From Stocks on an iPhone to Managing Millions: How Samuel Harnish Built QFS - EP03

In this episode of The Wealth Clock with Steven Weinstock, I sit down with Samuel Harnish, founder of Quantitative Financial Strategies. We cover everything from his early obsession with finance to his time at PIMCO and a leading multifamily office. He breaks down what tax-aware investing really means, why after-tax returns matter more than flashy headlines, and how he’s using social media to grow his business and reach clients.

We also compare notes on what it’s like to start a business in your twenties, the shift from DIY investing to building teams, and how trust is everything when raising capital or managing wealth. If you're a real estate investor, advisor, or just trying to be smarter about taxes, this episode is for you.

Follow Samuel on 

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuelharnisch/
Instagram  https://www.instagram.com/schmuel_5/

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/@SamuelHarnisch

and stay up to date with his insights on wealth building, strategy, and finance.

Subscribe to The Wealth Clock with Steven Weinstock for more conversations with top operators, founders, and dealmakers.

🎙 About Steven Weinstock
Steven Weinstock is a real estate investor and founder of WeCapital and the Goethals Capital Fund. Since 2001, he has built a diverse portfolio of residential and multifamily assets while helping investors access passive income through strategic real estate opportunities. On this podcast, he shares real-world insights on investing, capital raising, and what it really takes to build and scale in today’s market.

📩 Want to invest or get in touch?
Visit: www.WeCapitalX.com

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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWealthClockPodcast

Transcript

Steven M. Weinstock: 0:00

welcome back to the Wealth Clock With Steven Weinstock Podcast, where top operators, founders, and closers share what really works. Today I am joined by Samuel Harnish, the founder of Quantitative Financial Strategies or QFS for short. He's a CFA a CFP and holds a master's in applied quantitative finance. Before launching his own firm, he worked at powerhouse institutions like PIMCO and a prominent multifamily office. What really sets him apart is how he brought together tax smart investing, high level finance, and modern digital presence. He's built a brand online while at the same time staying laser focused on long-term results for his clients. We're gonna talk about what exactly tax aware investing really means, what it's like to start a business in your twenties, and how he's used social media to fuel his growth. Samuel, thank you for joining us.

Samuel Harnisch: 1:05

Thank you for having me. I think that was the nicest introduction I've ever received. Thank you. My pleasure. It says you started a business in your twenties. I also started in my twenties investing and working for myself. Tell me about your early days, so your early path, what you, what drew you to a finance originally? Oh man, that's a good question and I guess I don't totally know. I think inherently we're all have proclivities to be interested in certain things and as far back as I can remember, it would be when my dad got the first iPhone, it had the stocks app on it. Anytime I was somewhere with my dad, I would ask if I could go on his phone and look at the stocks app and look at Apple Stock and Microsoft. And it just always fascinated me from a young age when I was playing lacrosse and being recruited, looking to colleges. It's just, I. How good was the lacrosse program and did they have a business school where I could major in finance? Those were my two criteria, and that, I guess that's the start, and then getting to work at PIMCO when I graduated was an unbelievable experience. I think my advice to other people would be, I don't know what your background was before you started your firm, but for me it was so great to start my career around the smartest people in the industry. The amount of information I was able to. Absorb and learn partly with what I was doing. Then partly just listening. If you're around extremely intelligent people and get to listen to the conversations they're having you, you really accelerate. Your kind of growth trajectory in your career. I'd be fascinated to hear if it was a similar experience for you or something different.. Steven M. Weinstock: I always say try You learn a lot better that way. Although a lot of people are intimidated by smart people, the smartest guy in the room. You got me feeling a little old when you said your dad's iPhone because when the iPhone came out, I was already an adult and I had a Blackberry for way before that. And when I got into real estate investing, which is what I do, we're talking flip phones. And even before cameras were on the flip phone, I started in 2001. I'm 47 now. I started in 2001 buying I meant to buy one single family home. That was my goal. I always wanted to get into real estate. Not necessarily as a career, but to own it. And I bought one single family home while I still had a corporate job in advertising. And my goal was to keep just one and pay it off over 30 years. And that would be like an added or padded retirement account, so to speak. After two or three months of collecting rent. So the numbers started clicking. And why? Just, why just one, why not two, why not five? Why not 20? Like I said, I was still a kid living at home with my parents and I had a job, but even back then, the financing on properties were a lot easier than they were today. It was, this is the before the subprime crisis and I was able to buy properties with sometimes 10% down, 15% down, sometimes 0% down. A lot of creative financing, a lot of seller financing. Yeah, that's how I got into it. But I realized it was my career pretty early on. Yeah, I was in my twenties also, when the numbers just started to click, you had the light bulb moment as well.

Steven M. Weinstock: 4:13

It's really gotta really be in it to understand it, because what I understood everything and then as soon as I'm collecting the rent and I'm looking at my mortgage statement that I'm seeing, I'm paying down equity and I'm making a few dollars on the cash flow. Why not do a second one? Why not do a third one? Oh wait. I could refinance in a couple years and possibly pull out some of this money. It just kept getting better and better. Obviously, the property management side is a whole other side of the business, which I learned the real quick and real tough on why it's. Not necessarily considered passive investing for a guy like me. Yeah. But even I have investors in my deals who are truly LPs, meaning they're truly, legally limited partners. And even them, I tell them, it's not necessarily passive, meaning you could still have your job, you could still be your lawyer, your accountant, your plumber, but you have to vet me or vet the sponsor of the deal, and you have to be on top of it. You have to make sure that you're getting reports, you have to make sure he's performing. The deal is performing, so it's not just set it and forget it. It's, you don't have to necessarily pick up any tools. You don't necessarily have to cancel a vacation because of it from the investment side. I wouldn't say it's just sleep on it. Like a treasury bond or something like that.

Samuel Harnisch: 5:29

I can, I could definitely speak to that with my time at the multifamily office. It was, that was my full-time job. Was the, what you're describing, the manager due diligence of these different. Private investments that wealthy families will be doing if they don't have someone doing that for them, like people that would come into the firm and like your first time looking at it, it was just all over the place. Unorganized mess, and it can happen pretty quickly. So I completely agree with what you're saying that. It's not a, it's not all passive from an investor standpoint.

Steven M. Weinstock: 6:00

So we're gonna have a lot of people who are watching this who are in the real estate business. So I just wanna delve into, you mentioned you worked for a family office, they owned some multifamily. Without giving too many private details, what can you tell us about that? Where were they investing? What kinds of properties? And

Samuel Harnisch: 6:16

so just tell us a little about that. Sure. I think there's just so much jargon in the industry. Sometimes there's confusion in my world of like wealth management. I. You've got the independents, they're called RIAs and they're just where your independent financial advisor will work and they'll do financial planning, an investment planning, manage all that for individuals and families. When the net worth of the clients you're working with starts moving up higher, you move from the RIA space into what is called the multifamily space. Interesting. And where that comes from is. Families that have, let's say, a few hundred million dollars, they'll actually make something called a family office, where in-house internally, they set up their own structure to do the investment management and financial planning. Maybe there's some estate and tax components to it. Instead of working with a third party or a firm, they make it on their own. Now, if a family doesn't have that kind of wealth. Let's say they have just a hundred million dollars. It's not really enough to hire a team in-house. The economics just don't make sense. But what you can do is you can work with a multi-family office, which essentially tries to provide the same service as a single family office, but you're able to do it by pooling. The resources of multiple families together. And so that's what I was working at is a multifamily office that was definitely more focused on the investment side. And so I spent all of my time on the research team looking at mostly private equity and hedge fund managers for the big two alternatives that, that they looked to add to client portfolios. So that's what that was about.

Steven M. Weinstock: 8:01

Got it. Yeah, no, in the real estate world, multifamily, it means you're buying apartment buildings or five units plus. So that PS me a little, so you're dealing with. Offices, family offices with a low net worth of only a hundred million dollars. Yeah. And since they're not, I know, isn't that awful to say since they're not rich enough to have a dedicated team Yeah. To get lumped together. Yeah. Three or four of them. We'll try to save on some costs or make it worth it economically where they'll have a team that's dealing with

Samuel Harnisch: 8:32

multi-families, Who have a family office. It's essentially, excuse me, a shared family office. And so it's multi meaning multiple families. Got it. In one sort of business wealth management firm.

Steven M. Weinstock: 8:46

Interesting. So I've, I raised money from investors for the real estate assets that we buy. I've spoken to family offices over time, and some of the family offices I speak to could have a net worth of 20 or 30 million or 50 million. So they typically won't have. A dedicated team that is deploying their capital, but they'll have one of the family members who is the point person to deal with any incoming opportunities that come through. And then from there, I guess they discuss it and they figure it out. But that's very interesting how a family offices are really like their own business just to deploy capital. And I guess they're mostly about really preserving their wealth. Guys who are starting out. It's all about even big risks and how could I double and triple my net worth real fast? And when you get to a certain level, you wanna preserve it and it's not necessarily just keep it, you want to beat inflation at least, and your fine making the eight or 9% a year sometimes where a guy like me. I don't want eight or 9% a year. I want more for eight or 9%. I guess I could stick it in SPY or QQQ, and for the most part, that's pretty passive. Just write it out and I won't have any cash flow. But when you worth, 300 million. Eight to 9% is a much bigger deal. You mentioned, or I've seen in your profile, tax aware investing sounds like a buzzword. I hate paying taxes. I hate it with a passion,

Samuel Harnisch: 10:20

but you're in the right industry. Then being in real estate,

Steven M. Weinstock: 10:23

I love being in real estate and have many options to defer. I'm a big refi till you die type of guy. Tell me about tax aware investing. I guess break it down for my listeners.

Samuel Harnisch: 10:36

Yeah, I probably, I should come up with a different tagline if it is too much of a buzzword, but really all it means is investing tax efficiently, which sounds super obvious, and to people outside the industry, they probably look at that and they go, duh, we all know that we should be investing tax efficiently. Yet when you look at how people are doing it in the industry, we do not do a good job at looking at investments through an after-tax lens. Your pre-tax return. Your pre-tax IRR, your pre-tax multiple on your invested capital. That means nothing. The only thing that matters as taxable investors is what you keep. So I'll see investments that are high octane income hedge fund where there's a lot of trading going on strategies, and you'll go, this is amazing, you were just describing. People wanna see something that beats the s and p 500. What if I'm able to do a 15% return? But it's all in the form of ordinary income, which the people I work with, they're getting taxed close to 50% on that and suddenly their 15% return, maybe it looks more like seven or 8% after taxes, you would be better off in a tax efficient eight to 9% return. So that's what Taxware investing is all about, is how do we level set all the investments we're looking at and just look at things through an after tax return perspective.

Steven M. Weinstock: 12:01

So just to pivot back, when I said buzzword, it wasn't a negative. It's a good thing and it sticks. Tax aware investing is definitely something that more people should look into. I think you have a lot of people out there that don't make enough where they're constantly thinking about taxes. When you reach a certain level, you really care about this money that you're giving to Uncle Sam, and it doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on, you could spend your money better than Uncle Sam for the most part. And a lot of it gets wasted and abused. I think people would be happier paying taxes if it got spent really well.

Samuel Harnisch: 12:40

Yeah. The Doge findings didn't really help . Feeling about that.

Steven M. Weinstock: 12:44

Exactly. But I guess I'll ask this. What type of investors benefit most from this strategy?

Samuel Harnisch: 12:51

I guess obviously if we're talking about taxes, it's those that are in disproportionately large, higher tax brackets. So you've got your high income earners. They're being pushed up into high income tax brackets, but then you've also got people with just large portfolios. If you're not careful with a 10, $20 million portfolio, you're gonna push yourself up into higher tax brackets just based on how you're invested. The yields on some of these private credit strategies, I'm sure you're aware of, they're double digits, and people just become so enamored by that and they don't look at the taxes. Yeah, that's who it U ends up usually being is people that are either high earners or have already accumulated a significant amount of wealth, because that's when taxes really come to the forefront. Any

Steven M. Weinstock: 13:37

common mistakes the investors making when it comes to taxes and investing?

Samuel Harnisch: 13:41

Yeah, I guess like some of the easiest ones are everyone has some sort of cash reserve, right? Like you'd call it an emergency fund or some sort of liquidity sleeve that you have. Maybe it's the fund deals that you're doing yourself. A lot of people don't seem to realize a high yield savings account like at a bank that's taxed at both state and federal, whereas treasury bills are exempt from state taxes. So like for most of my clients that are in California, that can be meaningful. If the top state tax bracket in California is 13.3%, that small decision of, Hey, we wanna make sure our emergency. Fund is allocated strictly to T-bills, so we get this tax treatment. I think that's a big one. Another one is tax loss harvesting.. And pretty much everyone knows when you make money on an investment, you owe taxes. That's just the way it works. But not everyone seems to know when you lose money on an investment. The inverse is actually true as well. If I sell or get rid of an investment that's lost value, I create this sort of tax asset. This loss I get to use to offset any gains that I have elsewhere. And so it's something that I see. If we go back to April you brought up Q. QQ. If someone had invested in QQQ this year in April, I think it had dropped over 20% at one point. That is a huge opportunity to sell that position and buy something similar. And by doing that. Switch, you capture this loss that you can then use to offset gains that you have elsewhere. And I think what not a lot of people are aware of is this new way of doing it that kind of enhances it is when you go long and short stocks. So that's one of the biggest strategies that I do for people that have big liquidity events or capital gains, or they don't wanna 10 31 1 of their properties. They're like, Hey, I'm ready to actually punch out. Of one of my properties and I want to take the gain and I want the capital. What you can do is you can open a long, short tax loss harvesting account, and that way, no matter which way the market moves, you're losing money on either side. As the market moves up, the shorts are losing value. As the market moves down, the longs are losing value and the volume of capital losses that you can harvest with these strategies. Are much bigger than in a long only portfolio, and they're fantastic for people with the liquidity events that we're mentioning. Part of the reason I'm starting my firm is selfishly for my own family. We have a multi-generational family business that'll likely be sold in the next 10 years. Part of that business is an industrial property in Southern California where the embedded gain is massive. I'm sure you're aware of in, in these pockets where they're just not able to make new warehouses. They're well located and like for example, he manufactures overseas, gets his product distributed, comes in through Long Beach in the port, and then it's just an easy straight shot to Huntington Beach where the warehouse is at. The value of something like that is, is incredible. But it also creates this significant tax burden when you're ready to sell and be done and retire. In California's the worst when it comes to taxes. They don't look at income and long-term capital gains as two different things. Like people are just assume, oh, it's long-term capital gains. It's a great tax rate. If you're in California, that's over 30% all in. It's awful. So anyways, that's one strategy that's pretty great and one that I'm using for my family just in preparation for our liquidity event.

Steven M. Weinstock: 17:18

As soon as you mentioned California and an asset that's multi-generations. Yeah, it definitely went up in value 20 times or whatever it was, and it'll have a nice tax bill, so whatever you could do to save that should be beneficial to you and all your close siblings and cousins, et cetera. I've seen you on social media. I've seen your presence on LinkedIn where I'm pretty active. When did you get serious about being on social media and creating content and. Being out there and getting yourself out there.

Samuel Harnisch: 17:50

I would say maybe five or six months ago I started my firm and I had friends and family that wanted to work with me and initially just started with my own network and that, that runs out pretty quickly. Yeah. Like your own network. Because then I was thinking, what can I do? And then I said, oh, social media. Like, why not? You can make videos, you can write posts. Just see, I don't know. I just wanted to test it out and see how it goes, and the feedback was overwhelming. There's some weeks where I've added like a thousand followers across my different accounts on the different platforms, and it's become really fun. I've learned a lot from other people. I get to meet people like you and just exchange and share ideas, and it's. It's been amazing. Yeah. So yeah, five or six months ago is when I started getting active and I don't miss a day where I don't post on LinkedIn. It's something that like, I'm very deliberate about and I kind of schedule, these are the posts I wanna write about and it's just built into part of my work schedule. I,

Steven M. Weinstock: 18:44

I increased my network. I used to raise money from family and friends for some of my real estate deals. And that runs out also pretty fast. And I would be very adamant about trying to get referrals. Get me your friends, get me your cousins. Just get me on the phone with them. You don't have to sell. I'll do the pitch. And after a while, even that is I. Exhausting. When I say exhausting, I don't mean I got tired. It's just you run outta that real fast. And I also made it my mission to expand my network. I started speaking at real estate conferences a lot for the past. A year or two, just came back. I was in the Florida last year talking. I was part of a panel on the stage over there, and that really helped with my network. I've been also active on LinkedIn. I haven't really played around with Instagram, although my kids tell me. They dunno what, they don't even know what LinkedIn is, but they tell me Instagram. So I have to get a little more deliberate with that. But I've definitely increased my network a little on LinkedIn. I'm hoping with this podcast that should also increase my network. And the main reason for the podcast is I wanna speak to interesting people and sometimes I can call somebody up or I meet them at a conference and they might give me two minutes of their time. If I tell them, Hey, I'd like to interview you on a podcast, they'll say, sure. And yeah.

Samuel Harnisch: 20:06

Yeah.

Steven M. Weinstock: 20:06

Just the last couple of days I did some interviews. We prerecorded, I spoke to some real powerhouse people that might never gimme the time of day otherwise

Samuel Harnisch: 20:15

Built into it is, it's almost, it's flattering, right? When someone asked, Hey, will you be on my podcast? And then. Someone's yeah, I get to talk about myself for 30 minutes. I'll do that.

Steven M. Weinstock: 20:26

Yeah, exactly. So I've been on some podcasts over the past 12, 18 months and it was flattering. Like you said, people would reach out to me and say, Hey, do you wanna be on the podcast? And I would say, yeah, sure. I'll show my wife the email, Hey, look at this. I'm coming home and you're telling me to take out the garbage. I'm gonna be on this guy's podcast. Yeah. Whatcha talking about? So it definitely flattering and it helps but increases my network. I get to promote it. The episode comes out, they gave me some links, they gave me some artwork. They gave me some YouTube shorts and tiktoks. You send that out to the guests, they promote it. So it's definitely a fun idea. So you're in the finance field. Do you think every finance professional should be building an audience, or is it just for certain personalities?

Samuel Harnisch: 21:11

Yeah, it depends where you are in your career. If you talk to the average age of a financial advisor is I think around 55. I. There's a large proportion of advisors that are in their sixties. Do they need a presence on social media? No, I don't think so. I think they're doing just fine and they've got their big book of business and frankly, the, their crowd I don't think is on social media quite as much as maybe the younger demographics. I think

Steven M. Weinstock: 21:38

the crowds of social media is tapped out, meaning. I know these days you say the word Facebook and it means, oh, my grandparents, and you say the word TikTok, it means my kids and LinkedIn could be, 40 and below. On business people I get, sometimes I'll get an email or someone gives me their email address and it would be@aol.com and I know with out a Doubt, this guy or person is over 55 years old. Yeah. Without a death. And then sometimes I'll see the Hotmail and the Yahoo Mail. And it means a different age bracket. And for some reason, Gmail is all encompassing, but, and then I guess iCloud, et cetera. But yeah, it's hard to gauge because you do have, you could have a 60-year-old guy who's got a big book of business on being a financial planner or anything, and he could morph into an online personality and yeah, he could increase his business. But yeah, it's definitely targeted to the young, in fact, young people. They don't wanna see the business card. They wanna see they're searching for the guy online and seeing what kind of videos he has out there. I go to these conferences all the time, and if the person is older, they're gonna ask me for my business card. And if they're younger, they're gonna ask me for a QR code so they can scan it right into their phone. Yeah. So even when people give me a business card, I take a picture of it and I hand it back to them.'cause I don't want, I don't need the card. I really just want it in my device., Samuel Harnisch: I would say for me, on the different kinds of platforms, if you're making videos or text posts, nothing stops you from posting, like cross-posting them on all the different. Precise. I would say for me, I read a book that was called The Visual Sale and it really convinced me that nothing builds trust.'cause our anyone in the finance space, it's all about trust. If someone's gonna give you capital to do in your deals, like at the end of the day, they have to like you and trust you to do that. Yeah, definitely. Just to cut you off a second, when I pitch a deal to my investors a real estate deal. They'll look at it. They're looking at numbers, they're looking at proformas. They'll say, oh, I like investing in Texas, or, I like Ohio, but in reality, they're investing in me. Yeah. It's really just about me for the most part. Sometimes they're not sophisticated enough to know about the deal. Yeah. And they might just be asking questions to make themselves feel better. Yeah. But really they're investing in me and they have to trust me. They have to vet me because they're LPs, they're limited partners, and at the end of the day. Their job stops. As soon as they write the check. They could be on top of me and ask me questions, but for the most part, they have to invest in me. So

Samuel Harnisch: 24:27

yeah,

Steven M. Weinstock: 24:27

it doesn't matter if I'm investing in a market they like, they don't like, they have to like the sponsor. So if it's exactly what you said.

Samuel Harnisch: 24:34

Yeah. And I was just gonna say the psychologically a video. Neurochemically works completely different than if I were to read a text post. So I, my advice to people would be try to make more video content. It's just so much more engaging and has the ability to create that trust in a way that text posts can't. So I was reading that book and they're going through some of the stats of how much time people spend on their phones and how much time people spend consuming videos. And now it's much more common to see short form videos and, yeah. Then while I'm reading it, I've, I felt so oblivious before this. I actually start looking around. Do you ever go to, to like a gym or something?

Steven M. Weinstock: 25:19

Do not as often as I should, but yes.

Samuel Harnisch: 25:21

I, you have, so yeah, sure. Time you go. Look around and count how many of these in-between sets while they're rolling out, while they're stretching, faces glued to phones. It's unbelievable. So I put those two together and I was like, wait, you like, if you want to grow a business, it's silly not to make content.'cause that's what people are doing like all day is they're just glued to their phones. That was when like the light bulb went off for me. I was like, I should go all in on making a lot more content.

Steven M. Weinstock: 25:51

Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely the way to go. When I, growing up, it was all about the living room and whatever content worked in the living room. I remember like in the late nineties, Microsoft invested in, I think it was called Web tv. I forgot exactly what it was called, but somehow to marry the computer to the living room and they would give you a keyboard. It never really worked 'cause people weren't gonna sit there and type a Yahoo search into a TV screen. But I guess over the years with phones and different tech, the short form really works because people, like you said, they're in between sets. They're waiting for the subway, they're just waiting for their food to come at a fast food place and they'll donate three minutes to, to watching something. And I find myself even watching regular. TV shows, like a regular whatever CBS show, it takes me like five days to watch it because I'm watching it like in two minute increments.

Samuel Harnisch: 26:49

And I'm

Steven M. Weinstock: 26:49

stopping'cause life starts and now I wish I, I was put more into the short form because it'll just be easier. I keep going. Having to go back to the app. It loads, it's back on a commercial. So that's just me personally, but it'll take me like days to watch like this 30 minute or 40 minute episode. It's just so interesting. Yeah.

Samuel Harnisch: 27:06

There is an interesting bifurcation between ultra short form and then your Joe Rogan two to three hour podcast. It's fascinating.

Steven M. Weinstock: 27:14

Yeah.

Samuel Harnisch: 27:14

People seem

Steven M. Weinstock: 27:16

to be interested in both. Yeah. And also with podcasts, you'll have a lot of people check out a podcast and they're looking at the person's YouTube channel and they'll see very little views. Then again, a podcast is played mostly audio. Most podcasts aren't audio, so it's not even on YouTube, it's on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or all the others. So the person doesn't really see the full reach, the potential reach of, I have a friend does a very popular podcast and he tells me this bothers him all the time that his YouTube numbers are low and that those are public people look, oh, how many views did this video get? But his audio streams are played on 10 different networks. Spotify, cast box. He was telling me Stitcher and I dunno, all these others, and they don't necessarily tell you how many streams each one was, or at least doesn't tell the audience. So it's hard for, I didn't realize that, that it's hard for him to show off how popular he is. Which is interesting.

Samuel Harnisch: 28:17

That is, it seems to be part of the network effect is. More viewership. That gets more viewership in this sort of FOMO thing of, this is the popular Trending podcast I or YouTube account. I need to follow that and listen to that.

Steven M. Weinstock: 28:30

I use a lot of WhatsApp and WhatsApp. A lot of videos get sent around onto groups and the different chats and all that, and there's no way for the creator to see where, how many people are viewing it because it's just the actual media, the file, the MP four. Yeah, that's getting transferred around and you can have thousands of people watching it and the creator doesn't even know about it because there's no way to track it. Yeah, and in my community or in my network, WhatsApp is very big and there's WhatsApp status and all that type of stuff, which have become very popular, but there's no way to track it. People put it out there, but there's no way for them to know if people are watching it or not.

Samuel Harnisch: 29:10

What's WhatsApp status?

Steven M. Weinstock: 29:13

So WhatsApp is you familiar with WhatsApp?

Samuel Harnisch: 29:16

Sure I came, I think I originally got that years ago because it was great for international communication.

Steven M. Weinstock: 29:22

Yeah. So it just became very popular, at least in my group, because it's groups and then there's individual chats. But status is basically you're putting out like a post. It could be video, audio, text, and only whoever has you saved in their phone and you have saved in your phone could see it. So it's not that it's private, but it's only for. Literally if I, if you, I have to have you saved in my phone and you have to have me saved in your phone, and then you could see my status or my post.

Samuel Harnisch: 29:54

Do you get a notification when someone posts something or no?

Steven M. Weinstock: 29:57

No, but there's like a section on the WhatsApp to see, it's called the status or updates. So they change, they play around

Samuel Harnisch: 30:03

like an Instagram story and

Steven M. Weinstock: 30:04

it's owned by, WhatsApp is owned by Facebook or by Meta, so it's part of their network. But it became very popular. It also only shows up for 24 hours, so if you post something on your status, I got 24 hours to see it, and that's it. So it doesn't stay forever. It's not shareable. I can't, I guess you could take a screenshot, but I can't like forward the video to somebody else easily.

Samuel Harnisch: 30:26

Yeah. Yeah. It's kinda reminds me of the streaming wars. Like I remember years ago everyone assumed that all the different streamers would consolidate into one. And it just didn't happen. Like people started making their own original content and here you are with WhatsApp. I had no idea people were using features like that on WhatsApp that already exist on Facebook and Instagram. And people just have their own, it's, they want, it's bringing you,

Steven M. Weinstock: 30:55

right? It's bringing whatever people want to use. Meaning I like to use WhatsApp, so I'm gonna see the WhatsApp content happen not to be on Instagram, so I'm not seeing it. Not much. There are people who are on every network, so to speak, every platform. So they'll post on WhatsApp. So guys like me could see it. I'm sure I'm not the only one. I think it's more international, like you said. But somehow, I don't know, in my pocket of Brooklyn, New York, it became very popular. Okay. Good to know. Yeah. Yeah. WhatsApp is big. Yeah. To play around with it on your phone, I'm sure you'll see. This was a lot of fun. I had fun with this. Sometimes it's nice not to just talk. Real estate and cap rates all the time, and I love talking to new people. I'm very passionate about trying to defer paying taxes and I like the fact that you're an expert in the field and you're young and it's nice. It's good to see young people out there who are passionate about more than just, their PS four or PS five, or whatever it is that you kids are playing with these days. Yeah, so that's nice. I'm gonna ask you a few more questions before we go, if you have time. What's your biggest challenge to gain the trust of a client being as young as you are?

Samuel Harnisch: 32:07

So my, in my naive young mind, I've read a gazillion books about investing in about economics and all these things, and I thought, surely if I can quote what the s and p 500 did in the global financial crisis in the.com, but like I thought, what difference does it make? Whether you lived through it or if I can just spit out all the numbers. There is a difference between knowledge and wisdom can only come with experience. That is a shortfall of mine, is this ability to empathize with people because that's part of the job of being a financial advisor. It's not. What are the numbers when your portfolio and the s and p 500 is down 50%? And I can quote you, we're diversified and we're invested in this, that and the other, and so we're likely gonna be down less. That's not the point. The point is what did it feel like? What did it feel like when you lived through the global financial crisis and any assets you had got cut in half and you got laid off from work? And those are things that unfortunately I just can't. I can't manufacture that. All I can do is meet people where they're at and tell them how I will prepare or build portfolios or their financial plan to weather storms that will come in the future, but. It's a very real thing. In your twenties when you're starting a business, particularly in this field, that's difficult to overcome. I'd love to hear what your experience was in your twenties when you're starting to fundraise, if you ran into the same things. So I

Steven M. Weinstock: 33:32

personally, for most of my real estate career, I was not raising funds. I was really just like an owner operator doing everything myself. I would say I, like I said, I started about 21. In 2001. I was in my own twenties and for the first 10 years I was just buying. These smaller assets. Me, one family to four family houses, and I was just buying them on my own. I wasn't raising money. There was a lot of leverage out there from the banks, especially until oh eight, and I didn't need anybody. In fact, I didn't even speak to other people about it because I don't know, I thought I have the special sauce. It's all about me and I don't really need anybody else. It's only really when I started getting into larger projects, when I started buying a hundred gooder plus types of buildings where. It's far from just me. It's really a team. You need a guy. You need a partner who's great at property management. You need a partner who's great at handling the backend of the books, so to speak. You need a partner that's great at dealing with investors, investor relations, dealing with the banks. It's such a different, it's so different. It's just the insurance part of the business is so tough and. Annoying when it comes to these larger properties. When I was buying three units, a three family house, the insurance was a breeze. You make a phone call, sometimes they need a picture, sometimes they come, sometimes they do an inspection, but you got insured within 10 minutes, they send you the rider, the bank is good and you're done. And with these larger properties, it just becomes like a nightmare all year long. It takes days and days just to get approved, and then they're coming down to do an inspection and. They're just, I don't wanna say blindly, but they're telling you, fix this, fix that, fix this, fix that. These are, I, some of them are real and legitimate, but some of them are items that I would've never thought about fixing. For example, just something I'm dealing with is repaving a parking lot. My plan was never ever to repaid the parking lot, but an insurance company wants me to, not because it's a trip hazard, because it's not that type of, it's not cracked in that way. But insurance companies have their own actuaries and they have their own formulas, and it's all about minimizing their exposure. So if they could get a property owner to spend, I don't know, $25,000 on X, there's a half a percent chance less that will be called in for a claim. And even though the claim could be totally related to a roof, it's just they have their numbers and it's all about the Excel file. I'm personally more of a boots on the ground type of investor. I go down there. I'm I, like I said, I used to do everything on my own. Could I change a boiler today? No. But could I watch a plumber changing the boiler and know if he's doing something wrong? Very possibly. There. There's a lot of nuance in the larger properties where it's about partners and getting a good team. But when you're doing the smaller properties, you can do it on your own and there's no wrong way, right way to invest. I did very well with the smaller properties. I did very well with the larger properties, and I'm still buying smaller properties and I'm still buying larger ones. It's just a different, just, it's like a different business. The smaller ones I do myself, I don't need really investors for it. The larger ones I'm doing with the team and my partners that I'm married to and partners that I'm deal by deal. Yeah, it's just a different aspect of the business. How do you structure your day or your week to stay focused?

Samuel Harnisch: 37:10

I'm a big proponent of having a calendar and everything goes on the calendar and I'm laughing because my girlfriend understands that literally like dates, they go on the calendar. I. I have too much going on that if someone says something to me or asks to do something and it doesn't get on my calendar, there's a good chance I am going to miss it. So I, yeah, that's my thing. And I would say being very intentional about what we're talking about here is social media. You can't just at the back of your mind. When you get a second or you get inspiration, oh, I'm gonna write a post. It's no, if you're serious about this, there should be time blocked out on your calendar. You say, Hey, for this one hour, I'm gonna focus on drafting LinkedIn posts. Or part of that might be researching other trending posts or people, oh, I really liked what this person did here, what they said there. And I guess going on this tangent, what I found that works for me is. You might be on a walk, you might be at dinner with friends, you, it, you might be at the gym and out of nowhere an idea comes, always write it down. So for me, I have on the notes app on my phone. I'm writing down ideas as they come. If I see a post I really like, or there was a couple sentences on it that really resonated with me, I hit the save button on LinkedIn and basically I just accumulate these aha moments ideas, and then when it comes to my one hour of dedicated content time, I'm gonna pull those out and that's what I'm really gonna focus and make my own. I'm a big proponent of just general organization with a calendar, and then second, specifically with content dedicating time to it.

Steven M. Weinstock: 38:51

So it sounds, and I do this myself, but I it sounds like you do it as well, you'll prepare five, 10 posts or more and I guess schedule the release if it's not too time sensitive.

Samuel Harnisch: 39:02

Yeah, batching.

Steven M. Weinstock: 39:04

Batching, okay. Yeah, it's far more

Samuel Harnisch: 39:05

efficient.

Steven M. Weinstock: 39:06

Yeah. So I do that as well. Just a quick question. When you schedule it I am really asking this for myself as well, but everybody listening when you schedule the post. Do you pick a certain time of the day or a certain day of the week that you feel is better? I'll tell you what I do. I started picking, I live in New York, so I'm eastern time.

I started picking 7: 39:25

00 AM as the time to have the post go out. I try to do Monday through Thursday. If I only, if I'm only doing one or two, it'll be just randomly one of those four days. If it's a week where I plan on doing more, I'll do Friday as well, or I'll do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Once in a while I'll do Sunday. I haven't figured out if Sunday is a good day or a bad day yet.

But I'm really liking the 7: 39:48

00 AM part. Just curious what you're doing or what you think is best or

Samuel Harnisch: 39:54

Yeah, I'm same as you.

I do 7: 39:55

00 AM but that's more just'cause it's convenient for me.

Like I, I'm usually up around 5: 39:58

00 AM and I get to go to the gym and then I'm back and ready to post things. But the biggest. Feedback or advice I've gotten is that these social media platforms, it's much more about consistency than it is a particular time of day or day of the week. I think it's more important that you find or pick something that works well for you, that you'll actually be able to keep up because it seems like a lot of people like the idea of doing content. And they'll do it for couple weeks a month, and then they burn out. I wouldn't stress too much about time of day or things like that. It's just more about what works for your schedule and what can you actually be consistent with.

Steven M. Weinstock: 40:39

Okay, Samuel, this was a solid interview. You brought a lot of clarity to some complex ideas and you gave a real world look at what it takes to build something credible from the ground up. You're young, that's great. And if everybody in their twenties was doing things that you are the country, it would be a lot better off. For everyone listening, go check out Samuel's content. It's gonna be in the notes, his LinkedIn, his Instagram, his, what else we got? We have YouTube. He's always dropping valuable tidbits on tax strategy and wealth building. If you're enjoying these episodes, don't forget to subscribe and share the Peak Performer podcasts. Until the next time. Keep learning, keep executing and keep pushing your next week. Sam, it was great to have you. Thank you very much.

Samuel Harnisch: 41:31

And likewise. Thanks so much for having me. I.