← Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Ben Reinberg - $500M+ Real Estate Empire | The "Smart" Decision That Keeps You Broke
01:18:57
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- [00:00]
Ben Reinberg
When I read Rich dad, poor dad, the premise was build cash flow through assets, hard assets. Commercial real estate's a great asset to produce cash flows. I saw all the icons in commercial real estate in Chicago and I said, this is what I want to do. I get it.
- [00:13]
Scott Clary
In business, most people chase the deal. Few understand the discipline behind the deal. Ben Reinberg has spent decades mastering the art of commercial real estate investing, building, scaling and structuring multimillion dollar portfolios with precision and long term vision.
- [00:27]
Ben Reinberg
When I tied up that first deal, my mental stuff state of being was what is the worst thing that could happen? God forbid you fail. What happens? You just go back to where you started. What I see is people give up. If you don't take the risk, you'll regret. And regret is the worst medicine you have to swallow in life. The biggest misnomer is they think that by moving quickly they'll be able to get more work done, make more money. It's the opposite. When you can slow things down and see the chessboard, things will speed up.
- [00:54]
Scott Clary
As the founder of Alliance Consolidated Group and a leading voice in commercial real estate strategy, Ben doesn't just invest in buildings. He invests in systems, in discipline, in asymmetric opportunity.
- [01:05]
Ben Reinberg
Learn how to control your emotions, learn how to be calm under pressure and really enhancing your communication skills. Communication equals wealth. Nothing happens overnight. Success doesn't happen overnight. You have to grind, you have to show up, you have to be persistent. And it's not easy. It just doesn't happen overnight.
- [01:31]
Scott Clary
First of all, Ben, I appreciate you coming on. It's going to be a lot of fun. So you started off as an accountant, but somehow you ended up building a massive $500 million plus real estate portfolio. So tell me about the moment when you realized that commercial real estate was your path.
- [01:46]
Ben Reinberg
Well, Scott, first of all, it's so nice to be here. And thank you for hosting me in Miami. I always love enjoy coming to the city. It's, it's really a treat to come down here all the way from California. Accounting was special to me because when I graduated from Indiana, my mom said, get a job. It was a deep recession going on in 1992, but I always knew I was an entrepreneur. I always knew I wanted my own business. I just didn't know how to get there. So I worked for this accounting firm. They do entertainment accounting. I was the youngest associate they've ever hired. It was a small firm out of Chicago. That's where I'm from. And the goal was I want to have enough Money saved so I can move downtown. Because that's where the girls were, is life goal, right? And everything revolves around women, right? And so the goal was make good salary, be able to buy a car, move downtown Chicago. Find. Find a way. So I'm on an audit for the firm. It's the first couple of weeks I'm there, and they throw me on audit with a billionaire who owned Cablevision and the New York Knicks and very successful family. And I'm doing the audit. I'm seeing his office for weeks. And he comes up to me and we're having dinner multiple times. I'm getting to know him and I don't realize who he is and how successful he is. I see he's a client of ours, but I looked him up and understood who he was. And I read newspaper articles and my boss told me how significant he was. I saw the trust and returns and work we did for him. He pulled me aside, he said, you're really not much of an accountant. And I was 22 years old. I said, what do you mean? And he said, you're really more of an entrepreneur. You're someone who should have your own business. Figure out what you want to do and go start your own business. So I came back from Chicago after that trip. And I took it to heart. I said, he's right. And I ended up. I was watching an infomercial. There was no Internet at the time. It was 1992, 93ish. And I end up watching this infomercial. And it's Robert Kiyosaki's rich dad, poor dad. And it's really Sharon Lecter's story. And there's a full circle story behind this, which I love telling is. So with Sharon and Robert, they wrote this book. You had to order it on the TV. It came 10 days later. I kept looking in the mailbox, when's it coming? This is old school. How old I am. I'm dating my son. Book finally comes. I take two days off of the accounting firm. Okay, we're in tax season. I was miserable. I hated taxis. I was working seven days a week. I still work seven days a week. But I hated what I was doing. And so then I read the book twice in a 48 hour period. And Scott, what I realized was this is what I want to do. I have a financial background. I understand numbers well. It's a good industry. Commercial real estate. And that side of real estate, for me, I like the numbers. They're bigger numbers. But the other thing that intrigued me was growing up in Chicago, all the biggest icons in commercial real estate were from Chicago. The Pritzkers, the Crown, Sam Zell. The list went on and on. And so I said, wow, this is a way to build wealth. It's been proven. It's an old tested formula. I don't need to reinvent the wheel. I need to get in this industry and figure it out. So I left accounting. One of our clients from Los Angeles inspired me and said, go buy a deal. I'll help you structure out.
- [05:13]
Scott Clary
I'll get one done.
- [05:13]
Ben Reinberg
Just get one done. Get your feet wet. So I walk into this business as a principal. Never a broker, always a principal, Always that landlord that the key, top person in the transaction. So I go and tie up a 95,000 square foot industrial building. I decide I'm going to do industrial and office. That's where I'm going to cut my teeth in Chicago. I'm not getting into multifamily like a lot of my colleagues do in the city. I want to get involved in industrial and office. I find this industrial, though. 95,000 square feet. It's in Northbrook, Illinois. It's next to Glenview, Captains of industry, one of the best suburbs in the United States. Near o' Hare Airport. And it's got a great story to it. So I tie it up, I go and I raise a couple million bucks in equity. I remember I'm young.
- [06:00]
Scott Clary
Yeah. First deal, my first track record.
- [06:02]
Ben Reinberg
I own a track record. I got to put together a package, which I did. And then I have to go raise equity. I was paying like an 8% preferred return. I gave away a store. I structured an 8020 deal. First week. Well, we go through due diligence, and I have to negotiate a $250,000 credit with two icons that were home builders in the United States. And they bring me into the conference room and I'm in a suit, and they turn up the temperature on me on purpose. The secretary walks in serving coffee on fine china. I mean, this is dating myself. This is how cool it was.
- [06:36]
Scott Clary
Yeah, but they want to. They want to make sure they're going in the business with the right guys.
- [06:39]
Ben Reinberg
Exactly. Put them in the pressure cooker. So. So they put me in the pressure cooker. They have this conference table that's probably like twice the size of this studio. Right. And they're on one end, I'm on the other end. They just put me on the end to intimidate me. And they're just kind of staring at me for like a minute before we get Started. And they said, are you Ben Reinberg? And I said, yes, I am. I was young. I looked younger, no gray hair at the time. And they said, are you buying this deal from us? Like, they didn't know, like, how young I was, you know, because the broker's dealing with it. And so I'm like, yes, I am. I'm the sponsor. It's my company and alliance and blah, blah, blah. And they go, so, what are you doing here? What do you need? I said, well, back then, we'd do things in person. It was a relationship business. It still is. I. I showed them the numbers. I signed near $250,000 credit. It was for the roof and the parking lot and different visually. And they. They looked at me, and they gave me a stare, and they said, man, young kid. You have a. You have a. They called me a kid. They go, you have a lot of nerve coming in here, asking for a credit. And I said. They said, do you have your equity raise? I said, I have about 80% of it. I'll have it done next two weeks. Okay, great. What about a loan? Because I heard your financing. Yep, here's the bank. I got the term sheet, the commitment. We're ready to go. I said, the biggest challenge for me is the improvements that you guys haven't fixed, replaced in a while. You got a roof that needs to be replaced. You got some H vac that needs work. You have a parking lot in shambles. Yeah, it's 250,000. Here's the quote. You're this kid, and I'm this. And they looked at me, and they said, you have a lot of nerve walking in here. That was their speech to me. And I said, well, we have a choice. Either I could walk out of here, and you're not selling the building to me, and you got put back on the market. And by the way, you got to. You got to tell everyone now what needs to be done to this property, because now it's public. That's how it works. And so I walked out of there. They gave me the credit of $250,000. One of the partners between the two guys walks up to me, puts his arm around me, and he whispers in my ear and goes, you know what, kid? You're going places. Keep pushing forward. So I buy the building. I close a few weeks later. We raise Russ equity. We close my first deal first week. We lose 45% of the income of the building. Tenant moves out in the middle of night. It's an. It's a automotive tenant in 45% of the square footage. So within a year, I backfill it. I make instead of a two tenant building, I make a three tenant building. I renew the largest tenant, I have new leases. I end up putting the property on the market. And I decided, I said, you know what, Instead of hiring a broker, I'm going to sell it myself and learn how to sell a deal. That way, when I hire brokers in the future, I understand the process better. So I end up aligning myself with the first war room that ever was created in commercial real estate, where it was a vault and you'd upload documents and people can go online and download stuff.
- [09:47]
Scott Clary
It was before this tech was way
- [09:49]
Ben Reinberg
before this tech was common.
- [09:51]
Scott Clary
I find it so interesting. A couple things that I picked up on. First of all, it seems like you had, even though you said the first deal with a 3x gave you confidence, it seems like you had an incredible amount of confidence even before that deal. I think it also just gave you a track record. And I'm curious why. Curious because of two things. And maybe you can take the question however you want. First of all, I'm curious why so many people read Rich Dad, Poor dad and they all get different lessons out of it. Like, not everybody who reads that book is like, I want to go into commercial real estate. There's a variety of different pathways. So I think the first question is how did you decide what was right for you versus all the other ways that you can interpret that book and go into different kinds of real estate or whatever you want to do? And the second question is very simply, how did you get over the imposter syndrome or just like the terror of doing that first deal and having the balls to go into that room and actually have those conversations.
- [10:45]
Ben Reinberg
Well, first of all, answer both great questions. By the way, the first one you
- [10:51]
Scott Clary
said was the different interpretations of rich dad, poor dad, and why you chose this versus all the other.
- [10:58]
Ben Reinberg
When I read Rich Dad, Poor dad, to me the premise was build cash flow through assets, hard assets, which has been my career. And Scott, when I was, I didn't come from money. So for me, the only way I knew was, you know what, this makes a lot of sense. So what are assets that could produce cash flow? Well, commercial real estate's a great asset to produce cash flow. So. And then I took a step back, like I said, and I saw all the icons in commercial real estate in Chicago and I said, this is what I want to do. I get it.
- [11:31]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [11:31]
Ben Reinberg
And so how I interpreted that Book was buy assets that produce cash flow. That's how you build wealth. That's how you make a living. That's how you can live.
- [11:42]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [11:43]
Ben Reinberg
So when I tied up that first deal, my. My mental state of being was, what is the worst thing that could happen? And everyone out there listening is that whether you're getting started or you've been in business a long time or you're about to go in the working world or you're starting a new company, God forbid you fail. What happens? You just go back to where you started, and you could try again and do the same thing or do something different. What I see is people give up. And being from Chicago, I'm a fighter. When people challenge me, I fight. When people debate me, I'm fighting. That's my nature. From Chicago. That's who I am. And so when I said to myself, look, I have a couple million dollars I got to raise, Ben, you got to go get done. So to me, that's seven days a week. It's shoe leather. It's meeting people at a breakfast place. There was no Starbucks at the time. So I'm meeting someone for breakfast or lunch, pitching them. Who else do you know? Who else can refer me this? I'm at my health club talking to people. I'm out there, and I'm an introvert, and I'm out there at the age of 23, and I am pushing myself mentally, saying, just go talk to people, because what's the worst thing that they could say? No. And it's the same thing in life. It's. It's. If you don't take the shot, you'll never know. The key to buying any hard asset is really packaging.
- [13:06]
Scott Clary
Explain what that means.
- [13:07]
Ben Reinberg
Well, packaging means, especially in commercial real estate, is understanding the numbers. In commercial real estate, it's understanding the market vacancy rate, absorption rates, supply and demand. Same thing with buying a company or any other asset. So for me, I took the approach of, if I get my arms around the market, get my arms around the deal, no market rent, I can explain to anyone in any conference room. And the lesson here is, now, anyone out there listening, especially if you know numbers, the person that knows the numbers can sit in any meeting at any time. They're the most important person in the room. And that was always a staple in my company. And for me, when I know the numbers and I can explain the story and the real estate fundamentals and the risk and how to protect the downside
- [13:57]
Scott Clary
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- [18:13]
Ben Reinberg
Well, there's a couple things. Number one is they don't put the time in and I'll tell you why. And I see this with my kids. I see this with the younger men and women that work for alliance is everything is moving so quickly now. Text messaging, dms, we have Microsoft Teams, we do zoom calls. Everything is quick. It's not like it used to be, where I'd have to go fly and meet Scott Clary and go towards property and have a conversation, raise equity in person. And people are moving so quick that they don't slow things down. They don't think. And so the biggest misnomer is they think that by moving quickly, they'll be able to get more work done, make more money. It's the opposite. When you can slow things down and see the chessboard and see what you have to do and be more efficient, things will speed up. That's the first thing I see in this generation. The other thing that's missing is listening, is understanding exactly what the truth is. Someone saying to you, so you make their time and your time efficient. So you might look at that wall and see white. And I see it's a beige. So my opinion is different. But you should understand the truth of why I think it's beige, just like I should understand the truth of white. When you could seek the truth in what someone's saying, you can engage and build rapport. And building rapport is something that's lacking in this marketplace. I see it with the younger acquisition guys in my company, as well as some of the equity raisers. What's missing is taking time to give a shit about the other side, Listening, understand where they're coming from, seeking the truth in what they're saying. And so putting in the time is important. And to go back to my first point is when you're younger, you're getting started in business for everyone out there, okay, the reason why I say be the first one in, last one to leave, it's not you want to impress your superiors and your boss and whatever in a company, it's because you need the extra time to be able to get your arms around more variables that you're not accustomed to. So, for example, for me to underwrite a deal or look at a property, commercial real estate and say, next, or yeah, let's put an offer. At this rate, I could do it instantly because of where I've been doing this for three decades, a younger gentleman or woman in my company, it might take them four days to get to that decision. So guess what? You need to put in the time. I always say, when you're younger, you're new in business, put in the time, the hours you need to get up on the learning curve. And a lot of people are willing to do that because they're being pulled in a thousand directions, and it leads to, are you going out for a beer on Friday night? What Are you doing that would pull you away from your dream? If your dream, Scott, is to be wildly successful in business and life, why would you let social pressures or anything else mess with that life you want to create? It's the biggest thing I see in people. They're not willing to do what it takes to be successful. I don't even have to do this. I do this. I go to work in Newport beach on a Saturday. I am the only one in this monstrosity building. Security knows me. I pull into the parking garage, they are following me to the door to make sure I get in. And they'll call me by my name. And I'll do that on a Sunday if I have to.
- [21:26]
Scott Clary
But out of everyone in that building, you're one of the only ones that's going.
- [21:29]
Ben Reinberg
I am. Right.
- [21:30]
Scott Clary
You don't. You don't have to do that.
- [21:32]
Ben Reinberg
I don't have to. But you know what? I do it because one, I care. I have responsibilities. I want to continue to grow. I want to be different. And that's how I learn. Life is putting in that extra work if I need to. And I think part of that is if you're not willing to do what it takes, you can't complain. Woe is me. I didn't get there because especially when you're younger and for everyone out listening there, how you can differentiate yourself is putting in the work. Because I guarantee you, like all of us, we don't know everything. And so you got to be vulnerable. You got to build up your resources, you got to ask questions. And maybe if you had some space and quiet time, because you spend a little extra time maybe at the office later at night, you'll have the ability to think. And that's the other thing that Scott, no one really does anymore is they don't take the time to think. So, for example, what I've done in my career, and I do a lot of personal development I'm very open about it, is in order for me to think and process and be more aware, which is so important as awareness is. I meditate twice a day. And I do that because it allows me to be more aware, more present, like I am with you.
- [22:40]
Scott Clary
And.
- [22:40]
Ben Reinberg
And guess what? We build rapport. We potentially, I might help you, you might help me. You might drop some knowledge on technology that I have no idea what it is, but changes my life, changes someone that works for me. And so that's why I don't drink, I don't do drugs, I eat healthy, I work out, I'm physically Fit. I do all these things because they give me a competitive advantage, because that's how bad I want it. Still, I never forget the day I started. And so for everyone out there listening, you're getting started in business, or you're getting your MBA or whatever you're doing, whatever you're going after, ask yourself, am I getting in the deep water and I'm going to actually not do things half ass, or am I going to go for it so I don't regret? And regret is the worst medicine you have to swallow in life. People look back and say, well, I wish I would have done that. Well, why not do it? And just to go back to failing, God forbid something happens, God forbid someone makes fun of you. God forbid you have an issue. It will pass, I promise you. And failures are inevitable. You're going to fail in business. You're going to have bad conversations. You're going to write an email you're not proud of. You're going to have a conversation. You're going to treat someone you wish you wouldn't have treated that way. That's growth. That's learning. You observe, you grow from it. You step up and you keep moving forward. And a lot of entrepreneurs out there, or even people getting into business is they're so worried about what other people think when no one really cares. Everyone's so focused on themselves. Especially in my business, a commercial real estate broker, they all have amnesia. They sell you a deal, and then a month later it's like, hey, remember that deal we bought in Delray beach that you sent me, stakes for the closing? Oh, yeah, that's right. Well, what else do you have? They forget about you. And that's everything in life. So my point to everyone out there is harness your craft. Decide how bad you want it. And if you want it, go for it. And be very careful. Yeah, and be very careful. You know, there's a saying, one of my mentors says, show me your friends, I'll show you your future. And it's a true statement. Because who you surround yourself with will uplift you to where you want to go. Do you want someone criticizing you? Like, hey, Joe, you went in on a Saturday. Why didn't you come out with us on Friday? Well, Joe's on his mission. But that person should be like, you know what, Joe? You should be really proud of yourself. That's a lot of discipline. Great. You know what? Maybe I'd love to go to a coffee shop with you and talk to you about what you do.
- [25:19]
Scott Clary
And I was going to say it's tough to find people like that, though.
- [25:21]
Ben Reinberg
It is, but that's why you have to focus on your inner circle, especially when you're younger.
- [25:26]
Scott Clary
I just want to touch on some of the ideas that you had, but I guess really you mentioned so many good life lessons pertaining to, you know, discipline and putting in all of yourself into your work and surrounding yourself with the right people. One idea that I love that you. That. That you sort of touched on is I think a younger generation is focusing on these big milestone moments as opposed to putting in the work every single day. And this is not. This is not a hard and fast rule for everyone. So I don't want to make it sound like that, but I noticed that people are trying for the next viral hack or the next big win or that, like, it's always, like, they look for these huge milestones that are going to catapult their career or their business or their following or whatever their business is, and they don't focus on every day just being exceptional. And I think that that is a lesson that I've heard repeatedly from people that have already built and succeeded, that are older. My mentors don't optimize for the milestones, optimize for being excellent every single day. However, that looks for you. And I think that's a really important idea. But outside of all the lessons that you taught, what was the hardest one for you and why?
- [26:36]
Ben Reinberg
Well, the hardest lesson for me was taking a look in the mirror and knowing I had to learn how to communicate better and improve my communication, understand how to listen better, understand how to interact with different types of people, not get emotionally aggravated by people if it didn't go my way. Because when I was younger, I didn't. I couldn't control my emotions. I was this hard. No kid from Chicago, hustling, doing deals. You know, I sold cigarettes at the age of eight. I mean, I was this crazy tough kid. And then I get in the business world with sophisticated people, and I gotta learn how to regulate my emotions. And that was a tough pill to swallow. Be like, what, there's something wrong with me? I'm not. I'm not perfect. I'm successful. You know, I had to take a step back and learn how to communicate better with people and how to inspire people and how to influence people. And so that was hard for me because when I was younger, I had to battle everyone. I was the young kid. I was a kid who didn't come from money. I was the kid that had to prove himself always. And when you constantly have to prove yourself. You lose yourself. And so I had to take a step back and figure out who I really was and improve my communication, prove my listening, become more empathetic, you know, come from a state of love instead of fear sometimes. And so I had to change the way I looked at things. And personal development was a huge thing for me because when I was younger there was no personal development. There was no, hey, figure out what's going on with you, figure out how to communicate better, figure out what triggers you, how do you regulate your emotions. I was a complete mess. And so for me, the lesson I learned most was I have to, I have to work on myself in order to make my environment around me better.
- [28:34]
Scott Clary
Quick question, what's your go to when you got 10 minutes before a meeting or a workout? For me, it just used to be whatever I could grab, which usually meant skipping meals entirely or just grabbing something that left me crashing an hour later because it was just full of garbage. That's why I'm partnering with Huel. This block edition ready to drink is a complete meal. So it has 35 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber, 35 essential vitamins and minerals. It is no sugar added, gluten free, under five bucks. I always keep a few of these in my fridge and honestly it solved the whole back to back meetings. Go, go, go non stop, no time to eat problem. Super well. And this one's new for me. It's Hu's daily greens. I had the blueberry this morning. Honestly first impression, it was way better than I expected. It's developed by registered nutritionists and dietitians. There are 42 vitamins, minerals and superf only 25 calories, 4 grams of fiber and just 1 gram of sugar. I throw one back first thing before my morning calls. Every single morning look if you're running a business, time is the most valuable asset. Hu makes healthy eating simple and they also just launched into target source nationwide so you can get it everywhere. Try both products today with 15% off your purchase for new customers with my exclusive code Scott at Huscott tried both products today with 15% off your purchase for new customers with my exclusive code Scott S C OTT@huelle.com Scott Use my code fill out the post checkout survey to help Support the show that is Huell.com Scott they really make healthy living taste amazing even if you're on the go. Healthy eating, healthy lifestyle doesn't have to taste bad, it doesn't have to suck. Netsuite is the number one AI, cloud, ERP. It's trusted by over 43,000 businesses. It's a unified suite that pulls your financials, inventory, commerce, HR and CRM into a single source of truth. That connected data is what makes the AI smarter. It doesn't just guess. It knows. It can automate routine tasks, it can deliver actionable insights. And it can help you cut costs and make fast decisions with confidence. And now with the NetSuite AI connector, you can use the AI of your choice to connect to your actual business data and ask every question you've ever had. This isn't just another bolted on tool. It's AI built into the system that actually runs your business. So whether your company earns millions or hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you stay ahead. If I needed something like this for my business, I'd use NetSuite. And you should too. So if your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get our free business guide demystifying AI at netsuite.com ScottClary the guide is free to you at netsuite.com Scott Clary netsuite.com Scott Clay let's talk about hard assets for hard times. So a lot of people on this podcast are entrepreneurs, but a lot of people have also made some money and they're trying to figure out where to put their money. And a recurring theme is you can make money anywhere as long as you understand that particular asset class better than anything else. I think what a lot of people end up doing incorrectly is they become great entrepreneurs and they find a way. And not all entrepreneurs through investing entrepreneurs, like through building a business or selling your skills or whatever their version of entrepreneurship is, but then they make some money and they think that just because they're a good entrepreneur, they're a good investor and they put money into like startups and real estate and commercial residential crypto stocks. They put money everywhere and they don't really know anything very well. So I always am curious about your advice. For somebody just starting out in investing, where should they put their money? Obviously, the argument is hard assets. But first of all, why hard assets over all the other types of assets you can put money into? Obviously. Disclaimer, not investment advice. But then the second thought is the way you started, you just, you just started on your own. You didn't put money into a fund. Right. To learn. Right. You just did it.
- [32:30]
Ben Reinberg
That's right.
- [32:31]
Scott Clary
Is that the way that people should start or,
- [32:36]
Ben Reinberg
oh, if you want to live through torture, then start the way I did, Scott but in all reality, if you're going to go into commercial real estate. And if someone asked me today, I would say, start in brokerage. Don't do what I do. And the reason behind that is you could do more deals, see more deals that make some money, save some money, and then decide to go out on your own, start buying deals. That's what I would recommend. The way I did it was different. Okay, I guess I had a lot of balls and a lot of guts. A lot of stones. People say I had a lot of stones, but that was me growing up. The book Hard Assets and Hard Money for Our Times is. Is special to me. I started a year ago, and the reason why I wrote it was there was hundreds of people throughout my career. It seemed like it was every week. How do I get into commercial real estate? How do I buy real estate, commercial real estate, or any type of real estate? Can you look at my portfolio? I'm going to invest in this deal with this sponsor, whether it's real estate or a company. Can you review it for me and give me your thoughts? And I started going through these questions for a long time. And last year I took a step back and I said, someone on my leadership team, I said, I need to write a book about this. People keep asking me. No one knows how to build wealth. No one understands it. No one really teaches it the right way. So I took a step back and I developed the blueprint. It's called the hard asset blueprint that anyone can use, whether you're a young man or woman starting in business or a kid all the way up to someone that's a trillionaire, a billionaire can use it. And so what I do is I. I end the blueprint. It looks like a castle. There's capstones and keystones and walls, and there's a foundation and different vaults to put assets in. And I show people and I teach them how to allocate assets in each of the different sectors of your castle, how to protect it, how to deal with data and privacy, estate planning, asset protection, taxes. We touch it all. We talk about different hard assets. And why hard assets? Well, hard assets, why? I love hard assets. And it's been a staple my career, and I'm biased towards it. And by the way, I'm not giving any legal advice or investment advice. The reason why I like it, Scott, is because, one, they could deal with economic uncertainty, political geopolitical unrest going on in our world. I can have more certainty buying hard assets that produce cash flow than any other investment, especially in commercial real estate. I can kick the bricks and mortar, which is important to me. So I tell everyone out there, whatever your hard asset is, whatever your investment is, make sure you diversify. But for me, if your business is in one of those hard assets like commercial real estate, or you're making a living from crypto, or you're doing something in insurance, whatever is producing your hard asset or, or maybe you have a brand which is a hard asset, focus on that. I tell people when you invest, you want to invest with smart money. So what does that mean? Take my company, Alliance Alliance Consolidated Group of companies where headquartered in Chicago. I sit in our west coast office. We're all over. We have 200 plus years of leadership team experience. Outside of Ben Reinberg, that's a lot of experience in commercial real estate. We know how to deal with challenges. We have an upper 20s IRR track record. We've been in business for three decades. That's smart money. So when you're building your castle, your kingdom, your empire, when you want to get into different sectors, which is great and diversified, if you want to learn about cryptocurrency, invest with someone that's an expert in it. If you want someone that understands, hey, I'm going to build a brand and have it be worth leverage into someone. Leverage is so important. That's why the first season, my TV show is called Leverage because it's relationships, it's technology, it's knowledge, it's beyond debt in our business. And so what I want everyone to know is hard assets can sustain themselves through times. They can produce cash flow, they can deal with economic uncertainty. And it's been proven the old age formula is all the wealthiest families in the world own hard assets. And being from Chicago, where it's the crowns, the Pritzkers, Sam Zell, you know, Al Taubman in our business, the Dolan's, the Rockefellers, they own oil and gas, they own hard assets, commercial real estate, they own silver and gold and all the in crypto and all these different things. And so there's a reason behind it. And so what I did for the book was not only do I share my experience in hard assets, which meant Tested for over three decades, I interviewed and brought in 20 billionaires. And all of us have proven the exact steps that I outline in the book. So you're hearing from experts that have been there and done that and that you can feel confident of. I need to build my hard asset empire. So we show people how to build it. We talk about where you put different sectors, we talk about where you put Your focus is important. Invest in smart money. We also talk about your mindset when you have to build the hard asset empire and stop buying assets, just like I did as a young man buying that industrial building. You got to get your mind right. You have to be focused, you have to be disciplined, you have to become resource rich, and you have to show up every day and you really have to push forward. And I'm honest in the book, and I say it on podcasts and TV shows I'm on is that it's not easy building a hard asset empire. Nothing's easy. It wasn't easy for me. It's taken me years to get to this point.
- [38:31]
Scott Clary
Over 30 years.
- [38:32]
Ben Reinberg
Yeah. So I don't sugarcoat it, saying it's going to happen overnight. You got to work at it. You got to manage. The reason why I like the book is because I give you a hard asset blueprint in the book. And what I want everyone to do is when someone asks me to write my story in a book, I say, I'm not telling my story. I said, I'm writing a book that's actionable, that people all over the world can use any point in time for the rest of their lives. So you'll buy the book, you put it on the bookshelf. A month later you say, you know what? I'm going to start investing in this. Where should it go in my hard asset empire? Where do I put it? Because the hard asset empire was designed to defend, retain, compound, and grow your empire. That's why I created it. So if you have to do some asset planning, you pull out the book, say, okay, here's my blueprint. What needs to be protected? You know what? I have everything in keys or in a wallet, and I got to protect the data, which is part of my foundation. I'm going to pull out the book and look at my blueprint and see where do I have to put that? What do I need to do? It's a way for you to stay in touch and to be actionable and visible to what you need to do. Because, Scott, pictures are worth a thousand words. I'm a visual guy. And so I was like, well, I'm a visual guy. What would I want? So I said, I want a blueprint. I don't need someone telling me in a book, like by paragraph, by paragraph, I'm saying, here it is, we're going to do it together, okay? And by the way, if you wanted to get in commercial real estate, we have new courses coming online where you'll Be able to tell my AI because it's been following me for a year. Ben, I want to learn how to negotiate an industrial lease. I want to learn how to buy a multifamily deal. We will design a course specifically for whatever you need. That's how great it's going to be. So with the book, I wanted people to be able to walk away and say, how do I get started? How do I build my empire? And people always ask me, like when. They always say to me, well, Ben, when I get money like you, I'll get started. And the first thing I say to him is, no, I don't care if you have $10 to your name. Put a dollar in something and get started. Pull the trigger and get started. Because you want to develop habits. Habits are huge in life. And no one talks about it because people say to me, well, why do you work out with a trainer five days a week? Why do you still go in the office at the same time every morning? You might leave later, but you have a routine. You go to bed a certain time when you have a routine and habits, everything else makes it easier in life, especially business, because you want to take the stress off the little things. You want to stay healthy, you want to have energy, you want to be aware. So like I said to go back, if you're going to double down on business and say, I want to become wealthy, I want to become successful, I want to have options, I want to grow as a person. Unless you commit and get in the deep water and do it, then don't say you want to do it.
- [41:35]
Scott Clary
No, I agree fully. I'm curious. A couple thoughts. First of all, I love how the concept of the book revolves around not just investing, but building the empire, building all the different pieces. Because yes, it's great to take action and put your first dollar in. And I don't want to diminish that. But at the same time, after you've put your first dollar in and start to realize that there's a. All these other things that you can do. So there's like the legal, the financial. You start planning for your kids and everything, like the full 360. So it's important because a lot of people just say, okay, invest in your first deal. Put money in the stock market, put money in crypto, Buy a. Do the Burr method to go buy a residential. Real fine. But there's all these other components so that you're optimizing not just one piece of your wealth, you're optimizing everything. And you just Want to do it sooner than later so you don't have to learn all these hard lessons. Now, a couple other things. You interviewed a whole bunch of people for your book. I mean, you've dropped some really valuable wisdom from your own life. I'm curious if there's something, out of all the different lessons that people sort of spoke to you about while you're putting together this book, was there anything that stood out that maybe you weren't even aware of? Something that you thought was like, wow, this is really interesting and a novel way to look at this particular idea that you think would be a huge help for people listening?
- [43:04]
Ben Reinberg
One of the things I saw that was a common thread, which I knew, but it really resonate was learn how to control your emotions, learn how to be calm under pressure, learn how to deal with challenges, and know that it shall pass. And that was a common theme of a lot of people successful in business is controlling your emotions, being a good listener, and really enhancing your communication skills. Communication equals wealth. And that was the sentiment with everyone is how you communicate, how you inspire people, how you lead. And leadership had a large meaning because in building your hard asset empire is if you're going to build the empire you want, you're going to have to lead in certain respects. And so every day I have to lead in what I do. That's who I am. And so leadership is not only being a good listener, but it's also inspiring people. How do you inspire people? You seek the truth in what they're saying. You can understand what their lens is and collaborate with them to have a conversation about. I never thought about that way, or let's try it this way. Or you know what, let's do your way and figure it out. And if it doesn't work, let's figure out how to change it. So communication and understanding how people are thinking and listening and understanding and processing information is so critical to success. And the hard asset empire you build, the other thing that came out of it was you get rewarded for focus, which is something I always say. So I focus on commercial real estate. That's my expertise. That's how I build my empire. But when I have capital, like I said, and I invest in crypto or I invest in technology, which I love to invest in, I invest with smart money. So I want to invest with people that have been there, done that, I'm not the expert. It's like when we buy a medical office building, okay, the cardiologist group don't want to own real estate because it's a pain in the ass for them. And I'm not getting involved in doing heart surgery. It's not my niche. So you pick your lane, you pick your focus. And the sentiment with everything is you get reward for focus, manage your expectations, communicate very well and enhance your communication. Work on it. Those were the three common things that came out of this.
- [45:28]
Scott Clary
I want to go a little bit deeper into sort of your expertise and some lessons with commercial real estate because I've never really had somebody that's completely focused on commercial real estate before. And I think that obviously this is what you've done your whole career. You kind of made an argument before for why commercial real estate over residential. But I mean, even at the beginning you niched down a little bit more into medical in particular. So if somebody is very interested in commercial real estate, what are some ideas that they should be aware of? Should they niche down that much? I'm sure there's recession proof in some of these ideas. There's maybe how long or what's the word I'm thinking of if it's like a sticky tenant if they don't leave and, and, and you know, the second you buy the property, kind of like that first tenant that took off, you probably focus on people that want to stay in the building for long term or there's a reason why they would. So maybe that's one of the reasons. But somebody going to commercial real estate, what is the first piece of advice that you give them?
- [46:30]
Ben Reinberg
There's a, there's a couple things. If you're going to buy commercial real estate and take the road. I did, what I say is stay, stay local or regional like I did. Even though we have the Internet and you can live in California and buy in Wichita, Kansas, My suggestion to you is start local and regional where you could drive to your properties. It'll make your life easier because you're going to go on a learning curve. And when you go on that learning curve, you want to maximize time. Time is our biggest asset in life. It always will be. So when you're younger and you're learning and you want to be a principal and do what I did, start locally. Now when you start locally or regionally, like I was in Chicago, So Chicago is a big city. I have a choice. Multifamily industrial office, self storage. I have options. But you might live in Montgomery, Alabama and you're listening to this and maybe it's good self storage market, maybe it's good mobile home market, which is commercial real estate. So I would look at A niche that's conducive to your area, that you can start with. Why shorten the learning curve as much as possible? Mitigate your time? You're gonna have to go tour properties. You gotta build resources with brokers, attorneys, lenders. You're in that area already. Maximize your time. When you develop your expertise and you have capital to start expanding. Then you go from Alabama to Mississippi to Tennessee to Florida. All the things we do and all the states we're in. Start small. If you're going to be a principal. Now, if you're out there and you're into mergers and acquisitions or a hedge fund or you're in technology, my suggestion is invest in smart money, like my company, Alliance. Pick your poison. If you're like, I'm in mergers and acquisitions, I'm in private equity. That's what I'm doubling down on. Don't divert your time. Focus on your niche. That's your empire. Focus on that niche and then leverage into talent to start building your hard asset empire. That's how you do it. That's what everyone does. That's extremely successful. They focus. They don't divert because they don't have their time's their biggest asset. Significantly, wealthy people. Okay. What also comes out of this book and all the people I talked to for years and decades is time. We do an exercise in my office at my company, which I think is fascinating. I'll teach everyone out there. So when we did this about three years ago, the average age was about 77. Now, it could be more. You probably debate with me out there, but just roll with this example. Okay? So I'm 55 years old. I just turned 55 in January. If the average life is 77, if you took 77 minus 55, that's 22 years. If there's 52 weeks in a year, it's like a thousand, whatever, 1400, whatever it is, that's how many weeks I have left. So if I'm out there getting started and I'm 23, 26, 28, 29, 30, however your audience is, and I subtract that. 77, multiply 52, that's how much you have to live in your career. So you have to say to yourself, well, am I going to spread myself thin and get involved in a thousand different things and not become an expert? Because you need to become an expert at something. That's how you build rapport. That's how you get credibility. That's how you get loans, equity. Because you're the expert. People will give Money to people that are experts. How you become an expert, you put the time in, you develop your craft, you know the numbers, see how this all ties in together, Communication improves. And so if you're going to spread yourself thin, which isn't what I talk about in the hard asset empire and
- [50:17]
Scott Clary
hard assets and hard money, that's the other. The wrong direction, right? Yeah, yeah.
- [50:20]
Ben Reinberg
You got to be focused. You get rewarded for focus. So for people that want to get in commercial real estate, start local, pick a niche, focus on the one niche. Don't do like multifamily industrial and office and retail and you buy different deals throughout the year. Focus on a niche, develop those resources. Leasing brokers, appraisers, lenders that focus on that asset class. But if you're in a different business or you don't have the thick skin to stay in commercial real estate or any type of real estate, leverage into someone like alliance, leverage into someone else. Because if you're, if you're not full in the water and you don't love this business, it will eat you alive.
- [51:03]
Scott Clary
That's so smart. And I think that, you know, even. Listen, any business you go into, most businesses are going to be difficult. Commercial real estate is one beast. Any other business people try and build is going to be another beast. But I think that you only have, it's already difficult enough and you do only have so many hours in a day. And even if you devote all your focus on a niche and all your hours and energy and attention into a niche, it'll still be difficult. So stop shooting yourself in the foot by diversifying your attention everywhere. I think that's such an important lesson. Think about the most stressful or the most high risk deal that you've ever done. Something that sticks out when I say that. And then what would be the lesson that you learned from that that was useful to you, but you hope no one else ever has to learn the way you learned it.
- [51:56]
Ben Reinberg
Oh, it's such a great question. When I was younger, I bought a 300,000 square foot office campus and it was a huge equity raise. When I was younger and my fear was, okay, well I'm going to put debt and then mitigate how much equity I have to raise so I know I can close because I really want. I thought my career was where Sam Zell was buying skyscrapers. I was like, I'm going to be this mega office owner. And all of a sudden the Internet came into play and then office space, you know, downsize and became more efficient with technology and we didn't need as much office space. And so suburban office really took a hit. So I buy this 300,000 square foot suburban office in the Midwest and we end up getting a 75% loan to value. I sign with recourse. There's a couple things that come out of this story now that I'm talking about it. And then I put on a 10% Mez piece. So for anyone that doesn't know, I took out a first mortgage of 75% of the purchase price. I added a second mortgage in the form of a mezzanine debt with a Canadian pension fund. Speaking of Canada. And it was an additional 10. I was 85% leverage on a deal. Okay. I bought it right before the, right before 070607, before the market change. And we end up buying the deal. And Warren Buffett has his trucking company on two floors in one of the buildings. Those two buildings, 150,000 square feet, 17 acres, gorgeous campus. Great. They leave my, my debt service covenants get triggered. We don't have as much cash flow, we pay the mortgages, but something changes, loan goes into default, we're over leveraged. We have to now negotiate with the Canadian pension fund. You're not getting your, you're not getting anything out of this. So we had to negotiate with them. We went into workout with our first mortgage. I was on the hook for about $50 million. I was younger at the time. So we end up working out the deal, we ended up selling it, we had investors in it, in the deal and we end up breaking even, we end up moving on. But what I learned in the business, and I knew it before, is the key to commercial real estate or any business hard asset is the ability to hold, ability to hold, ability to hold in commercial real estate. What that means is we're going to ride through cycles. And so you need reserves, you need to look at the real estate fundamentals. You need to underwrite it and have flexibility in your loans so you have the ability to hold. So any loan we do, I don't sign with recourse anymore. I learned that a long time ago. I, I don't over leverage properties. I bring in great resources to help us when we need it and we do enough due diligence, know how to make sure this asset survives well. So to get back to all types of asset is understanding that you have the ability to hold and ride through a cycle and economic cycle is tremendous value. And it could be you're buying a company, you're buying an asset, you're developing a product because at the end of the day, the more Runway you have to deal with issues and challenges and you have the capital to do it, you'll be fine. It's when you have that short wick that you have to make decisions you're not happy with. And so for us in that deal, we over levered, I signed with recourse, we had no leverage and the market changed and all of a sudden values dropped, rental rates dropped, our value of property dropped and it was a nightmare. But I learned never over leverage property. Look at the real estate fundamentals when you're underwriting upfront and have the ability to hold, have enough reserves and just be very careful with leverage. So we always do low leverage on deals. Now we have enough reserves in the bank, we make sure we have the ability to hold, to ride through storms. Because real estate cash flows are like moguls. Everyone thinks like oh, they're just going to send in the air. Sometimes they do in our deals and we look great. But if you're in business long enough, you see everything, you see ups and downs in your deals, cash flow change and you have to be able to. The other thing I learned in that deal, which I could help out everyone listening, is that if you're going to get financing and a piece of real estate or a company and put debt on a hard asset, one I talked about, don't over leverage. But number two is know your lender. So for example, people say, well, how do you finance? I finance through banks, especially local banks.
- [56:50]
Scott Clary
Why?
- [56:51]
Ben Reinberg
I want to build a relationship. If I have an issue, I could pick up the phone or someone from my staff can pick up the phone and go over that challenge with them and have success. If I'm dealing with a lender like on Wall street and I don't have access to lender at CMBS or it's, it's a loan where someone's servicing it. I have no one to talk to, make decisions. If I have an issue, how do I protect my investors, how do I protect the asset? So flexibility and relationships and debt is really important and people, people don't realize it. And there's another lesson you could take out of this is that let's say you go to a bank to get a loan to buy a company or construction or improvements or a startup loan, sba, whatever you're doing out there, if a lender says we want you to sign recourse, just say to them you'll take less leverage and sign non recourse. The only Reason, Scott, people have you sign recourse. They don't want to hang you over a clip and shake out the pennies. They want to keep you vested. We want to know that Scott Cleary is not walking away from this deal. God help him. No, instead, it's okay. I asked for 65 LTV, non recourse. Can we do 55? Oh, yeah, Scott, we could do 55. You know what? If you're raising money, your investors know that if you're protecting the asset and protecting yourself and you're going to pay, instead of a seven or eight, preferred turn becomes a five or a six. It's okay. It's okay. Because what are you going to do on the back end for the profit? Look at the thing from a holistic basis, not what is it right now on a current cash basis. And the other thing for everyone out there, okay, is that wherever you invest, if someone tells you that they didn't have a deal where they had challenges or they didn't make a profit or they lost money, they're lying to you if they've been in business long enough. I'm telling you this, people are going to go through ups and downs. It's just the way life is. Nothing's going to be perfect. And so look at someone when you're investing is look at the relationship, look at the rapport you build, look at how you feel about this situation. Because one thing that we provide alliance I'm extremely proud of is we give investors a seven star experience. That White Glove service. Because if you invest with us, I never want you to worry. I want you to be able to turn focus on your niche if you're a doctor, whatever you do, and you're going to get overly communicated by us and reports and financial statements and returns, but I want you focusing on what you do best. And so if you're going to invest with someone and they can't provide you that White Glove service, look at different alternatives.
- [59:27]
Scott Clary
Indeed is a success story, partner. Now, if you're hiring, Indeed is all you need. Let me give you an example. If I needed to hire a new editor for this show, I'd go to Indeed and be super specific. Not just can you edit audio. I'd say I need someone who's edited a conversational podcast for at least three years, gets our style and knows our software. Someone who's done this before. And here's the thing with Indeed sponsored jobs, I'd get people who fit that description. I'm not digging through resumes from people who've edited one YouTube video. I'm getting actual podcast editors who know what they're doing, people who've worked on shows like ours and can prove it. That's what makes a difference. You get people who actually are what you're looking for. According to INDEED data, sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed are 90% more likely to report a hire than non sponsored jobs. And people are finding quality hires right now. In the minute that I've been speaking to you, companies like yours have made 27 hires on Indeed. According to Indeed Data worldwide. Spend more time interviewing candidates who check all the boxes. Less stress, less time, and more results. Now with Indeed Sponsored Jobs and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help you get your job the premium status it deserves@ Indeed.com Clary just go to Indeed.com Clary right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com Clary terms and conditions apply. Hiring do it the right way with Indeed. HubSpot is a success story. Partner. Now, if you're looking for a new podcast, one of my favorite shows right now is demand dakot it. If you're in the B2B marketing space, you need to be listening to this. It's hosted by the team at Blend. They are a demand gen agency. They know what they're doing. They're also part of the HubSpot Podcast Network. What I love about it is they skip all the theory and they just tell you what's actually working today. So demand gen marketing content, LinkedIn, ads, attribution. They talk about real strategies that they are using that you can use today that are working. So if you're an entrepreneur, if you're building a business, if you're really selling anything to anyone, go search Demand Decoded wherever you get your podcast. Right now we're in a market cycle. Obviously we just had a change in administration. What are some economic indicators that you look for when you're trying to figure out where I should be investing, what I should be investing in? How much is market cycle impact? How much is administration impact? How much does global geopolitics impact some of your decisions?
- [61:41]
Ben Reinberg
Well, geopolitics will definitely impact our decisions. Interest rates do as well. So for example, when we opened our multifamily division in 2024, that's recent, which is recent, about a year and a half ago, I kept watching it and saying, well, there's trillions of dollars coming along. There's a lot of multifamily sponsors that got into the business that Took on short term debt at a low rate, that's going to turn within a short period of time. So what happens is as the rising interest rate was happening, I said this is going to trigger loans, people are going to have to sell and there's going to be opportunities in multifamily. So just being aware of the marketplace and again having a focus and being knee deep in commercial real estate, I was able to see that opportunity. There's other opportunities. You might be looking at cryptocurrency and digital assets and there's opportunities like for example, the blockchain is going to be big in commercial real estate, which is one of the things we're focusing on. You are into.
- [62:41]
Scott Clary
Yes, I hear a lot about it, but I don't. I know propy is trying to. Do you know them? No, I don't know they're trying to sell homes with, with blockchain and whatnot. But I know, I've heard that it's going to be very big. But I haven't seen a lot of people actually transacting yet.
- [62:56]
Ben Reinberg
Not yet. It hasn't happened yet. But so looking at things and saying, okay, well what's out, what needs to be solved? And understanding the. So for me, when I look at commercial real estate, I say, well, what are challenges? Well, liquidity is a challenge, good sponsorships, challenge. So what I do, Scott, is in my specific niche. I'll look at what are the problems historically and can I solve them. And so if you're in a certain industry, right, And I was with a gentleman today and he's in commercial real estate, but he's also getting into buying companies and he's big into government backed contracts. So what he's doing, because it's his space, he sees a need and saying, you know what, there's rare opportunity to buy companies that have government executed contracts. And he explained to me the whole rationale. That's his niche, that's what he's focusing on. And so he sees an opportunity. So for everyone out there is that I think commercial real estate is going to be a great opportunity next two years to buy. I think there's going to be companies, if you buy companies that are going to have to sell, they're going to be great opportunities. I feel based on my book coming out, hard assets are the way to go in the next few years. And that's why we have so much demand to invest in Alliance Medical Fund, our multifamily fund. We're also doing hard money lending, which there's not a Lot of liquidity in the market. That's another good niche we're doing. So to me, hard assets are critical, especially in uncertain times. Geopolitical unrest. Yeah. Not knowing where cash flow is going to come. And so that's why I created this blueprint for everyone is so you can start building it and feel comfortable that you can deal with turmoil and uncertainty in your life. So if you're out there listening and you feel uncertain or you're wondering, how do I build myself financially? Pick up the book, look at the blueprint, pull the trigger, and start working on it. And it will give you clarity of where you need to go in your life. And also it makes you think. And the reason why I wrote their book also is that I wanted you to take a step back, Everyone out there around the world, and really think. Just take time to think about how do I plan for my kids? How do I protect my assets? What assets am I focusing on? Who's the smart money I need to invest with? What are the resources I need to do all this? And so how do I build that foundation? Because no one comes up with a roadmap or a blueprint to do all this. And that's why I did it, because I knew as a young man, I'm like, wouldn't it have been nice if someone told me this instead of going on this learning curve? And so it's my way to give back. And I say to everyone out there is there's going to be a tremendous amount of buying opportunity for hard assets next few years. That's my opinion. You could have your own opinion. I'm not giving you investment advice just to make a disclaimer, but I will tell you from my personal opinion, what I'm looking at is I'm looking at hard assets.
- [65:59]
Scott Clary
What would be a belief about yourself that you once had, that you think now is completely false, A piece of your identity that you had to improve or you had to change?
- [66:11]
Ben Reinberg
I didn't think I was good enough. I came from, you know, I didn't come from money. I was really intelligent, but I wasn't a great student. And I had a reading comprehension problem when I was a kid. And so I'm my worst enemy. I would beat myself up. And I didn't think I was good enough. I didn't love myself. And so I had to learn that. That everyone's different in the world. And it's okay to love yourself. It's okay to love who you are and to own who you are and your deficiencies and work on them and everything else. And I had to learn that. And it was a hard pill to take. And so for me, for everyone out there listening is that if you're honest with yourself, you'll grow and you'll become an incredible businessman or woman. You become an incredible person to have a relationship with. You'll be incredible friendships and colleagues and resources and starts. When you're happy within yourself, your whole environment will change. And what I learned was for a long time when I was younger, I wasn't happy. And I kept saying to myself, I learned from mentors. They said the reason why you're not happy is because you're not happy with yourself. If you're happy with yourself, everyone around you is going to gravitate to you and you create this energy and frequency that people will come into your universe in your environment. That was something I had to learn. But it was the best lesson because to share it with people that I went through was tremendous. And so for people that feel they're not good enough or they don't love themselves or they beat themselves up, I encourage you to kind of look at how you can work on that.
- [67:56]
Scott Clary
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- [70:10]
Ben Reinberg
And when you do the work, you'll notice a big change in everything you
- [70:14]
Scott Clary
do on your sort of your success journey. What do you think people sacrifice? Hopefully not you, but something that other people sacrifice that is the most detrimental thing on the way to success, the thing they should not sacrifice on the way to success.
- [70:30]
Ben Reinberg
They don't celebrate the wins and something I didn't do enough on. Now I do. They don't have gratitude. They don't appreciate the people that help them on a daily basis. The employees, the team leaders, the resources outside, the people that help them get on, go along the way. It was interesting. I was watching someone on the news the other day and he said, he's a broadcaster. He said, I never forgot the first radio station I was on. And he has gratitude for every step. And he's right. And so if you can have gratitude of. My wife made me dinner this night. That way it allowed me to work later or I didn't have to worry about it, or someone folded my clothes or I was speaking and this happened. I was speaking, some young lady came up to me and handed me a bottle of water and said, oh, you look thirsty. I was wondering. It was a great networking move. She wanted to meet me and she was in commercial real estate. So being grateful for the things that happen in your life, the simple things, is so important because what we do is we take everything for granted in life. Oh, I'm entitled to that. That should happen to me because I'm this person. Well, no, that's not the way life works is if something does. Nice. Like, I'm grateful that you invited me on your podcast. I get to share my story. How great is that? And I get to meet you and network with you. That's gratitude. That's taking a step back and saying, what am I aware of and what's really going on? And we're not aware. We're speeding things up. We're not paying attention. Right. And we take things for granted. And so for me, for everyone out there, is that take a step back, take a breath, understand how you got to a place, and be grateful. And if that's your approach, everything else in life will be easier.
- [72:24]
Scott Clary
What's the biggest misconception about your success story?
- [72:27]
Ben Reinberg
Oh, we laugh about in this office. Just like on social media, it's easy. It happened overnight. Ben just wrote that book overnight. He got all these followers overnight. My social media sucked when we started. And I'm the first one to tell you because my original vendors thought it was just the vanity is what's important. No, it should be a cohesive strategy for the business and the brand. And so for me, nothing happens overnight. It's a big misconception. Success doesn't happen overnight. You have to grind, you have to show up, you have to be persistent, you have to be resilient. All the stuff we talked about today is a culmination of what needs to happen. And it's not easy. It just doesn't happen overnight.
- [73:15]
Scott Clary
Yeah, I mean, that's a common thread across everyone who I bring on this show. We always live for the Instagram highlight reel, and we don't realize the energy and the effort that goes into it. I mean, you've put over. Over 30 years into. That's what people don't understand. So they. They see the book and they'll see the Instagram and all the ideas that you have. That's 30 years in the making. On top of the fact that even building out those platforms took a ton of energy and time and resource and effort. You have to have a lifetime of experience to be able to teach and to be able to show up and to be able to sort of articulate some of the ideas that you have. So you can't just fast track that overnight.
- [73:54]
Ben Reinberg
Well, and for me, it was different because I was already successful in business and I decided to get online.
- [74:01]
Scott Clary
That's what I mean. So people are trying to be online before they're successful in business.
- [74:04]
Ben Reinberg
Yeah. It wasn't like I got online and said, okay, let's see. If I could become successful, I had to grind and do everything I'm saying. So what's great about it is when I go online, I'm living these stories. I've lived them. I've lived the event. I could tell you it's not easy. I could tell you tough people don't let tough times don't last, tough people do, because I've been through it. And so it's real, it's authentic. And that's what I love about social media, is that when you could hook on to someone that has experience and knowledge in that gray matter between your ears, that to me is priceless. That's a good thing about social media.
- [74:38]
Scott Clary
Yeah, I think that's. You know, we didn't really speak about this, but we touched on how important sort of structuring your life is not just for yourself, but for your family and your kids and obviously massively successful. And I like to just have a little bit of insight from how you look at structuring life for your kids, who are also people that are trying to figure that out, because that's not a conversation that people have a lot. And I think it gets confusing for people. When you make a little bit of money, how do you protect your kids, both financially, but also so that your kids can learn the same lessons that you've learned. And I don't think there's a forget about a playbook for hard assets. There's zero playbook for that.
- [75:21]
Ben Reinberg
No, everyone's trying to. That's why I touch on it in the book saying, you know, so for me, asset protection, life insurance. One thing I taught my kids, I'll teach if anyone has kids or going to have kids, I'll teach you. Something I did for my kids, which I thought was priceless, was when my kids got into high school, I wanted to teach them the value of money. I wanted to know that mom and dad aren't just ATMs, because it was like that when they're in junior high, you know, hey, can I have a 20? Kind of a 10. I'm going, going skating, going out with some friends. And I said, this has to stop. And so what I did was I taught them the value of money. So what I did was your kids start driving here in the United States at the age of 16. And one thing that I decided to do, I wanted to give my kids the things I didn't have. I didn't have, you know, to where I had my own car. I didn't have the ability to go get clothes at free will and go out to dinners all the time with friends. I didn't have that, but I developed that lifestyle for my kids. So I said, okay, well, I got to pick my poison if I'm going to spoil them. I got to teach the value of money. So what I did for everyone listening out there is my oldest son, Joey. He's my oldest. And at the time, he's 25 years old at the time, when he was a teenager starting off in high school is in Chicago, I said, okay, we're going to put you on a budget. We're going to give you a certain amount of money every month to pay for gas. If you go out with friends, eating and so on and so forth, it was a fine ami for the month. And that's all you get. So you got a budget. So now it gets really interesting because Joey's spending money and all our accounts are linked. You know, I'm looking at Chase, and I could see the money he's spending now. Let's just say it's a 31 days in a month. Day 25 comes, Joy's got like 8 bucks. What's he gonna do? Well, guess what? He starts eating at home, starts making decisions because he's not getting any more. And so what ends up happening is you learn about the value of the dollar and how to budget. And so I tell everyone is, don't just give your kids a blank check. Let them earn it. Let them understand the value of the dollar. Doesn't matter how successful you are. I'm successful. I could give them money. But what am I teaching them? Because when they become adults and God forbid I'm buried in the ground, they gotta sustain themselves. They gotta learn about money. And I see that with a lot of friends and people. People are afraid to teach their kids money, and I'm not. We talk about it. I talk about what I do. I talk about the challenges. I talk about financing. I talk about crypto with my son. He's in the blockchain business. I mean, we talk about these things, and I learned from them. Hey, how would you deal with this? So I encourage everyone, if you have kids or you're gonna have kids, give them a safe space to engage with. Give them a safe space to talk about money and put them on a budget. And you'll see, because when you start having these conversations about money by osmosis, they start learning about in the value of the dollar. And guess what? They're more grateful. They appreciate they don't take Advantage of you and you feel better. You're like, wow, they really appreciate me and appreciate how hard I work.
- [78:38]
Scott Clary
And I also think, I mean, I've seen, obviously this is not an issue that applies to everyone, but when parents are super wealthy and they just hand their kids money, those kids are messed up. Kids are messed up.
- [78:51]
Ben Reinberg
They don't understand the value of the dollar.
- [78:52]
Scott Clary
No. And I've seen, you know, I'm not old enough to have friends, close friends that. Well, actually some of my friends are a little bit older than me and their kids are like teens. But I have some sort of work business peers that are much older than me and they have kids like, you know, mid-20s, early-30s. And some of them have like overdosed through drugs and just like reckless spending and reckless lifestyle. And. And like, it's very sad. It's very, very sad because again, the kid never really understood the value of hard work and everything was just handed to them. And then all of a sudden you do you hand a kid anything they want for years at a time. And I just, worst case scenario, something like what I just mentioned, I mean, best case scenario is really they're just entitled assholes. But regardless, it's just not good across the board.
- [79:47]
Ben Reinberg
No. And the problem is when you start earning money and you start becoming wealthy, you're living in these areas where there's high expectations on the kids. And so how you manage your kids is important. And again, it goes back to that root thing of communication. And so the space you allow them to communicate with them without making they feel they're going to get hammered for mistakes. The more you allow them to up, the easier it is. And that goes with money too.
- [80:18]
Scott Clary
What do we not go into?
- [80:20]
Ben Reinberg
Why buy the book?
- [80:21]
Scott Clary
Go for it. Why buy the book? Who's it for too?
- [80:25]
Ben Reinberg
It's for anyone in the world. It doesn't matter if you're a billionaire. It's for you to understand of how can I produce consistent cash flow, to allow myself the independence I deserve to have control and security over my life, which is what everyone wants, which is part of the reason I wrote the book. And so I want everyone to know that it's visual, it's actionable and it was written for you. It wasn't written for me. I didn't have to write this book. I'm fine. I'm not making any money. I'm offering it for not a lot of money. But I'm doing it because Scott, I took a step back and said, what would I would have loved when I was younger, I was like, if I had this blueprint and someone giving me guidance and the ability to go on his website and create a course, if I wanted to buy assets, how great would that be? I said, well, let's create that because that's my way to give back. And so that's why you buy the book. If you're feeling uncertain or you want control or security, or you're extremely wealthy, but you want to look at your playbook and say, where am I at in life? I got this, I got that. How about data? I didn't think of that. So everyone can use it. It doesn't matter who you are, man, woman, child, billionaire, millionaire, broke, whatever. It gives you the tools you need. And it's visual to help you build the hard asset empire. That's why you buy the book. It's for you.
- [82:05]
Scott Clary
Obviously, it's going to be Amazon. Everywhere else you get books. We'll put a link in, show notes, any other websites or even your social.
- [82:12]
Ben Reinberg
Sure. So if you go to BenReinberg.com you can follow me on all the platforms. If you go to BenReinberg.com book, you can pre order the book. We've had thousands of people pre order it to get there. And so if you want to invest with us, because I invest in our deals too. That's how I build wealth. Go to alliancecgc.com that's alliancecgc.com that's my company. You click invest now, you put in your information. Someone from my office will personally call you. And what they do is we don't sell, we educate. So, for example, we're going to want to know, what are you investing in? Are you a credit investor? What do you like? How do you like Risk? This and that. We're going to find out information because we're going to interview you to make sure you're a good fit for us and we're a good fit for you. That's what our relationship because when investors come in our universe, they don't want to leave. And so we want to make sure that there's that relationship and that we're a good fit for you. It's important to us. And so at the end of the day, that's how you can get a hold of me. I'm on all the social media platforms. We're very engaging. And when you follow me on social media, if it's on Instagram, herealben Reinberg or you go to TikTok, all these things, I'm on social media to give value. That's it. I'm not selling you something. I'm not doing this. It's all about what can I do to help you. And if you want to invest in commercial real estate, great. If you don't, that's okay, too.
- [83:38]
Scott Clary
Even if you don't, you'll learn some life lessons.
- [83:40]
Ben Reinberg
Exactly.
- [83:40]
Scott Clary
Along the way.
- [83:41]
Ben Reinberg
That's what it's about.
- [83:42]
Scott Clary
Think of the most important lesson, maybe something we even haven't touched on yet that you do want to pass on to your kids. What would that be and why?
- [83:48]
Ben Reinberg
Be humble and grateful. Appreciate everything that God gives you, that resources provide for you, that knowledge you obtain. Be grateful for it and be humble, and it will carry you through life. I mean, I can give, you know, and obviously I'll give you guys a bonus. And don't criticize him, because this is important, is that I would also go back to when I was younger to say to my kids or anyone out there, if they're young, listening, or you're getting started, is be a master communicator. Because communication rules everything we do in life. And if I would have known that when I was younger, oh, my God, who knows where I would be? So that would be another good piece of advice. So I gave you two just to give a bonus because I think communication is so important, I didn't want to leave it out.