Trailblazing Wealth ft. Visionary Ben Reinberg | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 52

28:33I need the ability to hold. I need to have reserves where I got paid on the loan as well. And so ability to hold is a real key to our business. And not a lot of people talk about enough out in the marketplace. And I do a lot because if you're going to get involved in commercial real estate, you need the ability to hold. It's critical. What, what's that sweet spot for equity for you of 50 %? You know, it's interesting. Our whole career, we've always been 60 to 75 loan to value. But I think as we age and progress and we see different, depending on the cost of capital in this market, I'm looking at 50 to 60%.

29:10If rates drop, maybe I'll take on a little more. I try not to go above 65%. I do 65 % with medical office, office, retail and industrial food groups. They're 25 year amortization. I know in multifamily, which I'm excited about is you can get agency debt. If it's out there, you can get different lenders, but they're 30 year amortization schedules and you might get to my own. That's a different game when it comes to cost of capital. And so much better cost. Yeah. So for ours, when you're buying a medical office and you're at 20 or 25 year amortization, your loan constant for everyone doesn't know it's your cost of capital.

29:47So, you know, right now, loan constants could be 9 % to 11%, 12%, depending on your loan. On medical, not on multifamily. It could be medical, office, retail, industrial. Multifamily, you know, you might be looking at 7%, 7.5%. It's even lower with Fanny Franny. Yeah. So it depends. You're going to be killing it. I'm excited. I'm excited to finance a multifamily with you to look at it and say, really, that's the loan constant. So and to get 30 year amortization and look at the different opportunities because but where things went wrong with some of the multifamily is they're buying them really aggressive because they're trying to compete.

30:24And then their financing is short term financing. And so one of the things I like to do in the medical office space is that I do. We do a lot of 15 year leases, 12 and 15 year leases. We have a deal we're closing Friday. It's a 12 year sale lease back. So if I'm going to put financing on it, I'm going to try to get at least 10 years. Again, remember the premise, ability to hold. So if I can lock something in and have flexibility, and then I negotiate, I say, look, if we sell the property, Mr. Lender, there's no prepayment penalty. And maybe I have a lockout for a year or two or three, or it might be pared down three, two, one, depending on the interest rate and how we're doing things.

31:04And so understanding debt and being well-educated in debt if you're going to buy assets is critical, Joe. it really i mean i could teach a great day ramsey yeah i could teach a great yeah an anti dave ramsey because debt is good it is if you use it properly that's what i do right i mean you're an expert in it so for me i tell people i'm like don't over leverage okay when i was a young guy i made a mistake i was stupid because i thought mez debt was so popular when i was really young in the business. I was like, wait a minute, Joe, I can get a 65, 70 first mortgage, throw on a Canadian pension fund who will put another 15 in.

31:46I'm at 85. And so now I'm taking down a$50 million deal. I have to raise as much equity. Well, you know, when you're younger, having to raise less equity is more advantage. So, so I did a few of those. And one of them, I realized real quick, uh, if the market turns, you got way too much leverage on, and now you got to start working things out with your lenders. And so it got me and your investors. And so no one's happy in the capital stack. So I learned at a young age, more equity, less problems, be conservative. If you have to pay a low return to your investors to protect their capital, you do it because they come first.

32:23Investors always come first in the Alliance world. And in every world. Yep. What year did you start your entrepreneur journey? How old were you? I was eight years old when I started. So coming from Chicago, and I tell this story a lot. I grew up in a town called Highwood, Illinois. It was next to Highland Park where I grew up. And Highwood had the most bars per square capita in the United States when I was a kid. So everything was drinking and smoking cigarettes when I was a kid. And, and you're, if a kid, you drink Slurpees and have candy. So I loved candy when I was a kid. I still do. And so, um, and I loved Slurpees when I was a kid.

33:05And so my goal when I was eight was I, you know, I didn't come from money. I didn't ever want to ask my parents for money because I wanted them to use for other things. And I said, well, how do I get my candy money at seven 11? How do I go and get my Skittles or a Snickers or whatever I loved as a kid? and um because i i was a big sports guy i played baseball and the guy who ran the league like used to buy can't you buy candy after the game for me used to open up a vw van and he had every candy that was made in chicago and around the world in his van and so it was like exciting it was like christmas for a kid and so i decided i said so in school i was learning math at the time at eight years old and really learning like longhand equations and division and i've always been a math guy i was fascinated by it and in highwood you'd be able to walk in the bars as a young kid and they're open the bars were open you'd walk in you'd see a cloud of smoke you see men women drinking beer drinking whiskey at the bar smoking marlboro reds and marble and the women spark marble lights or they'd smoke menthols and i can remember as a kid there was a cigarette machine there and you know the the bar owner which was the mafia that owned all the bars were had cigarette machines and they were selling cigarettes for let's say it was a buck 50 a pack so i used to go into a mom-and-pop drugstore down the street and um and just to buy stuff for family you know whatever medicine and toiletries whatever and so i'd walk in and i would always see the cigarettes and I was intrigued because I remember the memory of going into the bars and seeing the smoke and seeing everyone smoking and seeing the packs of marble reds and lights sitting on the bars with their lighters and I said to myself Joe I said hmm so a carton of cigarettes behind the counter costs x that means it's x per pack and I remember seeing the buck 50 in the cigarette machine at the time and so I said okay so I went back home I used long division I'm eight years old And I figured I think I could try this and make money.

35:14So I had some money for my grandfather for one of my birthdays, whatever it was. I maybe had like 20 bucks on me, which was tremendous amount of money back in 1978. I'm dating myself. And I walk into the bar with, well, first of all, let me explain how I bought the cigarettes because that's important. So there was Latinos, a heavy concentration of Mexicans that lived in Highwood that worked all around the areas of Chicago. And I basically gave a gentleman a couple bucks to go buy me a carton of cigarettes. They'd stand outside the drugstore and the liquor stores. And so I found some guy, gave him money.

35:55And that's how I got my supply was I had to grease the guy to buy cigarettes. So he bought cigarettes. I would open up the carton put it in a pillowcase put it in my sweatpants after I was done playing basketball I'd walk into a certain bar and first thing I did I walked up to a guy at Marlboro Reds and I looked at his pack and he had a couple cigarettes left and I said how would you like to buy a cigarette and he goes yeah I could buy it from the machine there I can go you know buy a carton I go no I'll I'll beat the machine and so say it was buck 50 I charged him a buck and so the guy bought and then maybe some other lady bought you know a pack and and then against the mob and yeah but i didn't know i didn't know they're mafia when i was eight years old i thought you know i didn't even know what that was he wouldn't kill you yeah exactly and so it was like a bronx tale if you ever saw that movie and so i go and i'm selling cigarettes and and it lasted six months but it was great i really had a good process down and uh what happened was um my mother was making my bed and changing my sheets and I had older brothers.

37:03So I'd put the cash underneath my mattress. I couldn't put it in a piggy bank because they would take it. So I was smart. So I was like, well, and I didn't know about what a bank account was at time. I'm eight years old. So I figured where am I going to put it? So I put a certain section of my mattress under the bed. My mom found it and she, I came home from school and she said, so, uh, where are getting all this cash from and so the jig was up i explained it and uh they weren't too happy because they knew who owned the bars and they knew that to play that game against them was not a smart thing to do and so but it was great at the time but to get back to that story what was so relevant to that story was it taught me about how to treat people how to set how to sell people how to educate people, how to look at a marketplace and do your due diligence.

37:59It was the little things that came out of that experience that carry with me. At eight years old. At eight years old. And I've worked ever since. So I have a great work ethic. Because people ask me all the time, like, why don't you just stop working? I'm like, no, I'm having too much fun. I'm in the prime of my career, Joe. Like, why would I even stop? I've worked on my back and my stomach and standing at my feet now to get to this point in my career. And I busted my ass to get here. there's no way i'm stopped yeah i like i'm i'm i'm there i'm there like work out more yeah what am i gonna do play golf i don't even play golf i'm gonna play golf eventually but like i'd have to develop some serious hobbies to keep me busy i love doing this i i love meeting new people i love growing and doing all these great things that i get to do and i love to travel i'm very blessed We own in a tremendous amount of states around the United States.

38:52I get to meet great people. I get to see the people that work in Alliance and all the colleagues and resources that work outside of Alliance that help us. And the building of my personal brand a couple of years ago, Joe, kind of gave me new life where it was like, now I can educate people on what I do. I can educate people on businesses and my experience and how to grow and how to deal with stress, how to get through deals. How do you get into commercial real estate? What does it really mean? because people see a skyscraper and they're like, well, how would I ever own that? Or they see a big industrial building or a shopping center or a mall and they say, or a hotel.

39:28How do I do that? No one talks about it. And so I figured if I could start talking about it and slowly get into it with the public and the audience out there, why not help people learn the business and grow? Because eventually I got to step out of the business. So it's like, why not help people get into the business and that's what it's about yeah it's serving people it's helping people and that's what my personal brand is about i mean it's never it's i'll tell my story online if you watch me on instagram but it's really about how am i going to add value to the audience where they're going to take away because i always said i'm like if there's one man or woman that takes away a clip that i have out there that changes the trajectory of their life or whatever it is.

40:10I got a DM the other day. I helped a kid out a year ago. I totally forgot about it. I was getting in a software business. And I gave him like five minutes of my time on the phone and gave him advice. He texted me and then he called me. He said, you changed my life. That stuff is priceless. It's priceless. And people, it's not the money in my bank account that matters. We look at how many kids did we put through college at Alliance through all the employees throughout the years. what did we do to change the way we do business with and and how did we create an impact in what we do and so the money flows with hard work talent persistent and and building your knowledge and value in the marketplace but what can you do differently to be different to help others and so that was a step that i learned that i had to grow into that wasn't the younger ben reinberg that was the older version of me that learned all that what age did that wisdom click in i think the wisdom kicked in.

41:07I think once I started clicking in my forties, I'm 54. And I think 14, 15 years ago, I started realizing that there's more to life than just, just money. There's more to life than having a nice house and car and, and, uh, and, and great vacations and doing all there's more to life. And, um, I remember looking at myself in the mirror and not being happy with myself. And I said to myself, Joe, there's gotta be something else. And that's when I got into personal development, I really doubled down and said, all right, I got to work on myself. I want to learn. I want to help others. And ever since I started helping people years ago, and I mentor a lot of kids in our business and create great impact with them is I enjoy it.

41:52I see their success. And by the way, they feed us more investors. They feed us more deal flow, great resources from the network we build with these kids and people out there. So it just returns the favor back to us. And I had this conversation with one of my mentors today and I said to her, I said, you know, it's interesting. I said, cause there's people out there we know that, um, run like an agency business where if they introduce you to someone, they charge you money. I said, wouldn't it be nice if you introduce someone and you just get it back later on some, some way, somehow that's how I live my life.

42:27And that's how I encourage people to is that if you give first to people, it will come back to you. I get calls all the time from someone I met maybe three years ago and they're like, Hey, I want to talk to you. I want to introduce you to someone. I think that would be good fit for you and them and you would help them. They'll help you. And it's great. I don't remember what happened three years ago, but it was something I did that inspired them to call me. And so I encourage everyone, things come back around. You might not see it instantly. And I did a speech on stage about, it was about leverage, which was my first season of my new TV show, Ben Reinberg, I own it.

43:04And what was fascinating in that speech was I talk about how if you want to get in the right room and you want to create leverage in your life, you have to give first. you have to be someone that gives and i said this to a lady at my where i work out she is in the protein bar business it's a tough business competitive i introduced her to someone and she said why are you doing this for me i said because this guy can change your life yeah but what do you get i go i don't get anything i said he's a friend i'm helping him i said you can probably help him maybe there's synergy you do business so everyone thinks there's always an agenda if you do something when I said in my speech is if you do something without expecting anything in return, great things happen.

43:49It's when people serve others and they're expecting some sort of event to happen in return, that's when you lose. And it's a, it's a tough thing. Yeah. My spiritual mentor told me, you do God's work first. He always does your work. That's right. Every time. That's a great quote. That's a smart guy that told you that. Yeah. It's, it's just, it's happened every time. Yeah. like never worry just god's work like he always does your work yeah and so i talk about that a lot online is that if you seek to understand before you before you're understood and you give and you listen and you go into a meeting saying how am i going to help people and so with this young lady just a quick story i said to her i go let me give you the secret she goes i don't know what you mean but i'm listening i go even though he has more experience than you i said figure out who he is, what he likes, and give something that's going to add value to his life.

44:43And I say, and guess what? Your whole world will change with your relationship with him. She goes, I never thought about that. I said, that's why I'm telling you, because if you do those little things and you carry that through in your life, you'll see maybe this protein bar business grows a little bit faster. Maybe you realize you have to do something else, whatever it is in life, you'll improve. And she's like, great. And so it's those little things I talk about that I think are important and hopefully people in your audience pick up something like that. Yeah. You've raised some, some great kids, went to SC.

45:16Yep. And my youngest is going to Cornell in three weeks. So yeah. How many got? Three. So how are you instilling that same work ethic in your kids? You know, it's interesting. My oldest son's in the blockchain business and a couple of weeks ago, I went to the Bitcoin conference with him in, in Nashville, which I thought was fascinating. this whole world. He's in that world and it's a huge industry and he's going to do really well. But what I taught my kids is a couple of things. One, I taught them discipline. I taught them, it doesn't matter dad's success or who he is. You're humble, you're grateful, and you appreciate everything you have.

45:55And you don't show off and you work hard for everything. I always had my kids earn everything. They always had jobs, their discipline, their incredible students. And part of that was, was here's a secret that I did. If you have kids, you have kids. Okay. How old are they? 10, nine. Oh, this is perfect. Yeah. Okay. Here we go. You're going to love this. Okay. So when my oldest son, Joey was a eighth grade junior high school, i said to my wife i said you know what we're gonna put him on a budget because eventually he's gonna start driving and he's gonna have to pay for gas and everything else i said okay so i don't know at the time let's say the budget was uh a hundred dollars a month okay and what was great about putting your kid on a budget that way because here's what happens dad dad can i have twenty dollars a couple days later hey dad can i have another twenty dollars i'm going out with my friends were going to movies all of a sudden$20 adds up real quick.

46:58So I said, I'm going to put them on budget. I'm going to teach them the value of money. Here was the great lesson you can install with your kids or anyone out there listening is that when day 27 comes and the hundred dollars is at like$4 and they got to go out, they realize how they have to budget their money throughout the whole month. And you see them learn and progress because you're putting money in their account and you could see. So I would say to Joey, it would be day 26. And let's just say he had a couple bucks left and want to go out as friends or he wanted to go out a day or whatever it was, you know, when he was in high school.

47:33And I'd be like, how's it going? He's like, good. I'm like, what are you doing? He's like, uh, I think I'm going to eat more at home with you guys this weekend. So you would see the lessons evolving and learning. And so budging your kids is a great thing. That way they're not always asking for money. They understand the value of dollars so what i've taught my kids is the value of dollar hard work dedication and it wasn't just words for me it was like i would show them through my actions like dad's traveling dad's working hard you know dad's going in on the office on a saturday even though he goes to all our events he's gonna he's gonna lead by example and i do that with my employees no one's gonna outwork me no one's gonna work as hard as me as late they might not show up as early and so when joey got in the working world in blockchain, I taught him something.

48:20I said, you're the first one in the office, last one to leave. I said, I don't care how talented you are. I don't care if you don't know anything, but when the top guys at that company you're at see who's that Reinberg kid that's showing up before us in the parking lot and, and leaving around our time or even later, like who is that kid? Maybe they invite you to an event and you get to know him and you start building that relationship. It's the little things you do in life and how you teach your kids that are so important. So I have taught my kids and even today these little tidbits of how to negotiate, how to deal with things.

48:58My daughter is working at a summer camp in Wisconsin, which is big and from Chicago. And she said, dad, uh, I need to negotiate this with the camp director. How do I do it? And I, and I gave her a couple words to use just from experience. And so I teach them communication skills. I teach them respecting others and, and how to shake someone's hand and how to be in a room and, and, and present yourself well, how to dress appropriately. And so it's those little things that will carry through them. That way I don't have to worry about them as they get older as adults. And so I encourage everyone with kids, especially with your kids is teach them early, teach them the value of the dollar, teach them how hard Joe worked to earn every penny and what that means and that you got to earn things and putting them on budgets and you'll see great things in these kids because it's the habits and behavior and still now at a young age that's going to carry you through because when you're older and the kids are in their 30s and then they start having kids they'll look back and they'll that dna that legacy that you carry from joe is going to pass on to your kids as well as anyone else out in the audience listening.

50:07That's what I learned. Great, great, great advice. Um, and we struggle now in this society because we raise a bunch of entitled kids now, social media, obviously, you know, amplifies that. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I see that in my company, I think as we grow and we progress as a company, as Alliance, I think that attitude gets sucked out real quick. So, um, is there a specific skill or mindset that one must have right now to succeed in commercial real estate, you think? Absolutely. Absolutely. You, you know, you have to be able to balance your emotions. You have to be able to manage fear. You have to be able to keep pushing forward.

50:50You have to be able to show up every day and not let things get you down. I'll give an example. So, uh, we have folks that raise equity in our investor relations part and raising equity is tough to tough job. and I said, you can make 100 calls in a day and you have 99 no's that they want to talk to you, but you have one guy that says, hey, I'll talk to you. Hey, maybe that turns into a great relationship. I said, the more no's you get leads you down the road to that yes that you're looking for. And so the mindset of keep pushing forward, keep being persistent and managing your emotions and fear is critical in any business, but especially in commercial real estate, especially in chaotic times where you feel things are uncertain or you're not sure, can I get this financed or can I raise the equity or can I find a deal that makes sense?

51:41You have to believe in yourself. And the word belief is a really strong tool in commercial real estate. I learned, you know, there's a saying is if you work hard enough and you make enough calls and you shake enough hands and talk to people during the month, the real estate gods will reward you. You'll find deals, you'll find equity, you'll network and find good lenders or mortgage brokers, what have you. And so I call it the real estate gods will always reward you. And I teach my staff that and team that, that keep pushing forward. Okay. When you're, when you're worried about something, you're worried about money or whatever.

52:17See, everything's a facade in life. Everything's in our mind. And if you control your emotions and control your mind, you can be wildly successful in any business, but especially commercial real estate. because commercial real estate, you got to go through some serious cycles to be successful. Amazing. Now, let me ask you this, because this is a three-pronged question. Sure. What's a personal goal that you have for yourself, a business goal that you have for Alliance, and a family goal that you have for the family? Oh, I like this question. I'll start with the first one. My personal goal is I want to live to 150 joe biohack yeah i want to i'm gonna biohack um i already have done stem cells for two years i'm on the same path yeah i i biohacking is important to me i want to live to 150 i want to do more things in my life who are you following by the way for biohacking like um i just kind of learn through doctors and friends i kind of just do my own thing i just keep learning and growing listening to people i do a lot of reading i read a lot um i want it my goal person is i I always want to be the best version of myself and allow that to ooze out of me to help people and serve and become a great because I want my legacy to be incredible, whether it's in commercial real estate or helping people in my personal brand or whatever it is.

53:39I want people to look back where my where people say, oh, you're Ben Reinberg's kid. That's what I want. I want that type of impact. So from a business standpoint is I want to use technology to change our industry. I want to create things on the blockchain, our industry, that no one else has. I want to use AI to create a life at Alliance to help life be easier for our employees. That's important professionally. What was the third one? Family goal. Family goal. family goal is I want to see all my kids have great careers develop into whatever they love and they're passionate about and become great parts of society where I don't have to worry about and then hopefully in the next hopefully 10 years they're off the payroll and they could self be self-sufficient and support themselves that's another goal I think but if they get to the first part they'll get to that second part so I actually forgot to ask you this question and I I wanted to ask you, what's your favorite quote?

54:46My favorite quote is tough times don't last, tough people do. And that came from Joe, a fraternity brother of mine in Indiana. He passed away. He was from the Miami, Florida area. He passed away in a motorcycle accident. He left four kids behind. It was sad. But we were in college and there was something happened or whatever it was. He used to always say to me, tough times don't last, tough people do. I never forgot that I always carry that through so whenever I'm going through a challenge I always remember that it's a great mantra my last question I ask it to everybody when you're in front of the pearly gates what do you think God's going to tell you

55:30he's going to say thank you thank you for working hard thank you for doing the right thing thank you for caring about people and thank you for giving that's that's what i want as i walk through the prayer gates and so i do all these little things my joke in the offices i'm going to heaven and it's because i try to do things the right way and act with the highest integrity that's what it's about yep that's what it's about ben god bless you god bless your family you've done great great deeds raised amazing kids inspired thousands keep doing good thanks i appreciate dominating what a privilege to get invited on this last minute so it's been a lot of fun yeah it's been awesome ben reinberg commercial mogul how can people get in touch with you if you want they want to get in touch with you best way to get in touch with me is go to ben reinberg.com uh or you can go to alliance cgc.com our company charlie george charlie.com a lot of people ask how do we invest with you how do we invest in your funds how do we generate and build wealth and generation wealth just go on ben reinberg.com You can click Invest With Us.

56:35People reach out to me all the time. You can DM me on Instagram, at TheRealBenReinberg. If you go to benreinberg.com, it's got all the different social media links. You can go on LinkedIn. People reach out to me all the time on LinkedIn. I may not get back to you right away, but I will get back to you. I'm very responsive with my audience and people that need help. And so that's the best way to stay connected. So stay connected. And also, if you're willing to learn and learn about business and life and commercial real estate is feel free to watch my show, Ben Reinberg. I own it. I think you'll get a lot of it.

57:09It's all about how we're going to provide value to you. So when you watch an episode, you could take away some knowledge that you can implement in your life. And that show is on. It's on all different streaming channels. You can even watch it on YouTube. it's also on all the podcast platforms Apple, Spotify, Stitcher wherever you fancy to listen to a podcast so now I can watch my new show on TV but you can also listen to it as well awesome thank you Ben thanks for having me

57:52Thank you.