Podcasts about samit

Na samitu Europske unije i zemalja Zapadnog Balkana u Tivtu, Njemačka i Francuska su predstavile model postupnog približavanja EU-u, što je ocijenjeno kao pozitivni korak. No, samit je protekao u sjeni incidenta s vraćanjem aviona u Srbiju u kojem su se navodno nalazili pobornici Aleksandra Vučića. Nenad Kreizer razgovara s reporterkom Vesnom Rajković-Nenadić i politologinjom Marinom Vulović iz Zaklade znanost i politika o izgledima zemalja Zapadnog Balkana za skori ulazak u Europsku uniju. Von Nenad Kreizer.

The Second Act Advantage: Monetize Your Wisdom, Master Longevity, and Build an Unforgettable Legacy by Jay Samit https://www.amazon.com/Second-Act-Advantage-Longevity-Unforgettable/dp/1510786627 Jaysamit.com Unleash Your Greatest Chapter Yet. Purpose, Prosperity, and Longevity Await The Second Act Advantage shatters the outdated retirement myth and reveals how to turn your post-career years into your most productive, profitable, and purpose-filled decades. Perfect for fans of Outlive by Peter Attia and From Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks, this revolutionary guide proves your best years aren’t behind you—they’re just beginning. International bestselling author Jay Samit challenges everything you’ve been told about retirement and delivers the essential guide to thriving in life's most rewarding stage. Drawing from cutting-edge science, inspiring real-life stories, and actionable strategies, this book flips the script on retirement and reinvention. While others settle for golf and grandkid visits, you’ll discover how artificial intelligence, social media platforms, and emerging technologies have created unprecedented opportunities for intellectual stimulation and entrepreneurial success after 50. What you’ll learn: Master AI as your business partner: Use ChatGPT, automation tools, and smart home technology to launch profitable ventures with zero employees Monetize your lifetime of wisdom: Transform decades of experience into consulting empires, online courses, and social media influence that generates passive income Leverage the “senior startup advantage”: Discover why entrepreneurs over 50 are 3x more likely to succeed than twenty-somethings and how your networks become your net worth Build a global digital lifestyle: Use geoarbitrage and remote work technologies to live richly anywhere in the world while running your empire from a laptop Drawing from stories of late-blooming entrepreneurs like Anne Beiler, who built Auntie Anne’s Pretzels empire at 65, and Dolly Parton, who launched her global Imagination Library at 50, Samit reveals why your extensive networks, financial stability, and hard-won expertise, coupled with new technologies and opportunities, create an unbeatable advantage. Technology hasn’t made you obsolete; it’s made you unstoppable. Your second act isn’t about managing decline; it’s about asking: What will the world gain because I finally had time to do it?

On She Built It®, Alexandra Samit, Founder & CEO of Alexandra Beth Fine Jewelry, shares how she transformed a teenage jewelry hobby into a thriving fine jewelry brand in New York City's competitive diamond district.From selling handmade necklaces at 15 to pivoting during COVID into bespoke engagement rings and heirloom redesigns, Alexandra opens up about navigating business pivots, building credibility in the diamond industry, and scaling a direct-to-consumer luxury brand. She discusses earning her GIA certification, breaking into 47th Street, managing emotional client milestones, hiring when you're the bottleneck, and maintaining trust in high-ticket sales.If you're building a luxury brand, pivoting your business model, or curious about lab-grown vs. natural diamonds, this episode is a masterclass in modern entrepreneurship, craftsmanship, and reinvention.Connect with us:Alexandra Beth Fine Jewelry WebsiteAlexandra Beth Fine Jewelry InstagramAlexandra Beth Fine Jewelry LinkedInAlexandra Samit LinkedInWork with She Built It® Media She Built It® Instagram She Built It® CEO, Melanie Barr InstagramMelanie Barr LinkedInShe Built It® LinkedIn

1. Samit lídrov posunul Úniu bližšie k reformám a viacrýchlostnej Európe  2. Slovenská ekonomika ide iba na pol plynu, hovoria analytici 3. Ruská ropa k nám netečie už vyše dvoch týždňov, na Družbu zaútočili sami Rusi 4. Krátko o voľných miliónoch na inovácie, nemecko-ukrajinskej spolupráci pri výrobe dronov a požiadavkách pestovateľov repy

Todays episode explores the evolving relationship between facilitation and hosting, highlighting how both practices can create transformative spaces for individuals and communities. Peter Pula shares insights from years of cultivating community through participatory dialogue and generative journalism. The conversation delves into the distinctions between facilitation often structured and outcome driven and hosting, which embraces emergence, deep listening, and co-creation.   They talk about:  The difference between facilitation and hosting The use of time triads and deep listenting in group practice Learning from mistakes and adapting when things dont go as planned Moving from command-and-control to particpatory approaches Quote highlights "I feel like I am participating in the unfolding of human evolution and the evolution of community, and I don't know how that can do anything but make you smile." "And by naming the failure it becomes something else and it becomes… Something powerful… "  "Before it was a passion. Now it feels like an essential work." Links Todays Guest The Subsidiarist https://peterjpula.substack.com/ Citizen Studios https://citizenstudios.mn.co/about Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterpula/ Website: www.peterpula.com Cultivating Community Gatherings (free): https://www.tickettailor.com/events/peterpula/1786857 Todays host: Sam Moon: Faciliator www.linkedin.com/in/theboymoon123 Edited by:  Cassie Austin Leaderful Action To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF England & Wales Chapter:

Retired agent Harry Samit reviews his investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui. Harry was assigned the case after the FBI's Minneapolis Division had been contacted by a flight school that reported its suspicions about Moussaoui, who had paid $8,000 in cash for a flight simulator course to fly a commercial Boeing 747 aircraft even though he had no background in aviation. Harry's investigation of Moussaoui as a potential threat to commit a terrorist act was stymied by program managers at FBI Headquarters. Moussaoui was later charged, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison as a co-conspirator of the September 11 terrorist attacks. He provides his thoughts on whether Moussaoui was going to be al-Qaeda's "20th hijacker," assigned to crash a plane into the White House. Harry is the author of The Zacarias Moussaoui Matter: The Arrest and Trial of a 9/11 Al Qaeda Operative. Harry Samit served in the FBI for 21-years. Check out the episode show notes, photos, and related articles: https://jerriwilliams.com/383-harry-samit-arresting-zacarias-moussaoui-the-20th-hijacker/   Buy me a coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/JerriWilliams   Join my Reader Team to get the FBI Reading Resource - Books about the FBI, written by FBI agents, the 20 clichés about the FBI Reality Checklist, and keep up to date on the FBI in books, TV, and movies via my monthly email. http://eepurl.com/dzCCmL    Check out my FBI books, non-fiction and crime fiction, available as audiobooks, ebooks and paperbacks wherever books are sold. https://jerriwilliams.com/books/

Each year, under the bright full moon of Guru Purnima, yoga practitioners and seekers around the world pause to honor the timeless presence of the Guru, the teacher who removes darkness and reveals the light that has always been within us. But what does it truly mean to walk in the light of the Guru? In the ancient yoga tradition, the Guru is far more than just a transmitter of techniques or philosophy. The Guru is the living embodiment of wisdom, a steady flame passed from teacher to student, generation after generation. The Guru: Not Just a Teacher, but a Living Embodiment Our ancient texts speak clearly about this. The Mundaka Upanishad (1.2.12) tells us: तद्विज्ञानार्थं स गुरुमेवाभिगच्छेत समित्पाणिः श्रोत्रियं ब्रह्मनिष्ठम् ॥ Tad-vijnanartham sa gurum evabhigacchet Samit-panih srotriyam brahma-nishtham "To realize that Supreme Knowledge, one must approach a Guru alone, carrying fuel in hand, who is learned in the scriptures (srotriya) and firmly established in Brahman (brahma-nistha)." These two qualities, srotriya and brahma-nistha, reveal the heart of the true Guru. Srotriya (श्रोत्रिय) comes from sruti (श्रुति), meaning "that which is heard," the revealed wisdom of the Vedas and Upanishads. Etymologically, sru means to hear and -triya means possessor of. A srotriya is one who has fully mastered the sacred teachings, the outer mastery of scripture, tradition, and precise method. Brahma-nistha (ब्रह्मनिष्ठ) brings us deeper still. Brahman is the undivided reality, the ultimate truth. Nistha means "firmly established," from nis (down, firm) and stha (to stand). A brahma-nistha is one who stands unshakably rooted in the living truth of Brahman. This is the inner realization that breathes life into the outer knowledge. Together, they remind us: Without srotriya, the teaching drifts. Without brahma-nistha, the teaching is lifeless. How the Guru Lives in Our Lineage In the Ashtanga Yoga tradition, we have seen these qualities alive in the teachers who came before us. K. Pattabhi Jois was a true srotriya, deeply rooted in Sanskrit, the Vedas, and the subtle method of Ashtanga Yoga. Yet his real power came from being brahma-nistha too: his whole life was practice, devotion, and direct living example. He did not just talk about yoga, he was yoga, every dawn, every breath, every student who came to him. Sharath Jois, Guruji's grandson, embodies this same living thread. His srotriya shines through in the precise count, the unwavering discipline, the commitment to preserve the parampara, the unbroken lineage. But what touches people most is his brahma-nistha: the quiet steadiness, the humility, the simple, living truth that shows through his presence and service to this path. A true Guru does not make you a follower. A true Guru shows you how to find the light that has always been yours. The Guru Cultivates the Inner Flame As Patanjali reminds us in the Yoga Sutra (1.20): श्रद्धावीर्यस्मृतिसमाधिप्रज्ञापूर्वक इतरेषाम् ॥ १.२० ॥ Sraddha-virya-smrti-samadhi-prajna-purvaka itaresam "For others, samadhi comes through faith (sraddha), vigor (virya), remembrance (smrti), deep absorption (samadhi), and wisdom (prajna)." These qualities are the hidden garden the Guru nourishes in us: Sraddha: faith, the quiet trust that steadies us when doubt arises. Virya: courageous effort, the strength to keep going. Smrti: remembrance of who we really are and why we practice. Samadhi: deep absorption, the merging of mind, breath, and heart. Prajna: clear insight, the wisdom that sees through illusion. The outer Guru lights this lamp. The inner Guru keeps it burning. A Prayer on Guru Purnima When we bow on Guru Purnima, we do not bow only to a person, we bow to the entire living thread that connects us to truth: our teachers, our daily practice, our inner wisdom. May our lives be our offering back, our sraddha, our virya, our willingness to stand firm in the truth when the world wavers. May we carry this flame forward, bright and steady, for all those who will come after us, seeking the same light that our Gurus kept alive for us. ॐ श्रीगुरुभ्यो नमः। Pranam to all Gurus, visible and invisible, past, present, and yet to come. Closing Thought May Guru Purnima remind you that the Guru is not far away. The true Guru lives in your daily breath, your sincere effort, and the quiet voice inside that whispers, keep going. May we keep this light alive, together. Practice LIVE with me exclusively on Omstars. Start your journey today with a 7-day trial at omstars.com. Stay connected with us on social @omstarsofficial and @kinoyoga. Practice with me in person for workshops, classes, retreats, trainings and Mysore seasons. Find out more about where I am teaching at kinoyoga.com and sign up for our Mysore season in Miami at www.miamilifecenter.com .

Spolupracovník Postoja Andrej Žiarovský a redaktor Jozef Majchrák diskutujú o posledných udalostiach okolo rusko-ukrajinskej vojny. V úvode sa venujú otázke, prečo krachol samit v Budapešti a či mal vôbec šancu na úspech.

Dive into the gripping world of counterterrorism and FBI operations in Part 3 of Episode 262 of the Mike Drop podcast, hosted by former Navy SEAL Mike Ritland. In this installment, Ritland sits down with retired FBI Special Agent Harry Samit, a veteran investigator renowned for his pivotal role in pre-9/11 interrogations, including the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui, often called the "20th hijacker." Listeners will uncover insider stories from Sam's 21-year career, including the rise of Somali extremism in the Twin Cities, high-stakes cases involving al-Shabab and ISIS recruitment, the FBI's evolution post-9/11, and candid critiques of Bureau leadership, from risk-averse management to directors like Kash Patel. Samit also shares thoughts on ongoing threats like lone-wolf radicalization via social media, the Patriot Act's impact, narco-terrorism, and even Epstein's mysterious death. Whether you're a true crime enthusiast, history buff, or concerned citizen, this episode delivers raw, unfiltered insights into national security, institutional challenges, and the human side of fighting terror—perfect for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of America's frontline defenses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dive into Part 2 of Episode 263 of the Mike Drop Podcast, hosted by Mike Ritland, where he sits down with retired FBI Special Agent Harry Samit. Known for his pivotal role in the pre-9/11 investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui—the so-called "20th hijacker"—Samit shares gripping insider details from his 20+ year career combating terrorism. In this episode, listeners will uncover the dramatic twists in Moussaoui's trial, sentencing, and life in supermax prison; frustrations with the justice system and bureaucratic hurdles; and riveting accounts of other high-stakes cases involving al-Qaeda operatives, anthrax threats, 9/11 connections, and Somali recruits to al-Shabab. Expect raw insights into the emotional toll of FBI work, the clash between investigators and prosecutors, and the ongoing fight against extremism—all delivered in an unfiltered conversation that highlights the human side of national security. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this gripping episode of the Mike Drop podcast, host Mike Ritland sits down with Harry Samit, a former U.S. Navy intelligence officer and retired FBI agent who played a pivotal role in one of the most significant counterterrorism cases in history: the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui, the "20th hijacker" of the 9/11 attacks. Samit shares chilling details of his investigation in the weeks leading up to September 11, 2001, revealing how close the FBI came to uncovering the hijacker's plot and the bureaucratic roadblocks that hindered their efforts. With a career spanning naval intelligence to FBI counterterrorism, Samit offers a unique perspective on the challenges of combating extremism and the personal toll of being at the forefront of such high-stakes investigations. From uncovering Moussaoui's ties to the 9/11 hijackers to battling FBI headquarters for permission to search his belongings, Samit's story is a heart-pounding narrative of instinct, frustration, and resilience. He recounts the moment he realized the magnitude of the missed opportunity and the emotional weight of survivor's guilt that lingers to this day. Packed with never-before-heard details and candid reflections, this episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the untold stories behind one of America's darkest days and the relentless pursuit of justice in its aftermath. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Raidījuma uzmanības fokusā Tuvie Austrumi un Amerikas vidienē, mazliet pievēršoties arī Madagaskarai. Protams, runājam par Gazu, kurai šajās dienās ir pievērsta praktiski visas pasaules uzmanība. 13. oktobra rītā saskaņā ar noslēgto vienošanos tika atbrīvoti visi vēl dzīvi esošie ķīlnieki, ko "Hamās" bija sagrābis pirms diviem gadiem. Nav šaubu, ka tas ir arī liels ASV prezidenta Donalda Trampa nopelns, un pats Tramps nepārprotami pirmdien baudīja savus slavas mirkļus. Viņš ieradās Izraēlā, kur viņu gaidīja kā nacionālo varoni. Tajā pašā laikā politiskie eksperti piesardzīgi vērtējumos, cik ilgstošs un noturīgs pašreizējais miers būs. Ja Izraēlā Trampu novērtē kā miera nesēju, tad ir valstis, kur tagad ASV uzskata par potenciālu drīzu kara izraisītāju. Venecuēla nopietni gatavojas ASV iebrukumam. Par Venecuēlu jārunā arī vairāku citu iemeslu dēļ, arī piešķirtās Nobela Miera prēmijas dēļ, kuru nesen saņēma nevis Donalds Tramps, kurš to ļoti iekāroja, bet gan Venecuēlas opozīcijas līdere. Aktualitātes komentē Latvijas Radio Ziņu dienesta žurnālists Rustams Šukurovs, Ģeopolitikas pētījumu centra vecākais pētnieks Jānis Kažociņš un Latvijas Ārpolitikas institūta pētnieks, RSU docētājs Toms Rātfelders. Sengaidītais (pus)miers 8. oktobrī Izraēlas valdības un organizācijas „Hamās” pārstāvji vienojās par karadarbības pārtraukšanu, balstoties Savienoto Valstu prezidenta Donalda Trampa izvirzītajā miera plānā. Dienu vēlāk šo vienošanos akceptēja Izraēlas ministru kabinets, pēc kam 10. oktobrī iestājās uguns pārtraukšana un sākās ķīlnieku atbrīvošanas process. 13. oktobra rītā, uzrunājot Izraēlas parlamentu Knesetu, ASV līderis pasludināja kara beigas, lai gan saprotams, ka runa pagaidām ir tikai par trauslu pamieru. Izraēlai nozīmīgākais rezultāts ir pēdējo divdesmit izdzīvojušo 2023. gada oktobrī sagūstīto izraēliešu atbrīvošana, kas notika pirmdienas rītā. Neatdoti paliek vēl divdesmit astoņu gūstā bojāgājušo ķermeņi. Pretī teroristiskā organizācija saņem gandrīz divus tūkstošus no Izraēlas cietumiem atbrīvotus palestīniešus, tai skaitā 250 ar mūža ieslodzījumu notiesātos. Pēc piektdien notikušās uguns pārtraukšanas un Izraēlas paziņojuma, ka iedzīvotāji var droši atgriezties Gazas pilsētā, sākusies intensīva bēgļu kustība uz pamatīgi izpostīto anklāva lielāko centru. Pirmajā noregulējuma posmā Izraēla piekritusi atvilkt savus spēkus no četrdesmit septiņiem procentiem Gazas joslas platības; nākamajos divos posmos paredzēta turpmāka atvilkšana, galu galā paturot savā kontrolē apmēram 15 procentus teritorijas – drošības perimetru, no kura izraēlieši aizies tad, kad tiks atzīts, ka no Gazas joslas vairs neizriet nekādi teroristisku uzbrukumu draudi. Līdz ar uguns pārtraukšanu kara izpostītajā teritorijā intensīvi sākusi ieplūst palīdzība – ne vien pārtika,  medikamenti un pirmās nepieciešamības preces, bet arī materiāli un tehnika gruvešu novākšanai un infrastruktūras atjaunošanai. Nākamais punkts prezidenta Trampa Tuvo Austrumu vizītes maršrutā bija Šarmalšeihas kūrorts Ēģiptē, kur 13. oktobrī uz Gazas miera konferenci bija pulcējušies ap trīsdesmit valstu un starptautisko organizāciju vadītāju. Bez nozīmīgāko Rietumeiropas, Persijas līča un dažu citu ietekmīgu pasaules nāciju vadītājiem, tāpat ANO ģenerālsekretāra, Eiropadomes prezidenta un Arābu līgas ģenerālsekretāra, piedalījās arī tādi, varētu teikt, negaidīti starptautiskā procesa dalībnieki kā Armēnijas un Ungārijas premjerministri, Azerbaidžānas un Paragvajas prezidenti. No aicinātajiem samitu ar savu klātbūtni nebija pagodinājis Izraēlas premjers Netanjahu, kā iemeslu minot attiecīgajā dienā atzīmējamus nozīmīgus ebreju garīgos svētkus, un Irānas vadītāji, paziņojot, ka nevar piedalīties kopīgā pasākumā ar tiem, kuri nesen militāri uzbrukuši viņu valstij. Samitā apspriestais Trampa divdesmit punktu Gazas miera plāns paredz joslas demilitarizāciju, tur izvietojamus starptautiskus stabilizācijas spēkus un pagaidu pārvaldes institūciju. Domājams, līdzšinējiem Gazas saimniekiem – teroristiskajam grupējumam „Hamās” – šai sakarā ir no samita rīkotājiem diezgan atšķirīgs viedoklis. Miera prēmija un „lielgaballaivu politika” 10. oktobrī Norvēģijas Nobela komiteja darīja zināmu savu lēmumu piešķirt šī gada Nobela Miera prēmiju Venecuēlas opozīcijas līderei Marijai Korinai Mačado. Nu jau ceturtdaļgadsimtu viņa ir opozīcijā savas dzimtenes valdošajam režīmam – vispirms Ugo Čavesam, pēc tam viņa varas mantiniekam Nikolasam Maduro. Kulmināciju šī pretstāve sasniedza 2023. gadā, kad viņa pieteica savu kandidatūru 2024. gada Venecuēlas prezidenta vēlēšanām. Valdošais režīms aizliedza opozicionārei kandidēt, viņas vietā startēja venecuēliešu politikas veterāns un diplomāts Edmundo Gonsaless. Lai arī opozīcija iesniedza aptauju rezultātus, kas apliecināja tās kandidāta uzvaru, varas kontrolētā Nacionālā vēlēšanu padome pasludināja par uzvarētāju Maduro. Kopš šīm vēlēšanām Marija Mačado spiesta slēpties, baidoties no režīma izrēķināšanās. Līdz ar Nobela komitejas lēmumu noslēgusies arī intriga par iespējamu prēmijas piešķiršanu Donaldam Trampam, kurš to faktiski pieprasīja, darbinādams šai sakarā arī politiskā spiediena sviras. Tomēr tiek lēsts, ka Baltā nama saimnieka ambīciju izpaudumiem bijusi ietekme uz komitejas izšķiršanos. Mačado ir Trampa dabiska sabiedrotā Vašingtonas pašreizējā politiskajā kursā pret Karakasu. Diktators Maduro allaž ir bijis prezidenta Trampa neieredzēts, pie tam tagad par vadmotīvu šai attieksmei kļuvušas apsūdzības narkotiku iepludināšanā Savienotajās  Valstīs. Kopš septembra sākuma amerikāņu jūras spēki uzsākuši t.s. narkolaivu medības Karību jūrā, nogremdēti nu jau vismaz septiņi peldlīdzekļi, nogalināto skaits tuvojas trim desmitiem. Tiek izteiktas versijas par to, ka šīm akcijām varētu sekot citas ar citu bruņoto spēku veidu iesaisti. Par to, cik pamatotas ir apsūdzības narkotiku transportēšanā, grūti spriest, taču nepārprotami tā ir Savienoto Valstu spēka politikas demonstrācija reģionā. Tā nu venecuēliešu opozicionāre Mačado netieši kļuvusi par Donalda Trampa „jaunās lielgaballaivu politikas” atbalstītāju. Sagatavoja Eduards Liniņš.  

Send us a textStep into the heart of India's banking revolution as Money Majlis welcomes Samit Ghosh, an iconic banker and the founder of Ujjivan Small Finance Bank, whose name resonates with financial inclusion and the transformation of millions of lives. In this multi-layered episode, Suvo Sarkar journeys to Bangalore to sit down with his long-time mentor, uncovering a story that weaves together ambition, empathy, and the relentless pursuit of societal betterment.Listeners are transported back to the coalfields of Dhanbad, where Samit's early years were shaped by the Jesuit values of service and purpose. He reflects warmly on the formative education and family influences that instilled ideals he would carry through decades of banking. Samit's journey traverses the high-stakes boardrooms of Citibank, Standard Chartered, and HDFC Bank, charting pivotal milestones like launching the NRI banking services—an initiative so impactful it became a Harvard Business School case study. Samit provides a front-row account of the challenges and triumphs in bringing modern banking to India, the significance of technology, and how nurturing talent and taking chances on youth shaped a generation of leaders.But the conversation dives deeper than institutional success, exploring Samit's courageous leap from corporate comfort into the world of microfinance. Founding Ujjivan Financial Services, he challenged longstanding beliefs about poor customers by harnessing technology and a vision for scale. Under his leadership, Ujjivan became a beacon for responsible lending, empowering urban poor and especially women through innovative joint liability models and careful risk management. Samit candidly addresses both the rewards and the pitfalls of microfinance in India, reflecting on the need for responsible lending, and balancing investor expectations with a social mission.This episode also unveils the profoundly human side of Samit, from his deep personal loss to the joys and rhythms of life in Bangalore, culinary adventures, and restless explorations of the world. His leadership philosophy, grounded in respect and purpose, shines through moving stories of crisis, resilience, and empathy, offering inspiration to young leaders navigating today's disruptive landscape.From boardrooms to communities, from banking innovation to social entrepreneurship, Samit Ghosh's journey is both blueprint and beacon. This episode of Money Majlis serves as an unmissable chronicle of friendship, legacy, and the enduring power of conscious capitalism.Produced by : Sabine Achkar at Poddster UAEGiving partner : GoodworldPlease visit www.moneymajlis.com to join the giving movement and get your free $50 GiveCard.

An hour with Notts legend Samit Patel where we touch on the current Notts side, trophy wins, special performances, team-mates, his departure from Notts and Derby, future plans, his international career and some interesting stories! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ben and Nate review a letter from the ABA council chair outlining the standards behind ongoing accreditation revisions. Line by line, the guys conclude the same thing: the ABA underperforms in its efforts to protect law students, from the lack of transparency surrounding the actual price of law school to the ever-increasing cost of a legal degree. Protect yourself by crushing the LSAT, applying early and broadly, and attending the right school at the right price. ⁠Study with our Free Plan⁠⁠Download our iOS app⁠⁠Watch Episode 524 on YouTube⁠0:31 – Tips from Departing DemonsBen and Nate share the top tips from departing Demon students who crushed the August exam. Andrew: Just read the damn words.Mario: Don't take an official test until your scores show you're ready. Stevan: Get greedy. Megan: The advice to “slow down” applies to you. Sam: It takes hard work. 7:59 – ABA Standards and ValuesThe ABA council chair's recent letter highlights their guiding standards for revised accreditation. They claim to act in the name of consumer protection and professional integrity, but many of their standards read like lip service. Ben and Nathan point out how the ABA underperforms by its own values—especially around transparency. Simply put, the law school pricing system is stacked against students. This makes it vital to focus on the actual price paid rather than the sticker price. The best way to protect yourself: crush the LSAT and attend the right school at the right price.36:26 – Is Going to an ABA School Necessary?Gabriel is weighing a top-tier ABA school against a state-accredited option. While elite schools are useful for breaking into big law, the bigger question is whether you understand the path to practice. Price should still be your top concern. $75,000 isn't cheap, but with the right LSAT performance, you can likely find a school for free.44:35 – Practice TestsMehdi asks whether practice tests are still relevant after the latest changes to the LSAT. Ben and Nate suggest avoiding Reddit. The LSAT has always been a test of reading and comprehension. The removal of logic games doesn't change that. Mehdi mentions planning for the November test. Ben and Nathan push back, insisting that choosing a test date in advance is premature.53:32 – A JD Isn't a Gravy TrainJohn shares a story about meeting a law grad now working at a building supply store. It's a reminder that a JD alone doesn't guarantee financial stability or prestige. Listeners should carefully weigh the cost of law school against realistic career outcomes.56:00 – What's the Deal with Mitchell Hamline School of Law?Ben and Nate dive into John's story by looking at the supply clerk's alma mater: Mitchell Hamline School of Law, “Minnesota's Law School of Choice.” Check out all of our What's the Deal with segments. 1:17:09 – Word of the Week: Lacunae“A common law prosecution is not possible, therefore, unless there is a true gap in the statutory system, and today there are few lacunae.”Get caught up with our⁠ ⁠Word of the Week⁠⁠ library. 

V najnovšej epizóde relácie Za hranicou sme sa venovali veľkej aktualite, a to samitu medzi americkým prezidentom Donaldom Trumpom a ruským prezidentom Vladimirom Putinom. Samit na Aljaške nedosiahol svoj cieľ mieru na Ukrajine, no aj tak išlo o významnú udalosť. S hosťom sme prebrali dopad rokovania na Rusko a Ukrajinu, pozreli sme sa aj na reakciu americkej verejnosti či úlohu Európy v budúcnosti. V štúdiu sme privítali politológa a amerikanistu Kryštofa Kozáka. Sledujte ďalší diel relácie Za hranicou.

Nie sme vo vojne, no nie sme ani v mieri. Konštatovanie Aliancie, ktorá sa schádza na dôležitom a dlho pripravovanom samite v Haagu. V kontexte Putinovej vojny na Ukrajine a čerstvo po americkom útoku na iránsky jadrový program. Spojencov čaká odobrenie navýšenia obranných výdavkov – z dnešných dvoch percent na päť. Aj preto, aby európska časť Aliancie nemusela opakovane počúvať americké a zvlášť Trumpove variácie o tom, že sa vezie na účet Spojených štátov.Nájde NATO hrádzu na Putinove chúťky vyjadrené jeho opätovnou pripomienkou známej vety, že kde vstúpia nohy ruského vojaka, to je naše – čo v podaní ruského prezidenta znamená to ruské?A ako pôsobia rozporuplné signály zo Slovenska, ktoré ústami svojho premiéra Fica hovorí o neutralite, podpredseda parlamentu Andrej Danko zas o vystupovaní z NATO, a prezident, ktorý na samit aj pôjde, že Slovensko nebude klásť nohu do dverí navyšovania prostriedkov?Témy pre Pavla Macka, generála vo výslužbe s Aliančnou skúsenosťou. To všetko aj v kontexte čakania na to, ako Irán odpovie na americko-izraelský útok.Podcast pripravil Jaroslav Barborák.

Nie sme vo vojne, no nie sme ani v mieri. Konštatovanie Aliancie, ktorá sa schádza na dôležitom a dlho pripravovanom samite v Haagu. V kontexte Putinovej vojny na Ukrajine a čerstvo po americkom útoku na iránsky jadrový program. Spojencov čaká odobrenie navýšenia obranných výdavkov – z dnešných dvoch percent na päť. Aj preto, aby európska časť Aliancie nemusela opakovane počúvať americké a zvlášť Trumpove variácie o tom, že sa vezie na účet Spojených štátov.Nájde NATO hrádzu na Putinove chúťky vyjadrené jeho opätovnou pripomienkou známej vety, že kde vstúpia nohy ruského vojaka, to je naše – čo v podaní ruského prezidenta znamená to ruské?A ako pôsobia rozporuplné signály zo Slovenska, ktoré ústami svojho premiéra Fica hovorí o neutralite, podpredseda parlamentu Andrej Danko zas o vystupovaní z NATO, a prezident, ktorý na samit aj pôjde, že Slovensko nebude klásť nohu do dverí navyšovania prostriedkov?Témy pre Pavla Macka, generála vo výslužbe s Aliančnou skúsenosťou. To všetko aj v kontexte čakania na to, ako Irán odpovie na americko-izraelský útok.Podcast pripravil Jaroslav Barborák.

In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Samit D'Cunha, a legal advisor at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), about the innovative Digital Emblem Project. For over 160 years, the Red Cross emblem has symbolized protection in conflict zones, designating medical and humanitarian organizations as safe from attack. Now, as warfare increasingly extends into cyberspace, the ICRC is developing a digital version of this emblem to provide the same legal protections for online infrastructure. We examine the increasing frequency of cyberattacks on hospitals and aid organizations during armed conflict, and why the Digital Emblem is more crucial now than ever. Samit explains the technical side of the project, including the use of cryptographic certificates and DNS systems to ensure global, decentralized protection. He also discusses the importance of legal recognition and trust-building across governments, tech companies, and humanitarian sectors. As the digital battleground expands, this emblem could play a crucial role in safeguarding lives and ensuring that humanitarian operations continue uninterrupted. We also explore the challenges of implementing this system without increasing organizations' vulnerability, and why support from over 100 tech companies and states is crucial for its success. If you're interested in the intersection of cybersecurity, law, and humanitarian efforts, this is a conversation you won't want to miss.

What if the symptoms of heart disease are present, but the usual suspects aren't to blame? This intriguing question sets the stage for my conversation with Dr. Samit Shah, as we dive into the complex world of ischemia with non-obstructive coronary arteries (INOCA). Dr. Shah shares his groundbreaking work on invasive coronary function testing, a crucial development in the past decade that helps us understand symptoms like chest pain and shortness of breath without coronary blockages. DISCOVER ANOCA program is creating standardized protocols for provocative testing, ensuring that patients receive precise diagnoses and effective care.Our discussion takes a closer look at the nuanced challenges of diagnosing and treating myocardial bridging, vasospasm, and microvascular dysfunction. With a compelling case study, we illustrate how provocative testing can identify the root causes of symptoms, leading to non-surgical treatment paths. Dr. Shah introduces the Discover Inoka study, which standardizes the use of intravascular imaging for myocardial bridges. By establishing these testing protocols, the medical community is better equipped to treat such conditions with newfound enthusiasm.As we wrap the conversation, we confront the ongoing challenges and future opportunities in making provocative testing widely accessible. The importance of understanding conditions before major interventions and the role of the Microvascular Network in connecting patients to specialized care are emphasized. We also spotlight advancements in studying myocardial bridging, where surgical unroofing is now tracked in clinical trials, offering unprecedented insights into patient outcomes and enhancing cardiac care. Dr. Shah's insights are driving forward a crucial conversation on improving diagnoses and offering hope to patients with challenging cardiac conditions.CHAPTER TIMESTAMPS(00:00) Discover ANOCA Clinical Trial Overview(08:41) Advance in Diagnosis and Treatment(14:07) Improving Access to Provocative Testing(27:24) Myocardial Bridging Clinical Trial OutcomesDiscover INOCA clinical trials application and information is available HERE.For more information about myocardial bridging and microvascular testing, visit the microvascular network, HEREWhite paper on chest pain. American Heart Assochttps://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIR.0000000000001029https://www.microvascularnetwork.com/https://www.jscai.org/article/S2772-9303(24)01512-6/fulltexthttps://www.jscai.org/article/S2772-9303(25)01048-8/fulltext

Buckland Wood is no ordinary wood. This is magical temperate rainforest, a rare habitat not just in the UK but in the world. Cloaked in lush lichens and mosses, dotted with stone walls and bridges and with a beautiful river rambling through, it already looks and feels like a special place. But the Trust has big plans for its future. Join us to explore with rainforest guru Sam, who tells us about the bid to restore this globally important site and its huge potential to connect people with nature, store carbon and boost biodiversity. Hear why temperate rainforests are so special, along with pine marten reintroductions, backpacks on beetles and much more! Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.  Adam: For today's woodland walk, we are heading into the rainforest, but I am not going very far. Well, I'm going quite far, but not to the Amazon, or South America. I'm going to to the temperate rainforest, which isn't as well known, but is actually even rarer than the tropical rainforest. It's also known as Atlantic or Celtic rainforest. And as I said, exceptionally rare. You do find it on the West Coast of Scotland, North and West Wales, Devon, Cornwall, Cumbria, parts of Northern Ireland, which sounds like a long list, but it really isn't. And what's wonderful actually is that Britain is really the place in the world to find these things. We have a very high proportion of the global area of temperate rainforest. I'm heading to Devon to see some temperate rainforests. Anyway, enough from me. Let's go talk to an expert about Devon's temperate and exciting rainforest.  Sam: So I'm Sam Manning. I'm the project officer for the Woodland Trust Rainforest Recovery Project. We are here in Buckland Wood, which is a new Woodland Trust acquisition on Dartmoor in the Dart Valley.  Adam: Fantastic. And it's it's super new because the place we came down didn't seem to have a sign on it or anything. So when did the Trust acquire this?  Sam: So we've literally just acquired this this month and it's an extension really of two other sites that we own in the Dart Valley, Ausewell Wood, which we bought about five years ago and Grey Park Wood, which we've owned for a couple of decades.  Adam: Right. And and what are we gonna do? Where are you taking me today?  Sam: So we're going to have a walk around the wood and I'm going to show you some of the aspects of the restoration work that we have planned here, we're going to go down to the Dart River, which is a really special river. It's 26 miles long. Very, very ecologically biodiverse, very important for, in terms of temperate rainforest, and look at how we can restore that through various different natural flood management methods.  Adam: Right. Lead on, Sir. So you already mentioned the keyword temperate rainforest. Is that what this is?  Sam: Yeah. So this is sort of prime what we call hyper-oceanic temperate rainforest.  Adam: You just have to say that slowly. Hypo what?  Sam: Hyper-oceanic.   Adam: Hyper-oceanic, OK.  Sam: Yes. So there's there's two different kinds of temperate rainforest broadly. There's southern oceanic, which is any rainforest woodland that receives over 1.5 metres of rainfall a year.  Adam: Right.  Sam: Or hyper-oceanic and that is 1.8 metres of rainfall and above, so slightly techy and scientific. But what it means is is that you get two distinctly different communities of lichens or lower plants, which is what makes these woodlands particularly special.  Adam: Sorry, I've already forgotten. Are we in the rain type of temperate rainforest that gets more rain or less rain?  Sam: More rain.  Adam: More rain.   Sam: Yeah it rains a lot here.   Adam: So that's the the non-oceanic one gets more rain.  Sam: The hyper-oceanic gets a lot of rain, yeah.  Adam: Hyper-oceanic. OK, so you can see I'm a poor student. OK. So, but luckily extraordinary, I mean, it's a bit there's a chill, but it's it has been lovely weather and it's definitely dry today.  Sam: Hmm yeah, this is this is quite strange for Dartmoor really, I think this is sort of the driest March in 60 years or something. So we are we are beginning to experience much, much drier springs and summers, but one of the functions of these rainforests is they are very, very good at producing their own rain and and in 2020, during the COVID lockdown, there was a real blue sky dry sort of drought level day in that March-April period. And I remember walking through this valley in the middle of the day and there was a thunderstorm and that was occurring nowhere else even in Devon or the wider country. And that's because they're effectively these sponges that accumulate a lot of rain in winter, store them, and then produce them more in summer.  Adam: Wow. And and I mean also we we think of rainforests as basically Brazil I suppose. But but we have temperate rainforests in the UK and my understanding is, I mean, they're extraordinarily rare on a, not just the UK, a global level. Just give us a sense of how special and unusual these environments are.  Sam: Yeah, that's right. So they're they're found only on 1% of the earth's land surface. So they are rarer by area than tropical rainforest.  Adam: Right. Do you happen to know? Sorry, are we going down there?   Sam: Down there yeah.   Adam: OK, so 1% temperate rainforests. Do you know what tropical rainforests are to give us a sense of proportion?  Sam: I actually don't know that, but I suspect it's probably around somewhere between 10-15%.  Adam: OK, well, I'm not gonna hold you to that *both laugh* but but that gives us a sort of sense of just how rare these are and tropical rainforests are fairly rare anyway, but OK. So these are very, very unusual environments. And what are you trying to do here then?  Sam: Well, a lot of these temperate rainforests are ancient woodlands, but they are plantations on ancient woodlands, so they are woodlands that have existed in perpetuity for as long as records go back. But a lot of them, as you can see here, have been coniferised, so they would have been cleared of their native tree species like oak, to be replaced by non-native timber crops from places like the Pacific Northwest, which which that's also ironically a temperate rainforest landscape, but those species are not co-adapted to the species we have here. So you you get these plantations that are very, very unbiodiverse, very dark, very shading and really don't work in tandem with a lot of the light-demanding rainforest species that we have, like rowans, hawthorns, oaks, that kind of thing. Of those sites I've talked about, almost half of it is conifer.  Adam: So your your first job, ironically, is to take trees out?  Sam: Well there'll be a sort of two-pronged approach really of using natural processes to diversify the forest, make it more structured, diverse. But we will need to intervene at certain times, particularly if we have really, really rare species. So in Ausewell for example, there's a species of lichen called bacidia subturgidula, so it's got a mad Latin name,   Adam: Wow, OK I'm definitely not saying that *laughs*  Sam: *laughs* But that species, for example, we have a quarter of the entire world's population of that species of lichen in Ausewell.  Adam: Right in Ausewell, which is quite a small place.  Sam: Yeah, exactly. That's about 100 hectares, so...  Adam: And that's a quarter of the global population of this lichen is in that...  Sam: Of that species, yeah. So when it comes to that, it's really about almost surgically intervening.  Adam: That's interesting. Let's let's carry on, you you better lead on, I've no idea where I'm going. So but that's interesting because I I can see planting trees, I've never heard of people actually planting like them, I didn't think that was even possible.  Sam: Yeah. So we call it translocation and and that's really only a last a last sort of nuclear option really when it comes to lichen conservation, if we have a tree where they have a really, really rare form of, a rare population of a species, then moving that to another tree may be the difference between that going extinct or not. But here now we've had this happen, what we're going to be doing is seeding it with those rainforest tree species to start to get that regeneration and there's loads over here.  Adam: What I'm still not clear about is why is the rainforest so special? It might be, oh it gets a lot of rain, who cares? A place gets a lot of rain, so does Wales, so does a lot of bits of London. It's clearly something special, it's not the trees, so what, why is having a temperate rainforest actually a good thing, what makes it special?  Sam: Well, there's there's there's a few different things. One of them is, and this is the real key one we focus on, is the biodiversity value. So the real bad, Britain in general is quite a wildlife poor place. We have quite a low species diversity, but these rainforests are absolute wells of biodiversity globally. The key ones are these epiphytes, so we're talking about lichens, bryophytes, so those are the mosses, liverworts and hornworts. Britain has over 2,000 species of lichen, it's one of the most biodiverse places on Earth in terms of lichen species, so we're really punching above our weight in terms of biodiversity in that sense, and they're only really found in these temperate rainforest habitats.  Adam: And lichen, I love lichen, and it's a real sign of air purity and everything, they're beautiful. How much do they support, like wildlife? I'm not aware of animals feeding off lichen very much, I don't think it has much nutrients in it?  Sam: Not too much at a macro level, but if you were to delve into that microscopic world, they are absolute keystone species in terms of forming the bedrock for so many invertebrates for so much sort of microbes. But they're also functionally, and this is something I'm I'm really passionate about, is looking at these forests in terms of what they can give to us functionally and the environment functionally, they are really good at fixing nitrogen. They're very, very good at fixing carbon, but but so in terms, that's what that's what makes temperate rainforest really good in terms of climate change mitigation is they hold that water, but they also are incredible carbon stores far more carbon is stored in these forests than traditional forests in the UK.  Adam: And that's lichens playing a big role in this?  Sam: A huge part, yeah, because of the pure, like the biomass of those lichens and mosses.  Adam: Ohh interesting. OK, so where are we going?  Sam: So I would quite like to go down to that river.  Adam: I'd love to go down to the river! Can I just ask, we're not going that way, are we??  Sam: No, I think we're gonna, that's one we may drive down, I think.  Adam: Drive down there?? No no we're not going to drive down there, that's not possible! *both laugh*  Sam: Yeah, we might have to go to a scenic detour around.   Adam: OK, well, there let's go down to the river. You have to lead. You look like...  Sam: So I think if we head up back to the car, shoot down, yeah.  Adam: OK. Ohh I see. OK, OK. But we're not driving down this this hill.  Sam: No, no, I think let's go down to the main Dart actually and then you can...  Adam: OK. And then get and get back, OK. Brilliant. We have come down to the river, remind me what the river is called?   Sam: This is the Webburn.   Adam: The Webburn, which leads into the Dart. We are on proper Hobbit territory now. A moss-covered stone bridge over the Webburn. We passed a little a beautiful little cottage, actually there's a number of beautiful cottages here. So explain a bit about where we are.  Sam: So we're stood on the Webburn, the Webburn watercourse and just behind us is the confluence of where it enters the Dart River and this kind of where it feeds into our aspirations for the restoration of the site. It's what many people would consider to be quite a natural looking river or natural looking watercourse. But this really as you can see it's very straight, it's very cut down into into the ground. So we call that incision and that's a product of centuries of draining and of artificial domestication of this watercourse to allow the land around it to be drier, which makes it more kind of productive for forestry.  Adam: So that's not natural?   Sam: No.  Adam: Are you gonna do anything about that? I feel like a teacher, ‘are you going to do anything about that?'!  Sam: *laughs* That that is the plan.  Adam: How how do you change, I mean, the river has cut, therefore quite a a deep edge into the land. What would you be able to do to to change that then?  Sam: Yeah. So a couple of years ago I went out to the Pacific Northwest, Canada, Vancouver Island to see their temperate rainforest and have a look at how old growth sort of ancient temperate rainforests function, but also how they restore them. And they, I asked them to take me to a river that was their best example of a really healthy rainforest river with really good salmon populations with great biodiversity that would have been unaffected by humans. And they took me to a place called Lost Shoe Creek. And and from the bottom of the watercourse where it entered the sea to the head waters, it was, you couldn't see the water. It was absolutely covered in wood, so huge trees that had fallen in, trees bank to bank, pinned against the bank. And what that does is it creates a much more dynamic river system that doesn't go in a straight line, but also holds back a lot of the gravel with the sediment and the silt that in this kind of river is making its way to the ocean. And causing a lot of damage.  Adam: So it's allowing or maybe placing actual dead trees into into the water and we can see one tree's already there, presumably that just naturally fell in.  Sam: That's right. Yeah. So if we left this for 1,000 years, it would fill, it would be effectively be a giant log jam, and we'd start to get a lot of that naturalised process happening. And then you get much more biodiversity because there's more invertebrates in the river, there's more shelter for fish and birds, there's more habitat. But what we're effectively planning on doing is is doing something what people call stage zero restoration, so taking,  accelerating that that thousand-year process and taking it back to a more naturalised river.  Adam: It's such a a spot. I think it's time for a bit of social media video, so I'll film that and you can see that on the Woodland Trust and my sites, and then we'll crack on. Sorry, I know this is really important, but this is an amazing fallen tree over a drystone wall covered in moss, I mean, I just had to stop for a moment. Look, you talked about lichen. I know, I ask you a question then stop you answering it *both laugh*. I love this lichen, it's all on this tree. It is really, really beautiful.  Sam: So this is called seastorm lichen which is one of the few lichens that has actually a romantic sort of English name that isn't Latin.  Adam: Wow. Well, very cool. Whilst you're talking, I'm gonna take a photo. OK. Yeah, go on, seastorm lichen.   Sam: Yeah, and and so a lot of the lichens will, as you can see, grow on the branches where the light is greater. So there's almost a canopy world of biodiversity up there, and what we're doing by increasing the light levels is, is drawing these lichens down to the forest floor by increasing the light levels. But this is a really, really good example of the kind of levels of deadwood we actually want to aspire to. So in, as you can see, in most of the forest, it's completely denuded of deadwood. So we'd be lucky if we get sort of 5 cubic metres of wood per hectare. In the forest of, the temperate rainforests of Canada, they have sort of 600 cubic metres a hectare of deadwood. So you you could barely even move through their forest.  Adam: And that's super, because often people want the deadwood cleared cause you go, ‘oh well it's untidy', but that's a sort of oasis of of biodiversity.  Sam: That's right. It's a whole layer of ecology that we're missing from our forests. And we recently did a study on something called the blue ground beetle, which is a an endemic rare species to temperate rainforests. We didn't know where they went in the day, so we didn't really know anything about them, they're very elusive. They come out at night, walk up the trees, and they reflect the moon off of their blue, kind of shiny carapace. They're our biggest beetle. So we did a study with Exeter University where we put GPS tracking backpacks on them.  Adam: On a beetle?  Sam: On a beetle, to find out where they went. And lo and behold, we found that they were going into these deadwood habitats and so it just it just shone a light on how important increasing deadwood in these forests is for all of those species.  Adam: Amazing. All right. I I do encourage you to follow the Woodland Trust's social media, Insta and all the rest of them and my Bluesky and Twitter or X or whatever it is you wanna do. And I'm now gonna take a photo which hopefully you'll see on any of that social media. So do follow them all. And we're going to take a pause as I pose *laughs*. Right, I'm back from my photographic expedition. Right. So you can answer the question again now about this public debate about access and and what have you. Go on, you lead on whilst we're talking.  Sam: So yeah, Dartmoor is really kind of the centre of gravity for a wider story around public, an increasing demand from the public to access land for wellbeing, recreation, connection to nature, that has been kind of growing here, particularly in this area.  Adam: Right.  Sam: There are, I think we actually sorry, we do need to go that way, I think they've blocked the path.  Adam: OK fair enough.  Sam: We're not having to scramble.  Adam: And I think we're going back to where we came from. Alright. Although that path there looks blocked.   Sam: This one looks good. Yeah.  Adam: Oh OK.  Sam: Go through this end.   Adam: Through the little stone wall. OK. Ruby's following doing social media. Ohh OK. Yeah, sorry, carry on.  Sam: So, I suppose the concern of some people might be that increasing footfall, public access to these really important fragments of temperate rainforest, it could have a damaging effect on the biodiversity here. But the reality is that in order for people to connect with, understand and care about nature, they need to have access to it. And so we need to bring people into these habitats in a sensitive and considered way to educate people about them, but the other key thing is we need to expand these habitats. So we're part of something called the South West Rainforest Alliance. And our goal collectively is to increase the amount of temperate rainforest in Devon and Cornwall, to triple it by 2050.  Adam: OK. I mean that's worth pausing on that for a moment. That's an extraordinary task. I mean it sounds a bit, I have to say I'm a bit sceptical about that, it sounds like you plucked that out the air. How on earth would you get to tripling the cover you've got?  Sam: Well, we think we can do that mostly through buffering existing temporate rainforest, so planting around them which can then make those bigger, better, more connected, but also just by introducing trees into farmed landscapes but not in a way that damages the farming. So agroforestry. But also the inclusion of hedgerows that connect up those fragments and there's been a lot of work that's being done currently in partnership with Plymouth University to model how we would do that effectively.  Adam: And the other thing that strikes me when we talk about ancient woodland, we're talking about, well, we can't create ancient woodlands, the clue's in the name, it's got to be ancient. It is different for temperate rainforests, isn't it? These things which I've heard about are achievable in a relatively short period of time. Is that right?  Sam: That's right. So we think we can create new temperate rainforest within our lifetime. So within a kind of 40-50 year woodland establishment phase and as part of the Rainforest Recovery Project, we have a strand of work that we're calling the temperate rainforest creation trials and that includes long term scientific research to tell us how best we can create rainforest the quickest. So is it doing closed canopy woodlands like this or is it individual trees in farmland? Or is it open space woodlands or maybe even natural regeneration?  Adam: Amazing. We're by the river. Let's move on with our tales from the riverbank. One thing I I wanted to ask you, I arrived here last night. And I met well, an old friend of mine called Chris Salisbury, who runs a local sort of adventure, an ecological company, taking people for adventures in the woods and telling stories and all sorts of really interesting things, and he was telling me two things that he's noted. One is the reintroduction of pine martens which I think is talked about, but also he's seen wild boar in these woods and I've never heard of that. Are those, have have you come across those stories?  Sam: Yes, so we were actually involved in the reintroduction of pine martens last year and that was a partnership between us and Devon Wildlife Trust and various other charities. And and that was a sort of very controlled planned, strategic reintroduction of a species that's been really successful. We've brought the public along with us, and they're now part of that increasingly biodiverse and resilient temperate rainforest landscape.  Adam: Right before we move on to wild boar, just educate me, what is a pine marten? Not sure, not entirely sure I know what one is.  Sam: A pine marten is a mustelid, so it's in the same family as sort of the badger, the stoat, the weasel.   Adam: Right, what's it look like?  Sam: It's it's sort of the size of a small cat, it's brown with a white bib and it looks quite a lot like a weasel, but it's larger, but they're very much arboreal mammals, so they spend most of their time in the trees.  Adam: And were they native to this land?   Sam: Yes they were.  Adam: Hunted out were they?  Sam: Hunted to extinction for their pelts and and things like that. Yeah.  Adam: So you're reintroducing them. How successful has that been?  Sam: That's been really successful. So we've reintroduced 15 animals to Dartmoor last year and we think that that will be enough of a seed population for them to start spreading naturally now.  Adam: OK. And I've heard about what, the reintroduction in other parts of the country of pine martens. Wild boar. A a harder issue I would have thought ‘cause these are quite big beasts?   Sam: Yes.  Adam: Did, did any, presumably the Trust didn't introduce them? No.  Sam: No. So they haven't been, in the same way as pine martens were, formally introduced. There's been more of a sort of natural creep, or in some cases, so there's a term that people use now called ‘beaver bombing', which which people use completely straight faced in a lot of circles now. And that is effectively guerilla reintroduction of species.  Adam: Right. OK. So these are just people who feel that they should be rewilded and just did it without any any authority or talking to the local community they just brought them in?  Sam: Exactly without going through that sort of more defined process.  Adam: And and look, clearly this is not a Woodland Trust policy, so I'm not asking you to defend it, but but the effect of that, I mean, have you noticed anything?  Sam: I think, I mean, it's a huge subject, but I think in general, if you don't bring communities along with you by educating them, by mitigating the effect of a species, it it can damage the movement in in the longer term. The other thing I'd say about boar and those larger sort of herbivores, which would have been a really important part of our ecosystem for diversifying them and keeping that process going, they will really struggle unless we have bigger, better, more connected woodlands that are more natural anyway.  Adam: Right. I understand. So we're just going through talking about this being the rainforest, but it has been amazingly dry in the spring and now you can hear that in the crunchy undergrowth of very dry leaves. You're gonna, I'm I'm an idiot anyway, but I'm concentrating on too many things so I've forgotten the name of the river for the third time *laughs*.  Sam: It's the Webburn.  Adam: The Webburn, why can't I remember the Webburn? All right. We've come down to the Webburn, to the riverbank side. It's beautifully clear this water, isn't it? There I mean it, it's it's wonderful clear. I so want to stand in that and then I'll have wet feet for the rest of the day and the journey back to London. So I'm not going to do that. How much of a threat is this sort of environment under?  Sam: So temperate rainforest once covered about 20% of the UK and they would have clothed our western seaboard which receives that amazing sort of oceanic rainfall and temperature we've been talking about. That's been reduced now to about 2% in the UK.   Adam: OK, from 20 to 2%?  Sam: From 20 to 2, so 90% loss.   Adam: Over what sort of period?  Sam: So we're talking about millennia really. So this is they would have been at their zenith about 5,000, 6,000 years ago during the Bronze Age and that progressive multi-generation story of increasing farming, of draining, of forestry, has led to the fragmentation that we see today. In Devon and Cornwall, we think it would have covered about 75%. That's now been reduced to about 8%. So a similar 90% loss both regionally and nationally.  Adam: And are you optimistic that that's about to change? Are we now seeing a different story?  Sam: I feel really optimistic, but mostly that's because I think we're facing a lot of these holistic problems at the moment around the biodiversity crisis, around climate change, and I think rainforests are an actually incredibly cheap, scalable way of restoring nature, which will help us with the biodiversity crisis, but also protect communities from climate change. By doing some of this rewetting work, by increasing increasing tree cover, we can massively reduce flooding and massively mitigate the effect of drought on our farming and on our communities as it gets worse. We are hoping to raise £2.8 million to help us achieve the goals we have here and and the site will be open once we've achieved that goal towards the end of the year. And people can go to woodlandtrust.org.uk/southwest to find more about that appeal.  Adam: So just repeat that website again so if people want, if they, if you've got your pen or your computer keyboard ready, here is the website to go to.  Sam: Thats woodlandtrust.org.uk/southwest  Adam: And they can learn learn more about it, but also contribute there can they?  Sam: That's right. Yeah. And if they want to learn more about the Rainforest Recovery Project, we are launching a website this week called rainforestrecovery.org.uk.  Adam: So by the time you hear this podcast, all of that will be available to you at the moment I can edit it all together. It is an amazing, amazing site. I am really privileged to be here. What a wonderful place. Sam, thank you very much indeed.  Sam: You're welcome.  Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you are listening. And do give us a review and a rating. If you want to find out more about our woods and those that are close to you, check out the Woodland Trust website. Just head to the visiting woods pages. Thank you. 

As property managers, you know how important communication is. Building solid relationships and creating trust is crucial in the industry, especially when trying to bring on new clients and doors. In this episode of the Property Management Growth Show, property management growth expert Jason Hull sits down with Sam Wakefield from Close it Now to talk about how you can level up your sales game to close more deals at a higher price point. You'll Learn [00:54] Vendor and Property Manager Relationships [09:43] Why You Attract Cheapo Clients [15:33] Building Trust in Sales [21:14] Shifting Perception: It's Not A, It's B [27:43] Learning to Improve Your Sales at DoorGrow Live 2025 Quotables “Truly all that sells is just communication.” “The second you start to develop a trend in your life, look internally because you are attracting exactly who you are.” “If we don't build the right culture, it's on us as a business owner.” “As business owners, we want to not give up big chunks of our life for just money. We want to be able to have something scalable.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript [00:00:00] Sam: A lot of times property management companies think all the companies are the same, so they're looking for maybe cheaper, whoever's cheapest, a cheaper price. [00:00:07] Sam: But then what they get is a company that doesn't communicate and doesn't show up when they say they're going to, and it's really the old adage, you get what you pay for.  [00:00:14] Jason: All right. I am trying a new platform today. This is Jason Hull and I am a property management growth expert. If you're not familiar with me, I help grow and scale property management companies and I am really good at that. And so our company's DoorGrow and we are the world leaders of growing and scaling property management businesses. [00:00:35] Jason: I've helped thousands of property managers do that. And today my guest is Sam Wakefield. Hanging out here with Sam. Sam, welcome to the show.  [00:00:44] Sam: Thanks for having me on, man. I'm glad to be here.  [00:00:46] Jason: Hey, good to have you. So, I'm really excited to get into this. We had some really nice dialogue back and forth. You coach. [00:00:54] Jason: Well, I'll let you tell. What group, category of people do you coach and you help with them with sales and closing more deals, so.  [00:01:01] Sam: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we do sales training and basically sales systems, whole operation systems within companies, but mostly sales focused for home services. So everything from HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and then even outside of that. Garage doors, or you name it. If someone improves a home, then we help the communication side of all of those companies.  [00:01:27] Jason: Got it. So in my industry, property management people would call those vendors. That's usually what they call them. They're like, "these are the vendors." And so we thought it was fun. I went on your podcast, we had this really fun dialogue. [00:01:39] Jason: I highly recommend you go check out Sam's episode with Jason Hull and go check that out. We were going back and forth because we had done a survey each to our audiences, like what's frustrating about HVAC companies and what's frustrating about property management companies. Right. And just seeing the disconnect that existed there. [00:01:56] Jason: Which was interesting. So, before we get into this, I want to read a quick message from our sponsor. This episode's sponsored by KRS SmartBooks. Do you have properties manage, and zero time for bookkeeping headaches? KRS SmartBooks is your secret weapon. They specialize in finances for busy property managers like you, with 15 plus years of real estate knowhow and skills in AppFolio, Yardi, and more imagine monthly reports magically appearing, and zero accounting stress. Sound good? Head to krsbooks.com to book your free discovery call, integrity, quality, and a dash of bookkeeping brilliance, that's KRS SmartBooks, and that's K as in Kansas, R as in Rogers, S as in Sam. Sam. All right, so cool. Now let's get into this. [00:02:45] Jason: So we're going to talk about closing deals, but why don't you give us my audience a little bit of background. How did you get into sales and then starting your own company, helping people with sales, and like, how'd you how did Close it Now come to be?  [00:03:00] Sam: Yeah, for sure. Thanks for that question. So, I've spent almost 20 years now in home services. [00:03:05] Sam: Most of my time has been in HVAC. I've done solar. I've done a lot of different trades over the years and, you know, so I launched the Close it Now company in 2019 because I really just recognized a place where there was not a lot of modern training because truly all that sells is just communication. [00:03:26] Sam: You know, it's how do we communicate clearer and in a way where we can educate so somebody can understand, one, what we're talking about, and two, why they should care and how it's going to make a difference in their life. So at the essence of that, so I was looking for some more modern training for my people at my company that I had at the time, and I didn't find anything out there. [00:03:48] Sam: So I just said, well, now we have a space for, you know, I have communication skills. I can train people. So that's when I launched the company in 2019 and so much of my career built up to that point of, and specifically how it affects here and why I'm here today. You know, I've worked with so many property management companies and individuals across 20 years of doing this. Yeah. So I've definitely learned a lot of best practices and a lot of the things not to do, you know? Got it. I all own my mistakes as well as, you know, coming across maybe property managers that I wouldn't work with again. Right. Yeah. So from all of that experience, you know, I started the training company, so I work with those home service companies to communicate better. [00:04:33] Sam: You know, a lot of it is, you know, of course, working directly with homeowners. But also there's a huge portion of all of those companies that, you know, rely on it and need property management companies to, you know, really help them stay in business and in turn they can turn around and, you know, help those property management companies to efficiently take care of properties. [00:04:58] Sam: But there's always seems to be this kind of struggle of, you know, that back and forth. So that's obviously why we're here today is a big part of that. But that's some of my history. I've been doing it 20 years. I started Close it Now six years or in, coming up on... yeah, April this year, next month is six years anniversary. [00:05:16] Sam: Nice. Of the company. And it's been a fun ride and we've definitely helped lots and lots of organizations to you know, to grow in a way.  [00:05:24] Jason: You're helping them close it now. All right. Yeah. Got it. All right. So you're just, you're helping these vendors close more deals, right? [00:05:31] Jason: So, property managers, I think would love to hear. You're on the other side of this relationship between property managers and vendors. What have you seen and what's the general feedback that you're noticing of the property management industry? What's kind of the vendor's perspective? [00:05:46] Jason: Because I know property managers, they get frustrated with vendors, right? They're like, "oh, the vendors like say you need something when you don't and like they don't like, it's difficult to reach them or this or whatever." Right. What are some of the complaints and gripes about property management companies? [00:06:03] Sam: Yeah. Complaints and gripes about property management companies. One of the big ones is, a lot of it is kind of the same thing is lack of communication. Okay. That's always one of the biggest complaints that comes up is, you know, we will get, you know, say someone, a property manager will call in for us to go evaluate a property. [00:06:21] Sam: We'll take an air conditioning issue or something like that, so we'll show up and then we're trying to call ahead. There's no clear information was given on who to call ahead to. Then we show up to the appointment, maybe the tenant's there, maybe not. A lot of times they're not there. [00:06:36] Sam: Okay. Then we can get ahold of the property manager to even get in the place. So now we're like dancing around in the circle of, okay, who do we contact? You get frustrated, move on to the next call, then the property manager calls and "Well, why'd you leave? Somebody was there." [00:06:50] Sam: Well, nobody was there. And so all of this just seems to happen very often. [00:06:55] Sam: Too often. Yeah. So it creates a stereotype. When the stereotype is created, that means of course there's a reason for it. Yeah. And so this is one of the big ones is the lack of communication. And I know that I've heard that the other direction as well. But so that's one of the things I hear the most. [00:07:11] Jason: Yeah. Got it. Yeah, so I'm sure when a vendor finds a property manager that does communicate effectively that there's clarity in that communication happening, and they've got good systems in place. The tenant's there, the tenant understands what's going on. Everybody's informed. Then those can be really great relationships to have. [00:07:34] Sam: Absolutely. Yeah. Those are, you know, the last the last organization I was at, I was with them, I was a sales manager and trainer for six years there. And I went through about 18 different property management companies to find two to three that were worth working with. Wow. And that was, you know, just sadly. We were always open to when a property management company came to us and we're like, "Hey, we, you know, we need you to do some work. We're looking for a new vendor." We're like, "sure. Absolutely. We'll try you out as well as you're trying us out." Right. But sadly, you know, the two or three that we did find great relationships with. They were fantastic relationships because yeah, we, you know, part of my ethics is our team was like, we will show up on time no matter what. [00:08:19] Sam: Right? We always do what we say. We will never, you know, recommend something that's not verifiable from our, you know, from our testing. We're not going to just guess at this because we're not guessing with anybody's, you know? Yeah. Investment. And at the same time when we, you know, say we're going to do the work, we do the work, and we show up to do the work, we say we're going to. [00:08:43] Sam: So that was my ethics statement I always led with. And then basically I would ask the property management company, can I expect the same thing from you guys? Right? And sure enough, the second that we met in the middle and said, yes, this is how we want to do business, those relationships were always the very best ones because sure, were we a few more dollars than the other contractor down the street? Sure. Yes. But we showed up when we said we were going to and we did the right work right the first time. And so, right. That's a big part of that disconnect, I think, is it seems like so many you know, a lot of times property management companies think all the companies are the same, so they're looking for maybe cheaper, whoever's cheapest, a cheaper price. [00:09:22] Sam: But then what they get is a company that doesn't communicate and doesn't show up when they say they're going to, and. It's really the old adage, you get what you pay for.  [00:09:30] Jason: You know, property managers have the same sort of problem is that a lot of people that are looking for a property manager are just looking for the cheapest price. [00:09:38] Jason: And they hate that. They're like, "we're not all the same." Right. So I, yeah, I think it's really important. I think this is dictated by the morals, the ethics, and the values of the business owner. It's always a top down thing. And so if the business owner is a cheapo, they attract cheapo clients and they deal with vendors through this cheapo lens, and this is where there's going to be a lot of mess and a lot of communication issues, and a lot of times the business owner, and this goes for any business and any industry, has a blind spot to the fact that they're cheap. But they're, you know, you're a cheapo if you're the person that's always looking for the stupid coupon code every time you buy everything online, you're always like hunting for that like. I don't have time to do that. [00:10:21] Jason: Like that's a massive waste of my time to go find, save 10% on some stupid a hundred dollars thing online, right? Right. Like, Ooh, I'm searching around. Right. Oh, I saved $10 even though I could have made a hundred thousand dollars. Like if I just like built something awesome, right? So I think there's a mindset issue is that these property managers or vendor business owners are not valuing their time enough. [00:10:45] Jason: If you value your time, you value other people's time. You then show up on time. You then like try to make sure, like your schedule is tight, you want to make sure your schedule is full. Like you, because you value your time and you feel that it's important. And if you really value your time enough as a person, you get things like assistance. [00:11:03] Jason: You get team members, like you get support because your time is so valuable that you want to go buy other people's time because it's less valuable than your time. Right, and this is how we scale our businesses over time is we are buying other people's time that are like they're willing to trade and give up their life chunks of their life for money. [00:11:24] Jason: And as business owners, we want to not give up big chunks of our life for just money. We want to be able to have something scalable. And so I think there's a mindset thing that we have to not be cheap. We have to operate with integrity, and then our team members need to have these values instilled in them, and if we don't build the right culture, it's on us as a business owner. [00:11:45] Jason: And if we don't build the right culture, we then don't have longevity in our business. We don't get return business, we don't get return clients. We don't get to have that really good vendor to continue to work with. We don't get to have that property owner continue to want to work with us, right? [00:12:00] Jason: Because we have showcased that we are not on top of things, or that we don't have the right values or that we don't have healthy mindset. And so I feel like. At the foundation of everything. It always comes back to mindset. A lot of times  [00:12:13] Sam: I a hundred percent agree with that. It, you know, it's funny that you're kind of started this conversation going down this path. [00:12:19] Sam: This is something that's been a very basically a soapbox for me, a big hot button. Yeah. You know, when I'm coaching... [00:12:26] Sam: jump on that soapbox, Sam. Let's go.  [00:12:27] Sam: Yeah. When I'm coaching and training people lately, especially at this last week especially... yeah. You know, I'm training people with sales and that type of focus, and they, of course, people always come to me, "Hey, how do I overcome these sales objections?" [00:12:43] Sam: You know, somebody says, "I want to get three bids, or somebody says, your price is too high, I want to shop around, or I need to think about it." Yeah. And instead of just going straight to, "well, here's the word track and how to handle these objections." Yeah. We always start with: anytime that you find a trend in your life, [00:13:00] Sam: so if you're getting the same consistent objection, say somebody's getting every single time they get to the end of their appointment and the homeowner or whoever they're talking to says, "I want to think about it." It's like the second you start to develop a trend in your life, look internally because you are attracting exactly who you are. [00:13:17] Sam: I would be willing to bet that person does the same thing when they shop. So then no wonder you're getting every single one of your clients is telling you, "I want to think about it." Or if when you shop, do you ask for say, "oh, I've got to get some three bids on this thing. I got to look around." Yeah. Well, no wonder the people you're selling to always have to get three bids because we attract who we are. Yeah. And it starts right here in the mind. And it's incredible how that works.  [00:13:43] Jason: Yeah. because if we're anxious, if we have that energetic sort of anxiety of that, like things are, it's expensive, and we go into that trying to sell it to somebody. Then they can feel that and we present it differently. And so we're like, "here's the price." And like, yeah, and it's worth it. And they can just, there's so many little subtle clues they pick up on that, Hey, this seems a little high. And because sometimes like if you're presenting to somebody and they're not what I call a cheapo, there's three types of buyers, cheapos, normals, and premiums I call them. [00:14:16] Jason: And normals are like, you typically like 60%. They're like the majority, 61%. The smallest group are usually the premium buyers, supposedly. But the idea is this: if you're a premium buyer and I present a price and I'm not even going to like flinch telling you about it, I'm like, "yeah, we've got this and this is what it costs and this," and they're going to go, "oh, this person feels really confident." [00:14:36] Jason: And it's just energetically how we present it. There's no like, "Hey, I'm trying to prep you for this price, you know, reveal because it's going to hurt a little bit." Right. Or if they just have the confidence and they know they're expensive, they might even just say, "Hey, we're one of the most expensive, but we're also one of the best. Let me tell you about your options." Right? So maybe they start with a pre-frame like that, but either way, they have this confidence that they know they have value and that it's worth it, and then they present it like that, then people would go, oh, okay, but if you have that anxiety deep down related to price and you know, you're this person if you're always looking for the coupon code or the discount code or you're trying to find the cheapest way to do something, then you've got a bit of that going on. [00:15:21] Jason: Because that's your identity. And so I've noticed this. Like in order to get people to be better salespeople, I can't just give them tactics. I have to give them identity. And so, and this is why my greatest sales hack, I call the Golden Bridge Formula. It's like it's the most authentic way to sell, which is your personal why connected to the business why connected to the prospect's why. Because we always trust motives. And the default assumption in sales, if I don't know your motive and you're trying to sell to me, is you want my money. [00:15:54] Sam: Right.  [00:15:54] Jason: And if I think that's your only motive is you want my money and you're willing to do whatever it takes to get that, then you're probably maybe even willing to be unethical in order to get that might be the assumption. [00:16:05] Jason: Right? So that's kind of the default assumption in sales. And so to correct that, if I tell somebody, "Hey. I'm Jason Hull. My personal why is to inspire others to love true principles. And so what that means is I love sharing what works and learning what works and teaching to others. I would do that for free, for fun, and so I created DoorGrow and our why at DoorGrow is to transform property management business owners and their businesses. [00:16:27] Jason: And so if our whole belief system is around helping people transform their businesses. So that allows me to basically feed my addiction to learning, coaches, masterminds, books, whatever, and turn around and be able to share what's working with others. And that's just fun for me. So I have a business that basically fulfills my lifestyle and allows me to have fun and do what I want to do. [00:16:51] Jason: And you, Mr. Property management, business owner, who I'm maybe selling to, want to grow your business. And so our interests are in alignment. My business is the bridge that connects your why to my why. We both get what we want. It's the ultimate win-win, right? Everybody wins. And so I've been able to take really terrible salespeople that are really bad at selling, and I just get them clear on their own identity. [00:17:14] Jason: Mm-hmm. Who they are, why they do what they do, and have them relate that to people and then people trust them. And sales and deals happened at the speed of trust.  [00:17:22] Sam: Oh my gosh, I love this so much. It's insanely powerful too when I'm teaching people how to do just introductions, you know? A super quick formula too for the property managers out there that are listening to that, even if you're property manager, you have to get good at sales. [00:17:38] Sam: Yeah, you have to be good at communication to be able to bring more doors into your portfolio. And so the way you know, a really easy formula for those homeowners when you're having that conversation, first of all, they've got to know who they're talking to. Yeah. You know, this belief, identity, you know, matrix that I actually I love to call, I just did a keynote. [00:17:59] Sam: It's funny for everybody listening. It's almost like Jason and I have read each other's notes, but we haven't. Just did a keynote, well that's maybe a month ago in Minnesota, that the entire talk was your thoughts, create your belief about yourself, your totally belief about yourself creates your identity, and then your identity creates your outcomes. [00:18:16] Sam: Yeah. And, but we have to go back and start with those thoughts. And so, but a simple, easy formula for property managers out there having this conversation is first of all, start asking permission for things. Yes. We can't just tell, right? If we can ask it as a question, ask it as a question. [00:18:36] Sam: So ask permission, like, "Hey, before we get started, do you mind if I take a quick minute and just introduce you to our company and myself."  [00:18:44] Sam: yeah.  [00:18:45] Sam: And so first of all, anytime a conversation starts, there's always this period of icebreaking, right? Yeah. Anytime anything new is introduced in anyone's environment, there's always stiffness until that moment of rapport happens and we relax a little bit. [00:19:00] Sam: Yeah. So taking a couple of minutes to just. "Hey, before we get started, do you mind if I introduce the company and a little bit about myself? Would that be all right?" Yes. So permission to it and then just take a few minutes because I mean, so many times we'll go through this crazy presentation and then we're asking somebody to buy from us and they don't even know who we are. [00:19:21] Sam: We never took the time to even introduce ourselves. Right.  [00:19:24] Jason: Yeah.  [00:19:24] Sam: Or they don't know thing about the company.  [00:19:25] Jason: Trying to immediately shove the product or service down their throat.  [00:19:28] Sam: Yeah. No wonder they need to think about it. They don't even know who you are. And so we introduce that first. [00:19:34] Sam: It's huge. And to just getting into the things. So that's the flow. It's like, okay, now that you know a little bit about us, tell us a little bit about you. What are you looking for? Right. So then you start that discovery process, and I'm sure you trained this but the discovery process is everything. [00:19:51] Sam: We have to understand the motive behind why they want to do things. Somebody just says, "Hey, I'm looking for a property manager." Okay, great. That's one thing. "Why do you would need a property manager? What are you trying to solve? What do we want to accomplish by having a property manager for your property?" [00:20:09] Sam: So we find out, what are the pain points? What are the issues that they're wanting to overcome? And then from there, we can create a, you know, craft a conversation around it. But until we know that, we're just stabbing in the dark and just guessing it. Yeah. Well, hopefully this will work.  [00:20:23] Jason: Right. Yeah. If we just jump right to offering solutions when we don't even ask what they need it's not very effective. [00:20:30] Jason: And then they're going to have a ton of objections.  [00:20:32] Sam: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. But yeah, that's the some of the complaints we have are the communication and the other one is just not responding once we find solutions, then give them to the property manager. [00:20:45] Sam: And then it's like ghosting for who knows how long until finally somebody gets back. And so that's the other side of the communication is not getting resolution once we actually, you know, we can do this work, but we're not going to sit around here all day to wait to get it approved. We have other appointments. [00:21:02] Sam: So do we want to reschedule?  [00:21:03] Jason: It's treating the vendor like they're high value, they're going to treat you like you're high value and they're going to prioritize you. And so it really is a mutual respect relationship that needs to be built. So, Sam, I also want to bring up to our audience, you are going to be coming [00:21:19] Jason: to speak at DoorGrow Live. Yeah. And you're going to be teaching some really cool stuff. Could you just touch on real quick what you're going to be sharing at this because I wanted to come bring you to expose my clients and my audience to what you're going to be sharing and maybe you can get some people pumped up for DoorGrow Live, so. [00:21:38] Sam: Absolutely. Yeah. So thank you for the invite as well. I'm super excited to be speaking for DoorGorw Live. It's my passion, in fact to be able to help people in their daily lives, especially in conversations like this, to make it easy. I am such a firm believer that sales should be easy. If it's not easy, we're overcomplicating it. And so what we're going to be talking about at the event is I'm going to give some really simple keys to better communication so people actually not only listen, but they understand what you're saying and, more importantly, why should they care? [00:22:18] Sam: So we're going to talk about something called, the benefit lens. We're going to talk about some easy word substitutions. We're not going to be learning scripts or anything. We're going to be, we're going to show any really easy ways to get immediate buy-in to what our conversation is. Nice. And how to recruit people to be raving fans and be on board. [00:22:38] Sam: And how to ask and get referrals because that's huge in...  [00:22:44] Sam: absolutely.  [00:22:44] Sam: ...something like a property management. If every third door you added also added another one from a referral, what would that do to your business? Yeah, absolutely. So not just asking for referrals, but actually asking in a way where actually get them. [00:22:57] Jason: Right. Yeah. If you're getting enough referrals, one, because you have a good reputation, you're doing a good job, but also because you have an intention and you're asking appropriately, you create this kind of virus of growth in your business where it's multiplying. [00:23:13] Jason: Every client becomes more clients.  [00:23:16] Sam: Yep. Absolutely. In fact, we can do a quick little as an example of some of the things we're going to cover. Are you open to doing a quick little role play with me on...  [00:23:24] Sam: all right. Let's do it.  [00:23:25] Sam: Some of the conversation here. Yeah. I love role play.  [00:23:28] Sam: Let's have fun.  [00:23:29] Sam: Yeah, for sure. [00:23:30] Sam: So I'm property manager. So before we do, give me a quick little context of what is a premium price property manager and what is like a middle range property manager. And so I'll know what I'm working with here. [00:23:44] Jason: Oh yeah. Usually our clients have three different price points for that reason. So, perfect. But let's say like, real typical in the marketplace is 10% is pretty normal. Okay? And this is not what we recommend. because our clients close more deals more easily at a higher price point. [00:23:59] Jason: So we have some special pricing models, but let's say 10%. Premium, maybe 12%, and the lower would maybe be like 8%.  [00:24:08] Sam: Got it. Got it. Perfect. Alright, so I'm the project manager. So I'm going to be a premium 12%. Yeah. So what we're going to do in this conversation, I'm going to ask for the business and you're going to give me a little bit of a price flinch with, "well, the other guy was only 10%." [00:24:23] Sam: Okay. And so we'll show a quick, easy way to handle that. All right. In a way that will make sense for everybody. So, alright, Jason, so, sounds like everything that you've talked about, can you see how all the things we do will take care of the concerns that you have? [00:24:38] Sam: Yeah, absolutely. Sounds great.  [00:24:40] Sam: Awesome. Perfect. So the next steps to get moving is you know, so we're just 12% of the monthly as for us to be able to take care of all of that. And this will just need a quick authorization on this form here and we can get started right away.  [00:24:55] Jason: Ooh, okay. Well, I was expecting, you know, I talked to a company down the street, they were like 10%, which seems to be a bit more normal. [00:25:04] Jason: I don't know.  [00:25:04] Sam: More normal?  [00:25:07] Jason: I've talked to a couple companies and a lot of them all do it at 10%. Could, like, is it possible you could do it at 10%?  [00:25:13] Sam: Oh, gotcha. So listen, I mean, so we were just 12%, but listen, we're not 2% higher or 2% more expensive. We're 2% better. Can I explain to you why that is? [00:25:25] Jason: Sure.  [00:25:26] Sam: Absolutely.  [00:25:27] Sam: So at that point, as a great company, you're going to have a hit list of all of the reasons why you're better than everybody else, and what makes you that premium company. I like it. So the minute we get that permission question in of, "Hey, we're not 2% more expensive, we're 2% higher, we're 2% better." [00:25:43] Sam: Then the permission question is, "can I show you why, or can I show you how?" And they say "Yes." Then we're going to, "okay, so what we do, it's..." never talk bad about the competition. Sure. But it's always with that perspective. "So what we do is this, and what we do is this, and what we do is this. We're always going to have the availability to be in contact, you know, 24/7 or you know, whatever all of the benefits is. [00:26:10] Sam: We're going through this huge benefit list. Yeah. And then when, once we, and it works like magic, once you get to about 10 or 12 things, especially when you know, those first 10 or 12 things are things the other companies don't do. Yeah. So many times that person will go, "you know what? You're right. You know what? You're right. Let's just go ahead and do it." Yeah.  [00:26:31] Jason: I mean, you go through those things you say, "so does that make sense why maybe we're 2% better?" And they're going to be like, "yeah."  [00:26:38] Jason: You've got agreement.  [00:26:39] Sam: Cool. Absolutely. And the other thing to do in this conversation, and this is really powerful too, so, you know, we'll take you know, what's a, what's the average rent that we'd be taking that percentage off of? [00:26:50] Jason: Let's say 2000 bucks.  [00:26:51] Sam: So 2000 bucks. That's what I was going to use. "So we're talking about 2% difference. So we're looking at $40 a month or $10 a week. Is it worth it to you for $10 a week to potentially fight the headache of, you know, your property management company not responding when you need them to respond, your tenants being really unhappy, the tenants turning over and over, for, I mean, $10 a week. Is it worth it to you for that?"  [00:27:22] Jason: Yeah.  [00:27:23] Sam: So if, I mean, if you're willing to roll the dice and take that chance, then of course you could do what you want. But if you want it done right and done once, so you're headache free and you're not going to have to, because the reason you hire a property manager is to be hands off. [00:27:35] Sam: Right? Yeah. Perfect. That's why what, that's what sets us apart. Next to any of the other companies around.  [00:27:43] Jason: Got it. So hypothetical property manager, Sam here, like believes. You can tell by listening to him, he believes in what he is selling. He believes he's worth that 12%. He believes he's worth that value, and I love that reframe. [00:27:58] Jason: One of the NLP hacks I teach clients is, it's not a, it's b, and he's like, "it's not that we're expensive or higher price, it's that we're 2% better." And so you're saying this is how you are looking at it. Here's how I want you to look at it. And that's a really cool correction. I love that right there. [00:28:16] Jason: Very powerful.  [00:28:17] Sam: The other part of that too is when you take, we're not talking about the total monthly, you know, we're talking about what's 12% or 10%? We're talking about 2% difference. Yeah. Is it worth it to you for a 2% difference to take the chance on having to deal with this, having to manage your own projects, having the headache, having the you know, the angry tenants or we don't have that problem. [00:28:42] Sam: And here's proof: review, testimony. Other people in the area, for people that use us just like you guys.  [00:28:49] Jason: Yeah. Awesome. Perfect. And you're going to share some really cool stuff I know at DoorGrow Live. I'm excited, man. Me too.  [00:28:56] Sam: Let's just tip of the iceberg. [00:28:57] Jason: For a salesman to be able to like build a coaching business, teaching sales like these are the best in the world at sales, and so I'm really excited to have you come. I've sold millions and millions of dollars of stuff. I love, I'm always learning more about sales, like this is something you can always continually learn more, so I love that little reframe. [00:29:17] Jason: That's a good one. I'm excited to hear what else you have to share. This is going to be really awesome. And if you're interested, go to doorgrowlive.com and get your tickets. Get your tickets. Our theme this year is innovating the future of property management, and we are bringing future ideas. [00:29:32] Jason: I'm going to be going over hybrid pricing, a new pricing model for property managers. This is the future. We're going to be sharing our DoorGrow hiring system. This is the future of how you're going to need to do hiring, so you're not making mistakes with hires, we're helping a lot of people replace their entire team. [00:29:48] Jason: So anyway, DoorGrow Live is going to be really freaking cool. So, yeah, and it's a holistic conference as well. We're bringing people from outside the industry, people that are related to different things. I've got a biohacking expert. We've got different things just to optimize your life as an entrepreneur and to make you better at what you do. [00:30:05] Jason: So this is going to be really cool. So, well, Sam anything else we should touch on?  [00:30:10] Sam: You know, there's so much we could cover.  [00:30:12] Jason: There's a lot. We'll save it for DoorGrow Live. How can people that, if they're listening, they're like, I'm a vendor, or I've got this, or I could really use Sam's help. [00:30:21] Jason: How can they get ahold of you?  [00:30:23] Sam: Yeah, absolutely. They can go to, of course the website is closeitnow.net. That's NET so closeitnow.net. They can email me directly, sam@closeitnow.net. On an Instagram at @therealcloseitnow. Okay. Or basically search Close it Now anywhere and I pop up all over the place. [00:30:44] Sam: All right. I'm kind of everywhere on social media and on the Googles at this point. All right.  [00:30:50] Jason: All right, well we're going to close this show now, so appreciate you coming on, Sam. It's been great having you. And for those that are watching, listening, if you could use some help from DoorGrow reach out to us. [00:31:00] Jason: You can check us out at doorgrow.com. We are the world leaders at coaching and scaling property management companies. And so if you are dealing with operational challenges, team challenges, hiring challenges, or you just don't know the right strategies for adding doors or business development, we can help you with all of that. [00:31:18] Jason: So reach out to us, check us out at doorgrow.com and until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. 

The Mountain Of Boba by Samit by 826 Valencia

The Mountain Of Boba by Samit by 826 Valencia

Auto-generated transcript: My dear respected brothers, sisters, elders, Alhamdulillah today is the first of Shaban, which means that we have exactly one month for Ramadan. May Allah give us the tawfiq to prepare for it, to make and take the maximum benefit out of Ramadan al-Fariq inshallah. We have Sayyidina Abada bin Samit radiya Allah… Continue reading ROI – #1 The post ROI – #1 appeared first on Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Centre - We came to give, not to take..

Nova ofenzíva v Kurskej oblasti? Stíhačky Mirage 2000 VS F16. Horiace ruské sklady, rafinérie či letiská, ale aj znovuzrodenie Kanady. Účinkujú: – gen. Pavel Macko – Rado Macko

Things Discussed: Seth on early to talk about Lions injuries, Ira gives us a short history of Detroit-Buffalo friendship. Oklahoma: Yes they got absolutely jobbed by Szelc. Yes, it's the #1 story of the game. Pushoffs, moving screens, 75 percent of Fears's free throws, and then a soft whistle at one end while ignoring a two-handed shove at the other end. Both of those were Szelc calls. Michigan won't get a fair whistle against this guy tbut what are you gonna do about it, have Warde complain to the Big Ten? They don't care. Rest of the game: Thruck was thruck. Michigan is a good team that gets the best shots in CBB. They're doing it with the big-on-big, and they're starting to know each other. Seth: pay attention to where Goldin gets his passes, where he likes it. Gonna need a team with extreme athleticism and NBA shot-blockers to contest them. Portal: Sam runs us through the QB options. DQ is a good one, Brendan Lewis is the one we like the best, Mikey Keene is a decent floor—he played for Lindsey at UCF—but you don't want a pocket-bound popgun arm before Bryce, do you? Lindsey connection got us the Arkansas brothers. Good athleticism and presence, but see TJ Metcalf as a high-floor Walker not a difference-maker. Always want a 5th year guy at nickel from now on. Brian: Can Morris come back? Sam: It's possible; he had concerns about the offense so if they have an OC and a QB now things could change. He hasn't set up any visits. Offense needs some bodies at OL: the guy they got is a development prospect. They're all in on Josh Thompson, who's checking out Auburn and Tennessee.

Predsednik Srbije i premijeri Mađarske i Slovačke najavili nastavak 'borbe protiv ilegalnih migracija'. Denis Bećirović traži da se BiH revanšira građanima Kosova omogućavanjem "bezviznog režima". Evropski parlament odobrio Ukrajini zajam od 35 milijardi evra.

Potraga za nestalima na područjima pogođenim poplavama i klizištima na jugu BiH. Samit lidera jugoistočne Evrope u Dubrovniku o pomoći Ukrajini. Aktuelnosti s Bliskog istoka. O mapiranju prostora u Beogradu i drugim gradovima Srbije, u kojima se žene ne osećaju bezbedno.

Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit trace their love for writing back to childhood. Hernandez recalls writing a Star Wars short story in fourth grade, inspired by Timothy Zahn's novels, such as the Thrawn trilogy. "I remember that moment as the first time that I really thought, oh, I really enjoy doing this. I like doing this. I think I can do this," he shares. "And that bug never really quit. It never really left me." Similarly, Samit grew up in a family of writers. "My mom's a writer. My dad has written some things. So there's always been like writing in my world," he explains. "And I always saw it as a thing that people do to express themselves. And yeah, when I was a kid, I loved writing stories, making up stories with my friends." Their partnership began at Brown University, where they discovered a shared taste in pop culture. "We started as best friends,  just hanging out in college talking about movies and TV and just pop culture that we love," Samit recalls. "We just had this bond where we had basically the same taste, everything he liked I liked, everything I liked he liked. We didn't really ever disagree on anything." This synchronicity laid the foundation for their future collaboration. Hernandez adds, "We were making each other's writing better. We were making each other's creative choices better. There are things that he's really, really good at that I'm not good at, at all." Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we're giving away 100,000 copies this year. It's based on hundreds of interviews here at Creative Principles.

We don't have a new episode, this week, but rather a replay from one of our Live In the Lounge's when we would broadcast on Sundays, occassionally. June 23, 2020, Sam's mom, Rosemary (Rosie) joined the guys, and shared things from Sam's past, her past, and the gentle kindness Sam grew up with, and the sense of humor that Sam displays, many times."On September 11, 2024, Mom went home to be with the Lord.She was never afraid at the news that she would be passing. Her strength of faith was amazing, and her unwavering love for all who surrounded her was unmatched.She will be missed, every day, and I love her ...so much.-Sam-It's a short episode, but we felt it was appropriate to put this out for all to remember Sam's mom. Thank you, Rose, for everything!

Its alwasy good when what you predict cmes true ... Musheek khan ( brother of sarfaraz khan ) and Samit dravid ... are firmly the future of indian cricket ... find out why today Stock in Focus : Unique Organics join Greenstone Lobo ( author/astrologer ) and Salil Acharya ( Rj/Vj/Sports promoter ) as they dissect all send your queries in to @salilacharya with all your details ( name/place / time / date of birth ) for individual readings

Ischemic heart disease is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. While atherosclerotic coronary artery disease (CAD) is the focus of most outpatient and inpatient evaluations for cardiovascular symptoms, up to two thirds of patients suffer from myocardial ischemia with non-obstructive coronary arteries (INOCA). Patients with INOCA have unique symptoms and are more likely to have functional limitation and repeat presentations for cardiovascular evaluation. While there has been increasing recognition of INOCA there is no specific functional status measure, limiting our ability to evaluate the course of illness or effectiveness of therapies. In this presentation, Dr. Samit Shah, interventional cardiologist at Yale New Haven Hospital who recently gave grand rounds recently to the Mayo Clinic Department of Emergency Medicine, reviews the causes of ischemic heart disease, challenges with current symptom assessment, and proposes a new path for better diagnosis and treatment of heart disease.   CONTACTS X - @AlwaysOnEM; @VenkBellamkonda; @SamitShahMD YouTube - @AlwaysOnEM; @VenkBellamkonda Instagram – @AlwaysOnEM; @Venk_like_vancomycin; @ASFinch Email - AlwaysOnEM@gmail.com

The Adventure To Skibidi Land by William and Samit by 826 Valencia

Začalo sa horúce leto, extrémne horúco je však aj na bojiskách. Ako horúco? Tak to sa môžete vážení poslucháči dozvedieť pri počúvaní 73. epizódy nášho bezpečnostného radaru s generálom Pavlom Mackom. Prajeme vám príjemné počúvanie.   1. Bojová hmla - Aktuálna situácia na ukrajinských bojiskách: taktická a strategická úroveň - Gaza, Izrael a Blízky východ 2. Zákulisie - Neohlásená a prekvapujúca návšteva Viktora Orbána po Kyjeve aj v Moskve a Pekingu, - Zhrnutie samitu NATO vo Washingtone, 3. 360 stupňov - Návšteva indického premiéra Módího v Rusku. Citát: „Trpezlivosť a vytrvalosť napĺňajú sny.“ —  Sri Chinmoy indický spisovateľ a guru 1931–2007 Účinkujú: Gen. Pavel Macko Rado Macko

V najnovšom podcaste účinkujú Marína Gálisová, Tomáš Zálešák, Martin Mojžiš a Štefan Hríb. Moderuje Eugen Korda. Rozprávali sa aj o týchto témach: - O temných zákutiach duše predsedu vlády - Hanebné rekcie na ruský útok na nemocnicu - NATO je znovu silnejšie a zodpovednejšie

Vo Washingtone sa začína samit Severoatlantickej aliancie. Na jednej strane si na ňom Nato pripomenie 75 rokov svojej existencie, na druhej sa od neho očakávajú dôležité rozhodnutia smerom k vojne na Ukrajine. Najmä v oblasti zabezpečenia jej protivzdušnej obrany. Na programe je aj presun organizácie pomoci z USA do Európy. Len hodiny pred jeho začiatkom pritom Rusko za bieleho dňa útočilo aj na civilné ciele na Ukrajine. Medzi iným na detskú nemocnicu v Kyjeve. Útoky si vyžiadali štyri desiatky civilných obetí vrátane detí. Washingtonský samit privíta Volodymira Zelenského, bude však aj posledným pre odchádzajúceho generálneho tajomníka Jensa Stoltenberga, ktorého už v októbri vystrieda Mark Rutte. Pred čím stojí Aliancia, táto 75 - ročná stará dáma? Ako sa vysporiada s pretrvávajúcou hrozbou Putina? A čo jej môže priniesť rastúca hviezda Donalda Trumpa? Téma pre Mateja Kandríka z Adapt Institute, ktorý bude v dejisku samitu vo Washingtone. „Táto stará dáma bude chcieť posunúť silnú správu o tom, že je stále čiperná, vitálna. Že je s ňou treba počítať. Kľúčovým slovom samitu bude pritom jednota“, hovorí Kandrík. Túto jednotu ďalej špecifikuje. „Jednota spojencov v ich spoločnom úsilí navyšovať obranné spôsobilosti, posilňovať kolektívnu obranu a odstrašovanie a pomáhať Ukrajine“. Nato je obrannou alianciou so záväzkom kolektívnej obrany. „Článok 5 je bijúcim srdcom Aliancie. Práve on je dôvodom, prečo sa krajiny usilujú o členstvo. Treba ho však vnímať spoločne s článkom 3, ktorý hovorí o záväzku pre každého člena Aliancie starať sa a investovať do vlastnej obrany a spôsobilostí“, tvrdí Matej Kandrík.Poukazuje pritom na fakt, že aktuálne dve percentá výdavkov na obranu boli v Nato prijímané v úplne inej bezpečnostnej situácii. Aktuálne bude podľa neho trend zvyšovania výdavkov na obranu, ktorému sa nevyhne ani Slovensko. „Ak sa pozrieme po susedoch pobaltské krajiny či Poľsko sú už na takmer štyroch percentách výdavkov HDP na obranu. Hrozby vnímajú enormne závažne. (…) Dvíhanie výdavkov do obrany je nevyhnutnosť, ktorá nás čaká“, dodáva analytik Adapt Institute. Podcast pripravil Jaroslav Barborák.

Nedēļas nogalē vairāk nekā 90 valstu vadītāji vai deleģētie pārstāvji pulcējās Šveicē. Viņi apsprieda iespējamo miera plānu Ukrainai. Krievija tajā nebija nedz aicināta, nedz pārstāvēta. Kāds ir galvenais ieguvums no šī samita? Savukārt Armēnijā nerimstas protesti pret vienošanos par robežām ar Azerbaidžānu. Piekāpjoties savam senajam ienaidniekam, Armēnija attālinās arī no kādreizējās sabiedrotās Krievija. Kāda izskatās tuvākā un tālākā perspektīva šai Aizkaukāza nabadzīgākajai valstij? Ārpolitikas aktualitātes analizē Austrumeiropas politikas pētījumu centra valdes priekšsēdētājs, direktors Māris Cepurītis un portāla "Delfi" žurnālists Andris Kārkluvalks. Miera samits – milzu panākums vai skumja izgāšanās? Daudzi novērotāji, raksturojot Ukrainas miera samitu, kas pagājušās nedēļas nogalē risinājās Šveices kalnu kūrortā Birgenštokā, neskopojas ar rezignētām notīm. Katrā ziņā, sastatot ar sākotnēji cerēto, notikuma rezultāti tiešām ir neiepriecinoši. Vispirms jau Ķīna, kura bija aicināta piedalīties, galu galā tomēr izvēlējās izpalikt. Tādas nozīmīgas reģionālās lielvalstis kā Indija, Brazīlija, Indonēzija, Saūda Arābija un Dienvidāfrika neparakstīja gala komunikē, kurā vēlreiz apstiprināts Ukrainas suverenitātes un teritoriālās integritātes princips. Šīs valstis vairāk vai mazāk pieļauj iespēju, ka miers varētu būt panākams, Ukrainai atsakoties no kādas daļas Krievijas okupēto teritoriju. Visbiežāk šādā kontekstā izskan priekšlikums vienoties par Krimas piederību Krievijai. Agresorvalsts vadonis, samita priekšvakarā nākot klajā ar saviem nosacījumiem miera sarunām, gan apliecināja daudz lielāku apetīti. Proti, Ukrainai būtu jāatdod agresoram pilnīgi visas Doņeckas, Luhanskas, Hersonas un Zaporižjes apgabalu teritorijas. Var piebilst, ka šobrīd Krievija kontrolē tikai daļu no šiem apgabaliem, tai skaitā Ukrainas rokās ir divu apgabalu centri – Hersona un Zaporižje. Vēl Ukrainai būtu jāapņemas nepievienoties militāriem blokiem, tātad jāatsakās no potenciālās dalības NATO. Faktiski Putins kārtējo reizi piedāvājis Ukrainai kapitulāciju, kuru ne Kijivā, ne kādā no Rietumu galvaspilsētām neuzskata par pieņemamu. Izskan viedokļi, ka samita galvenais rezultāts esot skaidri iezīmēta pretstāve starp Rietumiem un Globālajiem dienvidiem, kuru ap sevi vieno Pekina un Maskava. Tomēr Savienoto Valstu prezidenta padomnieks nacionālās drošības jautājumos Džeiks Salivans, kurš līdz ar viceprezidenti Kamalu Harisu vadīja savas valsts delegāciju Birgenštokā, uzrunā nodēvēja notikumu par ārkārtēju veiksmi. Samitā piedalījās pavisam deviņdesmit divu valstu un astoņu starptautisko organizāciju pārstāvji, no kuriem septiņdesmit septiņu valstu un piecu organizāciju pārstāvji parakstīja gala komunikē. Te gan jāpiebilst, ka gala dokumenta saturs aprobežojās ar trīs kara aspektiem: kodoldrošību, pārtikas piegāžu un kuģošanas drošību un karagūstekņu apmaiņu un no Ukrainas piespiedu kārtā pārvietoto bērnu un citu civiliedzīvotāju atgriešanos dzimtenē. Tā vien šķiet, ka vairāk nekā Birgenštokas samits Ukrainas interesēm kalpoja tieši pirms tam notikusī „Lielā septiņnieka” valstu vadītāju tikšanās, kurā tika nolemts izmantot finansiālam atbalstam izlietot peļņu, kuru nes Eiropā un Savienotajās Valstīs iesaldētie Krievijas kapitāli. Armēnija ģeopolitiskajās krustcelēs Pagājušajā trešdienā,12. jūnijā, Armēnijas premjerministrs Nikols Pašinjans, uzstājoties parlamentā, paziņoja par lēmumu pārtraukt Armēnijas darbību Kolektīvās drošības līguma organizācijā – militārā blokā, kurā Krievija iesaistījusi vairākas bijušās padomju republikas: Baltkrieviju, Kazahstānu, Kirgizstānu, Tadžikistānu un Armēniju. Kā norādīja Pašinjans, divas no organizācijas dalībvalstīm faktiski sadarbojušās ar Azerbaidžānu tās pēdējo gadu militārajā konfliktā ar Armēniju, kura rezultātā pēdējā zaudējusi visas agrāk kontrolētās strīdus teritorijas un izsenis armēņu apdzīvoto Kalnu Karabahas jeb Arcahas reģionu pametuši teju visi armēņu iedzīvotāji – apmēram 100 000. Maskava tūdaļ nosodījusi Armēnijas soli un pieprasījusi saistību izpildi, t.sk. iemaksas organizācijas budžetā. Kremlis ir izrādījies neuzticams partneris, kas faktiski nekādi nav atbalstījis Erevānu militārajā pretstāvē. Nav nekāds brīnums, ka Armēnija arvien aktīvāk meklē sadarbības partnerus rietumos. Nesen notika kopīgas Armēnijas un Savienoto Valstu militārās mācības, savukārt Parīzē tika parakstīta kārtējā vienošanās par moderno franču pašgājēju haubiču „Caesar” piegādi. Tikām pašā Armēnijā jau pusotru mēnesi nerimst protesti pret valdības noslēgtajiem robežlīgumiem ar Azerbaidžānu. To priekšgalā nostājies harizmātisks garīdznieks – Armēnijas apustuliskās baznīcas Tavušas apgabala arhibīskaps Bagrats Galstanjans. Aprīlī premjerministrs Pašinjans paziņoja, ka Armēnija atdos Azerbaidžānai dažus formāli tai piederošus, bet līdz šim armēņu kontrolētus pierobežas zemes nogabalus. Arhibīskaps Galstanjans kļuva par līderi šīs atdošanas skarto ciemu iedzīvotājiem, bet, kustībai vēršoties plašumā, ieradās galvaspilsētā Erevāna, kur pulcēja ap sevi arvien lielāku skaitu atbalstītāju. Kustībai pieslēdzās arī daudzas opozīcijas partijas, organizācijas un mediji, starp kuriem ir gan rietumnieciski orientēti, gan tādi, kas tiek uzskatīti par prokremliskiem. Arī dienā, kad premjers Pašinjans nāca klajā ar minēto paziņojumu, notika plašas demonstrācijas, kas izvērtās protestētāju sadursmēs ar policiju. Varas pārstāvji apgalvo, ka protestētāji mēģinājuši izlauzties līdz parlamenta ēkai un to ieņemt, kamēr vairāku nevalstisko organizāciju pārstāvji vaino policistus pārmērīgā spēka lietošanā, jo sevišķi – trokšņa granātu sviešanā blīvā pūlī, traumējot vairāk nekā astoņdesmit cilvēkus. Tiek arī apgalvots, ka kārtības sargi mērķtiecīgi uzbrukuši žurnālistiem. Divpadsmit protestētājiem izvirzītas apsūdzības, līdz ar to par dažādiem likumpārkāpumiem apsūdzēto arhibīskapa Galstanjana atbalstītāju skaits sasniedzis teju sešus desmitus. Sagatavoja Eduards Liniņš.  

They say the best businesses are built on the foundations of friendship, and that's exactly what Samuel Loo and Singchuen Chiam, childhood pals, prove with their journey from elementary school to dominating the matcha scene on Amazon. Their tale is not just about the green goodness of matcha but a story of two friends who took divergent paths—law and business—only to converge into a powerhouse duo. With Sam's sharp legal acumen and Sing's Alibaba experience finesse, they've brewed up Naoki Matcha, a brand that resonates with quality and customer delight, nurturing it from a side hustle to a multi-million dollar success. Our conversation steers through the meticulous craft of standing out in a saturated market, with Sam and Sing revealing their three-year grind to perfecting their matcha blend. They share the trials of juggling full-time jobs while planting the seeds for Naoki Matcha, a testament to their enduring patience and entrepreneurial spirit. Their business acumen shines as they discuss the potency of Amazon PPC in propelling their revenue growth, and the strategic decision to maintain a premium on their product—ensuring Naoki Matcha is not just another tea on the shelf, but a premium experience for the discerning consumer. As we wrap up, the future of Naoki Matcha gleams with potential, from its lean operational approach to its plans for product diversification and international expansion. Their story isn't just an inspiration for Amazon FBA sellers and matcha aficionados but to anyone with entrepreneurial dreams, demonstrating that with the right blend of passion and strategy, even the smallest idea can grow into a thriving E-commerce empire. Join us as we toast to the success of Sam and Sing, and keep an eye on your social media feeds—you might just catch the upcoming viral sensation of Bradley Sutton's matcha flan!   In episode 542 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Samuel, and Singchuen discuss: 00:00 - Childhood Friends Start Successful Matcha Business 08:35 - Exploring Opportunities With Macha Tea  11:33 - Journey to Success 14:50 - Product Growth From Gradual to Significant 20:46 - Brand Growth Through Market Analysis 21:26 - Strategic Growth of Naoki Matcha Brand 24:37 - Matcha Market Segmentation and Competition 28:56 - Success in their Amazon Business 30:15 - Amazon PPC Advertising Strategy Effectiveness 33:37 - Matcha Success Story and Plans For Future Growth ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today, we've got two childhood best friends from elementary school who linked up as adults and started a matcha Amazon business that now does millions of dollars a year. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.   Bradley Sutton: Black Box by Helium 10 houses the largest database of Amazon products and keywords in the world. Outside of Amazon itself, we have over 2 billion products and many millions more keywords from different Amazon marketplaces, from USA to Australia to Germany and more. Use our powerful filters to search through this database for pockets of opportunity that you might want to get into with your first or next product to sell on Amazon. For more information, go to h10.me/blackbox. Don't forget you can save 10% off for life on Helium 10 by using our special code SSP10.   Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that's completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies or serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And we are going to the opposite side of the world today, to I believe they're in Singapore, and it's funny because the way they were introduced to me by Crystal and somebody else from Amazon she was like oh yeah, I want you to meet the Macha Bros, but I don't think that's their official name, so I'll let you guys go ahead and introduce yourselves to our audience. This is the first time we'll be on the show   Sam: Sure. So my name is Sam and this is my business partner, Singchuen. We're not actually brothers, but we work together quite closely on a business that we started together. Our business is called Naoki matcha and, as the name suggests, we sell matcha green tea powder in the United States, in the United Kingdom and in Singapore.   Bradley Sutton: You know what I've known you, of you or about you? I literally thought you guys were blood brothers entire time, not just because of that name, and so I've already learned something new. I literally thought, you guys were.   Sam: No, no. We get that a lot. We get that a lot.   Bradley Sutton: Brothers from other mothers.   Sam: Yes, I think we can go with that, yeah.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right, hold on now. Let's you know like I already learned something new, so let's just take it. Take it way back, both of you born and raised in Singapore.   Sam and Singchuen: Yep.   Bradley Sutton: How did you guys meet? Did you meet like some story, like you met in university, or how did you guys meet each other?   Singchuen: Sam and I met oh, this is Singchuen, by the way, so I'm the business partner. Sam and I met in primary school, so we have known each other for quite a long time.   Bradley Sutton: So that is a good story, all right. And then you just went to that. You went to the same one, or? Or you just met in the neighborhood, or what?   Sam: We went to the same one and we actually were in the same school so like 10 years, and then our paths kind of diverged for a little while. But we reconnected in university because we were both interested in like business and entrepreneurship and I think that's how it kind of like reconnected and we started exploring different things and that's how we started working together again.   Bradley Sutton: What did both of you major in in university?   Singchuen: I studied business and Sam, he was actually a lawyer.   Sam: Yeah, I studied law at university.   Bradley Sutton: Upon graduation, did both of you guys go into that field that you had studied law and business?   Singchuen: I guess in a sense that because we started a business, business would be quite relevant. But in that in another, in another complete sense, it wasn't really that relevant because the things that you studied in school were geared to get you a role in a company, so it wasn't very practical. But the concepts, they were useful.   Sam: Yeah, so after graduation I did practice law for like a couple of years and then, while doing this business, and then at the end of the two years, I realized that, like you know there was I had two opportunities and like this one kind of showed itself to be a bit more, have more potential, so I left the law and I went into e-commerce.   Bradley Sutton: Who discovered e-commerce first? Was it you, Sam?   Sam: Yeah. So I think I really found out about this opportunity on Amazon and FBA the ability to like sell in another country that is not yours. I think back in like 2015-2016 this is like early days, right but at that point in time I was still like a university student at Seoul 6th year, so we really didn't have like the kind of resources that we needed to really tackle this, this, this opportunity, right. So we spent some time like learning about how to approach it and we only really launched it like late 2016 and from then we went on our careers. We kind of like grew it slowly along the way and then after a few years, we realized that okay, the time is right, this is a good time to go all in.   Bradley Sutton: Okay. So in 2016 you guys had reconnecting, like, hey, let's do something together while still having day jobs at that time.   Singchuen: Yeah, exactly, Sam was a lawyer. I actually worked in e-commerce as well. I worked in Alibaba for quite a number of years, so it helped that I could bring a certain kind of context to how the Amazon platform worked, and so we decided to start this sort of like to see where this would be going, because it was exciting, it was an opportunity and we always wanted to have our own business. So that was sort of like the paradigm in which we started off on.   Bradley Sutton: And so at the time in 2016, when you first just started dabbling in e-commerce, it sounds like you weren't all in. Was it matcha that you got into? Was that your first thing, or was it other things?   Sam: Yeah, so when we first started, we started, as most people do, with like a search query on Alibaba.com. The first products we actually sold were like these glass teapots, so we realized that they were not too bad to sell. Actually, we reached like five figures in multi-revenue by like within a year, but we met the same problems that I think a lot of people encounter, which is that after a while, people see that you're somewhat successful and then they'll try to launch a complicated product and therefore, when we found that happened to us and we found it very difficult to grow, so we really were like scratching our heads to think about like what other types of products or categories that we could do, and that's why we landed on matcha.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, so when you landed on matcha, were you still working your day jobs, or by that time you were all in on Amazon already?   Sam: No, we were still working out day jobs because for matcha category and the grocery category we found that, like you know, it's not so much of like a quick win kind of situation. You need to invest the time and energy and you need to have quite a lot of patience before your results actually bear fruit, and for us that took actually a number of years because you need to kind of like build your credibility and gain experience in what you're selling as well.   Bradley Sutton: Are we still talking 2016? Are we already now in 2017 in the timeline, or where are we at when you guys decided matcha?   Sam: Right. So in 2016, we dabbled in matcha and then we spent the next two years essentially trying to improve the product and better understand the category and the product market fit as it is in the US, and we took like a couple of years to do that properly, and I think it was only about 2020, you know, right after COVID hit, when we realized that, okay, the product is good, we have a good product that can stand up against the other competitors in the space, and you're going to go all in and grow this thing.   Singchuen: On the side of this, because our matcha green tea is from Japan and there was a requirement I want to say it's a hard requirement, but there is an understanding that in order to get the good product in Japan, especially from suppliers, you kind of need to cultivate the relationship a little bit and take some time for them to trust you. And so it's not as though, as we didn't want the best product right in 2016. Number one it's not. It's a learning process, right, especially when what the market is telling you of a certain kind of taste that they prefer. But it's also bringing back those requirements to the suppliers and the factories to let them know this is the taste that we want and, barring communication barriers, there's still that they need to feel, feel each other out to exactly ascertain what we're looking for. And that took quite a bit more time than what you would be doing on Alibaba.   Bradley Sutton: That's what has been curious. This is not something you would just like find on Alibaba. So where did the like, how did you guys land on matcha? Was it something you guys just liked? Was it because you were doing tea cups and you just like it was a side thing? Like how in the world? Or did you find it in Helium 10? Or how in the world did you say you know what? I think there's opportunity in matcha. Let's go ahead and examine this further.   Singchuen: In Singapore, generally we are exposed to Japanese culture quite a little bit already, but more closely, I guess it's also because I liked green tea. So at the point of time I didn't drink a lot of matcha, but I knew about it. So we explored that as a potential item to try to sell and in a sense it checked all the other boxes as well right. Whether it is for the economics, the logistics, the business, fit, branding, pricing. And that's how we started off on like taking the first step.   Sam: I think also at that point in time this is like 2015, 2016, right, I think matcha was just beginning to get popular in the US. So, yeah, that's when I think the craze started, right. So I think we were also at like the right time in the right place and we realized that, you know, we could marry like our interests and the market opportunity in front of us, and that's how we really landed on matcha.   Bradley Sutton: I don't have any matcha shirts or anything, but you mentioned like Japanese culture. So I got my Astro Boy jacket here. I got my old school Japanese Tokyo Giants hat here. You know, I used to live in Japan when I was younger and and that was why you know, like matcha is not exactly a natural thing for an American person to like, but I kind of liked it. Before it was cool and now, now, like you said, it's just like booming. Everybody's like, hey, matcha, you know you can go to Starbucks and get matcha, this and you can get matcha, and you know non Asian markets, which before it was different. So that was, you know, a little bit of foresight. Now, when you first started with the matcha, you know you had said, until then you were doing dabbling in other things, were you profitable on the Amazon side? Or, up to that point, you still hadn't made profit in the first year or so of your Amazon business.   Singchuen: We tended to search for products that were more profitable on the first sale. So in that sense, the first products that we went to more like glass cups, g-ports, things like that they were already profitable. So it's not as though, as we were dabbling in things that were really difficult to do, low priced or otherwise.   Bradley Sutton: Your first matcha product that you launched? Was that the one that was successful, or did it take a couple of tries before things really started taking off?   Sam: Well, I think it is still the first product that we launched, but what we had to do was tweak the formulation over the years several times and each time we're trying to improve it and fine tune it to better suit, like the feedback that we were getting. So it is the same product, it looks the same, but they're always like tweaks over the years and this kind of like helps build that, I guess, average review score. That goes up because, like you know, you're getting closer to what people like with each iteration.   Bradley Sutton: To find that like perfect blend and everything. You kind of mentioned it and I know this about your history. So can you talk a little bit about, like we just said, this wasn't something. Oh, let me find something in Alibaba, let me just put my sticker on it. How did you look for I don't even want to call it factories, but producers of matcha in Japan like we said, it's not on Alibaba and then talk about the long process of? Actually, I believe you would fly to Japan and meet different places and try things. Talk about that long process how long did it take and what were the steps involved in that.   Singchuen: At the start, we asked for samples from willing factories and once we tasted them and we realized that this was something that could be in a ball pack of what's considered as good tasting to the market, we would ask the supplier whether they are willing to sell us a certain volume of matcha. So there are several factories in Japan that do just green tea, and their idea was sort of branch out to selling matcha as well, because there was where the growing market was, and these were the factories that were more suitable for us to go into, and once we spoke to them their experience with matcha may not be the best at the point of time, mind you, but they were willing to work with us and over a period of time, once we let them know exactly what we're looking for and they were willing to tweak to our preferences, that's when we got a good fit and from then, as our volume started going up, more and more, various factories started.   Bradley Sutton: Until that part, though. How long was that? Were we talking a month? Were we talking multiple months?   Singchuen: No, that actually took quite a long time. I think about three years at least so around 2016 to 2019,. On the marketing side, Sam was trying to define a market fit, but on the supply side, we were just trying to make sure that factories produce what we needed and the trust and formulation. That takes a while.   Bradley Sutton: How can somebody have that kind of patience? That's very rare, not just in matcha industry, but just Amazon or business industry to have that kind of patience to you know to like, hey, I'm spending two or three years to get this right. Like, is that just in your nature or what's going on there?   Singchuen: To be fair, I think we were not so much in a hurry, just to share a little bit. Personally, it's a little bit more of we always wanted to get a business eventually, but the timeline wasn't so important. We weren't in a rush. Sam, as Sam has mentioned just now, both of us had decent careers, so we were optimizing on that front as well and we're happy to wait.   Bradley Sutton: Like you said, you still had your day jobs, you know, for a time. So it wasn't like you know, like you were about to go out of business and I think that's important. You know, like people sometimes just like, all right, I'm going to quit my job before they even have like a viable business and that's what you know. That's not going to allow somebody to have the patience. That's interesting. Now, at what point in this three years did you finally have like a product just start taking off? And was it just random, like it was just one day that it started going viral and never looked back? Or was this something where it was like, all right, you know, over a few months you were selling 10 units a day, then 15 units, then 20, was it a gradual thing? Or when did what? Was that moment where it's like, oh shoot, we got this right and this is going to take off.   Sam: Yeah, I think it was really like a gradual process. But that point for us, I think, when the old shoot moment, I think, was when we realized that, like the monthly sales for this Macha product alone was quite significant and this was enough to basically sustain ourselves, number one and number two provide a good base and recurring cash flow to kind of grow the business from there. Yeah, and this was really about, like you know, as I said, 2020, mid 2020, early to mid 2020, after COVID started, where we realized that, hey, this thing has snowballed into something quite significant. So it was really a gradual process.   Bradley Sutton: If you can recall either of you, what was your sales the year before, in 2019, when you were still just dabbling in Macha and maybe still had some of the other products?   Sam: I would say that it was like maybe like six figures a year, low six figures a year, and then, okay, yeah, we was at that point in time. We were, we were often optimistic about, about close to doubling each year. So that was, that was where we were at.   Bradley Sutton: And then. So at that point, obviously still working full time jobs. And then it was at 2020, when it took off, and then you quit in 2020, your jobs or you still, even though it started taking off, you still were working your full time.   Sam: I wouldn't say it took off right. It was just at that point in time with, like, the good momentum that like we know that there's some something to stand on. So that was when we decided, okay, time to go all in. And then we know that the product was ready. And then we started doubling down on marketing in order to kind of know that, you know, this optimized product is available to everyone. And then that's how we kind of grew from there.   Bradley Sutton: What kind of marketing? I mean, obviously Amazon PPC is part of it. Was that it or other things as well?   Sam: So we did try a bunch of things at first, but by the late by late 2020, we realized that Amazon advertising PPC mainly is that engine that's going to give us the growth for the next few years, because we realized that, like on a cost acquisition basis, like you just can't beat it.   Bradley Sutton: You said 2019, low six figures. What about 2020, that your first really good year. What did you end approximately with?   Sam: I think we were just under seven.   Bradley Sutton: And then how about 2021?   Sam: Yes, somewhere, seven.   Bradley Sutton: All right. So now it's like you guys knew you had something. It wasn't just a fluke, you know. You had some consistency. Do you mind if I show your product on screen right now? For those watching this on YouTube?   Sam: Oh yeah, go ahead.   Bradley Sutton: So let me pull it up here. Was this variation family here of the superior ceremonial blend it says here, was this like your first product that you got into?   Sam: Yes, it was.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, now I'm looking. Now it's like you know, according to Amazon, according to Helium 10, you are selling throughout this variation family here, thousands of units, multiple six figures per month, just with this, with this fam variation family. So this is the one that is your, your big seller. So I mean, if I'm looking at these numbers correctly, unless this is just a very nice month here, you're like what in the you know mid seven figures now, or higher?   Sam: I think that's fantastic yeah.   Bradley Sutton: Okay and explain this product. You know there's a lot I like matcha. I understand it, but there's a lot of people who might like think like what? Like? Do you just like dump this in tea or do you actually use it to cook something? Like what? Like? How in the world are you selling almost 10,000 units of this a month? Like, what are the people buying this to use?   Sam: Right, I think the way to look at this product is that it's a form of tea and in Japan it's enjoyed as a form of tea. Now in America it's usually enjoyed in a, in a form of a latte. So imagine you have a tea and then I think in some parts of the US, like milk tea is popular, right. So in the same way you can add milk to matcha and then you get a Matcha Latte. So because people find that coffee is not working for them for various reasons whether like they feel, like you know, nervous or anxiety after that they try to find something else, right. So matcha kind of ticks all the boxes because it's got a little bit of caffeine, so you don't feel that like that anxiety that you get with coffee sometimes, and also there are like amino acids inside that help you stay alert for a longer time. So that was kind of like the health food appeal of matcha. But that's, I think, why it got popular and that's why people drink it. So we also wanted to kind of share a bit of that Japanese heritage of matcha in our product, which is why it looks the way it does, because in Japan actually the traditional way of preparing it is to take like a teaspoon of the powder, add some water and then whisk it up with this bamboo whisk until it becomes like nice and froth.   Bradley Sutton: I see that here in your A plus, your premium A plus content, so I can see a little bit of that here. You're telling that story. Really great branding here, I like that.   Sam: So they whip it up into like this frothy little mixture and I guess if you could kind of relate it back to coffee culture, I would say like it's like a Matcha Americano. That's the way that they would drink it and that's the main way it's consumed in Japan.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, now you've got just a beautiful listing here. You know, looks like premium A plus content. You're educating people here. You have a frequently asked questions, and then obviously you've got some great pictures here where you've got infographics. You've got, you know, like kind of like a history lesson of matcha. You have pictures of it. I mean what else? Like you even show the origin. I think I saw somewhere there's like different cities where this comes from. Where is that here, here? It is here Like you're like oh hey, this one is from Kyoto, this one's from Fukuoka. You have the city. So like I'm assuming that I mean, did you start this from like day one such in depth like information here, or is this just gradually how you were able to kind of hone your branding?   Sam: I think we didn't know that it would take this form at the very start. We knew that, like you know, instinctively this is the branding angle that we want to work with. But as we grew with time we know we were reacting to what's happening in the market right and how we need to kind of distinguish our brand and our product from other people and to make sure that, even though, like, they like the product but they need to have like some visual reference to kind of like make that association, to know that like, oh okay, this is now Kimatcha and I like now Kimatcha.   Bradley Sutton: You know what I'm going to check something. Hold on, let me see, I'm actually gonna run Cerebro on one of your products. I'm curious, you know you mentioned, hey, people are actually searching for Naoki Matcha. I'm just curious, like, what kind of brand recognition you have. So I'm just running Cerebro on here on our YouTube and podcast version. We'll speed this up. Let's see here, because I have a feeling, you know you've been selling for a while now and you're doing so well that there are literally people who just search for your brand name. So let's take a look at how many people are searching for your brand name here. Hold on, all right, here in Cerebro I'm gonna put phrases containing Naoki and let's apply that filter and wow, there's 45 different keywords that have Naoki in it and with thousands of search volume a month. So people like know your brand. You know just Naoki Matcha by itself has 1200 search volume and there's 45 other versions that people are actually searching for. So I mean that's kind of like what the goal is. When you're selling on Amazon, hey, sure you want people to buy you on the generic searches, like you know, Matcha Tea or Matcha Powder or something. But you know you've kind of made it when there's actually search volume for your brand.   Bradley Sutton: You guys are getting, you know, using expensive you know matcha directly from the source in Japan. You know I'm sure there maybe are some competitors going like a cheaper route. Or maybe you know, like I'm just looking here in the search for Matcha Tea and I even see you know listings that are like $9, you know $9.95. And you guys are at like $40, $39. I see some that are, well, that's a different product, but like $7, you know $15. How can you guys stay at around the top? Like I'm looking at the BSR, you're like one of the top three in the whole Matcha category. Like some people think, oh, I have to. You know, like if cheaper sources come on, I'm just going to have to try and price match and then you know race to the bottom and I like to tell people no, no, no, there's ways to still succeed even at a higher price point. What's your guys secret where you can stay at this $40 price point and still make a lot of sales despite these cheaper alternatives coming into the market?   Sam: Well, I think it's all about getting people to try it once. And once the person tries it once, right, and then they compare it to like the cheaper one that they bought before they realize, like you know, the difference is like night and day, right. So what we want to do is to make sure that they realize that they're getting like a good price for this level of quality, and once that kind of barrier is unlocked and then they realize that, hey, actually, if I pay $25 for one ounce, right, I'm getting a lot more value if I'm paying $40 for like 3.5 ounces, so the $40 one actually becomes like a good idea, even though, like it's like four times whatever is available on. You know the results when you search for matcha.   Singchuen: Just to add on to that, the cheaper matcha products are by nature of how it's grown and how it's produced. It tastes incredibly different from how matcha products of a certain price level are like because of how much more expensive it is to produce. So matcha is actually in quite a bit of a supply crunch and so there is actually not that much matcha supply to go around at the higher quality price range. In that sense, because it's so expensive, it's not possible to match the quality level if you're to go below the price. So the market kind of like segmented itself in a way. So we, as Sam has just mentioned just now, as long as we are sort of value for the price that we are offering, it's good enough for us and that's how we managed to stay above the competition. If you notice that there are other competitors that are also doing well with high BSR and they are similarly high priced. But once you do the math you realize that in addition to our better tasting product our price per gram, if you want to put it that way it's still much better than our competitors.   Sam: It's pretty competitive still.   Bradley Sutton: What's the future hold? Now you actually have Naoki Matcha in the brand name. So if you just stay with this brand, you're kind of I don't want to say limited, but it's not like you can start selling something completely off the wall under this brand, like do you have are there still enough new kinds of variations and blends that you can come up with to keep this brand going? Or have you considered, like maybe we should start something completely different, like I start a new brand? Or what's your goal for growing the business?   Sam: Right. I think for this brand there's still some room for growth, because actually so far we haven't touched the whole products that deal with, like matcha accessories. We're just starting that this year and also there are different grades of matcha right. So honestly, we are really at like that middle to high kind of grade, but we haven't really touched the other grade so far. So those are kind of like the growth opportunities that are available to us, yeah, but of course, once we hit there's a ceiling for category, once we hit that, yeah, I think you do have to choose another brand.   Bradley Sutton: Obviously, Amazon USA is your main market. Are you selling on other Amazon marketplaces? If so, which? And then also other marketplaces at all, like Walmart, Shopify or other websites?   Singchuen: We are in the UK. We're selling the exact same brand in the UK as well. It's sort of like an offshoot. We started it because some fans who have tasted it in America have gone back to the UK and so they are wondering why aren't you in the UK? So we decided to launch it over there as well, and so far the growth is okay, but not as high as in America, obviously, and in Singapore. We are on e-commerce platforms as well, and I'm not too sure we can confidently say this, but we are in the top few brands on those platforms selling decently well too.   Bradley Sutton: You know, talk about some specific strategies that you guys think have helped you get to where you are, because it's not just like I mean somebody could spend 10 years and develop like the most perfect, pure form of matcha known to mankind in history and it's meaningless, you know, without the strategy that is going to get it in front of people. So what are some of the things that set you apart from maybe the 10 other matcha people who maybe have started and gone out of business, you know, because they didn't have your strategy? What do you think set you apart from others?   Sam: Well, I think a handful of things. The first one is okay, so I think you can use. You can rely on Amazon PPC. You can look at your search term impression share reports. You can look at your keyword ranking and all that kind of stuff and that will help you in the short run. But honestly, the thing that really helped us the most was patience and making sure that your product is on a sensory level it's actually good and people like it. Once you have those two things covered, then you know you just need to get people to try to get them to tell their friends, and then, like people, their friends who are interested in matcha will buy, and then they are buying again and then this whole thing kind of grows by itself. Your PPC and all of these other tools that you have are really just like fuel that you add to this engine   Singchuen: And on the other side of things is obviously you kind of need to make sure that you treat your supplier well as well. Make sure that they understand what you're going through and make sure that you try to understand what they're going through. If language is a barrier, hire an interpreter, right, it's not too difficult. Decency goes both ways. So you may be pressed, but you got to recognize that the factories themselves, they, are pressed as well. So working together for compromise, understanding each other and not drawing too much, just to be a little bit more understanding towards each other, goes a long way. I think what tends to happen is that if you're not patient, as Sam has mentioned, you may cut off communications with factories that may help you in the future, and you don't want to do that.   Bradley Sutton: Now I'm looking, speaking of PPC, I'm looking at just what I see on Amazon and I see everything. I see sponsored product ASIN targeting campaigns right here on this one page I see you're targeting your own ASIN and sponsored display ad. I see sponsored brand ads in the search for Matcha tea. I saw sponsored brand video, regular sponsored products. So you guys are just like going all out with all the different kinds of PPC that Amazon provides. Any one of those, like you think, has performed better for you or gives you the best ROI, or is it kind of just kind of even across the board?   Sam: Well, I think at the start sponsored products perform very well, but as you get more and more ad types and different you know SV, SD, SP you mix that in. You have some DSP thrown in. The attribution for which ad actually did the sale for you gets a bit more tricky.   Bradley Sutton: That's true. That's true, yeah, because you know. But the good thing about that is you're just your top of mind because you're advertising everywhere you can. You know, like sure, maybe you don't know exactly what got the attribution, but the point is you have such a big share of voice you know, potentially, maybe compared to your competitors, that you're your top of mind for your, for your customers. Okay, so PPC is important for what's on Amazon. I'm sure you use Amazon data points as well. What about Helium 10? What's your favorite tool in Helium 10 and how has it helped you?   Sam: I think, honestly, the keyword coverage and Cerebro is still like my favorite tool. I've been using it since like 2017, when it first launched.   Singchuen: As you use, you search on Amazon and you search on other platforms take a look at how Helium 10's are like compared to others. You always use that. There's a certain sense that Helium 10's information is letting you after it. It's more of a sense. I can't really explain it, and then that really goes a long way, I think.   Bradley Sutton: Now for either of you. If there was something on your wish list for Helium 10, like, like something, maybe we don't do right now, you're like, wow, it would be so cool if Helium 10 could do this. Here's your chance to tell me what is on the matcha bros top wish list, for what Helium 10 can help now give matcha with?   Sam: Right. So I think my number one wish list would be cohort analytics. So if, for example, I can see in January how many new customers are acquired and how much, and how much of that repeat over the next 12, 24, 36 months, that would be awesome. I don't think there's none of the big analytics platforms do this. There are some specialized ones that do it that we subscribe to, but they're expensive and I'm pretty sure that you guys can do a better job.   Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome. Now my last question is just, you know, you guys have reached this level of success, selling millions of dollars. Obviously you two are working together. How many people total does it take to run the Naoki Matcha machine? You know like, are you guys doing 100% of the work? Do you have virtual assistants? Do you have, you know, in Singapore staff? How many people does it take to run your business?   Singchuen: Right now we are actually quite an entity, Sam, as I'm sure you can tell from this conversation. Sam does most of the marketing and I do more of the supply side operations kind of activities. So in total we have about five people running the entire business.   Bradley Sutton: Well, this has been very enlightening. I've you know, despite knowing about you guys, almost 95% of this I think was completely new information to me and obviously new to our audience. It's great to see this success story. I love matcha, so I'm going to have to purchase your, your product, and make some. I'll be your influencer. Make some matcha, some kind of matcha. Let's see I'm going to. I wanted to make a matcha flan flan like a. I don't know if you guys know what that is. That's like a Mexican dish. So that's, I'm going to make something and then it's going to go viral on TikTok and make you guys another few million dollars just for me.   Singchuen: Thank you for your support.   Bradley Sutton: You could take me out to dinner   Sam: Yeah. Thank you and looking forward to that.   Bradley Sutton: Thank you so much for coming on, and let's have you guys back on the podcast in 2025 and let's see how you guys have grown at that time.  

“Hopefully, this is a renaissance,” says Sam Jean, who returns to Cuckoo 4 Politics for another episode of Raw & Uncut as we wrap up 2023. It's been a year full of high profile labor strikes, which remind people of the power of unions to stand up to corporations to fight for a living wage. Of course, this doesn't stop many people from blaming immigrants for depressed wages and low employment. America has a history of demonizing its most newly arrived citizens, blaming them for all its problems, while simultaneously relying on them to make up large parts of the workforce. As Americans, we must question which of our foreign policy maneuvers have forced people to come to our country to seek a better life.  This hypocrisy extends to the highest positions of government. Americans continue to labor under the illusion that those on the Supreme Court hold themselves to a higher moral standard than the rest of us. Yet, as Michael points out, Judge Clarence Thomas accepts all sorts of gifts and favors from rich donors, compromising. Sam calls for term limits in the Supreme Court, to help tamper down such corruption and compromised integrity and corruption.  Meanwhile, too many conservative candidates are weaponizing their religion as a way to mystify their followers, something that Sam predicts will only become more pronounced during the 2024 election season. If there's one abiding truth, it's that Donald Trump makes everything worse.  Quotes: “We have to address why it is that people are coming here. The other thing we don't address in terms of our foreign policy is what has American foreign policy done to some of these countries that are sending us their migrants? Why? Why is that happening?” (9:20 | Sam) “It seems like the public understands that the workers have no leverage and their only leverage is to strike. And when they start striking and they start explaining what they want, regardless of how the media tries to interpret it like, ‘Oh, they expect a living wage.---the shock of it! God forbid someone get a wage that allows them to live–I  think that (18:17 | Sam) “One thing the strike demonstrates is the power of labor and organizing labor because the workers by themselves do not have sufficient leverage to stand up against the corporations. They just simply don't. You think one worker can stand up to Ford, Chrysler, GM? Not at all. So this demonstrates the power of labor, and hopefully this is a renaissance for labor movements to come back.” (19:27 | Sam)  “Judge Clarence Thomas. The man is literally hanging with big donors who are paying for his–everything–from taking him on lavish vacations, to paying for anything he wants and we think, ‘You're supposed to be impartial?' Is he another Tim Scott?” (24:28 | Michael) “There is a separation of church and state because we understand in this country that there are people who believe and there are people who don't believe. We have to treat them the same way. You don't need to insert religion to have an outcome that is fair. Can we use religious ideas to form certain laws? Of course we can, of course people do, but the laws are sufficient as they're written without a hint and a hinge of religion.” (30:12 | Sam) Links cuckoo4politics.com https://www.instagram.com/cuckoo_4_politics/ https://www.facebook.com/Cuckoo-4-Politics-104093938102793 Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Monkey bots, revolutionary polities, and robot gladiators, oh my! Shaun Duke and Daniel Haeusser are joined by the phenomenal Samit Basu for a discussion of his latest novel, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport! Together, they discuss Basu's approach to worldbuilding and storytelling, the difficulties of writing about revolutionary change, the novel's unique POV, and so much […]

Unstacked with Sarah (Bay County Public Library) and Stephen (Huntsville-Madison County Public Library). Join us for an interview with award-winning, internationally bestselling author, Samit Basu. We'll discuss his newest science fiction novel, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport, which is an action-packed retelling of Aladdin full of heart, humor and bots. Unwind with Samit as he shares his writing process, film and comic work, love of Aladdin, tropes, libraries and more! For more information about Samit, visit his website at: https://samitbasu.com/. Stay safe and read my friend. It's good for you! #SamitBasu #Tordotcom #Libraries #NWRLS #HMCPL #WritingProcess #Author #AuthorInterview #TheJinnBotofShantiport #Scifi #SpaceOpera #Aladdin #ScienceFiction #Robots #bollywood #folklore #storytelling

Ko određuje javno mnjenje? Tiha većina ili glasna manjina? Da li iko odgovara za loše rezultate? Miljan priča o iskustvima sa koncerta Madone i boravka u Švedskoj, malo o predstojećim izborima i o tome je li profit bog, može li koegzistirati sa umjetnošću i postoji li neograničeni rast korporacija u industriji zabave. Dino Merlin i Prija pride. Pratite nas na: https://www.youtube.com/@dopisiizdiznilenda www.facebook.com/DopisiizDiznilenda/ www.podcast.rs/autori/dopisi-iz-diznilenda/ Ako želite da nam pomognete u održavanju servera na soundcloudu, uplate rado primamo na PayPal: mtanic@gmail.com ili postanite naš patron na www.patreon.com/dopisi Miljan: fb: /mtanic, Twitter/Instagram: @mtanic YouTube: /Mtanic Nemanja: fb: /paleksic @diznilend iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1223989792 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/dopisi-iz-diznilenda-podcast Pocket Casts: pca.st/pT2h podcast.rs/show/dopisi-iz-diznilenda/ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4U3wm6QOkJ30QEbk1kvqZS?si=RM6QdrOlTuO0WUJzYBl7hA

Today's guest is Zachary Beach.   Zach is an Amazon Best-Selling Author of The New Rules of Real Estate Investing and revised edition of Real Estate On Your Terms. He has been an authority in real estate for 8 years now and has personally completed hundreds of real estate transactions and mentored investors to complete thousands of transactions.   Show summary:   In this podcast episode, Zachary Beach, CEO and partner at Smart Real Estate Coach, shares his journey in the real estate investing business. He discusses the challenges of traditional financing options and highlights the importance of creative financing and direct negotiation with sellers to achieve better cash flow. Zachary emphasizes the value of personal development and mindset in his success and shares insights on acquiring properties through creative financing.    -------------------------------------------------------------- Intro[00:00:00]   Zachary's journey into real estate investing [00:00:53]   Adding value to a business relationship [00:02:39]   Becoming a Virtual Assistant and Acquiring Real Estate [00:08:49]   Determining Good Deals in Creative Financing [00:11:10]   Buying Commercial and Multifamily Properties [00:14:25]   The importance of positioning in real estate deals [00:18:59]   The seven steps to acquiring a property [00:19:56]   Free book [00:21:29] -------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Zachary:    FREE BOOK:: https://wickedsmartbooks.com/sam3/   Website: http://www.smartrealestatecoach.com  Podcast: https://www.smartrealestatecoach.com/podcast  Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/smartrealestatecoach  Google +: https://plus.google.com/+Smartrealestatecoachchannel  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/smartrealestatecoach  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smartrealestatecoach  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharyrbeach   Connect with Sam: I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowtoscaleCRE/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samwilsonhowtoscalecre/ Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com   SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE A RATING. Listen to How To Scale Commercial Real Estate Investing with Sam Wilson Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-scale-commercial-real-estate/id1539979234 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4m0NWYzSvznEIjRBFtCgEL?si=e10d8e039b99475f -------------------------------------------------------------- Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: Zachary Beach (00:00:00) - You know, if you're looking at it through a traditional lens and you're either going to go raise a bunch of money or you're going to go get, you know, institutional financing, there's typically a lot higher of a monthly payment that you're going to be dealing with. So you're not gonna be able to cash flow as well compared to if I approach a seller and I say, Hey, I need my payment to be here, but I'll give you your price then, Now all of a sudden we can walk into a lot more cash flow versus having to raise the debt. Welcome to the How.   Sam Wilson (00:00:27) - To scale commercial real estate show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we'll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big. Zachary Beach is a three time Amazon best selling author of Real Estate On Your Terms. He's also the CEO and partner at Smart Real Estate Coach. And lastly, he's the co-host of the Smart Real Estate podcast. Zachary, welcome to the show.   Zachary Beach (00:00:53) - Sam It's a pleasure, my man.   Zachary Beach (00:00:54) - I'm excited to be here with you.   Sam Wilson (00:00:56) - Absolutely. Zach. The pleasure is mine. There are three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90s or less. Can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now and how did you get there?   Zachary Beach (00:01:06) - Hundred percent 90s You're talking like Massachusetts here now, so we'll fly through this. So I was a bartender and personal trainer, um, just a short nine years ago and was burning the candle at both ends and was getting extremely exhausted and tired because, you know, as you can imagine, late nights and early mornings. So actually approached my father in law, who is now my business partner in multiple business ventures. And at the time he was he was revamping his his new real estate business as he got crushed in 2008. And he was, you know, coming out of the crash and got involved in this thing called creative financing and real estate investing. So I ended up joining him. And then about six months later, I was able to get my first my first property under contract, my first creative financing deal went ahead and burned the candle at both ends or burn the bridges, I should say, dropped every other job except for real estate investing.   Zachary Beach (00:02:01) - And from there on out, just continue to build up that local buying and selling entity. And then also grew a real estate coaching business at the same time and kind of brings us to where we are here today.   Sam Wilson (00:02:12) - Man, that's awesome. I love that there. I guess there's a few things here that I would I think some of our listeners would would pertain to them. When you said, Hey, I'm going to approach my father in law and say, you know, can I work with you? Can we learn how to, you know, kind of learn to do what you're doing or can I add value to you in some way? What was that conversation like then? Sure. And then how has that changed?   Zachary Beach (00:02:39) - Yeah, well, the relationship's dramatically changed. Right. So was 24 years old. Um, it was December of 2014, and. And I was approaching him because I just was exhausted. Me and my wife were. Remember, it was one morning, it was like 4 a.m. because she was also a bartender at the time.   Zachary Beach (00:02:58) - It was like 4 a.m. And we looked at each other and we were like, we got to figure out something else. And right. We were in bartending for about four years. Of course it was. It was a blast. It was like my second college. But there was a time and a place and now it was the time to to make the transition. So I said, Hey, I don't know if I'm gonna like real estate investing, but maybe I should talk with your father and see if, you know, we could fit into his current business and and see if we can create something bigger. Because I'm extremely ambitious, and I know he is as well. And let's see how we can take this to the next level. So when approached him, I said, you know, I don't know if I'm going to be good at this or not, but, you know, if you'd have me, I'd be interested in doing some things in order to generate, you know, some value to the company.   Zachary Beach (00:03:40) - And, and, and I got the sexiest job in the world, but I when got was a list of names and numbers of expired listings people that had a property on the market at one point in time and it didn't work out and he said call these people. I'll, uh, I'll work with you on your sales scripts and let's try to generate some, you know, some warm leads. And once we start moving those leads to the funnel, then we can go ahead and start making some offers and trying to do some deals together. And that's kind of where it all started. And really at the end of the day, we kind of ate what we killed. So it wasn't like he wasn't that he was going to take a massive risk on his end, but eventually, you know, ended up taking a big leap as I started to learn it and then eventually said, you know, if I'm going to really be a real estate investor, then I got to I got to really focus and I got to cut everything else out.   Zachary Beach (00:04:28) - And, you know, did that after about 4 to 5 months in the business and can hit the ground running from there.   Sam Wilson (00:04:34) - Wow. Okay. So you made an important point there. You said eat what you kill. So you brought value in father in law or not, this would pertain to any business relationship where you're looking to learn from someone who's ahead of you. And I think that's the name of the game is how to scale commercial real estate. And I certainly have employed that tactic where it's how do I add value to you? What can I do now? Maybe that isn't asking you to write a check so I can come to work for you per se, but yet I want to work directly with you. So I love I love the way you approach that and say, hey, you know, eat what you kill. You went six months and you got your first deal under contract. So what? And he handed you a list of names and numbers and said, Hey, call them up and just see where it goes.   Sam Wilson (00:05:17) - What was that process like in I guess, you know, it sounds like you had success with it six months in. So tell me how you stuck with it.   Zachary Beach (00:05:26) - Yeah, it's it's mindset is everything, right when it comes to real estate investing. And the interesting thing is I still use that skill set today, right? Is the it is the building block of real estate investing in in my perspective, which is communication. Because once you communicate properly with people and solve their problems, understanding their motivation to understand the financials, I don't care if it's single family or commercial. Once you are able to communicate and solve people's problems, well, that's where the real estate deals come into place. Any brand new real estate investor that I communicate with am always like, This is not a real estate business. This is a communication business, this is a people business. And once you're able to solve people's problems, well, now, now you're going to be able to really start to be able to build some wealth in real estate.   Zachary Beach (00:06:09) - So that's what I built upon consistently. And that's why I say, like to this day, I still use that skill set because if we enter into a new market, I just say, give me a list of expired listings and let's start let's start talking with some sellers in order to get some deals done, get straight to the source. Um, so during that, during that process, I mean, it, it was hard. I mean, for the first 2 to 3 years, real estate investing for me was hard. It wasn't natural to me, although, you know, it may say, well, you had a bar, you were a bartender, you know, you should be able to speak with anyone. And that may be true, but if you have zero real estate experience and you don't understand how the dynamics of a real estate investment deal, whether it be a traditional mainstream deal or, say, a creative off market deal, that's still a huge learning curve that you get to take on as well.   Zachary Beach (00:06:55) - So it was it was hard and it was challenging. And the only way I was able to really stick with, you know, building this out. And as I started doing real estate deals, I started to find the love for for business in general. And the only way to be successful in any type of business is to consistently work on personal development. So I found myself, you know, listening to, you know, why I was setting up the bar, you know, And I just started, you know, doing real estate deals. I was listening to Jim Rohn, not music. I had my headphones in listening to personal development. So what I noticed, though, was as I continued to work on myself personally from a mindset, from a personal development, from behavior standpoint, that my my real estate career started to get better and better and better. So then I start to make that connection that said, All right, if I can control what's up here in my mind, then you know the business is going to grow in itself anyways.   Zachary Beach (00:07:47) - I think I can't quote the exact person I used to say it, but they said, you know, your your income will never outgrow your development. So then I just started focusing on how I can develop better in order to increase my income and increase my wealth long term.   Sam Wilson (00:08:02) - I love that. I love that. And that's so true. That is so true. Your income. Well, I couldn't have said it that way, but I like it. Your income. What? How'd you say your income will never outgrow your development? Yeah. So that's. That's really cool. And you and you've transitioned. I think, you know, even in your roles inside of the company, I mean, the company obviously is not what it was nine years ago when you came on board knowing nothing about real estate. So what have those role in kind of transition's been for you as you've grown the company along with your father in law?   Zachary Beach (00:08:36) - Yeah, what's interesting is it's like I would say day one, but since probably about the first year that I started investing in real estate, I've always been simultaneously growing two companies at the same time.   Zachary Beach (00:08:49) - So it wasn't like I've ever just invested in one. So we've we have our own personal buying and selling entities, so we still buy and sell real estate with the exact techniques that, you know, we teach our students. So we have our own portfolio in southern New England. And then at the same time we have a real estate coaching company that teaches people the exact same strategies, tools, techniques, you know, process systems, tools to grow and scale their creative financing business as well. So we've always had those two business simultaneously growing. So I've evolved in both, right? I've evolved from being, you know, from day one, being a virtual assistant, basically, right? Somebody that's prospecting consistently. And then eventually I became a very well paid virtual assistant and then eventually get to a point where then I was heading up all the entire acquisitions. And at one point in time, me and my brother in law and father in law with a couple support staff were doing four to, you know, 4 to 10 deals a month, you know, with with creative techniques that most people either aren't aware of or say that it doesn't exist, like owner financing and subject to's and lease options.   Zachary Beach (00:09:59) - But then at the exact same time, I was also, you know, the CEO of our coaching company and a coach teaching people how to do this and helping them acquire real estate into their portfolio. And eventually, as that started to evolve, became more in a deal structure mode. On the on the investment side and CEO of the coaching company, which happened over the past 12 months.   Sam Wilson (00:10:24) - That's awesome. What so you guys so let's go back to this very first deal. You're looking for commercial real estate or even maybe at that point, residential real estate, I don't know. But what's your.   Zachary Beach (00:10:36) - Residential at that.   Sam Wilson (00:10:36) - Time? At that time. Okay. Primarily residential. So let's fast forward maybe then to now, like when you're looking for commercial real estate for, you know, because you have two companies, you're running there for your own personal investing, What's your buy box on other finance deals and why?   Zachary Beach (00:10:55) - Yeah, I actually got this question asked for me like just yesterday because I'm communicating with this with with a gentleman and he's been providing, say, leads because he does wholesale fix and flips, but it's trying to get involved in the creative space.   Zachary Beach (00:11:10) - So he's been providing leads and I've just been sharing with them how I've been doing it. So he said he asked me that exact question. So he goes, How do you know that this one is a good deal? And I said, Well, first and foremost, the seller said that he's open to creative terms mean that automatically jumps to the top of my list. Um, considering considering that the the challenging part of the conversation is, is asking the right questions to understand motivation but then understanding the the challenge that can be solved with a creative financing technique. Um, because everyone I mean, literally everyone has been taught one way of buying real estate. Typically if you're brand new and that's through traditional means, you go, you, you work hard, you get 20%, 25% in your pocket, you go put it down on a piece of property. Then you go ahead and you go get the rest of the rest of the financing from a bank or an institution. And then now you have doesn't matter if it's a single or a multi or commercial.   Zachary Beach (00:12:10) - Now you have a property, um, and that's how everyone's taught. So most of creative financing is an education process for the seller, so it's okay. Mr. Seller I understand your problem. Here's how we can solve it, and here's some techniques that we can utilize or some different strategies that we can utilize in order to get you to their end motivation, whether it's they want tax or estate planning benefits, whether they want a higher price, whether they want cash flow on the property. Um, it's just now providing that solution. So that's step number one. That's what I always want to know. Number one is I know it's a good deal if somebody's open to it. Um, at least I know that that's the hot lead. Then from there, it's what types of terms can I create with that seller? Because just because they're open to it doesn't mean it's a good deal, but it's definitely at the top of my list. So now I need to understand it's typically five terms that are involved in, say, an owner financing deal.   Zachary Beach (00:13:08) - So owner financing would just mean that we're going to take out the bank and we're just going to go direct the seller. The seller is going to be your bank. This is going to finance the property for you. So there's typically a handful of terms that are involved purchase price down payment or not. We have lots of deals where we put no money down. We have if there's an interest rate or not, there's lots of deals in which we do that are 0% interest rates. We have, you know, length of time and if there's a monthly payment. So those are like the the generic terms that we're that we're going to be now crafting. So once we've established those and now those terms make sense for us to buy, meaning the terms look good, we're going to be able to acquire what we're going to be able to cash flow it. We're we're going to be able to either have our exit in mind or know that we can keep it for a certain period of time to improve the value of the property.   Zachary Beach (00:13:59) - Now, once I have that, now it's okay. We got ourselves a good deal. The motivations in line, the finances are in line. Now let's just figure out the best way to go and close on this.   Sam Wilson (00:14:07) - What type of assets are you buying right now? Assuming purchase price down payment, interest rate term, which all of those then equal of course your final payment. Yeah. But what type of assets in the commercial real estate space are you acquiring right now? That makes sense.   Zachary Beach (00:14:25) - Yeah, it's a good question. So we've acquired our own commercial building that housed all of our offices, also housing all state and a couple other local businesses. So mixed use, but we also will acquire multifamily, typically up to ten units. And and it's not because like we're not willing to buy bigger units. It's just because usually up to ten units or mom and pop jobs. So they're more open to doing a creative strategy like owner financing because it's usually if we get a hold of it, it's been either inherited or they've owned the property forever.   Zachary Beach (00:15:01) - Or talk about what happened with Covid. You know, you have a certain amount of vacancy or you have a certain amount of people that are not paying and you're going through evictions for a mom and pop shop if that's their only building or they only own a couple of them, that's a big hit for them. And now that creates a big fear factor. So we'll go ahead and buy properties just like that as well. And so we'll just accumulate them in in those lower lower unit ranges because typically if you get past ten units and above, you're starting to deal with more of an institutional or other investors like ourselves. And it's it's just not as likely for you to go ahead and get good terms that you want to go ahead and acquire owner financing.   Sam Wilson (00:15:40) - Right. And you may you made a good a good clarification there on typically who the owner financier. Financier. Yeah I don't know whatever who who that is right. It's like, oh okay. It's going to be a mom and pop. They're not going to they're not going to have a massive portfolio, probably.   Sam Wilson (00:15:57) - Maybe they do. And they just can't get rid of it. But let's but so like the kind of clarification of who the type of potential owner finance seller is, how do you not wind up with dog assets? Because if something's inspired listing like or maybe I could ask that a different way, which is what are things that typically lead to an expired listing that then make it a desirable acquisition for you?   Zachary Beach (00:16:23) - Yeah, and I'll give you some clarification. So if we're buying commercial, it's typically off market. They more than likely weren't on the market at this point. So single families we we acquire a lot from expired listings. Um, so, so typically if we're going to go up to a multifamily, we'll do a specific mailing to a free and clear list. Man, you can grab those on prop stream or whatever database you're using. Debt free houses, usually they own at least one, if not multiple buildings or attached to them. And of course, I mean, you love and out of state owner as well, especially if they're a tired landlord.   Zachary Beach (00:17:03) - So just approaching those and then we'll send out a mailing. And if we get one deal out of each mailing, which you know, cost you, you know, a couple thousand bucks and in succession, then that's a we're in a good spot. And to tell you about like dog listings or things like that, again, the two things that we tend to care about are are the motivation of the seller and the finances on the property. Because if you're looking at it through a traditional lens and you're either going to go raise a bunch of money or you're going to go get, you know, institutional financing, there's typically a lot higher of a monthly payment that you're going to be dealing with. So you're not gonna be able to cash flow as well compared to if I approach a seller and I say, Hey, I need my payment to be here, but I'll give you your price then, now all of a sudden we can walk into a lot more cash flow versus having to raise the debt and the equity on the property in no way have to pay a more people or an institution so we can actually walk into properties that you typically wouldn't be able to cash flow as well.   Zachary Beach (00:18:00) - And then then of course, the end result would be one of two things. Either we'll hold on to it. Secondly, if you wanted to, even though we typically don't, you could fix improve it and then refinance it and keep it and bring in some traditional financing or do what we've done with a couple of our multis, which are go buy them on owner financing, make principal only payments for say, 48 months on the property, improve the units, turn up the units now, improve the cash flow on the property, and then let you know some of the bigger investors out there that are looking for units. Go ahead and acquire your property at a higher price because you've established the rents and made the improvements on the property.   Sam Wilson (00:18:41) - Right? That makes a lot of sense. What do you do to inspire confidence in your sellers that you're going to perform?   Zachary Beach (00:18:50) - Yeah, that's a great question, right? Because that's at the end of the day, that's what every everyone's looking for, especially if they first got the first game involved in real estate investing.   Zachary Beach (00:18:59) - A lot of it is I mean, some of it I lean on, you know, we have you know, we got a history, right. We've we've been doing these deals. I mean, I've done or participated in pretty close to 500 creative finds. It deals at this point in time nationally so I can lead on that. Secondly a lot of it just positioning at the end of the day, if you if you want the deal, you know, you need the deal like you need water sellers can tell. Um, so just keeping a good positioning and don't try to ever force a deal because it's never one of my coaches said this really well and he said it's not your timing, it's the seller's timing. So it's all about following up and being consistent and being helpful. But most importantly, I think what I always try to do my best at and what we teach our students is to is to not prejudge the asset or the person. Um, so we have this thing called seven Steps to a Taken, which is basically seven steps to acquiring a property.   Zachary Beach (00:19:56) - And our, our comps and comparables is actually step five, not step one, a step five. And the reason why is because I want to meet the seller. I want to see the property. I want to have an open dialogue without any preconceived notions before I start negotiating, because usually the seller is going to tell you what they're looking for and what they're willing to do. Now, does it mean that that's exactly what you need to do? But they're going to tell you. And if you have preconceived notions of, hey, what about that property and what about that property? And you know, what's going on here? All of a sudden you're you're already on the opposite side of the table with the seller. So we always want to get on the the same side of the seller, same side of the table as a seller. That way we can now show them a solution. And if the solution works for both parties, then you got yourself a good deal.   Sam Wilson (00:20:43) - Man That's fantastic. Zach, Thank you for taking the time to come on the show today.   Sam Wilson (00:20:48) - This has certainly been enlightening. I've learned so much from you. I love your story. Going from bartender and personal trainer. Man, you were you were literally grinding it out, like you said, going to bed late at night and then getting up early morning and probably doing personal training and everything in between. And you've really just gone out and yeah, done some really, really awesome things. It's been cool to see the way you have grown both your personal investing business, but also your coaching company, the way you guys approach creative finance, finding deals off market, the types of assets that you buy. You've dropped a lot of really, really good stuff for our listeners here today, so I certainly appreciate it. If they do want to get in touch with you and learn more about you, what is the best way to do that?   Zachary Beach (00:21:29) - Yeah, absolutely. Sam, I appreciate that. So I want to make sure that anybody that's interested in creative financing, any of your listeners, that we're able to get the our Amazon bestselling book in their hands for absolutely free and don't mean like a PDF.   Zachary Beach (00:21:42) - I mean, we'll actually ship you the book to your house. All you have to do is go to wicked smart books.com/sam and the number three that's wicked smart books.com/sam three. Go ahead and grab our first Amazon bestselling book real estate on your terms. We'll ship it out to you and probably some other goodies in there as well that you can start diving into what it actually means. Become a creative financing real estate investor.   Sam Wilson (00:22:06) - That's fantastic. And if you're listening, yes, indeed, they will ship it for free. I got my own copies here in the mail about a week ago. I think there were several books there in that package. So thanks for sending those on. I haven't had a chance yet to dig into them, but they are in my in my queue of books to read. So Zach, thank you again for coming on today. I do appreciate it.   Zachary Beach (00:22:24) - Yeah, Thank you, Sam.   Sam Wilson (00:22:25) - Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate podcast. If you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, whatever platform it is you use to listen.   Sam Wilson (00:22:38) - If you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories. So appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.  

Today's guest is Mason McDonald.   Mason is a former hospital CEO turned full-time land flipper that utilizes systems, people, and processes to earn massive profits and invest into commercial real estate. -------------------------------------------------------------- Getting Started in Land Flipping [00:01:16] Becoming a Hospital CEO at 26 [00:02:19] Finding Success in Land Flipping [00:04:40] Different types of land and their profitability [00:09:46] Managing the business through efficient processes [00:11:09]  Using other people's money for deals [00:17:28]  Access to Institutional Capital [00:19:20] Investing in Commercial Real Estate [00:22:39] Managing Volume Business [00:24:48] -------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Mason:  Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mason-mcdonald-748110113/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/masonm1/ Web: https://www.coachingwithmason.com/   Connect with Sam: I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowtoscaleCRE/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samwilsonhowtoscalecre/ Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com   SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE A RATING. Listen to How To Scale Commercial Real Estate Investing with Sam Wilson Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-scale-commercial-real-estate/id1539979234 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4m0NWYzSvznEIjRBFtCgEL?si=e10d8e039b99475f -------------------------------------------------------------- Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: Mason McDonald (00:00:00) - Whenever I got out of the corporate environment in health care, which is the most overregulated industry in the United States, I got creative. And that's where I kind of shot myself in the foot. I didn't get any deals for four months because I was texting and calling and doing all this fun, creative stuff. Then I sent more mail and I got five more deals that made me another 100 grand, you know, right after that. So where I've shifted my approaches, you know, don't get creative until you've worked a system to death, you know, copy and paste what other people are doing, because it works. You don't need to be creative in real estate to make tons and tons of money. You just need to do what works and replicate it and, you know, outsource your and delegate all the stuff you're bad at. Welcome to the How to scale commercial real Estate show.   Sam Wilson (00:00:44) - Whether you are an active or passive investor, we'll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.   Sam Wilson (00:00:54) - Mason McDonald is a former hospital CEO turned full time land flipper that utilizes systems, people and processes to earn massive profits and invest in a commercial real estate. Mason Welcome to the show.   Mason McDonald (00:01:05) - Sam It's so good to be here.   Sam Wilson (00:01:06) - Absolutely. Mason The pleasure is mine. There are three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90s or less. Can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now and how did you get there?   Mason McDonald (00:01:16) - Heck yeah, yeah. So as you mentioned, I was a hospital CEO that stumbled across land flipping, bought my first deal in November of 2021, sold it in early 2022, and made a profit of 115,000 on my very first deal, which allowed me to prematurely. I had quit my job and jump into this full time. So now, you know, a year and a half in created a business that should have an EBITDA right around one and a half to $2 million this year and, you know, have a full time employee that's managing it for me.   Mason McDonald (00:01:51) - And now I'm focusing on bigger, badder stuff like commercial real estate, raising money, lending money, all that fun stuff.   Sam Wilson (00:01:57) - Man, that's really cool. Let's talk let's talk about this. I see here, for those of you that don't know and I've never actually talked about this on the show, I always just asked this question just to get to know our guests. I always ask, what's one a fun factor, a surprising view about you? And the guest will share that with me there in the in the kind of onboarding section. And it said that you were a hospital CEO at the age of 26.   Mason McDonald (00:02:19) - I was. And I had the blood pressure and health related issues of someone that was, you know, 62 instead of 26.   Sam Wilson (00:02:28) - Right, Right. What how does one become a hospital CEO at 26? I mean.   Mason McDonald (00:02:35) - Yeah. So I you know, I followed the traditional route. You got a good undergraduate degree, got a master's degree and then worked my way up for a large hospital management corporation, went from, you know, being a resident to having 90 employees in my second year to having, you know, I was in my third year and then CEO in my fourth year, got the job offer when I was 26, had just added a lot of value to the company, had, you know, younger, more innovative approach to increasing profit, reducing expense and treating your employees and patients.   Mason McDonald (00:03:09) - Right. So yeah, had a lot of success in corporate America, which is why people think I'm crazy, that I, you know, made it to the top and jump jump ship, you know, a year after being a CEO.   Sam Wilson (00:03:20) - Yeah. So let me I'm bad at math here, Mason and I'm just doing working back 26 minus four years working at the hospital puts you at 22. How did you get an undergrad, a master's degree and all of that by the age of 22, What year did you graduate or how old do you mean graduate High school?   Mason McDonald (00:03:37) - I was a 17 when I graduated high school. My parents just started me, started me in school early. I don't know if it was I was smarter, had too much aid, and they needed to get me out of the house. So school was always kind of easy for me and but I'm more of the entrepreneurial business type, which is why, you know, I wanted to be a doctor originally and made that pivot my senior year of college to, you know, I have an undergraduate neuroscience degree with a premed concentration that, you know, beyond being able to sound fancy and sound smart, never use it anymore.   Mason McDonald (00:04:10) - But yeah, yeah, I was always young, didn't drink alcohol till my senior year of college. So good for.   Sam Wilson (00:04:17) - You. There's a lot to be said for that, man. That's. That's a lot of moving. Moving pieces and. Yeah. Good for you. You're a lot smarter than I am, I promise you that. But you got to the top and you found out there's nothing there. And you said, okay. Yeah. Go do land flipping. How did you stumble across that and why land flipping versus the 1000 other possible ways that you can enter the real estate space?   Mason McDonald (00:04:40) - Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So made it to the top. And I was I'm a healthy guy, you know, active, decent diet and everything. Hypertensive stage two blood pressure for people listening that my blood pressure was running 165 over 100 which is you know and I worked in a hospital. So that's not not a good look. If the CEO is dying from health conditions in their 20s, from stress.   Mason McDonald (00:05:03) - I was working all the time, sleeping, none So always invested in or interested in real estate. Listen to all the bigger Pockets episodes, read 100 books about real estate and everything and just couldn't get started. I'd saved up some money, was actually going to go invest in a syndication opportunity for a townhome development in Colorado Springs, and the guy that was pitching it also told me that he flips land and he was making about 60 grand a month on his notes that he owner financed on land. And I said, Well, that's more money than the 8% in three years that you're promising me on this syndication deal. So, you know, did did what you know, everyone should do is I invested in education and land flipping. And yeah, that first deal kind of broke my brain of making 100 and 114, 5 or 115 grand on my very first deal. So yeah, that right there broke my. Brain and made me realize, Oh crap, I can make a lot more money with a lot less stress and a lot less work.   Mason McDonald (00:06:01) - You know, flipping the land.   Sam Wilson (00:06:03) - Right, Right. No, that's. That's really, really cool. Is it was it the gambler's curse? Where the first time you go in gamble, you make a pile of money, and then from then on, you just get just get get it handed to you. Or have you found a way to repeat those sort of return profiles over and over.   Mason McDonald (00:06:21) - Repeat over and over. But with that being said, you know, I stopped doing what made sense whenever I do it. So, I mean, I, I target people that have owned land for a long period of time and I direct mail market. And, you know, whenever I got out of the corporate environment and health care, which is the most overregulated industry in the United States, I got creative. And that's where I kind of shot myself in the foot. I didn't get any deals for four months because I was texting and calling and doing all this fun, creative stuff. Then I sent more mail and I got five more deals that made me another 100 grand, you know, right after that.   Mason McDonald (00:06:55) - So where I've shifted my approaches, you know, don't get creative until you've worked a system to death, you know, copy and paste what other people are doing, because it works. You don't need to be creative in real estate to make tons and tons of money. You just need to do what works and replicate it and, you know, outsource your and delegate all the stuff you're bad at.   Sam Wilson (00:07:14) - Right. Well, let's talk We'll get we'll get we'll get to that. How did you educate yourself on this space?   Mason McDonald (00:07:20) - Yeah, I took one of those land flipping courses and then read the books on it, you know, The Dirt Rich by Mark Podolsky and listened to all the podcasts and everything. So I paid for a course and love it, you know, my, my mentor who took the course, we own a commercial building together. He's a good friend and everything. But as I was going through it, I was like, Man, I feel like I just bought snake oil at the county fair because this doesn't seem legitimate.   Mason McDonald (00:07:43) - Legitimate? It doesn't seem real, but.   Sam Wilson (00:07:45) - Right, right. It's funny because I was explaining for those of you again, who are listening that they don't know everything. Of course, we don't talk about everything we get involved in because some of it's just stuff that's you know, there's there's the investments we talk about to our investor base and then there's the stuff that I do on the side that's just kind of like, hey, this is fun to, you know, to go invest in. And land is one of those one of those things where it's like, Oh, hey, you know what? There is an opportunity to generate sizable returns inside of the land space. But what were some of the things maybe in those first four months? I know you mentioned, um, you mentioned that you were trying to get creative, you were doing cold or you in cold calls, you were doing all the different texting, all this different stuff, and you figured out that everybody in the land space says, just go back to direct mail.   Sam Wilson (00:08:27) - Yeah. So. So what, what, what? I guess how much money and how much mail did you send before you ever got your first deal?   Mason McDonald (00:08:35) - Uh, I sent 1200 pieces of mail to make that first deal happen and I'd gotten other deals, but I passed up on them because I didn't think the returns would be as decent. I mean, even now I've got probably 2 or 300 in our cold lead section where we could make money on it. But, you know, if it's buy for 3000, sell for 5000 after, you know, title costs, which I insure every purchase and everything like that, it's not worth it, which is why I go for the, you know, the two deals I was talking about just before the show started, we paid 150 for each of them. So 300 total and we're putting them on the market one for for 50 and one for 275, you know, so it's, it's easier to make 100 grand at once than it is to make, you know, two grand 100 times.   Mason McDonald (00:09:18) - Or you can tell I'm not good at math. So which is why big numbers, I'm like, I don't understand big numbers. Let's do more big numbers.   Sam Wilson (00:09:25) - Right? You to take your shoes off for that one. Hey, so let's talk about this. There's 100 different strategies even inside of the land flipping space. There's people that buy infill lots or people that buy rural only. There's people that, you know, buy like you're talking about commercial development sites. I mean, there's there's a bunch of different strategies there. Have you honed in on one in particular?   Mason McDonald (00:09:46) - So not exactly. I stay away from kind of the recreational land just because that's going to typically sit for a while and you have to do a seller finance deal to make it make sense, which I like the quick return on cash. So but all that to say to me, it's just math. I don't care if it's industrial or commercial or vacant residential if if there's transaction volume in the area, you know, meaning properties are selling in the last 30, 60, 90 days.   Mason McDonald (00:10:14) - And if I can get a legitimate comparable analysis from a local realtor that says, hey, it's worth this much, then it's just, you know, a returns game of okay, and you know, which I attempt to double the money from like a HUD to HUD perspective of, you know, buy for 150, sell for 300 type of stuff. But yeah, so I've built out my business to have both the, the volume business of the, you know, ten, 15 K profit deals and the vacant, the vacant land and the infill lots and the nice subdivisions. And Colorado or Arizona's where we work primarily as well as some of these larger deals where it takes more time, where it's a luxury buyer of we got one that just hit the market a few weeks ago, paid 350 have it on the market for 675, where it's kind of a one of a kind product. So that'll take a few months to sell. But if you can kind of stagger your business and also use other people's money, I don't use my own money in deals anymore.   Mason McDonald (00:11:09) - Um, you know, that's kind of how we built the business. So Jack of all trades master None.   Sam Wilson (00:11:14) - Yeah, let's talk about that. And I like the idea you're talking about the volume business and then also doing the bigger, the bigger deals, because you got to I'd imagine you got to you got to catch the any fish that makes sense. Small fish with the big fish and help you take those down. But how do you how do you manage all that? And then I want to get into the money side of things. So yeah, you manage it from a people and processes perspective because there's a lot of mail to send, There's a lot of data to dig through. There is a lot of phone calls to return and or answer. There are title companies, there's money wire. I mean there's just all these little it almost boils down to a lot of administrative stuff, I would imagine. How do you make that?   Mason McDonald (00:11:54) - It adds up. So, you know, for for anyone in manufacturing or health care that's listening, I have a lean Six Sigma black belt, which is a process improvement methodology, you know, founded by Toyota, so obsessed with efficient processes that reduce waste and eliminate variation.   Mason McDonald (00:12:10) - So I, I pull the data myself now. And since I have such a wide net that I cast, it doesn't take me a lot of time. I send neutral letters. I don't do the blind offers like a lot of people do. You know, I send postcards. I'm the guy that sends the silly postcard of, you know, I want to buy your land for cash. You know, stop paying your property taxes, get paid for your land, stuff like that. So that doesn't take a lot of time to send five, ten, 15,000 letters a month. I have a full time acquisition manager that's salaried plus commission where paying him, you know, not not an overly competitive salary, but a very substantial commission to manage every other aspect of the business. And he's way smarter and way better at it than I am. So he manages it all. We have a call once a week, kind of going through the leads and everything, and he sends me stuff for approval and then he submits it to title and coordinates with the realtor and everything like that.   Mason McDonald (00:13:00) - So for me, it's kind of just, Hey, send a wire this date, which, you know, go online, send a wire really quickly, and then, you know, signing any necessary documents with the title company. So it's it's definitely administrative stuff that down the road I want to outsource when I feel more comfortable, you know, because he just started about a month and a half ago. But yeah, I hate to say it, it sounds as easy as it is, but it is relatively easy to keep it managed. You know, pull the data from prop stream. I use Pebble as my CRM, which you need a CRM if you're doing this much volume. Otherwise you're going to do what I did, which I used Excel for the first nine months and I lost all sorts of leads because I might be decent Excel, but you know, if you have a crayon box CRM that makes it super easy to to do everything, do that. So that's kind of the highest level of how I keep it organized.   Sam Wilson (00:13:51) - How did you find your lead man or call me your lead manager, your acquisitions manager? How did you find that person?   Mason McDonald (00:13:59) - Yeah, I posted on LinkedIn that I was hiring. I've got a pretty big professional network on on LinkedIn and got I got 20 or 30 applications within the first week or two. So of all of them I looked at who would make me the most uncomfortable to hire. And it was by far this guy because he's got 20 plus, 20 plus years of experience in real estate and, you know, commercial, you know, finance, doing finance for big banks, doing land acquisition and multifamily acquisition for large companies. And he runs his own syndication business on the side. So I was like, this guy makes me really uncomfortable to hire because he's way smarter than me, which is always what I recommend doing is hire people smarter than you and it's going to break your mind and change all the paradigms you have because. Then you don't realize what's possible.   Sam Wilson (00:14:48) - Y y love that. Thank you.   Sam Wilson (00:14:50) - Thank you for giving the clarity on who you hire and why. And I don't really heard it expressed that succinctly. It's hard to hire someone that makes you uncomfortable. Think that's really, really cool. Talk to me about the types of sellers that you find. Why? Why are these people selling this land at discount? And then we'll start there.   Mason McDonald (00:15:12) - Yeah. So I try to reduce and simplify everything as much as I can. I'm a pawn shop for land. I buy land for cheap and I sell it for more. I have people that are motivated sellers and I have people that are unmotivated sellers where for me, it's not an emotional decision. It's a math decision of whether the return makes sense. So why people sell to me? You know, I think we're a legitimate business where we can send proof of funds. So many people aren't going to close those deals. You know, and there's plenty of deals I haven't closed. But you're able to communicate and say, hey, this just doesn't fit our buy box.   Mason McDonald (00:15:43) - Sorry. You know, I can refer you to someone else. So I've had sellers as sophisticated as former hedge fund managers out in Connecticut to as unsophisticated as someone that inherited this land that their family's owned for 100 years. So it's just whether or not the price works for them of a lot of people, you know, and depending on your marketing campaign and your tactics and everything, you know, I went hard and heavy on the property tax marketing campaign and people were like, oh, shoot. Uh, you know, property taxes just went way up in Colorado. I want to get rid of this land and stop paying it. So, you know, we come up with a price that's fair. And I always tell everyone or my acquisition manager now tells everyone of, Hey, if you want top dollar, go to a realtor. If you want quick cash and convenience, come to us. You know, let us get this headache off your hands. You know, we'll solve your probate problems. We'll solve whatever problems you have.   Mason McDonald (00:16:31) - And, you know, then you won't have to think about it anymore. It's the same reason people use a pawn shop of, you know, they, you know, had a divorce or they had some something or something, and they don't want to deal with selling it themselves. They're going to just get rid of it to get it off their mind. So. Right.   Sam Wilson (00:16:45) - Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. The same as same pawn shops or even the estate sale analogy or just like bring them in, they auction everything off and then you're done.   Mason McDonald (00:16:54) - Oh, yeah. So it's not always the motivated seller of, you know, I've had people that are like, Hey, I need to claim a loss this year. You know, I'll sell it to you at a discount to claim a loss. So, you know, and the person I'm referencing that did that, you know, we did a I bought two pieces of land from him. You know, I had offered him over over double of what you know, he we ended up walking away with and that's making me I don't know another six figures on those two deals.   Sam Wilson (00:17:19) - That's awesome. Let's talk about the money side of it. You mentioned that you don't use your own money anymore. You use none of your own money or you predominantly use other people's money.   Mason McDonald (00:17:28) - I use other people's money. So I have a, I don't know, maybe ten that I'm selling right now that I have my own cash in right now. But for me, I think it's this. It's a difficult balance for someone that has a relatively high level of understanding of finance, of I know having a ton of cash on hand is not great, but me feeling super liquid helps me sleep better at night. Sure. So I'd you know, I'm happy to give up money in the deal to help, you know, the three F's of friends, families and fools investing with me make insane returns where an investor just makes 6,062% cash on cash return in 71 days. You annualize that. That's over 1,000% just doing a JV deal with me. So it's exciting to be able to help those people. And then yeah, so whenever all of these other ones sell that I have my own cash in, I just I won't use my own cash for anything besides marketing expense, you know, and just general OpEx within the business to help me sleep better at night.   Mason McDonald (00:18:27) - There's more than enough money for everyone to make a ton of money in this. And if if I sleep better and my returns are less, that's a win for me. I didn't leave a hard job to go get another hard job. Right?   Sam Wilson (00:18:38) - Right. Understood that man. Tell me tell me this. What's the what's been the common structure that you've set up with your JV partners? How do you how do you guys take that down and what do you guys find is fair?   Mason McDonald (00:18:49) - Yeah, it varies on the property and kind of the capital invested, but they're basically funding the entire deal, give or take a few hundred bucks of closing costs coming a little higher or something like that. And I do varying profit splits from, you know, 90, ten, ten to the investor, 90 to me all the way up to 5050, where to me, if I get a deal under contract and it's a big one and don't have the cash or refuse to put the cash in the deal, you know, I'll give up more of a profit split than it's probably smart.   Mason McDonald (00:19:20) - So and the point I'm making on that is part of the reason why I'm able to have success in this business where a lot of people are focusing on the desert squares where you buy for 500 and sell for 1500 and can take take these big deals is one. One of my investor networks couldn't do it without them. But two people will realize in land. One of the reasons it's such a hard niche to get into is you're not going to be able to really get access to institutional capital. If you go to a bank and ask them for a loan on, on, on, on a land flip, they're going to laugh at you where it doesn't matter how much money I made. Since the the asset class is different, which is also a pro because I'm not paying capital gains taxes or short term capital gains taxes, it's taxed as inventory since I'm not making any improvement. So you know, and.   Sam Wilson (00:20:04) - I'm missing I missed that.   Mason McDonald (00:20:06) - Yeah. So for the land flippers out there, which I'm not a CPA, not an attorney, this is what my and my attorney have said, blah, blah, blah is land is taxes, is inventory.   Mason McDonald (00:20:15) - So I'm not paying any capital gains taxes on it. It's just inventory. So I have it set up as an escort where I have to pay myself a fair and reasonable salary. And then, you know, I can buy land for 100 grand for 500 grand, and it's just inventory. So pretty cool. Pretty cool set up there. So that's how it's worked so far from a tax perspective for me. But my investors are happy and since you can't really get access to that institutional capital where I bought a new truck last year for the business and even though we we business had been making money and stuff, I had to have my wife co-sign on it and everything. And but that was a fun perk because I got to buy a new truck and then depreciate it fully last year. So, you know.   Sam Wilson (00:20:59) - Right? Yeah. Those are. Those are those are those are excellent benefits to what it is that we do. So like your ideas on money. Think the other thing is that at some point we all run out of money and I think that's one of the things that early on I was gosh was the first deal I syndicated.   Sam Wilson (00:21:16) - In 19. Yeah, it was 2019 and there was this internal and I was new to the newer, to the commercial real estate space. And there was this internal sort of shame that I didn't have all the money personally to take this deal down. And I was like, Oh, man. Like, I got to go like bring friends and family and other people in on the deal. And yeah, I don't have enough of my own money to actually get this deal done. And now it's like, obviously it's what we do every day as raise money because we're taking down deals that I mean, we just can't possibly begin to think about taking down.   Mason McDonald (00:21:44) - Absolutely. Well, you can't grow in scale. And what's going to happen is the inevitable of, you know, I was tired of that entrepreneurial life cycle where I'd go buy a bunch of land and then I'd go sell it and I'd be like, Man, I'm rich. And then I'd go buy a bunch of more land and I'd look at my business checking account and it's like, Dude, how did you allow yourself to get $12 in your checking account? And then it'd sell and I'd be like, No, I'm rich again.   Mason McDonald (00:22:05) - And I just couldn't do that anymore. Which is why it's like, you know, I'd rather be liquid. And then it gives me more opportunity to invest in, you know, syndications and other deals that are going to give me the tax advantages that land doesn't give me. Because even though it's taxed as inventory, if you're making seven figures, that's that's a lot to pay in taxes. So, you know, the strategy is take that profit. It's a great active business and then take it and go invest it into, you know, depreciable assets like multifamily or like commercial building or, you know, any sort of commercial buildings or industrial or whatever it is.   Sam Wilson (00:22:39) - Is that the long term strategy than to go take your profits from this and park it into passive investments and or your own personal passive investments. Is that kind of the the goal in the long term?   Mason McDonald (00:22:51) - Absolutely. Yeah. I've got I've got one commercial building that I own right now. You know, it's still getting renovated because it's in a small mountain town in Colorado, but it's going to be workforce housing, you know, mountain towns out here that they they're struggling to find affordable housing.   Mason McDonald (00:23:05) - So I enjoy that you're able to help the community provide a safe, low cost, you know, opportunity. That's a rent by the door model. So you end up cash flowing pretty significantly as well. But yeah, so take the profit from land invested in commercial real estate. You know, the one thing I learned about my first deal was it's a lot easier to tackle those big deals than it is the little one. So I'd rather go by, you know? However, big apartment complex over a single family home or small multifamily. So, yeah, take it, take it there. And then also lending money. You know, something I'm getting into now of investing in other people, you know, and allowing them to manage my money for me and then everything else and using it to go have fun, go on vacation and all that kind of stuff too.   Sam Wilson (00:23:50) - Man, that's cool. I love it. There was one one more question. Oh, here it is. I forgot. I forgot what it's going to ask you.   Sam Wilson (00:23:55) - What is like what's the what's a challenge that you're facing inside the land business right now? Like, what's the what's an obstacle that you're like, Man, this is this is something we're working on that I just haven't solved yet.   Mason McDonald (00:24:06) - Yeah, I think for me, um, you know, kind of initial challenges and how they've evolved is so I went from an executive, you know, with hundreds of employees, you know, a couple dozen direct reports and everything to self-employed. So a lot of work wasn't getting done because I was like, Man, someone needs to do that. And then I'd look in the mirror and it's like, Oh, crap, it's me. So I, you know, figured that out and, you know, started working harder and everything like that. But I think for me, it's, you know, effectively managing kind of what we were talking about of the volume businesses versus like the huge business of I've got a ton of those which take more time. And when I look at it and I'm like, Oh, it's only been three weeks since that since I purchased that property, it hasn't sold yet.   Mason McDonald (00:24:48) - So I want more volume in the business rather than more of these big deals to manage that more effectively, I think is one of the biggest challenges. So it's just adjusting My expectation of my cash on cash return per deal doesn't need to be 250%. It can be 50%. And if I can move it way quicker, then then that's perfect. That's money. So kind of adjusting the expectations that I got from the first deal to make it more of a volume business in addition to the other stuff.   Sam Wilson (00:25:18) - Right, right. And last question here for you, and this is again, going back to more the more the operations side of it. But how many of these parcels do you buy, if any, and then end up owner financing those?   Mason McDonald (00:25:29) - I only have a handful of notes right now of the properties. I kind of determine with the realtor whether it makes sense. So it's more the, the rural recreational. I've got maybe ten that I'd be willing to part ways with, you know, from a seller finance perspective.   Mason McDonald (00:25:45) - And the way I look at that is if I sell those on terms one, I'd get most of my cash invested back myself and two, that would sustain all the operating expenses of the business. So I think it's a more property by property approach where, you know, it's just whatever makes sense for your books and your risk level, you know, in case you have to foreclose on someone or, or whatever.   Sam Wilson (00:26:08) - Right. Right. No, absolutely. Absolutely. Mason You've given us a ton of things here to think about today. I love the land business. This is the this is a blast. It's here in your story here and what you've done and how you've done it and you've done it really with a I mean, a pretty light team. It's you and one other person and you've got a rock in business. So I think that's that's fantastic. Thanks for taking the time to come on the show today. If our listeners want to learn more about you or get in touch with you, what is the best way to do that?   Mason McDonald (00:26:35) - Yeah, I'm so happy to be here.   Mason McDonald (00:26:37) - You know, for me, I use LinkedIn the most, so look me up on LinkedIn. Mason McDonald And you know, I help business owners that are looking to get involved in land get started. So I do coaching as well, but I only do it with people that I know are going to be closing deals and being successful. So typically you have to have been a business owner or an executive already. So coaching with Mason and then, you know, you can message me there as well. And if you're looking for investing opportunities, diversify your portfolio either of those places. And we can just chat, chat about land, talk about land all day. So I'm happy to talk to anyone interested.   Sam Wilson (00:27:13) - Sounds good. Awesome. Mason, thank you again for your time. Appreciate it. Have a great rest of your day.   Mason McDonald (00:27:17) - Sam, you did the same.   Sam Wilson (00:27:19) - Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate podcast. If you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, whatever platform it is you use to listen.   Sam Wilson (00:27:32) - If you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories. So appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.

Making Space for Grief Featuring Thai-An Truong, LPC, LADC Today, we feature a popular podcast guest, Thai-An Truong who joins us from Oklahoma. Thai-An is a level 5 Certified TEAM therapist and trainer who specializes in post-partum problems as well as anxiety disorders, with a special focus on OCD. Today Thai-An describes a TEAM-CBT technique to help with grief. She believes that empathy is always crucial, and emphasizes that people who have lost a loved one need to be encouraged to express and accept their feelings and to make space for their grief. However, because empathy alone may not be enough, it is often helpful to go beyond empathy and offer specialized techniques to help the patient deal with feelings of grief and loss. In her work specializing in women struggling with post-partum depression, she has seen many women grieving over a loss—such as the loss of a pregnancy, or the loss of a parent when their child is young, or the loss of an infant at birth, or during the first couple months after delivery. She said that the entire TEAM model can be invaluable, including the initial Testing and Empathy, the Daily Mood Log to detect the grieving patient's (often distorted) negative thoughts, as well as the Assessment of Resistance (the positive reframing step, and the Methods. Healthy grief is often complicated by feelings such as depression, guilt, anger, and more. These feelings can complicate and get in the way of healthy grieving. For example, Rhonda treated a woman who was struggling with guilt over the death of her son, who was in great pain because of advanced, metastatic cancer. At one point, she told him that it was okay to “let go,” and her son died shortly after that. But then, she felt guilty and blamed herself for his death, thinking he might have lived several more days if she had not said that. Thai-An said that losing a son or daughter is one of the greatest pains a parent can have. You may beat up on yourself with “I should have done X” or “I shouldn't have said or done Y.” But these negative, self-critical thoughts and feelings will nearly always be expressions of your core values as a human being, and your love for the child you lost. This can sometimes be eye-opening, and a relief for the person who is grieving. Thai-An has struggled with grief. She told us about the loss of one of her best friends 16 years ago. He was like a brother, a young man with bipolar manic-depressive illness. At times during manic episodes, he would get high and go out “teaching” on the streets. During one of these episodes something tragic happened—Thai-An was unable to find out what—but her friend was found dead in an alley. Thai-An felt a profound sadness and regret, and to compound the problem, her friend's mother cut ties with Thai-An, who didn't even know if a funeral was held or was able to ask any questions about what happened to him.. Thai-An felt understandably hurt and angry,. She recently found out he was buried near a Buddhist Temple in Houston, Texas. She emphasized the value of maintaining a ritual with the person who has died so as to continue the relationship. For example, a woman had a beautiful baby boy who died of an overwhelming infection shortly after he was born. This woman loves nature, and thinks of her son whenever she gardens. For example, when she sees a little bird, she thinks, “that little bird looks just like him!” Thai-An feels that a wide variety of rituals can nurture the bond with the person who died. You might light a candle, or even bake a cake for the baby or person you have lost. The goal is not to achieve some kind of “closure” that is so often emphasized in the media, but rather to continue a positive and meaningful relationship with the person you have lost. Thai-An illustrated a therapeutic technique she calls the Grief Method that involves doing a role-play with the person who has died. The therapist first gathers messages that the grieving patient would like to share with their deceased loved one. The therapist then takes on the role of the patient as the patient takes on the role of the person who has diedThis gives the patient the chance to have a conversation with the love one they have lost. In the following role play, Rhonda played the role of Sam, the young man who died of overwhelming cancer, and Thai-An played the role of his mother, who was grieving and feeling guilty about her son's tragic death. Thai-An (as Mother): Hi Sam, I really miss you every single day. Rhonda (as Sam): Hi Mom, you're the person I miss the most. Thai-An (as Mother): I'm sorry we had an argument shortly before you died. Rhonda (as Sam): It's no big deal. . . We got into little fights pretty often. . . but we always got over it. Thai-An (as Mother): I regret that I left when the doctor told me to leave the room. I should have stayed, so I could be with you when you died. Rhonda (as Sam): I understood that they pushed you to leave the room, and I know that you would have stayed if they'd let you. . . I was in a lot of pain, and I was ready to leave. You gave me a lot of reassurance. Now I'm with grandma. Thai-An (as Mother): I would have done everything for you. Rhonda and Thai-An processed the experience together, and they both cried, even though it was only a role play. Thai-An emphasized the importance of letting your negative feelings flow, and continuing your bond with the person or beloved pet you have lost. For parents who have suffered the loss of a child, Thai-An recommends the book Shattered: Surviving the Loss of a Child by Gary Roe. To access her free grief training for therapists, you can visit courses.teamcbttraining.com/grief. This summer, Thai-An will be offering a special 14-week training course (2 hours / week) which will focus on treating individuals and couples with relationship problems using TEAM. For more information on this and other TEAM training courses, go to courses.teamcbttraining.com. . Thank you for tuning in today! Rhonda, Thai-An, and David

Today on the show we have the showrunning writing duo of Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit. They are responsible for bring iconic character Pikachu to the big screen. The film starred Ryan Reynolds.Ace detective Harry Goodman goes mysteriously missing, prompting his 21-year-old son, Tim, to find out what happened. Aiding in the investigation is Harry's former Pokémon partner, wise-cracking, adorable super-sleuth Detective Pikachu. Finding that they are uniquely equipped to work together, as Tim is the only human who can talk with Pikachu, they join forces to unravel the tangled mystery.Easily one of my favorite projects they worked on is the Netflix show One Day at a Time. On that project they got to work with the television living legend Norman Lear.This comedy-drama is inspired by Norman Lear's 1975 series of the same name. This time around, the series follows the life of Penelope, a newly single Army veteran, and her Cuban-American family, as they navigate the ups and downs of life. Now a nurse, Penelope is raising two strong-willed children.When faced with challenges, Penelope turns to her "old-school" mother, and her building manager, who has become an invaluable confidant. The series offers a contemporary take on what life looks like in both good and bad times, and how loved ones can help make it all worthwhile.On television, Hernandez and Samit have written for, The Tick, Super Fun Night and 1600 Penn. They were named in Paste Magazine's list of the top 28 comedy writers of 2018. In 2019, Samit and Hernandez signed a long-term deal with 20th Century Fox Television to develop, write and produce animated and live-action seriesWe discussed how they got their big break, how they approach the craft, the world of the writer's room and much more.Enjoy my conversation with Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit.