Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following is a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Is success about making the right move or having the
courage to keep going until you.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Do ramping up your business? The time is near. You've
given it hard, Now get it in gear. It's Passage
to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I'm Richard Gearhart.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, and we're your hosts.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to Passage to Profit, the Road to entrepreneurship. Today
we have Scott Harris, founder of Magnetic real Estate, who's
helped drive nearly two billion in New York property sales.
And he's also a national best selling author of the
Pursuit of Home, a real estate guide to achieving the
American Dream. And he'll be discussing the emotional mistake that
(00:54):
can turn your dream home into a costly regret.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
And then what does it take for a teenage father
with no safety net to become a top industry CEO,
real estate investor, music label founder and author of More
Than Just Look? Well you're gonna find out because we
have Greg We're here, and he is going to reveal
how relentless resilience turns setbacks into a stronger comeback.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
And on top of all this, we're going to unpack
how stolen AI secrets led to a federal conviction. But
before that, it's time for your new business journey. We'd
like to ask our panel, when you look back, what
was the one decision or moment that most changed the
trajectory of your business and what did it cost you
(01:42):
to make that decision. Scott, Welcome to the show. Tell
us about the decision that changed the trajectory of your business.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
I think the biggest decision I made.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
As you can imagine, you start out in real estate,
you start at at one shop that maybe moved to another.
But about four years into my business, I made a
moved to the third shop that I worked at, a
big box brokerage firm, and we took over marketing a
big building on the south side of Madison Square Park.
This is where the Statue of Liberty was put together,
(02:13):
all the pieces of the Statue of Liberty. And I
moved to this new company and I took over working
on the sales office for this big building that was
selves a three hundred and fifty million dollars sellout and
it ended in a huge blow up. The developer went
belly up, they had to sell the building to the
next person. And I learned so much in that one
(02:34):
year that I worked on this project, both the things
that my own greed, the greed of a developer, all
of the deal making that we did. It set me
in a direction that really opened my eyes to everything
I did since then.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Thanks for sharing, Greg, Welcome to the show. What was
the one decision you made that changed the trajectory of
your business?
Speaker 6 (02:54):
Early on in my career, as I ventured off to
my own business, there was like five of us partners
into a ten million dollar year business. Well because he
found out with that size of revenue and I making
a lot of money, and everybody had their own agendas.
So really, really early on, probably five years into our business,
my partner and I at the end decided to eliminate
(03:16):
three three of them. Buy them out.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Oh you buy them out? Like not use my field tactic.
Speaker 6 (03:23):
Don't like that? No, but no. And my best advice
anybody since that time is stay away from partnerships. Because
what I found out with my partner at the end
when I sold a large company in twenty twenty two
for all intense purposes. His life changed four or five
years before. So I could revenue continue to growing five
or ten million dollars a year and he was enjoying life.
(03:45):
Why Greg sat back and worked. So at the end
wait to put the profits equally. So as I venture
into the alarm business, We're in the process of buying
his partnership out now because it grows. Ai. We're popular,
we're big, But at the same time, I'm not interested
in doing it again to make somebody else. Rich self
an my best decision and mores decision was partnerships and
(04:09):
Vietnam and get rid of them. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Interesting, and it's tough to unwind those too, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yes. So in twenty ten, Richard and I bought a
building for his law firm and it has two stories.
And after COVID, well, everybody cleared out right, and we're like, well,
what should we do with this building? Now We've got
four thousand square feet and I'm like, nobody's coming back, right.
Richard goes in every day and one attorney and we
(04:35):
have a halftime paralegal. But nobody wants to buy commercial
real estate because nobody's going into work, right, So we
decided to make the top half of podcast studio. We
had been using it to do this show. Actually from
Richard bought all this fancy equipment, so we had like
this high end equipment and we decided to turn it
into a podcast studio. And that's the business I'm running now.
(04:55):
And it's kind of a little slow because the stars
are aligned against me. The ca keep shutting down the
roads in front of our buildings. Nobody can get to
the studio. But I do have clients. That is building
and it's fun.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I love it well. For my transition point, I think
a huge transition point in my career was when we
started doing the radio show. And it's kind of a
decision put yourself out there in the public, which I
had been reluctant to do for a long long time.
I'm mostly an introvert at heart, so taking a step
(05:28):
out there and putting myself out in front of other
people was transformative for me, and I think in the
long run it's helped me a lot. I think it's
given me confidence that I didn't have before. So my
point in my lesson is get out there and do
some things and if you are able to put yourself
out there through podcasts or blogging or whatever it is,
(05:53):
you'll evolve and I think you'll appreciate the results of
that so so much for your new business journey.
Speaker 6 (05:58):
Now, we're going to turn.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
To our guest, Scott Harris, founder of Magnetic real Estate,
who's helped drive nearly two billion in New York property sales,
and he's also a national best selling author of the
Pursuit of Home. What if everything you've been told about
buying and selling real estate is backwards? Well, Scott Harris,
(06:19):
founder of Magnet real Estate and architect of nearly two
billion in New York City property sales, says, most people
are chasing homes the wrong way and they're paying for it. So, Scott,
tell us, how did you get started in real estate
in the first place.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Getting started in real estate really began long before my
professional career began. My father is still in commercial real estate.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
He's a landlord.
Speaker 5 (06:44):
Where I grew up in New Orleans, my mom was
the marketing director for a big franchise of a big
national real estate firm. So I grew up with real
estate right around the kitchen table. Both from the sense
of learning about all the deals coming together on my
mom's side and with my dad, just how to run
a business, all the craziness of tenants. At the same
(07:05):
time my parents were divorced. I was going back and forth,
back and forth as a kid. I didn't think about
it until I really got involved in real estate years later,
and as I help people find homes, I realized something
was happening to me, and I realized I was kind
of healing the wounds of a broken home as a kid.
And when I finally realized that, it was like this
(07:27):
light bulb went off, and I just was able to
bring a lot more compassion to the process of what
people actually go through when they go to buy a home.
It's very different than what people see on TV. It's
very different than what people think. It's much much more
than just the transaction, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
I know we want to dig into that, but before
we do, I want to go back to He said,
how did you get the revelation that you were trying
to fix what went wrong in your childhood? Because the
reason I ask is so many of us are held
back by the trauma we endured as children. So how
did you come to that revelation.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
There's something so satisfying about helping someone find a home.
I mean, sure, salespeople and the deals and the rush
of all that, but it was something much deeper. I
really I want to help people. I want to understand
what makes people tick. That's always what I've loved. There's
something about every person that makes them interesting and great.
Everyone has a story, and I'm like a bartender. If
(08:24):
you sit next to me, odds are I'm going to
learn a whole lot of cool things about you because
I just kind of want to listen. And at some
point I'm like, you know, I'm doing something that's much
bigger than a real estate deal. It felt like it
was something sacred honestly, like I'm a part of their lives.
I'm baked into their lives forever. And as I sort
of unpacked that maybe seven eight years ago, I started
(08:44):
to really think about it and that realization of what
we're doing like that was helping me. It allowed me
to be a lot more vulnerable with my clients and
like be more real with them. I could have said
that that was the turning point for my business too,
but I had a lot of successes for that, but
just getting real with people and you start to connect
and you go, wait a minute, what's happening here.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
But it took a long time of kind of self exploration.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
In your book, The Pursuit of Home you take a
pretty kind of psychological approach to the whole process of
home buying, and you talk about the different needs that
are being met when somebody goes through the process of
buying a home.
Speaker 5 (09:24):
A lot of buyers and sellers look at real estate
agents say, oh, these are people that open the door.
They open the door, and then they make a bunch
of commission. I would turn the whole thing on its head.
About ninety five percent of the time we're doing anything
but the transaction. Sure, you have to know your business,
but we're therapists, we're cheerleaders or coaches or marriage counselors,
(09:45):
all these other things. I mean, I was a psych
major in college and I was a history minor. It's
like where people and their stories come together. That's what's
going on. You're managing the people. It's a people first business.
And if you treat it like a transaction, and a
lot of agents start by doing that, I know I
sure did.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
I went in.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
Thinking, oh, I just want to get the deal done
and get paid and all this stuff. And then a
couple of years in, I'm like, it doesn't feel right
at all, and I had to shift gears, and I
started to realize that people are trying to do something
big in their lives, and if you come from that
future place, when you're there and you help them paint
that picture, all of a sudden, the process changes because
they know you care and you're focused on what you're
(10:23):
trying to help them achieve, rather than just how many bedrooms,
you know, what school district.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
And things like that.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
So one of the things that you mentioned is sometimes
you act like a counselor marriage counselor can you give
us an example of how that actually played itself out
in a transaction?
Speaker 6 (10:39):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (10:40):
All the time.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
But let's say there was a couple I sat with.
They wanted to buy an apartment here in Manhattan where.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
I do business.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
And I'm sitting there listening to the husband and I'm
listening to the wife. He says something.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
She shoots him down.
Speaker 5 (10:53):
She's like diminished, kind of just knocking him, knocking him
and something just didn't add up. I'm watching this on
like I'm creating space for them to for the first time,
because I would say most people spend more time planning
their vacation than they ever do planning for what is
really the biggest thing they're going to do, one of
the most consequential things they do. So they're in the
(11:14):
room and I'm just allowing them to kind of hear
each other, and something is they're just talking past each
other or even worse, they got divorced a year later, right,
And so I'm kind of at the front end of
just creating, like what is this going to be?
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Because they have different communication styles.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
It's just like marriage, they have to come together, but
when it comes to the home, they often haven't had
anyone listen to them or asking these questions. Not everybody
goes to marriage therapy either, right, not everybody thinks.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
They need it.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
But in that sense, it's really important to allow them
to hear each other talk. And I'm just I'm like
that fly on the wall. The psychology of real estate
is really about the people. And I have a whole
system that I call the magnetic method that's all about
how do you manage people from here to the closing table.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Well, emotions do play a large part I love to
watch love it or list it, do you know?
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Yeah? And so people will be in this tiny little
house and they can get another house that's much bigger,
but they redo the tiny little house and they've always
lived there, and so they stay in the tiny little house.
That's a completely emotional decision, right because they could have
had a better house. So how do emotions play into
this and how do you work with that?
Speaker 5 (12:20):
Well, when we sit down with them, you start to
get a sense of their communication style. But all the while,
I know that buying a home moving is one of
the most stressful things.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
People put themselves through.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
So I'm meeting people at their absolutely most stressed out.
So my job is to stay super calm. You know,
I'm here like I've seen it before, yell at me,
do whatever you need to do. I don't take anything personally,
and people often as the process goes along, at every step,
people's baggage, people's emotional stuff shows up. They get an
(12:51):
accepted offer on a property and all of a sudden
they freak out. If they have trust issues, then the
trust issues come out. If they have money issues, the
money issues come out. If they have been burned, just
relationship issues. I really think the homeland process is an
emotional journey. It's actually a self help program in a
lot of ways, and it's one that most Americans go through,
(13:12):
absolutely biggest self help program that there is, essentially, And how.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Do you feel when you're going through this process.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
I am so in love with my clients. The crazier
they are, the more I love them. I've talked to
my agents yesterday. They're having like she's their agents. The
buyers are having a meltdown about something, and I said,
have some compassion for these people. They are so stressed out.
They're trying to sell, they're trying to buy their kids,
(13:41):
They're throwing their whole life into the up in the air,
and it's stressful. And I often hear this every time
they introduce me. That person's crazy, right, that person's crazy.
That person's crazy. They're not crazy. They're just human beings.
And I just have a lot of compassion for what
they're going through and I'm here to guide them to
really be that force for good for them. And when
(14:02):
it's at the end of the day, if they find
a home that they love, it's going to change the
course of their life. I mean the house is like
a foundation for everything they want to do in their lives.
It's a partnership between them and this house. People start
their businesses in their house. I mean, how many garage
bands garage businesses start That house is a big deal,
(14:23):
and if they get it wrong, it could really cause
a lot of problems in their lives too.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
So in the real estate world, is your brand the
compassionate realtor the understanding realtor? How would you define yourself
and how could somebody build a brand like that?
Speaker 4 (14:37):
It takes a willingness to listen to the feedback you get.
A lot of.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
Times I wouldn't say I'm when I'm a nice guy,
something has gone wrong because being nice is telling people
what they want to hear. I would, if anything, I
want to be thought of as a kind person, because
kindness can be tough.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
Love.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
Kindness is telling people what they need to hear. But
buyers or sellers have come to me and said, I'm
calling you because someone told me that you were a
lovely broker. Those are two words that don't go together.
And I started to hear things like you're not a jerk,
You're not a beep, you know, like you're not a
bad guy, and we have a reputation that's probably along
(15:20):
the same lines as tow truck drivers and meter maids.
Like real estate agents are not well thought of, and
every business I've ever been in, a lot of them
are shady. I have a bad reputation. I want to
be that of challenge same time, right exactly.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
So find that a lot of the real estate agents
in our neighborhood, I hope, but I'll get in trouble
for this. It feels like they're very prima donna ish
and they're just doing it for their own egos. I
do you find a lot of people are that way
in your business.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
I think agents get that reputation because we have to
market ourselves and we have to put ourselves so out
there to be top of mind, and it can feel
a little tacky. Just it triggers you because you don't
want to be that person doing that, and it's you're
really putting yourself out there in such a big way.
You're on a billboard, you're on a bus stop, you're
(16:07):
on the side of a bus right like it's it's
such a weird thing to do. And so I understand
how it feels like they're doing it for themselves. But
I have to say, like I do all these videos
and I'm on podcasts and stuff, I would rather just
hang out with you one to one. And it's it's
sort of a necessary thing that agents have to do sometimes.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
I'm not defending them.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
By the way, No, No, I just think there's different perceptions.
You don't seem like a real estate agent like the
ones i've met.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
I get that all the time.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah, you seem a lot more real and it's I'm
sure it's a difficult position to be put in because
people this is their biggest purchase of their lives probably,
and they're gonna blame you some something goes wrong, right.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Oh, all the time, I'm the bad guy. What happens
is before.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
The closing, I get blamed for everything, and then I
will get a call after because I just I just listen,
let them get there, you know, run, take as much
time as you need to get out your energy, and
then they call me later like I'm sorry, I'm really
happy in this home and all of that. But yeah,
we're we end up being the brunt. We bear the
brunt of a lot of emotions, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
So what do you do when the couple are at
odds and diametrically opposed and have completely different visions of
what their house should be and what they should look like.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
I'll take it a step further. I'm working with a
couple right now.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Of course I don't kiss and tell, but they want
to spend about three million dollars in Manhattan on the
East Side, which you think, oh, that's so much money. Maybe,
but it's like a two bedroom apartment right Sometimes the
wife is so excited. They live on the West Coast.
They want to have a place here. The husband, I know,
has no interest in buying. He literally sabotages everything they see.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
And I'm okay with it. It's going to take as
long as it takes.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
What will end up happening is that the wife will
end up saying, buddy, we're doing this and I don't care,
and she'll make it happen.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
But I have to.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
It's almost like you just have to let I call
it a line. There are four steps to my magnetic Man,
and the first is just getting people activated and off
the couch. The second is getting the two people. Usually
it's a couple getting them aligned. And right now I'm
just letting them act out, you know, letting the husband
just shoot down things that I'm watching and we're just
letting it happen. We're not getting confrontational, but it takes time.
(18:17):
When they're diametrically opposed. You have to Sometimes you're a therapist,
You're like, I hear you saying this. I hear you
saying this. You have to really be careful with the
way you communicate so they know you care and that
you're not just. You can ruin trust so quickly if
you do or say the wrong thing. These are super
successful people with a lot of money. This is the
(18:37):
most liquid market in the country, and it's crazy how
you have to wear the money hat and the emotional
hat and just know when to trade hats.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
When you are coaching other real estate agents, what are
some of the things that you tell them not to
do to destroy trust?
Speaker 5 (18:57):
You have to be very careful about how you explain
things so that when you put forms and things in
front of them, they don't go, what is this? They
don't get because automatically the trust level, the trust level
is so low.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
You have to build the trust and be.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
Very strategic about when you have these conversations and you
have to it's care first, care first, care first. I
think one of the biggest mistakes it's not what you're
saying to the client, it's just when they're acting out,
you come to me and you just all you do
is complain about how they're this and they're that, And
I'm like, these are human beings going through a tough thing.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Your job is to care for them.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
When they know you care about them, the door opens
and you get to hold their hand and get them.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
You will get them to the closing table. But it's hard.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Well, that's great. We're with Scott Harris from Magnetic real Estate.
Speaker 6 (19:46):
Coming up.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
We'll talk more with Scott, and later we'll hear about
the Google engineer caught selling AI secrets to the Chinese companies.
Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Careheart will be
back right after this commercial break.
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Speaker 2 (21:58):
Now back to Passage to prom once again.
Speaker 8 (22:01):
Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
And our special guest, Scott Harris, founder of Magnetic real
Estate and national best selling author of the Pursuit of Home,
A real Estate Guide to Achieving the American Dream. Scott,
what's your book about?
Speaker 5 (22:15):
What I describe is that what you see on TV,
on reality TV, what you see on social media has
really skewed the perception of what real estate really is
and what it is. Buying a home is an emotional
journey that you start on and it is a roller
coaster that ultimately ends hopefully with a lot of self
(22:36):
awareness of who you are and who you're becoming, and
that home can be a tangible representation of who you
are and who you're becoming. Right, And it's a roadmap
how do you get off the couch, into the closing
table and beyond. And it's really you could also call
this book the psychology of real estate. It's what actually
happens that no one talks about and everyone goes through.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
So everybody should have to read this before they get.
Speaker 5 (23:01):
Their license, right, whether they get their license as real
estate agents, or whether this is the book that real
estate agents wish their buyers would read. Oh okay, people
just don't think about this as a real emotional journey,
as a psychological maybe a spiritual journey.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
So buyers go in this half cocked.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
They don't even realize that finding the right agent is
a huge deal.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
So huge. How do you find the right agent for you?
Speaker 5 (23:28):
Well, we're talking about one is like, if I'm talking
to home buyers, how do they find the right agent?
Get to know your own communication style, interview a couple
of agents. You don't just go with your cousin or
go with your friend. They may not speak your language.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
So somebody once told me pick the agent has the
most signs up in the neighborhood you want to live in.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
Well, we talked earlier about having that feeling that the
agent really has their own interest at heart. If you
feel that way about an agent, you don't hire them.
Speaker 6 (23:58):
Right.
Speaker 5 (23:59):
You can be an agent for twenty five years and
be so self centered that you kind of like feel
you might the buyer might feel like an afterthought. And
somebody who might be doing this for two years cares
deeply about you, and they can work on a team
or at a company where they learn enough about the
real estate process. They're the perfect agent.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
And because they care about you and the transaction, there's
a higher likelihood of success of you getting the home
that you want because you're working with somebody who cares
about the outcome what happens.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
It's a very easy You don't have to This is
not a neck up decision. If you are with an
agent and all of a sudden you feel frustrated, like
they're not listening to you, they're sending things that don't
really work, they're just it's not a connection. You can't
focus on what's most important for you. That's a really
easy litmus test. Are you frustrated? Do you feel like
they're not talking to you in a way. Are they
(24:52):
not giving you the information in the way that you
can process it? You know, if you're emotional, it's very easy.
In the book I talk about what there's an assessment, right,
there's an assessment that it's free resources.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
It's on our website too.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
But you can very quickly understand what is your personality type,
what's your communication style, and then interview them and see
how you feel it does it. It's not complicated at all.
Anyone can understand, oh, this person this works. Even if
you don't know your communication style, you just use that
as a litmus test.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
It'll work.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
But if you get to know your own personality, you
can actually tell someone, hey, i'm going to need more data.
I'm going to need I'm going to take a long
time to make a decision. I'm gonna have to see
a lot of houses. And some agents might go, well,
I'm not going to work with you, and some of the
other agents like, I get it, you're a data driven
person and somebody else is like an executive. They're like,
if I can't read it in three bullet points on
(25:44):
my phone. I'm not reading it. They just want you
to build trust and then take care of it for them. Right,
you have to know who your buyer is. And I
tell buyers you don't have to change. You don't have
to change your personality. It's my job as an agent
to change your personality to you understand and navigate your personality.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Well, when Richard and I moved up to the northeast
to New Jersey, we came from the Atlanta area, so
we had a four thousand square foot house in Atlanta
that sold for a Pitton school.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
Dollars.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
We came up here and we were crying anyway, the
company assigned us a real estate It was this little
old lady, and I was like, is she the right
agent for us? But it turned out she was, and
she was very patient with us because we were, of
course freaking out looking at these like older, smaller houses.
(26:40):
She drove me through the neighborhood and said, if you
ever find a house for sale in this neighborhood, this
is where you should buy, which we did and that
was probably the best real estate decision we've ever made. Really. Yeah,
So she was right, but I think her thing was
she really knew the area. And when you're coming from
out of town to someplace you really want some buddy
(27:00):
who knows the step but doesn't have their ego all
involved in selling you like a house you can't afford, right.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Yeah, it's sitting with you.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
And I talk about this very early on in the book.
The questions that most websites. If you go on any
real estate website, it's like how many bedrooms? What's your neighborhood?
You know, do you want to be next to this
church or that or whatever. These are all the wrong
questions to start with, because you get totally intimidated by
the price point and you shut down. The questions should
(27:28):
be starting with who are you? What are you about?
Like just getting to know, like what are you trying
to do? You're moving to this area? Why are you
moving here? Try to understand, like what are you trying
to achieve in your life? If you get that right,
people just relax and all of a sudden they'll open
up and they'll start saying things, and they won't even
realize what they wanted because they start with a checklist.
(27:51):
Ninety nine percent of the time that checklist is not
the real checklist, The real checklist kind of emerges.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
And it comes out only after people feel comfortable.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
There was one thing on our checklist that was not
negotiable though we moved up here, and right after we
moved up it snowed like crazy. So the one thing
was a two cartas.
Speaker 9 (28:09):
Right.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
You know yourself, you live in Atlanta.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
You live in Atlanta. You do not want to ever
shovel snow. You get very used to no snow.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
You didn't want to shovel snow. Does it sometimes seem
like people don't really know what they want?
Speaker 5 (28:21):
Sometimes every time, if you think about anything in the world,
in the world that you've been exposed to, nothing is
more than homes. You're in homes, you're at your friend's homes.
You've lived in lots of homes. You've gone to summer
camp and you're in a cabin. You're everywhere as a space.
And on TV every day you're seeing all of these images,
(28:42):
every commercial, every TV show, everything is a house in
a space.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
You have this.
Speaker 5 (28:47):
Preconceived notion of what it's supposed to be. Nancy Meyer movies.
Every house is beautiful. It doesn't matter if you're like
a like a janitor. You have a gorgeous house. This
doesn't make any sense. So you have to unpack, kind
of get below all of this noise, cut through it
to get to what's real. So every time what actually
(29:08):
is important to you is something else, and you have
to be open to learning what that is. And it's
a really fun thing when people go, oh, I didn't
realize that because they go into a house and there's
a checklist that it's supposed to check all the boxes
and they walk in and they don't like it and
they're like, what is going on?
Speaker 4 (29:24):
I don't understand.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
But you have to cut through that to really understand,
like what you actually would love that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Scott Harris, founder of Magnetic real Estate. It's been an
amazing conversation. But before we leave the segment, Scott, what
is the one thing, the most important thing that you
want to leave our audience with when it comes to
buying or selling a house.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Be prepared.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
Take some time to be prepared before you start, get
clear on why are you doing this, what is most
important to you, Start to understand your own communication style,
Take a beat and just get to know yourself as
much as you can, and talk to your spouse seventy
percent of people are buying with a partner. So whether
you're Marrit or not, if you take that minute to
(30:07):
be a little bit more prepared, this process can be fun.
It can be fun. I promise it can be fun.
It does not have to be stressful. It can be
actually much more enjoyable if you just get a little
bit more prepared.
Speaker 6 (30:19):
That's great. And where can people find you?
Speaker 5 (30:21):
Well, if they want to look up the book The
Pursuit of Home, they can go to Pursue your Home
dot com, where you can get free resources. There's a
whole bunch there that they don't have to necessarily buy
the book right away.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
And if they want to learn about what I do
with my.
Speaker 5 (30:35):
Real estate agents in my real estate business, they can
go to magnetic R dot com.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
And now it's time for our AI segment, Elizabeth take
it away.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Now it is time for real AI use cases Business
owners round table, and I am going to start with
Scott Harris, founder of Magnetic real Estate, and his website
is magneticr dot com. And I am going to ask him, Scott,
one is one way that you're using AI in your business?
Speaker 5 (31:04):
My favorite way that I'm using it in my business
is that we are sifting through so many new listings
and listings that have been updated with this and that,
and we are actually able we curate like we don't
just send listings to our clients, we actually curate them like, hey,
this is something, this is why we like it, We've
sold in the building, this and that. It speeds up
(31:25):
that curation process a ton because we match We have
our buyer lists with all of what they're looking for,
what they're looking for and the new listings, and AI
will match them up for us and spit out you
know what ticks all the boxes within that and then
we can look at it. It saves us sometimes hours
and we spend a lot. That's one of the things
we spend the most time. It can be a little
tedious and it takes us away from engaging with the clients.
(31:48):
So AI is really helpful. I think it's going to
make good agents so much more productive. Because seventy percent
of real estate agents do zero to one deal a year.
Those agents are either going to do more or they're
going to get out of the business.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
People that won't use it won't stay in the business. Absolutely,
So Greg Weir and I want to say that his
last name is spelled w I e R. So Greg
Weir with greg wear dot com and his book More
Than Just Luck. One is one way that you're using
AI in your business.
Speaker 6 (32:19):
Well, I have a secondary business. It's called Prudential Alarms
and there we sell AI cameras, so license plate readers.
When somebody pulls into a lot, if there was a
criminal or something wasn't wanted to immediately notify the authorities.
Gunshots and schools. If allowed bangles off in the school,
it will detect a gunshot versus a drop book or something.
(32:40):
Cameras are every single day. They change. We do everything
from prisons to universities, you know, you name it, we
do it. But it's just typically your change in every
single day. So we in facial recognition. That's the latest one.
It's literally updated every single day. Some people saw last
week during the Super Bowl. I did not see the
commercial Well where ring doorbell of Solder systems to flock.
(33:05):
I guess an agency that all the police agencies use,
and come to find out that becomes were can talk
a little bit later. It goes into intellectual property and
property rights and AI. But that's all AI generated. And
if you notice the like the woman that just disappeared
in in Arizona. Yeah, that was elaborate A camera to
pick that up, That's what that was. That was probably
(33:26):
AI camera. If I had to guess, Okay, so just
a simple ring, they say it's a ring doorbell, but
I would I would probably second to guess probably not.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
So you're using it in your cameras. I hadn't heard
that before. That's pretty cool. I hadn't heard the real
estate one. So Richard Gearheart with your heart law, what's
one main way you're using AI.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Well, one way that we're trying to use AI and
we haven't but we haven't gotten it worked out yet
is we have an intake process when we work with
new clients, and there's files that have to be set
up and engagement letters that have to be signed, and
then we want to make sure we capture all the
right information about the client, and so we're trying to
automate that. I have to say it has not been
(34:05):
as smooth as I would have liked, but we're going
to keep working at it. But we feel that there
could be definite advantages in using AI to build that system.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
And I'm Elizabeth Gearheart with Gear Media Studios. And the
way I'm using AI. I'm using it for this podcast. Hey,
I am business And what I'm doing is I'm using
it to generate large language model optimized descriptions to put
on the website for this podcast and to put in
the show notes, and then schema code, which is a
code that goes in the background to make it easier
(34:38):
for large language models to read the transcripts of this
so that eventually, when everybody's going to chat GPT or
perplexity or Google Gemini for their answers instead of doing
like a regular search, the snippets hopefully from this show
will show up. So I'm using it to optimize for
LM search. But I know that you have a lot
(35:00):
more to say.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
It's endless. I use it as a thought partner. It's
like it's like the best assistant I've ever had.
Speaker 5 (35:08):
It speeds up my research. When I was writing the book,
it helped me all the citations. When I sort of
use it to think through I do a lot of writing,
you know social media. It helps me think through things,
helps me map that out.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
I think you bring up a good point too, and
that is you can ask AI for references. So when
they come to a conclusion or they give you information,
you can say, well, what's your source for that?
Speaker 6 (35:36):
Right?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
And I think sometimes that's important. We were looking at
a software not too long ago, and it sounded great,
and then we asked, well, what is the source for that? Well,
it's the website that they put up, and so of
course that's going to be full of marketing stuff, right,
And so you have to double check sometimes make sure
that the place that they're getting the information for the
(35:58):
answers is someplace that you can respect. And sometimes a
website might be fine. I'm not knocking that, but in
this particular case, it was it was marketing stuff. It
wasn't the real technical specs of the website.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
This has been aiuse cases. Business Owners Round Table. You're
listening to the Passage to Profit show. We will be
right back.
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Speaker 1 (38:16):
Passage to Profit continues with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Quick shout out to our friends at WKAJ eleven twenty
am and ninety seven point nine FM in Utica, New York.
Thanks for listening and if you're new here. Passage to
Profit is a top ranked entrepreneurial podcast and radio show
heard in thirty eight markets. It's a place where founders
share what really works. And now it's time for IP news.
(38:44):
The race for artificial intelligence just turned into a criminal conviction.
A former engineer at Google has now been convicted in
federal court. Prosecutors said that he stole confidential AI trade secrets.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
What was he convicted of, Richard.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Well, he was convicted of stealing trade secrets and espionage
and he stole stuff from Google like advanced AI model,
proprietary chip, and data center infrastructure. And none of this
stuff was publicly available. They were all trade secrets of Google.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Well, what's amazing is that this was not a civil lawsuit.
It was criminal, criminal prosecution. So that tells you how
seriously the government's treating AI technology right.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
And federal trade secret theft carries some pretty heavy penalties.
Aside from damages and fines, you can also go to jail.
So this is something that is happening to this former
Google employee.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
So it's really shifting the narrative from oh, this is
just normal corporate competition where we're stealing each other's secrets
to protecting strategic technology as a national security issue, right right.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
And given the importance of artificial intelligence and the AI
race between China and the US, this stuff is important
and when we have people who are transferring this information illegally,
it hurts our competitive position.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
Right, and AI is now viewed as a strategic asset.
It's used in defense systems, advanced computing, cybersecurity, infrastructure. So
governments see AI dominance as economic and military leverage.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Absolutely, it's not just about chatbots. It's about how our
financial systems and healthcare systems work, and logistics and national defense.
And so whoever controls this AI has a big competitive advantage.
And they also control a lot.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Right, And so innovation is accelerating, but so as enforcement.
And we've spoken on this show many times about copyright
enforcement with AI, and we've continually said the courts have
to get involved, and now it seems like they are
because there has to be some legality wrapped around this.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Absolutely, And you know a lot of people assume that
patents protect all of this technology, but they're really trade secrets.
This is intellectual property, and know how that's held by
the tech companies and the only way they can protect
it is to keep it secret.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
Well, and I remember learning as a kid out Eli
Whitney memorized the mechanics of the contingent and brought them
over to the United States and built one in the
United States. That took months. This takes literally nanoseconds to
steal copy.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Absolutely, and so in the twentieth century it was all
about oil and nowadays it's all about algorithms.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
So what does this mean for everyday people?
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Well, good question.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
You know AI is in your life, whether you want
it to be or not. So it's in banking, healthcare, transportation,
national defense, and the security of those systems really matter
to all.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Of us, absolutely, and it comes down to trusting the
tech companies that are responsible for managing all of that,
and that's really a stretch for me. It's really comes
down to seven or eight people in the world who
have control over these systems, and we'd like to think
that they're working in the best interests of us all,
(42:24):
but that may not be the case.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Well, the innovation is exciting and everybody's wondering where it's going,
but the accountability and security are becoming just as important,
if not more so. I think.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah, And in the age of AI, the most valuable
asset is stuff that you really can't see. It's the
information and how it's protected will definitely shape how we
move forward in the future.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
So that segues us right into our next segment. Greg
weir wi Er Greg weir dot com. He has worked
in security. He's done a number of things in his life.
He's pretty amazing. He's had many ups and downs. Welcome
to the show, Greg. We want to hear your story,
and we were talking about security in the last segment.
How did you start? I know you got married right
(43:10):
out of high school. I did, and you probably weren't
rich then.
Speaker 6 (43:14):
Absolutely not to know.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
So what is your story?
Speaker 6 (43:18):
Mine was just a matter of knowing you had to
do something to make up with yourself. Some people dream
it and some people do it. As one of those
guys that always thought that if you do it, kind
of follow the routine of education, you know, from post
education out of high school and college. I mean, although
I couldn't afford it, I don't have any money, so
that was the choice. Wasn't really an option, but I thought,
(43:39):
you know what, if I can find something to do,
I'll be the best at it. So I literally went
out and got a job making four dollars an hour
as a security guard and kind of learned everything I
could about the business. I took every job, every account,
and I got to know people. I learned early on
the power to businesses, relationships, and then I spent about
love in the years with the international company, learned a
(44:03):
lot and I decided to actually move here to New
York or or stay in Detroit. And I chose stay
in Detroit and left that company and I went into
my own business. It was it was tough. I didn't realize,
you know, making pay every week was a problem.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
It was.
Speaker 6 (44:16):
It was quite the hassle of some of the things
I never had to deal with before. But once you
get past that, just do what you say you're gonna do,
do it consistently, and you know you'll find out that
once the customer learns that about you, they'll stay with you.
So I was fortunate in my you know, forty year
or twenty nine year career, but on my own I
probably kept ninety five or percent or more of the
(44:39):
customers I had from day one because we did we
say we're going to do. And then from there it
is just doing strategies, developing good people. I mean, you know,
you're you're only so good and you're only one person.
So along the way you have to develop people and
to get loyalty, and they have to work hard for you.
They have to trust each other, and I think we
should do that. It's just it's really I don't make
(44:59):
it sound simple, but those are all kind of the
ingredients to becoming something. And somebody so taking something from
absolutely nothing and turned it into a fortune using those basity.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
Ingredients and was more than just luck.
Speaker 6 (45:12):
Right, it was absolutely more than just luck.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Which is the name of your book, it is.
Speaker 6 (45:16):
Well.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
I love your story because it shows that America is
still a place where you can start anywhere, and you know,
with a lot of perseverance and fortitude, you can achieve
a lot, You can achieve your goals. And so I
was looking through the show notes here and it says
that you faced betrayal, business collapse, and even attempts on
(45:39):
your life. Oh yeah, tell us about that who tried
to kill you?
Speaker 6 (45:43):
Business partners? That's where I formed my opinions from.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
No wonder you don't want any partners.
Speaker 6 (45:49):
Well, our revenue base, you know, starting off, you have
nothing and you have a dream, and then over time
you build it. I personally have built over one billion
dollars a year in my lifetime career, about a billion
billion two And along the way, people you start collecting money.
You start collecting cars and houses and vacations and they
see you're in their way. So it's one particular partner.
(46:11):
I went to a it's in the book. Went to
Lake Cumberland house boat part like a company getaway for
the weekend in Kentucky, and we're on wave runners and
I flipped one. Anybody those voter safety is hands up
in the air, things flipped over, don't go near the area.
This guy went right at me and just ran me over,
and on purpose, absolutely purpose.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Yes, who was he?
Speaker 6 (46:34):
Business partner? Who what the name is in the book,
But you know I know them back. But that's just
what people do. Another time, another business partner. He started
doing side deals, something I was against with his drug partner.
So I go to Florida on an office down in
Fort Lauderdale, and I had his gut feeling, just his
(46:57):
gut feeling, don't don't stay in this room. So I
was at the holiday and on the ocean, and I
moved about them out down the road. I go back
the next morning and the room's absolutely ran sect and
tour apart. They were looking for it. They were looking
for me, of course, because the dollars was so high.
I mean, in the security guard business, it's a it's
a multiplayer. So if you have a fifty million dollar
year companies is what I sold, it's worth a lot
(47:18):
of money.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
Your life is like an action movie anywhere.
Speaker 6 (47:22):
The whole thing was so looking at it being the
best in that industry. I probably was and probably still
the best in it. But it was all done through
just you know, elbow grease. You can't go to school
and learn that stuff. Nobody's learning that in college. You
just got to do the job.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
But how did you maintain resilience through all of that?
Is that just something you do or did you have
ways to build yourself back up after these.
Speaker 6 (47:49):
You have to You surround yourself with people, and those
people rely on you. They have the nice houses and
cars and you know kids in college, and if you
fall down, you can't get back up. You've now let
them down. So the driving force is really for someone else,
because once you have financially everything in life you need
(48:10):
or want, you can walk away, but you want you
want others to join you. And that was the fun
of it. So as a person eccentric, I mean, my
style was taking twenty five thirty people, whether it be
the Las Vegas or San Juan Puerto Rico or you know,
San Diego, wherever we wanted to go for that year.
It was all the expenses paid. You know, we had
(48:31):
sweet said arenas that costs you know, half million dollars
a more year, plus plus plus. So we were fun
to work with. We were a fun company. And when
you do those things, you have so so much you'll
have a choice. You're so deep because really, until you sell,
you really are financially well off because you're deep. So
what the resilience is, it's called survival.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
So when you got married and you had a child,
or your wife had a child shortly thereafter, how old
were you?
Speaker 6 (48:58):
I was eighteen and she was six team.
Speaker 3 (49:00):
Are you still married?
Speaker 6 (49:01):
Yes, forty two years later.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
You know, I have a lot of respect for you
because a lot of guys would have just walked away
from that, right.
Speaker 6 (49:08):
Oh yeah, I mean that's that's what I was. I'm
not gonna you know, coming out of high school, wasn't
the guy that was probably marriage material. But you know,
once you grow up together and it's kind of fun,
like seeing you two work together, it's kind of fun.
It's not the money anymore. I think it's more of
the fun. It's it's the excited of growing up with
her was pretty much it. We were kids, you know,
so you know, going out and working twenty hours a
(49:29):
day or there was no cell phones back then. I'll
see you tonight walking at eleven, twelve, one, two, three,
four o'clock in the morning. There's a lot of trust
issues you have there. We've had one argument our entire marriage.
One well, just one.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
We beat you out that school.
Speaker 6 (49:47):
Just one. But we're fortunate, we're blessed. I don't you know,
if you work hard, I believe things come to you.
But just because you work hard doesn't mean it's going
to happen. But at the same time, I'll give it
your all. And that's a lot of people don't.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
We were talking earlier about trust, right, and so you've
been through all of this stuff with people like trying
to kill you, but you still have to be able
to trust people to do business right. So how do
you figure that out? How do you set boundaries or
guardrails to still trust people? But also, I guess, watch
(50:21):
what you're doing.
Speaker 6 (50:22):
Find of the last twenty years in business, I allowed
people to my life, our parties that my house would
be five or six hundred people. Wow, being out all
the time, with them being part so I kind of
shut them out. I changed course because people knew too
much about me. They knew the cars I was driving,
or how I live, how my house is laid out,
(50:44):
and so I kind of changed the way things were done.
And then like people get so close anymore, and then
I pick and choose who I do business with them.
You can work with me or for me, but that
doesn't mean you get to know me. And I think
because of that, because of those threats and because of
those things, that courage is kind of the reality of
the situation. People typically are evil and everyone has an
(51:05):
AGENDAI believe you know, when you meet somebody, they call you, hey,
how you doing greg They want something, most likely, and
jealousy drives a lot of it. Jealousy drives a lot
of that hatred and those threats, and you know it's wow.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
So you've kind of paid a price for your success.
Speaker 6 (51:22):
I laid out in the book. I didn't pull any
punches whatsoever. I laid out the truth. I wanted to
lay out a story, a story about a you know,
a kid that was poor, broke, made something of himself
through hard work, never stole anything, never went to jail,
never got in trouble, never did a drug, rarely drink.
Just stay focused, say this, say that, and then I
just kind of took it to how so this is
(51:44):
what happened. And then the last maybe one hundred pages
tells you how to do it, how to work, sacrifice,
what you have to do When I sit in the
couch and do TikTok videos, You're probably are going to
get wealthy. And you know, people say, you know, money
isn't everything. Well, the truth is it is. It may
not be big, money may not be everything, but you
need money to survive. And if you have a child,
(52:05):
I think if responsibile as a parent to provide for them,
whether it be clothes or shoes, or education or cars
or whatever, that's what's wrong with the world.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
I think, well, it's hard to be happy if you
don't have money anyway. Scott Harris, do you have a
question or comment. I think it's fascinating.
Speaker 5 (52:21):
I mean, when you started out, has it shifted from
where you started with trust to now when you start
with maybe mistrust or where you always you were in
a business that was security based. So it seems like
you might be naturally mistrustful to begin with, and that's
not good or bad.
Speaker 4 (52:40):
It's just what seems to me.
Speaker 6 (52:42):
Yeah, when it comes to like customers, it's always trust
each other. But when it comes to the people that
actually run the business, don't allow me to your life.
That was my mistake. I let too meet people in
my life. I let. I was very open, whether it
be I was obvious. I still am cars, exact cars,
cars costing three, four or five six hundred thousand, two
(53:03):
million dollars, and they're over here driving a eighty nine Buick.
They're mad at me. So I didn't realize that growing
up I had I was just very blessed. I thought
I was young. I call it it's more than just luck,
but it's also a lot of luck. So I thought
I could share with you how to do it, and
I'll help you. I'll give you a job, I'll pay
you six figures. When the market bears fifty thousand dollars
(53:23):
or something, I'll open the door for you. Well, most
people are going to do something different with that money.
All I did was want to build to the next level.
And I did all this with ever a bank loan.
I never got a bank loan, and I wasn't gonna
I was that good. My credit was that bad.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
So I had to figure it out.
Speaker 6 (53:40):
I only had to gross. I only grows as fast
as I could afford to grow. So working for you know,
weeks or months without a paycheck was pretty normal in
the beginning of time because it was more for me
to grow. I already had the business lined up. It
was this matter whatever. So when I finished, I was
in the top twenty five security guard companies ending States
(54:01):
out of over five thousand.
Speaker 3 (54:02):
Well, how did you eat if you didn't have a paycheck?
How did you pay your rent and eat without a paycheck?
Speaker 6 (54:10):
We bought cows friends of mine. We split a cow together.
That'd be you'd have, you know in those days. Not
uncommon in Michigan, by the way, No, it's not uncommon.
Speaker 4 (54:18):
You're talking about a meat locker.
Speaker 6 (54:19):
Like a meat locker basic. You have a fezier in
your garage and you got beef, and that's how you live.
There's no McDonald's, there's no restaurants or anything out. You
you had your meals and that's what the kids ate
and they had their macaroni and cheese, and that was life.
Speaker 3 (54:33):
But where did you even get the money to buy that?
Did your parents help you or you were so young?
Speaker 6 (54:38):
Yeah, I know how my parents.
Speaker 3 (54:39):
Would you go mow lawns in the summer or something like.
Speaker 6 (54:42):
That's funny, I did. I did do that, also, wash windows,
mode lawns, whatever it took, okay, because that job making
four dollars an hour wasn't ever. So he's whatever corner
you could cut. I mean, we clipped coupons and you know,
crazy stuff like that, just to you'll buy a one,
get one free. I mean we're going to store calculators
and you know you would exceed what you had in
(55:02):
your pocket, so you put stuff back. And that's that's
the way how you lived. So I always say, when
you live there, it's kind of like once you taste steak,
you always want steak. When you've been poor, you never
want to go back there. So my driving force was just,
you know, have enough money to never worry again. And
that's kind of where I sit back today. I'm sixty
two years old. I could retire to if I wanted to.
(55:25):
I still have about loving people in my camp that
I care about, and I want to see those love
and get wealthy and then I'll walk out and I
can do that probably in the next by three years.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
What about friends and family? Do you trust them?
Speaker 6 (55:38):
Well, the problem with I mean it's unfortunately a family.
They're turned off by you because when you come from
a poor family and all of a sudden you have everything.
I mean I live in a very large home, ten
thousand plus square foot, I have forty five plus cars.
I have a house on the ocean. I have a
lot of nice things. So when your poor family knows
(56:00):
these things, they have no desire to deal with you.
My father died when he was forty eight, My mom
died at fifty nine, my sister at fifty seven, my
brother at fifty. That was it. And the outside family
is just the relatives they answered, the uncles and you know,
grandparents obviously are gone. So and they hate us. They
don't like us because you know, the kids are great,
they're driving nice cars and all that we're show offs
(56:22):
and we are I'm not gonna you know, is because
they didn't have anything. So when I got it, I
was like, hey, look at me. It comes with other
problems too. I mean, people look at you like you're
a dope dealer and you're doing something wrong and I
risk us into your business. And that's all. It's all
covering the book. You have to go through all the
processes and audist with them and they verify your income.
But I did some exceptional things, I mean everything. We
(56:45):
talked a little bit in the hallway about the music business, right,
I mean I took, you know, just an ideal, turned
it into a major record deal, work with a major artist,
and made a ton of money off of it. And
I did it. I tried it three or four more
times and it didn't work out so well, so I
got away from it. But I live the life. I
had a la lifestyle for a number of years. And
those are great stories. That's all. I was able to
(57:06):
write a book and tell those stories because I want
someone to sit back and go, if that guy with
no education, with that, with no support, no money, how
do you do it? And that's what it's about. So
it's kind of inspirations, know how, I'm not that smart.
I always tell me all that. You know, if you
put me against the average person, I'm not going to
you know, HY pass the IQ test higher than the
(57:27):
next guy. But I know how to do business. I
know about relationships, I know how to work hard, I
know how to tell the truth. And if you do
those things, then you're able to accomplish something. I think,
and that's kind of what I did. And if because
so many people nowaday are so full fluff, I mean,
that's that's the negative to me.
Speaker 3 (57:42):
So where in Michigan are you?
Speaker 6 (57:44):
And urbur Michigan?
Speaker 3 (57:45):
Okay? I cause I think I do think the attitude
towards wealth and stuff is a little different there than
it would be out here on the East Coast because
I think people on the East Coast are like, okay
with wealth more because so many people here have it.
I think Michigan is more rural and.
Speaker 6 (58:00):
More We were laughing to coming in this morning. We
couldn't afford to live here, although I have a lot
of money, a lot of success. But man, our driver
was telling us what some of these houses cost.
Speaker 2 (58:11):
Yeah, I got a real estate guy right here.
Speaker 4 (58:16):
There's no better place to be wealthy.
Speaker 5 (58:18):
I was gonna give you the other side, because no
one knows that apartment that you live in because from
the street, you're just like everybody else.
Speaker 4 (58:26):
And I know people.
Speaker 5 (58:27):
Billionaires who you would never know. You know, they don't
wear it on their sleeve and that kind of works
here sometimes.
Speaker 6 (58:35):
Oh, I bet I can see it. I'm a victim
of it. I mean, I'm a victim of my own
showing off is like I feel sorry for myself. But
I see what you're talking about exactly, because if I
had to do all over again, I'd have all this money.
I still live in the trailer park if I own
the trailer park, but no one know it, because it
saves you a ton of money when you get into
legal fees, when you get audited by the IRS. The
(58:56):
legal fees are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
Do you sometimes think having money is more hassle than
it's worth?
Speaker 3 (59:02):
No, dude, I'm glad you say that.
Speaker 2 (59:05):
I don't mean honestly, the way you were talking there,
it's like I don't really want this.
Speaker 6 (59:10):
No, No, I love it. You know, life's too short
not to have it. You can't take it with you.
So it's not all that. But one thing I do
for people, no matter who they are, I will absolutely
give everybody the best advice I possibly acount help you
get where you want to go. I find time of everybody,
and that's kind of my style. I did it in Detroit.
I went down to thirteen other states too, and had
(59:31):
the same success stories as far as the security guard business,
but same concept, just taking down the road and putting
up offices and you know, the brick and mortar and
then servicing. And I made a lot of people a
lot of money that listen to me. And I also
saw a lot of people get the money and they're
not responsible and they lose it for one reason or another.
So so I love money. I think everybody should love money.
(59:54):
That's why we all do it. A lot of people
are afraid to say that. All people say, well, you know,
I'm conservative, I'm doing this of my four to.
Speaker 2 (59:59):
One K and I got that because that's because they
don't want to live under the same microscope that you do.
Speaker 6 (01:00:05):
That's correct.
Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
Oh yeah, it's just a matter of how much are
you going to put up with? Right? And so it
does have an effect.
Speaker 3 (01:00:13):
I think, where do people get your book?
Speaker 6 (01:00:16):
My website's greg word dot com or more than just
luck dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:00:20):
Is it on Amazon?
Speaker 6 (01:00:21):
It's not released yet. It will be on March seventeenth.
Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
Oh so we got a pre copy?
Speaker 6 (01:00:25):
You did?
Speaker 8 (01:00:25):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
I can hardly wait to read it. I'm going to
read those last few pages about how I can do it.
Speaker 6 (01:00:30):
Yeah, I always be able to. It's a lot of fun.
After you figure it out, you can teach me.
Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
Well, this has been great, what a fantastic story and
amazing insights and so thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
So we're going to do something different. We're going to
have a group discussion the decisions that shape everything.
Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
Yeah, all right, So team of the show has kind
of been about trust, right, you know, Scott and Greg
you both talked about trust. So when you trust your
gut or when do you not trust your gut?
Speaker 5 (01:01:02):
Scott Harris, I will say that every decision that's ever
been good in my life has come from my intuition
every time, whether it's to marry the woman that I married,
never made a better decision in my life anytime that
intuition finally says, hey it's time you have to get quiet.
(01:01:23):
Sometimes it just it comes out. You're like, what you know,
you have that intuition, But how do you get there?
Speaker 4 (01:01:29):
Get there?
Speaker 5 (01:01:29):
Is most of the time by being present, just being
with yourself, you know, really like locking into whatever you're doing.
The most success I've ever had is just being there
with the person next to me. That's how you make
decisions when you say something, when to be quiet, when
to ask for the business, when not to when to
shut up.
Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
It seems to me like you've done some work on yourself.
Richard and I have done a ton of work on ourselves.
And there are lots of times when I just sit
in the silence and just kind of I've let my
mind wander. I'm not meditating. I'm just letting my mind go,
and I try to keep it focused on positive things.
But I think part of it is knowing yourself and
also just maybe tapping into the universe a little.
Speaker 4 (01:02:12):
I mean, that's your talk in my language.
Speaker 5 (01:02:14):
I go for runs, I go for walks, and I
have this phone in my pocket, and I have my
ears on, and I have an idea, and.
Speaker 4 (01:02:22):
I'm like, hey, Siri, make a note.
Speaker 5 (01:02:24):
It might even talk to me now, right, Like, I'm
constantly just getting it out from my head, out so
that I can make sure I capture it. I mean,
I have this creative energy that I can't control.
Speaker 4 (01:02:36):
It's got to come out. It comes out in my writing.
It comes out. I still write music. I was in
the music business.
Speaker 5 (01:02:41):
We didn't talk about that before I got into real estate.
But you have to just allow it out, and when
you get it out.
Speaker 4 (01:02:48):
There's more. It comes right behind.
Speaker 5 (01:02:50):
I mean, you've built how many businesses, my gosh, you
know you have an inspiration to do it.
Speaker 4 (01:02:54):
You're like, I can't not do it. I gotta do it.
Speaker 5 (01:02:57):
You light up when you start talking about your business.
That's what seems to bring you a lot of joy.
Speaker 6 (01:03:02):
Agree. I think intuition comes from the failures you had.
You've tried it, you fell down, you skin your knee.
You can't do that again. So the next time it
approaches itself, you already know from your past experiences this
did more class time or that's kind of I think
that were your gut comes hack. I'm with you one
hundred percent. It's got to feel good in the gut.
(01:03:23):
I don't do it.
Speaker 5 (01:03:23):
Every time I've made a decision that I didn't follow
my gut, bad always agree. I'm like, I knew this
was the wrong move, and I did it anyway, and
it blew up. Shocker, you know, like, never ever has
it failed me. I'm really grateful for that.
Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
So I'm going to I'm going to ask people here
for a little bit of advice. So we're in the
process of hiring a new marketing agency, and everything looked great,
really like the agency said all the right things. Seems
like a great fit. And yesterday I send her an
outline of the New Jersey business plan that was created
(01:04:00):
for life sciences, which is one of the sectors that
I work in, and I had a one page summary.
It is a twenty five page plan, and I asked it, well,
how does your heart law fit into this? And I've
sent it out to our team and I included her
and one of her members there. And she came back
(01:04:21):
and said, if you're going to be sending me crap
like this, I don't want to work with you.
Speaker 3 (01:04:26):
She did not say that exactly. Well, I mean, she
had a long explanation about why she didn't want to
get this kind of stuff, and.
Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
It was no, no, no, no, this is my story.
Speaker 11 (01:04:37):
Yeah, okay, let me let me finish it. Okay, no, no, no, no,
let me finish it. So I'm asking for their advice, okay, okay.
So in any case, now, I'm like, you know, however,
it came across as to me as kind of rudent offensive.
Speaker 4 (01:04:52):
Came across the way it came across to you, and
so I'm like, darn it.
Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
I mean, this was going to be the magic bullet.
But now with this email sitting there, I'm like, can
I have a relationship with her? Because I really felt,
you know, shut down. You're shaking your head like I
have Two things.
Speaker 5 (01:05:09):
I would say, yeah, you have, and you know, Gary
Gray probably agree. One, you get on the phone with
this person and you tell them, hey, this, you said
this in this email and I am upset, very carefully worded.
Speaker 4 (01:05:21):
You didn't make me upset. I'm upset.
Speaker 5 (01:05:23):
Right, have a real conversation and see what they say.
That's one thing you can do, and the other is
just to trust your gut. You're like, hmm, if this
is how she reacts over email, maybe it's not the
right fit. But you have to either. You have to
have a conversation. I would say, have the conversation because
regardless of what happens, like, I'm willing to have the
hard conversations. That's part of my real estate business. You
(01:05:45):
have to have the conversations. My wife's always like, don't
do it, don't do it, don't have that conversation.
Speaker 4 (01:05:50):
Don't say that to my mom. And I do it,
but I do it with love.
Speaker 5 (01:05:54):
And if you do, if you start with like I
care about you, and I was really, I'm really excited
about this relationship, and then this happened. They're not just
a thing. They're not that way. You're like, this happened,
and I'm upset, Like what do you have to say
about it? But maybe Greg has some different.
Speaker 6 (01:06:09):
I'm probably more old school. I believe the dog wags
the tail, and the tail it away with the dog.
You're with the customer. That's where I came from. Customer
service one hundred and I didn't I have to educate.
I had to sell the you know, the safety and security,
but it was a relationship. I've never in my career
ever told the customer, I don't want to do business
with you, especially in the beginning. It's not gonna go
(01:06:29):
anywhere down the road. Maybe after some time I canceled
them because they were just you know there, they just
won't cooperative or unreasonable. But if it gets offt bad,
it's like a bad date.
Speaker 4 (01:06:39):
Right, You've built the foundation is already cracked.
Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
Yeah, yeah, I would say.
Speaker 5 (01:06:42):
I mean, I'm saying this because it's there's never a
bad I say like everything can be solved in communication,
and this is like at least you know that, Like
you've had the conversation. I would say it's a good
practice to have it, but ultimately you probably are not
gonna do business with them.
Speaker 4 (01:06:57):
You're hurt. I hear it.
Speaker 5 (01:06:59):
Yeah, I mean it's such a fragile thing, Like it's
such a vulnerable thing.
Speaker 4 (01:07:02):
You're trying to build this new business.
Speaker 6 (01:07:04):
You have this.
Speaker 4 (01:07:04):
Exciting business plan. Someone that's believe in you believe it.
Speaker 6 (01:07:08):
Now you gotta walk on eight shells in the future.
Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
Scott Harris, founder of Magnetic real Estate. Greg Weir wi
e R Greg weird dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
It's been an amazing conversation.
Speaker 3 (01:07:18):
Passage to Profit with Richard Elizabeth Gearheart.
Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
We'll be back with more after this.
Speaker 7 (01:07:24):
Yay.
Speaker 4 (01:07:24):
Hear that.
Speaker 7 (01:07:24):
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Speaker 2 (01:08:23):
It's Passage to Profit. Now it's time for Noah's retrospective.
Speaker 3 (01:08:28):
Noah Fleischmann is our producer here at Passage to Profit,
and he never stops trying to make sense of the
future by looking at the pass I.
Speaker 9 (01:08:37):
Just found out about a brand new smartphone device that's
designed and functions like a vintage table telephone. I knew
it was only a matter of time. A friend of
mine who works with the elderly says it's a great
new innovation. I asked her, where can I get one?
Technology is always going to move ahead and fast, but
that doesn't mean you have to be that old to
prefer the grounded landscape that you remember best. Once his
(01:08:58):
phone thing catches on, we're gonna start seeing box shaped
television sets again, with curvature screens and a circular converter
dial with just the six channels you want. Six hundred
channels at once is a little too much for some
of us. After that, who knows, Maybe a renaissance in
print publications, wriskwatchers are gonna have no meaning all over again.
Maybe a return to phone books. But the good news
(01:09:20):
is there's plenty of traditional things in our lives that
will still never change. I was reminded of that the
other day when I was in the department store and
went online to use the restroom.
Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
Now more with Richard and Elizabeth Passage to Profit.
Speaker 3 (01:09:34):
And now it is time for secrets of the entrepreneurial mind.
Scott Harris withthmagneticr dot com. What is a secret you
can share with our listeners?
Speaker 4 (01:09:44):
It's so simple and it's so hard. Can you just
be with your client?
Speaker 5 (01:09:49):
Can you actually sit there and not be distracted by
your phone and not be thinking about the next appointment.
Can you just sit with them and actually listen with
no agenda? Can When you do that, you will be huge.
And the other secret, I think is a little bit
more actionable. Like sitting there is like a really hard thing.
It sounds easy. The other is just why don't you
(01:10:10):
decide that you're just going to help them however they
need help open your rolodex. I want to be of
service to you. That's what's built my whole business. I
just want to help people. I help one guy land
his biggest client. I help somebody else, you know, like
a credit rating guy, like constantly help people get jobs.
Speaker 4 (01:10:27):
Whatever it is. You put those deposits in the bank
of the universe and they come back with interest. Karma
Karma is undefeated. Karma's undefeated.
Speaker 3 (01:10:36):
I agree, so, Greg, we're with greg wear dot com.
What's a secret you can share with our audience?
Speaker 6 (01:10:42):
Always be available in our business to this day, again,
we pay people several amount of money, using one hundred
percent more than industry average. I do that because, first
of all, I want them be financially secure, but to
always be available. I want you on call twenty four seven,
No one's calling it a three o'clock a more. But
if your house is broken into, you need to get
hold of your sales guy or your tech whoever, then
(01:11:04):
answer that phone call. So I always say, it's not
a bunch of secrets, just as we're wide open about
it is just take care of the customer, and you
do that by being always available. We tell people we're
always available, our phones are always on, and that's a fact.
Has been that way since the beginning of a time
with me.
Speaker 3 (01:11:20):
I wonder you're successful, Richard your Heart with your Heart
law patents, Durdmark's copyrights. What's your secret?
Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
I think one secret is we deal with a lot
of clients who have products and inventions. You have to
understand what is the leverage, the business leverage that your
product or service offers. So what advantage do they get
by hiring you? And that advantage should exceed what they're
(01:11:46):
paying for it. And if you can build that model,
and if you have that concept in your business, you'll
be successful because people will see the value of what
you're offering.
Speaker 3 (01:11:58):
And I'm Elizabeth your Heart with your Media studios, and
my secret is going to be always read the fine print.
But you don't actually have to read the fine print.
What you can do is you can put the contract
through chat, GPT or Perplexity or Google. Gemina say tell
me the fine print and the reason I bring this up.
I'm not sure if everybody knows about this, but we
(01:12:20):
use this program called cap cut for editing video. Now
they've changed their terms of service. I'm like, I checked
the little box. I'm like, oh, okay, you change your
term of service. No, I had Gemini spell it out
for me. You retain, of course, the copyright to your work,
but they have an unlimited license forever to do whatever
they want with it, to use it in third party marketing, etc.
(01:12:42):
And I'm like, we are never putting anything on cap
cut again. We'll use the script to edit instead.
Speaker 2 (01:12:47):
So basically, if you edit a video of your kid's
birthday party, they have rights to that and they can
use it whenever they want, however they want, for the
rest of time.
Speaker 3 (01:12:57):
If we put this on there, they could take and
use it somewhere for their advertising or however they want.
It's a great but do you want it? I mean yeah,
I mean they could take your face and use it
as a model for who knows what. Right, and you've
given them an unlimited license to your content forever. So
(01:13:21):
read the fine print, but actually have Gemini or somebody
do it for you.
Speaker 2 (01:13:24):
Well that's all this week, Thanks for listening. Passage to
Profit is a Gear Media Studios production at the nationally
syndicated radio show appearing on forty stations across the US.
In addition, Passage to Profit has also been recently selected
by feed Spot Podcasters database as a top ten entrepreneur
(01:13:45):
interview podcast. Thank you to the P two P team,
our producer Noah Fleischman and our program coordinator Alicia Morrissey,
and our social media powerhouse Carolina Tabares. Look for our
podcast tomorrow anywhere you get your podcasts. Our podcast is
rank in the top three percent globally. You can also
find us on Facebook, Instagram, x and on our YouTube channel.
(01:14:06):
And remember, while the information on this program is believed
to be correct, never take a legal step without checking
with your legal professional first. Gearheart Law is here for
your patent, trademark and copyright needs. You can find us
at gearheartlaw dot com and contact us for free consultation.
Take care, everybody, Thanks for listening, and we'll be back
next week.
Speaker 1 (01:14:27):
The proceeding was a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed
The following is a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Is success about making the right move or having the
courage to keep going until you.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Do ramping up your business? The time is near. You've
given it hard, Now get it in gear. It's Passage
to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I'm Richard Gearhart.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, and we're your hosts.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to Passage to Profit, the Road to entrepreneurship. Today
we have Scott Harris, founder of Magnetic real Estate, who's
helped drive nearly two billion in New York property sales.
And he's also a national best selling author of the
Pursuit of Home, a real estate guide to achieving the
American Dream. And he'll be discussing the emotional mistake that
(00:54):
can turn your dream home into a costly regret.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
And then what does it take for a teenage father
with no safety net to become a top industry CEO,
real estate investor, music label founder and author of More
Than Just Look? Well you're gonna find out because we
have Greg We're here, and he is going to reveal
how relentless resilience turns setbacks into a stronger comeback.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
And on top of all this, we're going to unpack
how stolen AI secrets led to a federal conviction. But
before that, it's time for your new business journey. We'd
like to ask our panel, when you look back, what
was the one decision or moment that most changed the
trajectory of your business and what did it cost you
(01:42):
to make that decision. Scott, Welcome to the show. Tell
us about the decision that changed the trajectory of your business.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
I think the biggest decision I made.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
As you can imagine, you start out in real estate,
you start at at one shop that maybe moved to another.
But about four years into my business, I made a
moved to the third shop that I worked at, a
big box brokerage firm, and we took over marketing a
big building on the south side of Madison Square Park.
This is where the Statue of Liberty was put together,
(02:13):
all the pieces of the Statue of Liberty. And I
moved to this new company and I took over working
on the sales office for this big building that was
selves a three hundred and fifty million dollars sellout and
it ended in a huge blow up. The developer went
belly up, they had to sell the building to the
next person. And I learned so much in that one
(02:34):
year that I worked on this project, both the things
that my own greed, the greed of a developer, all
of the deal making that we did. It set me
in a direction that really opened my eyes to everything
I did since then.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Thanks for sharing, Greg, Welcome to the show. What was
the one decision you made that changed the trajectory of
your business?
Speaker 6 (02:54):
Early on in my career, as I ventured off to
my own business, there was like five of us partners
into a ten million dollar year business. Well because he
found out with that size of revenue and I making
a lot of money, and everybody had their own agendas.
So really, really early on, probably five years into our business,
my partner and I at the end decided to eliminate
(03:16):
three three of them. Buy them out.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Oh you buy them out? Like not use my field tactic.
Speaker 6 (03:23):
Don't like that? No, but no. And my best advice
anybody since that time is stay away from partnerships. Because
what I found out with my partner at the end
when I sold a large company in twenty twenty two
for all intense purposes. His life changed four or five
years before. So I could revenue continue to growing five
or ten million dollars a year and he was enjoying life.
(03:45):
Why Greg sat back and worked. So at the end
wait to put the profits equally. So as I venture
into the alarm business, We're in the process of buying
his partnership out now because it grows. Ai. We're popular,
we're big, But at the same time, I'm not interested
in doing it again to make somebody else. Rich self
an my best decision and mores decision was partnerships and
(04:09):
Vietnam and get rid of them. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Interesting, and it's tough to unwind those too, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yes. So in twenty ten, Richard and I bought a
building for his law firm and it has two stories.
And after COVID, well, everybody cleared out right, and we're like, well,
what should we do with this building? Now We've got
four thousand square feet and I'm like, nobody's coming back, right.
Richard goes in every day and one attorney and we
(04:35):
have a halftime paralegal. But nobody wants to buy commercial
real estate because nobody's going into work, right, So we
decided to make the top half of podcast studio. We
had been using it to do this show. Actually from
Richard bought all this fancy equipment, so we had like
this high end equipment and we decided to turn it
into a podcast studio. And that's the business I'm running now.
(04:55):
And it's kind of a little slow because the stars
are aligned against me. The ca keep shutting down the
roads in front of our buildings. Nobody can get to
the studio. But I do have clients. That is building
and it's fun.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I love it well. For my transition point, I think
a huge transition point in my career was when we
started doing the radio show. And it's kind of a
decision put yourself out there in the public, which I
had been reluctant to do for a long long time.
I'm mostly an introvert at heart, so taking a step
(05:28):
out there and putting myself out in front of other
people was transformative for me, and I think in the
long run it's helped me a lot. I think it's
given me confidence that I didn't have before. So my
point in my lesson is get out there and do
some things and if you are able to put yourself
out there through podcasts or blogging or whatever it is,
(05:53):
you'll evolve and I think you'll appreciate the results of
that so so much for your new business journey.
Speaker 6 (05:58):
Now, we're going to turn.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
To our guest, Scott Harris, founder of Magnetic real Estate,
who's helped drive nearly two billion in New York property sales,
and he's also a national best selling author of the
Pursuit of Home. What if everything you've been told about
buying and selling real estate is backwards? Well, Scott Harris,
(06:19):
founder of Magnet real Estate and architect of nearly two
billion in New York City property sales, says, most people
are chasing homes the wrong way and they're paying for it. So, Scott,
tell us, how did you get started in real estate
in the first place.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Getting started in real estate really began long before my
professional career began. My father is still in commercial real estate.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
He's a landlord.
Speaker 5 (06:44):
Where I grew up in New Orleans, my mom was
the marketing director for a big franchise of a big
national real estate firm. So I grew up with real
estate right around the kitchen table. Both from the sense
of learning about all the deals coming together on my
mom's side and with my dad, just how to run
a business, all the craziness of tenants. At the same
(07:05):
time my parents were divorced. I was going back and forth,
back and forth as a kid. I didn't think about
it until I really got involved in real estate years later,
and as I help people find homes, I realized something
was happening to me, and I realized I was kind
of healing the wounds of a broken home as a kid.
And when I finally realized that, it was like this
(07:27):
light bulb went off, and I just was able to
bring a lot more compassion to the process of what
people actually go through when they go to buy a home.
It's very different than what people see on TV. It's
very different than what people think. It's much much more
than just the transaction, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
I know we want to dig into that, but before
we do, I want to go back to He said,
how did you get the revelation that you were trying
to fix what went wrong in your childhood? Because the
reason I ask is so many of us are held
back by the trauma we endured as children. So how
did you come to that revelation.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
There's something so satisfying about helping someone find a home.
I mean, sure, salespeople and the deals and the rush
of all that, but it was something much deeper. I
really I want to help people. I want to understand
what makes people tick. That's always what I've loved. There's
something about every person that makes them interesting and great.
Everyone has a story, and I'm like a bartender. If
(08:24):
you sit next to me, odds are I'm going to
learn a whole lot of cool things about you because
I just kind of want to listen. And at some
point I'm like, you know, I'm doing something that's much
bigger than a real estate deal. It felt like it
was something sacred honestly, like I'm a part of their lives.
I'm baked into their lives forever. And as I sort
of unpacked that maybe seven eight years ago, I started
(08:44):
to really think about it and that realization of what
we're doing like that was helping me. It allowed me
to be a lot more vulnerable with my clients and
like be more real with them. I could have said
that that was the turning point for my business too,
but I had a lot of successes for that, but
just getting real with people and you start to connect
and you go, wait a minute, what's happening here.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
But it took a long time of kind of self exploration.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
In your book, The Pursuit of Home you take a
pretty kind of psychological approach to the whole process of
home buying, and you talk about the different needs that
are being met when somebody goes through the process of
buying a home.
Speaker 5 (09:24):
A lot of buyers and sellers look at real estate
agents say, oh, these are people that open the door.
They open the door, and then they make a bunch
of commission. I would turn the whole thing on its head.
About ninety five percent of the time we're doing anything
but the transaction. Sure, you have to know your business,
but we're therapists, we're cheerleaders or coaches or marriage counselors,
(09:45):
all these other things. I mean, I was a psych
major in college and I was a history minor. It's
like where people and their stories come together. That's what's
going on. You're managing the people. It's a people first business.
And if you treat it like a transaction, and a
lot of agents start by doing that, I know I
sure did.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
I went in.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
Thinking, oh, I just want to get the deal done
and get paid and all this stuff. And then a
couple of years in, I'm like, it doesn't feel right
at all, and I had to shift gears, and I
started to realize that people are trying to do something
big in their lives, and if you come from that
future place, when you're there and you help them paint
that picture, all of a sudden, the process changes because
they know you care and you're focused on what you're
(10:23):
trying to help them achieve, rather than just how many bedrooms,
you know, what school district.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
And things like that.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
So one of the things that you mentioned is sometimes
you act like a counselor marriage counselor can you give
us an example of how that actually played itself out
in a transaction?
Speaker 6 (10:39):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (10:40):
All the time.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
But let's say there was a couple I sat with.
They wanted to buy an apartment here in Manhattan where.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
I do business.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
And I'm sitting there listening to the husband and I'm
listening to the wife. He says something.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
She shoots him down.
Speaker 5 (10:53):
She's like diminished, kind of just knocking him, knocking him
and something just didn't add up. I'm watching this on
like I'm creating space for them to for the first time,
because I would say most people spend more time planning
their vacation than they ever do planning for what is
really the biggest thing they're going to do, one of
the most consequential things they do. So they're in the
(11:14):
room and I'm just allowing them to kind of hear
each other, and something is they're just talking past each
other or even worse, they got divorced a year later, right,
And so I'm kind of at the front end of
just creating, like what is this going to be?
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Because they have different communication styles.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
It's just like marriage, they have to come together, but
when it comes to the home, they often haven't had
anyone listen to them or asking these questions. Not everybody
goes to marriage therapy either, right, not everybody thinks.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
They need it.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
But in that sense, it's really important to allow them
to hear each other talk. And I'm just I'm like
that fly on the wall. The psychology of real estate
is really about the people. And I have a whole
system that I call the magnetic method that's all about
how do you manage people from here to the closing table.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Well, emotions do play a large part I love to
watch love it or list it, do you know?
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Yeah? And so people will be in this tiny little
house and they can get another house that's much bigger,
but they redo the tiny little house and they've always
lived there, and so they stay in the tiny little house.
That's a completely emotional decision, right because they could have
had a better house. So how do emotions play into
this and how do you work with that?
Speaker 5 (12:20):
Well, when we sit down with them, you start to
get a sense of their communication style. But all the while,
I know that buying a home moving is one of
the most stressful things.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
People put themselves through.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
So I'm meeting people at their absolutely most stressed out.
So my job is to stay super calm. You know,
I'm here like I've seen it before, yell at me,
do whatever you need to do. I don't take anything personally,
and people often as the process goes along, at every step,
people's baggage, people's emotional stuff shows up. They get an
(12:51):
accepted offer on a property and all of a sudden
they freak out. If they have trust issues, then the
trust issues come out. If they have money issues, the
money issues come out. If they have been burned, just
relationship issues. I really think the homeland process is an
emotional journey. It's actually a self help program in a
lot of ways, and it's one that most Americans go through,
(13:12):
absolutely biggest self help program that there is, essentially, And how.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Do you feel when you're going through this process.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
I am so in love with my clients. The crazier
they are, the more I love them. I've talked to
my agents yesterday. They're having like she's their agents. The
buyers are having a meltdown about something, and I said,
have some compassion for these people. They are so stressed out.
They're trying to sell, they're trying to buy their kids,
(13:41):
They're throwing their whole life into the up in the air,
and it's stressful. And I often hear this every time
they introduce me. That person's crazy, right, that person's crazy.
That person's crazy. They're not crazy. They're just human beings.
And I just have a lot of compassion for what
they're going through and I'm here to guide them to
really be that force for good for them. And when
(14:02):
it's at the end of the day, if they find
a home that they love, it's going to change the
course of their life. I mean the house is like
a foundation for everything they want to do in their lives.
It's a partnership between them and this house. People start
their businesses in their house. I mean, how many garage
bands garage businesses start That house is a big deal,
(14:23):
and if they get it wrong, it could really cause
a lot of problems in their lives too.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
So in the real estate world, is your brand the
compassionate realtor the understanding realtor? How would you define yourself
and how could somebody build a brand like that?
Speaker 4 (14:37):
It takes a willingness to listen to the feedback you get.
A lot of.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
Times I wouldn't say I'm when I'm a nice guy,
something has gone wrong because being nice is telling people
what they want to hear. I would, if anything, I
want to be thought of as a kind person, because
kindness can be tough.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
Love.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
Kindness is telling people what they need to hear. But
buyers or sellers have come to me and said, I'm
calling you because someone told me that you were a
lovely broker. Those are two words that don't go together.
And I started to hear things like you're not a jerk,
You're not a beep, you know, like you're not a
bad guy, and we have a reputation that's probably along
(15:20):
the same lines as tow truck drivers and meter maids.
Like real estate agents are not well thought of, and
every business I've ever been in, a lot of them
are shady. I have a bad reputation. I want to
be that of challenge same time, right exactly.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
So find that a lot of the real estate agents
in our neighborhood, I hope, but I'll get in trouble
for this. It feels like they're very prima donna ish
and they're just doing it for their own egos. I
do you find a lot of people are that way
in your business.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
I think agents get that reputation because we have to
market ourselves and we have to put ourselves so out
there to be top of mind, and it can feel
a little tacky. Just it triggers you because you don't
want to be that person doing that, and it's you're
really putting yourself out there in such a big way.
You're on a billboard, you're on a bus stop, you're
(16:07):
on the side of a bus right like it's it's
such a weird thing to do. And so I understand
how it feels like they're doing it for themselves. But
I have to say, like I do all these videos
and I'm on podcasts and stuff, I would rather just
hang out with you one to one. And it's it's
sort of a necessary thing that agents have to do sometimes.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
I'm not defending them.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
By the way, No, No, I just think there's different perceptions.
You don't seem like a real estate agent like the
ones i've met.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
I get that all the time.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah, you seem a lot more real and it's I'm
sure it's a difficult position to be put in because
people this is their biggest purchase of their lives probably,
and they're gonna blame you some something goes wrong, right.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Oh, all the time, I'm the bad guy. What happens
is before.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
The closing, I get blamed for everything, and then I
will get a call after because I just I just listen,
let them get there, you know, run, take as much
time as you need to get out your energy, and
then they call me later like I'm sorry, I'm really
happy in this home and all of that. But yeah,
we're we end up being the brunt. We bear the
brunt of a lot of emotions, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
So what do you do when the couple are at
odds and diametrically opposed and have completely different visions of
what their house should be and what they should look like.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
I'll take it a step further. I'm working with a
couple right now.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Of course I don't kiss and tell, but they want
to spend about three million dollars in Manhattan on the
East Side, which you think, oh, that's so much money. Maybe,
but it's like a two bedroom apartment right Sometimes the
wife is so excited. They live on the West Coast.
They want to have a place here. The husband, I know,
has no interest in buying. He literally sabotages everything they see.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
And I'm okay with it. It's going to take as
long as it takes.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
What will end up happening is that the wife will
end up saying, buddy, we're doing this and I don't care,
and she'll make it happen.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
But I have to.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
It's almost like you just have to let I call
it a line. There are four steps to my magnetic Man,
and the first is just getting people activated and off
the couch. The second is getting the two people. Usually
it's a couple getting them aligned. And right now I'm
just letting them act out, you know, letting the husband
just shoot down things that I'm watching and we're just
letting it happen. We're not getting confrontational, but it takes time.
(18:17):
When they're diametrically opposed. You have to Sometimes you're a therapist,
You're like, I hear you saying this. I hear you
saying this. You have to really be careful with the
way you communicate so they know you care and that
you're not just. You can ruin trust so quickly if
you do or say the wrong thing. These are super
successful people with a lot of money. This is the
(18:37):
most liquid market in the country, and it's crazy how
you have to wear the money hat and the emotional
hat and just know when to trade hats.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
When you are coaching other real estate agents, what are
some of the things that you tell them not to
do to destroy trust?
Speaker 5 (18:57):
You have to be very careful about how you explain
things so that when you put forms and things in
front of them, they don't go, what is this? They
don't get because automatically the trust level, the trust level
is so low.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
You have to build the trust and be.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
Very strategic about when you have these conversations and you
have to it's care first, care first, care first. I
think one of the biggest mistakes it's not what you're
saying to the client, it's just when they're acting out,
you come to me and you just all you do
is complain about how they're this and they're that, And
I'm like, these are human beings going through a tough thing.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Your job is to care for them.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
When they know you care about them, the door opens
and you get to hold their hand and get them.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
You will get them to the closing table. But it's hard.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Well, that's great. We're with Scott Harris from Magnetic real Estate.
Speaker 6 (19:46):
Coming up.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
We'll talk more with Scott, and later we'll hear about
the Google engineer caught selling AI secrets to the Chinese companies.
Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Careheart will be
back right after this commercial break.
Speaker 7 (19:59):
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Speaker 2 (21:58):
Now back to Passage to prom once again.
Speaker 8 (22:01):
Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
And our special guest, Scott Harris, founder of Magnetic real
Estate and national best selling author of the Pursuit of Home,
A real Estate Guide to Achieving the American Dream. Scott,
what's your book about?
Speaker 5 (22:15):
What I describe is that what you see on TV,
on reality TV, what you see on social media has
really skewed the perception of what real estate really is
and what it is. Buying a home is an emotional
journey that you start on and it is a roller
coaster that ultimately ends hopefully with a lot of self
(22:36):
awareness of who you are and who you're becoming, and
that home can be a tangible representation of who you
are and who you're becoming. Right, And it's a roadmap
how do you get off the couch, into the closing
table and beyond. And it's really you could also call
this book the psychology of real estate. It's what actually
happens that no one talks about and everyone goes through.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
So everybody should have to read this before they get.
Speaker 5 (23:01):
Their license, right, whether they get their license as real
estate agents, or whether this is the book that real
estate agents wish their buyers would read. Oh okay, people
just don't think about this as a real emotional journey,
as a psychological maybe a spiritual journey.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
So buyers go in this half cocked.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
They don't even realize that finding the right agent is
a huge deal.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
So huge. How do you find the right agent for you?
Speaker 5 (23:28):
Well, we're talking about one is like, if I'm talking
to home buyers, how do they find the right agent?
Get to know your own communication style, interview a couple
of agents. You don't just go with your cousin or
go with your friend. They may not speak your language.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
So somebody once told me pick the agent has the
most signs up in the neighborhood you want to live in.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
Well, we talked earlier about having that feeling that the
agent really has their own interest at heart. If you
feel that way about an agent, you don't hire them.
Speaker 6 (23:58):
Right.
Speaker 5 (23:59):
You can be an agent for twenty five years and
be so self centered that you kind of like feel
you might the buyer might feel like an afterthought. And
somebody who might be doing this for two years cares
deeply about you, and they can work on a team
or at a company where they learn enough about the
real estate process. They're the perfect agent.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
And because they care about you and the transaction, there's
a higher likelihood of success of you getting the home
that you want because you're working with somebody who cares
about the outcome what happens.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
It's a very easy You don't have to This is
not a neck up decision. If you are with an
agent and all of a sudden you feel frustrated, like
they're not listening to you, they're sending things that don't
really work, they're just it's not a connection. You can't
focus on what's most important for you. That's a really
easy litmus test. Are you frustrated? Do you feel like
they're not talking to you in a way. Are they
(24:52):
not giving you the information in the way that you
can process it? You know, if you're emotional, it's very easy.
In the book I talk about what there's an assessment, right,
there's an assessment that it's free resources.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
It's on our website too.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
But you can very quickly understand what is your personality type,
what's your communication style, and then interview them and see
how you feel it does it. It's not complicated at all.
Anyone can understand, oh, this person this works. Even if
you don't know your communication style, you just use that
as a litmus test.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
It'll work.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
But if you get to know your own personality, you
can actually tell someone, hey, i'm going to need more data.
I'm going to need I'm going to take a long
time to make a decision. I'm gonna have to see
a lot of houses. And some agents might go, well,
I'm not going to work with you, and some of the
other agents like, I get it, you're a data driven
person and somebody else is like an executive. They're like,
if I can't read it in three bullet points on
(25:44):
my phone. I'm not reading it. They just want you
to build trust and then take care of it for them. Right,
you have to know who your buyer is. And I
tell buyers you don't have to change. You don't have
to change your personality. It's my job as an agent
to change your personality to you understand and navigate your personality.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Well, when Richard and I moved up to the northeast
to New Jersey, we came from the Atlanta area, so
we had a four thousand square foot house in Atlanta
that sold for a Pitton school.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
Dollars.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
We came up here and we were crying anyway, the
company assigned us a real estate It was this little
old lady, and I was like, is she the right
agent for us? But it turned out she was, and
she was very patient with us because we were, of
course freaking out looking at these like older, smaller houses.
(26:40):
She drove me through the neighborhood and said, if you
ever find a house for sale in this neighborhood, this
is where you should buy, which we did and that
was probably the best real estate decision we've ever made. Really. Yeah,
So she was right, but I think her thing was
she really knew the area. And when you're coming from
out of town to someplace you really want some buddy
(27:00):
who knows the step but doesn't have their ego all
involved in selling you like a house you can't afford, right.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Yeah, it's sitting with you.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
And I talk about this very early on in the book.
The questions that most websites. If you go on any
real estate website, it's like how many bedrooms? What's your neighborhood?
You know, do you want to be next to this
church or that or whatever. These are all the wrong
questions to start with, because you get totally intimidated by
the price point and you shut down. The questions should
(27:28):
be starting with who are you? What are you about?
Like just getting to know, like what are you trying
to do? You're moving to this area? Why are you
moving here? Try to understand, like what are you trying
to achieve in your life? If you get that right,
people just relax and all of a sudden they'll open
up and they'll start saying things, and they won't even
realize what they wanted because they start with a checklist.
(27:51):
Ninety nine percent of the time that checklist is not
the real checklist, The real checklist kind of emerges.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
And it comes out only after people feel comfortable.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
There was one thing on our checklist that was not
negotiable though we moved up here, and right after we
moved up it snowed like crazy. So the one thing
was a two cartas.
Speaker 9 (28:09):
Right.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
You know yourself, you live in Atlanta.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
You live in Atlanta. You do not want to ever
shovel snow. You get very used to no snow.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
You didn't want to shovel snow. Does it sometimes seem
like people don't really know what they want?
Speaker 5 (28:21):
Sometimes every time, if you think about anything in the world,
in the world that you've been exposed to, nothing is
more than homes. You're in homes, you're at your friend's homes.
You've lived in lots of homes. You've gone to summer
camp and you're in a cabin. You're everywhere as a space.
And on TV every day you're seeing all of these images,
(28:42):
every commercial, every TV show, everything is a house in
a space.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
You have this.
Speaker 5 (28:47):
Preconceived notion of what it's supposed to be. Nancy Meyer movies.
Every house is beautiful. It doesn't matter if you're like
a like a janitor. You have a gorgeous house. This
doesn't make any sense. So you have to unpack, kind
of get below all of this noise, cut through it
to get to what's real. So every time what actually
(29:08):
is important to you is something else, and you have
to be open to learning what that is. And it's
a really fun thing when people go, oh, I didn't
realize that because they go into a house and there's
a checklist that it's supposed to check all the boxes
and they walk in and they don't like it and
they're like, what is going on?
Speaker 4 (29:24):
I don't understand.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
But you have to cut through that to really understand,
like what you actually would love that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Scott Harris, founder of Magnetic real Estate. It's been an
amazing conversation. But before we leave the segment, Scott, what
is the one thing, the most important thing that you
want to leave our audience with when it comes to
buying or selling a house.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Be prepared.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
Take some time to be prepared before you start, get
clear on why are you doing this, what is most
important to you, Start to understand your own communication style,
Take a beat and just get to know yourself as
much as you can, and talk to your spouse seventy
percent of people are buying with a partner. So whether
you're Marrit or not, if you take that minute to
(30:07):
be a little bit more prepared, this process can be fun.
It can be fun. I promise it can be fun.
It does not have to be stressful. It can be
actually much more enjoyable if you just get a little
bit more prepared.
Speaker 6 (30:19):
That's great. And where can people find you?
Speaker 5 (30:21):
Well, if they want to look up the book The
Pursuit of Home, they can go to Pursue your Home
dot com, where you can get free resources. There's a
whole bunch there that they don't have to necessarily buy
the book right away.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
And if they want to learn about what I do
with my.
Speaker 5 (30:35):
Real estate agents in my real estate business, they can
go to magnetic R dot com.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
And now it's time for our AI segment, Elizabeth take
it away.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Now it is time for real AI use cases Business
owners round table, and I am going to start with
Scott Harris, founder of Magnetic real Estate, and his website
is magneticr dot com. And I am going to ask him, Scott,
one is one way that you're using AI in your business?
Speaker 5 (31:04):
My favorite way that I'm using it in my business
is that we are sifting through so many new listings
and listings that have been updated with this and that,
and we are actually able we curate like we don't
just send listings to our clients, we actually curate them like, hey,
this is something, this is why we like it, We've
sold in the building, this and that. It speeds up
(31:25):
that curation process a ton because we match We have
our buyer lists with all of what they're looking for,
what they're looking for and the new listings, and AI
will match them up for us and spit out you
know what ticks all the boxes within that and then
we can look at it. It saves us sometimes hours
and we spend a lot. That's one of the things
we spend the most time. It can be a little
tedious and it takes us away from engaging with the clients.
(31:48):
So AI is really helpful. I think it's going to
make good agents so much more productive. Because seventy percent
of real estate agents do zero to one deal a year.
Those agents are either going to do more or they're
going to get out of the business.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
People that won't use it won't stay in the business. Absolutely,
So Greg Weir and I want to say that his
last name is spelled w I e R. So Greg
Weir with greg wear dot com and his book More
Than Just Luck. One is one way that you're using
AI in your business.
Speaker 6 (32:19):
Well, I have a secondary business. It's called Prudential Alarms
and there we sell AI cameras, so license plate readers.
When somebody pulls into a lot, if there was a
criminal or something wasn't wanted to immediately notify the authorities.
Gunshots and schools. If allowed bangles off in the school,
it will detect a gunshot versus a drop book or something.
(32:40):
Cameras are every single day. They change. We do everything
from prisons to universities, you know, you name it, we
do it. But it's just typically your change in every
single day. So we in facial recognition. That's the latest one.
It's literally updated every single day. Some people saw last
week during the Super Bowl. I did not see the
commercial Well where ring doorbell of Solder systems to flock.
(33:05):
I guess an agency that all the police agencies use,
and come to find out that becomes were can talk
a little bit later. It goes into intellectual property and
property rights and AI. But that's all AI generated. And
if you notice the like the woman that just disappeared
in in Arizona. Yeah, that was elaborate A camera to
pick that up, That's what that was. That was probably
(33:26):
AI camera. If I had to guess, Okay, so just
a simple ring, they say it's a ring doorbell, but
I would I would probably second to guess probably not.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
So you're using it in your cameras. I hadn't heard
that before. That's pretty cool. I hadn't heard the real
estate one. So Richard Gearheart with your heart law, what's
one main way you're using AI.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Well, one way that we're trying to use AI and
we haven't but we haven't gotten it worked out yet
is we have an intake process when we work with
new clients, and there's files that have to be set
up and engagement letters that have to be signed, and
then we want to make sure we capture all the
right information about the client, and so we're trying to
automate that. I have to say it has not been
(34:05):
as smooth as I would have liked, but we're going
to keep working at it. But we feel that there
could be definite advantages in using AI to build that system.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
And I'm Elizabeth Gearheart with Gear Media Studios. And the
way I'm using AI. I'm using it for this podcast. Hey,
I am business And what I'm doing is I'm using
it to generate large language model optimized descriptions to put
on the website for this podcast and to put in
the show notes, and then schema code, which is a
code that goes in the background to make it easier
(34:38):
for large language models to read the transcripts of this
so that eventually, when everybody's going to chat GPT or
perplexity or Google Gemini for their answers instead of doing
like a regular search, the snippets hopefully from this show
will show up. So I'm using it to optimize for
LM search. But I know that you have a lot
(35:00):
more to say.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
It's endless. I use it as a thought partner. It's
like it's like the best assistant I've ever had.
Speaker 5 (35:08):
It speeds up my research. When I was writing the book,
it helped me all the citations. When I sort of
use it to think through I do a lot of writing,
you know social media. It helps me think through things,
helps me map that out.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
I think you bring up a good point too, and
that is you can ask AI for references. So when
they come to a conclusion or they give you information,
you can say, well, what's your source for that?
Speaker 6 (35:36):
Right?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
And I think sometimes that's important. We were looking at
a software not too long ago, and it sounded great,
and then we asked, well, what is the source for that? Well,
it's the website that they put up, and so of
course that's going to be full of marketing stuff, right,
And so you have to double check sometimes make sure
that the place that they're getting the information for the
(35:58):
answers is someplace that you can respect. And sometimes a
website might be fine. I'm not knocking that, but in
this particular case, it was it was marketing stuff. It
wasn't the real technical specs of the website.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
This has been aiuse cases. Business Owners Round Table. You're
listening to the Passage to Profit show. We will be
right back.
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Speaker 1 (38:16):
Passage to Profit continues with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Quick shout out to our friends at WKAJ eleven twenty
am and ninety seven point nine FM in Utica, New York.
Thanks for listening and if you're new here. Passage to
Profit is a top ranked entrepreneurial podcast and radio show
heard in thirty eight markets. It's a place where founders
share what really works. And now it's time for IP news.
(38:44):
The race for artificial intelligence just turned into a criminal conviction.
A former engineer at Google has now been convicted in
federal court. Prosecutors said that he stole confidential AI trade secrets.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
What was he convicted of, Richard.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Well, he was convicted of stealing trade secrets and espionage
and he stole stuff from Google like advanced AI model,
proprietary chip, and data center infrastructure. And none of this
stuff was publicly available. They were all trade secrets of Google.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Well, what's amazing is that this was not a civil lawsuit.
It was criminal, criminal prosecution. So that tells you how
seriously the government's treating AI technology right.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
And federal trade secret theft carries some pretty heavy penalties.
Aside from damages and fines, you can also go to jail.
So this is something that is happening to this former
Google employee.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
So it's really shifting the narrative from oh, this is
just normal corporate competition where we're stealing each other's secrets
to protecting strategic technology as a national security issue, right right.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
And given the importance of artificial intelligence and the AI
race between China and the US, this stuff is important
and when we have people who are transferring this information illegally,
it hurts our competitive position.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
Right, and AI is now viewed as a strategic asset.
It's used in defense systems, advanced computing, cybersecurity, infrastructure. So
governments see AI dominance as economic and military leverage.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Absolutely, it's not just about chatbots. It's about how our
financial systems and healthcare systems work, and logistics and national defense.
And so whoever controls this AI has a big competitive advantage.
And they also control a lot.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Right, And so innovation is accelerating, but so as enforcement.
And we've spoken on this show many times about copyright
enforcement with AI, and we've continually said the courts have
to get involved, and now it seems like they are
because there has to be some legality wrapped around this.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Absolutely, And you know a lot of people assume that
patents protect all of this technology, but they're really trade secrets.
This is intellectual property, and know how that's held by
the tech companies and the only way they can protect
it is to keep it secret.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
Well, and I remember learning as a kid out Eli
Whitney memorized the mechanics of the contingent and brought them
over to the United States and built one in the
United States. That took months. This takes literally nanoseconds to
steal copy.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Absolutely, and so in the twentieth century it was all
about oil and nowadays it's all about algorithms.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
So what does this mean for everyday people?
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Well, good question.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
You know AI is in your life, whether you want
it to be or not. So it's in banking, healthcare, transportation,
national defense, and the security of those systems really matter
to all.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Of us, absolutely, and it comes down to trusting the
tech companies that are responsible for managing all of that,
and that's really a stretch for me. It's really comes
down to seven or eight people in the world who
have control over these systems, and we'd like to think
that they're working in the best interests of us all,
(42:24):
but that may not be the case.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Well, the innovation is exciting and everybody's wondering where it's going,
but the accountability and security are becoming just as important,
if not more so. I think.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah, And in the age of AI, the most valuable
asset is stuff that you really can't see. It's the
information and how it's protected will definitely shape how we
move forward in the future.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
So that segues us right into our next segment. Greg
weir wi Er Greg weir dot com. He has worked
in security. He's done a number of things in his life.
He's pretty amazing. He's had many ups and downs. Welcome
to the show, Greg. We want to hear your story,
and we were talking about security in the last segment.
How did you start? I know you got married right
(43:10):
out of high school. I did, and you probably weren't
rich then.
Speaker 6 (43:14):
Absolutely not to know.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
So what is your story?
Speaker 6 (43:18):
Mine was just a matter of knowing you had to
do something to make up with yourself. Some people dream
it and some people do it. As one of those
guys that always thought that if you do it, kind
of follow the routine of education, you know, from post
education out of high school and college. I mean, although
I couldn't afford it, I don't have any money, so
that was the choice. Wasn't really an option, but I thought,
(43:39):
you know what, if I can find something to do,
I'll be the best at it. So I literally went
out and got a job making four dollars an hour
as a security guard and kind of learned everything I
could about the business. I took every job, every account,
and I got to know people. I learned early on
the power to businesses, relationships, and then I spent about
love in the years with the international company, learned a
(44:03):
lot and I decided to actually move here to New
York or or stay in Detroit. And I chose stay
in Detroit and left that company and I went into
my own business. It was it was tough. I didn't realize,
you know, making pay every week was a problem.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
It was.
Speaker 6 (44:16):
It was quite the hassle of some of the things
I never had to deal with before. But once you
get past that, just do what you say you're gonna do,
do it consistently, and you know you'll find out that
once the customer learns that about you, they'll stay with you.
So I was fortunate in my you know, forty year
or twenty nine year career, but on my own I
probably kept ninety five or percent or more of the
(44:39):
customers I had from day one because we did we
say we're going to do. And then from there it
is just doing strategies, developing good people. I mean, you know,
you're you're only so good and you're only one person.
So along the way you have to develop people and
to get loyalty, and they have to work hard for you.
They have to trust each other, and I think we
should do that. It's just it's really I don't make
(44:59):
it sound simple, but those are all kind of the
ingredients to becoming something. And somebody so taking something from
absolutely nothing and turned it into a fortune using those basity.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
Ingredients and was more than just luck.
Speaker 6 (45:12):
Right, it was absolutely more than just luck.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Which is the name of your book, it is.
Speaker 6 (45:16):
Well.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
I love your story because it shows that America is
still a place where you can start anywhere, and you know,
with a lot of perseverance and fortitude, you can achieve
a lot, You can achieve your goals. And so I
was looking through the show notes here and it says
that you faced betrayal, business collapse, and even attempts on
(45:39):
your life. Oh yeah, tell us about that who tried
to kill you?
Speaker 6 (45:43):
Business partners? That's where I formed my opinions from.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
No wonder you don't want any partners.
Speaker 6 (45:49):
Well, our revenue base, you know, starting off, you have
nothing and you have a dream, and then over time
you build it. I personally have built over one billion
dollars a year in my lifetime career, about a billion
billion two And along the way, people you start collecting money.
You start collecting cars and houses and vacations and they
see you're in their way. So it's one particular partner.
(46:11):
I went to a it's in the book. Went to
Lake Cumberland house boat part like a company getaway for
the weekend in Kentucky, and we're on wave runners and
I flipped one. Anybody those voter safety is hands up
in the air, things flipped over, don't go near the area.
This guy went right at me and just ran me over,
and on purpose, absolutely purpose.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Yes, who was he?
Speaker 6 (46:34):
Business partner? Who what the name is in the book,
But you know I know them back. But that's just
what people do. Another time, another business partner. He started
doing side deals, something I was against with his drug partner.
So I go to Florida on an office down in
Fort Lauderdale, and I had his gut feeling, just his
(46:57):
gut feeling, don't don't stay in this room. So I
was at the holiday and on the ocean, and I
moved about them out down the road. I go back
the next morning and the room's absolutely ran sect and
tour apart. They were looking for it. They were looking
for me, of course, because the dollars was so high.
I mean, in the security guard business, it's a it's
a multiplayer. So if you have a fifty million dollar
year companies is what I sold, it's worth a lot
(47:18):
of money.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
Your life is like an action movie anywhere.
Speaker 6 (47:22):
The whole thing was so looking at it being the
best in that industry. I probably was and probably still
the best in it. But it was all done through
just you know, elbow grease. You can't go to school
and learn that stuff. Nobody's learning that in college. You
just got to do the job.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
But how did you maintain resilience through all of that?
Is that just something you do or did you have
ways to build yourself back up after these.
Speaker 6 (47:49):
You have to You surround yourself with people, and those
people rely on you. They have the nice houses and
cars and you know kids in college, and if you
fall down, you can't get back up. You've now let
them down. So the driving force is really for someone else,
because once you have financially everything in life you need
(48:10):
or want, you can walk away, but you want you
want others to join you. And that was the fun
of it. So as a person eccentric, I mean, my
style was taking twenty five thirty people, whether it be
the Las Vegas or San Juan Puerto Rico or you know,
San Diego, wherever we wanted to go for that year.
It was all the expenses paid. You know, we had
(48:31):
sweet said arenas that costs you know, half million dollars
a more year, plus plus plus. So we were fun
to work with. We were a fun company. And when
you do those things, you have so so much you'll
have a choice. You're so deep because really, until you sell,
you really are financially well off because you're deep. So
what the resilience is, it's called survival.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
So when you got married and you had a child,
or your wife had a child shortly thereafter, how old
were you?
Speaker 6 (48:58):
I was eighteen and she was six team.
Speaker 3 (49:00):
Are you still married?
Speaker 6 (49:01):
Yes, forty two years later.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
You know, I have a lot of respect for you
because a lot of guys would have just walked away
from that, right.
Speaker 6 (49:08):
Oh yeah, I mean that's that's what I was. I'm
not gonna you know, coming out of high school, wasn't
the guy that was probably marriage material. But you know,
once you grow up together and it's kind of fun,
like seeing you two work together, it's kind of fun.
It's not the money anymore. I think it's more of
the fun. It's it's the excited of growing up with
her was pretty much it. We were kids, you know,
so you know, going out and working twenty hours a
(49:29):
day or there was no cell phones back then. I'll
see you tonight walking at eleven, twelve, one, two, three,
four o'clock in the morning. There's a lot of trust
issues you have there. We've had one argument our entire marriage.
One well, just one.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
We beat you out that school.
Speaker 6 (49:47):
Just one. But we're fortunate, we're blessed. I don't you know,
if you work hard, I believe things come to you.
But just because you work hard doesn't mean it's going
to happen. But at the same time, I'll give it
your all. And that's a lot of people don't.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
We were talking earlier about trust, right, and so you've
been through all of this stuff with people like trying
to kill you, but you still have to be able
to trust people to do business right. So how do
you figure that out? How do you set boundaries or
guardrails to still trust people? But also, I guess, watch
(50:21):
what you're doing.
Speaker 6 (50:22):
Find of the last twenty years in business, I allowed
people to my life, our parties that my house would
be five or six hundred people. Wow, being out all
the time, with them being part so I kind of
shut them out. I changed course because people knew too
much about me. They knew the cars I was driving,
or how I live, how my house is laid out,
(50:44):
and so I kind of changed the way things were done.
And then like people get so close anymore, and then
I pick and choose who I do business with them.
You can work with me or for me, but that
doesn't mean you get to know me. And I think
because of that, because of those threats and because of
those things, that courage is kind of the reality of
the situation. People typically are evil and everyone has an
(51:05):
AGENDAI believe you know, when you meet somebody, they call you, hey,
how you doing greg They want something, most likely, and
jealousy drives a lot of it. Jealousy drives a lot
of that hatred and those threats, and you know it's wow.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
So you've kind of paid a price for your success.
Speaker 6 (51:22):
I laid out in the book. I didn't pull any
punches whatsoever. I laid out the truth. I wanted to
lay out a story, a story about a you know,
a kid that was poor, broke, made something of himself
through hard work, never stole anything, never went to jail,
never got in trouble, never did a drug, rarely drink.
Just stay focused, say this, say that, and then I
just kind of took it to how so this is
(51:44):
what happened. And then the last maybe one hundred pages
tells you how to do it, how to work, sacrifice,
what you have to do When I sit in the
couch and do TikTok videos, You're probably are going to
get wealthy. And you know, people say, you know, money
isn't everything. Well, the truth is it is. It may
not be big, money may not be everything, but you
need money to survive. And if you have a child,
(52:05):
I think if responsibile as a parent to provide for them,
whether it be clothes or shoes, or education or cars
or whatever, that's what's wrong with the world.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
I think, well, it's hard to be happy if you
don't have money anyway. Scott Harris, do you have a
question or comment. I think it's fascinating.
Speaker 5 (52:21):
I mean, when you started out, has it shifted from
where you started with trust to now when you start
with maybe mistrust or where you always you were in
a business that was security based. So it seems like
you might be naturally mistrustful to begin with, and that's
not good or bad.
Speaker 4 (52:40):
It's just what seems to me.
Speaker 6 (52:42):
Yeah, when it comes to like customers, it's always trust
each other. But when it comes to the people that
actually run the business, don't allow me to your life.
That was my mistake. I let too meet people in
my life. I let. I was very open, whether it
be I was obvious. I still am cars, exact cars,
cars costing three, four or five six hundred thousand, two
(53:03):
million dollars, and they're over here driving a eighty nine Buick.
They're mad at me. So I didn't realize that growing
up I had I was just very blessed. I thought
I was young. I call it it's more than just luck,
but it's also a lot of luck. So I thought
I could share with you how to do it, and
I'll help you. I'll give you a job, I'll pay
you six figures. When the market bears fifty thousand dollars
(53:23):
or something, I'll open the door for you. Well, most
people are going to do something different with that money.
All I did was want to build to the next level.
And I did all this with ever a bank loan.
I never got a bank loan, and I wasn't gonna
I was that good. My credit was that bad.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
So I had to figure it out.
Speaker 6 (53:40):
I only had to gross. I only grows as fast
as I could afford to grow. So working for you know,
weeks or months without a paycheck was pretty normal in
the beginning of time because it was more for me
to grow. I already had the business lined up. It
was this matter whatever. So when I finished, I was
in the top twenty five security guard companies ending States
(54:01):
out of over five thousand.
Speaker 3 (54:02):
Well, how did you eat if you didn't have a paycheck?
How did you pay your rent and eat without a paycheck?
Speaker 6 (54:10):
We bought cows friends of mine. We split a cow together.
That'd be you'd have, you know in those days. Not
uncommon in Michigan, by the way, No, it's not uncommon.
Speaker 4 (54:18):
You're talking about a meat locker.
Speaker 6 (54:19):
Like a meat locker basic. You have a fezier in
your garage and you got beef, and that's how you live.
There's no McDonald's, there's no restaurants or anything out. You
you had your meals and that's what the kids ate
and they had their macaroni and cheese, and that was life.
Speaker 3 (54:33):
But where did you even get the money to buy that?
Did your parents help you or you were so young?
Speaker 6 (54:38):
Yeah, I know how my parents.
Speaker 3 (54:39):
Would you go mow lawns in the summer or something like.
Speaker 6 (54:42):
That's funny, I did. I did do that, also, wash windows,
mode lawns, whatever it took, okay, because that job making
four dollars an hour wasn't ever. So he's whatever corner
you could cut. I mean, we clipped coupons and you know,
crazy stuff like that, just to you'll buy a one,
get one free. I mean we're going to store calculators
and you know you would exceed what you had in
(55:02):
your pocket, so you put stuff back. And that's that's
the way how you lived. So I always say, when
you live there, it's kind of like once you taste steak,
you always want steak. When you've been poor, you never
want to go back there. So my driving force was just,
you know, have enough money to never worry again. And
that's kind of where I sit back today. I'm sixty
two years old. I could retire to if I wanted to.
(55:25):
I still have about loving people in my camp that
I care about, and I want to see those love
and get wealthy and then I'll walk out and I
can do that probably in the next by three years.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
What about friends and family? Do you trust them?
Speaker 6 (55:38):
Well, the problem with I mean it's unfortunately a family.
They're turned off by you because when you come from
a poor family and all of a sudden you have everything.
I mean I live in a very large home, ten
thousand plus square foot, I have forty five plus cars.
I have a house on the ocean. I have a
lot of nice things. So when your poor family knows
(56:00):
these things, they have no desire to deal with you.
My father died when he was forty eight, My mom
died at fifty nine, my sister at fifty seven, my
brother at fifty. That was it. And the outside family
is just the relatives they answered, the uncles and you know,
grandparents obviously are gone. So and they hate us. They
don't like us because you know, the kids are great,
they're driving nice cars and all that we're show offs
(56:22):
and we are I'm not gonna you know, is because
they didn't have anything. So when I got it, I
was like, hey, look at me. It comes with other
problems too. I mean, people look at you like you're
a dope dealer and you're doing something wrong and I
risk us into your business. And that's all. It's all
covering the book. You have to go through all the
processes and audist with them and they verify your income.
But I did some exceptional things, I mean everything. We
(56:45):
talked a little bit in the hallway about the music business, right,
I mean I took, you know, just an ideal, turned
it into a major record deal, work with a major artist,
and made a ton of money off of it. And
I did it. I tried it three or four more
times and it didn't work out so well, so I
got away from it. But I live the life. I
had a la lifestyle for a number of years. And
those are great stories. That's all. I was able to
(57:06):
write a book and tell those stories because I want
someone to sit back and go, if that guy with
no education, with that, with no support, no money, how
do you do it? And that's what it's about. So
it's kind of inspirations, know how, I'm not that smart.
I always tell me all that. You know, if you
put me against the average person, I'm not going to
you know, HY pass the IQ test higher than the
(57:27):
next guy. But I know how to do business. I
know about relationships, I know how to work hard, I
know how to tell the truth. And if you do
those things, then you're able to accomplish something. I think,
and that's kind of what I did. And if because
so many people nowaday are so full fluff, I mean,
that's that's the negative to me.
Speaker 3 (57:42):
So where in Michigan are you?
Speaker 6 (57:44):
And urbur Michigan?
Speaker 3 (57:45):
Okay? I cause I think I do think the attitude
towards wealth and stuff is a little different there than
it would be out here on the East Coast because
I think people on the East Coast are like, okay
with wealth more because so many people here have it.
I think Michigan is more rural and.
Speaker 6 (58:00):
More We were laughing to coming in this morning. We
couldn't afford to live here, although I have a lot
of money, a lot of success. But man, our driver
was telling us what some of these houses cost.
Speaker 2 (58:11):
Yeah, I got a real estate guy right here.
Speaker 4 (58:16):
There's no better place to be wealthy.
Speaker 5 (58:18):
I was gonna give you the other side, because no
one knows that apartment that you live in because from
the street, you're just like everybody else.
Speaker 4 (58:26):
And I know people.
Speaker 5 (58:27):
Billionaires who you would never know. You know, they don't
wear it on their sleeve and that kind of works
here sometimes.
Speaker 6 (58:35):
Oh, I bet I can see it. I'm a victim
of it. I mean, I'm a victim of my own
showing off is like I feel sorry for myself. But
I see what you're talking about exactly, because if I
had to do all over again, I'd have all this money.
I still live in the trailer park if I own
the trailer park, but no one know it, because it
saves you a ton of money when you get into
legal fees, when you get audited by the IRS. The
(58:56):
legal fees are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
Do you sometimes think having money is more hassle than
it's worth?
Speaker 3 (59:02):
No, dude, I'm glad you say that.
Speaker 2 (59:05):
I don't mean honestly, the way you were talking there,
it's like I don't really want this.
Speaker 6 (59:10):
No, No, I love it. You know, life's too short
not to have it. You can't take it with you.
So it's not all that. But one thing I do
for people, no matter who they are, I will absolutely
give everybody the best advice I possibly acount help you
get where you want to go. I find time of everybody,
and that's kind of my style. I did it in Detroit.
I went down to thirteen other states too, and had
(59:31):
the same success stories as far as the security guard business,
but same concept, just taking down the road and putting
up offices and you know, the brick and mortar and
then servicing. And I made a lot of people a
lot of money that listen to me. And I also
saw a lot of people get the money and they're
not responsible and they lose it for one reason or another.
So so I love money. I think everybody should love money.
(59:54):
That's why we all do it. A lot of people
are afraid to say that. All people say, well, you know,
I'm conservative, I'm doing this of my four to.
Speaker 2 (59:59):
One K and I got that because that's because they
don't want to live under the same microscope that you do.
Speaker 6 (01:00:05):
That's correct.
Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
Oh yeah, it's just a matter of how much are
you going to put up with? Right? And so it
does have an effect.
Speaker 3 (01:00:13):
I think, where do people get your book?
Speaker 6 (01:00:16):
My website's greg word dot com or more than just
luck dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:00:20):
Is it on Amazon?
Speaker 6 (01:00:21):
It's not released yet. It will be on March seventeenth.
Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
Oh so we got a pre copy?
Speaker 6 (01:00:25):
You did?
Speaker 8 (01:00:25):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
I can hardly wait to read it. I'm going to
read those last few pages about how I can do it.
Speaker 6 (01:00:30):
Yeah, I always be able to. It's a lot of fun.
After you figure it out, you can teach me.
Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
Well, this has been great, what a fantastic story and
amazing insights and so thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
So we're going to do something different. We're going to
have a group discussion the decisions that shape everything.
Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
Yeah, all right, So team of the show has kind
of been about trust, right, you know, Scott and Greg
you both talked about trust. So when you trust your
gut or when do you not trust your gut?
Speaker 5 (01:01:02):
Scott Harris, I will say that every decision that's ever
been good in my life has come from my intuition
every time, whether it's to marry the woman that I married,
never made a better decision in my life anytime that
intuition finally says, hey it's time you have to get quiet.
(01:01:23):
Sometimes it just it comes out. You're like, what you know,
you have that intuition, But how do you get there?
Speaker 4 (01:01:29):
Get there?
Speaker 5 (01:01:29):
Is most of the time by being present, just being
with yourself, you know, really like locking into whatever you're doing.
The most success I've ever had is just being there
with the person next to me. That's how you make
decisions when you say something, when to be quiet, when
to ask for the business, when not to when to
shut up.
Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
It seems to me like you've done some work on yourself.
Richard and I have done a ton of work on ourselves.
And there are lots of times when I just sit
in the silence and just kind of I've let my
mind wander. I'm not meditating. I'm just letting my mind go,
and I try to keep it focused on positive things.
But I think part of it is knowing yourself and
also just maybe tapping into the universe a little.
Speaker 4 (01:02:12):
I mean, that's your talk in my language.
Speaker 5 (01:02:14):
I go for runs, I go for walks, and I
have this phone in my pocket, and I have my
ears on, and I have an idea, and.
Speaker 4 (01:02:22):
I'm like, hey, Siri, make a note.
Speaker 5 (01:02:24):
It might even talk to me now, right, Like, I'm
constantly just getting it out from my head, out so
that I can make sure I capture it. I mean,
I have this creative energy that I can't control.
Speaker 4 (01:02:36):
It's got to come out. It comes out in my writing.
It comes out. I still write music. I was in
the music business.
Speaker 5 (01:02:41):
We didn't talk about that before I got into real estate.
But you have to just allow it out, and when
you get it out.
Speaker 4 (01:02:48):
There's more. It comes right behind.
Speaker 5 (01:02:50):
I mean, you've built how many businesses, my gosh, you
know you have an inspiration to do it.
Speaker 4 (01:02:54):
You're like, I can't not do it. I gotta do it.
Speaker 5 (01:02:57):
You light up when you start talking about your business.
That's what seems to bring you a lot of joy.
Speaker 6 (01:03:02):
Agree. I think intuition comes from the failures you had.
You've tried it, you fell down, you skin your knee.
You can't do that again. So the next time it
approaches itself, you already know from your past experiences this
did more class time or that's kind of I think
that were your gut comes hack. I'm with you one
hundred percent. It's got to feel good in the gut.
(01:03:23):
I don't do it.
Speaker 5 (01:03:23):
Every time I've made a decision that I didn't follow
my gut, bad always agree. I'm like, I knew this
was the wrong move, and I did it anyway, and
it blew up. Shocker, you know, like, never ever has
it failed me. I'm really grateful for that.
Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
So I'm going to I'm going to ask people here
for a little bit of advice. So we're in the
process of hiring a new marketing agency, and everything looked great,
really like the agency said all the right things. Seems
like a great fit. And yesterday I send her an
outline of the New Jersey business plan that was created
(01:04:00):
for life sciences, which is one of the sectors that
I work in, and I had a one page summary.
It is a twenty five page plan, and I asked it, well,
how does your heart law fit into this? And I've
sent it out to our team and I included her
and one of her members there. And she came back
(01:04:21):
and said, if you're going to be sending me crap
like this, I don't want to work with you.
Speaker 3 (01:04:26):
She did not say that exactly. Well, I mean, she
had a long explanation about why she didn't want to
get this kind of stuff, and.
Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
It was no, no, no, no, this is my story.
Speaker 11 (01:04:37):
Yeah, okay, let me let me finish it. Okay, no, no, no, no,
let me finish it. So I'm asking for their advice, okay, okay.
So in any case, now, I'm like, you know, however,
it came across as to me as kind of rudent offensive.
Speaker 4 (01:04:52):
Came across the way it came across to you, and
so I'm like, darn it.
Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
I mean, this was going to be the magic bullet.
But now with this email sitting there, I'm like, can
I have a relationship with her? Because I really felt,
you know, shut down. You're shaking your head like I
have Two things.
Speaker 5 (01:05:09):
I would say, yeah, you have, and you know, Gary
Gray probably agree. One, you get on the phone with
this person and you tell them, hey, this, you said
this in this email and I am upset, very carefully worded.
Speaker 4 (01:05:21):
You didn't make me upset. I'm upset.
Speaker 5 (01:05:23):
Right, have a real conversation and see what they say.
That's one thing you can do, and the other is
just to trust your gut. You're like, hmm, if this
is how she reacts over email, maybe it's not the
right fit. But you have to either. You have to
have a conversation. I would say, have the conversation because
regardless of what happens, like, I'm willing to have the
hard conversations. That's part of my real estate business. You
(01:05:45):
have to have the conversations. My wife's always like, don't
do it, don't do it, don't have that conversation.
Speaker 4 (01:05:50):
Don't say that to my mom. And I do it,
but I do it with love.
Speaker 5 (01:05:54):
And if you do, if you start with like I
care about you, and I was really, I'm really excited
about this relationship, and then this happened. They're not just
a thing. They're not that way. You're like, this happened,
and I'm upset, Like what do you have to say
about it? But maybe Greg has some different.
Speaker 6 (01:06:09):
I'm probably more old school. I believe the dog wags
the tail, and the tail it away with the dog.
You're with the customer. That's where I came from. Customer
service one hundred and I didn't I have to educate.
I had to sell the you know, the safety and security,
but it was a relationship. I've never in my career
ever told the customer, I don't want to do business
with you, especially in the beginning. It's not gonna go
(01:06:29):
anywhere down the road. Maybe after some time I canceled
them because they were just you know there, they just
won't cooperative or unreasonable. But if it gets offt bad,
it's like a bad date.
Speaker 4 (01:06:39):
Right, You've built the foundation is already cracked.
Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
Yeah, yeah, I would say.
Speaker 5 (01:06:42):
I mean, I'm saying this because it's there's never a
bad I say like everything can be solved in communication,
and this is like at least you know that, Like
you've had the conversation. I would say it's a good
practice to have it, but ultimately you probably are not
gonna do business with them.
Speaker 4 (01:06:57):
You're hurt. I hear it.
Speaker 5 (01:06:59):
Yeah, I mean it's such a fragile thing, Like it's
such a vulnerable thing.
Speaker 4 (01:07:02):
You're trying to build this new business.
Speaker 6 (01:07:04):
You have this.
Speaker 4 (01:07:04):
Exciting business plan. Someone that's believe in you believe it.
Speaker 6 (01:07:08):
Now you gotta walk on eight shells in the future.
Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
Scott Harris, founder of Magnetic real Estate. Greg Weir wi
e R Greg weird dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
It's been an amazing conversation.
Speaker 3 (01:07:18):
Passage to Profit with Richard Elizabeth Gearheart.
Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
We'll be back with more after this.
Speaker 7 (01:07:24):
Yay.
Speaker 4 (01:07:24):
Hear that.
Speaker 7 (01:07:24):
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Speaker 2 (01:08:23):
It's Passage to Profit. Now it's time for Noah's retrospective.
Speaker 3 (01:08:28):
Noah Fleischmann is our producer here at Passage to Profit,
and he never stops trying to make sense of the
future by looking at the pass I.
Speaker 9 (01:08:37):
Just found out about a brand new smartphone device that's
designed and functions like a vintage table telephone. I knew
it was only a matter of time. A friend of
mine who works with the elderly says it's a great
new innovation. I asked her, where can I get one?
Technology is always going to move ahead and fast, but
that doesn't mean you have to be that old to
prefer the grounded landscape that you remember best. Once his
(01:08:58):
phone thing catches on, we're gonna start seeing box shaped
television sets again, with curvature screens and a circular converter
dial with just the six channels you want. Six hundred
channels at once is a little too much for some
of us. After that, who knows, Maybe a renaissance in
print publications, wriskwatchers are gonna have no meaning all over again.
Maybe a return to phone books. But the good news
(01:09:20):
is there's plenty of traditional things in our lives that
will still never change. I was reminded of that the
other day when I was in the department store and
went online to use the restroom.
Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
Now more with Richard and Elizabeth Passage to Profit.
Speaker 3 (01:09:34):
And now it is time for secrets of the entrepreneurial mind.
Scott Harris withthmagneticr dot com. What is a secret you
can share with our listeners?
Speaker 4 (01:09:44):
It's so simple and it's so hard. Can you just
be with your client?
Speaker 5 (01:09:49):
Can you actually sit there and not be distracted by
your phone and not be thinking about the next appointment.
Can you just sit with them and actually listen with
no agenda? Can When you do that, you will be huge.
And the other secret, I think is a little bit
more actionable. Like sitting there is like a really hard thing.
It sounds easy. The other is just why don't you
(01:10:10):
decide that you're just going to help them however they
need help open your rolodex. I want to be of
service to you. That's what's built my whole business. I
just want to help people. I help one guy land
his biggest client. I help somebody else, you know, like
a credit rating guy, like constantly help people get jobs.
Speaker 4 (01:10:27):
Whatever it is. You put those deposits in the bank
of the universe and they come back with interest. Karma
Karma is undefeated. Karma's undefeated.
Speaker 3 (01:10:36):
I agree, so, Greg, we're with greg wear dot com.
What's a secret you can share with our audience?
Speaker 6 (01:10:42):
Always be available in our business to this day, again,
we pay people several amount of money, using one hundred
percent more than industry average. I do that because, first
of all, I want them be financially secure, but to
always be available. I want you on call twenty four seven,
No one's calling it a three o'clock a more. But
if your house is broken into, you need to get
hold of your sales guy or your tech whoever, then
(01:11:04):
answer that phone call. So I always say, it's not
a bunch of secrets, just as we're wide open about
it is just take care of the customer, and you
do that by being always available. We tell people we're
always available, our phones are always on, and that's a fact.
Has been that way since the beginning of a time
with me.
Speaker 3 (01:11:20):
I wonder you're successful, Richard your Heart with your Heart
law patents, Durdmark's copyrights. What's your secret?
Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
I think one secret is we deal with a lot
of clients who have products and inventions. You have to
understand what is the leverage, the business leverage that your
product or service offers. So what advantage do they get
by hiring you? And that advantage should exceed what they're
(01:11:46):
paying for it. And if you can build that model,
and if you have that concept in your business, you'll
be successful because people will see the value of what
you're offering.
Speaker 3 (01:11:58):
And I'm Elizabeth your Heart with your Media studios, and
my secret is going to be always read the fine print.
But you don't actually have to read the fine print.
What you can do is you can put the contract
through chat, GPT or Perplexity or Google. Gemina say tell
me the fine print and the reason I bring this up.
I'm not sure if everybody knows about this, but we
(01:12:20):
use this program called cap cut for editing video. Now
they've changed their terms of service. I'm like, I checked
the little box. I'm like, oh, okay, you change your
term of service. No, I had Gemini spell it out
for me. You retain, of course, the copyright to your work,
but they have an unlimited license forever to do whatever
they want with it, to use it in third party marketing, etc.
(01:12:42):
And I'm like, we are never putting anything on cap
cut again. We'll use the script to edit instead.
Speaker 2 (01:12:47):
So basically, if you edit a video of your kid's
birthday party, they have rights to that and they can
use it whenever they want, however they want, for the
rest of time.
Speaker 3 (01:12:57):
If we put this on there, they could take and
use it somewhere for their advertising or however they want.
It's a great but do you want it? I mean yeah,
I mean they could take your face and use it
as a model for who knows what. Right, and you've
given them an unlimited license to your content forever. So
(01:13:21):
read the fine print, but actually have Gemini or somebody
do it for you.
Speaker 2 (01:13:24):
Well that's all this week, Thanks for listening. Passage to
Profit is a Gear Media Studios production at the nationally
syndicated radio show appearing on forty stations across the US.
In addition, Passage to Profit has also been recently selected
by feed Spot Podcasters database as a top ten entrepreneur
(01:13:45):
interview podcast. Thank you to the P two P team,
our producer Noah Fleischman and our program coordinator Alicia Morrissey,
and our social media powerhouse Carolina Tabares. Look for our
podcast tomorrow anywhere you get your podcasts. Our podcast is
rank in the top three percent globally. You can also
find us on Facebook, Instagram, x and on our YouTube channel.
(01:14:06):
And remember, while the information on this program is believed
to be correct, never take a legal step without checking
with your legal professional first. Gearheart Law is here for
your patent, trademark and copyright needs. You can find us
at gearheartlaw dot com and contact us for free consultation.
Take care, everybody, Thanks for listening, and we'll be back
next week.
Speaker 1 (01:14:27):
The proceeding was a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed
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