Fix & Flip your Mindset and Tone with Shea Rubinstein

do you think that we have a sh crisis right now for those that are married we don't a wife happens to be a brilliant answer yeah to 99% of the world's problems I just went to the real estate show because I figured it's going to be a lot of people with a lot of money and I don't give a sh I want to be by that show remember this it's never what you say it's only how you say it why go elsewhere and get ripped off when you can come to us and and then I passed the restaurant Upstate New York and said eat here or we'll both starve right I want to enjoy life so I will do anything that it takes for me to enjoy life and to help others enjoy life if you want to be a good salesperson think that person's position and that will make you a better sales person how does it feel to have to have a lot of money I mean they call it Fu money right like how does that feel I wouldn't know welcome to another episode of positivity today I have here Rabbi I can say Rabbi sh Rubin because he does so many things and which can be interesting to people first of all he's an entrepreneur he's also a singer and a kazin he also Al has a lot of real estate he has a company that he that that I think also builds real estate for people and he also is the leader of the Jon event the seventh show coming up this year so he does a lot of networking events um and many people have asked when we do this podcast I should allow the guests to introduce themselves and I feel like especially when we have somebody that has such a wide journey and does so many different things it is interesting to hear his story sometimes I just love to jump into to the gist of it but today I am going to ask you to tell his story and tell us with what he's involved in um I also just want to remind you to please like this podcast um subscribe to the podcast leave a comment um I really love hearing all of your feedback also if you want to join the conversation the link to my WhatsApp is in the description so you can join the conversation and never miss an episode and stay in touch um thank you so much she for being here it's m a pleasure some know you as Josh rtin sh rtin but thank you so much for being here thank you Ellie for the opportunity to uh be on your podcast I was actually extremely excited I've done many podcasts but you bring that beautiful energy and uh it just makes things happen themselves so thank you for having me on it's a true pleasure to be uh part of your thank you and you ordered us sushi so that that's a first guest that comes to my podcast brings me food I think that that's really it shows what kind of person you are thank you you never come empty-handed you know I I I don't know if I should go off over here on a joke but there was once a a lady in Florida she tells her son um you're going to come visit me do you know how to get to my apartment he says I I'm not sure Mom where is it she says well you're going to go down Collins Avenue and then you're going to see the building so as you're getting into the main entrance go like this and you'll get in the front door the elevator hit penous and uh you'll see Penthouse one and two then hit P Penthouse 2 and that's where I am he says ma why you keep on doing this she says you're not going to come empty-handed right so never come empty-handed but I'm truly grateful and to give you a 30 second synopsis of myself so I do go by Shia and Josh um I say that when people ask me what I do for a living I tell them it's about helping other people but I do other things paying the bills yeah absolutely so uh for first and foremost I get a big cish of being involved in community and helping people yeah whether it be through the JCC of Marine Park which is a social service and community- based organization also through jcon which um which helps over 12,000 people a year wow by doing courses job hiring mentorships oneon-one mentors and of course all the major events like you are familiar with the real estate but we do it for other Industries also like Ecommerce and elder care and healthc care and um education and career so we've done many events yeah but it's I just went to the real estate show because I figured there's going to be a lot of people with a lot of money and I don't give a sh so I want to be by that show that because I don't do real estate so you that's why I went to the show and I ended up meeting you over there and I just had a lot of fun because everybody was there in a suit and a tie and they doing all professional stuff and I'm a young entrepreneur I make my money not from Real Estate I make the amount that they make in a building for 20 years I can make from one YouTube video of this go was viral you know what I'm saying I felt very empowered and alive at this show it was a lot of fun and I'm like I'm like pushing through and everybody's looking at me who's this kid over here like young it was fun for me that's why I went to the show but then I ended up meeting you and it it got a lot of meaning behind it and and stuff like that but I felt like I want to be by the real estate show where essentially every fifth person owns buildings and has money I definitely hear it but again you brought another added value you where people that do the real estate they want a little bit of entertainment and fun in their life and you bring the joy and the energy and the social media aspect so it's different and a great contrast that's why you were a big hit also at the event even though there were a thousand people coming for Real Estate construction management so definitely uh complimented each other I absolutely thank you I appreciate that I love it people constantly ask me Ellie what's your mission or whatever we're going to get to you in a second I'm just saying like people always asked me this question and my answer is I I I want to enjoy life so I will do anything that it takes for me to enjoy life and to help others enjoy life that's my mission it's not about there's so many ways to help others as you mentioned for me I just want to show people how to have a good life and that involves sometimes hard work it's not just the enjoy life kind of part but there's you could enjoy life most people that I talk to they're like you know struggling is inevitable you got to struggle you got to suffer you got to okay that's very nice maybe it's part of growth but it it doesn't have to always be that way so all right I'm going to turn it back to you so I I do want to hear uh your your story a little bit how you got into this because people always look at a successful person they want to know what was his journey like it's just fascinating to hear the story and then the second part of the question will be what what are you involved in right now okay so you know what they say they say you could work hard 20 years to be an overnight success when you make mistakes for 20 years and you learn from your mistakes then eventually you become an overnight success but um but like everybody else I also grew up with yiva education did not have the opportunity to uh to go to college and whatnot just because you know the way we grew up in our yiva systems we don't do that and I felt at the time that I wished there were mentors and people that can teach me along the way instead of me learning from my own mistakes which I did and many years later not only did I have the ability to you know build a business but I focused a lot of time starting in 2008 and then again in 2015 to uh really create a bunch of different projects which will address helping people that are underserved that need help for social services and whatnot and then a lot of projects that are that are specifically to help people that want to be successful in business because as the rambam teaches us you can either give a person a fish well you can give them the rod in which to fish so that's really been the focus on the jcon and many other ini what did you personally start off after yiva you got married or whatever what was your first introduction to the business or helping people sure so I got married when I was 20 I stayed in Yeshiva for about 2 years and then I needed to find a job but I didn't know anything okay so I figured the easiest way to get into the business world is to buy something that's existing so I found for $5,000 a company that was doing uh like personalized photos you know like on the t-shirts on the mouse pads and I was trying to figure out how do you scale that type of business so he had a few organizations that why you even think of going to buy a business why don't you just go work a job oh very good question so it's a combination of my personality I I have a hard time just listening to people yeah like I feel like I have a vision and people are just going to tell you what to to do so work they say what all entrepreneurs have in common is they they can't follow orders they can't work for somebody else so they choose a path retrospect I should have chosen maybe a great industry let's say real estate work for the best company regardless of what they pay so I would get my Harvard Education in real estate from an amazing company and then take that back and do my my own which is probably what I should have done but again being 22 years old not sure I figured $55,000 I can chance it even came with a computer and in those days in 1999 or 2000 computers email Yahoo we didn't even know what that really was at the time so I bought this business and then I was trying to figure out scalability how do I get to make money I have a machine I know how to put a t-shirt a picture I can take a vase cut out the picture and put it into a nice vase but how do you sell it to people you're going to spend $50,000 on Advertising so then I realized that I don't know if you're young enough you may not know what this is there was something called a photo lab where people would develop pictures they would have a 35mm camera take pictures and there's something called film that you take out and you would bring it to a store and for like10 or $13 they would give you 35 pictures right that's before the digital era so there were many stores throughout everywhere that would have you know photoshops and what I did is I made beautiful little slips I took a picture of my daughter um in like a Onie together with a picture and I made uh you know I put in a few photos in that beautiful insert of you know t-shirts and mugs and different things that you could um have that personalized I love personalization cuz I'm very into personalization you know when I come for you it's about you yeah so I made this beautiful insert and then what I did is I spent the next month just going around to 250 Photoshop stores and I said I I would like to help you make more money cuz remember it's never about me it's about you people don't want you to say oh this is my name this is what I do for a living people are not interested about you people like to talk and people like to hear about them so I told them you have a beautiful store number one you always start with a compliment you have a beautiful store right and cuz everybody loves a compliment nobody's going to reject the compliment right so I said I love your store you do beautiful work and I think that I can help you make additional profit besides for what you're doing with no hard work on your end so when you take your film and you develop it you put 35 or 36 photos into an envelope put my insert in also so when people will pick up the pictures they open up the envelope they see the insert they'll choose whichever photo photo and then they'll see for 1395 they can put their daughter's photo on so they'll just leave uh the photo with you or you have the negative and you'll just print out for 35 cents another picture of that negative all you have to do is just tell them to leave it behind take the 13.95 from them I'll give you 35% of every single deal that comes in and they loved it it was too good to turn down that's what I so it took them nothing so essentially I ended up building up a network of about 125 stores and it was so interesting to see the pattern of every every store in a different neighborhood when those people respond like certain people get paid Friday and they would come on Friday to do it some people don't work Sunday they would do it on Sunday so it's interesting to see every Community but essentially I had 125 stores giving me roughly three to seven orders a week so I had a th000 orders a week that's genius to be able to so you were 22 and you were making nice amount of money I was making decent money but again there was a lot of it was all me I didn't have the SE to be a company I was an individual running a business right so I went let's say every Sunday and every Tuesday to pick up and every Thursday and every Friday to deliver wow and I made my rounds and I tried saving money so don't ship it to me and email wasn't such a big thing so they couldn't email me really everything there were no forms it wasn't very sophisticated it was just the beginning right of so this was your first business that was my first business okay where did it go from there then from there I decided first of all did you yeah okay go ahead then I decided from there why am I just doing it over there let me try to grow so I my next reaction was I'm going to go to the beaches and the malls and open these stores myself wow and I did it a little bit but it turned out to be much more difficult than I expected cuz the beaches were only open 2 and 1/2 months a year from Memorial to Labor Day and if it rains no good if it rains then it's it's good for the mall but it's bad for the beach and then for the mall no one is there a whole week only on shabas which is a different problem so it be and also you have to hire workers and this cash so it became too big of a deal and I saw that it didn't make sense so I wanted to stay within the personalized space CU I really enjoyed it but I felt like this is um not enough so I shifted into starting to offer Graphics yeah and marketing and then on the commercial side you know when they have your pen with your logo and your bag with your logo so I went in for the next few years about 3 years to do uh all personalized uh promotional imprinted products Graphics marketing C uh customer retention employee retention um incentive programs so I went into that whole Space of being in the promotional products marketing industry wow fascinating and do you still have this business or did you sell it or what's so so in 2004 I I I woke up one morning and I said this is the most important question you have to ask yourself am I going to make a million dollars here or am I just going to make a 10,000 and 50 and $100,000 I said to answer that question you have to look at the industry and say out of a 100 people that do any industry do you have to be from the top 2% to be successful or from the top 50% so if I say real estate nursing homes um software 50% of the people that you know are making a good living you don't have to be from the top 1% if I tell you and again this is not an offense to those Industries but if I tell you shoe maker dry cleaners Mak and copies of keys if I tell you those companies you have to be from the top 1% to make a million dollars or not even a million to make $300,000 because so many people because you don't it's not a it's not a very big business unless you know Drive cleaners oh if you have 10 of them and have but most of the people in the dry cleaning or making copies of keys or shoemakers are not making serious money so that means for me to make serious money I have to be that top 1% and what's the likeliness so I decided it's time for me to go into construction or real estate there was only one problem I didn't know what a 2x4 was and I didn't know what real estate was and I didn't know maybe even how to spell the word real estate but I wanted to do it so I was trying to figure out so I made it my mission for the next year or two two years that I would try to fix and flip so I would try I would go into contract to buy a house and in those days it was much easier we were able to get home equities to do the renovation but I took a partner that knew construction and I would tell the partner don't order anything whenever you need something send me to this store I want to go to the lumber yard and say I would like to have a 1 in coarse Nails screws uh 2x4 sheetrock 2x4 by 10 I would hear the words and I would pick it up I didn't want to be the delivery boy but I knew that's the only way for me to start understanding what I'm saying right and I would go every day to the job for like 3 hours 4 hours just to watch like do you do electric before you do sheetrock do you do 2x4 framing before you do beams like I knew nothing but over the course of the next year or two I really started understanding what things are and that kind of helped me uh I did about 10 fix and flips oh wow so that kind of got me into understanding the business but I only did it with people who had skin in the game so it's not like I hired a contractor that doesn't care only I hired a partner who knows construction so if I lose they lose so that's skin in the game plus expertise and as I started getting more and more into construction I sold my original business to one of my salespeople CU I figured that I ultimately did not want to be in that business right so this would kind of you want to share how much it sold for I'm just I'm just super curious it um I I I don't remember exactly but it was two and a half times earnings wow and it was also a big incentive to the fellow who was working and he had put in a few years of time so yeah oh so you're meaning you gave it to him a little bit for Less could have sold it for more right so I told him I'll give it to him for two and a half earnings so just for argument sake if it was making $750,000 right um and of that let's say 300 was profit so it would go for 2 and a half times right approximately I don't remember this is going back 20 years ago right but it's old nice you're saying you made what did you do with that money I invested it into the next few fix and flips so a lot of people will be listening to this especially in G lot um especially when I have a a mail on a lot of Ying lot listens it goes around even more um both go around both listen but a lot of people will ask now fix and flips like this is something that there's thousands of ingala doing it or want to do it so do you think that it's still a good business are you still doing it by the way so I think fix and flips construction development um I do different things within the space but it's always about creating that right angle so 10 people can do the same thing and not make money wow but if you know how to structure the deal if you know how to finance the deal if you know maybe how to get a seller's concession or how to get financing from the seller or know how to get the construction money it's always about the angle it's never about oh he does Real Estate I could do real estate it's very nuanced like when I do developments on the same block there could be two different stories wow in the same block there could be a reason why this is good or not there can be something nice that you add that creates real value so it's always about creating that angle that makes you different from just someone else so to answer your question can you make money in fix and flips of course and of course not so it's true that interest rates are higher so it's a little bit more difficult to buy and to sell but if you do something that's of real added value you could do very well with it and uh I've I I have done it and today I do less with fix and flips and more with bigger developments just because that's what I figured it's a little bit when there's when it's bigger and there's more in the numbers it's true you're taking bigger risk but when you do let's say a a $5 million deal something cost 200 Grand more you could deal with it but if you do a Fix and Flip that you can make 100,000 and it cost you 66,000 more you're losing your profit and the time and the energy yeah that's what I was thinking like when you think of fixer flips it's like buying a Katka house and you're selling it for a little bit more but I'm guessing I was thinking you're probably now doing fix and flips for a big building that you're now selling for even more or making it even bigger and and and stuff like that um generally speaking owning real estate estate um at what point did you say did you want to start owning the real estate that you were fixing and flipping I mean I'm trying to ask personal questions because I really want to learn and I know for people it's going to be very interesting so at any point if you don't want to answer about personal uh finances you don't have to answer but at which point did you say let me start owning these houses rather than just fixing and flipping that's a very good question so my model at the time was try to hold on to some that's more valuable to you and then Fix and Flip the others to have the money to be able to continue so I bought two homes and I held on to them and I bought the other eight homes one at a time or two at a time or three at a time and uh like the first one I bought and just flipped immediately the next one I bought I put in about $80,000 and I sold it for $100,000 profit and I tried doing that mixed where I would have enough money to be able to you know do the work and keep on to one or two so that ratio would work um because remember also when you're not very big in real estate you're also taking a chance let's say you make over 10 homes and you have a problem with some tenants or it cost you more than you expect or some of the homes are empty it can cost you 10 20 $30,000 a month so you have to be very careful not to dra get drained but if you if you minimize your risk um and you need some money to invest also so let's say I would buy three and keep one and um so constantly the houses that you kept um the the the houses that you flipped were constantly uh were giving you the money to be able to buy more exactly for yourself and to keep them right so you try even though there was risk in keeping it but you still had a few more that you were at that time right so I would say for for people going into the business if you want to go into the Fix and Flip there's a few things to keep in mind first of all am I buying it right number two what's the real value that I'm adding number three do I really know all my cost because you have to keep in mind when you buy it there closing cost and then there's title bills and then you have transfer tax on the selling on the way out if you're going to take a broker you have so there's a lot of fees a lot of people like oh I buy it for 300 put in a 100 is 400 I sell it for 500 I made a 100 right but if you think that way and you don't think about 20,000 and closing cost in 10,000 out 20,000 for broker 20,000 for carrying cost as you pay interest then you don't pay attention you don't make money and is it important to start off with liquid like do you have to have in your account 50 to 100,000 or more to start off or if somebody wants to get into real estate they can technically now either borrow money from friends or take a loan and start this kind of career or game or whatever so if you want to go in The Fix and Flip you could definitely take money from friends or you could take a loan but keep in mind that 90% of businesses fail in America for two reasons lack of capital and lack of management most people I see in real estate that don't make it to the Finish Line are because they don't have enough money between 90 and 95% or maybe even higher so because they never had the money to even start they think oh I need I'm buying it I have to put 10% down I need 100,000 to fix so I need uh 160,000 so they take 160 and when things cost more and expenses are higher they don't have a way to get to the Finish Line right so if you think you need 150 and you don't have access to 250 don't do it so you're saying they should have the access basically before they get start must must must have the access cu so will always cost you more than you expect especially if you're new so at which point do you make money if it's costing more right so that's why it's a combination of making sure you really know your expenses and when you consider how much it's going to cost to know that it will cost more and that you'll still make money yeah never work on thin thin margins because then you don't have that ability to move right so let's say you bought a house for 300 and you say if I put in 100 to make it 400 I could sell it for 700 then you know there's enough room if you know that you'll be in for four and you could sell it for 460 you know that you're not going to make money because closing overcost you're not going to make money so if the margins are very thin don't even go there what does a healthy margin look like so if there's that 25 to 50% up then it's worth it and again everyone has a little bit of a different angle and like you say some people will buy Fix and Flip I'll come in let's say and I'll be like okay this is a certain zoning so I I see how I could change the classification on the first floor to a daycare because that's rents for much higher plus I can add two more Floors Plus I could change the CFO and divide each floor into two apartments and make them beautiful cool apartments with tall ceilings and now that will give me 20,000 a month instead of me looking at a two family house and saying oh if I make over the two family 3,000 plus 3,000 is 6,000 right so it's never about what you see in front of you think big picture think what what is the angle what am I doing different am I just you know it's or call somebody that knows a little bit better than you don't be uh shy we were discussing this shabas if it's worth buying a house if everybody should buy a house or not because it's liability versus asset and I'm curious what your opinion on that is should an averaging amount of family buy a house and which basically now they got themselves a liability because they must pay the mortgage they must pay taxes they're going to end up paying on their house probably twice or three times the amount of money eventually um they can be taking now the money they can be paying rent $2,000 and putting the other $3,000 they would be paying for a mortgage that would be $5,000 they can put the $3,000 into the S&P 500 every month and having 10 years from now have the entire house money's worth so I'm curious your opinion I think it's a very good question so I would say as follows I think it's a great idea to buy the house for two reasons number one when you're young and you're 20 22 25 and you don't have the same expenses as someone who has five children in yiva with two cars and you have to pay for seven camps and clothing so your expenses are still much lower than when you're 35 years old F so number one even though you're right that that extra 3,000 in the S&P compounded interest over 30 years can do more the fact is is that you're going to want you're going to want the house you need a place to live the houses are going to become more expensive you need stability so by buying the house I'm not saying you have to buy it day one when you get married because you are right there's a huge difference between uh $2,000 rent and maybe a $4,000 mortgage because the mortgage includes insurance and tax and the mortgage payments at a higher interest rate but I do think that you know if you wait a little bit until you have that good down payment and you feel that you could swing the mortgage I think it's important because a you're going to have that dream of American home ownership number two the value of the asset will go up as the value of the asset goes up you'll have the ability to borrow money against it in case of an emergency wow and if you don't do it you're not going to do it when you're 30 with more expenses and the house that you could have bought 5 years ago went up another 350,000 so for all those reasons I say buy as soon as you can and if you can't afford a million dollar house buy a $500,000 house but at least you have something to trade that in 5 years will be so why do people like Robert Kawasaki the the the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad or grand Cardone tell people don't buy a house you're creating yourself a a liability and it's just going to cost you money just pay rent right cuz their their their train of thought is like you said first of all I can go from place to place I don't have to worry I don't have to worry about all the expenses associated with breaking items cutting the grass taxes but um I I hear what they're saying but I I I disagree because I think it builds wealth and it builds stability and um if you're in Mid America May apply differently but when you're in specific areas that keep on going up in value if you take a look regardless of any downturn from the last 110 years there's never been a time that you can go back now and tell me that real estate a house is worth less now than 10 years ago than 50 years ago than 100 years ago so it's consistently going up in value maybe if you compare it to an S&P but I still think for all those reasons buy it when you can if you can't afford the top tier buy the middle one but don't don't not buy so basically I should buy a house buy okay I want to buy you I want to borrow $100,000 see borrowing to buy is different than having at least a down payment plus knowing that you can make that more exactly this is what we're talking about save some money yeah wow um this is truly uh fascinating okay so I'm curious one very important thing is sales so I remember we met at the last jcon I think it was actually peon because I know you went to that show and we were sitting there for about 20 minutes and you were helping me develop the sale for my business even better so um I feel like sales is so such an interesting topic because everybody has a different aspect of it and not everybody's in it but did I did learn and and that everybody has to be a good sales person because at some point you're selling your own kids you're selling your wife not in the wrong way but you you have to make a pitch you're selling on your friends you're selling your and then again to have any kind of business you have to be able to sell so what did you learn in your course of sales obviously you started directly in sales with that uh with that printing business but now you're also doing real estate so you're dealing with with bigger fish and and people in the industry what did you learn a sales meaning to say when you meet somebody and you want to close a house what's your approach to sales you meet them shom you said you mentioned giving a compliment run me down what's what's another few tips so here's the secret sauce and and this is really it's you you're asking a brilliant question because the biggest mistake people think whether it's on LinkedIn or whether it's when I meet people or when they call me people will get on the phone and start telling you about themselves and what they do for a living and what they sell 99% of people don't care no one wants to be sold to yeah so for you to say hi my name is Ali Weber and I have a social media marketing agency and I'll help you manage this and so okay but people care about themselves try this for a change hi I know that you are Shia Rubenstein I know that you do amazing real estate I actually have an idea that can really help you out and increase your profits across all of your exactly so when you start becoming a solution or you say something that is of Interest people hear you so I'll give you for instance last week I wanted to purchase a building and not only that but I I wanted the person to sell it to me for about a million dollars less than he wanted so what I did was instead of coming to him and saying hi Mr MOA I I would like to do I would like to buy this building but it's not worth it is worth it I spent 95% of the time just talking to him and becoming his friend making I smiling him just becom his friend I'm like oh where do you live oh your kids live where they live in Tom's River they live in Flatbush they live in Park very interesting oh are you related to so and so and I would give him I would throw little compliments just to make him feel good because I was selling myself I am not selling a product wow it's never about selling who cares if you sell fertilizer real estate garbage bags doesn't make a difference we all need these products and of course ultimately you want to sell it but stop selling nobody wants to be sold people do business with people they don't do business with products right they don't do business with garbage bags and real estate and grass they do business with people people will bet much easier on the jockey than on the product so if they like you they'll deal with you just to say we have better service we're cheaper okay of course at some point you may have to be less expensive to get in the door because but if you're going to sell yourself because you're selling something for cheaper then the second you're not a penny cheaper you're out because you sold the product for a penny cheaper so it's all about that Penny cheaper so if I come to you and I'm like uh I could sell you insurance but I can give it to you for 300 a month instead of 310 that he's charging you the minute that there's a problem or changes or circumstances change I'm out so I spend most of the time becoming your friend it's amazing selling myself giving you the confidence complimenting you because people like talking people like compliments if I give you a compliment it's very hard for you to be rude after that so this is my pitch I would come to you and I would say hi Ellie you're from where from m is that next to forche is that next to Wesley I was at this farm store and I saw they sell it so I'm starting to become your friend that way and then I asked you a little bit about your children or if you want a coffee and it I made 90% of the conversation about that and maybe about the building that I was looking to buy and ask what do you think the opportunities are what offers have you been offered so very soft as I'm getting to the close and then you know I'll usually say um if it's a join Venture I'll say I'd like to offer you the opportunity to partner with me wow in this endeavor so I'm never saying please I don't use words like please help me sedoka charity it's always like I would like to offer you the opportunity to partner with me in this endeavor when a business person hears the word opportunity partner they don't hear please do me a favor it's not worth it they don't hear negative never use negative things never use and again please is also negative because you know you're dealing with their subconscious uh you know saying do me a favor and people in business are not in the doing favor business either I'm doing you a favor or I'm doing business wow so if it's a partnership I'll offer them that and I truly tried to come across authentic never drive and never be a fast talker people think when they pick up the phone to call someone it's they think what as many words they can get into that 30 seconds they said more the faster your talk the worse off you are how would you go about selling a service which is basically you're asking somebody to commit so this is what I would it's a lot in a sense it's even deeper and more difficult than offering a partnership or something like that so again it's always about understanding and hearing them so if let's say I was selling social media services or marketing I would call up and I would say Ellie again I love that you sell flooring I think that your website is beautiful and I remember bumping into you at the uh uh jcon show had a beautiful booth and I hear great things from people in the industry about your product so first of all you just gave him a great compliment so the hanging up on you and yelling at you is probably not happening so now the second thing you say I noticed that you are very effective when it comes to having a beautiful website but when I check your Instagram and your LinkedIn it's not telling the same story tell me what is it that you do to um to get the word out there because if you think about it you have the potential of 10,000 people on LinkedIn to buy into your brand so what is it that you do and then the responsibly like I don't know you know I have rookie at the end of the day she goes a quick post or I'm not really into it does it really help and then you sell them but in a soft way trying to help them you say Sal you'd be so surprised that if you had a great brand representation on LinkedIn you would see what a difference it makes again don't say charge monthly stop don't talk about you now now you're trying to help them figure them so you say Saul if you were to have a great branding on you know on LinkedIn and on social media I think it would really change everything for you and there's a few different ways you could do it you could do a post you could do a photo on Instagram you could do the stories you can do maybe tutorial videos to show added value to people without soliciting them but if you do those things you'll notice that over that next 3 to 6 months people are going to start trusting your brand and you're used to spending like big money here you don't even have to spend a lot of money and for like under maybe 5 or $10,000 you can get that going so you just also minimize the five and 10,000 you sold them very soft without saying this is what I do sign with me right once they build the confidence that you care about them and you're helping them then you get to the Finish Line I'm selling jcon booths and sponsorships I sell the all day long right I have to raise over a million dollar a year for all these wonderful things so if I came to you and I said Ellie I'm helping people withas please please please give me money please give me money I have 300 girls in the youth programs if not they wouldn't be able to go please people here are like stop I have stop but when you come to the people and you start before you approach them try to think what correlates to what they care about right so let's say I'll go to a bank and I'll say or I went to Con Edison and I said Con Edison I'm building a beautiful library to help the children of the community I know that you love partnering with Community because you care about Community wow and I would like to offer you the opportunity to partner with me in this endeavor so you and I are going to become Partners to do this I'm not asking you for a favor I'm offering you to be my partner to do a l Library together so I'm going to build a library would you give me a $30,000 Grand to pay for the librarian and they gave me $30,000 so I tried thinking what's the value to them how do I tell them the story so it's never about trying to sell it's about offering them and hearing them complimenting them and then slowly coming to that close I love it and that's how I've been and more you do it the more you do it and the better you'll become but you also have to come from a true place of caring if you make believe and you're like oh I'm going to tell him this I'm going to tell him this and then I'm going to kill him it's it's going to come across absolutely so TR try to be authentic and really care about the person and you're going to see how everything turns around wow so just to recap compliment let them talk make them feel good make it about selling yourself not the product truly care and then you'll watch the the you know to say bacon so watch the kala come very nice um I actually um I I do social media management for companies and my brother schilly he does uh flooring for companies and he's great at what he does he has five years experience and he's confident and he's he's a tough guy and he's working now with a lot of big projects across the city and stuff and we were discussing this on shabas about being confident with our product and we were discussing how we are confident like we used to dream about it but now we're both confident in our space space and we're discussing how like we don't even have competition because there is no competition for him and his business no competition me he I am me and he is like I love what you said we're selling ourselves and you can't you can't change that like you are you you have great energy and people like that so they're buying into your brand you should know that I'm on many WhatsApp chats with different Builders and we started one WhatsApp chat that is just about giving information wow so any of the 200 vendor uh contractors they want to know who my floor guy is and who my gate guy is and who my stule gu you're never losing money you never have a competition because at the end of the day there's enough for everyone and if you're not making business it's not because really the guy took away your job it's because you didn't have the ability to sell yourself or to sell your job or maybe you have to improve your product or of course everything starts with sataya but then you have to put in something called willpower something called hisas and if you right you never view like what I remember when I started I had this push back when I started my nonprofit people didn't want to share information and it bothered me so much that today I'm probably the biggest open book when it comes to sharing so when it comes to business nonprofit I on the way here spoke to another organization he asked me how do you get money from City from State I said I'm going to finish the podcast I'm going to have 1 hour and 15 minutes on the way home call me I'll explain to you the systems on the city on the state side and how to frame cuz it's never what you say in life this is by the way another sales technique and if you forget everything else remember this it's never what you say it's only how you say it wow so it's not oh I sell floors it's how you say it so if you say it right you'll do well and of course you know it gets frustrating because you you hear this podcast and Ellie's great so everyone's going to hear this podcast but you feel like oh I heard these few words and I'm going to be better at it it takes practice I also took a public speaking course to become better at this but remember smile be happy I was in schol just last uh Thursday night an Israeli came over to me and he says you know he says I said sir you seem like a great guy and here's my credit card so it's not about this but do me a favor the next person you speak to bring the volume level up a little bit and smile watch this I'm going or sh he looks at my battle I'm coming from I'm making a for my daughter she's she's marrying Moi and I'm short about $20,000 it would mean so much to me if you could maybe help me with $180 wouldn't that change instead of you like talking and crying and make cuz they think the more they beg and cry I'm going to feel bad right but the problem is number one I don't speak Hebrew as well as you do number two you're speaking under your breath number two people don't want they they want to buy into you they want they want to appreciate you for a man that came from a that's wearing a Frack with 14 children they want to buy into it so give them the ability don't just don't just people don't want to hear o they want energy they want to hear Ellie Weber in the house thank you thank you I appreciate it yeah I feel like so remember sell yourself not the product right I feel like when people come to me for social media service there's two types of people not one they heard already about me they've heard the success I love when people like that call me like yes I spoke to another one of your clients they're seeing great results I'm ready to start that's beautiful another client is the the guy trying to figure out what's happening and in the beginning I would totally make this about me try to sell my business um now and it's easier to say because my business is in a good position we have like 20 clients it's it's running great so I'm not I am not desperate but now it's always about helping that person so many people I'll turn turn away I'll I'll tell them do yourself or it's not going to make you money some people think like organizations call me I always tell them this is not nobody's on social media to give money to an organization it's only about brand awareness which at that point they say okay it's not interesting for me but the point is I'm always here to help them sometimes I'll tell them look just go call this girl she does it for $500 a month you don't have to pay $3,000 a month like it's or do it yourself I tell them sometimes so I think that a lot of people don't know what they need I would never so I'm here to help them I feel like I'm here to give them the honest truth which and it's not about me making money it's about them not wasting money so I think what you're doing is correct but I think at the same token I would never turn people away because half the people or 99% of people in certain industries like nonprofits they don't even know what they don't know so what I would do is instead of saying oh get someone for 500 it's not worth it I don't need you you don't need me just do brand awareness I don't agree I think that brand awareness equals donations and equals you know them them starting to understand so if you just reframe or as I mentioned before if you just create a different angle angle like you can tell me any organization and any reason and any conversation that they had and in less than 30 seconds I will show you how I can reframe it and they'll become your customer because they want they're begging for you to give them a solution they don't want even if they say I don't need it it doesn't make sense what they're really saying is can you please explain to me how I will make a million dollars maybe not in the short term what if I don't see a way they'll make a million do so the answer is is that I had this literally I had a successful organization called me last week and I was talking to him for 15 20 minutes he was trying to tell me a lot of ways how he thinks he can make money or how he has actually spent the past $4,000 a month on social media which would have been a great client for me but I kept on telling him look I don't think social media will make any organization anything and watch me give you a response how I would close this this organization takes care of teenagers for school to get teenagers into SCH school yes okay and what was he trying to get brand awareness or make money students he wants students yes so he wanted to do brand awareness to bring students yes he felt that like the little girls are on Instagram and and they'll come from from there to his school okay so again I I I don't want to spend the podcast going through most of the Dynamics but essentially what I would tell him is I think again I think what you do is great yeah and I I I feel that it has a true position in Claus's role to really Advance this entire category I think that you can definitely be helped again never negative I think it could definitely help you in terms of brand awareness what I would suggest is because the younger generation is more visual I would probably do like Tik Tac and Instagram videos and stories so we would have to create a brand of what what's the mission what do we What story do we want to tell so number one you have to be out there so what story are we going to tell on Instagram Tik Tock um LinkedIn not really um and then what so what I could do is I can tell that story to give you the branding the word will get it out there people will start sending it on WhatsApp so it's going to help you with your branding so it may not lead point a to funding but if you want children to come it's going to you know uh bring children to come to you now keep in mind if you want it to be successful it's not only about making the video and being on social media but maybe we get influential people to be on it or we have a good theme of what this video is going to be about to make sure that it travels but I think that if you want branding which is going to bring students it could be done don't expect it to be within the next 1 to two months but if you have a six-month plan and you're willing to spend let's say you know $3,000 a month over the next 6 months I feel that we can accomplish branding you getting students into you and then down the line that will perhaps transmit into making money off it which will be part two so that's what I would sell them CU every client is a client right by the way I have to tell you saw a great tagline on a company's uh website they wrote why go elsewhere and get ripped off when you can come to us and and then I passed the restaurant Upstate New York and said eat here or we'll both starve right but listen you're great at what you do but I'm just trying to I feel like I'm great at what I do but I feel like I don't have experience that's a bottom line I'm doing this for two years Kara and like what you just explained I never felt that way I felt I I went to the core of my honesty or comfort zone I would say if I'm comfortable to help you I'll help you something like this which is so true and this organization obviously has money he even expressed to me that his last company he paid $4,000 that would have been more than enough for our company to take him on and help him so I'm going to call him back in M but the idea is that you're you're right the way you you framed it and the way that I can be more honest and open-minded to helping a wider range of companies is truly amazing thank I would never think about it in terms of the money or the time frame I have to truly feel that I will accomplish his goal it could be I will it could be I won't but if I don't feel that I will really add value then I wouldn't do it but again I have business experience and I have nonprofit experience and I run over 25 projects so I'm speaking a little bit from experience doing this for many years but when I said it you could see that I'm coming across with honesty because I truly believe it the same thing I had now with a cleaning company also they called me and I was like I I was telling him very much like no it's not worth it you know your service business you're doing cleaning you're on Instagram it's not going to help you and this guy actually kept on pushing back which is maybe maybe it's a tactic that can work sometimes but he was like no I just want to beat I just want to have a nice page cuz all the other companies have a nice page and whatever blah blah blah but in the way you said it what you would just told me give me give me another company I'll pet you back I'm saying it's a flooring company he does flooring what installation sorry it's it's a it's a cleaning company he does cleaning for what commercial institutional yeah so I do agree with him that just having a page is not going to bring him necessarily business but what I would rather do is tell them okay I think that your medium is going to be we may put you on Instagram just to have a presence but you're going to be able to really capitalize on LinkedIn because that's where the business Community is and we have two options either by putting a post but writing something that's of Interest relevant not I came to Chase bank and I cleaned the floor to in the morning I looked at the window there was no like no one's interested yeah maybe do a tutorial about how you clean floors and how you save money like if you take a look at my jbuilder account where I build retail homes right cuz one of the things I do is I have a construction company I build homes for people so I made a series of videos that are under 57 seconds with a beautiful little music and a logo that pops up before and after and it's 57 seconds of not saying hi this is Josh and free estimate and nothing it just says you're going to build a house and spend a million dollars it's going to be the greatest purchase that you make in your lifetime and you know nothing about it wow so I that's my premise so I come on and I say today we're going to be discussing what's the difference between Split unit air conditioning central air conditioning INF floor heating boilers so you can make an educated decision when you build your home and I show them in a video in 57 seconds all the differences and I offer them if they want to get in touch with me or or comment so I gave them a real value without pitching them so now they keep on seeing a professional a professional professional so when they're ready they call so the flooring guy that does maintenance if he made a a little video and it's not that expensive cuz you can do 20 57 second Clips in one shoot and then you could take it back to the studio and turn it into videos and schedule them every Sunday or every Monday where he's sharing cleaning advice and then he comes across a as a professional in the industry someone that's giving added value and because he's on LinkedIn now for 20 Sundays in a row the people that need his service are going to start picking up on him so yes branding it will help you and B it will help you for sales in that specific medium so that's how you would pitch him impressive thank you by the she you're also a coach do you take on clients or this is so far so it's so interesting so I used to do it in charge oh yeah and I used to do very well with it as you can see I have experience I'm not smart but I have experience and then a few years ago I decided I'm going to try as much as possible to do it as AOW but it's interesting because people weren't paying my success rate went from like 90 to 60% because instead of people taking notes they say oh he's ah interesting oh I love it very interesting but if you paid me $1,000 or $500 to hear what I said you wouldn't want to lose the money that you invested so you would be taking notes like there's a lot of of the major major nonprofit organizations that you know so they've been in our office and I'm not trying to be you know I'm just saying that I care about all these nonprofits and I have experience I try to share oh and I can tell in the first 2 minutes if they're going to be successful when they come to talk to me for an hour and they don't write one note I know we're out when they come down with a book and with the with the chief of staff with the secretary and they start asking me questions in details and write notes that they care so if you ask me so the answer is I am a coach I try to do a but I also do it as a uh paid gig for larger companies and nonprofits who want to invest in it as well right we didn't touch on anything personal she but I would love to go in there a little bit how do you deal with burnout fear anxiety business uh uh you know the the the the for the UPS the Downs if you want to talk about it always try to be pass positive I love to be with positive people be positive this is going to be very unconventional and not popular and probably not even the right approach but I try not to deal with failure as much as possible MH like my mother passed away a couple years ago in a car accident people like oh how did you deal with it in therapy I'm like next like I I try not to dwell on the past and feel bad for yourself I remember I was maybe 21 years old and I was having a very hard time when I started my business and trying to figure it out and I felt really bad and my wife said something to me that lasted until this day she said the first day that you stop feeling bad for yourself will be the first day of the rest of your life wow so like you can feel bad for yourself you can be a victim today it's very cool everyone has to find a reason to be a victim a wife happens to be a brilliant answer to 99% of the world's problems it's true because whenever you have someone you know you could look at it oh she's bothering me she's telling me what to do but at the same token she's also giving you constructive feedback constructive criticism and she truly doesn't mean to put you down she really is saying the things because she wants you to advance so ultimately um I I see the people that are married are much more they're much more motivated to make more money and to do things because they have that push again I'm not talking about a 21 22 23 year old person but when you see a 35y old man within one minute you can tell if he's married not absolutely so it's not confidence single people great married people great there's always generalizations to everything I'm just giving you a very general generalization I hope I don't get any negative feedback I love all and I'm saying this in the best of ways so um wow do you think that we have a sh crisis right now for those that are married we don't well we have a happiness crisis maybe I think that uh I think it's all relative you know there could be a sh crisis but you know like when I put up a development someone told me you're spending so much money and the market is going down and it's going up I said look out of all the people that live in B Park and Williamsburg wherever I'm building the development I only need five people or 10 people so you only have to worry about one person and then there's no no no crisis right I think it's easy to say that there is a crisis and maybe there is but I think that you just have to focus one at a time and then there be no crisis as long as you solve yours no more crisis for you no more crisis for you I love that that's so smart that's it's genius um yeah because I always say there is there is enough there's enough boys there's enough girls how is this considered the crisis you also seem like a very calm person is that like a natural thing in you what does it take to get you upset so I actually had a broker I was talking to on the way here he told me the same thing so I think it's I tried really maturing myself as much as possible to become more easygoing and I think it's somewhat of a natural you know who I am but I think I definitely worked on it over time uh to try to be you know Poise without Poise and confidence without being arrogant to try to be understanding always try to put yourself in the other person's shoe try to think of how the other person if you want to be a good salesperson think that person's position and that will make you a better salesperson so I think it's a combination of just trying and uh having auna right and feeling that you know it's whatever is meant to be but you know I'm sure uh you know if someone throws a rock through with the glass of a window it's going to bother me and you know but I try as much as possible how does it feel to have to have a lot of money I mean they call it Fu money right like how how does that feel I wouldn't know I try to I try to pay my bills and um I like I mentioned to you I really my what I do for a living is really try to help people I try to together with other great people we try to affect the lives of over 21,000 people a year wow but I need to make Paras so I do all these different Endeavors to try to make something to pay and there is a jcon event coming up July 7th July 9th July 9th okay almost got it and this is a real estate event it's going to be real estate courses real estate a lot of real estate people um tell us a little bit about events why is it beneficial for young entrepreneurs to go to events why do you enjoy events I know why I enjoy events CU it's just fun it's a lot of fun so I think going back to the first thing that you mentioned you know we come out of Yeshiva we start a business we start a job we want to excel but we don't know like how do you go from having a job to having a business business how do you go from having a small business where you're selling custom closets and turning that from a job of selling custom closets to having a company because having a job is not having a company because the second you leave your company there is no company there is no job there's nothing also sometimes you'll say I made $200,000 as a business owner selling custom closets and now that I have a million in sales I'm actually losing 100,000 a year because now I'm paying rent and trucks and drivers Insurance cars gr like how did I sell $200,000 to make money and now I'm selling a million and I'm losing money are you saying that as you scale you got to make sure all the parts F CU I saw a little bit of my business if I can be honest over here we're now up to 7even eight people can iata um and what I noticed is a little bit similar I mean it's we're still building everything right there's more clients there's more employees but I also started seeing this that the more clients there's also okay so now we added a secretary and now we added another content creator and now we added another position so how does do you does that something that you teach at these events how to scale so every event is a little bit different so let's say the real estate event addresses um so there are some courses relating to I was mentioning about my company because I actually enjoyed the building process that's that's what I meant it's like putting pieces into the puzzle like okay another client or another employee and it's and it's and I watch my numbers as well but it's it's a very fun aspect but yeah Mak so the real estate event is more geared specific spefically um to people in real estate construction management development and the reason why I do it as a nonprofit is twofold first of all the money and the income that comes in helps me to give free courses to more people so that's how I use it as a business to help my organization without me having to pay for it right because I spend let's say $200 or $300,000 on this line item so who's paying all the teachers and who's paying all the courses and who's paying for all the things so that's how I use it as a business and the sponsors pay but essentially what the jcon real estate is is for people that not want to get into the business but if you've been in the industry for the last one to five years and you want to become better at sales at mortgage Finance make the connections there's two very important things that happen here number one there are very successful people who are willing to give up their time and you can do one-on-one with a lot of these successful people wow so let's say this fellow did a billion dollars in mortgage origination he's willing to sit with you this guy did a billion dollars in real estate development he's willing to answer your question actually or they're just going to be there I have 10 different people that sit at a table and they're willing to give an hour of their time W can you make an 11th table for me exactly I will so basically I have these these mentors impressive but besides for that I figure if I have 300 guys who just entered the industry within the last 5 years and I bring another 500 people who are seasoned professionals and we mix them together business happens right yeah because people do business with people they don't do business with real estate they don't do business with development they don't do business with advertising people do business with people and when you spend your time not saying oh hi uh Ellie I do insurance here has my card stop don't sell say hi Ellie what what do you do where do you live who's your brother-in-law become his friend so when you go to the jcon real estate and you're that one to five year guy who entered the industry you spend all your time becoming 20 people's friends you don't have to become a 100 people's friends try to become five 10 people's friends understand what they do and exchange contact info obviously if the guy says I sell umbrellas and you feel like it's never going to go anywhere you can be nice and move on to the next you know bar that has a better drink and the Cigar Lounge but try to find people who you have common ground with don't sell them become their friend so that's really what Jon real estate is it's really about helping people with parosa make parosa find mentors and we do it for many different Industries and then I have about 3,000 people a year who have courses by us wow Excel word time management public speaking AutoCAD um and the list goes on um photography marketing social media we actually have a social I have a professor from Houston University that teaches social media marketing for free wow and another one from turo who teaches um a different part of marketing so we offer all these different courses in person and online and that's really what Jon does so the upcoming jcon on Tuesday July 9 is focused on real estate so it's only for people who have already entered real estate or management construction development in that space to help them grow be successful and meet oh m m very nice thank you so much are you any update in the music world are you still singing uh are you working on a music an album a single cuz I know you sing very nicely thank you so I am Ain in the Upper West Side in Manhattan wow and I go to uh different hotels like I was just in Italy for PES to be a in the hotel so I still do that very powerful voice and a sweet voice at the same time I did put out two albums and about 10 or 15 singles wow um anything recently or anything coming the last one was last year suas but I do have a few uh in the work so I think over the next 3 to six months I should have another two or three out are you composing it the songs so some of them I compose or partially like I'll do the ly I'll do the lyrics and have the tune or vice versa um I do actually have one that I made but I'm contemplating if I should put it out so uh because it's a little bit dark it speaks about a very sore topic so the question is if it's you know the right medium I want to hear it I hear the pros and cons I'll show you not only the do you have sh on on Spotify if people want to check it out on Spotify and itun YouTube you can see all the videos I'll put the link in m in the description yeah please so it's either sh Rubenstein at gmail or YouTube yeah I'm on every platform and it's about spreading love positivity not you know just I love happy people happy energy and as long as you're positive and happy you can really accomplish anything it was the B who said if you cry you can cry to Hashem and you can accomplish but what you can accomplish with as does not accomplish wow amazing anything else she that you're passionate about that we didn't discuss in this conversation a business venture Journey a something that you I think we covered a lot and I think that uh it was a great opportunity to sit with your demographic of young entrepreneurs and what I would like to leave with your demographic is um learn from Ellie to be energetic be happy and please feel free to join our events you know if you go to attend jcon uh you'll see the real estate or the other venues Ventures that we do or you can visit JCC MP as inm marine park.org and you'll see all the different programs and services we offer to the community and the easiest is probably to sign up on on the website to uh receive our uh emails like this every week you'll see what we're up to so if you find something of interest you can always uh tap into it and even though we're called The JCC of marine park because we started there and our headquarters is there we still are a city-wide organization helping people um throughout the five burrows of New York City and Beyond and I I think it's just an opportunity to thank you for who you are and what you do and if I can be helpful in the mix I'd love to thank you so much thank you Shia for doing this thank everybody for listening um again reminder to please like this episode if you enjoyed it share it with a friend that can enjoy it subscribe and turn on the notification so you don't miss another episode I just love that it goes out to so many people so by subscribing it just helps the channel grow if you're on Spotify or Apple iTunes whatever please leave a uh raate the podcast and and stuff like that again the link to my WhatsApp if you want to join conversations if you have any questions or if you want to reach out to me or follow my WhatsApp status where I post interesting content click the link in the description and that will lead you to my WhatsApp where you can follow me on Instagram and Linkedin or other social platforms thank you so much and have a wonderful day thank you thank you [Music]