Jun 7, 2023
Today’s guest is Carlos Vaz
Carlos is an esteemed real estate investment expert with a remarkable track record of over $2.5 billion in real estate transactions. He is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CONTI Capital, a leading real estate investment company that has successfully managed more than 12,500 units and facilitated transactions totaling $1.3 billion. With over 15 years of experience in multifamily housing and real estate investment, Carlos is recognized as an award-winning entrepreneur and thought leader in the industry.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Building an External Team [00:00:00]
Starting in Real Estate Investment [00:01:13]
Elevating Oneself Out of the Day-to-Day Grind [00:06:26]
Creating Scale [00:07:42]
Empowering Leaders [00:09:20]
Building an External Team [00:11:28]
Building an External Team [00:14:00]
Protecting Your Time [00:14:31]
Importance of Company Culture [00:16:27]
Building a Company Culture [00:20:57]
Multifamily Space and Fundraising [00:23:52]
Contacting Conti Capital [00:25:25]
--------------------------------------------------------------
Connect with Carlos:
Web: https://conticapital.com/
Connect with Sam:
I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowtoscaleCRE/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samwilsonhowtoscalecre/
Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com
SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE A RATING. Listen to How To Scale Commercial Real Estate Investing with Sam Wilson
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-scale-commercial-real-estate/id1539979234
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4m0NWYzSvznEIjRBFtCgEL?si=e10d8e039b99475f
--------------------------------------------------------------
Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:
Carlos Vaz (00:00:00) - , who is your external team? You need to find a good real estate attorney. Hey, go talk to some people. Hey, who is gonna be my good real estate attorney? Uh, title companies get to know who is good title. Companies get to know who are the top three five brokers in that supermarket. Go have cough of them. Go talk to these guys. They say, listen, what do you guys are seeing? So externally, you need to be able to build your external first, right? A good insurance company, Hey, who is a good local insurance company I can talk to? So number one, you need to create your external team. Welcome
Intro (00:00:30) - To the How to Scale commercial real Estate show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we'll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.
Sam Wilson (00:00:42) - Carlos VA is a real estate investment expert with a remarkable track record of over two and a half billion dollars in real estate transactions. He's the founder and c e o of Conti Capital, which is a leading real estate investment company that has successfully managed more than 12,500 units. Carlos, welcome to the show.
Carlos Vaz (00:01:00) - Hey, thank you Sam. Great to be here.
Sam Wilson (00:01:02) - Absolutely. It's club. Glad to have you here. Carlos. There are three questions I ask every guest who comes to the show in 90 seconds or less. Can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now and how did you get there?
Carlos Vaz (00:01:13) - Oh, nine seconds or less, right? I start in Dallas, Texas. That's, uh, it's home in, uh, 2008. I bought my first property in March of 2008. So when everybody was running, running away, I was running towards the business. So that's, uh, when I started.
Sam Wilson (00:01:30) - Where'd you start? Where are you now?
Carlos Vaz (00:01:33) - Uh, right now we're in Dallas, Texas. We have done over 2.5 billion in, uh, in transactions. We sold a lot of property, sold almost 7,000 units in the last two years. Wow. Uh, now, I mean, we're really building a bigger portfolio, right? We're just closing our fourth fund. Um, and, uh, and we have another closing in the next set. I would say four weeks. Okay. Property or buying.
Sam Wilson (00:01:57) - Okay. So you guys are you, you guys are, are, uh, you're busy. You've sold a bunch here, there. So very, very busy. You've grown a company from in March of 2008. I guess what, let's, let's, let's go back to that. What gave you the confidence in March of 2008 to say, man, now is the time to start buying real estate?
Carlos Vaz (00:02:16) - It's not. I mean, confidence is a, I think that's a, it's a function of a lot of knowledge that we're always applying that people are surround yourself with, right? Because I don't, I, I, I believe that no man is an island. Right? That's a, that's important. You should be always be learning, make yourself better. So the confidence in 2008 was come back to some fundamentals, right? You're looking for in 2008, you're buying, you're buying per pound, you're buying cheap. So the, the confidence came that, hey, some of the properties, I'm looking 2008, I cannot even build for this price. So it's the, the gap is, it's too big, right? If I'm able to buy some propers, like that one we know can make money. So that was a little bit of confidence, right? You had the knowledge, you start to apply and that the numbers now start to make sense. Granted, it was a horrible time to trying to raise money to talk to a lender and, um, and all the above, right. ,
Sam Wilson (00:03:11) - Uh, absolutely. And you went, you went directly into multi-family in March of 2008.
Carlos Vaz (00:03:16) - That's exactly, I, I, I mean myself, I was born in Brazil originally. Have been in the US now for almost 23 years. Mm-hmm. . So I came here $300 in my pocket. Wow.
Sam Wilson (00:03:26) - So I didn't
Carlos Vaz (00:03:27) - I didn't have much, my, my rent was three 50, so my p n l was negative day one. Um, so my first job actually was work at a, at the law office, uh, a non-paid internship from 8:00 AM to three. Uh, I was working at the newspaper warehouse from 2:00 AM to six. Uh, then work at, uh, T G I Fridays over the weekend and going to school during that night. So that's my, that was my, my beginning. And um, uh, there in Boston, I got myself involved in construction, working as an assistor carpenter, started learning, doing the odd jobs. That's how the first county was created. County construction county's name after my mom, it was a county va. So that's where county comes from. Uh, our first company was to do small jobs that start growing. I believe that everything that you do, if we do, of integrity of values start to grow, right?
Carlos Vaz (00:04:18) - It might take a little bit longer. And that small company starts growing. Then a friend of mine was in the mortgage, Hey, let's work together. You know, a lot of people, if someone wanna buy a house, you let me know. I'll do the finance and you do the renovation. Sure. Teach me. I start learn about mortgages. Then from oh five to oh seven, did over 32, uh, 32 houses in the greater Boston area. Got early 2007 is should good to be true. And that's another conversation by itself. I sold all the houses in May of, uh, in May of 2007, and I start learning about multi-family taking courses. Um, C C I M, I'm, I, I'm strong believer in C C I M, some of the organizations reading books and everything else. And, and the data showed that Dallas was the place to be. So that's what brought me to Dallas. And then up finding the first property in closing March of 2008.
Sam Wilson (00:05:09) - Wow. Wow. I love, I I always love the, um, they're not the rags to Rich's story, but it's, it is that in its own right. It's, it's the hustle, it's the grit, it's the grind. It is the, yeah. Starting with no handouts. I don't believe in handouts. The no handouts mentality of, of go get it done. People ask me that, like, how, how did you get where you are? I was like, well, I was hungry. That's how we got
Carlos Vaz (00:05:34) - 100%. Yeah.
Sam Wilson (00:05:34) - Yeah. I was hungry. And, and I can imagine that's, that sounds like the same story for you being negative, uh, what you call negative 50 bucks on your p and l outta the gate. Yeah.
Carlos Vaz (00:05:43) - . Yeah. It's, I I think never underestimate the, the power of grit, right? You're going and, uh, and if you look at nowadays the access information, like someone listen to this podcast, it's priceless because you start really getting nuggets. Right? Right. I think that's the most important thing. We should never stop learning. Never stop learning, right. And these nuggets are priceless. So, good to you.
Sam Wilson (00:06:08) - How Well, thank you. And I'm glad it's good. It's cuz a great guest like you that come on and share those nuggets that we even have a show. So thank you for that. What, what is it, how did you elevate yourself out of the weeds? So many people are, I forget what book it is. I'm sure you can quote it, but we're emit what's that?
Carlos Vaz (00:06:26) - Emmit? Yeah.
Sam Wilson (00:06:27) - They were they saying
Carlos Vaz (00:06:28) - On their business, right? Yeah.
Sam Wilson (00:06:30) - The entrepreneurial seizure, is that what he calls it? They're working in their business.
Carlos Vaz (00:06:33) - The entrepreneurial myth.
Sam Wilson (00:06:35) - Yeah. How, how did you elevate yourself out of that? Because I can only imagine running a full-time construction company, renovating homes, things like that. It would be hard to then think about what it looks like to grow beyond the day-to-day grind of, of being in the whirlwind.
Carlos Vaz (00:06:52) - Well, it, it is, you said something good. Well, Michael Gerber, that's the , that's the entrepreneurial myth. I work in our business, work on our business, right? So, uh, we are our best friends, yet we're the best, the worst enemies. So, and we wake up in the morning and both are your on our shoulders, right? So, you know, in each which one are you gonna look? I think Sam, my perspective is that when, uh, or so, oh, I need to make money. I need to make money. And of course money is really important, but then you see, I need to do it myself because if I don't do it, nobody knows how to do, right? So it comes that idea of trust and what does it look like in the beginning, right? I have to trust someone else that we can find a way to do any type of partnership or something that even at the, I would rather make less money, but create scale.
Carlos Vaz (00:07:42) - There's something can be said about creating scale. Because if you become a one man show, you are a hundred percent liable yourself. God forbid you get sick or something, your business shuts down completely. So you need to be able to, hold on a second. I am the worst liability myself. I need to stop. I I cannot be working seven days a week, man. When I was doing renovation, I used to bring my mattress work until 2:00 AM taking a nap and waking up at six and doing again and again and again. Right? How long can it do that? I mean, and if you're gonna build a family or something else, right? So what's the point? Right? Do you wanna have a heart attack in your forties, ? It's, uh, so I think the first idea is say, hold on a second. I, I need to find some people that, uh, that I can, I can work together and I'm okay if I'm okay.
Carlos Vaz (00:08:36) - If I, I don't make as much money, but I can trust they're gonna be able to finish something there, then I'll be able to create scale. The first thing, the first thing scale in my mind came this project manager. I had the project manager who had been working together. He was doing a good job and said, listen, and, uh, why don't you do the following? If, if you start taking care of the whole project, of the renovation yourself, and you deliver this on time, this is how much more I'm willing to pay you. I'm gonna give you a 20% increase. And the guy was blown away. No, but I, but this, you and I are gonna meet now instead of me be on the site five days a week. I'm gonna be on the site every Friday. We're gonna meet at this time, but you run all the projects, let's test the first one.
Carlos Vaz (00:09:20) - We test the first one, uh, was working and say, all right, so can I give the second one? What that allows me to do allows me to stop being in the business, looking on the business now, hey, now I can get another house, another house, another house. Not a house, not a house. You're just trying to look at that scale. When you go to where we are today, of course, much bigger than everything else. My main thing is that how we can find the best leaders in the company and empower them so they can make the decisions themselves. Right? I believe the best decisions are the ones that the trunk that, that the branch can make without getting, get it to the trunk. Right.
Sam Wilson (00:09:58) - That's brilliant. I love that. And that's right in keeping, you know, with the name of the show, it's how to scale. Like how, how do we scale and how, you know, commercial real estate. But it, you know, how do you scale anything? And I think, I think it is, it is exactly what you have just described there where it's then moving to that managerial role. Every Friday we're gonna have a meeting in review, and then, you know, you're gonna make more money and I'm gonna be less involved. And that's, I think that's a brilliant way to do it. What, how did you, in the, uh, multi-family space, how did you, what were some of the first team members you brought on that, that, or, or maybe even some of the tasks, if you can remem remember back that far that you said, I've gotta get these things and this off of my desk in order to move this company along in a meaningful way?
Carlos Vaz (00:10:44) - Okay, so I, I look at that one from true perspective, right? First it becomes you at that one man show, right? Right. So picture myself, I I, I got your math right. Hey, Carlos, hey, it's different, right? So they'll be different. But let's say I got your math as in your backyard, Sam, I wanna start my, I wanna start, look at, I, i, first I order, you need to create your external team. Who is your external team? You need to find a good real estate attorney. Hey, go talk to some people. Hey, who is gonna be my good real estate attorney? Uh, title companies get to know who is good title companies get to know who are the top three five brokers in that supermarket. Go have coffee of them. Go talk to these guys and say, listen, what do you guys are seeing? So externally, you need to be able to build your external first, right?
Carlos Vaz (00:11:28) - A good insurance company, hey, who is a good local insurance company can talk to? So number one, you need to create your external team. So that's when new business arch, and then you close your first deal, right? You look now your business, you close the first one. When you are gonna close the, your, your first one you need, what's the next, what am you doing today? And what I want to, what are the things I want to do? And I don't wanna do more important things that you wanna do. Is that what I don't wanna do? Yeah. Right. So, uh, so for example, if you don't like the property management side, so your job is, all right, I need to step out. I don't need to get involved in the property management. How can you interview some good property management and make sure that you hold them accountant?
Carlos Vaz (00:12:12) - That that would be one. You can say that, you know what, one thing that I always tell people, right? You are as good as your book. If you're your books, right, you are as good as your books. If you don't, if you're not an accountant per se, you better go find a very good accounting firm or a bookkeeper that you can hire internally, right? That's gonna save you a lot, a lot of headache. So your books has to be really, really sharp. So perhaps the first person need to hire, it might be the bookkeeper, someone that can, or maybe a small accounting firm that you can outsource that one. Do not try to do the books by yourself. I mean, I rule number one, right? And then as, uh, the first person that we hired in our firm back then, I, I need to have a, a real estate analyst because you start to look at deals, right?
Carlos Vaz (00:13:02) - And I don't have time to find the deals, do the underwriting, do all this stuff, right? The first person I had to hire was a real estate analyst that was able to start look at the deals with me, and, and let's go meet some brokers. Let's see what's happening, start putting some notes. So that was, that was a big, uh, a little bit of relief, right? Um, that was, and the second person that we hired back then was a junior, uh, asset manager mm-hmm. , someone that said, and now we have the properties, but how are we able to hold the, the property managers accountable who can have this asset manager that can, can help us? So that was the initial, so the first phase, you, you, you, you are taking people that they start to do is some things that you are doing the next phase. You want to hire people with more knowledge, they're gonna take over the department, so they're gonna start doing things that you not even know how to do. That's the next level. Right?
Sam Wilson (00:14:00) - That makes, that makes a lot of sense. And I've not heard that quite, it's clearly articulated, uh, probably here before on the show, but I, but I like that thought process where it's, where it's, at first it is getting things off. It's bringing peop people on. If I can recap what you said and make sure I understand this right, getting people to, to, to take the task off of your desk that are not necessarily value adds to the business. Like, here, you do this, and once you've done that, then move to bringing on department heads that can then grow the company that are, you know, like you said, doing things that you don't even know how to do.
Carlos Vaz (00:14:31) - Yeah. And, and, and the other thing, what's your greatness, right? And, and when I say greatness, put the ego at the door, right? I always say that ego stays at the door. Right? What's your greatness wanna look at Sam, for example, Hey, maybe Sam has great value. He's able to talk to brokers better than anyone else, and he is able to find deals. I'm like, it's priceless. Hey, we need to protect Sam's time because that's where he's gonna give us the 10 x, right? Anything else not related to that? Let's make sure that we're, Hey, he's not doing
Sam Wilson (00:14:59) - Right, right, right. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I like the idea. That's a good, that's a good nugget there. Protecting your time. Cuz that's, that's something that's so hard to, uh, to do, especially in the whirlwind. I mean, you know, it's just tough.
Carlos Vaz (00:15:16) - I mean, it's tough and at the end of the day, right, good is the enemy of great . So it's, it cannot be good. What's the point of being good in 10 things if you cannot be excellent and great in one thing? Right? So find the one thing that you're great off. Cuz if you're good, you're gonna become average, right? Right. I mean, yeah. Tell me the an average, I mean, football team, ,
Sam Wilson (00:15:41) - Right? No, no, they don't make it to the Super Bowl, I'll tell you that. Exactly. They don't make it to the Super Bowl at all. That's, that's, I like that idea. An average football team. Oh, congratulations. You're an average. Yeah.
Carlos Vaz (00:15:52) - , yes. Look at that.
Sam Wilson (00:15:54) - You don't win anything. Good job. Um, yeah, , I like that. Let's talk a little bit. So you've given us some, some wonderful insight there on talent, but once you've built that talent, at what point in time in the trajectory of your business did you really, um, focus on culture? Where did you, where did you come in and say, look, we've gotta really infuse more of what Carlos believes in and the kind of the philosophy that you wanna do instill inside of your business. Where did that come into play?
Carlos Vaz (00:16:27) - I would say, um, as soon as I realize if you don't have culture is everything right? As soon as I realize I have been doing this wrong in a very wrong way. Hmm. Uh, so it's a because okay, so now here you have, you are the, you're gonna hire a couple of people and you're gonna go to work. What for, what are you guys doing and how do you know how to hire people? What if you, if you have horrible hiring decision, you know, I mean the, the, the worst thing you can do is hire the wrong person because you spend a lot of time training the wrong person and the wasting your time and the other person's time, right? So it was a lot of kind of, I mean, really his lap on my face. I said, Carlos, that's not the, and, and being this lifelong learner, right?
Carlos Vaz (00:17:17) - Like I said, being a lifelong learner is, is important. And you always need to be your biggest fan. Yet your biggest critic say like, huh, how can I, it was this idea of culture I think starts over 10 years ago. Uh, we have been in business for 15. So the first four years you're trying, you're seeing, you start to hiring people, but these people are not staying. And why did you hire that person again? Hey, raise your hand if you have not made the hiring mistake, right? Hey, we all have those hiring mistakes. And I said, how the heck will hire this guy? Then the first idea came to mind is that, hold on a second, we need to fire, fire that find a better harm process. Hey, hey, I need to have better questions to ask during the interview. And then when you ask those questions that, okay, I'm asking these questions, but what's my company value?
Carlos Vaz (00:18:06) - I mean, what's my core values as a, as, as a company, right? And makes no sense. So now it was important for me to, uh, let's stop. And there are many books out there that you can read about company val values, core values, right? Uh, what do you stand for? Hey, these are the values like behind me on the other side here, that's our core values there, right? So if you can see this, integrity, excellence, right? Lifelong learner, right? That's, so all this defines who we are at the end of the day. So 10 years ago said, listen, we need to put the core values in place that help us to see a little bit how to hire better people. And the other thing too, Sam, what was interesting is that you start to hold yourself accountable even more. So the beauty about, like, the beauty about having core values is like, it's like you, you are wearing that 25 pound jacket, right? It gets heavy, but it, it gives you accountability, right? People know that you hold themself accountable and that one start to generate. So it was a lot of, uh, mistakes that I personally have made in the past that force me if, unless I have a company culture that I can relate. Because whichever you think is what it's who you're gonna become. And that's what we're gonna be saying. So that's, that's where the, the, the culture became so important to us today. I can say culture is the number one priority on my book,
Sam Wilson (00:19:36) - Right? In that, in that culture, I would argue, and maybe you can tell me if I'm wrong, but having that culture is probably what now begets the talent that you need
Carlos Vaz (00:19:46) - 100% and I for good and for bad, right? So you've gotta be interviewing a bunch of people and then no, no, no, no. Why does it take three months to find one person? Yeah. Or four months. But we're not the best people that, that you, that you, I mean, when, um, when you, when you, you won a very, in a very emotional way, hire someone. Do you know when you, when you interview someone and say, wow, this person's amazing, right? You live in the room and walk a little bit more and you're like, oh, that's Sam guy. Wow. The guy was, he's one of us. So that, that's how, and I wanna wanna have that one of us. I'm like, okay, let's bring this guy on board
Sam Wilson (00:20:27) - Right now. That makes, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. What are some things you do to really just make sure that that culture stays front and center? Because a lot of times I think organizations will make all these fancy, you know, these are our core values and they go on a sign somewhere and then that sign just collects dust and that's the end of it. And you might think about it again at next year's, you know, the whatever retreat, call officer's retreat, whatever you wanna call it, but you're like, oh, hey, we gotta pull these outta the drawer and look at 'em again. How do you keep it front and center?
Carlos Vaz (00:20:57) - Well, a couple of things that we do, right? So, uh, when we join our company, there's, there's a book list and, uh, that's not telling you what you do. It's more like those are mandatory books that you have to read, right? Uh, it's, uh, hey, if you join our company, you need to be a lifelong learner. One of the books there is gonna be this e o s entrepreneur operating system. We have been used this, this process for over eight years now. So on our core values, every quarter, every single person side of the company, you're, I mean, you're pretty much, you're being evaluated based on a core values. They get it, they want and they have the capacity. So every quarter, that's part of it, right? Uh, every, every, um, what do we have, uh, in terms of how you doing the things to live up to those, those values once a week, right?
Carlos Vaz (00:21:49) - Every manager, they have the one-on-one of their manager, their their people, the one-on-one, which is very important to us. Every Monday we have that quick, quick sync on every Monday. Just make sure that everybody's on the same page. Because if you wanna build a company culture, you need to build trust. And trust sometimes is hard because if you're building trust, you might hear some things that you don't wanna hear that's gonna hurt you. Hey, welcome to life. Life is gonna is gonna, is gonna punch you. Sometimes there's things that you don't wanna hear. Hey, Carlos, when you show up to a meeting like this, this is how I felt. Really? You are like a jerk. Ouch. Uh, hey, how can I become a better person next time? Uh, what do you mean by that? Right? Uh, give that feedback. So it's our weekly conversations, our monthly meetings that we're gonna have as well.
Carlos Vaz (00:22:42) - Once a quarter want to have our, we're gonna have a meeting with all the company, we disclose our financials, everything to everyone to see, hmm. And this is what we achieve in terms of our goals, and this is what it didn't achieve of our goals, right? I think the more you are transparent and it helps a lot, right, Russia, sure. We're not perfect. We make a lot of mistakes. If there's one perfect person in the world, please let me know. I'd like to meet that person. , uh, we'll make a lot of mistakes ourselves, but, uh, that's what makes us great, right?
Sam Wilson (00:23:13) - Man, I love that. I love the idea, uh, of building trust in, in, in building that trust. I think goes back to what you said earlier, which was you gotta check your ego at the door. And that's, uh, that's very, very powerful. Carlos, you've given us so many things here to think about. We've talked almost this entire podcast, really just around business, business, organization, hiring great talent, how to grow a company. We haven't even talked about at all what you do in the real estate space, which is tons of fun. I want to just spend maybe, I don't know, we got maybe 60 to 90 seconds here left, but you guys have sold 7,000 units over the last two years.
Carlos Vaz (00:23:51) - Uhhuh. . Yeah.
Sam Wilson (00:23:52) - You're in the multifamily space. You're in, uh, you're mainly in the Sunbelt states.
Carlos Vaz (00:23:57) - Yes. What
Sam Wilson (00:23:58) - Are you doing in the multifamily space today? I mean, I know many, many organizations are pencils down. What are you guys doing right now that you feel like sets you apart?
Carlos Vaz (00:24:07) - Uh, again, our people and our culture, right? And the relationships that we have in place. We, we, I mean, very happy to where we are. We'll close our first or fourth fund. Now we're on a process of launch fund five that's coming. Uh, our fourth fund was 200 million, right? So, uh, happy to, uh, happen to that one. Uh, look at the fund five. We have one close in the next four weeks. We're always looking for deals, right? We're always looking. Uh, the last year and a half, we created our own index in-house. So there is a, there's a lot of data that we look right currently. We look at over 406 points before buy any property. It became a very strong, uh, screening tool for us. Um, so, uh, now, uh, we're looking at deals. We, we, we now have the right relationships. It's harder, right? Uh, this year alone, we, we look at a, a little bit over 6 billion in properties to buy one. But that's the name of the game. It's uh, it's the name of the game. It's called Discipline, uh, I mean perseverance and, um, and doing the best we can on a daily basis.
Sam Wilson (00:25:14) - Got it. I absolutely love it. Carlos, thank you for taking the time to come on the show today. If our listeners want to get in touch with Conti Capital and learn more about you, what you guys are doing, what is the best way to do that?
Carlos Vaz (00:25:25) - Just go your website. Uh, conti capital.com. That's it. Simple was that.
Sam Wilson (00:25:29) - Perfect. Perfect. C o n t i capital.com. That's conti capital.com. We'll make sure we include that there. Also in the show notes. Carlos, thank you for taking the time to come on the show today. I learned so much from you. This was an absolute pleasure.
Carlos Vaz (00:25:41) - Oh, my pleasure, Sam. All the best.
Sam Wilson (00:25:44) - Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Podcast. If you can, do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, whatever platform it is you use to listen. If you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories. So appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.