WS1690 Brothers in Business: From Owning CPG Companies to Investing in Real Estate

Embark on a captivating journey as two brothers share their inspiring story, transitioning from owning CPG companies to venturing into real estate investing. Discover their triumphs, challenges, and strategic insights as they navigate the competitive worlds of consumer goods and property investments. Gain valuable knowledge and motivation from their entrepreneurial experiences, making this podcast a must-listen for aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned investors alike. Join us for "Brothers in Business: CPG to Real Estate."

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Transcript

Mark Aleks: [00:00:00] we started studying, invest in listen to people like Warren Buffet. And it really like brought us back to , we need to build a foundation of investments along with our business as a financial freedom retirement plan.

And the more we like looked at things. It was hard to turn away from real estate because of the cash flow

Deana Berg: Welcome to your daily real estate syndication show. This is Dina Berg, your host today. I have the privilege of interviewing two brothers who do business life investments, a lot of things together, and in such a way that it's inspiring. Mark and James, Alex, brothers and founders of Zah moved to Colorado in 2005 and started their company in oh eight.

Inspired by Colorado lifestyle of working hard and playing from the hiking and skiing and workouts and social drinks, they made a recovery chewable for rehydration and replenishment with a focus on financial freedom and passive cash flow.

They discovered real estate syndications and made their first investment back in 2018. Since then, Mark and James have been motivated to continually add syndication investments to their growing portfolio as their business also grows. I think you'll be encouraged by today's interview and the way that they interact and operate together as family, also as business partners.

So join me today. 

Mark, Alex, James, Alex, thank you guys for being on the show today. Glad you're here. 

Mark Aleks: Welcome. Thank you. We're excited to be here. 

Deana Berg: Not often. I get an inter interview, a pair of brothers that are doing business together, that are doing real estate investment together.

That actually still like each other. So this is gonna be a great interview. Why don't we start out with a question of who are you, how did you get to where you were? And then what I love about your story, and we can get into that, [00:02:00] is how your business that you're, full-time, full steam ahead, running overlaps with real estate syndication.

So, Why don't you just take a moment and just tell us who you are, where you have come from, and anything about your family that's relevant, and then we'll talk about your business. 

James Aleks: Awesome. Well, I'm James and Mark is down there or up there, wherever it is. So, we're brothers. We grew up on the East coast Massachusetts.

And uh, we are from Mass and we grew up in a family that was in a food business. And we have a father that was heavily induced into the whole food industry and actually the natural food industry before it became the natural food industry. Hmm. And so, that's kind of a little bit of our background.

We were young. Young guys in high school back in the day, and we ironically worked at a carwash, my brother and I, it was our first job that we ever got. And from that we actually figured out a lot of the cars that were coming through the carwash needed their cars fully detailed. So then we started a little business down the road at our grandfather's warehouse, and we started detailing cars and getting those customers from the carwash until one day the carwash told us we can't.

We're not allowed to pitch our business anymore because they were gonna start detailing cars and stuff like that. And another funny thing about the car wash, my brother and I, we were so good at selling that they restructured the whole commission structure because we were making so much money within this carwash area.

So we kind of come from the business world. That's how our family is, and we like to refer to. On our father's side. He was, he always refers it to the food mafia. That's really where we, our foundation came from. And then as years went on. I think we both did a work study, so we literally left [00:04:00] school to go work at this car wash.

It was like the coolest thing to do back in the day. And so that kind of stemmed our area. I got into beverages a lot of different beverages. I was one of the first guys. With Monster Energy drinks back in 2000, 2001 to bring them out into the market in New England. Um, and so, I was in college.

I started off going into college. I got into the Isenberg Business School of Management. Mark followed me. Mark is a very, very smart self-taught my brother down there on the screen. He's extremely genius when it comes to banking and finances and numbers. He's really been the foundation to several of the companies that we started.

He called me up one day and goes, Hey, hey, Jim. I don't know if I want to continue this school thing anymore. And, uh, he was going kind of into a technical college cuz the technical college could get you into a bigger university. And he went back and forth with their placement test back in that day.

He was like, You guys are scamming me on this test. Like he tested me blow and he challenged the whole damn thing. And I was loving it. I was like, what happened? Mark? Tell, tell him what was 

Mark Aleks: up. Yeah, I I had to make them give, well I told him they need to gimme the test again. Cause I'm like, this isn't right.

I'm actually pretty good at math and it's saying I failed and so they let me retake it and get in, but they were gonna put me back. To take like, a high school level type of math class. I'm like, I'm pretty sure I'm advanced higher than this. Yeah, I think we found a glitch.

Did you win the argument? Yeah. 

James Aleks: Yeah, he won. I think we found a glitch though, in that. Process of getting into a college is that they are trying to make as much money from you as possible. It was a money game, so, I was actually going in and I was paying for my college with cash, [00:06:00] watts of cash. I would just drop it in.

And from the auto detailing? Yeah, from the auto detail. I know some other stuff we were doing. But yeah, it was a great experience. We learned a lot. I helped launch a bunch of different beverages around that time as well. And then that was when the kickoff of our first, uh, or our second company that Mark and I started, which was a distribution company in the skincare industry.

And my big pitch was, I'm 55 years old, like, look at this. This stuff is working. 

Mark Aleks: And the, our company

James Aleks: Fountain and Fountain of Youth was the name of Jim Ari 

Mark Aleks: Looks. Younger than he is. Yeah, I already, that's still my pitch. Yeah. 

James Aleks: So, yeah, I was knocking on doors. Mark was handling a lot of the operations, the cash flow, the money, all like the, the, basically the foundation of the business. And so I was going into Boston, knocking on doors, re figuring out I could get a ticket.

Car ticket was cheaper than literally parking the damn car for the day. Oh my gosh. Okay. Yeah, gimme on the ticket. Let's figure, I don't even care. And then we expanded that business. We actually hired sub-distributors. So we were selling, uh, one off like, or not one off, but not lines of skincare, but like one product.

Like our first product was Collagen rx. I don't even know if they're still in business. And we were selling it to every spa we were making, like almost. I mean, we were making a killing on our end, and then the spas were making a killing on their end. By the time it was sold to the consumer, it was around 90 to $110 a bottle.

Um, but it really, it helped with amazing stuff and we got into machinery and stuff like that. So it was like a great experience and. Part of our life journey. We expanded, actually we had a [00:08:00] distributor all the way down in Clearwater, Florida back in the day. , we were really hustle bustling.

And then in 2004 after all that with, I was doing beverages prior to that, like I said, with a Monster and San Peg, Grano and Nantucket Nectar Welch's juices, like a lot of major, major brands. And then I also did Slush Puppy. That was a fascinating time working with Dr. Pepper. Seven up. But then when we.

2004, a good friend of ours from Colorado called us up and he was like, Hey, why don't you come live on my, on the lake in Colorado? And we're like, lake, we heard there's no water out there. And so he's like, you can live with us. What lake was it? A Lo Hop Beach on West 63rd Avenue, federal Boulevard. Oh my gosh.

Okay. It's a beautiful area, but it was behind the no motel, motel. Little sketch part of Denver. And so Mark, myself and my girlfriend at the time, we jumped in one car and packed this one car and drove all across country from May at the end of June, June 25th, we landed in Colorado. So it was like in a month's time.

This was back in 2005. And then we landed in Colorado. We lived at this house for a whole summer. Uh, we did various types of things for work and then we thought we were gonna become real estate investors. And so that was the start of our investment experience. And I'm gonna let Mark talk about that because.

We got into investments and, uh, we learned a lot of, it wasn't like it was butterflies and rainbows by any means, 

Mark Aleks: . So, , in 2008 is actually when we started our company Zakk, which was really inspired by. The lifestyle in Colorado from, you can hike, you can ski, people are really active, [00:10:00] outgoing, work hard, play hard type of lifestyle, and all that. From just having drinks to recovery from exercise, we basically created a product.

A recovery chewable supplement to help you rehydrate and replenish from any of those kinds of activities. So that start, we were working full-time jobs and starting that back in 2008, and so it's been a long journey of growing that business to take us. To today where we have the ability to invest in real estate.

But if you step back a little before that, what Jim was mentioned in this, around 2005, we got into single family homes and we had. A couple homes each, but that all, we couldn't have timed the market like any worse, and we couldn't have got, involved with like worse people too. So bad investments, bad market, bad people, and those all went, belly up.

So that taught us like a lot of lessons, which really is what got us really interested in ations around. 2018 is like, that's when we made our first investment syndication Investment. Syndication investment. Yeah. I just 

Deana Berg: wanna pause right here and say, I think where you guys launched. It could potentially be where a lot of folks are like, I'm done with this.

This is not for me. And I love the fact that you were resilient. I love the fact that you allowed yourselves to get your teeth kicked in and you said, let's keep going. There's something here, and I'm sure there's listeners who are at various levels of their investment journey. I mean, most, in most investors that come to syndication, not all of them, but most of them start in single family homes and they're thinking, there's gotta be more.

I have to be able to scale. So you're at a bit of a turning point and you're saying, Did you have a conversation of like, are we gonna keep doing this or not? [00:12:00] Or was that ever even a conversation? And then how did you decide to keep going after recovering from these 

Mark Aleks: experiences? Well, I don't think, we actually didn't even wanna touch real estate after that happened.

And it turned into a great, great market between what. 2008 and 2015. Right. To like buy and we did not wanna touch anything. Um, but we started really in like studying, invest in listen to people like Warren Buffet. And it really like brought us back to like, we need to build a foundation of investments along with our business as like a financial freedom retirement plan.

And the more we like looked at things. It was just like, you know, it's hard to turn away from real estate because of the cash flow and but we really turned back because it, we, we knew we just did it the way and, if there's people doing it, like doing well in real estate, then we are like, we're pretty sure we just made, the wrong mistakes.

So that's kind of what, it was the Sears things of that like slowly brought us back to real estate. 

Deana Berg: You came to grips was with like, it's not you. It's me. Yes. Okay. But you had been an exception. It was our 

James Aleks: mindset. It was our inexperience, it was our, lack of knowledge per se, that. Kept us kind of questionable on the outskirts, but we kept getting drawn back in and, meeting a lot of different people in that area.

And I, I'll never forget the one thing that got me, and I think it was Grant Cardone that said More doors, less risk. And then I talked to one of my really good friends who's a big guy within the insurance and financial industry, sets up trust and all that for very wealthy families. He said to me, I sent him over some of the stuff that we were looking at early on [00:14:00] even before we made our first investment.

And he was like, oh, you're you're looking at the mailbox money. And so. Rung a bell like that matches with what, like what Mark is talking about in the sense of just being ultra-conservative in a way, um, and not chasing the shiny objects. I think that's what a lot of people in our world do is they try to go chase these shiny objects rather than, really doing the investigation and the, and the study behind.

The intent of like operators and like what you're actually doing in the community beyond just the money aspect of it, right? Mm-hmm. So, that was a big thing. More doors, less risk. 

Deana Berg: So define for me what you think some of those shiny objects were, are. 

James Aleks: Stocks certain stocks, investments, oh, Tesla, the next big stock, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Or crypto cryptocurrency. 

Mark Aleks: Yeah, AI investing. I mean, there's always something new coming out that people are, you know, looking at that really don't have fundamentals, like things like cash flow that support that investment. And that's, we actually have stock investments as well, although we're really heavily on the real estate.

But if you don't have cash flow, whether it's a business, a piece of real estate, like it, it's speculation. And so, I think a lot of people just, they go in many directions and. We've learned, from smart people like Warren Buffet is invest in cash flow and don't lose money. So like we, we like to stay conservative and, focus on things that are gonna pay us while we wait.

James Aleks: Mm-hmm. Don't fix it if it ain't broke. 

Mark Aleks: Yeah, 

Deana Berg: you also referred to real estate syndication as something that's ultra-conservative. So folks who aren't, I mean, and I. Talk with new investors all the time, in investor [00:16:00] relations and if people are really hesitant when they're new to this space.

Why do you define this as 

Mark Aleks: ultraconservative? I, I would say it's ultraconservative. It depends what sector you're in. So I would put multi-family definitely in the ultra-conservative category. I think each asset class can vary in risk, but with multi-family, what's unique with that? I mean, there, there's a whole set of things, like, one thing that caught my attention early on was that insurance companies and ins institutional money put their money into heavy amounts of multi-family real estate.

Then they use that money to go do payouts on things like insurance. And so, with multi-family, it's, it's because it's where people live. It's not really a, it's not a want. And it's not like office where it's a decision based on a company like everywhere. Everyone needs a place to live, and because of that, it creates a very stable environment that there's always demand for.

Of course, as long as there's no oversupply and we happen to be in a phase where. Really undersupplied in, in housing, whether it's apartments or even single family homes. So that aspect is, it's a very stable, you may not get, a hundred percent return in one year, but you're gonna get just very stable cash flows from the multi-family sector.

Mm-hmm. 

Deana Berg: So as you proceeded to discover more understanding the level of how conservative multi-family was, Mark, I know that you love a good spreadsheet, you love underwriting, you love all the data points. Tell me, if you were to back out and reverse engineer somebody who's newer to being able to analyze these things as a passive investor, like give me like top five, like when I see [00:18:00] this, let's check.

I move on to the next section in the investment summary. If I see this, it's check and then you go back in and do a deeper dive. Like how do you evaluate a deal from a high level, and then how do you go in and what kills a deal for you? 

Mark Aleks: Yeah, I mean, so it's funny cuz even from the data analytical standpoint, I would say number one is actually finding a killer operator.

So someone you can trust kind of trumps everything in our opinion. So really finding people that are like ethical and trustworthy. Hopefully you can like, Build a relationship with before you, like, pull the trigger on anything and evaluate who they are. Do you feel comfortable? But then to your point, after that, I mean there's numerous things to look at, but, act into like the environment we're in right now.

Like, I would definitely say debt is a very big thing. Um, to look at, so like, what's the loan to value? So like how much debt are they putting on the property? And then also, is this a fixed debt or variable debt that's, Something that's very, coming to play big time recently because interest rates are going up and so you can get caught with bad debt.

Um, so like, those are pretty big Inca indicators also, like what's, what market is the property in and do you understand it? Do they understand it? Is there a population growth going on? Is there a good like job environment in that area? Job growth is super important with like, the health of the marketplace and, and then there's some other things like cap rates and like is, is, are you overpaying for the, the property?

One of the metrics I really love when the operator finds one is, are the you buying the property for under replacement value? And if you're doing that, I mean that's kind of, in my opinion, the holy grail, cuz you're getting it for a [00:20:00] price that you cannot build it for. So those are just, maybe a handful of things I, we look at.

Deana Berg: Okay. So let's get granular with some of these. So they're applicable for other folks. Number one, you mentioned operators. How do you find operators and how do you decide whether they're 

Mark Aleks: trustworthy? Um, we found them actually numerous ways. So like, starting with YouTube and Grant Cardone, we started finding his videos then to, actually a, an old friend I used to work with Spencer Hillas from Madison and Invest.

He was, he puts out deals to passive investors, um, podcasts, and also, events. So like the best ever conference. So we have slowly like, layered all these ways of just, finding different operators and stuff. And nowadays just digitally, I mean, You just go onto like YouTube and podcasts, you can find tons of resources, which is great.

But then from there it's just like getting on their email list and getting a phone call with 'em and like discussing with 'em. And the thing I encourage people to do is really you have to learn about real estate and significations in general on top of. Meet in the operators. So the more you can like listen to people you know and learn how it works, learn about multi-family, you can then ask better questions with the operator and it comes down to your, you, you should be getting a good or bad feeling, kind of that intuition.

And that takes time though, on the only thing that builds trust is time. Yeah, 

Deana Berg: that's a great point. You talked also about debt. What is your threshold of comfort as it has to do with value what you carry in terms of debt? I mean, I know you mentioned you want fixed straight, long term, [00:22:00] but what kind of leverage are you like, pushes you past your 

Mark Aleks: comfort zone?

I, we've done some, we've done a blend of different ones. There's actually up until like this year and last year, you know, a lot of sign deals coming out were actually variable bridge type of debt on value ads. And those are the ones I'm a lot more careful on because you gotta make sure, like if the tides turn and rates go up, like you're protected on the cash flow.

So, but what I love the most and I think is the safest play is just. Pure fixed debt on like a minimum of five years. If, if they're getting seven or 10 years, that's even better. And you know, obviously the debt really relates to like the cash flow as long as it's cash flow positive. So 

Deana Berg: what I mean like, are you comfortable with an 80% ltv or do you wanna see 60% ltv, or is it a little more nuanced for you than just a simple.

Yeah, 

Mark Aleks: yeah, the loan of value. I am a little, I would be a little hesitant of 80%. I like to, like 70% average. If it's closer to 60%, that's even better. So I lean definitely on the conservative side. Okay. 

Deana Berg: And then Mark, I'm following up on the last thing you mentioned with market. What are your sources to research market?

Let's say someone's new to this and they're like, how do I know what a market. How to evaluate a market. Do you have some, um, tips that you can share for different market research sources that have been informative for you? 

Mark Aleks: I would say Google. , I take as much as I can on a specific deal from like the slides if there's a deal being sent out.

Um, but then I'll go in and just really Google, I'll Google specific things like. What's the population growth, not only of the city, but you want to find what's the town, or , what's , the city [00:24:00] outside of the major city that property may be in if it's not in a downtown area. And then find out population growth and also with jobs, what's the average income?

Things like that. And off the top of my head, I can't think of the sites that pop up, but there's generally like a handful of like really good sites that lay out those like demographics. 

Deana Berg: Right. Good. So I wanna pan back out a little bit to you guys running zk, this business that you've built over years now and also your.

Growing involvement with passive investments, kind of a oxymoron there. How do you guys allocate the time to manage all of your investments? Is it time consuming? Um, or are you break that down into percentages? Like when someone's owning their own business and they're thinking, I just don't have another hour in the day to do this.

I mean, you've said, Hey, we're thinking about our future. We're creating stability in our present and cash flow. Talk to us a little bit about how you manage it all and look at it as a lifestyle. 

Mark Aleks: That's the beauty of passive investing. I mean, it truly is passive minus you really have to spend a lot of time on just knowing what you're doing.

But from like a day to day, week to week, month to month, I mean, we really spend like time outside of the workday. On the real estate, whether like we both listen to podcasts and stuff like that, and then just looking at deals from emails and things. But I would say like, it's safe to say like 95% of our time is on our business, and that's really why we like.

This area of investing versus going out and trying to buy apartments or single family homes ourselves, because it's just that, um, that ratio would flip a lot. It'd probably be like a 70 30 at least. And this allows us to do what we do best is. Working in our business, which we love to do. So that's, that would be kind of the split I think [00:26:00] that we look at.

But as far as passive invest in, it, it takes a bit of time, but if you think of it as you just spend about an hour to two hours a week just as a, almost like a hobby over like a year to two years, that adds up. So anyone like new is, that would be my first. Suggestion is start consuming, content and information and connecting with people.

Just like an hour to two, a few hours a week will add up over time. Yeah, 

Deana Berg: you guys are really good at connecting with people. There's people I meet all the time, oh yeah, I know Jim, I know Mark. I met him at a meetup. You guys do a lot of, of networking. How do you guys make decisions?

How does your structure, your brothers, your business partners do you guys have a system for decision making or what does that look like? 

Mark Aleks: We kind 

James Aleks: of take our own lanes. I think we're really, uh, we're actually very good at that. I think that's something that we've grown together to trust in each other is like Mark, even though it's hasn't been written out specifically on a piece of paper yet, but I understand what he's covering and I trust that what he's got going on is going on.

But we do a lot of check-ins with each other. And question, what it is that we're doing and the aspects of the business. Like, for example, just to give you like a analogy is like Mark is, he understands the operational aspect of the business. So we have everything from a manufacturer that manufactures our product.

We're direct to all of our suppliers for our ingredients. There's a lot that's involved on bringing that equation together. Then to get it to our actual manufacturer to actually have the product put together, create a chewable, which is what we create. We're very different from everything else out there.

Um, and using like ingredients that people are like, you're crazy. Putting this into a. Into a supplement. [00:28:00] Like you guys are spending so much money when the average cost per ingredient is around, five to $10. We're, we're at 50, up to 300, $400 an ingredient. And so that's kind of like where that's at is like Mark really understands like that.

With our warehouse, we have a warehouse, we have. Bunch of people that put together our product. And then there's also this whole thing on the internet, uh, direct to consumer. Mark handles that whole aspect of. The business and, and there it takes a lot. There's a lot of, cuz it's also the, it's like holding this brand image and he does a phenomenal job online on doing that.

And so, that leads into the world of the food mafia that you mentioned earlier so too. Yeah, and it's ironic, you, when you were talking, I wanted to interject, but I felt like I could say it now, but, One good thing about like the investment in the, in the real estate world that I feel Mark and I have a pretty good strength on is when we look at a deal because we ship me into different markets to go grow our business through various channels, specifically travel, leisure.

I'm getting a good gauge and I can kind of look on a map and figure out like what's taken place in that area with Mark. So we'll literally sit on Google, uh, maps and start mapping out and looking at the terrain and, and seeing all these different things. And then with all the connections that we have across the country, picking up the phone and talking to, our friend out in Arizona before we invested in a deal.

Hey, what's your thought about this there? Oh, yeah, that's a growing area. Like da da da da da. Like down in Florida, we can call every. Pretty much every city, every town down there, we have a contact with, with our family and other parts around the [00:30:00] country. So that kind of adds to our benefit of that.

And then I, why we stay in our zone. I'm, I'm kind of crazy in the sense of like, I love cold calling. I, I don't know what it is. You're going for it. 

Deana Berg: That's 

James Aleks: all there is to it. It's on the phone or it's in person. I can do either. And I. Thrive off of it. I live off of energy from others and being, and the way we get treated in the, in the, in that world is pretty, I mean it's, there's times where I have to call up Mark and it's good cuz we're both sound boards for each other and it's been a really amazing relationship and opportunity to be able to do this with.

Outta all people, my brother. That's so amazing. And, and so like, I mean, there's times, I mean, there's, I was training a sales guy years ago for our company, and he's actually a really good friend of ours. And he calls me up and he goes, dude, you wouldn't believe it, but the lady or the guy in the store that I was trying to sell to, he had his back to me the whole time.

He wouldn't even look at me. And I'm like, and me, I'm like, well, that's just, that's part of like, it just what happens. And then he's sitting and he's like, okay, I gotta get in this account, but what are any wordy? And I'm like, okay, do you think she lives in a home or an apartment? He goes, yeah. I go, do you think she's married or has kids or has a dog or animals?

He goes, Yeah, I think she told me the last time she has like two kids. I said, what ages? And I just started talking in that sense. And I go, Hey, she's just like you and me. And he goes, huh. And he walked in and he got the sale right after that because it's just, it's people doing business with people. And so, uh, that's really what it is, is like, that's how Mark and I, I think we, [00:32:00] we.

We, to answer your question, I know it's been a long-winded answer, but we stay in our lanes. We just know the lanes and then what we're doing is we're building that foundation even more. Mm-hmm. From the lanes that we're in to be able to grow this out and mm-hmm. To what, whatever they say, scale it.

But we also realize in the CPG world, consumer product goods, It takes a lot of cash to grow this. A lot of people don't understand what it takes from a manufacturer to a distributor if needed, to a, to an actual sales rep, all the way down to the store level. And then when you're in the store level, you go into these stores as a consumer and you're like, oh, look at this sale.

Look at the, oh, my favorite brand is on sale. Well, that is because of the manufacturer, not the grocery store. The grocery store's not taking the hit. It's that manufacturer, it's the small guy that actually has to discount that product. So, yeah it's been an amazing experience. Like Mark and I we really mesh really well.

And that's kind of my answer to how do we know our area? We just kind of know it. Um, and like I said, we're building those components to that as well. 

Deana Berg: Yeah, it's really inspiring. I think about in my family and even looking at my kids growing up and I know you have kids too, and just thinking about what I would want for them.

Of course, it would be that for them to get along together to work together, but also to build and create something that is successful. So, Congratulate and applaud both of you in just the success that you've had, your connection and how close you guys are and still are killing it, crushing it. I will say I have tried zk, the supplement.

It absolutely works. Listeners, you should try it. It's amazing. No one's paying me to say this. But we're at the end of our time here. Any parting shots from you guys that you wanna share with listeners who. Our passive investors are who wanna be passive investors. Anything that comes [00:34:00] to mind before we wrap up?

Just wanna give you guys the, the platform to do it. 

Mark Aleks: Anything. Yeah. I mean, I would say if someone's new, I mean, I, I I think of just passive sign specifically the multi-family as like the holy grail. So if you've discovered this podcast or listening to them, I think you're on the right path. And I, I think just this is an area when it comes to financial freedom, which.

Is the focus of ours. I mean, I don't think there's a better area, so, okay. 

Deana Berg: Anything James? 

James Aleks: Yeah, just go shake hands, go meet people, go talk to people. I think that's in a, in a time where the internet and social media has. Kind of displace a set of a society. I think it's important to go back to that tribal instinct that we all have within us.

And go shake hands, go break bread. Right. And Just go meet people, go talk to 'em, go see 'em face to face, you know, like you can, you can learn a lot just by doing that, along with obviously doing your due diligence on the syndication aspect and then the operators and stuff like that. So that's just my whole, 

Mark Aleks: yeah.

Thanks. 

Deana Berg: That's beautiful. I, I think there's a new business idea. We can, we need to put a GoPro on James, for all of his sales calls. He could create a YouTube channel Yeah. Of how to meet people face to face, break bread, and win them 

James Aleks: over. Yeah. Well it's, it's funny you said that. I said I want to start like the, the raw sales guy, the guy like, and just put.

Video and audio on me and, and just cuz I don't even realize what I do when I'm in these places. And then when I walk, I mean, I walk into like the most extravagant hotel. Some of them won't even let me in right away. I have to like work my way in. 

Deana Berg: Like perhaps [00:36:00] you feel more comfortable in 

James Aleks: this? Yeah. Like Dear belly deer Valley montage, that was a.

Hotel I hit up years ago and I'm like, ready to go in. Oh, I show back, I show up with Zach. I get outta Zach's truck, and I'm like walking in. They're like, sir, you're not allowed to get in here. You're not allowed in here. I'm like, what? I'm, I'm just a vendor, like that's my saying with everywhere I go.

Just a vendor, I'm just a small guy, but, uh, yeah, you could tape me up. It would be very fascinating. You would be surprised at the stuff. I would learn a lot from it as well. So let's start with idea here soon. 

Deana Berg: Okay, good. We'll throw 'em in the show notes once that starts. Well, Mark James, thank you guys so much for your time.

I love the story. I love your connection. I think it's what makes you a powerful duo. And I love that you are building your business while generating passive income in multi-family investment. Thank you guys so much for 

Mark Aleks: being here today. Thank you, Gina. Appreciate it. 

Deana Berg: Thank you so much for joining us on the daily real estate syndication show. Again, this is Dina Burke. Please don't forget to like and subscribe us, and importantly, have a blessed day.