Entrepreneur | Part 7 – Real Estate Terms With Michael Burer

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to hear what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As a father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now, 3, 2, 1, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and that’s what we’re about to do. We’re on fire. Fire, fire, fire. All right, we are here in sunny San Diego. My first time being outside this year. We have this bird we’ve trained to make noise while we’re recording. And we are talking about annual debt service with Michael, there is no real estate topic to obscure, Beer. Michael, welcome on the program. Can I get a boom? Boom. All right, now I’m going to read the definition and then I’d like you to provide us an ample example that my third grade mind can handle. So here we go. I’ll do my best. Annual debt service, the total amount of principal and interest to be paid each year to satisfy the obligations of a loan. What does that mean in your mind? What’s an example? It’s a pretty simple one, but simply it’s just adding up everything you’re giving to the bank. So all of the interest you pay during the year, if the principal is due on a loan, you’d add that into the total cost, add all that up, that’s annual debt service. Okay, so if I’m a thriver, I just bought my first office building. Okay, I have a business, the business has done well. I now bought the building. Bought the building for two million bucks. My monthly bills, 15,000 I’m paying. My lease, I guess I’m paying my mortgage every month. 15,000. Again, how do I know what my annual debt service is? Typically, your mortgage is going to include principal and interest. Two different things. The principal is the pay down of that debt. The total amount you paid during that specified period, a year, would be your annual debt service. All the checks you write, add them all up, that’s your annual debt service. Now Michael, I couldn’t appreciate you talking about annual debt service anymore if I tried. Thank you. Boom. Alright Thrivers, I’m your humble host, Captain Clay Clark. The man with the plan, the host with the most, the dude with an attitude, the broda from Minnesota, the great, well, the most humble man you’ll ever meet. And I’m here today with Michael, there’s no real estate topic, too obscure, Bure. And we are talking about this thing called rent concession. I’m going to read the definition and he’s going to tell you what it means. But before we get into it, why would anyone want to rent a concession stand? Free popcorn. Okay, so I’m going to read the definition. So here we go. A period of free rent given to the tenant by the lessor. Oh, sorry. Come on in. Hello. Hey, come on in. Sorry. Come on in. Sorry, we had the door barricaded. What’s behind the curtain? Thanks, man. Dun, dun, dun. Dun, dun, dun. Oh, wow. Look at how awesome it is. Thanks, man. Cool. Sure. Come on in. Appreciate it. Thank you. Oh, look at that cave, man. That’s great. Thank you, sir. You’re welcome. I’ll sign off on that. Well, I’m going to go ahead and just reset for a second. I’m going to read the definition of a rent concession again because at a certain point, I forgot what I was talking about. So I’m going to read it to you here. It’s a period of free rent given to the tenant by the lessor. My friend, what does that mean? That means when you are negotiating to lease space, the landlord may offer you a period of time where you don’t have to pay rent. Free rent or another way of saying it is abated rent. So monthly not is $100,000 a month. You may say for the first three months of your three-year lease you don’t have to pay rent. I talked to somebody just recently this is about two weeks ago and there’s a shopping center that’s really struggling and they really want her because she draws a lot of traffic. You know if she moves there they know they’re gonna have at least I don’t know a hundred new customers a day pulling into the shopping center it’s a brand new shopping center and they said we’ll give you three it was four months of free rent if you’ll move in so she already has a she already has a building she’s paying lease on and she’s got about four months left on her existing lease. And they said, look, if you’ll go ahead and move in now, we’ll go ahead and just give you free rent. Is that what you’re talking about? Exactly. Yeah. So depending on the market, the stronger the market is, the more power the landlord would have. But in a weaker market, the tenant is able to negotiate for this type of concession. I don’t want you to leave here without feeling appreciated. So we, the Thrive team and I, we invested in some of this. It’s a fancy brand. It’s our EGO crushed red peppers. We invested in that. We invested in this fork and spoon. And it’s got iodized salt. We couldn’t get the sea salt. Not fortified? No, we couldn’t get the fortified or the sea salt. We had to just get the iodized. And then this this pizza. I just want to show it to the Thrive Nation about how serious we are about showing our appreciation to you. Beautiful. Look at that. What can we do for you? Look at that grease. Looks good. Alright Thrivers, I’m your host Clay Clark. I’m here with Michael. There is no real estate topic to obscure Burer and we are talking about this topic called rentable area. I’m going to read the definition and he’s going to tell you what it means as it pertains to your business and give us just a little bit more clarity about this subject. So here we go. Rentable area. The computed area of a building is defined by the guidelines of the building owners and managers association. Bama. Boma. Boma. You guys say it? Yes, it’s Boma. You guys are wrong. Not Obama, Boma. Okay, well you guys in real estate industry are wrong. It should be Boma. So anyway, and typically measured in square feet, including both core structure and usable area. The actual square foot area for which the tenant will pay rent. It is the gross area of an office building, less uninterrupted vertical space such as stairways and elevators. Unlike usable area, rentable area includes common areas such as lobbies, restrooms, and hallways as the measurement of structural columns and architectural projections. Why did I even just read my friend? What does that mean? So when you sign a lease you’re renting the use of the space, a certain space, and that’s the usable space. And that may be a thousand square feet. But you’re going to pay rent, in most instances, on a larger area, and that would be called the rentable area. And so maybe if it’s a thousand square feet of usable, maybe it’s going to be eleven hundred feet of rentable area that you’re going to pay rent on. And the difference is that you’re going to pay for your pro rata share, or your percentage of all the common areas in the building. So the lobbies, the corridors, the common area restrooms, you’re gonna pay your share of rent on all of that common area space. How do typical business owners maybe get this wrong or maybe when they’re doing their projections, they maybe get this confused. I mean, does this ever show up and kind of rear its head when you’re trying to sign a lease and you think you’re leasing this much. But I mean, when does this term rentable area come up? Well, your lease may say you’re leasing 1,100 rentable feet. And you may not realize that that’s not actually the space or the size of the physical premises that you want to understand what the usable space you’re actually getting. Now, this rentable, you want to make sure also that it’s determined according to industry standards. And the most common standard is what’s BOMA, how they determine the difference or how they calculate rentable square footage. Typically if I were to go lease a space like a strip center or an office building, would they advertise the rentable area or how would they advertise it? The most common thing talked about is going to be the rentable. You probably have to ask what is my usable square footage? Oh really? Now is there a ratio that’s pretty normal like 80% of your rentable area is actually usable or is there any things or standards set up by BOMA? Every building is unique so some buildings are more efficient than others depending on how they’re laid out if they have really huge lobbies in the building you’re going to have a higher load factor or higher percentage that is a common area and that’s not actually your usable space in the suite you’re renting. You know at the end of each episode I try to find a way to show you how much I appreciate you. A wise friend of mine once told me, he said, that the best way to share your appreciation for somebody sometimes is with the gift of a handwritten note. So I’m here with Michael. There is no real estate topic too obscure of your. And we are talking today about a topic that is just very near and dear to my aorta, to my heart, to my… The point is, it’s a big deal. We’re talking about the sale lease back. I’m going to read the definition. He’s going to tell us what it means. It’s not funny. I don’t appreciate you laughing. Take this. I want you to have some reverence for this moment. I do. Okay. A leasing and financing strategy in which a property owner sells its property to an investor then leases it back. This strategy frees capital that otherwise would be frozen in equity. I’m going to kind of break this into two parts here. Why would somebody ever want to build a building and then sell it to somebody and then lease it back? Why would you ever want to do that? So say you have a successful business. You own the building you’re in, but you need to generate some liquidity or cash for new investment back in your business. One strategy could be to sell the building, but as part of that sale, enter into a lease for the building, maybe it’s a longer term lease, and so you can generate the cash from selling the building but still maintain occupancy in the building for a period of time. I would like our program observer to put three of these logos on the screen right now because these are three major companies that do this that I am very aware of because I worked in real estate as a marketing guy for about two, three years here. One is Quick Trip Gas Stations, they’re big in the Midwest area. Marriott Hotels, that’s a big one. People probably know that chain. And the other is Walgreens. People know Walgreens. They basically will build the building, and then as soon as they finish completing it, they’ll move in, they’ll hire all the employees, they’ll open it up, and then they’ll sell it to somebody and lease it back. Now, typically, I’ve heard, part two of my question here is, I’ve heard they do 99-year lease backs. Is that true, a 99-year lease? For drugstores, that does occur. Yes. Why not 107? Why not 113? Why 99? Is that just something like a law where you can’t lease it more than 99 years? I think it’s an industry standard. It’s kind of that’s indefinite almost. 99 years is considered like owning it outright almost. Let’s say that I own a business that’s growing. It’s a pizza franchise. And I am really growing. I’m starting to sell franchises left and right, and I’ve got maybe 20 corporate stores. At what point would I want to consider building buildings and then selling them and leasing them back? I mean, at what point does that begin to make sense? Well, it’s not just building them. I mean, if you have built a business up and you own the building you’re in, maybe it’s a manufacturing business in an industrial location, if the company has strong credit, meaning it’s a very profitable business, if you sign a lease with the future owner, that is an asset that somebody is going to want to buy. And so you can basically convert the value of your business and free up the capital that’s stored in that real estate to use on different things. Now it says in the definition, this strategy frees capital that would otherwise be frozen in equity. Could you clarify what that means when it says this strategy frees capital that otherwise would be frozen in equity? What does that mean? So the owner of the building, the tenant that owns the building, they have a lot invested in that individual building. And if they wanted, if they could sell it, they could harness the capital, or they could get that cash out of the building. But they want to maintain their business in that location. And so the way to do that is to put a lease in place where they can lease the building, maybe for a long period of time, maybe 10, 15, 99 years in your example. And then they can still maintain occupancy and control of the building through the lease structure, but by selling it, they generate a way to get the cash or equity out of the building. So they could grow faster. I mean they could open up one store and then as soon as they finish building it they could sell it and then open up another store. What that allows them to do is invest their limited resources in their business, their core competency, rather than in the real estate. And let’s talk about core competency for a second. That’s like what they do best, right? Yep. Okay. Now Michael, you know, is this common, a sale lease back, or is this kind of a weird deal? Yeah, especially for larger companies, for companies that have credit, meaning that are very profitable or have strong financial strength sale lease back is a great strategy to generate liquidity Michael I Wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you tonight, and I realized that just the The width wasn’t a problem, but the height Was an issue I couldn’t fit into the viewable area of the camera that how much I appreciate you so let’s just from a verbally communicate to you that I appreciate you being here boom alright we’re here today here joined here watching tonight we’re joined here live in San Diego now when you watch this it might not be live right now it’s live in sunny San Diego with Michael there is no real estate topic to obscure Bure a man who’s what will post moves are unquestioned. A man who’s produced four humans. Is that right? It’s true. The CFO of a one billion dollar business and a man who knows more about the word aorta than anyone should. And you’re here to talk tonight about sales comparison approach. I’m going to read the definition and you can add some clarity as to what it means. And the camera guys, if they would just get it together and quit smiling and laughing and make it easier for me but I go alone. I’m out front. Here we go. A way to determine the market value by comparing a subject property to properties with the same or similar characteristics. With the same… Alright, so we read it again. A way to determine the market value by comparing a subject property to properties of the same or similar characteristics. Michael, what does this mean? So when you determine the value of a building, particularly in an appraisal method, they’re going to look at three methods to determine the value. Michael, give us an example of what the sales comparison approach is all about. So when determining the value of a building, particularly in an appraisal, they’re going to look at three, they’re going to use three methods to do that. One would be the income approach, one would be the replacement cost of the building, but a very common and maybe the most relevant would be the sales comparison approach. In that method, they’re going to look for other comps or other comparables that are similar to your building. Maybe your building is on a high traffic corner, other buildings that are similar physically or have similar tenants, and they’ll use those comparables to determine the value of your building. I guess an example would be like you guys have properties with your firm in Hawaii, and you have them in Phoenix. I mean, different markets. When you go to Hawaii, you’re not going to compare, you know, if somebody wants to sell a building in Hawaii, you’re not going to compare that with Phoenix. It’s a totally different ball game. So you’re looking for properties that are similar? That’s right. So if you want to value your downtown San Diego office building, you’re going to look at other downtown San Diego office buildings, maybe that are similar age, have similar improvements, maybe similar tenants, and then you can use those comparables for what those sold for to determine the value or at least get a good idea of what the value of your building is. Would you say the four that our program observer could write down that are things you want to factor in would be for sure the age, when you’re comparing and you’re looking for sales comparison, you’re using the sales comparison approach, when you’re looking to compare with properties that are similar, you might look at the age of the properties, you might look at the improvements, like things you’ve done and invested in to make the property better. The city, you don’t want to be comparing your property with a property of a different city. Not just the city, but the location. The location. This is in this particular sub-market, or this is on this particular high traffic corner within that sub-market. Also, you said tenants. Yes, the type of tenancies. These are all things you do on a consistent basis. This is really big. Thrivers, if you’re out there and you’re thinking about buying a property, this is the kind of stuff that a broker should be doing for you. Is that correct? A broker can help with this quite a bit. They can produce the comparables for you to review. Would you recommend that an independent business owner would go alone on this? Or do you recommend they would have a… Who’s kind of on their team when they’re trying to get the sales comparison approach? When they’re trying to do this the right way? Well, if you’re trying to determine the value of your building, either to buy a building or sell a building, you’re going to be talking to a broker and ask them to produce for you the comps or comparables of other buildings that have sold that are similar to the building you’re looking at to help you decide what the value should be. Do you need an accountant or anybody else to help you on this to come up with this? No, a broker is a great place. They should have the information to produce those sales comps for you. Michael, I struggle sometimes with words. It’s tough because I’m the guy who’s on the TV. I don’t believe it. Well, as a guy who’s on this, my job is, my main core competency, if you will, is to verbally communicate and when I struggle with words, that’s a bad sign. But I struggle with words sometimes to share my appreciation for you and what it means to me. And all I can say is that your patriotism is exemplified in the way that you explain the definition of the sales comparison approach. Does that make sense? Not really, but I appreciate it. All right Thrive Nation, we are here to talk about something that is a sensitive subject for many people. It’s a subject that really, before I deep dive into it, I just want to let you know that we’ve brought in none other than Michael. There’s no real estate topic too obscure beer to talk about this subject because it’s just so sensitive. It’s so touching and so dangerous. It’s called securitization. I’m going to go ahead and read the definition and he’s going to explain to us what it means in the world of real estate. Stay with me. See if you can trudge through the danger. Just be safe. Here we go. Securitization, the definition is the phenomenon of indirectly investing in real estate markets in ways that minimize risk. For example, investments made collectively with pooled money or the use of investment packages, funds such as mortgage-backed securities, sold on a secondary financial market as opposed to direct investments, direct investments, where investors own property or hold mortgages a long-term trend that has had significant impact on real estate values note to self What is this? Note to self What does the securitization mean so securitization refers to when you have a pool of investments, if you have a whole pool of loans, so not just a loan for a single building, but lots of loans on a lot of different buildings. And the group that has these would divide them all up into pieces and sell off individual pieces. So if you purchased a piece of that securitization, you would own a little piece of each of those individual loans. So why would you want to do that? Well, you get diversification. So rather than having all your eggs in one basket, so to speak, owning, having be a lender on one building, one loan, you would have a little bit of a lot of different loans. So theoretically, there’s lower risk. It’s because it’s spread out over a greater number of assets. I realize that you have, you know, you don’t want to share the details of specific clients, but when have you ever seen this kind of thing happen? Or when is the world ever seen this kind of thing? When does this happen? Well, in real estate, it’s a common term when you talk about commercial mortgage-backed securities. Or in the residential market, a lot of loans are securitized. So, often in lending, loans are pooled all together and then sold off individually. Okay. And then when mortgages are all bundled together and sold on the secondary market like a mortgage-backed security, is that typically called a tranche or a tranche? How do you say that? Tranche. A tranche. And it’s sold as a tranche. And those are oftentimes sold into mutual funds and that kind of thing, right? Well, there are a lot of investors who buy commercial mortgage-backed securities. A lot of them sold mortgage-backed securities. Without really getting into too much conspiracy theory, black helicopters, the whole deal. A lot of people blame the recession on, you know, hey, all these people bought these securities, these mortgage-backed securities that were sold as tranches that eventually collapsed. Can you just at a third grade level explain to me why a lot of people blame these securities or mortgage-backed securities for the collapse of the market? Well, securitization is a great job of spreading out the risk for a particular asset. So if you own one building and you have a loan on one building and that tenant for that building leaves, that loan may go into default. So theoretically if you have loans on a hundred different buildings and you own just a small piece of it, your risk is spread out. So that is true. The securitization minimizes the risk for events that happen on individual buildings. But what securitization doesn’t necessarily protect you from is market risk. Risk that the whole market goes down. And that’s what happened, for example, in the Great Recession, is when the whole market goes down, commercial mortgage-backed securities or other securitized instruments will suffer as the broader economy does. Now, you know, this is one thing, I hate to ever end an episode, leave an episode, try to exit an episode without showing you how much I appreciate you. And so, I just want to tell you I want to tell you verbally how much I appreciate you. Your description of securitization makes me feel more secure as an American. I’ve accomplished a lot. All right we are here today joined with Michael, there is no real estate topic too obscure, Bure, talking about a thing called sub-leasing, a thing that affects the national security of our country. I worry when America begins to sub, well actually lease, its own submarines. That’s crazy to me. I would not. But we’re not talking about that. No, no, no. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. We were talking about sub-leasing, sub-leasing real estate. So I’m going to get the definition, and I’m not going to laugh because I know you people at home are not laughing. This is serious. Don’t go under. Okay. Sub-lease is a lease in which the original tenant, lessee, sublets all or part of the sub-lease interest to another tenant, known as the sub-tenant, while still retaining a leasehold interest in the property, also known as a sandwich lease, due to the sandwiching of the original lessee between the lesser, wow, and the sub-tenant. The camera guys, if you guys at home knew what the kind of pressure I deal with, camera guys laughing, they’re not taking this serious. Let me read it again here. Also known as a sandwich lease due to the sandwich. What does this mean? Basically, if you lease a space and maybe now you don’t want to use it anymore, you’re ready to move on to a bigger space, but you still have this obligation to be a current landlord. You can lease your space to another tenant. So you have the original landlord who leased the space to you. Now you’re going to turn around and lease that space to somebody else. And that lease between the original tenant and the sub-tenant, or the tenant under you, is called a sub-lease. How often do you see this though? Because you have buildings where you have… How many square feet does your firm have right now? How much square footage does your firm have right now? About 4 million square feet. So your firm has about 4 million square feet of office space. Do you allow subleasing? Yes, so the main lease, the lease between the landlord and the original tenant, will usually have a clause that describes the… if subleasing is allowed, and if so, what approval rights the landlord has for that, for allowing a sublease. Is that your jet? It is. I’m a little late. Somebody stole it. Okay, so here we go. The question I have here though is, is it like, honestly, if somebody is subleasing, let’s just break it down to the very basic level. If I own, if I’m leasing space from you right now and I’m like, oh crap, I am not going to be able to make this lease payment in four months. And so I call a buddy, hey buddy, you want to lease my space from me? He says sure. Now he writes me a check, I write you a check, that’s a sublease. That’s right. And the original tenant isn’t off the hook usually for the lease with the landlord, but they have now an income stream from a third party to cover that original lease. One thing that’s important for the tenant when they’re negotiating their lease at the outset, is to try to negotiate favorable terms so that they have rights to sublease on their own. What do you know about the leasing of submarines? Very little. Okay. They usually go under. Okay. No. Focus. All right. Well, Thrivers, as you know, I never want to end these kind of segments without expressing my appreciation for Michael Buehrer in a way that it’s sort of like a verbal bouquet. But sometimes even I run out of things, I almost run out of things to say because I appreciate you so much and I’m like how do I say it? Is there even a language for it? And so I, sometimes I delegate it. I brought in a guy, he’s six foot eight, true story, he’s six foot eight. He has a college degree and he wrote this for me to read to you. That’s how sincere I’m being right now. He says, Michael, I appreciate your help today so much with the complex issue of subleasing. But I think it’s beginning to affect the actions of professional sports players across the universe. To me, that makes no sense. What about for you? I don’t get it either. Boom. Boom. Boom. All right, Drivers, coast to coast, around the world, on different planets, people tuning in from space stations to watch this program. We want to first off thank you for being here, but I also want to let you know we are here with Michael, there is no real estate topic, to obscure, Bure in sunny San Diego to talk about something controversial called submarkets. Now I’m going to go ahead and read the definition and then he’s going to provide us some clarity, some descriptive narrative, some examples that my mind can handle. So here we go. A sub-market, a segment or portion of a larger geographic market defined and identified on the basis of one or more attributes that distinguish it from other sub-markets or locations. What does that mean? So when you’re talking about the market for a building, you may first start kind of big picture in the city that it’s in. Then you want to zero in and talk about a more finite geographical area where that building is located. So if it’s a building downtown maybe it’s not just the broader whole city but it’s the downtown market. It could be other clusters. Usually there’s some kind of something unique, maybe some freeways or something that defines a certain area of that sub-market. In San Diego, let’s give an example, there’s the Gaslamp District. And then what’s the other district in San Diego? So in the office market, there would be University Town Center. There could be a downtown market. Could be Del Mar. OK, so let’s just throw out three right now. You have the Gaslamp District, the University Center District, is that right? And then Del Mar. How can you, when does a sub-market end? How do you know, I mean, is there rules for this? Or what do you mean? There’s not really always bright line demarcations, but they’re generally understood that in this area, this pocket is some particular sub markets. And usually a broker or somebody who’s knowledgeable about the real estate in that market can help you understand, hey, where’s my building located? What sub market is this in? And then that allows you to compare the building against good comps, comps that are most like your building. In your situation where you’re the CFO of a billion dollar real estate, I mean billion dollars, these are like billion, that’s not a thousand, that’s not a million, that’s not ten million, that’s not twenty million, that’s a billion. When do you actually talk about sub markets on daily basis or weekly basis? When does this topic come up? Well, right in real estate location, location, location. So understanding the sub market where your building is located. I mean it may be great to say, hey my building’s in you know San Francisco, a very hot real estate market. But you want to understand where in San Francisco your building is in particular and is that particular sub market, what are the attributes of that sub market, the demand drivers, the things that make that location either a good place to invest real estate or a place that may be more challenging. As you know, William Shakespeare says that brevity is the soul of wit, to which I say, bah! I say the length of my description for my appreciation is the soul of my wit. So in the face of William Shakespeare, I want to just share something with you. See if you can follow my logic. Let’s see. You are on fire. If you are on fire, you are heating up the Earth’s atmosphere. If you are in fact heating up the Earth’s atmosphere, you, my friend, are responsible for the rising of the sea levels. And thus, I blame you as I show my appreciation for you. Boom! All right, Thrivers, I appreciate you tuning in from other planets, other countries, other states, other cities, other rural areas, other townships. I appreciate you for logging on and checking this out. We’re talking today about vacancy. We’re joined here with Michael. There is no real estate topic too obscure. Bjork talking about vacancy. I’m going to read the definition. He’s going to tell us a little more about it. And here we go. So, Michael, the number of units or space of a specific commercial type that are vacant and available for occupancy at a particular point in time within a given market, usually expressed as a vacancy rate. Talk to me about why you guys lease. How much of square footage do you guys have available right now for lease, roughly? We’ve got 4 million total square feet. Four million total square feet of space that you guys lease. Why is vacancy and the vacancy rate such an important thing if you’re thinking about getting into commercial real estate? Well, obviously real estate, you’re focused on leasing your space to generate revenue. More vacancy is not a good thing if you’re the owner of the building. As a tenant though, if there’s a lot of vacancy, that can indicate that the tenant would have more leverage in negotiating a rate. Let’s assume that I’m sort of ignorant to this topic. I’m not stupid. I’m just sort of ignorant of this topic. I don’t know about this topic. But I’m a guy who, you know, I met a guy about four years back. He actually played in the NFL. And he had about $10 million that was available, and he was looking to invest about $500,000 in his first commercial property. Typically the idea would be, you spend $500,000 on the property and you find a way to lease the space out each month for far more than what you pay in mortgage. Right? On this property. Is there some sort of ratio, like if your mortgage is $10,000 a month, you want to lease it out for $14,000 a month. Is there some kind of ratio, sort of standard at all? No, there’s not necessarily a standard based on what your mortgage would be. That can be driven by a lot of other factors, but certainly the amount of vacancy that’s in a market is going to be an indication of the negotiating leverage of the landlord and the tenant within that market. Think of the example. Is Hawaii a pretty place that’s, I mean, is there a very limited amount of office space in Hawaii? I mean, is there more people than office space in Hawaii? The office market in Hawaii is relatively small. We’re not building a lot of new office buildings, mainly residential. Yeah. But, you know, right now that market is from a more landlord friendly, so the vacancy rate would be lower. Let’s talk about Phoenix. How’s Phoenix? Phoenix has more vacancy than other markets do, so tenants have more leverage in that market as they negotiate rates and concession and lease terms. What about Los Angeles? You know, there’s a lot of different sub-markets within that, but it all depends on the particular market you’re talking about. This is interesting how, it’s interesting how within the same state this can change often. For you guys, as you invest in properties all over the country, in different parts of the country. Do you guys, do you go in, step one before you invest in property in that area, do you look at the vacancy rate just across the board or just across the sub-market? How do you guys do that? Well, you can look at the vacancy for the whole geographical area. You can look at the vacancy in that particular sub-market, and then you want to know, obviously, the vacancy in that particular building. So if you have a sub-market that maybe has a 10% vacancy factor. So on average, all the buildings in that market are 90% occupied. But you’ve identified a building that has a vacancy of 20%. It’s 80% occupied. That may indicate that there’s an opportunity to lease it up, increase the revenue stream, or increase the revenue, and you can achieve the sub-market vacancy. At the end of each one of these, I try to show how much I appreciate you. I was thinking about it, and I’m like, do I even try on this time? Do I even try? We’re talking about vacancy, and you obviously know how much I appreciate you, but at the same time, I feel like I should go ahead and make an attempt. So I thought about this last night, and I want to see if you can follow me here. was a building. It would be filled with appreciation and there would be no vacancy. Very touching. Alright Thrivers, today I’m joined with Michael there is no real estate topic to obscure, Bure. A man who is a CFO of a billion dollar real estate company. He’s here to talk about yield. And I’m not talking about, hey, hey, look, there’s a pedestrian crossing the road. You need to go slower. Yield. No, I’m talking about a yellow light. I’m talking about yield in the real estate world. And so I’m going to go ahead and read the definition. You’re going to provide an ample example to see if my third grade mind can handle it. So here we go. Here’s the definition. A measure of investment performance return on each dollar invested, also known as rate of return. Which one do you, first off, do you refer to it often as yield or rate of return? I mean, which one’s more common? I think they’re both used, depending on the circumstances. Maybe rate of return would be more common. So if I started my day one of my commercial real estate career, I look in the office and I say, hey, what’s the yield, guys? You’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Danny, Danny. That would be my name if I started real estate. Whoa, whoa, whoa, Danny. That’s not yield, it’s rate of return. Is that what most people say? I don’t think anyone would stop you, either one. Really? Yeah. You’d be like, rookie, green. No, no, no, you can use either one. Tell me what yield or rate of return is all about. So basically, it’s a way of measuring your profits in a percentage. So if you buy a building for $100,000, and you get $10,000 out a year. Your yield or your rate of return on that investment would be 10%. What is a typical yield or rate of return that I would look for, that I would strive for if I’m an investor? I mean, you guys have a billion dollars of real estate that you guys have invested in over the years. What’s kind of the rate of return, just a minimum amount that makes sense? There’s no typical. It all depends. Really? On the market? Come on! No, no typical. All depends on the type of building, what your investment strategy is. Is it an occupied building? Sometimes you buy a building that’s completely empty. Your yield initially would be zero. Well I’ve been on your website before, your company’s website. Is your philosophy overall that you guys are trying to make a high amount of cash flow? Or do you guys try to buy properties and hold them until the value gets to a certain point and then sell them. What’s kind of your philosophy of your firm? Typically we buy more value-add investments, which means investments that would have lower yields going in, and they’d be riskier, and then we would try to reposition them, increase the yield, and then sell them, versus the strategy of owning them long-term. How long will you own a property before you sell it? What’s typical? It depends on the market, the cycle. There’s really, again, nothing’s set in stone, but depending on the market, three to five years. Three to five years. So you actually have a strategy where you’re like, hey, we’re going to buy a property right now and we’re okay with not making a killing on it right now. We’re going to hold it, we’re going to fix it, we’re going to improve it, we’re going to increase the lease, we’re going to improve the look of the property, maybe add some amenities to it. Then five years later, we’re going to make our money. Really. So you can choose, depending on your strategy, one strategy would be your yield or your rate of return is going to come from the cash flow of the property during your hold, meaning from the rental income that the tenants are paying. Another strategy would be maybe you’re leasing it up and you’re going to make your return on the exit when you sell it, because you’re going to sell it at a much higher price than you initially purchased it for. episodes I try to somehow express how much I appreciate you and sometimes like I don’t know if I’m up to the challenge you know because I’m just one man and I yet have to show my appreciation for you hundreds of times and so it’s kind of like how do you do it and sometimes I delegate it and sometimes when I do delegate that the writing of this I don’t know what’s gonna happen I read this and I go I don’t even know if that makes sense so I’m just going to tell you straight from the heart. Let’s hear it. I appreciate you so much that if I have other things that come up on my to-do list, if it’s Michael Buehr or something else, I yield to the other stuff, and I focus exclusively on Michael Buehr. Well said. Boom. Hello, Drivers. I’m your host with the most, the man with the plan, your Broda from Minnesota. The guy, the guy who’s really brought a new definition to the palest man in the world, a man who might be the most humble person you’ve ever spoken to, talked to, heard from or connected with. And I am joined here today with Michael, there is no real estate topic to obscure, Bure in sunny San Diego to discuss a topic that matters to you, to me, and to other people in this city, in this state, in this country, in this continent, and other continents, and this planet, and other planets, in this galaxy, ladies and gentlemen. And we’re here to talk about zoning. I’m going to read the definition, and he’s going to bring some clarity and some purpose, some overall just some understanding to what this means. So here we go. Zoning. The designation of specific areas by a local planning authority within a given jurisdiction for the purpose of legally defining land use or land use categories. What are we talking about? So simply, these are the rules that the government sets for a particular area about what you can build in this area. So they may say, this area is only residential, and this area is manufacturing. This area is shopping centers. And it can get a lot more detailed than that. The zoning may say, you can only build four-story buildings in this area. It may say, you have to have, in this area, the building has to be so many feet away from the road. So zoning can encompass a lot of different rules, but it’s all about the types of regulations that the city puts on what building can be in this location. I want to get into these for a second though because there’s a few different ones. I think the average thriver needs to be aware of this because I’ve actually met people who’ve bought land and didn’t understand these uses. And so I just want to break them down a little bit. Not super detailed but kind of more of an abroad sense, but just so you get it. So if you were to buy a piece of land, and let’s say that that land is zoned residential, what kind of stuff could you put up on that usually? Just a broad perspective. Houses, apartments, mobile home potentially. Places that are a residence for somebody. Yep. Now if you bought a residential property you couldn’t put then a retail office on that right? No retail, no office, no manufacturing, industrial. And then what about like industrial? And so you industrial is a whole other category right? So you have industrial, you have residential, you have retail. Anything else that’s kind of common is what? You have office. Office. Now, in places like California, the great state of California, there are a lot of very nuanced zoning rules in California, right? I mean, they’re very specific here. Like, they have rules about how tall a building can be, where it can be, how much light it can put off at night if it’s on the coast. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff, right? Definitely. Is California one of the more intense states about zoning regulations, let’s say, versus South Dakota? Don’t know much about South Dakota, but some states, Texas, Houston, have almost no zoning requirements. Okay, and so when you buy a piece of property, you want to know about the zoning requirements, right? Absolutely. I mean, that determines a key part of the value of the building, or of the land, is what is it zoned for. And if you’re watching this and you’re like, well, I’m just bombing them. I’m going to buy a piece of land and I’ll rezone it. Rezoning a property can take in California. If you wanted to buy a piece of property in California today and you wanted to rezone it from residential to commercial, that stuff could take years. Well, it’s not just the amount of time it could take or the cost of doing it, but it’s a political decision. And so if there’s not support from political leaders to make that change, you’re not going to be able to do it. And to quote Michael Jackson, make that change. But I want to go ahead and just share an example. George Lucas, the guy who started Star Wars, and I want to have our program observer put this on the screen. I want you to do a little research, put this on the screen. But he bought a piece of land called Skywalker Ranch for the purpose of building a world-class studio. And he took the land that was, the land that wasn’t in the greatest shape, and he basically restored, I think it was 90-something percent, we’ll go 95% of it, to the original state that it was in before humans lived here. And the idea was he was going to use 5% of it to build a studio. And yet the great state of California, over a decade, said, we’re not going to rezone it for you, buddy. And so he kept adding a dam and adding water and adding prairie land, but they wouldn’t rezone it for them. Is that common? That no matter how much you want a piece of land to be rezoned, it won’t happen? Every piece of property is unique, but to get a zoning change effectuated in a high regulation jurisdiction like California is very difficult. I want to bring this up because I started, years ago, I wanted to open up a wedding chapel. I was very close to buying a piece of land and I remember talking to a city counselor and he said, oh we can get that done real quickly, real quick. And I said how quickly? When you say real quick, you know we can do this real fast for you. How, what does that mean? And he’s like, well, 24 months. And I thought, you mean I’m gonna buy a piece of land and pay mortgage on it every month or and you’re not gonna rezone it for two years? And he thought that was fast. And so, I mean, when you’re talking about rezoning a piece of land, that can take a long time, right? Yeah, and there’s often, one of the reasons why it takes so long is there’s a lot of different agencies or different bodies that have to approve that. So, for zoning, the big takeaway is I want you to make sure every thriver has this is one, look into the zoning of a property before you buy it. Two, if you’re gonna buy a property, don’t think it’s easy to rezone it. And three, is sometimes a property can be worth more because it’s zoned correctly. So if you’re buying a property you’re going, why is it so expensive? Well maybe somebody else spent three years trying to rezone it. And so you know as we wrap this up I just really wanted to share my appreciation for you in a way that’s true to my heart. And so I just wanted to write a little phrase. It’s kind of a something I want to share with you here and for the Thrivers at home. This is something that I want to, well I don’t know if that works exactly, but this is something I wrote for you here. It’s just a secret little message that I want to share for me to you to let you know what time it is? Um, 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Oklahoma, baby! Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old, but I’ve never had the two-time Heisman Award winning Tim Tebow come present. A lot of people have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. Off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now, the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out, because I don’t know. I’m just saying, Tim Tebow’s going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Also this is the first Thrive Time Show event that we’ve had where we’re going to have a man who has built a $100 million net worth. Wow. Who will be presenting. Now, we’ve had a couple of presenters that have had a billion dollar net worth in some real estate sort of things. But this is the first time we’ve had a guy who’s built a service business, and he’s built over $100 million net worth in the service business. It’s the yacht driving, multi-state living guru of franchising. Peter Taunton will be in the house. This is the founder of Snap Fitness, the guy behind nine round boxing, he’s going to be here in Tulsa, Russia, Oklahoma June 27th and 28th. JT, why should everybody want to hear what Peter Taunton has to say? Oh, because he’s incredible. He’s just a fountain of knowledge. He is awesome. He has inspired me listening to him talk and not only that, he also has, he practices what he teaches, so he’s a real teacher. He’s not a fake teacher like business school teachers. So you’ve got to come learn from him. Also, let me tell you this, folks, I don’t want to get this wrong, because if I get it wrong, someone’s going to say, you screwed that up, buddy. So Michael Levine, this is Michael Levine, he’s going to be coming, and you say, who’s Michael Levine? I don’t want to get this wrong. This is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson, for Prince, for Nike, for Charlton Heston, for Nancy Kerrigan, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times best-selling authors he’s represented, including pretty much everybody you know who’s been a super celebrity. This is Michael Levine, a good friend of mine. He’s going to come and talk to you about personal branding and the mindset needed to be super successful. The lineup will continue to grow. We have hit Christian reporting artist Colton Dixon in the house. Now people say, Colton Dixon’s in the house? Yes, Colton Dixon’s in the house. So if you like Top 40 Christian music, Colton Dixon’s going to be in the house performing. The lineup will continue to grow each and every day. We’re going to add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup, but I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? I don’t know what I do. How does it work? You just go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, you just go to Thrivetimeshow.com, you click on the business conferences button, and you click on the request tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. Did you start out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that. Did not get an inheritance from parents, anything like that. I had to work for it. And I am super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s actually how I met you, met Peter Taunton. I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again, you just got to go to thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well, when’s it going to be? June 27 and 28. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russia, Oklahoma. It’s Tulsa Russell. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa Russell. Sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office and so it’s going to be packed. So when? June 27th and 28th. Who? You! You’re gonna come! I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at Thrivetimeshow.com and again you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford and we do have some select VIP tickets which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things and those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop over 20 hours of business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical, it’s actionable, and it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russell get those tickets today at Thrivetimeshow.com again that’s Thrivetimeshow.com Hello I’m Michael Levine and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood California where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners 34 Grammy Award winners 43 New York Times bestsellers I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies. And I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California in the beautiful sunny weather of LA come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation. Really life-changing and I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa. James, did I tell you my good friend John Lee Dumas is also joining us at the in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. That Tim Tebow and that Michael Levine will be at the… have I told you this? You have not told me that. He’s coming all the way from Puerto Rico. This is John Lee Dumas, the host of the chart-topping EOFire.com podcast. He’s absolutely a living legend. This guy started a podcast after wrapping up his service in the United States military, and he started recording this podcast daily in his home, to the point where he started interviewing big-time folks like Gary Vaynerchuk, like Tony Robbins, and he just kept interviewing bigger and bigger names, putting out shows day after day. And now he is the legendary host of the EO Fire podcast, and he’s traveled all the way from Princeville, Rico, to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend the in-person June 27th and 28th live time show, two day interactive business workshop. If you’re out there today, folks, if you’ve ever wanted to grow a podcast, a broadcast, you want to get in, you want to improve your marketing, if you’ve ever wanted to improve your marketing, your branding, if you’ve ever wanted to increase your sales, you want to come to the two-day interactive June 27th and 28th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop featuring Tim Tebow, Michael Levine, John Lee Dumas, and countless big-time, super successful entrepreneurs. It’s going to be life-changing. Get your tickets right now at thrivetimeshow.com. James, what website is that? ThriveTimeShow.com. James, one more time with more enthusiasm. ThriveTimeShow.com. Because it could get dangerous. See these people I ride with. This moment, we own it. Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops. Because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13-point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business for two days You can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems So now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve You’re gonna leave energized Motivated, but you’re also gonna leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur I always wish that I had this and because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars with no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s gonna be the best business workshop ever and we’re gonna give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today, and you want to attend our in-person two-day interactive business workshop All you got to do is go to thrive timeshow.com to request those tickets, and if you can’t afford $250 We have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you I Learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York Octa nonverba Watch what a person does not what they say whoa Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvard Kiyosaki Rich Dad Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re closed, but they’re completely different worlds. And I have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts as a Mr. Clay Clark. He’s a friend of a good friend, Eric Trump. But we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man, and there’s so many ways we could take this thing, but I thought since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who is my age, and I can say or cannot say? Well, first of all, I have to honor you, sir. I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. There’s a guy named Jeremy Thorn, who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV, and he said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. And I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner, to the investor. And I owe a lot of that to you. And I just wanted to take a moment to tell you, thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. And I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump, but I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. You know, more than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there too, or bad influencers. Yeah. Anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much and thanks for reading my books. Yeah, that’s that’s the greatest thrill for me today not thrill but Recognition is when people young men, especially come up and say I read your book change my life. I’m doing this I’m doing this I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York Octa nonverba Watch what a person does, not what they say. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey. I’m originally from Tulsa, born and raised here. I went to a small private liberal arts college and got a degree in business, and I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using, and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here is actually way better than what I got at business school. And I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school. The linear workflow, the linear workflow for us in getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place. Having linear workflow and seeing that mapped out on multiple different boards is pretty awesome. That’s really helpful for me. The atmosphere here is awesome. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks. It’s invigorating. The walls are super, it’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool, the people are nice, it’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here at this facility and basically create it just on our business side. Once I saw what they were doing, I knew I had to get here at the conference. This is probably the best conference or seminar I’ve ever been to in over 30 years of business. You’re not bored, you’re awake, alive the whole time. It’s not pushy, they don’t try to sell you a bunch of things. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making time for the F6 in your life, and just really implementing it and sticking with the program. It’s really lively, they’re pretty friendly, helpful, and very welcoming. I attended a conference a couple months back, and it was really the best business conference I’ve ever attended. At the workshop, I learned a lot about time management, really prioritizing what’s the most important. Biggest takeaways are you want to take a step-by-step approach to your business, whether it’s marketing, what are those three marketing tools that you want to use, to human resources. Some of the most successful people and successful businesses in this town, their owners were here today because they wanted to know more from Clay. And I found that to be kind of fascinating. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned is diligence. That businesses don’t change overnight. It takes time and effort and you’ve got to go through the ups and downs of getting it to where you want to go. He actually gives you the road map out. I was stuck, didn’t know what to do and he gave me the road map out step by step. He’s set up systems in the business that make my life much easier, allow me some time freedom. Here you can ask any question you want, they guarantee it will be answered. This conference motivates me and also gives me a lot of knowledge and tools. It’s up to you to do it. Everybody can do these things. There’s stuff that everybody knows, but if you don’t do it, nobody else is going to do it for you. I can see the marketing working. It’s just an approach that makes sense. Probably the most notable thing is just the income increase that we’ve had. Everyone’s super fun and super motivating. I’ve been here before but I’m back again because it motivates me. Your competition’s going to come eventually or try to pick up these tactics. So you better, if you don’t, somebody else will. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you, and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. Right, this is where we used to live. Here’s the house. This is our old neighborhood. See, it’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team. And by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past, and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts, and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. So we really just want to thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. If you decide to not attend the Thrive Time workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The atmosphere at Clay’s office is very lively. You can feel the energy as soon as you walk through the door. And it really got me and my team very excited. If you decide not to come, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow your business, bottom line. I love the environment. I love the way that Clay presents and teaches. It’s a way that not only allows me to comprehend what’s going on, but he explains it in a way to where it just makes sense. The SEO optimization, branding, marketing, I’ve learned more in the last two days than I have the entire four years of college. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned, marketing is key, marketing is everything. Making sure that you’re branded accurately and clearly. How to grow a business using Google reviews and then just how to optimize our name through our website also. Helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high in Google. The biggest thing I needed to learn was how to build my foundation, how to systemize everything and optimize everything, build my SEO. How to become more organized, more efficient. How to make sure the business is really there to serve me, as opposed to me constantly being there for the business. New ways of advertising my business, as well as recruiting new employees. Group interviews, number one. Before, we felt like we were held hostage by our employees. Group interviews has completely eliminated that, because you’re able to really find the people that would really be the best fit. Hands-on how to hire people, how to deal with human resources, a lot about marketing, and overall, just how to structure the business, how it works for me, and also then how that can translate into working better for my clients. The most valuable thing I’ve learned here is time management. I like the one hour of doing your business. It’s real critical if I’m going to grow and change. Play really teaches you how to navigate through those things and not only find freedom, but find your purpose in your business and find the purposes for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real. you