Ep 108 - Being Passionate About Your Product & Cost Segregation with Yonah Weiss

A wonderful guest on Elevate Your Equity podcast, Yonah Weiss, a powerhouse with property owners' tax savings and the Business Director at Madison SPECS, a national Cost Segregation leader. On this show, he highlighted:

• What Cost Segregation is and what are the benefits.
• How he utilize social media to engage with other investors and grow his network.
• His passion of teaching and helping others to save a lot of money.

More about Yonah. He is a powerhouse with property owners' tax savings. As Business Director at Madison SPECS, a national Cost Segregation leader, he has assisted clients in saving hundreds of millions of dollars on taxes through cost segregation. He has a background in teaching and a passion for real estate and helping others. He’s a real estate investor and host of the top podcast Weiss Advice.

Learn more about Yonah and his business through:
https://yonahweiss.com
https://yonahweiss.madisonspecs.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cost-segregation-yonah-weiss/
https://www.instagram.com/yonahweiss/

Thanks a bunch Yonah Weiss for coming on the show!

Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5 Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift

If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!

• on our website for blogs & other podcast interviews! elevateequity.org
• our YouTube channel! youtube.com/channel/derekclifford
• our book/audiobook! amazon.com/dp/ebook

If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook

Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift

If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!

• on our website for blogs & other podcast interviews! elevateequity.org
• our YouTube channel! youtube.com/channel/derekclifford
• our book/audiobook! amazon.com/dp/ebook

If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook

Transcript

Introduction: 0:03

Welcome to the Elevate your Equity podcast where we, as married busy professionals, leverage real estate investing to unlock the three plus one degrees of freedom, health, location, time and financial.

Derek Clifford: 0:16

Welcome, everyone to the Elevate your equity Podcast. Today. We've got Yonah on the show Mr. Yonah Weiss. How are you, Yonah?

Yonah Weiss: 0:24

Doing great Derek. So glad to be here.

Derek Clifford: 0:27

Excellent. Fantastic. For those listeners out there who do not know Yonah Weiss yet. Yonah is a powerhouse with property owners as tax savings as a business director at Madison SPECs, a national Cost Segregation leader, he's assisted clients and saving hundreds of millions of dollars on taxes through cost segregation. And he has a background in teaching and a passion for real estate and helping others in it. And I can attest to that fact. 100% He is a real estate investor himself and the host of a top podcast called wise advice, which is a very wise choice for a podcast title. You want to welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming on. How are you?

Yonah Weiss: 1:10

Doing great, Derek! Yeah, it was the natural choice for the podcast title. I mean, like, it was between, like, smart advice. And, you know, it's like, no, I don't know why sound sounds, it's a good name. And it means we use it.

Derek Clifford: 1:23

It's a very, very good name. And I think that you're wise to take advantage of that play on words. So we're gonna be touching on that word, quite a bit wise throughout the podcast. But first of all, let's talk about how you got started in real estate investing and how it also became an active business for you. So maybe you want to handle it in two separate ways or all the to tick the floor?

Yonah Weiss: 1:46

Sure, yeah, I will. I'll handle that in two separate ways a little bit. But I mean, I got active in real estate investing side of things. About five, six years ago, when I just got involved in real estate industry and started with commercial brokering and mortgages. I was a teacher for many years before, that's about 15 years, and then just kind of stepped into real estate realm. And it literally just took off, I did a few fix and flips. And so I think that was the first time I was actually actively involved, I hated that. And, and really was not successful, we did not really make any money on those, in fact, on one deal, lost money. And it's not all fun. And games, like real estate investing is not always going to win and not always going to make it out, even in the short term, and definitely not in the long term for everyone. However, you know, I kind of transitioned into the current business that I'm in with cost segregation working for this, you know, national company. And through that, I actually got back involved in real estate investing side of things, just through the networking and through the connections that I was making with people finding, you know, deals coming across my plate, you know, every day and, and learning so much from these other people out there providing so much education through podcasts and everything like that. I was like, wow, these are great way to actually, you know, put your money to work for you and learn more about finances that way. And then it's been amazing. So I've actually become the past few years, more actively involved on the passive investing side of things, and and most recently, even more actively involved. So the main business is still the cost segregation, which is that's what's feeding into everything else, but definitely a passion for the investing side as well.

Derek Clifford: 3:23

Yeah, I love that story. Now, something that we glossed over in your story that I want to make sure we hit on is that you said that you started doing some flips and stuff on your own. And then you made the jump into cost segregation or becoming involved in the Cost Segregation company, a national firm. Generally, we talked about cost segregation on the commercial side of real estate. Right. So my question to you is, how did you go from understanding that, oh, my gosh, this is way too much work. to Now I gotta do something else. But you found something on the more commercial, like, multifamily industrial type of side. So let's talk about that a little bit. How'd that happen?

Yonah Weiss: 4:01

Yeah, you know, it was really more than anything else, just something that I really live by, which is just the opportunity presented itself. And, you know, I'm gonna say a person where if a good opportunity presents itself and I'm in kind of an open minded space, where, okay, I'm open for an opportunity. And at that time, that point I was, that's really what happened. I mean, it wasn't like I was seeking out to get involved to become a conservation expert. I didn't grow up, you know, thinking, you know, I'd really love to be a conservation expert. One day, there was no dream was nothing of the sort. It was really the opportunity presented itself with this company, which I had heard of, and a good friend of mine introduced me to, and the fix and flips wasn't working out the commercial mortgages that I was doing, I was doing some real estate brokering on the side. There was like a law and there was a certain time period that there was a law and I was like, Okay, that's a great time to kind of just put some feelers out to see what else is available. And that's exactly you know, when that happens, so call it you know, serendipity call it you know, I like To call it divine providence, but it's really just seeing that when you put yourself out there and are ready, then whoever, whatever you want to call it God or the universe, whatever just presents itself presents the opportunity to you.

Derek Clifford: 5:12

You know, one thing I just wanted to point out real quick, and maybe you can comment on this is that the common theme that I'm noticing throughout your whole journey here is an open mind. Because you first had the open mind, whatever you were doing before you got involved in fixing, flipping and doing stuff yourself. You either made that transition or started doing it on the side, then you're like, oh, you know, there's this cost segregation thing. I probably probably at the time, you're like, I don't even know what that is. But sounds interesting. Let's try this out. And now, ironically, you've been able to come full circle back around to real estate in a very real way and getting into the ownership side of things, by leveraging your knowledge through I guess what you call your W two. So I don't know if you have any comment on that. But I think that's a really cool thing.

Yonah Weiss: 5:56

Yeah, you're absolutely right. It is about kind of having that open mind having that ability to just add value to people. And I think that's really even more of a foundation than the open mindedness and, you know, open to opportunities is just thinking of others first, and really thinking, Well, what can I do to add value here and in this situation? And so for me, it was yeah, okay, where can I see an opportunity and take it and then use that to with my teaching background as well, just helping me to, you know, to teach others and to live their best life? And I think I try to make sure that that comes through all the way. But if it doesn't, you know, that's that's really where the foundation lies,

Derek Clifford: 6:32

Of course. Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you for telling us your backstory. Let's go ahead and get into the meat of the conversation here. Today, I want to talk about two specific things. The first is cost segregation, because there's probably no one else in the United States that's more well versed and understanding and explaining cost segregation, because I know that you've done it millions of times, well, maybe not millions, but probably 1000s of times, to individuals. And so can you just break down what Cost Segregation is, and then we'll talk about connecting people and passion, and how that leads into everything that you're doing. So first, let's talk about cost segregation. And just explain to us what it is that it is and what it comprises.

Yonah Weiss: 7:13

Absolutely. So Cost Segregation is a tax strategy for real estate investors, okay, it is an advanced form of depreciation. Essentially, when you buy a real estate property, or you invest in real estate, whether it's the size of your personal residence, if you buy an investment or business property, you're allowed to take a tax deduction from your income tax called depreciation. And it's based on the principle that things go down in value as time goes on. So that's where the name comes from right depreciation, but it doesn't mean that your property is actually going down in value. What it means is, the IRS allows you to take an income tax write off against that, so to speak value that is being depreciated each year, even though it's really not. So it's kind of people call it like a phantom loss or a phantom deduction. But really all that it is, it's a borrowed term that depreciation, what we're doing with Cost Segregation is taking an advanced form of that. So instead of taking a full write off of your property value, over 27 and a half year period, or 39, year period, depending on whether it's residential or commercial property, instead of taking a little bit of deduction each year, what we're able to do is break down components of the property into different depreciation lives. Okay? So certain things actually depreciate or have a life or useful life at a shorter period. And we're able to take the tax deduction of that value at that faster rate. So essentially what it is, just to recap, it's a cashflow mechanism, okay. It's a tax strategy that allows you to take much larger deductions in the earlier years taken from a pool of those potential deductions, instead of spreading it out evenly over a long period of time, upfront, taking a large amount up front, which, like I said, just gives you more cash flow to work with.

Derek Clifford: 8:56

Perfect way to explain it, and very well said, because it's a complicated topic. And it also varies from person to person, doesn't it? And also from each property for each property. And each situation, it's a little bit different, isn't it? The amount that gets depreciated. And the way in which that happens, there's a little bit of dynamics

Yonah Weiss: 9:15

There is absolutely and every property is different. there, right? But essentially, what we're doing the common denominator is there are certain structural components that really depreciate or the value of those components depreciate on a 27 and a half or 39 year period. And then there are interior non structural components like things we call personal property, but even if they're not like tangible or movable, even things like window treatments, blinds, cabinets, countertops, flooring, appliances, furniture, all that stuff depreciates on a five year schedule. So we're able to identify what the value of those things are, and then take those tax deductions at a faster rate and so on a certain types of property, there's going to be more of those things than others. So for example, like a warehouse, there'll be very little amount of that personal property that's furnishings. etc, there may be some shelving or some lighting and stuff like that. But on the flip side, if you take like a hospice or assisted living facility or multifamily or Airbnb, which is I'm sure you're very familiar with having spent a lot of time in them over the past year or so that, you know, a lot of times you'll have a lot of high end amenities and furnishings, etc, that's going to be a lot more. So we're going to be able to identify and assign a lot of value to those components to make them faster write off.

Derek Clifford: 10:29

Excellent. Excellent. Now, I have a couple of questions regarding cost segregation, that are a little bit technical, that maybe some of the more advanced listeners may appreciate. And even those who are just getting started, may be able to take some of this and have it tucked away in their collective wisdom for when they actually start investing, or then they get more into it. But as far as taking this depreciation goes, I understand that you actually have to pay a lot of the depreciation back once the property sells Is that a true statement?

Yonah Weiss: 10:56

That's not a true statement. Let's clarify what that is and where that assumption comes from. Okay, which is a good assumption. A lot of people make that and maybe hear that, but it's not a true statement. So let's say that statement, again, to just to clarify that it's not true that you pay back the deductions that you you take, okay, so what, what that's referring to is when you sell a property, you are subject to a tax called depreciation recapture tax. Okay. And so erroneously, a lot of people think that means recapture, I now have to pay back all those taxes. That's not true. So again, just to clarify, depreciation recapture tax is similar to a capital gain tax, and everyone understands, when you make a profit on the sale of a property, you are being taxed on the amount of that profit. Similarly, what's called an unrealized gain, is this depreciation, recapture, the amount of depreciation taken over the course of ownership is now also going to be taxed, not that you're paying back those deductions, but you're not going to be taxed on the amount of those deductions that you did take. And just you want to point that out, there's actually three different calculations of how that is taxed. And so it always comes out, that is going to be less than what your income tax rate would have been originally had you not taken those deductions. So basically, it always pays to do the conservation to get those accelerated deductions if you can use them, okay, meaning if you have a tax liability, and you can use those deductions to offset your income, it always pays because the rate is always going to be less later down the road. Besides for inflation, and besides for the time value of money, which are extremely important, I'm just throwing out terms there, which are all we can go into great detail on all those. But just to point that out, that's one thing that it's always going to be less later down the road. And if you do a 1031 exchange, it you can actually defer that there are other strategies that you can actually wipe those taxes out, it's never correct to say that you pay back the taxes that you take during depreciation.

Derek Clifford: 12:51

Yeah, thank you for clarifying that, because that's exactly how I understood that as well. And I appreciate that you made that distinction. And also touching on the 1031, as well, because, you know, whatever that tax base is, you get to move that forward to the next property and then defer the taxes. And the idea would be that you can keep deferring until your heirs inherit the property at a stepped up basis. And then essentially, your tax bill is pretty much wiped out, at least if you set things up the right way. And you have some proper planning ahead of time. So thank you very much for that. Exactly. One thing that I wanted to also ask you in terms of technical parts of cost segregation for those listeners out there is I hear that 2022 is the final year of something called bonus depreciation that came in the era of the Trump tax cuts established back in when was it 2019 2017? And 2017? Yeah, 2017. So can you kind of explain what that bonus depreciation is? And where we are right now and when that's expected to end?

Yonah Weiss: 13:52

Absolutely. So the bonus depreciation, as you mentioned, was introduced in the tax cuts and Jobs Act back when Trump was president and 2017. And what that said was that once you've done a cost segregation study, and if allocated certain components to faster depreciation lives, like a five year or 15 year schedule, now have the option to take those entire deductions in the first year. Okay, that's called 100% bonus depreciation. So that's something that again, never existed before there was something similar called bonus depreciation for new construction projects that you were able to take you did a new build, you're able to write off 50% of some of those costs at a faster rate in the first year, but Trump came and he basically, with the legislation, obviously, put in this idea that you can actually take this huge write off in the first year, and that spur the economy, you know, tremendous as I see it, but it was also put in the books that this was only going to last for a finite period. So until 2022, inclusive 2023 That 100% bonus depreciation would still be active. However, in the books when it was set up is going to start phasing out so 2023 it's going to go down to 80% bonus depreciation which means As you can take 80% of those accelerated deductions in the first year, and the remaining 20%, you can still put on those faster conservation schedules. And then it's going to go down 20% each year until it's completely wiped out within the current law.

Derek Clifford: 15:13

Correct? Yeah. I think one of the things that I want to ask you to make sure I'm understanding this correctly as for those who are doing apartments, indications or multifamily syndications, who is generally the audience that we're working with right now, those individuals who get into a syndication and they get out, it's usually very hard to do 1030 ones across syndications, if you are just an investor out there, right, and generally the strategy that I would advise based on your material, and what you've said online, is that as long as the property is sold this year in 2022, or maybe in 2023, or 24, because it'll be enough there with it 80 and 60%, you should be able to offset any capital gains and depreciation recapture burdens that you get without doing the 1031 by just getting into another syndication that will also do a caustic or two syndications that will do Casa because you'll have your original basis back plus some profits, right. And you can roll both of those or into two separate properties or just into one. And you should be able to have enough depreciation recapture or depreciation from the cost segregation to offset the sale from the previous property. Is that an accurate statement or am I saying that correctly?

Yonah Weiss: 16:27

Yeah, that is correct. Let's just clarify that a little bit. Depreciation is a passive deduction, which means it can be used to offset passive income, the depreciation recapture and capital gains are both considered passive gains, which means you can use those passive losses to offset those passive gains. So even though like we mentioned, when you sell a property, you'll have the capital gains tax, and you'll have a depreciation recapture tax. One of the strategies to offset that, like you mentioned, Derek, is that you can use the Cost Segregation from the acquisition of a new property in that same year to offset the gains those passive gains from the sale of a different property. So yeah, that's definitely an option away. Some people like to call it I've heard some CPAs refer to it as like a lazy 1031, so to speak, meaning, you're not actually going through all the hoops of of doing that, but you're basically coming with the same outcome.

Derek Clifford: 17:15

I love that idea. That's really cool. I'm definitely making a note of that. And I'm gonna be using presentations for sure, courtesy of Yonah Weiss. So let's also talk one last question I have regarding cost segregation. And this is more of a general question at the higher level, can you talk about any situations in which cost segregation may not be recommended or may not be needed in any event?

Yonah Weiss: 17:37

Yeah, there are certainly many situations where it may not be recommended or needed. The most prevalent example is, like I mentioned before, if you don't need those tax deductions if you don't have any income, and a great example, just yesterday, I spoke with someone where they bought a property at the end of 2021, there was zero income produced because they're in a transition phase, doing some repositioning of the property, and there was no income. So if you have no income, there is no income to offset with those deductions, you don't need to get those extra deductions unless you are what's called a real estate professional, where you can use these passive losses, these deductions to offset any active income as well or your spouse is active w two income. So that's an option, again, a topic for a different discussion. But the first scenario where it doesn't make sense, or not necessary is simply when you don't have any income. Okay, if you can't use those deductions doesn't make sense to turn water right to for some more cliches in there. The second situation, where doesn't or usually doesn't make sense is when you are holding a property for a very short period of time, like a year or two. Because as I mentioned, yes, you are going to be getting these deductions upfront and but you're going to be faced with that recapture tax on the sale. And so even though the arbitrage or the difference between the tax rate is still going to be different, you're still going to have some difference in that, but there's going to be very little benefit, okay, the time value of money is gonna be much shorter, and the you know, whatever other resources you have, especially if you have investors involved, getting a large amount of depreciation that they can actually use, and then just the next year having to be subject to that tax is usually not going to be as beneficial. So that's the second case where I would say sometime most of the time, there are exceptions, obviously, but where it doesn't make sense. Third example, which is very common nowadays with syndications is where people are investing in syndications passively through retirement accounts. And some of those retirement accounts are non taxable entities from the gecko which means they will not have any benefit from those depreciation deductions. So if you are a syndicator, and are taking exclusively or even a majority amount from of your investors from self directed 401, K's or Roth IRAs or things like that, where they are non, you know, tax sheltered entities, they're not going to be able to receive any of those tax benefits whatsoever. So it may not make sense or probably doesn't make sense to get the conservation done.

Derek Clifford: 19:57

Excellent. And is there also a certain An amount of property size that may actually make sense to offset the property because I know we're looking at single families, I've tried to do this, but it just I couldn't get it to work?

Yonah Weiss: 20:08

Yeah, certainly, I mean, since the benefit is proportional to the purchase price to the tax basis, then how much the property is worth, or what it was purchased for is certainly going to determine how much of the tax benefit is going to be. And since there is a cost associated with getting a study done, I mean, for single families, for example, currently, and I have to be careful with this. Because on a podcast that was on a year or two ago, I mentioned a price. And then we went up in fees, and people come back and what he said on that podcast, it was this. But now long story short, currently, in 2022, we're charging about $3,000 for single family properties. Now, you know, if you have $100,000 single family, and your tax benefit, maybe let's say, let's say 20% of that purchase price, you're gonna be getting like$20,000 of tax benefit with paying $3,000, that after tax benefit is barely going to outweigh the actual cost of getting it done. But if you're talking about it 234 $100,000 purchase price and up, it usually makes sense. And so therefore, if you're in a situation where you need those deductions, and I think most people do, then then yeah, it certainly can make sense.

Derek Clifford: 21:09

That makes sense. And if you have a portfolio of single family homes, that study is usually done per property, because each one of those is different parcel different tax situation in a different structure, all of that right?

Yonah Weiss: 21:22

That is correct, usually, unless either the properties were purchased all together as their portfolio and are being depreciated together. And or if they are like co located or let's say you're buying from, you know, one development, number of condos or number of townhomes or a number of single families that are kind of built together. So they're all adjacent and they're all same build, same, everything we can actually do that study is one like, you know, similar to a multifamily property, the challenge really gets if you have a portfolio, which in the general sense of the term is, you know, you bought one single family in, you know, Modesto in 2017, for 300,000. And another one in, you know, who know, you know, San Jose, whatever, and you got all these different properties and different times different bills, everything each one is its own needs its own study. And so that's where it's going to be not cost effective.

Derek Clifford: 22:13

Right? Exactly. Fantastic. Great, great advice. Very wise, let's go ahead and shift gears here, because I want to start talking about the way in which you attract business as a business development professional in your field, knowing cost segregation, the technical ins and outs of it, I can tell that you know what you're talking about, you've talked to CPAs, your own team members, engineers, everyone to understand what the product is, now you've taken your knowledge, and you've really carved out your niche in becoming a thought leader in the platform and being a connector. And it's just really impresses me because a lot of things that you do, especially on LinkedIn. So for those listeners out there who have not connected with the owner and want to learn more, please do do that. Please send him a message or interact with his content. You have a way of engaging people, you have made this an art and a science, and you've been doing it for a long time. So let's talk about how you're actively growing your business. From that perspective. Can you tell us a bit about your social media engagement, what you do right now? And how you get people excited about your product and just your network in general?

Yonah Weiss: 23:13

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I appreciate that you bring up these points. And you know, what you said is all true, it's really about connecting people about adding value about doing that. And social media is such an easy way to do that. And it gets overlooked by a lot of people, it really does. But I've found it to be extremely beneficial, extremely, you know, bring extreme success just by being active on social media. Now, again, as you mentioned, I've been doing this for years, I did start kind of little blindly going into it but four or five years ago, but understood very quickly that the more people that you help, and this really kind of my MO from the always and beginnings, the more people you help, the more you're going to get what you need, and not that you're doing it for that purpose. But the truth of the matter is, it just ends up being that way. And whether you call it karma, or you call it whatever you want to call it going out of your way to help other people. And that's where you're gonna get and I learned this, like I said, about four or five years ago from Gary Vaynerchuk you know, his marketing style and methodology I learned a tremendous amount from his personality not as much but is definitely not as profanity but his his his marketing strategy is incredible. And what is it it's all based on? How can I add value how can I just add value, you know, and giving, giving, giving, giving give, and eventually, you know, it'll come back to you whether you see it directly or indirectly, it's true and so I totally related with that back then and just kept doing that. So just adding value just creating content, but more importantly he said connecting people I love to introduce people, you know, and I found when I was original like years ago when I was in the mortgage brokering space and you know, residential brokering and people made you sign NDAs and you know, want to introduce you to this lender and that like here I want to get on a call and I want Wanna make sure I get a commission, I get a cut like that. I totally did not relate with that. Like, it just didn't make sense. I mean, it made sense financially, like, if that's your business model is just about like getting commissions from introducing people and getting a cut of that, like, okay, I get that, but I totally looked at it from a different perspective, I'm going to make as many introductions as possible, and just connect people and let them do business, let them enjoy the benefits of one another when I see fit. And to me, it kind of comes naturally, to see oh, this person does that that person that they would really get along to, and they would really be able to benefit synergize from one another. And I never, you know, no, I don't ever want anything in return, you know, and people are like, well, what can I do for you? And my answer is always like, well, what can I do for you, like me helping you is the best way that you can help me.

Derek Clifford: 25:48

That's so that's so crazy. I love that philosophy. And it sounds like you took Gary V's philosophy with this adding value first and just like adding another layer on top of that, which is just like no being completely selfless here in this and that comes back around, and you just trust that that's going to happen. So I love that. Is there anything that you're teaching to your team, people that you're working with at the national chain that you're working with, to embody some of this passion about your product, and the culture and everything that you're doing to enable these connections?

Yonah Weiss: 26:20

Yeah, I mean, you know what I mean, I could not do what I do, if I didn't have a huge, you know, amazing all star team behind me and the operations team and everyone that that's working behind the scenes out there, the real conservation experts that are actually doing the engineering and the accounting work behind it, right. I'm just the guy who's out there telling people and teaching people about this. And so I can call myself the expert, because I know more about this than, you know, than anyone else out there. But at the end of the day, the actual work itself, you know, I'm not doing any of that. And so, yeah, I'm bringing, I'm bringing that value to the team. And likewise, you know, they're reciprocating by being able to handle, you know, the volume of business that's coming in through that,

Derek Clifford: 27:03

Of course, absolutely. Let's talk again, about generating content for your business. You know, I know that like one of the things that you love to do is connect people with each other. But the way that you do that sometimes is you generate like, you'd have a great piece of content that's really engaging and gets a conversation started on LinkedIn. And then you start to notice people's names coming up, or, you know, let's say that you see someone comments on your post, because you asked a really good question. And then you have a discussion where people then are interacting with each other because of your question. How did you learn this type of thing? And do you have any content or any tips for people who want to generate content like that?

Yonah Weiss: 27:43

You know, it's, again, this goes back to Gary Vee, a lot of a lot of it really does. Like, again, from the philosophy and stuff that I've learned from him about social media in general. You know, crushing it, crushing it, those books were very, extremely beneficial to understanding this. One piece of content that I created based on something that he he came up with years ago is something called the 18 cents challenge. Okay. 18 cents is basically what it is. It's based in a nutshell on a concept Gary Vee came up with called the dollar ad philosophy, right? The dollar ad method, and what is the dollar ad? It's adding in your two cents, or your thoughts to comment on someone else's posts 90 times a day. Okay, so dollar 80 times two cents, right? Excuse me, two cents times nine is $1.80. So that's the one thing you got to post consume 90 pieces of content a day. And common he said, he claims that he was doing this back in like 2010 2011, as well, when he was first starting out his company was doing this on Twitter, on Instagram, just commenting thoughtful comments on strategic posts. And what that does, it gets your name out there, it creates these relationships, it creates a lot of presents, and your brand just gets recognized for who you are. I was like 90 pieces of content. I don't think that's humanly possible. I've tried that it's not. So let's do nine pieces of content. Let's cut it down to 18 cents, okay. And so that's essentially what I did. And doing that, that allows you Yes, you can create your own content. And you can come up with things and you can interact and engage with the people that are engaging with your posts and your content. However, even more beneficial in a lot of ways is actually engaging with other people's posts. And finding those strategic posts that you can comment on that, you know, are going to get a lot of visibility, because the other person is big. For example, if I find like a really good post from Gary Vee, like, I'll try to get one of the first comments on there. You know if that's possible, because that means you're going to be seen by 1000s 10s, if not hundreds of 1000s of people, right and that they see your tagline. They see what you do. They just make that connection that the branding is being out there. So that's just one piece of advice I think everyone can take and follow.

Derek Clifford: 29:52

That's awesome. Do you have any other advice for people who are maybe just getting started? Maybe they don't know they need to get there. Get themselves educated and understand what it is they're doing in the space. Do you have any people any advice for those who maybe need to start their own brand or just think about where they're headed in general, and just starting from square one?

Yonah Weiss: 30:12

you know, I wish I did have, there used to be something great, and it no longer exists was calling for 30 Day Social Challenge. But there, there are a lot of things out there, I think one thing that you can definitely get a lot from is Gary Vee, those books that I mentioned before crushing and crushing it, both of those books are based solely on using social media to create content. Otherwise, you know, that's not what I do, I just have fun, I enjoy giving back. I do these 10 day challenges from time to time every few months just to kind of encourage people to post on the platform, but actually just starting out, you just got to jump in. That's really what it's about, just jump in, and realize that you just gotta be consistent, you got to make up in your mind that you're going to post consistently. And whether it's every single day, or three times a week, or whatever it is, the content will come. And more than anything, it's really just about not creating content, but just sharing your journey and sharing things that you're going through. And that is the best kind of content that's out there.

Derek Clifford: 31:06

You know, one of the things that helped me early on was your idea of the 10 day care, LinkedIn challenge. And this is back when I first started my brand and who I was becoming as a real estate investor, especially a full time one. And I have to plug this because I think this is one of the most ingenious ways of I don't want to say hacking the system. But being extremely strategic, and being an incredible value add by coordinating this offense, essentially what this is actually, you know what, you know, why don't you go ahead and explain what your 10 day care challenges and maybe some, some listeners will want to take part in that as well.

Yonah Weiss: 31:46

Yeah, essentially, what it is, is I saw in the commercial real estate so that's the CRE the current real estate industry, specifically, that there were not a lot of people that were creating original content. And I I was doing it for years. And I loved it and saw the benefit from LinkedIn as like how can I encourage others? How can I get people together to you know, start doing this more? Because people are always asking me like, how do you do this? And what do you do on a strategy? So I created this basically 10 Day Challenge where the I guess the operative is, how can I post consistently for 10 days straight, because, again, the challenge is just starting and being consistent about it. So I realized that if you just start and you have a group of like minded people that are encouraging each other that are there to hold one another accountable, that it's much more likely that you're actually going to do it. And if you can combine that with having some sort of incentivizing others to kind of comment and like and engage with others, it will kind of generate this ripple effect out to all the other connections in the network, because that's how the algorithm LinkedIn works is, when you comment on someone on someone's post, the algorithm is going to show that to your connections, they're not only going to show your posts, but you're they're going to show your activity. Okay, so if you go to the top of your LinkedIn feed, for example, you scroll down, you see, so and so like this post, so and so commented on this post, who's your first connection. And so the more you're engaging with others, the more they're going to see other people. And so it's just a way to kind of a win win. Getting everyone involved, encouraged you to create content. So that's why I did it again, because I saw people in the commercial real estate industry, not posting original content and not doing that. And I saw a such a huge opportunity that I was able to get out of LinkedIn that I just wanted to share that with others. And so this was a great way to do it. And it kind of hit people loved it, it was a hit. And I've been doing consistently basically once a quarter for the last couple years.

Derek Clifford: 33:42

Yeah, it's really really value adding it's it's incredibly helpful, because I have to say there are very few inflection points in my business, where yours was probably one of the first ones the other was Brian Briscoe's meetup, where I got to meet a whole bunch of people, but I found him through your challenge. And so that's the whole thing about this is that like, you never know where the future is going to take you and the network that you the people that you meet there. And then the the people that you keep seeing over and over again, you're eventually going to find out who resonates with you, and you're gonna want to build the connection deeper with that individual. So just want to thank you for that. And last question I have before we head into the wraparound here is for your business as a national chain, but you're kind of like this intrapreneur type of thing where you've got your own business inside of your W two, is social media, a core part of your business strategy, and how do you see that going in the future? Is it going to remain that way? Or how are you looking to spread the message more you're looking beyond social media or is that your media medium of choice right now?

Yonah Weiss: 34:48

It has been consistently for the past several years, the main, you know, medium of choice in terms of the business development. The podcasting has been incredible as well and that's just grown over time not only my own podcasts, but just being a guest on others, you, you know, simultaneously help other people and help their network and you're able to get content out of that as well and get the name out there. So that Bill always really, it comes back to people, right sales and business is really about people. So what is the best way that you can reach the most amount of people? I think social media and podcasting are amazing ways that it doesn't compare to, obviously, the meeting in person. I mean, that's just incredible way to kind of solidify that. But if you think about it, having the social media presence, and I'm sure you've come across this, if you've ever been at like an event or gone to a conference, you like, feel like you know, these people and to a certain extent you do a lot. And so there's you're not just coming, you know, kind of coldly trying to meet new people, what you're doing is actually reinforcing and building and growing those relationships that already exist. And so social media is a great kind of accelerator to that. I mean, literally, the first that I was blown away by this was a couple years ago, when I was like gonna be in a certain city was either Charlotte or Atlanta, remember, and I just like posted on LinkedIn, hey, I'm gonna be here for a couple of days, like who wants to meet? And I posted on Facebook to maybe and I had like, 20 people and literally, but it was like, serious people was like, oh, yeah, there's always be like, oh, yeah, love to me. But when you actually put it down, that I literally was able to create some of those more solid relationships and had a lot of meeting setup just through that. So again, it's not about the social media, per se. It's really about the people. And so this, it's a great strategy in order to kind of create that and build that.

Derek Clifford: 36:40

Yeah. And I must say that you have been an inspiration for me on this. And every time I see your content, you know, there's a ton of engagement just because of the of who you are. And that's what some of the advice that I give people who are starting out and so like, I'm not getting any engagement in my posts, and I'm like, Well, I took this advice from you, Jana, when we first started talking, and we had this conversation about this is like, well, how much are you engaging with their stuff? And how much are you engaging in general, because the algorithm, at least for organic growth, is not going to reward you by showing you more eyeballs unless you are connecting with other people. It's just human nature. And it's also the way the network works. And so that's really useful advice for people who are starting out engagement with other people's content is just as important or according to Yuna, maybe even more important when you're starting out than generating your own content. So just wanted to throw that out there on your presents. All right, cool. Well, y'all know this is awesome. And I know that we could keep going all day about, you know, podcasting, social media, and cost segregation. We covered a lot of ground here. But we're getting ready to wrap up the show, we're gonna head into our final segment of the show, which is called the Rapid Round. And it's the same five questions that we ask every one of our guests, and they're meant to be answered in about a 32nd time span. And so hopefully, you are ready for that. Let's go. All right, number one, what book has had the biggest impact on you and why? And we ask that not the Rich Dad, Poor Dad or the Bible, in your case, the Old Testament?

Yonah Weiss: 38:14

Yeah, probably the book that's had the biggest impact on my life is a book called The Way of God. It's a Hebrew book. It was written in the early 18th century by a Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, actually not far from where you're at today. He was in Italy, and incredible book, just kind of putting everything into place. And that's the one.

Derek Clifford: 38:35

Very cool, it sounds like it's a book that's really helped you with perspective and overall life view and just basically way of living Correct.

Yonah Weiss: 38:42

Yeah. 100 percent about life, views, philosophy, just really. Yeah.

Derek Clifford: 38:47

We'll look that one up. All right, number two, if people wanted to emulate your success, what is the first actionable thing that they could do to follow in your footsteps?

Yonah Weiss: 38:56

Make an introduction, connect to people without wanting anything in return? Just see, like, if you know, someone's like, Oh, I'm looking for a broker, I'm looking for a house, I'm looking for a decorator, whatever it is something and you happen to know someone who that is, or even if you don't see some something out there, go out of your way to kind of think about I mean, like, I think these two people could actually do business together can actually, you know, connect on a level that can have some synergy. Without wanting to get anything, just make that introduction, and see what happens.

Derek Clifford: 39:25

It's so much fun. I've done that before. And so much fruit has been born from that, without even asking for it. It's so rewarding. So yes, I'm glad that you offered that advice. Number three, what is one tool process or hack in the last three months that have helped you save time and or effort?

Yonah Weiss: 39:42

You know, it's going to be really, really simple, but just some, just some simple integrations that I've used, you know, like we use for our business, Microsoft Outlook, and, and a lot of that, there's a lot of things that can integrate with that to just kind of make things easier. So for example, use DocuSign to Sign engagements and things like that. So just to integrate that and make it easier instead of opening during those, somebody said, Well, that just popped into my head, obviously use a lot, a lot of things. But that's something recently that I just started doing.

Derek Clifford: 40:10

Excellent. Very cool. Number four, if the people that you know had to describe you with one word, what do you think that word would be?

Yonah Weiss: 40:19

Probably, I mean, it's funny people would probably say conservation with that's two words, but I would say if it was one word, probably 'giving'.

Derek Clifford: 40:27

Yeah, I would agree there. That's that's a good word. And last question that I have is what small thing do most people not know about you?

Yonah Weiss: 40:36

It's a small thing. It's a big thing but it's a small thing a lot of people don't know is actually live in Israel, in Jerusalem. So people don't know that I work remotely, and often travel back and forth.

Derek Clifford: 40:47

Wow, that's really cool. Are we talking to you from Israel right now? Are you in the US right now? No, right here. That's incredible. Wow. Okay, so you are alright. Well, there's timezone madness that I thought we were going through. But now I know I'm getting the full picture. Awesome. Well, very cool. So that's the Rapid Round. Jana, thank you so much for coming on the show. We've learned a ton from talking to you about cost segregation, also about just business in general, adding value connecting and social media strategy. But before we go, why don't you tell the audience how they can find out more about Yona and his wise advice?

Yonah Weiss: 41:25

Yeah, you can head over to YonahWeiss.com, you can learn about the podcast. In a wise advice you can learn about conservation there about my investing and everything basically over there. Obviously, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. If you never heard of that place before. Go check it out. Make sure that you that you mentioned that you heard us on this podcast and yeah, love to connect, love to hear about what you're working on.

Derek Clifford: 41:48

Very, very cool. Yonah once again, thank you so much for coming on the show. I had a blast.

Yonah Weiss: 41:50

Thank you. It's been a pleasure. And we'll try to get the stand up Stand up comedy come in some other time.

Derek Clifford: 41:58

Okay, sounds good. Sounds good. I'll be waiting for it. And for you, listeners who have listened all the way to the end of the show, I want to thank you personally for listening to the content. And if you liked what you heard, or what you saw, because we're also on YouTube, please give a thumbs up a like, comment, engage with us interact with us, because as Jana has delicately demonstrated to us, the more that we can get engagement, the more we can appease the algorithm gods and the more that we can get up there in exposure, and then have the ability to present more incredible content, like Yonah here to more individuals out there. So we'd really, really appreciate that. That being said, this is Derek, I'm signing off. Thanks, everyone.