Forged In Fire
Hosted by Nate Pharmer-Eden and Cole Farrell, Forged In Fire is where real entrepreneurship meets raw, unfiltered stories. This isn’t your typical business podcast—we skip the fluff and dive straight into the heat of what it really takes to build, run, and grow a business. From late-night doubts to game-changing wins, we explore the trials, setbacks, and breakthroughs that entrepreneurs experience at every stage of their journey.
Whether you’re a seasoned business owner navigating new challenges or someone with a burning desire to launch your first venture, this podcast offers powerful insights and practical lessons for everyone. No sugarcoating—just honest conversations about what it takes to forge success through the fire.
Get ready to be inspired, learn from real-world struggles, and gain the tools you need to make your entrepreneurial dreams a reality. This is your front-row seat to the highs, lows, and everything in between. Are you ready to step into the fire? 🔥
Forged In Fire
Episode 35: Matthew Cianci is Finding Deals Where Others Don't Look
Ever felt that gnawing sensation—the one where you're working at your corporate job until 1 AM, only to go home and hustle on your side business until 4 AM? That entrepreneurial itch that just won't go away? Matt knows this feeling all too well.
After nearly 11 years on Wall Street at prestigious institutions like Bank of America and UBS, Matt finally took the leap into entrepreneurship, founding both a private wealth management firm and a real estate investment business. But his journey wasn't an overnight success story—it was paved with baseball card trading ventures as a kid, a college cigar business, a failed t-shirt brand, and countless late nights wondering if he was making the right choice.
What does it really take to transition from corporate security to entrepreneurial freedom? Matt cuts through the romanticized notions of business ownership to reveal the raw truths: "I think I work more now than when I did in the investment bank, but the crazy part is I feel like I have a lot more energy now." When you're building something you truly believe in, the extra hours don't feel like a sacrifice—they feel like an investment.
Perhaps most revelatory is Matt's approach to deal-making in real estate. When confronted with HOA restrictions that limited ownership to five units per LLC—a roadblock for most investors—Matt structured an innovative solution involving multiple owners and an agreement to share profits. As he puts it, "Deals aren't found, they're made." This creative problem-solving mindset separates successful entrepreneurs from those who merely wish for success.
Whether you're contemplating your own leap into entrepreneurship or looking to level up your existing business, Matt's candid insights about networking, partnerships, and the absolute necessity of "burning the boats" will transform how you approach your entrepreneurial journey. Listen now and discover why having no Plan B might be your greatest strategic advantage.
Forget what you've heard. Forged in Fire is where real entrepreneurs come to share the untold truths of success the late nights, the crushing setbacks, the moments that change everything. No fluff, just fire, ready to step into the heat and unlock what it really takes to build a business. This is where legends are made.
Speaker 2:Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another exciting episode of Forged in Fire. I'm your co-host, nate Farm, reading Cole how we doing brother. Come on stage, man.
Speaker 3:Doing good man, a beautiful Tuesday, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:It is a beautiful Tuesday, I mean aside from, like, the rain, the clouds and the fact that, like the temperature is supposed to drop by like another 20, like tomorrow. But other than that, yeah, it's beautiful, things are fine.
Speaker 3:It's when we're recording this, it's March, so basically that means it's spring and so, although it's freezing out, you know we're getting there.
Speaker 2:We're getting there. Flowers are coming up. It's going to be beautiful. We can have some hope. I have a question for you, sir. I know you are huge into sledding and all that fun stuff. Did you get a chance to do that this winter?
Speaker 3:Absolutely Yep. As soon as we get enough snowfall, I'll run from the street straight down our yard right into the canal. So we live on a canal and luckily it's frozen. We haven't gone underwater yet, but always sledding, snowboard, I'm in.
Speaker 4:Awesome.
Speaker 3:Awesome, Awesome Well hey, before we jump in, let's hit our one and only housekeeping item, as usual, right? We have one single favor for you guys. If you could, please leave us a review. This is what helps us grow. This is what helps us reach more people and educate others, so that would mean a lot. Link below or however, whatever platform you're on, that would be great. Besides that, though, sit back, relax, enjoy the show.
Speaker 2:Dude, it's going to be amazing. Today we are joined by Matt. Matt runs PWM, which is a private wealth management small boutique firm, and he wants to tell us all about it. So, Matt, how are we doing? Brother, Come on stage, man.
Speaker 4:Hey, Nate Cole, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Of course Our pleasure man. So please tell us a little bit about yourself. What got you here?
Speaker 4:What brought you here? Yeah, so when you said that, I immediately started thinking of what I always talk about with one of my business partners. And obviously what brought me here literally is, you know, message me on LinkedIn or talking about real estate and entrepreneurship and all that good stuff, but I always talk about with my partner what are all the little things that have happened over the course of your life that led you to here. You know what I mean and it's kind of like a dangerous but fun thought exercise. So with that, know, with that, I guess, like I'll go into my background, coming up on my 11th year on Wall Street.
Speaker 4:As you know, you mentioned PWM. That's one of my two businesses. But I started at Bank of America. I was a portfolio manager doing investments corporate W2 guy. Ended up doing five years there, got my CFA, went on to get my MBA, did some time in SPAC research If you remember when SPACs were a big thing in COVID and then spent three and a half years at UBS and their investment bank and then I left this past summer, started my real estate business, which is both an investing and consulting firm, and then, uh, joined my old bank of america team. That, uh, they technically started pwm before I joined them, but I'm a partner with two other guys there, so got a lot of things in the hopper, obviously, like everyone does. But, um, I love to stay busy, love to constantly, constantly have way too much on my plate, but I love it. It genuinely is what keeps me running. That's awesome.
Speaker 3:So give me some more details, meaning with the investment side. What does that look like? What do you focus on? What kind of assets? Give me some details. And then on the PWM side, same thing. What's the focus? What do you like to do? What's the bread and butter?
Speaker 4:Yeah, sure, I'll start with the real estate business. So I bought my first property with a coworker and his best friend back in 2018. It was not a real estate business. It was just three guys that liked real estate and we kept talking about it. So after that we bought another one, or me and a few other partners bought another one and then when I left UBS, that's kind of when I started to seriously, you know, try to do deals.
Speaker 4:So my bread and butter, I would say, like most guys, is value add multifamily Not gonna lie to you and say there's anything too sexy or different about it. We do focus on off market. I'm currently in the smaller side of the market, say like $2 million and below, maybe three, if you want to talk about a dealer under contract right now for it. But interestingly enough, I also got involved in a pref opportunity for a condo hotel in New York, so not even fully dedicated to multifamily. I think, like most entrepreneurs, you're still figuring things out and seeing where everything goes, but my background in real estate through the investment bank was really everything.
Speaker 4:I covered hotels, multi-industrial, did some office and data center work as well so I feel like I know enough to be dangerous if the right opportunity came along and obviously that one felt like the right one, even though it wasn't multi but interestingly enough that business we also do some consulting work. So I partner with four developers at the moment and they kind of use me as their outsourced analyst, which in other words they're smaller groups. They're working on some pretty substantial deals but they don't have a team of like five analysts that are running numbers and putting together data rooms and all that stuff, have a team of like five analysts that are running numbers and putting together data rooms and all that stuff. So they use me as that and I'm pretty much sitting in on every meeting they have with an architect, engineer, land use attorney, you name it. So I like that just because it's also part of the learning experience. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I love it, I love it, I love it. So you, you hinted and alluded to it. We don't have to go too much into detail. We'll definitely bring you back after everything closes, but congratulations on a UC going under contract on something that is very exciting. But give me a little bit more as well. Let's let's dive a little bit deeper. What were some of the struggles or trials and tribulations from going from the W2, cfa, mba realm and now running two different businesses with your partners and now trying to juggle this world of real estate? Rather, you want to talk about getting things under contract and now trying to manage portfolios, to managing investors to you, take it whatever direction, but talk to me a little bit about that.
Speaker 4:So I'll go back to the first thing I said like what truly brought me here? Like all the iterations of your life that lead to every single moment that you're now living through, um, when I left the corporate world, uh, there's like so many feelings, right you, you're nervous, you're excited. It's obviously something I like planned for for a long time. So, deep down I knew like this was the right move. And the funny part was I still had second guess myself. Like as I walked out the door I was like, wow, was that? Was that the right move?
Speaker 4:And you know, I was like texting my family and friends and I didn't know what to expect the responses to be and most of them were like dude, it's about time, right. And so I started thinking about it and I feel like I had a little bit of like the entrepreneurial bug my entire life. You know, classic like baseball I played baseball my whole life. You know, classic like baseball card I played baseball my whole life. So, classic baseball card. Guy loves the whole concept of eBay and trying to like buy and sell cards for money never really worked out.
Speaker 4:I did some interesting stuff, like I started a cigar business in college with a roommate, also tried my shot at a t-shirt brand. That went absolutely nowhere, but I bought a little bit of inventory and I still have one tank top that I wear to this day as a reminder that I wish I pursued that. Obviously, the Cannoli Boys I was telling you about that's definitely not a legitimate business that I'm pursuing, but more of a hobby with some friends. My family is pretty big in the food business and who doesn't love cannolis? Long story short, I feel like I've always had that tendency to try something, do something, whether it's to make money or just see how the business of that industry works.
Speaker 1:And I feel like it was the right move.
Speaker 4:But, like most people, it's a wild feeling when you first step out of corporate life into the entrepreneurial world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's so funny because I love talking about the stories of starting the entrepreneurial journey. I feel like anybody that has even a glimpse of that kind of bug that you mentioned goes through these routes, starts a bunch of small things, fails every single time and eventually one of them works. It's just that process. It's funny. Similar to you, I started young lemonade stands, yard sales, sell my parents furniture. They're like you can't sell that. I'm like trying to make money. Mom like chill, making paper airplanes uh, trying to sell them. Anyways, I love that stuff. It's just like how somebody got started, how the brain works when you're young. I think it's incredible.
Speaker 4:Um sorry to cut you off, but you know one more actual point I guess I left in 2024. I actually set everything up before that because I planned to leave earlier. And, uh, in 2023, I, I I didn't have a date yet, but I was like like legitimately saying, okay, by February, march, whatever it was, I'm out. And I got cold feet and I sat on it for a year. So like it is easier said than done, for sure, and obviously the whole concept of entrepreneurship is easier said than done, but just taking that first step is probably one of the hardest parts.
Speaker 3:It is, and a lot of people are going to resonate with that, just like you're saying and that first step, and kind of being nervous about that and should I do it, should I not? And you know, I have to say on here we're dedicated to talking to entrepreneurs. That's what we live and breathe every day. But not everybody should be that and not everybody should always dream of that either. Um, you know, some people don't and I sometimes envy them. You know, not being obsessed with somebody or something 24 7 and living, dying, breathing, dreaming about your business, um, the emotional pitfalls that go with it, like there's so much into it that matters a lot. So I think it's important that you brought that up.
Speaker 4:Um, it's important that you brought that up.
Speaker 3:Agreed. I want to ask is there any specific challenges or hurdles as you grew? So let's say, you left corporate America, you dove in Are there a couple of things that stuck out to you that were like man, I didn't anticipate this, or I did anticipate this, and it was harder than I thought.
Speaker 4:Yeah, all of it, but in a good way. So the most the easiest answer is like all the administrative stuff, right, like figuring out how are you going to build a website I'm not a tech guy. I had to hire somebody my sister helped a little bit as well and doing the bookkeeping and keeping track of invoices and expenses, and obviously you know the behind the scenes stuff that doesn't actually directly make you money and directly like what you think about as a business. But that might not be the hardest part but it's something I didn't anticipate, taking up as much of my time as it actually does. And I'm kind of working through that right now with some virtual assistants and, you know, outsourcing some stuff as much as I could.
Speaker 4:But the other part, that at first was kind of difficult but I'm starting to realize networking is everything Like. Everyone knows that, everyone says that. But whether it's on the PWM side for wealth management or the real estate side, just talking to folks saying what you do, how you could help them, or anybody, I get a random call or text almost every day like hey, my friend's sister's brother-in-law has this property down in Jersey. You might want to talk to him about it. Sure, I'll talk to anybody, and that is probably more effective than if you're running Google Ads, at least in my experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, 37 years old, somebody looks at me crazy. I'm like I got an 11 year old son. Leave me alone, it's fine, so it's all good. But one goal with that, and where I kind of want to know a little bit more from you on, is what does it look like now in terms of like KPIs, your key performance indicators, what do you track? And you can take it to the left or to the right with both businesses. And so how are you monitoring, moving that needle forward, to be able to say, hey, we're actually progressing, we're actually doing things that matter, especially when you find all of those like minute or time consuming things that are like, hey, I got to do book over here, but is that actually moving the needle forward? I need to network. What are you juggling your time?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I'll start on PWM because that's easier. The team I joined and my partners they started it before I got involved with them. So the KPI is really your AUM and fortunately I'm not starting at zero right, so that's a little bit easier. On the real estate side, I think my KPI that I care about the most is my time spent actually doing deals that go somewhere, and I unfortunately don't have like an actual shot clock on my actual time, but at first it's just a ton of like shotgun method. You know, just figure out where where are the deals, how can I get access to them.
Speaker 4:I don't do Zillow or LoopNet or anything like that. It's strictly networking with developers, brokers, families, and so far it's it's been pretty, pretty good. Like the deal flow is absolutely a lot better now and I think most people would agree there's more deals coming to market, more sellers willing to transact than, say, 12 to 24 months ago. The other thing I find super interesting is on the consulting side. I really didn't anticipate it being like a core business of mine, but there's a lot of guys that you know they are willing to pay for. You know somebody with that expertise, somebody who could, you know, run the Excel for them and, you know, put together an investor presentation or a SIM or an offering memorandum. That it kind of goes a long way. In my experience, when you do have a clean data room, you've done some preliminary diligence up front and then you're going to your investors to raise money and I've seen a lot of traction on that side of the business lately.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. I love that. Yeah, it's just really good. I'm curious. Go back to the deal you got under contract. Can you talk about that?
Speaker 4:Yeah, if you can?
Speaker 3:what are the? And you don't have to give specifics. But what's it look like? What's the play? How'd you find it? Give us some details, cause everybody listening to this. How'd you get a deal? What's the trick? Et cetera.
Speaker 4:Yeah, there's no tricks. It goes back to the networking side. So this deal I was working on for one of my consulting clients. Originally he had it under contract and I was running through diligence and all that stuff and he's a syndicator. There's a lot of nuances I'll tell you in a second. But he could not get the deal done for legal reasons with the HOA. And it's a fractured condo, meaning it's a 90 unit condominium complex at the Jersey Shore and we're buying a portfolio of condos from one of the owners. So he canceled the deal back in January. I liked the deal, he actually loved the deal too, and I told him would you mind if I stepped in and tried to get this done myself, because I'm not subject to some of the limitations that he is? So he said yes, gave the broker a call and we were off to the races. The specific part of it is one. I sourced it through my consulting business. It's definitely not like a normal way to source deals by any means, but it's not the first time I've done that.
Speaker 4:The second thing is the HOA. We're buying 12 condos. The HOA limits any LLC to five units at a time. So as a syndicator you want to buy 12 units. That doesn't work right. I actually called my partner at PWM, who's also a real estate investor himself, and one other guy it's actually his cousin and we're now buying three lots. And we're now buying three lots call it like bundles of condos of four each. That gets us to 12. It's going to be three individual owners and then we have like a hold code. It's not actually a hold code, but we have a separate agreement where all the profits and loss and cash flows flow back and we're splitting everything evenly that way, you know, based on your pro rata ownership.
Speaker 3:So let me pause you right there. There's just two things I got to highlight there that I think are fantastic. One there's going to be a handful of people that are going to go oh, like he got lucky, he knew the guy, he figured out the consulting Great. And I call bullshit on that, because deals are found and that's what makes a deal. A deal is like you're in the right place at the right time because you're working, you're hustling, so it's not like you just fell into that. You set up everything that needed to happen to make that deal fall into your lap per se, so it didn't.
Speaker 3:Actually, I think that's important. It's just like that's how deals are done. You just build your business, you keep grinding and eventually it'll work out in some bizarre way that you can never possibly explain. And then, two that deal wasn't simple, so you figure out how to make it work. It's not just like, okay, well, I'm going to walk away and it is what it is and that's what 95% of people would do. Oh, not sure, it looks like it won't work, goodbye. Next one You're like, no, no, I just have to figure out how to solve this problem, and that's what makes deals. Again, deals aren't found, they're made.
Speaker 4:A hundred percent agree. There's so many more nuances to it. But when you think about it. So the seller currently he needs to sell. He's not desperate by any means we're not stealing this property if you look at the numbers but he does want to transact relatively quickly and too fast to sell 12 condos one by one. So he needs to find a group that could bring $3 million to the table. He needs to find a group that has three individual owners that could handle some kind of mix of four, four and four. That could handle, you know, some kind of mix of four, four and four, five, five and two, whatever it may be, and that is kind of rare.
Speaker 4:I think they got just as lucky as we did when you think about it. So it yes, it was unique sourced it through the consulting business, but that's no different than you know if you just sourced it through networking with a friend, right? I think there is value to transacting that way and like quote, unquote off market People you know, maybe you would say the same thing. People say LoopNet is where deals go to die. I'm yet to find a good deal online. That is like broadly marketed into the universe, and part of that is because there's way more people with way more capital able to transact a lot faster than any of us here probably. So if it was a great deal online for everyone to see, it'd probably be snatched up pretty quickly. I love that.
Speaker 2:Nate, I know you're going to jump in on what I'm gonna say.
Speaker 3:So go ahead, brother, you got this one and then I'll I'll tag team right after you, bro no, I just was gonna say, like, just back to your point, like the way you structure that I think's huge. And like, just like you said, we hear all the time loop net or crexie or whatever, where deals go to die, um, but I think if you're not finding deals, you're just flat out not aggressive enough, because we bought our 12 unit off of LubeNet and the only reason we bought it off LubeNet is because we contacted everybody and their brother on there and found a deal that fell out of contract. It was mistakenly listed in a couple of different ways. We offered a half a million dollars under ask and we got it, and so for us it was just a killer deal, but online it obviously wasn't. So it's just taking that extra step, being super aggressive and just pushing the boundary, just like you're doing with figuring it out, being aggressive. How do we make this work? Who are the people that get deals done?
Speaker 4:so I'm just so big on that yeah, one caveat is on the condo side. It's not. It's a lot more work, it's not as easy or straightforward as multifamily and it's a little more expensive. Right, you have 12 title policies, 12 deeds. We're still working through a couple of lenders, but, depending what lender we go with, there might be 12 mortgages. So it's a first for me doing this kind of deal.
Speaker 4:But if you like, doing deals you like real estate, like it's always a learning opportunity. I absolutely genuinely do approach the business that way and I feel like every time I'm doing some kind of transaction, I am learning something and there is like a good takeaway from.
Speaker 2:It is like a good takeaway from it. That's it. You nailed it and I echo exactly Cole's sentiments on this situation. I mean the fact that you were able to get creative speaks volumes, and the fact that you're like, oh man, there's still going to be challenges up ahead, but you know what? We've overcome other challenges. We're going to see this one all the way through. We're going to push it as far as we can and then take it a little bit more. So hats off to you. I'm super excited to be able to have you back on after everything's all said and done. We didn't come back. Let us know where the numbers lay after that. Talk to me a little bit more about your strategy when it comes to finding and acquiring deals. You mentioned a little bit of a potential partner in the past that couldn't syndicate the deal due to HOA laws understandable. Do you syndicate? What does it look like? Do you do value-add plays? Is it mainly just turnkey? Are you holding long-term? Fill me in on some of that.
Speaker 4:Mostly value-add. The return profile for what I'm targeting is core plus and value-add All right. The way I found deals is my first deal was through Zillow, right. I was, like you know, when I first stepped into the game like nothing special there, had to get my feet wet somehow, didn't really know what I was doing anyway, didn't understand the concept of off market deal making.
Speaker 4:But, like I like I said it genuinely there are times when you get a random text from somebody you haven't talked to in like a year and they're like hey, you're that real estate guy, right, it's like the Ferris Bueller scene where it's like my brother's, sister's, roommate's daughter-in-law passed out after 32 flavors last night. That is genuinely how some of the networking happens. I do work with a wholesaler. He's one of my closest friends, actually, and I'm always badgering him to make sure I'm getting the first look at stuff. And I'm going to turn a review on something else in upstate New York with him right now, which will be my first seller finance deal, and I'm super excited about that because it's going to be so much more smooth than, say, like 12 condos with 12 mortgages on it seller fi I, I, I already love it.
Speaker 4:I haven't even finished the deal yet, so yeah, I it's great, everything about it's great.
Speaker 3:I've done a few of them I highly recommend, so you're gonna enjoy that. Um, yeah, good luck on that. I mean, with that being said, I'd be curious to kind of get into, uh, our fire round, or super six, uh, our next segment. What do you think nate think he's ready?
Speaker 2:I think he's ready. I I usually try to prep everybody. Let's know we've got like surprise for them at the end. We didn't do that for you, so surprise, here we are. This is what's going to happen.
Speaker 3:Love it. All right, matt, we're going to ask you these questions. Oh God, nate, sorry, all right, my bad, sorry, we're lagging a little bit. No, you're doing great brother.
Speaker 2:You let them know.
Speaker 3:Love it. We're going to ask you these six questions. We ask these to every single guest that are on here and you can answer however you want. We're going to not cut in and we'll see how that goes. So my first question for you is what separates top performing entrepreneurs from the rest of the crowd?
Speaker 4:Oh wow, I think there's a few layers to the answer here. I think the first one is you have to really it has to eat at you to not do it, and it genuinely did for me. So I think that's like your initial test Is this right for you? And you know, I kind of alluded to it. I technically did start my business before I left the corporate world and you know, if you're familiar with investment banking, you get home at like midnight, 1am. I would then get home at 1am and work till two, 3, 4 o'clock.
Speaker 4:Like I could not wait to start my own company in one way or the other. I didn't care if it was gonna be like a t-shirt company or real estate. Obviously I did wanna do real estate but it ate at me every day until I literally had to walk away from it. The corporate world I think the other thing is not having too much pride in say, like your social status, and that goes a few levels right.
Speaker 4:Like the first is you're going from like probably making a lot of money to basically zero at first, and I think the average person I have a pretty, pretty grim view on millennials, but like I think the average person our age takes a lot of pride in being able to say, like I made X amount of money and I literally could not do that Right. Like when you're making zero, when you're starting fresh, there is zero money coming in and you got to somehow create something out of nothing. So that's part of you know, separating yourself from the social norms. The other part is, like we already talked about it, it's a ton of work right, whether you're doing your actual core business activity or setting up the business or you handling the administrative back end stuff. I I think I work more now than when I did in the investment bank, but the crazy part is I feel like I have a lot more energy now.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, um, but I I don't know the science behind it, but I'm working towards something that I totally believe in. I also have to do this. You know there's there's no like fallback plan, so that also just means like you're not socializing and going out for drinks and dinner and hanging out on the couch with like your girlfriend or your friends, like you're, you have to be dialed in and totally committed to it, and I think that goes back to the fact that if it was not eating at you to start, then you're probably not going to have that drive to see it through, which is going to take a really long time.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, I love that.
Speaker 2:Cole, you know what I'm going to say. Anyone who's, anyone who's listening, pause, rewind, play this back all the way. So many gems, so many nuggets just dropped, go ahead. Oh my gosh, I'm just gonna say real quick.
Speaker 3:I think that's the best answer we've ever had for that question. I like could not possibly relate any further and I just I absolutely love that answer. Fantastic, yeah, fantastic.
Speaker 4:I feel like a lot of the like. My network has now shifted to other business owners, entrepreneurs, and you know we talk about this stuff all the time and it's true for the vast majority of us.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Not planning to have a plan B, only plan A. We're going to see this one through, no matter what.
Speaker 4:Oh my gosh dude. Burn the boats, Absolutely. I forget who said that quote, but it's so true. If you don't burn the boats, then you're constantly going to feel like you don't have to. You know, give it everything you got like you don't have to.
Speaker 2:you know, give it everything you got Mic drop.
Speaker 4:All right, moving forward, what is a daily habit that's contributed to your success? I wouldn't even say success just yet, like you're giving me too much credit, man, I'm, I'm still, I'm still trying to make it. But, uh, so take a step back for a second. I firmly believe that you know, going out on your own whether it's with partners or whatever, but having your own company there is no better test for you as a man to prove if you could provide or not than entrepreneurship. And what I mean by that is like I'm constantly thinking like what could I improve in my life, whether it's like physical, mental, emotional, whatever to be at like optimal performance.
Speaker 4:So you know, easiest thing I was actually talking about with somebody this morning, if you have an iPhone, the send text later button that is a game changer, right? Because, like I stay up at night, I'm like constantly thinking okay, what did I forget to do? Blah, blah, blah. Oh, I didn't follow up with this guy, or I have to remind my VA that he needs to send me X, y, z. I schedule like five texts, not five, maybe two, three or four, depending on the day, but I schedule a lot of texts at night just to, like hit the ground running. I am in everybody's inbox, or you know iPhone messages the next morning first.
Speaker 3:Wait, you can schedule a text now.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's how do you do this, what's the show? How do we do?
Speaker 3:this Tell me right now. How do you do this? Hold on Pause the show. How do we do?
Speaker 4:this. Tell me right now. Okay, as long as you have an iPhone. Yep iPhone Check. You want a green bubble guy, so open your text to somebody.
Speaker 3:We don't have green bubble guys on here, go ahead.
Speaker 4:Thank God, hit that little plus sign on the left and then somewhere in that scroll is going to be a blue clock where you say send later.
Speaker 3:Hold on, hold on, stay tuned.
Speaker 4:So send me a message, but like send it in 1145, whatever it is, and it will wait to send it and he won't even know that you sent it now, because it'll just be a normal text. The other thing on the networking side is you could tell your iPhone or Siri to remind you when you're in a location. So why is that important? Well, I syndicate, I network, I have investors all over the place. They're not all in New York and New Jersey. So if I'm in Florida and I got a guy in Florida that I, you know, I chat with all the time but I barely see him, I will have. I have a reminder in my phone right now for Siri to remind me next time I'm in Florida to text. You know one of my guys, siri to remind me next time I'm in Florida to text. You know one of my guys.
Speaker 4:So, improving my habits that's the efficiency side. Big believer in working out as much as you could, I, when I started this, I did work out every single day, as you know, like the days get crazy and you know I can't do it every day, but there's, you know there's a lot of benefits. You know, mentally, your mind is just sharper after a workout. Physically, obviously, you want to be in the best health that you could be, but I feel like I'm trying to take my health consciousness to another level Still a work in progress, right, like I have to kick the habit of working until 1 am most nights. But I guess, to directly answer your question, like I'm trying to do so many little things to improve and there's always something and it's not just always directly related to the business, it can be related to like your, your health, your mind and whatnot, and I think it it ultimately goes a long way. The little things do matter.
Speaker 3:I love that and just, I'm sorry I keep getting distracted here, but I did just test our send later and blew my mind. Everything's going to change. Thank you for that. All right, what is a piece of advice that you'd give to yourself when you were starting again? You?
Speaker 4:kind of ended on this but.
Speaker 4:Start earlier. I you know one thing that's on my mind almost every day when I like, look at you guys, you're technically partners in this business. Most folks that I come across, whether it's on the consulting side or PWM, a lot of our clients that have made a lot of money in whatever business they do, it's rarely a sole proprietorship. It's always like a partner or two guys or three guys, whatever. So I do wish I more carefully thought out, like a partnership of some sort with folks and I am talking to a few of my either clients or friends or guys that are in my network about like, hey, how can we do more work together, going forward? And that's probably a really good start to like a future partnership, like in a formal way. But yeah, that's probably the honest answer of what's on my mind every day, like if I started this again, how would I do it?
Speaker 2:And I think there's a lot of power in partnerships for a lot of reasons do it, and I think there's a lot of power in partnerships for a lot of reasons love it.
Speaker 4:What is your favorite business book? Oh man, um, this is going to be really generic, but it's more like personal. Uh, rich dad, poor dad, and and I'll give you a legitimate reason, not because you know I want to be cliche, but when I was in high school. So I already told you my dad's a baker, right, he's not like some fancy attorney, that's like reading all the time. He's a normal guy, he's a great guy, but he's a baker. And when I was in high school I saw him reading that and it was the only book in my life that he talked to me about. He was like oh yeah, you should take a look at this book.
Speaker 4:And I'm not a reader, I don't like leisurely read books. I will read the Real Deal, the Wall Street Journal, financials, you name it, but I'm not picking up books every day, unfortunately. And you know, fast forward to my college years, I was graduating earlier than I expected and I didn't have a job. So I was like, kind of, in this weird place, I was like what do I do? And, for whatever reason, I remembered oh yeah, I remember when dad was like reading that book, I read it in one day. It's not a long book right, it's like maybe 100 pages. But I seriously read that in one day, loved it and that's what you know got me kind of hooked on. First, real estate. Second, entrepreneurship Life changes. So it's my favorite book because it obviously motivated me to be where I am today and like for us to be on this podcast together. But there's nothing too crazy about the actual contents of the book. It's much more inspirational, mindset driven things like that.
Speaker 3:Awesome. I love it. What is your favorite part of?
Speaker 4:owning your business, or businesses, I would say going back to like corporate world. What?
Speaker 4:what I was missing was the one the autonomy, obviously, but two you don't get to choose who you work with. But two you don't get to choose who you work with. So now, when I look at what I have, I like all of my clients Most of them are friends at this point Like we go out for drinks or dinner and we're introducing each other to our families or networking with friends, whatever. I love the idea that I can do business with people I want to do business with and if you're a total dickhead, I don't have to move forward with you, Right, Sorry? Sorry to say that, but no, we're leaving it in not having to do that out.
Speaker 2:I love it. So final question for you what is something new that you've implemented to help drive your success or propel your business forward?
Speaker 4:A couple of things I did engage with like a SEO, like a professional SEO group, that they have not finished setting everything up. So the funny part is, if you ever done like SEO marketing, it's not like they just turn it on Right and then all of a sudden all these leads come. So I'm literally getting emails right now about stuff that's not related to my business because I guess they're configuring the SEO. But that is one thing I'm implementing directly at the moment. The other thing is I have probably five or six different iterations of presentations from from pwm, like basic marketing materials on our capabilities, to you know a track record on my real estate company. To you know, various consulting engagements that I could kind of summarize and whatnot. Part of that comes from like just being a PowerPoint junkie from my investment banking days. But the other thing is like if I'm networking with you and I want to leave you something where you could look at the next day, send later.
Speaker 4:I could send you like a three-page deck very quickly and it's not like anything too groundbreaking, but it's just a reminder and a copy of something that will basically be your notes about my business or what I do. So I'm a big believer in that. Not everyone does it. I know it's like kind of cheesy, but to give you like a quick two page PDF on the company or my latest deal is a case study. You never know like you might forward it to your friend and then they forward it to another friend who might happen to have a deal for me or maybe an investor or a client. So I'm constantly refining those and making more just because, like, I believe in it.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. Answers were so good. I mean it was such a cool. It's such a good time hearing like your story, going from kind of the corporate world going into your own stuff, eventually building out your businesses, and just kind of your approach on things. I think it's very unique and I think it's what's going to help keep driving you, so I absolutely love it. I have two final questions for you. One do you have any final advice? And two, where can people find you?
Speaker 4:Sure, final advice would be well, let me start. They can find me on either website pwm-advisorscom or makerpropertiescom M-A-C-R-E properties. I'll link those below. Yeah, my advice it really depends what you want, right, like when you think about again going back to like a pretty grim view on millennials and I know you've probably been in this situation before Like so many people talk about doing things.
Speaker 4:Right, like you'll be out for drinks with your friends, like, oh, let's start this business. Blah, blah, blah. If you don't mind, if you got a couple of minutes, I'll tell you a funny story, but this is literally how I operate. I was at a Christmas party and you know, me and my friends were talking about like this random idea for an app that we had and we all loved it. But we loved it, but I knew I was the only one that would act on it. So I said Look, guys, we're going to create the business right now, otherwise we're never going to talk about this again. I don't want to be a part of this conversation. So we did so. Like everybody had to create the business, we came up with like a very loose partnership agreement, like roles, whatever, and it was either that or do not ever bring this up because I only want to do stuff I'm going to act on.
Speaker 4:I hate when people say they're going to do something and they don't do it. And even socially right, like how many times have you been out? It's like, oh yeah, like let's go meet up for drinks or coffee and do this, and then you never do it. I can't stand that. It's my biggest pet peeve. So back to the original question. Like advice, it depends what you want to do, and if you actually want to do it first you have to figure that out. Um, if you're getting those feelings like I have anxiety, that I'm not doing X, y, z, then fine, take the step and give it everything you got. There's really no secret formula in my eyes for the success. It's kind of like an uphill battle, but you're also like pulling a sled behind you because there's always something trying to take you away from that progress. And if you are not absolutely determined to go up that hill, then you know you're probably going to turn around. So really not a maybe not a great answer, because it's more like just do it. But that's how I feel.
Speaker 3:Awesome.
Speaker 2:Holy cow, I love this. This has been amazing, brother. I appreciate the fact that you're willing to come down hang with us in Forge and Fire. I love your testimony. I love this. This has been amazing, brother. I appreciate the fact that you're willing to come down hang with us in Forge and Fire. I love your testimony. I love the fact that you were like you know what. I got my mind set on something, I'm going to do it, but then you got vulnerable and let us know. You're like. I did it, but it took like a year later because I got cold feet.
Speaker 2:It happens in life. We all go through it. We all have those moments where we're second guessing ourselves. In life, we all go through it. We all have those moments where we're second guessing ourselves. But what I'm going to make sure that we're leaving you with is exactly what Matt just said. Might sound cliche, but just do it right. Get out there, take those actions, make those connections. Shout out to Cole, who just learned that we can schedule text messages.
Speaker 2:Later on, I also learned something. I had no idea that you could be able to talk to Siri, or I guess maybe you'd be able to do it with Alexa. I want to whisper it because I don't want everybody's stuff to go off, but you can be able to say hey, if where I'm at sets off, like, let's just say we go to the Carolinas, give me X, y and Z and tell them I need to go ahead and reach out to them, I love that. I'm going to implement that. I'm taking something from this because of you, matt. So I want to say thank you so much, and I'm hoping everybody that's listening is doing the exact same. So, of course, of course. So, with that being said, if you're driving, get home safe. Thank you again, matt, for coming through hanging with us. We're looking forward to seeing everybody on the next episode of Forged in Fire. Take care everybody.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Forged in Fire. If you enjoyed today's raw, unfiltered stories, don't forget to like, subscribe and leave us a review. Your feedback helps us bring more real-world insights to entrepreneurs like you. Be sure to join us next time for even more lessons, struggles and breakthroughs on the road to success. Keep forging ahead.