Omar Khan 0:00
Don’t be like most used car salesman and just come up big deal. Deal. Deal. Deal deal. Take a step back, give the guy a call just like that. Hey, man, what’s up? Yeah, and let’s assume you’re doing a deal. Right? And you know, this guy’s got money, but you know, you’re at the start of your relationship, right? And you. So just be like, Hey, I just wanted to call you what’s going on just a regular jet. And if the person brings up the bill, I know you’re working on this. You’d be like, yeah, it’s going fine. We’re doing good. Don’t worry about it. You didn’t do the hard pitch. People hate a hard pitch. Okay? let that person ask you, but why would that person ask you number one, you’re consistent and in the market number two, you are doing deals. Number three, you are professional. So when you are talking to that person, not about the deal, you want to raise money for it, but just generally, you’re presenting yourself the right way and you’re professional. You know what you’re talking about that person in and of themselves because they are a human being.
Intro 0:53
Welcome to CREPN Radio for influential commercial real estate professionals who work with investors buyers and sellers of commercial real estate coast to coast whether you’re an investor, broker, lender, property manager, attorney or accountant We are here to learn from the experts.
J Darrin Gross 1:12
Welcome to Commercial Real Estate Pro Networks CREPN Radio, Episode Number 256. Thanks for joining us. My name is J Darrin Gross. This is a podcast focused on commercial real estate investment and risk management strategies. Weekly we have conversations with commercial real estate investors and professionals who provide their experience and insight to help you grow your real estate portfolio. Let’s get into the show. today. My guest is Omar Khan. Omar is a Chartered Financial Analyst. He’s advised on over 3.7 billion of capital financing and merger and acquisition transactions. He’s the principal at boardwalk wealth you The syndicated multiple large deals across the US. And in just a minute, we’re going to speak with him about raising capital, working with institutional investors. And before we do that, though, and remind you, if you like the show where we’re doing here, commercial real estate, pro networks, CREPN Radio, there are a couple things you can do to help. You can like you can share, and subscribe. And as always, please consider leaving a comment. We’d love to hear from our listeners. And also wanna remind you if you’d like to see how handsome our guests are, be sure to check out our YouTube channel, and that is Commercial Real Estate Pro Network. With that, I want to welcome my guest, Omar, welcome to CREPN Radio.
Omar Khan 2:52
Hey, thank you, Darrin. It’s a pleasure being here.
J Darrin Gross 2:55
I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to talk with you today. Before we get started, though, if you could take just a minute and share with the listeners a little bit about your background,
Omar Khan 3:06
So look my background, it’s, you know, somewhat common to a lot of folks who went to like, you know, they stopped in business schools graduate from finance. And you do the whole thing, you know, if you’re in bigger cities, which I was, I graduated from University of Toronto, not the best time 2008 which is not the best time but you know, I never drowned got a go job, the Royal Bank of Canada portfolio management, and its that whole route. Either you go to portfolio management, or you go to Southside advisory, which is investment banking, equity research, or hedge funds. You know, you do that grind for a little while you either stay at one company, we kind of bounced around, depending on what your network is and what you want to do, you know, and I always wanted to do multiple things. And I was on the buy side, which is basically Hey, we’re actually going to be the people acquiring these deals and structuring these deals and also on the sell side, which is the ones people who are advising on these days, like investment bankers are and a lot of these other guys are so which I didn’t know At that time was somewhat unique. I mean, earlier on in the career A lot of people don’t make those switches. I did part of that was because I just wanted a broad based network of understanding what goes on as always very curious. And then I moved to the US A few years ago, age old reason for girl. My wife’s a physician she was right about done with her residency and everything and for her to move up to Canada, she would have to do the entire thing again. And for me in the kind of professions that I’ve been in my skill set is very cross transferable. So I it was easy for me to move just south of the border, and that’s how we started.
J Darrin Gross 4:33
Got it. And and currently you’re located is Dallas, whatever you’re located?
Omar Khan 4:37
Well, right now I commute between Dallas and again, again for girl same girl. My wife accepted a position and a small town in Oklahoma, Home of Blake Shelton, by the way, Ada, Oklahoma, if you listen to country music. I don’t but apparently he’s big deal. And that’s a nice thing so I can move back and forth and bless with my business. Either on the phone or on the internet, you know, you’ve got to take care of stuff and on a plane. So frankly, if you’ve got a phone, Internet, and access to an airport, doesn’t really matter where you are,
J Darrin Gross 5:11
Yeah, you’re in business, right? It is crazy to think just how small the world has gotten. And, you know, just the ability to literally kind of Jetsons, you know, have these video conversations that were just years ago, kind of, uh, you know, somebody thought about it, but I don’t remember
Omar Khan 5:30
Oh, you’d already suffer. You’d be very surprised. I was talking to a friend of mine a few weeks ago. My dad is an engineer, and he was doing a lot of telecommunication stuff back back in the day like late 80s, early 80s, all the way the 90s and Siemens had come out with a broadband link back in the day, so you could video chat. This was like they were prototyping this out and testing this out. And I still remember because I grew up in Pakistan, and they were prototyping it out here. So I think it was 91 or 90 where you were in one city. You know, a bunch of these engineers got together they produced video chat and with their delay, a guy in the next city will reply back with a video. And people’s minds were blown. Oh my god the future. This was like what late 80s, early 90s. Right? And now look, here we are we this is a consumer technology.
J Darrin Gross 6:15
And I it’s funny because I think for me for the the transfer from the industrial or the commercial to the like said the consumer use is really what’s really kind of blows my mind where it is. Now it is ubiquitous. I mean, it’s whether you can do it on your phone, you don’t even need, you know, any special equipment, just push the button and there’s grandma or whoever you want to talk to. So
Omar Khan 6:35
yeah, and what’s funny is if you read a lot of sci fi, like asthma and stuff, we are now becoming like androids. I mean, like the phone is an extension of her body. Right? Right. And without a phone you feel kind of naked a lot of times
J Darrin Gross 6:47
Sad but true. But yeah, it’s you know, and and actually, is we kind of going through the the COVID-19 thing right now it’s almost even more of a tool to keep from being isolated. You know, I mean, there’s Yeah, at least stay connected there. So
Omar Khan 7:03
I don’t even know. I mean, I think a lot of people were getting divorced if they didn’t have a phone, right?
J Darrin Gross 7:09
That’s probably true. Well, hey, enough about the technology stuff there. What I’d really like to talk with you about today is given your experience and your professional experience and your your work as a syndicator is about raising capital. You know, I think there’s, there’s, well, beginning like 2010 12 there’s a lot of people that started syndicating and is that the their experience and success was reported and people recognize it more and more people got in and, and pretty soon everybody’s syndicating and everybody’s trying to raise money. And what I want to recognize now is that we have kind of the markets matured, currently we’re in this COVID-19 see what shakes out. But I want to talk with you about how to distinguish yourself and, you know, raising money from like institutions and professional investors, and how to set yourself apart and what you can you know, speak to that based on having had the experience of being the one that was approached and now I presume you’re here in the the opposite side of the table looking for capital.
Omar Khan 8:33
Yeah, look part. The two most easiest ways of doing this out. Either you’re extremely tight and have a track record operationally or you are just a fantastic marketer, really, but if you’re a marketer, a lot of times institutional capital doesn’t really chase you as much. I mean, you have to do a different type of marketing, right? These people don’t necessarily care about podcasts or I don’t know if he went to some conference on the weekend or something like that. They just want to fend for themselves. Because the reason is they’re already sophisticated, they can already look like for instance, I can look at a p&l. And if it’s in one of my markets within one of my sub markets, I can easily poke holes in it within five seconds and know Okay, all right, here are the big questions. Now, I’m not saying it’s a hole in the sense that it’s wrong. It’s a hole in the center. Why is this not answer? Right? So you need to be really sophisticated, understand your financials inside out, and your operations inside out. So a lot of folks who were talking about saying, you know, in the last few years, they’ve started syndicating a lot of these are part timers. And what happens is, you know, bears make money. bulls make money, pigs make money, but hogs get slaughtered.
J Darrin Gross 9:40
Right?
Omar Khan 9:41
So a lot of these guys that were high on the hog who were below maybe working in IP or accounting or finance or whatever, Doctor what would you name a profession, right engineer, whatever it is, and they were doing this part time, they can’t raise institutional capital, because those people nobody’s gonna give you a stroke. You were $10 million check five times a year, and kind of half expect you kinda have passively do it in the weekends, right? So number one, you need to have a track record of either professionalism, or deep subject matter expertise, right? Because these are already sophisticated pools of capital who already have experience. And by the way, you’ve got to realize, you, you might be the owner, like, for instance, for you, this might be a big deal, right? You’re, you’re talking to this guy, ten million dollar check. And you might do it once or twice here. This guy has ten of these meetings before lunch every day, right? So for you, it’s a one off occurrence for him. It’s an everyday thing, right? So you’re just a number. So what you really need to do is stand out for the right reason and what you’ve got. You just need to basically for the lack of a better word, understand operations just doesn’t mean well, you can kind of haphazardly talk about it to me to show your benchmark, Hey, who are the people on your team? What is the backup behind it organizationally? What is your structure? Then you’ve got to show them okay, this is how our reporting is. A lot of folks can have everything, but they struggle on the reporting side of things because these people have very onerous reporting requirements. Right?
J Darrin Gross 11:00
Right.
Omar Khan 11:00
And you’re never going to make headway, right? So you really need to be holistically combined, you need to have a holistic set of experiences. And if you don’t have that, the best bet is for you go get that first, get a track record, start the ball moving, and then start looking at bigger pools of capital.
J Darrin Gross 11:18
So you mentioned I mean, obviously, all the reporting in that. And just the sheer size, I mean,
Omar Khan 11:25
Just to let you know, by the way, the reporting and all you would think you understand that’s not a real estate related thing, right? It’s not like you could be a fantastic operator and still have really bad accounting. Right, right. Right, right. So if you understand these are organizational things, like how strong and robust is your organization? These are qualitative things that they’re assessing, as opposed to just Hey, do you have a good deal or not? Because you know, all this, this trope about Hey, find a good deal and the money will follow right? Yeah, that shit doesn’t , isn’t really true, man. I mean, I like these one of the ones some guru ads at some conference to saying this as like, Okay, you got $80 million, buddy. I can find you 100 million dollars in profit. To show up at $80 million cash tomorrow, because if you can’t, I mean, then you got to start, you know, let’s talk more walkie Right,
J Darrin Gross 12:08
Right, right. Yeah. No, and given that I think just the sheer size of the deal or not the deal, but the pool of capital that the professionals are looking to put to, to work, whereas the the smaller operator is, you know, looking for, you know, 50 hundred or, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars type thing. And just the sheer volume, I mean, and how many, how many opportunities they look at on a daily basis. How you said 10 before lunch, how many do you think they look at in a in a year and how many
Omar Khan 12:44
Thousands of them. Thousands and thousands but they have to because you have to realize they the entire job of them and by the way, they are capital providers, but I raise my own money and I’ve run my own projects. I say no to 99% of the opportunity to come across my paper. And I know I’m not the only one who does that, because there are countless other operators that I respect and I, you know, I get their opinion lots of times on things, they do the exact same thing you have in any profession. If you are wanting to succeed or you’re in a position to succeed or you put yourself in a position to succeed, you have to have the ability to continuously scale. You know?
J Darrin Gross 13:20
Right.
Omar Khan 13:20
That’s just the way it is.
J Darrin Gross 13:22
Definitely. So on on the obviously the the team members you talked about and the reporting. Can you go into any kind of like the the depth of reporting, I mean, obviously, you mentioned like the holes and financials I’m assuming that somebody like you that’s, you know, worked on both sides and the experience what are some glaring tells that you would you commonly see when you when a deal is presented to you,
Unknown Speaker 13:51
Oh, number one, everybody says, you know, rents are $200 below market, and this is below sales, like they’re the price at which they’re requiring is below sales comps. You’re like, Yeah, but you pick the comps, right? The comps, hell dude, I’ll pick comps and everything I do is gonna look like the greatest deal in the world. So number one, you know, but again, this comes down to product knowledge, market knowledge, right? So you have to be a product, product expert and a market expert. So for instance, if I’m in Atlanta as an example, and I’m looking at a place like say fear it will Peachtree City in the south or say Marietta Alpharetta coming on the north. I’m not gonna compare that to College Park, which has just different demographics completely right. Because Yeah, I compare that I buy a deal in College Park and on paper, I was like, Look, there’s $800 of rent difference in sales costs are so different. And you’ve got to realize, look, people a lot of newbies say, Oh, well, I’m just taking in from the broker. Well, legation to you, I mean, you’re not the one thing the broker, the broker. Again, by the way, you cannot bring blame the broker because the broker is a salesperson, right? They have What is in their best interest because they do all fiduciary duty, right? Or fiduciary duty to yourself, to your family and to your investors. That’s why, you know, you got to start walking the talk, you can’t just take easy ways out, you got to, you know, you got to put in the hard yards, it’s like any other, it’s like any professional, you’ve got to put in the hard yards, you’ve got to do your research. And if you don’t do that, you’re going to be taken for a ride.
J Darrin Gross 15:25
Right? Now when you’re looking into a new market. Do you physically go there and walk in? I mean, I the brokers and
Omar Khan 15:34
You have to look let me tell you this, a lot of guys for some weird reason still have it in their head that I’m just going to go direct to seller, I just want to bypass the broker. Yeah, let me explain that to you that that that works. If you’re buying a $50,000 house in the middle of nowhere and Podunk Mississippi. That doesn’t really work if you’re trying to buy a $30 million asset in Jacksonville, Atlanta. People don’t have time for this kind of stuff. You know, people tell me Oh, I’m gonna do skip tracing them. Yeah. reboot is like the gambling thing. Just think about it logically, do you think a guy or girl that owns a $30 million piece of real estate? They are that dumb or that unsophisticated and they own multiples of these properties, but it’s not just one of them, right? They own a few of these, right? They’re that dumb. They’re just gonna randomly call and you’re gonna give you a rags to riches story, and they’re gonna tell you Oh, my God, you know, just to help you get yourself up from the bootstraps you go, man,
J Darrin Gross 16:28
Right. No. I’ve been waiting for your call. Oh, my God, you know,
Omar Khan 16:31
All my life. I’ve been waiting. Yeah, you know, your $30 million. I really wanted to burn it into the ground. The only reason why work for it was because I wanted to burn it. Right? That stuff doesn’t really work. You have specialists called brokers. Okay. There’s a reason why these guys get paid so much money and it’s not just because they’ll wear fancy suits are nice guys, because they do our work in nice offices. Look, I can’t it’s like any high pressured, professional. It’s like being a physician, insurance salesperson. Anything all these people who put in the hard years they’ve made relationships over 5, 10, 20, 30 years. So when somebody is even thinking about selling, they haven’t decided how they’re thinking about selling. They pick up the guy called, hey, John, what do you think about this? I’m telling you, even right now, I am a seller A lot of times, and we’ll say the top because every big market only has stopped three or four big brokers. It’s like, it’s like any other business in the world, right? You know, insurance sales, kind of same thing. A lot of times I pick up the phone and be like, you know, I’m thinking about this. This mark, I don’t if I don’t have abandoned the property on the market, right? And thinking about the sub market, what’s your take on the sub market, right? And they’ll be like, Look, you know, rents are going up, but there’s lots of delinquencies, and then immediately the last or what property did you have in mind, right? So you got to be a little coy depending on the situation, but you have to realize they are providing they are in the business of developing relationships so they are providing you information. But you also got to step up to the plate and do your part, right. You can’t be a tire kicker.
J Darrin Gross 18:00
Right, right. Hey, Got it. Got to be ready to respond.
Unknown Speaker 18:05
Yeah, but they want to do this? By the way, just let’s be very clear. They want to do this because a lot of this is this relationship away from them look, think about it. Even if somebody takes three years for sales to happen. This is not like buying $100 pair of Nikes. This is like a $30 million sale. Right? And one guy who does a $30 million sale, I bet you he’s gonna do two or three more sales. Is this just not gonna be a one and done right. So the sales process is very long. But you make like 500 grand a sale. Right?
J Darrin Gross 18:35
That’s worth a couple year courtship there to finish liner. So,no, that’s good.
Omar Khan 18:43
But it’s the same with this institutional people you said you know, a lot of times the first ones they’ll pass again, unless you know, you’ve really good relationship. But again, what people are assessing to see is Hey, are you around? Do you do a volume of deals? If you don’t do a volume of deals, you better have a pretty damn good reason why you’re not doing right. Right. And are you consistent player in the market? Are you one and done? Are you flash in the pan? Or are you out there? because trust me, these exact same people also talk to the same people that you want to talk to they talk to the brokers, they talk to the lenders, in fact, a lot of times, if I have to go raise pref equity, right from some of these guys, they’ll talk to the lender be like, hey, you’ve given this guy three loans. What do you think about him as an operator, right? And a lot of those guys off the books will be like, yeah, I really like this guy. He’s been paying on time, but otherwise, too, when we talk to him, you know, he’s, he’s got it going on. We’re saying, yeah, that guy got a good deal. I don’t really think.
J Darrin Gross 19:37
Right, right.
Omar Khan 19:39
And it’s a small world, by the way, just to be very honest with you. It’s a very small world these days.
J Darrin Gross 19:43
I mean, absolutely. The word spreads. If you’re, you know, if you’re well capitalized, and you’re a good operator, and you do what you say you’re going to do and, and are closer. I mean, we’ve talked to many people about that once you know the The first deal ever I came everything Michael Blanc might talk about that. But just the, you know, once you have a deal than other others tend to present themselves. But again, in these bigger properties and larger capital deals, I mean that the level of your sophistication will speak volumes to the opportunity and whether or not others are willing to back your work today. Yeah. Yeah.
Omar Khan 20:26
And by the way, even if you don’t have any, let’s assume you’re new to the market, but you do have a level of sophistication you understand these things. It’s like industry lingo, right? You’re speaking the same language at the same pace at the same intensity and, you know, like, the top three ways somebody is gonna screw you in a day like this. Right? And you already be like, and somebody’s going to be like, Look, man, come on. Just look and be like, what, come on, man, these demographics are just shit. Right? Right, right. The guy trust me, people don’t no matter what you might think professionals don’t get offended because there is realize it’s a game. And part of playing the game means that you have to keep assessing your Counterparty right it’s like kids you know, you got you’ve got to Yeah, I’ve said I’ve got a kid and another one on the way every single day. My kid is two years old. And he keeps pushing the boundaries. He keeps pushing the boundaries. He wants to keep knowing where is the boundary where my dad will start screaming
J Darrin Gross 21:21
Yep,and it doesn’t stop.
Omar Khan 21:25
Oh it doesn’t stop. Okay, well, that doesn’t help.
J Darrin Gross 21:28
Well, I think what’s funny though, is in in the kid example is that while the boundaries they become known, then there’s a new presentation that you hadn’t anticipated and I just
Omar Khan 21:40
Yeah, I’m learning that the hard way.
J Darrin Gross 21:42
In just that situation I I’ve mastered yesterday. That’s that’s where my point of reference is. And my wife’s always thinking like, you know, weeks, months, years down the road kind of thing. And I just I’m always one of those kind of caught off guard. But but i just i perfected that you know, but even in this in this Real Estate thing, though, you’re talking about you know, and I think what I what I’m hearing from you is more about just the consistency about staying in, you know, whether it be the the brokers staying in touch with them. And, you know, like that creating that relationship, whether it takes three years to do a deal.I’m assuming that the same with a capital.
Omar Khan 21:59
It’s the exact same thing. It’s a continuous Look, a lot of people think it’s really funny. Like, sometimes I joke, I was like, I’m not in the real estate business. I’m in the marketing business, right? Where I just have to keep staying in touch with people. And you know what’s really funny? A lot of times the best results I’ve had are with people. For the first five calls, I felt like, Oh my god, I’m Jesus, right? Yeah, right, right. And suddenly, maybe the timing is right, maybe the guy’s having a better day. Maybe I’m having a better day and I misread the situation earlier, bam, it works the system, but you have to get to the sixth call, right? If you drop out of a third call, or the second or fourth call man doesn’t really work.
J Darrin Gross 23:00
That’s funny, I know in insurance, I think the you know, it’s a free 100% of the salespeople will make the first call, and 50% will make the second call and it drops off dramatically, but the buying starts, you know, way out, you know, 12 plus calls kind of thing. So it’s, I
Omar Khan 23:18
Look a lot of times, it’s disheartening. I’m not gonna be honest. I mean, nobody likes to get like, you know, might not make any progress, but but that’s just the way it is. I mean, what are you gonna do about it, you can complain about it, or you can just go do your job and consider your job. What are you gonna do?
J Darrin Gross 23:32
Right, right. So, let me ask you with the, we’ve talked about kind of the consistency and the presentation. What about just the the security of the opportunity? at a professional level, I think a lot of times, you know, newer investors are they’re attracted to the the high returns or or some sort of You know, high cap rates or or can you speak at all to, to just the the opportunity, not just the numbers, but just just the security, the nature of what they’re looking for? In a return?
Omar Khan 24:16
Look, I mean, the way I look at it is thank God, we live in a free enough country, where we’re all allowed to do really dumb stuff. That’s the way I look at it, thank God, because who would want to live in a country where I can’t even go do dumb things? Right? So all I’m trying to say is if somebody wants to go do dumb things with their money, it’s their hard earned money. And it’s their God given right. Right? Right. The way I look at it as like, if you’re, if you’re smart enough to work, you know, in any profession, you know, if you save $100,000 It’s not easy to save $100,000 right for most professions, right? Which obviously means you you’ve at least understood the concept of delayed gratification to certain degree. Now, if you’re going to take that whatever, 2, 3, 6 months, one years, two years worth of savings, and you’re going to go to some scammy Real Estate conference. And you’re going to have a guy with Gorky, when the shiny suit, value investment deal in five seconds of him being on stage and you’re that desperate lose your money. While this is going to be a really good life lesson for you, right? So I tell people look, if you’re going to be that gullible This is just God’s way of telling you are a dumb ass. Right? And you don’t let this be a life lesson because we all know you you already know the pain it takes to save money over a period of time, the sacrifices you have to make. So take a step back the deal of the century comes back every two every two weeks. And look we’re all gonna make mistakes we’re all trying to do is reduce the level of intentional or avoidable mistakes we can make. We’re all gonna make mistakes, right? So don’t be gullible. Anytime you feel like you want to take you know, you want to take a decision sleep on it, you know that old saying sleep on a thing and you get up in like one or two days, whatever. And, you know, then you decide whether you’re a pet, don’t let people talk to you about deal, but hey, if you’re that gullible, then I got a bridge to sell you Right.
J Darrin Gross 26:04
You know, oceanfront property in Arizona.
Omar Khan 26:06
Yeah, oceanfront property in Arizona. I love that.
J Darrin Gross 26:12
You know, and what’s funny is and funny, sad, but I think that, you know,
Omar Khan 26:17
No it is sad. Look, don’t worry, I’m not I’m not trying to make fun of somebody here. I’m trying to say, look, take a step back.
J Darrin Gross 26:23
Oh, but but I think that across all markets, whether it be the stock market or real estate, or, you know, what have you. The, the big wins are what really gets people’s attention. And, and the, the, the work that was put in before is rarely ever recognized or understood or even considered,
Omar Khan 26:48
It’s the ten failures before nobody looks right. It’s the one when everybody just goes in like this. It looks at
J Darrin Gross 26:53
Right and in just that, it just it captures the imagination and You know, people are not happy with their current circumstances and just thinking man, if I just said that one lottery ticket, you know if I could just get that one thing and Oh, he’s offered a
Omar Khan 27:09
Hey Darrin, I think about it all the time doesn’t mean I mean, look, I mean, I’m gonna be honest with you, I’d love to have a private jet.
J Darrin Gross 27:15
Right.
Omar Khan 27:15
Doesn’t mean I go to, you know, I spend all of my income on lottery tickets, right? My point is, is because this is such a concept lately, which to be honest with you, man, I just don’t understand these days. I was like, Look, what what difference does it make that you want something like, I don’t even understand what difference it makes you want something? I mean, I want I want to be like Michael Jordan. Well, I’m not jumping seven feet into the air. I mean, nobody’s signing me up for a professional basketball contract. So just because you want something doesn’t mean you should get it right. Right or, or the other way around. My point is, wants and needs are different. And it’s very shocking to me these days that people tend to confuse the two.
J Darrin Gross 27:52
Right? Right. So when you’re considering like from From a an institutional or more of a professional capital provider, is there. Is there a margin? I mean, is there a safety that they’re looking at? Or is there an asset class? I mean, I’m assuming that you know, a D property or you know, something like that’s not what they’re going to mean or B’s and I mean, I’m assuming A’s obviously, but are bees are you able to raise money from from institutions?
Omar Khan 28:31
It totally depends on the person or people or institution raising money from maybe there isn’t there there are institutions I can assure you, that just wanted to be properties, but they will by volume. Right? So my point is this is we’re doing your research, developing the relationships upfront and over a longer period of time plays in because then you can truly understand what the person is looking for because as an example, if somebody is looking to invest in safe industrial assets are office assets, and you keep pestering them and multifamily assets right
J Darrin Gross 28:33
You’re not listening.
Omar Khan 28:35
I mean, that’s, that’s a short way of, you know, get going to spam directly. Right, right. But cultivating the relationships, taking, taking a step back and actually understanding, right? Because think about it yourself. You probably, I mean, I don’t, but you probably don’t like getting sold, things that you don’t even want to buy, right? I mean, like, dude, just don’t do that. Right? Yeah. So it’s the same with these people. Because you’ve got to realize just because somebody works in an office wears a fancy suit and drives a Porsche doesn’t mean the person is not a human being. We’re all human beings at the end of the day, a lot. A lot of these I can assure I can tell you from personal experience, the first step is not the money, you got to talk more money right in the end, man. Okay, if you start with the money, pretty much none of your relationships are gonna go anywhere. Okay? You got to understand what people are looking for. You’ve got to present yourself in the best possible light, you’ve got to be approachable and nimble and, you know, easy to talk to, but professional. Take that time, develop that relationship. In fact, don’t be like most used car salesmen and just come up with Deal, deal, deal deal deal, take a step back, give the guy a call just like that. Hey, man, what’s up? Yeah, and let’s assume you’re doing a deal. Right? And you know, this guy’s got money, but you know, you’re at the start of your relationship, right? And you. So just be like, Hey, I just wanted to call you what’s going on just a regular chit chat. And if the person brings up the bill, I know you’re working on this. You’d be like, yeah, it’s going fine. We’re doing good. Don’t worry about it. You didn’t do the hard pitch. People hate a hard pitch. Okay, let that person asked you, but why would that person ask you number one, you’re consistent and in the market. Number two, you are doing deals. Number three, you’re professional. So when you are talking to that person, not about the deal, you want to raise money for it, but just generally, you’re presenting yourself the right way and you’re professional. You know what you’re talking about that person in and of themselves, because they are a human being will ask you over a period of time. Hey, Darrin, tell me about that deal. Or why don’t why don’t you ask us about the deal. Be like oh, well, you know, we were so busy with our other deals. Raising money that I just you know, I didn’t want to bother you. I know you guys are swamped all the time. Don’t worry about it. But you know, next time around you want me to tell you yes or no answer. But yeah, I want you to be okay. I’ll keep that in mind. But what’s going on? What are you doing for the weekend? Right?
J Darrin Gross 28:41
Right. Right.
Omar Khan 31:16
It’s this cannot be the focal point. But look, trust me, when you get to that stage where money is going to change hands when they are going to ask you a question. Trust me, they will ask you the questions. You have to answer those questions. But
J Darrin Gross 31:31
Right, but if you don’t have the relationship, you’re not gonna get to that question in the first place. So that’s
Omar Khan 31:35
Yeah, but you understand you or you still get that question, but you don’t have to present like, five paragraphs worth of answers. Right? Right, right. You can say two words and bam, you’re on to the next topic. But the reason for that is because you’ve established a level of credibility over multiple months and years, which has led to them then when you say those two words, whatever those two words are, right, right. But you know, like we talked about 10 failures and then one success. That is the one success but the failures, failures are the conversations you’ve had leading up to.
J Darrin Gross 32:07
Right now I and I get it. It’s, it’s, I think too many people when they start off and I’ve certainly been guilty of it in, in my career over the beginning is when you’re hungry and you’re desperate, you’re desperate and it shows and it doesn’t. It doesn’t translate well to like, gee, let me let me let me invest with you.
Omar Khan 32:26
Yeah, because look, the more desperate you are, even though you’ve gotten better, you might have a better deal. It’s not attractive. It’s repelling. Right? So you gotta look it’s a game man. I’d be I’ll be honest, it’s a game. You’ve got to play the game. There are the rules of the game. Now you don’t have to like the game. But that’s the game. Yeah, yeah. You know, you don’t have to like I mean, I don’t have like everything I do.
J Darrin Gross 32:48
And that’s, that’s true. I gotta remind myself of that. Sometimes. It’s it’s a game. So
Omar Khan 32:54
Hey man, every day I need to remind myself Yeah, sometimes I get off a call and I want to break a frickin pencil or something right? Right, right,
J Darrin Gross 33:00
right, right, right. Hey, Omar, if we could, I’d like to shift gears here for a second. Yeah. Before we started, I mentioned you by day, I’m an insurance broker. And as such, we do risk management with our clients. And there’s a couple of different strategies we consider. The first is we we asked, can we avoid the risk? When that’s not an option, we look and see if there’s a way to minimize the risk. And if that’s not an option, then we look to see if there’s a way we can transfer the risk. And that’s, that’s what an insurance policy is. And as such, I’ve been asking my guests, if they could take a look at, you know, what they’re doing with real estate, and if they can identify what they consider to be the BIGGEST RISK? And, again, just for clarification, I’m not necessarily looking for an insurance related answer. You know, risk is everywhere. So with that, I’d like to ask you Omar Khan, what is the BIGGEST RISK?
Omar Khan 34:04
Not having enough liquidity. You could have the greatest asset in the world, if you don’t have enough liquidity, none of it, you can survive. A lot of times when you’re in trouble. All you need to do is run down the clock and survive. And liquidity offers you that, that comfort, or another word, a lot of times, you know, we are humans, when we’re put under undue stress, we tend to do things that we would not do when we weren’t under stress. So the liquidity is the cushion that allows you to not mentally put yourself under stress or be backed into a corner for no reason. So even during trying times, you can, for lack of a better word, continue to do business as usual while you’re scrambling to do everything else, right. And you’re not foreclosed upon, nobody hates you, you’re not dying.
J Darrin Gross 34:53
No, I think there’s definitely a liquidity test here. And the making with you know the current situation,
Omar Khan 35:01
Oh geez, I really hope it is I’m sick and tired of being safe and conservative. And oh my god, I mean it better paid off now.
J Darrin Gross 35:08
Yeah, I think your your prayers or whatever, but I think that they’re they’re gonna be a lot
Omar Khan 35:14
My prayers were not for the COVID. My prayers were not for the pandemic to happen.
J Darrin Gross 35:20
Well, we appreciate that. But no it’s it is interesting and you know I think that having you know gotten myself into some deals and stuff and recognize just that you know having capital and and being well capitalized is the difference between surviving and and you know winning surviving winning versus losing big and losing all of your your investment not just your your initial investment but any of the opportunity on the upside there too so
Omar Khan 35:55
And the way I think about it is look a lot of things in life for as long as you live to fight another day That’s a win.
J Darrin Gross 36:02
That’s good. Hey Omar, where can listeners go if they’d like to learn more, or connect?
Omar Khan 36:10
So you can go to our website boardwalk wealth Bo and be as involved boardwalk wealth dot com. Right on the front page. If you scroll like the thing, the second, just like smidgen down, you’ll see a box on the on the right side where you can enter your name, your email address and how you find out about us. And then you’ll get an email you click on the Verify button and bam, you’re in into our distribution list. And you can hear my profound thoughts and get the inside scoop on our deals.
J Darrin Gross 36:38
All right. Well, Omar, this has been great. I can’t say thanks enough for taking the time to talk. I’ve enjoyed it learned a lot and hope we can do it again soon.
Omar Khan 36:49
That was my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
J Darrin Gross 36:50
All right. For our listeners. If you liked this episode, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe. Remember, the more you know, the more you grow. That’s all we’ve got this week. Until next time, thanks for listening to Commercial Real Estate Pro Networks, CREPN Radio.
Intro 37:08
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