He’s done it all; started a successful business, sold it, mentors and coaches, multimillion-dollar clients, and a pilot. Steve Rozenberg shares his story of success with Brad. He talks about how he got into the real estate business, the ups and the downs, and what you can do to get those bigger pockets.
Brad Larson: Hey everybody. On today's podcast, I have Steve Rosenberg. What are we talking about? Coaching bigger pockets and all kinds of great stuff that you've got to listen to. It's going to be a fantastic convo.
Announcer: Welcome to the Property Management Mastermind Show with your host Brad Larson. Brad owns one of the fastest growing property management companies in San Antonio, Texas. This podcast is for property managers. By property managers, you'll hear from industry leading professionals on best practices, new ideas, success stories and lessons learned. This is your opportunity to learn about [00:00:30] the latest industry buzz surrounding property management, as well as tips and strategies to improve your business.
Commercial: Per share a pest control amenity for your resident benefits program. Starting at just $5 per door, you can give your residents the pest control coverage they need. Pest share will even pay for the expensive infestations like bedbugs and cockroaches and the debate over who pays for pest control while pests share turns and expense into added revenue. [00:01:00] For more information, check out their website at pest shared dot com forward slash property managers. Property meld is a smart maintenance coordination solution proven to turn maintenance headaches into profitability. Our Maintenance Coordination Hub connects all property management companies, key players in one location, providing maintenance, oversight and efficiency to property management maintenance teams. Our solution streamlines [00:01:30] communication throughout the coordination process, resulting in the oversight and efficiency property managers need to create a profitable maintenance operation. Property MELD delivers property managers with a positive maintenance experience. Check out more information at Property MEDCOM or reach out at info at Property MEDCOM.
Brad Larson: Welcome everybody to another edition of the Property Management Mastermind podcast. We are shooting live and in [00:02:00] person here at the Property Management Mastermind Conference in Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right? Right. That's for the Red Rock Resort. And I've got Steve Rosenberg here, long time friend of mine, mentor. We've been collaborating for years and years. I don't know how long it was. I called them my sister company because we have a company in San Antonio and these guys are in Houston. So Steve's here presenting tomorrow at the conference and I just happened to see him walking by. I said, Hey, man, sit down. We're going to do a podcast. I want to talk to you about a bunch of [00:02:30] things. So today we're going to talk about his exit from his property management business and kind of what he's been doing and then have a couple of good points to discuss. And there's stuff in the industry that we want to kick around. It's going to be a cool, cool combo. So, Steve, give us a few minutes of your time and tell us who you are.
Steve Rozenberg: Yeah. So as you said, we had a property management company in Houston, Texas. Pete Newberg and myself owned it. We built it up from scratch, just like you scaled it up pretty rapidly. And then we ended up selling and exiting to a venture capital company.
Brad Larson: Say [00:03:00] the name goes.
Steve Rozenberg: Yeah. So mine property management is we sold to. Yeah. And after we sold and exited both Pete myself went over as VP's in certain roles for mind mine was investor facing so I was a VP of investor education, which basically meant I was the for lack of a better term, I was the face of the investor role for from mind to bigger pockets and to a lot of these investor organizations. Because that's kind of where I came from. Yeah. And [00:03:30] I did that role for about a year and a half, almost two years, left that role and then evolved into basically what I'm doing now, which is working with businesses, working with real estate investors, coaching them, getting them to maybe where they want to go. Really from all the training and learnings that I've done over the last 20 years to to be who I am today helping other people.
Brad Larson: Yeah, some further background to elaborate with the audience is you're an airline pilot by trade. Yes. And you're probably one of the more established speakers on [00:04:00] the circuit because you've been all over the world to speak, especially Australia, New Zealand, and you're great at content creation. You're just really good at just putting it out there on camera and fantastic stuff with that. So tell me more about your airline pilot.
Steve Rozenberg: Yeah. So I got hired at 25 years old, used to work with a company called TWA. It's not around anymore.
Brad Larson: That's right.
Steve Rozenberg: Yeah, they're gone. Then I worked for a company called Continental Airlines and got hired at 25. I was the second youngest person hired, flew all over the world. I was based in Guam, which is a tiny island in the South Pacific, and came back [00:04:30] from Guam to Houston. And about a month after we had an interesting day in history called 911. And that was the day that I realized that my safe, secure job was not safe. It was not secure. And I got a furlough notice. And it made me realize how how fragile you are as an employee and what what it caused me to do is it took things that I should do and put them into things that I must do, which was survive. And [00:05:00] so I started trying to figure out what would I do? I was 29 years old. Alls I'd ever done as a kid was want to fly airplanes. So I didn't I didn't know anything else. I didn't know anything about investing real estate. I just knew that I wanted to be a pilot. And when I started looking around, unless you can fly a plane, you're really not marketable to anybody. There's no value. Yeah, I couldn't even get a job driving a truck because I didn't have the qualifications. And so it's it's very humbling when you realize that it's something that you learn to do. Your whole life [00:05:30] is gone.
Brad Larson: Yeah. And you think you're the big time. Yeah, like I made it. I've got. You're making a shit ton of money. Pardon my French. Yeah. And then all of a sudden you can't even get hired anywhere else.
Steve Rozenberg: I mean so it's not only was 911 horrific for the country, but it was a a punch in the gut and to the face of saying, okay, not only is the world going through this, but you're out of a job, too, as a result. And I'm thinking, I didn't do this. I didn't cause this, but now I'm affected by it. And I remember that was the time that I said, okay, I'm never going to be in a position that somebody [00:06:00] can control my destiny. And so I started looking to say, okay, what is it that successful people do? Like, what do they do in the world? And everything seemed to tie to real estate at some levels. People had some wealth tied to real estate. And so I was like, okay, well fucking I'm going to go down this path. And so I started going down the path. I read a book a week on real estate, everything I could get my hands on. I just had to immerse myself because I felt like I was behind the curve of being able to do this because I'm now almost 30 years old.
Brad Larson: I didn't know you could read.
Steve Rozenberg: Well, [00:06:30] yeah. There's a lot of pictures for.
Brad Larson: A year.
Steve Rozenberg: Steve. There's a lot of.
Brad Larson: Pictures.
Steve Rozenberg: Yeah. People read them to me.
Brad Larson: It was the only gives the audience, you know, Steve and I've been giving each other credit for years, right? Yeah. It's kind of like a brother really going back and forth.
Steve Rozenberg: So I started learning. I got some mentors, I got coached in real estate. I learned at the time it was called double closings and flips. And I just learned about the dynamics of. Real estate and it was all really negotiating is what it was. Did fairly well at that and made [00:07:00] enough money doing that to buy my first apartment complex, which is where I met Pete Newberg. Yeah. So he and I partnered on our first apartment complex. My first apartment complex deal with him. And I was still flipping properties and wholesaling. And it's funny, Pete, it's the grass is greener. Pete wanted to know how I was doing, what I was doing, and I want to know how to run an apartment building. So we kind of said, okay, will you teach me? I'll teach you. Anyways, we, we did that. We sold and exited that apartment complex. Then we started buying single family houses, which [00:07:30] real estate has a funny way of letting you know that just when you think you're smart enough and you know what you're doing, it will like a wrecking ball come and destroy your life if you don't know what you're doing. And we did not know what we were doing, made a lot of bad acquisitions, a lot of mistakes, which actually caused us to need to start our management company because nobody would manage our properties. Yeah. And so we.
Brad Larson: Were so bad.
Steve Rozenberg: The properties were the clients that nobody wanted.
Brad Larson: Oh, my goodness. Yeah.
Steve Rozenberg: And so that's how we started an empire was really for self preservation. [00:08:00] And but one of the first things we did is we hired a business coach and we said, okay, we know we're not, we don't know what we're doing. So we hired the business coach to actually guide us and give us some semblance of a business because we didn't even know that this property management thing was even a business at the time. We were just investors investing. And he says, I'll never forget. He says, Well, there's opportunity, there's marketability and there's scalability. So by definition, you guys have a business. You two are not the smartest guys, and you will be bankrupt [00:08:30] in six months if you don't change what you're doing.
Brad Larson: So that's some tough love.
Steve Rozenberg: Yes, it was. So we hired the guy like basically on the spot. We couldn't afford to hire him, but we couldn't afford not to hire him. It was one of those situations. We stayed with him for seven years and every week we went in and got coached by him and then we branched out to get coaching by other people. And during that time, you know, we changed who we were. We, you know, we, we became different people. We learned how to run a business. We learned how to think of things differently. We really [00:09:00] learned when it when it came to running our business, we really came to stay in our lanes. You know, as you know, you and Pete are very operator minded. And so and I remember you'd be like, what is this Steve guy do is even in the company because I was staying in my vertical of doing sales and marketing kind of doing my thing and Pete was doing his thing and we were just running concurrently because we were learning how business is run, which is it's tough, right? Because I had some ideas that I would love to tell Pete and he the same. But we we respectfully tried to stay in our lanes, which is hard [00:09:30] when you both own a business and.
Brad Larson: You guys are such polar opposites. You would have 10,000 doors under management chaos and chaos and like just absolute nuts. And Pete would have ten properties under management, but those would be run so.
Steve Rozenberg: And nobody would talk to him. Nobody. Yeah, I remember one day he's like, I think I'm going to take the phone out of my office. I'm like, You can't take like you're the CEO. You kind of take the phone. He's like, Yeah, nobody should talk to me. I'm like, Dude, you can't take the phone. He was just in his mind is like, the business should run where nobody talks to me. I'm like, I get it in a perfect world. But that's just how opposite we were, which honestly [00:10:00] I think had to do with our explosive growth and what we're doing. Like you said, I mean, I was I was going into new territories of learning how to speak. So I got coached and mentored, how to speak, how to present, how to do content creation. And Pete had no idea he didn't want to do any of that. He's like, dude, whatever. Like he wasn't even on Facebook. And I'm like, This is important to grow the company. So as we always, we always thought of Empire as a, as an entity that stood on its own. And it wasn't my company. It wasn't his company, it was [00:10:30] the company. And we were feeding life into it as its own living, breathing entity, which I think what I've learned and now what I'm doing with coaching businesses is a lot of people identify themselves as the business owner and they identify the business. And that's the challenge is they can't separate the two for sometimes making deadly decisions for their business, and they don't even realize it because they think what they're doing is correct. And in their mind, rightfully so. But it's not necessarily the correct thing for the business.
Brad Larson: You're in the room today when we're [00:11:00] at the facilitator panel. Yes. And everyone's kind of given their 5 minutes of their business. Yeah. And at the end of that five or 10 minutes, they were talking about one lesson learned. So think of your crystal ball. Think of your time machine. Go back five, ten, 15 years, 5 minutes, 20 years, whatever it could be. And give me one lesson learned that you could go back in time and do over again or do differently.
Steve Rozenberg: Well, okay, I have an answer, but it'll be complete opposite of what Pete said.
Brad Larson: I figured that.
Steve Rozenberg: And so my answer would have been we should have gone [00:11:30] bigger. Faster.
Brad Larson: Wow. Okay, that was.
Steve Rozenberg: That would been my answer because and again, he and I were as you know, we are total opposites. Yeah. And he you know, and Pete and I know this and we love each other for it, but he has an aversion to to debt and money. I don't look at it the same way I look at money and debt as a tool. So I looked at it differently than he looked at it. But. Out of respect for him. And we both, you know, we as business partners, you always have to respect the other person's position. Just because I didn't agree with him doesn't [00:12:00] mean I always get my way. So I respected his position on not really wanting to go in debt for the business. But I also think that was a reason that we didn't scale fast enough to get to where we want to go. And I think the way I explained it to Pete towards the end when we were, you know, selling the business and kind of parting his partners, I felt like I was ready to jump Snake River. And he had these foot on the brakes the whole way. And I'm like, Dude, we're going to go off the edge and we're not going, you know, we're going to die. You either got to let me jump and [00:12:30] take the company or we're not going to do it at all. And so he he didn't want to do it. And so I agreed and okay, I'll respect your wishes. But that that would have been my answer is I would have done it bigger, faster, and I would I'm okay with failing. I don't think he looks at it the same way.
Brad Larson: Yeah, well, it was a clean exit because, one, you guys are still friends. Absolutely. Yeah, that's good part of it. Very good friends. I always tell people I use yours as an example with Pete because you guys wanted to go in a different direction and the only real way to exit is just to sell. I mean, you can try a buyout with one or the other. [00:13:00] Yeah. And that just gets weird and messy. Yeah. It's just so much cleaner to sell and. Yeah. And and your non-compete is up. So Pete's doing stuff back in the industry. You're doing stuff back in the industry, right. And so it's good to see you kind of circle around and stay around because not a lot of people, you know, understand this industry like YouTube. Yeah. I mean, you really got a handle on it and it's been it's translated into other things like you guys are you're big into now coaching. Yeah, we're getting more involved with that. I want to hear more about that too. Talk to me more about what you've done with some of [00:13:30] that realm.
Steve Rozenberg: Yeah. So, you know, once once I was doing the thing with mind and when I left mine, I really went big into big. I went deep into bigger pockets. Yeah. And I started doing a lot. I had, I had a weekly show with them. I was doing a lot of influencing, speaking on their stages, getting to know a lot of becoming friends with a lot of the other big influencers in there. I've done a lot of deals like personal transactions with a lot of these guys, so I've gotten to know them on a on a friendly level. And what's interesting is, is I bring a faction that they don't [00:14:00] have, which is the business mindset of owning a management company, along with being an airline pilot and all that stuff. But a lot of them started off as investors because they didn't want a job, so they really don't have not all of them. I mean, there's some very intelligent people and very successful, but a lot of them are they don't have the structure of the business model per se, the upper level people do. But a lot of the lower people in bigger pockets, one starting out the you know, there's 2.3 million people on their site. [00:14:30]
Brad Larson: Yeah, what a resource. And we should get just, just to kind of give you what I understand about bigger pockets and I'll probably leave a few things out of it is it's a fantastic resource. They have great podcast, they have a great website and it's actually a really effective way to get leads. Absolutely. As a property management, 100%. And now they have an agent referral program. Yeah. So both of those are fantastic resources for property managers to get and grow and learn about the business. And for example, we just quoted their podcast recently. They had episode 604. Yeah, which was [00:15:00] a synopsis of the real estate market and what's going on in the world. And they brought on a fantastic guest. I mean, it's just a kick butt guest and is spouting off fantastic numbers and that's the resources they bring to the table. And I think it's a really new that you got in with them. Yeah. So tell us more.
Steve Rozenberg: Yeah. So, you know, they really are the £800 gorilla of real estate. And to ignore them, I think is is I don't if you're if you're a property management company owner or you're in the property management industry and you're [00:15:30] ignoring them, it's like saying, I'm going to shop but I'm never going to use Amazon. I'll think.
Brad Larson: Of this. They could shift the market. Absolutely. All of a sudden they said being bald is cool.
Steve Rozenberg: Well, it is, first of all.
Brad Larson: But yeah, but yeah. But what if they said, you know, something like that, like, hey, everybody should go out and buy strip centers. Absolutely. Or multifamily or you should buy apartment complexes or I'm saying trailer parks, you know, or go invest in dealerships.
Steve Rozenberg: Well, yeah, well.
Brad Larson: They could they could turn to market.
Steve Rozenberg: And just to give you and I talk about this, you know, at [00:16:00] my speaking of event, but just to give the listeners some data, you know, they have 2.3 million people on their site. Yeah, right. They have 57,000 companies that are involved with them. Well, they have thousands of free forms. Right. They have 670,000 subscribers on YouTube, 250,000 on Facebook, and almost 400,000 on Instagram. They want to get a message out there. It's very easy. It's like Coca Cola introducing a new flavor.
Brad Larson: And instead [00:16:30] of like four or five different podcasts.
Steve Rozenberg: Yeah, they've got the real estate rookie, they've got multifamily, they've got, you know, obviously the Bigger Pockets podcast.
Brad Larson: There's a business one I think is really.
Steve Rozenberg: Yeah. Yeah. So so they are, they are a definite mover on the needle. So if you can get, you know, I know a lot of property management companies, you know, in general people think like, oh, they're really not a player in. That world. I'm like, That's a blue ocean. If you can get in there and you can be an educator, which I'm going to talk about tomorrow, if you can get in with [00:17:00] them, it's a blue ocean because as property management companies, you're coming in with a mindset that they don't have and they don't have that information. And so it's almost like you're a specialist in that field now. You may not sway them, but when you put in there and you are an educator and you're commenting and you're giving I mean, we use it. I the reason I became an influencer with them is when you start talking to them, they kind of look back and say, okay, well, are you even a patron, a bigger pocket? Like, do you even comment [00:17:30] like, who are you? And so they saw that for several years. I was involved in commenting with bigger pockets and they were like, okay, you are you do believe in our mission and what we're doing. So that's what started the conversation. I even did a I did a whole coaching session with the gentleman I'll talk about tomorrow that he won a contest and he was a military guy, naval aviator.
Steve Rozenberg: And I helped him by his first out-of-state property. And we did it. We, we bought it in another city. And I'll give some, some data [00:18:00] tomorrow, but we did it all while he was in lockdown in Camp Lejeune because of COVID. And we bought it, we rehabbed it, he got it rented. And he never once saw it because he got deployed. And now he owns 23 properties. Wow. And he's just using the model that I taught him and he's like, I'm just doing what you taught me. It's copy, paste, repeat. So I'm like, okay, why? As a as a property management owner, why couldn't I go and teach my clients to do this and buy 23 properties sight unseen and run it like [00:18:30] a true business? That's the client you want, right? So they do exist out there. Now, how they buy it, whether they do the BR method, they may have to do it unconventionally, but at the end of the day somebody has to manage that asset. And so what I try to teach and I work with property management companies coaching them, I'm like, you've got to look at the end result. Don't get caught up in how they're making the hamburger. It's the result of the hamburger, and it's what you can offer at the end as a team.
Steve Rozenberg: I think not to go off on a tangent here, but I think one of the challenges with [00:19:00] property management companies, and I've seen this from the bigger pocket side as a as an influencer and as a property management company is, it's very adversarial with a lot of these guys. Like, they want to show them what they're doing is wrong as opposed to being a partner with them and help being on their team, kind of sitting on the same side of the table. Instead, they want to show them how smart they are and how, how they're doing the wrong things. And I don't think that's the right way to either get a client or keep a client. And again, your job as a property management company, it's [00:19:30] a very vertical specific. And if you can go in there with the mindset of how can we help you grow your portfolio and how can I be a team to be leveraged? You know, I mean, I'm a big believer and even, you know, Brandon Turner and David, a lot of these guys and I know we talked about the book he wrote, but, you know, they're they're big advocates of leveraging property management companies. And, you know, so the misconception of bigger pockets always wanting to self manage, I don't I don't agree with that because.
Brad Larson: That's something I want to bring up. Yeah, because I don't think that's [00:20:00] true either. I think that they do want to leverage it. They understand that it's better to pay somebody five bucks an hour so they can go out and make 5000 an hour. Absolutely. And I think they get that. And yeah, your perception of that is true, because I want to bring it up because a lot of people think bigger pockets is all about PM haters. Right? Right. They hate on PM PM companies, they also have blah blah blah. Even even Brandon's book comes across a little like that. Yeah, we talked about a pre show and he wrote a book about how to do property management and it kind of opens it up with all property managers are less than great [00:20:30] and here's how you can create your own company to be less than greater than them. And I'm poking fun. It was a good book. It's a good outline. Yes. But if you don't understand it, there's literally a thousand things that he tells you to do to run a property management company. Why would you waste your time to do that? Absolutely. Unless you want to scale it to 500 or 1000, 10,000 homes, if you want to manage 20 of your own homes, why would you ever go through that headache? Just hire somebody and pay for that resource because your appreciation will far outweigh any of your [00:21:00] savings in management fees.
Steve Rozenberg: Yeah. And you know, it's funny because I work with a lot of investors and some some larger institutional investors that are buying stuff and sometimes they'll, you know, they'll get this wild idea like, hey, I'm going to I think I'm going to start a management company. I'm like, okay, great. Well, explain that to me. And so they explain their vision of how that works. And I'm like, Okay, what's the goal? Is the goal to start a management company or is the goal to grow your own net worth and your wealth? And explain to me how this ties in, because you are you have what [00:21:30] you told me is a tip of the iceberg of what you need to realize when it comes to starting a management company as opposed to, you know, and is that a sidetrack to what you're really trying to accomplish? So when I coach people and this is what I was taught, you know, whenever you have an idea, great, explain to me, link this up as to how this gets me to your goal. And if this is a side diversion because you hired a shitty. Property management company. You know, just because you ate bad Chinese food doesn't mean you start your own Chinese food restaurant. You maybe go to a different Chinese food restaurant.
Brad Larson: Great [00:22:00] analogy.
Steve Rozenberg: So a lot of times people think like, oh, you know, this property management company shit. And so my question to them is, well, what kind of interview process did you have with the management company? What kind of expectations did you ask of them? Or did you just go because they were the cheapest and you got exactly what you deserved, you know? And so they're like, Huh? And I go, Well, doesn't it make sense when you put a tenant in your property, you do a background check on the tenant, you screen the tenant, and there's a process for that. Why would you not have a process for someone that you want to have on your team [00:22:30] as part of your leverage level assets, meaning the management company, if you're lazy, like you're lazy, you went through with the cheap route. And we all know cheaper is not cheaper. Right. You know, you know, the 99 cent hot dog in 711 is not the same as going to, you know, a steakhouse.
Announcer: Resident interface is a comprehensive delinquency management solution for property management companies that serve rental properties with over 500 units located in Florida, Georgia, [00:23:00] Maryland and Texas. Resident Interface offers property owners and managers of financially transformative end to end delinquency management experience, where a single contact responsible for the entire process from late payment to eviction management and final debt collection. And we help increase net operating income through technological innovation, operational transparency and respectful recovery procedures. Learn more today at Resident Interface.
Brad Larson: Now. How does a property manager [00:23:30] win on bigger pockets? Now a couple of my ideas and you can elaborate is you go in there and actually add value. So you could set up a form for your market property management, your market investments. And somebody goes in there and says, Hey, I'm looking for a real estate attorney and your market and again, your market. You go in there and say, hey, reference this attorney. We think he's pretty good. Yep. And as long as your auto signature is filled out with all of your honest intent, here's our website. I'm a property manager. [00:24:00] I'm a real estate agent or whatever. Just by commenting like that, helping someone 100% create those dialogs. Hey, I saw that you are a property management company. We're interested in buying a couple of properties and we want you to manage them. Let's talk. And they'll message you. Yeah, they'll. They'll friend you on there. Absolutely. And that's how you start that. You're not trying to go in there and poach. Hey, we'll do your management company fees for free, right? You know, all that silliness. And how does somebody win in bigger pockets?
Steve Rozenberg: Exactly what you said. It's winning through education. So when you are when you're talking about [00:24:30] them, when you're when you're educating, it's about them. When you're selling, it's about you. Right. So you never, never go in there to sell. And if you go in there to sell, they're going to shut you down.
Brad Larson: Yes, right.
Steve Rozenberg: That's right. And if you say, hey, message me, you know, they they've obviously got words that alert them. Now, what I would recommend just to go to the basics is you can set up keyword alerts that if somebody says property management, San Antonio, single family and those three ones hit, you'll get an alert saying, hey, someone's talking about this in the form. Click on the link. It takes you right there. Now what I would recommend is you could have [00:25:00] some very basic copy paste templates that you could throw in there. You know that, hey, this is what I would recommend. There's five companies contact these. You know something where you're educating. These are some things that I would look for if I have the top 25 questions that you should ask a property management company, happy to send them to you. Let me know if you want them. So now you're going in as an educator. But when you're going in as an educator, you're answering the question that they're going, you know, it's like Marcus Sheridan and they ask you answer, right? So you're going in there as the educator and you're being [00:25:30] the person that's giving them valuable information. They're like, Well, shit, Brad's in San Antonio and he's giving me all this information. Maybe I should just talk to him.
Brad Larson: It's not to elaborate. You have to go in there and write 400 pages of articles. No, you can make one comment a day.
Steve Rozenberg: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Brad Larson: That can get you business just by sheer backhanded. They come find.
Steve Rozenberg: You. Yeah. So? So that's the first way to do it. The other way is, again, trying to just help people. So you do it by knowledge information, right? You you as a property management company owner in San Antonio, you have very specific [00:26:00] area geographical knowledge that you're an expert in. People want to hear that information. So if they say, hey, I'm thinking of buying a house in this area. Well, and so I'll give you an example. When we were in Houston, people would ask that question and I would come back and say, well, you know, we manage, you know, 70 houses in this area. If you want, I can tell you what's good and bad and where you should and shouldn't purchase just if you want some advice. So now you're just giving. But what are you doing? They're going 60 to 70 houses. Yeah, we manage 1000 houses now. You're just giving them feedback, but you're [00:26:30] also you're giving yourself confirmation bias and you're giving them the value of they're saying, okay, this person obviously knows what they're doing. Like, I'll give you example, one thing that I used to say is we'd get a lot of I had out of state investing Houston, Texas. So all of a sudden you get people out of state.
Steve Rozenberg: Yep. And these are informed. So all these forms are categorized. So whenever someone did that, I would say, you know, we have 50 to 60% of our clients do not live in Houston, in Texas or in the country. So if you want some things to look for, I'm happy to give you some key pointers as to what you should and [00:27:00] shouldn't do in Houston. All of a sudden, what am I doing? I'm I'm the expert. I'm giving them valuable information, but they're also going, well, shit, this guy is 50, 60% of his clients aren't even here. He must know how to deal with that. Yeah. And that honestly, I still get people. And that was four years ago. I still get people to go reach out and say, hey, I saw on your form, you do this or you do that. So it's evergreen. That's the nice thing is it doesn't go away. It's not timestamped and it gets washed away when someone does a search out of state investing. Houston, Texas. My thread comes up. [00:27:30] So you're re banking on that all the time just by being the educator, like you said, doing one answer a day. That's all you've got to do.
Brad Larson: I want to hear what you got cooking now and where are you planning on taking that?
Steve Rozenberg: Yeah. So, you know, it's funny, I look at life as as chapters. When we were in high school, that was a chapter when you were in the military. That was a chapter, right. So we all have chapters. Our twenties, our thirties, almost my forties. Those are chapters. Chapters and chapters begin in chapters end. And so [00:28:00] us owning Empire to me was a chapter. Now I don't think that a chapter has to be bad to end it. Like Empire was running great, it was doing great. But I thought for me it was time to end that chapter. Sometimes we carry things over from a prior chapter. Some things good, some things bad write bad baggage, bad issues, bad relationships and a lot of good things. So I've got all these chapters from from 911, right after 911 to learning all this stuff about real estate, I mean. All the all the problems, all [00:28:30] the mistakes, everything that I did and a lot of successes and a lot of wins, you know, learning how to build a business. Being coached and mentored by some amazing people that I've gotten to break bread with and talk to and really learn from. And the next chapter of my life, I kind of think, What do I want to do? Like what? What's the value? And so, look, I still am an airline pilot. I fly Boeing 777 aircraft. I fly all over the world. But I love doing it. It's like I really enjoy being a pilot. [00:29:00] I don't think I'll ever quit because it's just something I like to do.
Steve Rozenberg: The nice thing is, is I don't need to do it like financially. I don't need to be a pilot. I like being a pilot. What I decided to do after we sold mine is I thought, okay, what's the next chapter? And I thought, okay, the next chapter of my life is trying to help people avoid some of these mistakes. And I don't think you can avoid all failures, and I don't think you should avoid off areas. I think people have to get knocked down and punch in the face every now and then to to feel the victory. But but I [00:29:30] do think there can be some guidance in there to help accelerate their success. And I just thought, okay, maybe this chapter of my life and I don't know if it's a one year, ten year, 20 year, but this chapter is helping people, whether you're an investor, whether you're a business owner, understand how to actually have the life that you want. Because, you know, when we sold Empire, you almost get to the point. It's very anticlimactic, right? You think like, oh, I sold this company, like I'm breaking into this new club. Everyone's going to pat me on the back. It was still fricking [00:30:00] Monday, so take the trash out like nothing changed. Nothing in my life, more zeros in the bank. But other than that, nothing changed. You know, you're like, okay, this isn't exactly what I thought it would be. And all of a sudden you realize that the happiness that you think you're going to have because you've done something, you know, it's like people that go to the astronauts, they go to the moon or Olympic athletes that win a gold medal.
Steve Rozenberg: They have the highest rate of depression because you're not going back to the moon and you're probably not going to win another gold medal. So you sell a business and you're like, What am I going to do? So I started telling myself, Okay, I want [00:30:30] to help business owners, but I do it from a different perspective in the sense that we'll say a three pronged. The one prong is having a successful model that we built, scaled and exited. So I've kind of gone through all those iterations of building a business. The other part is being an airline pilot. For the last 25 years, I'm trained as pretty much an expert in systems checklist, standardization, dealing with emergencies, all the things that the way an airline runs, [00:31:00] that's how business is run. And if you look at how much time you have, I got a great analogy of how a business runs with the airline, if you want to hear it. But it's one of those things that if you look at an airline that I've been an integral part of for 30 years, you look at that and go, okay, how do I make my business run that way? And then the last part of it is the real estate side. You use the money from the real estate.
Steve Rozenberg: You know, a business will make you rich, real estate will make you wealthy, and that will transcend to generational wealth. So it's kind of [00:31:30] a three part process. And so a lot of people don't understand how do you get from here to here? Because a lot of people, a lot of people probably watching the show, maybe they left a job because they wanted freedom. Right. And maybe they were running from a life that they didn't want anymore. But the problem is, is. The life that they didn't want is exactly what they're running back to because they don't know what they're running to. And so I tell people, I used to think it was the freedom. That's what I think. People want freedom. But you could sell all your shit tomorrow, go live on the beach [00:32:00] and you'll have all the freedom you want. But you may not like the memories that that freedom creates. At the end of the day, we're not buying freedom. We're buying memories. You going golfing, going hunting. Those are memories that you take with you. Freedom. You could have that right. But you may not like the life that you live. True. So what we're really buying as. As humans, we're buying memories. Maybe it's dinner in Greece, maybe it's Rolling Stone concert, things that we may not have a memory to do again. So I tell people, buy memories, don't buy the freedom. And so that's what I teach people how to do and how to make [00:32:30] the business. Give that to you.
Brad Larson: Tell me more about that. Is is like a coaching service? Yeah. What is.
Steve Rozenberg: It? Yeah. So. So I do coaching programs for business owners. So I get involved, I get in, I hate to say it, I get in their shit with their business and rip their business apart and rebuild it with the systems ization the automation and procedures of how a business should run. So every business in general has anywhere between 8 to 11 systems. Property management has about 19. But if you were to take each of those systems and break them down and rebuild them with system [00:33:00] ization, automation and outsourcing, you can make this business truly run without you because as we know, if you have to be there every day, you don't own a business, you want a job.
Brad Larson: So you focus on a certain industry or what are you looking at?
Steve Rozenberg: I coach all businesses because I've learned by being coached. All businesses run under the same chassis.
Brad Larson: So you understand a property management really well. Really well. What other industry is just like caught your attention?
Steve Rozenberg: Well, I'm doing a lot of business with roofing and solar. Yeah. So I've been speaking at very large conferences. I'm working with fencing companies, a lot of the trades. Yeah. [00:33:30] And I've noticed that a lot of the trade industries, they're great at making revenue, but they have no idea. Under the hood, the admin, the system is none of their business. They don't know how to do it then they don't know how to scale. How do you take your business and go to another city and duplicate your model? Or do you have a training? Right? Is there a training model to bring on a new person so that you're so that your company is systems dependent, not people dependent? Yeah, the people enhance the system, but the system stands on its own.
Brad Larson: I think it's neat because you have a really deep understanding of property management. Absolutely. And then you're [00:34:00] seeing the other industries and you can relate to both and actually kind of describe and say, okay, in the roofing industry, for example, I know you do all kinds yeah, they do this, this and this. You should try that as a property management industry.
Steve Rozenberg: Yeah. Well, and what's interesting too is one of the things, the reasons a lot of these companies and these organizations having me speak, I spoke at a conference. It was I mean, very, very big names. This is the Dallas Convention Center, thousands of people. But you know why they wanted me? Because my tie to the property management industry, everybody wants to know how do we get past the gatekeepers? [00:34:30] So property management companies have no idea the value that they have to all these industries. Hvac I'm tying in with HVAC companies, I'm tying in with roofing companies, plumbing companies. They all want to get past the gatekeeper. Who's the gatekeeper? Property management companies.
Brad Larson: Right? I mean, you literally own 100,000 or more of business every year and that's just for like plumbers and AC guys. Imagine roofing, I imagine, if another storm comes through.
Steve Rozenberg: Well, it's funny, I got a guy that I'm coaching right now. He just called me. He's like, Hey, do you know any PM companies in Twin Cities? They just had a huge storm roll through there. And we're up there [00:35:00] and we're dealing with property management companies, you know, so that's what they want. They want they kind of want that the keys to the castle and they know property they're realizing from me speaking property management company has the keys to the castle. Yeah so. So what I do is I have a three day mastermind, so this is what I do. I break this down, I bring people down to Houston, right? And this three day mastermind, I put them up in a luxury hotel, I feed them gourmet food, but for three days, they're mine. And we take [00:35:30] them mentally and their business and we break it down and literally we break down who they are. And I explain to them when they walk out of there, they're going to be different people, because if you want to be a $10 Million CEO, but you're $100,000 CEO, you're never going to build the business. You will be the reason your business doesn't succeed. So I have to change them and we have to change their system as a nation. So I've mixed a lot from all of my coaching, whether it's iOS, whether it's from action coach, with Brad Sugars, whatever it is that I've learned from Marshall Silver, I take [00:36:00] all that and I combine it in three days. When they leave there, they have a blueprint to how their business. And these are all different businesses, but these are it's the people, it's not the businesses.
Steve Rozenberg: So people get caught up in what they do. You know, how many doors do you manage? Yeah, nobody gives a shit. Right? Right. At the end of the day, are you a multimillion dollar CEO and are you thinking like a $50 Million CEO or are you thinking like a $5 Million CEO? Because you know, you're not going to you're never going to get past that. What I do after that and this is this is the nice part for them is I give them one year of unlimited, [00:36:30] unconditional access to me, text, email calls they get me for a year or until they tell me they've gotten double their investment back from me minimum of a year. If it takes them two years, they've got me. They call me, they text me. Sometimes they just I tell them, I go, look, if you need to. Don't vent to your wife. Call me. I'm a third party. I'm removed. I can look at things objectively and I can tell you what I think you're doing right or wrong. And sometimes you just need that CEO to step in and tell you what you should and shouldn't be doing. And [00:37:00] I'm here for you. I answer your calls, I text. So the fact that I give them the blueprint after three days and I bring in some very, very high level speakers that I pay to come in to help them. These are people from different industries, but they're all running 20 to $50 million companies and they are coming in. I've got I'm doing a mastermind in June. I've got a guy I don't know if you're Kevin Elko. Okay. He is Nick Saban's coach.
Brad Larson: Oh, wow. Okay. So, I mean, Nick Saban, the football coach.
Steve Rozenberg: Yes. From Alabama, Crimson Tide. Yeah. So this guy is 31 championship [00:37:30] rings. He talks about championship mindset, how to be that champion. So, I mean, you get someone like that that starts talking about that. And this is a very secluded ten person group that I bring in. It's not a very large group because I want to be able to give people that time and then they get that unlimited access. Yeah. And I think that that is the next chapter of my life of how I can give back to people. So I just think that that's something that I've got. I got all this shit in my head basically I want to get it out. And so that's the way that I can give back. And then, you know, once they get their business running, then I say, okay, let's look at buying [00:38:00] some real estate assets. Now let me help you. Whether it's whether it's a fund with Brandon Turner or a self storage facility, whatever that is, whatever matches your goals, but have a plan so that you can exit and create some generational wealth for your kids, for your name, for your legacy. Don't just let the business die right there. Like you're that's like the 90 yard line, like you're not done yet. So that's what I've been helping people with.
Brad Larson: A lot of people learn more about that.
Steve Rozenberg: Well, they can just reach out to me. They can go to my website, Steve Rosenberg. They can you know, I'm very accessible on [00:38:30] all social media channels, but it's just I want to make sure that they are a fit. So we just have a conversation and sometimes it's not the mastermind, sometimes maybe it's just one on one coaching. Maybe it's you know what, I've I've created a lot of high value educational content on some platforms that I've filmed education on, so they can learn from that. So I really give people a wide array from the beginning. Entrepreneur to someone who's running again of 50 million. I've got a client, he's a $50 million client. Wow. And you know, he's like, man, I need [00:39:00] you. He's like, I need your your mindset because it's not the business is fine, but he's not going to get to that next level. Yeah, it's like Michael Jordan needed a coach. Of course not. Because the guy was better. Tim Grover wasn't a better player, but he taught him different things. And so that's what I do love it.
Brad Larson: Well, I think everybody should try to reach out to you. At least check out your website. Look forward to your presentation tomorrow here. Yeah, that's why I brought you in, because I knew you're going to be fantastic. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for the conversation today and we'll see you tomorrow. Yeah.
Steve Rozenberg: Look forward to it. Thank you very much. And see you guys all then.
Brad Larson: Thank you. All right.
Announcer: If [00:39:30] you were looking to enhance your tenants movement experience, cut down on phone calls or emails to you or your staff regarding utilities, then you must connect yourself, your team, and your tenants with citizen home solutions. Citizen Home Solutions takes the hassle of utilities off your hands and your tenants. Best of all, we do it for free. Build us into your tenant benefit package. Oh, and start benefiting from our revenue share program. Yes, we pay you [00:40:00] a quarterly commission on specific services. Your tenant opts into one to no more. Give us a call today at 8775283824 or visit PMC partner. This has been a podcast episode by Property Management Productions. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast, leave us feedback and come back for our next episode.