Big Fat Real Estate Checks: Ep166: The Art of Raising Money The Right Way With Gabriel Araish

Please enjoy this transcript, but please note that it may contain a few typos. With many episodes lasting over 2 hours, it can be challenging to catch minor errors. Enjoy!

Marco Kozlowski: My name is Marco Kozolwski and I’m here with Gabe Araish the loop in a while. It has been a while it is our first of 2024 Can you believe it? We have gotten done a whole year. And we are back in the game back on track. And you’ll notice that

Gabriel Araish: you’ve shed some weight. Okay,

Marco Kozlowski: that’s nice. He worked so hard, right? He’s no longer with us. For this episode, only for this episode, Frank has decided to be be with his wife. Instead, for those which I don’t blame him because he’s been teaching classes for 10 days straight. And we love Frank Ray Butch, which means we’re gonna get a lot to say today. So for those that are unfamiliar with big fat real estate check, so this is all about giving you serving you at the highest level to give you content that is relevant, actionable, usable, and as legal as we believe that it is. But of course, if any information is given here, it is meant for edutainment purposes, but we’re pretty damn good at what we do, at least generally are and pretty much whatever we say goes. Well, not really. We like to have fun. And we like to to make sure that we get wealthy by serving others. And Gabrielle if you have not met him before seen you before. This is the first time here at Big Fat real estate checks. We have quite a few. I don’t know if we have 200 episodes, but we have quite a few episodes highness, five star review average. And of course you know the drill if you love this, like us love with Sharice and give us a five star review. If you may, we look forward to your feedback as well to really move 2024 2526 and all future years old and beyond to be your best years ever. And there are uncertain times right now. And matters a lot of a lot of weirdness going on in the streets. And we were thought we would kick off our first episode. With Gabrielle we are missing our good friend Frank today, but he will hopefully join us next week, when we we we do some more of these. So Gabe is an expert in raising money. I know that we’ve said this before, but he is like really an expert on raising money and is well connected throughout the universe. In fact, he had an extra spot to this cool event in in Utah, where people have to fly in with private jets in order to get there and you know, I was I was the dumbest person in the room. So

Gabriel Araish: I will use public transportation to get there just regular airplane

Marco Kozlowski: according to Yeah, in their fancy helicopters and really nice jets and what some people did come in and two Ferraris that are how they pulled that off. But you know, one behind another. It was kind of interesting. It was a really really, really neat event. And it was really a delight for me to see this as games Gabe circle, right and I wasn’t I’ve never really seen Gabe in a different circle than where he is with me. And it was I was so proud. You know people are like literally laying out a carpet and bowing to him so gay. Yeah, b You are so cool. You’re off the All Knowing that they’re literally like pushing me aside. Give me the ribs. You know, the elbows on the ribs. Get out of here. Who’s this? I want to talk the game. It’s like wow, that’s kind of cool. So yeah, so Gabriel and a huge welcome. Welcome back to

Gabriel Araish: this is awesome. Thank you appreciate the extravagant intro. Just the regular dude doing regular things.

Marco Kozlowski: Oh, golly gee willikers Gee willikers. So yeah, so let’s kick off this with with money. Cash. The Nero’s? Yes, everyone said gold shackles. However you want to say it, raising it Would you use asset based lending, and there are many instances where you’re going to do to raise money and do it properly. And we’ll either do two episodes today on raising money in the US and maybe a separate one in Canada. Maybe we’ll do one altogether. Apparently, long format is what people want these days. So you know what, college you weaker? willikers let’s do it. Which means that’s as long as you know, until the tape runs out. How’s that?

Gabriel Araish: Yeah, let’s do that. All right,

Marco Kozlowski: cool. All righty. So I’m talking about raising money. Now, I gave before we are pre are getting ready process. He says, Hey, you want to do an interview? Or do you want to do a discussion? And I’m like, Well, I’m not an expert in this band. So let’s do we’ll figure it out.

Gabriel Araish: Let’s do both or do none. It’ll,

Marco Kozlowski: it’ll probably be game just talking for a long time. And yeah, me just sucking my thumb rocking. We’ll figure it out. Alright, so raising money. You’ve been doing this? For a long time, you wrote a book about it? You actually wrote the book on raising money in Canada. So and being Canadian, and we have quite a few listeners in Canada, aren’t we? Like, we were like, number one podcast ever. And like some small

Gabriel Araish:  countries? Slovakia I think Yeah.

Marco Kozlowski: I don’t know why. I don’t know why we’re so cool. And so I can they have your I think they have a picture up and you know, they they have like David Hasselhoff and then gave me a letter. Yeah,

Gabriel Araish: it’s pretty. I think David Hasselhoff is really you, but they couldn’t find a real picture of you

Marco Kozlowski: are definitely not. But yeah, so money. We need it. We want it. Now. What are you doing these days? I know you’re actively with private equity funds so and advising in different funds and have your you see a lot of really cool shit. All the time that you do that you break. So can you just spread some love on on on, you know, what you’re doing? And you know, some cool stuff that you’re doing right now. And just yeah, just welcome back, man. Let’s let’s let’s chit chat, how you been? What’s going on?

Gabriel Araish: I’ve been great. And yeah, been a little bit more spread thin now with the, with all these cool projects. And, you know, the real estate part is, is obviously, it’s grown with the acquisition of our latest Hotel, which we, you know, we did apply a lot of these capital raising rules that we’ve discussed in them. So we can maybe touch on that a little bit later. So but that’s the real estate side. And we’re, we’re focusing on that one now on the real estate side. But there will be more, especially now that we have the model for capital raising. Yeah, you know, I did write a book that it’s called Secrets of securities compliance, the art of raising money the right way, the right way is the key word here. So it is it is based on the Canadian rules, which are, I want to say a little bit, but it’s probably a lot a bit more stringent than the US rules for capital raising. There’s a lot more conditions and the regulatory environment is a little bit stricter up in Canada. So once you understand that side of things in the US side becomes extremely more comfortable in terms of the capital raising regulation.

Marco Kozlowski: One second, okay, before we get into into Canada, because you have, you know, people that also live in the United States are like, Why don’t we go to I care about this Canadian raising thing. So before we get into, and it’s important, and here’s why is you can raise money anywhere in the world for anything, right? And, and Canadians are thirsty to place money somewhere, and nobody knows how to do it well, and if you know how to do something better than anyone else, you don’t have to be the best. You just have to be a beast. All right, which means you have to know more, and outperform just the next guy, and you’re gonna be fine, or Yeah. All right. So it’s really important I think first gave that let’s talk about some of the projects that you’re overseeing are seeing Right,

Gabriel Araish: exactly, that’s where I was going with that. Yeah, because

Marco Kozlowski: I’m just pretending that I’m Canadian. And I’m hearing you for the first time and I’m about to change the channel no offense, so I just want to make sure that excite us a little bit with kind of the shift that you’re doing and I honestly I forgot about my not we close the hotel $20 million hotel we buy so many assets, dude, like do you forget about that? Forget about it. Yeah, you know Have you do a lot at one point? It’s it’s, you don’t really, you know, it’s just another deal, ya know? 10 20 million, whatever. So yeah, but

Gabriel Araish: yeah, so I guess just to extend on, on the capital raising rules, that’s kind of how I ended up in the private equity world where I, because of this knowledge, I have now been asked to help a bunch of different fund managers, from pretty much around the world, as you know, most of them come from the US, but they’re pretty much from around the world. And the cool part is that it’s not just real estate anymore, I get to dabble around, and all these cool industries, you know, just just got someone now that wants to raise money for cattle and farming, right, which is something that I don’t never thought I’d hear in my life, the farming part may be more than the cattle itself. But it seems cool to be, you know, what, you have no idea what bull semen is worth these days. And that’s what they’re capitalizing on. It’s crazy, but it is an investment vehicle. So you know, I get to work with all these individuals, obviously, my role is more from the strategic side and their capital raising strategy in the compliance or on the capital raising. But that’s the fun part is I get to see all these cool different projects and meet these amazing humans that are doing great things in different industries, which just gives you access, right, then just like, we always say, you know, you need access to capital, when you’re doing your real estate, that’s really what what’s going to help you do as many deals as possible. Because finding deals is great. And creating deals is even better. But, you know, if you create all these deals, and you can’t raise the capital that’s missing, if there is any, then you’ve just created a deal and wasted your time. So the same thing with with access to these fund managers, it’s just a world where there’s a lot of things going on in private that unless, you know, you don’t know, and I know, you know, they say if you know, you know, but if you don’t know, you don’t know. And that’s a lot more difficult to deal with. So there’s, there’s a lot of really cool stuff going out there from crypto blockchain. And it’s funny because crypto kind of went through this crazy swing. So there was all these fund managers that were excited about it. And then all of a sudden, you know, it was crickets around these fund managers, and now all of a sudden, they’re excited again. So it teaches you a lot, even as a you know, even if you’re called upon as a coach, mentor strategies, whatever you want to call it, you actually learn a lot from these individuals, because they have experiences in a different world where things work in a different light. So yeah, I got to work with another company now that, you know, they’re, they’re working in crowdfunding, which, ironically, is one of the the rules that I helped write in Canada, but they’re doing it up in the US, and now they want to do it in Canada as well. So they have this amazing project that could help a lot of you raise money a lot more simply moving forward. So we’ll, we’ll help them build their their structure. And, you know, hopefully, that’s going to be something that a lot of you will be able to use moving forward.

Marco Kozlowski: So, you unpacked a lot in a little bit of time. So the neat thing about going into other other industries, is you learn it’s like the same thing, but completely different, if that makes sense. And then and you realize that the expertise you have in one area, or the lack of expertise you have in one area, or maybe you’re someone that doesn’t have haven’t done anything yet, you know, you’re still in, you know, you don’t have any pubic hair yet, and you’re just like, What am I gonna do with my life? Just go somewhere, you know, interact, add value, as much value as possible and watch things happen, watch things grow. And it’s really neat when you when you start interacting with that, it how quickly you can ascend, right? Because you you went from, you know, little peanut being oak tree, you know, in a very, very short period of time. And I think that can happen to to anybody that really dedicates themselves and is has integrity and moves in a direction and is open to learning which which, which is great. I’m really interested about both human being a vehicle which is this all I could pick up from the last

Gabriel Araish: I figured, man it was almost regret saying but yeah,

Marco Kozlowski: it’s but you know what, I think it’s like this, this I know like Wagyu beef house beef is no just the cows. I think Japan limits how many you can have and you can’t bring them in it’s it’s very limited. And there’s there’s ways to make money in anything, not just real estate. Now, in in the capital raising that you’re doing. Just want to bring it back to scale it back just a little bit to a basic list. It was a basic I wouldn’t say someone that is just starting or doesn’t have any money or is has basic knowledge. What’s it going to take to raise money number one Um, because what people most likely do is they look for the money. First, in order to get the deal, right, I need to get money. And before I get a deal, do I need to get the deal before I get the money, like in real estate, you need the deal before you get the money. But I don’t know if this is the same thing in your in, in the private equity fund space.

Gabriel Araish: Or it’s not. But it’s not always I think, although I apply it even in real estate, where I kind of like to do both at the same time or marketing, for deals, whether it’s in real estate or in any other industry, this is going to apply, you market for deals, but you always have to consistently have some sort of capital raising strategy that you’re applying, whether it’s, you know, discussing your prior deals, if you have any, if you don’t have any, you know, don’t worry, there’s ways of actually raising capital, even if you’ve never done this before. And that’s kind of what, you know, I helped teach a lot, because it’s not about what you know, it’s about what your team knows. And you can build that that’s something that you can acquire, you know, I work with a lot of first time fund managers, these, these are people that maybe have done deals in the past, but they’ve never raised a cent and now that they want to scale, you know, they don’t know anybody that has money, or they’ve never really approached anyone, or they don’t just they just don’t know how to communicate with high net worth individuals or people that have a lot of money, because it is a different breed of, you know, of individual, you know, at that event, Mark, when I attended, you know, it’s called Jetson capital, it’s a huge event. And it’s the people that are there, just, it’s a different ilk, right, and the way you these people speak is not the way your average Joe is going to be speaking on the, on the street, so it’s something that you have to adapt to or learn. And if you don’t want to learn it, you know, there’s just I know a lot of people that just bring on a capital raiser on their team, someone who has that access, and so that they don’t have to focus on it, just like we do, right? In real estate, we, you know, Marco doesn’t go and unclog toilets, you know, we don’t go we sometimes we don’t even go visit some of the properties, we’ll send other people to do things, we definitely don’t manage our properties, we, we use property management, and we oversee that. So, you know, you can have a capital raising strategy, which is basically like your blueprint, and then you can have someone else do it, or you can do it yourself. Because, you know, for some of you out there might love this, like it’s it’s a pretty cool gig to go out and raise capital, it’s hard to get started in the sense that it’s, it takes time to build the traction around the communication. But once you, you know, you get the wheels going a little bit like riding a bike, right? Just you got to start the pedals. And then once once the pedals are going, you can pretty much let go your feet from that bike’s gonna keep rolling. And it’s the same thing in this world. It’s just extremely gratifying. Because once you have access to capital, the rest is is super easy. I mean, because there’s people finding deals left and right. And I’ve seen him every day, I got more people asking me for money, then people asking me for deals. And that’s, you know, if there’s there’s no bigger testament to the importance of access to capital, everybody’s looking for capital, because everybody has learned to find deals. So that’s really the reality of it. At least now. And then you want

Marco Kozlowski: to you want the capital to want your deal? By really? Yep, wrapping it in a way where it’s unique. Yeah, it’s not like, I’ve got the new Facebook. All right. Well, there’s already a Facebook, I got the new Uber, well, was already an Uber, right? Lyft Uber, like, it could be against like, good luck. So it’s an and as long as your your your idea is sound. And you have someone that can action, that idea. Well, basically, the execution of that someone understands how to get the money. All right. So if I have an idea, and I have someone that understands the execution, I don’t know if you’ve seen Blackberry, we’ve seen the movie Blackberry, I have, right? If you haven’t, it’s really cool, because you got the genius, right? The evil genius. And then you have the guy that just as a go getter. And together, they made it work, right. Until it didn’t work until didn’t Yeah, until it didn’t. But they had a good run. Right? And that was the perfect, you know, you have the you need someone the implementation person, the implementer, right, someone that implements. So if you’re not an implementer, you have an idea can an implementer that can actually run with that idea. And obviously give equity to give a piece to then that person will know exactly what to do and where to go and how to do it. So you’re just one connection away from really having whatever you want life. Right? Because you exactly. You don’t need the expertise. You need to find the expert. That’s right.

Gabriel Araish: I mean, it’s always important to understand the basics of the expertise that some of that you’re delegating out, so that you can, you know, oversee. And if you want to be, you know, quote unquote, the CEO in your company, that’s something that you should have, you know, should should should be aware, like, understand. But as far as execution, you always, you know, it’s ideally, you leave it out to someone who’s done this before, right?

Marco Kozlowski: And this, the sound of being a CEO sounds really sexy, but it’s a lot of work.

Gabriel Araish: It is.

Marco Kozlowski: I would rather not, I don’t want to be CEO either. I don’t want to rent it. I really don’t. It sounds sexy, right? But she Oh, well, you know, I’m a shitty CEO. Like, I’m not disciplined enough. I have ADD, and I want to do what I want to do. So I’d rather be a shareholder with control.

Gabriel Araish: Yeah, that’s right. Get rid of that

Marco Kozlowski: CEO and put it into CO CEOs. Remember that? All right. So yeah. Next, that’s right. So Anywho. Morgan with us? Yeah. So okay. So if you have an idea, or a dream, or whatever, great, line yourself up with someone that knows how to run, ship, implement, ship, or find and find money. And let’s talk about this first. So let’s say that I want to find money myself. All right. I have an idea yet. And I want to start going and I want to raise some cash. Yes. And I live in. I live in Alaska. I have moose, as neighbors. Yes. It was almost like Canadia. Right? Yeah, pretty much goose. All right. But, you know, I have Canada, that’s not too far away. In fact, Canada is closer than the United States at that point, or even rather, I suppose. So. So how do we raise some money? What do we do? Well, firstly, you gotta read your book.

Gabriel Araish: Yeah, it can read the book, the book is complying. So understanding how to raise capital is definitely a big part of it. But and the real important part, at the onset is understanding what you can’t do as well, because the way you solicit money, and whether or not you’re allowed to ask for money, and from whom you’re allowed to ask money from is is the real key here. But once you understand all that, you know that it’s you got to get out there, the end of the day, you can know all the rules. But if there’s if you’re not talking to anyone that has access to capital, that wants to invest or the you know, high net worth individuals, whatever you want to call them accredited investors, the term is defined, but you’re not gonna get anywhere you can, you can, you can most certainly find a way to attract investors, I know some of you out there might be super computer savvy. And as long as you understand the marketing rules around capital raising, you’ll be able to build your own funnels and find ways to attract investors. As long as you’re doing it within the rules, you know, that that’s going to be okay. And actually, that’s probably the new era way of doing things, I see a lot of that going on, you know, we’re going to be applying that in some way, shape, or form as well. As you can even use AI now, to do all that. But the objective is really, you got to understand the rules first, so you know, what you can what you can’t do? And then from there, really, if you’re going to do it yourself, which which is okay, you just have to figure out what your style is, are you the type that is, you know, you have to get out there talk to people face to face, meet with them. Are you comfortable just using the internet and funnels to attract to attract investors? Are you more comfortable going on different, you know, groups, whether it’s on Facebook, LinkedIn, and kind of just start commenting on different people’s deals, and building, quote, unquote, online relationships that will eventually become potential investors in your deal once once they get to know you and see what you’re working on. So there’s different ways of doing it. It’s just a question that you’ve got to get out there and do it. But I would definitely advise you to understand the rules around capital raising prior to doing anything, because in the capital raising world, it’s it’s there’s, there’s rules and regulations. And if you, if you break those rules, and are caught breaking those rules, it’s you know, there’s always going to be kind of a stain on your file. So doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to raise money in the future. But it just means that, you know, if someone wants to know, they’ll know that you’ve done this illegally in the past, and that’s just some other weight that you have to carry that’s unnecessary in a world where capital reasoning is already hard enough. Why make it harder, right?

Marco Kozlowski: And if you happen to get caught and you get slapped around? That’s the first thing that you would definitely say when you’re talking to somebody saying, Listen, man, I didn’t know what I was doing. I first started, screwed it up. You’re gonna find something about me and you know, I was an idiot at that time. And you get around it. You know? You can Yeah, yeah. But if you keep doing it, then you’re definitely you know, do it once. Shame on me. Do it twice. Do

Gabriel Araish: it won’t work here because it’s a shame on you. And it’s always a huge issue. It’s, it’s never like no one else issue. It’s a me issue all the time and capital raising. Yeah, it’s

Marco Kozlowski: always everybody else’s fault. Yeah, no,

Gabriel Araish: I do. It’s an elephant podcast.

Marco Kozlowski: Taking responsibility is a big deal. It’s not so people don’t. Okay, so know the rules, we’re gonna drop a link on the book, your Canadian book, that will definitely help. Or the US but the rules are actually worse in Canada, they are in the United States, right? So like, for some reason, there’s rule, I don’t know how there can be so many rules in Canada, when there’s so fewer people, like I just don’t understand it. Like you’d think that with a number of people in the United States, more shit would have gone down to and more protection would happen. Right? Then in Canada with what?

Gabriel Araish: It’s almost a political discussion, because I feel like there’s it, I think that in Canada government feels like feels like they’re responsible, or the responsibilities put on them to ensure that the population is shielded from potential fraudsters or issues. Whereas in the US, it’s, you know, it’s almost a mentality of, you know, it’s your money, you’re allowed to do whatever you want with it, including fucking up. And, and, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s got its pros and cons, depending on what side you’re on. But, you know, definitely, from an entrepreneurs perspective, who’s capital raising, there’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a quicker path to cash in the US. But the fun part is, even if you’re Canadian, using the Canadian rules, you’re still allowed to raise money from Americans and vice versa, if you’re in the US, and you have your own strategy, you know, Why limit yourself, why not go get money in Canada as well, if you understand the rules, because really, it’s the it’s knowing is like, 90% of the battle, because if you understand something, then you know how to navigate it, it’s when you don’t understand it, that you end up doing whatever the heck you think is right, or doing what you know, which is your current, you know, if you’re in the US, and you know, the US rules, and you start raising money from another country using the US rules, while that’s not gonna fly, but if you know, the rules, then it’s just as simple as creating a capital raising strategy for the locations. It’s not that hard. It’s just you have to know, can I

Marco Kozlowski: just have a lot of money? Like some, it’s, it’s feast and famine, like, either have a lot of money or you don’t have very much? Exactly,

Gabriel Araish: yes, yeah. And they have cool vehicles up there, like just the same, like, you know, in the US, they have the 401, Ks and IRAs, you know, Canada has RRSPs and TFSA is, and there’s a lot of money sitting in there, you know, a lot of the high net worth, most of their net worth is in those, those vehicles, and, you know, they can’t sell all that and actually cash it out, because that’s where, you know, you’ll have a huge tax liability, but in the meantime, they can invest it and grow it tax free. So it’s, I guess, a little bit of a chicken or the egg, because you can grow it as much as you want. But you eventually have to run it dry. But while it’s there, it’s it’s a lot of sleeping money that’s just sitting in mutual funds are things that your your investor just has no control over, whereas they can choose to invest in a vehicle that they understand. And that will probably provide them with greater returns. less fuss,

Marco Kozlowski: yeah. Because after I remember, going to Bank of Montreal, and they, they were like, You need to open up a mutual fund. And I get my statement and went down every month. Normal. They’re like, yeah, that’s how it works. I’m like, Well, then why did I put any money to begin with now I have less money. Investing, says it takes time. Yeah, in my book, the more if I’m going negative every month, because of fees, right? They take your You’re an idiot fee, you’re like golf,

Gabriel Araish: right? It’s the lowest score wins here.

Marco Kozlowski: I don’t think you’re supposed to work that way. So when you have there’s only five banks. Alright, five, that’s it. And so people have no way of putting money into an investment. They don’t know what can be done, right. And if you have an edge, as a US person, or even if you live in Nairobi, like doesn’t matter if you know how to access money, anywhere in the world, and every country has different rules. And Canada’s like America is hot, right? Just right on top, and they’re thirsty for a place to put money. That’s one of the reasons why my political my followers want not only because I’m Canadian, but a lot of my followers are Canadian. Because we’re thirsty, to find ways of, of getting out of, you know, paying less tax, because we’re tax up the ass and making more money and having more and having an ability to travel more do the things we want more like anybody else in the world, really. But I think I don’t know if Canada is one of the highest tax brackets like Yeah, it’s up there. It’s definitely up there. Yeah, Norway and Sweden are higher. Yes. But, you know,

Gabriel Araish: it’s very close to the top. But and and, interestingly enough to is that, while there’s a lot of money up in Canada, there’s just not that many good deals, it’s really hard to find, you know, someone who’s holding a good deal. If you just look at the real estate market, I mean, everything is trading at a four cap, five, cap a deal, isn’t it all? The some it might be. But definitely not for the savvy investor,

Marco Kozlowski: it’s gonna go up later, it’s right, up later, or down.

Gabriel Araish: But, and then the other aspect is, you know, there’s, there’s the exchange rate, that’s really could be an issue, but it could be beneficial. Like if, you know, if the US is planning or planning, I mean, if if it’s, if we think it’s going into a recipe recession, which most economists think it is, then generally that’s going to trigger potentially a closer dollar, US dollar to Canadian dollar, which is going to get that appetite going even more for Canadians to want to get their money in the in the US, because if you look at historically, you know, after the great financial crisis, 2008, you know, a lot of Canadians bought properties or US investments. And at that time, the dollar was near par, if it wasn’t at par, it was worth

Marco Kozlowski: more than the US dollar for a short period you go, that’s so

Gabriel Araish: today, like, you know, I just went to visit one of my friends this week, you know, his parents bought a place on the beach, rent a condo on the beach in Fort Lauderdale, for like a couple of $100,000, which that would have been like an extra 5060 grand Canadian today based on the current exchange rate. And so they may 30 40%, just on the exchange rate, let alone the actual appreciation, post COVID, and all that stuff. But, you know, once that that dollar starts going back closer to par, even, it doesn’t have to go to par, because it’s always going to fluctuate, but as it goes closer, the appetites gonna be even more, so there’s going to be a lot of hungry Canadian dollars wanting to come down to the US. And it’s just a question of you bringing the right deals to them and having a proper capital raising strategy around them. Like, we think we’re blessed here in the US to have access to all these amazing deals that we can create, and whether in real estate or any other industry, but you know, we focus a real estate a lot on our marketing. And I mean, we’re creating some amazing stuff. I mean, just this minute deal. It’s, you know, amazingly, it’s one of those forgotten deals where, yeah, we talked about it, we don’t talk about it, we forget about it, but it’s, it’s a great deal, like the returns that the investors are gonna get out of this is gonna be it’s gonna be super fun for them. And that’s just not something that’s commonly found on the private investment side in Canada. So that’s another reason why I think Americans should be interested in Canadian Canadians money is just because they’re looking for good deals, which they’re not finding.

Marco Kozlowski: And 2007 is when the cane dollar was worth more, and, and, yeah, and I was just Googling it. Having access to it, if you first started thinking as a globalist, like, you know, there’s a big world out there, you know, was it with you? I was having a discussion about India. No, but it is a big market. They have to what, 25% of the population or something close to that. Yeah, exactly. And there’s, you know, opportunity there abounding. And I was having a really neat conversation about having opportunities that are just really wild in India with returns that are bananas. And people are scared, right. Living in a listen, I grew up and population 35,000 In Canada, and you know,

Gabriel Araish: 30 45 million. Yeah.

Marco Kozlowski: Mostly 5000 In Canada, right. But a small town. Yeah, I grew up in a small town of three, 5 million and in India, right, like, no one’s out. Right. So it’s, and the more people there are generally the more opportunity there is. Right? And if you start thinking in terms of how can end with the internet, you know, we have we have a computer in our hand, a TV in our hand, a web a window to the world in our hand, and the able the ability to communicate with pretty much anyone in the world at any time. It’s amazing. And if you’re, you know, a farmer in a field in Africa, and you have a cell phone that has internet, you can be a rockstar. You can you can raise money you can you can do A lot of things. So I want to just circle back on, on chicken and egg that you said earlier about deal or money, or money, right? I chose real estate as my investment vehicle, and you did as well. That’s right. So and as you start generating income, and you want to look for other things that you want, you can place your money in, right, because you should use a deal to attract money, and you should have a money to attract a deal. So if you have money, we should be looking at deals. Right? That’s then your money should be growing your money. And when someone is doing these capital raises, and again, we’re going to drop a link to games book in the show notes. So you can click and, you know, get 10 copies given to as many people as possible. All right, and it’s doubled the price of US the show link for sure. Just like the what was I talking about? Got add there? I

Gabriel Araish: thought that was pretty funny. The chicken or the egg? You know, should

Marco Kozlowski: I should? So if I don’t have any money? All right. I don’t have any money. Should I focus on raising money? Or getting a deal? What what do you think I should do first, if I’m at Ground Zero, all right, let’s go Ground Zero, a little bit more than ground zero, and then just go from the start from the bottom and go to the top. So if you have lots of cash, and you’re not making, but by the way, what’s a high return in your world? That’s just that’s a question I’ve I’ve never asked, and what’s a high return? Because, you know, when money was that one 2% 8% was a monster, right? 12% generally is super high risk, right. And in your world.

Gabriel Araish: That’s not the case. It’s

Marco Kozlowski: a very different world. So I’m very curious to see what what what

Gabriel Araish: it’s got to be caveat it because it’s a risk adjusted return that you got to look at, right, because investing in real estate, if you’re in a real estate deal, or you’re doing some private lending, and that’s what the model is where you lend your money to a company that lends it out at 70% of your loan to value on the property. So if a property is worth a million, they’re only lending 700,000 and collecting interest. And you’re providing your investors under that model, a return of like, 10 to 12%, that’s amazing, because the risk is extremely low, and the return is, is quite high. But if you’re making 12%, and you’re investing in, you know, this new software that you hope you’re gonna sell one day to someone else, then all of a sudden that return is shitty. So that’s why you got to look at as a risk adjusted return. But, you know, in, you have to look at almost by industry, but the average returns out there, you know, they float around the 17 18%. Got it. And sometimes it’s much higher if you get into some of these industries, like if you get into the trading, like all the hedge funds and stuff like that those returns are, you know, they’re they’re in the they’re in the mid 20s, if not a little bit higher. Gotcha.

Marco Kozlowski: Well, if I don’t have any money, I can’t go into that direction anyway. Right? I have a lot of money. That’s very exciting, right? But

Gabriel Araish: at the same time, if you have a lot of money, yeah, but no, but if you have a lot of money, you also like how do you know you’re investing in the right people? Right? So like, and this is where you have to, this is why I feel like capital raising the rules around that is important for not just an entrepreneurial trying to raise capital, but if you’re an investor that wants to park your money in someone else, then shouldn’t you be aware of what the rules are that they’re supposed to respect are so that if they’re not, you can spot that and then decide to park your money in someone who’s doing things the right way? Because if they’re not capital raising the right way, what else could they be doing the wrong way?

Marco Kozlowski: It’s hilarious that we’re talking about this now because I have a student, you know, her done. And she came into some money and she wants to place it and she found a company that does mortgages, like you were saying, and I’m like, she was about to place her cash into something. I’m like, can you send me over what you’re doing? Because she happened to tell me in a conversation and I’m like, Why didn’t your My job is to help you. Right? So let me just take a peek see? value of the property 185,000 All right. Value the property 185,000 If you guys could see me. I’ll show you right because this actually on my screen right now. Value the property at 1500 81,000. They’re saying 185 They’re taking because it’s a very barely know it’s at 1500 Like max value, let’s say studio house with one bathroom. 900 square foot house. And she was asked they told her it was vetted, $185,000 value and that she was He was gonna lend $80,000 on this deal. 80 grand on this deal for a fixin flip because it was in the first mortgage position because they had just had a quick claim to them. And crime rate is the highest in the country. 9494 score and the average 22. Right? So insane, like insane, right? I’m like, run for the hills. And she’s educated on what I’m doing. Right? But doesn’t necessarily understand the model of protecting her money. Because I don’t know why I’m, I’m, I’m flabbergasted right that a little extra research is done. Because many times when we have money, we don’t have time. We don’t want to, we don’t want to go into that research, right? But you have to, because it’s your money, and you have to protect at all costs. And my job is to protect, if you’re in the tribe, everyone, like we’re always protecting each other. And that’s the value of that. But

Gabriel Araish: you also have to know what research you’re doing, because that’s the start, right? So doing wanting to do research is one thing, but if you don’t know where to start, or what it is, and this is where I come down to, you have to know the rules of the game, whichever game you’re playing, if you don’t know the rules, it’s hard to know where to search. Because if you know what should be right, or how it works, then you’re gonna go look for those elements and see if they are being met or not. And you create your own checklist of what things need to be present or absent for you to be willing to park your money there. Because it’s your hard earned money, or inherited money or however it is, it’s yours. You know, why would you just hand it over to some random people that aren’t gonna, that don’t care about your money as much as they care about themselves? And when anybody puts their deal ahead of your money? That’s definitely a red flag.

Marco Kozlowski: Yeah, that’s it’s common, right? Because I need the money I want I mind mind my mind. Right. It’s, it’s, it’s a prevalent attitude. And working with people with integrity is it’s hard to find like, but it’s not at the same time. Because if you know where to look, you don’t so you know, aligning yourself with a a tribe, or a group or an individual that really does care, right? That gives a shit. And that is that has integrity that doesn’t want to do the wrong thing that wants to protect your money and your investment. Not everyone is out to get you. Right. And I guess that’s why the Canadian government is so you know, they feel like a parent, and they just want to make sure that everyone’s protected at the same time, you’re choking everything else, right? You’re, you’re basically filling the patient by squeezing them. Yeah. And anyway, that’s the story for another day. Man, we’ve got all the replays. So from a hot point, perspective, takeaways. Of of, of this,

Gabriel Araish: yeah, I just wanted to touch on like, as you we touched on someone who has money, what they’re going to do, if you don’t have money, and you don’t have any, you know, real, concrete experience in any deal, whether it’s real estate or anything else, you know, you focusing on the money side is going to help you access a lot of deals. Whereas if you focus on the deal side, you’re going to probably end up with deals, but then you’ll still have the same issue, which is finding the capital for it, you can do both. But again, if you have to choose one, and I keep telling a lot of you know, the people I work with is, the easier it is for you to access capital, whether it’s for you or for other people’s deals. And this is what’s cool is sometimes you can find a way to get remunerated. As long as it’s legal, just by connecting people and most people are looking out there, again, are looking for capital, they’re not looking for deals, unless they have a lot of money, they in their you know, they have their own cash cow that is in another industry. And they’re just looking to invest in this specific industry, just like the people that we work with in real estate. And when we did this hotel, that’s exactly what we did, we went to see people who don’t have time to create deals like the ones we’ve created. And but you know, they want to park their money in an asset that’s safe, and in a team that’s going to make things work for them. And that’s going to put them the investors on the money ahead of anything else and ahead even of their own well being to be to be to be clear. And and that’s, that’s that’s one avenue. But you know, if if we couldn’t raise the money, we’d have to go out and get a capital raise or find someone with a capital raising skills. And, again, those are few and far between. So if you’re focused on something that everybody wants, but that there’s not a lot of out there, chances are, you’ll succeed.

Marco Kozlowski: So what you’re saying is, if you’re starting from the beginning, and you don’t have money or deals, if you have to choose one, go the money direction, because once you have access to money, then you can actually be a capital raiser for other people and get a connection and get a connection fee and you’ll be in demand. Yeah,

Gabriel Araish: the connection fee is, is doable, but you have to make sure that you follow the rules. But again, those things can be taken care of once you have access to you know, your list of high net worths that are willing and able to invest in specific deals and industries, then yeah, then the rest is just paperwork. Yeah.

Marco Kozlowski: And when you’re doing something like that, my so the number one fear of people getting into real estate, is the fear of rejection. Right, which is a fear, a general fear. And as you know, if you make an offer that’s accepted, you pay too much, you don’t want to have that. Right. So there’s, it’s interesting. So we developed something called the no game. It’s really simple, right? Every time you do something, you have to get a no. All right? And if you get a yes, if start all over again, right. So it’s the no game, you got to get 10 notes in a row. So when you’re raising money, I want you to do the same thing. But following the rules, right? Again, the goal in the show notes, so there’s some some things that you should follow Gabe is he’s a shit on this stuff. And just ask for money. Now, I do want to say this, is it do? Am I asking to borrow money? Or am I asking? Is it me that’s borrowing the money? Or is your I’m going with this? I don’t want to give

Gabriel Araish: you all I know, it’s always the deal is always asking for the money. You’re you’re you’re only important is your your credibility in that, like, can people trust you with their money? Because you’re going to be the custodian, basically, of their of their money. So you, as the human come into play just as, what is your integrity level? And what you know, are you are you willing to put their money and their interests ahead of yours in this in this deal. But the decision on whether to invest or not will begin with the returns most of the time, because you can be the greatest guy on the planet and wanting to take care of everybody’s money. But if you’re giving them a 3% return, chances are they’ll just go park it at the bank at this point. So it’s the deal is always asking for the money. So if the deal is good, the deal is structured in a way where the returns are great would you know as much as you can mitigate the risks that you that you can, then that’s when you come in as the human but only from a due diligence perspective to then be the right person for me to park my money in your deal.

Marco Kozlowski: It’s an era basically leveraging relationships, right? This business is all about leverage. We’re gonna have an episode on this when when Frank gets back, leverage, like we’re leveraging information, we’re leveraging connections that people have already created. you’re leveraging skill sets, you don’t SATs, you’re leveraging money, you’re leveraging time, everything. And the better leverage Are you are, the more money you make. Apparently, Jeff Bezos is now again, the richest person in the world over Elon Musk as of I think yesterday. So and they’re both very good at leveraging, like they leverage everything they have time to do the things they love, because they leveraged everything else out of their life. So if you are working for someone else you are being leveraged. So this whole universe is based on leverage. So leverage the information that gave is is is is, is going to give you access to leverage, as much information as possible leverage, actually leverage people around you and leverage those connections in order to just help everyone around you. And this is an important underlying, right, you’re leveraging to serve, you’re not leveraging to hurt, right? Not to take but to give you want to give to give, probably some of the most powerful advice I’ve gotten in a while many years ago was just give to give, and was like wow, that’s pretty powerful. When you’re really thinking about it, and the universe will take care of you after that.

Gabriel Araish: It feels great doing it too.

Marco Kozlowski: It does doesn’t, it doesn’t feel bad to really serve people and know that you’ve done the right thing at the end of the day, and you’ve done your best at the end of the day, it’s it’s really great. So if I’m down and out in my luck, and I’m living out of my car, I can still serve. And just because I’m in a bad financial position, doesn’t mean that I can’t find people with high net worth, create relationships with them, because at the end of the day, most people don’t care about anyone other than themselves and their money. You have the opportunity to create a relationship with them because you’re serving them on on a friendship level, right? And you have the capacity to grow their money because of the knowledge that you have. And if you don’t have the knowledge, they’ll get it. Period. Because if you don’t know something you don’t know like you said, we don’t know more than there is like, I know so little compared to the vast knowledge or is in the universe, right? We know nothing, period. So go find a little sliver of something to learn like we all did, right? I didn’t know anything about any of this stuff. And I had to Learn over 25 years, it won’t take you 25 years, if you align yourself with people that are wanting to share that information with you leverage that leverage it, not only can you pass away, but no, but

Gabriel Araish: you can also find more than you’re looking for. Because, you know, like, if we go back to that event that we went together, you know, the idea there was to, you know, rub shoulders and elbows with with high net worth individuals. But we also met people that had some pretty cool projects, and some pretty good ideas for all projects or relationships are built. So if you’re starting from scratch, and you got nothing, and you’re just going to these, there’s all kinds of free meetups and free networking events, you just show up there with an open mind and talk to everyone you’re gonna, you’re gonna basically learn who has deals, who has money, and you just have to find a way to put them together. Because a lot of people that have the deals don’t know how to ask for money. And a lot of people that have money don’t like to tell people, they have money, because they feel like I’m gonna be taken advantage of. So that’s the beauty of it is when you go into a networking event, or any event, really, when you meet people, you can even meet people, you know, waiting in line somewhere, or on an airplane, the person next to you, it’s silly, but you’ll learn so much just by asking questions and being open to receive into, you know, when you give to give, you’ll find an amazing world out there. And that’s kind of how you build your network. And your network doesn’t have to be exclusively people with money. And it doesn’t have to be exclusively people with deals, it should be a little bit of both, because that’s what’s really building your business in the end.

Marco Kozlowski: And he just reminded me of something I used to do a long time ago, I used to book a middle seat. Yeah. And I had the person to my right and to my left, and I would open my laptop and I would basically play my present, they had no choice but to listen and start a conversation. Right. And it was, it was really neat. And I got a couple actually close a couple of deals that way. It’s kind of cool. But yeah, and practice, and screw up and fail in a safe environment first before you go after the big fish, and then don’t go after the big fish first. And remember, it’s not about you. It’s about them, and the opportunity. And if you really focus on not making it all about you, when you’re networking, don’t start talking about yourself. No one gives a shit. Talk about the other person. What do you need? What’s going on? How are you? Right? And even adjusting capital, I would firstly say what do you need in your business? Right? Yeah. And then like, you know,

Gabriel Araish: everyone’s so focused on them. Exactly. You know,

Marco Kozlowski: someone’s saying, you know, what do you need? What’s going on? I’m good, man, I don’t need anything, what do you need?

Gabriel Araish: I don’t, there’s so many of these strategies. I mean, obviously, depending on the level of where you are, in your level, like, hey, you know, now we go out to, you know, when you go out with someone who’s much, much wealthier than you, even if it’s just to a restaurant, and you end up picking the tab up, that just that is a silly thing, but a lot of them expect that. Or they feel like the need to take it and they it’s like there’s an expectation of the rich person out there to billionaire them, the guy that’s worth 100 million should be picking up the tab. But a small gesture like this could show them that you have no expectations from that you just want to provide value in that they’ve provided just a lot of value just by being there in front of you for that meal. So providing value is always going to be your key to achieving whatever you want whether it’s stock wire deals or whether it’s acquire money it’s the more you give them like you said I guess gift to give is really just giving it’s really powerful.

Marco Kozlowski: And yeah, and yep, yep, yep. So I have a lot of things running through my head right now that I could say but I think we’re going to run out of time anyway it’s really already so sorry about that game plan or you’re going to turn into a pumpkin if you Oh, I’m

Gabriel Araish: not I’m good man, I might just, you know, just wanted to kind of just leave it out there that is something school is coming up on my end for from a capital raising perspective. And you know, if anybody wants to find out they’re getting on the early just go to how to access money.com And, you know, you’ll see that it’s, it’s, it’s still it’s still in construction, it’s it’s coming real soon, but if you want to have a sneak peek go out there and share information in there so that we can get it out to you as soon as it’s as soon as it’s alive.

Marco Kozlowski: It’s a great URL, by the way how to access money.com Yeah, I was surprised is that that’s that.ca orgy or.ai

Gabriel Araish: Or we don’t do dot orgy easier.

Marco Kozlowski: Oh my gosh

Gabriel Araish: that’s the dark

Marco Kozlowski: ages back gives back well to land the plane Gabe good stuff man. And listener thanks for listening in. Raising money over finding deals. Educate yourself on either or, and the fastest path to cash no matter what. If you’re completely starting from scratch in my world is finding the deal. Get educated. Didn’t how to find the deal because that will raise the money automatically, it’ll get connected. If it’s, that’s to me in real estate, because only because I already don’t, we already have access to the capital, and you can leverage those relationships, right. But if you want to start a business or do something else, or have this great idea that you know, you’ve invented the lighter, whatever. And it’s a special lighter that, you know, is basically a lightsaber, it works on whatever by lithium crystals, however, that I think that’s, I think that’s Star Trek. But anyway, I’m going to get a lot of mail over that, mixing lightsabers and Bella theme crystals. But the the the point is, start somewhere, educate yourself as much as possible, don’t go wide goes go goes very narrow, but very deep, like know a lot about whatever you want to do read books, listen to tapes on that subject. And if you’re shy, like, I’m actually shy by nature, learn how to read as many books as you can, or align yourself with someone that can help you on your communication skills. I know a guy and start crushing it. And it’s a lot. It’s, it’s, it’s simpler than you think. But it’s work. And if you’re willing to put in the work, you’re willing, you’re going to get results. Just work at it, nothing, get rich quick, you got to focus on the universe, God, whatever you want to call it puts things in gives you opportunities that you have to put effort in. Because if you don’t put effort into something, it’s not worth it, you won’t take it seriously. You haven’t earned it.

Gabriel Araish: Just the last thing on my end is that because you touched on it, but communication is like super critical and crucial to anything you do, whether you’re going down the deal path, whether you’re going down the capital raising path. And, you know, I know, and I’m not just saying this to throw you flowers, but since we’ve been working together like that skill set has, you know, it’s exponentially grown, and it’s helped the capital raising side of my business, you know, do a lot better, a lot faster. I don’t think I could, you know, knowing the rules is one thing, but you have to be able to communicate if once you want to apply the rules, and that’s something that, you know, I’m grateful that I met you and that we got to work together because that’s definitely a

Marco Kozlowski: it was a game changer for me. We’ve learned from each other, he went from student to friend to you know, business partner, and you know, and we have millions of million dollars of assets together for a reason, you know, I learned from you as well. And I learned a long time ago that as I said earlier, I know nothing, and anyone and anything can teach me something. And if you come from a place of humility, a place of I want to learn, see through see things through the eyes of a child and wonder. You will completely change your outlook on life, and you will completely have more fun in life. And you’ll end up making more money and you’ll actually attract better people. Instead of being in you know, a negative Danny all the time. And negativity is something that a lot of these guys don’t have that are in their DNA, they’re generally very happy people. Generally, I say I’ve met some crotchety wealthy people. But that’s not that’s not the norm. So with that, let’s let’s wrap this up. And Gabe, I appreciate your wisdom and your knowledge and your experience and you know, your kind words and your willingness to give to give listener you know, you rock if it wasn’t for you, we just be two guys are microphone. We kind of awkward actually. And, and the only thing we want from from you is just take some action, do one thing today that you didn’t do yesterday and just make today better than yesterday and do your best. Do your best. So check the show notes. How to access money.com Yep, is the URL, how to access money.com There you go. And just follow that and digest as much information as possible. And all you have is today, Tomorrow is not promised. Remember that it’s a present for a reason. And make the best of it and appreciate you again like us love us share us. Comments. You know, we welcome those, give us some love. And if you have any questions, comments, comments, grievances, whatever. Marco at Marco kozlowski.com That’s Marco at Marco kozlowski.com. If you have ideas on shows or want something, let us know we’ll take care of you. And I appreciate you very much Gabe and Frank. Whenever he comes back and have yourself a blessed day and just make today count and make something happen. Give value to others. You have to give If you’ve liked this episode of Big Fat real estate checks that show some love and leave in a comment a good rating. Also, as a thank you for tuning in today, we’ve got a special free gift. The journey to passive cash flow for life starts by finding deals, and it’s easier than you think. Simply go to get deals by tuesday.com Enter your email address, and we’ll send you a free Quickstart course called deals by Tuesday, even if it’s 11pm Monday night, this course will show you how to find discounted real estate deals by Tuesday. It’s that fast and simple. Go to get deals by tuesday.com and start your journey toward life changing cash flow today. Thanks for tuning in. And we’ll see you on the next episode.