Our guest today is a former construction executive who has completed over $2 billion worth of contracts. With Hazen and Sawyer. He’s also the vice president of Nautilus consulting and COO of Eldor contracting and elder electric. Marshall Wilkinson is also a real estate developer, investor and construction consultant, as well as a sales and negotiation.
Coach Marshall has been featured in business insider Yahoo finance, and is the co-host of risk on a live daily show about the markets and investors. Which can be found daily at 4 0 5 Eastern on the cheddar network, YouTube and iHeartRadio. I am a big fan of this guy. I can’t wait to have a conversation with them.
Marshall has been looking forward to this one, welcome to the run GPG podcast. Thank you. Dammit. Appreciate it, man. Really looking forward to it as well. I’m glad we’re able to make it. 100%. Yeah. You know, a lot of our guests are all of our guests really, you know, they have unique stories and perspectives.
What’s interesting about you is that it’s only recently become popular on social media. Sure. You’d agree with that. Then you really start to grow an audience, even though you’ve been successful for a very long time. But you are someone who’s as authentic as they come, the real deal. And I think that’s why people are paying close attention to you.
So I’m excited to get your perspective on, you know, sales, negotiation, business, building the markets and crypto, and a lot more. But first I really want our listeners to hear the Marshall Wilkinson story. I’m not sure how many of our listeners and subscribers have no use for those tuning in today for the first time and are being introduced to you.
Who is Marshall Wilkinson? Where are you from and where did you grow up? Okay, well, Marshall, Wilkinson’s a guy from Long Island, New York. I grew up on Long island. Middle-class building construction my whole life. My father has been in the business. It’s a family business. So we kind of have that construction culture, the culture that I grew up in, you know, like Betty Long island kids.
And then I went off to school in Boston. I did some other stuff until then. It’s all around 25 years old. My father led me into the business and, and then I got in, I got into the business and took it from there, but I’m just a New York guy doing business every day, kicking ass and taking names. I like it.
You know, as we mentioned in your bio there, you were in the construction business, you were selling. Contracts worth $2 billion, right. And you actually took that construction company to a hundred million dollars and dominated the New York city construction scene, which is one of the toughest places in the world to do that.
But before I ask you about that specifically, you know, you’re someone who really, cut his teeth in the early years in raw sales, right? Cold calling, pounding the pavement, paying your dues. So let’s talk, first of all, about sales training and sales skills specifically, you’ve become incredible. Popular as a sales coach, somewhat of a mentor to young entrepreneurs with your show and your lives.
People are really paying attention to that part of your brand. I think. And I’ve said this before on the show, I think that Ross sales skills will be even more important in a post pandemic world, especially in our industry, which is real estate, because I think people are less likely to part with their money on large purchases, unless they know like, and trust you.
So. Get into this conversation by asking the question, is the art of sales and deal closing a lost skill or art to some degree? No, it’s not. It’s definitely an art, but I don’t think it is lost. There are plenty of great deal-makers and salespeople out there. I think the, I think the art that is being lost as the yard of cocoa.
I could see that, diminishing, but the artists selling and dealmaking is still extremely robust. But only certain people know how to paint the perfect picture. You know what I mean? Yeah. The reason why I ask that is, you know, we see a lot of millennials getting into the sales profession, you know, the real estate industry and some of them like to invent robots.
You know, to do the work for them, you know, the follow-ups and things like that, nothing replaces the phone. We always say that nothing replaces the phone ever. So when you began your career, you really had to prove yourself by making those sales calls as mentioned cold calling prospecting. Do you know how many calls you made over the years?
Like, could you put an estimate on it and how did you perfect the cold call? Okay. Well, I’m, I’m, I’m still married to the phone now. I don’t know about any, I’ve never used a robot. I didn’t even know that that was available. That sounds crazy to me though. You have to have the human connection, nothing, nothing beats the phone.
I have to get on the phone with you and talk with you and make the connection in order for anything to happen. But I’ve probably made 10,000 calls. If not more. I mean, I, I used to make, in the beginning of my career cold calling, we had to make 400 dials a day. I mean to end today’s standard.
This is, so this is the late nineties in today’s standard of, I asked the guy to make 400 calls today. He’d be like, that’s it that’s impossible. No way I, 75 is a full day. And, we used to have to burn through 400. So it was, you know, just, just pounding the phones back in the nineties. If you remember that era.
That’s, that’s how I built my business, the entire business by book that I bought, that I built at Nautilus, was all on the phone. I just called every contractor in the tri-state area and introduced myself. And, try to get in front of them to tell them how I could help them. And, without the phone, that’d be impossible, but I’d say probably 10,000 calls.
So you got some experience. Why is the phone, the great equalizer in the beginning? You’re trying to be something that you aren’t necessarily at. Right. So when you’re a young guy, you don’t know anybody, you have no connections, but you know, you can help somebody and you can commit and give them all your energy.
The phone allows you to become the person that you really want to be, that you might not currently be. That’s what makes it the great equalizer. The second I picked this phone up. I’m the strongest CEO in America. You can’t tell me. And I have a shot every time I pick up this phone to make an impression, that’s what makes it the great equalizer, where if I saw you in person, you might make a quick judgment.
Look at me and go, yeah, I don’t want to deal with this guy, but the phone I have, you don’t have that luxury. And I’m able to make my absolute best, first impression with my voice. And I believe that’s why it’s the great evil. Very interesting. Now you touched on it. You talked about tonality, but what are some things that a salesperson, a sales professional needs to pay attention to?
Or what should they focus on when making sales calls and prospecting on the phone? So I think this is probably where I’m going to differ from a lot of people, in traditional sales, because. I didn’t really read the sales books, the market, and my business taught me all the lessons that I needed to learn the best piece of advice I could give to somebody who’s in sales or who starting, or even somebody who’s seasoned is to know who you are and carry yourself that way with a confidence, depending on what’s concurrent with who you are, David.
So I’m a hammer looking for a nail. That is my personality. This one, this. So understanding that that’s who I am. This is how I carry myself, that I could talk business that way. So I think the first thing is to find out who you are and what, what type of style is going to be congruent with you. That’s going to help you build confidence.
I think competence is the number one thing. And for me in a sales process, that piece of advice is finding out who you are and having the competence of being a man and the person you are in order to deliver the service. Or the product that you promise that you can deliver. The most important thing is being a solid person and they will feel if you are authentic and solid, they’ll feel that that’ll help your confidence because you’re not playing a role.
You are being who you are and the rest will unfold. That’s my advice. I believe that to the core. Yeah. I’d agree with that. Confidence is super powerful, you know, in a sales setting. Absolutely. Is there anything that a sales professional should not do when making calls and prospecting? Yes, definitely do not be disrespectful to people.
I know that I skirt the edge of that because I’m extremely, I’m a straight shooting guy where I might offend people, but I’ll never disrespect them. Never disrespect someone and don’t lie. Like if you disrespect the guy and he, and he catches that you’re lying to him. It’s over for you, man. Those are the two things I’d say as a sales person that never do fantastic.
Advice right. Don’t lie. So that’s good. There’s different stages to selling, right? We know there’s the presentation, negotiation closing, but in particular, you’ve become known for your negotiation skills with good, you know, for good reason. Why are you considered the, I call it the sense of negotiation.
I appreciate that. Well it’s because I’ve codified it. I’ve broken down a process and a sequence of operations in a, in an effort to replicate negotiation. So I can, I can have the success that was required in our business. So I forced myself to figure out what is the best path in a sequence of strategies to tie together in order to have successful negotiations?
Because in my business, you know, if I do one good deal, it’s not enough. Every deal I do has gotta be good. And so I think I’m probably one of the guys, the only guys who’s actually broken down a very complex negotiation process. Into a series of steps, chunk them together and have been able to teach people that.
Yeah. And you wrote a playbook on it? Correct? Did. Yeah. Yeah. So you did codify it. Can you explain the concept of the ice cream man? So the ice cream man is, is the second strategy and the sequence, when doing a negotiation in the beginning of a negotiation, there is a one party that has the power over the other party.
Every single negotiation, eventually power will flip. So in the construction and the real estate game, the power always lies with the owner of. Because the owner could say, look, I don’t want to do this development project. I don’t want you to be my contractor. So at that point, they, they have the power. The ice cream man is a strategy that I use in order to get me to the power flip point.
So whatever they want they’ll get, even if the contract is egregious, if it’s completely Barb, I’m going to tell them that it’s okay, then I’m going to give them everything they want for the price of. Quoted and it’s perfect. It’s a perfect job. I have to do that. Then once they make the commitment to me, I flip.
So that’s the ice cream man. That’s the ice cream man. Yeah. How long are you going to give them what, what they want and, and be convicted that you will, but there are times like it makes sound manipulative, but it’s not. I mean, there are times where if I told them straight up, well, listen, I’m going to have a big issue with the liquidated damages clause.
I’m going to have a big issue with your time. Barring, you know, getting into the weeds of the current. I’m never going to get the deal, but it’s, egregious like they have to understand that, like, you know, that contract that they sent out, they didn’t read and some, some attorney barbed the hell out of it.
And it’s not working in a spirit of cooperation. Like, it’s just not fair. Right? So everything that you want, you’re going to get from me. As long as we work in a spirit of cooperation and you don’t try to hurt me. So I have to say yes to everything, to get to the point where they make a commitment to me.
And then I could say, Hey, look, I circled back and looked at a few things. There are a few showstoppers I want to bring to your attention. Then that allows me my ability to start the negotiation process. Can you think of, something that a sales professional needs to pay attention to off the top of your head when negotiating and then the follow-up to anything they should not do much like a, you know, talking about cold calling.
Yeah. Well, I think, I think the number one thing, a sales person in a negotiation needs to understand is that they need to let logic rule the day. They can’t let emotion get to them. Emotions will play. When you, when you change, when you flip from ice cream man to improve condition as the next play, when you flip to improve condition, get ready for emotions and you have to be cool as a cucumber.
So logic is going to keep you grounded. Like how I explained it to you. Why? I don’t think it’s a manipulative process because I’m looking at it from an extremely logical lens. And if I can be logical, then it’ll help me stay in a grounded state while people lose their emotion. And finally come back to reality.
It allows me to get control. You were obviously close to closing $2 billion worth of contracts. Can you think of some of your favorite closing lines or favorite clubs? Well, I have to tell you now it’s over 2 billion. I got a pet. I stand corrected. I apologize. It’s okay. It’s a little flex there. What I’ll tell you: some of the best closing phrases, lines, and word patterns are the easiest ones that are the most powerful, like here’s one.
You’re ready to go say it all the time. Every time I make a point, I’ll say, David, you ready to go? What do you want to do, man? Have you heard enough to make a decision? What do you say? UN some of like some of those really short and sweet ones are so powerful because you could put them at the end of any great word track.
If you guys can benefit from this, you believe you can make money from it and you believe it’s gonna help you achieve your objectives and you can afford it. And it’s the right thing to do that. I’m going to ask you, man, take time out of the equation and let’s do that. Like, those are the easiest, because it’s just honesty.
So, you know, does this make sense to you? Can you afford it yet? So what do you want to do, man? On a level with them. Yeah, those are good. I heard one the other day. You ready to put us to work? The shot? Just shut up. Shut up. You shut up. So I do want to ask you about Eldar specifically, that’s the company.
You talk to a hundred million dollars in the construction world of New York city. I’ve heard you say, I heard you say this, that it was methodical. Process to do that. So how did you do that? How were you able to dominate the New York city construction scene and what makes it the hardest market in the world to do that in?
Well, the way we were able to do it is we had a great team. It wasn’t just me. You know, you have to have players enroll. We came together where I had a very crucial and pivotal role in spearheading that charge leading from the front. But I did have a great support staff. I had great estimators, great project managers.
So the team was right, but if you can’t get the deal, what’s the matter. Right. So, we were extremely methodical in how we were going to scale. We knew that. We knew that we had the confidence that we could go head to head with any of the big players in New York. We intellectually thought that we had the horsepower.
In order to do it and not lose our shirt because you gotta remember the construction game, the construction itself, David is tertiary. So you want, you know, you want the best, absolute, best labor and the most skilled guys in the world. When we made that transition, we recognized, okay, well now we’re union.
So we can play in public. Public contracts, governmental contracts. And we have the horsepower. We believed in ourselves, we had an esprit de Corps that we could compete with the big boys and beat them up here because once we recognized that and we did that, the construction itself was just going to get done by.
Guys, we recognized creating a management company of project managers, project executives, and C-suite guys like myself to really grab the reins and push this thing forward in a traditional corporate type of sense, like a, like a sales organization would that we would prosper. And, that’s what we did.
Interesting. Okay. That’s, that’s really cool to hear. I, you know, it’s something that I wondered, but having the importance of having a good team right. And working cohesively, like as. Right. I think that’s super important. You can only get to the next level. If you do have a good team, it’s going to be more than one person.
I want to ask you about mentorship. Did you have a mentor or were you self-taught? Yeah, no, I had a mentor. My father’s my biggest mentor. My dad has been, so this business I learned by sitting at the dinner table every day. Yeah. I grew up in the eighties and nineties. So, you know, we sat at a table for dinner every day, like a family, like every day.
So kind of like old school. And that’s all I heard every day was dealing with contractors. Construction managers had to build jobs. I mean, I’ve heard, I like when I was 18 years old, I knew everything about construction management, construction. Right. He was a huge mentor to me. He’s a very Old school guy.
He, he, he’s a very tough guy. He’s like a Trump character, you know, he’s a New York guy, but he’s a guy that time has left behind. And, you know, so he was a big man. He is still a huge mentor to me. And he’s my best friend, but also I must say everybody’s my mentor in my business. It’s a male dominated business that was.
And I will tell you that the men that came before me, very strong men that came before me. I was extremely fortunate that those guys opened up lanes for me to run. They didn’t hold me down. And as I ran, they guided me, very lucky with that. Most people have a corporate experience where there’s a ceiling and it’s somebody trying to protect their job and they hold you down and suppress you to justify their position.
Not in my world. They saw that I had the juice quickly. They knew I was walking since I was a kid. They knew I had firepower and I was getting after it. Then they said, okay, Oh, go ahead. Let you run. You know, why is it important for young entrepreneurs and sales professionals to pay attention, to, or look for? Well, you don’t know what you don’t know.
Right? I mean, everything is a form of, we mimic everything, all art in our own music. It comes, it derives from something that came before us. You know, like if you were a rapper, you’re gonna rap in a way that, you know, you heard and that you liked, and you’re going to add your own flavor to it. So if you are a person.
Who’s trying to make it today? Then, you know, you’re going to have to find a mentor or somebody that you can, that can give you gain that you can mimic, that you can use as a springboard that you can take from and, and, and, you know, put in your arsenal. And, it’s, it’s crucially important and extremely, but I will say this.
I think people go about it the wrong way. I had people in my DM every day asking me to go to lunch. And it’s like, I mean, like I, the last thing I want to do is go to lunch with you and be honest with like, what, what do you think I can’t afford my own lunch. Like I want to spend my lunch hour talking to you.
Like you, you need to be a bit more creative when you’re looking for mentors. I was never that guy who was like, Hey, look, I really appreciate you. Can you be my mentor? Like, I think that people get that a little bit messed up. Some guys might say, oh yeah, I’d love to mentor you, but I’m telling you, the guy has got dementia.
You are not the guy you want as a mentor. You need to get into the ecosystem of the player that you’re trying to get around and you got to do something for him. You have to get his attention. You know, you know, funny thing is a lot of salespeople, they, they try to put an emphasis on remembering people’s names and stuff like that.
You know, you read these books on how to win friends and influence people. It’s like you shake a guy’s hand and you want to remember his name to somehow that’s like a magical rapport building thing. I forget everybody’s name and I’ll tell you why, because you’re forgettable. If you’re not forgettable, I will remember your name.
If, if I forget your name, it’s because you made no impression on me, right. That type of concept. And that’s what I teach my people. And I tell people straight up, that type of concept is the way you get mentors. Get my attention, man. If you get my intention, you can get in my ecosystem. Then I will give you my title.
Doing that is going to compress your timeline so far greater than anything else would. So it’s worth your effort. Show me you got game. That’s how you get a mentor. That’s fantastic advice. I think that’s a, I think everybody should pay attention to that. So listen, that’s that kind of paints a picture of, you know, where you came from, where you are.
Now you’re someone who’s become the go-to for your opinion on market conditions, you know, trends and especially crypto, you, co-host a fantastic show called risk on that talks about all of that. So I want to ask you about what we’ve seen. First of all, the real estate market across the globe in 2021, it’s been incredibly robust as a sellers market, especially in North America.
We’ve seen some panic buying. What are your broad stroke thoughts on what we’ve seen so far? Why do we see it further than that? So w let’s bifurcate, this we’ll talk crypto and we’ll talk real estate, right? Yeah. So let’s first of all, talk about, real estate. So like why, you know, what’s happened 20, 21, you know, coming out of the pandemic.
t was crazy. Like, we didn’t see this. No, no, we definitely did it, but we’re taking advantage of it. That’s for sure. Well, what happened in the states is that we had a massive migration. I mean, we witnessed the first time, I would think probably since the settlers went west a mass migration and it’s a migration, not only geographically of people, but it’s also an intellectual and a political migration that occurred in this case.
Political ideologies. People would have a certain philosophy that left certain areas that went to all the areas. That’s a fact, the real estate market. And as we know, it has never experienced anything like that since the settlers went out west and put a flag in the ground. So I don’t, I think what happened here, nobody could have ever predicted, and it’s kind of a perfect storm because this migration occurred mainly from the north to the south, in this country, in the United States.
Okay. And in that area, obviously the asset price is going to increase due the supply and demand. They came with money, but they also came during a time when money was, was, was being sucked out in the marketplace or, you know, private money was sucked out of the marketplace and then infused with public money.
So is this bizarre? State of affairs was that that was occurring in a supply chain breakdown, which prevented new home construction from being as robust as it, as it was needed in that area, in those areas specifically the Sunbelt, which made for just sky rocking and catapulting asset prices. So it’s a perfect storm, but it’s based on a migration of humans in the United States.
Yeah, it’s crazy, man. Like we were predicting something else coming out of this, you know, so very, very interesting. And we know that, you know, the stimulus packages, money printing, it’s been out of control in recent years. And you’re someone who’s invested in a number of different assets. What are you doing to protect yourself when the party stops or is it that Jesus comes to Jesus on all of this?
Right? Like when it’s time to pay that debt, you know, any advice there, what do you think. Yeah. So here’s my advice. I’m a macro investor. I use a macro outlook on everything. So I believe that because that’s my philosophy and my ethos is I want to be in control of my own destiny in order to do that, or be congruent with that.
I find asset classes and investment vehicles that are congruent with that philosophy. Real estate is one of them. An asset is always going to be, in my opinion, the best investment you can make. You can find alpha in other places where you can trade stocks. You can bet on sports. Alpha can be found in other places, but long-term macro hard asset ownership that leads to freedom is going to be real estate.
And the next piece, I think the greater piece is actually crypto and most specifically Bitcoin and Ethereum, to me, those asset classes represent. Yeah. And I’m going to ask you specifically about crypto in a minute here, but I like to get your thoughts on inflation. I mean, that’s a, I mean, that’s a topic everybody’s talking about hyperinflation.
Everybody’s saying it’s inevitable, you know, thoughts on inflation and. Very interesting conversation about inflation, because if you talk to me a few months ago, I’m a, I would be an inflation bull, and I still am. We are currently experiencing inflation. We know that the CPI numbers are incorrect. Just go to the pump, go buy meat.
I mean, meet the inflating, go buy lumber. I mean, everything is inflating. The justification is the supply chain breakdown. Vis-a-vis COVID I think that that’s probably true. Here’s the issue with the inflation argument. Listen, I believe it’s here. And I believe that we’re going to enter a real estate Supercycle and it’s going to be buttressed by inflated costs, but I’m not sure if the hyperinflation thing is going to happen.
You have to watch the dollar. If you’ve watched recently, commodities have fallen off. A cliff lumber has taken a dive. Crypto has taken a dive and it’s because of the rising dollar. The dollar leads the way. And I believe as long as the dollar runs, you are not going to have inflation hedge investments also run.
You’re not going to have a dollar running and commodities running and gold running. You know, you have a, you have a fall and a Dolly of horizon goal. You have a phone, a Dolly of rising commodities, rarely do you see a spiking dollar and a spiking commodity run. Right? So be very careful with this inflation argument and I, and if you see a continuous dollar, despite that we’re going to look at a deflationary environment.
And another thing I want to say is that if the whole consensus is saying inflation, that I look somewhere else because the mass in the herd is always wrong. Man. That is so true. I mean, come to expect the unexpected, right? That’s what’s happening, you know, we can’t predict this stuff. And like you said, with manipulation, you really can’t predict anything.
Timing with manipulation, David, takes the timing element out. It makes it completely unpredictable, so we might make a correct call, but our call might be correct, five or six years from now when we’re already. Yeah. You know, like, because all of these things come down to timing. The direction is easy.
Hey man, do you think this is going to go up or go down? Well, based on everything, I mean, I think this is going to go up. Okay. The question is when. So that’s the biggest thing all the time is the timing. So that’s why I take a macro approach because I can’t time anything, the worst timer. So I basically get into a position that I have a strong conviction in, which is real estate and crypto.
And now, we’ll talk about crypto in a bit and I will, I will accumulate a large position. And then I will hope that my thesis plays out. I’m more comfortable doing that as a macro investor than being in and mixing it up every single day in the market. Yeah, very interesting discussion. I like your take on that and I think it’s a, I think it’s profound.
So let’s talk about crypto then, you know, that is something we have in common, digital assets, blockchain technology, it’s something we’re very bullish on, especially in the real estate space. As I mentioned to you, I think we’re one of the only brokerages that actually transacts in crypto. You know, all of our real estate listings are in BTC.
Why are you? Yeah. Why are you so bullish on digital assets, particularly because I got to say, I love that you’re doing that. And by the way, we need people like you and your company in that vision to proliferate because you guys have the courage and conviction to step out and do that. I think that’s a great play.
We need it. The crypto ecosystem. And you guys are one of the only ones doing it. So hats off to you. I salute you, man. I know what it’s like to step out in faith on something new like that, and you guys have done it so well for you. Yeah, I appreciate that. We also pay our agents in crypto too. If they want to create a crypto portfolio and take part of their commission checks and put that into, you know, Bitcoin and Ethereum, why are you bullish on Bitcoin?
I’m bullish on Bitcoin, because to me that asset is freedom. I think there’s a lot more to it. Let me unpack that. Okay. So we have experienced the digitization of everything. Atomic, really, we, we, you know, just think about what I read. I have every book ever now. So the digitization of everything, atomic, is what we’ve experienced over the past 15 years.
And the people in the companies that are masters of the universe now were the ones who spearheaded that effort. We’re not going backwards. Well, Bitcoin and the whole defy is exactly that for fighting. So I don’t see us going backwards. So that’s, that’s one macro argument for it that really clicked for me.
The second thing is it’s the world’s first bearer asset, that self clearing. I clear a Bitcoin transaction with my cell phone. Dude. I don’t need Lloyd’s of London. I don’t need an, I don’t need Goldman Sachs. So that’s what is the deal maker for me, that I keep being in control of my own destiny.
And that this is a law. This has afforded this technology, not just a phone, but Bitcoin and its entire ecosystem and network has afforded not just American. The person in a country that is driven in and, and, and ruled by a dictator and extremely poor economic policy that allows them and affords them the ability to not have their wealth and their labor stolen from them.
From politicians. Quantitative easing does not apply to Bitcoin. It lives outside of that world. So the inflationary, arguing. And the fact that my labor is being stolen from me every single day, because the dollars that are in my pocket are worth less today than they will be worth. Or they were worth yesterday that I work for but exerted the same effort for, but I’m getting a diminished return on because a politician decided to put in place very poor economic policy who might never.
Voted for, by the way, these are economic policy and advisory people. These people are appointed. Bitcoin is immune to that. So it allows a person in those, in those worlds. And in those conditions, the ability to secure their wealth and not have their labor stolen from them. That’s a life that’s world.
Nothing’s been like that ever. That is how I view this investment. It’s not just for guys like me in a, in the Trump, in a free, it’s not, it’s not, it’s a store of value. Yes. But it’s freedom for people worldwide. And I believe that there’s 7 billion people.
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I’ve heard you say that Bitcoin is the world’s greatest treasury reserve asset. Can you explain that? Yeah, I think if you have cash on the balance sheet and you’re sitting on a melting ice cube, so you, you have a, an, an obligation, you owe a duty and obligation to your shareholders. If you have cash on your balance sheet, you have to put it in and deploy it.
You need to put it in an asset. Listen, if they’re expanding the money supply by 15% and inflation is 2%, you got a 13% real yield. You have a problem, a negative 13%. I mean, your money is going to be worth it. If they continue to expand at the rate they’ve been in, they’ll be expanding in 2020, which I don’t think that they will obviously, but if they continue and expand at anywhere near that rate in five to eight years, your money’s been halved.
Just think about that. To me, Bitcoin is the best reserve. No question about it. I would put it in Bitcoin. It has the best alpha, it has been a hit lately. And I know everyone’s going to say that and jump on that, but what, what you should recognize about Bitcoin is it’s full Lindy effect. Right now it continues to take a beating and get to the comeback.
And that’s a proof of its efficacy. It’s like the Rocky belt. I mean, the more you it’s like Nate Diaz, the more you beat this thing, the more it keeps coming back at you like a monster. So the fact that it hasn’t been killed yet is proof to me that it just can’t be killed because it’s the people. So if you want, if you’re looking for alpha and you’re looking to put your money in a secure asset, I think that it’s probably the best reserve asset out there, in my opinion.
So by the dip, by the diff, but put your corporate money to work. Don’t sit in cash. Yep. Let’s get advice. Makes sense. Absolutely. Makes sense. What projects are you working on right now? Tell us about, risks. Yeah, sure. So I co-host the show risk-on with Toddler and Jason Bartholomew. It’s out in Las Vegas.
Title is the chairman of DPW. It’s a publicly traded company. Last week he just had an IPO with his company, Alison and neuro , an Alzheimer’s company. They’re working on a cure for Alzheimer’s and not just an IPO, it’s a ticker symbol, ticker symbol and he co-hosts the show. And so I poured it with him.
Scouring the U S for very particular real estate, and we are in acquisition mode. So that the number one project I’m working on right now is trying to buy as much multifamily real estate as I can. Cool. Well those are, they all sound ambitious. Those projects. Yeah. They’re no joke. Certainly ours, but we have the money.
So, you know, we’re in a great position where we buy the asset first and then we’ll open it up to investors to kind of backfill it with retail money where we don’t have to do a capital raise first before we acquired the asset. So we’re in a, we’re in a good place. Do you have any downtime? What do you do for fun?
You know what? This is a great question. I’m going to give your podcast the first big scoop. I’ve always said my work is my first. Like, I don’t need downtime, dude. I love what I do. You know, people say, if you do what you love, then it’s not work. It’s, that’s not true. I love doing this and it is work, but I love doing work.
So, I’m not one of those guys that like, okay, six o’clock I turn it off. This is who I am. And, I’ve been this way for a long time and not to say that I don’t have fun and I don’t go out. I find myself to be a social guy, but during the week, I’m not one of those guys that goes out and goes to dinners and, you know, networks and stuff like that.
That’s not me. You’re never going to catch me at a place like that. Talking to people, shaking hands and kissing babies. However, I have a beautiful woman in my life recently, and she has kind of broken that mold. So now I’m out Tuesday night, I’m out at dinner and I’m getting drinks and I’m doing, I’m doing stuff.
I wouldn’t have done it. Like I, my entire come up, David, my tire came up. I’ve been like a Spartan. And, now I’m kind of like, experiencing another facet of life that I haven’t experienced in a, like a very long time. So what do I enjoy doing? I like spending time with my girl going out to dinner and, and, enjoying some of the real humanity of things.
If you know, That’s a shocking revelation, a domesticated Marshall Wilkinson is a shocker. That’s a shocker, but good for you, brother. Glad to hear it. Thank you for letting us know. Hopefully all goes well, you know, you got to shit. Okay. On a daily basis, is there an app or a piece of technology that you cannot live without?
Oh my God, what a question. I cannot live without my iPhone. Obviously it keeps all of us connected. And I am an email freak and a phone freak, like, you know, over apps. So I use Instagram and as you know, and I have a pretty robust thing going on and Instagram. So I am using that regularly. But, but it’s a plain old fashioned telephone man.
I am a guy who calls you, I’m your friend. It’s like, oh, why is he calling? Why does he say I’m. So I would say, I would say not necessarily an app for productivity. I don’t use Evernote. I use outlook. I keep things really old school. I do keep a pad with me, like a legal pad and I run through them all.
Like, you know, when I’m done, I’ll get another one. And that’s with me all the time. I write everything. I do the same thing, actually, you know, we live in TAC, I run a whole company off, you know this right. But yeah, I do. I, I carry the mole skin, man. I wrote everything down. It’s weird. You know, some things never change.
Another quote, any books you’re reading currently, or any books you can recommend to our listeners that we’re having. That’s it. That’s great. You know, the funny thing. I’m not necessarily the biggest reader that people might think I am. I mean, obviously in college I was, and I’m a smart guy, but, I’m not really a guy who sits down and reads, like, I’m not that guy, but I will tell you some books that I have read that I think were fantastic.
I think one of the big, the best books, is magic too. And a, it is a language that needs to be spoken today in concepts that need to be put out there as the 10 X rule by grant cardone. I thought that book was amazing. Like there are so many great books out there about strategy, et cetera, but the 10 X role for me was just a kick in the butt.
Like you can take this thing up a notch, Marshall, you know, you need to, and that’s kinda what I got from it. I think that that book is great for sales though. I will say that the closure survival guide is a book written by carnal. That’s also a fantastic book. Every salesperson needs that book on their own.
Aside from that now I’m not really, I’m not reading anything. I’m just doing, there we go. Well, we got two recommendations, so that’s okay. Okay. Two final questions, actually three, I got three final questions here. This one’s going to really make you think, Marshall, if you could have dinner with any three people in history, past or present, who would they be in?
Why? Oh my God. Three is tough. Well you can go, you know, myself. Yeah, I’d say David. Definitely. I’m a big fan of general George Patton. I kind of grew up with him as a role model, my dad’s role model, and I love that. I love his attitude and his strategy and tactics. I’d love to have dinner with a guy like that.
I’d also love to have dinner with Ganga. we, we just had, we th th the last interview we did Gangas con. Oh, really? Yeah. They pick gang is con yeah, it was director X, director X picked him. I would, I would do it. I would do. I do gang Wiscon in a heartbeat, man. I love Ganga Scott. I mean, I love those types of seats.
I love those types of guys. Patent con Alexander. I love those types of listens. Those guys had a view of the Gangas concept. Dude, I’m going to take over the world. Nothing’s going to stop me. You know, you’re going to get down and lay down. You want to talk about alpha energy. We got guys afraid to pick up the phone.
Call a guy they never met before. And just kind of go kick in the door and take your family. I mean, this is like, we are descendants of these people. We’ve just been civilized. Thank goodness. But I like, I would love to pick their brain and get into the mentality. Just get that energy going. I like that.
Yeah, director X was saying he read a quote from Gangas con when they were raising a village, he showed up and he said, I’m here. Which means God must be mad at you.
Beautiful. That’s like Alec Baldwin. I am God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Here’s another one. And this one, I find like, like, you know, super achievers. I have a really hard time answering this one, which is surprising, but you’re opening a bottle of champagne a year from now celebrating something you’ve accomplished.
What would that be a year from now? Well, I’ll tell you what I would want it to be. I’d want it to be that we, we are celebrating the fact that we, we bought a thousand units this year. We put a billion dollars worth of real estate. Awesome. Well, that’s a great goal. Really puts it into perspective.
You know, you do it. You’re going to have to crack that bottle of champagne and think of me. Here we go. This is the, the final question. You know, the word legacy is something we’ve been hearing a lot from influencers and successful entrepreneurs. What’s your legacy like when all is said and done, what does the Marshall.
Legacy looks like, like, what do you want to be known for? I want to be known as a person who is extremely competent. That was a guy who kept his word, that he was fair to people. He gave people opportunity and he didn’t lie to people. I’m really big on that. I’m extremely big on honesty and competency. And the reason why I’m big on Anna’s because earlier in my life I wasn’t, I was incompetent and I was alive.
So, you know, as a young man, you try to do business and you try to do sales and you’re like in a manipulative and yearning, you live in an exaggerated type of world. And I don’t like that. I don’t like that anymore. I haven’t liked that for 20 years. And I noticed that I stopped being like that when things got better for me when I gave people the straight dope.
And I told you straight up, and I was honest with you. And I really was convinced that no matter what I will deliver for you. That’s when things changed for me and I, and I felt like I get, hold my head high as a man, I give you my word. I’m going to get it done. I need you to know that I’m extremely competent.
I don’t talk about things I know nothing about, and I’ll never lie to you if I, if I can, if, if people will remember me for that and I got. And the fact that I give people opportunity. I’m a bit big on giving a guy a shot. Everybody needs a shot. People need a shot. The problem that we have in the world is that I think that there is a, there is a lack of opportunity in certain areas for people.
And believe me, I’m not like I know I’m in New York. I’m not a bleeding heart type guy. Who’s going to sit on the corner and freak out about plaque art. But I do, I do believe that opportunities should be available for everybody, may the best man or woman win. And I, and then when my businesses, I provide that opportunity for people I’m willing to hire very.
Give you a shot, but I will fire very quickly as well. That’s well put, I mean, you are the real deal. Your authenticity just comes through. So I think that’s why you’re just, I mean, I’m a huge fan. I’m putting everybody on to you. I mean, you are the man. I want to thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate your time today.
It was good to hear your story and get your advice on sales and negotiate. Yeah. As well as hearing your perspective on the current state of the real estate market, and of course, crypto has so much to take away from this one. I know our listeners and subscribers will find a lot of value in this episode.
Thanks again, Marshall. Where do you want the people to connect with you? Thank you, David. You can find me real Martial Wilkinson on Instagram Marshall, wilkinson.com. Popping your Google search bar. You’ll find. And then, the risk on, the link for that. Yeah. Also the risk on show. You can find that on YouTube, you just pop in risk on and we’re on the cheddar business network and we’re on iHeartRadio.
