The Most Dwanderful Real Estate Podcast Ever!

Why Commercial Real Estate Isn't Dead - It's Thriving

• Dwan Bent-Twyford • Season 7 • Episode 408

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The commercial real estate landscape is evolving, not dying, and Mike "Big Mike" Zlotnick is at the forefront of connecting passive investors with lucrative opportunities. His simple yet powerful philosophy? "We marry money and opportunity."

Contrary to popular belief, many commercial property types are thriving post-pandemic. Open-air shopping centers have become particularly attractive investments as supply remains constrained while demand grows. Even previously online-only retailers like Warby Parker have opened hundreds of physical locations, recognizing that customers still want in-person experiences for certain products. Meanwhile, industrial properties continue seeing strong demand due to reshoring initiatives and manufacturing needs. Multifamily remains a necessity-based investment that performs well across economic cycles.

Not all commercial property is created equal, however. Zlotnick candidly warns about office space being a "danger zone" due to remote work trends. This level of transparency characterizes his investment approach, which prioritizes downside protection over home runs. "I would rather never lose money than make 10 home runs and 10 strikeouts," he explains, echoing Howard Marks' definition of risk as simply "the possibility of loss."

For those interested in commercial real estate syndication, Zlotnick breaks down the essentials: typically, investors need to be accredited ($200,000 annual income or $1 million net worth excluding primary residence), with minimum investments around $100,000. The syndication structure allows investors to participate passively while experienced operators manage the properties, providing both cash flow and potential appreciation.

Perhaps most compelling is Zlotnick's perspective on the educational journey of investing. He poses a thought-provoking question: "Are you learning to invest, or are you investing to learn?" This dual nature of investment education underscores that every decision provides valuable lessons, regardless of outcome.

Ready to explore commercial real estate investing with a focus on predictable outcomes? Visit BigMikeFund.com to learn how you can participate in institutional-grade commercial real estate without the headaches of active management.

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Dwan Bent-Twyford:

it didn't say this is being recorded. Okay. It says recording, okay. So sorry, you guys, you're gonna have to cut the first part of this off. You just says this is being recorded. So I just want to make triple sure recording, okay, all right. Okay, christy, y'all guys cut the first part off. This baby says this is being recorded. So I just want to make triple sure I'm recording, okay, all right. Okay, chrissy, y'all got to cut the first part off this baby.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Hey everybody, welcome to the most Dwanderful real estate podcast ever. I'm your host, Dwan Bent Twyford. I am America's most sought after real estate investor and I am really super excited that you are here with me today. Our motto over here at Dwanderful is people before profits, so if that's something that resonates with you, then I'm your girl. You're here at the right time. We got a great guest. You're going to fall in love with him today too, and so the way I got Dwanderful is I took my, took my name, Dwan and wonderful, and I made a new word. So you are now in the Dwan-der-ful universe. My social medias are Dwan-der-ful at everything Instagram, wherever, just all things. Just go find Dwan-der-ful Also website Dwan-der-fulcom. So I am literally everywhere and I have some good news for those of you that might be new listeners.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

We just reached a million downloads a couple of months ago, so I was super excited to be in like the million download club. So now I'm going to see how fast we can get to two million. But I can't do that without you, all right. So today I have Mike I'm going to make sure I say it right Zlotnick, mike Zlotnick, we, I have Mike. I'm going to make sure I say it right Zlotnick, mike Zlotnick. We were just talking before I got on here. I was like man, I swear I've met him. Maybe not if I met you, mike, but I know your name. So I'm like super excited to talk to you and get to know you. So this is Mike Zlotnick. So he's our wicked smart guy today. So how are you, big Mike?

Mike Zlotnik:

I'm wonderful, I'm Dwanderful.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Dwanderful. See, you are Dwanderful. Now can I call you Big Mike, Because I really like that Big Mike.

Mike Zlotnik:

Yeah, people do call me Big Mike. I am 6'4", I'm a big fellow and people have called me Big Mike for many years. I'm good with that.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I like it, though I like it. Big Mike sets you apart. So yeah, got Big Mike, and Dwan-der-ful People will remember who we are.

Mike Zlotnik:

That's right.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So here is what we do over at Dwan-der-ful. I hate going through the typical. Here's your 10 questions, blah, blah, blah, because everybody does that. So I like to throw my guests to the wolves and basically I just want you to, in like two or three sentences, tell us what you do, give me all your social medias and then I'm going to ask you some questions and we're going to find out how we came here today. So we want to know what is your deal.

Mike Zlotnik:

I'll keep it very simple. So we bring the wonderful commercial real estate deals to passive investors. This is our whole journey. I like to use this word. I should probably trademark it. We marry money and opportunity, at least initially. We make money, date the opportunity, but we find wonderful commercial real estate deals this is our genius zone, our specialty real estate deals this is our genius zone, our specialty. And then we have many passive investors who don't have the time or desire to do full, deep due diligence and they reach out and they want to get into great commercial deals that are income focused and downside protected and invest in industrial, open air, shopping, multifamily, you name it. We do it all. So we basically marry money and opportunity. That's the best way to put it.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

You should trademark that. I started short sales back like 30 years before short sales ever had a name and anyone ever knew them. I kind of stumbled into them by accident and they were still calling them things like discounting notes, like there wasn't a term yet. So I trademarked short sales and then the queen of short sales. And so it's like hey, if you want to know about short sales, I originated it. I helped bring an entire industry into the real estate market. So marry money to opportunity. Things like that are worth getting a little trademark because I need a little tm after it and like that's what you're known for. So if I were you I would do it, I mean thank you for your wonderful advice.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I I probably will do that because, if not, someone else is going to go. Hey, I really like that merry money. They're going to start using your stuff and, like, I just recently had a girl that put up a bunch of YouTube videos calling herself short-tailed queen, and my attorney wrote her a letter and she pulled her entire site down. It's like don't be encroaching on my stuff, girl. I've been doing this 35 years. You're a newbie? Okay, now, I love everything I heard about that statement. And how do people find you on social media?

Mike Zlotnik:

Now we're going to get really cheesy. So, big Mike, you got to remember that I actually run funds. So BigMikeFund. com, that easy. We have corporate website. But the easiest way to remember BigMikeikefund. com and if you misspell it, you forget the D at the end then you go to bigmikefund. com. I promise it's not a kinky site.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Big Mike Fund. Well, you can't get any easier than that. That is easy. Okay Now, first of all, I love that you talked about commercial. I am in a commercial phase in my real estate investing career. My husband and I are basically rehabbing a town in Clinton, iowa. I've done only two or three commercial deals and in the last five years we bought 20 buildings.

Mike Zlotnik:

That's that wonderful. Again, you're becoming the queen of the town.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

We can talk about that on your podcast. And it's funny because I started investing. So my daughter is 36. I started investing when she was just a baby. So, like I've been saying, let's say I have 35 solid years. And then that whole entire time I bought, like you know, some of those neighborhoods that take old houses and they make them light commercial and I had an office I had like two little and that was it I was at. And then about five years ago my husband and I were like you know, we should buy some commercials. Yeah, you know, that'd be fun, let's do that. And it no, it wasn't even anything I thought about. I didn't plan it. It kind of came across our path and sort of an opportunity that just presented itself. That was basically too good to be true. And now I'm just like man, I should have been doing this decades ago. This is so much fun.

Mike Zlotnik:

Yeah, the easiest way to think about this it's economy of scale. I'll just add one quick comment. I have a lot of friends who are heavy residential guys and girls. They do hundreds of deals per year. They own hundreds of deals per year. They own hundreds of properties. Let me say thousands, because in residential if you own a thousand single-family houses, that's a huge number. I'm sure some of them may be into thousands. You know what the biggest issue is. It's difficult, it's hard, it's hard to scale with these turnkey or rental portfolios and people come to a realization that they often need to exit some of them and roll the money into something that's scalable, like large multifamily or industrial or shopping, where you can deploy a lot more capital, be a lot more passive and not worry about tenants and toilets. Again, nothing negative to say about having an empire of residential property. It's just harder to manage. You need to have almost you're running a business of residential property. It's just harder to manage. You need to have almost you're running a business of managing that.

Mike Zlotnik:

With commercial properties. It's somewhat easier with economy of scale, and some of them are I don't want to call self-manage, but they're way, way easier to operate.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Now see, I hear people say things to me like oh, I don't know why you guys own so much commercial space, commercial's dead, people aren't opening businesses and whatever. Now, in our little town, like I said, we own a lot of buildings but we have people renting spaces and putting in antique malls and putting in coffee shops and putting in clothing boutiques and restaurants, and it's like I don't know when people say, oh, commercial's so risky, people don't need to rent anymore, people work from home. It's like that's not true. There's a ton of people that do businesses that need like a brick and mortar.

Mike Zlotnik:

Yeah, you're absolutely right, absolutely right. There's a few things, few great opportunities. One, people need to live somewhere, so multifamily investments seem to be pretty sticky investments seem to be pretty sticky Long-term. As population grows, multifamily seems to be one of those asset classes that probably is needed forever. Then you go into open-air shopping and you go into industrial.

Mike Zlotnik:

We go to a number of other strategies and I'll tell you a couple of words about open-air shopping. We've been doing this for many years. It's been a huge contrarian play and everyone talked about Amazon and e-commerce is going to destroy them and guess what? They haven't built any open-air shopping. Now the malls have gone the way of a dinosaur. It's very different, these enclosed malls with Sears and other basically big box retailers.

Mike Zlotnik:

But open-air shopping experiential type of service-oriented retail does really well for a few reasons. One, post-covid opening, people wanted to come out and enjoy restaurants outdoors, have good time. Two, there's been no supply and number of pure e-tailers. I'll give you one example Warby Parker we're both wearing glasses. My wife is actually an optometrist of pure e-tailers. I'll give you one example Warby Parker we're both wearing glasses. My wife is actually an optometrist. So open-air shopping plazas have seen 600 new stores for Warby Parker. Warby Parker used to be pure internet play. So what's really crazy? Some of these e-tailers have gone the way of a physical store because they need both they need the mobile app, they need the e-commerce website and they need a physical presence so people can actually try on these eyeglasses and see how they look in a live mirror instead of looking at a computer.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

That's why I buy mine. I wouldn't buy them if I couldn't try them on.

Mike Zlotnik:

Exactly, especially women. My wife is an optometrist and they've got to try them on. They've got to see how they look and feel before they buy. So from that perspective, many strategies have gone. The demand has grown for retail and there's been almost no new supply. The new supply for retail has been very, very limited. People haven't built them. They've built a lot of other things, but they said not retail. So it's been a great contrarian play. It continues to do really well. Another very interesting play industrial. We've got Donald Trump. He is reindustrializing America, made in America again. Right, american manufacturing and other strategies require more industrial properties. There's one strategy that continues to do really well. There are a number of other opportunities, but I'm going to shut up and let you all stop for a moment.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

See, I agree with you, though, because you know, every time we buy another building, people are like, oh, my guy's buying commercial Commercial's dead. Nobody wants a store anymore. It's like, well, that's not true. I mean, granted, I certainly take advantage of Amazon. It's like, why do I need to drive? Because I live in the mountains. I'm in the mountains of Colorado at 9,000 feet, so it's a 45 minute thing for me to go to the grocery store and back. So it's like if I need two things, I'm just going to get it on Amazon and it'll be here tomorrow. I mean, I get it.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

But you know, like we put in an antique mall, we have like 200 people a day that come through there because people like to buy antiques. You know coffee shops and we serve those energy drinks and those bobas and like all that crazy stuff. And just so many people. Because people still want to go in, people still want to go out to eat, people still want to walk up and down. You know, for blocks. I love those open-air shopping malls that they have. We have one down in Denver called Belmar. It's so great. Even in the winter it's packed. People don't care, they're just out walking and eating and drinking and doing all the stuff like that. So whenever I have people say, oh, why do you get so much on commercials? It's like I don't think commercial's dead. I mean, maybe for some offices a lot of offices do have people that work from home now or work online but for the things that we can feel and touch, we still want to feel and touch those things.

Mike Zlotnik:

At least I do. Yeah, you are absolutely right. Office is a danger zone, so we stay away from office for the reasons that you mentioned. I don't know what the future demand will look like, and I live in New York City and we have a lot of empty buildings and some tenants are locked in their long leases and they want to get out because they don't need as much space, as a lot of people continue to work from home. So I would say, office, be very careful.

Mike Zlotnik:

At least from my observation, there's some redevelopment concepts in the office, but it's hard to redevelop. I've looked into some of them and you take a big office building. All the plumbing, electric, everything else is off, so redevelopment is pretty hard. However, all the other things that I mentioned open-air shopping, industrial multifamily, a number of other niche strategies continue to be really attractive and they have economy of scale. So yeah, so CRE commercial real estate in general has many different flavors. They're different locations and all real estate is local. So for one town you may be overbuilt, for another town you may be undersupplied. You really have to pay attention where you're at, what are the demographics, how the economy is doing and does it need any more retail, and if it's got enough and there's no more place to build, it's probably got a great long-term play. Office again is something that we stay out of it and I can't give any other feedback other than we are very concerned about office. We love industrial, open-air shopping, multifamily. These strategies are a lot more predictable.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, now one of our buildings has downtown. It's all retail downtown. Second floor is all apartments, third floor is all office, and the only people that are up there are people that have been there for like 200 years. So I agree, okay, so now you marry people to money, marry money to opportunity. Sorry, marry money to opportunity. So I'm coming along. I just find you. I was like, hey, I heard Big Bang on the most wonderful real estate podcast ever and I want to buy something. What are you going to do for me? What do you want from me and what do you do? How do you marry?

Mike Zlotnik:

some of that money over here. So we're not brokers. Just to be very clear. We don't broker real estate. If you have a significant check, you want to write and you want to buy a multifamily complex we know a lot of people If you want to invest in a project, you have a lot of capital, we can have that conversation, but that's not a typical conversation.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Just real quick. Do you syndicate?

Mike Zlotnik:

Yes.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Okay, okay, so I know a lot of people we syndicate.

Mike Zlotnik:

Most of our deals are syndications, so real quick for people that don't know what that means?

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

what does that mean? Because a lot of people I don't you know, honestly, I didn't know what syndicating was like a decade ago and I've already been investing 20 years.

Mike Zlotnik:

Sure. So the easiest way to understand syndication you have typically one property, maybe two properties as a package, and you have many investors. So you have general partners and limited partners. Typically general partners are the managers of a deal they are sometimes called sponsors. And then you have investors or limited partners. These folks write a check and they write along the sponsor in the deal and the deal may be value-add, may be performing.

Mike Zlotnik:

There's a strategy in the deal, there's a business plan. So typically the capital comes from investors to a degree. Look, we've done some deals where the sponsor or the general partner puts as much as 30% and some deals they only put in 5% or 10%. The rest of the money comes from limited partners and investors wind up providing majority of the capital and it's typically leveraged with a bank loan. The leverage depends on the type of deal. Open-air shopping industrials typically have low leverage, around 60%, maybe 65%, while multifamily goes 70%, in some cases 75% leverage. The project gets acquired, it's owned by the partnership and the general partner runs the project through its business plan and then it cash flows on the way. So they have distributions. General partner is responsible to make the distributions, provide financial statements, provide operating updates and investors just enjoy the real estate passively. They get the cash flow, they get tax benefits in the form of depreciation, they get operating updates and when the property sells, the profits are split according to the terms of the offering.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Nice. So I can just come in and say hey, I've got. What's your minimum investment for a syndication?

Mike Zlotnik:

Typically $100,000.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Okay, so now? So I'm going to ask some questions. Other people may not understand, but we'll explain to them. So do they have to be accredited and they have to have $100,000?

Mike Zlotnik:

Generally speaking, yes, most of our deals are to accredited investors.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Only Do we have any opportunities for non-accredited.

Mike Zlotnik:

We have some friendly partners who have some funds that may take non-accredited. We in general ourselves do only accredited only.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Okay. And so explain to me, I'm new, I've got 100 grand. I say, hey, I want to give you some money. And so explain to me, I'm new, I've got a hundred grand. I say, hey, I want to give you some money and you go.

Mike Zlotnik:

Are you accredited and I go? I don't know. Have every expectation to continue to make that. Or you have net worth of a million dollars outside of the primary residence. Your home doesn't count. You may live in a $20 million home and own it with cash outright, but you got to have at least a million dollars outside of that. And that's the general definition of a credit investor.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Okay. So if someone being accredited is that reason, I'm going to think how to phrase this. Is that because if they lose the money, it doesn't bankrupt them? Is it because they have a higher investing risk factor? Or is that for you guys, for some kind of protection in case they just go? Eh, I want out, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't like it. Like why do they have to be accredited?

Mike Zlotnik:

It's SEC rules. We don't invent the rules but we have to follow these rules. I know Security and Exchange Commission has put together very simple definitions. They protect mom and pop, mom and pop, grandmas, grandpas investors who don't have a lot of money but they hear about bright and shiny objects, some really interesting deal. They write a check, the deal goes south and if they're not accredited and they were supposed to be accredited they can go complain to SEC. But in general that is designed to protect small investors against what is viewed to be higher risk investments. Again, alternative investments, real estate many private equity investments typically go through these 506 offerings. All 506 stands for is it's a regulation. D 506 is a part of the requirements of the regulations. So 506C is accredited investors. Only 506B can include some non-accredited. These are technical terms. To make a long story short, if you're a non-accredited investor, hopefully you can get to become an accreditor soon enough and be able to write a check.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Is it a long process for somebody?

Mike Zlotnik:

No, by the way, we don't. And do you help?

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

them, or at least give them the person that can accredit them.

Mike Zlotnik:

Any CPA or an attorney, a licensed party, can write an accreditation letter.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

We can give them an accreditation letter Even like just a regular, like I could call my CPA day and say, hey, I need to have a letter saying I'm accredited. I want to invest with Big Mike.

Mike Zlotnik:

That's exactly. That's the best thing to do. People use their attorneys or CPA. Why? Because I don't want to see your financials. In fact, if you don't know how to get accredited, we'll probably send you to a website like verifyinvestorcom or similar. There are websites that can verify accreditation Literally. Lawyers will write a letter. You show them either the assets or the income and they'll write a letter for you for like 60 bucks if you don't want to bother your CPA.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Oh, that's nice. Yeah, see, that's what you know. I've had a few people on, obviously, over the years that people have to be accredited and I always forget to ask how does the person get accredited? Because you know, my podcast is geared more towards a lot of newer investors. Like I like to take the newbies and say look, there's 10,000 people out here that you can follow. Everyone's got a shiny object. Find one person, make that person your mentor, because you learn from mentors or mistakes. So if you want to invest hands off, they need to work with somebody like you. If you want to wholesale and rehab and do some fun things, you probably should come over here and look at me and I have talked to other people that are syndicated and I always keep forgetting to ask, like, how easy is it to get accredited?

Mike Zlotnik:

So really— Accreditation letter is super easy. We've seen many, many, many investors. I go to a number of masterminds. One of the groups I go to has a cheesy name called the Collective Genius and a lot of these guys and girls. They all wholesale, wholesale. They flip houses, they rehab houses and what's really interesting is that many of them over time, graduate and they get better and better and they become accredited and they start investing with us. So I'm not trying to tell you anything you don't know. You start one place and as you grow and your journey evolves and you get more successful, you become accredited and you can get a letter from a CPA any CPA and attorney who wants to write you a letter or go one of these paid services for 60 bucks you can have an accreditation letter.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And see my like. I am 66 years old, so my aunts, uncles, parents are all in their 80s and they're all sitting on just gobs of money. They don't have any idea what to do with it. You know it's like and I'm like hey, you could invest this, you could invest that, get yourself accredited, like there's still things people can do. There's just so many people sitting on so much money that don't want to physically go get their hands dirty. So I'm always telling them hey, if that's what you want to do, you should work with somebody that like what you guys have, like the Big Bank Fund, get into some commercial and get into some multi-unit. Multi-units are always great. I mean, I know a lot of people that do multi-units. There's a lot of things people can do and they can invest without having to physically like run the show.

Mike Zlotnik:

Yeah yeah, we do this all day long and I'll tell you the most important elements to making those decisions is you got to basically get to know, like and trust whoever you're going to invest with. This is the jack of the horse. You have to make sure first you figure out who do you want to invest with. You do your due diligence, do your research, get comfortable and then you start looking at the deals. The deal is the horse and the jockey is first. So keep it simple.

Mike Zlotnik:

If you can get comfortable with, you know it could be a fund manager, it could be a syndicator, it could be one of these folks that has deep expertise and always remember basic principles Continue to diversify, continue to grow a relationship over time. You can even diversify over time too. There's so many ways to diversify, so you can look at one deal that's one part of the country and then you can look at another deal which is in different part of the country. You could look at a multifamily versus an industrial. So just keep in mind nobody knows the future if you've got a crystal ball.

Mike Zlotnik:

I was just reading another book or listening. There was a quote about the crystal ball. If you're going to follow. If you're going to live by the crystal ball, you're going to eat grass off the floor or something like this. Nobody knows. That's the bottom line. When you invest, you have to think about the possibilities. Not every deal may be a home run, but at the same time, if you do it the right way, you could have phenomenal benefits of investing in commercial real estate.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And the thing about working with someone like you is you guys do the work, you do the research, you do the homework, you do everything for them, so they don't have to be like oh I hope I didn't not cross a t or I forgot to dot an I, because that's your job is to do that for them, so they can step in with some confidence that this is going to be a good choice for me.

Mike Zlotnik:

Yeah, I appreciate the vote of confidence is what we do right Day in and day out. But I'm one of these people who will tell you how it is. If you expect no risk and you expect perfection and you expect to never lose money, keep your money in the bank or US Treasuries, everything has a little bit of risk and you just got to be comfortable to understand what you're investing into the kind of the risks benefits versus risk impact of the. So it's kind of funny. I'm a big scholar of risk. I really like to think about risk and Howard Marks, a famous investor, is one of the most famous folks out there, founder of Oak Tree.

Mike Zlotnik:

He said what is risk? Risk is a possibility of a loss. We think about it every day. So we think about possibility of a loss every day. We're not looking to hit massive home runs. We would like to avoid situations of losing money. There's still possibility and there are hidden risks. One of the most examples you live in mountains of Colorado, right? You haven't seen too many earthquakes. Well, but what if there is an earthquake of category seven hits or something and nobody ever built for this?

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Hey, listen, if Yellowstone blows up all of us in the mountains, we're all dead.

Mike Zlotnik:

So there are real risks and there are some theoretical risks, but the bottom line is I appreciate the vote of confidence we continue to work and get better at understanding risks and we always look at the reward versus risk, how things compare. But we're not trying to go for the most aggressive, bright and shiny objects, but more of a I like to think of it downside protected. I would rather never to lose money than make 10 home runs and 10 strikeouts, in a manner of speaking.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Now, see, I agree with you because, like I, when I started off investing years ago, there was nobody. Well, there was no internet. This I'm like. I'm talking like 1990. There was no internet, there was no place to Google everything, there was nobody traveling through town doing workshops and seminars. Things didn't exist.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So I literally learned by the seat of my pants. I went to Home Depot, I took classes, I learned how to rehab from Home Depot, like I really was a seat of my pants girl and I tell people now like, hey, listen, you can do anything in the business, but you are going to learn from mentors and mistakes. So if you have someone who's already done it and already invented the wheel, stop trying to constantly reinvent the wheel. That's what everybody wants to do. They go oh, I'm going to take a little bit of this, a little bit of that and I'm going to put my own thing together. And that's why people fail. But if you have someone like you that says, but if you have someone like you that says, hey, I did all this work and now you got to just make a decision over there, I feel like that's like the least riskiest thing.

Mike Zlotnik:

Yeah, I greatly appreciate your vote of confidence and I'll tell you this.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I'm a big fan of syndication.

Mike Zlotnik:

One of my favorite books is called Sometimes you Win and Sometimes you Learn, john Maxwell. He's one of the most famous business writers of all times and investing, like anything else, is a journey of learning. You have to be learning. I even have this expression. I really love to ask this question Whenever you are getting ready to invest. Are you learning to invest, are you getting better, or are you investing to learn? It's both, it's always both. You're investing to learn, you're actually putting your hard-earned dollars into learning and, on the same level, length wavelength, when you are, you've actually invested into anything. You should be learning from it, even if it's making you a lot of money, and you're going to learn a whole lot more if the investment goes south and you're going to lose money. It's kind of interesting and fascinating how the world operates. We'll learn a lot more from mistakes than from successes, but it's always about learning.

Mike Zlotnik:

I'll just add one more thing. I'm working on my second book right now and I have a close friend who's been giving me feedback and I also play chess and it's just kind of. You know, I grew up in the former USSR. Everybody played chess there. I'm a US citizen, us patriot. I moved here in 89. But when I grew up, you know playing chess, it was one thing about chess that we all learn. That game, that game. How do you get better at that game? It's a constant learning, by watching and reading and following the games of great grandmasters. Like you said, you have to have a great mentor, somebody who you feel is a good, experienced leader, and your own mistakes, your own games. This is the most fascinating thing about that journey is you got to look at what you've done and learn from your own experience.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

That's it. That's it Okay. So we're going to I love that analogy, and so we're going to jump topics. I want to find some more things out about you personally. So what is your favorite band of all time?

Mike Zlotnik:

Band, I would say Beatles. I'm kind of old, I'm not that old, but I really like Beatles. I don't know what to tell you.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

How old are you?

Mike Zlotnik:

I'm 53.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I am 66. You're a baby. I do love the Beatles, though. There's just something about the Beatles. So when they came around in the 60s, I would have just been like 10, just a little girl. I was just like, oh, the Beatles. But you know the Beatles, they really did change. They're one of the bands that changed the face of the earth and I love the Beatles.

Mike Zlotnik:

My oldest sister was listening to them and she's 14 years older than me and for some reason, you know, everybody played Beatles. Beatles were Beatles and even years after you still you know. Turn on, we all live in the yellow submarine or one of the other songs. It's just kind of like I connected. That's all I can say.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, no, I love it. I love the Beatles. I've got grandkids, so our grandkids. My son has four kids, so we have a five, a six and a nine and a 10. So my husband and I are really big into music and we both graduated high school in the seventies. So we play a lot of music like all the time.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

When the kids are here, we just play music all the time, and we started, so we're teaching them about music. Well, as we started listening to music like later than the seventies and the eighties you know they, they say the Fs and the 80s. You know they, they say the f-word and all these songs there's so much cursing. It's like, oh my god, we can't let these kids learn this music. So we're back, like starting at the Beatles and working through to the 70s, because the music was good, it was simple, there was no cursing and they can sing it and not you, you know, slip it in some F word or something like all the table swift stuff. So my kids love the Beatles, my little grandkids they love the Beatles.

Mike Zlotnik:

You know how much it resonates with me. I almost never swear. Some people swear all the time and it's getting ridiculous. And when I hear one of my kids, you know, use one of those you know words to say do you hear it from? Do you hear it from me? Do you hear it from mom? Do you hear it from the parents?

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Music. They hear it from the music.

Mike Zlotnik:

Well, that's part of the problem and I guess my deepest apologies. Do you have to get that?

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

No, I don you have to get that?

Mike Zlotnik:

No, I don't have to get that. I should have disconnected that phone. My deepest apologies, so we'll go back. Yeah, so the recent music. You're right, the rap has a little and other flavors has a little too much of it. And listen, I grew up without it and I I tell my kids do you really need that? Can you say the same thing without those words at? Least maybe it's a culture. I don't know what, what I?

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

don't know I, my kids, don't cuss very much and they know I don't like it. So once in a while, if they do and they'll go, oh I'm sorry. And it's like listen, you guys are full grown, you're all in your 30s, you, but they'll still apologize to me if they curse accidentally. And so I thought with Bill, I thought you know, there's a lot of great music out, but after, like in the 80s, they started throwing in just basic words, like you know that. Well, not the F word came in, but even just like damn or just, I don't want to teach him any, any songs with any cursing. I don't want to teach them any songs with any cursing. And then, of course, now it's like poof.

Mike Zlotnik:

It's everywhere yeah.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I can't even listen to most of the music anymore. I mean, the effort's just out there on everything. It's like you really can't sing a song without. Why is that?

Mike Zlotnik:

So my kids when they go to school, we're a different generation, maybe the younger generation, they tell their teachers like oh, I love Bryan Adams.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Teach us like oh, I love brian adams, I love queen, I love the beatles, I love this, I love that, I like heart and all my grandkids. They can probably name 50 songs that they can sing verbatim from all these bands from the 60s and the 70s. Like where do you learn that? They're like my mimi and pappy are teaching me about the good music.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Like they'll learn the rest of it later on down the road. It's not coming from over here. So yeah, I'm. I'm just like so I love the Beatles. I appreciate people that love the Beatles, cause even though you know they're a long time, some people are like, oh yeah, that was a hundred years ago. It's like, no, that was that changed that changed the music? Like that, literally, the Beatles and Elvis were like two of the top people that changed the entire trajectory of music.

Mike Zlotnik:

I agree, I love them both.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

All right. What's your favorite food? What do you like to eat?

Mike Zlotnik:

That's a tough question. I like Thai food. I don't know what else to tell you. I like Pad Thai.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

As far as we are up in the mountains, we are really in a very isolated area of the mountains. We've got a handful of restaurants I mean like maybe five, and one is is just like a, where everybody goes for breakfast and lunch. You know closes at two, the cutthroat cafe. We have a chinese restaurant and we have a thai food restaurant and we just got an indian food and I was like, look at us up here in the mountains having all this different kind of food up here, because it's just been hamburgers and hot dogs most of the time I've lived here. So I'm so happy.

Mike Zlotnik:

You're happy you got another variety. I live in Brooklyn. This is a million options, not a joke. A million options left and right.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Not up here. We've had a Subway for like like 15 years and we just got a couple of restaurants. So I'm like, oh, thank you Lord, we have some food, all right. So I'm going to ask you a question, if you were. So you go to some events, right? You speak, you get up on stage, you talk about your Big Mike fun. So when you're walking onto a stage and the people, the promoters, are playing a song to introduce big Mike, what song are they playing for you?

Mike Zlotnik:

It's a good question. I'm not a hundred percent sure, depending on the conference Sometimes yeah.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

What song? What's your song? This is the song people should be playing when I walk on stage.

Mike Zlotnik:

I don't have a wonderful answer. I don't have a wonderful answer on this one. Um I, I wish I I had a. Um, uh, the right song. I say I, nothing comes to mind. I mean I wish, uh, I had a better answer it doesn't have to.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Most people can't think of anything, so I thought about it and I was like you know what I would play?

Mike Zlotnik:

queen, we are the champions, we, here we are, we are you know, that song came to mind and I was gonna say it, but, uh, you said it and I didn't want to say we're the champions. It's kind of recognition of, of overall success. But I'll tell you, um, where it really kind of feels that way my, my third girl, is a professional figure skater and synchronized figure skating and we competed. We were in Colorado, we were in Colorado multiple times. Colorado Springs had a couple of nationals there and the team is really, really excellent. Last year they took second in the United States, third in the world and yes, for her team I would be delighted to play. We are the champions For the big mic. It's okay, I'm okay with one of these more relaxing classical music. Play some Mozart, get people into one of the classical.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I love classical music. We have serious radio, so I listen to classical a lot. It's just so relaxing. Classical is nice, okay. So two more questions. So what can we? What can the D'Wonderful family do? What could we do for you right now that would help you reach the next level of your business that you're trying to get to? What can we do? How can we help you?

Mike Zlotnik:

Well, you're too kind and it's a two-way street, so the fact that you asked first I'm eternally grateful. There's really nothing else you need to do. The opportunity to speak with you is already great, and if you get some folks who reach out with some interest to do something in commercial real estate passively, I'm happy for any potential introduction. Most of our business is actually relational. We get a lot of referrals and introductions, so that's all we can do. We can serve our friends and if you're becoming a friend, that's already a great help. So I don't know how else to put it.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

They can go to bigmikefundcom and they can at least get started and say, hey, I saw you on Wonderful and I want to talk.

Mike Zlotnik:

Yes.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Because you know the whole thing about like podcasting is like. You know, I want my people to know you, your people are going to know me and you know we work in a business where we it's not a one man business. It's like we succeed when everyone succeeds.

Mike Zlotnik:

Agreed, it's all about the network and the team, but you know a lot of people don't believe that.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

A lot of people don't like oh, it's all about me, me, me it's like. No, I am of. The dream work makes the team work. Mentality Team work makes the dream work.

Mike Zlotnik:

Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you this A lot of the deals we do, even commercial deals do you think we do them alone? Absolutely not. We actually have strong partners when we look at a deal. One of the things we've instituted is essentially external kind of review, and we have other folks who look at the deals and tell us yeah, yeah, yeah, you think it's a good deal, but it's not, and here's why. So we welcome wisdom from folks who have value to add and some thoughts.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Okay. So we're going to send peeps your way. So all of you listening, if you're like, hey, I'm interested in some syndication right here is a great place to start. I feel good about recommending this man, so do that Now.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

If you have enjoyed watching the podcast today, I want you to go and like and subscribe and leave me a five-star review. Our podcast can't grow and get a million downloads and all those great things without you. So I appreciate you, I appreciate when you spend time. I tell you guys this every week Time is your most valuable asset. So when you spend an hour of your time with me, I feel really honored that you did that because you know when your time runs out. Well, you know your time runs out. So I appreciate you spending your time and your effort and your energy. So if you had fun, you learned something you liked, both of us just give me a five star review, a like and a follow and share with somebody else, okay.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So one last thing for you, mike, is I want you to give us a word of wisdom, but only one single word. A word Predictability. Oh, okay, hang on, let me write this down. I like that word. So now what we do is. I'm going to ask you in a moment what that means to you.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

At the end of every show I always have the guests, uh, and I actually just have people leave a word, because you know, sometimes you have people like, hey, leave us with a parting word, and then they'll go on and talk for 15 more minutes. So now I'm like I just want a word, but you know, sometimes you have people like, hey, leave us with a parting word, and then they'll go on and talk for 15 more minutes. So now I'm like I just want a word, but I don't tell people in advance. I don't want them thinking about the word while you and I are talking and getting to know each other. So that was a good word. So what, my wonderful family does? I tell them to write on the sticky put on your bathroom mirror and every day you're brushing your teeth, that's your word. Say it over and over predictability, predictability, predictability that's our word of the week. So what does that mean to you?

Mike Zlotnik:

It's investing in, whatever you do, maybe a business or real estate or anything that is close to your heart, where you could get predictability of outcome. There are no guarantees, there can be variants of outcomes, but achieving predictability is a good goal. It means stability, it means almost. When I think about investing, I think about predictability of outcome. That's the best way to think about it.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I love it, I love it, I love it, and you know that's part of investing. I mean, if you learn all the tools and follow all the right people, you can predict that you have a pretty good chance of a good outcome.

Mike Zlotnik:

Yeah, in general, that's the goal. That's the goal and, as I said in the past, there's always possibilities and things can go better or worse than you hope and expect, but the goal should be predictability, and that implies many other things, but if you keep that goal in mind, it may help your investment journey. If you're looking for a lot of excitement, you can go buy Magnificent Seven, buy crypto, whatever you feel like you want to get excitement, but that's heavily speculation and it's the opposite of the investing. Investing is you're trying to reduce the excitement and increase predictability.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Agreed, agreed. Okay, I love that. I love it, everybody. We love predictability, so I want to thank you so much for sharing your time with me today. Like I just said to the folks, listening time is really valuable, so I really appreciate it when anyone takes time out of their day to spend time with me and everyone dwonderfulcom. Oh, and listen, make sure you go to my website and take my real estate investing quiz I've got a brand new quiz up there and see where you're doing and where you stand in the real estate business. So take the quiz. It's super fun and we'll be back next week, same bat time, same bat channel. And remember that the truth is in the red letters. All right, everybody. Thank you, mike. Thank you Ciao.