Buying Wineries and Beach Clubs w/ Josh McCallen

Ready to venture into the world of hospitality investing? Grab your seat as we delve into an insightful conversation with Josh McCallan, an experienced investor with an impressive portfolio in wineries, resorts, and more. We unpack the intriguing dynamics of hospitality investing, highlighting key points including due diligence, potential pitfalls, and the golden opportunities within this industry. Plus, learn about Accountable Equity, a platform where accredited investors are empowered to own properties and businesses that promise attractive returns. 

Our conversation takes an unexpected spiritual turn as we analyze the heart and soul of hospitality. We dissect what makes a winery successful, uncovering the crucial role of top-notch service, the significance of the physical space, and mastering the seasonality of the business. Josh shares his own journey of delivering a four-star hospitality experience in a seasonal beach setting. We unravel the deeper implications of hospitality, sharing how it not only creates a memorable customer experience but also fulfills a higher purpose. 

But it doesn't stop there. We embark on a thought-provoking discussion on the power of experiential investing. We reflect on the wisdom from Jett Holmes' Ultimate Sales Machine, particularly his advice for interviewing potential hires. Together, we look at our own company cultures and the three key virtues we seek in candidates. Plus, Josh reveals an ingenious hack for investing in enjoyable experiences such as resorts, golf courses, and wineries. If the wedding industry is on your radar, you're in for a treat. Josh shares his experience of owning a wedding venue, the financial benefits it offers, and the social significance of weddings in our society. Prepare to be enlightened and inspired!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I created a philosophy of this and it gets really deep and I don't ever share this on shows. So, matt, you really you're going to get it. If you mess up the hospitality service part, no matter how pretty the place is, they hate you and the word hate is super strong. So the opposite of hate is love. Our other group of teams called Viva May, which is French for revive the souls and the whole idea being like in the soul, loving business when you're in hospitality.

Speaker 2: 0:30

Welcome to the financial freedom fast podcast, the show that teaches you how to buy back your time and live life on your terms. Learn how to confidently leave your nine to five from guests who've done it themselves. Whether you want to lay on a beach, travel the world or focus on your passions, this show will give you the tools to do what you want when you want. Now here's your host, matt Ammabeo.

Speaker 3: 1:03

What is up? Financial freedom fast fam. Today I've got on Josh McCallan and it is going to be such a cool conversation. Today we dive into the winery business because Josh has invested in, bought and purchased a winery. We're going to be talking about beach clubs and the investment that Josh is buying into. But overall, experiential investing and lifestyle investing these are all cool things that you can buy that allow you to be able to spend time with the people that you love and the people that you care about and bring them to cool investments. Almost like, instead of a house hack, it's a lifestyle hack and we're getting to have these awesome experiences and bring people into these places, have weddings and cool events at the places that we own and invest with. So today you'll learn it all the numbers, what to look for and how to buy one of these facilities with Josh McCallan. So, without further ado, let's jump into the pod. Josh McCallan, welcome to the financial freedom fast podcast. My man, my brother, what is going on?

Speaker 1: 2:20

It's a big time pleasure to be here, buddy. I'm looking forward to this.

Speaker 3: 2:23

Man I am, I'm looking forward to diving in today too. I think this investment topic that we're going to hit on here is something that I haven't gotten to hit on on this podcast yet, and it's something I definitely see in my future for allowing myself to be able to have some really awesome experiences in my life and be able to do that maybe without putting my money into it and just putting some sweat equity or management or some knowledge and expertise in there. But you are going to be the expert on that. Today. We're going to dive in Josh McCallan. For those of our listeners that don't know who you are and what you do, who are you and what do you do?

Speaker 1: 3:03

I like that. I like that Nice build up there. So I'm a podcast guy just like you, and you can check out the episode we did with Matt at Capital Hacking and released the other day. So, capital Hacking, we do that podcast because, similar to you, we're on a journey in life and what we're doing right now is we've built a model about buying resort lifestyle hospitality properties. We've carved out a niche within a niche. We have some of the most robust wedding operations in America and we do all of that because our investors join us to own the buildings and the businesses and therefore they get great returns and enjoy it while they're investing A lot of fun.

Speaker 3: 3:48

That is a lot of fun. That sounds like a pretty good model to pull some investors in and get on your side too. You get to make a good return and you get to utilize the assets that you're buying. Now, what type of assets are you buying in this group? Sure, and what's the name of your group? Let's have our listeners hear that.

Speaker 1: 4:07

So accountable equity two words I always say. If you take an investor's money, the first thing they want to know is are you going to be accountable with our equity? And I say yes, we are, and we're going to challenge our investors back to grow in their own personal human capital, their human equity. That's partially why we did the show Capital Hacking. But accountable equity is hundreds and hundreds of accredited investors and we do things a little differently there. Yes, we buy the most special properties. They're usually distressed, which allows for value at real estate. And, just like Cody Sanchez who's been on the big show, we are business buyers and real estate buyers. And the cool thing is, in our operating business, we're doing it at the same time. Right, we're buying. An example we bought a historic winery in New Jersey. Have you been in the winery Dude every?

Speaker 3: 4:57

time that we do an event there, I am traveling. Yeah, you missed that. I got to get you there, but I know we got to get there. Have some wine, do some golf.

Speaker 1: 5:07

Then you know what. There won't be golf on December 2nd, but there is an accountable equity, learn and grow like a meetup of accredited investors. You should come to that. It's a Saturday and you're listening to us who are checking this out. Hit us up at accountableequitycom and hit learn and grow and see if you want to join us. There's a very modest fee. You get all this great food but, more important, you get a mastermind of accredited investors where we I have so many wonderful investors, guys similar like you that already have podcasts and businesses, so we'll let them be the keynotes, let them share their journeys. You get to meet them, maybe find out what they're doing, if you want to get involved. All that is just part of being an investor with us or looking into what we do. So I don't know.

Speaker 1: 5:50

I'm excited about this, matt, because I saw the power of investing in resorts when I was helping a family office who I worked with 12, 15 years ago now. They had got stuck during the Great Recession of 07 with a few hotels they wanted to tear down. They wanted to build houses and condos on the beach and I had done that with them. We'd built pretty, very beautiful beach houses. We sold one to John Middleton and owns the Philadelphia Phillies. We bankers, famous football players, so we were building those famous waterfront houses in New Jersey and then the recession started and he got stuck with a few turds, and one of them was a hotel, and at the time he had no desire to be in the hotel business. I had never been in the hotel business, but we had no choice but to dig ourselves out of a bad situation for him and so we ended up designing a boutique hotel business and that business is called Icona. If you're in the New Jersey Philadelphia area you'll know.

Speaker 1: 6:54

Icona became famous a few years later and from that there were so many kicks to the gut but ultimately, after struggling through a renovation program and then a launch program, we found our purpose in life is two things right Activating these investments for partners, but also giving purpose to people's work. And I speak a lot of times around this country and I talk a lot. Sometimes I talk about real estate investing, and the other times we talk about the passion and the purpose a person can find in good work. And some people are against work, some people want everything to not be work. I find work to be a necessary human dimension. I think it's good, and so what we do at our team is we empower our staff through a very simple concept I'd love to share with you, matt. Is that okay? Let me hear it.

Speaker 1: 7:46

When I build Icona for the family office, I learned that hospitality you think it's pretty buildings, you think it's beautiful restaurants and beautiful beaches, which is what we were doing. But if you mess up the hospitality service part, no matter how pretty the place is, they hate you, and the word hate is super strong. So the opposite of hate is love. And so we started. We failed for about a year. We had the prettiest building in New Jersey at that time, newest update, sexiest style, and yet the F word was happening all the time at the front desk.

Speaker 1: 8:21

People were super upset with us and we went on a journey for the next year my old partner and I of figuring out how to deliver four-star high-end hospitality in a seasonal beach environment, which, by the way, is an impossibility on some level. Usually you can deliver a beach environment seasonally, but the service is going to suck. Or you can deliver great service, but you're going to need a full year to develop your staff. So you can't. It's very hard to have both, and so we came up with a philosophy of teaching our young people the purpose of hospitality and how it can benefit their lives.

Speaker 1: 9:01

Today we call that in the business we've built together with hundreds of people. Now we call our business VivaMae so I just told you accountable equities investors. They own the building. Who runs the building? Our other group of teams called VivaMae, which is French for revive the soul. So and the whole idea being we're like in the soul, loving business when you're in hospitality, and I'll teach you all about it over time. But we get super geeked up about that and it works. It creates an esprit de corps. Yeah, you'll feel it when you come on onto one of the properties.

Speaker 3: 9:34

And what was that first inkling, that first situation, the first experience that dove you in? One made you find your passion, and then two made you come to this realization of reviving the soul and coming in. It's like when did you see that and say that, wow, this is a turning point, this is the way I go.

Speaker 1: 9:59

Dude, dude, matt, I know why you're asking that, because we just had you on our show, Capital Hack it, and you mentioned that you're looking for your ultimate spark, per. And I can remember the day it happened it would have been late June 2013, standing on the restaurant floor of the prettiest restaurant I ever built. Maybe I've built a few other pretty restaurants, but at the time I was so proud of this restaurant and we had just had the chef quit, the restaurant managers quit, everybody was quitting. And a few weeks earlier and then a few weeks went on where I just had to become the manager, even though I was a partner, I did just me the manager, because it's the summer and we're busy as hell, and I remember getting yelled at some nights and a hugged other nights and something really crazy hit me. Is that love and hate, right? This love and hate experience you feel in hospitality if you mess up, they will kill you, especially Yorkers, because our guests were mostly out of Manhattan and they're tougher, they're mean, they can be mean and so they would hate on me. Tell me how could I ruin the dinner for their grandma and they only see her once a year, and the next night we do a good job at the food, but we do a, we pour on the kindness and they're hugging us and inviting us to visit sometime in the city. I'm like man, that's crazy.

Speaker 1: 11:15

And so I had this spark go through my mind and heart that hospitality has a spiritual purpose. And I remember thinking this can be my purpose and I came up with all these different rationales of why this happens. Have you ever thought about that, like, why is hospitality different than most business? And I have all kinds of reflections we went through. First of all, it's an observation One it is more powerful. Done right, it's really endearing to people. Done wrong, they really do have anger and hate towards you. So I said, why is that happening? And then I just literally I was working seven days a week, I was exhausted, so I was by myself at night. My family stayed somewhere else and I'm like it sparked in my mind a philosophical understanding of the human person. I know this is going deep, but I remember thinking that we walk around like creatures, we got skin and bone and we eat food, but there's so much more going on inside of us. Man You're talking to. You're a guy that's built the whole house hacking empire, real estate empire. And yet you're saying I'm going to find a purpose. That's because you're a soul, there's something bigger than just your body and your skin. And I'm like, and then I started saying, why does hospitality touch the soul? Why is it so vibrant and also so angry? And I said, man, and I just went through, I created a philosophy of this and it gets really deep and I don't ever share this on shows. So, matt, you really you're going to get it.

Speaker 1: 12:45

I said to myself, what is it about breaking bread? That every culture since the dawn of man talks about that as an intimate moment at the moment to know someone. And I'm like, oh, is it because food goes into your mouth? But there's something about this that's more than physical. So I said, wait a second.

Speaker 1: 13:04

The three most intimate things you can do with your body that touch your soul. Number one is you can make babies and you can make a new soul. Number two you can eat and drink. And I say liquor is quicker. All of a sudden, once you liquor somebody up, you break down the inhibitions and now you're vibing on a whole nother level. It's beautiful, it can be great to the soul. And the third is when you mess up somebody's sleep Right. So I got the making babies, feeding and drinking and sleep, because sleep is where our bodies shut down and we get super vulnerable in that moment. If I screw with your sleep like the air conditioning goes out, oh, how about the noise next door? Or how about your bed sucks. Like you hate me as a hotel, I'm like we're messing with three of the most physically spiritual, intimate things you can do with a body. And we have it all wrapped up in one building.

Speaker 1: 13:55

And I remember thinking, if that's happening in our building, whether we like it or not, what if we took it seriously?

Speaker 1: 14:01

Okay, so there was this, a moment where I'm like it's happening anyway. What if we intentionally try to add value to these people's hearts? And then we came up with a whole training program and ended up taking that from the dumpiest operation to the seventh ranked hotel in America. Two years later, trip Advisor sent us plaques, wall Street Journal ranked us as one of the best hotels in the world. It was a crazy success and all we did was change our intention. So if you change your intention of work or change your intention of service, you can make it a ministry or something powerful. So those kinds of principles have led us to do. I've probably employed over 2000 employees since then teammates, and now we have about an active, about 500 at any given time and we're trying to pour into them to say hey man, you got a great opportunity here, even if you're not going to be in hospitality forever. Grab the value while you're here, and we do a whole training program.

Speaker 3: 15:00

And you can add value to them and to their lives. And while you're adding value to them, it's making them feel better and want to perform better for you and for the people that are coming. And that's adding value. And when you when I say value realistically in this hospitality business you said it in the beginning it's more of a love. You've got these three different areas that you can add love to the people. You've got the sleep, you've got the food. You can affect, you can hit them straight at their soul with love. And so how did you do that? That's what I want to know.

Speaker 1: 15:40

So we studied Ritz Carlton. I remember trying to figure out how do other people do such a great job? First of all, what we're talking about here is called good old fashioned hospitality, or southern hospitality, or. Melanie and I lived in Europe for a while and we got to visit Eastern European people's homes and they treated us with so much kindness and it just left powerful impact. So what we do is we teach our staff to keep their eye on the prize. We say look, you need to earn a great living to pay for college. You need a great living because you're a mom and you're just doing this as a second gig. We want you to be very well paid and our staff are very well paid because, ironically, it's a natural effect of when you do something great for someone else, they reciprocate larger gratuities and larger compensation. But we said, what if we could hone this down to three principles that we're going to hire for and encourage growth, and we call them virtues, joy of service, humility as a strength and ministry as your purpose. And we say to everybody what we're trying to achieve here is we're only really trying to bring people on the team that enjoy this type of work.

Speaker 1: 16:50

There's some people, matt, you and I are probably like this. We actually like carrying somebody else's bags or helping open the door. And then there's other people that hate that. Let's not hire those. Okay, we don't have to hire you. You hate people. You can't work here. But if you're open-hearted to liking people and you have a joy from that, we want you on the team. And every day is not an easy day, so we're going to surround you with a hundred other people that like people, so when you're having a down day, they're having an up day. We try to create this as spriticor of joy To humility. What's great about humility is, if you think about it, the greatest influencers in the world usually are the most humble.

Speaker 2: 17:30

The.

Speaker 1: 17:30

Mahatma Gandhi's, the Mother Teresa's, even if you like some political leaders, if they're humble, it actually impacts you more. So humility is like this key to society, and if you see everyone with the same dignity you feel for yourself, then you can actually transmit a lot of value there. So humility is like a thing we want to grow in, and I always say it doesn't mean you're humble, it doesn't mean you're perfect, but do you want to get better at it? That's all it takes and you're getting better at it. And then three is ministry. What this means is taking a simple thing and doing it for a good for someone else. So Thanksgiving is the best example.

Speaker 1: 18:08

If you and I have ever volunteered to help poor people on Thanksgiving and feed them, if you've ever done that, I've done it. They tell the rookies like me. They're like go in the kitchen and bag up some canned goods and drive them over to Aunt Sally's house. I'm like, ok, and then you're bagging up canned goods, you're driving them to somebody's house. You're like man, all I did was bag some damn canned goods. But it was never about the canned goods, it was about showing Aunt Sally or Jesse that she's cared about. And so that's like a power that we have as a person and what we try to do is light a fire under our team to unleash it.

Speaker 1: 18:43

Now, the funniest thing about being a gift giver all of those are gifts to the guest is gift givers, ironically, are the greatest receiver. So if you're giving of yourself, you tend to feel your purpose back. So, anyway, lots of virtuous circles there. Like we like flywheels, if you do this, you'd get that. If you do this, you get that. It becomes a virtuous circle. Now I'll stop there and let you ask me questions, but that leads into the big thing you wanted to talk to today about, and that is the idea of what if you could invest in something that also is fun and is inspiring.

Speaker 3: 19:22

But I'll let you question yeah, so I'm excited to dig into that. One little nugget that I want to hit on before we dive into that is that doing that can living with these three virtues that you talked about, right the joy of service, the ministry, the humility that can actually elevate you and bring you towards your passion and make you more inclined and feeling joyous of actually doing those things. When you do them more, you'll feel better about them and you want to do them more. So how are you finding the right people? How do you really know that someone is the right person for this job? Because can't they fake it right in the beginning? Right, and say, yeah, I really want to do this because that all comes from the heart, it's all about it. Yeah, how do you find those right people that have that heart? How do you see the heart in someone?

Speaker 1: 20:23

Jack Welch did, I think, GE for a long time. Famous author, famous business person, Obviously really smart. If you've ever heard of me, he's got that squeaky voice. He hasn't been in the meeting in a while but he said he's never achieved more than 50% success on hiring. So if somebody who's thought about hiring and ran one of the biggest companies in the world for a long time can only get it right 50% of the time, I always feel like it's going to not always work and you just have to. In humility, you just got to embrace that we're not going to get this right.

Speaker 1: 20:56

We have read a famous book, though, called the Ultimate Sales Machine by Jett Holmes, 20 years old. Don't worry about it, it was cool 20 years ago, Okay. In that book he goes here's how you interview specifically high achievers. You tell them they can't do it. So if you want to hire a top achiever, you look them in the eye and go yeah, I definitely see who your resume says. You have the credentials. I don't see that you can do this job and you let you sit back. And if they go should I guess you're the wise business owner, I guess you're right and they leave. That saved you one of those mistakes If they say hold on a second. I didn't explain myself. I can do this job. You already want them because they have the spark. So his point was you got to hit them in the eyeballs Do you want it or not? And you got to tell them you don't think they can do it.

Speaker 1: 21:50

And what we do in our culture is I say Matt Ammabil, you're the smartest guy, you're a foreruner Rutgers grad. You've done nothing but great deals. Going to tell you the great news is you have all the credentials to work with us. Matt, we're going to share with you the inside scoop on what we're really doing here. We're trying to live through virtues and we think it's going to change this company. We're going to tell you what they are, Matt. This is actually how I interview, so if you're interviewing me, I'm going to do this with you.

Speaker 1: 22:17

I always say hey, Matt, doesn't make you a bad person if you don't like the three virtues. I haven't told them to you yet, Matt. But if you don't like them, then don't worry about applying, because you're going to hate it here, Because this is all we do every day. But if you want. I don't say if you're great at them, I say, if you want these three things I'm about to share with you, you're going to love it here, because there's a whole vibe going on where we're trying to get better at these things. And then I say Matt, here they are, and I look you right in the eye and I say joy of service, I explain it Humility I look in your eye and ministry, and I look in your eye and I try to confuse you with the word ministry, because I think people don't use that word enough and go straight to church. Yeah, Ministry here definitely only means the work we're going to do is so that we feel loved. We love so that the guest feels their love. And so I'm saying do you want these three things? And if I can tell from your body language, you probably don't do or don't want them.

Speaker 1: 23:10

I'll try to steer the rest of the conversation. I'll do the takeaway clothes and say you know what, Matt? It's not for everybody. Why don't you go home and think about it? We'll let you know and typically Matt will take him out himself, out of the deal. He'll say, hey, no worries, no harm. Or Matt will come at me harder Are you serious? And I'm like, yeah, we're not perfect, but we're trying to get better.

Speaker 1: 23:35

I always say and then there'll be a day, two years from now, Matt hasn't done well and we're going to let Matt go. And we're going to say Matt, it's not working out, You're not performing your duties. You got to win every day. We're a team. If you don't win, our staff doesn't have a job buddy. So you got to win and Matt's I don't really want the job anymore. I say, okay, Matt, you got to go.

Speaker 1: 23:55

And then Matt turns to me and he goes hey, you hypocrite. What about your three virtues? You could imagine. This happens to me all the time and I always say Matt, great news. We're never going to achieve them, but we're going to fight for them. So are you glad that we're at least fighting for them? Or would you have rather said we're a bunch of jerks and all we care about is the numbers? You can get the hell out of here. Which one do you want to work for? That's the two ends of the spectrum, right, Trying for something beautiful or totally treating people like me? We're trying for something beautiful, but we're not going to get there. We're totally normal, failed people. Anyway, that's how we run our business and for right now. I don't think there's a better way to do it, man.

Speaker 3: 24:39

No, it sounds like you have the perfect system to attract the right people to build the business and do the things that you're ultimately building up to do, which leads us into our next topic here today, and that's what I like to call on my end, almost like an experiential investment and investing in things that will allow you to be able to go, have experiences and write things like fun things resorts and golf courses and wineries, and all this fun stuff for yourself. So let's dive into that, like this hack that you've figured out for yourself and what you're doing there.

Speaker 1: 25:21

So, matt, you're the only person in hundreds of interviews that ever picked it up. Now I've said in speeches I always say I didn't realize how perfect what we do is for investors. First of all, it's higher yield than multifamily, more stable and more successful right now in this economy than multifamily and other properties, because we're outpacing inflation right, we're growing and our specialties are the hottest in demand types of hospitality experiential travel, leisure, drive to, away from a city, but not too far, you don't have to get on a plane. And then, of course, weddings are still a juggernaut industry that we're part of, and high end really, and they're all beautiful. Yeah, we only do beautiful things. We actually named our funds that when you invest with us, you can choose to buy equity or you can choose to buy some debt or some other cool stuff. But if you buy equity, the name of the fund you send your money to is called Capital H, and what I was getting at there is capital hacking and it actually the full name of our funds is capital hacking fund one, two, three, four, five. But here's the point. I always say what if you're getting a better yield than other private investments and you're getting the massive passive depreciation losses to offset income and you get to enjoy it. That's the ultimate investing hack, I think.

Speaker 1: 26:45

And I actually stumbled across this because the person I built my first our first resort business for them no longer a part of was extremely wealthy. Right, it was a family office. I helped run the family office president of his hotel business and he loved owning hotels and I remember thinking and I remember him having an epiphany while we worked together because at first he saw it as a pain in the ass because it is hard to run resorts, and then of some twinkle one off in his eye and he's like man. This is awesome Because he owns beautiful things on the water, he's always on the water, it's throwing off profits and it's like super. It's the total flywheel. Right, he gets to be at the beach, makes money off the beach, he buys more beach. It was like a virtuous circle for him and I'm like, oh my god, what if I could give that to people at $50,000 in investment instead of $100 million, which is what that family had invested? The same emotional connection he had I have with hundreds of investors.

Speaker 1: 27:47

And when you get to Renault, you'll be like man you're an investor and you'll meet like a bunch of your buddies. They're like yeah, we're all investors here. Man, we play golf here a lot. We do this and there's actually not like a freebie ticket. You can't just play golf for free when you invest. But isn't it better to give us $120 around than Billy Bob's course for $120? It's like your money and when you bring your friends, you're making more money for you. It'll blow your mind if you think about it. Matt, it's like house hacking the first time you did it, yeah.

Speaker 3: 28:18

And that's what we were hitting on right before this, and that is the direction that I see my life going. I've seen everything that I'm building up right now as a way to like my house hack was a way to hack my life. Now I'm buying like a convenience and a grocery store and that's going to be a way it's going to make me extra income on the side and my first business, building career there. But I'm also thinking about it right now I'm like, hey, man, that's going to be a good way for me to write off my groceries every single day, like just different ways for that. And then my whole life is surrounded.

Speaker 3: 28:56

What I want is all experiences Like I want to go travel, I want to go do these fun things, I want to be at the beach, I want to go surfing, I want to have these nice luxury events, but I don't necessarily always want to pay that high ticket price, which is why, when you can pull off one of these investments and get one of these done and you could actually have the opportunity to live there and almost call it a resort hack, call it whatever you want, right, you could live there and still be making money on of these facilities, and I don't know if you've seen them, but you're right, these are these ones that we're doing.

Speaker 1: 29:30

They're worth driving to and having dinner at or they're worth like visiting because they're super beautiful. They could be in magazines, and they are there in magazines, wall Street Journal, movies I agree with you, buddy, and you're the first person that ever asked me about it and I embedded it in the entire strategy and the investors that invest with us. We always say, hey, we do these things four times a year in person on property. I don't charge investors. They get meals, they get to meet the chef, the executives all of us are there and they meet the other investors, dude Matt.

Speaker 1: 30:04

A second hack we've created right into Accountable Equity is people. So you and I are part of Go Bonnets, but not everybody is. So people find these investments because of the internet or somebody their brother told them about it. They invest. Then they show up at Accountable Equity learning grow events on properties. They're like their minds are blown. They're like whoa, you're telling me, my same 50k that was in Vanguard last week, doing nothing and I didn't even know where the hell it was, is now in this beautiful building and every time I play golf here I make a little more money for the business, and I can bring weddings here. I can bring friends, companies, business retreats here. It's like mind blowing to them. And then, of course, they're enjoying meeting a hundred other people that have accredited investments and are doing their own deals. There have been more deals done at these meetups that we created. These learning grows with each other than even with me. So it's like we build a platform and we always have a lot of GoBundance.

Speaker 1: 31:00

Guys will speak. A lot of them are investors, so I'll have them do a mastermind session and then we'll have somebody talk about what they're doing and they're investing. Then we'll have people who are a little ahead of us that have a lot of money and now their struggle is what's my long-term diversification strategy, or what should I do to exit my business, or how do you plan for all that transition and all that conversation is happening. It's like a free mastermind on top of owning a resort. Talk about a hack.

Speaker 3: 31:28

Dude, honestly. So I'm sitting back and I'm just envisioning in my head. There's two big entities here and they both operate together, but they operate with different purposes. We've got Viva May and then we've got capital. Age Accountable equity creates funds and you can invest right. So one side is this is going to help the capital that we have available to us. It's going to help that flourish. But we're not only doing it for ourselves. We're creating this environment, this community, for other people to flourish, aka giving out value and giving love to these people. Then the actual assets that are getting acquired is also spreading love and spreading purpose, which is enhancing your purpose and probably your fulfillment in life and making you a better person. So I really love the model that you've got going on here.

Speaker 3: 32:27

One question I've got now I know you do focus a lot on weddings to bring in some solid revenue generating engine for you here. For my generation, I feel a slight shift that people are moving a little more further away from the typical wedding at the nice venue and spending 25 grand for the weekend. I see a lot more of that coming out and a little bit more of the backyard wedding things like that In a, let's say 30 years from now? What is your take on where that might be? Obviously, it's only a guess and a great estimate.

Speaker 1: 33:16

Couple things. Our resorts use the wedding model as an extremely rapid way to repay investors and make yield for them. But we also get another hack out of being some of the prettiest wedding venues. It allows us to spend more on the entire complex. Our properties are like 200 acres, so we build botanical gardens and I'm telling you right now, if you and some friends come, it's awesome to just have a glass of wine sitting in the vines. It's awesome. We were able to make that so freaking sexy, because someone later today is going to take a picture in that area and she's going to pay us $100,000 to have her wedding. You can just spend 40 bucks. So you get this cool dynamic by being good at both. But we do more restaurant business than 98% of the restaurants in New Jersey or DC markets where we are. So we're pretty successful at just you and your buddies coming up and having a glass of wine and beer. We have concert areas. We have beer gardens with beer and wine. We have football team. We have Jumbotron football. We have ice skating in the winter. We are completely diversified. We have nine revenue streams.

Speaker 1: 34:20

Weddings just are super lucrative and we're one of the best at it, meaning Renault itself has done more weddings than any property in America for the last three years. So it's just the biggest wedding operation in America at one property, which is hard to understand. You'll have to see it. When you see it, you'll be like, oh my god, it's a city. It is. It's the size of a small town. So your wedding might be out in the vines over here. My wedding might be in this beautiful ballroom. Her wedding might be up in another part. We have a historic manufacturing area from 100 years ago where the big vats are and somebody's into that kind of cool vibe and so she's having it. So four weddings are happening at the exact same time and you never see each other. And we're doing like 10 to 12 a week. So you extrapolate that We've hit 400 in a year. We're really hover around 360 in a year Legendary performance. Now, your future pacing concept.

Speaker 1: 35:14

Yes, backyard weddings are popular, so we recreate some of that. Like, we have a big tent in the vineyard area. It feels like a backyard wedding. So you hack your backyard wedding because one of the shocking things, matt if you try to have a large-scale backyard wedding, it'll cost about 20% more than having it at my property, just because you would never believe how expensive it is to have that tent set up, to have the heater put in or the air conditioning blower or the food, the mobile kitchen brought in, the cater. It can be $75,000 for a backyard wedding, hundreds of thousands of dollars for high-end ones. But going back to the small-scale weddings are definitely growing where you just get on a plane with 12 people and go have a wedding. That's great and there's actually a market segment there.

Speaker 1: 35:56

I agree, what I'm seeing is actually different. I got into this accidentally about eight years ago at my old company and I was confused by weddings eight years ago. I was like because I got married in the 90s and we were poor, so we got married at the military barracks cafeteria like super humble and we had like trays of food and we just it was like basic right. So I'm not that worried about fancy weddings in my life, but I started owning these gorgeous resorts and we were doing the sexiest weddings. I'm like man, people are spending too much money on their wedding. That's what I thought as a family man. But today I've changed my opinion on that and that is I think people need this type of thing.

Speaker 1: 36:40

I got to see different decades right, I'm a little older than you, dude. Like so little things in life now are ceremonies right. There's just not that many ceremonies what College graduation and weddings? Right, there's not really a religious ceremony type stuff anywhere. So weddings have become an extremely important social thing and they're really way bigger than just the little ceremony part. It's grandpa finally gets to meet grandson, right. It's. That's why the parents are willing to spend so much, matt is because it's actually for them as much as it is for Jenny and Bill.

Speaker 1: 37:16

And I did not think that way, bro, until I watched thousands of weddings happen. And I'm like, dude, I get it now and now. Weddings are like three days, right, golf parties, go to the clubs, come back, party, but have a wedding hang out the next day for half a day, go to the pool Right, it's like literally the only time that family is going to see each other for four years probably in that capacity. And I'm like, dude, that's awesome. And whereas I used to feel bad that these things cost a lot, now I'm all pumped up about it, like it's like a great thing for families. I didn't even think of it that way 10 years ago or eight years ago.

Speaker 3: 37:51

Yeah, realistically, it's probably the only event that everybody is going to be at in that capacity until golf had like a funeral. Yes.

Speaker 1: 38:01

Dude, you're right, that's the only other ceremony left in society, right.

Speaker 3: 38:05

That's it. So yeah, that's amazing. Awesome to think about Before I dive into another question here. What's your time look like?

Speaker 1: 38:16

I think I'm on another thing here soon, matt. I love how we're doing it real time. This is called Inside Baseball. Folks, there we go. I do have something in two minutes, buddy, but I'm all yours for that and I appreciate you what you're doing for me, man. It's awesome to get the word out to good people.

Speaker 1: 38:31

Hey, I want to tell you a hack that pertains to the title of your show. You ready? Financial freedom, fast, right, that's the name of the show. There is one surprise hack that nobody talks about and that is joining forces with groups that have massive momentum. So we have seen this work. People have jumped into our teams and our companies at the investment level, at the real estate acquisition level, or just part of my team and have catapulted their careers. So if people are out there like, how do you ever get in the room to learn how to buy $20 million resorts or whatever, you get in the room by offering to do it either as a partner if you have money, you can bring in partner and then help, or if you don't have money, you can bring in human capital and help. So don't forget, that's probably the most legitimate, like other than some other, I don't know. That's probably the most straightforward way to get into rooms and change your trajectory for financial freedom.

Speaker 3: 39:38

I love that. That actually answers one of my final questions, which would have been what is one actionable step our listeners should take today to start on their path towards financial freedom? But I would recommend you find that person that's doing that thing that you want to be doing. You get in the room with them, because somebody who's already done it knows exactly how to do it. I was going to dig in and ask you all about buying your first facility, what the prices were, what the financing was like. That's a lot of information. We will hit it on the next podcast. The last final question I have for you, josh McCallan, is what is one question that you wish I would have asked, or one topic that you wish I would have covered, and how would you have answered that question and how would you have expanded on that?

Speaker 1: 40:27

I like how you come up with good anchor questions. Buddy, I'm taking notes over here as a podcaster. I think I would have liked for you to ask me more about the podcast and I would have told you that it's been a great journey and I hope people are downloading it right now and leaving both of us a five star. It's exciting. I think we're almost at 300 episodes. We've had all the famous people. Robert Kiyosaki does the intro and I don't know if you've heard your episode. It's awesome. Check us out on.

Speaker 3: 40:55

Capital Hacking Podcast. Guys, go check it out wherever you listen to your podcast, and then where can my listeners and watchers find you?

Speaker 1: 41:03

online. If you're an accredited investor and you want to see us in action, come to the December 2nd Learn and grow Meet up at Renault Winery. I'm getting that there. I'll be signing autographs on your back because he's got the podcast. We'll be there December 2nd. Hit us up at AccountableEquitycom Learn and grow button, please.

Speaker 3: 41:23

Love it. From the Financial Freedom Fast Podcast. I'm your host, matt Amobile. Today we had on Josh McCallan and we are signing off. Thank you so much, josh.

Speaker 2: 41:37

Thanks, buddy. Thanks for listening to the Financial Freedom Fast Podcast, the show that teaches you to buy back your time and live life on your terms. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening, and follow us online at Matt Amobile. That's Matt AMA B-I-L-E. Be sure to tune in Monday, wednesday and Friday for our weekly podcast drops. Thanks for listening. Let's retire together.