Latest / Author Hour / Creative Cash: Gino Barbaro on Turning One Book Into a Seven-Figure Real Estate Empire

Transcript

Creative Cash: Gino Barbaro on Turning One Book Into a Seven-Figure Real Estate Empire · Author Hour

• speaker-0: I'm so excited to have Gino Barbaro here, Creative Cash, the complete guide to master lease options and seller financing for investing in real estate. He is the author of that book. And I am so glad to have you, Gino, and looking forward to diving into it. So could you start with telling us a little bit about your background and what led you to this book? speaker-1: Travis, I was referred to as the pizza guy. I partnered up with my partner, Jake Stenziano, who we actually professionally call him the drug rep. He was the pharmaceutical rep coming to my restaurant, taking out food, bringing them to doctor's offices. And one day we sat around the table at the restaurant and we said, We I don't want to be a pizza guy anymore, and you don't want to be a drug rep anymore. What do we got to do? Like, how do we escape the rat race? And we just decided to start investing in real estate. It took us 18 months to find the first deal. But Travis, when we started buying deals, we really enjoyed buying the deals, but we learned so much from buying the deals. And all of a sudden, we started a podcast and then we wrote our first book. And that's what led us to Creative Cash. We got pretty good at what we did. We created this Jake and Gino community. We enjoyed it. But part of writing the book and part of the process is getting it out of your head and getting it down on paper and being able to create frameworks and maps and processes where you can actually take the information that you have, teach it. And then give it to others. And the book process and the creative cash process was one of those strategies about seller financing that was not really in vogue, but we knew where the market cycle is shifting. And we're like, yes, seller finance financing is going to start coming into vogue. So that's what led us to the creative cash, to writing of that book. speaker-0: That's amazing. And how what is the importance there of getting it out of your head, getting it started? How do you recommend people that have it trapped up there? How do you get started? And what is the value behind that? speaker-1: Th this could be a long question. I'm gonna I'm gonna shorten it down. But my priest told me when I wrote my very first book, it was about it was a cookbook. I was in the restaurant business, so I wanted to write a cookbook. And what he told me was your story, your book better have a real simple story. And it has to be personable. It has to be part of you and it has to have a message. So the message in that book is a lot different than the creative cast message. So if you're gonna be writing a book, to me, make it Personable, make make it have some type of value and make it really have a story, something that you want to share with the world. Because if you're listening to this, whether you know it or not, you have your own unique story that needs to be sh told, needs to be shouted to the rest of the world, something that is great about you. And how better to do that than to get that all out of your head and onto a book. speaker-0: And how did that book change your life, change your business after it was released? speaker-1: When we released it, for us, we got all of this different information out there. We started creating frameworks, one that we call the three pillars of real estate. We called another framework called the spy technique, the seller, the property, the you. All of a sudden, we started putting this down on paper and we started realizing wow, we've got not just a book, we've got an entire course here. We've got something where we can actually start teaching people, but we could we can create a business. Around the book. And I don't think that was the general idea. The idea was hey, this is a great idea, great concept. Let's get some quote unquote leads for our education company and let's sell this book. But to me, it became something so much bigger than that. Because all of a sudden, all of the expertise that I had in seller financing, because Jake and I, we did over $25 million in seller finance deals. So it's something that we learned, something that we really enjoyed, and something that totally changed our lives. Because people, when they get into real estate, One of the biggest blocks is, well, I don't have money. It takes money to make money. Well, that's the problem that our book solved. And that's something that I should have mentioned earlier. What is the problem that your book solves? That's another issue, another example that you should be really focusing on when you're delivering a book. That was a huge problem for our space. And that's why I was so proud to write it to be part of it, because it's like, okay, you have that objection. Here's the objection blocker. This is a strategy in real estate where you can learn, you can start buying deals. You start start taking deals down. And it's so awesome because the book is like a business card. All of a sudden you have some type of credibility where you're talking to somebody. Hey, let me give you my book. It's something where you're giving something to somebody and there's reciprocity to it. You gave them something, and it's like cool. And then from that book, another thing that we did, Travis, was we started taking out chapters within the book and started creating, you know, content, YouTube videos. We were using the platform Kajabi. It was a learning management system. You can use Mighty, you can use School, but all of a sudden you start creating these little videos upon all the teachings within the book. But if it's not done in the book first, it's gonna be harder to create all of that, all those videos. So the book gave us the structure, it gave us the template, it got everything out of our minds, and then all of a sudden we start seeing the bigger picture. And you start seeing the through line within the book, and then you can start putting that all together. speaker-0: That's amazing. So how can you walk somebody through how they would do that? How they go from creating the book, creating the frameworks, to then creating the course to how that whole pipeline works to move your customer through all of these different valuable assets that you're providing to them. How do you look at that? How should a business owner look at that? speaker-1: You know, it's changed, Travis, over the last several years because of AI. Now, I love AI, but I've seen AI books and I've read I AI books. The idea with you writing your book is you need to become a storyteller. And that that's rescribed, and a lot of these companies can help because they've done hundreds and thousands of books, and they can bring the knowledge and the experience to help you structure the book, to tailor it to yourself. For us, we would put the chapters together. If you're gonna start writing a book, AI can help you in the fact that let's say I'm gonna write this book on creative cash and you wanna have an outline from AI, AI can help you with the outline. And then all of a sudden, what I would do is I would start adding in the different ideas of the book, whether it's seller financing, and then you're talking about the market cycle, and then you're talking about refinancing the deal, then you go into master lease options. You wanna have that all structured. You wanna have that all done. And I was fortunate enough to work with somebody from Scribe on this book. And then you get on. If you want to do it full, you want to do a full manuscript with Ghostwriter, you can do that. If you want to write the copy yourself, you can do that as well. It really depends upon how much you want to put into it. But for me, I am more of a kinesthetic learner. I need to be able to write the stuff. And then for me writing it, I can get it over to Scribe. Scribe can take a look at it. They've got a lot of editorial people on staff where they can move things around. They can make it flow. Once again, try not to lean too much on AI. It's a great tool, but it with me when it comes to the writing process, you have your own voice, you have your own way, you have your own style. I remember being at an event and there was an investor there who's an apartment syndicator and he's like, Yeah, I just wrote a book with with about syndicating. 300 pages that got the whole thing knocked out. And to me, it was it just didn't feel right because all he was doing is he was creating a lead magnet. You should think of your book as a lead magnet, but your book is all about you. It's such a personal thing. It's something to me that When I think about it, I want to leave this to my children. I want my children to open this book and say, wow, that's what, you know, grandpa was all about. This is what his thoughts were. This is how he helped people. And once again, AI is great, but don't lean on it. Make it all about yourself. And that's where you have all of these different services. Now to really put a bookend on your on your question, you write the book, you're thinking about this book, how he can help others. Think of the book as a gift to other people. So when I thought of the book as a gift to other people with creative financing, I'm like, I'm going to help these people to get into real estate by getting rid of that objection blocking, by understanding the different strategies that you can without using money. So from there, we actually got ⁓ our website, creativeapartment deals.com. So that was the website for the book. So all of a sudden, we can drive people to a website. We started writing ads on Facebook. We were getting people to come onto Facebook, be able to download the book for free. And that's one of those misnomers. People think that I need to get the book and I need to make a ton of money by selling the book. And that's one avenue. You can do that as well. If you're there and you're just trying to sell copies of the book. But for me, as a business owner, and let's say I'm a financial in financial services or I am an educator, I would rather use the book to be able to use that as a credibility piece to be able to get people into my orbit, into my atmosphere, into my sphere of influence. And then once I have that, I can offer them this book. And all of a sudden, it's as if we're on a podcast. They get to meet you, they get to hear you, they get to feel you, and you start to create a relationship through the book. That's where the power of the book comes into play, having that relationship with that customer. And then all of a sudden the customer starts asking questions and they like the book. And that's when it gives them the opportunity to reach out. It's more of less instead of the outbound marketing, it's more of like the inbound marketing because you've given them the book. Now they have the opportunity to reach back to you. And how powerful is it? Somebody's gonna be chasing you instead of you going after it chasing somebody else. speaker-0: Wow, that's perfect. Yeah. So you're using the book, you're targeting with some some ads to a landing page. You're doing a lead capture there. You're giving that that customer or that that lead a lot of value in this free book that has a all of your frameworks and all of the the IP that you've developed. Then once they're kind of opted into your view of the world. They've consumed this content. Now, if they're ready, you are able to sell them your coaching project or your your your coaching services from there as well. So you've got that whole funnel at by thinking of all of the value that you can provide to your customer, then offering it to them for free and then coaching them along into your consulting product. speaker-1: Yes. And and the book really, like you said, is there. It it's it's a minimal purchase for them. It's ten dollars. But if you give that to them for free, you they start reading it. You can create an audio around the book. I've got my or books on Audible. You can start giving them chapters for free. And here's another tip for anybody. If you have the what's the words? I know a lot of people are afraid of getting in front of a camera, but I would tell anybody, if they've written a book, maybe start a podcast around the book. I never thought about this years ago, but it could have been the creative cash. Podcast and I could have done chapters within the book. And then all of a sudden I can start interviewing people in my space who are all about that strategy, that topic. And then all of a sudden, people see my channel and I'll have people reaching out to me to be interviewed on my channel. But then that also gives me the opportunity to get onto other people's channels. And then that's how you start broadening it from a $10 book that you've created. Now all of a sudden you're creating this, these different lead magnets, these different sources of. Places for people to find you from a book. Can you imagine that? You're starting out with a book, but now all of a sudden you've got a landing page, you've got a YouTube channel, you've got a podcast going on, and now you're starting to be able to go on other people's podcasts. Because, Travis, when people want to come on our podcast, I love interviewing authors because they've got thoughts written down. They're not coming on and just speaking about anything. They're speaking about specific frameworks, whether it's scaling an organization, whether it's leadership, whether it's parenting. They've done the work. They put the work in on the front end. They've got their thoughts out in this book. And now it's just a pleasure to have them on because they they're experts at their topic. speaker-0: Wow. Yeah, that's that's a perfect way to bring in high value podcast. Guests it's one of the reasons we love the author hour here. So what would you be what would you say was your return on investment from the book you published with Scribe? speaker-1: That's ⁓ it's a tough question to quantify because I don't even know how many hundreds of people we've actually, you know, affected. I I know from the students who were in our community. At times we didn't teach the technique because it's it wasn't very popular at the time. But when we gave them the book, we had we had dozens of students use the strategy. I mean, Jake and I recently used it about three two or three back in 2023, we actually did a seller finance deal. It was a $500,000 seller finance note. So for me to actually have it down, written down, and be able to execute it, I mean, it's to me, it is priceless. And once you start getting that, what I would say is start getting testimonials. That's one thing that I didn't do. I did not get testimonials from students saying, Hey, I closed the deal. I would get emails from students saying, Hey, great book, love it. And I think that's one thing that we should have done is gotten more testimonials. But The book has been priceless, not only for students, but for us as well, because we were able to learn. Because once you start getting into the space and you start sharing it, you have other experts coming on and going, Hey, have you tried this? Have you done this? And it to me, that was awesome. That's what podcasting, having an educational community, having a mastermind is. You probably are the expert, but when you start attracting other experts, your paradigm, the way you see things starts to shift. And it's no longer just about the box. All of a sudden you start seeing other things that are outside the box. speaker-0: And you sold that business, right? And the book went along with that. Was the book a part of the sale? Was that what was attractive to the the buyer of the business? speaker-1: Absolutely, because it was had the frameworks in there. Like I said, we had the copyrights within the book. And they were just ideas that we had taken out. And one of the people that helped us write this book, we put these ideas together. And that was it. That was what was great about it. I'll share one of the one of the frameworks. We call it the three pillars of real estate. It's market cycle, it's debt, and it's exit strategy. Now they're all three of them. These are not new concepts or new ideas. But what was amazing about that, those three pillars, is when you put them together, you need to understand what market cycle you're in, to be able to understand the type of debt that you get, and you need to ultimately formulate the exit strategy. So when you put all three of those together, it is a powerful framework to be able to understand how to use seller financing. But if we'd never written the book or we had never thought about it, that framework would have never been created. And it's an incredible framework to understand. How to buy real estate in any part of the market cycle. speaker-0: Yeah. I was reading some of your Amazon reviews of the book and this one stood out to me. Before I had even finished the book, I had toured a six unit multifamily and established a great relationship with the seller, who then called me and told me he wanted to sell to me directly. I submitted a letter of intent to him. So y I mean, you just have these stories of these people who are using your book in order to level up financially. By using your playbook. speaker-1: Yes. And and that's the cool part about it. When you s when you think about it, you had a person who had very little experience, didn't know how to talk to brokers. So that was part of the book as well. It wasn't just a strategy, but we're talk we're taking a person in that book from not having very much experience to be able to understand how to look at a deal, how to underwrite a deal, then to use this this specific strategy of creative financing, then to be able to build rapport with the broker through that spy technique. Because when people negotiate, and this is this is something that's within the book. And I think it's really important to share with with the listener. When you're negotiating anything in life, most of us, what do we do? It's all about us. But in real estate and in life, it really is all about the other side. It is all about negotiating with that other person and finding out what their problem is, how to solve their problem. And with that specific example, that seller, that buyer went on there and he understood, wow, that seller's got a problem. How do I fix that problem? That's why that seller went directly to him because he used the spy technique. It's about the seller. Then you look at the deal itself. If that deal makes sense to you, then it's it's a go. And then ultimately you are the last person. Is it something that's in your within your wheelhouse? Is it something that's going to support your goals? Just one little thing within the book. But when you start tying the whole thing together and you're able to walk a person from being a novice all the way through this typical building blocks and stumbling blocks that they have. That's what the book allows you to do. It allows you to get all of your experience that you have out onto a canvas and take somebody through the journey of buying a deal in real estate that has little to no experience and little to no money, and to be able to give them all of the pain points and all the challenges that we had to be able to confront a seller. And that that buyer, when he's reading the book, he may be scared. She may be scared. She may not know where to go, but she can go to chapter 10. And go look, wow, this is the technique that I need to use. This is the script that I need to use. And with that, that's how you're able to really affect people. And that's how you're able to help people who have no experience go out and buy a six unit apartment complex. speaker-0: Back when you were Pizza Gino, did you ever anticipate being best selling author, core seller, sold your company, now, you know, a successful podcaster? Connect all those dots. What how do you feel going from where you started to where you are now? speaker-1: Travis, I think the reason why I really love what you guys do and why I love books so much is there when I was at the restaurant during the Great Recession, it it was really challenging for me. I had a lot of tough times. I mean, a lot of us back then, if we can recall, business sucked. I had four kids at the time. I I it was hard to put money on the table. It was hard to pay the bills up in New York. And I was an avid reader. I loved Zig Ziggler. I loved Jim Rohn. I would always pick up their books and it always left such a profound impact on me. And one of the biggest books that I picked up was a book by T. Harvecker called Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. And when I read his book, it was almost ⁓ as a it was a personal affront to me. Like, this guy doesn't know who I am. But then when I read your fruits or your roots, it so pierced my heart. And I'm like, this guy is so right. I there I don't have enough value here. My fruits are non-existent because my roots are shallow. And that's why I fell in love with books, because I can get T Harve's 30 plus years of experience distilled down into 150 pages. I can read, I can spend the next five hours of the day getting all of his experience there. And if even if I get one golden nugget out of every book that I read, how is that going to affect your life? To me, after I read his book in 2008, I evaluated my entire life. I said to myself, I love the restaurant business, but this is not going to get me to where I want to go. Am I living my dream or am I living my dad's dream? He had just passed away. And that book left such a profound impact on me. And I kept reading and reading and reading. And when I decided to write books, I'm like, I want to write a book just like T. Harvecker because I want people to pick up that book, read that book, have a profound impact. And I want to be able to help them change their lives. And I don't use want use the word change because my life was great. I just want people to transform their lives or look at something a little bit differently where they can affect. Just a few little things, change a few little things, and then you can change the course of your life dramatically just by reading a book. Mm-hmm. speaker-0: It's one of buying a book is has to be one of the highest value things you can do. What else can you buy for twenty to thirty bucks and people so frequently say it changed my life? speaker-1: Mm-hmm. I agree wholeheartedly. speaker-0: And that one of the things you wanted to talk about was, you know, you you successfully ran the book to company result, to coaching result, to selling your company and exiting, but you don't want that to be just part of the story or just the only part of the story. You really believe in books as legacies, books as what your kids will read and what we'll live on long after. So how does that play into your thinking about books? speaker-1: Well, as you get older, you stop you start thinking less about yourself and you start thinking about who you want to affect and how you want to affect them. And I'd mentioned to you before we hit record, I've been doing a lot of work on legacy and thinking about legacy is and being afraid of having this wealth and being able to pass it on to my children and am I doing it the right way. And once again, by reading a book by a gentleman named James Hughes, I just understood what legacy was. It just came to me. I read a book out by David Green, the founder of Hobby Lobby. His frameworks on how he decides to distribute his wealth. Legacy is not something that you leave behind. Legacy is something that you activate today. And that changed my whole framework about writing books, about leaving stuff for the next generation. Because in that legacy component, there's not just the financial part. We have the human component, which is our family, which I have six children. They all have these unique gifts, they all have these geniuses where they can actually add value to the family. But there's also the intellectual component. And this is the one that we're focusing on today. This is all the recordings that I've done. This is all of the podcasts that I've done. These are all the you know, the blogs and these articles and the books that I've written. You've written a book. Think about that book living in perpetuity, passing it on to the next generation. What better way to pass your values, the teachings, the love that you have by writing it in a book and by leaving it in a book and by passing it on. The next generation because passing on financial wealth is incredible. Becoming and teaching your kids to become a financial steward to me is so important. But I want to focus on the family governance and I want to focus on the values that we've created with the family to be able to pass that on because that is what's going to help perpetuate the next generation. So those you don't you don't have shirt sleeves, shirt sleeves in three generations. You'll have your generations going on, they'll be like, ⁓ this is what we have here. This is These are all the writings and all the teachings that we had when we started this family legacy. And that's how you get be able to continue the family legacy. speaker-0: Mm, that's so right. What would you say to somebody that was considering using Scribe to write their book or to publish their book? speaker-1: Well, what's the contact information? Where where can they get in touch with you guys? speaker-0: Right on our website, scribmedia dot com. speaker-1: Start exploring, go on their website. They've done books with hundreds and hundreds of offers in different genres, different areas. Start looking at it. They have different packages. Become real with yourself. Do you have the time to write the book? Do you need ghostwriting? Or are you just love to write, but you just want them to edit it? Do you need help with marketing the book? These are all things that you really want to wanna worry on because it's great to write the book, but Scribe does a really good service in helping marketing the book as well. These are some of the things that I would think of, but don't do it all by yourself. We did our first book, Jake and I. The majority was done by ourselves. It was painful. It took a long time. There were a lot of mistakes. And if I think I have to go back to the amount of time I wasted in writing the book rather than getting someone to help us write the book, I probably would have ended up better by hiring somebody to help me out because they've done it. And my business partner, Jake, does say success leaves clues. And if you f if you're gonna work with somebody Who's written and helped other authors write hundreds and hundreds of books. They have the credibility. They've done it for so many people. I would go out and reach out to Scribe and see how they can help you put put together your next book. speaker-0: ⁓ that's perfect. If you don't mind, could we get tactical next too? Because you really you look at the whole book ecosystem really really creatively. You know, could you walk through how you used your book as that, you know, that free lead magnet, how the ads drove to that, how then you converted them into coaching clients, how then you ended up selling the company. Can you kind of walk us through how that book playbook? Worked for you? speaker-1: Sure. I had a couple of different offers running it at a time. So I had my Will Wheelbar Profits book. That was a simple multifamily book. The great part about Creative Cash was it was a specific niche. So the lead cost was a a little bit more, but I got really good quality leads. That's something you should be really doing with your book. If you're thinking about it for the business, make sure who you're writing it for and write it for a specific per persona or Pacific Target. For multifamily, the multifamily, it's it's a bit harder to get into that business, right? So you're much different kind of leaf low. Whereas Creative Cash, it's just all of a sudden you're you're opening it up. You can get into single family homes, you can get into multifamily. So for us writing the book, getting it on there, we got it onto Facebook. I remember at the time some of the leads are cost between eight, nine dollars per lead. So we would we would run the ads, you'd get an email, email comes out, you send them the book. Book goes in their inbox. Obviously, if you have an automate a CRM, there's an automation going on. You want to nurture that lead. Actually, that lead comes out. And then all of a sudden from there, I would put people into our podcast. So they're reading the book now and then they're listening to our podcast. Now all of a sudden they're what we call a warm lead. And you want to continue to nurture that lead. And for us, we also would have a sales team. We had a setter closure model at the time where a setter would reach out and say, Hey, have you enjoyed the book? Is there anything we can help you with? Would you like to set up a call with one of our team members? That was how we started nurturing it. And then from setting, if the setter got a lead and that lead worked really well, let's go to the closure, where the closure can ultimately offer different kinds of packages, whether it's coaching, whether it's masterminding, whether it's mentorship, that was bait, it's it's basic, simple funnel. But the beautiful thing about why that book worked so well is if because it solved that problem, like I said, Travis, if somebody didn't have money, but they're saying to themselves, I want to do real estate, if they start reading that book, they're saying to themselves, This is something that I can I can solve the problem. I like what these guys are proposing. Let me go visit them a little bit. Make sure when you launch the book, the website is tight. Make sure all the automations are working. Make sure you're working with somebody who has experience in running ads. And this is something that's very important as well that we probably should didn't even gloss over that we should at least mention. It really comes down to marketing. We're talking about the sales of the book, but the book itself is the marketing. It's the message, it's the branding. It's the feel. So if you're writing a book and it has specific colors, specific fonts, specific feels, that has to translate onto the website. And that's something that we didn't do as well. But the book was just beautifully done. The cover was great. It was a beautiful red cover, big dollar sign, really catchy, really catchy top. You know what it is. It's creative cash. You know exactly what you're getting when you're getting the book. That's why the book worked really well for us. speaker-0: That is a perfect playbook. I mean, that gives everyone what exactly what they need to do in order to use the book, in order to attract the act as a lighthouse to attract your right customers, to then get them to consume this free, high quality content. You turned it into protected intellectual property. And then you have a system that you can sell to them once they've opted into all of your ideas and consumed some of your podcasts. That's a whole flay like a flywheel there that you just kept pushing. speaker-1: Yes, and Travis, I don't want anybody listening to this to get overwhelmed. They may be saying to themselves, landing pages, Facebook ads, one step at a time. Let's call Scribe first. Let's get the book done. And then once the book is done, there's so many different services. I'm sure Scribe can help you out, but they're but we always tend to jump the gun and we always tend to get overwhelmed. But if you start the process today, I'm saying within the next six months, you could probably have a finished product of the book. And within a year, you could Probably, if you haven't already, have the website, have the landing pages, have the Facebook strategy. We're always worrying about strategies and techniques. Let's not worry about that right now because algorithms and everything changes. Let's go back down to the basics of business. The basis of business to me is having a product to be able to sell, being able to create desire, being able to have credibility in what you're doing, and then being able to drive people there. And to me, ultimately, that's what a book delivers. All of those things. So before you start worrying about the strategy, what we talked about, let's get the book done. And then once the book is done, you'll be able to follow up with the rest of the stuff. speaker-0: What is your best guess on the amount of money that your book generated for you? speaker-1: I would say seven figures. Thing is, if I have to break it down to it, and this is just from mentorship. Th this is not from myself and Jake using the strategies that we had within the book. This is just from selling mentorship. And the great part about it is when we sold the education company, our students had closed over ninety thousand apartment units. They had done over five billion dollars in deal volume. And can I say ten percent of that is probably generated from creative. cash and from seller financing and from mass lease options. But the beautiful part about it is it wasn't just those techniques. It was the other techniques that we had talked about, whether it was the negotiation or the three pillars and being able to understand the whole market cycle and the whole real estate strategies. speaker-0: Man, so not only Gino were you and Jake building a legacy and a playbook for your family, but you were creating generational wealth for a whole new group of entrepreneurs and business owners. speaker-1: Yes. And and that's to me why I really love writing books because that's what they are. They're legacy pieces. And it's something that you write and something that when you look back, it's something that you can give to your family. And I mentioned to you before you hit record, ⁓ my daughter's fifteen years old. One of my kids is writing a book. She's writing a fiction book. It's called the Vain Curse. She's into ballet and it's incredible. She's got over 200 pages already written. I've already got a cover for her. We went on 99 designs. And it's something that's incredible because I'm it's something that I can share with her. Something that when she becomes an adult, hey, can you imagine I, you know, I affected or I gave her that opportunity and I planted the seed for her to say, if a pizza guy can do it, then why can't I do it, Dad? And that's so it you have no idea how it. How proud I am as a dad that she's writing a book. I'm like, I hope I had a little effect a little effect in that decision. speaker-0: ⁓ you absolutely did. So my my favorite question for author hour is, and we've already talked about your daughter, which is obviously one of the largest, but what is the unexpected great thing that happened as a result of your book that you didn't predict? speaker-1: think the love that I got, I mean, so many people were actually impressed with the book when it came out. I I thought it was a good book, but I didn't think it was that life changing. And that's what happens when you become quote unquote, whether you're an expert or you're really good at something, you just take it for granted that you're you're you're good at it. And all of a sudden, once you start putting it out there and you start having people read it, there are people that are way ahead of my real estate journey that have more than 2,000 units. But there are so many people that have a lot less and don't know these strategies and that don't know these techniques. And I was just impressed by the fact of how many people actually enjoyed the book and how many people it affected. So if you're out there and you're saying to yourself, Well, you know, I I only own 30 units. Do you how many people that don't own 30 units or whatever, I only have $10 million of assets on the management? Well, do you how many people don't have $10 million of assets on the management? It's incumbent upon you. to get that message out and to get the word out. And then all of a sudden, one of the greatest joys in life, as you get older, you'll start realizing if you really rip it down and you start peeling that onion, why are we here? We're here ultimately to help others. And joy is not derived by just making money. It's important. You become successful in that genre. But as you get older, it's not just about how much money you made. You start realizing how many people can I help in this world? And there's so much joy in having an email come back to you and going, Hey, Gino, thanks for helping me close this deal or hey, Gino, thanks for helping me leave my W two job. I'm in real estate full time. And that ultimately can be derived and that can come back to writing a book and to starting a a community. speaker-0: That is absolutely the best way to close. So Gino, thank you so much for for joining me. And a lot of people are going to get a lot of value out of this. And thanks for continuing to share your playbooks and continuing to educate a whole new generation of investor and entrepreneur. speaker-1: Thanks, Travis.