You can’t personally witness every major, history-making real-estate deal. But you can tune into The Deal Makers top-performing real estate partners as they walk us through their biggest lessons, triumphs, behind-the scenes tricks, and other unique insights.
To celebrate the first season of The Deal Makers, we made a list of our most popular episodes so that you can learn from the best in the business.
Starting us off is a special guest from our 11th episode.
Jorge Abreu: The essential reason for learning to delegate
As the CEO of Elevate Commercial Investment Group, Jorge Abreu oversees $325 million assets spanning from Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, and South Dakota.
While juggling several substantial business initiatives, he felt he was spread too thin. The results were sufficient, but he couldn’t put his entire focus into one project. So, Jorge learned how to say no to requests or get too involved with tiny details. His new strategy centered on training his team to become more independent and take on tasks themselves.
“There’s only so much an individual can do, whether they’re a partner in your business or an employee. You’ve got to be able to break up the functions and delegate it or count on [someone else] to take care of it.”
During the podcast, Jorge also spoke about how he started his career focusing on single family homes, fix and flips, rentals, wholesales, and leasing, eventually shifting to multi-family homes.
This takes us to our next guest, the founder of a thriving community dedicated to educating members on multifamily investments.
Brian Briscoe: Failing forward with a retired marine, Titan, and fellow real estate podcaster
You might be familiar with Brian Briscoe; he’s the Director of The Tribe of Titans – multifamily educational community, host of the podcast Diary of an Apartment Investor, and a retired marine.
Brian talks about how it took him a while to realize whether something fit him and he’d try and push through, knowing it wasn’t working out. In time, Brian learned to fail forward—accepting that he made ‘mistakes’ with the best information he had at that moment.
“I’ve made dozens of course corrections in the last week…know where you’re going and plot a path to get there, and then make as many course corrections as you need to. And it’s not rocket science. It’s just a lot of hard work.”
Openly addressing setbacks can set you up for future success. In our next episode, we dive into how the right communication can future-proof you against even the most surprising circumstances.
Joe Blackbourn: Communicate with purpose
Founder, President, and CEO of Everest Holdings, Joe Blackbourn joined us in episode two to talk about the importance of building relationships. Joe tells us that much of his success comes from meaningful relationships.
Joe takes us back to 2008 when his company, Everest Holdings, owned two hotels, and both were in danger of collapsing. Everest turned to management companies, lenders, investors, and partners to get the properties back on track.
Joe remembers how his healthy collaboration with all stakeholders—all of whom he still works with today—helped the hotels succeed in an uncertain economic climate.
Joe says his mentors steered him on the ‘good character path’ during those tough times and told him to address stakeholders with integrity.
“You protect every last dollar. If we’re going to lose money, it’s going to be as little as we possibly can for them…Those are the times when your relationship can get deeper.”
Thanks to his partners’ guidance, Joe was able to maintain relationships with property stakeholders and pave the way for future successes.
Joel Fine: The right partners can propel you forward
In our first episode, Managing Partner of Lakeline Properties, Joel Fine emphasized the importance of forming connections.
Once a month, he hosts a multi-family investing meetup in Austin that mixes networking and education.
Joel says his prime goal is to deliver value and educate attendees, though attracting partners is a nice bonus. The managing partner tells The Deal Makers that his number one tip for those wanting to go into real estate is to be willing to partner up.
“[Partnering up] has been the most powerful accelerator towards my growth. Partnering doesn’t necessarily mean going 50/50 on a deal…there are all kinds of ways to partner.”
You know choosing the right partner is vital. In our next episode, we talk about how identifying someone willing to take risks can be the difference between deals of hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions.
Meir Fried: The secret to going from $2 million dollar deals to $20 million sales
In episode 9, we spoke with Meir Fried, Co-Founder and CEO of Lightwater Capital Investments. His secret for going from $2 million to $20 million deals is to learn everything you can about the new market.
Meir said that even though he and his partners wanted to go after those bigger deals, they felt tempted to stay in New York’s boroughs. Still, Meir and his partner held off on the quick $2 million sells and took 12 months to find a deal that equaled 10 of the smaller ones.
The time that they took to get out of their comfort zone of the Tri-State area and learn a new craft paid dividends. He tells listeners:
“Don’t be afraid. You are a lot more capable than you think. Things are probably more difficult than you’d [realize], but you can handle them a lot better than you think and in a much shorter time, can become the master of a new craft.”
The goal isn’t always to get the best deal in front of you at the moment. Real estate is a long-term game.
Levi Benkert: The power of Social media
In Episode seven, Levi Benkert, Founder & CEO at Harbor Capital, shared that the company has relied on Twitter as a growth engine from the start. Levi and his team love to share updates and news, forming sincere, honest relationships with other real estate investors.
For Levi and his team, staying truthful is all part of their secret sauce for getting equity.
“You can get equity by being upfront, open, and honest about all the things that can go wrong…You’re taught that you should go out and say, ‘this is the perfect, most awesome deal…’ And that’s not how it works.”
Levi knows that when using multichannel marketing tactics such as social media and organic outreach, his team needs to lead with one unified approach. But that’s often challenging with a growing team.
Our next guest explains the tactics he uses to make sure everyone takes ownership of their domain.
Brennen Degner: managing your team in closing deals
In this memorable episode, Managing Partner and CEO at DB Capital, Brennen Degner, focuses on goal-setting.
During the company’s annual retreats, employees talk about what they want to do next and how to improve on failures from the previous year. Each team member writes down their job description for the next year.
Brennen says this allows everyone to come together and understand their role to prevent inefficiencies and hold employees accountable.
“We start with the corporate goals and go through each team member, [drawing] a line from everyone’s roles and responsibilities to the corporate level roles and goals.”
That’s a wrap on season one!
From partnering up to learning a new craft, season one of The Deal Makers delivered plenty of sage advice. We’re excited to announce that this is just the beginning. Tune into the rest of the episodes for more industry leaders who push the conversation forward.
Click the link to listen to The Deal Makers and follow our podcast for more exciting updates, industry news, and exclusive tips.
