Alfonso Salemi: Welcome back to another episode of the REITE club podcast. I'm Alfonso Salemi, and I'm here with my co-host Sarah Larbi.
Today we are talking to a true powerhouse in the industry and across multiple industries. Robbie Clark, he's gonna talk a little bit about owning several businesses, how he's able to tackle these huge goals and these huge accomplishments that he has with the team members, with the people that you are surrounding yourself with and how you can get smarter by the things that you do each day. Just small little things every single day, right?
Sarah Larbi: For those of you that don't know Robby Clark, I would say just add him on Instagram. He is sharing all this knowledge that he's accumulated, but he has started really from scratch, right?
He was broke and built. He had money, then he lost it all, and he built an empire of, I wanna say they've got at least a couple hundred. Properties at this point in time, a golf course, e fresh meals and many other businesses. And it's just so exciting to see what he's doing and just setting the bar and also just like helping others.
I'll tell you, he's very humble. And I hope you guys enjoy this podcast. It is very enlightening and I'll tell you some of the books that he reads. This guy reads like four to six hours a day. He gives us some great titles. Write those down. So I always say this one, you wanna have a pen and a piece of paper and I hope you enjoy the podcast.
Don't forget, rate and review our podcast as well, and check out thereiteclub.com for much more of this in between the podcasts that you guys listen to. Alfonso, shall we bring Robby in?
Alfonso Salemi: Let's do it. Let's get to the podcast.
Sarah Larbi: Robby, welcome to the show. How are you?
Robby Clark: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm doing really well.
Sarah Larbi: I'm excited. Every time I talk to you or see something that you're doing, you're going bigger and you've got new projects on the go. And guys, if you don't know who Robby Clark is, I would suggest that you follow him. And you've got lots of great insights that you share with us on Instagram and all those good things.
Maybe just share what you've been up to this past year amidst Covid, and then we'll go back to how you got started. But if you can just share with us the success that you've had or what you've done amidst the shutdown that would be great.
Robby Clark: Absolutely. It's like anybody, it's been a challenging year, but I have a very difficult time saying that it's been bad or complaining about it because I know, restaurant owners and retail workers and owners that have just been completely shut off and they've had it so bad that I think anybody complaining about anything else is silly.
Obviously we had some issues on some work sites. We actually implemented our own safety procedures when the government announced, okay, if you are having opening work, opening work sites or open work sites, sorry, that you'll need to make sure that you're living up to all the safety precautions and having, sanitizer, making sure there's not a lot of people on sites, making sure it's permanent sites or vacant units.
Just being really careful and fortunately for us, since we do so many multi-family residential projects there's not you never have 10 or 12 guys on sites. There's a lot of people working, but typically it's a few guys on site or if it's an electrician, it's him and one person.
We made sure not to double book trades. And we also, we had it knock on wood. But we had a couple people get sick and then of course we would, send them home and they'd get tested. Fortunately, nobody wanted to test positive for Covid, but we were very careful with that.
Because we work closely with most of the cities we're in, we wanted to be respectful of them as well too, because they had their inspectors going in. You gotta keep your distance. And if they go in there and see you're not caring about the bylaws and the new, I don't wanna say legislation, but the new rules that have been put in place to protect people, then that's a problem, right?
We were just very cognizant of that and just made sure that we did everything we could to keep people working, because again, trades need to work as well too. Our staff needs to work, we've not been in the office, so we were doing a lot more remote work and it took the time to renovate the office as well right now too.
It was a challenging year, but I can't say it was a good year in terms of the business because we didn't have shutdowns like other people, and we were able to maintain and grow and adapt like we do. And that was just the biggest thing, making sure that we were able to keep moving forward while being responsible as well.
Alfonso Salemi: I love that. And I want to key on, in two words that you said right at the end there is that grow and adapt. And I think, when I look at the right club community, you are one of those people that I think, one of the best at growing and adapting, changing, putting those systems and organizations in place.
You own several small businesses. Several employees have different funnels sometimes, I can't even imagine your brain some days thinking of all the different things that are going on, with multiple businesses. And having those systems in place, being able to adapt is such an important facet in your life.
I know you're recently I love your Instagram. It's one of my personal favorites that I follow out there and you put out your recent, your 2021 to-do list. And honestly, like I looked at that and I was like, oh my God. Like I got anxiety and I don't even have to do any of it. That's all you man.
Sarah Larbi: That was a cool, that was a cool list. Can you share what was on that list? Because I was looking at it, I'm like, wow, this you're playing in a different sandbox.
Robby Clark: I appreciate that. And I was real, a little reluctant at first cause I don't always like to post one of the things I do on my story and you guys know me offline a little more personally in some of the issues and struggles that any business owner has that I've been open with you guys on.
What I always hate to do is, I struggle putting actual monetary things on there to discourage people, right? Like the other day I showed my girlfriend's stock portfolio some of the gains that were in there and a few stocks joking around. I'm always clear to like white out the actual amount. I like to do that because it's not, that doesn't matter whether you put a hundred bucks in 10,000 or a hundred thousand in, it matters if you made the right decision. And I look at myself as an asset holder, someone who's accumulating more assets over time.
That's what I always try to tell people like, When I started buying assets, when I was still working at the restaurant I would buy coins of silver and I'd try to buy a couple a week and it was like 15 bucks at a time, or not 15 bucks like a hundred, 200. It wasn't, but you can start small and you're just accumulating and it gets those good habits in there because I've always been a terrible saver.
That's why Sid stands for spend, invest, diversify, and not save, invest, diversify. I tried that for one day and I was like, no, can't do it. And so I'd always have to put it back out and so yeah, it started small. And even with real estate the first deal I did, we got four partners together and we put $2,500 together each and or five of us and we bought a $120,000 home.
We did, we grinded it out. And that's okay. And I hate to discourage people and think ah, something is unattainable because truthfully, I've done my best. With, coming from nothing like when I've had everything taken away from me and, poor credit and no money.
That's when I've done my best work because I've had to be the most resilient. And there's always a solution no matter what, because people start at different areas, but I find the ones who've gotta struggle for it the most are maybe have had it and then lose it, but have the ability to come back.
Those are the ones that can really persevere. And I hate, so I say I just hate discouraging people on that. So I appreciate that. Thank you. And that's one of the things, I'm working with some guys now and they're like, look, look at the reaction on that, yet you got a good reaction.
I didn't do it necessarily to boast because it is my target. My team knows my targets, the people around me know my targets cause I hold. Accountable. And I know there's a lot of sayings like, okay, move in silence and whatever, and that works for some people. I'm a communicator and I gotta get it out there, and I need to hold myself accountable.
I like to put those things out there. I don't care who, and I don't care if somebody thinks I'm not gonna do it because I'm gonna do it, and then it, that actually motivates me even more. At this point I'm fortunate not to get a lot of hate, even if everybody looks at things a little bit differently, and I just try to change people's perspective on things.
Even the people who grew up with me, they know I have no formal education, right? They probably knew me in high school and they look at my stuff now and they're like, what the hell is this? Is this Rob? And I can imagine, I like doing that because I don't have anything to hide in that regard.
The goals to get to that, one of them was to, get to 350,000,000 plus in holdings. And now, although I put that 350 million out and I, it's not necessarily that's the amount with the amount of properties that we wanna buy and what we think the end value issue is gonna be after we renovate them and create that value.
Of course, you guys know it's not We can't just buy those properties, right? And it's okay, but what are you dealing with all the tenants? We can't just buy a bunch of properties with tenants, and so we pick up a lot of residential properties and even single families and whatnot because they are vacant and we can immediately add value to them.
That's really the only way. that you can scale that way. And of course you have to be cognizant of the current market and the market's been going up. So it's been tight. But, we continue to go to areas that are still flat. I know you guys know we're heavy in Sudbury now, but we're actually heavier in other parts of Northern Ontario than we are even in Sudbury right now.
Just because it's competitive, but it's still a very cheap market there. I just like to be in the flat communities in general. Like we were in St. Catherine's 2012, 2013 and beyond, and it was flat for three, four years. We were forcing the appreciation up by going in there and doing the work that nobody wanted to do, and that's where the real value comes in.
Part of me, and I'm still doing stuff in Southern Ontario, and I feel like. Like for new investors? I think it's great for old investors, it's great for people who want turnkey assets and feel comfortable with the cities. Now it's great Niagara. One of the things I like to say, I call ourselves fluffers at times, right?
Which is, one of the names I use that for is because honestly we have to be in there before the developers get in. The developers need a certain price per square foot before they can even go in there. And so I feel like it's our job. We're the guys going in and finding all these depressed properties and actually putting in that work and putting in that money.
In order to build it up for the community themselves. And also to, like I say, fluff it up for when the developers can come and really start to add more value there. But if you don't have the fluffers, you're not gonna get the developers. And I don't mean that inappropriately. That's a big deal for us and a philosophical thing.
I feel like Niagara has that now in, we're still doing projects out there and a lot of them are very large, like you have to. Rip a roof off and put a second story edition or convert, as a project Dylan and I are doing right now and converting it to an eight unit. We got a 20 unit apartment building out there that we've got some permits on.
It's bigger moves out there, but we're always trying to do the maximum value. There's gonna be a time and sudbury where we're gonna have to rip a roof off to create that value as well too. But right now in the north, you can find attractive assets that are just so far below the price of Bill. It is almost negligent not to invest there. And that's a big thing.
Sarah Larbi: Value, you said so much stuff. Let's dissect some of it. I think first and foremost, thank you for being real and honest and sharing what you can with others because I think it's inspirational and I don't see it coming from a bragging perspective at all. I look at you as somebody that's really built an empire, your whole portfolio.
Just for context, we're talking about hundreds of properties, your whole portfolio where you had nothing and you built it from scratch and you took significant risk, but calculated risk to get to where you are today.
I think that I'm super excited for what it is that you're gonna be doing because a lot of the stuff that you do, it's thought out. You're very meticulous in how you do it. It's a team. Of course. It's not just you. You've got other people around you.
I do wanna go back to the one piece, cause you're talking about sed, where you're talking about St. Catherine's and you're talking about setting new. Cost per square foot. Now so are you saying that what you're doing then is building, renovating or whatnot, selling these properties, resetting that new value at that point in time because something gets sold and then essentially clicks into a comparable is that how you're strategizing that lift and can you talk a little bit about that?
Robby Clark: For sure. I'll give you an example. In St. Catharines, I remember back in 2015,2016, we were going in and we were following the Burr model before BRRRR was really a thing. I didn't know the term burr at the time, but we did know that you could add value to homes and then refinance the capital ladder, at least the majority of it, right?
That's what we were always going for. So there's this one area we were in called Facer, and there's about, say 500 homes or whatever in the area and we sold like four or five properties to help pay for staff and buy new projects. Cause we've always, I've always had staff, so it's always been treated like a business.
I say there's nothing passive about passive income and we've always treated it like a business that I wanted to scale at property five. I had a property manager, not because it was profitable, but just because the vision was always there to do that. And so we wound up selling some of these homes and, we did all, we did, okay, we might have made 60,000, 70,000 profit on some of these homes.
Maybe a little bit more, a little bit less, but it all went back in right to paying staff or to buy new properties. And so we would've been buying maybe single duplexes, probably around 160 to 180, selling 'em off around 350,375. And I remember, we had a neighbor come up to us and was like, we want to thank you guys for what you're doing.
Cause last year we got our property appraised at, 170,000 and it just appraised for 315. So they sold it and retired and they moved to Florida. And I was like doing the math and I was like imagine we sold on five different roads here. If we bumped the value that, and this is before the market got hot there too, right?
We're like, if we did a hundred thousand times 500, that's 50 million of unlocked capital. And the biggest problem with these towns and cities that have been neglected for 25 years is that we have very high home ownership in Canada. And these people were told by the government and everyone to buy homes, that's gonna be your best investment.
If a market's been flat for 10 years, 25 years, or they owned it in the 1990s, it turns out that is not quite a good investment. And the renters actually did better than them because after property taxes and everything else, These guys wind up losing money on their homes. And when in the early nineties it might have been a couple thousand dollars to redo your front deck.
Now it's our front porch. Now it's gonna cost you 15,000, 20,000. That's 10%. The price of their home that they can't afford to do it. And, every market in developed nations, I truly believe I'm proving me wrong here but if you don't have the real estate at the cost of build or higher, you're in a recessionary environment.
I say that a lot, right? You're really doing the government's help, when you're going out there and renovating these homes and increasing the value. We're not going to Toronto and making it more affordable. Which is, the speculation area. When you're below the price of build, you really can't even put a value to land, which is why the developers can't go in there cause you couldn't give them land to build cause they can't resell it, right?
Right now, most of the North, for instance, has no value in the land and it's not even a place that would recommend some places in the north, new investors to go. Although I like it just because sometimes you're gonna be battling the appraisers in these smaller towns who have not seen appreciation in 20 years.
That's an ongoing battle, right? We have volume and. And we can sell as well, but it's a struggle. Like when I went into St. Catherine's initially with the appraisers, they were like, why are you putting money in here? And you're like that because we want the value to increase.
They're like it's not gonna happen. And you're like, you live here. Why do you not want this? And that's the struggle you get. Whereas in the GTA you almost know if you're gonna get an appraiser and you're like, I dumped this in, I'm gonna get that. So I don't wanna say it's an easier game cause it gets more competitive wherever the sizzle is.
You're dealing with bigger money out in the GTA. And more speculation. But that's when in those areas, Toronto, that's why you see drops in areas cause they go to the speculation, it goes beyond the price of Bill. And now you're speculating on the land values cause it's not in sync.
It's okay, it costs 250 to build this condo, but it could be a million. Right? I try to take a macro view. And look at it almost like a stock or something else where it's okay, is it an undervalued asset? And you can find more of them in those areas that haven't haven't had as much attention.
Alfonso Salemi: As you're saying that, I'm thinking of that scene from Jerry McGuire, right? Where Tom Cruise and Cuba Good. And G's help me help you. Show me the money. From that scene. And yeah. You're trying to, you're on that kind of the leading edge of that wedge when you're getting into these new markets and helping all those people around you and they can't see it in their hometown.
Sometimes it is. I remember, I moved away from Hamilton. And then when I moved back, I'm like, Hamilton Investment, what do you mean? Have you guys been to Hamilton? I love Hamilton, don't get me wrong. But then everybody's oh, it is the new hottest place. I'm like, wait, Ontario, Hamilton. Anyway, but again it's getting that mindset for people that have been there for so long, sometimes they don't see it as that.
Then coming in with a fresh set of eyes. So I have a question for you because again, you have so much experience. Your portfolio is vast. There's several companies and businesses that you own and maybe someone listening to this is going well, Robbie, you sound way too busy. That sounds nuts.
I never want to have that a hundred properties, 200 properties, 350 million. That's terrifying. And then we maybe have some listeners that are like, oh my God, yes, get me on the Robbie program. I want to be doing that. So maybe try to answer this for both those mindsets or somewhere in routine.
What is something like that? Maybe that you would always do again, whether it's St. Catherine's, other markets, other businesses that you would do that you said, no, that's something that is, never gonna change. That is a principle that we live by, that we're gonna do in all of our companies, all of our businesses.
Then on the flip side, what's something that you would never do again? That you're like, no, that was a mistake. Gonna stay away from that, and I'll let you go. In the order because sometimes we always remember the things that we shouldn't do again, those are easier to remember, right?
Robby Clark: Those are abundant. The biggest thing I always focus on first is value first. Value over profits. Value first, profit second, because if you're offering value more than you're focusing on the profit, then you're not gonna have an issue getting the sale or getting a tenant or getting something else like that.
I always find, yeah, I'm okay with the late gratification cuz I haven't been broke more than once. So it doesn't phase and I've had it. And at a young age, I've made seven figures as a child actor and spent it all. I've done the bottle service, I've done that stuff.
I've been semi-famous and gotten recognized so that stuff doesn't that's not why I do it. So one of the biggest things I do is read and educate and continue to go after it. I feel like education is the most important thing I feel like, wouldn't happen again.
If everything I had taken away from me, I would just do it in six months instead of multiple years. And that's really all knowledge base and a lot of it if you want to get into scaling and do that, my focus is more on running a business than it is than it is specifically just real estate. I don't read a ton on real estate, but I read a ton on building businesses and the tycoons and different industry leaders that may have absolutely no real estate. And to me it was about building a business and then trying to figure out how. And real estate, cause I've laid drywall before, but I'm terrible.
I can't paint, I'm not a good contractor and there's so many things in there that I'm not good at. I feel like I'm good at building businesses, but it takes a lifetime of work to become an overnight success. I've been trialing error for years and years.
Then I lose it. And then, you make mistakes, I just, I go with the saying, Hey I will dig to China with a plastic shovel. I'm not gonna quit. So it's impossible to stop that and you problems are, business is nothing but problems. So if you want big goals, you're gonna solve big problems.
I know people sometimes say that, but they don't understand it's nothing. But problem solving that's all a business is. So one of the good things, people are like, oh, you're busy. I'll be honest. The less I do, the more I do. And what I mean by that is like when you can, I've never had an issue delegating responsibility.
You say some of the mistakes I've made delegating too many responsibilities to people who couldn't. Or thinking that they could and being almost too optimistic about the outcome. And I would overlook things that I knew were an issue in my business, but I was so optimistic that I was like this will make up for that.
Especially with personnel and people, because if somebody's not on the wavelength with you, set the right wavelength with you, that could ruin everything. We've hired property management, we've underpaid property management, and that property manager will cost you six figures in six months.
Then you're like, Hey, I'm not doing that again. So you hire the right property management, with a paralegal background, it's just someone you know who's experienced and can get it done and that follows suit with everything. If you cheap out in those areas, it's gonna wind up costing you a lot more.
Then training new people is extremely expensive and then you gotta get back in there and do it. So I've never had an issue delegating things that I don't like to do because there's a lot that I don't like to do and I'm a terrible manager. But truthfully I read, I actually counted this week cause we're like, yeah, how much did I actually read a day?
Between audio books and articles, it's about four to six hours a day. That's the majority of My reading. Last year I was, I struggled to say I was managing, I say I was mentoring managers at that point, but now we've built, like even over the past I'd say past year, really, we've built up an executive team.
Now, like my stuff comes to me on a report on Friday. I don't look at, I'm not making the home sales. Our agents are right and they have guidelines that they have to stick by and they can't, venture away from that. But it actually makes them better than me offering, because I'll do things, on a gut instinct, right?
We had this one offer like five months ago. I remember one offer went with an agent and I wound up turning it down and, there's so many properties going on that a week or two later that wound up coming on our plate again. And for some reason I made the decision to accept it and it was the same price.
Pretty much the same information presented to me, but I made a different answer and the right decision was to buy it. So my first answer is wrong. But, I gave a different response based on, I don't know, my mood. Maybe the agent said it a little bit differently. Cause multiple agents and right there I was like, guys having me in here is not a benefit for you.
It's, you know what I mean? This is not good. So I understand that. I want to put the onus on them. I like them to run, I want them to be confident in what they're doing because I'm not full-time there. How can I ever be as good as you? You guys know this better than me, so I can help with the vision and the fundamentals.
That goes from the property management side to the trades. Like I don't deal with the trades because I don't know what they're talking about half the time. We have a few site supervisors and a project manager fortunate to have three people with engineering degrees on our team, like a couple of our site supervisors.
Our COO is an engineer as well too. And so you know that Working with people like that and understanding your strengths and weaknesses is extremely important because that's the only reason I'm able to do it. Eat fresh meals. Same thing there. I got a really great team there and I have one meeting a week for that, but it's run by an executive team that's much smarter than me and what they do, they've been in the food industry for 20 plus years.
They've worked with good food chefs. The list goes on and on. Any company, same thing with the landscaping company. We have an incredible general manager. We got a great team there. So that's really the key. I'm terrible without the right team. I like terrible things because I'll keep going. And if the team fails, then they're failing everything. So really the key is for me as a team for sure.
Sarah Larbi: That's awesome. Yeah. Team is super important. And just for perspective, how many businesses do you have? Obviously you have the real estate acquisition business, but can you share with us the other businesses? I know you mentioned e fresh meals, that's another one there.
Robby Clark: Just in real estate, we obviously have a team of my team, like this is the smallest one, but there are three agents roughly that we work with full-time, sometimes some wholesalers as well too. And then we have our property management company as well too. Then we have our renovations company, which is really more of a management company as well too. We have a couple in-house guys for some maintenance. But for the most part it's management and we manage, 32 right now. I think we're running on 38 active sites and we're doing daily site visits on each one.
It's managing a hundred plus sub trades at any given time. And that's the key to our business. We operate like developers really. You can't do anything yourself. I've had a ton of guys on payroll before for labor, and then that last week takes you a month and you don't make any money on the home.
Much better to manage people and hold them accountable, but even that takes a lot like to implement our CRMs and whatnot. You need the executive team to get to the management to get to the staff. And it takes repetition in multiple meetings a day.
The other companies, e Fresh Meals, I've also got a, that's been around for about five years and we have a landscaping company that's about 500 year round clients. Lawn care alert, that's been around 8 plus years now as well too or something. My girlfriend runs a commercial residential cleaning company with 20 full-time staff members. I don't do anything there, so I'm just taking credit for it. But I don't do anything there. And we bought a golf course recently that closes next week.
Sarah Larbi: I need to know more about that, but I'll let you finish first, then we gotta talk about the golf course.
Robby Clark: For sure. Recently, one of my passion projects is mixed martial arts. I love mixed martial arts, so I bought an old media site that hadn't been run in a while inside fighting.com that we're gonna be releasing, and then we're actually starting an MMA event in the springtime as well. Those are passion projects, but again, I'm gonna help bring in the executive team, but the person running it is much better than me.
He's a former UFC fighter and he is much more knowledgeable about the sport and knows how to put it, he's thrown events before and he knows how to put it together better than me. I'm just adding the little spice at the end, if you will. Those are the ones I can think of right now that are on the table I'm currently being worked on.
Alfonso Salemi: I think, as you're naming them up and for those that are just listening to this podcast, when Sarah asked, how many businesses, Robbie's kind of like looking up and categorizing but I know for sure he's in that every single day, understanding the models and systems, what does people need so that they can run the systems, putting 'em in the best positions possible, whether it's financing.
Whether contacts, communication, if it's support for that day where they, hey, they're not having that great of a date. Giving them that motivation, talking to them, letting them, putting them in the right position. I think that's what it's about, right? Having them, the models, the systems so that it is repeatable, predictable every single time.
Whether it's e fresh meals, whether it's MMA or the golf course that we're gonna talk about right now, which is super cool. Yes, having those things that are predictable and that you can repeat it so that it's not just off the whim because that can last. But not for long. That's like putting a newspaper on the fire.
You get a nice, big, beautiful flame, but it's gone. You want to put the coals on the fire, the big logs and get those running in nice warm fires. So I know Sarah's chomping at the bit. Robbie, tell us a little bit about the golf course. I don't know. I'm golfing.
Sarah Larbi: Where it is. And also can we do a REITE club event there.
Robby Clark: A hundred percent. They hit on that last note Alfonso you hit the nail in the head there, right? We're there for support. And the best thing you can do is try to support to the best of your ability, what can I do to make you successful? And you gotta have that mentality in order to be successful.
Otherwise, people are not gonna do anything when you're not there. And that's the key to it for sure. So you definitely hit the nail on the head there, but yeah, no, the golf course is in Mark's. Stay in Ontario. So it's not officially closed. I'm sure they can look it up from there. The reason we got that honestly, was because this kind of happened when Covid went down, we actually, we grieved like last. Summer or spring or summer. But, it was one of the industries I thought was gonna do well. And to be honest, I was surprised it was still for sale. And it was 200 acres.
They had just done the back nine, like four or five years before that. And there were a couple things on it. I was like, there's a potential development play. I wanted to see if there was a renewable play or something we could do. Unfortunately right now there's not the most of the subsidies in Canada.
For renewables to make it affordable to really do it doesn't mean it's off the table. You got Biden back, which probably means, printing from the skies and green energy everywhere. But, I just saw an opportunity in there and I saw 200 acres as well at a good price.
Ryan, our president, really likes golf as well too, right? So I don't forget how it came up, but he was like, oh, we should buy a golf course. And I honestly just went online and looked and I saw that and I was like, this looks like a great starter. Golf course if we wanted to go into it, cause I had an idea, which I won't say cause we haven't implemented it, but how you could acquire a lot of golf courses creatively.
I can't even say more because it's, I don't wanna give it all away, but this was a great golf course to start at. And then I had the idea of Hey, let's build out the clubhouse. Let's do golf simulators so that we can have year round access. And also I knew that there was a potential to, to develop on it, which, we've been in touch with the city as well too in the engineers.
We've put together a plant to do a development there as well too. Not as many homes as we would've liked, but it doesn't really matter. Any home is fun to do out there and we're still ironing out the details cause we don't officially own it yet. But yeah, we are looking to do development there as well too.
It was already profitable. It wasn't losing money and the risk was actually marginal considering people Oh, a golf course. The risk was actually very low risk. Like most things I do, I consider it almost like very low risk, right? And there's scale and there's things that, that is risk involved in it. But kids, not much risk in my head for the purchase.
Sarah Larbi: Awesome. Congrats. That's exciting and anything that you do, I'm sure you're gonna, make it awesome and bigger like everything that you've you've been working on recently. I do wanna go back though and ask you what you are reading, cause you mentioned you're reading four to six hours a day, articles, have there been like maybe a handful of books or whether it's podcasts or audiobooks that you can say really changed your thinking if you had to pick your top three.
Robby Clark: Listen . So I say that reading changes your context. I'll read everything that comes up. So it's tough for me to always say something sometimes and someone's oh, split the difference or never split the difference. I was like, oh, maybe that's where I got it from. But I don't recall what book I got it from because I'm just trying to absorb everything right. And the people who can are great. But that's not been the way I've been able to do it. A few of the good new books that I really like, the sovereign individual.
That. And here's an interesting one. I usually don't like old books because they're not relevant, especially with the amount of technology and everything that is changing the sovereign individual. It's not even about real estate or anything, but it's a very interesting book that relates to things that are going on today.
Some of my posts on my stories and stuff actually relate directly to that book. I'm like where I got it from. And out of all the books I've read in a long time, that one Changed my context on certain things or further enforced it. And I was like, you guys are in the nineties. And it's crazy how relevant that book is to today.
You be it talks about, online the internet of money and the sovereign individual. And, a lot of what I post about, with the private businesses doing their own. Laws and rules there's a lot of things that hit on it in the sovereign individual, and it backs it with historical data.
Historical data is funny because we're in such a different age that sometimes it relates, sometimes it doesn't. So you gotta pick and choose. But I was very impressed with that. Green Lights was the recent book, Matthew McConaughey. Again, not really, real estate related, not even really business related, but come on, Matthew McConaughey is, super cool and he had a really, he has a really good perspective really good perspective on life.
What have we got here? Thinking in bets? That was a good one. Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke, a professional poker player. She's also a business consultant, but she had a really cool way of being like, listen, business is a bunch of bets. It's a bunch of calculated bets, really. And you're constantly making bets every single day.
She writes it a lot better than I can say it. But those are a few recent books. Some older ones I really liked. The Tycoons really talk about the industrial revolution. That's a good one. I started off with Kiyosaki, like most people who go hard in real estate, Rich Dad Poor Dad read every single one of those, they all roughly say the same thing about seven different ways.
They're feel-good books too, and that, and they make everything seem easy. And that's one of the things I think I say that I do well is breaking down big ideas and making 'em seem achievable or easy, right? It's not oh, purchasing three, 4 million a week. It's as opposed to being, putting up the barriers as to why we can't do it.
It's like, why aren't we doing it and just changing the perspective there because if you can make someone feel crazy for not purchasing that amount, then you know you've probably done a good job.
Alfonso Salemi: Robby, you know what? You do a great job of conveying that to us, to the audience. You are a really great communicator and inspiring the different things that you're able to do with the businesses, with your own personal life and those big audacious goals that you're gonna tackle and for sure the REITE club is there to help support you as you are and now always have supported the REITE Club.
Robby Clark: I appreciate that.
Alfonso Salemi: Awesome stuff. So I think we've gotten to the part of the podcast where it's the lightning round portion. So are you ready? You ready to start the right lightning round, Robby?
Robby Clark: I'm ready.
Sarah Larbi: All right, here we go. Question number one. Robby, what is the best advice that you have ever received from another investor or at a networking event?
Robby Clark: Don't quit. Are we looking for quick answers?
Sarah Larbi: Yes, whatever you wanna provide. That's perfect.
Robby Clark: Don't quit.
Alfonso Salemi: It's only over when you quit. So don't quit. It's never over.
Robby Clark: Don't quit and start easy, start small. You don't want to get too many obstacles in front of you. Problems are gonna be there. Make sure you don't discourage yourself easily. Start small, start quick, and don't quit.
Alfonso Salemi: Absolutely. And another part that I want to add in too, and I want you to take this as a compliment as, because that's what it is that you're not afraid to fail. You're putting those big goals out there, putting them. For public consumption on Instagram, on social platforms, and you're going, Hey, you know what, if I get to 340 million in real estate holding, say, that's not that bad either, right? So again, not being worried too, to fail and get those goals and put that out there.
Don't quit till you get there or the goal adjusts or changes to what your needs are. Okay, so I'm gonna rephrase this question just a little bit, but what is your favorite resource? If you read a lot of books, there's training, there's events, there's personal growth stuff. What's what resource that you're like, that's, I love going to that. I always learn something when I'm paying attention to it.
Robby Clark: For me it's audiobooks cause nobody controls when you're doing that. I would say for new investors, honestly, coaching and I don't offer coaching and I don't do coaching, but I say coaching because that would've helped me on my learning curves is learning from someone who's done it 1-10 times.
That would've been super beneficial at the beginning. And that really would've helped. And like I said, it's not even that I see that a lot of events where people go at, people will go to the events and then they, it's almost like they wanna be at the event and then they don't take the action after that.
I remember going to an event with Dylan in Florida, and I asked them, what is their conversion rate on coaching? And it was so small and I was like, all these people spend this money to go to the event and then they don't do anything after they go back home and they're like, oh, I had a good weekend.
I met some people and it was great self-development, but then it's tough for them to make that next step. And I think that at times in, in that regard, having a coach there to help get you motivated and hold you accountable, right? I used to be able to work out all the time and thought I was an athlete.
Guess what? I need a personal trainer now to get me in the gym most of the time and having somebody there to hold you accountable and reaffirm your confidence and get rid of you, turn down your weaknesses and stuff like that can be really beneficial.
Sarah Larbi: Awesome. Great answer. Number three, what is the one attribute that has made you most successful?
Robby Clark: A psychotic belief in myself. And a no quit attitude. And I've had an unfair advantage of this as well too, growing up in the film industry and working with some incredible people, growing up around Woody Harson, Juliet Moore, Olson, twins, Drake, like all these people help shape and form my opinions on what's possible and what's not. When you grow up around people like that, it's pretty impossible to think that things are impossible, right?
Alfonso Salemi: I love it. It's only impossible until you do it right?
Robby Clark: Somebody's always done it before, right? Like in almost every scenario somebody's done it, right? If they can do it, why not you?
Alfonso Salemi: You got it. Alright, last question of the lightning round. What are you doing on a typical Sunday morning?
Robby Clark: Pretty much the same as Monday to Friday. I'm going to Starbucks, which is taking an incredibly long time to get through the drive through lately, but I'm getting a cold brew, whether it's summer or the wintertime. I'm driving around for a couple hours and listening to an audio book, no particular areas. I'll take important calls if I need to. I might turn on some hip hop if I'm feeling under motivated and I'm reading and then I'm getting to my calls. I come back to the house right now at around 12 or one o'clock.
We'll make some of my calls if I have any afternoon meetings and whatnot. I know I'm giving you my whole day right now, but then around 3:00 PM or 4:00 PM I'm trying to work out and get it in. And then at nighttime, like we'll have, 90 day fiance the other way or something, playing in the background.
I'll be reading articles at the same time. You know what I mean? I'm a normal human, and that's the thing. People think you gotta be outrageous. I think learning and knowledge is the key to success in anything because you can be more efficient with your time and others if you do that
Sarah Larbi: absolutely. Do you mind if I ask where you're getting your articles from? Are you using an app or are there specific sites that you read articles from?
Robby Clark: Yahoo Finance I'll go on Yahoo Finance to read some of the nonsense on there. Sometimes I'll go I'll google certain things. I'll go to bitcoin.com. I challenge anybody to go to bitcoin.com and read three articles a day on cryptocurrencies, just to understand it, whether they'll let it or not.
Likely within a week you'll be on that training as well too. I get articles sent to me. One of my good buddies, Matt Mox, he's a savage in his own right and he'll send me random weird articles on tech stuff and things like that.
Dylan will send me some stuff. A lot of my partners send me some stuff and anywhere I'll absorb and read just about anything.
Sarah Larbi: Awesome. All right, Robby, where can the right club community reach out and find out more about?
Robby Clark: Honestly my Instagram is probably the best way. It's at Robby Clark we got a lot of big things in the works there. I think it's the best. App right now for me to get my content and my stuff out there, I really, honestly, I give business advice. Some of it can be considered life advice. It's not necessarily real estate based, although I put a lot of real estate stuff on there.
It's a lot of philosophy as well too, and just I'm not political. I'm atypical, I say, right? So it's I'm not, I post facts and I don't really get political about things. It's more just, Hey here's what I'm seeing and here's what's up. And I like to share that with other people as well too. Instagram would be the best.
Alfonso Salemi: Awesome. And Robby, thank you so much for being so generous with your time. Always dropping some amazing information inspiring education. Putting those models, those things that are repeatable and predictable so that people can implement them in their own lives. Any last words of advice or wisdom for the REITE club community that you wanna leave us with?
Robby Clark: Like I said, start, just get started. Just find a coach. If you're apprehensive, cuz I get that from a lot of new investors. I'm looking for this and I contacted an agent for a BRRRR and I'm like okay, you and everybody else, right?
That is what I would recommend. Get started small. Don't try to be too creative and. You know what I mean? Think you gotta hit a home, run on the first one. Just get started because you gotta start the learning curves and from there, if it's too easy, great, you can always get yourself into some harder problems, right? That's not gonna be an issue, but get in there and make sure that you can handle it and get to the next step.
Sarah Larbi: Awesome. Robby, thank you so much for being on our podcast. It was a pleasure having you on.
Robby Clark: I always have fun with you guys, so next time we'll do it over a couple glass of wine, but appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Sarah Larbi: Cheers, guys. I love this podcast. There is so much great information and it is just inspiring to see Robbie go and just create that next goal for himself and achieve it. And it's just great to see also how humble he is and how he's been able to do this really from scratch. He built the empire. He didn't have anything handed over to him, and it's just through perseverance and grit. Any takeaways, Alfonso.
Alfonso Salemi: There was one thing that I picked up and I actually wrote it down, and it's when you're building the business and maybe you have some good cash flows, maybe it's a good month or a good quarter, but that delayed gratification, right? We're living in a world where it's instant gratification now, like Amazon can't deliver the next day. What a disaster. This is the end of the world. But that. Gratification where, hey, you know what you've done well, let's roll it into two quarters. Let's see if we can roll this up for a full year.
Let's add up three or four or five years together in getting that. And, delaying that, gratification. I'm not saying, don't reward yourself along the way. Little goals, little accomplishment, reward that, celebrate those wins. But to get those big things that you want in your life, delay that gratification and get and pile up those wins by versus just, win and then, onto the next. So that's my takeaway. How about you Sarah?
Sarah Larbi: I think for me, it. Interesting to see how he puts managers in place, gives them the ability to manage the businesses and he can really take a step back. And this is an example of somebody that is working on the business rather than in the business and just tries to find the best people to put into the right positions so that he can really be focused on a reading and that, just, that bigger picture. So I think that was really interesting. There's lots of things that were interesting, but that'd be my one key thing if I had to pick just one. And guys, I hope you enjoyed the podcast, REITE club community. Thank you for tuning in again.
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