Latest / Real Estate for Real Life / Episode 15 • No Call Goes Unreturned: How Scott Kriss Built a National Real Estate Law Firm

Transcript

Episode 15 • No Call Goes Unreturned: How Scott Kriss Built a National Real Estate Law Firm · Real Estate for Real Life

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  On Real Estate for Real Life podcasts, we sit down with
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  standout business leaders to unpack what's actually working.
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  How they scale, lead teams, win clients and build businesses
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  that last. We're your hosts.
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  I'm Courtney Gauchman. And I'm Ryan Wilson.
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  Thanks for tuning in. Welcome.
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  Today we have Scott, Chris from Chris Law Atlantic closing
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  escrow and affiliates. Thanks so much for joining,
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  Scott. You almost got it right.
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  Yeah, I was about was close. I think it was close.
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  I think I nailed. It's a long name.
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  It's a that's a big intro, a big intro for one of the biggest
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  residential real estate attorneys in the whole nation.
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  Congrats on that man. Thank you.
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  That and 5 bucks get you a lousy sandwich, you know.
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  Thank you. Thank you for having me.
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  Yeah, of course, we're pumped to have you.
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  We're excited to have you. Obviously, we know you and we're
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  incredibly lucky to be neighbors with you, basically, right, One
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  of the biggest closing companies in the nation, and we get to
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  talk to you all the time, learn from you and actually
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  collaborate with you in business.
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  And vice versa. Just, you know, in
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  entrepreneurship as well, too. So we're looking forward to
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  getting into a conversation and diving into things that we don't
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  even know as well as we'd like to.
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  We want to hear more of the story of how you've built this
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  massive firm and what kind of paths and the steps that you've
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  taken to do this. The right hires, the wrong
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  hires. We want to learn everything
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  about how you've been able to get to, what, 230 employees and
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  50 states in the US. Just a kid from Rhode Island
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  going to U Maine and now dominate in the world.
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  I don't know about that, but you know, I first of all thank you
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  guys for having me and I can already tell how much better
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  Courtney is at this than Ryan. It's the way this.
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  Works night and day. Apart from the course.
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  You know, there's no secret. People are always like, how did
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  you build this? It's what we do is still very
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  analog. It's this, you know, like Ryan
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  is a big reason we are where we are.
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  Relationships like that because I think what we've done, other
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  than being very consistent and consistency is a word I'm sure
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  I'll use a bunch, is relationship development and you
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  become friends, you know, like I know Ryan's kids.
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  I know his wife, another person who's better at most things than
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  Ryan. But you know, and that's really,
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  there is no secret, you know, it's just hard work.
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  Every single day the same thing. And I find that the people,
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  whether in real estate, mortgage in any industry, and I was just
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  with some guys last night who I was telling you guys sold a
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  pretty big tech company. They're just consistently
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  working hard. And you know, the phone rings,
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  you answer it. And I've heard you say before,
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  you know, you talk about different things, you can always
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  get a response and that's it. That's really what it comes down
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  to, being consistently responding, consistently being
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  there for your clients. I don't care what industry it
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  is. That's a, you know, that's what
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  we've done. And there's no secret sauce
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  whatsoever in my opinion. I remember when when you
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  started, I don't know if this is a tagline or what, but it was
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  like no call goes unreturned. And that is facts with you guys
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  because you know, obviously you got the some of the best
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  attorneys in the industry, but you also got people that are
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  willing to, you know, work hard and actually respond very, very
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  quickly cause time matters in this business.
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  And in our business, I mean it's changed a lot over the years.
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  I'm sure we'll talk about it, but I've always been very
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  focused on my staff being really awesome as opposed to, you know,
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  people have just hired attorneys and high and great attorneys and
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  what we do are important. I'm going to tell you probably
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  it's less important than the staff and the paralegal staff
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  and the people doing all the behind the scenes things and
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  answering the phone. That's what makes customers come
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  back. If the attorney is involved for
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  a finite period in the transaction, as opposed to a
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  paralegal, let's. Say, well, I'm glad you
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  mentioned that about the staff, right?
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  Because you just said there's no secret sauce and that it's, you
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  know, relatively simple in terms of consistency.
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  But what's interesting about that is with 230 employees,
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  essentially you had to actually be able to set some sort of tone
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  and then create a company culture that everyone else is
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  the same way, consistent, no call goes unanswered, that type
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  of, you know, commitment that you're hiring for.
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  And that's something that takes a massive amount of skill.
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  That's not easy to have that trickle down effect and make
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  sure that the people you're hiring also have the same.
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  I think I've made lots of mistakes.
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  Hire their own people a lot of the times handle things poorly
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  for a long time. I mean, I was a kid when I
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  started, you know, I was 20, 26 maybe when I first opened my
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  doors with one other being. I was by myself basically.
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  So you learn a lot and I think I've hired, I've hired the right
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  people. Like my COO is basically like my
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  right hand person. You know, the world has changed
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  since 2020 when a lot of our growth has actually occurred or
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  the most recent growth has occurred.
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  Not everyone's in the office. We have people who have been
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  working for us for five years. So I don't know.
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  So while I think maybe initially I was the culture tone setter,
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  it's other people now that have learned and, and in a lot of
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  ways they don't want me involved in the culture anymore because I
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  mean, at this point I'm, you know, almost 50.
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  It's hard for me to relate to a 25 year old clerk in the office.
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  I try I'm, I'm super friendly and people will often times
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  actually think I'm like the janitor when I walk around.
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  So I wear like sweatpants and stuff.
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  It's. One of the best, best stories
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  ever. Is it the outfit or?
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  Yeah, I mean, not this, this is actually I dressed up, but like,
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  I've actually had people come up to me in the office and be like,
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  Oh yeah, yeah, the leak is over there and I'm just like, oh, OK,
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  I'll do it. Whatever.
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  That's fine. Favorite was when the guy asked
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  you like hey the the water needs to be refilled over there in the
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  kitchen. Yeah, it's like, great, I'll do
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  it. And I still that.
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  And that's probably the other thing, like if there's a copy
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  that needs to be made or what you just, we're still a small
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  business, even though maybe to the outside world we look like
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  some kind of big business. We're small, tiny little
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  business in the in the grand scheme of things.
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  And you still you do whatever you have to do to make sure it
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  survives and prospers. Yeah, there's, there's no one in
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  the business that I know that works harder than you.
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  I appreciate and and you don't sometimes, you know, when you
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  have that type of business, you don't have to.
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  A lot of times people put the foot off the gas.
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  And one thing I'm really intrigued to hear about is not
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  only have you not taken your foot off the gas, even though
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  you've had many successful decades, but you're growing.
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  And one of the ways you're growing is through mergers and
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  access, which which we've seen online.
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  And that's super exciting. So tell us, and I want to hear
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  about the beginning story as well.
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  We'll come back to that. But tell us kind of how that has
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  transformed in in what are you doing there?
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  So I'd say for the 1st 15 to 17 years of the company I was all
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  about, we're going to do this ourselves.
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  We don't need to hire you or acquire you.
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  We can do it better. We can we can take the business
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  if we want it. That was always very insulated.
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  So in at the end or during the pandemic when literally I was up
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  all night running titles trying to get, I mean, it was record
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  volume, you know, rates from the twos.
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  We don't, we know that whole story.
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  I got to a point where I was like, I can't, we, we've hit a
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  wall, we've hit a ceiling. I can't continue to do this,
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  whatever it may be. So I actually sold off a piece
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  of the company, the title piece of the company or a portion of
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  it to a private equity firm because I looked at it and said
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  if we're either going to sort of stay at this level or we'll
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  grow, we may have hit our ceiling locally.
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  So we need to look more nationally.
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  So that ended up being a very big learning experience.
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  So I brought in this capital, brought in some help, had a
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  board at that point, which, you know, I actually ended up taking
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  the company back over from the, from the, from the PE firm, bad
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  market. They didn't have an appetite for
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  it, which often happens in these investment scenarios.
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  But I kept my board. So now I have these guys who,
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  one of one of my board members is in the foreclosure business,
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  biggest foreclosure shop in the country.
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  So he's got a really interesting look at the industry.
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  And then my other board member is he knows nothing about our
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  industry. He's learned, but he was on the
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  board of Verizon. Really smart guy.
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  These guys were way smarter than I am.
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  But I've never really had anybody who I can go to and say,
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  you know, hey, what do you think of this?
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  And part of this was like, you can't grow organically anymore.
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  You need to acquire other people, at least talk to them.
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  So that opened my eyes a little bit.
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  You know, we've had successes, we've had failures, we've had
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  sort of, you know, we look, we look at it is like AC plus in
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  some of these acquisitions. But at the end of the day, you
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  know, it's all about growing, growing, growing and, and
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  growing market share. And so I, it was a really
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  interesting for me because I was always like, I don't want, I
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  don't need you, I don't want you.
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  But it turns out we really do. We really need these people
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  because everyone looks at things differently and you know, it's
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  been an eye opening. That's cool.
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  Yeah. It's also, I mean, they've built
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  a business themselves, right? So these smaller firms, they've
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  built a business based on their secret sauce or whatever it
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  might be. And in order for you to actually
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  tap into their book of business, you kind of need their skill
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  set, right? So I think that's what's so
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  interesting about acquisitions. The, the, the piece that I
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  cannot not always wrap my head around is kind of how do you
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  then let them stay good at what they were doing in order to keep
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  their clientele, however also merge into your company and take
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  on some of the, you know, Chris Law type of aspects of it.
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  It's the hardest part and it's, it's really, you know, it's
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  interesting that you point that out because it's what everyone
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  struggles with when they're trying to merge cultures,
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  especially. We're really fast-paced.
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  We have to because we do a lot of volume.
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  And so you maybe have a another, you know another person who did
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  things differently thing we learned right up front when we
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  really started upping our acquisitions, our first real
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  acquisition was back in like 15 ish.
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  And then once we you know, sort of grew again and mark it up to
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  mark it down, our first sort of big acquisition after that we
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  really tried to jam a square peg in a round hole.
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  We're like, you're going to do it this way, even though it was
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  different geographically, totally different culture.
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  And after a while we were just butting heads and it wasn't, it
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  wasn't productive. You know, do do those people
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  still work in the way I would like them to or the way I do
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  know? But I've realized I'm not going
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  to change that. They are what they are.
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  You know, we try to give them all the tools we can,
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  technology, whatever it is, but you can't, you can't jam it.
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  And we're going through right now, you know, we, we added two
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  firms or two groups as of January 1 this year.
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  It's been pretty smooth because geographically they're close.
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  And, you know, we've learned a lot from other acquisitions, but
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  we still have things where, you know, we, you know, like at this
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  point, our, our finance system is pretty for me anyway, 'cause
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  I'm a sales guy. I, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm
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  looking at P and LS as much as I know to be dangerous.
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  And so, you know, we're looking, and some of these companies
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  never had a formal PNL. So now they're like, well, what
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  do you mean? This is what do you mean?
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  We lost $10,000 last month. And it's like, well, you did the
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  numbers don't lie. And so it's, it's definitely an,
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  an adjustment period, but the goal is that you bring all these
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  people together. To get back to your question,
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  Courtney, you bring all these people together and what you're
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  really doing is taking off the admin stuff.
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  Because if you're just a, you know, a closing attorney with 10
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  employees, you're, you're doing everything, you're doing payroll
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  manually, you're, you know, paying taxes, you're, you're a
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  paralegal some days, whatever it is.
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  So to us, it's always been, if you can sell and you can bring
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  in the business, then that's what we want you to do.
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  And that's the rarest commodity is being able to sell, not
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  unlike, you know, you can find people to do the other stuff.
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  But if you can sell, then we bring you in and we just want
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  you out there selling, going out and speaking our gospel and
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  selling our product. And then you bring it back, you
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  bring the business and we'll handle it.
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  We'll make sure you don't have to worry about it.
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  We'll get the deals closed. Is it always smooth?
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  Absolutely not. But really their best use, We
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  want them doing that. And as a small shop, you can't
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  do that. So with that being said, right,
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  because that's definitely good information, what are the most
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  important things that you need to see them transition into when
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  you take over a company, right? Like what are some of the top
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  tier priorities that you're like, OK, if they can do this
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  and this, then we can actually work cohesively together, but
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  it's OK if they don't do something else.
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  So honestly, it's it's getting them comfortable with not being
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  so involved in their files. Like it takes a while to get to
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  a point where like, you know, our paralegals make their
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  definitely the highest paid in the industry on the East Coast
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  for sure. I don't know about other parts.
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  You know, California is always sort of, you know, analogous to
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  us or the West Coast. It's letting them do their job
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  and not micromanaging them, which they've had to do.
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  Maybe because, you know, our paralegal who with bonus is
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  making $250,000, they're paralegal maybe was making
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  $80,000. And you know, they're not going
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  to be as committed. They're not going to be, as, you
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  know, don't have the same level of experience.
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  No knock on those people. It takes a while to sort of get
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  that. And paralegal and staff is so
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  important and what we do that you know it, it really takes a
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  while for people who comes like, oh, I don't need to worry if the
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  CD went out. I don't need to worry if there's
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  questions on XY and ZI know this person.
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  So I can take my time away from the office and go take people
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  out to play golf, take people out for lunch, whatever, maybe.
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  And selling. Right.
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  It's, it's similar to us with the team.
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  It's like the more you can take off a salesperson's plate, an
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  attorney's plate, an agent's plate, the more you can take up
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  off from an admin, operations, marketing biz dev, whatever it
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  is. If you can take as much off that
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  plate then they'll have more time to sell and do what they're
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  good. At and I've got another point
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  now and you know, I'm pretty honest to a fault, you know,
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  it's in a business setting, especially I've said to be worth
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  talking to. If you don't think you can pull
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  back, this doesn't make sense because you're going to give up
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  some of your revenue for this help.
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  Now obviously you have a lot that the hope is that you have a
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  lot more equity and you know, at some point we'll, you know, take
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  another investment and and that's a big point of the whole
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  thing is we're going to continue to grow taking on money on the
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  national side. You know, obviously the attorney
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  side is very different as far as, you know, selling part of
• 14:17
  the company. But we're giving these people,
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  you know, this sort of ability to really, first of all, access
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  to institutional funds, which is it's a crazy business and
• 14:29
  process that you're just never going to get being, you know, a
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  closing shop in Massachusetts, access to all these other areas,
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  all that stuff. But you know, if that's not what
• 14:39
  you're looking to do and it doesn't make sense because you
• 14:41
  are going to be giving off some of your revenue, right, in
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  exchange for that. That's, that's a really good
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  point because it's similar to even, you know, if we bring on
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  an experienced agent, we do try to set the stage that it's, you
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  have to be really comfortable letting go of some of the
• 14:54
  control, right? And some entrepreneurs that have
• 14:58
  been doing their own thing for so many years, I mean, had had
• 15:00
  success. It's really hard for them to
• 15:02
  learn how to pivot and how to start to like ease up on all the
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  facets of the business and start to just focus on the thing that
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  they're really the most talented at, right?
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  But but I do think that that's how you actually grow.
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  That's how you succeed. And it's also how I think you
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  can just get a much better balance.
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  People always say work life balance and it's like, there's
• 15:20
  really no such thing. But what it boils down to is if
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  you're doing the thing that you're the best at and the thing
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  that comes the most natural for you, then it actually is more
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  balanced because you're not forcing it in other areas of
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  the. Industry and for some people and
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  I've learned this, you know, for me and my business, it's always
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  been about the bottom line all like I'm show up every day and
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  I've made great friends. I love the people who have I
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  mean some of my staff I've worked with for over 20 years
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  now, we're basically like family the other day.
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  It's all the bottom line so I can put food on the table, you
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  know, pay for college, my all these things that we all think
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  about. There's some people who don't
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  think like that. They're in it for they really
• 15:55
  enjoy the business, they really enjoy the legal part of it or
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  they really enjoy whatever it is.
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  So their bottom line doesn't matter as much.
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  That's not a fit for us. And we've just sort of learned
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  that. And so we'll say it up front,
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  you know, if, if having your name on the door and being, you
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  know, XYZ laws, the thing or XYZ title, great, do it.
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  That's not what we're looking to do here.
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  We're looking to, you know, make your life work life balance,
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  weird term for me, but we're, we're, we're looking to make
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  what you do everyday the best thing you do, like you said, and
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  to make sure you're maximizing your compensation.
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  That's not everybody and that's fine.
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  But I didn't realize that for a long time because I, you know, I
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  thought everybody sort of thought the way I did.
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  And it's especially with it when attorneys are involved, there is
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  something, the fact that a lot of attorneys love being
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  attorneys. A lot of those attorneys, their
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  parents were attorneys. And it's a thing.
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  I can't relate to that. I it's just not my thing.
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  But I do get it now more so. As you're going through that
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  process, interviewing and deciding, running the numbers,
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  like does this make sense to bring them on?
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  And clearly it goes both ways. Like there's a huge ego part
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  because you're you're, you're you're trying to pull these
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  people that have run their own firm, their names on the door.
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  How do you determine upfront like because I mean, I don't
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  know anyone, whether it's in real estate or law that's going
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  to say no, my egg is too big for this to join the company.
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  But obviously we know that's the case.
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  How do you determine that upfront in the process?
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  I think you figure it out, you know, these processes.
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  That's the other thing that's interesting when you're when you
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  start to talk to these people and sometimes it happens
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  organically. Sometimes I reach out, sometimes
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  we'll have a, you know, a buy side banker who will be looking
• 17:29
  for these different opportunities, especially
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  outside of this area. It's really you, it's a long
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  process. You know, you have an
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  introductory call, you sign an NDA, then you start to get the
• 17:41
  financials, start to work through them.
• 17:43
  I already told you, I'm not reviewing financials.
• 17:45
  You know, I can see the top line, bottom line, but I have
• 17:48
  one of our finance people really get into it.
• 17:50
  And then then the personality. So if the numbers work, then it
• 17:53
  becomes a personality thing, a cultural thing.
• 17:56
  And I try to tell people, you know, when you join us, when,
• 18:00
  when the ink is dry, probably some of your people are going to
• 18:04
  leave. They're not going to they're not
• 18:05
  going to want to go through our system.
• 18:07
  They might find, you know, they may not.
• 18:09
  And we just saw it actually an acquisition we lost.
• 18:12
  Somebody gave their notice recently and no one is happy
• 18:15
  about it. But they were just, it wasn't a
• 18:17
  fit for them working at a bigger company.
• 18:19
  They had worked at a very small company.
• 18:21
  And that's OK. And it used to bother all of us,
• 18:24
  myself, Susan, our COO, but now we're just like, OK, you know,
• 18:27
  there's, you know, for the most part, everyone's replaceable.
• 18:30
  You don't always like to do it, but you have to keep that vision
• 18:33
  moving forward in that consistency.
• 18:35
  This is the this is the format while also not jamming people
• 18:39
  into different roles that don't make sense.
• 18:40
  So a role that you know they might have prospered in might
• 18:44
  not work in our new system. So obviously we jumped into the
• 18:48
  mergers and acquisitions thing first good transition.
• 18:51
  I would, I would love to hear more about just kind of some of
• 18:55
  the successes you've had with, you talked about hiring your COO
• 18:59
  and how that was a huge piece of, of gaining you that ability
• 19:02
  to get momentum and scale. What are some other hires that
• 19:06
  have gone really well, hires that didn't make sense for you
• 19:09
  that you had to move on from and just in general, as you were
• 19:13
  continuing to build and grow? How did that path go for you?
• 19:16
  Was it just a steady increase like regularly?
• 19:18
  Did you have any setbacks? Setbacks can't even quantify the
• 19:22
  amount of setbacks tell. Us about those.
• 19:24
  Well, the, the first thing came to mind when he asked the
• 19:27
  question is some of my top operations people, and I'd say
• 19:31
  almost all of them have left and come back, which is interesting
• 19:35
  because it's so high pressure what we do.
• 19:38
  It's so such a time crunch. The emails, you know, some my,
• 19:42
  my paralegals, my senior folks getting 1700 emails a day, all
• 19:45
  that have to be responded to in some way.
• 19:47
  It's very high pressure. So a lot of times those people,
• 19:50
  my COO being one, she left. She was like, you know what, I'm
• 19:53
  going to, She was going to start a brewery with her husband and
• 19:56
  she went to go work for a smaller firm briefly.
• 19:58
  The brewery didn't work out, thankfully for both of us, I
• 20:00
  hope. And then she was at the smaller
• 20:03
  firm. And after a while, I was like,
• 20:04
  this is like, I've seen the way it's done on a grander scale.
• 20:08
  I'm sort of wasting my time here.
• 20:09
  There's no upward mobility. It's been really good for those
• 20:12
  people to see that. So they go to these other
• 20:14
  places. It's never easy.
• 20:16
  Like when Susan told me she was leaving, it was like the worst
• 20:19
  day ever. But then we slowly started, you
• 20:22
  know, talking again. And I had to change some things.
• 20:24
  It wasn't just the system. It was me to the way I was
• 20:27
  micromanaging and all the learning experience.
• 20:30
  So but when the people come back, just have an attorney come
• 20:32
  back who's very valuable to our team.
• 20:34
  So that's one of the things is you have to not.
• 20:38
  And believe me, when I was 26, somebody would leave and I would
• 20:41
  burn the bridge. Like, you know, I throw their
• 20:44
  stuff out in the street. Yeah, it's it's emotional.
• 20:47
  You have a, you know, the things your baby.
• 20:49
  So that's one of the big, one of the big successes when people
• 20:52
  come back. So I've learned to maybe be
• 20:54
  like, OK, right now, this isn't a fit, go see what's out there.
• 20:57
  And the people we've wanted to come back have generally come
• 20:59
  back. So that's one thing.
• 21:01
  Sorry to interrupt you but majority of the people that left
• 21:04
  and came back was their first job with you.
• 21:06
  Not their first job, but we're there for a really long time and
• 21:10
  the way I managed it when I was really involved in, and not that
• 21:15
  I'm not really involved now, but it is a little bit different.
• 21:19
  I was way too up their asses, excuse my language.
• 21:23
  You can edit that out, but wait. Just no.
• 21:25
  Just no cussing please. It's a very.
• 21:28
  I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I generally don't cuss only when
• 21:31
  I go to church, so. You know, so you step back.
• 21:35
  You had to learn to step back. I had to learn to just eat
• 21:37
  because easing off the gas makes people work a little bit better.
• 21:41
  Like they're doing the best they can.
• 21:43
  You know, if I have, if you're calling me and being like, hey,
• 21:46
  there's a problem, well, I'm going to react.
• 21:48
  And Susan will always say to me, don't overreact.
• 21:50
  Here's the and so even now I have to take a step back before
• 21:54
  I fire off that e-mail, call someone and believe me, I still
• 21:58
  fly off the handle because it's intense Intensity is a huge part
• 22:01
  of being successful. I think you have to take it
• 22:03
  seriously, which I do, step back a little bit and say, so that's,
• 22:06
  that's a victory. There's been, you know, there's
• 22:09
  been tons and tons and tons of failures.
• 22:12
  I mean, that's, there's way more failures and victories, but you
• 22:15
  have to persevere. I mean, there's been days, had a
• 22:19
  day recently where we had a problem and I was like, why this
• 22:21
  isn't worth it anymore? Why am I doing this?
• 22:23
  You know, it's so, but you just sort of wake up the next day.
• 22:26
  One thing I learned very early on, other than being consistent
• 22:28
  is as bad of a Monday as it was, Tuesday's generally better.
• 22:32
  You know, the next day you just sort of go home, go to sleep,
• 22:35
  you know, tune out, which I've gotten better at doing.
• 22:38
  And then so you'll learn to deal with the failures.
• 22:40
  But if you think you're going to be an entrepreneur or you're
• 22:43
  going to grow a business and it's going to be all roses, I
• 22:47
  mean, it's not even close. I love hearing you say that
• 22:50
  though, because obviously you know you have business skills
• 22:53
  that are natural, but then what you had to do over all these
• 22:56
  years that you've been in business is you had to actually
• 22:58
  have personal growth, right? All of that sounds like you've
• 23:01
  self reflected and then you've actually corrected certain
• 23:05
  things. Of course I.
• 23:05
  Don't think everybody's ever looked at me and said oh you've
• 23:08
  self reflected, but that's great to hear.
• 23:11
  You, you looked. You looked inward.
• 23:13
  I looked inward. Clearly there's so much stuff
• 23:16
  you must have gone on, I'm guessing like a yoga retreat of
• 23:18
  some sort. And you, really you, you spoke
• 23:21
  to God. And meditating every morning.
• 23:23
  So. And I don't think I do think
• 23:26
  there is some natural business go like Ryan is great with
• 23:29
  people. He's like everybody's best
• 23:30
  friend, right. You don't that's you can't learn
• 23:32
  that. And I don't think you can really
• 23:33
  learn to be a great salesperson. But you're where you come from
• 23:37
  is a big factor. I mean, like I would my, my dad
• 23:40
  ran a very small manufacturing company.
• 23:42
  My mother still has a retail store.
• 23:44
  So it was always a bootstrap kind of thing.
• 23:47
  And so when I started, you know, I also had nothing to risk when
• 23:50
  I started, I didn't have anything.
• 23:52
  So it's, you know what, what can really happen.
• 23:55
  So there's some nature nurture there for sure, but it's also
• 23:59
  just your tolerance for, for pain.
• 24:01
  You know, how many how, how badly do you want it?
• 24:04
  And again, being consistent. And like I still every single
• 24:07
  order that we get, every single new deal at some point, you
• 24:09
  know, comes through me on a spreadsheet.
• 24:11
  So I just say, oh, we got a new deal from Ryan's team.
• 24:13
  Like send it, send an e-mail out to Charlotte, you know, thank
• 24:16
  him for the. It's just, it's not rocket
• 24:19
  science. But I find it something people
• 24:20
  just don't do because you also get people.
• 24:22
  And I saw this when I had, you know, partners, private Equity
• 24:26
  Partners. There was a lot of stuff that
• 24:27
  was beneath them. And I've never felt that like
• 24:29
  nothing in what we do is beneath them.
• 24:31
  If someone needs a phone call because they're really upset
• 24:33
  about something, I'll pick up the phone.
• 24:35
  You know, do I want to do it? No.
• 24:37
  But you know, it's one of those things you take your lumps and
• 24:40
  that's part of part of the deal. I love that.
• 24:42
  I'm the same. I'm in the same way.
• 24:43
  You got to You're not too good. We're not better than anyone
• 24:46
  else. That's clearing the.
• 24:47
  Place and. We're all working.
• 24:49
  Hard it's the other way for me, you know, it's like I'm not I
• 24:52
  end and that a lot of this has changed too with employees.
• 24:55
  You know that when I first started, it was the employer who
• 24:59
  was sort of the, you know, thank it was thank you for the job.
• 25:02
  Now it's, you know, thank you for coming to work.
• 25:05
  Thank you for not writing a Glassdoor review.
• 25:08
  You know, and then it's a cyclical business, you guys
• 25:11
  know. So, you know, we were at our
• 25:13
  peak, we were maybe close to 500 employees, but before 80 in a
• 25:19
  during the pandemic. And then we had to lay off a ton
• 25:22
  of people because rates went up, you know, a full 2 points over a
• 25:25
  short amount of time. That was a very different
• 25:27
  conversation in 2022 with the Internet and Glassdoor than it
• 25:31
  was in 2005. And so it's it's changed a lot.
• 25:35
  That's hard. Yeah, I remember when your shop
• 25:37
  was on Walnut Street, Four Corners.
• 25:40
  Now you got a a bunch of big offices nationally and we were.
• 25:44
  We were on, we started in Newtonville, right over where
• 25:46
  the Star Market is over the over the Pike.
• 25:49
  Forgot about that. Tell me about something that you
• 25:52
  so for entrepreneurs that are listening that whether they run
• 25:56
  a small real estate team, loan officers, you name it, whatever
• 25:59
  the small business is, what's a risk that you took because you
• 26:02
  probably still constantly taste Rick?
• 26:03
  I mean, you're selling the private equity and moving things
• 26:05
  around a lot of money moving back and forth.
• 26:07
  What was a risk you took early on that was beneficial and or
• 26:10
  didn't work out? It's there's, it's very clear
• 26:13
  and I did. This is one of the back to
• 26:15
  Courtney's question. This is one of the thing that
• 26:16
  I'm dealing with some of the people we've acquired not being
• 26:19
  the face all the time. Like, you know, I brought on
• 26:23
  let's start to bring out attorneys because we were
• 26:25
  growing and I couldn't be there, You know, first year I maybe
• 26:27
  it's less than that. I was doing every closing
• 26:29
  running around and at some point you have to say, hey, Ryan, you
• 26:33
  know, and we've done a good job at this.
• 26:34
  And now it's, you know, you work with David a lot in our office,
• 26:38
  but he's not the one sitting at the closing generally.
• 26:41
  So you've, you know, now he's figured it out.
• 26:43
  And so it was not being the face of you can't be everything for
• 26:48
  everyone. And I took the risk like, I
• 26:50
  definitely lost business. You know, I I've reconnected
• 26:52
  with a realtor recently after 20 years who said, well, I stopped
• 26:56
  using you when you weren't at the closing.
• 26:57
  It's like, yeah, I think I made the right call for me.
• 27:00
  You know, it's, it's OK, It worked out.
• 27:01
  All right. So, yeah, that was the biggest
• 27:04
  risk because at that time when we were small, it could have
• 27:07
  been like, OK, I just lost all my business.
• 27:10
  I'm not sitting, you know, I'm not out there constantly.
• 27:13
  Right. Like I mean simple.
• 27:15
  This is cliche, but like one step back.
• 27:16
  Yep, 20 steps forward. Exactly right.
• 27:19
  I think that's actually one of the best examples of what the
• 27:22
  pain every entrepreneur feels when they start actually
• 27:24
  delegating a lot of their responsibilities in order to
• 27:27
  scale. And I think in any industry, no
• 27:30
  matter what it is, the minute you choose to say or you, you
• 27:33
  know, you choose the, the path of saying someone else can do
• 27:37
  this just as well as I can because I need to focus my
• 27:40
  efforts elsewhere. You're going to always have that
• 27:42
  risk of losing something to gain so much more.
• 27:45
  It's really, you know, I look at it a lot like you go and see
• 27:49
  this band at a bar and there's like 20 people there and you
• 27:52
  love this band, but then they go and play at a bigger place.
• 27:55
  You're like, God, they sold out. It's like, well, no, they're
• 27:57
  successful because they're good. The reason you like them also
• 28:00
  now you don't like them because they're having success.
• 28:03
  I think it should be the other way, really supporting that
• 28:05
  success and that's what I found. A lot of people felt the same
• 28:09
  way, luckily. Yeah, it's funny.
• 28:10
  I mean, if people say like, oh, it's a, you know, they got a,
• 28:13
  they got a big shop over there. I'm like, yeah, they got a big
• 28:15
  shop and they've grown their business because they do a
• 28:17
  really good job and that means more people are calling, more
• 28:20
  people are wanting business. More resources, you know, more
• 28:22
  resources that that. Our thought has always been big
• 28:25
  firm resources, small firm feel, which I think we do a pretty
• 28:28
  good job at. Not always, you know, there's
• 28:30
  nothing is absolute, especially in what we do.
• 28:33
  There's too many details. First thing I say, when I bring
• 28:35
  in a new client now it's like this, we're going to, we're
• 28:37
  going to make mistakes. This is a mistake business.
• 28:40
  It's how we deal with the mistakes.
• 28:41
  If you think we're not going to make a mistake, then you're in
• 28:43
  the wrong, You're dealing with the wrong people because we're
• 28:45
  going to and that's maybe, you know, one of the, the, the most
• 28:48
  important things is we, we mess it up.
• 28:50
  We're going to be the first one to say, hey, listen, we screwed
• 28:53
  this up. What can we do to make it
• 28:54
  better? Because it's it's inevitable.
• 28:56
  What are strategies? I'm just thinking this like, so
• 28:59
  as you scale, as you grow, what are strategies to keep that
• 29:01
  super high touch customer service?
• 29:04
  Because let's be honest, plenty of companies, whether it be real
• 29:07
  estate firm or law firm, once they get bigger, it's less
• 29:10
  personal attention. Jerry Maguire, you know.
• 29:12
  You know, it's that we've really, we've really segmented
• 29:16
  the process to the point where so your clients, for example,
• 29:20
  they'll deal with an attorney and then they deal with 1
• 29:23
  processor paralegal. So it's a very, now the attorney
• 29:28
  and the paralegal, let's say have a big team behind them.
• 29:31
  Every e-mail that goes out is sent on behalf of that person.
• 29:34
  So to the consumer especially and to your team, all they know
• 29:38
  is they have these two people. You know, if it's a, you know,
• 29:40
  if there's not a one of our attorneys above, it's one person
• 29:43
  and it's really simplifies. They do feel like we see some of
• 29:46
  our competitors have 10 people on an e-mail and it just the
• 29:49
  consumer doesn't know who to talk to.
• 29:51
  That's been a huge, that's been a huge thing we've done.
• 29:53
  Yeah, It's making it more personalized, making it feel
• 29:56
  like they have two people even though it's a huge shop.
• 29:59
  I always think about it though, when anyone, like, I love the
• 30:01
  analogy used about the band, but when anyone ever has an issue
• 30:04
  with a company being large scale, I'm like, so if you went
• 30:08
  in for surgery, right, and your surgeon only does two of these
• 30:12
  surgeries a year, right? Versus if your surgeon is
• 30:15
  pumping out that surgery at a rapid pace and has, you know, a
• 30:19
  massive amount of clients, it's like, yeah, you might not get
• 30:22
  that like a personal touch, but guess what?
• 30:24
  They're probably a lot more experienced and have seen it
• 30:26
  all. And with real estate, I think we
• 30:28
  can all agree. You know, cost is it a lot of
• 30:31
  people have said, you know, well, you're cheaper, you know,
• 30:34
  in some areas and thankfully that's been a bit of a fallacy.
• 30:38
  I think we're pretty market general now or market middle,
• 30:41
  whatever. I don't know, I'm saying but and
• 30:44
  so, OK, well, we have the ability to do that.
• 30:46
  That doesn't mean that our service is, and I think you can
• 30:49
  attest to that. The service is as good as
• 30:52
  anyone, if not that, of course, at a more affordable price.
• 30:55
  That's why people go to us, say it's not because I'm a nice guy,
• 30:57
  you know, it's because. You could you could get
• 31:01
  something on Amazon for cheaper or you can go to your local mom
• 31:04
  and pop shop and pay a little bit more.
• 31:06
  And you know what? There's times when maybe you go
• 31:09
  to the local mom and pop shop. You know, you have somebody who
• 31:11
  lives and a certain building in Beacon Hill that this attorney's
• 31:14
  done. All the closing absolutely go to
• 31:16
  that attorney. They they're involved in the
• 31:18
  condo litigation, whatever it may be.
• 31:20
  We're not for everyone and that's fine.
• 31:21
  We're not for every deal. And you've learned to live with
• 31:23
  that. In your industry just in
• 31:25
  general, so you've been residential real estate for
• 31:28
  years, growing consistently. What do you think the biggest
• 31:30
  mistake in the industry is? Getting into it, no, I, I think
• 31:35
  it is, I think attorneys classically are not good
• 31:40
  business people because you don't learn business in in law
• 31:44
  school, you learn the law, you learn some writing skills.
• 31:47
  At least I didn't. And I was see if at best law
• 31:52
  student, if you can believe that.
• 31:53
  And now it's hard to believe, you know, you don't learn how to
• 31:56
  be a business person. And so I think that attorneys
• 32:00
  think that because they're attorneys or title people or
• 32:03
  whatever in different parts of country, that means I'm a really
• 32:06
  good business person. I'm a licensed title agent.
• 32:07
  So that means I really know business.
• 32:09
  It's not we're a sales and marketing company as as much, if
• 32:12
  not more as we are a law firm at this point.
• 32:15
  You know, we're sales, we're a service business.
• 32:17
  We're a sales company, we're a marketing company.
• 32:19
  We don't get too hung up on being attorneys.
• 32:21
  We have to be attorneys in Massachusetts.
• 32:22
  We have to be attorneys in Connecticut, South Carolina,
• 32:24
  North Carolina, the attorney states.
• 32:26
  But we take that same like we're a service business, you know, so
• 32:30
  and we, we move it into that. And so I think that's the
• 32:32
  biggest mistake and people have chastised us for that.
• 32:35
  You know, you're, you're, you know, you're more concerned with
• 32:38
  having events then you are. I'm like, OK, well, that's how
• 32:40
  we connect with our clients, you know, sorry.
• 32:42
  That's our approach. Do it differently.
• 32:44
  I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, yeah.
• 32:45
  That's how you build relationships and everything.
• 32:47
  But the interesting thing of what you just said with that is
• 32:49
  that let's say someone comes out of law school and they really
• 32:52
  don't have that knack for business.
• 32:54
  They just don't have the gift that you have, right?
• 32:57
  They were a students. So.
• 32:59
  But you know, so let's say that's the case to me, I look at
• 33:02
  that as know your strengths. You can still open up a
• 33:05
  phenomenal shop. You could still try to compete
• 33:07
  with Chris Law. You will lose, but you can still
• 33:09
  try. But you have to hire someone
• 33:11
  who's going to have that other skill set.
• 33:13
  And I think that that's the biggest piece.
• 33:14
  There are so many industries out there that you actually have to
• 33:17
  be sales oriented and business oriented, but you actually went
• 33:20
  to school for something completely different because
• 33:22
  you're the talent of what you're doing, right?
• 33:25
  So if you were more practicing law, you would have to actually
• 33:28
  outsource more of the business side of things, right?
• 33:30
  And I think that that's again, putting ego aside, which we
• 33:33
  talked about with the merger and acquisition.
• 33:35
  And I think that that's like one of the biggest growth
• 33:37
  experiences you can have to grow your business is you have to
• 33:40
  actually grow as a human being and say, what are my strengths,
• 33:44
  one of my weaknesses? Put my ego aside, hire
• 33:47
  accordingly, hire someone who can like can absolutely be
• 33:51
  compatible and work with you, right?
• 33:54
  And I think that that's something that, you know, I
• 33:56
  think about it all the time with attorneys, right?
• 33:58
  You guys are incredibly book smart.
• 33:59
  You're reading all the time, right?
• 34:01
  Like, again, you're someone who's gifted in the business
• 34:04
  sense of things, but most attorneys don't have that
• 34:07
  business side or sales side. I the gifted thing makes me feel
• 34:11
  weird because I think it's just working hard, but I get it like
• 34:14
  there's some I can whatever knack I have.
• 34:17
  The gift is that's just weird. You know, I just, it makes me
• 34:20
  uncomfortable. I think you're very gifted.
• 34:22
  Thank you. You're.
• 34:23
  The Gifted. Program, but I I will say that a
• 34:27
  lot, you know, a lot of attorneys in selling against us,
• 34:29
  which is, you know, I, I get that too.
• 34:31
  We're one of the bigger. So people are like, you know,
• 34:33
  like, well, you know, Scott, Chris isn't really a good
• 34:35
  attorney. I'm like, yeah, I don't I don't.
• 34:37
  I mean, are you a great attorney?
• 34:39
  Like what we're doing in the grand scheme of legal work is
• 34:43
  not. We use a form contract.
• 34:44
  We all have form writers. We work with the same people on
• 34:46
  the other side all the time. So it's like, OK, well if you
• 34:50
  want to hang your hat on being a great lawyer, that's great.
• 34:52
  I think you're probably in the wrong industry, part of the
• 34:55
  industry for that. To me, the great lawyers are
• 34:58
  doing M&A, they're doing really complex stuff.
• 35:01
  You know, we are sort of a, we're transactional.
• 35:04
  So I have great lawyers. Dave's a great lawyer.
• 35:06
  He's great at what he does, but unfortunately that's not the
• 35:09
  business we're in. You get the business because of
• 35:11
  the service, not because of your legal know how.
• 35:14
  So I think that's another piece of maybe some of our competitors
• 35:16
  gotten too wrapped up in that. I went to law school, so I
• 35:18
  didn't want to get a job after college.
• 35:20
  You know, that's and it happened to work out.
• 35:22
  I found something that worked for me, but I'm not I've never
• 35:26
  have thought I'm some kind of great legal mind and I think
• 35:28
  it's it comes down to that ego thing.
• 35:30
  It's like, I just don't. Some people are really wrapped
• 35:33
  up in it and it's just a it's a different mindset.
• 35:36
  Right. The way I look at it is we're a
• 35:38
  customer service business that happens to represent buyers,
• 35:41
  sellers and investors. Yeah.
• 35:42
  And you know, you know the basics, You, you're good at
• 35:45
  looking at a house, you're good at those things.
• 35:47
  But you know, I don't think any attorney that does what we do or
• 35:52
  Realtors, no one's splitting the atom here.
• 35:54
  I I think we've gotten a bit out of control with social media.
• 35:57
  Certainly, you know, and I, if you know, I did a million things
• 36:00
  on since of Burnett, I think a lot of that came about because
• 36:04
  of the way we portray ourselves in an industry that everyone's
• 36:07
  millionaires. You know, that's not the case
• 36:09
  for this thing. It's the furthest thing from the
• 36:11
  case. And so, you know, I think social
• 36:13
  media has done a lot of that, but I'm also old and I, you
• 36:15
  know, I don't want to, you guys know, I never want to do like
• 36:17
  pictures or anything. I I didn't.
• 36:18
  I'm not doing. I mean, even though you're very
• 36:20
  handsome, I mean this, but this. Podcast I'm doing against my
• 36:22
  will. I want to, yeah.
• 36:23
  I want to put it on the. Reinforcement.
• 36:25
  I want to put that out there. Yeah.
• 36:26
  So, you know, I think that that's like there's a whole
• 36:29
  cultural ego thing that you guys keep referring to that I
• 36:31
  couldn't agree with more. I think like you hit the nail on
• 36:34
  the head with the social media piece.
• 36:36
  I think right now everyone will say that industry saturated or
• 36:39
  this is saturated. It's like it's not saturated.
• 36:41
  It's that now we have so much visibility into everything.
• 36:45
  So there were always this many human beings, right?
• 36:47
  I mean, maybe we have more now, but for the most part, it's like
• 36:50
  there's always been a ton of competition.
• 36:51
  We just didn't see them so clearly and so easily because
• 36:54
  they weren't posting every single day. 300 65 days of the
• 36:57
  year. We, we have a portion, I'm
• 36:59
  starting to start, we have a portion of our business that
• 37:01
  we've had for 20 years that never was really publicized,
• 37:04
  that recently was publicized because of a new, a new partner
• 37:08
  we brought on. And it's caused this huge issue
• 37:11
  with people in The Who just think this is something new.
• 37:13
  And I'm like that we've been doing this for years and it the
• 37:17
  only reason it's out there, social media, you know, and it's
• 37:19
  like you don't. And so it gets skewed and people
• 37:22
  like you're doing this and you're doing that.
• 37:23
  And it's, I never knew what anyone was doing.
• 37:26
  And I think it helped me grow my business before social media.
• 37:28
  So I just put my head down. I always assumed everyone was
• 37:30
  kicking my butt. I just assumed everyone's
• 37:32
  working harder than me. So I think it made me work
• 37:34
  harder. And you sort of know too much
• 37:37
  now, I think. Yeah.
• 37:38
  It's definitely, especially in real estate, I think it feels
• 37:40
  very competitive when it doesn't need to be totally like you
• 37:43
  said, put your head down, stay in your lane and just focus on
• 37:46
  what you're trying to do. And I think it's.
• 37:48
  Not reality. Totally.
• 37:50
  But it's also when you're trying to grow something like like you
• 37:53
  mentioned, I think because of social media now, people are so
• 37:55
  fearful of taking that next step, taking that risk because
• 37:58
  oh, everyone's going to know I failed or everyone's going to
• 38:01
  know it didn't work out. Who cares?
• 38:03
  Like, you've got to move on. But you know, years ago when you
• 38:05
  were taking those big risks, when you were 26, starting out,
• 38:09
  it wasn't so visible. It wasn't so public.
• 38:11
  People don't see all the little missteps, all the little
• 38:14
  mistakes, the employees that come and go.
• 38:16
  Right now, it's like everyone. It was to the point back then
• 38:19
  like we would be invited to, I'd be invited to like title
• 38:22
  insurance companies to have these trips and stuff and I
• 38:24
  wouldn't go because I didn't want anyone to know that I even
• 38:26
  qualified for the trip. You know, it's just like it was
• 38:28
  just different and now everything's so out there and it
• 38:31
  makes me uncomfortable. I don't, I don't think it's
• 38:33
  necessary for business. I think it's a lot of ways.
• 38:36
  I think it's unbecoming. I've said this to you before,
• 38:37
  like if I'm going to sell a couple $1,000,000 piece of
• 38:40
  property, I'm not sure I want that realtor that I'm going to
• 38:43
  use out there dancing. And I don't think that somebody
• 38:46
  the consumer is buying wants to see me out there, you know, like
• 38:49
  whatever it is wearing like a goofy hat.
• 38:51
  I just, it's not, it's, there's some got to be some type of
• 38:54
  decorum in business to make you feel comfortable.
• 38:56
  I think. And I'm not a decorum guy by any
• 38:58
  means, but when it comes to lots and lots of money at risk, I
• 39:02
  think you want to have people that are really trustworthy.
• 39:04
  But maybe I maybe just it might have passed me by at this point.
• 39:07
  I'm sure there's plenty of people that have that opinion.
• 39:10
  You gotta be professional for sure.
• 39:12
  Definitely. I mean epitome of professional.
• 39:14
  Totally, you know. You basically wrote the book on
• 39:17
  business etiquette. I did.
• 39:18
  So now that we've gotten some of those tips from you, I would
• 39:22
  love to hear. It's probably hard to like
• 39:25
  bottle this up, but what is one piece of advice that you would
• 39:28
  give? Not just someone in your
• 39:29
  industry, so not just an attorney, any business owner who
• 39:33
  is looking to scale and knows that the next step is to
• 39:37
  actually get into acquisitions. Because all the points that we
• 39:40
  talked about earlier. What would you say to get that
• 39:42
  started to actually like, you know, first step?
• 39:45
  What's the most important thing to do before you actually like
• 39:48
  make those purchases? I think it's you can't believe
• 39:51
  your own hype. I think that's the biggest
• 39:52
  thing. So when I, you know, when I took
• 39:55
  an investment from in my title in Atlantic, you know, the
• 39:59
  thinking was, OK, well, I can kind of step back from this and
• 40:01
  I step back a little bit from it and.
• 40:04
  The business didn't work anymore and it's like you can't, it's
• 40:07
  not that kind of business. You know, we've had people in
• 40:10
  the closing business like I, I'm hiring ACEO because I'm a step
• 40:14
  back. It never works.
• 40:15
  So it's you still you're either going to be in it, you have to
• 40:19
  be in 100% and you have to get your hands dirty in this
• 40:22
  industry. And I think it applied these
• 40:25
  guys I was with last time I sold this tech company, we had the
• 40:27
  same conversation. I think they did so well because
• 40:30
  they were, I mean, knee deep in all of the bowl for a year right
• 40:35
  up until they sold. And so that's what it is.
• 40:37
  You cannot take your foot off the gas.
• 40:39
  You cannot say, well, I'm the CEOI don't do that.
• 40:42
  I'm the this, I don't do that. We're not Raytheon here.
• 40:46
  You know this. These are small businesses where
• 40:48
  you do everything you do to survive.
• 40:50
  And unless you're independently wealthy or you have enough money
• 40:54
  where you never have to worry about a dollar again, I don't
• 40:57
  see how you can do it and sleep at night.
• 40:59
  So I think that's the, and I, I see it, I've seen it.
• 41:01
  You know, I don't do this anymore.
• 41:02
  I don't do that anymore. I'm too big time for this.
• 41:04
  I, I hope I've never said that and never will because I'm not
• 41:08
  too big time for anything. I was, there's a very good
• 41:10
  chance I could have been out cutting lawns for my whole life.
• 41:13
  You know, it just happened to work out for me.
• 41:14
  So. OK.
• 41:16
  Love that. So don't have too big of an ego.
• 41:18
  Yeah, get out. Knee deep in the bull.
• 41:20
  I think you said, yeah, knee deep, knee deep in the bull.
• 41:24
  So Knee. Deep in the bull, this is all I
• 41:25
  assume this is never going to go out to anyone, no?
• 41:27
  No, this is we're actually. Not even we're.
• 41:30
  Actually going to we're going to delete the whole thing.
• 41:33
  No, but that's actually, I do think that that's great advice.
• 41:35
  I'm I'm messing with you on that, but that is good advice.
• 41:37
  I think that what you're saying is be humble and don't be, you
• 41:42
  know, don't let yourself get too ahead of where you're actually
• 41:45
  at. We all have our moments by the
• 41:47
  way, believe me, I don't this is I'm a hypocrite in many ways
• 41:50
  because I get on my high horse about some stuff.
• 41:52
  I'm sure that I don't even realize and Amanda will tell you
• 41:55
  that or my daughter will tell you that or my friends.
• 41:57
  But but like at least that's what you try to live by is, you
• 42:01
  know, stay, stay. You said that I said it in like
• 42:03
  half an hour. You said it stay humble.
• 42:05
  That's I could have just said. That and work hard.
• 42:07
  I mean, one of your big things is I remember you used to tell
• 42:09
  me back in the refi a few years ago during COVID, you would set
• 42:14
  an alarm at 3:00 AM to wake up just to be able to crush a few,
• 42:17
  a few hours of emails and then 'cause you just, you're going to
• 42:21
  have so many hundreds. When you woke.
• 42:23
  Up it's like, wow, that's another level of work that most
• 42:25
  people, I don't care what generation you're talking about
• 42:27
  'cause there's all different stereotypes of generations.
• 42:30
  Most people don't have that level of work ethic in hard work
• 42:33
  works. And if you're willing to do that
• 42:35
  over and over again consistently, as you've said
• 42:37
  many times. And there's nothing.
• 42:40
  That's one thing I've learned from these acquisitions.
• 42:43
  Again, not to rehash it, but not everyone's like me.
• 42:45
  Not everyone's the same. Not everyone's like you.
• 42:47
  But if you're not like me, then don't.
• 42:49
  You can't possibly expect to, you know, have the success at
• 42:53
  someone who works harder than you.
• 42:54
  Like there, there's a correlation there.
• 42:56
  Hard work, more money. Less hard work is OK, just less
• 43:00
  money. That's OK.
• 43:01
  There's people out there work way harder than me and I make
• 43:03
  way more money than I do. It's just a it's, it's a choice.
• 43:07
  Yeah, yeah, true. Well, I've loved having you on,
• 43:09
  man. This is.
• 43:10
  Great, thank you for having me. I can never do this again.
• 43:12
  This is. Well, I actually was going to
• 43:13
  say Part 2 is going. To be.
• 43:16
  Launching soon? No, this was awesome.
• 43:18
  Thank you so much it. Was great to hear your story.
• 43:21
  Chris Law, Atlantic Closings, Escrow and Affiliates.
• 43:24
  Not even close. Top guy, you know, I think I
• 43:26
  nailed it and we appreciate you coming on, man Thank you.
• 43:29
  So much all right.