Luke has made and lost a million dollars, twice! The second time around he was a single dad and almost became homeless as a result. After literally losing almost everything he had in 2012, he went on to obtain his real estate sales license, and then his broker’s license, and then doubled his sales volume every year for 5 years straight. In 2016, Luke was selected to appear as a contestant for 9 episodes on the reality TV show, Seller’s Market. In September 2017 Luke appeared on the Canada-wide real estate radio show At Home. Luke currently runs a highly successful podcast called New Town Big Dreams and has conducted over 200 interviews to date.
Luke has made and lost a million dollars, twice! The second time around he was a single dad and almost became homeless as a result. After literally losing almost everything he had in 2012, he went on to obtain his real estate sales license, and then his broker’s license, and then doubled his sales volume every year for 5 years straight. In 2016, Luke was selected to appear as a contestant for 9 episodes on the reality TV show, Seller’s Market. In September 2017 Luke appeared on the Canada-wide real estate radio show At Home. Luke currently runs a highly successful podcast called New Town Big Dreams and has conducted over 200 interviews to date.
Life is full of changes, sometimes those changes are making a million dollars losing it all and having to start again. In other cases, sometimes it's living all over the world in 10 different cities carrying multiple passports and having to re establish yourself as an introvert. Today I'm joined by Luke minkeys. And he's a friend of mine. He had me on the show, and the show is New Town, big dreams. And you can find it at Newtown big dream stuff. buzzsprout.com and we're going to talk about his career in real estate. His business success is starting over and everything in between. So that thanks for being here. I'm your host Kubiak As always, you can find me at Tim Kubiak just about everywhere. And the show is bow ties and business. Luke, how are you man? I'm great. It's great to see you, Tim. Thanks for having me on. It's a pleasure and apologies for the reschedule life got crazy. And frankly, I got a sinus infection that took me out of the game for six weeks self. Appreciate the patience. Glad to see you're much better now. Yeah, yeah, boy, allergy season for me is brutal every year. Okay, now you I used to blame it on the end of trade show season. But that wasn't the case, the shirts out was just so you've made a million dollars lost $80 million had to start over again, you mind sharing a little bit of that backstory, because that's a that's a dream, right? everybody's like, Oh, I'm gonna make a million dollars, but to lose it and be able to redo it, and to have to do it again. So, so um, it's kind
Luke Menkes:of an interesting stories. So the first time I inherited a building in the Cayman Islands 1997, my father wanting to retire there. In two weeks after he bought this building, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. So June 98, he passed away. And I did my first financing deal. 27 years old, I built a spreadsheet, and I went to the bank, and I wanted to refinance to buy out my brother and sister. This is building we had about four or 5000, free cash flow month. And I wanted to move there, I decided I was gonna move to the Cayman Islands. It was a lot of fun. And it just didn't make sense to try to have one person manage this and then split it three ways, between my brother and sisters, so that was gonna be my full time job. So that's what I did. And in 2004, we had a hurricane, a direct hit of a hurricane. So a lot of people, you know, we hear about hurricane season in the Gulf, and, you know, the Gulf states and the Caribbean islands. hurricanes are really huge, but the very dangerous part is very small. So the odds of the eye of the hurricane hitting you directly are really, really small. And for years, you know, we board up windows and stuff like that. And then it would brush by we lose a couple trees. But in 2004, we had a direct hit. And it was devastation like most of the island that had no electricity for over six months. And it's tropical and very hot and all. So I learned all about building insurance. In 2004. I never read my policy, I just said, Tell me what I need to get. And I'd write a check. And that was it. So that was the biggest lesson I learned from that was, if you're spending 10 15,000 a year on something, you should read that policy. You should know what it covers, right? It's really tedious, really boring things written by lawyers. But I probably lost about three $400,000 in the end because I didn't understand the document that I was paying for. So there's a concept called under insurance where they say you know what, your building is actually worth more than what you set homeowner's policy. So we assume that you're insuring yourself, the shortfall, that's called under insurance. I bet you like 99% of people that buy a home insurance or building insurance don't even know the concept of under insurance. So they say we're only going to cover 80% because your building was actually worth 20% more than what you had covered. And you can dispute it, and you can go to court and it can take years. But anyways, I negotiated a settlement, and I got this building rebuilt. And at that time, I figured out about a million in equity in the building, and it was destroyed, like completely destroyed. And I was able to build that back over time. So I didn't have any savings, I think I had like 500 bucks in my pocket when the hurricane hit. And I had a beautiful old Mercedes who was swamped. insurance didn't cover it. So I was completely wiped out. But I was able to rebuild this. So that's how I say I made a million dollars the first time because I was able to negotiate and finagle and sign up leases and do all kinds of things and build that back. And I was really depressing, but it wasn't as bad as the second time because over time, we were making progress, we would clean up the building sites, we would sign a new lease, you know, over time, it was getting a little bit better every day. I'm in 2010. Now, first of all, in 2008, I was watching too much CNN, and I thought the entire financial system is coming to a complete collapse.
Tim Kubiak:Yeah, I thought, right. You are the only one, right?
Luke Menkes:Yes, I sold this building right before the crash. And I always wanted to have a Swiss bank account. Because that's a pretty good trait. Right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I thought, well, that's a little boring. So I opened a Swiss bank account, and I put a million US dollars in the account, pay off all my goals, but a couple of brand new cars, gave my sister some money, you know. And I was bored. And I was in my mid 30s. And I was living back in Canada. And now because I have a 16 year old daughter now. I met her mother in the Cayman Islands. And she was from this town and I'm living in now. So long story short, that's why back here. But in 2009, I was sitting on the patio of my favorite bar in this small Canadian town. And the bar owner says Luke, I'm totally burnt out. Do you know what anybody wants to buy bar? And I couldn't sleep that night. And I thought, I've spent so many days on this side of the bar. Like how hard can this be? You know, it's the whole bar managers and bartenders was one of the worst decisions I've ever made. Because I hated it. Because you can't drink when you're at a bar when you own the bar. And I realized really quickly, I do not enjoy the company of people who are drinking when I'm not drinking. noxious the ridiculous. They go on and on. And you can't leave you know. So it was just terrible. So then I made another decision. And I said, Well, I know how to be a landlord. I know how to change lightbulbs collect checks, write leases. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to buy this building, and I'm going to find a tenant to run this bar. And then I can just come and have a drink when I want and uncork the rent. Great idea. Right? Right. But I didn't do an inspection on the building. And I don't know if you ever saw the movie, the money bet. I sure half this movie was this building was like that movie. I foolishly did not do an inspection. And it had bedbugs. It had termites it had plumbing issues, and I lost everything. Everything. Like within two years, I was completely wiped out. So I lost it to foreclosure. And that was worse because each day the bills were getting higher, you know, people I mean to were getting more and more angry, you know, there was no progress, who was like it was way worse than the hurricane for that reason. So that's what happened. That's how I lost it. The second time. You're still on the property business, right? Yes. still around. Yeah. So I'm, you know, I was pretty close to homeless but I had a car and I started delivery business. And I started to do pretty well in this delivery business over time. So I decided like the only way I'm gonna be able to make money in a reasonable fashion is to get back in real estate somehow. So I my big, you know, four inch thick textbook and just driving around doing delivery. And when I was waiting for calls, I would be studying that real estate course in my car. And, or in coffee shops. So I got on real estate license in late 2012, early 2013. And that's how I was able to recover. Now, I haven't made a million dollars yet want to get remarried IDs, you know, now I have two daughters, two step daughters, and, you know, really nice life. I think back to that level, you know, where I'm jumping on airplanes, and being very frivolous. But it's definitely, you know, I'm, I feel like I'm living my best life now than I've recovered from that crash, personal crash in 2010 to 2012.
Tim Kubiak:It's interesting how you know, and I've had two businesses fail and stuff in the course of my career, how you when you go back to you, like a new boy really shouldn't have spent that. Right, that decision? What heck was I thinking? Right? And, you know, and the upside is, sometimes you do come out of it with a different financial quality life, but a much better quality of life. Definitely.
Luke Menkes:Definitely. And I mean, that foreclosure process was really, it was personally embarrassing, you know, because people, you know, from around the world, all the place that lived, they'd be like, how you doing not be left there? To bring it into court? Like, it's terrible. But I was able to build a relationship with a banker in 2014. He's for we have like five big banks in Canada. They're called the Big Five, right? And Toronto Dominion bank, TD Bank, they have a lot of assets in the States, do they own the Boston Garden? Or the Bruins play? center, and it gets called? Yeah. So anyways, I built a relationship with this guy. And at that time, the real estate market here was quite slow. And they had a bunch of foreclosures. So I was able to help either the bank or buyers with 13, or 14 foreclosure deals. I knew the process, right. And I was able to go out and tell the homeowner Look, I know, I'm the last person you want to see. But I can't explain it the process, what's going to happen? Right, how much time you've got, like, I tried to be friends and say, Look, I've been through it. I know what you're going through. And it made it much smoother, you know, I was able to come in and take pictures. And yeah, you know, so if I hadn't gone through that, you know, maybe I would have had a different attitude like you. You didn't pay your bills started to go. No, I'm not had that kind of arrogant attitude that I had as a kid, you know? So.
Tim Kubiak:Yeah. So So what led you to the podcast?
Luke Menkes:That's a great question. So I'm real estate. I'm not a person who loves to do a lot of cold calling. I don't like to bug people. I like to get into really complex deals and spend a lot of time with them. And spent a lot of time building relationships with clients. And spending as much time as they need. So I've had clients where, you know, they wanted to just look at stuff. And it was two, three years before they ended up buying stuff. And in 2016, I was running my own artists, and I did 44 transactions. I didn't have an assistant, I had to watch the windows, I had to shovel the sidewalk, I had to go buy the bottled water. You know, I did all the marketing, all the social media posts, I did everything. So I got really, really efficient with my time. And now things have calmed down a bit. I'm still doing great, but I find like, I couldn't do 1213 hour days. But there's like gaps to three hours where I'm waiting for somebody to call me back. You know, we're waiting for paperwork to come in. And I just decided, you know, I wanted to do it. I listened to Gary Vaynerchuk audio book crushing it. Yeah, I think it was called. And he said, real estate agents just start a podcast and become the local expert on local businesses. Just go talk to business owners. And I thought that's a great idea. Because I what I try to do, like what I did when you came on my show, is I like to pick your brain, right and say, Well, how does this work? How does that work? Explain, you know, so I'm getting such an incredible education from it. Right and during COVID IDE decided to expand the reach past my town. So I done about 150, interviews, local businesses. And I thought, well, how can I change it without changing it too much. And I realized that 95% of my guests had moved here from somewhere else. And that I had moved here from somewhere else. And I started every episode with tell us how you got here. Because I find that really interesting, because I've had great stories. So I want to hear other people's stories. So that's the that's how I kept the theme kind of the same. I always start every episode with so you live in Midwest, did you always live there? And if you did, what was it like growing up there? And if you didn't tell us the story, why did you move there? What's the reason? And I think it's just great. You know, I hear hundreds of stories. It's just awesome.
Tim Kubiak:Yeah, in unless you've reload and lived other places, you don't understand what that does, right? As you well know, from the show and from your own life, to live in another country to change cities and regions, not an hour down the road. But you know, 1012 1520 hours away. Yeah, your whole world changes.
Luke Menkes:Totally. Oh, no. I think it's good for us. Because it really helps you to grow, right? You have to figure out new ways to talk to people new ways to run a business. Right? Every city is a little bit different. But it's also a lot of fun. It's fun getting to know new place, you know, getting to know the people.
Tim Kubiak:So yeah, it is, you know, I have found, you know, being transferred. We talked about a little bit. The Midwest, like all my friends are transplants, none of my friends are actually from here. Right? Right. Because you can no matter I've been 18 years now. Right? It's still an outsider's view. I'm not really from here. Right? Yeah, I decided it's my job. Right, yeah. And you never, you know, my kids a little more integrated, because they went to school here, but to certain extent, they're even still outsiders. Right.
Luke Menkes:And when you ask one of your friends who's a transplant, you know, for that story, it's interesting, right? makes them a little more interesting. Yeah. You know, Bob came from Los Angeles or whatever the case, right? It just tells you a little bit more about them. Yeah, as a person, then, you know, I work here I do this, to me that the location is a huge part of everybody's story.
Tim Kubiak:Yeah, yeah. And I think living different places, even if it's within the same country, truly gives you a different perspective. Because there is much as we like to pretend there's not there is a different culture, between major cities in Canada, and, you know, within the country within the US, and certainly by region. I can do things in New York that nobody will bat an eye at that people would hate me for in Texas, right? Yeah. Definitely. So what's next?
Luke Menkes:Well, that's, that's a good question, I got an offer to actually run a real estate brokerage. So I'm managing broker now. And the company I worked for now is kind of, it's the realtors are full service realtors, but the company has kind of a very efficient, well run machine, we don't get a lot of training. We don't get any training. To be honest, we don't get, you know, a lot of backup. But the fees are really low. So my job as a broker is not that involved. But I've been asked to come and take over a company with about 35 agents. So my apprehension is, I don't, I don't know if I want to be, you know, chained to a desk. Like it's kind of making me a little bit nervous. Right. On the other hand, there's opportunity for tremendous growth there. Like this will be the first time that been able to own something. When I lost my building. My commercial building, I thought, for years, I thought, there's no way I'm ever going to be able to own an asset, again, like maybe a car, maybe a couch, but to own a business or a building. Like I just couldn't see how that was ever possible. It was so like mentally devastating, right? So this is the first chance I've really had, they're gonna give me ownership stake in the company in exchange for, for running it. And that that's done a tremendous amount for my self confidence, you know, going from sleeping in a car to someone say, Well, look, we've watched you, we see you, we want you to come in, you know, help our agents. That's tremendous. So I think that might be the next big step. We're gonna find out next day or two here, got to make a final decision and sign a contract. So
Tim Kubiak:nice that that is, you know, if everything lines up at least, it's an amazing thing to be offered. Even if you don't say Yes, right. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. gratulations congratulations. That's really COVID here.
Luke Menkes:Yeah. So you're the first person outside of my family to, to hear this.
Tim Kubiak:Nice. Nice. Well, I monitors their
Unknown:breaking news. On the terms of breaking, you're in a hot industry, right? Real Estate everywhere is crazy. Can you give some perspective on that?
Luke Menkes:Yeah, so um, you know, I learned a long time ago, like when things were slow. You know, I like to listen to real estate coaches and stuff. And I like to listen to older guys who have been through, you know, the ups and downs. And one thing that stuck in my head was, there's always a deal to be made. It doesn't matter if it's like crazy. Or if it's super slow. There's always someone who needs to buy something and someone who needs to sell something. Your job is to put those two people together, like go find those two people, right. So um, we've, you know, the first half of 2020 was terrible, was dead. The second half of 2020 here was insane. Like it was the busiest six months I've had in my life. The first half of 2021 became tough again, not because it wasn't busy, but because there was no inventory. So I worked with buyers, we would go to her house, they'd say, I love it, put an offer in and we get a call from the realtor. There's 13 other offers on this house. I'm sorry, we didn't pick yours. Good luck. Right. And that was happening for months. But, you know, we looked at one thing I did was, I said, well, there's most houses are selling within a week. But here's some homes that are sitting for 3045 days, what's going on? Well, they're overpriced, overpriced, right? So what people do is they say, Well, I'm shopping it say$700,000, they'll pick five or 10 ought not look at the pictures to look at the square footage. And they'll book appointments for those five or 10. If something is getting overlooked, it's because it's out of that they look at it and say that doesn't make sense. It doesn't look nearly as good as these other ones. Let's skip it. So it's counterintuitive. I was telling my buyers, let's go look at houses that are overpriced. We don't want to look at houses that are under priced. Because houses that are under priced. It's a swarm of people. And then someone gets their ego involved in someone's gonna overpay. Mm hmm. Right. It's like auctions and an auctioneer will get someone to overpay. You start off really low. And they you know, you have a chance like just getting the bidding, right? So it's kind of like, if a house is sitting there. And the crowd is not there, you have time to think about it to analyze the practice to negotiate and to pay. What's actually a fair price. You don't have all that competition, or all that emotional mental pressure to like decide right that second, you can take it there to go see it a second time. So I was able to do I don't know, six, seven deals like that. I said, let's try to find the homes that are overpriced that are sitting there and find out why they're sitting there. It's usually they're overpriced, sometimes they need work. Right. And so we were able to make deals that way.
Tim Kubiak:That's brilliant. Right? Yeah. Yeah. In what we fight the crowds. Exactly. It's always easier to go up and negotiate down. So if you start low, right, yeah,
Luke Menkes:yeah, as a buyer. And then with listings, I was able to get a few listings in the second quarter, which is great. They're like gold right now. You just pop aside and sit back. So yeah, it's really it's really a feast or famine situation right now. Like there's, you know, maybe 10% of the realtors are just making a killing and 90% are really struggling because they're finding it hard to put those deals together. So yeah,
Tim Kubiak:yeah, it's you know, we literally for my home here in Missouri, you know, there's the debate DSL now while I buy land two or three exits out, but just build something in. right in between, because it's, it's such a premium. Yeah. So yeah, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna do that? So we've been talking to a local guy and the truth is, is It may be somewhere in between that, right. But I'm watching things move. I watched properties to your point. Last summer I watched properties when I'd ride my bike or walk that set for six months, eight months. Yes. You know, and they were similar sized houses to mine and literally in my neighborhood, and now I'm watching stuff. If it even gets a sign in the yard, before it sells half the time, you have a sold sign before they even put the MLS listing out. It's amazing to watch and I'm going, huh, boy, maybe it's time.
Luke Menkes:Yeah, it's interesting. You know, human psychology is so interesting. Like when it was slow. years ago, I had the opposite problem. So I would take someone to see 510 houses, they would say I love this one. I would be like, Great, let's spread an offer. And they would say What's wrong with it? And I said, What do you mean? And they would say, well, it's sat here for five months. Am I stupid? Or am I missing something like nobody else in this city wants this house, but I want it. So they would get paranoid that there was something wrong with the house. I'm like, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just there's too many houses for sale. Yeah. Right. We're gonna get an inspection and all that stuff. So. So yeah, but when people see 10 people lining up to see the house, they say, oh, it must be a really good deal. And people overpay and I have one lovely young couple first time homebuyers. And we made 11 offers before we finally got one. Yeah. And I had to convince them let's go let's go for something that's sitting on the market. And that that worked. So
Tim Kubiak:yeah, that's so I have a second place that my youngest daughter lives in in Kalamazoo, Michigan. And right, and that was even two and a half years ago, he type property market, there was just no inventory. And we ended up buying a house that you know, had was sitting there was part of an estate sell off, etc. and needed a ton of work. It was now you watch all these shows on television. Oh, like so easy. You go and you do this? You do that? It's beautiful. Yeah. My wife, my wife and daughters, two weeks scrubbing nicotine off the walls before we could seal them. Oh, yeah. Right TV show The reason we didn't rip it down to the studs. But yeah, yeah, those TV shows. It's like, yeah. Five minutes later. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And finding quality contractors and quality plumbers, if you're not in the business, that is tough.
Luke Menkes:Very tough. Yeah. And, and that's why I think it's good advice for realtors and everybody to just build relationships with people just take an extra 30 seconds, if you don't, you're standing in line somewhere, and just being friendly to people. Because eventually, you're going to need a plumber, or an electrician or something like that. And if the people you're friends with aren't electricians, they're going to recommend someone to you. Like, I'm really careful with referrals. Now, I used to just give them out like candy. But I've had a couple of cases where the person said, that person was horrible, or they had a bad attitude, or they overcharged me or something like that. But now if someone asked me for electrician, if I like the person who's asking me, right, then I would make that connection. Right? So it's really valuable to be able to make those connections.
Tim Kubiak:Yeah, yeah. But the guy we ended up using is our GC in Michigan, you know, because we we use a set of plumbers, we did get a great electrician out of the gate got us to the GC, GC got us to another set of plumbers because it was 1960s pipes, right. That all needed redone. You know, and it was but until you got that first good person to get the rest of the essentially crew involved in by the way, these are your point of referrals. These are guys going back to Hey, can you do this? Hey, we want to upgrade that now. Right? So it's one you'd work. And if I ever bought anything up around there again, they're the first people I call for sure.
Unknown:Yeah, totally. This is so shifting just slightly to sales. Talk about
Tim Kubiak:the sales process in real hot market cold market. Right. I do a lot of b2b but you know, you're doing a lot of consumer there's a different set of emotions involved, but imagine
Luke Menkes:definitely, um, I started rolled in the Grant Cardone University. I don't know if you've heard of that, but he's like a pretty famous sales coach. Grant Cardone, but he said, you can. You know, I used to get really a little bit rattled when people get emotional, you know around a purchase. sale. And I would think you don't you're being irrational like, and I would sometimes take it personally. And what Grant cardones said is, he's been in the boardroom with guys, you know, with millions and millions of dollars, sometimes even like billionaires and people, not everybody, but people have a tendency to freak out and get super emotional when it comes to financial transactions. So he said, You have to do two things, you can't ignore it, brush it off, but you don't want to absorb it. Right? You don't want to take it personally. So you have to acknowledge it and say, you know, I see what's happening here. So there's, there's a lot of that, especially with home buying, and it doesn't matter if it's like, you know, a $200,000 condo or a $3 million house, we see emotional reactions from people at key points in the sales process. And so now I just learned to kind of expect it, you know, I don't know shit, you know, this deals gonna close sideways and take on that emotion myself. So that's one of the things I would have learned just in the last couple of years, I used to go come home and say, This is so stressful to my wife, I would say this is so stressful. I don't, I don't know if this deal is going to go through the person's acting irrationally. Now, I just kind of expect it. You know, some people just get super uptight about stuff. Um, but I my style, like I said, I'm not a person who likes to cold call and say, Hey, do you want to buy a house? Do you want to buy a house like I just don't. But if someone calls me out of curiosity, I know that they're at a certain point in that sales process. Some people act really quickly, like some people, once they feel comfortable, I'll buy a house tomorrow. And some people literally takes a year or two. So it's really about just, you know, trying to figure out where they're at, in the process, staying calm. And listening. You know, I've found taking an extra 510 minutes to listen to someone is way more productive than just cold calling people for five or 10 minutes. Because that person is eventually going to turn it into a deal. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next year. But when they feel like they're heard, they're listened to. And I take notes, I don't take a ton of notes. But no, this is what they're looking for. And then if I come across something, you know, I'll say, Hey, I saw a house today on the realtor tour. Maybe think of you, here it is, do you want to look at it, right? Doesn't always turn into a deal. But they say Oh, looks thinking about me. You know what I mean? Like, I can trust that Luke will listen to me. And so I'm more of a tenacious, but slow, I guess slower than a lot of these guys that are just, you know, on the phone, on the phone on the phone. Right. And that gets me you know, 2030, sometimes 40 deals a year, from referrals from repeat business, I'd rather take more time, do a few fewer deals. I mean, I've had some clients, he started with a condo, but it turns out they have a ton of money. And I didn't know what and they were buying a condo for their daughter. And because that was patient and I took my time and it wasn't like acting like I'm in a rush, you know, a huge rush all the time. They've done like five deals with me now, multimillion dollar deals. Because I'm not that kind of hyper, you know, are you gonna sign this contract? Or we're gonna get this done? You know what I mean? I'm just like, I move forward. I try to move forward, but without pressure, if that makes sense.
Tim Kubiak:It does. Right. And that's when you deal with money. That's the tough Yeah. boondock not, you know, there's always a temptation. I deal with, you know, you get a deal through your work and do your work and do your work a deal. And it goes on procure, right. In I'm, I'm kind of like you I like, here's the facts. Here's what we've done. Here's what I've already saved you what we've agreed to all of this. There's nothing else if it doesn't work. Okay, cool.
Unknown:Right? And they're like, wait, no, no, I need, like, you got it here. You can't get it here in here too. Right. And that's okay. If you find some soccer that will give that to you take it I would.
Luke Menkes:Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And so there's, you know, it's kind of like a rhythm. It's more, um, you know, some people like to go really fast and like facts, you know, facts and numbers. Other people, you know, especially with houses, even people with a lot of money, I find it is an emotional experience. You know, they have to feel like this is home, you know? Yeah, that's why I tell sellers Your artwork and everything is amazing. It's beautiful. But you're This is your home, you're gonna take that with you. But the real estate, we need to neutralize it. So it appeals to a wider audience. For example, some people are hunters, and they've got a big, you know, moose head on the mic. If a vegetarian comes in here, they're not going to buy it. They're gonna feel like really offended and right. Yeah, it's something that will go with you in your next house. But let's open it up to wider range of buyers. Right? When when it's cluttered, when it when there's a ton of stuff. It's really hard for the average person to visualize their stuff. Yeah, and they get an emotional feeling like they're coming into someone else's house, which is true. But it feels like an intrusion when I'm stepping over things. And yeah, it doesn't feel like oh, I've just come to my new home. Right? Yes. Like I'm invading almost, you know, yeah. You know, things like that. You know, it's all about psychology. Really. You want a person to be happy. minimize their stress, you know, and be excited about it. That makes it fun for everybody.
Tim Kubiak:It does. Yeah, it's interesting. You talk about, you know, for years, I heard you know, about people taking furniture out and staging things a certain way. Yeah. Think about it in a technology conversation. We do the same thing. It's just the PowerPoints and demos. Right? Right. Don't show this guy that it's too much, or how the sausage is made. Right? You know, you don't need a couch it seats 42 people, the average person will pull one in a loveseat. The sofa chair and here you'll see
Unknown:six. Yeah, yeah.
Luke Menkes:And, you know, it's the same thing with smells, you know, if there's cat litter. Yeah. And people say, Well, that's a $10 bag and account, or what's the big deal? I'm like, it's, it's the emotion that the person gets when they come into the house. Right? Yeah. And most people like are working in offices behind the desk, things like that. And you know, if you've got chipped paint broken door handles and stuff to them. It's like, Oh, this is a lot of work. And I know, it's really we'll get a handyman in here. It'll be fixed in three hours. But to me, it's like, this is a lot. I have enough work in my own life. Like, I don't want more work. Right. So fix those little things, you know, all that stuff?
Tim Kubiak:Yeah. You know, it's interesting. You say that on the Yeah, cuz it's got to think I don't think even notice. Right? When you live there, the chips been there, you just don't see it. But when you go into your house, man, are you paying attention? Yeah, totally. Yeah. So anything else? You know, as we kind of wrap things up here today? You know, obviously, the podcast, people should go listen, links are in the show notes right at the top. Right, it's linked at the bottom at the opening of the video. So what else should we talk about?
Luke Menkes:So I think it's, um, it's a really great show. And what I try to do in the titles is be descriptive. So it's like a keyword from your bio, because your bio tells me what's important to you. And I try to base my questions on that. And I'll put a keyframe is in, in the title. So person can scroll through, it's not really a show where, you know, we're covering current events, and you can easily listen to it sequentially. You can listen to it in any order you want. You're going to find people who resonate with you, no matter what you're into. So like, I've interviewed artists, and b2b sales, people like yourself, and real estate agents, and architects and travel agents and bankers, so it's mostly entrepreneurs, self made people. But there's all kinds of topics like all cons. And the only thing that each episode has in common is we spend two, three minutes at the start saying, tell us how he got to Chicago tells us a story. Right.
Unknown:But, yeah, and craziest thing you've had happened on the podcast?
Luke Menkes:Um, that's interesting. I've had a couple of crazy things. I mean, I screen a little bit better now. But in the year, they used to come and sit right at this desk with me, you know, before COVID right. And I had some get up and say they were too nervous and walk out and happen once. No kidding. Yeah, another one is great. And I thought it was a local, homeless person, kind of facility where they gave people food, like canned food and stuff like that. And it was one of the administrators and I want Tasker, you know, what's it? Like? Is it really busy? Are there a lot of people, you know, struggling questions like that. And I thought it was a great interview. And before I published it, her boss said, we've fired this person. And we don't want you to publish that episode. I was like, I don't think she sent me thing negative like, right. But they will know. And I was like, Can I ask why? And they're like, we just don't want you to publish it. So Wow. But you know, 99% at a time has been super positive. super great. So I did. Here's an interesting story. So I have my calendar app. Totally wide open. I just assumed, you know, everybody's like West Coast or east coast or something can be done. Right. I got a booking for 3am 3am. And I was like, Okay, this is a crazy person on the East Coast that wants to do it at 6am. Right. I mean, I can't imagine why someone would want to do it at 6am. But here we are. Turns out guys in Perth, Australia. It was like 8pm for him. And he's like, are you sure you still want to do this? I said, Yeah, let's do it. So I got up at two. And I made a smoothie. And I made a coffee and I and we did it. It's a few episodes back. It's Rael Bricker, and super interesting. I lived in South Africa, moved to Australia. And we were talking about how businesses are dealing with COVID. And you know, how the workplace has changed in virtual meetings and stuff like that. Now, he was like, I, he's like, I thought there was a typo or something was wrong. He's like, I can't imagine you would get up at three in the morning. And I was like, I get some dedicated.
Tim Kubiak:I gotta say, I think I would have second guessed that one, I give you a lot of credit.
Luke Menkes:And it was fun that I just went back to bed. And, you know, I just chatted with the person for 3045 minutes. Yeah. And it's no big deal. You know, I've had to get up before to, you know, when my wife went into labor, you know, we had to get up, man. When I had to catch a 5am flight, I had to get up. So it's not the end of the world.
Tim Kubiak:No, you know, that's, that's a really good point. Right. I look at that. But when I report in the UK, I did implement the 6am role.
Luke Menkes:Right. You got a damn. Yeah, that'd be realistic. Right? Yeah. That's booked before 5am. Yeah. Is
Tim Kubiak:this to schedule and move it? Right. So as long as they show up, it's okay. Exactly.
Luke Menkes:So I do 5am just because I'm on the west coast. I've had quite a few people that book 8am. Eastern, you know, because they want to get to the office or whatever they're doing. Yeah. And that's fine. That's fine. I know, a lot of stockbrokers and stuff. They start 5pm on the west coast.
Tim Kubiak:Yeah. Right. Yeah. You know, that's interesting that you say that, because, you know, for years, because I reported this somebody substantially five, six hours east of me, right? I got used to even though my business was, you know, cotton in North America, was I could work really early and close out a lot of European stuff. And then by two 3pm. Let's face it, you know, pm Central 4pm, you know, on the East Coast, and it's, you know, lunchtime on the west coast. So it would start to slow down for me. Yeah. So but yeah, so by late afternoon, everybody disappeared. The Brits, and the Europeans were all asleep. And I like to keep my eye on the West Coast stuff. Yeah, there was
Luke Menkes:like it. I actually like it because the kids aren't around. My phone's not ringing my emails not going off. like nobody is even alive at 3am. I mean, it was awesome. Yeah, like zero interruptions, you know?
Tim Kubiak:Yeah, yeah. People laugh I get up. I work for two hours. And I go exercise No, like, what is the exercise person like, because if you guys are calling me I can ignore the phone when I'm exercising. Exactly. Luke, thanks so much for being here. I appreciate you taking time. Thanks for sharing your personal story, your business story. And again, Newtown, big dreams that bus route comm check out the show. He's got a lot of great guests. He's got several that you've heard on here. It will give you a completely different take because of his style, which is fantastic. Thanks so much. Thanks, Tim.