Kaizen Blueprint

Aldo Chandra (00:01)
Robbie, how you doing brother? Welcome to the

Robby Butler (00:04)
Thank you all though. It's great to be here. It's been a while since we've seen each other, so I'm excited to catch up and talk shop a little.

Aldo Chandra (00:11)
Awesome. Before we get started, wanted to ask, how do you describe what you

Robby Butler (00:17)
Sure. say, depending on what I know about the other person, that I assemble real estate investments for individual investors. If it was more specific to what I do, I raise capital for real estate investments. bring investors into real estate investments. I always use those two variables, the investor and the investment in some way. depending on someone's familiarity, you have to, you have to go at them slowly. Most people have no concept.

And so you've got to open the door a little

Aldo Chandra (00:48)
Got it. So you deal with a lot of investors. Talk to us about that. How did you first get started into kind of building your network, right? know, getting an investors, real estate is such a networking industry, right? You got to get to know people. It's about who you know. It's not necessarily about what you do, but what you, who you know. Tell us more about how you first got started into building that relationship, especially raising funds for the investors as

Robby Butler (01:15)
Sure. My career started in nonprofit fundraising. That was my first exposure to talking with investors who are in that case, philanthropic donors. So a little different mindset at that point in someone's career. However, for the salesperson, for the person working with the investor, it's the same process. So I got started in that landscape and I loved that industry. We're talking like college time. I was already active, had raised money,

found investors had made some money doing that type of work and just adored it. But that also started the networking piece because the same people who are giving philanthropic dollars to causes also typically have got a nice balance sheet. They're well capitalized. They know what they're doing on their tax situation so that they're efficient in their financial life. And they typically have got some gray hair as well. So they've had some good experience in that group were several real estate investors. So I got

get an early insight into that. That was over a decade ago now, but that network never leaves you. You keep these networks as you move career to career. so as my own entrepreneurial career took off, I remembered I've got these real estate investors in my, in my Rolodex and I can use them. I can call on them to get good advice, to continue having the same conversation. So when I started raising capital for real estate, they were among my first calls.

Aldo Chandra (02:19)
Mmm.

Robby Butler (02:40)
just to get a better sense of their goals, to know where I can potentially find projects for them in the future. And that's really where it started. And it started off slow, no doubt. My quota used to be making like nine investor calls a week. And now on an average week, I'm making 60 or 70 at least just in order to keep opening that funnel. And to be clear, that's only outbound calls that has nothing to do with the people calling me. So it is funny how things snowball once

Aldo Chandra (03:05)
Hahaha

Robby Butler (03:10)
once you understand the real business you're in, but that's how I got started.

Aldo Chandra (03:14)
Yeah. And for most investors, right? In the residential space, we are usually in equity in a deal and then we raise either from banks or regional banks or maybe like a private lender. You know, those are kind of the smaller scale. That's how we get started. But then once we start getting involved in these bigger deals, reading more books, we start getting more, learning more about the vocabulary, OPM, others, people's money.

And you mentioned you have a lot of network and, and, know, people with gray hair, but for somebody who's just starting out and want to raise capital and perhaps, Hey, I have a bigger deal now. How can I get myself involved with these high net worth individuals?

Robby Butler (03:59)
best time to raise capital is when you don't have a deal on the table. So you have to start that conversation in advance of when you're suddenly sitting there with perhaps earnest money at risk, ticking time bomb in your portfolio going, I need to make an investor happy with this so that I can end up with a successful project. That's never an ideal situation. So to roll it back, you start those types of conversations long in advance.

listen and you keep track and you keep notes in your, your customer relationship management software of what that person is looking for, what their ideal investment is. And from that process, you start to assemble the right types of projects. So what you become comfortable doing is asking questions of people. learned a great Alex Hormozzi line, who's a great sales trainer and a great business individual. He says, closers ask hard questions. And

For someone just starting out, hard question might be, what do you like to invest in? For some people that's a hurdle to get over, but let me tell you, like that's my first question. When I'm talking with investors at this stage of my career, because they know what they're getting into when they call me. If one of our friends, although is saying I'm going to call my first investor, what do I say? Well, that might be the hill they have to get over. But someday you get used to asking things like, well, what's your current net worth? What's your current cash position?

Where's the biggest risk in your portfolio? How do I assume, how do I become confident I'm not adding to that? So these questions become a part of any networking relationship that will grow into an investor relationship, but it has to start there. Otherwise you'll be like every sticky salesperson that people don't really want to interact with again. You want them to take your second phone call after you learn the first iteration of what they will invest

Aldo Chandra (06:19)
Sorry, we got cut off a little bit. I'll make sure to edit that out. Yeah. Yep. Sounds good. So when you meet these investors and you start asking the questions, right? How do you know when it's a good time to ask them? Let's say you mentioned in the first few minutes there, the good time to raise capital is when you don't have a deal. But

Robby Butler (06:23)
Super cut off. Yeah, yeah, it's all good.

Aldo Chandra (06:49)
you already developed that relationship with that investor and let's say you do have a deal. How do you go about asking it without being too

Robby Butler (06:58)
This is really a continuum. It is always a matter of how much experience does myself as the capital raiser have and do I have the right sense of where the person is in their decision timeline. It is possible to ask too early and succeed, but the likelihood of asking too early and failing is often a risk I don't need to expose myself to. So you build a sense over time of

the right timing to ask the question. However, there are a few things that you can do systematically to ensure that this is going to be the right time to ask. And one of the classic ones out of Tom Hopkins and all the classic sales trainers out there is the trial close approach. A trial close would be, if I had this type of investment that you're interested in now though, would you be interested in investing in it? And they go, yeah, sure. I'd love to invest in

Aldo Chandra (07:40)
Mmm.

Robby Butler (07:50)
B -class, multi -family apartment, 16 above units, 1972 construction in my local market. I'd love that. Well, we got to that understanding from the questioning process, from asking them, why would you invest? What are you excited about investing in? The trial close is a hypothetical close. And if they say yes to that, you know, wow, I've got the right on -ramp. And again, that for someone could be a tough question to ask, but to get someone

Familiar with saying yes to you is part of what can help someone to realize this is the right time to make that investment request say now that hypothetical that 1972 apartment B class 60 units is ready Are you ready to write the check as well or a better question would be well, how much are you ready to invest right now? And now it's not yes. No now it's a decision. So that's one

Aldo Chandra (08:42)
Got

Robby Butler (08:47)
to get someone very comfortable with saying yes to you is they've already said yes to a bunch of other things beforehand, including the hypothetical exact thing you're going to offer

Aldo Chandra (08:57)
Got it. Do you think that a lot of knowledge in the investing, like do you need to do like a whole class of university and finance class in order to raise capital or do you need to know sales?

Robby Butler (09:10)
I would say knowing sales gets you further because you'll realize that this becomes a process and finance doesn't teach you the process. Finance teaches you some of the necessary infrastructure knowledge, the what of what you're investing in, but the sales is what actually causes someone to make the decision to invest with you. The finance background can help you align with a similar type of person, perhaps someone who was their own finance major, but that's only one class of person.

The salesperson really knows how to talk to everyone. And frankly, this is why you have people falling for scams. This is why some projects raise tons of money and some projects raise very little money. They could have the same fundamentals, but one project is with a better salesperson than another project. That is an unfortunate part of the reality of what we do is that the better marketed project has more exposure, but.

Aldo Chandra (09:48)
Mmm.

Robby Butler (10:07)
If you can get both, if you can get the good financial background coupled with the very good sales approach, then you'll be successful because you're running on two threads at once. You have two strong pillars for your house you're trying to build.

Aldo Chandra (10:21)
Got it. That's awesome. when you're, when you have, like you mentioned earlier, right? You have not, you have a goal of nine outbound calls, right? To, to investors. And that doesn't count how many of inbound calls that you're getting. You mentioned about CRM, you mentioned about, you know, tracking those, those investors. Now with that amount of investors in your so -called Rolodex, how do you keep track of, you know, how do I know when to ask this person

for example, like I know that this person likes this thing. how do you, you know, it seems like even in your LinkedIn buyer, like 1300 investors, that's a lot of people. I don't even have that much friends. So how do you keep track with that so much people and at the same time know what each one wants?

Robby Butler (11:08)
It is a special type of person. There's no doubt that a special type of person does the kind of work to keep in touch with a high volume of people. And there are parts of it that I am weak in as well. I think a lot before I reach out to anyone. Some people don't. Some people are just like, although how you doing? Okay, not right now. And they hang up and they call the next person. I'm a little more methodical, but there's a common saying out there that you can only really keep in touch with or you can only really keep close about 150 people.

And I categorically disagree with that. There is absolutely no way that that has to be the truth. And I think I'm proving it on a daily basis because this morning, before we spoke, I was thinking of a dentist in my network and I only talked to this guy maybe four times a year, but I can come up with his name and what we last talked about and how many kids he has and where he lives and the investment amount he made and exactly what he was excited about and what else he's invested in. I can come up with that immediately. And

How many people like that are there in my own head rattling around? So it's a special type of person that does this professionally, but there are tools that reinforce it as well. so tools like HubSpot, PipeDrive, even Excel can do this and you're simply tracking a process. you're, although I don't love the phrase, your external brain is holding all of these items and you're just tracking where they are in the process. so I often, even though I know that innately, I'll check my

recollection with my external brain with we use pipe drive as a specific example and I check pipe driving go. Yep. I knew exactly that. maybe I forgot that he was buying another dental practice last time I talked to him and I forgot that piece, but I got the rest of the 80 % automatically. So the customer relationship management software is one easy tool to implement to keep track of all those conversations. You also just become very good

remembering the core pieces of someone's life and using those when the right time is there to be able to ask them the questions. As an example, we had an investor who recently just got married. So I know he's not going to come and make some $250 ,000 investment decision the next weekend. Some people do, but he's probably not. He loves his wife and he's going to be very happy with her. And they're probably not thinking about individual investment decisions for the next couple of weeks. So I'm not going to be carelessly calling.

Every three days and going like, did you decide yet? Did you decide yet? I'll let him be, but a little bit of the soft touch goes, Hey, I hope the honeymoon was great. Tell me when I should follow up with you Tuesday or Thursday. And from there, he says, let's talk on Thursday. I go, great. He agreed. Now I have permission.

Aldo Chandra (13:54)
Yeah, absolutely. And I like to call those like the mini deposits, right? Where you're at, you're just these soft little touches like, hey, how are you? Hey, remember that conversations? And I think that's, you know, Dr. Benjamin Hardy, and in his book, he talks about unique ability. And that is your unique ability, Robbie. And the fact that you're able to interact with so many people and the fact that this is your job too. This is your full time thing of talking to many people, remembering

memories from the past conversations and the fact that, hey, you you show your face to them because some people, and majority of the time you see one person and then you had a conversation. Usually they forget about that person five minutes after 10 minutes after, because they have something else. They have other responsibilities and they have to take care of themselves as well. So it is important that, you know, you have these mini deposits to have conversation, to have conversation with people, or even if you don't have conversation with

I like what you're doing, Robbie, especially in LinkedIn, when you're like commenting on someone as like, Hey, congratulations. And like you mentioned about, about the, the, the person that just got married, you want to be logical in the way that you're reaching out to these people. If they have a significant event that just happened where it costs, you know, a tremendous amount of money, then they might not be a good time to invest. So understanding that and making sure that,

you keep track of that is very important.

Robby Butler (15:26)
there's a, an approach there that also helps someone to feel comfortable doing that type of work. And it really is about being so interested in who they are, so curious about who they are that you're naturally pulling for the things at the top of their mind. But you said it as well, that reiterating some of the previous conversations helps them to reconnect back to the level that they

wanting to operate at that you're also wanting them to operate at. Enthusiasm about investments, excited to make progress in their financial lives, preparing for future events or family success or whatever the case may be, reminding them of that in subtle ways, but intentional ways is a successful product of an investment conversation. And you know you're on track when someone says to you something

Aldo, I'm thrilled you called. We, know we talked seven months ago and this is a perfect time to talk. You, you should lay back with happiness because that means that not only are they excited to talk, but they're doing that work themselves. had a conversation yesterday while driving with a guy who said, Robbie, I'm really pleased that we didn't make the decision in March about the investment we were going to make because you now have this new offering. And, and Robbie, I really

really glad we're having this conversation now because this new offering is much more exciting and I'm going like from my perspective he is selling himself that's not a bad thing but he knows what he wants and he's now chasing it himself and I'm just guiding him along to the finish

Aldo Chandra (17:01)
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Well, always helping other people. think in the book, Never Eat Alone by Keith Farazzi, right? How do you build your network? How do you get people to like you? this has kind of changed my perspective on networking is generosity, right? Helping other people and I think asking the right questions and people talk. Like in the book, Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss,

All you gotta do is ask questions. Just let them talk and people talk all the time and they talk about their problems. And as somebody who's raising capital, as somebody who is in the network, right, you wanna help other people. You figure out what those problem is and how can you provide value to them by either solving that problem or guiding them out of that issue.

Robby Butler (17:48)
People leave you clues all day long about the things they're really wondering about. met with a gentleman who's had several successful cannabis exits over the last six years. So he's been in the market for a long time, basically since the first state started to legalize. And those successful exits have left him with a really high net worth. asked me what I did, gave him a short answer and flipped it back to him. And I knew what he did. And so I said something like,

Aldo Chandra (17:57)
Mmm.

Robby Butler (18:15)
know, what's your experience with real estate? And said, I only own the physical plant underneath the stores. Because if you've done any motel to apartment conversions, and I said, no, but what makes you ask? Why are you asking about that specific asset class or kind of conversion strategy? And he started to talk and he described a problem that he observed in his local market. And I got much more into that conversation than if I just say, no, we don't do that. That's way too niche for us or that's way

That's outside of our skill set. And he goes, okay, this conversation is done. But people ask you things based on what's on their mind. And he left me that glue. And so I ran right at

Aldo Chandra (18:53)
Yeah, yeah. So what's your tips on like, or strategy when it comes to networking in the real estate industry? You mentioned about the cold call aspect. I'm pretty sure you go to a lot of events. Any tips on how can we build our network outside of going to meetups, outside of just the local REIA meetings? Do you have any alternative kind of methodology to network?

Robby Butler (19:18)
One I'm excited about right now, mostly because it is so relatively free, is posting things, LinkedIn especially, that causes people to want to connect with me. And I don't accept connections. I just categorically don't. If we have enough mutual friends, I'll accept the connection. I'll send them a message saying, hey look, I literally copy and paste the same message, little tip. Say, hey look, we don't.

We have not met before because I know the people I've met. is very, very rare that someone comes up to me and they say, we met a year ago and I don't remember it. Like that never happens to me. But someone reaches out to me. don't know them, but we've got 12 mutual friends. say, we've not met before, but we've got a dozen mutual friends and I'm interested in your business. Let's talk for 15 minutes about your business, what your business goals are and what we can do to help each other. Here's my calendar for 15 minute windows. Very difficult to get. They're

only one time Monday and one time Friday stretching out for 60 days. And if they take me up on that, that grows the network a little bit, but it also puts me in the right position. have said, look, you reached out to me. You obviously found me. I want to network, but I'm not going to sway the overall bent of all of the work I have to do just to take 15 minute phone calls with random strangers on LinkedIn. But if they accept it, now we're going to have a great conversation. It's going to be focused. It's going to be quick

We'll both find things that we're working on that we can help each other with, but it's very efficient and it also doesn't get too big. I'm networking all Monday and all Friday with people who I don't control. There are people reaching out to me on LinkedIn. Great to have, but the lead generation comes from what am I writing? What am I sharing? People come in and I vet them very specifically for, do we have enough mutual friends? Okay, let's network. If we have mutual friends, I can learn a ton about them just by looking at, okay, they know

these three people in that market, let's run right at that. Let's find out why. And great conversations come out of that. I love

Aldo Chandra (21:21)
That's awesome. Outside of LinkedIn, do you use any other social media channels?

Robby Butler (21:26)
I use Facebook. like Twitter. I'm on Instagram, but really LinkedIn is the strong one. Every everything that goes on LinkedIn ends up as an afterthought on Facebook and I might copy and paste to Twitter, but it's that LinkedIn is really my high priority. We're also on YouTube. And so I do a fair amount of live streaming to YouTube, but it's all social media has had to be a growing space for me. It's not an area.

I naturally love, had to work on it for probably two years to get to the point where people know me and I'm out there.

Aldo Chandra (22:01)
Yeah, yeah. What are your thoughts on this kind of off topic here, like Grant Cardo methodology of raising capital? He's doing a lot of, you know, network, networking, right? And he have his own show. And on top of that, he have his own, you know, YouTube kind of live stream. Is that something that you're looking into? What are your thoughts on

Robby Butler (22:24)
Yep. Grant Cardone also has fantastic events. He's got business coaching. He's got multiple lead generation tools out there. So as a business person watching another business person, he's brilliant. I know some investors in his deals and I know their happiness level is a little bit lower than what I would expect from a nationwide well -known figure. However, that's business, right? You make good choices, you make bad choices. Sometimes things are hard,

Sometimes things are not hard and they work very well. So his strategy is duplicatable and should be. People should put themselves out there. They should talk confidently about what they're doing. They should be very clear about what they're doing. I will say that most real estate investors who have walked the both the sales and the finance approach or the underwriting approach or they own their own properties like I do. Most people listen to Grant Cardone and they go, what you describe about real estate is not very deep.

It is not very insightful to hear him talk about rents going up. It's not a rocket. It doesn't have one direction to go. There's more nuance in the marketplace than rents going up than buying in Florida and Texas. There is more nuance. However, he's much better known than you and me times a hundred. And so there is there's a lesson to be learned for that as

Aldo Chandra (23:46)
Yeah, yeah. It seems like what he's doing, he's doing a kind of a big net, right? He's throwing out all the basic information to people who are maybe new, maybe just not even just getting started in real estate or maybe experienced investors because if he casts a white net, then these people are going to talk to each other. And eventually you start talking like those people might have family members or friends

are high net worth individuals. They're like, yeah, I heard about like Grant Cardone. Now everybody hear about him. He's like this real estate guy, multifamily. So it seems like you and Grant Cardone have two different strategy here where you're specifically targeting the bright people for like a better word. And then he's targeting like a white net with the hope of let's get more credit investors from their family members

just having that conversations, kind of have a social proof like, yeah, he knows real estate and he does all these stuff. He have fancy cars, but Robbie, it's like, I'm Robbie. I talk to a lot of people and have conversations, great conversations, and I raise capital and that is just two different strategies

Robby Butler (24:50)
Yep.

To be clear, however, I never miss a chance to take a photo with a famous person for the same reason that Grant Cardone is a famous person. He has created fame for himself and so he's a household name almost. I remember when I first learned about him and I went, have I not heard of this guy before? This was years ago, but I still went, how have I not heard of this guy before? He does have an incredible story. No doubt about that. But for the same reason you reinforce your own network when

Barbara Corcoran is sitting on stage and I get to listen to her and I go up afterwards and thank her and take a photo. Mitzi Perdue, Tom Wheelwright, who we got to meet. These are famous people and you want to show your association because it helps people to realize you're serious about your own growth too. You're serious about your own networking. I don't take a photo with everyone I meet, but if they have some value, if people know them, you want to know that, hey, you know this person as well. That's pretty cool.

Aldo Chandra (25:35)
Wow. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. And speaking about that, any tips on somebody who is kind of, you know, for example, like me, I'm like lower end here and, you kind of talk to someone who is the Ken McElroy or the Tom Wheelwright who are high caliber people. And sometimes it can be intimidating to, talk to, to these type of people or even just the president, right? It doesn't matter. These are high caliber people of, of high status. They're very well known.

and you're just like a, you know, just a schmuck and you're like, Hey, hi, my name is Aldo. Or what are your tips on somebody who can be intimidating and for somebody who's kind of new and want to build that confidence to talk to that person when the opportunity arises.

Robby Butler (26:40)
Great. Yep. Great question. It requires preparation. Any real high quality networking event requires preparation. So I was in New York yesterday. There were 50 people in the room. I had read the whole list beforehand. I had looked up every person that I knew to refresh my memory. The preparation occurs period. Whether or not you're going to go and meet Joe Biden or Donald Trump, or you're going to meet Grant Cardone, it does not matter. The preparation is

and for the famous people, calling them in that category the famous people, you just have to do more preparation. They say for any meeting you're taking, should be at least 10 % of the meeting time is spent in preparation for it, especially at the early level. 30 minute meeting with someone I don't know, three minutes of preparation, easy to do. For someone famous, it's going to take longer. You might need to buy their book and read it. That is a smart approach.

That's one approach to at least being more prepared to say, Ken, I loved what you said in the ABCs of real estate investing. That was so helpful. I actually, to tell you the truth, every time I see Ken, I ask him, when is the ABCs of raising capital come out? I've read the introduction. The introduction is really good. We've talked about it over lunch. I have asked him for two years now. He already wrote the first chapter. When's the next chapter coming out? So this is a running joke between us by this point, because I was prepared two years ago.

to read it and talk with them about it when it came up. There's one other piece though, and this is actually talked about by Joe Polish, a entrepreneur out of Arizona who's very well known. He's called the most well networked entrepreneur in the United States. Joe Polish's approach is that you should find a way to add very quick succinct value to someone every time you meet them. How can you do a super fast favor

Aldo Chandra (28:22)
Wow.

Robby Butler (28:35)
that's going to be immediately helpful so that they'll remember you and they will be grateful and they will reciprocate. So he prepares with that. And his example is when he got to meet Bill Clinton, that's an actual president and not everyone gets to meet an actual president. When he got to meet Bill Clinton, he walked up to him and he said, this is basically a receiving line, right? So 500 people in line shake hand. You don't get to exchange gifts. You don't get to talk for two minutes.

Aldo Chandra (28:49)
Yeah

Robby Butler (29:02)
He said, he said, what can I do? I can make that guy laugh. I can do something that he will enjoy. So he walked up to Bill Clinton and said, who would win in a fist fight between you and Al Gore? And Bill Clinton laughed his head off, shook his hand, took the photo and Bill Clinton later invited him to an after party. That is a huge win for an entrepreneur trying to get in close to a president. And so that little gift he gave, even though he couldn't actually give a gift, won him.

Aldo Chandra (29:15)
Hahaha

Robby Butler (29:31)
the next stage of the experience getting to go to an after party. mean, now Joe Polish interviews RFK. He knows so many people. He's more well known than he was when Bill Clinton was president. But that's strategy and it worked.

Aldo Chandra (29:45)
Yeah, but most people is going to say that for these people who are high caliber and have a lot of network and have a lot of resources, how can I provide value when they already have value everywhere?

Robby Butler (29:59)
Yep. And that's where the reading comes in. The preparation comes in because you'll at least be able to say, thank you so much for chapter five of this specific book. I bet you we assume that Ken McElroy has heard it all. He absolutely has not heard it all. He has done so much. He's put so much content out there. The amount of feedback someone receives is often much less than what we assume they're getting because they're doing so much. So they're getting feedback on the core pieces of their business. But if you pick up something that they obviously worked on,

but is not a core function. It's something that they cared about, but it's not making them $5 million a year. Ken McElroy's books being a great example. And you can say, this is fantastic stuff. Thank you so much for it. That's giving a gift to them. It's giving something that they may not have heard ever before, even though it's a book and other people have absolutely read it, but it's not like people are writing fan mail on paper all the time to Ken McElroy Press. That is a gift you can give.

Aldo Chandra (30:59)
Yeah, absolutely. And this is an anecdote here. Have you ever heard of ULI?

Robby Butler (31:05)
What is ULI?

Aldo Chandra (31:07)
So ULI is called, it's an acronym for Urban Land Institute. It's one of the biggest, yeah, it's one of the biggest commercial networking and they're in many multiple different markets. And in Philadelphia, where I'm at, we have the Young Leaders Group, the YLG group, and we set up, for some reason we leveraged ULI name and branding, and we did this thing called Speed Networking. And it's just

Robby Butler (31:12)
Yep.

Aldo Chandra (31:36)
just as it is like, like you said, like speed networking where it's bunch of the young leaders group. And these are people who are under 35. And we network with bunch of people and these are not just, you know, analysts and kind of on a lower, lower level of the hierarchy of a company here, but these are like CEOs, developers, head architectures. Like we were able to organize

with many developers because we leveraged that ULI name. And in a speed networking, there was, I think 30 or 40 people, 30 or 40 YLG and 30 to 40 people, like developers, architectures, engineers, things like that. And we only get like five to 10 minutes each sessions. And because I was part of the committee member, I had a up because when we advertise this, only set the companies. We never set the names.

the status just because we're so limited on the seats. So we just want to put the names. And because I'm part of the committee member, I knew all the names. So before going to that speed networking, was like researching everyone. Like I was using ChatGPT. was like, tell me all about this person and then see if there's any specific, you know, specific questions that could ask and maybe a topic that to discuss.

because I only have five to 10 minutes depending on who we are. And I wasn't able to talk to all of them, but the ones that I talked to, made sure all those 30 or 40 people, I knew exactly what they do. Like I had Excel spreadsheets, like their names, what they do and specific questions that I want to talk about. And because of that, they're like, you did your research. Like, yeah, I had to leg up because I knew all the names of the people that's going.

So, yeah.

Robby Butler (33:29)
That is absolutely how it should be done. There's no reason not to do it if you can do it. And even if you're walking in the morning of and all you see is the guest list, at least read the guest list. You have one chance of being able to spot someone you know. So when they walk right up to you, you're not going, you know their name. You've remembered it because you read the guest list 20 minutes beforehand.

Aldo Chandra (33:51)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I want to shift gears here. I know we talk about networking. We talk about how you talk to many investors and we talk about when to do the ass. Now, when it comes to raising capital, when you have a deal, when you have an investors, what do you see most new or real estate investors make a mistake at? Like what are some common mistakes that you see new investors make when they raise

Robby Butler (34:17)
Some of these are simple and you've heard them before, but thinking small is one mistake easily made. I made the mistake early on in my career of going, I should gain experience before raising significant dollars for my own deals. Well, that was totally true, but the choice I made following that was to act small as well. So I bought

roughly 12 to 16 units of multifamily depending on when and how you count it, transactions coming and going. Those properties were the result of small thinking. Even though I had the right intuition that I should gain experience in my own portfolio, I could have partnered. I could have found any other larger owner and said, look, I got a hundred grand here. I want to deploy it. Can I be an LP of one in your deal?

not even a syndicated deal. Can I just contribute in multiple facets so I can gain experience? I thought really small, even though I knew that I was right about the intuition, I then acted in a small way. And that definitely knocked a significant piece of my track record off of a trajectory of serious growth. In part, the growth rate was limited because of the small actions. So when I later went to sell some of those properties,

I was dealing with other people who were thinking small and I was watching this and going like, I am selling to the person that I once was and that's annoying. So it's not like the person who's buying into someone I want to keep a relationship with, they're thinking the same thing I was. Doesn't mean I won't, but it's a choice. So thinking small and acting small are choices and that's an easy mistake. The other major choice that

young investors make is partnering with people who are similar to them rather than people who have net worth and experience, which is a product of really the same problem, but it plays itself out in a different way. Somebody who's got 60 years of experience will often look at you and go, wow, you're bold enough to ask. Well, at least be bold enough to answer. If they say no, your follow -up question will likely be a yes. If although you see there's a gentleman I love in St. Louis, gray hair,

had a thousand units sold the whole portfolio, but this is like the third time he's done that. If I asked him, I want to partner with you, we'll call him Bill. Bill, if I want to partner with you, will you have me? And he would probably say no. But then my next question should be, can I shadow you on your next acquisition to hear how you're thinking of? And he'll go, I feel bad for saying no. I'll probably say yes to this. What a great win. So partnering with people like you and I partner and we go and buy it, let's say 25 more units.

We both are going to have the same thought processes and levels of experience, net worth and liquidity are going to be similar. That's not advantageous to both of us. You want to partner with people who are ahead of you because they will likely either say yes or they'll say no, but here's how I could help you. And that's far better for your

Aldo Chandra (37:25)
Yeah, absolutely. The thinking big and partnering up with someone who have more experience kind of go hand in hand, right? Because these guys are the big guys. And if you're able to surround yourself with these type of people, right? Surround yourself with people who are more experienced, you're able to take their knowledge that could shortcut your of your success. So that is very important.

Robby Butler (37:49)
Yep. Something caused Barry Sternlich to be able to run Starwood Real Estate Investment Trust at 32 years old. Why are you and I not running a real estate investment trust? Because it's something that we are doing that we should change. Barry Sternlich, who is now a multi -billionaire, was running Starwood REIT at 32 years old. He made choices to do that and good choices. He also made some bad choices. He's very open about that,

There is no limitations upon young people either. Barry Sternlich, 32 years old, is a good example.

Aldo Chandra (38:24)
Yeah, absolutely. I think we get so bogged down into just thinking small and being in that comfortable space, right? And I'm gonna quote Dr. Hardy here, 10X is better than 2X. The 2X part is like, we keep doing the things that we're doing on a daily basis, but then that's it. Like you're stagnant. But then when you start taking that big leap, when you start doing a bigger multifamily with maybe three times or 10 times more units, then you're like, okay. It's the same foundation of,

mathematical and it's just more commas and that's it. If it's the same foundation, you could apply that with many other different asset classes. Yeah. So we get into the last bit here, speaking about asset classes, what are a couple of asset classes that you think is growing right now despite the interest rate being how it

Robby Butler (39:14)
Sure. Part of my answer is driven by personal experience and part of it is a genuine awareness of what's out there. I do think if you have the business experience to be able to acquire strip centers, retail, especially with core retail areas that always need offices or always need public exposure, you'll be very good. But that is not typically something that people buy into without some hard knocks. You have to be able to underwrite businesses.

You have to understand lease negotiations. Retail leases are much longer than rental leases. Hundreds of pages, tenant improvements. You've got elements of those leases that are very complicated. But if you can do it or if you can partner with someone who can do it, that's a very opportunistic acquisition right now because people are scared. I believe that the central thesis behind multifamily remains very strong. The debt you can

remains very strong. People understand people need a place to live. So the debt thesis is good. The asset thesis is good. And whether we're 700 ,000 units under supplied in the U .S. or 10 million, like some people think, thankfully, they've actually come off of that number. I'm much more on the low end of the assumption of units needed in U .S. But whether or not we're on the low end or the high end, we need more housing. So at least for some time, owning housing is advantageous. So strip centers.

good acquisition opportunity. Multi -family remains a very strong thesis, though it's definitely challenged at the moment. And at some point, office becomes countercyclical. But I do not have experience there and would not claim to be able to identify when that is or why that is. there's definitely asset classes with opportunity in

Aldo Chandra (41:04)
Yeah, absolutely. A lot of people still want a place to live, right? That is a necessity. But what's not a necessity is going to the brick and mortar stores when you have a lot of Amazons. Now you have a lot of online purchasing. People just want to stay home and they could order either Uber Eats or they could order an air conditioner from Home Depot and get it delivered for them in like a couple days. So because of that, you see a lot of industrial that's growing.

And majority of these stores, for example, like Nortro, Macy's, You're looking at them and they're downsizing because of the fact that people stop going to these malls or maybe they stop going to the store because they feel more comfortable just buying it online and have no remorse of buying them online. then because you know, you can return in 30 days if it doesn't fit and you could just buy more. So yeah, it's definitely a lot of growth there.

Robbie, I asked this question and we're getting to the end of the show here. I asked this question to all the guests. And the reason why I started the podcast and I named it Kaizen is because Kaizen is a Japanese term for continuous improvement. And I wanted to ask you, what are the things that you do on a daily basis, whether that's tools, whether that's systems or habits that you have benefited from that could benefit other people?

Robby Butler (42:34)
Every day I review my vision for my quarterly goals, often for my annual goals as well. And right beyond that, if I've got the time to read it, my five year goals, I have learned you really cannot get too far ahead. You cannot really see more than about five years ahead, except for in the true ideal. So vision is essential and I work on mine all the time and I review it every single day. Sit there.

It's on my phone, it's printed, I've got it on my computer. So I've got four different Chrome browsers and it's in a bookmark on the top of every single one. So wherever I am, I can get to it to ensure I review it every day. And then every quarter I go and tweak parts of it. I go and take stuff out, I put stuff in. That piece is going to help. I obviously have not spent too much time doing that because we have not been around super long, but keeping the vision very, very clear is very inspirational.

And I write it in very emotional language. We're talking statements like, I am excited to make 60 calls every single week outbound because I love talking to investors. That's in the vision as a statement. So it not only is written like I will make 60 calls. I will read a book. I will go to the gym. it is like I go to the gym because I am an excellent power lifter and I work hard at it because it is fulfilling and I feel very good about my work.

when I am fulfilled in the gym as well. So enthusiastic vision statements in there as well. And one other piece I do is a self -instructions list of things I want to remember every single day. So little simple short statements. One of them is I wake up feeling great at 6 a every day. So I repeat that to myself every single day. It is a way to just rehearse the things that are super important to me. And that self -instructions list has been very helpful.

There's spiritual components to it. There's parts of my faith are built in, but I repeat those things on daily basis. So I remember them when things do get hard. When I landed 1130 last night and go, I was supposed to get in at 930 and I'm not so pleased with that trip back from New York, but well, cause I'm going to wake up in the morning and I'm going to feel great at six o 'clock AM every single day.

Aldo Chandra (44:54)
Wow. Adding emotion to your goals is huge. I have never heard someone did that before. Everyone is so nonchalant and kind of like logical. It's like 50 pushups in two weeks, right? But then I'm excited to do 50 pushups on a daily basis because that way I could have a beach body by next summer. Wow. That's awesome. Well, Robbie, thank you so much for being on the Kaizen Blueprint podcast and then we'll see you on the next

Robby Butler (45:13)
Yeah, yep.

Thanks Aldo.