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How to Scale Commercial Real Estate


Feb 14, 2022

Every human being is created equal, but every client is not. 

This is the belief of Ajax Union Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Joe Apfelbaum, which has helped him build one of the fastest-growing companies in the United States. A LinkedIn expert and certified Google Trainer, Joe is on a mission to help 1,000 hungry entrepreneurs go from frustration to “mojovation” through modern-day networking tactics.

He works currently in the B2B industry, but his strategies are applicable in whatever investment that you are doing–including real estate.

Joe shares more of his wisdom in his podcast, The Breakthrough Maze.

[00:01 - 02:59] Opening Segment

  • How Joe Apfelbaum realized he needed to be an expert marketer
  • Joe tells us how he wants to make a difference to other people

[03:00 - 13:54] How to Select The Right Client For You

  • The biggest struggle that any business owner has to overcome
  • Joe’s realizations when he was just starting a digital marketing agency
    • The reason qualifying leads is important for your business
    • Your competitors will send you the right client for you if you do this trick
  • The very first step to take to network strategically

[13:55 - 19:59] The Correct Way of Doing Networking

  • Joe would rather be effective than efficient in his business
    • He tells us why
  • The power of networking and how to leverage it
  • The secret to live a happy life according to Joe

[20:00 - 21:37] Closing Segment

  • Your way to make the world a better place
    • Helping other people invest in themselves
  • Reach out to Joe
    • See links below 
  • Final words



Tweetable Quotes

“You don't have to win the race. You just have to invest in yourself by making the time to read, to journal, to grow, to network, to just spend time with yourself.” - Joe Apfelbaum

“...for me to really be able to achieve levels of success, where it really touches my heart, I needed to figure out who I was, I needed to figure out how I can add value, [and] I needed to figure out what I even wanted.” - Joe Apfelbaum

“The difference between someone who's actually going to feel fulfilled and successful is based on the level of their standards. You raise your standards, you will raise your quality of life.” - Joe Apfelbaum

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Email Joe at joe@ajaxunion.com or follow him on LinkedIn. Visit Ajax Union to learn how to build a marketing funnel that attracts leads and grows your revenue!

  • Enroll in Evyrgreen Networking to generate leads and referrals from your LinkedIn network in only 15 minutes daily!
  • Listen to The Breakthrough Maze where Joe answers queries from anonymous callers with real insights derived from his years of experience working as a successful entrepreneur. 

 

Connect with me:

I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.  

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Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!

 

Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com

 

Want to read the show's full notes? Find it below: 

 

Joe Apfelbaum  00:00

 

Invest in yourself. Most people don't realize that investing in yourself will give you the biggest return on investment. Because you see compounded interest very, very quickly. Even if you only grow by 1%. Every single day, think about the percentage growth that you will have by the end of the year. You don't have to, like win the race. You just have to invest in yourself by making the time to read, to journal, to grow, to network, to just spend time with yourself. Most people are so busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. They're never working on themselves or working with themselves. Welcome to the

 

Intro  00:37

 

Welcome to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we will teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.

 

Sam Wilson  00:48

 

Joe Apfelbaum is a business strategist. He's a LinkedIn expert and certified Google trainer. He's also the author of book, “High Energy Networking,” which if you haven't read it yet, I've read it. It's a great book. You can find it on Amazon. And just as a couple of fun facts. Joe is also known to wrap on occasion and love scuba diving. So, Joe, you're a man of many talents. I look forward to jumping into today's show. How are you today?

 

Joe Apfelbaum  01:10

 

I'm doing fantastic. Thank you so much for having me. And it's a pleasure to be here.

 

Sam Wilson  01:14

 

Absolutely. The pleasure is all mine. There are the same three questions I asked every guest who comes on the show. In 90 seconds or less, can you tell me where you started, where you are now, and how you got there?

 

Joe Apfelbaum  01:22

 

I started in Brooklyn, New York as a web designer, and they say if you build it, they will come. It's not true. If you build it, they will not come. So I had to learn how to become an expert marketer. In the beginning, I had no idea what I was doing. But I bought books, got courses, got coaching, and I tested it out on my first clients. And I figured out the system on how to get traffic. And I built one of the fastest-growing companies in America, doing marketing for people. And now not only do I still have that business 13 years later, but I also started a new business a couple of years ago, teaching people how to do this themselves using LinkedIn, I have a course and a coaching program. And I'm really excited about adding value to other people. They say the secret to living is giving. And my goal is to make a difference for other people. I want to help 1,000 hungry entrepreneurs go from frustration to “mojovation.” How was that for 90 seconds?

 

Sam Wilson  02:12

 

I love it. What are the two words you're putting together for mojovation?

 

Joe Apfelbaum  02:16

 

Well, a lot of people think of the word mojo as like being yourself and like the essence of life. And then there's motivation, like motive, reasons, we do things for reasons, every human being finds reasons to either do something or excuses to not do things, right. And so we're driven by meaning, “The Man's Search for Meaning,” like Viktor Frankl talks about the reason why people are either excited about life, enthusiastic or not usually has to do with a reason or an excuse. And so I always say you either have reasons or you have results,

 

Sam Wilson  02:46

 

Right. What were some early struggles, you know, that you had? No, you kind of talked about this a little bit in the book. So I don't want to take away our readers or listeners enthusiasm to go out and buy your book, but give us some early struggles you had and how you overcame those, you know, via networking.

 

Joe Apfelbaum  03:00

 

So for me, I didn't know that networking existed. So the biggest struggle is the things that you don't even know you don't know, like, you know, you know what you know, and you know the things you're not good at, or that you don't know, well, but there most of the knowledge in the world, we're not even aware that even exists, even it wasn't even on my radar. And so when you start thinking about that, and you start thinking about like, oh my gosh, I didn't even know that was an option. And that was holding me back. This is the reason why civilization didn't move forward until the information age. And the way it's moving forward now is because everybody has access to all the information in the world right now using Google, right. And so for me, my biggest challenge was not knowing, and once I knew the biggest challenge was overcoming my fear of networking, overcoming my fear of judgment, of rejection of all the BS, and they say you can only grow your business as much as you grow yourself. And I find that tremendously to be true. Because in order for me to really be able to achieve levels of success, where it really touches my heart, I needed to figure out who I was, I needed to figure out how I can add value, I needed to figure out what I even wanted, a lot of people are sitting there, and they're running after and they're trying to climb the ladder of success, not realizing that the ladder might be leaning against the wrong wall. So they get to the top of the ladder, and they're like, oh my god, I got to get down again. And it's a humbling experience to get down from the ladder. And so that's something that I've kind of had to go through in my life and you know, through business partners through buying out investors through a very difficult divorce, like lots of different things I had to go through in order for me to go through the pain of growth, and I believe that pain does not equal suffering if pain has meaning, if pain has purpose. And so for me, I see purpose and all the pain that I've experienced in my life and all the hard work and I've actually become to enjoy some of that pain. You know, like the pain of push-ups. I see that you work out so yes, it's hard to do. It's painful, but we find pleasure in the progress because progress equals happiness.

 

Sam Wilson  04:56

 

Man, that's absolutely spot on. I love that. You're right in a marketing agency, you had a strategic shift. And the way you thought about it, what were some things that you said, “Man, I'm going to go do this differently?” And what are some things that we can go do differently now?

 

Joe Apfelbaum  05:08

 

I used to think that every client was a good client, just try to get as many as possible. And I've serviced over 1,100 clients over the past 13 years doing marketing for them. And anyone that ever had an agency or worked with an agency, you know, the difficulty of picking up a client, working with them, and then keeping them for more than just a few weeks or a few months. I have some clients that have been with us for 10 years, and they're still working with us and they're happy. And so thinking about like, how do you build that relationship, and who would you even want to build a relationship like being strategic is one of the hardest things human beings can do, because by default, we're trying to survive. And survival means dealing with the less strategic part of your brain, the limbic system, we're just trying to survive. And what I want to do is I want you to thrive, I want your business to thrive, most businesses go out of business within three years, right? Very, very few make it past 10. And I figured out not just how to get past 10, but also how to build one of the fastest-growing companies in America. And that means that every client is not created equal. I believe every human is created equal. But you have to pick your clients in a very, very smart way, build relationships with them, and then be able to charge them the right amount of money that fits in the value that you're adding. And so for me, I had to learn a lot of that through trial and error and picking up the wrong customers with the wrong approaches. I'll give you an example, Sam. One of the wrong approaches that I will use to take was do cold calling. Now, back then it wasn't such a wrong approach, because I did pick up lots of customers doing cold calling. But what I didn't realize is that cold calling wasn't a sales tactic. It was actually a marketing tactic to someone that said, “Just instead of doing telemarketing, do tele-networking.“ Build relationships with people, and if they're the right types of people. And of course, you want to do business with them, but they're not going to do business, because you call them you're going to do business because you warmed it up, built a relationship with them. And so that they were ideal prospect, I didn't even know how to qualify leads back in the day, I never heard of BANT. I never heard of any of this stuff that I talked about in High Energy Networking. And I talked about through my courses and seminars and educate hundreds of people on how to qualify. Look, at the end of the day, the difference between someone who's actually going to feel fulfilled and successful is based on the level of their standards, you raise your standards, you will raise your quality of life. So how do you raise your standards when it comes to taking on customers, it has to do with the qualification and evaluation process, not the judgment process. Because judgment means we're judging other people and judging ourselves. But you can evaluate, you can identify, you could qualify, but you have to have criteria, and most people are not being strategic because they're busy surviving. So getting into that strategy, 80% of your success will be determined by your mindset, 20% by your skillset. And your mindset is your set of beliefs, your set of habits, your set of thoughts that you have, and optimizing them, questioning them, working on them, acknowledging them, becoming aware of what they are what's controlling your life, that's going to be the key, what are the systems and processes that are controlling your business, you might say I don't have systems and processes, the fact that you don't have systems and processes is your system and process, you have a broken shoot shooting from the hip type of relationship with business. And that's not how you grow. That's not how you have consistency. That's how you have burnout and frustration.

 

Sam Wilson  08:14

 

Well, Joe, I think that's really interesting. So you know, selecting the right clients is, you know, it's one of the things that you do in meeting your standards. Right. But I think one of the things also that's really unique in that is that if you do take on the wrong client, you're not adding value to them, either. I mean, this is a two-way street, right? So yeah, you have to make sure it's not just a good fit for you, it's kind of going along with the Go-Giver mentality, where it's like, “Hey, I don't want you to come work with me, because in the end, you're going to be unhappy, too, I'm not gonna be able to help you the way you need to be helped either.”

 

Joe Apfelbaum  08:42

 

I had a law firm that reached out to me. They were not the right client for me. Do you know why they were not the right client? They're like, “Joe, I just want you to start producing content on LinkedIn,” I was like, you don't have any followers on LinkedIn, I'm not just producing content because you want me to produce content. You're not going to get results from it, no one's gonna see it, and you're going to fail. And he's like, “What do I need to do?” I see. First, you need to create a profile and you need to start adding followers and connections in order for you to be able to even have someone like, I'm not going to send an email newsletter to nobody. So they were like, “Well, I don't want anyone to know me,” I was like, so the one you want to create content is that cuz that's what you need to do. I was like, wrong client. And that everybody's a client for you. That's one thing that I want people to realize about doing business with competitors. Your competitors can become your best friends. Because realize that not every client is your ideal client. So send them to your competitors, and they will thank you for it. And they will send you their non-ideal clients because those are the best. I've gotten the biggest accounts from other marketing consultants, other people that are running marketing firms. Why? Because they can't do business with everybody. You can't do business with everybody.

 

Sam Wilson  09:43

 

No, you absolutely cannot. Yeah, that's funny. I was at a conference this last weekend. And you know, obviously, in the real estate industry, we're always looking for private investors. I mean, it just, it's the name of the game. We do things we need in this business as deals in money. And so when you meet somebody that's like, “Hey, I have money, I'm ready to deploy it.” You know, he's talking to me. And instead of saying, hey, you know, I've got all these deals you could invest in, I listen to his criteria, and I said, “Hey, man, I can connect you with about seven people that are going to strategically place you around the country.” And so I started to get them all their phone numbers. Next thing I know, they're all meeting up, and it's like, hey, you know, it actually feels really good. And I bet in the end, that guy's gonna come back to me and go, “Hey, Sam, thanks for all those contacts. What are you working on? I won't invest with you as well.” So it was a strategic shift. I think even after reading your book, I was like, “Oh, wait, yeah, like, absolutely just make connections, and add value.” What are some ways I mean, online is a tough place, I think, to go out and really, quote-unquote, add value to other people, what are some things you see people doing that, or that they could do that would kind of fall into that bucket?

 

Joe Apfelbaum  10:41

 

Well, the first thing is, you have to figure out who you want to add value to. That's number one. Because you know, adding value is just a general word based on who you're targeting. Everybody has their dreams and their fears. Their dreams are usually associated by their goals and their fears are have to do with their pains, their current problems and their challenges that they have. And so depending on who you're talking to, they're going to have different pains, different fears, different goals, different dreams, based on who they are. So the most important question, you have to ask yourself, after you ask yourself, why do I even want to add value to people, you have to ask yourself, “Who do I want to add value to?” And then what can you do for those specific people that are in line with who they are and why you're doing it? Once you understand that as your framework, your strategy, your foundation for networking, that's how you're going to be successful at networking. A lot of people's like, oh, I can just network with anybody. Of course, you could network with anybody. But if you had the most ideal scenario, what would you like to do and in my book, I talk about how to kind of figure out yourself, so understand who you want to add value. Value is very different depending on the person. For example, core values, we all have things that we value, but what are your core values, what are the things that make you the person that you cannot keep a job if something doesn't match a core value, that you would quit a job over or end a relationship over. So figuring out what that means to you. And that would mean very different to somebody else, figuring out what you value and what your potential clients value, and then matching that up, that's where the magic happens. A magic happens in selecting, qualifying, identifying, and connecting the various inputs in the world. And when you can do that, you know, the best visionaries, the best ideator is the most successful entrepreneurs don't come up with new ideas, they just connect old ideas together, you just have to be a connector of ideas, of people of opportunities, and you got to connect with your higher self too. As a human being, we are so stuck on our needs, our basic human needs. As Maslow puts in his hierarchy of needs, we're so stuck on our basic human needs of not having enough water, a 5% drop in hydration is a 30% drop in energy. I tell everyone, you want to get mojovated, you got to get hydrated. First, you first got to get hydrate, drink some water. So if you don't have your basic human needs met, if you haven't taken a breath today, take a moment, stop doing stop fixing, start breathing. So take a moment in from your nose, fill up your chest with beautiful air. When you fill up your chest, you realize you're wealthy because you have air you have the ability to breathe, fill up that chest, not with gold, but with air with beautiful air. So if you have your basic needs met, you can move up and connect who you are, what your needs are with your values and what your higher self is, then you're flying 100 miles an hour, then you're moving to the next level, you might be going slow, but you're moving really fast because you are pointed in the right direction. If you're trying to get to space, you're trying to get to like the moon, for example. And you're on Earth and you're in a spaceship. If you're one millimeter off, you're not getting to the moon, by the time you get up there, you're gonna be way off. Same thing in business. Same thing in networking. Same thing in relationships. If you don't have your foundation, right, you're building a building on quicksand. And that building will last but not very long. Eventually, it'll fall apart because quicksand sucks everything in. And so I want you guys to be more strategic. Here's a famous saying I love saying it over and over and over, the right strategy will save you a decade. And energy without strategy is a waste of time. And I don't mind wasting time, I would rather be strategic. And I would rather do what Stephen Covey talks about. He talks about the seven habits of highly effective people, not efficient people, you're not trying to save time, he's trying to make money, trying to grow business, trying to add value. Efficient is not the same as effective. I want you to be effective and not worry about wasting time because you cannot manage time. You cannot waste time, you can only observe time you can only prioritize priorities instead of sitting there waiting and hoping for the best. Hope is not a great strategy. And if you have the right strategy and you work with someone that will support you read the right books, take the right courses, join the right seminars, listen to the right podcasts like this one. And hopefully, you'll endorse it too by giving it a five-star review in all the places where you get your podcasts. So that's my call to action.

 

Sam Wilson  14:52

 

I appreciate that. That's absolutely fantastic. Talk to us a little bit, you know your book, High Energy Networking, and then you know about the courses, I do want to take some time to not just shamelessly plug it but shamelessly plug it because obviously, I think it's something that you've created that in line with this podcast adds value to other people. So tell us about that.

 

Joe Apfelbaum  15:11

 

Well, one of the things that people kept asking me over and over and over is Joe, tell me your secrets of success and networking. What do you do? And I was like, I have so many different things that I do from creating templates to having a one-sheet to figuring out what groups that you're part of understanding the difference between going wider and going deeper, how to analyze your contacts, how to use LinkedIn, what messages to send people, like all that stuff. And I said, You know what, why don't I sit down and write my thoughts down. This is my fifth book that I published. And so now that I'm really good at publishing books, and writing content, and I published over 5,000 stuff on LinkedIn, since I started publishing, you know, there's content and information and articles and newsletters and all the stuff that I do, I've decided to put together a guide for people that really want to be able to understand how networking works. And so I wrote High Energy Networking, and I put it out into the world, every chapter takes less than five minutes to read, there's 53 chapters in the book. And I talked about exactly the step-by-step process of what you need to do to be more successful at networking. And most people don't even know what networking even is. And when they read the book, they're like, “Oh, my God, this totally makes sense. I was doing this anyway. But I wasn't doing it with a system.” And so a lot of people that are into networking, will be able to benefit from it. And if you're afraid of it or not sure what it is or how it works, this is a great intro to it because it's an easy read. I don't fluff it with tons and tons of stuff, it's based on my experience. And I just show people how I became a connector, a person that makes 1000 introductions a year, three a day, it's not complicated, you just have to have a system for it. And then in terms of like teaching people, you know, I used to network a lot offline. And then eventually, you know, I have five kids very, very busy and multiple businesses, I didn't really have the same amount of time to be able to go out to events. And so I created a course and a coaching program on how to be able to do this on LinkedIn, especially after LinkedIn was bought by Microsoft. Microsoft paid $26.2 billion for LinkedIn in 2016, they made a massive bet on LinkedIn. And if a company, one of the largest companies in the world is investing so much money into a platform, there has to be a reason for that. So I started paying attention to that. And I realized what they did. They turned it from a social network to a content marketing machine for professionals. And so now I generate millions of dollars off using LinkedIn. And so I started teaching people one on one how to do it. And they're like, “Dude, this is amazing. Can you formalize this and create frameworks, checklists, cheat sheets, give me all your scripts and templates.” And I was like, Sure. And then I put it into a program, I took a course on how to create courses. And then I built the course and now we have over 600 coaches, consultants, entrepreneurs, sales professionals, lawyers, we have a lawyer that recently called me said, Joe, I generate $200,000, a year from what I learned in your program in 2019. And I absolutely endorse it and love it. And we get most of our clients directly from referrals. And so if you want to learn how to do that, we have the tools, and we teach you how to get exposure, how to get credibility and how to have more conversations, you can go to learnbusinessnetworking.com to pick it up. Oh, you can check me out on LinkedIn, I have all the links on my profile, you could find me at Joelinkedin.com, actually bought a URL that sends you directly to my LinkedIn because nobody knows how to spell my last name. And so I just for me, my main thing is I want to add value to other people. I want to make a difference for other people, I already made it to the other side, I can already have, you know, like, for me, it's like once you get to a certain level of success, it's all about helping other people at that point, because like, what are you going to do next, but just selfishly build another business and just make more money and more money and more money. It's about giving back. Because the secret to living is giving. The secret to making yourself happy is making other people happy. If you want to be able to have all the things that other people don't have, you got to be willing to do all the things that other people are not willing to do. And most people are so like, what's in it for me, thought mentality, scarcity, they haven't watched The Secret on Netflix, they haven't taken the steps they need to take in order for you for them to shift their mindset from scarcity to abundance. And that's really one of the most important things you can do in life for yourself and for your family is to have that abundance mentality, abundance of love. You know, we talk a lot about love that is non-conditional. Like who doesn't have unconditional even to yourself, often people have conditional love, oh, if I have all the things I need to have, then I will love myself, then I will be worthy. No, you're worthy of love, just by existing. Your existence is worthy of love. And so understanding that unconditional relationship, that relationships are different than transactions, that's what I talk about in the book. That's what I train people on. And once people get it, it makes everything so easy because it takes the pressure off.

 

Sam Wilson  19:37

 

Man, I love all that there's a lot of gold there. And I won't even attempt to rehash it because you've done such an eloquent job sharing that with us today. Joe, let's jump here into final few questions which you took my last one which was you know how our listeners get in touch with you. So you've done a great job of letting our listeners know how to get in touch with you, which that'll just go directly in the show notes. So look for all of those links that Joe has shared. You know, one of the questions I asked and I want to ask you the typical real estate related ones, but one of the questions I always ask is when it comes to investing in the world, what's one thing you're doing right now to make the world a better place?

 

Joe Apfelbaum  20:06

 

Well, number one is you got to invest in yourself. Most people don't realize that investing in yourself will give you the biggest return on investment because you’ll see compounded interest very, very quickly. Even if you only grow by 1%. Every single day, think about the percentage growth that you will have by the end of the year. You don't have to like win the race. You just have to invest in yourself by making the time to read, to journal, to grow, to network, to just spend time with yourself. Most people are so busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. They're never working on themselves or working with themselves. Never people are not working on their business or working in their business. So the number one thing is invest in yourself. Do some self-care, do some self-love, you cannot love other people if you don't love yourself. So in terms of investing, invest in yourself.

 

Sam Wilson  20:57

 

I love it. I love it. Joe, thanks for your time today. This has been a blast. Again, I look forward to getting through it actually three quarters away. I should clarify that three quarters away through your book, finishing your book, and then checking out your course online. I do appreciate it. Look forward to connecting again here soon.

 

Joe Apfelbaum  21:11

 

Thank you, Sam.

 

Sam Wilson  21:12

 

Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Podcast. If you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, whatever platform it is you use to listen, if you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners, as well as rank higher on those directories. So I appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.