WS841: The Importance Of Building Long-lasting Relationships From The Beginning with Alina Trigub

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:00.0] ANNOUNCER Welcome to the Real Estate Syndication Show. Whether you are a seasoned investor or building a new real estate business, this is the show for you. Whitney Sewell talks to top experts in the business. Our goal is to help you master real estate syndication. 

And now your host, Whitney Sewell.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:00:24.4] WS: This is your daily Real Estate Syndication Show. I’m your host Whitney Sewell. Today, our guest is Alina Trigub, thanks for being on the show again Alina.

[0:00:32.4] AT: Whitney, I cannot tell you how excited I am to be back on your show. I mean, it’s been so long and you know, we have so many great memories together but I’m really excited and grateful for the invitation to be back again.

[0:00:46.8] WS: Yeah, Alina and I we’re just discussing, she was – first time she was on the show, show 63, it seems like forever, it’s almost two years or over two years by the time this comes out but I’d encourage you to go back and listen to some previous episodes with Alina. She’s provided tons of information and just from her skillset, her ability and her business that we’ve all learned from.

A little about her, she’s the founder and managing partner of SA… Do you pronounce it as SAMO or do you say?

[0:01:15.4] AT: SAMO

[0:01:16.0] WS: SAMO, I wanted to make sure I was saying it correctly. SAMO financial, a boutique, private equity firm specializing in helping busy business owners and IT professionals passively invest in commercial real estate.

For over seven years, Alina has been investing in real estate in various capacities. Her business motto has been articulated well by Warren Buffett’s quote. “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago”.

Alina, welcome back to the show. I know, you and I were talking a little bit about just you know, your unique story and background and some things there that can help the listener, I think. Then, I want to dive in to just some of your unique ability or unique skills that you have too that have helped you to develop the relationships and develop the business that you have now. 

Let’s get started with some of your story. Just that can help the listener potentially, relate to that story.

[0:02:10.5] AT: Yeah, thank you Whitney, absolutely. When I typically get on a podcast interview and you’ll hear it a lot. I always start out, I got my degree in accounting and off we went to a successful corporate career. What I haven’t shared before with others is before I got the degree in accounting, I was an immigrant who came to this country with my mom, my aunt and my cousin. It was literally four women.The only men that we have in our family or had in our family at the time was the cat that my cousin had at the time. 

It was challenging times, without a man, without anything. Coming to the country and deciding what to do, how to do it and finding ways to support ourselves. For me, it was obvious that I had to go back to school. I started my undergraduate journey back in Soviet Union where I came but then I would finish my degree and it was in environmental protection study, which I didn’t want to pursue again here.

I chose accounting, as mentioned before, and while it was challenging career and while pursuing it, I still needed to find a way to support my mom and myself and my mom, while having two degrees from former Soviet Union, decided that you needed to have a degree here. 

She also went back to school so both of us were going for our undergraduate degrees with barely any language and needed to find ways to support. We both work odd jobs from babysitting to house sitting, to cleaning, to whatever. Women with very little language abilities could find and the reason I’m sharing this is so that others can relate to the fact that no matter where you start, no matter what you do, you find ways to support yourselves and you find ways to move forward and to get to your goals and get to your dream destinations.

Obviously, as someone who is coming from nowhere and having nothing in my life, the goal was to find the job that will pay to support myself and my family. This is the mentality of a typical immigrant and while it make a lot of sense at that time, we are now women in a different times where the economy is changing and a lot of people are forced to become entrepreneurs.

There’s nothing wrong to be an entrepreneur. While you’re going through this journey, just like going through a journey of becoming a W2 employee, you need to set your goals straight and you need to decide for yourself, why are you setting this goals, why do you want to achieve what you want to achieve and when you know what is it that you want to achieve and why you want to achieve it, you will be able to succeed. 

In other words, have tenacity and having a clear “why” identified for yourself. Whether you’re doing it to benefit your family, whether you’re doing it because you want to build a school in your former homeland or whether it’s another charity or something else that you want to achieve in your life.

Decide and have that clear vision of where you’re heading and why you’re heading there. If you’re having a hard time deciding on what your “why” is, I highly recommend reading a Simon Sinek book, Start with Your Why. I think that’s the title of it, that helps you identify why you’re doing what you’re doing and setting up clear goals as to where you’re heading. It will help you tremendously.

[0:06:04.2] WS: Appreciate you showing that Alina and I think it’s often those hard times, especially in younger years shaped you so much moving forward, right? It can be good or bad but thankfully, for you, it gave you – it sounds like your mom had to enter as well, just that drive to go to school again and the way you all had to work to make it happen and to support yourselves.

I’m sure has just shaped you so much moving forward and now to be an entrepreneur and to push through those things, having your “Why” and being able to just keep driving forward, no matter what.

I talk a lot about just like military boot camp or police academy and spending a year overseas, all those things in younger years that really, I mean, shaped me and help my mindset and help me to think differently about decisions that are made or you know, things that are helping you to get back up when you get knocked down type of mentality.

It sounds like that’s kind of what happened to you and so thanks again for sharing that. I hope the listeners can relate to that and just the, whatever situation they’re in, come on, pick yourself up, you have to keep going and you can do it.

You’ve learned a lot since then. Just your businesses and different careers and you know, one thing you mentioned in some of the information you’ve given us is just like, the value of those long, building long lasting relationships and the things you’ve learned. I thought we could talk about that because it is such a relationship business.

I’d love to dive in there a little bit and what you’ve learned and how that’s helped you to get to where you’re at now. This is such a relationship business like most businesses are but especially this one. Let’s jump into that.

[0:07:51.3] AT: Sure Whitney, it’s a great topic in my journey of learning how to build relationship and what’s it about started by reading Dale Carnegie’s book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. I actually read it for the first time back in Soviet Union, in Russian. 

I made a mental note for myself when I know that we were immigrating that I need to find this book in English and read it in English and I since have reread it multiple times and it helped me in building relationship tremendously, and what I realized overtime that while Dale is talking about rudimentary principles and basic things in this book but he was able to compile them all together and present it in a way that’s easy to understand, easy to digest and very easy to follow. You just need to remember it. 

Such simple things as for instance, when you’re having a conversation with someone, especially for the first time make it about that person. Let the person talk about them, let them share their story and to really show that you’re interested in that, make it into a conversation so as they’re sharing their story start asking questions, especially if it’s the topic that you potentially are passionate about.

Let’s say this is someone who is interested in game of tennis and you happen to see the last games and maybe you’ve seen Serena Williams play or maybe someone else. Start asking questions about their game, about their experience, about their daily routine and stuff. 

Start showing interest and really show that you’re truly interested in the person, in their experience and how they were able to achieve what they’ve achieved and what they’re doing to overcome their obstacles. Don’t jump into talking business from the very first time because you know what? When you start jumping into the business, it’s going to sound like a sales pitch. That’s the last thing that you want to happen. 

You want to make sure that that person you’re talking to sees you as a human being who is truly interest in their experiences. While talking to them, it’s always crucial to keep an eye contact because what I notice, some people are doing and then Dale Carnegie actually talks about that in his book.

Keep an eye contact, don’t start browsing the room if you’re at a party or at a place where there are many other people or whether it’s a networking event or a party. Look the person in the eye, show your true interest. That will also help exponentially, to that person to understand that you’re really interested in them and while I understand that, especially if it’s a networking event that you want to get going, you want to talk to other people. Maybe set a timer for yourselves, maybe talk to this person anywhere between 15 to 20 minutes and after that, you can say something to the extent, “Excuse me, this is a networking event, we’ll both want to make sure that we meet other people, great meeting you. Let’s continue our conversation, can I have your business card?” And move on to the next person.

Within those 15-20 minutes, focus your attention on the person. Give them your best to make sure that at the end of the conversation, they will say, “What a great conversation we had” even though it was all about them, even though it was thoughtfully their stage, even though they spend the most time talking and you just kept listening and asking brief questions here and there. 

[0:11:29.7] WS: Such good content right there. I mean, just in a few minutes Alina, if we could just do those things, wow. How far we would go in our relationships and business. I can remember, I think this is a learned skill, you read this book and you have to start applying these things and personally, I have to do the same thing.

We’re not taught these things at school, you know, keep eye contact and really focus on that individual and try not to be just self-serving, right? I can remember my mentor was talking about some of these things and then at a large conference, when I first started traveling, going to conferences, we were in a large room and we were in a Bigger Pockets meeting, I remember this really well.

I was watching him, right? Of course, everybody wants to talk to him, everybody in the room knew who he was and wanted to talk to him and he could talk to anybody in there he wanted to, but I would watch him and he is just like laser focused on that individual in front of him and as far as really, as long as that person wants to talk, you know? 

Just asking him questions and so I just learned a lot by observing him and then you know, also by reading this book that you’re talking about but you know still, just trying to start applying those things like really trying to work on those skills. You know, what did you find? Any difficulties there that you had, Alina, as far as when you started trying to apply these things. 

A lot of people are nervous about just going up and approaching someone and having that conversation. I do believe it is a learned skill, you got to practice but how did you do that? 

[0:12:59.0] AT: Yeah, I know Whitney. I completely agree with you. I think it is a learned skill. It was very challenging for me at the very beginning because I personally, just like every human being, I am used to looking at the wrong one, looking who else’s and everyone. Yeah and it’s natural so staying laser focused on the person is very, very challenging and difficult. What I decided to do is pick a spot on the person’s face and just try to concentrate on that one spot for a couple of minutes. Then shift to another spot and that helped me with the concentration. 

When I knew that I’m looking at a particular spot, I kept my focus on that person and that helped me stay engaged and it also helped me to determine what kind of questions to ask especially with the topic that I was interested in. For instance, I like to travel — so when people start talking about various destinations, where I haven’t been and going with their plans of those destinations, I really do pay a lot of attention. 

You know, Hawaii, Costa Rica, Machu Picchu and so forth, I love hearing people’s stories whether it’s experience that I would want to do, I would not want to do but still, I want to hear how people were able to get there or what they’ve seen and various experiences where they have seen some wild animals or where they’ve seen the country or seen the big cities. It always fascinates me how each and every country and each and every culture is so different. 

To be there as a tourist and experience it, to me is a fascinating experience so when someone starts talking about their travel, business, leisure, whatever it is — but just experience even travelling through the airport, being on an airplane, surrounded by people potentially from that culture, sometimes is very interesting and unique experience because you never know who is going to sit next to you. It could be someone from that culture who just immigrated to US and now visiting back their country. 

It’s a fascinating experience and places like airplane and airport is another place where you can practice this thing called building relationship with people because it all comes down to starting that conversation when for instance, someone maybe looking at their phone, an iPad, and watching some sort of video or looking at the pictures that you see that is interesting and fascinating. Start that conversation and ask a question and you never know where it may lead. 

It may lead for this person to be a potential partner, a potential investor, or maybe someone who would be your go-to guide for this specific country if you want to go back to this country. It’s always helpful to practice what you learn whether it’s a Dale Carnegie book or someone else’s book but without practicing all of those principles, they’re helpful in building and – establishing and building relationship, you’re never going to be able to put into real life. Always try to practice anywhere and everywhere you go. 

[0:16:04.9] WS: I like that, just thinking about anywhere and everywhere. Are you prepared or are you looking for that person that you can share interest in? I had to gain that skill and not just be on my phone, have my head down looking at my phone like you’re sitting there on the plane next to someone that you can track your conversation up with and I have started doing that more and more over the last couple of years and it is so interesting that people you meet that you end up sitting next to.

You know, some have become potential investors. I don’t know how many of them actually invested that I have met on airplanes, however, they’re very intrigued once they start asking about what I do and then just let them ask questions, you know? It is where you need to learn about them, where they’re from and then their desire to potentially invest and grow their business, right? 

How you can maybe help but putting the device down. Putting your phone down, showing that you’re open for a conversation, right? Making that eye contact. Any other tips recently that you could provide Alina that now, we can’t go to those conferences as much now or they’re not in person, any other ways that you’ve found recently to build relationships that have helped you since we’re having to do most of this virtually? 

[0:17:16.0] AT: Yeah, you know great topic Whitney. You mentioned putting the phone down. I recently made quite a few posts about putting the phone down and putting your technical devices down — for that simple reason, to decompress, relax and just enjoy the world around us because what I noticed and even in my today’s post on LinkedIn, what I noticed was that since we’re most of this virtual world, we, including myself, my husband, friends and family and colleagues I know and investors started working more and more. 

We put a lot more hours in, so it’s absolutely critical to take the time, to decompress, to relax because you know what you’re going to burn down yourself a lot sooner than you think if you don’t take breaks here and there, if you don’t relax and if you just don’t enjoy the family. Now, I think it’s absolutely important to either send a card to someone or just pick up the phone and do it the old-fashioned way. Call your friends, call your investors, call your family and just ask how they’re doing. 

What are they up to, maybe they’re struggling or maybe they’re doing really well. Whatever it is, celebrate it with them or help them with whatever struggle they have. Help them in any way you can and you’ll be surprised. People will be pleasantly surprised to hear your voice, to see that you care about them, whatever little step you can take in that direction by showing that you care. It will do wonders.

[0:18:48.6] WS: Alina, do you have a couple of daily habits that you are disciplined about that have helped you achieve success? 

[0:18:54.7] AT: Absolutely, Whitney. I have my own variation of Miracle Morning routine or it is also called savers and I actually was privileged. I was invited to watch Miracle Morning premier last weekend, which was absolutely phenomenal. Whenever it goes public to everyone, I highly recommend watching the movie. It was very surprising to me to see that while the book was excellent, the movie was absolutely amazing as well. 

How it was able to incorporate some other things into the movie that were not captured in the book just because it was produced later, I am not going to give up the secret but in my case yes, I have my own variation of Miracle Morning routine. It includes exercising, shower, meditation, gratitude and so forth but I think it’s absolutely important. No matter what time you get up, whether it’s five in the morning or seven or ten, you need to have your own morning routine to start your day right. 

To be able to be efficient and effective with your day and to set up your small goals, small steps for the day and to know what are you looking to achieve today. 

[0:20:08.4] WS: What’s your best source for meeting new investors right now? 

[0:20:12.0] AT: It’s repeat customers, referrals and social media. I found that going on social media and find the medium where like-minded investors are present and engaged is the best way. I use LinkedIn a lot lately and I’m extremely happy with the results. I like the platform as a whole in general. As a former IT professional, user experience is extremely important to me. The quality of the platform and the quality of people that are engaged on this platform is absolutely phenomenal and I’m really happy with the results. 

I’m really happy with people I am meeting there not just investors but other entrepreneurs, other potential business partners and having those amazing conversations is just incredible. 

[0:21:04.4] WS: What’s the number one thing that’s contributed to your success? 

[0:21:07.3] AT: Grit and determination. Staying determined in whatever you do no matter what obstacles are on the way. Someone else might call it tenacity, whatever you call it but staying true and focused on the end result has been huge in my case. 

[0:21:26.1] WS: How do you like to give back? 

[0:21:27.6] AT: We give back by helping various charities. My main focus has always been kids primarily but I also work with charities that help the hungry folks. We’ve sent some food donations to the local food pantries. My kids I really encourage because we teach them Russian, this is our common speaking language at our household, they’ve been able to write greeting cards in Russian for the elderly that are homebound, that don’t have any families and we were able to bring those cards to those folks and make their days brighter. 

[0:22:12.9] WS: Nice. Well Alina, I’m grateful for your time, just how you’ve given back to us today. The relationship component is so important in any business but especially in ours and we just cannot stress that enough and if you ever read that book, I’m not sure what you’ve been doing, you know what I mean? It’s such a popular book and it’s such good, you know, it seemed basic, right? However, many of us never implement those things and so get out there and practice these things and hone that skill of really caring about others more than yourself, right? 

Really focusing on them, just preaching, elaborating on that and the importance of it today Alina and how that’s helped you grow your business. How can people get in touch with you and learn more about you? 

[0:22:54.3] AT: They will, Whitney, they can of course find me on LinkedIn as I already mentioned but they can also find me through my own website, SAMO Financial or through Facebook or Instagram and I am always, always interested in speaking with new people again, regardless where the conversation ends. I’m happy to help anyone and everyone. 

[0:23:13.8] WS: Awesome, that’s a wrap Alina. Thank you so much. 

[0:23:16.6] AT: Thank you Whitney, a pleasure to be here. 

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:23:19.2] WS: Don’t go yet, thank you for listening to today’s episode. I would love it if you would go to iTunes right now and leave a rating and written review. I want to hear your feedback. It makes a big difference in getting the podcast out there. You can also go to the Real Estate Syndication Show on Facebook so you can connect with me and we can also receive feedback and your questions there that you want me to answer on the show. 

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[OUTRO]

[0:23:59.5] ANNOUNCER: Thank you for listening to the Real Estate Syndication Show, brought to you by Life Bridge Capital. Life Bridge Capital works with investors nationwide to invest in real estate while also donating 50% of its profits to assist parents who are committing to adoption. Life Bridge Capital, making a difference one investor and one child at a time. Connect online at www.LifeBridgeCapital.com for free material and videos to further your success.

[END]