Kristen: [00:00:00] Welcome to this edition of Insider Secrets, the weekly podcast that turns real estate investing goals into reality. Each show we interview guests who are seasoned real estate professionals, actively closing and managing real estate deals. Mike is the founder of My Core Intentions and would like to help you make your real estate investing dreams a reality.

Mike coaches you to buy investment real estate, creating short-term cash flow and long-term wealth. Your host and real estate coach, Mike Morawski, has more than 30 years of real estate investing and property management experience. Here’s your host, Mike.

Mike Morawski: What’s up everybody? Good morning. I am so glad that you’re here today because you are in for an episode, that’s for sure. And not that we’re gonna have an episode, but we are gonna have a great show and you’re gonna enjoy my guest.

And we’re talking about multi-family, some facet of multi-family, right? Small, [00:01:00] medium, large and everything that goes as part of that. Raising capital, underwriting, due diligence, bringing good content to you that is gonna help you scale your business; help you grow your multi-family portfolio.

So what I ask you all the time though is are you being intentional? What are you being intentional about? What are you gonna be intentional about this weekend? Do you have some work to catch up on this morning? Do you need to get to the gym?

Are you gonna spend some time with your kids or family? Whatever that is, be intentional about your activities. We all have choices. We make these choices in our life to either be successful or not be successful. And that doesn’t just necessarily mean around business. I believe that it’s about our personal life too.

How do we become successful in our personal life? Cuz none of us grow professionally unless we’re personally. So invest in yourself, invest in your education, invest in your [00:02:00] mindset. The more you invest in that, the greater results you’re gonna have everywhere else in your life. So glad you’re here. Be intentional.

And if you’re on YouTube this morning, hit that subscribe button. Would you subscribe to that channel? Because every day I’m bringing out new content relevant for where we’re at in the marketplace, what’s going on in the market, and how to further your knowledge to grow your business. Hey, if you’re following us on social media, like us, love us. Facebook, LinkedIn, we’re here for you, so connect with us so that we can continue to connect with you.

But my guest today is a guest longtime friend. Somebody had on the show a couple years ago now. Agostino Pintus. He’s with Bulletproof cash flow. And we’re gonna talk about private equity, private capital this morning. So let me bring him in. What’s up buddy?

Agostino Pintus: How you doing, bud?

Mike Morawski: It’s been a while. Hasn’t it?

Agostino Pintus: It’s been a long while. Been a long while, yeah. [00:03:00] Too long.

Mike Morawski: I have been loving your social media though, man. You got a presence out there, that’s for sure.

Agostino Pintus: Yeah. Appreciate it. Thanks. Thanks.

Mike Morawski: I learn a lot by watching other people’s social media stuff. Edits and the things they say in topics and listen, anybody can do it, right?

Agostino Pintus: Well, anybody can do it. It’s a matter of execution. You have to be able to walk the walk is a big thing, a big part of it too. And showing up. You gotta show up. If you don’t show up every day it’s very hard to become successful at anything, honestly.

Mike Morawski: Yeah. I have an interesting thing coming up. This week on Monday, I have a guy who’s gonna follow me around with a camera. So that should be a little bit interesting cuz normally, we’re all doing our own thing with holding the phone out there. And so this’ll be a little different spin. So I’m looking forward to that.

Agostino Pintus: Yeah, it’s gonna be fun. I’m sure it’s gonna be a lot of fun. Just don’t rent the fake Ferrari and…

Mike Morawski: I don’t do any stacks of cash. Send airplanes and, [00:04:00] I don’t do any of that.

Hey, listen. So I always start, I love to ask them one question, right? In one word, what best describes you personally and professionally?

Agostino Pintus: I would say responsible. That’s probably the best word I can come up with. Responsible.

Mike Morawski: Where’s that come from? What’s that mean to you? Why?

Agostino Pintus: So when I worked in corporate, I worked in corporate for a long, long, long time before I made the shift out of corporate America into real estate.

And when I made the rise to the ranks in corporate America, I made it to the C level. I was in the C-suite running large enterprise technology, so technology was my bag. That’s what I really love to do is running large technology groups and no matter what happens in any type of business setting, Technology is somewhere in there, right?

So no matter what tech, me have to be responsible for basically the background operation. And I’m not trying to take credit for any other types of like HR or [00:05:00] accounting or operations or whatever. I’m not trying to take credit or take anything away from those groups, but without the underlying technology to make those groups function, nothing happens.

So that kind of responsibility really bled into other parts of my life, right? Because when you’re a C level guy or girl and you have that depth of responsibility across an entire enterprise, you tend to be responsible. Like you instill that way of being and everything you do, right?

You’re responsible for capital raising. You’re responsible for finding the deals. You’re responsible for the capital stack; you’re responsible for making sure that the operation runs right. You’re responsible for everything. And when you’re responsible like that, things get done. They have to, they have to get done. So responsible.

Mike Morawski: Hey, whether you’re a leader or not, and you take on that responsibility, you kind of step into that place, right? And now all of a sudden you’ve made that choice, and now you have to excel.

Agostino Pintus: Yeah, absolutely.

Mike Morawski: So I kinda look at what we do today as being that lead on the [00:06:00] team. You gotta have a great team behind you. But, I heard something interesting I don’t know if it was yesterday or today just a little clip where it was actually a Tony Robbins thing I was listening to. He was being interviewed and he said, great leaders learn to delegate. And it was like, it clicked for me, but it was one of those things that once you learn how to delegate and you give that away and you get somebody else to do it, and as long as it’s being done properly, it makes your life so much easier because it gives you the bandwidth to go and do a little bit more, right?

Agostino Pintus: Yeah. And then I totally agree with delegating. But then there’s another part, there’s the other side of the coin to Tony’s quote, trust but verify. So it goes back to what you said a second ago, right? It’s kinda like. Yes, delegate, but you better make damn sure that the people you’re delegating [00:07:00] to can actually pull it off.

So that’s where there’s some sort of level of trust required. You have to sort of like, try ’em out. Are they gonna be okay doing what I’m asking them to do. Can I handle more stuff if I throw it at ’em? And when you’re trying to build any type of business, that’s probably one of the more difficult things to do is feel out that team and make sure they can actually execute, especially on an operations side.

I mean, listen, buying a deal is easy. Running it for 10 years straight profitably is hard. No guru on Facebook’s gonna tell you that. They all talk about hurry up into a deal. That’s fine and dandy. If you can’t execute on that deal, all you do is push it on someone else. Let them handle it.

That’s a big risk that you really don’t want to take. Like that’s where the term responsible comes in. It’s like you have to make sure that you’re staying on top of those folks. Not micromanaging. I hate micromanaging, man. That’s not my thing either. I don’t like doing that, but it’s like, you gotta make sure they have a good group running your stuff. That’s a big part of it. I don’t have any problems delegating, that’s for sure. It’s like you have a good group running your stuff. That’s the hard part.

Mike Morawski: Yeah, so it’s interesting cuz I feel like [00:08:00] I’ve got a good team around me. I got a great underwriter and I have a partner who is just so detail oriented and DOT’s all the I and crosses the t’s and keeps me in alignment, right?

Like, sometimes I feel like she manages me from back from the backside, right? Which is just great because then that gives me the ability to go out and pull together some of the other components of that team to bring a deal to the market.

Agostino Pintus: Yeah, that’s beautiful. See, the thing is though, it’s like, guys like you and I figured it out, right? It’s like, there’s a system called PASE, P A S E, Practical Action social Emotional.

Mike Morawski: Say it again. Say it again. That was good.

Agostino Pintus: Yeah. Practical Action Social Emotional. All right. So think of it as like four blocks. Okay. And everyone is made up of these four blocks, but some are higher than others. And there’s an order to it. I’m an A P E S. I’m Action Practical Emotional then [00:09:00] Social, not very social, right? I’m a hundred percent action intense all the time. And that’s good for certain things. If you’re gonna be the guy running the show, the CEO of business with a guy or girl, whatever the person in charge.

Maybe you wanna be an A P E S, but you don’t wanna be the second in command. You don’t want them being just like you cuz if nothing gets done, like things get started but never get finished. If you have a P E A S, a Practical Emotion, Action, Social, for instance. Those people are the ones typically, they’re detail oriented people.

Those folks are the CPAs. They’re your operators. They’re your COOs, those folks, right? So you wanna have a variety of different people in your group. At the same time too, if you are a P E A S and you’re in the top position, you better have an A P E S as a second, right?

Mike Morawski: Yeah.

Agostino Pintus: To make sure that stuff is getting done, because if you have too many Ps in your pod, you’re gonna have a hard time cuz nothing’s gonna get done. Like, there’s no action being taken because I don’t wanna sound like action guys are the [00:10:00] only thing, and maybe I’m a little biased because that’s how I am, right?

I’m an action guy. But without the action people pushing the business agenda forward, it’s gonna be very hard to see any type of success in your life. So that’s why having a good coach, that’s why going to masterminds have being engaged with folks like that kind of help you give you a push if you’re looking for that kind of thing, is a great thing to have in your life in general, but also for running your business too.

Mike Morawski: Yeah. I remember] being a kid growing up. One of my mom’s favorite sayings along with a number of them, but too many chiefs, not enough Indians.

Agostino Pintus: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Mike Morawski: Hey listen, so it’s been a couple of years since you and I have done a show together and I was really excited. Somebody said, hey, do you wanna have Agostino on your show? I said, absolutely. So I’m really excited we got connected but last time we talked you were working on, you’re in Columbus, right?

Agostino Pintus: No, I’m in Cleveland. Cleveland.

Mike Morawski: Cleveland. I’m sorry. So you’re in Cleveland, you were working on a pretty big project.

Agostino Pintus: Yeah. [00:11:00]

Mike Morawski: On talk about that building. I don’t remember. I know it was…

Agostino Pintus: The Rockefeller.

Mike Morawski: The Rockefeller building. Right. Listen, by the way, as a side note, I’m gonna be in Cleveland in June.

Agostino Pintus: Oh, okay. Yeah. Well hit me up. Yeah, for sure.

Mike Morawski: I would definitely love to hook up coming out to go to a wedding. Gonna go to the Rock and Roll Hall Museum. Let’s definitely make sure we get together.

Agostino Pintus: Absolutely. I’ll be here. I’ll be here.

Mike Morawski: Great. So go ahead. Talk about that project.

Agostino Pintus: Yeah. Well, before I step into that project, I’ll give you and the audience a little bit of an update as to where we’re, because I think last time we spoke, we’re just really headstrong on one side of the business, which was the acquisition of stabilized B and C class assets.

And we’re still doing that to some extent today. It’s just tougher to find deals at pencil. So we’re still doing that. We’re still operating the current assets and we have some 1600 units currently. But really the second part, the development side, like deals like Rockefeller are where the current biggest part of our business [00:12:00] operation is today.

So we have these adaptive reuse type projects where we’re converting offices, office space to multi-family. So Rockefeller is one of ’em. Since we last spoke God we’ve done like, we have five other ground of development projects going and we’ve acquired medical offices to do all the same sort of thing.

We’re building multi-family basically, in and around Cleveland. In terms of developments, we probably have about a hundred, 120 million of development in play right now. Not including Rockefeller. Rockefeller by itself is 130 million. So yeah, we have a lot of development underway. And the development is serving this need for housing.

Like obviously everybody knows about this need for housing. People are clamoring for more housing, and that’s where that development aspect is coming into what we’re doing. We specifically target urban infill, right? So what that means is that as I’m not doing crazy deals out in the middle of nowhere, 300 units in a tertiary market, I don’t do those deals.

That to me is too scary. I like doing urban infill, meaning you have [00:13:00] adaptive reuse of existing offices. You have ground up of like say, some land bank land and you could acquire some houses nearby and tear it all down and build something new and nice for the neighborhood. Stuff like that. I like doing stuff like that.

Wherever there’s activity, there’s money. Doesn’t matter what kind of deal it is, if there’s activity in that area, if there’s cars and there’s people, there’s always money there. You wanna be in the center of where the money is, no matter what. No matter what the deal is, right.

The third line of business that we’ve started since way after we spoke was in net lease business. We have a blind pool fund that acquires single tenant net lease assets Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Walgreen, VCA, stuff like that. So we go off and we buy these existing deals that are corporate backed, corporate back guarantee. They have leases in play. They’re already running. Its ongoing concern and we deliver a monthly return to the investors. So it’s a risk adjusted return.

Sure. It’s not gonna be as juicy as like, say, development or a multi-family, but if you want like a standard monthly cash flow, [00:14:00] that’s what you want. You wanna get into that fund.

Mike Morawski: And that’s great for the coupon clippers. Right?

Agostino Pintus: Exactly. Exactly. That’s why we did it. You know, we had investors that might have been, we might have been between deals, but they still wanted to deploy some cash and get some money back. It’s a great way to do that.

It’s a great way to have for our investors to invest with us and be involved across a whole spectrum of different asset classes.

Mike Morawski: Are you building the triple net deals? So are you building allergen? You’re buying what’s existing in there.

Agostino Pintus: Yeah.

Mike Morawski: The owner who owns it is getting out.

Agostino Pintus: Correct.

Mike Morawski: When you do that, are you absorbing any tenant base along with that or any investor base along with that?

Agostino Pintus: No.

Mike Morawski: So if you go buy a cvs, and I think a lot of people don’t know these triple net deals. You got Walgreens, CVS, AutoZone, Dollar General, Family Dollar Stores. There’s so many and there’s fast food restaurants too that…

Agostino Pintus: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mike Morawski: That’s why I think McDonald separates itself from some of the other fast food franchises is they own the real estate.

Agostino Pintus: Yeah. [00:15:00]

Mike Morawski: McDonald’s is in the real estate business. They’re not in the hamburger business.

Agostino Pintus: Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Morawski: And they’ve said that for years. But anyhow, when you buy that asset, are you absorbing an existing base of investors also?

Agostino Pintus: No. So what we’re doing is like, say dollar General, well actually, I’ll give a better example. We’re buying a VCA Animal Hospital, right?

Mike Morawski: Okay.

Agostino Pintus: So this VCA Animal Hospital, most people don’t know it. You know the Mars Corporation? Mars Incorporated?

Mike Morawski: Yeah.

Agostino Pintus: They make the the chocolate Barss.

Mike Morawski: Absolutely.

Agostino Pintus: But this company does $22 billion in revenue a year. They’re enormous. This is the original Mars family. Like this is them. And they own a lot of like animal product, animal related products like food. Pet food, stuff like that. Well, they’re also in the hospital business. The pet hospital business.

Mike Morawski: Yeah.

Agostino Pintus: So you have that and that’s a corporate backed VCA deal. So we buy the land, we buy the structure; we buy the [00:16:00] lease. Everything by the whole kit and caboodle. It’s all backed by VCA. So if for whatever reason a doctor decides, I wanna shut down the practice, or whatever happens, the lease is still corporate backed. They’re responsible for that lease for the entire term.

Mike Morawski: So what is VCA? Just so people understand.

Agostino Pintus: Veterinary Care Associates, I think is what it stands for. But it’s an animal hospital. Animal hospital.

Mike Morawski: Yeah. Got it. Got it.

Agostino Pintus: But same thing as Dollar General, same thing, same concept. Dollar General, Dollar Tree. We’re looking to acquire assets that did just fine. No problems during the pandemic. So we’re positioning this to be pretty much like pandemic proof, so to speak. That no matter what happens, that cash flow is always coming in no matter what.

Mike Morawski: So let’s talk about this for a minute. Let’s talk about focus. I’ve been speaking a lot publicly lately, and I had a guy come up to me a month ago I was doing an event in Wisconsin and he said, listen, I think my biggest challenge over the years in real estate is I didn’t focus on one asset class.

Because I did [00:17:00] office, I did retail, I did triple net. I did this and it sounds to me like you’re still doing your BC assets, you’re doing your development stuff, you’re doing some triple net stuff. How do you feel that does that disrupt your focus or is there just so much bandwidth out there in capital and people and wanna be involved in other things that it makes sense for you?

Agostino Pintus: No. You have to delegate. Mike didn’t you hear what Tony Robbins said? But seriously. No. No. So I’m very lucky that I have great partners that are involved with these deals. So in the case of the net lease business, the fortress fund. It’s really my wife and we have some other friends, really good friends of ours that are in that business and they pretty much run the day-to-day operation of that business.

So I’m involved. Actively involved, but it’s like the wife is running the day-to-day of that business. And she’s also very much a [00:18:00] detail oriented, she’s a p right? So she gets down to the weeds. She does a deep analysis. She’s determining how many cars go by, how much revenue’s being generated. She does all that stuff.

Where guys like you and I were, we could do it. But maybe we don’t like doing stuff like that. She’s excellent at that stuff. She loves doing that stuff. You want a data person doing that role. So she’s great at it. And then on the development side, that’s where primarily a lot of my focus is these days, is just on the development side.

And the thing about the operational side of these existing multi-family assets is that once you buy the asset, you conduct your transition of the asset, you put your business plan into place and you’re running it on a regular basis and you have a good, strong management team in play.

There’s not a whole lot to do in terms of like regular operating, you know what I mean? It’s like, you’re meeting with the group once a week, you’re going through the numbers. Are they hitting the targets? If they are, then great. If they’re not, then of course you have to make some adjustments.

But, I mean, we’ve owned these assets for a [00:19:00] while now. And we’ve already executed our plan in terms of the business improvement plan of the asset itself. So once you do all that, as long as you’re executing properly, you’re delivering your returns, everything’s okay.

Agostino Pintus: So the bulk of [00:20:00] my attention is now on the development side of things. Because as I said, that’s where the biggest part, that’s where the biggest growth is these days. And because of a lot of capital goes into those deals, both investor capital and bank capital, you kind of have to have your eye on it.

Mike Morawski: Yeah. All right, so let’s talk about this for a minute. So we know that any of this, no matter what it is, I mean I’m doing a C deal in Tulsa right now. It’s all a function at capital. Yeah, it’s all a function at Capital. You said something interesting and I’m gonna call you out on this cuz I don’t believe it for a minute, but you said you’re not a very social person and I see all over social media and to raise capital, you’ve gotta have something in you that allows you to do that.

So, let’s talk about your capital raising efforts and raising private capital, cuz really, like I said, nothing happens in our world. It’s all a function of the capital. And how do we [00:21:00] get to more investors to partner alongside of us to share in the returns that we can offer and bring to the marketplace. Even in the way they say the market is today, cuz I don’t believe it for a minute.

Agostino Pintus: Yeah, I think part of it is that you have to deliver value all the time. You’re delivering value all the time. You’re putting other people first before you put yourself first. That’s really what it comes down to. I know it sounds all cliche or whatever, but it’s true.

What you said earlier, it’s like I’m on social media all the time and I’m always putting out there yes. I’m delivering. I try to deliver as much value as I can. It takes time and effort to think about what am I gonna talk about? How am I gonna record? Get all the editing, get all the stuff posted, and everything else like that.

It takes time and money just to do that alone, let alone over 400 episodes of Bulletproof Cash Flow. As you know, these podcasts, these streams, these shows are not cheap to produce. You have a whole team of people just doing that, okay? It takes effort. And [00:22:00] there has to be a purpose.

You said earlier, there has to be an intent behind it. And if the intent is to deliver value for other people as the priority, conceivably, when people are ready to invest and they kind of know who you are. They’ve heard of you, they see your material. They’re like, oh my God, I’ve heard of this Agostino guy. I heard of this cat. He’s pretty cool. He’s posting great material all the time.

They’ll get to know you, and if they know you, maybe they’ll even like you, and if they like you, they might even trust you. It’s those three things. I know it sounds all cliche, but if you’re delivering value first, they get to know you, then they can flow you.

 If they don’t know you, no, you’re not getting any flow of any kind. And that’s probably one of the biggest things that people don’t do, you know? It’s like a lot of people sit on the couch and wait for things to happen, and it’s not gonna happen. It takes a lot of effort, takes work. But today it’s easier than ever because of all the social media that we do have at our disposal now, it is easy to get your word out there.

It is easy to get the message out there, but what you can do to help people get to where they want to go, because that’s what it comes down to. If you can help other [00:23:00] people get to where they want to go, you can help enough of ’em. Then you get what you want too.

Mike Morawski: Yeah.

Agostino Pintus: But you have to put them first. Always. Always have to put them first.

Mike Morawski: Zig Zigler said that years ago, helping enough people get what they want. You’ll ultimately get what you want.

Agostino Pintus: Yeah. That’s it. That’s it.

Mike Morawski: I think one of the best books I ever read was Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” and I believe that that should be a mandatory book in the high schools, especially today in the environment that we’re in today. But that’s a whole; we could do a whole story.

Agostino Pintus: Well, you’re still in Chicago, right? I mean, you can start distributing that book in downtown or something. I don’t wanna get political. I’m gonna shut up now.

Mike Morawski: A good friend of mine is a CPS school teacher, and he taught in private school for about five years and went to the public school system this year and he’s quitting. And I don’t blame him, right? Kids are getting shot and beat up and he gets in trouble for reprimanding kids. So discipline needs to [00:24:00] start at home. And yeah, like I said, that’s a whole nother show.

Hey. So here’s what I wanna know. Do you have people when you’re raising capital and bringing a deal to the market and looking for LPs limited partners to invest alongside you and share in the rewards, are people calling you or are you outreaching?

Agostino Pintus: We do a little of both. It’s constant outreach all the time. And the outreach is not always asking for something. I’m not always out there with my handout. It’s the outreach is really, Hey, we bought our new deal. Lemme tell you about this deal that we had just bought. Here’s how it works. Or, hey, you know what, here’s the five steps how to run a property correctly.

Maybe an LP cares, maybe they don’t, maybe they’re invested in other deals. Maybe that LP eventually will become a GP and they wanna learn how to do this. It’s always just delivering as much value as I can. Again, if I can be in front of not only our investors, our existing audience of investors, but also in front of [00:25:00] new investors too. And I’m never asking if you notice on many of my posts ever, you notice if you see, if you watch any of ’em, I never say subscribe. I never say hit me up or I never say like, give me something I never do, I probably should. I never do.

Mike Morawski: I do all the time. Watch. Hey, if you’re new to the show, and you’re on YouTube right now, smash the subscribe button because…

Agostino Pintus: I probably should do that. I probably should do that.

Mike Morawski: We bring stuff like this all the time because this is killer this morning. And I’m gonna syndicate this also, so we’re doing this show this morning, but I’m also gonna put this on my insider secrets. Because I think we’re dropping some nuggets here for people this morning that are valuable.

So, I know that one of the things for me, I like going out and shaking hands. Kissing baby, meeting people. Ronald Reagan used to talk about that all the time. Like him, or love him or like him or hate him. But, he used to talk about that all the time. And I like getting out and meeting people, but I don’t know that I [00:26:00] always like going to a real estate function.

I want to go to something else. I want to go to your generic networking event. Or I want to go to a event where there’s gonna be a bunch of doctors because I want to meet people that are outside of my arena. Because a lot of times I find people don’t know what a great opportunity we offer.

Agostino Pintus: Yeah.

Mike Morawski: So, talk about where you’re meeting people and how you’re building your database?

Agostino Pintus: It’s primarily through social media right now, but you’re a hundred percent right in terms of the funnel. Many people at the top of the funnel up here, they may have heard about real estate, but they don’t understand how to get into the real estate game.

And I’ve spoken to many of these folks, right? They’re confused. They think they have to do notes, they gotta do single family, they gotta do multi-family. Thinking about investing in a soft storage unit. I’m gonna partner up with my buddy and buy a bar. I had one lady that [00:27:00] said, she wanted to go and do an event center and like in a shady part of town, like to hold wedding events.

And she thinks that’s real estate. And I’m like, no, that’s hospitality. That is not real estate. Its real estate in so far as there’s a piece of real estate, that’s it. That’s as far as it goes. It’s not real estate. And part of it’s a lack of focus. And that’s why like I said, listen, I can show you how to buy real estate in our training program or you can invest alongside with a whole bunch of other people and a nice big asset with very good debt on it that you can never get on your own and enjoy the returns of a deal like that. So there’s multiple ways of doing it, but part of it is educating them, right?

That’s why social media, the social media reach; as long as you’re putting information out there and you can get in front of the right person. As long as you’re educating those people at the top, the very top of the funnel there to get them into the funnel, to eventually educate them enough to invest with you.

I think fortunately because of social media, [00:28:00] people have learned a great deal more about real estate and how it works. I mean, syndication, the whole concept of syndication has really exploded, I’d say, for the past 10, 15 years. But there’s still people that are just confused and they really do need help getting into deals.

Like they need help getting into deals, they need assistance getting into their first deal too. So we help people get into the first deal. We help people build their syndication businesses. We do both, because it’s not important the dollar is going to zero, the dollar will go to zero.

I wish I could say that I’m Nostradamus number two. The dollar is going to zero. We all know. It’s a fiat currency. Every fiat currency goes to zero, and you have to secure your future with real estate. So many people might see that in the news saying all this stuff with the US dollar, but they don’t know what to do with that information.

Mike Morawski: Right.

Agostino Pintus: It’s gotta go in real estate, that’s where it goes. It’s gotta go into hard assets.

Mike Morawski: Yeah, the hard assets. Right brick and mortar.

Agostino Pintus: Yeah.

Mike Morawski: Where the value is gonna retain your capital investment. And this is, when I talk to people about partnering with us [00:29:00] on an offering, we talk about protection of your capital, your principle. Cuz in the stock market it’s going away, it’s bleeding. We talk about the cash flow that real estate provides and we talk about the long-term wealth. And there’s some people that they’re all cash flow. They want cash flow, cash flow .Which is great, but at the end of the day, you spend it, right?

Agostino Pintus: Yeah.

Mike Morawski: Where if you have long term wealth, you’re building your future. So I think you have to have a good balance of both in building this platform. People say, why don’t you invest in Chicago? And I say, I don’t invest in Chicago because it’s all cash flow. I don’t get the appreciation here as I can get in Florida or Texas or Oklahoma, in other parts of the country.

Agostino Pintus: Well, it’s also gotta be, I think you already know this too, if it’s not friendly to the owners of the real estate, including the limited partners who are owners in the real estate too. It brings in a whole new [00:30:00] level of risk that could easily be avoided, but that’s not doing that specific deal.

So why expose yourself to that risk? The upside is not worth it because there is none. So why do the deal? And I’m not trying to dump on blue areas or whatever. It’s not about that. It’s just about applying logic. If I’m gonna be the steward of my investors’ money, I have to do what’s best for my investors and for myself to put it into a deal that I know is gonna be safe with a good return.

That’s why I call the business bulletproof cash flow, not bulletproof appreciation or anything else like that. I wanna make sure that I eventually get the cash out and give it back to the investors with a nice, healthy return. That’s the goal.

Mike Morawski: Yeah, that is the goal. So let me ask you this. Other than social media, what is one of your top systems or techniques for attracting limited partner investors to come into your world and invest alongside you?

Agostino Pintus: So what we do is we also do video updates. Okay. A lot of GPs [00:31:00] don’t do the video updates. Like, for most GPs, you usually prepare a monthly or quarterly type of report. You’re doing the work anyway. Why not take the extra step of putting a video, a three minute video? Four minute video? You don’t even have to edit it.

 Just talk and then they could not only just read about it, they could see you. Speak it and you could also add any type of special type of things about how you feel if something’s going right or something’s not going so well. It gives the audience, your LPs a certain level of comfort knowing there’s actually a face and there’s a voice behind those words on a page. And that’s important, that’s important to a lot of people. It really is.

And so because typically if your LPs are happy, they’ll keep on investing with you. And the biggest part of keeping a nice and healthy LP group it’s that once they see that the money comes in, they put in more money and they tell all their friends to put in their money.

Mike Morawski: You see it [00:32:00] over and over and over.

Agostino Pintus: Over and over again. Like our net lease fund, we have just about everybody as a repeat customer now. Like they saw that, oh my God, I’m getting a monthly check, like as if we’re lying like, oh my God, I’m getting a monthly check. Of course you are. We told you you would. And we deliver it like clockwork. Every month the same day comes in, boom, boom, boom, comes in.

And they’re like, and when’s the next one opening up? I said we’re opening up in April. Oh, okay. Well, let me know when it comes out. Cause I wanna put more money into it. Like, okay, well great, cause the current one’s closed and we have another one that’s gonna be opening up here soon after this next deal is shut down.

It’s like; you have to do right by people. That’s really what it comes down to. That’s why I said earlier, it’s easy to buy a deal. It’s super easy to buy a deal. Especially if you overpay. If anybody overpays for stuff right now, they’re gonna get hurt in a big way, man.

I mean, right now you don’t need me to tell you this. It’s hard out there to find a decent deal. It really is. It really is. You really have to know what you’re doing. You have to know what you’re doing if you’re gonna get into a deal.

Mike Morawski: Well, this is the market, like you said, I like what you said. Over the last 10, 15 years, this has really blown up the [00:33:00] syndication business. But we’re going into, or we’re in a market right now that’s gonna separate the good operators from the not so good operators.

Agostino Pintus: Yeah.

Mike Morawski: Or the great operators from just the good operators, right? Because I think a lot of people got in the business and they thought, oh, this is gonna be easy. And when you’ve got the wind at your back, anything’s easy.

Agostino Pintus: Yeah.

Mike Morawski: But when you’re riding a bicycle into the wind, it’s a little bit tougher. And now you really gotta perform. Hey, listen. You’ve got experience, I’ve got a lot of experience, I’ve got some failures. I’m sure you’ve got some failures and experience is one thing, but wisdom is another thing.

And I think that you and I both come to the table with a bolt load of wisdom that our investors can benefit from. Hey, glad you’re here. Why don’t you real quick tell people about your book, your ebook, that they can go download. How they get ahold of you and reach out to you?

Agostino Pintus: Absolutely. So if someone’s out there right [00:34:00] now and they might have tuned in to learn more about raising capital, right? Obviously we didn’t go into all of the details here today, but there’s a free eBook I wrote. It’s pretty extensive. It’s guidetocapital.com. Just go there put it in your email, download it totally free.

But it’s pretty comprehensive, I think. I mean, it doesn’t go into the weeds in terms of everything, but you know what though? It’s a very good starting point for what to say, how to say it, how to dress, who to call, the whole nine yards. And it’s a good starting point I think for many many folks out there. And it’s delivered in a very straightforward approach cuz I’m a straightforward kind of guy. It’s the only way I know how to do things.

Mike Morawski: And if people wanna reach out to you, they can go to your website, bulletproofcashflow.com.

Agostino Pintus: Yeah.

Mike Morawski: And send you an email.

Agostino Pintus: That’s right, go there. We’re on social media. We’re pretty much everywhere, so yeah. Pretty easy to find.

Mike Morawski: Okay, great. So always ask three bonus questions before we end. What’s the best book you ever read?

Agostino Pintus: “On The Shortness of Life” by Seneca.

Mike Morawski: Okay. [00:35:00] I think you mentioned that last time.

Agostino Pintus: It’s still the best. I mean, hey, listen; we all live our life like we’re gonna live forever. We wake up, we open our eyes every morning and we think that, oh, it’s just another day; you’re just another day closer to death. So you better make that day count. That’s why you gotta look at it.

Mike Morawski: Yeah. More 20 year olds should absorb that right now. Because I remember when I was 20 I felt like I was infallible, right?

Agostino Pintus: Yeah. You think you’re invincible. You think nothing can happen to you. But the older you get, it’s so hard to explain to anybody the older you get and then you start seeing your friends, the people you grew up with and they start having ailments and having problems in their lives.

And it’s not always just health problems, other problems too. And which is part of life. And it’s material. It will change a person. And part of building success in this business is to remember that you’re not gonna live here forever. And you have to put the most you can to every single day. You have to, and make every day [00:36:00] count, because we’re running outta days. Whether you’re 20 or 50, you’re running outta days. You’re running outta daylight.

Mike Morawski: Yeah. I got it.

Agostino Pintus: Oh, bummer.

Mike Morawski: Yeah. This is such a good show. Hey, best restaurant?

Agostino Pintus: Best restaurant. Wow. You know what’s funny is that I try not to embellish too much on food, believe it or not. I really don’t. If I had to pick one, the only one that comes to mind right at this very moment is Cleveland Vegan. Cause, I’m vegetarian. And I used to be like really, really, really overweight and I lost a bunch of weight and I work out every day.

So I’ve really tried to maintain, I maintain a very healthy lifestyle. I don’t even try, I just do. So by doing so, what I’m also doing is limiting any type of bad stuff. I don’t eat chicken wings. I don’t drink beer. I barely drink at all actually. And I don’t [00:37:00] eat hamburgers. I don’t eat bad stuff at all.

Like, it’s mostly egg whites, Ezekiel bread, like protein bars, like stuff like that. And a workout one to two times a day. So it’s again, shortness of life. I wanna have a decent quality of life when I’m into my sixties and my seventies. So I gotta start that today. And but it also includes not going out to eat too much. But when I do, it’s gonna be there, right? It’s nothing fancy, but you know what? They have great Cleveland or great great vegan stuff. They’re great vegetarian stuff there.

Mike Morawski: Well, listen, when I get to Cleveland definitely we’ll go out and experience your lifestyle a little bit and I’d love to see a couple of your projects when I get out there.

Agostino Pintus: Yeah, absolutely.

Mike Morawski: Show me around a little bit. So that’d be great. Thanks for being here. I’m gonna move you to the back room. Say goodbye if you hang with me for a minute. That’d be great.

Agostino Pintus: Sounds good. Sounds good. Thanks.

Mike Morawski: Thanks. Hey everybody. That was a great episode today. And I love Agostino. Just one of those people you have a good connection with and things kind of flow.

So listen, if you wanna know more about what [00:38:00] he’s doing on the triple net side or the development side, or even just the multi-family side, and seems like somebody that you can be connected with, then reach out to him at bulletproofcashflow.com.

And remember if sometimes you can go over to Insider Secrets; pick these episodes up as well. If you’re in your car. And just to ask you again, like us, love us, subscribe. If there’s anything that I can do for you, if you have questions, comments, you need anything, reach out. If you’re looking for a little coaching, mentoring, guidance, whatever, we can talk about that as well.

If you’re looking for great real estate opportunities. Gimme a call. I look forward to seeing you all next week. Have a great week everybody. Enjoy your weekend. Be intentional.

Kristen: Thank you Mike, and thank you for joining us for another great episode of Insider Secrets. As always, Insider Secrets is brought to you by My Core [00:39:00] Intentions. Wherever you hang out on social media, you will find Mike and My Core Intentions. Please like and follow us to get the most up to date real estate investing trends.

Visit mycoreintentions.com where you can get expert coaching on all things real estate investing and property management. If you are looking to become an expert, Mike’s coaching will help you scale your real estate investment business. We’re looking forward to having you back again next week for more Insider Secrets.