Brian Adams - Linear thinking will get you linear results

Brian talks me through some of the remarkable changes he has made to his business in the past year that have created an exponential growth in his business.    

Brian C. Adams is the President and Founder of Excelsior Capital, where he spearheads the investor relations and capital markets arms of the firm. He has 10 years of experience in real estate private equity and has advanced knowledge in best practices for strategic real estate investing. Prior to forming Excelsior Capital, Brian co-founded Priam Properties (an institutional real estate private equity sponsor) in 2010 and provided leadership and direction for the firm in connection with capital markets, investment management and investor relations.

He has served on the Board of Sirrom Partners, LP, a single-family office investing across private and public asset classes since May of 2008. Since May of 2017 he has served on the Investment Committee for Solidus LP, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on investment opportunities in Healthcare and Technology. From January of 2016 to January of 2018, 

Brian served as a member of the Board of Next Gen Advisory Faculty for the Institute of Private Investors / Campden, a program designed to support next generation family members in preparing the following generation for the responsibility of being a steward of family wealth. He has also served on the Advisory Committee for the Southeastern Family Office Forum since December of 2016. 

Brian is a former practicing attorney, earning his J.D. from Suffolk University and his B.A. from Wesleyan University with Honors.

Transcript

Jake Wiley: 0:02

Hello and welcome to Wiley on Business a podcast where we explore how individuals and companies make dramatic breakthroughs and transform their businesses from a job to an enterprise with real value by enabling others to realize their full potential by being crystal clear on the vision of the business. My name is Jake Wiley and over my nearly two decades of business experience and client service owning a business as well as being a CFO, I've had the opportunity to see the difference between slugging it out to stay above water and exponential growth. On this podcast, I interview amazing leaders who have figured it out to get their perspectives on how they do it, and share it with you. Brian Adams is the president and founder of Excelsior capital, where he spearheads the investor relations and capital markets arms of the firm. He has 10 years of experience in real estate private equity. Prior to forming Excelsior, Brian co founded an institutional investment firm premium properties. As I'm sure you'll be able to tell from the conversation, I am lucky to count Brian as a friend. Now let's jump into the conversation. Well, Brian, thank you so much for coming to talk with me on the podcast. I know you and I, we get to chat quite a good bit outside of this and kind of in the Nashville market, and then kind of what you're doing. But I'm really actually excited to share a little bit about your story and what's going on with you with with my, with my tribe here because it's it's very much in parallel with what I've kind of been doing. And you know, I started a bypass instead of you, and kind of why. So hopefully, hopefully, we'll get into some of that today. But I guess to kick it off, like I mean, if you'd like I'd love to get an introduction from you what you're doing what's really most important in your in your world right now. Yeah, thanks for having me on. Jake. It's It is funny. You and I were coffee friends. And then when COVID hit, we both have gone on this

Brian Adams: 1:56

marketing, personal brand development journey via social media and other channels. You know, I don't think if you had asked either of us 18 months ago, if we would be podcasting, we probably would have said, no, no. Now we're doing all kinds of crazy stuff. And I'm doing all kinds of different things. So I'll give a kind of very brief spiel, but I'm a New Yorker made a Nashville girl, a recovering attorney. And now I'm in the commercial real estate business. So very succinctly, we buy commercial real estate investment deals, and send those investment opportunities out to a network of high net worth individuals, family offices, independent wealth management firms, and we raise on a deal by deal basis. So we're a syndicator of capital, and been doing it for the last 11 years now. And we're focused on cash flow income oriented products in the southeast, the Midwest. And what's most important me today, or what I'm focused on in this moment, is trying to understand and tie back to my earlier comment, try to figure out the most efficient way to grow the business exponentially, as opposed to incrementally and that and I think, reflecting on this last year, all the changes that COVID forced us to undergo having coffee with people getting on a plane and going to have lunch or the steak dinner is not the most efficient way to build those relationships. Oh is. And a big lesson for me has been using social media using different media channels like podcasting, or YouTube. Creating evergreen content. providing value in educational collateral to people has allowed me to grow my network immensely, and also help other people that plug into my own network. And so that's where I'm spending most of my brain power these days, whatever limited brainpower I have, after being home for a year, but that's where I'm trying to crack that nut.

Jake Wiley: 4:20

So, yeah, what's funny is that, you know, obviously, it's his podcast, he can't see my face, but I'm smiling really big now because it couldn't have been more scripted. For kind of what we're talking about on the show, and really, the focus is about being efficient. And you know, being able to leverage other people to get the most out of like, one you know, the people that you work with, and you surround yourself in a fulfilling way but also your business and like what you're actually capable of as a person. And you know, kind of like you mentioned, we were we were coffee friends, you know, we met we talked, I know you better now than I did a year ago and we would sit down in person, you know, and it's because of Have your presence online and the things that I can tell are interesting to you, which are interesting to me. I think that that's just really fascinating how this this year has kind of shifted mindsets. And yet really to your point exactly is he let's go back a year? No way would I have thought that I would want had time to do a podcast or two would have just thought that was the right move. And now like, it's, it's been amazing, like the people that reach out to me with questions and thoughts. And it's, it's like, right on point, right, people are coming to me with with things that are not just out of left field, but it's like, oh, you know, hey, listen to your last podcast, or read your last article. So what you're saying is, is so important to love it. And, you know, I think kind of digging into really the kind of the, the crux of the matter is, you know, when you think about your success, and especially the success you've had, and here's a good example of Brian's success is that I'm a little bit of a stalker, I get all of his deals, they come across my desk, I open them up, and I look at them. And it always says, you know, we're accepting backup offers for financing, right? So like, I don't even get a chance to subscribe. Fully subscribed. So like, kudos to you. Like even if I wanted to, I couldn't. So I could get on the list. And you know that that would work, but it's working. But over time, you know, as you think about the success that you've built in your business, and how you got there? How much would that be relying on other people, right, like, your team, the people that you brought in? Yeah.

Brian Adams: 6:31

So a couple things, one, the ability to raise capital is super interesting to me from the context that you present, presented it in because pre COVID, the way that we would do that is we would send you an email, we would send you another email, and then we would send you another email. And then maybe I would call you, right, and we would kind of hard pitch it, etc. And it worked. I mean, that will work. If you if you do it enough, and you have enough people, what's been fascinating to me is now to your point that I'm kind of everywhere, but people can access me when they want to. So if you want to hear about exactly what we do, how we think about investing, what's a focus and a priority for us? Who are investors are, you can do all of that on your own time. You can go to the website, you can hear me speak, you can check out YouTube, you can do it three in the morning on an airplane. And if you do all of that, and then you make that choice. Yes. I'm interested in seeing your deals. Now we use drone footage, webinars that are videotaped DocuSign, Dropbox links to include all the diligence files, and it just allows people to on their own terms, see the opportunity, make that decision. So instead of having to send him an email, set up a phone call or a coffee and hard pitch them, they've kind of already said, Yes, I like what you're doing. If you're going to do what you say you can do, I'm interested. And then when they see the opportunity, we give them their own space to make that choice themselves where it's really binary at that point. And so what it's done is it's just accelerated our ability to raise capital by using some of these social media and technology levers. But the big thing for me to answer your question was being able to delegate those things and take my ego out of the equation, because for a long time, I identified myself as a salesperson, and a marketing person. And I was that was, that was my identity. I've raised capital, and I was good at it. And now I've kind of given all that away, right? I've delegated the webinar recording, I've delegated the diligence. I've delegated all of that to our team. And it's made the company much more efficient. And investors. I always explained to people when they asked me to Well, my job is I'm kind of like the general manager of a country club. We're like, nobody comes up to me and says, Man, you're doing a bang up job like this is great. What I usually get is the steaks overcooked, the greens are terrible, you know, but when we started doing these type of capital raises and using these Investor Relations, tools and technology. I get emails from investors, thanking me for how easy and efficient it is to see opportunities and to invest in them. Which is incredible to me, because I'm the one who should be taking them. For giving their time and the resources to me, to allow me to build my company and to invest in these deals I couldn't do without third party capital. But now I get, I get kudos. So it's just an incredible change in the last 15 months, that I'm still wrapping my mind around it to be honest.

Jake Wiley: 10:18

It's been a fundamental shift. So I think like a statement I'll make is that I think about the communications, like you said, so used to, like, I'll send you an email, you know, we'd like like to have you invest, and we'll send you another one, then I'll call you. And it's this pressure feeling, right? And it feels like on the investor side, and I'm not saying this is me, but like, just in general, it's got to feel a little bit needy, right. So then you're almost creating this, this pushback, right? But then you kind of switch and you're like, Look, here are all the tools, like, take a look, get comfortable on your own time. And if you like it, great. And if you don't, that's fine, too. And then what you're finding is that people are more apt to jump in, right? Because they're just like, okay, like, I think I like this, this looks good. Or I've done it. And I've seen the track record, and I've seen enough of these things come through. So that's more of a statement, you can even correct me if I'm wrong on that one. But the question that I have for you is we kind of unpack this a little bit more, is when you started delegating to your team. Did you see your team rise? Kind of to the occasion? And did you see like satisfaction and improved I? I have my personal theory on that. But

Brian Adams: 11:26

yeah, I mean, huge difference the tenor of the team, were when I was able to trust and empower them to be part of this process. Not only did it free up a lot of my time and headspace it, it gave them ownership in the process and ownership in the company in general. And I saw there, I saw their energy and passion and diligence go up. Significantly, once I started allowing them to be part of the sales and marketing process, you know, everything they did just seem to be a little bit better. And they for a long time, I think we had siloed people into acquisitions, Asset Management controller. And what I've realized is, they really, the team performed much better, and their energy was much better when they were able to touch and feel all the different aspects of the business that we're in. And they didn't like to just be in their own little space. And, and that was a lesson that we learned during COVID, where, when we were on lockdown, and people were in their homes, and they were we weren't working together. But lack of energy, lack of creativity, lack of collaboration was really depressed some of the team, it was a very challenging time. And so now we've rethought a lot of the mechanisms we use, getting a deal spun up raising a deal running a deal. And it's made a huge difference. And I've noticed personally that it's not just you that's out market facing now, right? Like you've got members of your team kind of doing webinars and doing their own kind of events. And I think that's cool, right? Because like you're pulling them in, and you're not just saying no, no, this is my space, right? Because maybe a year ago, you'd be like, I'm the sales guy. I'm the guy that has to make this work. And it only works because like I am who I am. And then you step back and said, Okay, well, that's not necessarily true and COVID forced it. But on top of that, now I've seen that, like everybody's kind of rising up and finding their own place. And you're also seeing you seem to be comfortable with that, right? You're not micromanaging or on top of all these webinars like they're running. Yeah, I think that's a great point and observation that we're just now getting to be, you know, comfortable with because for a long time, it was, like I've said before, very ego driven, like I was the star of the show, I was the one who had the secret sauce to raise capital. I was the marketing person. And what I've realized is by by taking some time to understand branding, personal branding, inbound marketing, content creation, everybody on the team, to some extent has their own personal brand. Right, my controller is the recovering CPA who now does private equity. I have, you know, an acquisitions person who is you know, a Texas a&m bachelor's in real estate graduate and he loves Texas, so he's our Texas real estate person, etc, etc. And instead of detracting from my aura, it just creates It's more opportunities to build our network over time. And what I tell people who join our team is, in three to five years, if you don't come to me and ask for a big raise, or equity, or tell me you're leaving to start your own thing, I think I've failed as a leader. Right? And, and I would say that, but I would never give them the real opportunity to grow, right. And now I think I've actually given them that, that chance of Hey, you know, you should carve out some space for yourself, you should, you should build up your personal brand, it's, you know, it's important that you spend time on your on your network, you really need to take control of your social media presence, because in the near term, that's great for the enterprise, right, that just helps us the long term. Those are things that they have ownership over that they can always they're portable, right? You can take those things with you when you leave. And so I think I was paying lip service for a long time. But now maybe Finally, I'm actually doing it and empowering them. And all it's done is create more value for the company. I mean, we have, we have more momentum now in the you know, the tail end of a pandemic and a recession than we did two years ago. And things were really humming. So it's been a great lesson for me to learn. So have you have you gotten to the point yet, where you've come to the realization that if you can work yourself completely out of the mechanisms of the business, that that is the success? Your questions are so good, because I don't know this last week or two weeks ago, I had a breakfast meeting. And then I went to the office, and I realized I didn't have anything to do. Like I had two or three hours, no meetings, no calls, things were moving right there. There was nothing that needed my attention, no fires to put out. And so I went to my controller, and I said, Well, what should I do? Because I've been, I've been an entrepreneur for 11 years, there's always like, a million things I need to do. Right. Right. And there are there obviously are like things that I could be doing. But I had free time. And he said, and Jared who said, you know, CPA? Yes. Not really wired to say things like this said, your job now is to be creative, and figure out how to grow the company strategically. So why don't you go for a walk or put some music on or learns a different skill set. But like, we don't need you here, you're, everyone's busy. So go away. I've never, you know, I've never experienced that. And it's been, it's been hard for me because I think so much, especially as a millennial, so much of my working identity is wrapped up in this concept of being productive, which is taught to me by my father, who is like a grinder, corporate attorney, baby boomer. And it is made me reflect on Well, yeah, maybe it's not about these small tasks that I'm knocking out every day. Maybe I do need to take a step back and think, Okay, what are some things that I can do and put together for my mind to work on that will help build the enterprise long term as opposed to just today. And I think for a lot of us, we're just working for the weekends, sometimes trying to make it through to Friday afternoon, like it is today. Whereas now I have the ability and the time to think, okay, three to five years, where are we headed? Or do we need to be doing? And I just never had that space before? Yeah, that's a that's a cool story. And I, we've talked about this offline before, but you think about, you mentioned earlier growing your business exponentially. And it's like, you still only have two hands, and you still only have 24 hours in your day. There's only there's only so much you can do linearly, right? Like, if you are working, you know, 12 hours a day. And this is what your output looks like.

Jake Wiley: 18:59

If you wanted to double your business, theoretically, you could double your your time, like one we know that like that's not impossible. And it's there's a diminishing returns as you increase, but people grow their businesses exponentially. So it has to be there has to be a way. And I think that's the mindset that you're talking about is that it's just opening your mind to say, Okay, well, great, like, if what's working, or what we're doing is working, and we're growing, and we're actually growing better than we have ever had before. Now I have space to think about what's next. That is how exponential growth works, right? Like that's the only way it works. And you've got to get out of your own way. And you've got to just come to the realization that like, you've got two hands, you've got your one brain you've got 24 hours in the day. And you got to figure out like really, how do I make like eight hours of that just amazingly impactful every single day and continue to stack you know, exponential growth opportunities onto this business and then bring in the right people. So I love hearing that story. But I'm gonna I'm gonna flip the tables on you because it sounds really rosy. so far. Where have you kind of failed here? Right? Like, where have you been in your own way? And it's not worked out? Well, and you kind of wish you could go back and fix it. You have any good examples of that? From day one or from read from COVID? era? Anytime, right? I think. Yeah, I think I think COVID area, maybe both, right, let's let's talk about but, yeah, so

Brian Adams: 20:22

day one, far and away, the biggest mistake I've made over the course of this 11 year journey I've been on is not understanding that the real estate business is different from being a small business owner. Yep. And in a transactional business, you see, a lot of people fall into this trap of being a deal guy. And if you can't, I'm making air quotations, because we all know that term. And I definitely fell into that, that trap of, wow, we should just go acquire a lot of things and, you know, kind of see how many deals we can do. And we were able to acquire a lot of property. What I really lost sight of was the fact that unless you have the infrastructure around those investments, it doesn't matter how great they are. If your Investor Relations, if your reporting, if your marketing, if your HR, if your tax, if your audit, if all these other things that underpin those deals, aren't given the same time and energy and resources, your business will fail. And I think that's the biggest challenge that people in my space face. And also, interestingly, a question that investors never ask. Investors always ask about the deal, which is great. Like, I encourage as many questions as possible. We don't have anything to hide. But the one thing that people don't ever ask is, hey, what's your Investor Relations platform look like? And whether it capabilities, could I do a demo? Hey, could you show me some former, monthly and quarterly reporting? Or even as investor, hey, what are the expectations here? If I send you an email, how quickly you're going to respond? Do you take phone calls on the weekend? And those are all things that I now put out front. So we front run those questions, and I tell people that but it's interesting because no one ever asks. And the experience of being an investor, I think is just as important as the deals themselves. And so that was a huge fundamental mistake that I made that it took me a year to getting kicked in the teeth to fix all of that. It was a fairly painful experience. But I think long term has made me a better manager. The COVID era mistakes, far and away, not providing enough support to my employees to have in person experiences. I think we were also worried about the virus or the liability, or we were we didn't know how to navigate this, my partner and I both in our late 30s. We did a good job communicating. But probably six months in, I started getting calls from my employees saying, I haven't seen another person in 50 days, I'm depressed, I'm isolated. I want I need more support and the interaction that I'm getting now. And it made me realize that on a small team like we are, you need to I need to do a better job as a leader of not just making sure they're taken care of economically, and from a business perspective, but holistically, mentally, emotionally, even physically, that I'm doing all of those things. And so even the other day, I encourage the team I said hey, listen, it's it's q1 is over, make sure you're taking enough time off. Because the year will get away from you. And unless you do something about it, there's like the tsunami will always will never end there's always another deal. I mean, you know financial services, professional services, if you go to your your managing partner and you ask for work, you're gonna get work. Like the reward for hard work is more work in this world. And you need to have some guardrails around it. And I don't think I did enough a good enough job of protecting people from themselves, right. And that's something that we're working to fix.

Jake Wiley: 24:48

Yeah, that's a that's an so I'm going to actually address your last point because I think that's such an interesting aspect is that when you're alone and you're working by yourself, you have so much More like time to think. And a lot of times those thoughts can go negative really quick, you know, like, am I? Am I doing the right things? You know, are people happy with what I'm doing? And you're not getting that feedback, you're not seeing those smiles and like that camaraderie. And then over time, you know, like, I'm sure you felt this, I felt this too. Is that your question, right. And then those things can kind of build up on you, and it creates fatigue, and then you're trying to, like, read messages that aren't there, see things that aren't there? And I gotta, I gotta believe everybody's gone through that. Right? You know, like, your people probably like, one of Brian's really happy with what I'm doing? Or is he just being nice? He's such a nice guy. Or, you know, like, where's this going? You know, like, I know, for a while there was like, offices are out, you know, everybody was probably totally freaked out. So it's it, you know, it's such a stressful situation. And each person kind of has their own journey that they have to go through, in this kind of, like, quiet period where Yeah, you may be interact, and you do some zoom videos, and some calls with folks here and there. But it's not just like walking down the hall and seeing folks like it used to be. So I know that you post a ton of stuff out there about, you know, stuff that you're seeing in the marketplace, and people saying, look, this whole we're gonna work from home forever is this, that didn't work. It's not gonna work. And we got to reinvent the space. But I think going back to your, your kind of first point about growing your business, and I've lived through this myself, like when I was an entrepreneur, and when I was, you know, working for some other kind of startup type businesses, is that you can get through your first handful of deals with like, sheer force of will. And like, there's tons of words that come along with it, and reportings messy, and it's like, way late, and all these things that are coming. But you can just you can make it happen, right? At the end of the day, everybody can rally around the point, like we're gonna get this done like, this is so important. But at some point, like there's this break, where you just kind of like, okay, we just need to go do more deals, right? Like, that's sales cure cures. All right. And that's kind of this, this whole concept of like, Alright, let's keep stacking, we can keep doing this. We did it, we got them done, like, investors are happy they're getting paid or reports are out. But it's ugly, you know, and like, there's a lot of like, stressful moments along the way. So at some point, you had to really realize that it's like, I can't keep doing this, right. I can't keep going this way. Even though like we've done it, we've been successful. Like, tell me about that journey? Was it like an evolution for you? Or was it just like, one day, you're just like, Alright, that's enough. Like, we've got to make some radical changes here. How did that how did that evolve for you?

Brian Adams: 27:43

Yeah, it was, it's kind of like how Hemingway puts going broke. It happens over time, then all at once. Um, so clearly, over time, we realized that our reporting and our Investor Relations was substandard. And which you realize is when you don't provide sufficient information, people's minds will go to the darkest place possible. It's just human nature, we all do it. I think catastrophic thinking is probably more prevalent within a certain subset of the population. And it had been a year or two of feedback from investors, confusion, phone calls, meetings. And then we went through a recapitalization of that. And there was a lot going on at once. And it just, it all came to a head at that moment. And I essentially, you know, fix everything. I took everything down to the studs. And I rebuilt the website. I brought on a marketing consultant. I hired a best in class Investor Relations 20 473 65 investor portal, and redid our reporting on a monthly and a quarterly basis. And I can tell you now, we have 600 investors maybe. And, you know, we've been lucky news has been relatively good, but not every quarter, right? I mean, sometimes things happen. And we don't really get phone calls. We put so much we're so transparent with everything now. And we have institutional quality reporting and and Investor Relations, in my opinion, that that problem pretty much takes care of itself. But it, it took probably two years to realize there was a really big problem, and then probably took me a year to fix it.

Jake Wiley: 30:09

Right. That's it. That's pretty good on timeline, by the way, from what yeah,

Brian Adams: 30:15

I mean, I don't, I don't do anything. Halfway. So obviously, I probably was super pushy, you know, looking back on it, to get all these things fixed. And I continue to push our folks to be creative. And, but I mean, just some simple things. You know, I don't want to get into the weeds on my business as a saralee. But, you know, there's no reason when you're putting out a quarterly report, that you can't just do a 20 minute or a 10 minute interview with their local property manager, local leasing broker about the property. That's easy, you record it, you upload the video, people can watch it on their own time, they can reach out to that broker or leasing agent themselves that they want to have a one on one with them. And I've just found that the more that you provide, and the more that you give, the better you'll build that relationship long term. And I think for a long time, I was under the false impression that deals would stand alone, like they'd stand on their own blah, blah. But you, you have to realize that when Pete when you're in a trust business like we are you he on a daily, monthly quarterly annual basis, you need to continue to build that trust. And the way that you do that is through transparent communication, just being wide open. Right. And in my business, nobody will begrudge a bad deal. I mean, this is kind of the business we're in, right. It's private equity. It's risky. We all hope the deals work. That's how I get paid, right. But people will begrudge you garbage communication. Yep. Because it's inexcusable. They're not attending.

Jake Wiley: 32:02

Yeah, that's, you know, translating that to something in my life. I had this, I was in the renewable space for a while. And it's a really capital intensive business, and a very cashflow, lumpy business, very cash flow. So terms, we get stretched. And I remember having a conversation with one of my controllers once, and he's like, I don't know what to tell these people. Right? Like, I just don't know what to say. And I was like, if you call them, you get an A, like, literally, if you pick up the phone, and you call them and just say your name, and where you know what, who you're calling from, I was like, you get an A, because in this business, most people don't. And then you can start working on a path forward. To come out, we're both winners. But I was like, all you have to do to get an A in this business, right this moment, is to call them. And he was like, Really? I was like, absolutely. I was like nobody else was calling them back. Right? When there's a problem. Most people just like crawl under a rock, and hope they will work themselves out. And then one day, the you know, the money just shows up in the mail, and everybody's happy. And it's not like that, like to your point is that people go to a dark place. And they make the worst assumptions, like what is the catastrophic impact here that could happen? And they go there, if you don't communicate, but when you communicate, even if it's not great news, people are like, okay, okay, I can work with that. You're not the one I don't know what the hell's happening with. So like, you're actually Oh, my goodness. That's right. And it's funny, because you talk about investors, when you're working with accredited investors. And, you know, realistically, you talk with these guys, and like, you lay it all out there and hear all the risk and you're open, and you're transparent about it, and they know what they're getting into. And then if something bad happens, like if you're open and transparent, and communicate, you know, they can be like, Oh, that's not the way I wanted it to, to work out. But I went in eyes open, and you've been fully transparent about it, you're probably not the only people that they're working with. And if your communication is better than everybody else's, like you're the winner, you get an A, even if you're just growing your business, I think that's a that's a really cool story. Lesson learned the hard way. Yeah, I think everybody learns that. Right, everybody, right? I don't think that like we I mean, some people are just good at talking and fully transparent and never, never stop. And sometimes you have to like give them a nudge is like Enough is enough. But I think everybody learns that the hard way. They're afraid to look bad. And you know, silence seems like the better option, right? Like, I'm not going to tell him things aren't going as well as I'd hoped. But what they don't realize and what you don't realize, and you learn the hard way is when people are left to assume they assume way worse than what their actual situation really is. So yeah, the lack of communication is hard. But that's that's a tough lesson to learn. I mean, like I said, if you figure that out in your first three years, that's a great timeline, because I know that there's there entrepreneurs out there that have this feeling, you know, the the read all the biographies that like you just have to persevere through sheer force of will. And it's like, you really don't, right? Like you can just make good decisions, fix things, communicate, then find out where you're weak and bring people in.

Brian Adams: 35:20

And ultimately, if you and what we've been thinking about, within the C suite, which is like me and my controller, we don't have a very big company. But what we've been thinking about from a mindset perspective, because now that he's getting into your busy season, we have a little more time. It's not about goals, what I get worried about is when I see people in my space, and the real estate business saying on LinkedIn or something, I'm going to get 100 million of them this year, like, Oh, that is a scary thing. Because you can get to that goal, by hook or by crook, it's gonna be ugly, and you may not, you may not really like it when you get there, but you might do it. But instead of thinking about goals, thinking of putting systems and structure in place, that allow you to scale and repeat your business in an efficient manner, is a much more interesting thing to me than goals.

Jake Wiley: 36:24

Yeah, great point. And then for all of my listeners out there that have always given me feedback about acronyms, au M is assets under management, sorry, no problem.

Brian Adams: 36:33

It's like, you get these, these young lions out there that just want to cram deals. And for me, it's much more interesting to create a, you know, asset management, sales and marketing, investor reporting, etc. that that is first class. But that all takes place without me having to do anything. Yep. Because ultimately, what allows my business to grow, and what allows me to have lower minimum investments is my ability to raise more capital efficiently and to find better opportunities. And so people kind of always say, like, What's your goal? What do you want to do before? You're 40? Or what's your number? And I used to have that mindset. And I tell people, some of the saddest days I've had personally, from just a depression standpoint, are days that I've hit those goals. Because you realize that nothing changes, right? Fundamentally. And so I'm not in that business anymore. I'm in the business of creating a really great company, and have systems and processes in place that can just continue to allow us to grow.

Jake Wiley: 37:49

Yeah, and there's, I know, especially in like the asset management space, right? There is this threshold of like, I, if I get to 100 million, then I can support this business, right? And there's like this desperation to like, get there. It's to your point, it's, yeah, when I hear people, they're always touting their balance sheet, the balance sheet this and their balance sheet that which is basically translates to how many assets do you have on your balance sheet? It's like, are we kind of missing the point? And I think this goes back to some of your first comments where you're talking about, like having to look at the whole spectrum and all the things that the investors don't ask about, that are like, so critical to your success? Like, what is your tax structuring? You know, like, What is? What is the investor reporting look like? Is it systematized? Is it work? Is it on time? Is it transparent, you know, and I love the idea of like, you just interviewing the property manager. So this is not like hearsay. Well, everything's going great, right? That's a typical investor communication, here are the numbers. So you can hear it from the horse's mouth, like, what's, what's happening out there. And it's like, kind of warts and all. And I think people are like, well, that's great. You know what that actually sounds like a really functioning property, as opposed to the rosy stuff that we always get. So I know that early, a lot of folks early on are probably chasing those, you know, au m numbers, because there's a threshold where there's enough cash flow kicking off that it supports the business and like, that's all they can wrap their mind around, but I guess, what's your advice? You've lived through this? What would your advice be to somebody that's, that's in that space? You know, they're, they're chasing, kind of sustainability, I guess, in in the business.

Brian Adams: 39:34

You and I both know, cuz I used to work in a big corporate law firm. And in a transactional, focused, professional services firm, which we are a small version of it you get caught up in a mindset of achieving these milestones that you put forth. You will constantly be chasing from one deal to the next. And I personally think that is a really good way to get burned out to not function as a human being. And you'd be a lot better off, in my opinion, reflecting on, they're going to go a little deep here. But if you took five minutes of your day, and reflected on your own death, and what the people who love would say about you, after you pass away, I think you'd gain a lot of perspective on how you spend your time. Because the priorities in your life are reflected by how much time you spend on certain things. And if you get sucked into a world, where the value you create for your enterprise is based on how much time you don't spend with the people that you love, or doing the things that you love. I think you look back on your career, and realize, it could have been a lot better.

Jake Wiley: 41:14

Let's deep I like it. I do like it. I

Brian Adams: 41:17

mean, it's, it's hard. Because people will say, well, it's easy for you to say you like you've achieved this, or you're sitting in the catbird seat, etc. But I'm just as guilty of that. I mean, you know, we live deal by deal. And these, these these deals, I didn't used to have this much gray hair. But, you know, it's very challenging. To be a functioning human being, when all you are is focused on these on these deals. And it I think over time, it erodes your empathy. And when you're in a professional services business, because we're at the end of the day, we're serving clients, I think empathy is the most powerful skill set that you can have.

Jake Wiley: 42:13

Yeah, that's, I mean, that's really at empathy. And then too, I think when you get so focused on these deals, right? What I've seen a lot, and I'm guilty of this is getting cute, right? You've got a deal. That's not great. But you're like, well, I've got this deal. And this is the bird in the hand versus the two in the bush kind of concept. And we got to keep growing, we got to keep growing, but how can we make this work? And you spend more time trying to get cute and fino fix this dog? Then going after, like, what would we really want to work with you now like, how do I communicate? This thing, you know, is a mess, in a way but like we've mitigated all the risks, you know, like and you just get all that you just get so cute. And you put other people at risk, I guess you know your relationships. And it's like, you know, you can spend 20 years building your, your reputation in five minutes to crush it. And that's what happens when you start getting cute, right, you start whiteboarding, and you start trying to figure out how to like, make these things work, because they're filling some sort of arbitrary, like, aspiration that you have. But if you really boiled it down, and you probably would probably give me like the five why's or something you'd like why do you want to do this? Like, okay, you want to do $100 million this year? Why? Like, well, is this and it's this and the like you boil it all the way back? It's not because you want to do $100 million, right? There's something else that's there. And then that's what you got to focus on.

Brian Adams: 43:42

And I would I would add to that. I agree with you, I think style drift, lack of focus, and your eyes being larger than your stomach are endemic. In my business, for sure me it's a very ego, white, alpha male driven business that I'm in. And if you're gauging your worth to yourself and your family based on your ATM, you need to reassess your priorities. And if you need evidence of this, take a look at how Wall Street works. And these are literally the smartest people in the world that need a bailout every 10 years. Right. They and they are I know some of these people, they are insanely smart. They have huge amounts of capital. They do incredible things and they blow themselves up every 10 years right. Yeah, guaranteed. Yeah, I

Jake Wiley: 44:53

mean, it's you know, you talk about like the Wall Street and it reminds me of like the movie The Big Short when they just talking about like how many derivatives off of like a common basic transaction is like, we loaned money to somebody so they could buy an asset. And somehow, some way there's like 10 different instruments that are all focused on like that original transaction in varying degrees, because people were getting really cute, and trying to figure out how to move that thing around.

Brian Adams: 45:19

And I had a moment like this just today, I had lunch with a buddy, old friend of mine, I've known him for a long time. And we're he's an investor, he was complaining about being on the waitlist. And he said, you know, you, you've raised these deals so quickly, you should do bigger deals. And I said, No, I should not five years ago, I would have said, You're right, we should go do bigger deals, right. But what I've learned is no, we should spend more time finding better deals that fit within our matrix of what we're good at, we should stick to our knitting. And we should put even more resources into Investor Relations into accounting into the bricks and sticks that that build the entire business. It should not be about chasing that, that dollar sign. And that's where that a un chase just really scares me when I see people go down that rabbit hole. Because you have to sacrifice something, if you're going to grow that quickly. It just doesn't work the other way.

Jake Wiley: 46:34

So there's, there's so many arbitrary things, like we talked about spax in our business, and it's like, Ah, you know, that's a, you gotta be a billion dollars. That's, that's kind of like, billion dollar revenue company. That's that's where a SPAC may start to make sense. When we look at it, you know, lending institutions, and they're like, we won't look anything under 50 million bucks. Right? And it's weird, because like, we put all these numbers on things to help, I guess, scope stuff. But what it does is that instead goes to the market and tells them, these are the magic numbers, right? And then like, that's what people start to chase. And it's all it's so prevalent in the industry. But I guess let's let's flip topics again, you happen to be one of the most like giving people I know, in terms of time making connections. I know some of this is Nashville, but you came from New York, which is just mind blowing. But do you do you have a mentor? Like what's your What are your thoughts on mentorship?

Brian Adams: 47:34

Yeah, it's interesting you ask? I, there are certainly people in this space that I have a huge respect for. But one of the challenges that I've had is there aren't a lot of peer to peer folks that I can have a beer with and have a totally open conversation about this. I mean, you know, we I'm 38. And we have a $400 million plus portfolio. And I started the business out of a coffee shop, which is great. And it's a cool story, right? I'm also extremely privileged, like I had all these opportunities given to me, which we can get into. But I don't have a lot of people that I feel super comfortable with talking about that in a very vulnerable way. From a mentor standpoint, there are a couple of people that went way out of their way to help me early on. And I just, I don't know if it's that entrepreneurial spirit, or the fact that my business partner is Indian, and we talk a lot about karma. But I'm like, driven, and hell bent on helping as many people as I possibly can. And I think for a long time, I was guarded about doing that directly. So I would make introductions, I'd make referrals. But I would be hesitant to just open the kimono all the way. And now what I've started doing with social media, and we talk about this on the pre call, like how to raise capital. The number one question I get, like, how do you raise money, first time entrepreneur. So I put together a 30 minute presentation, threw it up on LinkedIn, threw it on the website, it's free. It's it's about 10 years worth of my life in distilled into 30 minutes. And for a long time, I thought, you know, I don't want to give this away this is this is a zero sum game, it means somebody else is gonna but the reality is, like there's there's, there's, it really doesn't change anything about my core business. And, you know, I don't think it impacts my investors at all. And if it helps one person, be successful and raise capital and start a business, and then they go employ 15 people like I do. That's the biggest thing. I could see I could ask for. And so what I've realized, to go back to our first part of the conversation but growing exponentially, I think what's cool about what's happening now is I can also help people exponentially through like really targeted networking or through social media, or through creating evergreen content that hopefully just helps people avoid stepping in this pothole or cuts the learning curve a little bit. And that's where I spend a lot of my time. And I've always found every time, it always comes back around every time.

Jake Wiley: 50:31

That's so true, and for everybody that's listening. And we I think it's probably clear, but you're Brian and I are friends. But I follow what he's doing. And I appreciate it. I actually downloaded this course. Because I'd love to see what you know, you spent 10 years doing. And like I said, we used to get together on a regular basis before COVID. But I know more about him now, you know, through COVID, in his willingness to open up, and you know, not i'm not saying I was never comfortable, like sharing information with Brian, but like, it just feels right. You know, like, it feels good to make these connections and introductions and be a part of like each other's networks in a way that's positive, with no sense that you need to get something in return. It's not a tit for tat. And that's, that's been so great. So like one, Brian have always appreciated our friendship. I've always appreciated your willingness to make introductions, without any feeling of like, they're strings attached. And for all of you guys that are out there listening, if you're an investor, whatever, Brian is exactly who you're listening to today, and authentically. So and hence why he's a guest on the show. But you know, Brian, it, thank you for being here. This has been awesome. I guess any any parting words? I guess, the last question I usually ask people is if you could go back in time and give your younger self a piece of advice? Yeah, what would you go back? And tell yourself and when? And then what do you think you would have taken that advice? I guess,

Brian Adams: 52:02

I would tell myself not to go to law school. And I think I would have not taken that advice because of a stubborn, stubborn person. But, you know, maybe long term, it helped me realize what I didn't want to do, which is just as powerful as what you do want to do. But yeah, that would definitely I should have listened to my father on that one. He told you, but, you know, you never know where these decisions and choices you make. He did. Yeah. He said, I don't think this is for you. Practice of laws changing pretty dramatically. And, you know, I graduated in 2009, which is probably the worst possible time to graduate from law school in the last 100 years. And it was it was a difficult path. But, again, I think it taught me a lot of good lessons. And I'm glad I'm not an attorney right now.

Jake Wiley: 53:13

That's really funny. Because I've you kind of liken yourself to a Are you always say that you're a recovering attorney. I've retired from accounting three times. Three times I've, you know, like it's, it's one of those funny things in life where you find yourself in a situation where you probably know the most about accounting in the room, and all of a sudden, you become the accountant, the CPA, you're always you're always the treasurer of a nonprofit board. Yeah. I mean, you just get sucked into it. And it's like, this is not my thing. But you know, I'm in this weird situation where like, I can add value here that nobody else that's sitting in this room can and I'll just take that burden on. And I've had to learn three times. Just stop, right? Just say, okay, yes, you know, I am functional here. And I can tell you and I understand, you know, debits and credits really well, I have, I still have my CPA license. But I don't want to do this. It's not my passion. And I've retired from formal accounting three times. Now I know I'll never go back. I'm always willing to, like be a sounding board and just have just enough information to be dangerous. But, you know, like you I probably, if I could go back and say like, hey, accounting is not your thing. Don't spend all this time doing it. I probably wouldn't have taken it was like the hardest degree, you know, coming out of business school and like you I was stubborn. And I've learned a lot. I really have like, I couldn't I couldn't take it away. But I understand exactly what you're saying. Wow, awesome, Brian. Thank you. This has been great. Yeah. Thanks for having me, Jake. I appreciate it. That concludes this week's show. Thanks for listening. Please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform or directly on the site. Your comments are truly appreciated. Good. bad or indifferent, and we'll help make the show better. This is Jake Wiley with Wiley on business and we'll talk again two weeks.