How I Made Millions Selling Other People's Businesses (Michael Steinberg ft. KayKov Media)

Today, we have a powerhouse guest: Michael Steinberg – the CEO of HedgeStone Business Advisors (the #1 business brokerage in the country) and founder of the Billionaire Buyers Club.

Mike's story is the definition of the American grind. He started at 16, working 70-hour weeks in a pizzeria for $6 an hour. Fast forward to today, he runs an empire that sold 315 businesses last year and is on track to sell over 1,000 this year.

In this raw and inspiring episode, we dive deep into:

Building an Empire from Scratch: How Mike went from handwritten drop notes to building a nationwide firm with over 400 brokers using the power of social media and relentless hustle.
The Social Media Blueprint: How he gets 50-100 business owners wanting to sell every week through organic Instagram & TikTok content, and why authentic, quick videos beat polished productions.
The Billionaire Buyers Club: His unique investment vehicle for acquiring cash-flowing businesses like car washes and tire shops, and his strategy for flipping or scaling them.
The $85 Million Cold Call: The incredible story of how a single piece of research and a bold call led to brokering a massive hotel deal.
Mindset & Hustle: Why he believes in making kids work young, his "signal vs. noise" philosophy for balancing a massive workload with family time, and his essential advice for anyone starting from zero.
This is a masterclass in entrepreneurship, sales, and building unstoppable momentum. Whether you're in real estate, looking to buy/sell a business, or just need a dose of real-world hustle, this episode is for you.

Connect with Mike:
  / businessbrokerking 
  / thebillionairebuyersclub 
  / hedgestone_advisors 

#BusinessBroker #Entrepreneurship #HowToSellABusiness #Investing #Hustle #Startup #Podcast #KaikovPodcast

Michael Steinberg is an entrepreneur, dealmaker, and business acquisition strategist known as the “Business Broker King.” As the Founder and CEO of Hedgestone Business Advisors, he has built a national reputation for connecting buyers, sellers, investors, and operators through strategic business acquisitions and advisory services.

Michael Steinberg specializes in helping entrepreneurs scale, exit, and acquire businesses across multiple industries, with a focus on deal structure, valuation strategy, and long-term wealth creation. Through his media presence, live events, mentorship programs, and podcast platforms, he has become a recognized voice in the growing conversation around the largest generational wealth transfer in history.

Hedgestone Business Advisors is a business brokerage and advisory firm focused on mergers, acquisitions, business sales, growth strategy, and investor relations. The company works with business owners, buyers, and private investors to facilitate transactions ranging from small business acquisitions to larger strategic exits, while also developing educational platforms, investor networks, and high-level entrepreneurial events.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Kaikovs Podcast. We have uh my co-host, Mr. Boris. How are we doing today? I'm excited. We have a very, very special guest, Mike Steinberg. Uh let's do our tradition.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

This is take two, so he almost signed the five, so but you know what to do already. It's it's our little tradition. All our guests. Wish us a good luck, Jack. Best of luck, guys. You guys are gonna crush it here. Amen. Amen. We're gonna collect that money and throw it into your uh investment firm. Let's do it. We'll times that stuff by uh by fifty. So the the podcast is like a little autobiography about you, how you got started. We kind of try to influence the younger generation or people who are more want to get more experience in your field. So just to start us off how this whole journey started, did your family immigrate? Are you an all-American boy type of thing? So I'm an all-American boy.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Okay. Um grew up in uh, you know, my parents got divorced when I was 10. Wow. And um, you know, as a 10-year-old, you know, you're you know everything. So, you know, moved into another house, my mom remarried, had stepbrothers and sisters. Um, you know where you grew up? Are you a single sibling? Uh no, I have a younger brother who's 33, one year younger than me, 33, I'm 34. And uh, you know, we we had a tough little childhood. Not not crazy tough, but it was it was definitely broken, challenging. Where where at? Where are they? Um Melville, and then we moved to Dix Hills and we moved back to Melville.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

I live in Colmack, so exciting.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

So we so we uh you know we went through that and then you know, my mom, a single mom didn't have money. I had to work at a high school. So I worked in a pizzeria and um you know I was making five, six dollars an hour. Okay. But it was the best work, and I would recommend any parent out there to really get your children to work because it teaches them discipline. So after school, I would work at the pizzeria. You know, in high school I would work maybe 30, 40 hours a week, and then after high school I would go back to the pizzeria, work seventy, eighty hours a week. Nice. So your summers were all tagged in makeup. Are you good at least in making pizza? Yeah, I can You know how to make pizza. I know how to make pizza, I can run a whole pizzeria with my eyes closed. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Easily. That's awesome. So let me tell you how I met him. Uh we're selling currently one of our businesses with me and my partner, and I was introduced to another um one of the real estate agents that works under your empire, and then he came in, we negotiated, and one thing that I loved about him, he's just hungry to get the business. It doesn't matter if everybody charges 13, 14% on the sale. I told him I wanted an open listing, I wanted this percentage. He's like, came back, let me think about it, send me the contract, I signed. So while he's selling my business, I was working with uh, besides trying to sell it myself, just to back a little background. He was pushing the market, and uh, when we'll tag his businesses at the end of the podcast, you'll see. I think across the board you got like three million followers between three of your businesses.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Right now, I've about a million, a little over a million. So pizza, high school, college, working in pizza. What college? Um I went to Farming Dale and I dropped out, and then I had to just How many years, months in?

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Two years. Two years in. Yeah. What'd you go for? Business. Business. Yeah, not bad.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

You got something. I learned way more in the pizzeria than I did in college.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Facts.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Seriously. Because you know when it teaches you how to talk to people, it teaches you customer service. Okay. And when you're dealing with people, you know how to deal with them. That's everything in life. You'll be successful. How long did you work at the pizzeria? From 17, from 16 to 21. Wow, five years. Five years grinding and making six, seven dollars an hour, not saving anything.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Dropped out. What was the inspiration behind the whole getting into the the real estate market and all that? How did that fall into your play?

SPEAKER_02 3:49

I wanted to get my real estate license and rent the I started renting apartments. Got it. And uh, you know, I was I was renting, you know, I was doing renting apartments, making three, four thousand dollars a month while doing pizza.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Because I also had my real estate license, but I I don't really like that business. The issue that I have with that is that when you get your license, you have to park your license at a at a real estate agency. At a firm, yeah. At a firm. But they don't really help you get any work. You have to kind of grind and get it yourself. But if I'm not uh if I'm not an experienced worker, I'm just telling you my my negative point of view.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

You don't shadow somebody.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

That's they don't want they don't shadow, they don't give you nobody uh to shadow. Well you had a bad firm. Yeah. My my company, I give people leads, I give people the names of the company.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

So Headgone Business Advisors. We're the number one business brokerage in the whole country right now. Nice. The second business? I own Billionaire Buyers Club. We're a private equity, we're basically a private equity company. We have 50 very high net worth individuals that invest millions of dollars a month into businesses together. Okay, so let's start with the real estate thing first. So well, how how did you get into the real estate? How did that come out? So, you know, I when I was at a pizzeria, I met someone came in and they order a couple of slices and he goes to pay and he throws down a black card. I didn't even know what that what a black card was. I grabbed the card, it was heavy, I was like, what the hell is this? He's like, it's a black card. I'm like, what do you do for a living? He's like, I'm a business broker. Like, what's a business broker? I've never heard I'm a 21-year-old kid. What's a b he's like, I sell pizzeriaas, I sell car washers, I sell restaurants, I sell any type of business. I'm like, Can I shadow you?

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

And he's like, Yeah, I'm looking for hungry. You seem like you really want to work. So I'll be there Saturday, Sunday, anytime, any place I'm there. So I I shadowed him. He's a 70-year-old guy, OG in the business, doing it for 40 years. Wow. Learned a lot from him. Smart guy. He's like your mentor. He's my mentor, and he works, he works with me right now.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

He works under me, he's 92 years old right now. No way, that guy's still grinding. That's amazing. I was with him yesterday.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

That's great.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

So you want to give him a shout out? Shout out to Richard Manchell. The man who built this guy, and now you took him under your wing. I took him under my wing, and we have an amazing relationship. So, learn from him. Then I two years later I started my own firm.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

How did that go? What was well was that the main idea, or just just came along saying, listen, I'm already a big boy, I want to to do this on my own, type of thing. How did that be?

SPEAKER_02 6:11

Yeah, you know what it was? He knew it too. Like, you know, he was in his probably late 70s, early 80s at this time, and he's like, He didn't mind you growing, you loved it. He loved it.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Yeah, that's nice.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

And I took I took care of him. I took care of him. Did he have his own firm or he worked on the He was like he had his own firm, but he was slowing down a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

He probably had too many OGs working under that flag.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Yeah, and and I learned a lot from those guys. And then he respects it. So I I started Empire Business Management, you know, brought on my friends with me, brought on my dad. I took he my dad was selling cars at Hyundai and Range Rover. I said, Dad, come on. So he came with me. My friends came with me. Like Wolf of Wall Street, you know, you get your own gangster. Wait till you wait till you hear exactly what happens now. So about like five to six people came in 2022. You get an office or you work from an office in Sayaset. Oh, okay. And um, you know, fast forward to now, we have four hundred full-time brokers throughout the country. That's insane. We're the number one company in nationwide, we're number one number one uh business brokerage in the whole country. Last year we sold 315 businesses. That's insane. This year we're gonna sell over a thousand businesses. So are you big as uh what is it, vet uh vested brokers or something? I love Nathan. Nathan's great.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Um yes, we're he's one of the partners, I believe there, right? Yeah, he's the he's the partner there. Yeah. So are you guys uh because I know for the last like 15 years they were the biggest business uh sellers in the country. They're also nationwide.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Yeah, they're great at what they do. And uh are you bigger than them now? Now we're bigger than them, yeah. Wow. Yeah, that's about it you know what it is, it's social media. Of course. So my social media, like every the traditional business broker, they do drop notes, they do mailers, they do door knocking, right? I did social media. I went all in on social media. I have almost a million followers on Instagram. I'm getting 50 to 100 business owners that want to sell their businesses every single week. How do you manage it? I have a whole back-end team on my Instagram. I have 400 people I delegate leads to every day. I don't take any more leads. Personally, so you're done. Just collect the percentage, call it a day. I'm the house. Nice. You know, I'm the house.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Look at him smiling.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

Today, you know what I'm doing? I'm going to Westchester. This guy, very wealthy guy, one of his best tenants, left and fled to Italy. He had a great pizzeria. I was doing like 25,000 a week. The guy just left. He's like, Mike, could you come? I follow you on TikTok. Can you come? We'll split the key money, find me a good tenant. I'm like, we'll split the key money. So whatever we get, if we get 300,000, we'll split it three each. So it's worth my time maybe to go up there for a couple of hours. Oh, 150 grand. Too fast. We're going too fast. So let's go, let's go back here. I'm excited, man. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Oh, let's no, usually it happens too. We're also hungry to find out. Oh, we're we're learning ourselves. So we're uh But uh when you were saying you you took six guys on you, you took your dad with you, what's what's happening now? Because you have zero leads. Zero leads you have to feed six families.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

So so what what's happening after that? Zero leads, but the the ambition and the hunger was unmatched. Okay. So literally, you're waking up in the morning putting waking up at four o'clock in the morning. I said I told my mom, like, mom, you're working with me now. I brought my mom into the business. Okay, and I was like, Mom, let's go. Let's change our lives, let's level up right now. And she's like, I love what you're doing. She saw what I was doing. I sold the pizza reel. That was when you were 21. This is when like 22, 23. 22, 23.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Yeah. Okay, so that's about 12 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

Yeah. Okay. So I'm like, Mom, we gotta go, we gotta put drop notes under shop uh shopping center doors, business doors.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Where'd you get your first story at to interrupt? Where'd you get the money for this first? This is what I'm saying. This is free. No, but you had to print it out, right? Everything's like, Yeah, it is your money. Did you grab some money from your parents because they believed in you, or is this pizza money?

SPEAKER_02 9:55

I never grabbed money from my parents. This is all pizza money. But but this is the most for all every all the young generation out there that wants to learn how to do an inexpensive advertising, drop notes is the way to go. They still do it in Long Island, by the way. It's it's still drop notes is the best way.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

It's old school.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

It's more personal, especially when you have it handwritten and you have it like signed. It's very personal. So I'm gonna get into that. So it's handwritten.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

You have the you have the the what's it called? Sure. That's good. So we so we hand we hand write our envelopes. Okay. So we handwrite the letter saying we have an interested buyer that's interested in buying your business, slip it on the doors. Guess what the um the success rate is? Guess how many people call you back out of a hundred? No, that's that's out of a hundred people, what do you think? Forty people. No, that's that's that's that's that's one one person would be great for another. We get about five to six people that are like, I'm interested in selling. So if we do a thousand envelopes, we're gonna get fifty to sixty people that want to sell.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

That's actually not bad.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

So I flooded Long Island, I flooded 110 where I worked, I got a pizzeria, I sold the pizzeria, I got a twenty thousand dollar check, I told my dad, you know, this is it. So then from there, sky is the limit. I bought a pizzeria. So your own pizzeria. I bought a pizzeria with an investor in Dubai. Okay, you still have it? No, I know. I sold it. Oh, okay. I sold it a while ago in 2017.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

But I learned it was a two million dollar operation.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

And I knew the pizza business, so I we killed it there. I brought my best friend in from Long Island. Nice. He slept at the pizzeria at night because he lived all the way in Rocky Point. Wow. So it was like a three-hour drive. So we slept there five days a week, showered at Planet Fitness. We did whatever we had to do. 100%. We got it up from 30,000 to 50,000 a week and we sold it.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Nice. Is he still with you, your friend?

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Now he works one of my car washes. Oh.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

So I own car washes too.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

I'll get into that.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Because this is very exciting for me. Let's first finish with the whole real estate situation, how you got there.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

Alright, so I sold that pizzeria. I went all in, I started then I got into car washes. That was my real niche. So I started selling car washes. I sold half of the car washes on Long Island. Oh, wow. So I sold about 70 locations from 2019 to 2023. Why are a lot of them selling if they're selling? Isn't it like the most profitable business there is? A lot of baby boomers retiring and they their kids don't want to work. They don't want to put the sweat equity in these car washes, so they just want to sell. And you can get good multiples.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Because I know you're the you're building type of um with the with the other business, the billionaires uh buying club, right? Is that the Billionaire Buyers Club Club. Um you're advertising that heavily because you're looking for investors. I know one of your uh one of the skits that you had on Instagram, you raised like three point something million dollars in less than a week for one day. In one day, yeah. So you're building that business for for the investors and you're just gonna manage that whole situation? Like if you're gonna have 30 car washes, or are you buying and flipping? So what are you doing with both.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

But the the the main goal is to hold. So I have ten different operators that are gonna run each, probably two to three different businesses. So you're looking for an operating investor or you're looking for a I'm looking for silent passive. I already have the operators. How do you look for those? Over the course of my career, I've built really strong relationships with people that bought businesses for me, friends of mine, and I built a strong army of ten solid operators that are with me full time.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

They can manage multiple car washes all over. OGs in OGs will run circles around the new generation. Got it. That's very interesting. Is that the only thing you're concentrating on? I know we're jumping back.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

But how how do you manage that part? Because I'm sure you have a system in play where you have those ten guys, but they know what to expect and how does that process work?

SPEAKER_02 13:43

So they're all very experienced guys. So I don't need to get involved at all in the day-to-day. You just you're the they handle. I have a full-time guy at BlackRock. He used to work at BlackRock doing the books. Wow. Right? So he does the books, they do the operations, they report to me, they show me the payroll. If the payroll is over 35%, I'm like, guys, what's going on?

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

That's the business in the car wash business. So as long as the payroll isn't in in place, we're making money.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Nice, nice. Are these invest uh the old school guys they're also part of the investment? Or they're just employees that that's they're not employees, they get a piece of the management fee. Without putting any money in.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

Without putting any money in. Because that's cool. If they weren't my friends for years, I would make them put a little money in it. But they're they've shown their loyalty to me over the last 10 years. So this is the beautiful thing about the Billionaire Buyers Club. There's no LP GP structure. Like these real estate. What does that mean? So LP is limited partners, GP is general partners. A lot of these real estate funds, they have a general partner where they basically make they they catch up to the limited partner. The limited partner doesn't get as much equity as the general partner. The way I'm doing it is everyone is equal. You're you're just the people in my club where e if I'm putting in money, I'm a partner. If they're putting in money, they're a partner. There's no edge I have over them. The general partners have an edge over the limited partners. For me, everyone's even. If the equity is $4 million, I'm putting up $400,000, I'm a 10% owner. If you do it, you're part of the club, you're a 10% owner.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Okay, what if you need more partners? Does your uh shares de uh decrease decrease? No, every deal, it's a deal-by-deal basis. Uh-huh. So the first What if sometimes you have a business where you need to put in more money in after you already buy the business?

SPEAKER_02 15:32

So the beautiful thing about this club, I own Hedgehone, so we see the best deals. So we have a thousand listings, right? I'm picking the top 1% to buy. So the businesses that I'm buying, they're the best businesses. So so far, anything can go wrong, right? But I'm picking the steals. I'm picking I'm cherry picking the best deals. So the car wash that we're buying right now, this this thing does a hundred and seventy-five thousand and hundred and sixty to one hundred and seventy-five thousand monthly recurring revenue. Wow. Why why you picked why you pick this business? Because I know this business, and I have great operators in this business, and that's what we know, and we're good at it.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Now I saw you also starting uh venture off from the car wash into uh laundromats.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Laundromat's a little bit. You know what I'm getting into? A lot of automotive. We're buying a big tire shop right now. Nah, which I can't disclose where, but they do about 40,000 tires a year. Oh my god. That's insane. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

New tires or used? It doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_02 16:29

Both, but mostly used.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

So how do you how do you do your due diligence about that? Like because you worked at a pizzeria, you have people in your circle that are heavily into car washes. Now this is a new venture you're getting into. Even though you're seeing the numbers, they're profitable, but the people that are making it profitable are obviously in this business for many years. So what are you doing? You're gonna recruit that person, tell them how how's your research being done now?

SPEAKER_02 16:56

So I'm inheriting the whole staff. So the whole entire staff, the owners are older, the staff runs the business. So we're bringing in the whole staff. I'm also bringing in someone on my team that knows the business, that's staying there right now and watching the business. So he's there for 30 days, he's watching the whole entire business, he's learning the in the learning their business, he's already in the entire business, and he's gonna run the business on the day-to-day. And he's someone that's another partner of mine in a gas station that I have.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Okay, so but you wouldn't have got into this business if he didn't have that backup.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

I would never get into business unless I have people. Got it. That's the number one thing in business is people.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Of course. Are you are you adjusting anything? Are you making it more AI or uh computerized anything? Because a lot of these old school businesses don't have none of this. It's just literally handshakes, cash being given because it's run by the owners themselves. So you're gonna get into the tire shop. What is your your your your surrounding or your guy saying? Are you gonna have computers in there? How are you gonna keep control of all this? Absolutely. So we're gonna have a CRM that we use for all of our businesses. Okay, uh break that down to us because a lot of the people that are watching might not know this lingual.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

So a CRM is a customer relationship management tool where you organize your clients. So the what it's gonna do essentially is organize all my clients. Some of their first names, their last names, their emails, their phone numbers, their social media profiles, and we're gonna hit them up every day, every week, every month, depending on the automatically through AI, and we're gonna basically let them know listen, we have a discount today. It's Women's Wednesday tire. You know, we're gonna get them all all the different things. They're gonna be texted, they're gonna be when when they're driving past the location, we're gonna geofence them. So they get pinged. Come to the tire shop, it's it's a discount day. So we're gonna drive, that's what we do, and we have our own AI system. I built an AI system in Hedgehone called Hedgehai. Oh, nice. And I I will get into that too. But we're revolutionizing.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Got it. So you're investing a lot of money into this whole I invest everything into my business. Oh, you're throwing it back. Every single dollar. So you're not buying the big mansion, you're taking the paying less tax.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

Well, I'll buy the business big mansion off the cash flow.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

So that's the key. So how many businesses do you own, obviously with partners and everything that you have besides your broker that you do?

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Right now, how much money are you managing, I guess, is the better w question, though? Or what are we asking?

SPEAKER_02 19:18

How many facilities or how many different businesses? I would say right now 12 to 13, besides the brokerages. Nice. But I'm by next year this time, I'll probably have 50. So businesses that you own. Businesses that I own.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Nice. Okay. So you're gonna turn that into into uh some type of portfolio, you're gonna name all the car washes the same. What's the key thing? What are you gonna franchise? Is it what's the plan?

SPEAKER_02 19:39

The plan is to keep them separate for now until I really get a feel on the business. Because if I change it, if you buy a business and you change the name right now, you might piss the customers off. They might go somewhere else. Right, right. So right now we're keeping everything the same, and then eventually when we own, you know, 20 locations and we want to sell, then we'll probably package it together.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Oh, you're gonna sell like he buys them, he builds them more, and he sells them for maximum.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

You're not worried about that that you're not gonna find another opportunity like this, like like um uh how can I put it the right way? Like if you have uh you know how they say the old school people say don't change something that's been operating, like you're you're making money if you're gonna get rid of it. Don't fix it if it ain't broken. Yeah, type of thing. So like if I'm going for big numbers.

SPEAKER_02 20:21

I'm going for 50 plus billion. Got it. That's I was gonna say more, but uh let's let's just keep it there.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

How do you manage, let's say tomorrow you're gonna have 50 businesses, God willing. How are you going to manage? You know, obviously there's still cash floating around, and you have how do you the items and and how does that whole process work?

SPEAKER_02 20:39

People will always steal from you. Of course. You have to have a theft uh item line on your PL. Right? It's the goal is to mitigate that.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

10% or less.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

I would say five percent or less, but ten yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

My father-in-law always used to tell me when we used to I used to have a big scaffolding company, he said, boys, everybody's gonna steal. You just need to make sure they don't go past the percentage that you uh you dedicated towards that. There's always five to ten percent that people will find two ways to steal money. If you're God willing, your business is busy enough. This is something that you're gonna do cost of business. This is what you cost of business. You're gonna sacrifice it.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

If I'm f yeah, if I'm focused so much on one business, always stealing and stealing, I'm gonna lose my time is gonna be sucked into that. I'm focused on the big picture. Of course. But you know, to mitigate that, I have a dream team. I have very loyal guys. I can call a hundred people to show up right now, right this second. That's how loyal they are to me. Because I've given them over the last three to four years everything. And I took less because that's what I want to do. I want to empower my people. And now they're empowered. There's people in my company making millions of dollars doing this. Mo a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Wow. How are you that like you said that you're giving leads to your uh we're jumping around between your businesses, but I want to get back a little bit into the real estate because I think that's what gave you the bread and butter to extend to everywhere else. Well it's not the it's the business brokerage. Yeah. Um you said you're giving to your uh real estate agents. Are you only taking experienced real estate agents or are you taking young bucks on board to teach them and mentor them? Are you scared that they might go off and drift off to do their own thing? Good luck.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Good luck. Try, try. I mean I'd give them the best luck.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Oh, okay. So are you giving it that out of your heart, good luck type of thing? Out of my heart.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

Or good luck as like go ahead, go do you think. No, no, they they they just will come back eventually because we're just too far ahead of the game at this point. Are you taking the young bucks or like I'm taking the I've I've I tore turt m God rest his soul. My one of my best guys, Nick Martelli, just passed away in November, uh December 10th. One of my top guys spoke to him every single day, five times a day. Um he was a CEO at Rikers Island. Oh he left in February 2024. From t February 2024 to February 2025, he made $500,000 selling businesses. He knew nothing. He was just a young hustler, the best, uh one of the best I've ever seen do it. Got it. You're open-minded to taking new non-experienced I could tell right away. I don't care if you have experience. I'll tell right away. You're gonna go drive to Brooklyn right now to show this car wash for me? Yes. Oh, oh, you know the traffic. You gonna go? Yeah. I I could tell right away.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

You have an eye for it already. You can't even get it. Absolutely. I can tell in 10 seconds if they're gonna make it. Got it. Got it. You so you have how many? 400 now. How do you are you still hands-on with it? Are you the ones that are handpicking the leads, or are you giving them how are you like uh let me put it in the right way? Uh, are you any specific business you're designating to specific people, or you're just taking the leads and you're trusting uh the real estate brokers that work for you? Like, say uh you you know this guy sold previous pizzeria. Are you gonna strictly dedicate him that lead, or are you gonna experiment between all your different uh brokers? So this is how it works.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

It's a it's a chart. I'm here. Okay. I have 10 team leads right now. So we have the Wolfpack, which is they're the the best they're the best team right now. They closed over a hundred businesses in the last probably twelve to fourteen months, killing it, run by Christian Rodriguez and Christian Zarama. Big shout out. Big shout out. They're amazing, they've been with me for six years. Um and then they have sub teams under them. So they have about a hundred people on their team. I'm building teams underneath them. Every team lead is is uh a seven-figure guy.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

So who's um uh Mike Aminov, the one that's selling my business?

SPEAKER_02 24:30

He's under the wolf pack.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

Oh, okay. Oh, so he is that powerful.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

He is, he is, and he's very hungry, man. He's got what he's got I gotta talk to you about that after. We got something serious for you, but we'll talk about it after.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Yeah, yeah. I speak to him on a daily, and besides, he also has his own operating businesses. Oh yeah, he's got tanning, tanning song. He's a beast. He's what I love him. Celebrities coming to him and all that. He's one of the original OGs. And you know what?

SPEAKER_02 24:51

He's he's such a good guy, too. Besides business, he's a beast.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

Oh, do you? Yeah. So yeah, he's the one that's actually because you initially gave it to somebody else, my business, to try to but he, I guess, is no longer in that business. No. And then you provided me with Mike, which I knew him from the community, but I didn't know that he was in the real, I guess is this site thing that he likes to do.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

Now he just started because we were selling his tanning salons, now he's in it full time. He's killing it. We're gonna sell a building together for like 25 million right now. Yeah, no. So you do a lot of residential. So we started, so we have Headstone Homes. So we have Headstone Business Advisors, then we have all the teams. Is the mother board? Then we have Headstone Commercial Realty, which we have about 500 million in there. And then we have Headgone Homes that we just launched, where we're gonna take over the whole residential market too.

unknown 25:39

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

And then we have Headstone AI.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

You don't develop yet? Buildings.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

Buildings, we're not developing yet. We're just flip we're just broke. Do you uh recommend to own real estate? Do you have real estate? Yeah, I have real estate. I recommend to own real estate. It's a great hold. You know, you can make a lot of money on appreciation.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

But long term.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

Long term?

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Nothing short term.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

I like business because of the cash flow and because I can flip them. Correct. Like there's businesses where I there's a when when I was young, I got a business for 50 grand and I sold it in one day for 200 grand. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

One day. What do you think? I'm sorry, it's difficult now because everything is computerized, POS, and all that. It's it's very difficult. How how can you buy a business for 50,000 if the numbers are not there? That one there was no numbers. That was an asset sale.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

So I basically signed a lease, and then the next day I just the that day I put it on Biz by Sell on my Instagram. I have a pizzeria for sale, fully equipped, 150 grand.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

The kitchen, everything that's inside everything. I painted the picture.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

And you know what that business is worth now? $400,000. Because it was that good of a location.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

He turned it around.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

The thing is, I see this because I I do this every day. There's car washers that I sold for $800, I bought for $800, and we're selling for $2.5 million in six months.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

That's insane. That's what I'm saying. This is what he does. He buys them, he builds them, and then he sells them for double or triple.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Or I hold them. Or you hold it. Like right now, we picked up a business for $750, it's worth $5 million right now. I'm not selling it. I'm gonna build it to $10 million.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

What do you think is the most, I don't know if I should say profitable, but what business, what what line of business right now are popping?

SPEAKER_02 27:22

Popping, obviously, the express car washes, home service companies, like roofing companies, pest control companies, um, HVAC companies, those are always good. Uh but you gotta advertise. Self-storage is good. Storage is good, boring businesses, laundromats are good. The tire shop is great. No, gyms could be great.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

I think that's season. Have you seen on our new year's on New Year's? You know the new year resolution. What do people what do what do people say?

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Sign up to the gym and lose weight.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

You know who was in Times Square advertising all over? That was insane. Yeah, that was amazing.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

Accounting firms? Accounting firms. Really? Oh, yeah. I'm I'm I'm I launched an accounting firm as well. That goes hand in hand with my business.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Of course. Yeah, but you need to have a CPA partner.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

I got a CPA partner.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

Yeah, usually those guys are too greedy, they don't want partners. They like he recognizes my social media.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Correct. The value that he brings to the table, it's worth it because it's gonna take him 15, 20 years to get where he's already, and he's giving him that opportunity. Yeah, that's what he does.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Yeah, all I do is I just disperse leads. My business is dispersing leads right now, delegation. Everyone that's a leader, and you know, if you're young, you want to get to the point where you can delegate leads out. Don't worry about taking everything yourself. Empower your team, they'll make you money, they'll make money, and then you'll continue to grow exponentially.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Let me ask you another question. When did you like fully saw that social media was the thing that's really making you money?

SPEAKER_02 28:49

Three years ago, is what I said. I uh I went to lunch with um my friend Justin, this guy, Wi-Fi Money, shout out to Wi-Fi Money, um, Mark Roberts, who owns Club 11, the the building in Miami. Yeah, yeah. Nice. And I was sitting with Wi-Fi Money, and he was telling me how many followers he has and what he was doing. And Justin, my friend Aaron, Justin Aronov, huge one of my best friends. He's like, yo, you gotta get in social. Your social media is whack. He called me out. I'm like, you know what? Fuck that. I went all in, and then I just started getting leads, and I started taking the leads. I'm like, I gotta blow this up. So now, this starting this year, I went even 10 times harder. I'm a lunatic right now. From January 1st to right now, I have five million views so far on just on just my walkthrough videos for businesses.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Yeah, yeah. Because I follow you heavily after you took up on uh after I went to budget.

SPEAKER_02 29:46

I've got over a hundred listings this year. That's amazing. A hundred businesses just from Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

But you're very hands-on yourself because I I see like the videos are you know, it's not like a professional team, you're doing it yourself.

SPEAKER_02 29:58

You know how long it takes me to do a video like that? A couple of minutes. One minute.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

Yeah. One minute.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

And I it looks very it's very real, you know.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

That's what that's what sells, real sells today, not the professionalism. That's the beauty.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Because you watch those real million dollar real estates, they have like a whole team behind them. They're walking this whole thing, picture, and uh he doesn't sell as much as all I want to do is do business.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

I don't care about I'm not putting my personal shit on Instagram. I'm all about business cack, customer acquisition cost. My shit is nothing. I get so many leads, and that's the goal for everyone in business. If you own a business, if you own a business, if he owns a business, how do you monetize social media? How do you monetize your clients? It's not that hard. You gotta draw attention.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

What's the best experience you had in in so far in your business? Meaning, like, is it a c it could be a client experience, a business uh that you tried to sell?

SPEAKER_02 30:50

When I sold an $85 million hotel on Wall Street. Nice. So during right after COVID, this big family uh couldn't sell their hotel. So I knocked on the door, called door a cold call. I was like, hey, I know you want to sell your hotel. I have a buyer. Bring it on. I didn't have a buyer. I called every single hotel buyer on Long Island in New York City, 25 calls. On my 26th call, I call this one group. They own 70 hotels. They're like, Yeah, I want to see it. It's $336 uh $336 uh,000 a key.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

Um, that's a steal at that price. You know, now it's worth $700,000 a key. Showed it to them, uh, $85 million deal, brought the buyer, the seller, I was in the middle, closed the deal.

SPEAKER_00 31:36

That's amazing. That's that's a lot that he put diesel up.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

That must inspire inspired you like how do you get those leads, the the hotel uh the owners, and how do you how do you work? How do you get those leads?

SPEAKER_02 31:47

You can cocoa. You can look up any uh you could first of all pay for those services. You no I didn't at the time. Uh huh. I looked up the corporation that owned it through property. I paid five bucks to look up the corporation at Property Shark. I found out who owned the corporation. I Googled the corporation. That's what I'm saying. I looked I looked I looked on LinkedIn who the decision maker was and called the decision maker.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Uh also uh Mike, who I'm dealing with now, uh, because we're looking for the property in uh Rosalind or in Siasid, he's like, Boris, you don't need me. Uh and he's uh listen, he's not the type that will he would do it in order for him to make money. Boris, you don't need me. Here's the app, go on it, it's free. Correct. Type in the zip code, just look wherever it is. If you need me to help you at zero cost, shout out to Mike again, Aminov. If you need me to call the landlord and represent you on your behalf, I will do it without any money, without anything, just for you to help it. But Boris, you don't need me. Just tell me what place you found, and I will help you out.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Nice, nice. He's the best.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Yeah, yeah. And and listen, he is selling my other business now, but at the end of the day, he is also doing me favors for free. Of course.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

But he builds that relationship because he seems long term. Yeah. And that's what it's all about. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

And uh there are plenty of free apps where people like us could go and uh that's what he did.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

No, but we're talking about five, six years ago where the much more apps are available now than it was before.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

But there were available apps back then, I think.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Yeah, but much less.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

You know what was a thrill to me when I first started? I used to drive around on Jericho, Terran Pike, and Long Island. I used to drive around. I used to look at buildings. I want to try to sell that building. And I used to write down the addresses, and then I would go home on my laptop, and then I would look up who owned it, and I would cold call them.

unknown 33:30

That's insane.

SPEAKER_02 33:31

And then I would I would get deals like that. That's the best way. If you're a hustler, you gotta do whatever it takes.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

Straight up hustler. That's I So that was uh that give you a lot of gas, like a lot of money.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

Oh, that gave me I was like, mom, I just picked up the $65 million shopping center just from doing that. I still have a relationship with the guy today, and I have a $58 million offer on it. Wow. Just from doing that. So when did you get married? I got married in 20 uh 2017?

SPEAKER_01 33:58

2017. 2016, 2016. I have three kids. Three kids, nice, nice, very nice. You're a family man. I'm a fa I'm all about the family. So how much time do you do you dedicate? I mean, you run massive amount of things. How much time do you dedicate to the family?

SPEAKER_02 34:12

So this is my philosophy right now. Signal, and I learned this from Kevin O'Leary, who learned it from Steve Jobs. Signal to noise ratio. You have to the signal is just focusing on what you do. And the noise is everything else. The noise can be people calling you, oh, can you please talk to me? Or it can be your family, or it can be whatever you want the noise to be. Right now the noise is my family, because I'm gonna spend time with them and I'm gonna focus on what I'm doing. So right now, my schedule is I I take my kids to school every day. I love that. That's why I was late today because I'd take my daughter. Um I I come home at six o'clock, I shut my phone off, and I'm I'm home from I I'm fully aware, fully present from six yeah, from six p.m. to nine p.m. Uh-huh. They go to sleep. Not phone access, nothing. Phone is in the in the phone box. No way. And then from for three hours, it's not important. My I got we have one life to live. We have to be there for your kids. Fuck everything else. Everything else can wait. Um from at 9 p.m. I get the phone, I work till like twelve o'clock, and then I'm up at six in the morning working from like eight. When they wake up, make them breakfast, take them to school every day. On the weekends, I take off, I'm with my family. Nice, nice.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

What are you what are your if if we go back ten years now, would you change anything? What's your inspiration to yourself? What would you tell yourself? So this like what are the great question.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

And I I I love this question. What do I tell myself? Don't be afraid to fail. Just go all out. You have I tell myself, think about life like you're not gonna live tomorrow. One of my best friends, my one of my just passed away. Who would have known that he would have passed away? Right? You just never know what's gonna happen. So live every day like it's your last day. Don't be afraid to fail. Set up your family, put a trust together, do everything the right way. You never know what's gonna happen, and just be the best person you can be and be an honest person, have integrity, and they'll always come back to you.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

How do you feel about school?

SPEAKER_02 36:12

School? Listen, I uh if I could, I would pull my kids out. I as long as my kids know how to read and write, I I want them to be socialized, but you know, that's the only good thing, good thing about school is that they're so they they could spend time with other kids. But I don't see any big value in it right now, unless you're a doctor or a lawyer. Would you bring your kids into your business? They're already in my business. So on paper and because obviously tax reasons, you want them. Of course.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

What's your legacy? What are you planning to do? What's what are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 36:42

It's a crazy thing, and people are gonna probably the comments are gonna be nuts if I say it really. But I want to be a trillionaire.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

Amen. You're gonna be there. And I would be happy to say that Mr. Mike was on our podcast.

SPEAKER_02 36:55

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 36:58

I do a lot of personal development books.

SPEAKER_01 37:00

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

Your own personal development? I'm writing a book, but I but I I read that's all I read is personal development. Rich and You Thinking Girl Rich is a good book that I love. Uh-huh. Um my son just read that. What else? The book by uh Gary Keller, um, the real estate book. That was a that's a great book that he came out with. He's the owner, Keller Williams. Nice, nice. I just read that.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

So if my son is interested to come work in your firm, you'll be able to guide him, shadow him, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_02 37:24

I'll bring him into my mentorship program. I have a mentorship program. We meet on Long Island once a week, and we're now doing it in the bulk of Florida, and I'm changing lives.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

Nice. Maybe this summer, I'm bringing 17. He's very hungry. It's the best thing for him. I hear you. I hear you. I love it. I'm gonna ask you what you read, or you I guess you're gonna do this. Just always asked. No, if I read books.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

I don't read like dreamy books. Um, like I said, even though our podcast is all about it's uh autobiography. We love seeing uh people like you develop themselves to something massive and and very influential. So I ask this question all the time from all our um guests regarding the books. I feel like today you don't even need to read, you just need to listen and open your ears. Yeah, right. So that's why we constantly ask that question. So you answered your question, and the last currently, right now, I'm in the process of finishing the book called Friendly Fire, and everybody can look that up. It's about a general uh from Israel who is opening up his eyes from both points of views. I'm still not done, so I can't really tell you. And the book before that that I read is the story of my life about a girl from Iraq who's in the United States, but went through that whole struggle and got out, and she's experienced both sides. I like those type of struggling books to see where people are just pushing themselves to be uh successful, even if you're just becoming a mother or just a father. Resilience. Yes. So I really love those books. But last questions, anything you want to tell to the viewers, any inspirational words, anything that will inspire anybody from any age. Because what I realize now in our society, a lot of people are changing businesses, their mind, even if you're at 50 or 40 years old, and they're throwing something that they did 40 years ago, just like your father said, worked in the dealership and then you took him out. He's probably wasn't his early 50s. And it must have been very scary for a person who still has to maintain the family uh values and uh support the family. Any inspirational, even though you're very young, but you dragged, and it's very um it's not a lot that happens. The younger generation carry that responsibility of taking their parents on and educating them on something else. So any inspirational words that you want to just give a shout out to any type of age of people that are wanting to get into real estate because looking and hungry.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

Yeah, looking and hungry. Listen, number one, anything is possible. Whatever they tell you you can't do, go ten times harder and do it. Anything is possible if you believe in it. Number two, be different. Don't do what everyone else does. That's the number one thing. Everyone's oh Mike, you can't play basketball, you can't do this, you can't do that. Fuck that. You can do whatever you put your mind to. You can do what if another re if another person can do it, you can do it. So work smarter. Don't be afraid to fail. Failing is good. It's okay. Don't look at it as a failure. Look at it as a lesson. Just get better from it. That's the number one thing I would say. And just go after it, guys. Right now, go after it. It's the land of opportunity. There's a lot of transfer of wealth going on. Put yourself in the middle. When I started, I was like, how do I make the most amount of money? I gotta sell real estate. I gotta sell millions of dollars of things. That's real estate. Now it's businesses. I'm putting myself in the middle. You know, there's just so much opportunity out there. Don't be afraid to fail.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

One more question. I forgot to ask before we were so excited. There was this whole myth before Mandami got elected, and people are like two and a half thousand people are moving out to other cities, their businesses are gonna collapse. What's your opinion on that? Because you don't be scared.

SPEAKER_02 41:08

Take advantage. When the stock market dips, what do you do? You buy. When the real estate market dips, what do you do? You buy. Right now, Mandani's in, who knows what the hell is gonna happen. But it's a good buying time. Everyone's like, oh, you he's gonna ruin the city. It might be a good buying time. Always think positive. Don't think negative. If you think negative, you're not gonna do shit.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Think positive. As a real estate uh agent, there are families that only uh own one business and that one specific business, they might not have these savings to buy other businesses and stuff like that. But their business, the little piece of business that they have, listen, there's halal stands that are making 20 G's a month, standing on the corners and and other small pizzarias. And this is the only business that supports one or two families. Brothers are owning the same thing. And what do you recommend? You gotta innovate.

SPEAKER_02 41:54

You gotta innovate. If if if they're gonna shut you down, you gotta do other things, you know. Maybe do a new delivery service, maybe go on social media. You gotta change your you gotta change right now. If you don't change, you're not gonna do well. You gotta always change. You gotta fail, you gotta get better. You're gonna have to put more work in. You gotta tell your wives, listen, I'm you gotta sacrifice a little more. I'm gonna be home later at night.

SPEAKER_00 42:16

You gotta really one more question. I know he has to go, I'm sorry. One more question. I saw that picture with you with our previous uh mayor, who's been very good to the Jews and been very good to the to overall any race that's in the five boroughs. He's been very to the blacks, and I know that's because maybe he was a police chief, a police officer before that, and all that. What was that picture about where you guys were sitting down? I just want to know a little scoop in about that.

SPEAKER_02 42:39

That's a great that's actually a great content piece. So I went to dinner with Mr. Wonderful, Eric Adams, and Pomp, and my friend Justin. And uh basically Mr. Wonderful wanted to speak to Mayor Adams and you know understand where he was at with everything before he before he uh read before he left. So I s I witnessed that firsthand when Mr. Wonderful was was speaking to Mayor Adams to see if he would, you know, if he can, you know, maybe continue and and see if he could beat Mandai. But at that point he was just was clocked out. But it was just a great meeting to be at. Was he planning to invest anything with you? The the mayor. The mayor? No, obviously. I was listening I was telling him, like, do you uh I'll bring you on my he went on my company call. I brought him on my company call, the mayor. I'm like, you know, he he needed some for uh being the governor or anything like that, or he's done. I think he's done, but he is a great guy, and I think he would be a great business broker. And I told him that. There's a lot of people. If you know a lot of people, you could be an amazing business broker. Of course.

SPEAKER_00 43:39

Mike, I appreciated you. Uh this was my that was phenomenal. It was very educating, and um just thank you for reaching out. And I reached out to you, and I had the opportunity to have you on the show. I think you're one of the most youngest and smart people I've ever met, and I was very excited to interview.

SPEAKER_02 43:55

So thank you so much. I had a great time here. You guys are gentlemen, and let's go viral. This one's gonna go viral. Let's do this. Let's do it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.