From Risk To Riches: Ben Reinberg On Building Wealth With Real Commercial Estate
21:18 Share

Forget frequently asked questions. Common sense, common knowledge, or Google. How about advice from a real genius? 95% of people in any profession are good enough to be qualified and licensed. 5% go above and beyond. They become very good at what they do, but only 0.1%.

Richard Jacobs has made it his life's mission to find them for you. He hunts down and interviews geniuses in every field. Sleep science, cancer, stem cells, ketogenic diets, and more. Here come the geniuses. This is the Finding Genius Podcast with Richard Jacobs.

Hello, this is Richard Jacobs with the Financier News Podcast. My guest is Ben Reinberg. He's the CEO of Alliant CGC. We're going to talk about mastering commercial real estate and investments. Ben's been at this for 30 years and the CGC is a consolidated group of companies. Sorry, tongue twisted for me.

Ben has facilitated billions of dollars in transactions and has delivered amazing historical returnal rates of returns across multiple asset classes. His latest book is called Hard the Assets and Hard Money for a Hard Time. So we're going to talk about Ben's work. Welcome, Ben. Thanks for coming.

Richard, thank you so much for having me on your show. I really appreciate it and look forward to adding a lot of value to your audience. Good. Tell me a bit about your history. When did you first get an inkling for real estate? Well, I'm from Chicago, even though I sit in our West Coast office in Newport Beach. I am born and raised in the Chicago area. And for me, Richard, I always was looking for a way to build well. And being from Chicago, I saw some of the biggest icons in the

in the world and families where they built their empires through hard assets and hard assets like commercial real estate. So I realized if I want to produce cash flow and build wealth, I had to get involved in commercial real estate. And Chicago is one of the largest cities in the United States. There's a lot of opportunity for real estate. So you could start local. You could learn. There was a lot of icons and incredible talented businessmen and women in commercial real estate and business in general.

And so I was fortunate to be in Chicago and get to learn commercial real estate. So I started while I was in my early twenties and started buying and syndicating. I've always been a principal, not a broker, and it allowed me to learn and grow. And it's not for the faint of heart. I would not recommend going in as a principal from day one, but that's what I decided to do. And it's worked out pretty well. And I've been doing this now for three decades. We do syndications and funds. We have

We have high net worth individual investors, as well as family offices that invest in Alliance throughout the world. And we have an incredible, talented group of people, 200 plus years of leadership team experience. And we do things a lot different at Alliance. We're heavily into AI now. We're our first commercial real estate firms that are heavily into AI. Tell me a bit about that. How are you using it?

it? Well, we're using it for property management purposes, for HR. We're using it for acquisitions, raising equity. We're using it for our newsletter as well, which has been wildly successful. So Richard- How do you use it for, let's say, tenant screening or how do you use it for some of these applications? What's the specific of two, just out of curiosity? Well, I mean, specific has to do with our portfolio. We'll

We'll deal with maintenance. If it's property management, we'll deal with follow-up. We'll deal with being able to engage with our tenants if they need to, where they can have live support. So AI has been a tremendous asset for us. It's been something that we've been doubling down on and we're about a year and a half into it.

And it's been, you know, one of the things that we wanted to get into because you have to get involved in AI and it's not it's not going away. And so what we decided is, OK, well, how do we tie all this together? And so with AI, we built a custom enterprise system specifically for us. And we looked at AI tools and underwriting and asset management market analysis specifically.

to be able to help us with speed and accuracy, Richard. And so, you know, because AI excels in predictive analytics and risk assessment and automation, and we will use AI to analyze market trends, forecast property valuations, and automate offer letter scoring, both on and off market listings. So we're using it for all different types of situations within the company. And it helps us identify emerging investment opportunities, Richard, before they've

come mainstream. So that was important to us. So AI driven automation, our company improves operational efficiencies, whether it's lease abstraction, tenant screening, to answer your question, and maintenance scheduling, saving time and reducing errors. So we're using AI for all these different product types. And so we've brought in a head

head of AI to join our company a handful of years ago. And it's been very productive for us. Yeah, that's great. And a question I should have asked earlier, why not residential real estate? You know, multifamily there or... Well, it's a good question. We just opened a multifamily division in 2024. We see great opportunity. So, but multifamily is commercial real estate.

So we always stick true to our principles of who we are as a company, which is a commercial real estate investment firm. And so we opened up a multifamily division last year. We're looking for it to start flourishing and invest a tremendous amount of money to get set up.

But what is a single family homes and small duplexes, quads and all that, the residential side, is that too slow? Is that why you never went into it? No, commercial, I like the numbers and I like the analysis. And being from Chicago, we said they're big deals. Let's get involved and go big. And that's what we decided to do. There's nothing wrong if you want to buy it.

houses and fix and flips. And there's people that do that around the country. We just, I went in at a young age and said, I want to be in commercial estate. I mean, since there was a big work from home movement around the pandemic and everything, how has that affected you? I mean, it seems like some people are like, oh, commercial is dead. It's not coming back. The vacancies are way up. What do you see? Yeah.

I see a lot of opportunities. I mean, we're one of the leaders in medical office. We're huge medical office owners throughout the United States and the human body is never going out of style. We see great opportunities in multifamily. And so we're office industrial retail experts. And now with multifamily, we do some hard money lending. So we're very opportunistic. We look at where the gaps are in the market and see how we can fill and support the investment community as well as ourselves. And so we're

what we have done is we identify opportunities we'll pivot in certain markets so for example we don't buy general office anymore it's not something in our portfolio that we want for a lot of different reasons but it brings up a good point i mean with people working remotely in hybrid we decide as a company as we decide to get into personal development for our employees and so we do a playbook on our employees we use design genius software to grow because your personal life and business life flow into each other so we have different rules within the company um so if

Instead of having everyone feel like Richard, they work in a silo. We allow people to build a community and that's what we do at Alliance. Right. So even commercial is pretty expansive from what I understand. You have like industrial, you have, you know, retail commercial, you have to use that medical office buildings, things like that. What,

What areas do y'all focus in and which ones do you stay away from with any commercial? Well, like I said, we focus on medical office. We're a large office, industrial, retail, and multifamily. Those are the food groups that we invest in. But there's other great itches. There's self-storage. There's campus housing. Some people do hotels. And so...

We get rewarded for focus. And so we started in the office industrial market, then we got into retail. And then about 22 years ago, it evolved based on the market to get into medical office. And then recently we got into multifamily. So it evolves over time, Richard. Okay, Lisa.

Within commercial, what are some of the things that you've done that have brought you profitability where other people fail? I've heard of things called triple net leases, I guess, where the tenant pays for a lot of the stuff, a lot of the expenses versus ones where the landlord pays. What are some of the basic tips and tricks that make commercial worth it? Well, it's a great question, and I appreciate the question. I mean, one of the things about being an entrepreneur in real estate is

is there's some core principles that you really have to adhere to, okay? You got to know what you stand for and you got to be an example of it, okay? These are lessons between entrepreneurship and being a real estate investor. You got to build a foundation. You have a great foundation in your company. You got to build a great team. Our team, we have 200 plus years of leadership team experience. That's why...

Investors all over the world want to invest in Alliance and what our funds and investments look like. Then you have to execute and deliver, Rich. You got to do that. What you say you're going to do, you got to do and execute and deliver. And then you measure often. You don't be afraid to pivot, just like we pivoted to medical office about 22, 23 years ago. And you always have to be learning and growing. These are the lessons of entrepreneurship and real estate that are similar, that are really important to everyone out there listening. So what's interesting is it also...

align me to write my new book, which you mentioned, Hard Assets and Hard Time for Hard Money. I've been asked for years, Richard, about can I invest in commercial real estate? How do I do it?

How do I build wealth? How do I build the hard asset empire? Can you look at this deal? So I said over a year ago, I said, we need to write a book. And it's got to be visual and it's got to be actionable. And it's got to be one of these books where it's evergreen, where you take it off the shelf every single week or every month to be able to check your hard asset blueprint. So in the book, I gave a hard asset empire blueprint for free. You can download it from benreinberg.com.

for free as well. And that allows you and shows you and teaches you in a visual, actual way how to build a hard asset empire, what you have to look for. So it could be Ben Reinberg 32 years ago getting started. Two billionaires are reading this book and utilizing the hard asset blueprint. And so it's very powerful because it allows people to be able to see what they have, where it is, to know what it is. And so it's really important. And the book,

You can lean into why keystones matter in the blueprint. It has capstones. It talks about the vaults that you need within your fortress. We talk about data and privacy and security. We talk about state planning, succession planning. And so, you know, the book helps shape your mindset through practicing gratitude, letting go, auditing your inner circle, removing distractions and energy suckers, and protecting your mind from harmful content and conversations. We talk about all

about all this in addition to how to build your heart asset empire, 'cause your mindset's tremendous.

when it comes to building an empire. Yeah. It seems with commercial that most people have to get partners or create syndications and then permits can take, you know, a building can take years. It seems like, you know, if someone wanted to get into the game of commercial real estate, they would have to have a reserve of, I don't know, three to five years until at least one project kind of comes to fruition. What's your thought there? Well, my thought is I don't advise people to do my route where I went right in as a principal.

But I wouldn't change a thing. I tell people they're just getting started. Get into investment sales brokerage, make money. And then when you start wanting to buy deals, you could do it on the side. But you get rewarded in life for focus. So I went right in to be a principal, Richard. And to get back to my book, which is really important because this allows people, is that it's

it doesn't matter how much money you have. You can invest 50 bucks a month, 100 bucks a month, 1,000 a year, whatever you have in disposal income and start building your hard asset part. I tell everyone out there, invest with smart money. So if you're gonna invest in commercial real estate, you might as well invest with Alliance, my company, because we're smart money. If you're gonna invest in artwork, find the best person to invest with. Focus on your niche. So if you're a CPA or insurance agent or a custodian, be the best at that job you can and focus on your niche.

then use your disposable income to get into other asset class to build a hard asset empire, invest in hard assets. So what we did is we said, okay, you can write a book and there's a lot of CPAs and attorneys that are buying them in the dozens so they can give out their clients as gifts. But one of the things I said, I want to go a step further, Richard, besides the book. So I said, we're going to create courses that you could take that will bring the pages of the book to life to really understand how to build a hard asset. So what I did was I said, okay, we're going to create courses

Course 101. It's going to be called Core Foundation, a step-by-step guide to essential principles, how to build a hard-ass emperor. I said, let's go deeper. I said, let's create Course 201, which is incremental growth assets and strategies for stable and scalable growth. I said, all right.

If people want to keep going, we're going to establish number 301, course 301. It's legacy and vision planning. And what's behind that is building a long-term legacy and strategic vision is what people want to move forward. And I said, okay, well, if you really want to take it to another level and it gets harder and harder, we'll do a course 401 advanced strategies, which is high-level tactics for maximizing impact. So what will people learn from doing this, from maximizing?

reading the book, taking courses. You'll learn resilient cashflow strategies, everyone out there, investing in stable market opportunities. And then you'll be personalizing and building your hard asset empire blueprint with us as we take you through the process. And so that's what it's about. That's a way to allow people to get an inside look now in my company and how we did it and how I do it. But also I share different war stories. I tell people it's not for the faint of heart. You

You're going to fail. You're going to have some challenges you're going to get through. And I give, I give live examples, Richard of, is there, is there a story that didn't make it into the book that, you know, so does that spoil it?

I think when you read the book, you'll see the lessons because it's not about me. I didn't write this book about me. I wrote about you. I wrote about the audience out there in the entire world that can understand how do I build a hard ass empire because no one talks about or teaches it. It makes it visual and actionable. So what I do is I share lessons. If you read the book, you'll see in the different lessons, I give examples of deals I've done where maybe they worked out, maybe they didn't, and what lesson came out of that. And so

That was really important. So if you read the book, the key is to understand what the lessons are so you can use it for your life as well. All right. So let's say someone wants to go at it alone. They're like, I don't want to read that book. I wish I could do it myself. Do you think they're likely to get crushed? Like how difficult is commercial real estate without good guidance? I am a futurist, but I do know that you need masterminds

You need mentors, you need resources, you need capital. And if you want to shorten your learning curve, you'd read the book. If you want to go at it alone, yeah, you'll have a longer learning curve, just like I did when I was younger. I mean, I wrote the book to be able to take you through where your learning curve will be shorter and you could reduce the amount of pain that I went through to build an empire.

And so that is the best of the book and the courses. Now, if you want to go at alone, that's your decision. You still got to build resources. You're still going to have to go through the same process I talk about in the book. So that's the advantage to reading the book is to be able to leverage our skills, my talent, and mastermind.

and me and hundreds of other people that contribute to this book that are in the same position that can give you real life experiences. - What is a hard asset empire? Like what's your definition of that? Is that what people want or they just wanna have a comfortable living? - It depends, it depends on the person and what they want. I mean, hard assets could be commercial real estate, could be gold, silver, platinum, could be artwork, could be cryptocurrency. It could be any type of investment vehicle that's a hard asset. And so could be a company

And so where wealth has been generated for years and years is through hard assets. That's the number one. And so we're allowing people with our knowledge and experience to be able to learn and shorten their learning curve to build a hard asset empire. So again, the example for someone that's starting out versus a really advanced person, what's one thing that you've had comments on from amateurs that read the book like, oh, wow, that's really helpful. And then maybe a comment from a...

It's an easy read. Okay. And we wrote it for everyone. And what the comments are, it's very visual and actionable. And it allows people to be able to resonate, get close to us, get close to me, so they can feel confident that they can do it. But I tell people it's not for the faint of heart. You got to put the work in. You got to show up every day and continue to grind and work, and you'll be able to do it. And so...

It's an inspirational book that's an easy read. And like I said, to go back to my comment, it's for the Ben Reinberg that was starting out 32 years ago to the billionaire. And the reason why is because it gives you aspects with the blueprint to be, if you're a billionaire, say, you know, I didn't really think about that. I'm not doing that.

okay i'm gonna i'm gonna go and do that or i'm gonna amend this or i'm gonna tweak this in my plan or my state plan or asset protection so we talk about these different things but if you're just getting start out and to have a blueprint because no no one puts together a blueprint of how to do it and that's what we did and so if you're getting started out it helps you tremendously to give you confidence to say well he's been there done that he's got other colleagues that have how

How do we go about doing it? Okay, well, he actually gave us a blueprint to show us what we need to consider. Does, after someone goes through the book, I mean, are they, do they then tend to approach you for mentorship? Or like, what do you have for people after they've gone through the book that want to work with you? Well, the first thing I advise is take the courses. And then down the road, we're considering, you know, potentially doing some one-on-one consulting with people if we get to that. But between the book and the courses, it's pretty...

It's pretty actionable and visual that people will get a good understanding of what they need to do. And they can become ambassadors of ours. After they get through course 401, they'll be ambassador. They'll be very polished. Yeah. And a cynical person may say, oh, you know, this guy is so successful. Why does he have a book? Why does he have courses? Like, what's your reason why? I didn't have to write it, Richard. Believe me, I don't need to do this. I'm doing it. It's my way to give back. It's my way to help. I enjoy doing. And so I...

I didn't need to do this. It's not for me. It's for you. I mean, believe me, for someone to spend $579 isn't going to change my life. But when I wrote the book and even created the courses to boot, I said, if I can help someone there that was in my situation 32 years ago, how wonderful would that be? How wonderful would it be to have a man or woman that thinks they're helpless, that they can't become successful and develop their own business, to have someone like Ben Reinberg help them and guide them to...

just through a book, through words on page. If you read the forward of my book, okay, and you want to talk about full circle. When I was a young man, okay, in my early 20s, I read a book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Sharon Lanker, who the story is about, was on my podcast years ago. And then she was on my TV show recently, about a year and a half ago. And she inspired me to get into commercial real estate and start building a hard asset empire. And full circle, she wrote the forward to this book.

And it just shows you that you put the effort in, you work hard, you stay persistent, consistent, reliable, and dependable and have integrity. Great things happen. So I started with Sharon reading her book. Next thing you know, this book that I wrote, my first book, she wrote the forward too. So it shows people in life that you can do it and you can come full circle as well in your career. Yeah, that's really cool. So how far along are you in your life's plan? Like where is this going for you personally? Yeah.

your business? Well, I'm excited. I mean, the book is a great calling card. It's great to help people. My personal brand has skyrocketed. The company's brand is strong. We've had new people. We're getting into different asset classes. I'm in the prime of my career in commercial real estate, Richard. You spend the first third of your career on your back, second third on your feet, last third on the stomach, which is your prime. I'm in my prime right now on my stomach. And I'm excited for the next 20 years.

in this business. I'm excited for next two years of buying opportunities that are gonna happen. And so I'm very excited. The brand, the book, the courses, when I go out and speak, all this helps.

investors. It helps our Alliance community and all our resources. Okay. So the book is available on Amazon or where can people get it? The book can go to a couple of things. If you want to buy in bulk or individually, you can go to benreinberg.com, myname.com, benreinberg.com. You can go on Amazon, you can go Barnes and Noble. You can buy it there and pick up a copy and you'll be glad you did because it

It'll show you how to build hard assets and build a hard asset empire. Okay. Well, very good. Yeah. Ben, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. That's where interested listeners should go. They want to work in commercial real estate. Personally, to me, it seems like a daunting thing. So I'm glad that there's people like you with courses and books to help people out. And now that if anyone on this audience wants to invest in commercial real estate, they can invest with us passively and go to a

AllianceCGC.com. That's AllianceCGC.com. And they can invest and we'll show them how investing with smart money, what it can do so you can start building a hard asset empire. So they get real live and they'll go on a learning curve of seeing how we do it. Oh, nice. Well, very good. Well, Ben, thanks so much for coming and spending your time. I appreciate it. No problem. Thank you, Richard, for having me. If you like this podcast, please click the link in the description to subscribe and review us on iTunes.

You've been listening to the Finding Genius Podcast with Richard Jacobs. If you like what you hear, be sure to review and subscribe to the Finding Genius Podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. And want to be smarter than everybody else? Become a premium member at FindingGeniusPodcast.com.

This podcast is for information only. No advice of any kind is being given. Any action you take or don't take as a result of listening is your sole responsibility. Consult professionals when advice is needed.