Cashing Out with VTG

From Candy Sales to Commercial Real Estate — Meet Vincent Gebbia & Steven Bezmen

• Vincent Gebbia • Season 1 • Episode 1

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In the debut episode of Cashing Out with VTG, hosts Vincent Gebbia and Steven Bezmen sit down with Olivia Star, live on 103.9, to talk about building, buying, and selling businesses.

Vince traces his path from selling candy out of a Tommy Hilfiger bag in seventh grade to becoming President of HedgeStone Commercial Realty and the HedgeStone Franchise Division, founder of VTG Business Advisory (Value the Goals), and owner of Big Cat Electric Bikes. Along the way, he and Steve — a top broker licensed in New York and Florida — break down what a business broker actually does, how they valued a local HVAC company at $8M, and the story behind their $2.4M sale of Finley's in Huntington.

The conversation digs into how commercial real estate differs from residential, why the SBA loves franchises, how VTG helps owners unlock the value of their business, and what it takes to franchise and scale a proven concept. Whether you're looking to buy a business, sell one, invest in commercial real estate, or explore franchising, this episode is your inside look at how deals really get done.

Want a free valuation? Visit vtgbusinessadvisors.com and meet "AI Vince."
🌐 https://vtgbusinessadvisors.com/

Cashing Out with VTG airs every Wednesday at 5:30 on 103.9.
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Welcome And Who We Are

SPEAKER_01

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Cashing Out with VTG. This is Olivia Starr coming to you live from 103.9. I have the pleasure of sitting with two very, very distinguished gentlemen. The first today is Mr. Vincent Jebia. Gebia, what are we calling you these days, buddy?

SPEAKER_02

Tomato, tomato, whatever you like, you know. We'll do uh we'll do we'll do if my grandfather was here, it'd be Jebia. If he's not here, it's Gebia. So Vince Gebia. And thank you for that lovely introduction. And you look great, Olivia Starr.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much. We have a lot more to go. We are also sitting here with a very handsome uh Mr. Steven Besman.

SPEAKER_02

Besman.

SPEAKER_01

Do you want to maybe tell us a little bit about this uh camaraderie you guys got going on?

SPEAKER_02

Uh Steve's my buddy. We we do a lot of work together, a commercial uh real estate, a business brokerage, a lot of advisory. This guy's a uh top broker in uh New York, also licensed in Florida. So he is uh he's official in all in always and in in in all always and always he's he's official.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you for the five. In always. I love it. Well, I just want to shoot a quick shout out. The portion of today's show is brought to you by webgrowth.io. If your business isn't showing up online, you're missing customers from SEO and GEO to Google and meta advertising. Webgrowth.io helps businesses grow. Visit them today. Um, I would like to And by the way, Webgrowth, I love WebGrowth.

SPEAKER_02

I use them, they're my boys, they're gonna be.

SPEAKER_01

Boys and girls, yes. Okay. So Vince.

SPEAKER_02

Sorry.

SPEAKER_01

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_02

Uh, where would you like me to start?

SPEAKER_01

I would like to know how. Wait, I wrote something and you're gonna love it.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. So um I think Alexei, you might have to like go back a little bit.

SPEAKER_01

Here we go. Oh, yes, we have visitors today, too.

SPEAKER_02

So we have a little, a little, uh, we have a little crowd, we got the with the room with us. Yes, we do. The booth.

SPEAKER_01

We are sitting down with someone whose career spans manufacturing, real estate, business advisory, and franchising, a genuine, multi-hyphenate entrepreneur. Did you like that?

SPEAKER_02

Who's that guy?

SPEAKER_01

I wrote that briefly.

SPEAKER_02

I love it.

SPEAKER_01

I love it. All right, so tell me, how did you get started? There are so many different topics we're gonna talk about today. You are the president of Hedgstone Commercial Real Estate. Yes. You are the president of Hedgehise Division, you are the owner of Big Cat Electric Bikes. I am, and you are the founder of VTG Business Advisory. Wow. Now I know a lot

Early Hustles And Entrepreneur Mindset

SPEAKER_01

of people probably think VTG is probably your initials, but it is value the goals.

SPEAKER_02

Shout out Jason Hartman, that's a beautiful thing. So just to go back a little bit, I was always a serial entrepreneur. So I would say I'm a local guy from Holbrook, went to seechum, and um in seventh grade is my first kind of money-making experience where at back then it was called Price Club. It wasn't Costco, so you know, then it was uh Price Club. And my mom, we have I have four brothers, so we have five boys, big family. I grew up on bunk beds, and my mom would buy a lot of candy. So I would bring the candy to school and I would start selling the candy. And I had a Tommy Hill figure bag, it was white and blue and red, it was so cool, and I loaded it up with candy, and I'd always give the girls like free blow pops and everything else, so just to try and be cool.

SPEAKER_01

I'm sure you did.

SPEAKER_02

So I would sell the candy, and then I used to sell so much candy, and I used to make so much money. I started to wholesale bags to my friends and my little brother, who's probably listening, shout out Thomas. And he's a year younger than me, so he'd be in sixth grade. So when I graduated to eighth grade, he then had come up to seven.

SPEAKER_01

He took over the family business.

SPEAKER_02

Well, it was a we we took over, and then the school got so frustrated with the amount of sales that we were selling for the candy, they contacted my mom and said, This guy is taking away from the vending business in our school, and he cannot do it anymore. Amazing. Yeah, so it was a really cool experience. And I just started like me in uh really uh being enterprising, and from there, I always just tried to figure out a way to to grow and then fast forward a little bit. My uh my best friend uh Chris Chiorenzo, we grew up together, and we used to just say, We're gonna be neighbors, we're gonna be rich, how do we do it? Uh his family owned the Lockfield Manor in East Northport, and um he was very successful. I was not very successful.

SPEAKER_01

So what are you talking about?

SPEAKER_02

Well, I wasn't, I was like in bunk beds, it was like you know, government cheese. I know, but we had government cheese.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, but look at where you are now, a full-blown entrepreneur, right? So I have we have Steve sitting here.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you're bringing me back, you're bringing me back.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, okay. And he we have plenty of more shows to talk about your childhood and other issues you might have. And you know, we're gonna do a dating show on one of these, I'm sure, because I got ladies to set you guys up with. Isn't it great? How you can help. And that's the way we make Steve so uncomfortable that we pivot to let's talk about commercial real estate, Steve.

SPEAKER_00

Tell me about how Vincent and me can help uh the listeners.

SPEAKER_01

That was one of the questions

Learning Deals And Building Credibility

SPEAKER_01

I wanted to ask you guys. Sorry, listeners. Sorry, listeners, sorry for making it personal. So when you're doing commercial real estate, it's a totally different animal from residential. So, what makes you guys experts in reading a deal, spotting the value, you know, uh spotting the risk, knowing the area? Like, fill me in on how we we can learn from you in that respect.

SPEAKER_02

Steven, you want to take that? No? All right, let me let me start from a previous experience, right? So I got my real estate license when I was 21, and I uh was licensed with Zier Commercial Real Estate. Wasn't uh in residential, but it was Zier locally. And uh at that time, um I had bought my first two family, which was my first transaction at 21 um in Patch Hog Village, which is uh shout out to Patch Hog, and still actually just sold that property last week. But that started my investment career. Thank you. That started my investment career in real in commercial real estate, and then my goal was to buy a house every single year, and then I started doing more transactions, and so being at like 21, being very young and you know, and learning and being very, very green, I wanted to figure it out. So I had some mentors, uh, older gentlemen that were you know very successful in the business that are still in the business today. And they really taught me so much about transactions, about uh selling pro uh properties, land, uh doing commercial deals, unlocking value. And when you're so young and super green, you just you pick it up. You just jump in, right? Yeah, you pick it up. You fail forward, you figure it out. And then so I started really learning and evaluating and becoming a student of the game, really becoming like let me learn, like just got so entrenched in personal development, uh, real estate investing. Um, Brian Tracy, which uh was a book that I had read, it said uh um Becoming Rich in America. It was a great tape series at the time there was tapes. Now there's no more tapes, but you know, it was a great and then I learned about importing, exporting, I learned about uh real estate investing, I learned about licensing. So it was just a phenomenal time

A Real Commercial Sale Breakdown

SPEAKER_02

for me at that age to continue to grow.

SPEAKER_01

And uh I want to fast forward.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, fast forward.

SPEAKER_01

We're gonna fast forward a little. I saw on Traded, you and Steven had a great sale earlier this year. So, Steve, tell us a little bit about what was posted on Traded. I don't remember, was it 2.3 million that you guys sold? 3.2 million?

SPEAKER_00

2.4.

SPEAKER_01

2.4. There you go. Winning numbers.

SPEAKER_00

Finlay's restaurant in uh Huntington. We are actually we just came had a listing appointment today for the couple buildings down for somebody that wants to sell a medical building that saw uh that we sold at Finlays and reached out. Um so we went on a listing appointment today, need to follow up. But that was uh yeah, something that had yeah, word of mouth. They they just I think he saw something online that we sold it, reached out, and then we got the opportunity. I followed up with the talk to him a couple months ago. He called me about two days ago saying, Yeah, I'm ready to sell. And we went there this morning and you locked it up. Not yeah, we we gotta underwrite it a little bit.

SPEAKER_01

I'm not worried about you.

SPEAKER_00

His price expectations a little high. Everybody's price expectations is high. But we'll see. I gotta tell you, we gotta go over it. That's okay.

SPEAKER_01

So we should probably mention that the referral business is good for you guys too.

SPEAKER_00

The the Finley's deal was an interesting deal. Um we business found the buyer that had a another restaurant location, and they got a loan through the SBA, which was a challenge, but we we got it done. We got it done and got it to the finish line.

SPEAKER_02

We got a lot of stuff we're gonna cover. You know, and you bring up a great point, and thank you for bringing us all back together because you're amazing at what you do, Olivia Starr. So it's great though, because what we do is we're able to give valuations, right? We're able to give you valuation on your business, valuations on your real estate, commercial real estate. We're able to advise you if you want to open a franchise. We have a dedicated in-house and uh SBA lender, so we get a lot of deals approved so that we could just kind of figure out how to maneuver and get things done. So if anybody's out there that's actually looking to, you know, buy a business or sell a business or invest in commercial real estate or maybe have a piece of commercial real estate that you don't know what it's worth, reach out, go to VTT. Or land, land or land development, all anything, commercial investment.

SPEAKER_01

Didn't you just sell land in Florida?

SPEAKER_02

Car wash. Sold car wash.

SPEAKER_01

All right. Well, we are gonna cover a couple more topics as soon as we return. If anyone's got any questions and wants to give us a call, the number is 631-451-1039. Thank you for listening. We'll see you soon.

SPEAKER_02

And by the way, this is a great song, Taking Care of Business. That's it. And if you want a free evaluation, go to AI Vince. You're gonna go to VTG BusinessAdvisors.com. That's right. And you get a free evaluation. Free. Free. AI Vince, you can meet him. He's a super cute guy on there. Absolutely. And it's regarding franchises, commercial, real estate, business, and um anything else that you need a valuation on, we can we can help and assist you. Mental health. Uh, not for me personally. Uh this program

Electric Bikes And Florida Business Moves

SPEAKER_02

is not that, but thank you.

SPEAKER_01

All right. If you have a good and we're back. I heard somebody likes the music.

SPEAKER_02

I do. It's a this is a great song.

SPEAKER_01

It gets you going.

SPEAKER_02

You know, taking care of business. Well we do every day, seven days a week. Well, not seven, but six.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you guys do seven days a week.

SPEAKER_02

I do. It's after church.

SPEAKER_01

All right, the phone needs to ring 631-451-1039. And you know what? If it doesn't, it's okay because we're in good company.

SPEAKER_02

My mom is supposed to call.

SPEAKER_01

We're having a good time. This wonderful portion of our segment is sponsored by Big Cat Electric Bikes, located in Patchog on Academy. And I feel like I know the guy who owns it. Do you know him?

SPEAKER_02

I he's a good-looking dude that uh sells a lot of electric bikes on bigcatbikes.com. That's right. If you need any kind of electric bike, sales service parts. Uh we service all of Long Island electric bikes. We've been in business 13 years.

SPEAKER_01

So God bless. Good for you. Steve, do you ride electric bikes?

SPEAKER_02

I do, yes, I have one. You have one? What type do you what kind of bike do you have?

SPEAKER_00

What's the name of it? Berea. From where? Big Cat. There you go. But it folds up and goes in your car. You can take it.

SPEAKER_01

That's what we love.

SPEAKER_00

Portable. Take it different places, take it. Takes it to Fire Island.

SPEAKER_01

Do you use, do you, do you rent when you go to Florida too? Because he's got a place in Florida, right? Ben?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. We have a we have a showroom. Uh in Lauderdale by the Sea on Commercial Boulevard, right next door to Benny Hannes. Oh. Yeah. So you like Benny Hannes. Yeah, me too. We do a lot, we do a lot of rentals. Steve and I uh spend a lot of time um business wise over in uh in Fort Lauderdale.

SPEAKER_01

So you guys are like snowbirds. Uh you leave, you leave in October, right? Around roundabout. Yeah. You go to Florida, you live your best life. We're here at the airport, right? Right?

SPEAKER_02

We're at Ice Lip Airport. So two hours from here, we bounce to Florida, we bounce back. That's it. Super easy. I got a place there, I got business there.

SPEAKER_01

So you can fly in for a show and then just circle back in the same day. This is this it doesn't get any better than this.

SPEAKER_02

Steve just put a contract uh in Melbourne. Uh it's car wash, beautiful car wash. We sell car washes, by the way.

SPEAKER_01

High five. High five on that. If you want to buy a car wash or sell one, I have a question because we we keep talking, and I feel like we're talking in layers, and we really need to explain to people exactly

Business Brokerage Explained Simply

SPEAKER_01

what we do. So you sell commercial real estate, you and Steven both. Yeah, you also sell businesses. Yes. So that's the part that I would like to dive into now because I think a lot of people don't really understand that that's a viable profession. Yeah. People aren't really getting it. This is something new. So I want you guys to tell me, like I'm five years old, what is a business broker and how does it work?

SPEAKER_02

Um, so what a business broker is, I'm gonna give you a real life scenario, okay? I got a phone call yesterday from a childhood friend. He built a company, he's a local guy, he's got an HVAC company. Uh, and if you go on social media, everything you know, everything is like, hey, it's a boring business. Plumbing, HVAC, uh, laundromat, uh, you know, all these different types of businesses that are gonna be essentially AI, you know, proof. So he reached out to me, he said, Hey, I haven't smoking in 25 years. I know you're doing business brokerage. I said, Oh, cool. How's your business doing? He's like, Oh, we're doing 10 million a year. I got 50 employees, I got 24 trucks, I got a partner, my partner's 68. I'm getting older, I'm 57, and uh I don't even know what my business is worth. I don't know what to do. I said, Well, let's unlock the value. Uh, we do a valuation for you. Um, it's based on his NOI, which is his net operating income. Um, it's based on his PL and his tax returns. We put it together a valuation for him around um 8 million. And now we're gonna list that business. If you've got 8 million, reach out to me for a great HAC company. But you know, this is like unlocking value, and we're retiring people. We are we're selling the American dream, right? Um, people want to buy a business, they want to get into business, they want to exit a business, and they don't know how to do it. And that's what Steve and I do. We advise you on that, and um, we're the best at what we do. And um, I say that uh very, very uh arrogantly.

SPEAKER_01

I I can tell. Um Steve, any business too small to sell.

SPEAKER_00

No, we deal with all price ranges across the country. We have about 350 business brokers across the country. We're able to handle things in other states. We partner up with the people, we we uh send it as a referral, but we'll we'll either go over how we can help them personally or can point them in the right direction. But yeah, no business too small.

SPEAKER_01

I mean most unusual business you guys have sold.

SPEAKER_02

Um your daughter's here, so I like I don't want to uh you know, it's like there was like a a weird business, but you know, we sell anything. We read between the lines, you know, meaning like there's like well it was uh you know uh I don't want to say X-rated business, but it's uh you know, there was like a strip club, right? Oh yeah. So we had a big strip club in Miami, right? And that was an $11 million deal, uh, you know, with with real estate. So there is uh, you know, we sell everything from literally the local pizza place to I'm selling right now a self-storage uh portfolio.

SPEAKER_01

There you go.

SPEAKER_02

So I mean everything in between.

SPEAKER_01

That club, was it a franchise? Did you guys franchise it before you sold it? Ha ha ha.

SPEAKER_02

I'm not sure. I don't understand. You don't speak English.

SPEAKER_01

I'm opening the door for you to start telling us about how we can get involved in franchises because from what I understand, this is the next wave. Yeah. People want to buy something with a brand

Franchises And SBA Funding Basics

SPEAKER_01

that has a good name, that has a good representation. So explain how we could get involved in a franchise type operation.

SPEAKER_02

You know, so SBA, which is a government funding, uh, they just up their uh funding to 10 million. And SBA loves, absolutely loves franchises because there's guardrails, there's systems in place, there's SOP, there's proven track records, there's proven revenue. So when you have all of those guardrails, it's much more likely or less to fail than maybe you know a traditional business that you start up where you know the fail rate is massive, uh, unless you're buying a second or third generation business. But franchises are a phenomenal business. Um today we signed up a new self-storage franchise that's uh called Storage Authority around the country. Yeah, so we're just working with them. Um but we have over 200 brands of franchises that we do sell around the country, and you could go to VTG uh businessadvisors and dot com and and see all the different things that we do sell and advise on.

SPEAKER_01

That's great. So aside from Franch's And one last thing.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, sir. If you have an existing business, like so there's a great bagel shop, and they've got seven locations. We are now franchising that bagel shop and we will now multiply that around the country, uh, and our advisors will sell that around the country.

SPEAKER_01

So So my my assumption is uh Dan Myers, the bagel king, is the one who's working that deal with that. Absolutely. There you go. Yeah, shout out to Dan.

SPEAKER_02

Dan, we love you, Dan.

SPEAKER_01

All right. So if if let's just say I have a concept and I want to develop it, is that something that you guys can help me do?

SPEAKER_02

Um yeah, absolutely. Steven is working on a local concept here with like a pokey bowl kind of location. Oh, great. Um, yeah, they've got seven locations and they want to, you know, continue to scale their business. But if you just have a if you don't have a proven model where you don't have something you could see, touch and feel with real revenue, then it's gonna be much harder. Like I'm advising right now in a company that is a um like air uh like a place where they you know go in bouncy air and everything else. Like it's like a jumping.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. Like a bounce house. Yeah, bounce house, right?

SPEAKER_02

But they don't have a location yet. It's an idea, it's an AI idea that they're trying to franchise. So way harder uphill. But if you got a phenomenal pizza place that you want to brand, you got a you know, you have a bagel place that you want to brand and scale, you have an electric bicycle store that you want to brand and scale. Absolutely, you could do it.

SPEAKER_01

There you go. I heard we're we're supposed to uh hear about some more big cats that are gonna be popping up across Long Island, which is very exciting for those of us that

How VTG Was Built And Closing

SPEAKER_01

love riding bicycles. Um you keep mentioning VTG business advisors.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

Great group, yeah, great people, great brokers. Tell me a little bit about how VTG came to be.

SPEAKER_02

That um we had started uh I had started originally with Element Commercial. I was one of the top agents there with Steven. And um from there I started to uh work uh business brokerage with Hedgehog. And from there, you know, Hedgeh became um, you know, kind of like a division. Uh VTG became a division under Hedgehog. I had Steve and I had left uh Element Commercial and then we went and created uh VTG Business Advisors where you know there's there's really nobody that does business brokerage as well as commercial real estate under one roof and franchise under one roof.

SPEAKER_01

So we created You are the master of all trades.

SPEAKER_02

Right?

SPEAKER_01

I sounds like that's what we found.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I am so glad I got to hang out with you guys today. Every Wednesday at 5 30. You're gonna find Vince Jebia or Vince Gebia. Steve Besman and Steve Besman on the mic. Olivia Starr. Olivia Starr, cashing out with VTG every Wednesday at 5 30 on 103.9. And thank you again to our sponsor, webgrowth.io. Visit them today for any of your online needs.

SPEAKER_02

And if you want to buy a business, sell a business, commercial real estate franchise, reach out to me, reach out to Steve, Vince Gebia, and we'll talk to you next week. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

VTG BusinessAdvisors.com. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00

If you ever get annoyed, go get me up. I love to work it now.