Transforming Real Estate and Empowering Communities with Jacob Garza

From humble beginnings to founding his first company at just 26 years old, Jacob's path has been marked by determination and unwavering commitment to his goals. Despite facing challenges along the way, he persevered, building not one, but three successful businesses that he ultimately sold for great success.With a keen eye for opportunity and a passion for serving others, Jacob founded REEP Equity, a multifamily investment firm.But Jacob's impact extends far beyond the realm of business. He is also a family guy and is into exploring sports with his wife and kids.Get to know more about Jacob at www.jacobgarza.com or www.reepequity.com 
To learn more about myself, Michael Esposito, and find out about public speaking workshops, coaching, and keynote speaking options, and - of course - to be inspired, visit www.michaelespositoinc.com
The Michael Esposito Show is hosted by Michael Esposito and produced by iHeartMedia Hudson Valley. Be sure to subscribe on iHeart Media, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Google Play, YouTube, or the podcasting app of your choice.
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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This show is sponsored by DN tenInsurance Services, helping businesses get the right
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DN ten, you're giving back ona global scale. Hello all, my

(00:22):
entrepreneurs and business leaders, and welcometo the Michael Esposito Show, where I
interview titans of industry in order toinform, educate, and inspire you to
be great. Hello all, myentrepreneurs and business leaders, and welcome to
the Michael Esposito Show where I interviewtitans of industry in order to inform,
educate, and inspire you to begreat. My guest today is a self

(00:45):
made software and real estate entrepreneur.He founded his first company at the age
of twenty six and was the soleshareholder with more than one hundred employees.
Within the following five years, hefounded two more businesses that he has successfully
sold, the last one in twothousand and seven. In two thousand and
eight, he made the move fromDallas to San Antonio, taking a few

(01:08):
years off to spend time with family. He got into the real estate industry
in twenty twelve, founding REAP Equitywas a natural progression from his experience in
property management and he hasn't looked back. Since twenty twelve, reap Equity has
bought, sold, and managed overfour thousand, eight hundred multifamily housing units.

(01:34):
Currently, reep Equity has over nineteenmulti family properties, thirty five hundred
units and more than five hundred onemillion in its portfolio. In addition to
reep Equity, REP Residential was createdas the in house property management company.
Please welcome my guest today, cofounder at REP Equity, Jacob Garza.

(02:01):
Welcome, Jacob Michael. It's greatto be on your show, and I
wish you could continue to read allthose names that have helped me get here
today because there would be so somany that have helped me. And thank
you for the introduction. Yeah,you know, it's always fun being able
to find a introduction like that,a bio that is so detailed and has

(02:27):
so many accomplishments in it. Partof why I started this podcast is to
learn from people like yourself, fromentrepreneurs who have built successful businesses, sold
successful businesses, and continue to besuccessful as entrepreneurs. You know, for
us as entrepreneurs and as business leaders. It's all about learning from people who

(02:50):
are one, two and sometimes likeyourself, five hundred and one million steps
ahead of us. Yeah, well, thank you, And I tell you
the entrepreneurial life has been very goodto me. It's been very good to
a lot of people. You know. I like to think that as entrepreneurs,
the only things that separates us fromothers. It's certainly not us being

(03:15):
smarter than anyone else. I justthink we're we take the risk, you
know, surely what makes us alittle different. Yeah. There there's a
ton of risk and entrepreneurship, andbut it can be a little offset when
we learn from people like yourself,and as you mentioned, we have mentors

(03:37):
around us and books and all thedifferent things that can help us. I'm
interested in, you know, wewere talking a little bit offline and your
upbringing and where you were brought up, and you mentioned Corpus Corpus Christy,
and I'm interested in your upbringing.What was that like and who were some
of the people around you that youstarted following and being inspired by to start
your entrepreneurial track. Yeah, thankyou for that. So my first sentimentors

(04:02):
for my parents. I had avery good home. I've got three brothers
and a sister. I grew upin a very safe environment. We're born
in Corpus Christi And if you knowanything about the town, way back when
I was born, and I'll justtell you I'm fifty nine. In Corpus
the only place to work there wasthe base, and my father looked at

(04:24):
my mom and he just said,you know, it's not where for whatever
reason can work there. He said, let's move. And that's when we
moved to Dallas area, and thenwe subsequently settled in a town called Lancaster.
But very good home environment. Youknow, I didn't have to worry
about much. I got to growup. I got to be a kid.

(04:44):
I got to grew up with greatbrothers and great uncles and cousins.
So you know, I was veryfortunate, very blessed to have just a
great mom and a great dad.Corporus Christy. I actually have visited Corpus
Christie, so it's I know,it's like a small spot. But I
a friend, a longtime family friend. We did a trip down to Texas
and he had I think worked inCorpus Christie or lived, Yeah, he

(05:08):
worked there, so he lived therefor a short period of time, so
it was important to him to showus all Corpus Christy. So we actually
spent I believe, like a dayor so there. I remember it being
very beachy, Am I right inthat? Yeah? It is, And
it's changed a lot in those manyyears, and now it's a it's a
town that has a ton of opportunityand a lot more to do. Yeah,

(05:30):
yeah, no, pretty pretty cool. So you moved to Dallas and
was what was that change for you? Like? Where were you? How
old were you at that time whenyou moved. Yeah? I was five,
so okay, I don't remember much, but we moved. We only
stayed there for like a year ortwo and moved to a small town called

(05:51):
Lancaster, which is about eight thousandpeople. And that was another very good
move on behalf of my parents toscrew up in a small town and had
some great families to associate with,some good kids. Yeah, into this
day, it was good. Andyou mentioned your parents were an inspiration,
So what about them inspired you onyour path to becoming an entrepreneur. Yeah,

(06:16):
they gave us just a lot ofattention. Right, My mom gave
me a ton of you can doit? And if I failed at something,
it was okay, let's dush yourselfoff and get back out there.
And that literally, you know,from sports to a grade that I could
have done better in. She've alwaysfocused on the good and how to grow

(06:36):
that versus Okay, just figure outwhat you did really bad, and let's
talk about it and let me beatyou up a little bit. And I
it was exiglar. He didn't writehis book or anything like that, but
I guess she had some of thoseinstincts in her and my dad when he

(06:57):
came home, he was very present, and it just made a really good
family environment. And I tell youthat was building some little neurons in our
my me and my siblings heads thatallowed us to go out and how to
you know, how do we getback up by ourselves because they saw that
a lot when we were small.They let us fail, they picked us

(07:21):
back up, They let us fall, they picked us back up, So
we knew how to do that.You know, we were a helicopter parents.
So when we started leaving the house, even at fourteen fifteen, right,
everything's I consider I told you aboutat fourteen and fifteen, your kids
kids are done. Not much influenceyou can have on them anymore. You

(07:42):
know, we were, we wereable to make our own decisions at that
point, and they've just done ofencouragement. Michael. It was. It
was a very good, very goodupbringing. And it sounds like at fourteen
fifteen, if you were out onyour own, you were probably earning your
own money. So what was whatwas the first career choice for you when
you first started out? Boy,you're this was not a pre setup question,

(08:07):
so you're right. I was veryentrepreneurial growing up. I sold seeds
when I was probably twelve years old. I was very good at it,
but you know I was supported.That was it right? And I was
supported. So I did lawnmowing.I literally picked up the Yellow Pages one
summer and called all the real estateoffices. Finally found some lady. She

(08:31):
says, well, you can't movedmy client's house, but you can come
to my house. So I mowedher house for summer. She had a
big yard, kind of a fiveor six acre, so she put me
to work. When I got fifteen, I was an August baby, so
I didn't want to wait all summerto turn sixteen. So my mom helped

(08:52):
me forge my birth certificate and Iworked with Jack in the Box in De
Soto and that was my first joband I loved it. I mean I
was part of something. I gotto learn, I got to meet new
people, and I felt like Ihad, you know, a job,

(09:13):
you know, a purpose. Andanyway, that was my first job.
It's it's funny, you know,you bring up the forging of the birth
certificate. I feel like this islike kind of like an entrepreneurial theme here,
so in that where there's a will, there's a way in Uh,
we're going to find a way toget what we want. Of course,

(09:35):
we try to do it as legalas possible or or of course we encourage
everybody to do it legally. Thisis obviously just a small little tweak to
to certain things. I thought itwas funny when you were saying I was
an August baby. So I'm interestedin what month did you change it to?
And what are you what's your newbirthday? Yeah, so forging is
probably a little too strong adapted tonow. Yeah, I forget this is

(10:01):
being recorded, but that's what wedid. You're right. We tweaked our
versus. We tweaked the birth certificate. I think we put you know,
as honest as we could be,probably may just a month earlier. Well
don't worry, I'll show away.It's as close as to the least at
least least tweak. Yeah, justto get you working, you know.
I mean, obviously it was fora good cause. I actually did something

(10:22):
similar and that's why I kind ofgo back to that when I was I
believe I was eight years old.And this is what's wild. Is like,
when you think about an eight yearold, you're going, my daughter
is actually now eight years old,and you know, I see, and
there's you know, kids are smart. Of course eight year olds are smart
and all that. But for me, I look back and I go,
how did I even think about doingthis? So I was at a game
show. I was eight years old. It was YMCA camp. I was

(10:45):
out of the game show called VideoArcade, which by the way, I
found the YouTube click clip and it'son my YouTube channel if you want to
see it. I was there asa guest with the YMCA and they were
and they were coming around and theywere asking for new guests to be on
the show whatever whatever they're called.And they said they're going around to sign

(11:07):
up sheet and they said. Theycame to me and they saw me.
They looked at me and they go, how old are you? And I
went, I looked at the woman. She said, you have to be
nine to sign up for this,and I went, I'm nine. Meanwhile,
I was easy. Yeah, andthey picked me. They've been even
better. They picked me to beon the show. That's the video that
that's the clip that I'm talking about. I ended up being a contestant.
That's the word I was looking for. I ended up becoming a contestant on

(11:30):
the show. But you know whatyou're reminding me of that of like you
know, between what you did,your mom and you did, and myself
in this situation, and so manyother entrepreneurs have shared stories that are similar
at a very young age, justtrying to find a way. And I
think, you know, I endedup the corporate route for a long time.
But I think when you look backwherever you are in your journey right

(11:52):
now, you know to our audiencethat we're speaking to right now, when
you look back, you'll probably startseeing some things of like, you know,
they told me I can't do andI did it anyway. They told
me that I needed to be fitthis mold and even though I didn't fit
the mold, I found a wayin. I think is such a thing
that's common in the entrepreneurial journey,right, Yeah, in fact, that

(12:16):
continues to happen even today at ourlevel. You know, you just moved
that, you just moved the decimalpoint over. But we're still in this.
Oh, Jay Arlen, you know, I know you guys, you
know have twenty five properties where butyou know this is you're not there yet.
You haven't done that yet. It'sthis so we're what we're cant now.

(12:37):
We're used to it, right,We're like, okay, we'll see
and we keep doing it. Wekeep pushing the envelope. And that's that's
our story. And I'll give youkudos to be able to think on your
feet like that at eight years old, just say I'm nine that that that's
exactly the pattern that sets you fromwhere you are today. And that's exactly
what us all of our entrepreneurs havein common. Yeah, yeah, it's

(13:00):
it's very interesting. So you startedoff selling seeds. I thought that was
interesting. What what why did youchoose seeds? In the beginning, it
was on like Channel thirteen. Itwas called the World Explorer program. We'll
never forget. It was a mailorder thing. I think it cost like
six bucks, and back then it'sprobably like fifty bucks for our family of
you know, my dad was basicallyin the Union and worked for you know,

(13:22):
like a Haliburton in today's terms companylike that. That was that was
it. So we bought it,and my mom let me buy it.
I couldn't believe it. And youknow, here I go knocking on doors.
At first five or six neighbors.Of course I knew all of them,
and then it got to strangers.I thought, oh, these guys
are easier. They don't know me, right, you know, that's exactly

(13:45):
how I felt when I was akid and I sold them. I mean,
I don't know, I think Imade three bucks or something like that,
or ten bucks at Netta, right, that cost of goods. So
yeah, it was then I gotbored and I'm like, okay, now
what else? Which was inherent?And some of us we talk about that
later. That's good and bad entrepreneurs, but yeah, yeah, well share

(14:05):
that now. So what what wasthe next thing for you? And what
was the good thing about that?And maybe also the bad of it?
So I don't recall what I knowdoing next. But you know, as
entrepreneurs, I think it's good thatwe're we like to be, you know,
we like to have variety and uncertaintyand that's what makes us go do

(14:26):
something different. At the same time, I think you have to know when
to when to give it up andsay okay, this is this is done,
and know when to do something else. And you host stories all the
time of I'm glad I stuck itout because it really paid off, or
the other one is you know,I'm glad I changed three different times I
finally found the right recipe. Andthere's no wrong on the right answer.

(14:50):
You're just going to have to followyour gut on that, and I think
there's some inherent things that that helpyou come to that conclusion. But there's
no no wrong on the right answer. And you said it sometimes it's your
gut, and I am interested inthat because you're one hundred percent right.
Like there's As entrepreneurs, the shinyobject syndrome definitely is there, but we

(15:16):
are also educated in that we haveto weigh out, you know, the
pros and cons of it. See, you know, the p and ls
and all that other stuff and tryto figure out what's right. But what
for you when you talk about gutfeeling, what are some of the signals
that you receive when you know it'sit's the right time to sell a business
like you've done over and over again, or to purchase or start a new
business. Yeah, So to sella business, I mean there's there's there's

(15:41):
there's either a you have what Iconsider a LOFs styles business that you keep
forever, or there's a business thatyou have and you want ended up selling
it, and there there are twodifferent experiences along the way. One give
you a quick example. Let's saywe're going to start a company and we
are plan is to take it toten million dollars and sell it to to

(16:02):
to Wall Street ors, a merchantbanker or something like that. We're going
to do whatever we need to toget the ten million dollars. Me and
and Michael. We're gonna we're goingto hire the right people. They're not
doing their job, We're going tolet them go. There's gonna be casualties
along the way, and we're justwe're not too worried about culture. We're

(16:23):
just going to bring it up andsell it and there are a ton of
companies that do that. The otherone is more of a lifestyles company,
which is like, Okay, we'regoing to create a ten million dollar company,
but we have further plans after that, and we're going to create something
what I consider called sustainable, andwe're going to hire the right people,
and we're going to create an environmentfor them to make some mistakes because we're

(16:44):
not interested in their in their andtheir and their work outcome for the next
two years or excuse me, thenext two or three four months. We
are actually wanting them to go outtwo or three years. We want them
to stay with us because over time, right passed a ten million dollar mark,
passed a twenty million dollar month.You have a real company there that

(17:06):
has that sustainable and very predictable,has a lot of certainty in it.
Those companies are the companies to bearound for a long time. So those
are the kind of the the twoI think that that that come to mind
when you start thinking about what kindof what kind of companies that you that
you have or you know it maywe'll get to the selling partner a second,

(17:29):
but those those are those are thetwo different types. Yeah, it
sounds like there's an emotional investment,and obviously the lifestyle company and probably not
so much an emotional investment in thesecond in the one selling to the corporate
your your seed your seed business,was there an emotional attachment there? Were
you able to give that one upquick? Well? There was? And

(17:52):
thank you for that. That's whereI was going. So when and I
had multiple offers on my com buthe's even before I sold him to a
tech company. We did some prettyneat stuff, but they were more on
the on the financial play. Inother words, if we did ten million
dollars a year, they'd say,okay, we're going to offer you to
say a million, it's easier youdo a million dollars a year in revenue,

(18:15):
We're going to offer you four timesrevenue, right, which is pre
standard. I guess four times revenuefour million bucks like now, and then
let's just say that's purely financial playbecause they can take they can take your
million dollar company, put it intoprobably a better system, and turn it

(18:37):
into sixteen million dollars, so theirfour million dollar investment is paid for like
that. The other one is isa strategic play, which means, let's
say you have a company, it'sa million dollars, and they're going to
put it into let's say a Googleor a Microsoft or something very strategic where

(19:00):
your piece of technology is going tomake them maybe thirty million dollars. Right,
it's something they have a vast customerbase, so they're going to they're
going to pay a lot more.They may pay sixteen million dollars for you,
because it's worth at least that muchin a strategic purchase to upgrade their

(19:21):
product or upgrade their customers, somethinglike that. So that that happened to
be my last My last last companyI saw was a strategic buy. But
so those are some of the driversI think that that come into play when
you sell a company. And you'reright, I was happy. Ever,
we had twenty one thousand customers acrossthe United States. We had a good
employer base. I wasn't planning onselling the software company, and they came

(19:45):
after me several times. The lasttime I turned to my wife Arlene,
and I said, you know,well, the other one was. I
kept saying no, no, no. The last offer they tell me was
Jacob, That's all That's all Ican give you. We can't go any
further. So I turned to Arleneand said, we got to take this.
This is I mean, I said, and saying no, they kept

(20:07):
going up. So that's when itwas time of solid And yeah, there
was there was absolutely an emotional connectionto that one. But you know,
it was a signal things happened foryou, not to you, you know,
the old saying Tony Robbins says,And it was it was a it
was it was time and it wasa lot of great things have happened since
then. Yeah, I know wejumped right to the sale of that tech

(20:29):
company, but could you share alittle bit about that tech company and how
you started it. So, yeah, I was working for a company in
Dallas and they had a lot ofdifferent products, Like it was all real
estate for the most part, andan ammorization product that a less or for
commercial leasing agents. They had aproperty management software program that an amorization program.

(20:53):
They had a word processing programs isway back Beforeward and Excel and all
that, and they had like fiveother products and they were venture backed by
venture capital firm. New venture back. New venture capital firm came in one
day and said, we're going toget rid of all these products, which
is probably a good idea. We'respread tooth, then we're going to focus

(21:17):
three and property management. You're out. Okay. So, as I mentioned
the keyword license, they didn't ownanything. They literally have exclusive marketing rights
to these to this property management softwareprogram. Let me stick with that one.
So the developer actually worked there.It was his and he got a
royalty on it. So that's greatfor a lot of developers because they're good

(21:38):
at developing, they're horrible at marketing. So he went to that evening.
Literally I knocked on his door andI said, hey, Steve, what
are you going to do? Hesaid, I'm gonna go back to California.
I said, no, you're not. We're going to start a software
company. Being an entrepreneur a Stevee, He's like, oh yeah, let's

(21:59):
go. And I had sold italready and I said I'll take care of
all the sales and marketing. Youkeep developing and I'm ready. So that's
how it started. What were thewhere were the sales to Was it to
mostly other businesses to be able touse this property management tool? Yeah,
it was all B to B andwe sold all over the United States,

(22:25):
and you know a lot of itwas you mailed them the demo disc if
you would, back in the dayright before the internet, ninety and we
sold when we shipped the packages,you know, just like I. It
was all you installed on your computerwith a disk. And then it was
interesting because I got to see theInternet revolution. That was nineteen ninety two.
I started it, so I gotto see the Internet revolution take off

(22:48):
in you know, ninety four,ninety six, and of course by ninety
eight it was it was if youweren't on the net by then, you
were, you were in trouble.But yeah, then that's how it happened.
It's interesting looking on. One ofthose things came up, and anyway,
the movie You Got Mail came upwith I'm drawing a blank on his

(23:08):
name, Tom Hanks, Yes,Tom Hanks, and the other and the
woman. And I remember when thatmovie came out as like growing up,
I was in high school when itcame out. I didn't realize that that
movie came out in ninety eight.Like when you think back of You Got
Mail, you're thinking about AOL.I was thinking like the two thousands,
but it was as as early asninety eight. I was really surprised by

(23:30):
that. I mean for them tomake a movie on You Got Mail in
ninety eight, that means that thatwas already happening in ninety seven, ninety
six, So it was already youknow, like you just said, you
were part of that revolution and youmentioned your h I'll mention mine. I'm
forty one, So I do rememberthe discs, the AOL discs coming in.
I remember that, And so thatwas definitely a hurdle. I'm sure

(23:52):
that you had compared to now whereyou could just boom shoot over an email
and it goes right up to theirdrive. I'm interested in the marketing that
you had to do. What youmight of learned from that experience of marketing
at a time where you were ina transition. You know, you were
you were going from mailers of mailingout paper documents to now mailing out CDs,
and you were in that transition ofmailing out these discs that was perhaps

(24:15):
transitioning into email and into sending linksor sent directing somebody to a website.
What was that? What did youlearn from that experience that brought into what
you do today? Oh? Yeah, so it was we I actually embraced
all that technology, you know,I I and we gave people a choice.

(24:37):
Some people were like, oh,I'm not downloading anything. You know,
they're they're listening to us. Thatactually stuff like that would actually happen
too. And you have to understandwe were in the real estate business,
so you talk about a laggered business. Real estate people are are the last
ones to move into technology. Wait. Wait, I'm in insurance, so
I'm gonna I'm going to take thecake on that one. I'm sorry.
Okay, well, then we're asecond laggerg I mentioned a fax machine to

(25:03):
somebody the other day and I wasjust like, seriously, did I just
say fax machine? That is hilariousbecause I'm sure you've heard this. Well,
we've been doing this for forty years, right, and it's true that's
been managing property for four years onallegric cards and insurance. You're right.
I think it goes back to theships. That's how insurance got started to
five recall correctly. Yes, that'sright, Lloyd's London, you know.

(25:23):
So all right, so I'll learnedsomething today. We're here together, don't
worry. Yes, So yeah,we actually embrace that technology and if I
may divert just a little bit,we we learned really early on to master
the five steps of sales process attention, interest, conviction, des iron clothes,

(25:45):
and we used our marketing to dothe first two attention and interest because
everybody is super super busy, Sowe use postcards and email campaigns to you
know, say, you know,you know one and twenty reports. Is

(26:06):
your fingertips or would you rather beyou know, sitting on your launchair rather
than doing all your owner reports?So anyway, that would get their engine
and their attention and interest. Sothey would actually either call the eight hundred
number, they would send an emailover to us, and from there our
direct salesforce would take over and callthem and we would market our prospects no

(26:27):
joke. Once they got into ourdatabase until they buy or die, that
was it. And we would justsend out drip campaigns to them. This
is way before active campaign or anythinglike that. So we built we built
a substantial database. It's built thesubstantial business that way. So now your
question of the Internet, well,I can tell you at first of all,

(26:49):
the first Internet came out, therewere so many incompatibilities with regards to
I think Netscate was out, AOLhad one something that zero it was it
was net. Yeah, it wasnot reliable. I mean you would you

(27:10):
would put like a like a graphicthat would come up on your web page.
It would work on some and workon another. And you hit these
computers with all these different kinds ofgraphic cards that were different. Memory,
it was different, you know,hard drives were still back. There was
no solid state, all of differentkinds of conflicts on hardware. So but
the Internet was so strong. Everybodyknew it was coming. We just literally

(27:33):
like muddled through it. And itwas. It was going on for three
probably probably two years, you know, of trying to figure this out.
And of course you had the naysayers, all the Internet's never going to be
anything, and uh, like Isaid, but if you were down by
ninety eight, you were, youwere. You were in trouble. And
the first first phase of the Internetwas strictly informational, you know, that

(27:57):
was it. It was just itwas a big brochure. But I got
my brochure to people quicker than theydid by the mail. And we utilize
that as hard, you know,as much as we could. You know,
when we we think so much aboutyou know, if I was then
this is what I would do,and I think, like, you know,

(28:17):
right now, I think back ofwhen when Facebook went public. It's
like, if I had money thenI would have bought Facebook. But we
see it now right and we're like, of course Facebook is taking off.
And right now, I think we'rein this kind of virtual reality revolution with
the metaverse and all the different things. And we have these, as you
say, naysayers who are saying it'snot going to take off, and then
you have people who are proponents ofit and saying it's going to take off.

(28:40):
And I'm kind of in the middleof I don't really know, you
know, because I don't know,you know, do we have the technology
for it, do we not?How does it all look, how does
it all play out? So I'mkind of probably in the middle. I
bring this up because you brought upthe idea of the Internet's not going to
take off, and I'm interested inwhat those kind of conversations might have been
like because when I bring up virtualreality today and something like Facebook today,

(29:03):
that's kind of happening with other thingsaround it. So you already have the
Internet built out, you already haveother social media platforms. So really the
reason why you may not have investedin Facebook when it came out, was
because you're like, well, isFacebook going to take off? Or is
Instagram going to take off? Whichone of them is going to take off?
With virtual reality, it's kind ofthe same thing. It's like,
well, is the metaphor it isgoing to take off? Or is it
this other one? Which one isgoing to take off? You know?

(29:25):
And then we have get then weget the cryptocurrencies that throw us all off
track, right, But back thenit really was it was like paper and
pen or the Internet. So thisis why I bring up this question,
is what was that Like what wasthe big pushback on the Internet for people
where they were saying, no,no, we're going to stick to paper
and pen. That was very firsttime that we used our computers in its

(29:52):
most basic form of being virtual orbeing distant, right you just yeah,
I'm going to see this right here, I'm I'm going to send this to
you so you can print it.That was so foreign to everybody. And

(30:14):
by the way, Microsoft didn't careabout it. Apple didn't care. I
believe Apple didn't have much on thateither. They had some boards early back
then, but it was like,you know, it's it's a fad.
It's it's it's just not it's justnot going to happen. And then you
know, people don't like to changecreatures of habit and it was just so

(30:36):
much, so much simpler just tojust to mail it to me, you
know. And the big funny partas soon as it changed over was we
created all these graphics and pretty stufflike that, and the next one was
I'll just email it Tommy and Ican get it now. We had faxis
back then, but some stuff likethis and you can't see it right right,

(30:56):
yeah, you know. And andand fact vaccine was almost one dimensional
if you would where you had.There were so much more you could do
online. Yep, it's it's interesting. And then you're to me that was
a big yeah, turning point.And you're a big tech company. While

(31:17):
you are, you were starting abig tech company, and so of course
you want to embrace technology. Iwant to go back to your five steps
of the sale because I wanted tomake a note of this because I think
this is so important for our businessowners and our entrepreneurs out there in that
and of course our executives and businessleaders who are trying to climb the corporate
ladder. You know, sales isthe engine to a company. You know,
whether you like salespeople or you don'tlike salespeople, which, by the

(31:38):
way, it's not that you don'tlike salespeople. You don't like bad sales
people. The ones who don't knowhow to inform and educate and share ideas
and listen to you as a consumer, those are the ones you don't like.
So not all salespeople are equal.I want to share that, But
sales is the engine to a company, and so I think it's so important
that we as entrepreneurs and business leadersunderstand that we are the salespeople first and

(32:01):
primary, and it's important for usto know how to share a clear message,
how to share our values our missionwith not just our team, but
with the public. And then ofcourse understanding the sales cycle and what it
all encompasses. And I'm interested inwhat the five steps of the sale are.
You mentioned attention and interest, andI just wanted to make a note
of the next three for everyone.Sure, conviction desired clothes. Yeah,

(32:29):
so you mentioned you expanded on attentionand interest of the postcards and emails,
and what does conviction look like foryou? Sure? You may be.
You might be convinced you should walkor buy a pair of shoes because you
should walk three miles a day,or say ten miles a day. They
say three miles a day, butyou have no desire to next thing.

(32:51):
You know, you've got high bloodpressure and you have them a heart attack,
you're like, oh, I probablyshould start I probably should buy those
shoes and start walking. And theclothes is yeah, I doing it.
Yeah, yeah, it's a simpleform right there. Desire is everything.
We're all convinced we should buy stuffuntil you get broken into. Then you're
going to buy your alarm system,until you find something marketing wise that really

(33:14):
makes sense. You're going to buyuntil a product really saves you in accounting,
You're you're not going to buy ituntil you have the desire. So
they're but they're all important, andthey all happen. I don't care.
If we're sitting in our chair readinga book and a serial commercial comes on
and you look at it from theTV and you you build some saliva,

(33:35):
right and then you're you're like,oh man, you go to the refrigerator,
you puurs some milk, you eata build a cereal boom. Every
one of those steps just happened.Yeah, and every one of those steps
are so important because you can haveconviction and desire and go to the clothes.
But if your brand, it hasnot been marketed, there's no attention
for your brand, so therefore they'rebuying somebody else's. And then of course

(33:55):
you have to have the conviction.And I think that that also kind of
relates to education, of educating yourconsumer, letting them know, you know,
all the features and benefits, allthe reasons why your product is better
or the best one out there,and then of course creating that desire,
which is your return on investment.What's the ROI of this? You know
what am I going to get fromthis? Am I going to earn more
from my business through this marketing campaign? Or as you said, are my

(34:20):
feet going to feel better after agood run, a good three mile run?
And if so, back to yourpoint, then of course you might
have a close on that. Thanksand Michael, your hit you said it
earlier. There are there are hundredsand thousands of products. There's so much
better than what's out there, butthey never had a marketing team or a
sales team tell somebody there's a betterway. And until that happens, not

(34:45):
moves. And there are some productsthat I just mentioned that can have those
five stats happen, be it justan ad or commercial, and there there
are some that are consultative. Ifyou would in nature and selling, did
you have to put on you know, you have to go meet them.
You literally sit down consulting services orsome or some big system sale and you

(35:07):
know, and have that conversation withthem and then start that process and it
may take six to nine months you'rehitting jet engines or something like that.
Yeah, they're not going to answeran email for that one. So yeah,
you're so exactly right. It's thelifeblood of any organization. And we
can talk about the support and whathappens on that later. But I mean,

(35:28):
that's exactly the message that everybody needsto understand. And I love the
fact you don't like salespeople. Youjust like it's the right salespeople you need
to like. I think that's whatyou said, and that's bingo. That's
right. Yeah. I learned thata long time ago in sales, because
I remember that, you know,I was a door to door yellow paid

(35:49):
salesperson. I worked for Yellow Book. That was my first sales job ever,
I mean outside of selling chocolate asa kid, and you did the
you did the hardest job there isand the most granular job and the most
rewarding job. If you can selldoor to door, you can sell anything.
I am one thousand percent convinced ofthat. It's true because you're going

(36:15):
in cold and you don't really knowmuch about the prospect. They don't know
you at all. But what Ilearned is how to overcome a lot of
that rejection, and I learned howto become a better salesperson because the truth
is, when you're first starting outin sales, the first thing you're learning
is really how to deal with rejection. That's one of the first things you're

(36:35):
learning is how do I deal withyou know, ten twenty thirty doors closing
on me, people being rude,people being upset that I'm disrupting their day.
That's the first thing you learn.And then eventually you start learning your
value, and you start learning,well, what's my value personally so that
I don't take this personally, andthen what's the value of the product I'm
selling? And how do I startsharing that with people? Which is which
was another valuable lesson that I startedlearning, and you know, in that

(36:59):
time time period was when I startedunderstanding, Okay, it's not that they
don't like salespeople, is that theydon't like bad salespeople. They don't like
me just coming in interrupting their daywith nothing to offer them a value.
And when I started learning how toshare value first and share what's the value
and how I can help them andserve them, that's when the doors started

(37:20):
opening, but maybe not closing,but opening. And then I want to
ask you about closing techniques because thatwas another valuable step in this process of
you know, knocking on doors,getting meetings, sharing value, you know,
as you said, conviction and desire. All of that is wonderful.
But there might be three other peoplethat I've met with this client and have
shown conviction and desire. One ofthem is going to get the deal because

(37:42):
they ask for the sale. Andso I'm interested in closing techniques from you
because hey, look, real estateit's all about the close, right,
So I'm sure you have some reallygreat insight on that I do, and
certainly the close is part of theprocess. You have to ask for the
order. The better you do onthe convinced convincing stage, and that even

(38:07):
before that is asking the right questions, right, Yeah, you have to
know the pain points of the personsitting in front of you. You have
to know is it their closing time? Do they have it in their budget?
I mean that's a big part ofit too. There's an enormous amount
of questions that is killed sales personcan can quickly quantify and go, Okay,

(38:32):
this person is right for our product. They're ready to buy next month,
which is I'm working on my nextclosing month. I've got some towards
the end of the month maybe orhowever that works, and that's when you
start the convincing stage. I thinka lot of salespeople miss those steps and
they try to convince somebody to buysomething, and whether the prospect is just

(38:54):
being nice or maybe they don't anythingelse to do, so they're going to
talk to you. There's no way, there's no way you're going to get
a close So that to me isthe most important step. Is all the
pre work done. You do haveto understand the desire, you know,

(39:15):
the why why we are here?Why why did you call me? Or
why did you answer the postcard?Or postcard? Yeah, you can come
back to me. I don't worry. We're still doing don't worry, We're
still doing postcards today. I stillget them, you know. Uh.
And it's a process, right,And that's why I think your your better
companies if you can use marketing toget that attention and entest so they can

(39:37):
put guys like us on the phoneor in person or both to meet with
the prospect or get them on thephone and start that start that process,
and you know, today's sales becomemuch more educational in nature. You know,
the prospect they know a lot inthese days. I mean, these
guys and they've researched the Google andthey researched the Internet. So that is

(40:00):
something that can't be ignored. Andyou can't say, oh, you're all
wrong. You know they which youread in Google's wrong. You can't do
that to your prospect. So yeah, there's some nuances now today that went
around we're not doing selling full timethat they have to deal with. All
in all, people still are creativebusinesses. They want to they want to

(40:24):
improve uh, products and processes andservices that they're that their internal organizations use
or obviously they want to they wantto sell their products to people. So
those are all those are all thingsthat help you get to a to a
close. Yeah, And you know, I like that you brought up about

(40:45):
being able to google things and howwe're more of an educational stage or time
of selling, which I think isreally wonderful. I think it's really good
that our consumers are being able toeducate themselves and then we as salespeople,
it's put on us to educate them. I think a valuable question that you
brought up about you know, whydid you get my postcard? It's a

(41:07):
valuable question because you want to askthem that some are you just kicking tires
but or are you looking to buy? And I think the best way to
ask it is, you know what, why are you calling me? And
why is this important to you?I just had somebody recently looking for insurance,
and that's exactly what I asked her. I said, I said,
you know why, why did youdecide that this is the right time for

(41:28):
you to get business insurance? Andso she started giving me some reasons and
I said, okay, you know, and from there you can kind of
gauge are they just looking for moreinformation or are they really looking to buy?
And either one is just fine.And what I want to say on
this as we go into your nextbusiness of reap is what I like about
this error that we're in is thatour consumers, because they're so educated,

(41:50):
and because it's on us to educatethat I think it differentiates us as salespeople
of being able to not just bereally great at the process of the five
star process and closing, but alsobeing really great at being personable and authentic
and really listening and understanding what ourclient, our customer and really wants and
needs and not just shoehorn not shoehorningand I'm into something, but really understanding

(42:15):
what they want and need and beingable to provide that for them. Or
and the other great thing with networkingtoday, with having these great networks and
these great referral programs between companies oryou can just say, hey, you
know what, I'm not the rightperson for you, but go call you
know, Tom or Susie, andnow you actually maybe you have an affiliate
program with Tom or Susie, ormaybe you have some sort of you know,

(42:35):
referral exchange with them. The networksthat we've created today, I think
are so powerful and really serve ourcustomers, And I really love that of
what's been going on in the marketplacetoday in terms of that. Yeah,
when I was twenty two years old, someone tell me a season sales manager,
tell me one time, that's whyGod gave me two years in one
math. You're supposed to listen twiceas much as you talk, and you

(42:57):
just that's exactly what you just said. So yeah, I love just trying
to open up a client and justsay, you know, just tell me
why are you calling, what whatdo you need? And you know what's
going on and let them share withyou. And I think and again,
it, like I said, onauthentic relationships starts there because if you're listening
and you really care and you're reallyempathizing with them, it's just going to
be natural that you start connecting andbonding. And from there, you know,

(43:20):
people buy from people from there.You're that person for them. Maybe
they're going to go check out threeother companies, but if they don't get
that bond, if they don't getthat relationship with those three other companies,
even if they're a bit better thanyou or maybe offer a couple more services,
you got the advantage just based offof that. So it's tremendous and
it builds trust and ultimately, allof our products they're not gonna they're not

(43:42):
going to really know what the productdoes for most products until three or four
months into it, and they cansee all the testimonials, they can do
all the demos they want, butultimately they have to trust you, that's
right, And so they put allthey're putting all this stuff together in their
head. Right, and a goodsalesperson is just watching the puzzle build you
know too. You know it writesthe word sale. You know, for

(44:05):
the salesperson is is working on theprospect and sooner or later, that's what
it comes down to. And itfor me anyway, and I'm sure you
can do the same thing. Youcan see right through that and that I
think prospects really appreciate that up toan including I'm sure you've seen this micro
and if I'm looking for dn Oinsurance, because you're right, my why
is my buddy just needed it andused it and think God, he had

(44:28):
it, and I want to Iwant to upgrade minds three times and if
you don't have it, I'm goingto go, oh, thank you for
that, you know. So itworks both ways. So yeah, so
let's get into repeat here now,because you know, you you sold that
company, that tech company, andvery quickly after that you started this new
company and your co founder, soobviously have a partner involved. You started

(44:51):
this new company and it grew exponentially. I mean from what I remember reading
in the bio there five hundred one, it's tremendous. Yeah, so I
sold a seven and it was actuallytwelve before we started. We moved from
Dallas to San Antonio is where weare now. And my partner is my

(45:12):
wife thirty three years Arlene Arlene.Yes, which we can do another podcast
on how to work with your spouse, very rewarding on that one. But
there is a process and we runinto couples all the time and it's actually
pretty popular now and we share storiesand we laugh. But once you get
it down the right road, itreally is fun. But up until then,

(45:36):
we never worked with each other.Now, my soccer company, I
was a solo, solo guy,so yeah, started in twenty twelve,
and yeah, I need to updateyour the website because now I think we
five hundred or six hundred and fiftymillion, wow, and twenty four twenty
four properties but it's been a greatjourney, so yeah, we can,
we can talk right through it.Yeah, tell us, tell us about

(45:59):
that journey. I mean, asyou just said, you know, there's
a couple of things there that youchoose which route you want to go.
I think all are important to ourlisteners here in that you know, of
course, building a company from thatfrom scratch to to six hundred million,
but also working with a spouse,working with a partner, you know,
whether it's your your wife or husband, or or just a good friend or

(46:19):
something. I think are all there'sa lot of similarities that are drawn in
there. Sure, so here forksin the road, and I've got experience
in both. I started my firststarftware company with nothing like like nothing right,
and the what I had to learnright away on that one was I

(46:44):
started it because you've got to startmaking some money, right. I think
all I'm going to speak for allentrepreneurs, but maybe many of them start
a business because yeah, I'm gonnamake some money. Okay, Well you
have to otherwise it just doesn't happen. I think what needs to happen as
quickly as you can't. After that, Michael is to say it's no longer
about money. It's how do Icare about the client? You know?

(47:05):
And maybe you started that I'm goingto make some money and care about the
client, but ultimately that I learnedthat that completely the money part. I
mean, you have to have profit, but really the more you focus on
the customer, the better off you'regoing to be. Number one. Number
two. To be entrepreneurs, youhave to be a micro manager. I
mean it's typically yourself. You mayhave a you have an assistant, he's
a bootstrap companies. And then youhire somebody and you're still doing ninety percent

(47:30):
of the work, and you hiresomebody else, and you hire maybe two
more, two more. You gota team like a five, right,
so you still grow in the company. Then you need to convert to a
delegator. You have to hand offstuff. And that's easier said than done,
because by nature, that's what gotus there, right, what got
us there was watching everything make useverything's fine because you got you know,

(47:53):
maybe one hundred customers or fifty customers. So those are interesting dynamics that have
And when an entrepreneur starts a companyfrom nothing, Now, how do you
start a company with money? Well, we had money at a fairly decent
exit and we came here and forthat track for us, I still went

(48:22):
slow. If I have to doit all again, I probably would have
went a little quicker. I don'tthink much quicker. And let me give
an example. So instead of justhiring a whole bunch of people and buying
a whole bunch of real estate andgetting to, you know, four thousand
units in five years or seven sixyears, we bought a twenty four unit

(48:42):
apartment complex here in San Antonio.That's big for some people. But we
did our lean, did the leasingon it, and I did the maintenance
and manage the capital expenditures. Andwe did that so we could see everything
move in there. And what Iwanted to understand was I did this at
all my businesses. The ultimate enduser who writes you the check, and

(49:05):
it was a resident. In mysoftware business, I can tell you who
wrote us to check. It wasa business owner. Then we'd go down
at the level of all the employeesusing our software, and that's who we
listened to, that's who we've madehappy. If we made those people happy,
we would sell a bunch of software. Well, if I can make
our residence happy, they would telltheir uncles, their cousins, and we

(49:29):
would build a community. And that'sexactly what happened at the twenty four unit.
And you know what, there wasn'ta lot of trash on the floor,
on the ground. They took careof their apartments, there wasn't a
lot of noise. They took careof the pool area better than most.
So I'm like, okay, wegot to take care of these residents,

(49:51):
all right. So we're going toexit the business a little bit and hire
some people. There's the magic.You got to take care of employees.
And I've said that it's overly todaystated. In this particular business, the
property management business, most of it, Michael, is third party. You
and I are both going to beraise a whole bunch of money, go
buy some apartments, and we're goingto hand it off to ABC management company.

(50:15):
They're all fee based, they doit professionally. Let them, let
them operate it. And I thinkthere's nothing wrong with that. My issue
with that is we don't own thatcompany. They don't have me skin in
the game. They've got four orfive other owners are managing. Maybe they're
other owners on five and six thousandunits. We own a thousand. Who
do you think they're going to givetheir best proper candidates to. I don't

(50:37):
know, take a while. Imean there you go up for up,
up, up for how you wantto slice that one. But that's that's
the model in a nutshell that wefigured out by that twenty four unit.
So we bought a twenty eight unit. After that, we bought one hundred
and eighty eight unit and one hundredand forty three unit. It'sallve with our

(50:58):
own money. So and then wesaid, you know what, let's let's
bring in some professional management because atthis point we were we were working man.
We had we had some freaking jobs. Man, you know what,
we're not good at it. There'ssome talented uh managers who manage in this
space. Uh and they they're they'revery good at at operating properties and the

(51:24):
nuances that go behind structuring and leasing, training leasing agents and training maintenance people
and putting all these policies in places. So we stepped out of the way.
We still own residential, but ourpresident who runs it, seasoned veteran
and all her team, they're outstanding. So that's how we did it.

(51:45):
That's incredible. Yeah, there's somuch there in terms of the investment that
you had to make in order topurchase these units and all that. But
I want to get into the employeeside because I think this is very important
and you put a lot of emphasison this. Of course, you know,
taking care of the client, takingcare of the end user, and
we talked a little bit about thatin terms of the sales, so I

(52:05):
think that some of the stuff carriesover from there in terms of employees.
I think one of the things thatis really challenging for the small business owners,
for the entrepreneurs is understanding one howto hire, So how to recruit.
Let's say, actually first how torecruit, two how to hire,
and then three how to retain.And it sounds like one of the big
things for you is of course treatingthem good, treating them really good.

(52:29):
But going back to recruiting, whatwas one of the steps that you used
that you saw work really well foryou in terms of recruiting new talent and
really good talent. As you justmentioned about your president, Yeah, so
exposure is certainly one, you know, showing up the apartment associations, the

(52:50):
trades showers and associations. You haveto put a little bit of work there.
Of course, the great Internet isyou know, the postings on Facebook
and LinkedIn a lot of people followus referral fees. We're really big into
referral fees and and and I getthe big one making a differentiator. I
mean, we're a completely different companytoday than we're just two years ago,

(53:14):
and certainly a lot more than wewere five years ago. And there's this
yellow thing behind me again timely wasn'tscripted, uh people watching it's the San
Antonio ex best top places to workand we wanted again for twenty twenty,
so we'll be getting that in October. You know, these are voted on
by our employees. These aren't Thesearen't the you know, fastest growing revenue

(53:38):
companies in San Antonio and yes we'vedone that five times now. These are
these are employees saying, oh,I like this, I like this company,
and here's why that actually physically dostuff like that so that that starts
to build over time. But initially, to answer your question, you just
got to do it one employee ata time. And if you if you

(54:02):
really put the effort to have youremployees engaged in what you're doing, and
what does that mean engaged. Whydon't you share with them how properties are
purchased. Why don't you share withthem the business plan early on, before
the property is bought and before theproperty is closed. They they will go

(54:25):
in march for us all day long. We're out side by marshaling in the
business plan. If you just letthem know this is what we're planning on
doing. Can I get your input? What are your thoughts? Is this
doable? And they will they will, They will go and and and and

(54:45):
make it happen for you. Theylove being part of the process. And
that to me is is not saying, oh, we're gonna do uh for
make readies for unit turns this thismonth, this week. There's there's so
much more to that. Because theunit terms we need, we're going to

(55:07):
do. We're going to do grantedon them. And look at this fall,
ma me sure this new feature thatwe have and because you do a
good job, this is what endsup happening. So and then the reviews
get posted from the from from thefrom the residents and all that comes into
play. And then they like tobe recognized, are that they do a
great job, and there we recognizethem. We we we put our management

(55:30):
company like up here, because andI've said this two years ago, this
is a decade of the management company, you know, and and cap rate.
Well, things have gotten more expensivefor everybody, everybody, and margins,
like a lot of profits on companieshave shrunk. Still a great place

(55:50):
to park your money properly and investmentwise here. But it's not what the
show is not about investing. Thisis about and put care of employees.
And they will eat that up andthey feel part of something. So they
get up now going, I havea purpose, right, I have a
mission, we have a goal.We're going to have a party when this
rehab is done on this property insix or eight months, and Jacob comes

(56:14):
out and our le income out andthey see us, they shake our hands.
They don't. They don't come outsay your occupancy, how you're your
KPIs. That's not my job,right, My job is not to do
that. My job is see howthey're doing, how's their family doing.
It was the last time they wentto the school's event. They're kiddos.
The last time we watch a footballgame or ballet, or cheerleading or or

(56:37):
the speech club. Yeah, andthat's what just builds this. I want
to come to work for REEP.REEP is the place I want to come
to work for. And once youget that going, man, we just
we get to just be part ofit. Now we don't we don't have
to like curate it or you know, make it. We just we're just

(56:59):
part of it. It's fun beingpart of it. So that's where REAP
is today, and we just can'twait to continue to grow this and see
what happens the next We're a legacycompany, so I can say a thousand
years. So yeah, it's awesome. And you've got family members working with
you and and uh and for you, and I think that that's really wonderful.
You mentioned something that we had talkedabout early on actually off off off

(57:21):
MIC in terms of your employees gettingto spend time with family and watching games
and doing all the rest. AndI think that that's wonderful. And I
think you know, when we lookat entrepreneurship and you talk about risk and
and time is the is the bigone. Right, So as entrepreneurs,
we make a choice to take abig risk, and we also make a
choice to devote much of our time. And as employees, the benefit of

(57:44):
being an employee is that you youwork for somebody like like Jacob and Arlene
that are caring and and generous,and and you get to go home,
right, you get to shut itoff at five o'clock, depending on your
hours, but you get to shutit off at five o'clock and get to
go spend time with the kids andgo watch the game and do all the
other things. And so where I'mgoing with this is a lot of times

(58:05):
yourself included in this because we weretalking on off Mike about this. A
lot of times we get the questionof as entrepreneurs and seeing all the things
that we do, we get thequestion of how do you do all of
that? Right? You know,for for you, how do you how
do you do all that? Howdo you run you know, all of
these different offices and do all thisdifferent stuff and support all your employees and
you know, make such a greatemployee place for people to work. And

(58:29):
then of course you're a pilot andyou do all these other things, these
other really cool hobbies and all thisstuff. How do you do it all?
And you know, I have myanswer for it, but I think
our audience is much more interested inyour your answer, how do you do
it all? I mentioned it earlier. Yeah, absolutely, good question.
So I mentioned that earlier. Youdelegate. You know, we have a

(58:50):
president of our management company and VPof acquisitions and hands on our buy side.
I mean, those are the peoplewho make it happen, and they're
they're kind out of the same moldthat we are. They delegate too,
and everybody delegates, and everybody hasa role here. And it's kind of
like saying, I got a manand women of you know, a team,

(59:14):
you know, a platoon of sixpeople, right, and they're all
they're all covering for each other asthey advance. Well know, when I
get up and start running, youknow, my guys and gals are all
set up. I'm gonna protect meas I before I reach my next point.
We're the same thing here. WhenI'm a leasing agent, I got
a move in to show, Ican, I can? I know the

(59:36):
properties. I know it's going tobe ready. You know, I'm and
may walk it before ten minutes forthe prospect shows up or the least new
leasing shows up, but I knowit's going to be there. It's communication.
If it's not ready, it's notready, we'll just tell us.
We're huge transparency communicators. But youknow, we have well passed that mark
of micro micromanaging is to point ofwatching everything. We trust. I have

(01:00:06):
my reports, I know and Isay this, I know when I go
on my properties, I know thingshave been done. We have checked lests,
and we're regimented and people enjoy whatthey do. They like what they're
doing here. So we've just setup this culture. We've got great leaders
at this company that help us drivethat through. And leaders at the property

(01:00:27):
are our managers. They're great leaders. You know, each one of our
properties generate Michael, like three milliondollars a year. You realize some of
these people, if not a lotof them have no idea what a P
and L is when they come towork here, and they so they you
know not it has no fault tothem. They're just coming in just kind
of running things. When we teachthem now this is these are expense,

(01:00:51):
these are your income. Let's tryto drive these up. Let's try to
reduce concessions. Let's do this andmake this number of the biggest number.
These are your expensive. We're goingto watch these. We're going to push
some to this or push them.You know, we don't need pull service.
This put in house. We're gonnalook at landscaping. It's been a
while since we knew the contract,so these are all small things that we

(01:01:13):
look at and they love it.They're like, okay, now hang on
a minute, I got it.And then look at their budget variants and
look what I did. Look whatI did, And it's just all part
of something. As I mentioned earlier, they have purpose, they're part of
a winning team, and we allget together. We were together two days
ago, all of our one hundredand fifty employees inside of San Antonio.

(01:01:35):
We put a charter bus from Houston. We go on into properties, so
we're able to bring them together.My point is, we had this massive
all day you know, ruha,Here's what happened in the past, here's
what's happening in the present, here'sgoing to happen in the future. And
they're totally engaged. That three timesa year. So we're just like,
we're just like one brick and footballteam, right that comes out of halftime.

(01:01:58):
We're just ready for a second quarter, you know, and or third
quarter, I should say, andwe're just having a great time. We're
not perfect, you know, wehave our we have our challenges or problems,
whatever you want to call them.Tony Robbins just full point blank says,
Look, I got problems. Igot problems like anybody else, he
says, but I got better problems, and my company has better problems.

(01:02:21):
That's why I tell our people,you know, if you make good decisions
and we work together and we're transparent, we're up front, you know,
eat the frog, don't hold anythingin, go out and ask it.
Things get solved much with quality,and they get solved quicker, and we're
going to have our problems. REAPis going to have better problems, and

(01:02:42):
that's what we're all after. Ilove that we have better problems. Yeah,
you know, I like that yousaid that about we're not perfect because
you know, in the self developmentworld, I mean that that's really something
that's important for everyone to understand inthat nobody's perfect. There's nobody who's perfect.
You know, you're your multi billionairesout there, name them all.
None of them are perfect. There'salways a flaw. And I'm not even

(01:03:05):
talking about personal flaws because of coursewe're talking about the money side. It's
talking about financial flaws. There's allsorts of different mistakes that they've made throughout
their careers and all the rest,and as you're saying, they're the same
thing of like, you have awonderful team, great place to work,
amazing employees, but I'm sure someoneon the team sometimes has a bad day.
I think it's so important for allof us to understand that that's going

(01:03:25):
to happen. But it's really theoutcome that really matters. Is that,
all right, we got these problems, maybe for you the better problems.
What's the outcome? How do wefix this, how do we resolve it,
how do we talk through it,how do we collaborate on it?
And then can we get to apositive outcome after it all? And obviously
having apted a supportive ownership and supportivemanagement, all leads and trickles down to

(01:03:47):
employees and of course the end user. And I love that that you were
able to share all of that andwhat REAP is doing and what everybody's doing.
And we'll definitely talk more about howpeople can learn more about how they
can get involved in your organization andlearn about real estate investment and all the
rest. But what I'm really interestedin is I saw on your bio there
you have Downhill skiing. You havea couple other things that I did.

(01:04:11):
I see scuba diving or something,but definitely the piloting. You have a
scuba diving and a pilot. Soyou're this, You're you're an extreme sport
kind of guy. Now I'm adownhill skier. I love skiing, It's
definitely my big thing. But scubaand and the pilot thing, I haven't
been able to hit yet. SoI'm just interested in this passion that you

(01:04:31):
have for excitement and adventure. Yeah, and all started, you know,
when we started vacationing with our kiddos, right, so Arlene, I said,
hey, let's take the kids skanthey were like six and six and
eight, and She's like, we'venever been skanning. I'm like, I

(01:04:53):
know, that's exactly where I wantto go. So yeah, our first
place when we went for three orfour years in Aspen and here we go.
We took them and I had noidea what I was doing, and
neither did she. And I'll giveArlene a ton of credit. She's always
said okay, okay, uh andmost stuff. And she's a real balance

(01:05:15):
to me because sometimes I do getin crazy stuff and she's really the smart
one that helps me help us allrecover. So yeah, that's that's how
that happened. And and then thatwent into you know, some of the
vacations we've been able to take whenthey were little, and of course we
do some scuba and then we didI think we tried to Snooba one time.
I was never a fan of that. You know where the hose goes

(01:05:39):
all the way down. Oh yes, yeah, I just I was like,
well, it's just I don't knowif you're if you're going to go
down that far. Give me atank, right, you know, with
a with a dive buddy that Ican that I can actually have some redundancy
there. I'm a pilot, right, we'll talking about in a second.
But yeah, so you know,scuba was is a ton of fun.
We got certified here. I recommendanybody he's going to do scuba diving get

(01:06:00):
certified in your own home. Iwould not go to these resorts and have
them certify you in an afternoon.Being at seventy feet is the is not
the time to reflect on your thirtyminutes of emergency instruction that you had two
hours before to get yourself out ofa jam. So take it. Take

(01:06:25):
it at your local scuba diving place. You'll have a week take the test
and get all certified, and getre certified if you're not, if it's
been a while. So a tonof fun. The ocean just like the
mountains. You've seen the mountains,it's a crisp, breath taking picturesque.
That's I wish everybody could see,Michael, you know, if we could

(01:06:45):
do that, that'd be nice becausethe earth is actually beautiful. Yeah,
that's a great don't we. Yeah, I mean that's a great pointer that
you bring up, because I wasmaking the assumption that you were at a
resort and got certified, because ofcourse when we go to resorts we see
that. And I was just thatone recently for my parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary,
and and that was available to usto get sort of and it's free,

(01:07:06):
you know, free course, freecourse. And yeah, it's like
three days in and I think oneof my cousins got certified, so I'm
gonna have to mention it to himof like just make sure, you know.
But I'm glad that you brought thatup because while we're having while we're
talking a little fun and hobby hereit is. It is definitely important to
learn about the safety that that isand play with all of this. And
so I'm gonna add as a skierbecause I've been a lifelong skier. One

(01:07:29):
thing I'll add on that side isplease take some lessons, everybody. If
you're going to learn how to ski, you know, I will will will
bless you if you didn't take anylessons, Jacob, But you know,
if you're thinking about skiing out there, take take a few lessons. Learn.
Learn how to stop, Learn someof the mountain etiquette of moving to
the side to check your phone orto take a drink of water. Learn

(01:07:50):
some mountain etiquette of not just sittingin the middle of the hill, you
know, learn some things that arereally important that are going to save your
life and save the life of otherswhile people are down, because listen,
I ski fast, and if you'resitting there for no reason, I might
not see you. And you know, I hope that that doesn't happen,
and thankfully it's not happened. ButI think it's good that you brought up

(01:08:11):
those pointers. So, speaking ofrisk, why don't we go ahead and
jump on an airplane together? Now? And tell us more about your pilot
license. Yeah. So, asmy software company grew, it was probably
nineteen ninety eight two thousand, Ilooking overnight trips to see customers because again
I wanted to know not only whythey locked their software, but how they

(01:08:33):
were using it and tell me thereal problems that it actually solved, which
that's a whole different marketing conversation wecan have that we used in our literature.
But you know, we got toa point where the cost wasn't an
issue, and I started taking flyinglessons and I got my private pilot's license

(01:08:58):
in a year, and soon afterthat you need forty hours across country,
so I started to continue to flysolo. I got my forty hours and
the SEM instrument rating, so I'mstill single engine instrument rated pilot, and
I own an SR twenty two.And it's the one. It's the plane

(01:09:19):
with a parachute. You look upCyrus with the c SR twenty two.
Actually the whole airframe of the parachute. In the event and the really unlucky
event you have an engine out orso I become incapacitated, a passenger,
just pull a big red handle,pull a throttle back and the plane litterally

(01:09:40):
floats down and lands from a Ibelieve it's a two story drop, which
is completely survivable in these airplane seatsthat they create as well. So yeah,
it's been it's been great, andit's shortened my day and it's been
it's been very good. Now.I like that you got to do something
fun out necessity, and it waswas Arlene the one who chose the plane

(01:10:02):
for you. Then she had alot to do with it. Sounds like
the safety side is her department wherethis is going. You're going for diving
lessons if you're going down there andyou're getting the plane with the parachute,
which I've never heard of. Sothat's incredible. You know, check it
out. It's cool with everything thatyou're doing, could you share with our

(01:10:23):
audience? Of course this will endup in the show notes how people can
learn more about what you're doing,where to find you, and how to
contact you. Yeah, so thebest if they want to locate me is
just go to my website Jacob atJacob Garza dot com. They can reach
out to me there and talk aboutany one of these subjects and I'll respond

(01:10:46):
to them or I'll put them inthe right direction to the information that they
need. Fantastic, and that hasto do with anything from real estate,
investing, owning real estate, dateworking with you, and anything else you
want to add to that. No, just see anything anything like that.

(01:11:08):
Yeah, fantastic, fantastic. Andone last question that I like to ask
my guests on every show. Isa mantra or a statement or a quote
that you live by and what itmeans to you? Oh? Yes,
it is do things for people thatyou really care. If you take care

(01:11:35):
of the people you really care about, that's fulfillment. To me. That's
the ultimate happy happiness. That's theultimate gratitude. When you see them be
happy, you see them come toyou with oh I really enjoyed my time

(01:11:58):
off, or I really enjoyed thework that I do, or whatever it
is that they come back and youknow you were at least somewhat part of
that. I would do that.I'm trying to find as many people as
I can do that for because tome, for the next ever many years

(01:12:18):
i'm here, that is what I'mtrying to do. And with Arlene,
that's what we're trying to do,and we're building a company that does that
all throughout and you know that tome is is where well. I'll leave
everyone with fantastic I love that dothings for people that you really care about.

(01:12:39):
Thank you so much for sharing yourstory, your journey. It's been
it's been really great and we've beenable to learn some really great sales techniques,
hiring techniques. We learned about realestate, learned about your upbringing and
selling seeds and all the rest.I want to thank you so much for
coming on the show today and spendingsome time with us today. You bet
part of this. We have alot in common. You're an entrepreneur and
you've seen a lot of I havethings and it was extremely enjoyable. Thank

(01:13:01):
you, Michael. Thank you forlistening to The Michael Esposito Show. For
show notes, video clips, andmore episodes, go to Michael Espositoinc.
Dot com backslash podcast. Thank youagain to our sponsor dn ten Insurance Services,
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(01:13:28):
when you buy an insurance policy fromDenten, you're giving back on a global
scale. This episode was produced byUncle Mike at the iHeart Studios in Poughkeepsie.
Special thanks to Lara Rodrian for theopportunity and my team at Michaelsposito Inc.