Joe Evangelisti  0:00  

I started out looking into multifamily development thinking that might be the way to go. But again, multifamily is just a variation of single family, it’s just bigger, right? So I still have to pick all that stuff out, I still have to, you know, manage the construction of stuff where there’s multiple design elements and, and, you know, so forth. So when I get into Self Storage, you know, it’s concrete and steel, you know, it’s so simple. There’s no you know, there’s not a lot that goes into we’re building boxes, you know, and so it was a simplified version of that. However, it’s it’s also a very, very stable industry. If you look back over the last 40 or 50 years, Self Storage really hasn’t shaken.

Announcer  0:35  

Welcome to CRE PN 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  0:55  

Welcome to Commercial Real Estate Pro Networks, CRE PN Radio. 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. Today, my guest is Joe evangel. St. Joe is the executive coach with over 5000 hours of experience under his belt, as well as the CEO and partner of one of the top Self Storage development companies in the country. And in just a minute, we’re going to speak with Joe about the opportunities in self storage and what you can do to level up your investment game. But first, a quick reminder, if you like our show, CRE PN Radio, there are a couple things you can do to help. You can like, share and subscribe. And as always, we encourage you to leave a comment. We’d love to hear from our listeners. Also, if you want to see how handsome our guests are, be sure to check out our YouTube channel. You can find us on youtube at Commercial Real Estate Pro Network. And while you’re there, please subscribe with that on Welcome my guest Joe Welcome to CRE PN Radio. 

Joe Evangelisti  2:20  

Absolutely Thank you for having me. 

J Darrin Gross  2:23  

Well, thanks for doing this I’m I’m looking forward to our talk today. Before we jump into it if you could take just a minute and share a little bit about your background. 

Joe Evangelisti  2:34  

Sure, absolutely. You know my whole life I’ve I’ve been in construction I started from from a kid my dad was a drywall contractor return general contractor in my teens and by the time I was out of high school he was building houses and you know I just remember from that from the earliest age you know walking around those job sites being about three and a half feet tall and holding on to his leg and you know, just just experiencing being in the in the construction and the building of it all and from that part, you know, I just I fell in love with it. You know, quickly out of high school I went into the US military the US Navy seabees and a lot of people never heard of the seabees but you know that’s it’s the construction battalions of the Navy and so go over where by air we go over you know, we stay on land we physically build just about anything we do runway repair and building construction and there’s equipment operators and you know, so just about anything that can be built seabees can build and I had an amazing tour did that for six years and inevitably got into real estate started doing what I’m doing today.

J Darrin Gross  3:37  

 Awesome.  So let me ask a the intro there as written self storage. Sounds like you you your dad was building homes. In the Navy you were kind of I’m assuming doing all things that they needed like said runways and that Yep. How did you arrive or settle on the the asset class of self storage?

Joe Evangelisti  4:05  

Well Darrin, it was it was a 12 year journey. I mean really it started I I tell people I was lucky enough to get into real estate in 2007 and I say that because it taught me just about every lesson I think I could have learned in a condensed period of time instead of you know having time to experience it but you know we first got into 2007 and we started flipping houses back then and you know I was just out of the fresh out of the military and I had a little bit of savings saved up and I thought you know what, I’m going to double down I’m going to invest in this real estate and then I bought it the traditional way we put money into a pot we went and paid 25% down got bank financing and you know we thought we were gonna crush it we thought we were gonna do three, four or five flips a year and I get rich and the opposite happened. We got stuck right we got we got into a couple flips. We did them all. We did them all by hand. I did the nights and weekends while I was holding down a job. And you know about a year and a half into it. We had three or four going at that Time, I think we could sell them in the market really started to soften and end. And inevitably, everybody knows crashed. And so it forced us to really what we call what I call course correct or pivot, you know, back then I didn’t know what it was, I just knew I had to find some other way It means to make it work or, you know, like, give up and quit and file bankruptcy, right. So, you know, we Luckily, we took the the former and we made, we made some adjustments, and we ended up putting tenants in place and refinancing the properties and keeping them long term as holds. And, you know, as, as things started to shift in the economy and loosen up a little bit, we inevitably started buying houses and flipping them. And over the course of that, you know, following 10 to 12 years, we did about 1000 of those single family fix and flips. And, yeah, we’re proud of that. But you know, I had, I had a brokerage business going on, I had the flip business, I was a landlord, I was doing multiple things. But in that, in that course, of there somewhere, I did get, you know, massively stressed out and massively worn out and, and, and found myself chasing, you know, 10 different rabbits at the same time. And, you know, I’m sure a lot of your listeners felt that way, at some point in their life where, you know, you feel like you’re doing the right thing, you feel like you’re being successful, you have money, and, you know, things are coming together, but you just can’t keep up. And that’s really where, you know, I decided I had to make a change. And I had to do something differently and start to create more efficiencies and effectiveness, since it’s streamline and really build businesses that were built for my lifestyle, and not building my life around my businesses. And, you know, that ultimately led us to self storage development and where we’re at today, and we’ve never looked back, it’s been amazing.

J Darrin Gross  6:37  

No, I appreciate you sharing that the journey is often paved with a lot of painful lessons there. But they typically, you know, they make you much more wise to what’s coming. And like you said, pivoting i think that’s that’s an important lesson, period. I mean, some of the most successful investors, I know, they make money when the markets going up, they make money when the markets going down, they make money on the west coast on the East Coast, southeast, you know, it doesn’t matter. They’re always looking for the opportunity. Whereas I think, you know, too often, myself included, have such a local finite view of the of the asset or the the opportunity, and when it’s not going to shoot, the opportunity is gone. And that’s just not the case. In real estate, there’s always an opportunity. 

Joe Evangelisti  7:26  

There is  Yes, absolutely. Yeah, it depends where you have to look. And I know I love that word opportunity. Because I think one of the one of the best traits of successful entrepreneurs is turning problems into opportunities, right? We could, we can focus on the issue and say, oh, man, this is going to be too tough, or we can focus on what is this issue causing me to do that allows me to expand? How can I take an issue and turn it into an opportunity? And I think that that’s one of those core values that a lot of successful business owners have.

Got it Well, let’s talk a little bit about self storage. So you, how long have you been doing the Self Storage,

So we’re a little over three years into, into self storage. And that’s, you know, me doing research in the market and me learning a whole bunch of stuff the hard way, but also, you know, what I what I kind of think is one of my unique abilities is really building amazing teams of people. So over the last three years, two years, but leading up to this, we were just doing research, figuring out the right markets, figuring out who we want to work with, figure out who we want to have on our team. And now for the last little bit over a year or so we’ve been doing it, we’ve been going ahead with it. And it’s been awesome.

J Darrin Gross  8:36  

So let me ask you, I mean, you know, self storage as opposed to housing, I think housing you can you can go to a marketplace, and you can identify that there’s inflow or there’s growth, and there’s, you know, there based on lack of starch or lack of supply that, you know, there’s there’s a, there’s identifiable demand, and how do you how do you arrive at the, you know, recognizing there’s a demand or an opportunity for self storage? What are where some of the, I don’t know, the tells are the key indicators that you look for in a marketplace?

Joe Evangelisti  9:17  

Yeah, well, I’ll take you back to when we were doing single family and trying to decide what was the next move, right. I knew at that level, I wanted to find something that was more scalable, something that I could more easily control effectively control. You know, we were doing single family fix and flips. We were doing 80 to 100 a year scattered all over the all over our region 50 miles and needed a direction, right and different price points and different subcontractors and tons of cash flow in and out and different projects and closings every week. And so it just got a lot to handle and manage. So I said okay, well if I want to start to continue to do construction and development, how do I do something that’s replicatable How do I do something that’s designed once or you know, just modified slightly each time but we have a right we have one big one And on it and we don’t have to pick out tile and toilets and kitchen cabinets for every single one, right? We know that this is our, this is our box is what we build. And so I started out looking into multifamily development thinking that might be the way to go. But again, multifamily is just a variation of single family, it’s just bigger, right? So I still have to pick all that stuff out, I still have to, you know, manage the construction of stuff where there’s multiple design elements, and, and, you know, so forth. So when I get into Self Storage, you know, it’s it’s concrete and steel, you know, it’s so simple, there’s no, you know, there’s not a lot that goes into, we’re building boxes, you know, and so it was a simplified version of that. However, it’s it’s also a very, very stable industry. If you look back over the last 40 or 50 years, Self Storage really hasn’t shaken. You know, we had a massive downturn in the 80s Self Storage really didn’t go anywhere, we, we had a massive downturn and await Self Storage really didn’t go anywhere. In fact, it started to creep up because there’s always been a demand because it’s a, it’s a very broad tendency, right? You know, we have people storing their, their their home goods, we have contractors, we have, you know, attorneys and insurance companies storing files, there’s just a very variation, a lot of the tendency and occupants. And then to add to that, you know, we’re managing in a particular site, we’re spreading our risk over seven or 800 tenants versus, you know, if I build 100,000 square foot facility with 800 units, I have 800, tenants paying me 75 to $150 a month. If I do that same thing with an apartment building, I don’t know how many apartments I get out of that maybe I get, you know, let’s call it, let’s call it 50. Right? I got 50 tenants, and nothing really, really pushed us across the finish line more for us than COVID when, you know, tenancy rights, and you know, eviction holdings, and all these things started to happen during COVID. Nothing like that affected the storage industry, right? Nobody’s no one’s being told that they don’t have to pay their $75 a month to store their stuff. So, you know, with all that, and all that being said, it’s really a lot of the drivers that make the industry really solid.

That’s, that’s a, a beautiful point to make the, you know, lack of eviction, moratorium or kind of just all those those dynamics we’re still dealing with. In fact, I’m here in Portland, Oregon. Just looking on the paper here. I think they’ve extended to February of 22 for tenants to pay back the rent that they haven’t paid, I’m like, wow, this is a little too far.

Yeah. And the reality of it is, is is that ever gonna happen? You know, I mean, we have, I still have a couple, I have over 100 single family rentals, just from building a portfolio over the years. And, you know, we have three or four tenants that haven’t paid since March of 2020. You know, there was 15 $20,000 or more, and, you know, someone who’s used to paying paying 15 $100 a month, you know, and barely making their rent all that time, what were they going to come up with? $20,000? How is that going to happen? You know, and they’ve been making, you know, a lot of them have either been on unemployment, or they’ve been working the whole time, they just chose, hey, this is a better road, and I’m not going to get I’m not going to have to pay so why would I pay? It’s unfortunate, and I don’t know that those corrections are those those those laws, really, I’m sure they affected some people, but for the majority of people, it’s just if, you know, if you have bad tenants, they’re going to take advantage of systems when they’re put in place like that.

J Darrin Gross  13:20  

Yeah, no, I think there’s definitely some missteps and in kind of what we’ve done here, and it’s unfortunate, and and sooner we get through it, the better. But, but as far as your situation with the Self Storage, like you said, You’re not affected by that. If people don’t pay their their bill, what’s the what are the? I mean, isn’t it an eviction? Or is it just basically a claim against their stuff to where you can sell it? Or How’s that? What’s the process there,

Joe Evangelisti  13:52  

You know, it’s fairly simple, it changes a little bit in each state, depending on how you have to, you know, announce that there’s going to be, you know, if you’re auctioning off the items or stuff like that, but for the most part, you know, it’s simple. And if your rent is due on the first and you have a $75 month payment, you can’t get in after on the third or fourth, like you can’t get through the front gate, he can’t unlock the code. So if you want to get access to your stuff, you got to become current on your rent. And so you know, like I said, every facility is gonna be managed different, but you know, some some places you can wait 90 days and then you can put it in the paper and then you can have a public auction. And if if someone shows up, if not, you know, then you know, eradicate the space and make it clean again for a new tenant. But you know, it’s that simple fact of, hey, if I want my stuff that’s worth me paying my 75 bucks to get it back and then go inside and get it right. So you know, it’s it’s, it’s a matter of you just get locked out immediately, which obviously doesn’t happen in the residential world. You know, so it makes a little more clean.

J Darrin Gross  14:52  

I love that just the mechanics. I was like, Hey, you didn’t make a payment. You can’t come in and I’m just kind of curious. He You know, I’ve seen Neo to the Storage Wars or whatever, whatever the reality shows where they families, you know, auctions and stuff for the, for the storage, or for what’s behind door number one or whatever. What’s the percentage of people that that end up in that position?

Joe Evangelisti  15:19  

I can tell you, I tell you what, then I look at us as pure developers, and we actually develop the deal. And then we hand it off to nationwide third party managers. So like, extra space in your cube smarts, and your island, your life story, these these guys, for the most part, they own a big chunk, but the reality of it is they manage weigh more than they own. So when you see a sign like that, you know, they’re they’re the ones that do the great marketing, they take care of the tenants, they make sure that we’re full, you know, we really rely on them after after construction.

J Darrin Gross  15:47  

Gotcha. So you guys basically identify the space? And do you rely on them for some input as to whether or not this would be a good space? Is there some sort of a relationship before you break ground with the eventual manager of your property?

Joe Evangelisti  16:04  

Yeah, absolutely. The due diligence process is, I think, is one of the things that sets us apart. First of all, we buy primarily off market property. With my background in finding single family real estate, we really took a lot of that marketing and that direct to seller capability to create great opportunities for us and our investors. So most of the time, we’re, you know, either buying raw land or buying a darkened big box chain or doing a value add, when we do that, we’re going direct to the seller, and we’re creating a great opportunity there. And then, you know, again, you know, figuring out from there, but part of that process, that purchase process is a multi tiered due diligence, right? We’re getting a third party independent feasibility study, then we’re getting a feasibility study from one of the nationwide managers and then we’re getting one from our bank feasibility study. Our team does their own internal feasibility study. And then we’re going to compare all four of those studies at the same time and say, okay, is it all jive? Right? Did we all get the close to the right numbers? Does it seem like this is an opportunity and you know, if more than one of those is like, you know, this is a wishy washy opportunity blend will pass on it to something else.

Got it.  What’s the cycle as far as the length of the cycle, from identifying a property to handing the keys over to the management company to start run?

Yeah, it’s gonna be a little bit different depending if we’re doing a ground up construction, which would be the longest right if we’re taking a ground flat piece of ground and we have to get variances or entitlements or zoning requirements met, it’ll take us a little bit longer to do that. The big box chains where we’re taking abandoned building and we’re renovating them, obviously, we’re shaving a lot of time off because the structure is there, right it’s it’s already got a roof it’s already got walls and we’re just building out inside of it. So it’s gonna be a little less time. And then last but not least is your value add that’s where we take a you know existing site that needs improvement, maybe it has deferred maintenance, maybe it does have a bad marketing plan, a lot of times you have there’s a huge massive piece of the Self Storage industry most people don’t realize this, it’s just mom and pops right but we get used to seeing these, these public storage is all over the place and think that that’s the the main storage place but honestly, it’s it’s a lot of mom and pop storage places that have been run for the last 30 years. And they need upgrading, they need updating sometimes they got a lot of handshake deals going on for leases and things like that. So we have to adjust and create more efficiencies and create bigger noi which is also you know, making the deal more valuable and that would be the quickest one right so I would say if you’re talking about the quickest one which would be evaluated sometimes that can be done in six months to a year depending on what needs to be done or if you’re expanding your your big box renovation is going to be somewhere in that 18 month 24 month category and then new construction usually when we do a raise for that we’re doing a 30 to 36 month raise just because you know again the townships and especially with COVID being delayed i mean you know the inspection phase and the review phase and all that kind of thing has been taken a little bit longer than normal because you know people are remote.

J Darrin Gross  19:06  

Yeah. So again, going back to just the recognizing the opportunity in a particular market is there is that are you relying on the the eventual manager of the property to say you know, this market right here could really we could do something if you find something or are you guys do you have your list of criteria and you’re hunting the landscape and then trying to go back to them to say Hey, what about this market or tell me how that works for you as far as you’re finding your your different markets that you guys are in. 

Joe Evangelisti  19:45  

So it’s a combination of those two things and a couple others so so when we go out to seek a market First of all, we’re looking for mshs that are increasing in size that you know that there’s there’s large corporations are moving into. For example, we’re doing One in Atlanta right now it’s in underwriting. Atlanta is one of those markets where, you know, the American Cancer Society’s there, Coca Cola is there, Amazon is there as this massive corporations and their diverse corporations. And Atlanta as a city just keeps going out just keeps expanding, right, there’s more population coming in, as opposed to, you know, a lot of the Northeast states. I mean, I live in New Jersey, you know, not that we’re not building in New Jersey, because the population is still great. But there’s people leaving, right, they’re calling south, they want to be in Florida, and Tennessee, and Georgia and Texas. So number one is we’re trying to find growing populations, or at least get in where the where the population is growing to, right, a lot of the Carolinas have cities that are starting to expand out the rallies and Charleston’s and stuff like that. And so we’re looking for expanding opportunities. But to go back to the The first thing you said, which is do we do it first, there’s the third party do it first. It’s all it’s all a well orchestrated effort at that at the very beginning. Because we take that parcel, we get all of the due diligence and all the data that we need up front. And then really all the teams start working on at the same time, our third party management will take a look at it or independent feasibility will look at it our in house is now doing their due diligence. And really what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to build a story around that site, what makes it popular, what makes it a good destination for us to build what makes it something we can fill up quicker than then maybe you know, somewhere else. And of course, all of those different parties add their own thoughts and an ideas in because if you’re dealing with a third party manager, they’re already managing stuff in the area. So they know what the fillip rates are they know what the what the rent rates are, they know how quick it’s going to fill up. And then, you know, so they can give you that that end of the story, the feasibility guy, right, he’s doing Self Storage sites all over the country. So you know what, most likely he just did one nearby. And so he’s going to be able to tell you what’s going on there now and what’s happening. And then of course, the team, the team brings their, their eyes to it. All of that creates the decision of whether or not we move we move forward to bringing in investors or it’s a pass.

J Darrin Gross  22:03  

Got it? So as far as the the actual construction, are you guys relying on a local general contractor to build it for you? Are you guys deploying your own people? or How are you doing?

Joe Evangelisti  22:15  

Yeah, so we work with site supervisors that we that we have in house. And generally, there’s going to be a component of a general contractor there. However, like I said earlier, what’s nice about these things is they’re very simple. Right? So, you know, our local will always have a local General, I’m sorry, civil engineering team on ground because you need those people to help through the jurisdiction and uses and understanding of water tables and everything that’s in that local area. But for the most part, we’re using nationwide general contractors to do the construction to do concrete to do the locker build out inside. And you know, so it’s a mix, but it’s a lot of it’s a lot of the same contractors going from site to site, because that’s what they do. They just, you know, they travel and they build.

Got it. And as far as the, the capital to do these, are you guys syndicating or how are you going about? Raising the capital? 

Correct? Yeah, it’s a combination of syndication and bank financing. We have an amazing pool of accredited investors that we tap into. And, you know, we really look at them as our partners, even though their LPs and GPS and we look at those as people that we want to build with and we want to grow with because our syndicated deals, they never relinquish equity equity. So if they come in with equity, they have equity in perpetuity, even after they get their cash out, and they’re refinance in the backside. They own that piece. They’re, they’re a part owner for the duration. So you know, we kind of treat that and think it’s it’s extra special, because I want those people to ride with us on the next deal and the next deal in the next deal, and ultimately build legacy wealth together.

No, I like that model, are you? Or at least based on what I’m hearing? You say that the plan is kind of build and hold then is it? Say kind of?

Yeah, we started out early on thinking man, we would sell some, we’ll keep some we’ll sell some. And I owe it to my business partner, Brian, who’s our CEO. He’s kind of our head of construction. He sat down, like, not too long ago, and he was like, why would we want to sell any of these? We’ll just keep them as long as we possibly can. I mean, we’re, we’re refinancing, we’re stabilizing, we have cash flow, what’s the sense, right? Why would you know, why would we do that? Because, you know, hopefully, we’re gonna go back 15 years from now look back and say, Man, that was a hell of a portfolio put together.

And as far as the investors that is basically refi, that you’re getting them their money back. And then they’re saying, Hey, what about the next one? And that’s is that kind of the define that a lot of the people are one wanting to get in on that next one is that you’ve absolutely yes, yeah.

In fact, you know, almost every deal we have is between 50 and 60 cents on the dollar that we’re into posts or pre stabilization. So, you know, the goal here is that we continue to build these Almost 2x equity deals that they can more than easily take out the refinance more than easily take out the initial investment. We’ll still have some leftover after that. And yeah, they ride with us to the next one, because we over delivered.

J Darrin Gross  25:15  

Great. So let’s take a minute here and talk a little bit about your, your other opportunity or the activity you’re involved in with executive coaching. Sure. So I’m curious from a standpoint of like a real estate investor, or somebody that’s wanting to get into real estate investing, if you could speak to, to, you know, them as far as how they could improve their performance, or how they can get to that next level, if they’re, you know, have they have a single family property, they want to get into multiples, or they gets, you know, small multiples, I want to get into large multiples, is there any insight that you can provide? On on, you know, maybe a way of thinking or way of acting that, you know, they should consider?

Joe Evangelisti  26:07  

Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you asking me that. I mean, you know, part of what really drove me to become an executive coach was the position that I was in, when I told you that I was doing that chasing game, right where I was, I was wearing so many hats, and I kind of felt like, you know, they say, No, man is an island. Well, I was an island, right? I was running as fast as I could, you know, I had at that point, I had two young girls, I had a new wife, I had a new house, two dogs, and like, you know, I wasn’t spending nearly what I should be on them on my lifestyle, right, I was chasing all this opportunity. And I kept thinking, if I put in more hours, I can make it work, you know, I just do more, do more, do more, and I’ll be more, right. And, you know, that was the epiphany moment where I just said, I gotta do something different. This isn’t going to work for me, I’m missing. You know, like, my kids barbecues on Sunday with a family, I’m missing, you know, soccer games, I’m telling my wife, I’m gonna be home late tonight for no reason, just so I could, you know, do busy work. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck in that cycle where they feel like if I just do more, I’ll get better results. And what what I learned kind of the hard way, but opportunistically, through my mentors and coaches that I hired that time was, I got to work on Joe, right, when I become a better Joe, everything else starts to come into alignment. When I start working on myself, I start becoming a better father, a better husband, a better leader, a better business owner, a better coach to my people. And, you know, ultimately, I was able to, you know, figure that all out. And now I help other people navigate that, that those things through through their life in their business. And what I figured out was what I call the five roads to victory, you know, the US Navy seabees, I call it this because the seabees, back in World War Two had physical five roads that they were they were designing around the globe, you know, to give our our forces access to things and to block off, you know, access to things from from our adversaries. And so when I created this thing called the five roads to victory, it’s really the five dominating things that we have to change about ourselves in order to find the success that we want to find.

J Darrin Gross  28:11  

Can you share with us five? Is there a? 

Joe Evangelisti  28:15  

Sure? Yeah, I can. Yeah, so the first one I talked about there is what we call getting your mind, right, or your limiting beliefs, right? Because so many of us, we say to ourselves, you know, things like I’m not good enough. Not fast enough. I’m not educated enough, right? I’m not capable this, you know, why would I do that? You know, because I’m comfortable where I am. And the reality of it is, a lot of times when we have those conversations with ourselves, it’s it’s literally conversations with ourselves, right? Like when there’s when you go to decide to do something big, or you set a new goal, and you start hearing that little voice in your head, that voice is your voice, right? So understanding that I get to control that voice, I get to decide what that voice says to me. And a lot of times when we try to make a decision that’s big, we start to do what we start to rationalize, right, we start to go, Well, maybe this will really if we break that down, what we’re doing is we’re telling ourselves rational lies, right? We say to ourselves, I want to go out and I want to build, build, build whatever, I want to do 10 flips a year. And then before you can even get the thought passed your head, right? You’re all of a sudden hear that voice. 1010 might be too many. Where am I going to get the capital for that? How am I going to do that? I don’t have a team to work with. How does anybody else do this? Maybe I should just stay where I’m at and do what I’m doing. Right. And we rationalized the reasons why we can’t grow. So the first thing I do with my coaching clients is look into what’s their limiting beliefs, what’s their value system? What’s the standards that they live by? Why Why do they want what they want, and create results and purpose around that so that we can start to change that inner voice to actually catapult you to success instead of holding you back from their goals?

J Darrin Gross  29:52  

No, that’s the limiting belief. That’s pretty powerful stuff there. Yeah, absolutely. So In, in your work with people in, you know, on the coaching net? What kind of a timeline Do you find? for people to have some sort of a measurable? change? I mean, obviously, you know, you were saying working on yourself and that, but I’m, you know, I’m just kind of curious, whoa, you know, if somebody says, Okay, I’m tired, I want to go, I want more, you know, putting in the work, I need somebody that’s kind of guide me along the way to get get to where I want to be kind of thing. Is there any kind of like, you know, an expectation on on how long is it was based on how big your goal is? Or is or like to see some sort of, you know, a meaningful change and to get some, you know, some sort of a positive results?

Joe Evangelisti  30:53  

Absolutely. I’ve seen I’ve had people will have results instantly, within weeks. And then you know, there’s some people that it takes a lot to get through to reset that mindset and reset that that thought process. And you know, it takes, you know, a month or two, but reality of it is I’ve never had anybody work with me six months that didn’t see incredible results. And we call the 36, and six, right, it’s about collapsing time, or what we call turning decades into days, you know, we can accomplish three years of what we normally think we could accomplish in six months. If we know the plan, we know, you know, where we’re going. And so second part of that process is really what we call the plan of attack, right? So if I’m in the military, and I’m going to board up on a sci fi, and I’m going to go invade a foreign country, right, we don’t just jump in the back of the plane and parachute out the back and land and go, okay, what’s next? Right, we have an actual plan of attack, right? And so the challenges Darren, that most people spend more time planning their trip to Mexico for a week, and they do with their life in their business, right? If you’re going to Mexico, you know, what plane you’re going on, you know, what seat you’re sitting in, right? You know how you’re going to handle transportation to and from, you know, when I get to that hotel, do I have a pool view? Do I have an ocean view? Right? Am I near the beach? How far am I from the bar, you know, all of these things, and so people know every step of their seven day trip to Mexico, but you say to somebody, you know, what do you want in life? What are your goals? What would your perfect day look like? Right? How much money do you really want to make? Right? And people don’t have the answer for this, because we didn’t reverse engineer and remember, we’re talking about the outcome, not the task. And so many people spend their day, day to day doing tasks doing to do lists, you know, checking off the box, make themselves feel good. And they and they’re just putting out fires all day. But they’re and I tell I tell a lot of entrepreneurs, the ones that are putting out the most fires, right? The ones that pride themselves, like I put out fires all day long, they’re walking behind the building and their lighting matches, right? They’re literally setting themselves on fire, so they can feel good about putting themselves out. And so what we want to focus on instead of the firestarters is how do we convert that energy into outcome based goals? Right, what I really want to see what do I really want to achieve and then reverse engineer from there.

I love the the mindset or just the the foresight of, you know, reverse engineering, you know, understanding where I want to go now, how am I going to get there kind of thing and, and working backwards from there. That’s, that’s pretty powerful.

And yeah, most importantly, creating a strategic plan around that. So that you know, what, what, what you need to get done in order for it to be to be accomplished for you step by step.

J Darrin Gross  33:27  

So let me ask you this. So your role as a coach, is their accountability factor here? Are you holding people’s feet to the fire? Or is it more a matter of a kind of a, you know, talk to me a little bit about how the how that relationship works?

Joe Evangelisti  33:46  

Yeah, I mean, yeah, you’re getting ahead of me a little bit. That’s step five. But so again, no, it’s okay. No, I mean, I love to answer that. I mean, the challenge is this when someone feels like you know, they need to be held accountable or hold their feet to the fire. They’re thinking, like, I’m gonna have a coach yelling at me or telling me what to do. And the reality is, it’s almost opposite, right? Because when we reset the mindset, and we control, what is the outcome, what are the results? Why’d you hear people say, what’s your WHY? Right? And everyone says, Oh, well, it’s my kids, or it’s my wife or my grandkid. Like, what’s your What? And generally look, it’s a BS answer to cover up something, right? Because the truth is any one of us that have kids, yeah, we do everything for our kids, right? But that doesn’t mean every goal I have is in alignment with my kids, right? If I want to create a multimillion dollar business so that I can have time freedom, and I can only work a couple hours a week running it or letting it run itself. I’m not doing that for my kids. I’m selfishly doing it for me, so I can control my time. Maybe I’m going to spend more time with my kids. Maybe I’m going to buy them cooler stuff or give them more opportunity. Or maybe I’m going to start a charity or maybe I’m gonna you know, there’s so many angles I could take that so what is the result and what is the outcome and the purpose that I’m actually trying to get out of building a multimillion dollar business. You know, so many people chase the dollar sign, and not the outcome that they’re looking for not the actual purpose of why you want to create it to begin with. And that’s really your why Darren, when we know our why that’s what drives us. That’s what keeps us you know, we hit obstacles. That’s what keeps us going forward. Right? You’re not just going to stop at a stop sign, because you know, it came up when you’re when you’re focused on your why you’re going to run the stop sign, because nothing’s going to keep you from getting to that goal. Make sense?

J Darrin Gross  35:22  

Yeah. Not that’s, again, knowing knowing why you’re doing it. I mean, that’s, that’s really kind of the the key thing there. 

Joe Evangelisti  35:29  

Yeah, absolutely. styling. Yeah, I mean, run past your, the next day, they all go out of order I look at Yeah, okay. It doesn’t matter. It’s okay. That mean, there’s really, again, there’s no, there’s no right or wrong for how these things happen. These are, these are literally, these aren’t theory, these are the things that I do on a daily basis. But I really keyed in on what makes me you know, be able to do what I do and build a lifestyle business around, you know, what I what I want to do every day, you know, who I want to work with who I want to be around.

J Darrin Gross  36:02  

That’s good stuff. Joe, if we could like shift gears here for a second? Sure. By day, I’m an insurance broker. And I work with my clients to assess risk and determine what to do with the risk. And there’s three strategies we typically consider, we first look to see if we can avoid the risk. That’s not an option, we look to see if we can minimize the risk. And if we can’t avoid nor minimize the risk, then we look to see how we can transfer the risk. And that’s what an insurance policy is. And I like to ask my guests, if they can look at their own situation. Could be your clients, investors, tenants, the market opportunities, but if you can take a look at your situation, and identify what you consider to be the biggest risk and for clarity, not necessarily looking for an insurance related answer. But if you’re willing, I’d like to ask you, Joe, evangelist at what is the BIGGEST RISK?

Joe Evangelisti  37:14  

Absolutely. And I have insurance background as well. So I mean, I’m not going to answer from an insurance perspective, but I understand where you’re coming from. And, and look, I think insurance is one way, you know, we could talk about risk, but really, when we’re talking about risk in life, and we’re talking about risk and success and growth and contribution and creating something that, you know, when we talk about legacy, wealth, or legacy building, I think about legacy as when I create that thing, there’s some kid 100 years from now, who’s never heard my name, who’s going to be impacted by that, because his grandfather, and Father, you know, taught that, you know, took it down the line and created that long term legacy and wealth, right? In order to create that there’s no way you can do it without risk, right? Everything we do is risk, you drive your car to work in the morning, it’s a risk, but you don’t not work, right, you don’t not go to your job. It’s the same thing, I think in our industry, is there’s going to be a lot of risks. But the one way that we can create risk mitigation is through proper due diligence through making sure we check all of our boxes through thinking 12 months to two years in advance or five years in advance in some in some cases, right? So, you know, when it comes to like, let’s say Self Storage development, for an example, there’s a lot of outliers, right, the market could change the the the price of materials right now has gone through the roof. And so we build in contingencies for these things, we pay attention to the what ifs, we look ahead to, you know, making sure that we ask the right questions and do the proper due diligence. You know, we don’t buy sites that, you know, used to contain an underground oil spill or you know, have major water issues or any that type of thing. So I think the best way to mitigate risk when you’re in the development business and in your in the construction business, is to do the proper due diligence, like you see here, most of the nightmare stories of big developments gone wrong. It’s because someone forgot to ask the right question. someone forgot to do the right study, someone skipped paying for the feasibility report and just went in all in on a gut feeling. You know, one of the things about these big deals that I like is there’s so many people involved in the approval process, right? It goes through 20 different hands before we say yes, and before we even decided to go take investor money in. So we want to make sure that we’re mitigating the risk to create the best possible upside, knowing that it’s going to go wrong, that we have problems, things happen, right, and then being surrounded by really good problem solvers. So when they come up, we have a plan B and A plan C and a plan D.

J Darrin Gross  39:39  

No, due diligence. That’s kind of I mean, I see it too many times is it you know, like I said, People get all excited and in don’t consider the downside. And next thing you know, they’re either out of business or upside down or, you know, it’s just, it can be it was something that was it was avoidable, but they just I chose to look the other way kind of thing so I really appreciate you sharing that. Yeah. Joe where can listeners go if they’d like to learn more connect with you?

Joe Evangelisti  40:10  

Yeah, there’s there’s two places if they’re looking for expansion on the on the executive coaching and pure NP performance side, we have a website called invest I’m sorry, Elevate with Joe dot com.  It’s elevatewithJoe.com, and that they want to check out some of the storage side our storage website is investwithlegacy.com invest with legacy. So you can check out our storage deals there. And of course, if you’re looking to, to grow as a person and a business owner and you want to see real real results and go to the elevate with Joe, com.

J Darrin Gross  40:44  

Awesome. Joe, I can’t say thanks enough for taking the time to talk today. I’ve enjoyed it, and learned a lot. And I hope we can do it again soon. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. 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 Network’s CRE PN Radio.

Announcer  41:16  

You’re listening to CRE PN Radio for influential commercial real estate professionals. For more information on this or any of our guests like us on Facebook CRE PN Radio