Origination
Join us as we delve into the world of multifamily and commercial real estate, engaging in insightful interviews with industry-leading loan originators and salespeople. Discover the secrets that set apart these top performers from the competition as we uncover the strategies and skills that drive their success.
Origination
Episode 28: Yaakov Zar, Founder and CEO of Lev
While the commercial real estate industry is historically sleepy, nothing could be farther from the truth when it comes to Yaakov Zar's Lev Capital. Started less than 3 years ago, recent estimates have them worth as much as $400M. Yaakov has a remarkably entrepreneurial spirit and a tenacious focus on the customer experience, as he tries to make life easier for both the borrower and the lender.
Timestamps:
1:45 - Chabad and Shaliach
8:19 -15:58 - Early Sales Experience
15:58 - 27:23 - Transition into Real Estate
28:03 - 31.20 - Balancing the Process
31:20 - 32:02 Lev Capital and Why
32:02 - 45:12 - Technology and Lending
49:06 - 53:51 - The Façade of LinkedIn
lenders, market, people, loan, client, equity, selling, deals, screen protectors, year, calls, rates, business, borrower, easy, long, sales, chase, interest rates, debt
Welcome back to the Origination podcast where we speak to the top originators and salespeople in the commercial real estate industry to try to understand what separates the top performers from the rest of the pack. On this episode, I'll be speaking with Yaakov Zar, founder and CEO of Lev Capital. Now, the commercial real estate industry is historically very sleepy. But nothing could be farther from the truth when it comes to Lev. Lev was started less than three years ago, and just came out with the total bang. Recent estimates have them worth as much as $400 million, which is just remarkable. There's a lot that I love about Yaakov and our conversation. You know, his entrepreneurial spirit and perpetual optimism is, is great. I love his tenacious focus on the customer experience, trying to make life easier for both the borrower and the lender. Lastly, I love his priorities. While he is entrepreneurial and and hardworking and growing an incredibly successful business, which is not easy and takes a lot of time. He still doesn't lose focus from what's truly important to him. I think you'll really enjoy this conversation. I know I did. So without further ado, let's speak to Yaakov. Yaakov Zar. This is a delight. Welcome to the Origination podcast.
Yaakov Zar:Yes, sir. It's an honor to be here. Excited to chat with you.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Now, Yaakov, I always start the podcasts with the same question. However, I'm going to start with a different question for you.
Yaakov Zar:No, I prepared for the question.
Mordecai Rosenberg:For the question?
Yaakov Zar:But I'll take it, I'll take it.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Alright. Look, you're an entrepreneur, you move on the fly, right? Don't worry. This is not a hard one. So I was doing some research on you and saw that, that you are what's called a Shaliach at a synagogue in the Lower East Side. And I want to see, can you describe for the audience, what Chabad is and what a Shaliach does?
Yaakov Zar:Sure, it's a big question. So I didn't expect to start with it. But let's let's give it a shot. Chabad is a sort of sub philosophy within the greater civic philosophy of Judaism. And it got it's start in the 18, late 1700s with a focus on using our intellect as the ultimate channel through which we serve God and being able to focus on controlling our emotions, bodies, it says even thoughts and directing them towards the towards the surface of God. The foundational book of it is called The Tanya, written by the Alter Rebbe Rabbi Schneur Zalman of the Liadi. The Bible Trevor the seventh Rebbe his great, great grandson for seven generations, in the 1950s took over the mantle of leadership of Chabad, and really pushed it forward as a outreach or inreach as he likes to call it. Community towards towards Jews and to serve as a resource for every single Jew in the entire world. And it inspires me and my wife and I, we were living in Boston after we got married. My wife was very close with Rabbi Korn at the Chabad House, which serves NYU, it's called the Chabad House Bowery, and they have a young professional community as well. And we got so excited by what Rabbi Korn was doing there that we decided to move back to New York and be a part and help run the community there. So my wife and I run the young professional community for Chabad House Bowery out of the East Village.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, that's, that's amazing. So what does it mean to be a Shaliach?
Yaakov Zar:The Rabbi very passionately would speak about the fact that every Jew is a Shaliach out every person is a Shaliach frankly, every everyone has a Shaliach literally means emissary, that every one of us every single person has the opportunity to reveal God's light within this world, regardless of their religion, regardless of what their job is, where they earn their money. And in the more formal sense the Shaliach helps run a Chabad center and helps offer everything from education to soup for the sick. And it's an honor to try to be a Shaliach of God and to try to be a Shaliach of the Rebbe Zalman in realizing the work that he, the vision that he had.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, that that that's awesome. For those in the audience who are unfamiliar with what this can look like as as Shaliach. I mean, these are oftentimes younger people. I mean, they could be older, but , as young as I don't know, 18-19, maybe even younger. But and they will, to me, I think it is, I actually think that they're some of the best salespeople that you'll encounter, right, because they'll stand in the middle of Manhattan. And there's, let's say there's a, one of the rituals that you do, that Jews do on on Sukkot, the holiday of Sukkot in the fall, is to shake the palm frond and Citron and the willow of an etrog. And they will they want to encourage people to do that practice. And so they'll stand in the middle of, you know, 57th Street and Seventh Avenue, or Fifth Avenue, and approach everyone. Hey, did you you know, are you? Do you want to shake the willow? And this is New York City like these are? This is tough, tough, tough. But but they're able to get get some people. So I was curious, is there training that you get? As a Shaliach?
Yaakov Zar:Can I not answer your question, but provide some what I think is an interesting point to what you described. And I was, you mentioned it, and once you mentioned that, I realized the the parallels with with sales. And, you know, I was thinking, as you're describing it, like, You must be crazy, right? What you're describing is a pretty, pretty tough thing to do as a young person and to do as anybody to stand in the street. And what motivates that, and what motivates me in the work that I do both that at Lev in business, and also in personal life, and in service of God, which encapsulates everything. And I think that any salesperson who has genuine passion and dedication to what they're working on, and realizes that sales, there's this image of sales, where selling is about tricking the other person into believing what you want, you know, into going with what you want. That's not sales, that's like manipulation, or lying, or fraud or something else. Sales is about being able to effectively communicate the value that you're bringing to someone else, and have them be able to understand that and align with that. And I think that, in the work that a Shaliach does that you just described, and also in sales in general, it's about being able to want to be passionate about the work that you're doing and understanding that it's actually valuable, and then effectively communicating that value to the other person. And I think that that probably is what motivates them. And it definitely is what motivates me again, both in service of God and in my everyday life and also in business.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, so I'm gonna get back to that. Because I think, you know, I've read interviews of you, and you were very focused on the why. And I think that in that's an important thing to get into, because I do feel bad that I skipped the difficult question. Can you if I asked you, that kind of earliest sales experience, you're clearly an entrepreneur from from a young young age, but you know, earliest sales experience that comes to mind. Because I do think, I don't know if you'd agree with this. To me, I think every entrepreneur has to also be a salesperson, you're selling something into an idea into the market. Do you agree with that, that every entrepreneur has also be a salesperson?
Yaakov Zar:I think everybody does, especially entrepreneurs. Yeah. I think it's one of the most critical skill sets in life period.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. So what what's kind of earliest sales experience that you know, what comes to mind?
Yaakov Zar:Sure. It's a funny story just came to mind that I haven't really spoken about in a very long time and I should probably tell my mom this. But my mom, I remember when I was probably 10 years old or something. My mom had become a real estate agent. And she was getting into into the business and just like we were getting older and there was less less taking care of kids at the time, she was a full time mom and amazing one at that, thank God, and she bought this like set of CDs of sales training. They sell like these CDs, I guess. And I remember listening to those I remember she was like listening to them in the car or something and then somehow I just listened to all of them extensively, at a very young age, and I'm sure, somewhere deep down inside of my subconscious those lessons still exists. So that was my, that's my earliest memory of anything related to sales period. I think the first time that I really more formally got into the process of selling was in college. I was making websites for people as a way to make money to do things that people do in college. And I would have to sell a lot there, you know, get people to agree to contracts into the work that we're doing. And I remember it being, realizing quickly that it's about figuring out what kind of value are you bringing to the person. And how can you communicate that to them effectively?
Mordecai Rosenberg:So, so first, in terms of the sale CDs, any lessons that stick out that you remember, hearing on them?
Yaakov Zar:I'm trying to think about it. I don't remember the specifics, I'm just sure that pretty much everything I know about sales probably came from there. It was a long time ago, but I was young. I've had a baby, she's, she's a year and a half old, and we just see every single thing you do, regardless of your intention, and she just somehow, baby's copy, and definitely sticks with you up to a certain age. I wish that I could absorb to that extent now. But I think I absorbed a lot of that. And I think that just the, I vaguely remember them, like talking about the importance of communicating effectively, understanding what the other person is looking for, things like that. And I think that those are really, really critical aspects of sales.
Mordecai Rosenberg:It's funny how these early things make an imprint on you, and then you forget about them. My mom is, she may be moving from, the house that they've lived in for, I don't know, 30 years or so. So she's been going through her attic and finding old notebooks of mine from long ago. She recently brought to me a notebook and there was a list that I must have put together, I must have been in high school, 16, 17, 18. And it was 50 rules to live by. Right. And it was about family. Just how to relate to your kids and your wife and priorities. Right. And I was, and I haven't thought about it. I totally forgot about it. I still didn't I don't remember when I wrote it. But when I was reading through it, Oh my gosh, this is all the stuff that's important to me now. Right? Yeah. So it's funny how the these things, even if you don't remember specifics, they do seem to make an imprint.
Yaakov Zar:Exactly. Absolutely.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So how did that go in college? So your selling websites? How did, what did that look like? Who were you approaching? What were you saying?
Yaakov Zar:It was my uncle, he introduced me to a company and I made a, I was in way over my head on a project. And we made a website for E commerce brand that was selling chairs quickly. I was it was it was mainly local businesses and friends of friends and friends of family that needed a basic website. This was in, let's say, 2009ish. So internet definitely was well matured. But not everyone had a website. And also I was doing a lot of making social media pages for people, making Facebook pages for them. And that grew a bunch and like I said, it was just about making enough money to get by and be able to have a good time in college. I don't know if I took it way too seriously. At some point, it did evolve.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So at some point, it evolved into into what?
Yaakov Zar:It evolved into my first attempt at a real startup. I started a company in college called Social Rents where we were helping, trying to help roommates find apartments together. So you've come on Facebook, and there was a fixed gap back in the day when there was apps built into Facebook. And you can you can find you, add in your roommates through your Facebook friends, and you design the apartment you want. And we would bring in, we'd get an agent to upload a bunch of apartments that they thought was a good fit for you. And you would comment on them, whatever it didn't get very far, but I definitely learned a lot.
Mordecai Rosenberg:What were some of the lessons that you had from that business?
Yaakov Zar:So I met the two, the three developers. Well, I met two of the developers on a roof of a frat party in college. And I learned about recruiting, which was quite some something. I learned a lot about product management of figuring out what is the experience that users want? And how should it look and how should it work? That was a big lesson and also driving some level of management of driving people towards a goal and a vision. That was a big, big learning experience for me. We spent the months of winter break in college, in the basement of one of our investors, building out the first version of that Facebook application. And it was quite a journey.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Wow. So you know how to code yourself?
Yaakov Zar:A little bit. Yeah, I did dabble.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Dabble, yeah. So you were able to understand--you also had the language to communicate with these developers?
Yaakov Zar:Yes. I definitely learned a lot about how to communicate requirements and how to get people buying into things at that time, but I was decently well versed. They were also college students. So they weren't the world's most sophisticated engineers.
Mordecai Rosenberg:That's very interesting. So let's get back to the the why. Because I feel like that is something that well, what do you think? I mean, do you feel like that is something that salespeople think about or pay attention to? What is their, the why is, let's say, let's talk about our industry, in commercial real estate, you have originators or brokers or investment sales people. Do you feel like there is that focus on
Yaakov Zar:That's a very good question. I think that many I want to say most, but I think that that's an overstatement. I think that many people that work in commercial real estate, are focused on the deal. And that's not really a sale necessarily. Like I think a lot of people's jobs in commercial real estate, like a lot of brokers and brokerages, the job is not selling as much as it is deal making, which I think is a pretty different. There's a lot of close parallels in that. A lot of similarities. But I think it's a little bit different. I think that sales is, being a good salesperson, in my opinion, I've met a decent amount of pretty astonishing salespeople, I think the thing that's consistent about them is that they are genuinely, like I mentioned upfront, they are genuinely there to help their clients and figure out the right solutions for them. I think that, as buyers, we know, we can sense people's genuineness and honesty in a sales transaction. And I think that good salespeople also are in the game for the long run. And they are pretty upfront in situations where it's not a good fit, or something might not work, on why? they're not going to go and drag someone in a long process or painful process or have them buy something that they don't want. I think that they they understand the importance of establishing that trust, and they invest a lot of energy in establishing that trust with their counterpart. And they see themselves as partners, right and getting the deal done.
Mordecai Rosenberg:I think one thing that that people need to keep in mind is that when a as a salesperson, it's easy to think that your customer is buying the present. Or it's like that you have a product and they're buying you know, it's like you're someone's thirsty and they're buying a bottle water, right. But really, the reason why someone buys from you especially I think in our industry is because they're buying into their future. And they're buying into their own future. So there's some there's something that they want to achieve, right? There's something if there's a position that they would like to be in, in the future, maybe it's lower payments, or maybe it's cashing out, or maybe it's selling their asset, or maybe it's buying an asset. And if they believe that you have, that you, if they trust that you are someone who can be a bridge to their desired future. They'll want to work with you. Right? If it's just about like, oh, I can if it's, but it's not just about, well just look at who has the cheapest milk and you know, that's go with, you know, go with me.
Yaakov Zar:I think that that's definitely true. I think that there, it's also the sales experience is important for the buyer too right? They want to work with people, they want to buy from people that they enjoy working with. And again, if we put ourselves in the shoes of buyers, I know what it's like when someone's trying to sell me and not trying to help me figure out what the right solution for me is. And it is a terrible experience, right? I run away from that and I'm sure if you experience that you do as well, it's not enjoyable. So why would someone try to invest further in that relationship with you? If they just sense like they're, they're being used?
Mordecai Rosenberg:It's like, Are you the customer or are you the product? And it starts to feel like you're the product, right, that serves, they feel the salesperson is their own customer. Do you see, I mean, you work with so many different salespeople, do you see any thing that's common themes for actions, attitudes, things that that salespeople get wrong or miss the mark on? If I were to fill in the blank on, most or many salespeople do this, right, but this is really what they should do or think or approach?
Yaakov Zar:I think that the discipline of sales is pretty astonishing. I think that you see a pretty clear pattern of good salespeople being extremely disciplined in the work that it takes, right? What was the line? We, you work, you work enough, the more you work, the more chances you get? Exactly, yes. So that I mean, salespeople know that better than anybody else, you have to put in the work. And that's the tough thing of what is the work that you're putting in, and there's people who interpret that as "Okay, I'm just gonna make more calls." But if you're not analyzing what is working, and not working in those calls, what's working and not working in those interactions, then it's just a waste of time. So there's people who get into commercial real estate or into any sales job, and they just think I'm gonna take this like other approaches, it's a little bit easier or just focused on sending more emails, very few, super detailed emails, or I'm just gonna send emails instead of calls. Like, there's discipline to all of that, and there's ways to be creative. But in my opinion, it's really important to just put in that work itself and get the conversations going and start to develop that the some level of metrics and tracking also salespeople who are making calls without clear tracking, and clear follow up,it blows my mind, what do you what are you doing? Right, it seems like you're just throwing work out the window, or they call someone and don't end the engagement, they're not able to engage a client for whatever reason, and it just disappears into the ether. And they're not making follow up calls or follow up emails, or whatever the next steps are, blows my mind, you've invested all this work to get to some point. And then because of not wanting to update the CRM for two seconds, you're going to basically lose that opportunity or hope that you're going to remember it, which, we know, that's not how memory works. So I think that that concept of discipline in general is, is really, really important.
Mordecai Rosenberg:In the technology world, the idea of A B testing is very common that you try out, okay, two different kinds of emails and see what gets a better response or two different websites, that it's to your point about learning and adjusting as you go along the sales process, I think that really is very, very critical. And I don't know that, that's really an interesting thing for people to keep in mind is to do an A B test, right? So as your track, so what so you say tracking, but what does that mean? So I think a lot of people will will track they'll say, Okay, called them on March 31, call back in two weeks or a month, whatever it is. But are you looking at, well, what time of day did I call? What were the first words out of my mouth when they picked up the phone? Right? And let me let me test let me do 50 calls, with saying one thing, and then 50 calls saying something else. And let's say do I get more calls back or better reception with one versus the other? So that's, it's got to be iterative. It should, it should be iterative, and improving. But I think a lot of people get caught on that first part of well, it's just a numbers game. You have to discipline things. Just keep on putting in the same call.
Yaakov Zar:Right? To your point, like the discipline is, it is a numbers game for sure. That you're gonna, the numbers of doing something terrible, you're not gonna have any return on it. So I think that also I think that people don't, people miss out by, by not engaging in some of that testing and exploration stuff, because that's actually one of the most fun parts of sales is being able to get creative with that. And the discipline is in balancing those two things, right? Like you're balancing the hard work and the grind that you got to do and the rejection calls and that, you know, it's, it's painful. But with this level of awesome, creative exploration, and opportunities to challenge yourself and figure out new things and push a little bit further and, yeah, have a good time doing it. When I'm fundraising or doing anything with running my business, or just general helping represent our company, I tell the same exact story, every single time. But that story is evolving, continuously, like the explanation of how we started the business and what we're doing and what we're trying to achieve, etc. It's continuously being refined. And the challenge that I have in the fun part about it is both is understanding how am I communicating to this person from their framework of understanding it? And that you have that same question with any product that you're selling? Right? If it's commercial real estate financing in, in your case, or in my case, or, you know, any product that you're selling, it's about being able to figure out, how is what are these persons challenges right now? Where do they sit? How are they interpreting what I'm saying? What are the predispositions that they might have to people trying to sell commercial real estate finance? What are the assumptions that they may have in place about the products that we have about our brand, about me, and being able to sort of craft your message in that specific scenario. So though, I say the same thing, 20 times a day, it's very, very different in each scenario of what I'm focusing on, what I'm trying to make sure the other person understands what I'm repeating and pushing further on what questions I'm asking and trying to understand from that person. Because then it really becomes about problem solving in each and every conversation, right, trying to understand, I'm asking good questions of my counter party and trying to understand what are their needs? And how can I address those needs in almost like a solution architect way, as an advisor, and as a source of support. And that's fun. I think.
Mordecai Rosenberg:The thought that comes to mind is that you really want to make it make the work into play. And if it's, if it's just work, then it's just kind of a grind. But if it's play, then it's, if you see a little kid, how they how they play, right, they tried to build a building with Lincoln Logs and it falls and it doesn't work, right. It's like, it's not like,"Oh, forget it. I'm done. I'm out. I'm never doing it." Well, alright, let me try again. What did I learn from it? Let me try to build it with a different kind of a piece and see, you know, see if I can get it that that way. One question I had for you. In terms of the discipline and hours, you mentioned in one of your interview that I read, of yours, that, the, in this world, the ultimate results are not really up to us, right, there's so many different factors that go into it. Right, but we need, but we need to try, right, we need to put in the effort. But there's, at a certain point, putting in more hours doesn't necessarily guarantee more results, right? No matter how many calls you make, it could be that that the that Russia will attack Ukraine and interest rates will jump up by a point and then your pipeline will be decimated, you know? So, so how do you know what the right amount of hours is? Right? There's one thing that I found when I was in sales is that this was a very, very stressful for me is that it was never enough, right? There was always you could always be making the next call, you can always be looking for that next deal. And so there wasn't a natural end to a day or projects, so for me, I found that to be your kind of stress inducing, but what are you? What are your thoughts? What, how are how many hours is it? How do you balance that with the discipline and just kind of keep on plugging and, there were there many years when I was at the office from eat the morning till midnight, right? And this is for like years on end just because just chasing right? But so what is the how does someone figure out the number of hours?
Yaakov Zar:By the way, it also I think, applies both ways. Like there's some people who are more comfortable just like being at the office, whether they're trying to avoid other things at home or you know, whatever it is. So you have to you have to use the right judgment of of what's rights for each person and also be conscious of what motivates you and how to set up to the right sort of reward incentives for yourself and play games with yourself to get to the to the right headspace. So for, there's not a number here, I think I think that the being able to use your understanding and analysis of where you need to be to get that work done. And then being conscious and disciplined in going home and taking time to relax. And of course, spending time with your family and spending time with your loved ones. Those are, those are the main things and also having in your mind that those are the things that actually will matter in life in the long term, way more than one extra deal or not. So I think it's tough, I think, each person needs to figure out for themselves, what works for them and, and for their family and for their lives, then I think that now, with the prevalence of working from home, it also creates other challenges both in both directions as well, like you might, you can be much more flexible, where you're working hours that work better for you, where you're able to fit it into your life, but you could also get sucked into work in a way deeper way than you would have otherwise.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Because you can just roll out of bed and go right to your desk, and then up there back until 10 clock at night?
Yaakov Zar:Yeah. Probably pretty unhealthy. Usually unhealthy.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, I would think so. So, let's talk about Lev and the why. So at Lev, how would you describe your why with Lev?
Yaakov Zar:Sure. So our focus is on helping commercial real estate investors get the right financing for their properties with the best experience. We think that the process for getting commercial real estate financing is long, complex, confusing. And there's a lot of misaligned incentives, getting the deal done. And we hope to bring some transparency and way better experience to the to that transaction.
Mordecai Rosenberg:That was that was a good succinct way of telling your story of your why.
Yaakov Zar:I told you I practice it 20 times a day.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, yeah, that's a great, that's a great elevator pitch. I feel like I can be like one long winded sometimes. So like, whenever I think of my elevator pitch, I'm like, very self conscious. I feel like I find myself, how long have I been talking already? I gotta work on on that. There's a sense, if you talk to salespeople in our industry, that even though the Technology is everywhere around us and has made it really transformed so much of our lives, there is you'll commonly hear this idea that oh, you can't, not not us, right, that you will always need a human being involved. So I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that in terms of the model of Lev, like does it still have a salesperson in involved? I guess you have like, you're still you're connecting with the with the bank? But how do you see things now? And where do you see things going? You know, maybe in? I don't know, let's call it 10 years is way too hard to predict, but maybe like three to five years?
Yaakov Zar:Okay, big question. I think that the I want to give you two answers, I'm gonna give you the Pro and I'm gonna give you the positive and the opposing answer. People were very confused about the fact that you would get cash out of an ATM, or put your checks into an ATM or even not have to put your checks into an ATM, but just deposit it from your phone. And they were convinced that that's just not possible. But no one would imagine. I haven't spoken to a bank teller, maybe since I was a kid, and I went to the bank with my parents. So obviously, we don't always know exactly how the world is gonna evolve. I think that there's a lot of complexities to commercial real estate, I think that there's a level of human visibility or risk reduction that happens to a human that is necessary. But I think that we, we fail to realize that computers are much more accurate at pretty much everything that humans are. So we think humans are going to reduce the risk of something, but usually they just add risk, we make way more mistakes than computers do. We make way more errors, forget things. Computers don't do that. They follow exactly the instructions that we give them. So I think over the next couple of years, we're gonna see a lot of the processes start to evolve. And I think that at some point, the dam will break and a large portion of transactions will start to be mostly digitized. I think for some periods, there'll be a lot of lenders that are still doing some human oversight and making sure that they cover their behinds throughout the process. But you know, there's There's there's no way that that's going to last for the long term.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah. And now are you talking about, like underwriters and people involved in the analysis of the property or, or even the, the client representatives.
Yaakov Zar:If we take away the restrictions of time and resources, there will be a point where your portfolio is automatically optimizing itself, without you ever having to think about it with the capital that needs to be there. With no one involved.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Now, just to push back a little bit, right. So I do think that technology has a much larger role to play, I would say that the single family market and the retail market are lightyears ahead today, of where commercial real estate is. Right? That's, you know, a lot of this, you know, the valuation and you know, the processes that you know that you have a that lenders have. But still, my single family home isn't automatically refinanced, when rates go down, right, I still have to do something, I have to call someone I have to, and maybe it's my current lender, even my current lender, I would have to call right, but, you know, if I want to switch it, switch lenders, then I'd have to go through that. So that has not become an automated process yet for single family. So why? So I wonder just how quickly that would happen. And maybe, and ideally, that would happen, right?
Yaakov Zar:Priorities are different in in single family, I think. In single family, there's not the drive towards a bunch of things. One is that single family, you're pretty much dependent on the agencies, and thereby the government, in their lending products and standards, etc. So you're, I don't know what the exact ratios are, but the vast majority of long term, 30 year fixed mortgages, or at least, agency, conforming loans. In also, the effect of the incentive of creating an optimized residential loan continuously, is relatively low from the market. Whereas if you own a portfolio of real estate, you want that portfolio to be to have an optimized capital stack continuously, and it has a huge effect on your returns. And in many cases, the financing is the structure is the method of getting the returns that you want. So I think that the focus on that is much different, right? There's there's armies of capital markets, teams at large commercial real estate, investors that have that are that are doing this right now manually, right. They're constantly continuously analyzing portfolios.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So currently, what role do salespeople have in the process in Lev's current process?
Yaakov Zar:They help us engage customers. Helps engage new customers, so they're getting in contact with customers expanding the value that we bring, and getting them engaged.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So the inquiry starts online, and then?
Yaakov Zar:It might start online, or it might start through a phone call or through email or through any channel.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Got it. Now. So your target customer, you have on the one hand, you have the owner of the real estate, on the other hand, you have the lenders. Is there pushback that you're getting from lenders given, what do they see you as as a potential source of just of replacing them? Do they see you as friend or foe?
Yaakov Zar:I thought we were friends.
Mordecai Rosenberg:I see you as a friend. Yeah, I agree.
Yaakov Zar:We hope I'm sure people have, you know, whatever opinions me that they want, or of Lev that they want. But we we see ourselves as a partner to both lenders and to commercial real estate investors, and, frankly, to financing brokers as well. We see ourselves as partners where our focus is on driving the industry forward and helping clients get the best experience. Everyone wants the clients to have, wants their clients have the best experience. We want to do whatever that takes, and we want to partner with everyone else who's aligned with that. There's not, we're not on a mission to come in and kick everyone in the stomach and get them out of the way so that we can take the money that's there. We want to help customers get the best experience and we want to help drive that with all the partners that are involved in that transaction. So we collaborate with lenders, I mean, we every deal, we have a lender on other side, we work very closely with hundreds, if not 1000s of lenders, we have tools that are available for lenders that they that many lenders are licensing to use for operating their own businesses more effectively. And we're proud of that. And we were committed to working with them.
Mordecai Rosenberg:I want to just amplify something that you just said, because I think it's really, really critical-that your focus is on improving the customer experience. There are there are, you know, one of my, this idea of disruption, right, this disruptive technologies, right, that's gotten a lot of airtime over the last, I don't know, 10 years or more. But it actually disruption. Disruptive, disruptive is actually kind of a pet peeve of mine as a term. Right? Because I think it's, I think it's not, there's a lot that's counter, that's not helpful, and actually counterproductive to that to that term. Because usually, when you hear that a company is that we're going to come in and disrupt this industry, what it really means is that we're going to put a lot of people out of work. And so that we can make a small group of us, the company and our investors can make a lot of money. I think that, it's not, you want to change the world, or you want to make it, you didn't want to make it better. But you don't want to be known for like, oh, they put a lot of people out of work, right, you want to be put I want to be known for I think helping to transform people and make and make their lives better. So I think what you're saying is that you in some ways, you don't care which way the industry goes with, totally automated or not, that's, there's a lot, that's, that's unknown, and we'll just have to see different things play out. You know, there's other challenges in terms of the agencies and the lenders and what they regulators. But the point is, if you're, if you're really you're why underlying it all, is to continuously improve the customer experience, right? Through what's a complicated and painful process?
Yaakov Zar:I think that that's exactly right. I think that the, with a focus on the customer, you can, you will ultimately, ultimately, everything else will play out the way that it needs to, and the partners will come and the clients will come. And you'll get to that, to that end state. And like you described, there's many different paths to get there. And I, I wish I knew which one it's going to take. But I think if we keep an eye on on that on the client, and on their experience, we're gonna we're gonna be successful.
Mordecai Rosenberg:And that's why, you know, I worked for Greystone, we're a lender, like and you're correct, like, I see you as as friend, not threat, because I see you as I also am very focused on the customer experience, right, that's what I want to make life easier for our customers and for our own employees. I also know that there's a limit to what you can do with an established or a large or medium sized, like established organization with hundreds of people. It's just not as easy. You can't be as nimble as you can with a startup technology company. So I would look, I think for lenders, you should be looking at, Lev as, they can be your cutting edge front end, right, that you that would otherwise take 10 years to build yourself.
Yaakov Zar:I think that's yes, that's our perspective. There's a lot of opportunity for us to together bring the customer experience where we want it to be and help each business achieve their goals and the vision that they have. And, where there are really experts, there's lenders who have incredible capital sources, there's lenders who have amazing underwriting models, like whatever the right. Whatever the advantage of those of those different players are, let's focus on that. My expertise is not in capital markets. My expertise is in building great technology products and great customer experiences. So we want to partner with the right people who support that.
Mordecai Rosenberg:And people who don't aren't the right partners.
Yaakov Zar:The people who don't are going to like the people who want to just do everything themselves are going to spend a lot of time it's lonely.
Mordecai Rosenberg:That's I mean, that's that's the thing, right? Is that I, it's sure you can do it all yourself. But the I think the people who are going to make it are going to view technology as as a leverage tool. And they are going to be they're going to recognize that their unique ability, what they bring to the universe is not collecting documents just data entry, right? And if you can figure out how to leverage technology for those things, they can spend more time on the phone with their clients and maybe get home a little earlier, you know?
Yaakov Zar:Exactly.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So the audience of this podcast is it's a lot of salespeople. So any message that you would have for them in terms of how they should be thinking about working with you, or potentially for you, what do you think your like, the value proposition is like, if you're, you know, if you're an originator, maybe an investment sales broker, or a broker or debt broker? How should they be thinking about you? And also, I know, hiring is is a priority for for everyone. You know, maybe you could just talk about the value proposition. Yeah, also for if someone wanted to come work for Lev.
Yaakov Zar:Sure. So we work with a ton of investment, sales, brokers, financing brokers, lenders, as partners, we get referrals, a lot of our business comes from referrals from from this partner network. And we're excited about that. And we invest a lot of time and energy into our partnerships and into the network associated with that, and to make sure that our partners feel that we are giving their clients the absolute best experience, and we truly look at it as their clients. And we're the we're the channel to make that happen. So we have a team dedicated to that. And we have some information about that on our website. And we're happy and ready and excited to to put more resources towards that with new partners. For people who, for originations team, I mean, our sales team is one of the most exciting teams that we have in our company, we have a team of incredibly smart, dedicated, hardworking people there, working, disciplined people who are building out processes and systems that are pretty unique in the world of commercial real estate, we've taken an interesting approach to sales that is not like just brute force deal at all costs, let everyone else bleed. But really, let's bring let's act as partners to our clients and bring them what is valuable to them. And in scenarios where we're not useful. It's just you shake hands and walk away kindly. And I think that that team has people who are learning more about sales skills, sales proceesses, a lot about commercial real estate, a lot about being a partner to your clients. And yeah, it's really exciting.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Well, you didn't say this, but I would not be surprised if that were also true. But given how you've organized the company around client experience, one of the things that is frustrating for really anyone in a company, but I think for salespeople in particular is that technology is often like handed to them, it's like push down onto them, like that was built by managers or people who don't appreciate what their day to day is. And they may have ideas for other technologies, but it's hard, there's so many different technology priorities, it's hard to respond to them. Tell me if this is true, but I wouldn't be surprised if working for Lev, you also have a, you can influence your your surroundings and your tools, as well as because you're you're probably surrounded by technology, people who are looking for your feedback.
Yaakov Zar:Yeah, and you have people who are, you know, literally building to your request. And that's, I think, really exciting. We, I mean, every sales org should, should operate in that way. Like there's we have a sales operations team that's dedicated to building the tools and processes for for making our sales team better. And that's, that includes analytics and systems, etc. which is, which is really, really important. So I think that that's, that's definitely an important part of the process.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So one other area, I just want to just spend some time on before we finish. You have a very enjoyable LinkedIn presence. You seem to use that very effectively. And I'm curious, I don't know what the other, because I don't know why I check LinkedIn. Like most of the stuff is feels like it's people just I don't know, just like posting their own refrigerator door stuff. I interact with LinkedIn is my primary mode of inter facing with people with regards to origination and letting people know about it and getting the word out. So, but how do you what's your approach to to it? It just, how do you use it as a tool and what do you think you're posting.
Yaakov Zar:So I have very strong opinions about LinkedIn. First of all, I always make fun of my wife of how much she's on Instagram. And I'm probably on LinkedIn more than she is. The difference is that I feel like or pretend that I'm working. But, you know, it's really just for my own mind. And I think that's the magic of LinkedIn that we go to the office, we feel stupid scrolling Instagram, at the office, because that's definitely not productive. But in reality, we're just scrolling LinkedIn, which is equally unproductive. Alright, that's not to say that there's not a lot of opportunities to do great things there. But it, ultimately, it's what we make of it. I just, I, I have a lot of fun, posting things that I find funny, or I just find it fun to, you know, incredibly sarcastic, exaggerated posts, and other people find it entertaining, but I primarily do it because I just tried to see how far I could go without people thinking in my head, in my mind. I don't know where I've landed. There's definitely been times where I got calls from my, from my co founder, Sammy, pretty much every post I make my sister and brother telling me that I'm an idiot. But when Sammy calls me and says that I went too far, I usually delete my posts.
Mordecai Rosenberg:One thing that I get from you, is that I do think you kind of look at your work as play, and you anyone just, you went deeper into it into in one particular interview, but even just anyone who talks to you, for even like 5-10 minutes, you see that, that your vision is, your Y is much greater, right then than your, what you have to be doing, you know, with your professional energy at the time,
Yaakov Zar:I think sort of took you I think that people think that they need to create this persona of who they are for work. And it just seems unnecessary in my mind to like put all this work into pretending to be this bind up professional person that no one likes to interact with anyway, because that's how everyone else is. I just try to be real in every aspect. And I don't know, if I do a good job at it, I definitely have a lot of, my wife definitely likes to have a lot of walls. I definitely have a facade, but I think that that's just that's probably the main thing that I try to communicate in my LinkedIn or through my LinkedIn posts is like, this is we're just working like this is just a means to an end. Like, we're just here as puppets. And you know, in this, like, fake world, where every single thing is pretty much made up and we have, we do the best that we can I try to serve God in everything that I do. And, you know, there's no point of being miserable, or trying to be all, pretend to be this, hardcore. Right, these, thought long, LinkedIn posts with, you know, they put their space, so you have to hit Load More, and then you engage in the comments kind of thing. It's just too much for me. So I just post things that I think are entertaining with the goal of, and that's just how I have every single one of my conversations as we've had in our conversations, I'm just trying, I'm doing the best I can. That's all I could do.
Mordecai Rosenberg:You're being you. I think that that's maybe another thing. I mean, we can leave people with is that I think the more true you can be to yourself, right, that it's, people want to work with what's real human beings, you know, and, and they're not looking to work with bankers, or with a banker or broker, like they're looking to work with, with a person. And that's the successful salespeople do that, you know, they are there, they leverage their personality, and they, they're just out there, they just are who they are. And that gives gives something to connect with.
Yaakov Zar:Exactly, yeah. Cool.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Well Yaakov, this was a really enjoyable conversation for me. I could go on for much longer with my other questions about how to learn more about the Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman and his teachings.
Yaakov Zar:There's a great book called The Rebbe, I think, by Joseph Telushkin.
Mordecai Rosenberg:I'm gonna have to look that up. Who knew that Chabad was, you know, the Bootcamp for such great, you know, sales training.
Yaakov Zar:Yeah, absolutely.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah. Well, Yaakov, thank you again for your time, and we'll talk soon.
Yaakov Zar:Take care.