Value Add Acquisitions with Aaron Zucker

Josh Wilson
 This is our newest show. Super excited about that. This show is about commercial real estate, so we're going out and having conversations with commercial real estate principals and people who are industry experts to ask their advice to see what they're working on and how you too, can follow in the footsteps and maybe do a deal with them. So, Aaron, welcome to our newest show. We're glad to have you, man. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. 

 Josh Wilson
 All right, so before we even talk about commercial real estate, you're a fellow podcaster. Why don't you give a shout out to your podcast so people listening and could also go subscribe and listen on you? 

 Aaron Zucker
 Sure. Yeah. We have a podcast called Limitless how to Crush It in Commercial Real Estate. It's inspired very similar speaking of podcast to the one by Guy Rross on NPR called How I Built this. Rather than taking a company and figuring out how it's built, we're basically reverse engineering and how a commercial real estate professional, typically one that comes from a retail background, built their career and their story. We've had some incredible guests who have pulled off some pretty amazing things and they make the show great. The feedback that we've gotten has been very humbling in a great way. I think that has everything to do with the fact that I talk very little and the guests talk a lot. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. Just curious. I'm a fellow podcaster, right. Do you transcribe yours and do you look at the stats of how much you're talking versus your guests? 

 Aaron Zucker
 I don't. If it's more than 1% that I'm talking too much because I can't get it over, I can't relate to you. The quality of guests that we have and what these people hold off, I don't only because I'm afraid of the data. 

 Josh Wilson
 I'm sure got it now before we even dive into commercial real estate. Why did you start that show? Why was that important to you? What was some of maybe the hurdles of starting a show? Because I have a lot of people going, I want to start a podcast. I'm like, okay, cool. How did you do it? 

 Aaron Zucker
 Why? Or how did we do it? 

 Josh Wilson
 Yes, then. Yes. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Okay. How we did it is I don't have a ton of strengths, but the strength that I have, I double down on. One of my strengths is knowing what I'm very limited on and anything that has to do with manual labor being savvy with technology, anything that involves that side of the brain, I'm horrendous at. I knew that if it was ever going to happen, it was going to happen through a third party. We engaged a group that actually approached me about it. It's actually in the same office building as us currently, and they do all the work. Right. I show up, conduct the interview, and they take it from there. They put it on all the different platforms. As far as the why, there's really three folds to that, the first of which is I really enjoy giving back to the next generation and providing platforms for them to learn on that are atypical. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Right. Not everybody likes to read books and not everybody likes to study case studies. Like me, I didn't have an education in commercial real estate in college, so this might be an alternative way to learn while you're out on a walk with your dog on Saturday morning or while you're on a flight on the way to a conference. That was very appealing to me when we started it. In conjunction with that, it also kind of gives our company group, whereas our friends call it Zig credibility. Right. Because we really haven't done that much. We're not really that special in the sense that we're doing something that is cutting edge that nobody else out there is doing. I mean, we're buying value add retail real estate and doing our best to execute on it. I'd like to think we do it better than most, but it's not this innovative idea and we're not a massive REIT that everybody in the industry has heard of. 

 Aaron Zucker
 This was a way to kind of expedite that process, if you will. Because of the quality of guests, we've been able to launch our credibility to the marketplace faster. What that also does, and going back to giving back to the next generation, that credibility stems from, wow, I'm going to look these guys up and see what they do. Well, they've done a few things, maybe I want to go work there. We're always looking for great talent and we actually have a couple of open solutions right now that who knows where that will lead from. Even when somebody is interviewing with Jake and they've never heard of the podcast, maybe when they're doing their research, they come across as an additional touch point to help sell them on the opportunity. Thirdly, there's selfish motivation there, right. It's a lot easier to get in front of an industry leadersre on the retailer side or an investment sales broker or landlord or whatever it may be. 

 Aaron Zucker
 It's a lot easier to say, hey, it's a lot easier to say I'd love for you to be on my podcast, as opposed to, hi, I'd like something from you, please. Those three things in conjunction have made it work. It's fun to do. I really enjoy getting to hear the stories of successful people because it bodes as an opportunity to provide inspiration for me and what we're doing here. Our team listens to it and it's provided value that's immeasurable and the results are showing a lot of people. It's starting to pick up steam in our little retail real estate world. 

 Josh Wilson
 Awesome, man. Well, really good job for doing that. Now, this is kind of a personal question. As you're starting up the interview process, do you find it easier to interview someone or be interviewed? 

 Aaron Zucker
 Luckily I'm an ego maniac and have no issues doing either. Listen, they ask me to do calculus. That's not my thing. You asked me to do anything, building something with my hands. It's too complicated for me to figure out if it's about boozing and schmoozing, I'm good. If I'm doing the interviewing, I enjoy it because it gives me an opportunity to learn about other people and better myself and what we're up to here. If I'm the one being interviewed, it's not difficult for me because people just ask me about what I've done or what we're trying to do, and because I've lived that, it's like the purpose of my existence. It's not challenging to talk about the. 

 Josh Wilson
 Purpose of my existence. We're getting deep here, and I like that. When you talk about double down on your strengths, you say booze and smooth, right? Like this idea of making someone feel comfortable building a relationship, bringing them into the fold, that's boosting and smoothing. Right. And it sounds like you've mastered that. Would you say that's one of your strengths? 

 Aaron Zucker
 I don't know if I've mastered anything, but I have been credited. I've actually mastered three friends in the marriages, and I have definitely been credited for a lot of good people getting to know each other by simply just grabbing someone on the shoulder and being like, you two need to meet. Let's make this happen. From a social avenue all the way to being at a conference and being like, hey, you should sell this for him, or, I heard you were looking for a leasing broker in this market. I take a lot of pride in that. Again, it circles back to me being really an oxygen form of oxygen for me. I can't help but think that good things will happen if Josh Wilson does a deal with Jim Smith. I introduced Josh and Jim to each other and they do four deals. Somebody is going to go up to them while they're having a good time and say, how did you guys meet? 

 Aaron Zucker
 I'm hopeful that some people will remember that I was a part of brokering, if you will, a relationship. I'm not a broker in what we do transactions, but I love brokering relationships. Definitely a passion of mine. 

 Josh Wilson
 Super cool, man. Awesome. You're a strategic networker, a strategic alliance guy at heart, right? Like this idea of relationships and putting deals together with people. As you build the show, one of the questions was, what was your greatest challenge? You said, one, you weren't going to get involved in manual labor or the tech side of it, so you found someone in the office who actually presented it to you. What was another challenge that you had overcome to get into this world of podcasting? 

 Aaron Zucker
 Sure. At SIG, we operate on four pillars the four C's, culture, coachability, consistency, and communication. One of the things that I have had serious qualms with the podcast was the this C, which is consistency. I knew going into it that I didn't want to be a slave to it. I only wanted to do it because it was something I enjoyed doing and I didn't ever want it to get in the way of doing what we actually do, which is buy and execute on creating value in retail real estate. Doing that, I kind of combat it, or we combat it, I should say, with taking the HBO approach or Netflix approach, really more of a Netflix approach, which is we put out all six episodes within a half season at once. We do it in six weeks, back to back, and then I go away for a few months. 

 Aaron Zucker
 I'm not proud of that. I think we could probably this may sound egotistical to say, but I think we could probably go in a route that you have gone with your making it more of a business opportunity, if you will. I think there's probably enough potential because of the quality of our gas and the momentum that we've been able to gain to have a monetization path. In fact, we've been approached by different sponsors. It's not something that we've executed on yet because it's not the core of our business and what we do. I didn't want to be like, this show is going to come out every week and then Ups have two properties under contract that we're about to buy and be interviewing somebody else and have to fly to a conference and be like, sorry, guys, I can't do that because I need to do a podcast interview. 

 Aaron Zucker
 That was definitely a challenge that we tried to combat on the front end. Otherwise, it's really been a joy July. It's a fun, passion project, and it's something that I do think has bigger potential than what we've seen from it. It was never done to be monetised. It's done because it's something that we enjoy doing and we feel like it can create value indirectly for what we do as far as recruiting people, cultivating relationships, and maybe even seeing some more deals as a result. 

 Josh Wilson
 And it's called Limitless. What was the second part of it? 

 Aaron Zucker
 Sure. Limitless. How to crush it in commercial real estate. 

 Josh Wilson
 Did you see the movie Limitless with Matthew McConaughey? 

 Aaron Zucker
 I did. Here's a secret, Justin, I've never shared. 

 Josh Wilson
 Did you like that movie? 

 Aaron Zucker
 Good. 

 Josh Wilson
 What's going on? 

 Aaron Zucker
 Certainly not one in public. I don't really like the name. 

 Josh Wilson
 Really? 

 Aaron Zucker
 The podcast? It's not very good. I couldn't think of anything better. That's a confession. 

 Josh Wilson
 I feel like a priest here. I'm taking your confession. Thank you for telling me. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Yes, considering I'm Jewish, that's probably why the first time we've had this confession thing happened. 

 Josh Wilson
 Got it. Well, you did really great. All right, so I don't even like the name of it, but it's so cool. How many episodes have you guys well. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Let me think here. I think we're 24 episodes in. 23 episodes in something like that. 

 Josh Wilson
 Awesome. Do the majority of people will never get past if they do launch a podcast? Never. Get past like, episode three, like, statistically, like, it's like three or four. I just made these numbers out of my b***, but I've seen enough where it's like, new show starts and then died. The consistency of your core pillars, you guys have shown that, man. Even if you're throwing them in spurts, you're still doing it. Nice work, man. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Well, I think that was the only chance that we had to be there consistently. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. All right, so now let's talk commercial real estate. All right, you said you didn't go to school for commercial real estate. Specifically, what did you go to school for? Alabama, it looks like. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Yeah, well, I was at a dinner last weekend, networking dinner for this group I just got into called YPO, and it was like, I meet the prospects dinner. I had to get up and talk about my background, where I went to school. I mean, literally, the person before me was a Harvard MBA. S***, this isn't good. I just said I went to the Harvard of the south, which is the university of Alabama, and that's really where I got exposure to commercial real estate. Notice I said exposure, not an education. I didn't know what commercial real estate was. I took the worst possible business plan possible with me out of high school, which is a whole different side ran. I went to an out of state school to go pursue, like, a general degree. You think about a terrible value if you're going to get an accounting degree or medical degree or whatever it may be. 

 Aaron Zucker
 You maybe can justify it more, but even then, you could have gotten it from an instant school. Meanwhile, I say all that going Alabama was the best decision I've made. It was an incredible experience, and it led to me getting involved in extracurriculars on campus. My junior year, some friends and I had the novel idea of thinking it was ridiculous to pay $3 for a bud Light. Why do that when they're probably buying it for a dollar even cheaper? We said, let's go buy a bar. We're drunk and having fun just like every other set of college students. That conversation has happened many of times. The only difference between our conversation and everybody else is we actually did it. Went out the next day and we just started canvassing door knocking on bars. One of them, the second one we talked to, the guy was mopping his floor. 

 Aaron Zucker
 He was old at the time, my age. Now he's in his thirtys, and he was a seller. He was like, yeah, I've been thinking about selling it, not knocking the cover off the ball anymore, and I'll sell it to you guys. So he did seller financing. We agreed to his price, and he took on the lion's share of the capital stack, knowing that if these s******* college kids couldn't pay him back. It wasn't a big deal. He could just take this barb. Were never going to get a bank loan. He was probably smart enough to know that we didn't even think about it. The four of us, solicited our friends and family, beg, borrowed, stole whatever it took to come up with the balance of the equity. My portion actually ended up saving my parents money, particularly my dad's money, because the Delta. I needed to come up with $12,500 because we needed to come up with 50,000 total equity injection. 

 Aaron Zucker
 My dad was going to save $14,000 in my tuition because I was going to file as an instant student because I'm paying taxes in the state of Alabama. I said that, you're going to write me a check for twelve as a loan. I'm going to pay you back. Or you can say no, pay the incremental 14. You never really told me I had to pay you back for my tuition. So what do you think? I think this is a fantastic idea. He was really supportive, and I'm forever indebted to my dad. Well, I paid it back to twelve five, but I'm forever indebted to my dad for being so supportive. I don't know. A lot of people can call their parents while they're in college and their junior year and be like, hey, I want to buy a bar. He had the foreside to be like, despite not being an entrepreneur and the slightest being able to say, no, this is really where you're going to get your education. 

 Aaron Zucker
 I think it's a fantastic idea. He went from it too, so it really worked out well. How did I get into our real estate, you're wondering? It's my turn to walk the rent check over to the bar owner, to the landlord, excuse me, who own about 400 properties in town. I didn't know this. I walk over to his office one day. I'm like, hey, here's the check. And nobody's there. He's on the golf course. His office hours are like, Monday through Thursday, nine through twelve closes on Fridays. I go back to the bar at the check, and I'm like, Guys, what's going on here? My business partners and all of our employees are like, oh, that guy, he's never there. He's on the golf course. He's using your money to play for his green fees. I was like, well, how does that work? They're like, well, he owns 400 properties like this. 

 Aaron Zucker
 He has no debt, and he just collects rent. And I said, wait a second. Busting my a** getting in underage girls into the bar, running the risk of liability, cleaning ups beer bottles at 230 in the morning just so I can slip around town and pay this guy rent on the golf course? I think I'd rather become the guys collecting the rent. Fast forward, I ended up meeting an unrelated internship at a sports agency that summer in Atlanta because I'm not that smart. You would think I would be like, commercial real estate. I ended up working in a sports agency because everybody tells you to go follow your dreams and do what you want to do. That can work, but it's tough business to break into. And I got an internship in Atlanta. I bumped into a family friend who was from Charlotte, which is where I'm from originally, said, hey, my son lives down there. 

 Aaron Zucker
 You should hook up with him and see what's going on. He's got an extra bedroom. Maybe you guys connect and you can rent his bedroom for the summer. We meet up this guy named Stuart Miller, who I'm forever indebted to as well for helping me break into commercial real estate eventually is five years older than me. He's 27. He's living in this beautiful high rise condo in Buckhead, which is at the time the best neighborhood in Atlanta for young professionals. What do you think? I'm like, I'd love to live here for the summer. It gives me a sweet, hard deal, and I just first leave it to me. First time. I'm like, what do you do? Basically asking him in an indirect way. 

 Josh Wilson
 How much money do you make? 

 Aaron Zucker
 How the h*** the h*** are you making this kind of money? Right? He's like and he low key flex on me because this windows are floor to ceiling, and we're seven floors up looking over bucket. You guys, you see those shopping centers out there? I'm like, yeah, sure, what about? He goes, My job is a company. Pays me a salary plus commissions to fill in vacancies and shopping centers like those ones. And I think it's great. I love it. That's how I have this place, and I think you'd be good at it. You should try it one day. I was like, that's when the light bulb officially went off. I need to be slapped in the face twice before I realized something. In between my landlord at the bar and Stewart, I was like, okay, done deal. That's it. After college, I moved to Atlanta because I had so much fun living with him, and he was kind enough to introduce me to people, and I just hustled around town until I got an opportunity to become a leasing agent. 

 Aaron Zucker
 I started my career as a leasing agent with a large company that had an office in Atlanta, and the rest is history. 

 Josh Wilson
 Super cool story. Now, I love this story because going back to when I asked, how did you get into commercial real estate? It should start with I didn't want to pay $3 for Bud Light or for a Bud. Right? Budweiser got you into commercial real estate. Essentially, yeah. 

 Aaron Zucker
 They should donate some shares, manheiser. Bush shares to me as a good fortune for saying nice things about them. 

 Josh Wilson
 Exactly. Yeah. 

 Aaron Zucker
 It all started in a bar. I mean, there's really all kinds of directions you can go. The cliche ones are wide open for the taking there. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. All right. There's some key people in key times that help break you into this, because you said this when you were talking. You said air quotes, follow your dreams, follow your passions. Right. It seems, though, is that there might be some type of resistance with that belief for you about following dreams, following passions. What are your thoughts? 

 Aaron Zucker
 I think you should follow your dreams and passions as long as they make you money or they're in your spare time. 

 Josh Wilson
 I like that. I like that a lot. All right, so we go to dad. Let's you and I go to dad, and we're like, all right, dad, me and this guy Josh want to buy a bar. What advice did he have for you at that point when you're like, I want to buy a bar, dad. 

 Aaron Zucker
 In order to understand that conversation and my family, you have to understand of background. So my dad's parents were Holocaust survivors. They immigrated here. They were able to survive the war, actually, Auschwitz, of all places. 

 Josh Wilson
 No kidding. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Immigrated eventually from Eastern Europe and Germany to Canada, North America. And they started having kids. And my grandfather from nothing. He was only kept alive by the N*** regime because he has a skill set of sewing. He sewed the N*** uniforms for the soldiers. That's why they didn't kill him. It's funny. Told the story a thousand times, and it gets me every time. Still. He went around Montreal, which is where they ended up, and just went to every factory and said, Hire me for three weeks. I'll work for free, and if you like me, you'll keep me, and if you don't, you can't afford me. Whatever it may be, that's okay. Maybe you'll write me a nice letter. After a couple of rounds, he ended ups working for a family that owned a factory, and he worked his way up and was the number two person in the company next to the family. 

 Aaron Zucker
 He kept on saying, I'm going to leave. I'm going to go out of my own. I'm going to leave. I'm going to go out of my own. Eventually he did and started his own factory making men's pants. My dad's older brothers came in, and one said, hey, dad, let's make pantyhose and dress socks. Out starts his own company. The next one comes to dad. We got to get into the women's business, women's pants business. We make men's pants. Out goes and starts his own business. My dad obviously totally different. He said, this place is too hot. I'm going to medical school. There's two more that came behind. Going into business for yourself and my family, speaking to the extended family, it's. Sort of what you do. You don't have an ability to rely on others. Even if you don't feel comfortable in it. I never felt fully comfortable in the idea of being dependent on other people for really anything that runs deep in my blood. 

 Aaron Zucker
 I think it definitely is an issue for me sometimes in that I see things with a jaded approach. The guys on our team will bring in deals and they'll say, well, yeah, let's model it this way, and I'll beat up that model to the point where the deal blows up because it's so ridiculously conservative. They're just like, that's a pretty bad case scenario. You assume Xyzab and C are all going to go wrong, and I'm thinking to myself, well, like, yeah, I could. We're one bad deal away from going out of business and having that conversation. It's definitely different in my family than it is for most other people, and that stems from our complicated and very unfortunate backgrounds. For him, that's why he was probably so supportive of it, because he was the outlier in the family for not going out on his own, if you can believe it. 

 Aaron Zucker
 He's one of five kids. The other four have their own businesses, and even now my dad's an independent contractor. If you really could look at this five for five. It's funny, I talk to my friends in the business. I can't believe you went out around when you go to family gathering on my dad's side, it's like, okay, what we do, it's what we do, it's. 

 Josh Wilson
 Who we are, right? It's we're creators, we're producers. We make stuff happen. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Did I even answer your question? 

 Josh Wilson
 I don't even know if you answered my question, but that was the best answer you could have ever given, even if it wasn't. Okay. I love your story, man. Your story is fantastic. Is Grandpa still with us? 

 Aaron Zucker
 He's not. He passed away in 2008, which is, I don't know, 70 years longer than he was supposed to, or 60 years longer than he was supposed to. So, yeah, my grandmother passed ten years before that. The fact that I even got to meet them is incredible because they lost all their families all day. 

 Josh Wilson
 Phenomenal, the story of that. It gives you a great appreciation for grit, right? Landing in a place you didn't know anybody, you got tattoos on your arm that show your identity, knocking on door saying, I'm going to work for free for three weeks, keep me, and then rising to the top. Super cool, man. You have a phenomenal heritage. 

 Aaron Zucker
 I do. It's something that I don't shy away from. I'm incredibly proud of it, and I feel very fortunate that's why going out of my own was such an inevitable thing. That's why being so passionate about everything I do is such a big deal for me, because I'm playing with house money statistically speaking, I shouldn't have been here to begin with, and I don't look past that. I think about the fact that I was born in this country and that I graduated college with no student debt. 

 Josh Wilson
 That's huge right there. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Who would I be to ever complain about anything? Certainly professionally. I mean, I was dealt with incredible hand, and I'm not about to take you for granted. 

 Josh Wilson
 All right, this is awesome. The question was, what advice did your dad say? It's probably like, Go do it, son. You got to do this. Right? 

 Aaron Zucker
 Yeah. His advice was when were asking, when I was saying, hey, what do you think? It wasn't really, like, much of a conversation. He's like, no, I think it's a great idea. I think you should do it, and you're going to get a way better location doing that than you are in school. Listen, as a doctor, that's a tough thing. In general, most doctors probably wouldn't respond that way. I mean, doctors become doctors, and most importantly, in general, to help people. That's the reason why he did it, which is great, but they don't think like entrepreneurs. If they did, there's a rare breed, right? You see dentists that have 50 location, or maybe you see a radiologist who has a private practice. That happens. In general, that's not the way that they're trained to think, especially coming from a country like Canada. I give him a lot of credit for having the emotional intelligence to understand that his son is wired differently than most people. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Not being the backlashing parent, that was like, you need to focus on school. You need to focus on school. My dad was like, this is school. This is the real version of it. 

 Josh Wilson
 Oh, my gosh. 

 Aaron Zucker
 And our relationship is fantastic today. Always has been fantastic. I'm super close to them and can't think of him out for being so cool about it because he didn't think about the what if he does a bunch of drugs and what if he doesn't study and this and that was like, my son figured out he's a resource, tool guy, and he's done well so far in college, and this is what may be his calling it. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. Super cool, man. So some shoutouts to Grandpa, to dad. To Stuart Miller. Right. For Flexing. Sean just had to get in the game. For the bar owner, the guy who wasn't in the office, to collect, these are some of the people that got you in the commercial real estate game. As a tribute to them, what are some of the things you've accomplished in commercial real estate since then? 

 Aaron Zucker
 Wow. Chronologically speaking, I got a job with a company called DLC Management, and they're based out of New York, and I was working in the Atlanta office when I was living with Stewart. I'm forever grateful to the people there that took a chance on me and hiring me. They provided an excellent education for me. Shortly thereafter, I had an opportunity to move back to Charlotte, which was a goal of mine, to be back home and close to family. Phillips Edison Company, who recently went public, actually gave me a shot to work on my own portfolio of shopping centers. They gave me an opportunity to work on properties that nobody else really wanted to lease or work on, because, as I like to describe them, I was leasing the grocery anchored shopping center on the wrong side of town with no grocery store, and I didn't know any different. 

 Aaron Zucker
 I had never worked on sexy properties. I'd never worked on an a power center or mall or anything like it. So I thought it was great. I said, I can go out and get a nails on to pay $10 a foot, and I can make a $5,000 commission doing this. Like h*** yeah. Ian Hill drive to BFE to go get the deal done and canvas. I did all those things, and it gave me a real life education on going out and really producing and really generating interest. I used to feel bad. This is how screwed up in the head I am. I used to feel bad if I got a deal done because it was off a sign call. If a prospective tenant picked up on the phone and called off the sign, we ended up getting a lease signed. I felt that I was like, my commission shouldn't be as much. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Don't get me wrong, I didn't get the money. 

 Josh Wilson
 I still took it. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Yeah, it was never life changing money at the time. It felt like life changing money. Incredibly grateful for the people at Phillips Edison. I had some great mentors and bosses. There Joel Strauss, who hired me originally, and then his boss, the guy by the name of Ron Myers, who actually has invested in some of our deals at Zig and has a testimonial on our website. That was pretty cool and pretty humbling to see. I had a nice run there, and it set me up to my last job, if you will quote unquote, to where I ultimately landed a gig that I was definitely not qualified for on paper, and I'll give plenty of shout out to the Wiener family here in a second. I ended up getting an opportunity to head up the leasing platform at a family office in Boca Rivertone, Florida called PEB Enterprises. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Great family that I worked with. That was my big break in my career. I was 26 or 27 at the time, and they let me have the reins on a couple of million square feet across twelve states doing redevelopments, and gave me a chance to make more money than I'd ever made, and more importantly, allowed me to be in the room. I was one of the five people that was running the business, and we helped take it from, I think, seven or eight people up to 21 or 22 people by the time I left, and I have very little to do with that, but I was in the room, and they forced me the opportunity to get my MBA in commercial real estate like before. I was such a specified leasing robot, if you will, because I work for large companies and you're a leasing agent. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Go produce NY. That's it here. I was involved in the room when they were deciding to refinance or to sell or to hire this property manager or to which general contractor to select, and it's invaluable the education I got with that was invaluable. I was fortunate to be a part of a team chat. Excuse me. I was very fortunate to be a part of a team that had a very successful run over a couple of years, and so I played a small part in getting the portfolio up to high occupancy rate. We really done well in some deals, and I personally about being able to invest with them or partner with them on deals, and they respectfully, and I totally hold no remorse to them for saying, this is hey, look, it's a family business. It's been this way for 40 semi years. We don't really need you for that. 

 Aaron Zucker
 And I said, I get it. I started thinking in my mind, it's time to start a state planning here. Got my affairs in order, put my house on the market, sold it, and moved into my parents basement with a six month old daughter at the end of the day of 2018 and started to dig. 

 Josh Wilson
 Wow, that is so cool. All right, so working with that family office, there's a lot to learn about investments and investment strategies. Working with a family office, especially when they kind of it's an organization. They gave you the rains to how many million square feet? 

 Aaron Zucker
 Like two and a half. 

 Josh Wilson
 That's huge. All right. You worked your b*** off to get there. That's a heavy load for a producing agent. Nice work putting that together. 

 Aaron Zucker
 It was cool because it was a player coach role. We had a couple of leasing agents on the team. I was doing some deals. We had some third party brokers, got me exposure to tenants in relationships that I noticed respect to Philip Edison would have otherwise never had. It catapulted my network tremendously because of all the different markets that were in and all the different things that I had exposure to, I was working on. Listen, if given the opportunity to network, that's one thing I've always been able to take advantage of. And I did. I'll give myself credit for that one. I did. 

 Josh Wilson
 Nice work. All right, so you started your own. You're like, all right, I've got to get this thing going. Six month old daughter moved back in with mom and dad. Let's build this. You built Zuckerig Investment Group, aka Zig from scratch, right? What was baby step number one in building a real estate commercial real estate investment group? 

 Aaron Zucker
 Sure. My deal. 

 Josh Wilson
 Go get a deal. 

 Aaron Zucker
 All right. 

 Josh Wilson
 It all starts with a deal. Everyone says. 

 Aaron Zucker
 I had an iPad, and in the notes section of the iPad, I had a whole call in business plan. It was really notice with bullet points that I followed as a guideline. I remember especially over the course of 2018 when I knew I was going out of my own, I was starting to get my things in order to do so, but in general, finding a good deal, buy it, and an investment sales broker of mine who knew that I had the itch to start doing my deals and my portfolio. He put a deal in front of me that was really interesting. It was one that I was very confident that weren't going to lose money on. I know that's not a great business plan for a company that value add, but I figured if I strike out on my first one, then the dream is never going to stay alive. 

 Aaron Zucker
 We bought a covered land place, meaning that the value of the property was greater if the tenant wasn't there or isn't there in this case because they're still there, then it was with them being there because they're paying such a low rent in location to what market is, and it's a great piece of real estate. I put together this deal that I was able to see through brian Wolfman, Patrick Luther, Matt Misogyny over at SRS, off market on the border in Irving, Texas, just outside of Dallas. $1.8 million deal, give or take. All cash because it wasn't density, because there was only a year left on the lease at the time we bought it. I had $50,000 of my own money hard before I had all the equity figured out. I remember some sleepless nights, everything from emailing investors, operating agreements to reviewing due diligence. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Had I known what I know now, and I probably wouldn't have taken that risk. Same thing with the bar, right? Sometimes nine can be a good thing and you just do it and figure out later. We did that, got it across the finish line. We still have the property today, we're still cash flowing it, and we've been able to buy a few more sense. 

 Josh Wilson
 That's cool, man. I see on your LinkedIn, which is probably a good place for people to connect with you, it's Aaron Zucker, CEO at Zig. He's got a great amount of followers and he puts out some cool content. I see urgent care, family care picture in the background, right? Is that for your investments? Do those make good investments or what's? The business behind urgent cares. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Sure. In 2018, when I was plotting my exit from Ted to go out of my own, I had always been talking to my best friend and roommate from college, and we've always been talking about over the team chat, we could make a really good team and Franchising something together, some brick and mortar concept. The reason being is he's an operations guy. He had entered his family's business, and I obviously had the finance and retail real estate background to pair up with that. We always figured one plus one can equal three. The only thing that were missing between us schmucks was that weren't smart enough to come up with the ideas. We figured Franchising was a good way to go. I really wanted to hedge my bet against Zig because I knew that if things were going right, I would run out of money. And you don't make money every day. 

 Aaron Zucker
 What we do, I make money maybe three or four days a year. The other days I just kind of hang out and hope to make money. I was looking for something that could potentially provide some additional some dependable, I should say cash flow. Most people would go get a side hustle or maybe a regular job that had some flexibility. Well, my dumbass went out and started another business. We looked around and we looked for days and weeks and weeks and months finding the right franchise opportunity. We even booked a flight and went to a conference at the Java Center in New York, the IFA Show, the International Franchise Association Show, and just like, walked around like, I don't know, is there any franchises that we should buy here? At that point in time, we ran into American Family Care, and one thing led to another and we signed our franchise agreement right before I moved back to Charlotte and at the end of 2018. 

 Aaron Zucker
 And so I started two businesses simultaneously. Aaron Fields is my partner's name. He's unbelievable. Good at what he does, and he runs our operations day to day for that business. Obviously Zig handles the real estate associated with AFC. It's been a really good thing for us. It also helped that we opened our first clinic in the height of the pandemic. Well, challenging to get open, but once we did, were able to help and serve a lot of people. We've taken that same thesis and are planning to open six more locations through an area development agreement. So pretty excited about that. That's the deal with the urgent care thing that you see on the LinkedIn profile. 

 Josh Wilson
 Awesome work, man. As you're doing this, what's the future look like for you? Now you've got your daughter's, probably four years old now. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Yeah. I have an 18 month old son who's great too, and those are obviously a big purpose as to my wife, but I really look at it like, I have four kids because you've got my Soviet Ari, and then you've got AFC and Zinc. Different times cause different stresses and cause different focuses and attention, and they're all extremely important to me, and they're all equally frustrating and more importantly, fulfilling at the same time in their own ways. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. All right, so now let's just say you're becoming the guy who wasn't there when people are trying to deliver the check. You're getting to the point where it's like you're developing some cool stuff and you're becoming the mentor, right? Essentially, that's what I'm trying to say. You're becoming the person who is now building a team and hiring and developing. You said what's important to you is you're developing the next generation of deal makers in commercial real estate. As you're doing that, what are some key principles? If I came to you the show is called CRE Principles, right. If I came to you and I said, hey, I've never been in the industry, I just got out of college, I'm willing to hustle, willing to work. I want you to teach me everything . What are three things you're going to point me to right off the bat and see if I have my chops? 

 Aaron Zucker
 I'm going to point you to our four C's. Culture, coach, ability, consistency, and communication. It's what we live by, and there's very little to do with real estate. It can be applied in anything that we do. It's something that if somebody actually comes to Zig and follows the four C's, and they're willing and able to follow the four C's, and they really mean it, whether it's in acquisitions or operations or whatever it is that we're looking for and what we need them to do at that particular point in time, there's no doubt in my mind that they will be successful. If I can count the four seasons, one, I will do it unless it's gone over and above. Let me know if I hit my quote up. 

 Josh Wilson
 Hey, now you're an overachiever, so let's just say that counts as one. You get two other things to talk to. Josh, you're mentoring me, and you're walking me through. You're like, okay, now you got those four Josh. Here's two more things you must do. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Sure. Don't let society or other people define what your goals or limitations should be. If somebody who's brand new out of college comes and works here, we have expectations that they'll do, like, five deals in their first year. Maybe they'll take down about seven and a half million acquisitions in their first year. Don't let me or our team define what those goals are for you if you believe that you were capable of more. The same thing goes with work ethic. One of my biggest regrets is I was told by a lot of people that I worked really hard in my twenty s and I started to believe it. In reality, I did not take full advantage of the opportunities that I had pre being owning two companies at once, pre being a two time dad. I would do anything to have made up for the downtime, to throw more gas on the fire of my career, to have made more money faster and get to where I am now at a sooner place. 

 Aaron Zucker
 Therefore, by the time I sit here today at 33 to be doing even more than what I'm doing now, okay. It's a compound effect. We talk about it all the time here. We have high expectations for our team and production on the acquisition side. For every week that they missed their call goals, that's another week of exponentially being behind it. Set yourself up for mediocrity, and if that's not what you want and it really hurts you, so that's where I would go. Number two is don't let society or other external factors define what you're capable of. 

 Josh Wilson
 And then one more. Give me one more. 

 Aaron Zucker
 No, you're why? This is the biggest one. You got to know why you're wanting to do it. I mean, somebody who comes here, I'm expecting them to hear no through cold calls somewhere between 20 and 25,000 times a year. If you don't know why you're doing it and you aren't able to pick yourself back up and see bigger than that, I can be very happy. I'm a big believer that everybody should do what they want to do. For me, it's very easy to put into perspective. I'll come home from a hard day at work and I'll talk on the phone with my dad or whatever, or I'll miss a connecting flight or I'll lose a deal and I'll be upset about it if you just take a second to reset and know your wife. This is very therapeutic for me to say out loud, by the way. 

 Aaron Zucker
 My why is that I shouldn't be here in the first place, and I'm only here because of the resilience and grit that my Holocaust surviving grandparents went through. Am I really in an okay position to b**** about missing a connecting flight? It really okay that I'm going to let the waiter bringing out the wrong drink at a restaurant ruin my evening out? Are we really going to do that? We probably shouldn't have been here in the first place anyway. The only reason why I am is because of incredible people like my grandparents and my parents doing what they did really puts things into perspective. Gosh darn it, that seller hung up on me today and that's just going to ruin my day. We're talking about that in comparison to surviving the Holocaust. Like, shut up, get back to work, have fun, smile. You live in the greatest country in the world. 

 Aaron Zucker
 The fact that you and I are having a conversation over technology and that we have roofs over our head and capability of doing whatever we need to do and whatever we want to do. Shut up. 

 Josh Wilson
 It's going to be all right. So good. All right. Now we get to do something. I'm going to give you a gift. All right? Sophie and Ari, your two kids, I think I got their names right. 

 Aaron Zucker
 You did. 

 Josh Wilson
 Twelve years in the future or 14 years in the future, whatever they find this episode, they dust it off like an old age track and they get to listen and you get to give them a piece of advice or encouragement. What do you say to the future kids? 

 Aaron Zucker
 I'm not sure I would change. I really don't think I would coach my kids any differently than I would coach anybody who comes to Zig. It's cliche and ridiculous as to sound. I really care about this place and what we're doing almost as much if not as much as I do about this well being. I think that comes from knowing that the results of this place becoming its best will certainly take care of them. I want them to do whatever they want to do and I want them to do it with complete passion. Most importantly, the biggest advice that I can give them to help them with everything that they do is not forget where they came from. It has very little of anything to do with me. It's got everything to do with their lineage. I would say, Sophia and Uri, if you guys are listening to this, know that your great grandparents went through some crazy stuff just for you to exist. 

 Aaron Zucker
 The fact that there are so many descendants of their family now that are in the workplace and are in the community doing so many amazing things, the expectation is for you guys to live up to that. I don't mean to apply pressure to my kids, but I do mean to apply pressure to my kids because they've been given the same golden opportunity that I have. It's not even better that's my job as a parent is to improve upon that and I expect them to run through that crackdoor and continue to push things forward and be a positive contributor to society. 

 Josh Wilson
 Super cool, man. Aaron, if someone wants to connect with you and do a deal with Zig and some of the groups that you're working with, where can people go to connect with you, learn from you, learn with you, maybe join your team? 

 Aaron Zucker
 Sure. We do our best to be as visible and out there as possible for just in case the right candidate here's this episode or comes across ups this conference or whatever it may be. So our website www.zuckerig.com. I was told the other day that I sound old for saying www, which really between being asked how it feels to be the mentor now and that hurts. We also have a company LinkedIn page. I can be found on LinkedIn. I'm Aaron Zucker, the guy who looks really young in this picture and has an urgent care background behind as you alluded to before. We have a company instagram page, zuckerig investment group that everybody should follow. I'm easily found on there too. Aaron nods. 

 Josh Wilson
 Okay, I love asking this question. What questions should I have asked you that I completely screwed up and did not ask? 

 Aaron Zucker
 You should have asked me what's it like being such a fake it to make it type of guy. No, I don't. I probably offered up more information than you wanted to hear and didn't answer your questions directly as you wanted. It all stems from really believing in those core principles that we talked about and I think you do a phenomenal job with. You do. I can tell you've done this a few times and you guys clearly are a good thing going there and I'd encourage everybody in case they were just discouraged by having to hear me talk for the last maybe listen to some panther episode and checking out some of the guests that we've had on ours. 

 Josh Wilson
 Super cool. Super cool. Erin, this is your compliment time and then I'm going to end it so I get the last word. One thing, I really enjoyed our conversation. You listed ten people that you attribute to your success to and that you honored during this interview. Nice work, man. It speaks volume. With that I get to end the show and have the last word. Love you, man. Thanks for coming on the show today, fellow deal makers and commercial real estate experts, if you want to come on the show and talk about commercial real estate and maybe a part of your journey that you think is important for future generations of commercial real estate professionals to learn head on over CRE principles.com and don't worry if you misspell it. We have all the different spellings. It'll all point back to this one and fill out a quick form and maybe you could come on the show yourself and share your journey. 

 Josh Wilson
 Till then, we'll talk to you all on the next episode. Bye, guys.