's an opportunity to make money.
• 19:47
  Yes, it's better than giving it to the government.
• 19:49
  And we've been emphatic in our communication together today
• 19:51
  about the benefits of those things.
• 19:54
  But the last thing I tell them is don't call me.
• 19:57
  Tell them you need the money tomorrow.
• 19:58
  Real estate is a liquid. Real estate is a liquid.
• 20:00
  Real estate is a liquid. If you think you might need it,
• 20:02
  don't do the deal. Or if you think you might need
• 20:05
  some of it, instead of investing 100,000 bucks into it, put 50
• 20:08
  grand or instead of 50, put 25 grand instead of 1,000,000.
• 20:11
  But you know, whatever however that applies to you.
• 20:13
  Yeah, no, it's important. That's what I mean.
• 20:15
  I like that real estate is in liquid because I'm a, you know,
• 20:19
  impulsive ADD visionary type person that likes opportunities
• 20:22
  and stocks are just too easy for me to trade and and make bad
• 20:25
  decisions. So.
• 20:27
  Is that your drug? Are we staying away from them
• 20:29
  completely? That would happen.
• 20:30
  I have some stocks. No, I've gotten better at just
• 20:34
  my thing with stocks or crypto now is I just have automatic
• 20:37
  investments. Dollar cost averaging.
• 20:39
  And I just don't really look at it.
• 20:40
  I do long term plays. I'm not trying to play the
• 20:42
  market or trade the market, but I still sometimes get those
• 20:45
  impulses of like, oh, what's going on in the news or should I
• 20:47
  do over here or should I whatever.
• 20:48
  Yeah, you hear something at a cocktail party, or did you hear
• 20:51
  that NVIDIA is going to go up 4000%?
• 20:53
  Like like whatever it may be and you want to jump at that edge,
• 20:55
  but I commend you for staying disciplined to dollar cost
• 20:58
  averaging. I commend you for knowing what
• 21:00
  you're good at and staying in your lane, but also diversifying
• 21:03
  in a healthy way. That's awesome.
• 21:04
  Yeah, I literally bought $100,000 worth of stocks after
• 21:07
  watching a podcast on the diary of a CEO with, I mean, she's
• 21:11
  she's a Kathy Wood. She's the CEO of Arc Investing
• 21:15
  and she runs like multi billion dollars of funds, but she's
• 21:18
  like, these are my stock tips that I just went on.
• 21:20
  So during the podcast, This is why I like real estate instead,
• 21:23
  because I can't just impulsively do those decisions.
• 21:26
  And fortunately all those stocks are, I've actually made great
• 21:29
  returns. So she's a a trusted person.
• 21:30
  But anyway, real estate forces you to be patient and the
• 21:36
  appreciation and that patience over time, whether it's stocks
• 21:39
  or real estate or anything, is what compounds and builds.
• 21:42
  And so when you buy a real estate investment, you know, of
• 21:45
  of three hundred $400.00 a month cash flow check from a rental
• 21:49
  property doesn't seem exciting. And you're one, you're like, why
• 21:52
  would I take the risk? And doesn't seem like a lot,
• 21:55
  right? But then ten years later, now
• 21:57
  that's $4000 a month and that asset is quadrupled in value,
• 22:00
  which is what happened with my first investment property.
• 22:03
  You're like, oh, wow. And I didn't even do anything
• 22:05
  for that 10 years. It was managed by a manager
• 22:08
  that, you know, the asset was just there.
• 22:10
  I've renovated it when I first got it hired in contract
• 22:12
  structure to do that and that was it.
• 22:14
  And so that is what's so nice is that it is an illiquid.
• 22:17
  You aren't impulsive with your decision making and you really
• 22:20
  have to give it like serious thought because it takes effort
• 22:23
  to transact and to sell a property seems to be like, is
• 22:25
  this really the best investment decision for my plan?
• 22:28
  Like what I want to create? And that's what I've just found
• 22:30
  is if you just hold through the cycles, it's easier.
• 22:33
  But when you're an operator, you know you, you're not just
• 22:35
  holding right? You're transacting.
• 22:38
  We try to sell. This is going to be that.
• 22:40
  This one's big. Really.
• 22:42
  This was riveting information. We try to sell the property when
• 22:44
  it's worth the most. Yeah.
• 22:46
  Yeah, right. Buy low, sell high.
• 22:47
  Yeah, exactly. I know, I know.
• 22:49
  That's really new information that your listeners haven't
• 22:52
  heard. But no, in all seriousness, we
• 22:54
  are guilty of selling quite a bit.
• 22:56
  I mean, the reality, yes, we're operators, but in a lot of ways,
• 23:00
  we're an acquisition shop and the acquisition shop essentially
• 23:06
  runs on. It's no different than a
• 23:08
  merchant who's selling goods. Like in order to sell more
• 23:11
  goods, you have to buy more of those goods.
• 23:13
  So yeah, let's say you have a, you know, a high end dress shoe
• 23:18
  store where you sell Louboutins or whatever.
• 23:19
  Like in order for that to that was intentional.
• 23:22
  I was like, could you see my red bottom?
• 23:24
  I can see the red bottom where you where you sell those things
• 23:27
  like in order do you have to have the inventory out there to
• 23:30
  get it? And if you're like wait a
• 23:31
  second, if I sell 7 pairs, I can get to a point where I can get
• 23:34
  better buying scale or whatever that may be.
• 23:36
  So we use it and we have strategic relationships with the
• 23:40
  same operators that we're doing, not for all of our deals.
• 23:44
  We still buy like a lot of real estate intrinsic stuff.
• 23:47
  Wait, so back OK, what is your business plan for everyone so.
• 23:50
  Yeah. So when I started the business,
• 23:52
  I was a former leasing agent who had some success.
• 23:57
  So like I worked, as I mentioned before, I worked for a couple of
• 24:00
  large companies as a leasing guy in house for the landlord.
• 24:03
  Thinking to come back to fully answer the question you asked
• 24:06
  the beginning of the show, knowing that I wanted to own
• 24:09
  properties one day myself. And that's why I've been, I was
• 24:13
  told like, hey, look, you can have the best debt in the world,
• 24:16
  the best attorney, the best construction, whatever it is,
• 24:19
  none of it means if you can't lease it.
• 24:22
  So that's how that's why I went into leasing and being able to
• 24:24
  identify why site is good based on your end customer, which in
• 24:28
  that particular, which in our business is the tenant, the
• 24:31
  tenant can't make it and pay rent.
• 24:32
  Like who cares? Like literally that's at the
• 24:35
  deals using a get his term for cocked anyway, which means it's
• 24:38
  screwed up. And so that's how that was the
• 24:41
  impetus behind me going that path.
• 24:43
  Plus, like I just like hustling and talking to people and doing
• 24:46
  all the things that would make, you know, a good broker in any
• 24:48
  way, shape or form, or in my case, an in house leasing agent.
• 24:51
  What that eventually led to was an education and eventually a
• 24:56
  role with a large, with a not, not a large, but a decent sized
• 25:00
  family office down in South Florida that afforded me an
• 25:04
  opportunity to run their leasing platform at 27.
• 25:06
  I'm forever grateful to that family, the Wiener family.
• 25:08
  They're amazing people. In addition to the to the money
• 25:11
  that I was making, which was better than what I was making
• 25:13
  before, substantially better. I'll be it.
• 25:16
  I got the opportunity to be in the room when they were
• 25:18
  deciding, do we sell or do we refi?
• 25:21
  Do we hire this GC or that one? How do we structure this lease?
• 25:25
  Should we give the tenant, you know, a little bit of a break on
• 25:29
  rent in order to get a more favorable lease structure or
• 25:30
  whatever it made for the landlord, like whatever that may
• 25:32
  be. And so that education propelled
• 25:36
  me into wanting to replicate what they were doing.
• 25:38
  The only difference is they were doing $30 million deals and I
• 25:41
  wanted to do $3,000,000 deals 1, because I believed in the space
• 25:44
  too. I was looking to dial back risk
• 25:46
  a little bit and three didn't have the money.
• 25:49
  So that that was some of it was wanting, some of it was need to
• 25:53
  to enter that space. And so the business plan started
• 25:56
  with by well located unanchored retail properties and secondary
• 26:01
  and tertiary markets across the eastern half of the country. 1-2
• 26:04
  skip a few, it's going pretty well and there were some tweaks
• 26:08
  and modifications made and we still do that.
• 26:11
  For example, we're buying a ABC liquor store in Richmond, VA
• 26:16
  that some company called HP Capitals financing for us right
• 26:19
  now and actually that that should close in the next few
• 26:24
  days as of this recording. Saw that in our deal pipeline.
• 26:26
  Yeah, we're excited about it. Thank you to you and the team.
• 26:29
  And we're, we're, we're pumped about the deal.
• 26:30
  But, and so we still do that like prime example, like that'll
• 26:33
  be our 70th acquisition in, in, in our history.
• 26:36
  But what we did is we said, how do we get to a point to where we
• 26:42
  can buy, we can make the business more scalable, which
• 26:45
  had a lot to do with adopting EOS, which I know you're a fan
• 26:48
  of. We're, we've had some major
• 26:50
  transformations and all the businesses I'm involved in with
• 26:52
  the OS and. What's the OS for the audience?
• 26:56
  Yeah, the entrepreneurial operating system it's based on,
• 27:00
  it's it's an operating system for businesses that is based
• 27:03
  from a book called Traction written by a guy named Gino
• 27:05
  Wickman. If anybody's considering
• 27:07
  starting a business or feels like they've, as they call it,
• 27:10
  reach the ceiling or hit the ceiling in their business and
• 27:12
  feels like it's got an opportunity to take it to the
• 27:15
  next level or they feel like they're especially the owner or
• 27:20
  the visionaries. Typically the visionary is so
• 27:24
  we're saying, I'm getting in the weeds and doing a million
• 27:26
  different things. I'm working really hard, but I
• 27:28
  don't think I'm getting anything done actually like that actually
• 27:30
  moving the needle. I highly recommend it.
• 27:33
  And it's, it's been transformational for my
• 27:36
  businesses and thus my life, which is that's pretty cool.
• 27:39
  And so and part of our evolution with that, and I don't know if I
• 27:43
  don't know which question came first.
• 27:45
  It's how do we scale the business?
• 27:46
  Or it's like, what should we do? I don't, I don't know.
• 27:50
  It all probably came from like my think time.
• 27:51
  So I have an hour each week where I think no, no phones
• 27:55
  allowed, no electronics, just a pen and paper.
• 27:57
  Sometimes I sit on the couch like I'm in an like a old school
• 28:00
  shrinks office and sometimes I'm on a walk, whatever that may be.
• 28:03
  But some of them, the most transformational ideas I've had
• 28:06
  have come from that. So anybody who doesn't do that,
• 28:08
  I would consider doing that. It's so important, Yeah, that
• 28:11
  white space. And I was reading a book, I
• 28:13
  can't remember because I read it years ago, but he was talking
• 28:15
  about the importance of white space and thinking.
• 28:18
  And this goes all the way back to like scripture and the
• 28:20
  importance of silence and being still and all that.
• 28:22
  And then into business and entrepreneurship and leadership
• 28:25
  is he would plan something where he would do every quarter, I
• 28:30
  think you would leave for like 1 to 3 days and go in nature or,
• 28:35
  you know, go get a hotel room, get away from the office, get
• 28:37
  away from the team, go walk on the beach, go walk in the
• 28:39
  mountains. And that's where all his
• 28:41
  creative ideas come in. And so I, I do the same thing.
• 28:43
  I have dedicated white space a little bit every day and then
• 28:47
  longer periods, you know, quarterly or weekly to, to
• 28:51
  really think it. Because if you're just in the
• 28:52
  weeds of the business all the time, yeah, you don't get to.
• 28:54
  Work on your business. You can't see the forest or the
• 28:56
  trees. Correct.
• 28:57
  Exactly. And so I going going back to
• 29:00
  that like I don't remember if I said to myself, we need to be
• 29:04
  buying real estate in a more scalable way by having the
• 29:07
  tenant ready to go or if AOS inspired us, I think it was the
• 29:11
  former as opposed to the ladder. But the point is, is we we added
• 29:14
  in the second vertical where it's not just about the site,
• 29:17
  but how do we acquire the site. Because when you buy a great
• 29:20
  piece of real estate, it's not scalable.
• 29:22
  If you think about it, you buy the corner of of on Scottsdale
• 29:26
  Rd. or whatever it may be and you'd love it.
• 29:29
  There's nothing scalable about it.
• 29:30
  You have to go pick up the phone and make the next deal or see
• 29:33
  the next OM or whatever it is for however, resource deals.
• 29:36
  But if you're scaling somebody else's business and being a
• 29:39
  capital and site selection partner, which is what we do at
• 29:41
  Zig for them, if they want to open more units, conceptually
• 29:45
  speaking, they that's how you know that you're going to buy
• 29:48
  more than one property, which is great.
• 29:51
  And so we we didn't flip the business upside down, we just
• 29:55
  added a whole nother vertical to it.
• 29:58
  And that's been pretty transformational too.
• 30:00
  And so it's allowed us to be really intentional where we look
• 30:03
  for deals, how we look for them. We're product type specific.
• 30:06
  We're really focused in the rec, QSR space, the automotive space,
• 30:09
  healthcare, really any sector that is fragmented.
• 30:13
  The operators take freestanding units and ideally really strong
• 30:19
  preference. I would say almost required,
• 30:20
  probably required. It's recession proof and
• 30:24
  e-commerce. Proof, yeah.
• 30:25
  So are you targeting your tenants that are in that are
• 30:29
  growing so you're not going after big tenants like
• 30:31
  Chipotle's or Starbucks or things like that, you're finding
• 30:33
  newer brands that are wanting to scale May?
• 30:37
  Not be a newer brand. Franchising is is a huge part of
• 30:41
  what we do. And there's nothing new about
• 30:44
  Midas. There's nothing new about Taco
• 30:46
  Bell now the the operators. That's why fragmentation is a
• 30:50
  beautiful thing. We don't do drug stores.
• 30:52
  I mean, drug store chains can you think of too?
• 30:56
  So they and like, they don't need help and they have their
• 31:00
  own problems right now. That's maybe dollar store is
• 31:02
  another example. We don't really do dollar store
• 31:04
  work because there's only two groups that do it.
• 31:06
  They went from 3:00 to 2:00 and that was transformational.
• 31:09
  And so because in a space where there's fragmentation, there's
• 31:13
  sellers, there's buyers, there's people who are growing and
• 31:15
  getting bigger, there's some that are selling, there's
• 31:17
  they're small business owners that are selling for reasons
• 31:21
  that have nothing to do with the macroeconomic solutions being
• 31:24
  bad. They just don't have somebody
• 31:25
  else to come in and run their business.
• 31:27
  And so our seven unit operator can come in and acquire the two
• 31:30
  unit group and get to 9. And So what we do is provide the
• 31:33
  capital and and source those deals for them to be able to do
• 31:37
  it. And so that allows us from the
• 31:39
  operator says, I want to get from 9 stores to 22 great.
• 31:41
  That's 13 more properties for us to buy.
• 31:44
  So whereas if you just buy the corner on the, the good, the
• 31:46
  good corner, which again still do it, still love it can make a
• 31:49
  great living doing that. It's just not as scalable.
• 31:52
  So we do both now. Yeah, and you're buying
• 31:54
  pre-existing buildings? Preferably we do do ground up,
• 31:58
  we do it. It's not my preference, but some
• 32:00
  of the brands that we work with, they have such unique prototypes
• 32:04
  that you can't, can't replicate it.
• 32:07
  So doing an existing building is almost more difficult, but we
• 32:10
  do, it's gotten us into a lot of M&A as a result.
• 32:13
  So you know, you might maybe Jim Bob has three automotive shops.
• 32:18
  If we're working with a Midas franchisee, the Midas franchisee
• 32:21
  loves them and a deal that includes the real estate.
• 32:24
  Why? Because there's an existing
• 32:25
  customer base, they can get open immediately.
• 32:28
  Changing signs in a couple of POS systems is a lot easier than
• 32:32
  going for development approval and finding the right contractor
• 32:36
  and taking 18 months to build. These guys want to get to market
• 32:39
  and they want to do it quickly. And this is a more of a known
• 32:43
  commodity. Oh, and by the way, we can build
• 32:44
  it for less and they can charge, we can charge them lower rents
• 32:46
  like we all went. And the lower rent deals are the
• 32:49
  ones that were able to sell in the market faster.
• 32:51
  Like for all those reasons and probably meaning more that I
• 32:54
  haven't even had the opportunity to talk about or can even think
• 32:56
  of right now, we are really pushing for second Gen.
• 33:01
  Will we do ground up development?
• 33:02
  Yes. Have we done it?
• 33:03
  Yes. Do I enjoy it?
• 33:06
  Not my favorite thing. Right.
• 33:07
  Yeah, Talk about can't get out of a deal and be patient, real
• 33:10
  patient with that. And there's just, you know, of
• 33:12
  course, more risk, more reward, ground up development.
• 33:14
  You have more opportunity for upside, but you also have more
• 33:16
  opportunity for one deal. Yeah, Yeah.
• 33:20
  One time you change your life forever in the bad way.
• 33:21
  No, we're we're, we're all, we're all good and we're getting
• 33:24
  comparable spreads as I whisper that.
• 33:26
  But yeah, yeah, well, that's good.
• 33:27
  Whoever listens to this but. Yeah, right.
• 33:30
  You just have to hit the market, right.
• 33:31
  In development, you got to be on the right.
• 33:33
  That's the other thing too. It's a risk mitigation factor to
• 33:35
  go. Like I told you, there's more
• 33:36
  reasons the risk mitigation thing too.
• 33:39
  Like I know what the what the market cap rates look like a lot
• 33:43
  better in three months than I do in 18.
• 33:45
  Right. Or you know some developments
• 33:47
  for 345. And the our acquisitions team
• 33:49
  would crack up if they're in here.
• 33:50
  But like because they, they hear me say this all the time, like
• 33:53
  I'm not in the business of predicting what cap rates are
• 33:55
  going to be like in three years. That's not the business of it.
• 33:58
  Like I don't have a fucking crystal ball, like, right.
• 34:01
  Like we have ideas and we have thoughts and we have predictions
• 34:04
  to make, but like I am much better at making decisions with
• 34:07
  more information, as I'm sure you and everybody else is.
• 34:10
  That's at least somewhat normal. I don't know.
• 34:12
  Yeah, that's why I like, I like quicker timeline deals too,
• 34:15
  quick lifts, because there's just more that you can predict.
• 34:17
  And it's so, I mean, we don't even know if, you know, AI will
• 34:21
  take us out in the next 10 years.
• 34:22
  Yeah. Who?
• 34:23
  Knows that's yeah, that's a whole different world, which I
• 34:24
  know you're more into than I am, but.
• 34:26
  Yeah, yeah. So, OK.
• 34:28
  So you're, you're identifying your tenants that are growing
• 34:30
  franchise brands, opening new locations and then you know
• 34:34
  exactly what their target location is.
• 34:36
  We have it defined, we have it defined to a science and we tell
• 34:39
  the operating partners that we work with when we sign them on
• 34:43
  the more specifics that we have, the more successful that we're
• 34:46
  going to be together. The operator who says I want to
• 34:48
  grow all over the country, like that's a red flag.
• 34:51
  The one that says I'm interested in growing in Texas and
• 34:54
  particularly in DFW in the northern suburbs with close
• 34:58
  proximity to 635 with less than two competitors and a 30,000
• 35:04
  population ring that's tied to a five mile radius like.
• 35:08
  Perfect. It's no different.
• 35:09
  I mean, it's no different than when you're interacting with a
• 35:11
  client like. So what do you want?
• 35:14
  Well, I want and you know, I'm, I'm making fun of myself here.
• 35:18
  I want the highest leverage, non recourse and no prepayment
• 35:22
  penalty. But also like, but like also
• 35:24
  CMBS terms or Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, I can.
• 35:27
  I can be difficult. And I want a pony.
• 35:29
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, a pony and a Unicorn
• 35:32
  for that. So no, but like the but I'm sure
• 35:34
  the clients that you guys have the best working relationships
• 35:37
  with, obviously Zig is your favorite one, but if you to pick
• 35:39
  a second favorite one, it's the ones who say, Hey, Hannah or the
• 35:44
  teammate on on at HP capital who's doing that work for the
• 35:47
  client. Like this is probably a C MB S
• 35:50
  deal, or this is probably a bank deal, or this is probably a
• 35:52
  private debt fund deal or this is, you know, whatever, because
• 35:56
  we want these factors. Do do you see it that way?
• 35:58
  You can be like, yes, and then I know you guys are consistently
• 36:01
  adding value saying, but we can also consider this, but this is
• 36:03
  allows us to go around run these two paths.
• 36:06
  We have these 7 lenders we're going to go talk to or 70
• 36:08
  lenders, whatever it is, let's go.
• 36:09
  Yep, exactly. Yeah.
• 36:11
  And that's why I always ask a question, what is your goal with
• 36:13
  this loan? Because we have 10,000 different
• 36:15
  products and lenders, 10,000 lenders with all different
• 36:17
  products, right. So is it highest leverage?
• 36:20
  Is it no guarantee? Is it quick money funding Quick?
• 36:22
  Is it permanent? You know, lowest rate like what
• 36:26
  what is important to you? Because everybody's different.
• 36:28
  Some people like, oh, sign me up on guarantees all day long.
• 36:30
  I want the lowest rate best terms all this and then other
• 36:32
  people are like, no, you couldn't get me decided
• 36:34
  guarantee. So if they don't have clarity on
• 36:35
  what they want, then we can't best fit to them.
• 36:38
  And then, yeah. So it's important.
• 36:42
  And some of that comes with experience, too, yeah.
• 36:44
  Yeah, content idea for you, but you should go through one day
• 36:47
  like the different the, the, because it's all levers.
• 36:50
  If you think about it like I want no guarantees really just
• 36:52
  means I'm willing to put more equity in.
• 36:54
  Like that's really what it means.
• 36:55
  Or let me rephrase, it means I should be willing to put more
• 36:58
  equity in and like IO only and high leverage may mean like, OK,
• 37:04
  you want to sell the property as fast as possible.
• 37:06
  So then you probably the trade off there is you're probably
• 37:08
  going to need to guarantee a loan like that because so me, I
• 37:12
  mean, maybe like build a little chart.
• 37:13
  I mean, you got the unbelievable follow on social media
• 37:16
  obviously, but maybe that's a little idea for you to.
• 37:18
  Take. I like that.
• 37:18
  Yeah, that's good. I just want the credit where
• 37:20
  credit's due. I want you to be like this
• 37:22
  brilliant idea was brought to you by my friend Aaron Zucker.
• 37:25
  And Zig, that's. All I will.
• 37:27
  I'll make sure to give you credit.
• 37:28
  There you go. But OK, cool.
• 37:31
  So you have a great strategy. And then when you're identifying
• 37:35
  your your tenants, you're finding them properties that
• 37:38
  match their criteria and then you're signing, having them sign
• 37:41
  a lease before you close on it. So the lease is already secured.
• 37:44
  So the banks like that, they're like, OK, cool, we have a
• 37:46
  tenant, we have a building and then you're selling the building
• 37:49
  right away. Typically, yeah.
• 37:52
  I mean, there's certain situations where we would hold.
• 37:54
  There's somewhere we see an opportunity to maybe refi, I
• 37:56
  mean, take more of the Hannah Hammond strategy, if you will,
• 37:59
  the way you may look at the world on long term holds.
• 38:01
  But in general, we're selling. Why?
• 38:04
  Because we told the operator we're going to take it from 9 to
• 38:06
  20, right? And when we told them that, we
• 38:10
  figured the best way to do that is recycle capital and it allows
• 38:13
  us to to set a comp. So that way when we're working
• 38:16
  with that operator, we know where we need to be in rent.
• 38:19
  We don't want to compromise their business.
• 38:20
  We that's why we call them operating partners.
• 38:22
  Like we don't want them to pay more in rent than they need to,
• 38:25
  but at the same time, like we can't do this for free, right?
• 38:27
  Yeah, that that's problematic too.
• 38:29
  And so we form like pretty meaningful partnerships that
• 38:32
  there's a lot of in the weed stuff that goes on behind the
• 38:35
  scenes and we're pretty well tied to hip each other's hips
• 38:38
  together from that standpoint. So it's systematic to be able to
• 38:42
  set the business up for most success.
• 38:43
  Well, rather than guessing what our operating partners credits
• 38:47
  worth selling, it does that, yeah.
• 38:50
  And it allows us to then say, OK, this is how stores 2 and
• 38:53
  through seven that we do together are going to.
• 38:54
  Work and then they're getting a piece of the upside or no?
• 38:58
  It depends on the situation we got.
• 38:59
  I mean, look, entrepreneur, entrepreneur, right?
• 39:01
  Like so there's some that are like, I want to own my real
• 39:04
  estate forever and this is my retirement plan.
• 39:06
  And So what we'll do is we'll consult and work with them.
• 39:08
  Like what are you looking to accomplish?
• 39:09
  And if you're interested in owning real estate, not only can
• 39:13
  we work it out to where you and the real estate with us, but we
• 39:15
  can provide other alternative investment strategies and other
• 39:18
  real estate deals with the other deals that we're doing.
• 39:20
  So that way your entire life's work and net worth isn't in the
• 39:25
  same thing, right? Like yes, real estate is
• 39:27
  different than the OPCO, but like if your OPCO goes to, then
• 39:31
  your real estate goes to like that's not a good
• 39:33
  diversification play. And the groups that we work with
• 39:35
  have at least 5 units, right? So like, and some of them have
• 39:38
  up to 75 units. So at some point when you're
• 39:41
  making meaningful cash flow from your operating business, you got
• 39:45
  to get your eggs in different places too, because it's not
• 39:47
  like the business can't afford to pay you to live your
• 39:49
  lifestyle. Like you've like you've done the
• 39:50
  hardest thing that an entrepreneur can do.
• 39:52
  You can build a business that is sustainable and livable and you
• 39:56
  didn't go out of business like so.
• 39:58
  So, yeah, I mean we have a lot, we have a lot of Wheeling and
• 40:01
  dealing that we've done because we want to make sure that the
• 40:04
  program that we have with the operating partner.
• 40:07
  Is by and large set up for success to where we can win
• 40:11
  together. That's why we don't call them
• 40:12
  our tenants. Like they're literally our
• 40:14
  partners. Right.
• 40:15
  Yeah. And then they could even invest
• 40:17
  in the deal like. They sure can they.
• 40:19
  Sure can. So talk about real quick what
• 40:20
  your capital stock looks like in these deals.
• 40:23
  So if someone wants to go out and do a similar model to what
• 40:25
  you're doing, like in the audience, they want to get into
• 40:27
  real estate, they want to start with like a small, you know,
• 40:30
  franchise. What equity are they bringing to
• 40:32
  the table? What does your loan look like
• 40:34
  that that we're placing for? You, I think it, I think where
• 40:36
  our business is pretty. So I don't want to like muddy
• 40:39
  the waters too much, but a Zig just if you just take Zig Insert
• 40:43
  City LLC because we're really creative with our entity names
• 40:47
  and we put together that partnership agreement, it's
• 40:49
  going to look like an LPGP prep promote split.
• 40:55
  So do I need to get in the prep promote education?
• 40:57
  Sure. So preferred return is basically
• 41:01
  the return that is promised first in the event that the
• 41:04
  property makes money. I noticed I did not use the G
• 41:08
  word, the guaranteed word. People like, oh, so it's like a
• 41:11
  so like your preferred return 7 on this deal.
• 41:14
  And therefore I'm guaranteed to make at least 7% a year.
• 41:16
  And the answer is no, we haven't screwed that up yet.
• 41:20
  But that doesn't mean it's guaranteed, right?
• 41:22
  Nothing's. Guaranteed.
• 41:23
  The only thing, yeah, in taxes and there.
• 41:27
  You go taxes are you know if you're in real estate, you're
• 41:30
  very strategy. I'm stepping what you're
• 41:31
  dropping. I kind of I kind of set you up
• 41:32
  for that one. The preferred return is
• 41:35
  typically mid to high single digit number in a real estate
• 41:39
  investment that an LP agrees to. And when cash flow comes out of
• 41:43
  the property, it is paid to service that first and then any
• 41:48
  dollars that come in above and beyond that, which is really the
• 41:50
  business that I'm in, the fees and all that crap like
• 41:53
  interesting, keeps the lights on, whatever.
• 41:55
  But the real business that I'm in and that we're in a zig is
• 41:58
  the promote, which is essentially is true of alignment
• 42:02
  as you can have with your investors.
• 42:04
  And so what's just to use a round Number, you know, if the
• 42:08
  pref, if the preferred return is 7% and the amount of equity in
• 42:14
  the property is $100,000 total. So we got 10 friends to put in
• 42:20
  10,000 bucks each and the preferred return 7.
• 42:23
  You know, the 1st $7000 that comes in in that year goes to
• 42:27
  pay Hannah Herb 7% return, Aaron his, you know, Jim Bob Tino,
• 42:33
  like whoever else invested appropriately.
• 42:36
  But then when the property generates, let's say something
• 42:39
  really exciting like an 8% return, that extra 1% gets split
• 42:44
  depending on whatever the promote is.
• 42:46
  So the promote structure is where sponsors make money and
• 42:51
  that money is earned. I don't apologize for our
• 42:53
  promotes ever, and nor should we.
• 42:55
  We have a track record of 70 for 70.
• 42:59
  Now mind you, some of those seventy were just bought so like
• 43:01
  nobody could screw them up in that time.
• 43:02
  But and we put out the money to have the platforms like the
• 43:10
  Rihanna and the Co stars of the world.
• 43:12
  We go to the, the conferences. We, our team makes 3 to 400
• 43:15
  calls a week. We so and then, and that's just
• 43:18
  for the opportunity to look for deals.
• 43:20
  Then you find it. And when you find it, you got a
• 43:22
  structure, you got to go raise the equity or put it in
• 43:24
  yourself. You got to go procure the debt,
• 43:26
  which is why we align ourselves with great people who know how
• 43:28
  to do that well, like HP Capital.
• 43:30
  And then we put together the operating agreement.
• 43:32
  We got to be responsible when somebody doesn't show up to the
• 43:34
  to write that check or whatever it may be.
• 43:36
  And and then you close on the property and you go, you have
• 43:39
  that sigh of relief and guess what?
• 43:41
  The real work starts. Then you got to go execute on
• 43:43
  the business plan, get make sure the tenants open and paying
• 43:46
  rent, go hire the right broker to sell the property for you at
• 43:49
  that time or get the right broker to refinance it for you.
• 43:52
  And meanwhile, the LP did two things.
• 43:56
  No, they did two things. That was number 2 and #1 is they
• 43:59
  reviewed the Decker or asked 10 minutes worth of questions.
• 44:02
  So when our LP's make the types of returns that they've been
• 44:05
  making, we get virtually 0 complaints because they're all
• 44:08
  like, this works. I, I wrote a check for 100 grand
• 44:12
  in your deal, got 122,000 back in a year.
• 44:17
  Like not now. I haven't had one call me up and
• 44:19
  bitch and be like, what was your promoting that?
• 44:20
  I'm like, first of all, like first of all, what did you do?
• 44:24
  Nothing other than write a check.
• 44:26
  And I commend you and I'm super appreciative of our LP's and I
• 44:30
  think they respect what we do. And that's why I love working
• 44:32
  with them, because they know they want to know what's in it
• 44:35
  for them anyway. They don't really care what we
• 44:36
  do. And even if they did, they
• 44:38
  understand that, like, our team is insanely committed to making
• 44:43
  this work. We have alignment internally
• 44:45
  too. And if this doesn't work, it
• 44:48
  impedes personally my ability to feed my kids, like the whole
• 44:51
  thing. So yeah, it's it's serious.
• 44:54
  It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work.
• 44:56
  I can tell you have respect for it too, because you, you made it
• 44:59
  clear you're like, I'm an investor, like I'm not an
• 45:01
  operator. Those were your words.
• 45:04
  Please don't put me on camera saying that because all my
• 45:06
  investors are going to be like, what?
• 45:07
  I thought you were the operator, but yeah.
• 45:08
  Yeah. No, I mean it's because I, I
• 45:10
  have a portfolio of residential properties that I've, you know,
• 45:13
  owned and operated and renovated and managed and all the things.
• 45:16
  But I don't have any of my own outright commercial real estate
• 45:20
  because I went the entrepreneur route of being in the real
• 45:23
  estate services businesses, right, with brokerage and
• 45:25
  finance and capital advisory that all of that.
• 45:28
  But obviously all of my clients, they're operators.
• 45:32
  Every single person in my life is an operator.
• 45:33
  Every mouse when I'm in, they're all operators like I, I watch
• 45:35
  their deals. I I see what?
• 45:37
  Who? Certainly you're investing in
• 45:38
  their deals though, right? Yeah, yeah.
• 45:40
  And so I prefer that because I still, I'm still a real estate
• 45:44
  professional. I own a real estate brokerage
• 45:46
  like all I do is real estate, right.
• 45:48
  So I still get the full advantages of the depreciation.
• 45:50
  Without the risk. Smart without the risk and then
• 45:53
  I just risk the money that I put in and then I can focus on my
• 45:55
  operating businesses that generate more cash flow and then
• 45:58
  I can let them operate. I would have to let go of my
• 46:00
  businesses to be an operator and then I would be in the business
• 46:02
  of operating, which is just a different game, right?
• 46:05
  And so. It's for the schmucks, yeah.
• 46:07
  Yeah, it's, it's, I mean, it can be massively rewarding and it
• 46:10
  can be massively painful. Like everything.
• 46:12
  It's like any business. It's been OK, Yeah, it's been
• 46:14
  OK. Yeah, I enjoy it.
• 46:15
  It's amazing, actually. That brings me to the next
• 46:17
  thing, because you said this game is hard and you can get
• 46:20
  filthy rich doing it, but very few people statistically do.
• 46:24
  So as we're sitting here in 2026, what does the real estate
• 46:28
  landscape look like to you for value?
• 46:31
  You add investors or developers out there that are either, yeah,
• 46:34
  trying to get in this game or or in the mud of 2026 right now.
• 46:38
  Obviously a very broad question. I fundamentally believe
• 46:41
  especially those that are chasing any multi tenant
• 46:44
  product, whether that be office, industrial, shopping center,
• 46:48
  whatever it may be, multifamily. There is serious opportunity for
• 46:55
  any asset type or product type that involves success being tied
• 47:02
  to the cash flow for long term holders based on deals that were
• 47:07
  bought between 2020 and 2022. Because the only way to win a
• 47:14
  deal for a lot of those groups was to overpay on pricing.
• 47:18
  And they made it make sense based on their cash, on cash
• 47:21
  returns, based on the debt that was available to them at that
• 47:24
  time. And if they haven't sold those
• 47:26
  properties yet, they are in trouble.
• 47:30
  And so it's not an opportunity that we're pursuing right now.
• 47:34
  We, we stay in our lane. We're I not think, I know we're
• 47:38
  really, really good at what we do.
• 47:40
  And part of the fundamental decisions that I made when
• 47:46
  developing the business plan and what we do were to avoid having
• 47:50
  to think about market conditions too much.
• 47:53
  Of course, I'm aware of market conditions, right?
• 47:55
  Like cap rates do this or whatever that means.
• 47:57
  And if they go up or they go down and we're Privy to that and
• 48:01
  we're Privy to that because we're focused, hyper focused on
• 48:05
  what will make our operator successful or not.
• 48:09
  Talks of a recession come around.
• 48:10
  That's why we love the automotive repair space.
• 48:13
  Recession comes, that business thrives.
• 48:16
  And if it doesn't come, it's still OK, because the last thing
• 48:19
  I'm going to do or the last thing anybody's going to do, if
• 48:21
  they're running out of money, just go buy a new car.
• 48:23
  They're going to, they're going to be far more likely to invest
• 48:26
  the $500 or the $1200 or whatever it is to keep their
• 48:29
  2019 or 2018 car on the road a little bit longer.
• 48:33
  So we don't really dig into that as much as we probably should.
• 48:38
  My natural outlook on not just this, but in life in general is
• 48:41
  to really not overly focus on things that you can't control
• 48:45
  and take radical responsibility for everything that not happens
• 48:48
  to you, but happens for you. And so as far as like general
• 48:53
  outlook, I mean, I that that to me is an opportunity.
• 48:56
  And I think there's opportunity. Whoever is going to be cavalier
• 49:00
  enough to here's the dad joke. I'm really sorry, Zig water Zag
• 49:05
  is, you know, for someone who's got the audacity and the
• 49:09
  gumption and and the skill set that they've developed over
• 49:12
  time, this is like my natural, like legal disclaimer to go
• 49:15
  pursue like office or something. And like, like they're so good
• 49:18
  at it that they can make it work and know those nuances, because
• 49:22
  retail used to get shit talked about it like that.
• 49:24
  And now retail is the pretty girl to dance.
• 49:26
  So there those those things come and go and those who can
• 49:29
  navigate those cycles appropriately will get to a
• 49:33
  point to where their life changing wealth.
• 49:36
  And that's what makes this place amazing.
• 49:38
  That's what makes this country amazing is that you can come
• 49:41
  here with 1000 bucks and figure it out.
• 49:42
  I think it's wonderful to feel that way.
• 49:43
  Obviously it's my opinion, right?
• 49:45
  But it's also naive to not say that people aren't born with
• 49:48
  different opportunities and and whatnot.
• 49:51
  And maybe more difficult from some than others.
• 49:54
  But the good news is we can all do it.
• 49:56
  Exactly, if there's a will, there's a way.
• 49:58
  Indeed. Yeah, yeah.
• 49:59
  And so you've talked pretty, like openly about how brutal the
• 50:02
  debt markets have been, as everyone knows, right.
• 50:06
  So rates, amortization, you know, credit is much tighter.
• 50:11
  Banks are retrading like there's lots of difficulties.
• 50:14
  They want really pretty packages, really experienced
• 50:17
  sponsors. So how have you been navigating
• 50:19
  the debt markets to continue to because you've been doing this
• 50:22
  since 2020? 2018.
• 50:23
  Yeah, Yeah. So you were in the 2020 to 2022
• 50:26
  fiasco and yet you've been able to continue to get that you
• 50:30
  haven't lost on the deal yet. So how, how have you navigated
• 50:33
  that? And then how important is it to
• 50:35
  have that since your client of HP Capital?
• 50:37
  How important is it to have an amazing debt advisor on your
• 50:41
  side as you're navigating getting these acquisitions and
• 50:43
  dispositions? My story is probably a dream
• 50:46
  come true for you to hear from a debt broker's perspective.
• 50:49
  I'm like cringing having to tell her because you're like here you
• 50:53
  are already smiling. I understand why the debt
• 50:56
  strategy at Zucker Investment Group, it's like kind of
• 50:59
  embarrassing, but it's totally true.
• 51:01
  From 2019 to 2022 to 2023 ish was the property is in let's
• 51:10
  make up a city Tempe, AZ Google Maps look up the three or four
• 51:17
  closest banks that aren't Bank of America, but also like aren't
• 51:21
  the title loan store call them. Hey, I'm interested in
• 51:26
  borrowing. I'm I'm under contract or about
• 51:29
  to be under contract on 123 Main St. in Tempe, AZ.
• 51:33
  We'd love to make that loan here.
• 51:35
  It is 4% and that and that was it.
• 51:37
  I just go get a couple term sheets and I just did the deal.
• 51:40
  It was that easy. And I need to give myself credit
• 51:43
  for one thing. The one thing that we did get
• 51:45
  right at that time is I knew based on, and this is the value
• 51:49
  of mentorship, which I know you're huge on both having them
• 51:51
  and I'm sure you're you're off. You're kind enough to mentor
• 51:54
  other people. Some mentors told me, hey
• 51:59
  schmuck, this isn't normal. Like you need to understand
• 52:02
  these rates. You don't have the right to
• 52:05
  bitch when your rates four and 1/4 as opposed to four.
• 52:09
  If your deal doesn't work, you need to walk away from it.
• 52:12
  From that standpoint, that was great piece of advice, number
• 52:14
  one, that I got on a repeated basis from several mentors #2
• 52:17
  it's like you need to understand that it won't be out there like
• 52:20
  that. And for one of the rare times in
• 52:22
  my life the light bulb went off, I said, OK, this is five year
• 52:27
  debt. This is not going to be like
• 52:30
  this in five years. If anything changes, which it's
• 52:33
  probably going to amidst the pandemic and it's it's they're
• 52:38
  probably not, the government's probably not going to be able to
• 52:40
  give away money for free for too long.
• 52:42
  So what we did is we negotiated and paid premiums as I use air
• 52:47
  quotes on our debt on the deals, particularly in the ones that we
• 52:51
  held longer and even the ones that we sold, we just, we wanted
• 52:54
  that optionality of 25 or 50 basis points more than what the
• 52:57
  rest of the market was doing. But what did we get in exchange
• 53:00
  terms that were 710 years if the lease was longer than five years
• 53:04
  on the deal or or any lease was I was fighting tooth and nail.
• 53:07
  I wanted to be coterminous at a minimum, you know, whatever it
• 53:10
  may be. And so we've been huge
• 53:11
  beneficiaries of that. And so like our debt isn't
• 53:14
  really maturing in a nasty way on anything that we have like
• 53:17
  decent leverage on. So that's, those are those are
• 53:20
  things that we did right. Unfortunately, the fairy tale
• 53:22
  story ends and 2023-2024 come around and certainly well into
• 53:29
  2025 and beyond. And I said the banks aren't
• 53:33
  giving away money for free anymore and they're really not
• 53:35
  giving away money at all. This isn't good.
• 53:37
  I need help. Who and so the idea in a great
• 53:40
  book who not how came into mind? Like who can help me?
• 53:45
  And you know, you run the math and people are like, and this is
• 53:49
  where this is where people get so short sighted in our business
• 53:52
  like just pay the freight. Like paying a broker, a debt
• 53:57
  broker 1% of your deal I guess can come across as sounding
• 54:01
  expensive. You do $1,000,000 deal with
• 54:03
  patron Grand I guess. But when you think about that
• 54:07
  10, those 10 GS in your pro forma compared to what it would
• 54:11
  be like if you got a 25 year amort instead of a 20 or six
• 54:17
  extra months of IO debt. If you're doing a quick flip or
• 54:21
  5% less equity injection. And so you're getting diluted by
• 54:25
  your LP investors, that value comes back to you like like I
• 54:30
  was going to say 50 times over, it's really infinite with the
• 54:34
  right debt. And if and a great debt advisor
• 54:37
  like, and we, we use several programmatically nationwide, HP
• 54:42
  Capital, absolutely being at the forefront of that can allow you
• 54:46
  to not in the, the biggest value component that we see is getting
• 54:52
  access to the debt that we want or the debt that we didn't even
• 54:55
  know that we had access to by just trying to roll up your
• 54:59
  sleeves and do it yourself. So it's been pretty
• 55:01
  transformational. It's also allowed me to scale
• 55:03
  time to like, I'm, I'm not the internal debt broker anymore.
• 55:06
  I'm now the debt overseer. That's far more enjoyable for me
• 55:10
  because you're a debt operator. Like it's, it's almost like
• 55:12
  it's, it's sort of like an inverse relationship.
• 55:14
  Like when you invest with the GP, you're saying you're good at
• 55:16
  what you do make me money, we're good.
• 55:20
  And I'm saying I trust in you as our advisory firm to go out and
• 55:24
  procure that best debt because I don't have the bandwidth to go
• 55:26
  call these banks anymore. And you have a you, you meaning
• 55:29
  your company has a really good take on what lenders will and
• 55:34
  won't do. And it allows us to be able to
• 55:35
  spend our time appropriately to go to procure the most accretive
• 55:37
  debt for the projects that we're working on, right.
• 55:39
  So we we are exclusively using debt brokers on our deals.
• 55:43
  Love it. And it's, it's been really
• 55:45
  helpful, yeah. Yeah, and don't think and it's
• 55:48
  so important because it's do what you do best and hire out
• 55:50
  the rest. And people that try to penny
• 55:53
  pinch on everything and do it all themselves, like they will
• 55:55
  never grow, they'll never scale, nor can you, you know, Jack of
• 55:59
  all trades in a master of none, right?
• 56:00
  Like when you're working with a firm with that, they're brokers,
• 56:04
  their advisors, all they're doing is building relationships
• 56:07
  with lenders, doing lender outreach in the market research
• 56:10
  of what's going on, like looking at the statistics in the data on
• 56:13
  rates and amortization and low products in terms like going to
• 56:16
  every single conference and building all these relationships
• 56:18
  and collaborating as a team to discuss what's working, what's
• 56:21
  isn't working. That is all things you would
• 56:23
  have to do to get the best rate in terms constantly or and then
• 56:27
  that's going to take away from your ability to go find deals
• 56:29
  like do your business model right, execute on your business.
• 56:32
  And so usually when you hire good advisors than anything,
• 56:35
  whether we're talking debt and equity capital advisory or
• 56:37
  having a good CPA or having good operating partner, a good to
• 56:41
  anything, it's who are the best advisors where that is an
• 56:44
  investment that I can actually leverage to make myself even
• 56:48
  more money and buy myself back time.
• 56:50
  And so just like you said, if you have a good advisor, you
• 56:53
  invest, you know, you could pay a good CPA to do your, your tax
• 56:57
  returns or your estate planning or whatever.
• 57:00
  You might pay him $100,000 or something, but then it saves you
• 57:03
  $10 million. And people, people will want to
• 57:05
  bitch about the $100,000 like, oh, I don't want to pay that.
• 57:07
  It's too expensive, right. And so I always like to lean on
• 57:10
  how do I get the most amazing professionals around me?
• 57:13
  And that's a Robert Kiyosaki's been so good at.
• 57:15
  He's like, I don't do everything.
• 57:17
  I don't manage anything in my life.
• 57:19
  I. Don't really do anything.
• 57:20
  It's kind of great. Right.
• 57:22
  Yeah, It's like amazing operator to invest his money and as an LP
• 57:28
  and lots of deals and does his own deals too.
• 57:30
  Amazing CPA partner, you know, Tom Wheelwright, like he's built
• 57:33
  this amazing group around him to support him and it allows him to
• 57:37
  focus on the one thing that he does best and then he hires out
• 57:40
  the rest and he's been a perfect example of that so.
• 57:43
  I'm into that, yeah. That's cool.
• 57:45
  So what what do you want to accomplish with Zig?
• 57:49
  Like what, Where are you going? What keeps you going?
• 57:51
  And. Yeah, I get that question a lot.
• 57:53
  The beauty of EOS is I don't have to think about that answer.
• 57:55
  It's our 10 year plan is to be doing 250 million in
• 57:58
  acquisitions by 20352. 150 million by 2035.
• 58:03
  In that year, 2. 150 million of acquisitions in 2035, that's
• 58:07
  right. OK.
• 58:08
  And what are you doing now? This year we'll do 30 million.
• 58:10
  OK. So that's what, what year are
• 58:14
  we? Is that six years?
• 58:15
  What year are we in? Nine years?
• 58:17
  Nine years? Thank God you're my dead broker,
• 58:19
  not my accountant. No, it's.
• 58:21
  Nine years. So if you think about, if you
• 58:24
  think about, yeah. And and that'll be again another
• 58:26
  classic example of who not how we'll have to build out our
• 58:28
  accountability chart and hire additional and bring on
• 58:32
  additional great teammates to partner up with in the different
• 58:35
  verticals to do that. And I've never had more
• 58:39
  conviction that we'll get there than I do right now.
• 58:41
  And there's a, there's there's a lot of times where I would say I
• 58:47
  have a teammate named Hannah too, Hannah, Hannah Zelinsky,
• 58:49
  who's amazing and she's our our integrator and does our OPS.
• 58:53
  And she would say that I'm constantly pushing, pushing,
• 58:57
  pushing and thinking about what's next.
• 58:58
  But there's been a few times where I reflect and look back
• 59:01
  and think about what we've been able to accomplish and are just
• 59:05
  over 7 year history. And it's like, yeah, it's
• 59:08
  nowhere near the a big hairy audacious goal that we have for
• 59:12
  down the line. But when you think about where
• 59:15
  the business started, where it is now, like there, I'm like,
• 59:18
  it's going to happen, which is so exciting.
• 59:20
  And I get chills thinking about it and talking about it because
• 59:24
  it's the most exciting thing to be able to get up and go pursue
• 59:28
  every day. I can't believe I get to do
• 59:30
  this. It's like it feels fake.
• 59:33
  Like I can't believe this is my job.
• 59:38
  I actually want to talk to you about your integrator.
• 59:42
  So did she come from the real estate industry and how did you
• 59:44
  find her? So I had an executive assistant
• 59:48
  who actually lives here locally. I'm so excited to see her.
• 59:51
  I haven't seen her in a long time.
• 59:52
  Yeah, she and her at the time boyfriend.
• 59:54
  Now today husband moved out here for a job that he got and her
• 59:59
  name's Kat. And Kat called me and and we met
• 1:00:03
  and she put a notice and she said I'm moving back to Arizona.
• 1:00:05
  And my knee jerk reaction was. I'm heartbroken because she was
• 1:00:09
  great. She is great still.
• 1:00:11
  And I said, you just got to do one thing.
• 1:00:14
  That's it. You got to find your replacement
• 1:00:16
  because she was like, I'm flexible on timing, but like,
• 1:00:18
  I'm going to be in Arizona. You're in Charlotte like, and I
• 1:00:20
  was like, no, I agreed it won't work, but let's get, you know,
• 1:00:23
  let's come up with a succession plan.
• 1:00:26
  And so we started, she started the recruiting process and my
• 1:00:30
  first interview was with Hannah. And it went, Cat was in the
• 1:00:35
  background in the room and it went so well.
• 1:00:38
  And we just looked at each other after Kat and I were like, damn,
• 1:00:42
  she's good. And I was like, Kat, we have to
• 1:00:45
  conduct other interviews. Like you can't, we, we can't
• 1:00:48
  just like, that's like going on a first date and getting
• 1:00:50
  married. That's insane.
• 1:00:51
  And you know what the relationships like with with an
• 1:00:53
  assistant and how, how critical that's got to be, how critical
• 1:00:57
  it is to make sure that that works.
• 1:00:59
  So I went through and cat set up the other interviews and went
• 1:01:03
  through those interviews and was like, what are we doing?
• 1:01:05
  So one thing led to another. Ended up meeting up with with
• 1:01:08
  Hannah and we've been working together now coming up on three
• 1:01:13
  years. I think she's going to kill me
• 1:01:15
  for not knowing. I really do feel like I'm like,
• 1:01:18
  it's like a like a work marriage and I'm like, Oh my God, I don't
• 1:01:20
  know, an anniversary, but. She is she office manager,
• 1:01:23
  executive assistant or is she actually like COO?
• 1:01:25
  Her original title was EA. We've grown out of that.
• 1:01:30
  She is our title as operations manager.
• 1:01:34
  Her trajectory within our business is the the ceiling.
• 1:01:38
  I mean like there is no ceiling I should say.
• 1:01:40
  Yeah, it's literally the moon. And she has never made a real
• 1:01:44
  estate cold call. She's never procured a deal, but
• 1:01:48
  what she's got unbelievable perspective about is the ability
• 1:01:53
  and the desire and the need for those things to happen in order
• 1:01:56
  for the business to be successful.
• 1:01:57
  And so she takes the same our core values.
• 1:02:01
  She embodies our core values like unbelievably well and takes
• 1:02:05
  that same level of tenacity to where like the way that I do as
• 1:02:09
  our visionary and like our acquisitions team does in
• 1:02:11
  finding deals and does it with everything that she touches,
• 1:02:14
  hiring, operations, finance and anything that really doesn't
• 1:02:19
  directly produce revenue for the business.
• 1:02:21
  And even in, in like this is one thing about EOS, like people are
• 1:02:25
  like, oh, you say it's so wonderful.
• 1:02:26
  It is like the one thing that we have to do is as owners of
• 1:02:28
  businesses is eat humble pie because especially when your
• 1:02:32
  business is first starting out, the owner sits in multiple
• 1:02:34
  seats. So like I sit in our marketing
• 1:02:36
  seat, for example. So I have to do, I, I get to do,
• 1:02:41
  I don't have to do, I love doing stuff like this.
• 1:02:43
  I get to do stuff like this and I have a scorecard metric to
• 1:02:47
  where I have to have an ongoing slate of being out there and
• 1:02:53
  building the brand like I'm doing right now at the show.
• 1:02:56
  And so today this is going to occur.
• 1:02:57
  I will have one last book and I'm like, I got a backfill it.
• 1:03:00
  And so I have to think and be an employee in those seats and
• 1:03:04
  listen to the integrator. So it's so and she, her ability
• 1:03:09
  to hold me accountable, it's unparalleled.
• 1:03:13
  And she does it in a way that's respectful and she does it in a
• 1:03:16
  way that is it inspires me because it's, she does it in her
• 1:03:22
  own way with her unique skill set.
• 1:03:24
  And she appreciates what we all do, meaning the acquisitions
• 1:03:26
  guys and myself. And we appreciate what she does
• 1:03:30
  because she does it in a way that's growth minded, resilient
• 1:03:33
  integris. She has integrity positive and
• 1:03:37
  through collaboration which is our 5 core values.
• 1:03:39
  Yeah, I read that here and it's so core values are so important.
• 1:03:43
  I want to hop over core values. But going back to Hannah, how
• 1:03:46
  did you find her? What did you work with her
• 1:03:47
  recruiting firm? Did you just post a job on I'm?
• 1:03:51
  I'm really good. I don't have a lot of strengths.
• 1:03:54
  I'm really good about setting expectations of what I'm looking
• 1:03:57
  for and getting the hell out of the way.
• 1:03:59
  I think Cat found her either through Indeed or LinkedIn or
• 1:04:02
  somewhere, just general basic blocking and tackling on the
• 1:04:06
  recruiting. And I think we just got really
• 1:04:07
  lucky. And it was just one of those
• 1:04:08
  times in life where a serendipitous path crossed.
• 1:04:11
  And I think she needed something like we were able to offer and I
• 1:04:16
  needed someone like her. And it's been, it's been
• 1:04:18
  amazing. Her and her husband, Zach,
• 1:04:19
  they're just wonderful people and I'm lucky to be able to
• 1:04:22
  spend as much time as I do with Hannah.
• 1:04:24
  That's awesome. Yeah.
• 1:04:25
  And it's so important to have that, that integrator to really
• 1:04:29
  execute on the vision, right. I was, I interviewed Pace Morby
• 1:04:32
  on my podcast and he's just like my integrator.
• 1:04:34
  Can't remember her name. I'm blanking but my integrator.
• 1:04:36
  Is I bet you he can't. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know he's he
• 1:04:40
  loves her very much. She's integral to the company.
• 1:04:42
  But he said, I just dump, I go in the office, whatever, once a
• 1:04:45
  week or I, I, there was the interview was a while ago, so
• 1:04:48
  I'm blanking on what he said, but I go in the office once a
• 1:04:50
  week and I just brain dump my vision.
• 1:04:54
  And then they go, they go integrate like that's their job.
• 1:04:56
  They they go figure it out and they make it happen.
• 1:04:58
  And I was just like, oh, that's so amazing.
• 1:05:00
  You know, to have that person, you have to have that person and
• 1:05:02
  you can't have the same role. You can't have the visionary be
• 1:05:05
  the integrator because it's too very.
• 1:05:07
  You see it, I hear about it, you know, in YPO it's very common to
• 1:05:11
  be on EOS. Anecdotally speaking, I have no
• 1:05:13
  idea this is a stat or not. Dude, please like don't quote on
• 1:05:16
  this, but it feels like somewhere between a third and
• 1:05:19
  half of YP OS are on EOS, at least in my area of the country.
• 1:05:23
  And I've heard of a couple of those stories and you can tell
• 1:05:25
  the groups that. And again, this, you know, I
• 1:05:27
  don't mean to offend anybody, but I agree with you.
• 1:05:29
  I don't see how that works. I think it's tough to have the
• 1:05:34
  it's sort of like a disk profile, like right, like the
• 1:05:36
  high DS and I's, particularly the i's, which is influential.
• 1:05:40
  Like you want everybody to feel good and like you and what not
• 1:05:42
  and like the systemization and like no per EOS this to do
• 1:05:48
  wasn't done or per EOS you can't do this like that.
• 1:05:51
  That clashes. So agreed it needs to be two.
• 1:05:53
  Different, correct? Hannah, yeah, Hannah's high S,
• 1:05:58
  high D, actually. So she's.
• 1:05:59
  Very driven. She's very, very driven and
• 1:06:02
  wants to do well, but like, wants to do it in structure and
• 1:06:05
  like fit in boxes. And I'm like, we'll figure it
• 1:06:07
  out and we'll do this. And I'm throwing out 20 ideas
• 1:06:09
  with one or two of them being really good.
• 1:06:11
  And on the integrator thing, it's, it's, it's, it's also, it
• 1:06:14
  becomes, I think the integrators probably the most important seat
• 1:06:18
  of any business, but certainly of one that has real size when
• 1:06:21
  it comes to the amount of bodies in the business.
• 1:06:23
  So our AFC urgent care business, for example, we have give or
• 1:06:27
  take it anytime about 80 to 85 employees and our teammates
• 1:06:32
  there are wonderful and their healthcare professionals.
• 1:06:34
  But our integrator, a guy by the name of Trent Norris, as far as
• 1:06:37
  I'm concerned, is a world class integrator just like Hannah.
• 1:06:40
  And he does an amazing job of being able to articulate what he
• 1:06:44
  needs to the CAS or center administrators and to the the
• 1:06:49
  teams in the clinics, like the hourly receptionist or the
• 1:06:53
  hourly medical assistant and the provider team.
• 1:06:55
  So his ability to do that and also run and lead our leadership
• 1:07:01
  team with, with the ownership group, like like that's I've so
• 1:07:06
  much respect for that role because I don't, I mean, I'm
• 1:07:10
  sure I could do it. Maybe, maybe I could.
• 1:07:12
  I don't think I would do it as well as they do being Hannah and
• 1:07:14
  Trent. And I certainly don't want to do
• 1:07:17
  it. And I don't know if they, you
• 1:07:18
  know, you'd have to ask them. And I don't think Hannah wants
• 1:07:21
  to do what I do either. Like I don't think she would go
• 1:07:23
  start, you know, a commercial real estate company.
• 1:07:26
  Even knowing that all the rest, like I know I give her the
• 1:07:29
  heebie jeebies and like, holy shit, we're going to do that.
• 1:07:31
  I'm like, Yep, let's go. Buckle up.
• 1:07:32
  It'll be fun. So.
• 1:07:34
  I don't know have you seen that AI thing on Instagram or socials
• 1:07:39
  where it says it says something like business is too risky or
• 1:07:43
  and then it's this guy and then it says me and then it's this
• 1:07:46
  guy jumping out the glass building of like a high rise and
• 1:07:48
  he's. Have you seen that?
• 1:07:49
  No, but it. Sounds, Yeah, please do it
• 1:07:51
  sounds like it sounds like it's like the like, Oh yeah, we'll
• 1:07:54
  build the plane while we're in there.
• 1:07:55
  Yeah, exactly. That's me.
• 1:07:57
  He's just scaling the building running full force.
• 1:08:00
  So it's a pretty funny, I think I shared it on my story.
• 1:08:03
  Yeah, it's fine. So how Speaking of YPO, because
• 1:08:07
  I'm huge into masterminds of networks.
• 1:08:08
  That's, you know, my my not secret sauce of building
• 1:08:12
  relationships and how I've I believe in who not how right you
• 1:08:16
  have to have you have to know who is the right person to move
• 1:08:19
  the needle in the direction of your goals.
• 1:08:21
  You don't have to know how to do everything.
• 1:08:23
  And so just like you said, who is that person?
• 1:08:26
  So how is YPO played a role in your success and your growth?
• 1:08:30
  And like how important is it to be around?
• 1:08:32
  And because people will again, back to the paying the 1% for an
• 1:08:35
  advisor, right? People be like, I don't want to
• 1:08:38
  spend 50 grand a year on a mastermind or 100 grand or 20
• 1:08:41
  grand or there's different levels, different masterminds,
• 1:08:43
  right? But how impactful has that been
• 1:08:45
  for you and your growth? Putting words, it's very rare.
• 1:08:48
  I don't know what to say. And even if I don't know what
• 1:08:51
  I'm talking about, I feel like I know what to say.
• 1:08:54
  The impact that YPO has had on my journey has been
• 1:08:59
  instrumental. I know in my soul like, yeah,
• 1:09:02
  understand of the year, but like I have to say that because not
• 1:09:05
  everybody knows that. And the the major power of it
• 1:09:10
  has been and it's just like anything else, you have to put
• 1:09:13
  effort into it. Meaning you got to be a part.
• 1:09:14
  Like there's different networks that you can be in and then
• 1:09:18
  there's and, but the, the most impactful part of YPO for most
• 1:09:22
  people and myself being included is what's called a forum.
• 1:09:25
  And it's a group of people that's typically on the low end
• 1:09:28
  6 and on the high end 10 people that there you confide with them
• 1:09:34
  for anything and everything that you would need.
• 1:09:36
  You meet with them monthly in person for four to five hours at
• 1:09:41
  a minimum with a couple retreats a year when you peel back the
• 1:09:44
  onion like that's real time. And they all have the same, they
• 1:09:49
  have a lot in common with you in the sense that they're typically
• 1:09:52
  either an entrepreneur. There's three categories of
• 1:09:54
  people in YP, other family business entrepreneur or hired
• 1:09:57
  gun, hired gun example would be, you know, I worked at McKenzie
• 1:10:02
  and worked my way up and eventually became the president
• 1:10:05
  of the client that hired me. That's a hired gun family
• 1:10:08
  business being like I'm third generation, you know, and I'm
• 1:10:11
  dealing with the dynamics of my grandfather won't get the hell
• 1:10:13
  out of the office and but I know what I'm doing.
• 1:10:16
  But like, I feel, I don't feel like I get any respect type of
• 1:10:19
  situation. And then like another dynamic
• 1:10:21
  would be the entrepreneur who's like I have, I didn't know I
• 1:10:24
  needed an HR policy when I got to 120 people.
• 1:10:27
  This isn't good. I'm getting sued and I'm just
• 1:10:29
  making up random examples. And so being able to have your
• 1:10:33
  forum to be able to confide with on things from that all the way
• 1:10:36
  to like how to raise good children.
• 1:10:38
  You know, for me, like it was extremely critical that I have
• 1:10:42
  women in my forum, which is in Southern 7, which is the chapter
• 1:10:46
  I'm in. You know, you're talking about
• 1:10:47
  the Southern 7 SE seven states in the United States minus
• 1:10:50
  Florida. So there's some good old boys
• 1:10:52
  like I'm just going to put it out there.
• 1:10:53
  Love you guys, but there's some good old boys.
• 1:10:55
  And so it was critical for me to have women in my forum because I
• 1:10:58
  have a daughter and I'm no longer married.
• 1:10:59
  So my ex-wife and I, she's wonderful.
• 1:11:02
  She's a great parent, great mom, great person, all the things,
• 1:11:06
  but I wanted to be able to have the vantage point of a driven
• 1:11:12
  successful woman's perspective to be able to and someone else
• 1:11:19
  to confide with for the inevitable coming up because I
• 1:11:23
  don't know what it's like to be a girl.
• 1:11:25
  So and that, and I say that nervously, but like the amount
• 1:11:29
  of care that I have and like love for my daughters and
• 1:11:33
  describe what I just want to be the best that I can be.
• 1:11:36
  And it's no different than going to a conference or a mastermind
• 1:11:40
  to become the best entrepreneur or agency provider in commercial
• 1:11:44
  real estate or whatever it is that you can be.
• 1:11:46
  But but emotions are involved like they are with me and how
• 1:11:48
  much I love my kids. And the major factor of never
• 1:11:53
  doing it before and really not know what you're doing, you
• 1:11:56
  really don't want to be able to combine.
• 1:11:57
  So it's everything and everything in between.
• 1:11:59
  So it's sort of like a, it's like a mixture of it's like a
• 1:12:05
  board of directors for your life coupled with therapists, You
• 1:12:08
  know what you're going through. And I know there's better
• 1:12:11
  descriptions of form out there, but that's that's how I look at.
• 1:12:14
  It. Yeah, no.
• 1:12:15
  It's so important you build such amazing bonds with these people
• 1:12:18
  and they become true advisors. And you feel there's a different
• 1:12:21
  level of security because when we are entrepreneurs, it's feels
• 1:12:25
  so unsafe and it feels so lonely.
• 1:12:27
  And then there's so many unknowns and uncertainties and
• 1:12:29
  like, you're always walking a path that you haven't walked
• 1:12:31
  before. You know we're trailblazing into
• 1:12:34
  the dark crevasse of. See, like that part to me
• 1:12:37
  doesn't that part to me doesn't like, I don't, I don't get fazed
• 1:12:41
  by that. To me, what the biggest Gary
• 1:12:44
  Vaynerchuk said this once and it's really resonated with me.
• 1:12:50
  People think entrepreneurship is about being the boss and setting
• 1:12:54
  your own schedule and having people work for you.
• 1:12:56
  It's the total opposite. It's never being off.
• 1:12:59
  It's survival and you work for your employees, you work for
• 1:13:03
  your teammates. I, I cannot begin to tell you
• 1:13:07
  it's top of mind for me right now going through crazy stuff
• 1:13:11
  with the different companies I'm involved in.
• 1:13:14
  It's never really about like, how are we going to figure it
• 1:13:16
  out? It's always about what are we
• 1:13:18
  doing to ensure that the who's the people are being developed
• 1:13:21
  and feel like that we're, you know, you've got your problem
• 1:13:24
  children that you know, probably aren't in the right seat.
• 1:13:28
  Again, EOS is great about helping sort of flush those
• 1:13:30
  things out. And then also, but like when
• 1:13:32
  you're paying attention and, and sort of solving those issues,
• 1:13:35
  are you giving enough love to the people who are performing
• 1:13:37
  well and doing exactly because that's the biggest concern you
• 1:13:39
  may have because you don't want them to leave.
• 1:13:40
  So I would say, I would say from that standpoint, that's, that's
• 1:13:44
  like I, I, I, I guess I've like become numb to that because I
• 1:13:49
  put myself in some crazy ass situations over the last seven
• 1:13:52
  years. But it sounds like that sounds
• 1:13:53
  like that's something that that maybe you you've had to
• 1:13:57
  contemplate quite a bit. No, I just think having that
• 1:13:59
  group of friends and advisors that have walked where you're
• 1:14:02
  walking in some way makes it just feel less lonely, like as
• 1:14:06
  you go down. Because right, as the CEO, your
• 1:14:09
  job is to solve all the problems that no one else can solve.
• 1:14:11
  And so like in your company, right?
• 1:14:13
  And so when you have that group of advisors who have either
• 1:14:16
  already been where you're at or are exactly where you're at or
• 1:14:19
  have their own experience, then they they can just help be
• 1:14:22
  alongside you and you can, they can help you solve those
• 1:14:24
  problems or at least feel heard because you can't always vent to
• 1:14:28
  your team, right? You have to, you have to have
• 1:14:30
  that, that group of people. And it's hard because when
• 1:14:32
  you're a successful entrepreneur, you know, your
• 1:14:35
  family may be very different than you.
• 1:14:37
  And you can't really go like, I can't go venting my dad about
• 1:14:40
  what I'm dealing with who works at a, you know, pawn shop.
• 1:14:43
  Like I just just yeah, so the, the masterminds, that's what's
• 1:14:46
  been the best for me is just one, the access to who is the
• 1:14:49
  right person. This is the problem I need to
• 1:14:50
  solve. Who's the right person to solve
• 1:14:51
  it? And you have that whole network
• 1:14:52
  to help you. And then also the friendship of,
• 1:14:56
  OK, you've been here, I've been here, like what can I learn from
• 1:14:59
  you? What can you learn from me,
• 1:15:00
  etcetera. So.
• 1:15:01
  Yeah, there's a line don't go into business with your friends
• 1:15:05
  go into go become friends with people you do business with and
• 1:15:11
  what what the beauty of YPO or any other group that like it.
• 1:15:16
  You know, there's EO, there's Tiger 21, there's masterminds
• 1:15:19
  like Tickle, whatever tickles your fancy.
• 1:15:22
  The the key about what makes them so special is that there's
• 1:15:26
  zero expectations to have to do business with those folks.
• 1:15:29
  But there's the relatability and the like mindedness to be able
• 1:15:34
  to have like that vulnerable conversation.
• 1:15:36
  Like, I don't know what to do. And you know, using the dad that
• 1:15:40
  works in the pawn shop example, like, like I can't confide in
• 1:15:44
  them or, you know, I, you know, maybe or if you're super
• 1:15:47
  successful and you have kids, like how do I like provide a
• 1:15:51
  great life for my kids with also like teaching them how to
• 1:15:54
  develop a work ethic. Because my work ethic is
• 1:15:56
  ultimately how we got to a point to where my kids can go on the
• 1:15:59
  yacht or the private jet or the crazy that people do with their
• 1:16:02
  kids because they want to enjoy their life and enjoy those
• 1:16:05
  experience with their kids, not have to compromise it.
• 1:16:07
  But like what is so just being able to confide with other
• 1:16:09
  people who don't have anything in it to gain other than just
• 1:16:15
  just helping. That's it.
• 1:16:18
  It's it's quite the blessing. Yeah, it is.
• 1:16:22
  Cool. Well, thank you.
• 1:16:24
  OK, so I'm going to end here with rapid fire questions.
• 1:16:27
  Bring it and school Hard Knocks down.
• 1:16:29
  My my guy James. Love him.
• 1:16:31
  I mean, how cool was that that you were on there?
• 1:16:35
  Like when I told people I was coming on the show I was like,
• 1:16:37
  she got interviewed by school, which makes me like 1° of
• 1:16:40
  separation from being really cool.
• 1:16:43
  Thank you. That's sweet.
• 1:16:44
  He's awesome. He's super cool.
• 1:16:45
  I was really fortunate. He yeah, said he's going to be
• 1:16:49
  in town and had me on the show, and then I got to drive him to
• 1:16:52
  his next stop and yeah, it was. It was really cool.
• 1:16:56
  He's just cool. It's crazy.
• 1:16:57
  He's an amazing interviewer, like so good and I wish I was as
• 1:17:01
  good as he is but. You're you're doing OK.
• 1:17:04
  I'm so tired right now. I'm like, I can't even think
• 1:17:07
  straight. I thought she's 20. 29 She's
• 1:17:08
  really excited to talk to me. Today, Yeah.
• 1:17:10
  So excited. Yeah.
• 1:17:11
  Couldn't wait. There you go.
• 1:17:12
  I mean, that's what I love to do.
• 1:17:14
  I love talking to amazing people, especially our clients
• 1:17:17
  who we can really help win together.
• 1:17:19
  AKA you have to talk to. Me.
• 1:17:20
  Yeah, exactly. But no, just always learning,
• 1:17:23
  hearing new ideas, hearing experiences, hearing failures,
• 1:17:26
  growing together, sharing with the world.
• 1:17:28
  Like part of my impact and my mission is to help rise other
• 1:17:31
  people. Like help everyone reach their
• 1:17:33
  highest potential. The joys in giving.
• 1:17:35
  Yeah, so I love it more than anything.
• 1:17:37
  I would do this all day, every day.
• 1:17:38
  I need a COO so I can do more of it but.
• 1:17:42
  We'll talk about that, don't worry.
• 1:17:43
  All right, so how old were you when you became a millionaire?
• 1:17:46
  28, It's pretty impressive. What's the best piece of advice
• 1:17:48
  you've ever heard or received? The only bad decisions I've ever
• 1:17:51
  made are when I didn't follow my gut.
• 1:17:53
  So I don't know who told me to follow my gut, whoever you are.
• 1:17:56
  Maybe your gut. Hey, that was well done.
• 1:17:59
  No, that's good. The don't go into friend, don't
• 1:18:02
  go into business with your friends, go into business with
• 1:18:05
  go become friends with people you do business with is good.
• 1:18:08
  But yeah, I would say any decision, go with your gut,
• 1:18:12
  Yeah. What's the number one thing you
• 1:18:14
  attribute your success to over anything else?
• 1:18:16
  My why? That's on my list.
• 1:18:18
  We'll get there. What's your why?
• 1:18:19
  First degree of separation away removed from it.
• 1:18:23
  But it's crazy to me that in the 40s there was a world where
• 1:18:30
  people were enslaved and. And even more you know, yeah, I
• 1:18:35
  mean in the 1940s where people were enslaved based on nothing
• 1:18:39
  other than the fact that they were Gypsy or the vast majority
• 1:18:43
  of the case, they were Jews. My grandparents were included in
• 1:18:46
  that and they figured out a way to survive Auschwitz and
• 1:18:52
  eventually immigrated to Canada. How did they survive?
• 1:18:57
  Why? My grandfather was a commodity
• 1:19:02
  that the Nazis valued because he was able to sell.
• 1:19:05
  So he was only kept alive because he was able to make Nazi
• 1:19:08
  uniforms upon survival, which I don't know all the particulars
• 1:19:12
  to. I know that my grandmother
• 1:19:14
  entered the scene at that point. They figured out a way to end up
• 1:19:19
  after, you know, after making it and then ending up in a refugee
• 1:19:22
  camp and then eventually making it to Canada.
• 1:19:26
  My grandfather walked around to different factories and said,
• 1:19:30
  hire me for two weeks, please. I'll work for free.
• 1:19:32
  I can sew. I think he went into one, did
• 1:19:36
  it. They said we really can't afford
• 1:19:37
  you. Whatever.
• 1:19:38
  Second one he went into, they said you're good, we'll keep
• 1:19:41
  you. He worked his way up in the
• 1:19:42
  business to a point to where they felt like they couldn't
• 1:19:44
  lose him and said don't go on your own, stay here, we'll pay
• 1:19:47
  you well, whatever it is. He eventually went out on his
• 1:19:49
  own. And my grandparents had five
• 1:19:52
  kids, one of which being my dad, he's the middle of the five.
• 1:19:57
  And he was the first one to go to college.
• 1:19:59
  And upon making it to college, he said, OK, I've been afforded
• 1:20:02
  an opportunity. And college was basically, at
• 1:20:05
  the time, I think it was actually free and still
• 1:20:07
  basically is free in Canada. So he made it through and
• 1:20:10
  studied and worked his ass off and became a doctor.
• 1:20:14
  And because he had an education in the skill set, he's like, I
• 1:20:17
  got to get to the I got to get to the land of opportunity.
• 1:20:21
  And in 1984, he ended up in Charlotte 1-2 skip a few him and
• 1:20:25
  my mom have my sister and I whatever.
• 1:20:27
  And here I am in the mid 90s, a kid who goes to an unbelievable
• 1:20:32
  school in an unbelievable market.
• 1:20:34
  I mean, you know, read an article Charlotte, the
• 1:20:36
  explosive, great place, like one of the best cities to live,
• 1:20:39
  fastest growing cities to live, you know, white collar jobs
• 1:20:42
  everywhere, whatever. So I'm just like be bopping
• 1:20:44
  around my naive little dumb ass and you you peel that back.
• 1:20:51
  My grandparents. I knew these people I touched, I
• 1:20:54
  felt I love them. They my grandfather.
• 1:20:56
  I'm 6 feet. My grandfather was 54.
• 1:20:59
  He, you know, tattoo on his arm. I knew this man.
• 1:21:02
  He's no longer with us. My grandmother's no longer with
• 1:21:04
  us. But I, I knew him like he made
• 1:21:07
  it through 5th grade educationally, he only made it
• 1:21:10
  to 5 four because he was malnourished.
• 1:21:12
  He spoke, yet he spoke 6 languages.
• 1:21:14
  Yet he figured out a way to start a business.
• 1:21:16
  Yet he figured out a way to build this beautiful family
• 1:21:18
  despite all of his family being killed.
• 1:21:22
  And I get to be born here. My parents paid for my educate.
• 1:21:26
  My dad paid for my education. I walked out of college with no
• 1:21:28
  debt and I'm going to do something average that there
• 1:21:33
  there is for that door to be cracked the way that it was, and
• 1:21:37
  for me to not only gently nudge it open, but run the hell
• 1:21:40
  through it. To build an amazing business
• 1:21:42
  that sets up people for opportunity for them to succeed
• 1:21:45
  and for them to be able to go provide wealth and eventually
• 1:21:49
  philanthropy and whatever it is that makes them excited to give
• 1:21:52
  back moving forward. That like, that's it, that has
• 1:21:56
  to happen. There's, there's no, there's no
• 1:21:59
  mediocrity is not interesting. It's, it's unacceptable.
• 1:22:02
  It's, it's, it's not going to happen.
• 1:22:05
  So that's rule #1 and then rule #2 is I have to figure out a way
• 1:22:11
  to pass that message along to my kids because they didn't know my
• 1:22:15
  grandparents, they didn't see it.
• 1:22:16
  They didn't there wasn't a little short guy with who who
• 1:22:19
  spoke broken English with it, with its strong Yiddish accent.
• 1:22:24
  Like that was my grandfather. They didn't see that.
• 1:22:27
  So I now, so my job is that's my challenge is like, go figure out
• 1:22:31
  how to champion your last name, your heritage and turn it into
• 1:22:37
  making your family proud and making, I mean, as cliche as it
• 1:22:41
  sounds, making the world a better place.
• 1:22:43
  Yeah. That's so beautiful.
• 1:22:45
  And that why is. So important and just like you
• 1:22:47
  said, I mean it would be an insult to your family, right to
• 1:22:52
  not carry that torch forward and and honor and respect what your
• 1:22:56
  grandfather went through and pass it along through your
• 1:22:58
  generation. I tell everybody who starts at
• 1:23:00
  Zig or who's interested in Zig. And working at Zig, this
• 1:23:03
  business is hard. It's simple, but it's very hard.
• 1:23:06
  And if you're just doing it for the money, don't do it because
• 1:23:10
  there's jobs, you know, there's careers, especially those who
• 1:23:14
  come work with us straight out of school and tell them your
• 1:23:16
  friends are going to make double you and you're going to work
• 1:23:18
  twice as much. So you have to be and that can
• 1:23:23
  get old quickly. You can fade out after a couple
• 1:23:25
  months or a couple years if you're just thinking about money
• 1:23:28
  or getting to the happy hour on Thursdays for Thirsty Thursday
• 1:23:30
  or whatever. But you have a deeper why that's
• 1:23:33
  that's ultimately what it's going to take, what it's going
• 1:23:36
  to, what needs to be there in order for you to do what it's
• 1:23:38
  going to take in order to be successful and make it past 81%
• 1:23:41
  attrition rate that people in two years in production
• 1:23:44
  commercial real estate or less half.
• 1:23:47
  If you could leave one message to the younger generation, what
• 1:23:49
  would it be? Follow your gut.
• 1:23:53
  And I don't know if this is specific to this generation or
• 1:23:56
  if it's more of a macro issue that we have in our environment,
• 1:24:01
  but this whole follow your passion advice that we get as
• 1:24:06
  students or adolescence, it's incomplete.
• 1:24:09
  It's not bad. You do need to be passionate
• 1:24:12
  about what you do, but it also needs to be something that can
• 1:24:15
  also beat yourself, right? Like I know.
• 1:24:20
  Maybe there's someone? Out there who's like obsessed
• 1:24:21
  with badminton, that's cool. I don't know how much the
• 1:24:25
  world's top 50 badminton players make, but I I don't know if it
• 1:24:30
  feeds their families or not. So got to have both of those
• 1:24:33
  things, right? And the any and anything worth
• 1:24:39
  doing is in doing well is got to be difficult.
• 1:24:44
  So you stick and stay and it'll pay.
• 1:24:45
  That's good. There you go.
• 1:24:47
  You can take that one with you. The pursuit.
• 1:24:48
  Of excellence versus. The pursuit of fulfillment they.
• 1:24:50
  They're two separate pursuits, and you don't have to blend them
• 1:24:53
  into one. You have to be passionate about
• 1:24:54
  what you do, of course, to sustain what you're going to
• 1:24:57
  have to go through to be successful.
• 1:24:59
  But you can also have things that are fulfilling, like me
• 1:25:01
  riding horses, right? I didn't pursue a career in
• 1:25:03
  riding horses. I like to have that as a hobby,
• 1:25:05
  something I do for fun that fills my cup, but I can.
• 1:25:07
  But I'm passionate about my entrepreneurial endeavors and
• 1:25:10
  all of that, too, even though it's a different love than I
• 1:25:12
  have when I go to the bar and ride my horse.
• 1:25:14
  So yeah, it's important to have those two separate pursuits and
• 1:25:17
  you don't necessarily have to blend them together.
• 1:25:19
  Amen. All right, last question, if you
• 1:25:22
  could send one text message to your 25 year old self, what
• 1:25:25
  would it say? There's a story of my aunt who's
• 1:25:27
  a pediatric dentist. She's actually.
• 1:25:30
  Has done very well for herself, had a wonderful career, but she
• 1:25:34
  was there was a point where she went to my grandfather one time
• 1:25:38
  and said, I'm frustrated. My friends are going out on
• 1:25:41
  dates and having fun on the weekends and I'm in the library
• 1:25:43
  like I'm always in the library. Like why?
• 1:25:47
  Why does it have to be like this?
• 1:25:49
  And my grandfather, he again, thick Yiddish Polish accent,
• 1:25:53
  like whatever it may be, just looked at her and said pay now
• 1:25:57
  or pay later. So to the 25 year old, most of
• 1:26:01
  the 25 year olds don't have children, don't have as many
• 1:26:03
  commitments. Go the extra mile now because it
• 1:26:07
  will set you up for being able to do whatever the hell you want
• 1:26:10
  when you're 4050 and beyond. Love it.
• 1:26:12
  Pay now or pay later. Pay now or pay later would be
• 1:26:14
  the text. Drop the instant gratification
• 1:26:16
  and build. Something meaningful.
• 1:26:17
  Amen. So.
• 1:26:19
  Well, thanks for coming on. I'm excited to for.
• 1:26:21
  The Open. And all the things and what's
• 1:26:22
  the way anyone, if they want to learn more about what you do in
• 1:26:24
  your projects and things like that, how can they reach you?
• 1:26:27
  Yeah, our website zuckerig.com and I'm on Instagram.
• 1:26:31
  LinkedIn there's a the two most active places that I am, so I
• 1:26:35
  thought his last name was Zucker Rig it's.
• 1:26:38
  Zucker, IG Zucker. Yeah, Somebody took zig.com, so
• 1:26:43
  we had that. Bummer.
• 1:26:44
  Yeah. Well, awesome.
• 1:26:46
  Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you for having me.