Machine Learning For Cold Calling with Stash Geleszinski

Josh (00:00:02) - Hey, good day, everybody. Welcome to the deal. Scout This is one of my favorite shows because I get to look at deals all day long. I get to talk with deal makers. I get to learn from their experience. And then the mission and purpose of this show is, as you're listening into these conversations, the stories, the tactics of these professional deal makers is that you, the audience and our community reach out to our guests. Hey, thanks for being on the show and find a way to do a deal with them. Mission and purpose of the show. Let's put deals and deal makers together. So let's dive into today's conversation. We're going to be talking with Mr. Stache, who's going to talk to us about machine learning, AI, all this interesting stuff and how that can make you a better deal maker and get you more deals. Stache Welcome to the show.

Stash (00:00:46) - Josh Thank you so much for having me. So it's a pleasure.

Josh (00:00:49) - Yeah. So you're in your home in Cincinnati, but in the background I see a picture, a car.

Josh (00:00:56) - What significance does that car have to you?

Stash (00:01:00) - Well, on my on this side, this is, um. It's like a BMW 35 that's been tuned up. And then on this side, that's a Ferrari. 1967. Yes. Guess those will be in my garage one day.

Josh (00:01:19) - Yeah. So those are the dream cars. That's like your vision board behind you and that that inspires you to close more deals so you could get the 1967 Ferrari. Right? Because that'd be fun to ride around in.

Stash (00:01:29) - Yeah, exactly.

Josh (00:01:31) - When that happens, I'll come up for a ride and you and I will go for a ride and we'll do a podcast interview from your Ferrari. That sounds good.

Stash (00:01:38) - Great. Would love it.

Josh (00:01:39) - All right. So tell us a little bit about who you are.

Stash (00:01:43) - Yeah, So my name is Stash. I'm a commercial real estate broker specializing in multifamily investment properties, and I'm the managing director of the Cincinnati Office for Capstone Apartment Clients. I've been with Capstone for. Um, since 2016.

Stash (00:02:03) - So six, seven years now. And, um, you know, before that we are with another regional shop here that has since rebranded. Um, you know, got my license in February of zero eight. So it was a great time to, to start. And you know, it took me a while to get some traction, but, um, you know, once I did, I started build a team and I've been together with those teammates for about ten years. So that's kind of, you know, my day job. And the reason I reached out to you is we've, um. So, you know, being a broker, I've noticed that there's a lot of data out there. And, you know, the maybe the beauty and the downfall of commercial real estate is that there's a lot of data, but it's not very well organized or categorized. And, you know, some of the the platforms out there, which I'll leave unnamed, um, they do a good job at bringing it together, but they haven't done anything to, you know, try and predict.

Stash (00:03:09) - Um. When a property might transact, they just record it after the fact. Um, and so, you know, being a broker and being new to the market, you know, got here in 2011 here to Cincinnati in 2011 and had no contacts, no connections. And so I'd like to say I've cold called all of my friends. Um, you know. I have experienced this thing time and again where it's like, I'll talk to somebody and they're like, No, we're not doing anything right now, and then I'll see you transaction pop off. And it's like, What just happened? Like, what did I miss? Um, so the thought was, what if you could use data and analytics to predict transactions before they occur? And so I had this thought was rolling around in my head for a little while and had a friend come to me who said, you know, Hey, my partners and I are involved in software. And, um, you know, we would like to get into real estate.

Stash (00:04:13) - And I was like, Well, if you guys have a software background, what about this? And I pitched him on the idea and he's like, All right, well, let me go talk to my partners. And they came back, think we had launched the next week and they're like, Yeah, this thing has legs. And so, you know, for about two years now, we've been having a meeting at first it started weekly and now it's every morning, um, working on the platform that we've created to, to predict, you know, to fulfill that hypothesis that initially came up with, um, the platform is called Needle. And my partner Maher is, you know, in charge of data and analytics for a large bank here in town. And we've got a whole team based offshore that is really doing the hard work of, of, you know, understanding the data, putting it all together, creating the analytics and building the platform, building the user interface. So. Yeah, that's.

Stash (00:05:20) - That's what we're working on.

Josh (00:05:21) - Yeah. So this is really cool. You got started in February of 2008. I was in real estate. I got started a little bit before that, but I threw in the white flag in 2008 because I got my butt whooped. But you got you got in at the at the best time to get into real estate. I think I got out at the best time in real estate. So depending on what kind of deals you were doing is when you get in or when you get out. What inspired you to get into real estate in zero eight?

Stash (00:05:52) - Yeah, that's a great question. So, um, you know, my my mom was a residential agent and I saw this, the success that she had had and was kind of generally unemployable otherwise. So, you know, I figured out the commercial real estate thing and made up my mind sometime in college that that was the the dream I was going to go pursue. Um, and so I graduated in No. Six.

Stash (00:06:22) - I went to Boston for a year, kind of met with all the developers and brokers and really just couldn't get any traction. And so I had some friends and family in California, so that's what drew me out there and got essentially like an internship at a small brokerage firm. And the guy that I was working for, he saw kind of my work ethic and hustle and was like, You want to buy an apartment building? And I was like, That's exactly what I want to do. That's why I'm here. Um, and so we syndicated a 33 unit and then we also. Did a partnership on a 40 unit. And but, you know, the timing was just challenging. Yeah. So like the 33 unit, we were going to buy that another property, think like 24 units from the same family. And Washington Mutual was scheduled to be our lender. And remember waking up, you know, a week or two before closing was set. And, you know, the the news said Washington Mutual has declared bankruptcy.

Josh (00:07:34) - And.

Stash (00:07:35) - Was like, I don't know a lot, but don't think that's a good thing.

Josh (00:07:39) - That's not a good thing.

Stash (00:07:40) - No, it was not. Um, so we had to regroup and we ended up arranging a seller financing and, you know, we got our investors out whole on that one, but certainly didn't hit the home run that we had projected going in.

Josh (00:07:54) - Yeah, man. So I was building spec homes based on appreciation and we built $8 million worth of spec homes with me and partners and investors because we were the Florida market was just crushing, man. We were doing so good. And 0405060 shit. Things got scary, right? But you got in at an interesting time because as the market was dipping, right, good value started to pop up places. And for people in commercial real estate, I thought that posed the perfect storm to learn and to really do some interesting acquisitions because that's when the the dry powder came out, right? That's when people who were sitting on some cash, they came out and that's when they accelerated wealth.

Josh (00:08:41) - Did you experience that?

Stash (00:08:43) - Yeah. Mean those first couple of years. So, you know, why did I start right then? Well, I've worked so hard to get in, and then once I've been, I was like, well, not just going to give up now. Like, I've already come this far. And that's kind of always been my mentality. But yeah, like, you know, the first, oh eight, nine, ten. You know, things are kind of stagnant at that point because the market is still working itself out. But, you know, I came here to Cincinnati for a couple of deals that mean they were 25 caps on expenses. Um, and so, you know, my, my brokerage career really started to pick up in 2013, like I did 15 deals on my own and was like, I need some help. Um, so that's things that. Um, they're motorists since then.

Josh (00:09:42) - Yeah. So from zero 8 to 13, it's a grind. You're knocking on doors, you're.

Josh (00:09:48) - You're hustling. People saw your work ethic and your hustle. What does that look like? When. How do you know? All right, so you and I are. Let's just say we're partners, and. And we have a brokerage and we're interviewing a deal maker right in front of us. How do we know that that person is going to be a winner? Right. Based on their work ethic, what are some signs, you know, that you look for in a good team member?

Stash (00:10:12) - Um. That's a good question. You know, you want to kind of look at some intangibles maybe of, of, uh, you know. At Capstone. You know, it's kind of like, would you like going and having a beer with this person, among other things? Like, do they pass the personality test? Right. Yeah. Um, so that's one thing like because you're going to spend a lot of time with this person, um, either directly or indirectly, because if they're in your office or they're on your team, um, you know, they become almost a part of the family, whether you like it or not.

Stash (00:10:54) - Um, so that's one thing. Um, you know, it was said to me and believe it's true that people that came up, um, playing sports and they don't necessarily have to be full on college athletes, but at least kind of if you're going to be on a team, um, you know, having played sports on a team and understanding that it's not all up to you and that some people are goalies and some people are out there scoring goals, right? Like there are those complementary skill sets that you need on a team. And that's honestly we've built that here in my office and that's been a great thing because, you know, like I can do it all, but that doesn't mean I'm the best at doing well. So yeah.

Josh (00:11:44) - What is your superpower as a deal maker?

Stash (00:11:48) - I'm going to call it out of the market.

Josh (00:11:50) - Yes. So you are you've got the strongest index finger from hitting those buttons and cold calling your cold call. I love it, man. Yeah. Um.

Stash (00:12:02) - So just brute force.

Josh (00:12:04) - Force. Yeah. When I first got my real estate license, I was handed a white page. Remember that back in the day? Here's a white page. And I just started. I figured since everybody in the group got the same white page, I would start in in the DS or the E's because everybody started in the A's. So I would just call people in all day long, Hey, blah, blah, blah. Right? Horrible conversion rate right then and I'm going to compare this to what you're building with needle. I was like, Man, I'm getting 100 no's per day and I'm getting brutalized, right? And my ears are worn out. But then I started walking neighborhoods and then I would look for indicators that this person might need help. Tall grass, right on. Manicured house. Right. Things that are just in disarray. I'd knock on their house and say, you know, pretty much, do you need help? I can I bring an investor.

Josh (00:12:58) - My conversion rate went through the roof and I found my niche with working with investors. So I say that because there's predictive indicators like you're doing with needle. Yeah. For me, you could cold call people all day because there's the data there even back in the day with white pages. But when you could see indicators that there's a deal ready to be had, your conversion rates go up. So that's what you're doing with needle is. But you're doing it at a at a scale using AI and machine learning, right?

Stash (00:13:25) - Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, it's true machine learning. And you know what we've what I've seen as a broker in underwriting deals, you know, every year we probably underwrite like 1000 deals a year. Like no joke. Wow. And you know, there are commonalities that you see time and again. Um, you know, it's oftentimes they'll take, you know, the occupancy will drop because they're executing a value add um, or it's a lease up deal and the occupancy is so the occupancy will drop and then come back up or it'll just start to go up because it's a new construction.

Stash (00:14:04) - You'll also see rental rates start to increase with that as well because they're executing on the value add, they're improving the units, they're getting a higher rental rate. Um, then there are other things, like if they're a merchant developer, well, their behavior pattern is not to hold to sell. Um, or if they're a value add group and their typical whole period is five years and they're in year four. Well, that's Intel, right? Um, other things like the debt maturing. Um, you know, we've compiled all of these things rental rates, occupancies, the changes in those, the, um, what the property is doing as compared to its comp set ownership, behavior patterns, loan maturities, things like that. And we've compiled every single property in the United States. 50 units are greater. Um, and we flagged them as. Hot, warm and cold. And then there's a set that just aren't in there, um, for various reasons. But you do have the ability to move the pipeline and you know, we give this data set and so for brand new guys to business.

Stash (00:15:22) - Or newer to business. Maybe it gives them something to, you know, tangibly hold on to and reach out with confidence and say, you know, hey, I'm calling about, you know, Stony Brook Farms. Um, and this owner may have 20 other properties, but if you're calling on one specifically and you have a reason why you're calling, they're much more inclined and likely to have a conversation with you than if you call them and say, Hey, mister owner, I see you have 20 properties. Do you want to sell any of them? The answer is going to be no every time. But if you call and say, Hey, I'm calling about this specific property for these reasons.

Josh (00:16:01) - Yeah, what.

Stash (00:16:02) - Are you going to do? Um. All right. Well, let's talk. Kind of how I've seen it work.

Josh (00:16:11) - Hey, it looks like you have a loan coming up for maturity, or you got, you know, like what? What's the plan for it? Right. They might be caught with their pants down because they, you know, they were betting on a 3% or 4% interest rate.

Josh (00:16:24) - And now we're at, you know, seven plus. Right. Like. That that changes the economics of the deal big time and they might not be prepared for that. So you posing that question, if they don't have a good answer, you might have a solution for them, right?

Stash (00:16:38) - Right. Yeah. And it's a simple question. It's just like, hey, so you have a maturity coming up in less than a year, you know, what are your plans? And you and I know that, you know, a year in commercial real estate is a pretty short amount of time. Yeah, like things move at a glacial pace, so it's like you got to do something. And if you know, in your case, a sale or a refinances, what they want to explore, then that's something. If they want to explore a sale, you know, we're happy to. Happy to help.

Josh (00:17:08) - Yeah, right. Because that's how we we make money. We make money when there's a transaction that a transaction occurs, that's when we make money.

Josh (00:17:16) - What I love about what you're doing is you've been specializing in multifamily. You've taken every single multifamily property in the US above a certain threshold. You put the data together based on your experience, because a lot of times people build stuff with no experience, right? They have a hypothesis about the software work, but now you've, you've taken experience and technology and put it together to give indicators of when a transaction may come due, Right? Wow. So as you're building this, you've got, you know, there's the. There's the I would love to hear your thoughts on this because I struggle with this as a founder, as a visionary. They're like, you've got to Gary Keller says you got to do their one thing right. You got to focus right. You got to do this. And here you are. You're building two machines. What would how do how does that work out in your brain? What is your thoughts on that? Because some people would say you only need to do one. I myself, I'm building three different animals at the same time.

Josh (00:18:19) - What are your thoughts?

Stash (00:18:21) - Well, I mean, they're complementary, right? It's not like they're complete. It's not like I've got an e-commerce business and then I'm selling real estate on the other side. Um, so, you know, I will spend a couple of hours in the platform and just start pinging. Our team of engineers like this isn't work. We need to change this. We need to. We need to rework this. Um, and my partner is like, I love that you're providing all the feedback was like, I hope I'm not coming off like a dick. I'm just saying, like, this is it needs to work this way because it's not like, you know, salespeople and brokers. Um, we have very short attention span. It doesn't work right away. Then we're not going to give it another shot. And so that's what we're doing right now is beta testing it, um, to make sure that it works so that when we go live to market that. It works how it should.

Stash (00:19:19) - Yeah. And then we've got plans for future iterations and all that. But, you know, I'm using it actively just about every day to go out and aid my prospect.

Josh (00:19:29) - So it's actually you're building something that that supports and helps your existing business and that will help support existing businesses elsewhere too. So it's not you're not, you know, selling fluffy socks on the Internet. This tool is what you need to do your job better.

Stash (00:19:47) - Yeah, and it's great because I can spend time in it giving feedback to my engineers while I'm also spending time in it prospecting for new business for my business. So it's like it's two birds with one stone. It's not bad.

Josh (00:20:01) - Yeah. And building a company, a software company with a good, you know, with the value there. That's pretty attractive, too.

Stash (00:20:11) - We're hopeful. Yeah. Optimistic?

Josh (00:20:15) - Yeah. All right. So as you're. As you're building these things, what does the future of Needle look like to you?

Stash (00:20:23) - Yeah. So, you know, right now we're in the beta beta testing phase.

Stash (00:20:28) - We're going to embark upon our capital raising probably sometime in Q1. I think at that point will, um, you know, expand upon existing capabilities. And we have a whole roadmap of everything that we want to build out based upon feedback as well as just, you know, we'll get in these brainstorming sessions and, you know, with guys like yourself or other users, like, what if I could do this? What if we could do that? How about this? And you can jump five, you know, ten yards in the future, so to speak. And it's like, all right, yes, let's put these on paper, but let's really focus on what we're doing right now. Let's make sure it's bulletproof, airtight, and then we'll probably spread out, you know, we'll add existing capabilities to the platform as it is, and then we'll spread out to other product types and add other scoring systems and things like that.

Josh (00:21:23) - So yeah, I think it's brilliant. Here's how I would, you know, as a deal maker myself, and I'm building a bunch of stuff.

Josh (00:21:30) - I'm in the I'm in the thick of it, right? I love being in the trenches, in deals, right? It's so fun for me to originate deals, to put deals together. This is how I would leverage your platform. I would find a guy like you, like me, who will knock on doors all day long, who cold call people. They're hungry. They've got a little bit of talent, but they're hungry. And I would I would create the list for them. Instead of giving them the white pages, I'd give them a page out of the white pages with call these ten people using your platform. Right? So leaders of deal teams can leverage your software to tell the the acquisition teams these are the properties you guys should focus on this week. Go get them, boys. Go get them girls. Let's go for it. Right.

Stash (00:22:18) - Yeah. So we've got a broken out by state. Um, you know, so there's a couple of different screens in there. You've got the login screen that kind of gives an overview, it gives some headlines and it's got a, you know, a news ticker of recent transactions and you've got the really the meat of the platform, which is the intelligent leads set.

Stash (00:22:38) - Um, and that, you know, you can filter it by state. Think we're going to add some more granular filters. So it's like. You know, if you only want to look at properties of this vintage or in this city or submarket. That would be a way to do it. If you only want to call on the hot leads first, do that first. And then we've you know, we've got guys within Capstone who are calling on it and they're pulling seven sets of financials out of it within their first two weeks. So, I mean, that's pretty, pretty powerful. And yeah, you know, we've that tested our our our algorithms or formulas and, you know and 20 what was it, 2021 I think we were about 44% accurate and 2022 we're about 47%. So think the goal would be 1 to 1. But you know, if you're still at half, that's not bad.

Josh (00:23:38) - Yeah, it's so good because you could drive down the street and just knock on doors all day long, right? You could do that.

Josh (00:23:45) - You could sit in front of a computer and say, Oh, man, I was going to make 100 calls today. These are the ones I should start with. Right. So it helps you prioritize urgency and it gives you it gives you intelligence about the specific property. Hey, I saw you have a bunch of properties you want to sell. Know? Hey, I saw you have this building on Third Street that's coming up for maturity. Do you need any help with it? Right. I could bring some financing. I could bring a buyer. I could bring strategic partners. What do you need? Yeah.

Stash (00:24:14) - What are your plans for the property? That's what I've been asking. What are your plans?

Josh (00:24:19) - Yeah, because.

Stash (00:24:20) - Open ended, you're not suggesting any solutions. And, you know, let's just. Let's see if we can help.

Josh (00:24:26) - Man, that's so cool. Do you think so? Over time, your accuracy of data will improve, right? And that makes you more and more valuable.

Josh (00:24:35) - Do you think you will take objective things like this is A, class A, class B, Class C, do you think you'll start to create structure around those kind of things where it's not as much objective, but it's more structured?

Stash (00:24:49) - Oh, for sure. Yeah. Um, you know, I'm just a guy who had an idea who teamed up with another guy who's got the know how to. To, you know, slice and dice the data. So. Yeah, absolutely. Um. You know, and think that we're we're looking at things like so for instance, if you only want to look at, you know, class A deals in these specific markets. Well that's something that's on our roadmap to be able to to dissect the data and then be able to to call on. We're also, you know, thinking about things for ownership groups so that they can, you know, better target their acquisition lists and disposition lists and refinance needs. Um, so that, for instance, if somebody's saying, okay, I've got maturities coming up on these three assets in the next, you know, 18 to 24 months.

Stash (00:25:44) - You know, call me, you know, click a button that'll send out a lead to you and me. I'm interested in refinancing or potentially selling that's going to flag them for us. And so we can go out and have an intelligent conversation. Hey, you know, Mr. Owner, I see that you indicated that you may be interested in, you know, selling or refinancing. This. Turns out that's what I do. You know, let's have a conversation.

Josh (00:26:11) - Yeah, man. It meets the person's motivation and needs with the potential service that you provide as a as a broker or as a, you know, financier or as an investor. Right. It allows you to. And this is where the name Needle came from is why don't you tell us the name and the meaning?

Stash (00:26:31) - Yeah. I mean, it came from a frustration and it's like, how do you find that needle in the haystack? You know, that's that's. That's what we're trying to do. Because otherwise, you know, you pull a market and they've got a thousand properties and you can start from a you can start from Z, Um, you can start in the middle.

Stash (00:26:52) - How are you going to find that, that opportunity without just brute force? Well, that's what we're trying to do is help, um, brokers, lenders, acquisition people, asset managers be more efficient with their time and not so much be a another cost that you have to foot the bill on. But we'd ideally like to be a supplement or replacement to some of these other data providers.

Josh (00:27:18) - Yeah. Do you have any plans in your map to go into different asset classes? Because right now you guys specialize in multifamily?

Stash (00:27:26) - Yeah, it's like start with what? You know. Um, but absolutely, yeah. I think as we, you know, get the platform solidified, then we'll expand into other assets for sure.

Josh (00:27:40) - What asset class do you think you will avoid or make last? Like if you're prioritizing, Hey, this is multifamily game on, right? Like this is where we're at next one. Next one. Next one. What is like last in line? You're like, don't have much interest.

Josh (00:27:53) - Or if we do, it'll be last.

Stash (00:27:56) - So as I'm thinking out loud and think what we've kind of deciphered would, you know, hotels might be next on the list. Think storage would be an easy add manufactured housing maybe think that's a little murkier based on my, you know, experience with friends who specialize in that. Um. You know, I feel like. Industrial. And this is I don't know a whole lot about it, but I feel like that's pretty structured. So like as long as you have the data, you can figure that out. Um, office is, you know, in flux right now. So maybe that's the last one. And you know, retail, you know, I think what we've seen is that, you know, for experiential or service based retail, that's irreplaceable, especially service based. Like you can't go get your hair cut online. My wife loves to get her nails done. She's not going to go order that from Amazon. Right. Unless you send nail techs out.

Stash (00:29:02) - I don't know. Maybe that's the thing, but it might be.

Josh (00:29:04) - The next thing, right?

Stash (00:29:05) - Yeah. So think that there's a possibility in a use case for all the different product types, it's going to take, you know, a little bit of figuring to my partner. Ma likes to say, think it through. We'll just have to think it through.

Josh (00:29:19) - Yeah. So you and I are getting ready to go on a campaign, man. We know we got to go crush some deals. And here's a phone. Josh, Here's a phone stash. We're getting ready to make some calls. Right. Boots on the ground like it's time to go to war, right? Like we need to go hunting. This is when they call you and I out. So we got it. But mindset for for cold calling, you're going to get a lot of rejections and there's a lot of people out there who know hey man good things happen when I cold call people. But it could be brutal on on mindset and it could be brutal on the rejection, to be honest.

Josh (00:29:56) - How do you prepare yourself? Because, you know, you got to make a month worth or six months worth of cold calling every day. How do you prepare yourself for that?

Stash (00:30:04) - Yeah, So, you know, I've set some pretty simple benchmarks for myself. Um, you know, I've always said, you know, if I can have ten conversations a day, 50 a week, you know, I can go home at the end of the day or end of the week with my head held high because I've done I've done that minimum standard. Now, that doesn't mean get to ten at 2:00 and I take off. It's like, no, you on. That's um, but you know, so having that minimum standard of ten conversations and I've, I have myself and my team have divvied that up amongst like if you're, if you're doing dealmaking well that's going to cut into your prospecting time. But those are still, you know, necessary conversations. But if you're talking with buyer and seller three times each day, you only get to count one of those on each.

Stash (00:30:58) - So, um, you know, you can't hide behind, Oh, I was doing this like. No, you got to get out there. Yeah. Um. So, you know, you're going to get kicked in the teeth a lot. But you know what I've found, and I'm sure you have as well, is the harder you work, the luckier you get. Right. Like, um, and some of the best conversations I've had have been at 6:00 when nobody's there. Um, and it's you pick up the phone and you've been like, just one more. Pick up the phone and you have a conversation and it leads to an opportunity and that you know, something that your competition isn't doing. So. And but those only come after you've gotten. 15 times previous that day.

Josh (00:31:53) - Yeah. Do you mind if I ask a few more questions about the cold calling? Because you're a cold calling machine. Yeah, I did two. I don't like the actual cold calling. What I love is the results.

Josh (00:32:09) - Right. I love the. The meat it produces and the fruit it produces. Because it does work. Because I think the majority of people are afraid to do it. So that's why I do things that most people are afraid to do. Yeah, but I'll tell you, I'm a human. And especially if I, you know, if I'm having issues at home or the wife and I get an argument or I stubbed my toe and I'm pissed off or fill in the blank, whatever it is, and then I get on the phone call, I know I'd need to make, you know, 100 calls today, whatever. And then I get that. No. And I'm defeated and my energy is depleted. How do you get back up? Because I just made one call. I know I've got 99 more to go, but I'm already I already lost the battle and it's 9:00 in the morning. How do you get back in the game? Um.

Stash (00:33:00) - Well, I mean, like, I start my day at 445.

Stash (00:33:06) - I get up and I go to the gym and I'm at I'm at the gym at 530, and so I kick my ass first, you know, before anybody else can. I do it to myself. And I go hard five days a week. Um, so it's like, you know, at the very least I got that out of the way. And then you just break it down into chunks. Like, you know, I wouldn't, I don't look at it as I've got 100 calls. It's like I've got ten sets of ten, you know, maybe, you know, if you want to think about it like that or that's why I focused on the conversations because, you know, and I used to keep a little notebook at my desk, um, and every day would just write the date and have it was calls, conversations, meetings and would just make a checkmark every time I had one. Um, and you know, at the end of the week you add them up and you've hit your goal.

Stash (00:34:01) - Um, and so it's kind of, it's having those little goals, um, in between the larger ones, little milestones that you can strive for and hit and achieve that help. Um, and it's also, you know, I don't know about you, but for me the closing is anticlimactic. Like when you get the, the check or the wire confirmation, it's like, all right, great. It's really when you get somebody on the line that says, Yeah, I am interested in selling for me.

Josh (00:34:30) - That's.

Stash (00:34:31) - Why it's like, Fuck yeah, let's go. Um, yeah, you know, or like, all right, I'll send you financials and then you get them and then you forward them to your emails and you're like, Look what I just did, you know, it's like.

Josh (00:34:45) - Created something out of nothing. I hunted and I took something down. That is a joy. It really is.

Stash (00:34:52) - Yeah. So it's that experience. And then there's a lot of caffeine involved.

Josh (00:34:58) - Yeah.

Josh (00:35:00) - Yeah. Coffee, Coffee. Scotch. Right. Right. Um. All right. So I love this conversation. You could when you're dealmaker. Dealmaker. You know, when someone's been in the trenches, because these kind of things, you know, we know the game, and it is not for everyone. We know not everyone could do it. And that's why that's why there's a joy and this feeling of accomplishment when you you know, like in wrestling back in the day when I pinned someone, I was like, boom, in this game is like when you get the when you get that deal on the deck, you're like, ooh, look what I got out of nothing. That's fun. This is where I made a mistake as a deal maker. I closed the big deal. Money's in the bank and I'm like, awesome. I turn off the phone at 2:00 and I go buy some, you know, shotgun, or I go buy some toys. I celebrate. Yeah, The best time to do it deals when you just close the deal because you're on fire, right?

Stash (00:35:55) - Yeah.

Stash (00:35:55) - Yeah, that's true. But I do think that, you know, I'm, I'm very hard on myself, and I've learned to, uh, slowly have learned to not be as hard on myself. So I do think that celebrating is good, but, like, I don't ever turn my phone off. But it's interesting. Like my phone is live, you know, 8 to 5, 8 to 6 Monday through Friday. But really on the weekends I don't have that much traffic like. So it just that is and I've made you know, I've made it very clear and I'm at a point in my career where if you're calling me on the Saturday, it either be it better be either really important, um, or you don't know what you're doing. And if you don't know what you're doing, then I'm not going to pick up the call. So I'll get to you on a Monday.

Josh (00:36:48) - Yeah, that's so interesting because. Yes, I too am. You know, I love what you say.

Josh (00:36:54) - I kicked my ass before anybody else can write. That's cool. But I'm you know, guys like us, dealmakers like us. That was like us, right? Or are hard on ourselves. Yeah. How do you. How do you reset so you don't bring that harshness on others?

Stash (00:37:12) - Um, that's taking me a while to figure out as well. Um. You know, I think part of it is. You know, you got to give people the benefit of the doubt. And you also have to understand that. That. You're catching them in the middle of something else. So what's been really interesting and think helpful for me and think something that's made me a better broker was starting to buy and manage my own deals. Like, so I did. I did a value add on a on an eight unit deal, and that gave me a much clearer idea and understanding of how to operate and run an asset than I ever had prior to that. Yeah. Um, then the other thing that has come from that is I'll get cold calls from other salespeople and cold calling myself for a living.

Stash (00:38:12) - I'll give them the benefit of the doubt up front, but if they're not quick with it. You cut them off. Sorry. Got to go. Um, and so that's helped me figure out. Okay. You got to have a good pitch, and you got to have a good, um, you know, hook, so to speak. Yeah. So. Um. You know, the other thing is that you can hear when somebody picks up and they're, they hear, Oh, it's you, okay? I'm like, I'll tell them. I'm like, It's all right. I'm not I'm not here to bite. Like, I'm just here's why I'm calling. Like, I'll kind of call them out on their their frown over the phone. It doesn't happen all the time. It's just once in a while. But I get a kick.

Josh (00:38:56) - Yeah. So this is something I just recently turned off. I had some any type of if I didn't know the number, it went straight to voicemail.

Josh (00:39:05) - And I recently changed it because I got a cold call that I thought was one of my clients calling. So I answered it and the guy was good. So I actually, like, enjoyed someone cold calling me. Yeah. So when someone's cold calling you, they've got like 3 to 5 seconds to either capture your attention or get the the red button, what's going to capture your attention? Enough to get them ten more seconds.

Stash (00:39:33) - They get right to the point and and have a compelling hook. Right. Like, you know mine is you know, hey, this starts with Capstone. The reason I'm calling today is.

Josh (00:39:46) - There it is.

Stash (00:39:47) - Yeah. Um, and not. Oh, hey, how are you? How's your day going? Don't waste my time like nothing sends me through the roof quicker than that. Like, get to the point. And that's me. Like, that's how I'm wired. Like, my colleagues are different in that way, so. But I'm like, Are we going to do this or not? Because if not, I got to go find somebody that is very cool.

Josh (00:40:15) - So let's do this for dealmakers out there, especially in multifamily. You're you're a broker, you're in finance, you're in acquisitions, you're in investments, right? Like in your you want to you want to leverage technology to make your game better. Where could people go to learn more about your product?

Stash (00:40:35) - Great. Um needless and tell us our our landing page. From there you can fill out a form at the bottom. I'll reach out. Um, you know, happy to show you a demo. We're not live yet, so can't sign you up. But, um, you know, that would be the best place to go.

Josh (00:40:57) - Yeah. So you're looking for the first group of people who come in who who get to get a lot of value because you're going to give them demo and you're going to show them some stuff. But this is kind of like behind the scenes. You guys get to explore this and you know, they get to experience that early on with you to give feedback and to get that initial value.

Josh (00:41:17) - When do you think the big launch will be where that offer is no longer?

Stash (00:41:24) - Yeah. So I think we're targeting, um, you know, a January official rollout.

Josh (00:41:31) - Oh, wow.

Stash (00:41:32) - So, you know, we've with our user groups, we're having kind of weekly or bi weekly feedback calls where it's like, Hey, have you been on it? What do you think? What do you like? And then with each user group that we have, we have a WhatsApp chat set up where, um, they can. Provide feedback directly to my my engineers. And then I'm hosting and moderating those feedback calls. So it's like, Yeah, I've noticed that too, or this is how you do it sorts of things.

Josh (00:42:09) - So man, super cool. Stache What question should I've asked you during this interview that you wish I would have asked you? Like we hang up and you're like, Oh man, I wish Josh would have asked me about this.

Stash (00:42:21) - I think we covered it. Think I've had a great time.

Stash (00:42:24) - This has been a lot of fun, Josh?

Josh (00:42:26) - Me too.

Stash (00:42:27) - I think we covered it. Really?

Josh (00:42:28) - Cool. Yeah. So one more time. Where can people find this software?

Stash (00:42:33) - Yeah. So needle us. You can find me on LinkedIn stash ski. Or if you just search needle in EDL, there is an audio company that I think they do. I don't know what they do, but that's not us. Um, or on Instagram, it's 5 to 5 IU and think we have a needle Instagram account as well. Um, but yeah, just reach out. Or on the capstone website capstone companies.com. Um, I do take calls from random numbers, uh, because you never know who it's going to be. And um, yeah, I'm happy to. Happy to chat.

Josh (00:43:18) - Awesome, man. Awesome stash. Thanks for coming on the show. Fellow dealmakers in the audience. As always, reach out to our guests and say thanks for being on the show. Their contact information will be in the show notes below.

Josh (00:43:29) - Reach out to them and say, Hey, I'd like to get a demo. I'd like to take a look at this because I think that this will help my business accelerate the mission. And purpose of the deal. Scout is to put deals and deal makers together so we can learn and grow and build this community of freaking deal makers and make a lot of money. Right? That's why we're doing this. So if if you have a deal that you'd like to talk about here on the show or some type of software or tech enablement platform that helps dealmakers like me head on over to the deal, scout, fill out a quick form and maybe we'll get you on the show next. Till then, we'll talk to you all on the next episode. Love you guys. Bye bye.