Alex Tam, Founder of Zephyr Equity Group, joins us to discuss running 3 businesses: medical office, VA agency, and Real Estate investments. We cover best practices for Real Estate investing, working with virtual assistants, scaling companies, and much more.
Connect with Alex at https://www.zephyrequitygroup.com
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Speaker 1:
Welcome to the DJE Podcast, where you will learn about real estate investing from real life examples. Here’s your host, Devin Elder.
Devin Elder:
Hello and welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us today. My guest is Alex Tam. He’s the founder of Zephyr Equity Group. Really interesting guy, very intelligent, high energy gentleman. I enjoyed our chat. I think you’ll enjoy it too. He started opening medical offices in 2009 and still does that. So he has three primary businesses, the medical offices, the virtual assistant agency, which I’ll talk about more, and then real estate investing. Obviously is what we talk a lot about on the show, but multi-family real estate investing. So he’s got a lot of plates spinning and I’m always curious to learn from entrepreneurs’ best practices, what they’re doing there. And so we had an interesting discussion around the VA agency. He’s got over [inaudible 00:01:10] now trying to pull that business. It’s pretty wild helping business owners do all manner of things from marketing to outbound calling and things like that.
And of course, he’s in real estate and investing in multi-family in the Midwest, South and southeast. So we talk about what he’s looking for there, how they participate in those types of things. Alex is a like-minded person, which is the reason I have this podcast. I want to talk to other entrepreneurs, other business owners and really just talk shop because I enjoy doing that, but also try to learn from their successes and their mistakes and my own business. And hopefully, you can apply it to your own life and business too. So enjoyable conversation with Mr. Alex Tam. We’ll get into that.
If you’re enjoying the DJE Podcast. Thanks for spending time with us. A five star review means a lot and that helps spread the word, the way the old podcast algorithm works. So if you could leave a five star review, that’d be much appreciated. We’re going to get into an ad read from our sponsors and then we’ll get into the interview with Alex. Thanks so much.
This episode is brought to you by DJE Texas Management Group, a San Antonio, Texas based real estate investment firm with a track record of transacting on several hundred million of multi-family land and industrial deals throughout Texas. DJE’s been in business for over a decade and is approaching 100 team members in San Antonio. To learn more about DJE, visit djetexas.com or the link in the show notes of this episode. This episode’s also brought to you by apartmenteducators.com, a complete ecosystem for professionals to learn how to find, finance and operate large multi-family properties for profit. You can get started with a free mini course and learn more at apartmenteducators.com or visit the link in the notes.
Alex, it’s great to see you. Thanks for jumping on today. How are you?
Alex Tam:
I’m doing great, Devin. How are you?
Devin Elder:
Doing fantastic. So yeah, I want to dive in and learn more about your story. For folks listening that haven’t met you or connected with your group, I’d love to learn some of your background and how you got into this crazy game of real estate.
Alex Tam:
Oh, absolutely. So I started my medical office back in 2009. And between 2009 and 2018, that’s all I did was just as a chiropractor, I’m just running the medical office. We have other chiropractors, nurse practitioners in the office. Then I ended up going to a Grant Cardone 10X conference. So from there, that was the first time I’ve ever even learned about a syndication and what it could do. The power of real estate. So we started investing with Cardone Capital and then I found this website that a lot of people probably know, I was brand new and I didn’t know, called Bigger Pockets.
So we started looking at Bigger Pockets, finding other syndications, investing as a LP. And as an LP, it’s as easy as just writing a check. You’re writing a check, you wait for the operations to stabilize and then you start getting returns. Well, by September of 2021, my wife and I decided we’ve seen a lot of operators do really well, transition their career from what they’re doing into real estate. Now, that’s not what I want to do. I don’t want to fully transition-
Devin Elder:
Sure.
Alex Tam:
… but, how can we help our friends also invest? Because one of the problems were, my friends were asking me about the investments that we were doing and all I could do as an LP, because I didn’t know the other side of it, is I could just refer them. I said, oh yeah, go look at Grant Cardone’s website or go look at Ashcroft Capital’s website. And none of them really took action. I just told them, I said, this is how I invested. But enough of them, where there’s doctors and other business owners who were friends of mine who had enough interest, they said, Alex, tell us more. And because I didn’t know more, any more than I knew how to invest, I thought, do you know what? We need to learn. We need to figure this out on what are the GPs doing. So that when people are asking us if they’re trusting us for advice, I need to be able to trust myself to give them advice on what I feel is best for them.
And that’s when we joined Jake and Gino in October of 2021. Soon after joining Jake and Gino, we joined the MIH Mastermind by Marco. And from there in 2022, we had joined a team and joined a GP team and got into our first GP position. And since then in 2022, we have been involved in three deals as GPs and five other deals as JVs. And we realize we like both. We didn’t have to choose one or the other. So that’s how our real estate journey has really blossomed over the years.
Devin Elder:
I like it. Thanks for shedding some light on that. I always tell people there’s a lot on the menu. You Really can choose from really knowing a very little and getting a relationship with an operator and writing a check. And that’s most people, and that’s most positions, and that’s fine. And the people that are fortunate enough to have their capital work for them, that’s a great spot to be in. And then you can continue to ramp up your responsibility and earnings along the way all the way through to, hey, you want to be the primary GP running the deal and running around every day doing the work. That’s fine too. And that can be lucrative.
But there’s areas in between where you really can find a spot where you can add some value to a team, add some value to some investors and make it work within the context of your schedule or whatever other stuff you’re doing. We were talking before in the green room here, you’ve got a medical practice and couple of different markets and so you have a lot of stuff going on. Is that still your outlook that you don’t really want to go full time and leave medical practice, but you do want to participate in real estate?
Alex Tam:
Oh, yeah. I want to deeply participate in real estate and getting other investors involved and educating people. Because one of the big problems that I saw among healthcare providers and business, people who are in business is they make the money. Now the next step is, okay, what am I going to do with it? Do I just put it in the stock market and let it ride? And I’m not saying to people to take everything out, but I’m saying, here’s another option.
Devin Elder:
Right.
Alex Tam:
Here’s another option for you. Let’s take a look at it and see if it’s right for you. I get asked the question, do I want to give up my medical practice? And because of all the natural IV therapy, vitamin therapy, we get spinal decompression and everything that we do, I like to keep it just so that I can use it myself. So I can have access to the best healthcare that we provide. I don’t want to lose that.
Devin Elder:
Yeah, no. That totally makes sense. And the systems, processes, employees, all that stuff’s already set up, right?
Alex Tam:
Yeah.
Devin Elder:
The work’s been done. Yeah, that’s very interesting. Let’s talk about markets and how you guys are participating. What do you guys look for as you’ve gone through this journey and learned about these syndications, participated a bunch? What are you looking for in terms of market or types of deals that you guys are pursuing.
Alex Tam:
What we realize is that we really like the Midwest, the South, and the Southeast. Not saying the Northeast is not good. Part of the North as well, when we have a property in Cincinnati, Indianapolis, that’s actually where I’m heading later this week to visit those properties. But nothing too far West, nothing too far East, because what we realized is a lot of people are moving. Companies and people alike are moving to the Midwest, they’re moving to the South and Southeast. And we want to be on the path of progress. We want to grow where people are going to be compared to so many people leaving out of California. And that is not our ideal place to invest.
Devin Elder:
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. You’ve got a lot of factors there whether it’s weather, whether it’s landlord friendly environment, population trends. A lot of things happening in those markets. How did it work for you guys, starting up Zephyr, your equity group and figuring out all the pieces that you need to do to launch something from scratch .whether it’s your marketing, your branding, your follow up sequences, was that something that you guys already had a skillset set from being business owners? Or did you engage somebody? Did you do a turnkey solution? Because I’ve seen some people have kind of a natural propensity to get all that marketing and communication stuff set up and others struggle with it. How did you guys approach that?
Alex Tam:
Yeah. That’s a great question. Because of the marketing background that I have in running our own Facebook ads, Google and our social media, I also have virtual assistants as well. And also a virtual assistant agency. So part of what we do for others is really getting their name, their brand, their social media out there. So when we took over and looked at, well, what does Zephyr Equity stand for? We looked at the mission vision, our core values and looked at what a process a follow up should be. In our medical practice, we have 180 day follow up process between emails, texts, calls. So we just follow the same thing, same idea with different information for our real estate. And so far it’s worked well.
Devin Elder:
Yeah. That’s fantastic. So you had all that built already for your medical practice.
Alex Tam:
Right.
Devin Elder:
And it was just a copy paste. And did I understand it correctly, Alex, that you have the agency and now that’s a service that you guys offer to others?
Alex Tam:
Yeah. Right.
Devin Elder:
Oh, that’s awesome. Is that specifically in real estate or are you doing that on the medical side as well?
Alex Tam:
It’s anyone.
Devin Elder:
Yeah. Okay.
Alex Tam:
It’s any business owner. We mainly work with business owners. And how that came about was in 2016, I started off with one virtual assistant because I really wanted to get our practice out into the social media space. So I ended up editing graphics on Photoshop, videos on Adobe Premiere Pro and it was taking a lot of time. Well, one virtual assistant works so well, I said, why not hire a second? And by the early of 2020, we had nine virtual assistants going into 10. Now we have 11. But one of the partners in real estate approached me and says, hey, Alex, I have one virtual assistant. You have 11. You must have some more experience than I do. I said, no, absolutely. I said, what are you thinking?
Well, there has been a lot of real estate professionals that have been asking me about how to hire and everything. Would you be open to starting a business where we provide a service as an agency for other businesses? And I said, well, hey, it’s just another business. It can’t be too crazy. Let’s try it out. And now we have 50 virtual assistants that are working for other clients. And we’re growing every single week. Because organically people are just reaching out to us and finding out. Okay, Alex, I’ve heard good things. How can I get myself a virtual assistant and stop being overwhelmed and save some more time?
Devin Elder:
Yeah, 100%. We’ve had them over the years and I think of this complexity level one to 10 tasks. And a virtual assistant can really handle one through five, maybe even one through six, which is a whole lot of… I mean, especially as a solopreneur or you’re trying to start a new venture, that could eat up 80% of your time doing those low value tasks.
Alex Tam:
Yeah.
Devin Elder:
And as entrepreneurs, we’re trying to allocate resources here and doing the graphics yourself. That’s cool. I’m very fascinated by that. So is it a turnkey thing that you guys… I know this isn’t specifically real estate, but for the agency, is it just a turnkey thing? Hey, we’re going to take over social, email marketing or how do you guys package it out to where you can present that to somebody?
Alex Tam:
Yeah. So we usually have a discovery call.
Devin Elder:
Sure.
Alex Tam:
Discovery call with a client to see exactly what their needs are. We have clients that are doctors, lawyers, accountants, real estate professional to cleaning services. So it really depends. I always have to look at, okay, number one, what is your business look like? And what do you want to do with what do you need help? What is this virtual assistant going to help with? Are they going to help with social media? Are they going to help with bookkeeping? Are they going to help with cold-calling, in taking calls? So I have to find out where your needs are. And then based on where your needs are, I will have a list of functionalities and skill sets that this virtual assistant needs to have. And then I’ll let you know, Devin, I need to let you know if that is a realistic one person job, or is it a multi multiple P person job?
Devin Elder:
Right.
Alex Tam:
And then once we agree, okay, this is where you need the most help, then we go look for that person for you. We do all the interviews. They go through a three step interview process and find the perfect virtual assistant for you. Now, once we find that virtual assistant, that doesn’t mean you have to go with that one. That just means that’s the best one we found for you. Now you get to interview them to make sure that you guys are the right fit. And then we pick a start date and then start from there.
Devin Elder:
So the virtual assistant will work directly for the client?
Alex Tam:
Oh, yeah. They’re working directly for you, full time. So it’s a full time assistant. A lot of agencies where you don’t even know who the virtual assistant is and you have to go through a middleman. There’s no middleman. It’s virtual assistant works directly with you and I wanted to make sure that they do a good job. So there’s no month to month contract and whatnot. But although we do tell people, so just be prepared for a 90 day period where there’s a learning curve with everything.
Devin Elder:
Right. Anything though, really. I mean, that’s anything.
Alex Tam:
Yeah. That’s like any employee. So if you can’t be committed and don’t have the time for it, then let’s just wait until you do have the time.
Devin Elder:
Right. I love it. So medical practice, VA agency, real estate certification. Do you own a car dealership or anything else out there?
Alex Tam:
No. That’s not within my wheelhouse.
Devin Elder:
Okay.
Alex Tam:
I mean, when you look at everything, each one helps the other.
Devin Elder:
Yes.
Alex Tam:
The medical practice, well, we help a lot of patients. The reason why I started the real estate was because friends and family really wanted to learn how to invest. And the virtual assistant is to help other business owners. Now, hopefully we do a good job helping business owners, help them make more money, scale their practice, systematically scale standard operating procedures and everything. And as they make more, they will trust us to invest with us now, in real estate. So hopefully it’s going to go full circle.
A lot of my friends, when we get into groups and Zoom calls, they’ll ask me health questions. Hey, what supplement should I take? What should I do with this? What should I do with that? I mean, for me, it’s looking at all the areas that we can add value. And if that real estate call ends up being a health call, then hey, it is what it is.
Devin Elder:
Right. Yeah. You’ve got something for them. Right?
Alex Tam:
Right.
Devin Elder:
I absolutely see how that’s complimentary. What would you say to somebody that’s maybe in your shoes a couple years back when you’re first getting a look at syndications? Because it’s pretty amazing the amount of people that have the financial wherewithal to invest in these private placements that have no idea they exist. You mentioned that was the case. That was the case for me a number of years ago. So what do you say to that person that’s just starting out on that journey and wants to go down the path that you have? What would’ve saved you maybe time or headaches or things like that when you’re starting out?
Alex Tam:
I think that what would’ve saved me a lot more time is initially meeting someone who’s in the space, who I can get to know, build a relationship, who I can trust. And then ask for advice, ask for what to do. I felt like when I first started, it was just me looking up stuff online. I didn’t reach out to people on Bigger Pockets. I wasn’t sure who I could trust to begin with. What I should have done, looking back to it, is listen to podcasts and hopefully gravitate towards some speakers or podcast holsters like yourself. And give you a call and say, hey, Devin, I listened to your podcast and everything seems great. Can you tell me more about how real estate works? And see their point of view, building relationships. Of course, real estate has a lot to do with numbers, location, but when it comes down to it, it’s all about relationships. And that’s what I wish I would’ve known more about that when I got started.
Devin Elder:
Yeah. That’s a really good point. I think there’s so much content out there, which is fantastic more than ever before. But it’s easy to be in your own head about it. And as soon as you start talking to people, especially people that are qualified and have done this thing before, it really does change your perspective. And I think it’s easy to spend a couple of years in that thinking about it mode versus getting to talk to somebody. And especially if you can form a friendship. I mean, we just copy our peer group. So you get in that peer group with somebody that definitely accelerates things. How do you guys do that today? You mentioned a couple of masterminds. Are you still going to conferences and things?
Alex Tam:
Oh, yeah.
Devin Elder:
What’s your cadence on that type of stuff?
Alex Tam:
Oh, yeah. Going to conferences, meetups, on Zooms. And I find that Zoom is really the area where you get to see people. And I always write down everyone’s name, take screenshots. And I reach out to them on LinkedIn and really connect with them. The chances are if they’re on that same Zoom that I was on, they’re going to have the same mindset. Right?
Devin Elder:
Right.
Alex Tam:
About what their thoughts are on real estate. They might be doing the same thing. They might be further ahead than I am. Or I might be able to pull someone up if they’re just getting started. So that’s where I really like to get to connect with people is through a lot of conferences and Zooms. And then afterwards have one-on-one conversations with them.
Devin Elder:
Right. Yeah. The opportunities to connect over these platforms is, like I mentioned, it’s never been so plentiful to be able to connect with people like that.
Alex Tam:
100%.
Devin Elder:
And you’re right, if somebody’s taking the time out, they’re spending a 7:00 PM on a Zoom call or a weekend or something like that, this person’s motivated. That’s the people you want to spend time with.
Alex Tam:
Oh, yeah.
Devin Elder:
Absolutely. How do you see the next couple of years for you guys? You have a whole lot going on. You’ve got a lot of plates spinning. Are you working towards some definite end goal or do you just like to work and be a multiple business owner?
Alex Tam:
Yeah.
Devin Elder:
What do you see for the next couple years for what you guys are working on?
Alex Tam:
No, that’s a great question. I mean, the long run, we would love to be able to do more, get more and more invested in real estate. Spending more time there while maintaining the medical practice. I might even open a second practice as time goes on. But at the same time, the virtual assistance space is growing as well. I do have, like you said, multiple plates spinning. But with multiple plates spinning, how I keep them spinning is having standard operating procedures for each document, document, document the processes.
Devin Elder:
Right.
Alex Tam:
And the virtual assistant space, we even have virtual assistants working inside our virtual assistant company. So as long as we’re doing everything the way that we need to do and doing it well, I don’t see any one of the three slowing down. Now when I add something else, not until these are starting to continue to scale. I’m always looking at trying to grow these three because they compliment each other so well. So that’s going to be my focus for the next three to five years.
Devin Elder:
Yeah, I love it. Gino Wickman’s stuff, EOS and Rocket Fuel particularly for me was very influential to how I built my company. Are there any resources or books that were influential on how you architect these things and scale it?
Alex Tam:
Yeah. Traction was definitely a great book with Rocket Fuel and the EOS systems. That’s wonderful. I believe that leadership is also key, when you look at John Maxwell’s leadership programs and leadership books, because I’m always trying to build leaders within our team. Because leaders will ultimately help me lead other people as well. And that’s what’s going to allow me to scale. Systems are great, but really in reality, you need some leaders on your team.
Devin Elder:
100%. I saw a tweet the other day that struck me because I’m such a processes and systems guy, I mean to the nth degree. And the tweet said it said a bad employee will mess up a good process, and a good employee might not need that process. They’re going to figure it out. And he said, I’m rethinking my love of systems. And I’ve been guilty of that as well. I’ve built these very detailed systems and then somebody doesn’t follow along. So it is definitely a balancing act and you absolutely need leaders. And it’s certainly a who not how situation.
Alex Tam:
I love that book.
Devin Elder:
Yeah. Definitely keeps things interesting. So you got 50 VAs within the agency now. That’s really cool. And obviously you guys tapped on a need here with these entrepreneurs. And I see a lot in real estate where it can be overwhelming if you’re not a web guy or an SEO guy or Facebook ads guy, which you had that skillset. But gosh, if you don’t know how to spin up a WordPress site and develop a newsletter and automate some things that you could spend all day trying to figure that stuff out.
Alex Tam:
All day. And that’s not where they’re going to spend their… That’s not where their superpower is. Right?
Devin Elder:
Yes.
Alex Tam:
I always ask clients, where do you believe you can be where you’re the most valued? And no one’s going to say posting on social media or writing a newsletter, but it’s necessary. Imagine if someone is doing that, they can do that in probably half the time that it takes someone who doesn’t do it all the time to do it. What can you do with that time? Huge. That’s how you’re able to scale.
Devin Elder:
Right. And so what have you seen for yourself as the organizations have grown as your highest and best use of your time or your superpower? Is it defined to a couple of things or how do you see that?
Alex Tam:
I would say that on the medical practice and in real estate or the virtual assistant, my superpower is in the expansion, the vision.
Devin Elder:
Right.
Alex Tam:
And I want to make sure I focus on that. And once we do something new, I like to see how we can systematize it, really. So once we’re able to systematize it and put it into play, now we look at, okay, what’s the next step that’s going to allow us to grow to the next step? Is it different services within the medical practice and the virtual assistants? We made a goal early in the month to double the amount of virtual assistance by June 31st. And our ultimate goal is how can we help a thousand business owners transform their business through outsourcing using virtual assistance? Because that’s going to make a huge impact, whether they’re roofers. We have a recent gentleman that we onboarded who cleans barbecues. I was like, wow, he cleaned barbecues and ovens.
Devin Elder:
Never heard of that. Not the barbecue side. Everybody’s got a barbecue.
Alex Tam:
Everybody’s got a barbecue. And he hired two other guys to do the barbecue and he also is affiliate with another barbecue online website. And I said, oh my gosh. He says, Alex, if someone can just reply to some messages and do the newsletters for me, that will save me hours. And we figured out, after we sat down for about 45 minutes, I said, not only can they do this, this, and this, but this person can do this, this, and this. And he’s like, oh my gosh, I never even thought of that. I said, yeah. So that’s 40 hours out of his week where he could be doing something else. And he’s going to be able to scale from him and two guys to him to four guys and two trucks, cleaning ovens and barbecues. Winter is the ovens, summer is the barbecue. So he’s got both seasons locked in. I said, we’re going to help you grow, man.
Devin Elder:
Oh, that’s super exciting. Obviously he’s got the competency to do the work. The marketing is this whole other thing that somebody else needs to handle it.
Alex Tam:
Yes. That’s going to be huge.
Devin Elder:
What would you say you’re most passionate about between the three businesses? Very different, complimentary in ways that you’ve discussed, but which one of them are you most passionate about?
Alex Tam:
It’s a different type of passion for each one. Because the reason why I started my medical practice was because my mom was helped by a doctor. And every single day we help tons of people in the practice. Being a business owner, I knew how hard it was and overwhelmed I was in 2016 without a virtual assistant. So that first one, I knew what type of impact it made for me. And for the real estate is not knowing what to do with my money after I’ve made it.
Devin Elder:
Right.
Alex Tam:
That is huge. I would say my passion is different for someone’s health versus someone’s business versus someone’s wealth and legacy. I can’t pick one because all three, you need three. Three works so well for me.
Devin Elder:
Right. Yeah. I love it. Those are all critical components of people’s lives if you’re a business owner. So you talked a little bit about the goals for the agency and I think that’s such a cool business to have. And that the demand for that is not going away. What are some of the other goals that you see? We’re talking Q1 here, 2023. Interesting macro business environment and whatever the fed’s doing. But what are some of your other goals for the next year and beyond for the other businesses?
Alex Tam:
No doubt. For real estate, we want to be able to really connect with more people. This is going to be a year for us to build a lot of relationships.
Devin Elder:
Sure.
Alex Tam:
And we consistently get on about five to 10 Zoom calls every single week, individual calls, and talk to people who are in the real estate space. And finding good operators, consistently finding good operators to work with so that when we are ready to raise, we are working on asset management to see who we can be complimentary to and really build a relationship with. So this is going to be a year of relationships. And for the medical practice is getting to that second practice. Building a goal for that second practice. And that’s going to be really, really big for us and our team to be able to do that.
Devin Elder:
Yeah. I love it. I absolutely love it. So this has been great. I’m inspired. I enjoy running multiple businesses, keeping the plates spinning. It’s very engaging and energizing. Obviously challenging some times, but some of the wins are really a lot of fun too. If somebody wants to connect with you on the real estate side, I want to learn about that. And then if they want to connect you on the agency side, I want to learn more about that too. So if somebody wants to learn more about Zephyr and the real estate side, what’s a good avenue for that?
Alex Tam:
So to learn more about the real estate, they can go to zephyrequity.com. They can go to dralextam.com to learn more about me and my family. And then also reach out to me on LinkedIn. LinkedIn, Facebook, Messenger, we’re all there. So we respond really, really quickly so people can reach out.
Devin Elder:
Yeah. Awesome. Is there anything specifically for the agency or is that rolled up within Zephyr?
Alex Tam:
Oh, the agency, it’s completely separate. Zephyr Equity is mainly for people who want to invest. And the Streamline Team, that’s the name of our agency, where people need help to, who are overwhelmed on their business. So we can hop on a call. And I like to always hop on a call and meet people first.
Devin Elder:
For sure.
Alex Tam:
Without a specific topic. Of course, people who want to meet for specific things, we can hop on a discovery call. But, I always like to get to know more people. And like I said, I hop on five to 10 Zoom calls every single week meeting same or new people. So I’d love to do that with any of your audience who are looking for help.
Devin Elder:
Yeah. Awesome. Well, we’ll link to that in the show notes. If you’re listening, you can scroll down past the description of this show and click through and check out Alex’s website there. Alex, thanks so much for jumping on. It was great to chat. Love talking shop as a business owner and real estate investor. So thank you very much. Wish you guys continued success in year head.
Alex Tam:
Evan, thank you so much. Have a great day.
Devin Elder:
All right. Take care.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening to the DJE Podcast. For more information, please go to djetexas.com.
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