Hard Assets, Hard Money, Hard Times | How to Win in 2025

Aviva (00:00)
This week's listener of the week is Tony Panguino. Tony, thank you so much for leaving us a five star review. And for those of you listening, if you leave us a five star review below, you might be next week's listener of the week, week, week. This week on Commercial Real Estate Secrets, we have Mr.

Ben Reinberg. Ben is the CEO and founder of Alliance CGC. He is also the guy behind the Hard Asset Empire Blueprint and the author of Hard Assets and Hard Money for Hard Times. Ben, thank you for being on the show today.

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (00:43)
Aviva Sonenreich, thank you so much for having me. I I love industrial properties. It's part of my fabric. And so for you to bring me on, very grateful that we get to have a conversation.

So let's roll and look forward to it.

Aviva (01:00)
Ben, for the listeners, who are you? What did you do? How did we get here today on Commercial Real Estate Secrets?

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (01:07)
Well, I appreciate the question and you know you're rolling me back. I've been in the business for over three decades of Aviva as you know, and I cut my teeth into industrial and office. I'm originally from Chicago. I live on the West coast right now and I started Alliance three decades ago and we are owners and managers and operators of our own portfolio. We are office industrial retail experts. We just added multifamily to our portfolio.

one of the leaders in medical office investing. That's a real heavy niche of ours as well, because the human body is never going out of style. And so when I was younger in Chicago, I realized, said, well, how can I build wealth? And I realized that hard assets are the way to build wealth. Every major wealthy family from Chicago had a significant amount Aviva of hard assets in their portfolio.

And so I would sit there on the corner on a block and I'd see these Mercedes drive by and I said, one day I'm going to have one of those. One day I'm going to build my empire. You know, and I was looking at the Pritzker's and the Crown's and the Zell's of the world and all these famous Chicago families. And I said, how did they get there? And I realized it was through hard assets. And so when I was younger, I read a book that I ordered on, off of TV, off of an infomercial.

You know, this is rolling back. I'm 55 years old. We had infomercials back then. There was no internet. And so I ordered this book and I waited two weeks. It was called Rich Dad Poor Dad. And the reason why I'm telling a story because it comes full circle. I was just telling a story the other day. How amazing this really is. So Sharon Lecter was one of the authors and it was really her story in Rich Dad Poor Dad. And she wrote this book and the pages spoke to me and said, how do you build an empire and produce cash flow?

to live and survive and build wealth. And that's what the book was about. And so I took that book and I said, this is who I am and who I want to become. And 32 years later, here I am. Now what's interesting is Sharon was on my podcast. Now my podcast is a TV show that streams all over. And what's interesting is I went, I reached out to her because we became friendly and I said, would you write my forward to my first book? And she said, absolutely.

And so if you pick up a copy of my book, you can pick up an Amazon or Barnes and Noble or benryanburg.com. You can see the full circle of what it's like of giving and, and building relationship. I, my goal was one day I'm going to meet her. Okay. And that was the opening of my podcast when I brought her, I told her the story of how important was the meter and she was floored. What was so neat about the story was she wrote my forward.

Aviva (03:57)
Wow.

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (03:57)
And

when you read the Ford, shows you that hard work, persistence and resilience go a long way of being in this business. I, for everyone out there, if you're younger, and I want to tell you from experience, showing up every day to work is so important in commercial real estate, especially in industrial or any asset class you're in, whether you're a broker, you're a principal, any niche, you're in insurance or architect, whatever is the sphere of influence, you're a banker out there listening.

showing up every day is because that's where opportunities present themselves and that's where knowledge is developed. Knowledge is so powerful and the reason why I wrote this book Hard Assets and Hard ⁓ Money for Hard Times was because for years of Aviva people kept coming to me and saying how do I build a hard asset portfolio? How do I get into commercial real estate? How do I invest with you and what you do at Alliance? And I said to my team, I said you know we...

We really need to answer this. Like I feel it's constant every year and every month we're getting questions and people are reading our blog and it's been going on for 25 plus years this blog. And I said, I think we need to write a book. And so about a year and a half ago, we decided to plan the book and took about a year to write. It's been a labor of love. But what I like about it is it's for everyone out there, whether you were Ben Reinberg 32 years ago who knew nothing.

Aviva (05:01)
Hmph.

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (05:19)
had no money, didn't come from money, had to build his empire to a billionaire because you'll be able to pull the book off the shelf, it's evergreen. It allows you to build your hard-ass at Blueprint. And I teach it in the book and I give lessons as well. And it's very visual and actionable. That was the key of the book. And then I said, well, let's go a level deeper. Let's take it to another notch. And then everyone said, well, what are we gonna do? I said, we're gonna teach courses after you read the book where it will...

bring the chapters to life. So then you don't feel like you're hanging out there. One of the things that disappoints me about a lot of books is you read a book, it's got great content, maybe you take some notes, maybe you write in the margins or you highlight a few things. Maybe you'll go back to it, maybe you won't. But what ends up happening is it's not actionable. And I said, my book is gonna be where people can take action and really apply it to their everyday lives and help them reduce risk.

Aviva (05:50)
Hm.

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (06:17)
help them build, compound, retain, and grow wealth. That's what I want. And so we laid out this blueprint that's free in the book. You could download it from my website, benreinberg.com, which is a beautiful thing. And it's free. We don't charge you to download the blueprint. And what's neat is that you can build your own blueprint how you want. And so I walk through how to build this empire, this fortress for everyone. And it comes to life. And so you'll always have it.

every single day or week or month Aviva you could pull it off the bookshelf and say, am I doing asset protection? Am I doing succession plan? Is one of my keystones or capstones in alignment with everything else? How am I making any risk? How do I compound this? What do I need to get rid of that maybe is not working for me, that doesn't align with how I've grown as a person? What's my mindset like to deal with all this? So I talk about in the book, I end the book with mindset.

Aviva (06:57)
Yeah.

Hmph.

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (07:16)
Cause people say, well, how do you stay in this business for three plus days? It's a tough business. Everyone out there knows we're in a tough business. Let's not sugar coat it. So I tell people it is tough. And that's why we're back is showing up and being present. And so people say, why do you get into personal development? It's because I want to be that person where I can show up, be present. I could be on a Aviva's podcast and be the best version of myself. So I could add value and inspire people and create that impact that I want. And so.

For me, that's who I am and that's what I do. And the book was something important to me because I felt that no one's written a book like this. No one said, well, how do I build a hard-ass empire? Okay, well, now we're talk about it. Let's teach and educate and make it visual and live that people can utilize. And so I'm really proud of the book. I love it. ⁓

with the sales are going through the roof. really excited about the feedback we're getting. And so for everyone out there, it's cheap. I made it cheap. The courses are very reasonable price too. And so it allows you that if you're looking and you're in commercial real estate or you're just like crypto or all the other hard assets you could buy out there, if you want to learn how to build an empire, that's what I created for you.

Aviva (08:36)
So what is a hard asset? Because at first I'm thinking, okay, property, tangible, but you just said crypto was a hard asset. So let's rewind, talk about the fundamentals. What is a hard asset?

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (08:45)
Yeah.

Well, a hard asset is, you know, basically it's an asset that will produce cash flow. Okay. So it could be anything like tangible assets. So it could be crypto, could be, it could be bonds, could be commercial real estate, it could be gold and silver. It could be intellectual property, it could be artwork. You know, there's different ways to classify a hard asset, but

The reason why that hard assets matter, which is really important, even putting aside like what they really are, it's those hard assets. And you can take commercial real estate as a typical example, because we're all commercial real estate professionals that listen to show, is in a world of uncertainty, economic volatility and geopolitical instability we're seeing in the world right now, it makes traditional investments a little bit riskier. And so to have hard assets,

They're gonna provide stability and predictability and long-term wealth and that's why I got into commercial real estate because I said Okay, I'm gonna be the tortoise. I'm gonna be in for a while, but I'm gonna build wealth. Okay I'm not in these, you know high speculative things and so and like I talked about through history the wealthiest individuals and families secured their legacies Through hard assets like real estate precious metals private lending opportunities. Those are some other

⁓ hard money, other hard assets you could do. And so most people, what I realized Aviva, and this is what stemmed from the book was, don't have a roadmap to build their own empire and of hard assets. So they lack mythology, they lack strategy. And really what we said was, there's no roadmap, there's no blueprint. So let's give them a blueprint because, you know, pictures are worth a thousand words. And when

Someone just lays it to you visually. It's kind of hard to process I felt and so if pictures are worth a thousand words and We live in uncertain times Why not give someone a roadmap that they could follow along and so, you know What I learned was the keystones in the blueprint if everyone, you know downloads the blueprint they could see it I mean it's develop and data and discipline and durability. It's the four D's I call that are really your your your keystones and they matter so much because

Most people invest with misalignment and they focus on the what instead of the where. And that's a really important point. so, you know, learning to look from a 40,000 view and a detailed lens is a skill that requires intentional practice. And it really does. so having one shared picture for

Aviva (11:22)
you

Hmm.

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (11:40)
all your strategic advisors strengthens every decision short term or long term. It allows every person that's involved in your life, whether attorneys and accountants, cetera, and all these special assets you have within the company, you your people, your leadership team, they need to see the picture. They need to know where you're going. It's why every employee at Alliance, my company, reads the book, because they need to know where are we going as a company? What is the company? Because

Aviva (11:59)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (12:07)
it mentions who we are as a company. So it's important. so having a common blueprint is what I teach people is that it helps you identify external forces like regulation and marketing and banking and taxes and global decisions that can impact wealth planning. And so it was important because sustainability comes from knowing where risk lies. And that's really important. I'm gonna repeat that sustainability comes from knowing where risk lies and it's not just where the risks are.

And so, ⁓ so I wanted to create this book to help shape everyone's mindset. I was really important and say, well, we're going to talk about mindset. We're going to talk about how not everything's going to be so rosy as you build your blueprint empire or your hard assed empire. Now it's going to be perfect in your blueprint. You're going to have to adjust and mend and audible. And you're to have to ask for advice and support in your life and be vulnerable. And so.

I said, well, how do you do that? And so some of the things I do is I practice gratitude. I'm grateful for everyone I meet and that's the life I live. And I let go of things that don't work out. Maybe I had failures. And for everyone out there, you're going to fail. Okay. You're going to buy a warehouse deal. You're have a lease that wasn't perfect. You're going to deal with a seller or a landlord that wasn't nice to you. You have to let things go and know that life will move on. There's a saying that I say to

to my kids and everyone out there is this shall pass. When you go through a tough times, tough times don't last, tough people do. This shall pass. And it's important. So the other thing that's important, and I want to share with everyone, is that as you're going through this industry and this business, and no one talks about it, is that I want you to really be focused and be present and remove distractions and energy suckers. So if you have a significant other out there.

Okay. Or you have employees or whatever, become aware of like energy drains, time suckers. You only have so much time on this earth. Okay. And, and if we have time, I can go through a time exercise. Everyone can use that. They can understand what I'm talking about. So removing distraction and energy suckers are so important. Then, you know, auditing your inner circle, you know, we call it like who's in your green room. So Aviva, if you were going on a show and you said, I'm going to bring my posse who has my back.

24 seven, it doesn't matter if I screwed up, they're always gonna have my back. So audit your inner circle. Who's in your posse? Who's in that? You know what I mean? As you get older and everyone out there, as you age, you're see your inner circle changes and you become tighter with who you want. So be very mindful. then, you know, protecting your mind from content and harmful conversations. You know, think about what pours into you every day.

Aviva (14:40)
yeah.

Thank

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (14:58)
and how are you going to pour into yourself? And so people say, well, what do you do? ⁓ I meditate twice a day. I clear my mind. I meditate. I do things I'm very vulnerable about because, you know, I do all these things on a holistic basis to become as successful as I am. And so because people ask me all these secrets, like what's the secret to stay in and how do you buy this and this and that. You got to take a holistic approach. You got to be healthy. You got to train your mind. You got to work out. You got to

keep learning, asking questions. Aviva, one thing I learned as a founder and CEO, and everyone out there for your business owner, is that if you're a founder and or CEO of a company, you don't have to know everything. It's not required. However, you got to hire amazing talent. And that's what we do at Alliance. so ⁓ these are the little things that I offer. These are the things that I talk about in the book. And that's why people are

financial advisors and accountants, they're ordering them in bulk to give out as a gift because they want to help provide value to their clients. like, okay, well, if he's going to teach this, with courses, we just add value to our clients. It just made us look even better.

Aviva (16:11)
the student shows up, so does the teacher. Ben, talk to me. It's 2025.

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (16:14)
That's right.

Mm-hmm.

Aviva (16:19)
Things are a little haywire.

and you titled the book Hard Assets and Hard Money for Hard Times. So if we could deduce that haywire might say they're hard times, because it is a challenging time in our business, how are we overcoming that?

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (16:36)
Mm-hmm.

It's a fantastic question. The key to the business is the ability to hold, the ability to hold, and the ability to hold. It's not about location. We're going through one of those times. And I've been through different cycles being in this industry for a long time. And the ability to hold is so important. So let's talk about where we're at. Well, there is a lack of liquidity in the market. Let's not sugarcoat. Lenders aren't really robust in lending in different asset classes.

Aviva (16:50)
Yeah.

Hm.

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (17:07)
So how do you deal with it? Well, you gotta really check in on your operations and your systems and you gotta manage the heck out of your portfolio or properties. If you're brokering, you gotta underwrite the real estate fundamentals. You gotta have realistic conversations with sellers at pricing that makes sense. Some deals you'll have to sell for cash and not put leverage on it or low leverage on it. you have to audible. The way you look at it, one of the things that I've done very well in my career,

and this happened with medical office was 22 years ago I said okay we're not going to buy general office anymore because the world's changing so the human body's never going hostile let's become experts in medical office that's what we did and so sometimes you have to pivot and say okay well we're not going to buy this type of industrial we're going to buy a big box distribution because maybe manufacturing and I just wrote a couple great articles I wrote one in

Aviva (17:44)
Well.

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (18:02)
Thomson Reuters about manufacturing is coming back to the United States. It was really cool article and I'm really proud of it. And because maybe that's a niche you want to look at. And so, auto-buying, being aware of the market, showing up, all these things understating the ability to hold. If you're a real estate owner having enough reserves, don't over-leverage property. One of the things I teach is never over-leverage a property. If you bring in investors, I'd see you

pay a lesser return, a lower return to investors of Aviva because I'll give you an example. A friend of mine, I saw he had, he was asking me for advice, a great piece of real estate. And he put a little bit too much leverage on the property. And what ended up happening is when we were in rising interest rate market in 23, starting 22 and escalating 23.

Aviva (18:53)
Mm.

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (18:56)
He had to refinance his property and what ended up happening was the value dropped. His 75 % became probably looking at, he was probably close to 90, okay? And so he was having trouble refinancing. And so he had to pay some of that debt down and change the dynamic of his deal. so.

Ability to hold, not over leveraging your property, having enough reserves, being conservative is the real key to surviving. And so in a market like this is you have to be conservative. You got to conserve cash. You got to be careful with your spending. Don't over leverage. And things will turn around. I feel that, you know, knock on wood, interest rates will lower this summer. I believe we're doing some great things in this country and business is going to.

Aviva (19:26)
Hmm.

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (19:49)
grow significantly and we're producing oil and energy, is very healthy for this country. And so at the end of the day, I feel confident that things will turn around. But while we're kind of riding this out, just be conservative, you know, and, and tighten up a little bit and you'll be all righted out and you will and show up, work hard, you know, keep networking, keep learning, keep growing. These are all the things you have to do. One of the biggest thing I see

Aviva (20:04)
Hm.

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (20:19)
people is that they stop growing as a person. And it's hard, even in Alliance, one thing is we're constantly growing as a company. And then if you're not growth-minded, it's like hard to work here because that's what we do. We do a lot of personal development and human development within our company. It's why people are attracted to what we do. for everyone out there listening, yeah, we're going through some challenges. Investment sales was down ⁓ like 80%.

Aviva (20:23)
Hm.

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (20:48)
from 22 to 23. And also lending's been down. And so lack of liquidity, deal flow, maybe an unrealistic seller, or maybe there's not as many tenants running around too, which hurts with leasing. And so the tenants you do have, treat them very sacred and be grateful for them, appreciate it. And

Aviva (21:10)
Yeah.

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (21:13)
those little tidbits will go a long way in a tough environment like this.

Aviva (21:17)
Yeah, I think there were a lot of gold nuggets in there. Ben, you've been in the business for three decades. What is that commercial real estate secret you'd like to share with the listeners?

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (21:32)
⁓ God, there's so many Aviva. I mean, one thing that I think is so important is seek the truth in what other people are saying. And I'll tell you what I mean by that everyone. So you're listening out there is that we all have different lenses. You know, you're dealing with a tenant, you're dealing with another broker, you're dealing and you don't know their background. You don't understand their viewpoint. And so

if you initiate from the beginning is let me seek the truth in what someone's saying and really understand it. Your negotiations will be better. Your relationships will be better. You'll build better rapport with sellers and everyone in the industry and also with your employees and also with your third party resources. So taking a step back and saying, what is the truth behind what I might not agree with it and respectfully disagree.

But I'm gonna understand like, what is the truth behind what they're saying? Why does it matter to them? What's important? And when I can understand that, I can communicate better. And I think out of all the lessons I've learned in this industry, that's probably the best secret I could share with someone because that will change your world. If you go with that mindset of seeking the truth in what someone's saying, your whole world will change.

Aviva (22:56)
Wow. I think that's profound.

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (23:00)
Thank you.

Aviva (23:03)
I'm honestly like just playing through the scenarios in my head that that applies to right now. And I'm overwhelmed with excitement to seek the truth into some things that I'm working on because you're right. Once you can understand.

from the other side, what they're trying to achieve.

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (23:23)
I mean, what

people do is they're in a conversation and they hold their ground because they think they're right, especially when you're younger. And you're not aware of what's going on. You're not listening. And so you're not seeking the truth and what someone's saying. And so you're kind of like you're thinking while they're talking or you're thinking about what to say next. And a lot of people do that instead of taking a step back and saying,

Aviva (23:30)
Hmm.

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (23:50)
What was Aviva really saying and why was it so important to her and what's behind it? And you can ask questions. You could say Aviva, like, explain that to me. I don't really, and being vulnerable in front of people, like, I don't understand. Can you clarify what you mean by that? And that's seeking the truth, is asking questions. And so I just feel that people don't ask enough questions and are not direct because everyone's afraid of, what if I upset her or what if I...

she takes it the wrong way. No, it's taking time to care about people. And I'll give a bonus, a little secret that people can use too, is that when you take time to care about people, you'll see this business becomes real easy.

So there are two for you, a little bonus.

Aviva (24:36)
The more you give, the more you get. Ben, this has been great. I really appreciate your time. For the listeners, how can they find you follow you? Let I want to hear about the book the course, how can we stay connected with you?

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (24:37)
That's right.

Okay, well, if you want to learn more about me personally, okay, you can follow me on all the social media platforms. I'm on everyone, including TikTok. You can go to benreinberg.com, my name dot com, and you can get a copy of the book. They have ebooks and hard covers, soft covers, wherever you want. You can get them on Amazon, Barnes and Noble as well. I think it's cheaper on my website.

There's courses that you can, you can order, that bring the book to life in the chapters of life that's on the website as well. And so, and then if you want to,

log on and watch my TV show Ben Reinberg I own it. Again, we do a front to camera educating people where we talk about what did the guest just say. So it's constant education. No one's ever done that. So it's called Ben Reinberg I own it is on the website as well. And then if you want to come see me speak if I'm on the route they're speaking, feel free to you can follow me on the website. My company, if you're broker and you want to sell us deals or

Aviva (25:37)
Hmph.

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (25:54)
If you want to invest with us, you can go on AllianceCGC.com. It's AllianceCGC.com. It's Alliance Consolidated Group of Companies. We're headquartered in Chicago. sit in our West Coast office. But a lot of people want to say, well, how do I invest with you passively? Because of 30 plus years experience, 200 plus years of leadership team outside you, how do we invest in a great sponsor? so

what people do is they start investing with us and then they learn how to invest, which is kind of cool too. It's good, good way to get up the trajectory of your learning curve is investing is invest with us and see how we do it. and then obviously, any education you want on our website, alliance, CG sec, ⁓ we have a blog, we're on the sub stack. We talk about, write an article every week about different topics, not even outside commercial real estate. So if you're constantly wanting to learn and grow,

Our corporate website is a great tool as well as benreinberg.com You can constantly learn and grow whether it's commercial real estate business, personal matters you need as well.

Aviva (26:59)
Amazing benreigberg.com. AllianceCGC.com. Ben, thank you so much for being on the show today

Ben Reinberg - Alliancecgc.com (27:07)
Well, thank you for having me on the warehouse hotline and really appreciate it. It was great seeing you, Aviva.

Aviva (27:14)
Thank you so much and for everybody listening. We'll see you next week.