AM Show Hr 2 | What Did You Do Last Week?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time time, time, time, luck and load. So
Michael Arry Show is on the air.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
There are strange things going on with the Texas Lottery
and it looks to have the stench of a very
very bad scandal.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
I'll get to that in just a moment, but I
want to go back to Chris. Chris, how did you
get in this this business that ended up as Mirramont?
You're ree, I'm sorry you were the top guy. There
was a call below you, na, Chris, all right, well
let me try that over Reese with Mirramont? How did

(00:55):
you get into this business?

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Near by trade? And I want to be the guy
on the other side of the table. So I wanted
to learn construction and real estate, and so that's that's
how I figured it out.

Speaker 4 (01:14):
I guess I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Are you You're not Ross? You're Reese.

Speaker 4 (01:23):
Geese?

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, Ross, ladies Brown, that's not you.

Speaker 4 (01:27):
Yeah, Ross, Yeah, Ross. Yeah. He's he's he's with us. Uh,
he's my uh, he's my broker.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
So why have never gottate engineering and.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
Actually never got my pe I'm a civil engineering degree
from A and M, and I have so many years
of engineering. Uh, but I've never got my pee because I,
like I said, I wanted to be the guy the
si tubles.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Why did you want to do civil engineering?

Speaker 3 (01:54):
Uh? You know, I was in petrolley engineering.

Speaker 4 (01:59):
I was in the.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
No, I don't know rees. That's my whole point. I
don't know anyone who wanted to be a civil engineer
other than maybe Tom Ramsey. It's not there the thing
that kids want to get up and do you know
I used to speak at a lot of inner city schools,
not only inner city, but it was always interesting for
me to go into an all black audience and as

(02:22):
a white man, to see what their reaction was. And
sometimes it was like I was some freak of nature.
You know, they almost wanted to touch you because nobody
white came into the school. You wouldn't think that was
true twenty years ago, but I'm telling you it was.
It was my as we say, everyone, that was my
lived experience. And I would ask the kids, what do
you want to do it? They want to get professional
athletes or singers. Nobody ever said I'd like to be

(02:44):
a civil engineer, like to get my pe.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
But you'd be surprised that it actually does influence people. Yeah,
I know that my father graduated in sixty nine from
A and M. Was it was a military school, you know,
And so he actually influenced some of my friends to
get engineering degree.

Speaker 4 (03:08):
So it's very impressive.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Oh so Pops was an engineer, yes, sir, And what
does he do now?

Speaker 5 (03:16):
Uh?

Speaker 6 (03:17):
He's deceased.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
How long ago?

Speaker 4 (03:19):
Oh gosh, five years? Did he have his own seventy five? Yes, sir?

Speaker 1 (03:28):
All right, so straight out out of A and M.
What did you do.

Speaker 4 (03:34):
Engineering for his company without a PE? Yeah? Ah, the
E I t for him, all right?

Speaker 1 (03:44):
And then did you eventually take that over?

Speaker 4 (03:48):
Yes?

Speaker 5 (03:50):
But I didn't get my PE, and so when he deceased,
I didn't have the PE because for some stupid reason
I didn't want it.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
How many deals do you have going right now?

Speaker 4 (04:04):
Mm?

Speaker 6 (04:05):
Hm not five?

Speaker 4 (04:05):
Five or six?

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Is that about your sweets?

Speaker 4 (04:08):
But only about well I would like to be bigger?

Speaker 6 (04:12):
Yeah, so, uh we got about five to six.

Speaker 4 (04:16):
Million a year for the past.

Speaker 5 (04:19):
Free years in construction, but more in the real estate side.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Who thanks you?

Speaker 4 (04:28):
But that's Stellar Community Bank. You liked them?

Speaker 5 (04:33):
They were they marched with damage, Yes, I love them.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Interesting. Why do you not have a website but you
have a Facebook page?

Speaker 4 (04:42):
I do have a website dot com?

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Oh that I saw that as your you are, that's
not that doesn't really roll off the tongue reeze.

Speaker 5 (04:56):
No, I've had a few websites, sir, so and quite
a few companies along the way. What are you've been
in construction in the real estate and investment opportunities. But
the good thing is that I haven't. They're lost any
money for anybody.

Speaker 6 (05:13):
So it's you know, that's.

Speaker 4 (05:15):
What I can at least pride myself on.

Speaker 5 (05:18):
And also have twenty five subcontractors as a GC building
entire buildings through Fruish.

Speaker 4 (05:27):
All the way to CEO.

Speaker 6 (05:29):
You got a lot of subs and as long as.

Speaker 5 (05:32):
You not have lanes on the table, then you know,
you should impress yourself, you.

Speaker 6 (05:37):
Know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (05:39):
Did you build this dominoes at the Robinson Retail Center?

Speaker 5 (05:44):
Yes, sir, I didn't build the actual dominoes on the
inside of it.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
No, no, no, no, that's my buddy.

Speaker 5 (05:51):
He was the mayor of Conra. Yeah, he was the
mayor of Connra. That's one of my best friends. We're
from Brimont, Texas.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
What is this RV resort?

Speaker 4 (06:01):
Y'all?

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Y'all did the land development on the RV all.

Speaker 5 (06:06):
I designed engineering and built some r RV resorts for
mister Scotland.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
I was invited ten years ago to join to participate
in an RV deal, an RV resort like this, and
I did not do it, and I wish I had
because that is a license company.

Speaker 4 (06:34):
Yeah canvy.

Speaker 5 (06:35):
So the storages, some of the guys from the storages
converted to the r V resorts because storages takes about
two years to fill up to eighty percent or so.
In that way, it's investible, you know, it's it's institutional.
The RV resorts they fill up in six months and
you just keep them.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
So yeah, you know, it's interesting. I came out of
law school in ninety five ninety six, and I was,
you know, I was interested in business while working, and
I started watching and then I got into real estate,
and I didn't have any capital to work with and
I didn't want to have investors. So I was doing

(07:14):
multi family, just low end apartments that I could flip myself.
And I had friends who were taking their money from
that and putting it into storage units in storage developments.
Got named Andrew Gregory, who was a young lawyer that
I knew he'd gone to Harvard Law School. He was
a lawyer's lawyer, brilliant guy. And he left the practice

(07:35):
as about a second year associate and started into these
storage units and he was making a fortune for his investors.
But that seems to have kind of been saturated from
what I could tell. People seem to, as you said,
moved on. They seem to have moved on the.

Speaker 6 (07:50):
Saturated since the eighties. Yeah, but is it still it's not?

Speaker 1 (07:54):
You know, you know what I would love to do, Reese,
you can build them for me. I would love where
I think the big future is is light industrial parks
on freeway frontage. So like two ninety at Waller, I
think in ten years you're gonna you're just gonna have
a row of light industrial because you get the freeway frontage.

(08:15):
And there's a big one that just came, not a
big one. There's a ten ten unit development in Beaumont
that I was just driving the Orange the other day
and I saw it and I told my wife, See,
that's what I wanted to do. That I get, but
I show that I don't seem to be from other places.
The Michael Barry Show Show, the lead singer of the
Delaware Destroyer born on this day, seventy five years ago

(08:38):
in Wilney, and that would, of course be George Lawrence
thorough Good, dead or alive, Ramon, dead or alive seventy five.
Do you think he made seventy five? Surprisingly? Yes, George

(09:01):
Thregold is a lie. Alden writes, how about those all
film workers that were let go after Obama shut down
drilling in the Gulf of America for a year. We
didn't hear stories about how sad it was they lost
their jobs. Jane gm All rights Elon's suggestion of five

(09:23):
things you did last week. That's what Martha Turner taught us,
whether it was writing a letter, phoning a client to
say hello, having a closing, getting a listing, showing homes,
doing open houses every Tuesday at our sales meeting, she
encouraged us to stand up and give good news regarding
our production. I have reached a point in my life

(09:48):
where I'm impatient with people, excuse makers, lazy people. I
see these people who bounce from job to job, and
they're not performers. They're people who a lot a lot
of folks don't understand how to tell the difference with
a performer and a BS or. But you'll see these

(10:12):
people and they'll go on Facebook will always be a
big announced Hey God, I just started this new job
over and so and so, y'all come out. We're gonna
get drinks at this bar and oh yeah, okay, And
then there's a there's there's a code array of people
that they know. They're like, your way to go, you know, Tommy, Yes,
that's great, and you're gonna do this. And I'm thinking, well,

(10:34):
that's weird. You started a new job a year ago,
and if I remember correctly, you started one the year
before that, and did you want year before that? And
that when the rubber hits the road. Let's say you're
in sales, do you bring in deals or not? If

(10:56):
the company was dependent on you and you alone, how
many bills would we be able to pay? And so
many people have developed a skill, and it's a skill
to make themselves look busy in such a manner that
if you're not good at telling the difference, you don't
notice that that person, that person costs you money, but

(11:19):
never act. That's why I'm a big fan of eat
what you kill one hundred percent commission, especially in sales,
one hundred percent commission, maybe a base to get started
while you're learning the business and developing your relationships. But
great sellers don't want a base. They want a greater
percentage of what they close. And I'll tell you, even

(11:41):
in our business, I am forever shocked. I give you
a little behind the scenes how this works. Some people
like to know that, and as you know, I like
to know the behind the scenes of other things. All right,
So let's say we take on a new show sponsor.
When I started, it would be company wanted to advertise

(12:03):
and they kind of liked Michael Berry. So the salesman
would come to me and say, hey, you know this
person has bought time, bought spots well in time I
developed and this is all credit Eddie Martini, Eddie Murphy,
Eddie Martini. So I have to give him credit that
he allowed me to do this. But we built a
model that was if I'm endorsing, I'm endorsing, you know.

(12:23):
I just if there's a spot and I'm not voicing
it and it's on. And by the way, buy products
or don't buy products that air during my show, but
I don't endorse them. I don't even hear them. In
most cases, I don't even know about them. It breaks
my heart when someone says, hey, we had a bad
experience with Joe's plumbing or Sam's plumbing or whatever else,

(12:46):
and I said, I don't even know who that is. Well,
they're on during your show. They just bought time. I
don't know them. I don't They may be great people.
They definitely want our listeners, that's why they bought during
our show. But I'm I haven't vetted them. I don't
have any ability to ask them to make your issue right.
If there was ever a problem with Thattless Foundation, that
never is. I would literally go to the break when

(13:10):
we went to break for news, I would call Rob
de Schezer and he would make it right within fifteen minutes.
That's the kind of relationship we have. I feel very
good endorsing them as a result of that. So so
a new show sponsor will come on and I'll research
their business and then we'll have a conversation and we'll

(13:30):
talk through what they do and how they do it,
and I'll explain to them blow I expect if there's
a problem. You know, sometimes my listener is at fault.
Sometimes they have an unreasonable expectation, or sometimes things just happen,
whatever that is, but I do expect you to try
to fix it. So we go through this whole thing,
and then they start. And so when they start the

(13:54):
first time I talk about them the sales rep. A
lot of times the sales rep because the sales Rep's
not doing the work. We're doing the heavy lifting. The
heavy lifting is do you call our show sponsor when
you need a roof or a new Chevy, or diamonds
or transmission repair? Do you call them? You call our

(14:16):
people when you need things. If you do, they will
make money. If you don't, then whatever they paid to
sponsor our show, which is well over one hundred thousand
dollars a year, was a charitable donation that they don't
get to write off. Because other than that, why were
you making There are two reasons you sponsor our show.

(14:36):
Number one, you want to make money. Number two, you
want to support our show and keep us on the
air because you believe in what we're doing. And you're
going to get that. But you're not going to make
money if you are. Listeners, don't use that person. But
what happens is you get a lot of people caught
up in the middle. Sometimes the company will call an
ad agency. Worst idea ever, So they'll call some twenty

(14:59):
They'll call the ad agency and they'll put some twenty
three year old girl on it. She's straight out of
cost she's got a marketing degree. And the client will say,
I want to be on Michael Berry Show. So the
ad agency girl will call our company. They'll talk to
somebody within our company, a sales rep, and they'll okay,
we do this whole thing. And then they'll want to
hear what I have to say, which is, you can imagine,

(15:22):
drives me crazy. You pick up the phone when my
listeners call. That's all you need to know. You don't
need to worry about what I say. But they love
to try to say no, no, no, We want you to
say this, no, no, no, no that. And this is the
difference between results and process, and government employees struggle with that.
There's results and there's process. A lot of people spend

(15:43):
their time showing process because they don't actually have any
results to show. Yes. Another song by Dennis Lindy. He's
got a few, and of course Sammy Kershaw singing this

(16:07):
really hits the issue. This is Jeff, who writes ZAR
I have to submit a report every single day outlining
what I and my team accomplished. It's just become part
of my daily routine, and in fact, I actually enjoy
it now. If I forget or fail for any reason,
which I never do, but in years past I would occasionally,

(16:28):
I will be reminded by management to get it done.
It's not that hard. Any productive person can do it easily.
I have no sympathy for these federal employees who now
need to report their activities. It will only be an
issue for those who are not productive. When I was
a baby lawyer, we had to write, we had to

(16:51):
keep our time because lawyers bill well. Lawyers at defense
firms bill by the hour, and it was in six
minute increments, and you spent ten percent of your time
writing your time down. I hated it. So when I

(17:13):
left and started my own real estate company, I felt
so free that I didn't have to account for my
time in six minute increments. I think in corporate environments
I've certainly seen it myself across many companies, across many industries,
is that there are people who end up in management

(17:36):
who were not particularly good at the skill set of
the people they are managing, and that is managers who
weren't good sellers for instance, operations, guys who weren't good hands,
administrators who weren't good teachers, and yet you're the supervisor

(17:57):
of the teachers. Which is sort of interesting, is it? Now?
There are good coaches who were not necessarily good players
or even players. Mike Leach is a great example, but
it's rare. It's rare, indeed, and often people will be
promoted from a position a salesman an operator to a

(18:23):
position of management of other people doing that when they
themselves did not succeed at it. So what exactly are
you going to manage? Well? That gets down into the
corporate world of when companies start growing large enough that
people don't have to spend every minute of their working

(18:45):
day performing in order for the company to succeed. Now
you start, and many corporations have this problem. You have
people that if they drop dead for three months, it
would not cost the company one dollar. In fact, unless
somebody went, you know, looking for emails, it wouldn't even
be known. And I've told people over the years who

(19:05):
ask for career advice, if you died tomorrow, how would
it hurt the company because if the answer is not
it would cost them a lot of money, then you're
not valuable. If you want to know who's on the
chopping block, it's people who if they were going tomorrow,
it wouldn't affect the company that person. You're there out

(19:29):
of some combination of empathy, pity, collegiality, headcount, whatever that is.
And by the way, if you're good at what you're
doing and you are tied to dollars, make some people
uncomfortable to talk like this, but why do you think

(19:50):
your business was started? For almost every business, your business
was started to make money, and a lot of people
are uncomfortable. Is if that's crass to talk about money.
If you're good at what you do, really good at
what you do, and you ensure that what you do
is tied to dollars, they can fire you tomorrow. The

(20:12):
business can go under tomorrow. You can either start your
own business or take your book of business somewhere else.
You see this with lawyers, lawyers will It seems like
now more than ever you get these big LA and
New York firms and even international firms, Chicago firms coming
into Texas because the Texas economy is booming. Well, they'll

(20:33):
just go over to Baker Bots and pluck a couple
of high performers there, or full Bright Jewe or Skire
of Vienne or Andrews and Kurth. They'll go in and
just pluck a few lawyers out of those those you know,
traditional old line, blue blood firms, Lawyers that are high
achievers and who manage a certain amount of money. You

(20:57):
know that they control that piece of business. And they
just they go, hey, let's bring you over here to
you know, big New York firm over here, and they
literally up and move because baker Bots or ful Brighter
Vienne or Andrews and Kirth or whatever that firm is,
they don't control that business. They are the name that

(21:18):
the storied name. You know, those are heritage names of
Houston based law firms that was that's the top of
the line man the gold standard. But the client doesn't
need that law firm. They need John Smith or Bill Jones,
who is the lawyer who handles it. You'll see the

(21:40):
Jana gm Alvis who I mentioned earlier. You'll see the
high performing realtors. They might be at a Martha Turner,
John Dougherty Greenwood King, a firm that has a great
brand to it. But at the end of the day,
if you're selling your home for five million dollars in
River Oaks and you've got Jane giam or whoever that

(22:01):
that is that that you're using, you don't care what
firm they're at. They can start on their own, which
many times they'll just leave a big firm and go out,
or they just flip over to another firm. And that's
also true of agents that are at Remax or Cola
Banker or any of the other what was the one

(22:21):
way better homes and garden and whatever merged. My point
is it's it's very important that people understand this early
in life, and nobody teaches this. I'm surprised how many
people are upset to have this conversary. Well, everything's not
just about money, Michael. All right, Well, when you're laid

(22:43):
off and broke, come talk to me, because guess what
you're gonna ask people for that thing that everything is
not about. Isn't that funny? Because it is that money
that you use as an exchange for goods and services.
So it's not all about money until you're hungry, and

(23:04):
then what's the one thing you need are people just
going to shovel food at you. It's not all about
money until you need to travel to get somewhere. It's
not all about money until you need a medical treatment.
And guess what You'll never guess what the hospital and
the doctor want from you in order to perform the
procedure that you desperately need that money thing. Again, Yes,

(23:27):
there's more to life than money. But and I will
have this conversation with people when they ask for career advice,
and some people are blown away. And I think nobody's
ever had this conversation with you. That's unfortunate.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
It clings.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
It's done for a girl and a boy. I like
Lackaberry show. It's we're on the subject. Let's have this
conversation now, because I think a lot of you are

(24:02):
driving around and have never had anyone explain this to you.
And it's important you get it through your head. If
it's the first time you've heard it, just keep an
open mind. If you are rejecting it, and ask yourself
why And by the way, what if I'm wrong, what
have you lost? What if I'm right? And what have

(24:25):
you been losing out on? So let's go back to
the state of nature. Let's go back to the beginnings,
and let's rewind. Let's take the company you work for.
Your company's been in business for ten years. That business
was started one day. Let's say it was started by
an individual, and that person may have started the business

(24:48):
because they really enjoyed. People love to tell you everything
except the fact of making money. Well, I just really
wanted to build houses. I just I wanted to see
dreams come true, and this to happen, and this and
that may well be true all of it. You can
love what you do and make money. But when that

(25:10):
business started, let's that's a home building business. When that
business started, that person started the business, they had to
have money to do the things necessary. Whether they got
office space fear and fewer people getting office space today,
but they had to buy equipment and phones and all
that sort of stuff. Where'd that money come from. It
had to come from somewhere. You didn't start it with nothing,

(25:31):
so you probably borrowed it from other people. But when
that business started, the goal was that that business would
bring in more in revenues than it costs to operate it.
Because if it doesn't, it's going out of business. That's
pretty simple, right, that's not complicated. Well why is that?
Why does it always have to be about money? Michael Okay, Well,

(25:53):
how many businesses continue to operate that are losing money. Now,
if they made a lot of money, they can float
a few down years. Anybody knows anything about the oil
and gas business knows that those businesses can make money
and then lose money. But they're always betting on the
come in the future. They're going to make money again,
They're not in the business of losing money. So once
we understand that every business was started with the purpose

(26:15):
of making money, otherwise it's a nonprofit or a church.
Although let's be honest, the church has been hijacked by
the most entrepreneurial people in the last thirty years. I've
watched it happen in my own lifetime. I mean, look,
we tied and we had special offerings at our church,

(26:37):
but money was not talked about. Money was not talked
about more than four times per year, maybe quarterly. And
by the way, one of those for was Lotty Moon.
Our little poor country church was sending money to the
Lotty Moon mission around the world, and the pastor, as
far as we knew wasn't making any money off of it,
so and he had a side hustle. He was a
home builder on the side, just because there wo wasn't

(27:00):
enough money coming to that church. So with that in mind,
there are various people with various jobs. If you're a
stay at home mom, there's value in that. I don't
mean to suggest there's not. We can add value in
ways that are not for which money doesn't even change hands.
Stay at home moms add a lot of value to

(27:21):
the children, for instance, and to the husband who typically
doesn't have to do much, if anything, at home because
mom is handling that and he should be outbringing in
the money so that the household can function. So it's
a division of labor. We specialize in what we're good at.

(27:43):
I am often surprised how many women the kids go
off to school all day, the husband goes off to
work all day. How many women do not perceive that
they should bear a larger percentage of the home responsibilities
own away by that. I don't know what kind of
entitlement they that that was. I am also surprised how

(28:06):
many people do not perceive that when kids are home
all day before they're going off to school. That a
mother who has to work from the moment they wake
up to the moment they go to sleep, and the
husband comes home and does nothing. That's not a fair
division of labor either, because she's never off. My wife
used to say when when she was practicing law and
our kids first came home, she said, the easiest part

(28:29):
of my job. I mean, the easiest part of my
day is when I get the kids off and I
leave and go to the office. Because when I get
to the office, everything slows down. I stop and get
my Starbucks, I go to my computer, I start calling
my clients, I start looking at my deals I'm working on.
She's like that, that's a moment of clarity for me. Kids,
little kids, may that's that's a task.

Speaker 4 (28:51):
All right.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
So let's take out people who you know do this
and do this, and do this, and work for nonprofits
and work for the government, and work as cops and on. Okay,
so now let's you talk about most of us out there.
My advice to you, if no one has ever told you,
is get yourself as closely associated with the revenues of
the company as you possibly can. The further you are

(29:14):
from the revenues of the company, the easier it is
to let you go, and the harder it is for
you to increase how much you make. Just that simple.
If you are not related to how much money the
business makes, your value will never be perceived as what
you think it is. Operations is never going to make

(29:37):
as much as sales. People get angry that finance. Guys
in finance make all the money. But look, if you're
putting together bond offerings and you're doing five hundred million
dollar bond offerings, there's a little slough on that you
keep one half of one percent, and you got two
point five million dollars boom. You show up to work

(29:57):
early and stay late guarding the front door, You're never
going to make two point five man, because they can't
perceive a value related to dollars if you're in sales,
which is why I encourage everyone to understand that everyone
is in sales. Russellerbarro owns Gringoes. They do one hundred
and seventy million dollars a year in sales, and he

(30:18):
will tell you that he's in sales, is president of
his company, which he's in sales. They never get so
fancy that they are above sales. There are a lot
of people, My mother was one of them who looked
down on salesmen because salesmen as salesmen were sort of
perceived throughout the fifties, sixties, seventies as some clip on

(30:40):
tie slick talking, lion conniving, you know, trying to talk
you into something, almost like a cat collar on a
street corner. They're useless. Well, that's just not true. A
good salesman is worth their weight in gold, and a
good realtor is a good salesman. There are a lot
of people who are in the sales business. I have

(31:02):
a nephew, Harrison Reebak, just became a partner at Baker Bods.
And it's interesting because we don't talk about the deals
he's working. If there's an explosion at one of the plants,
he's the lawyer that's called in to handle, you know,
for the company, handle the investigations and all that, to
defend them. But he understands that in his business there

(31:24):
is a sales element. They need to think of him
as the first guy to call when there's an explosion,
when everything is going wrong. I mean, you've got to
see yourself in every way, shape and form as a salesman,
no matter what it is that's on your job description.
It's just that simple. I'll move on. But that is
very important, and I think a lot of people if

(31:46):
they if r J on the Black Mount he's an
independent hotshot driver, and he'll tell you I'm a salesman
because if nobody calls him to pick up a load,
it doesn't matter how well he delivers the load. We
mean to drop a load during the break, Ramon, you
see that's halfway racist.

Speaker 4 (32:07):
H