Announcer: 0:00

The following programming is sponsored by Marc J. Bernstein. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of this station, its management, or Beasley Media Group. Entrepreneur, founder, author, and financial advisor Marc Bernstein helps high-performing business owners turn their visions into reality. Through his innovative work and the forward-focused forum, Marc connects entrepreneurs to resources that fuel their success. Founders Forum is a radio show and podcast where entrepreneurs share their journeys, revealing the lessons they've learned and the stories behind their success. Join Marc and his guests for a mix of inspiration, valuable insights, and a little fun. Now let's dive in.

Marc Bernstein: 0:40

Good morning, America. How are you today? It's another uh gloomy, rainy day, spring day in Philadelphia, but we're happy inside the studio here at WWDB. And uh and you may be listening to us on podcast. And wherever you are, hope you're having a great day. We're in the studio today with Armon, who was a guest on our last show, who's serving as co-host of this show, and Gary, and I will formally introduce both of them in a little bit, but we always start with a topic of the day, and I was thinking this morning about questions because I've been, you know, whatever you whatever you do in business, the questions you ask are important, especially if you're in sales, but any any any kind of people to people business uh questions are very important. And I've been working a lot on the last few years in terms of thinking about powerful questions like how do you really get to know somebody. Um there's a there's a book by David Brooks that's out now, and I think it's uh called something like how do you really get to know someone or something like that. He's a journalist and he's a commentator on on television and and it's uh it's a very interesting book and he talks about the questions he asks. So my quest my question for our guests today is what is your favorite question? So I'll start with you, Armon, because I know you have one.

Armon Vincent: 2:10

So whenever I'm speaking to a client, a prospect, mm, the first question I really lean on is what matters most within the context of what we're discussing, uh, of course. But once they give me an answer, then I use the standard five Y's to dig in deeper and they give me an answer, and I you know try and go as far into that as I possibly can until I get to really what I think is the the the the kernel of truth or the pea underneath the mattresses, if you will, to to really understand how the person's truly thinking about something.

Marc Bernstein: 2:47

Do you ever get lost counting the whys? Because I know I've got to do that. You know, it's a really good conversation, you can get lost. Yeah, absolutely. But I I love that question. Um and also if you get really deep, we we've talked about this a little bit because um the last show we talked about boundaries. And the problem with the whys, especially in a business context, is you can start to tread on boundaries when you do that.

Armon Vincent: 3:12

Aaron Ross Powell Absolutely. It can cross over into the personal, and you have to try and uh artfully arrange it so that doesn't happen and kind of uh you know pull up, if you will. Gotcha. So that's just an observation.

Marc Bernstein: 3:24

Gary, how about you?

Gary Brandeis: 3:26

That's a it's a great one. And I think it's an interesting one to ask yourself. I think for me, it's I'm not necessarily in sales, so I'm not trying to sell when I meet with people or I uh I'm connecting with people. I think my my biggest question is what motivates you? And a lot of people phrase it to me as like, what gets you out of bed in the morning? Right. You know, why do you do what you do and what motivates you to be either successful or motivates you to get things done that day? And and to me, that's a deep question. You can you can really probe into somebody's history, you can probe into somebody's you know inner inner feelings and and and things like that. So to me, whenever when someone when er when anyone asks me that question, it always gives me a good opportunity to explain sort of my perspective on things. And so I I like answering that question.

Marc Bernstein: 4:12

So what matters most and what motivates you? Two very powerful questions, I think. You know, I think those are really good choices. Um mine, and I've used something like those as well, but one of my favorite questions that I don't always remember to ask, but I'm trying to remember to do it, is after a series of questions and after a whole conversation, what other question didn't I ask that I should have asked you? You let them provide me with a question. And I often get one. And uh and when I don't, it means that we probably had a pretty complete conversation. So I like that one as well. Um so we have Armon Vincent Armon Vincent, did it again, who is a um he is uh founding partner of Catalyst Technology Partners, and please listen to his podcast if you haven't already. And we have Grant Gary Brandeis, who is our guest today, and he's CEO of Scholar Hotels LLC. Uh he started his real estate career in 1990, and his experience and expertise includes development, finance, acquisitions, dispositions, asset management, and joint ventures. He's been the principal partner in four real estate investment funds, including PB funds one and two, investing over $350 million in all property types and investment strategies since 2005. So welcome, Gary. Thank you, Marc. So as I always like to start, tell me about how you because you have a f a finance background, right? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Gary Brandeis: 5:47

Accounting. So I decided that accounting was uh uh the best sort of college education I could get. Wasn't necessarily sure sure what I wanted to do with my life when I started college, but I knew that I was going to be in some sort of business. And um, you know, people kept telling me accounting is the language of business. So so learn accounting and you can do lots of different things from that. And it was actually a really good choice for me.

Marc Bernstein: 6:08

Right. Yeah. And what were your what were your first but you had some jobs outside of straight accounting pretty early on, I think, too. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Gary Brandeis: 6:15

Yeah. So I I I started working when I was I was a young teenager. Uh I was fortunate that my grandparents had a home in in Atlantic City, so I got to spend the summers with them as a teenager working at various uh not so great restaurants uh on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, you know, pizza shops, ice cream stands, all you could eat, smorgasboards, and things like that. So I think I I got my first work experiences as a pot washer, uh busboy, a uh uh a short order cook, and things like that. And it's funny how my career circled back to hospitality, but that's really where I started. Uh you know, I made a I made uh the minimum wage at the time and and worked really hard, but but got some good experience.

Marc Bernstein: 6:58

So and you mentioned just a little while ago you worked for a uh radio station uh or was a spot.

Gary Brandeis: 7:07

Well I had the opportunity to.

Marc Bernstein: 7:08

I had the opportunity to, yeah.

Gary Brandeis: 7:10

I chose not I I chose to stay in the real estate business, which which may have been a good decision or not so good decision, depending on how you look at it.

Marc Bernstein: 7:16

Trevor Burrus, so how did you get from accounting to entrepreneur, which is really the story? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Gary Brandeis: 7:20

So I I I graduated from Penn State with an accounting degree and and and had the opportunity to work at one of the big accounting firms, global accounting firms. There were eight at the time, now there's four. But I worked for one of the eight. Price Waterhouse was the one I worked for. And the great thing about starting in public accounting is you know, you're a you're a client-based service provider. So in the two and a half years I was there, I got to see all types of industries. So we I was doing accounting, auditing, and tax work for manufacturing clients, real estate clients, banking clients, technology clients. You know, so I I got to see probably six or seven different types of industries where I may have been there for a few weeks or maybe even a few months, depending on the size of the client. So after my two and a half years or so at Price Waterhouse, I really sort of looked at the gamut of different industries I got to work in, and real estate of all of them really resonated with me the most. And it made sense to me. Uh I liked the people that were in that business that I got to interact with, and so I gravitated toward that industry. And I think the reason it resonated with me was really twofold. One, it was relatively easy to understand, right? You collect rents from somebody uh and then you pay your bills and you have a profit or not afterwards. And that was the second thing, right? So it was a physical business, right? It wasn't software or technology or banking, which is somewhat abstract, right? No, you can touch money, but but you get f pretty far away from that physical contact as you get into banking. So for me, I love the idea of uh of a financial-oriented business, but a physical asset business. And I like those things combined together. Right. And that's really what sort of drove me to that part of the business or that industry.

Marc Bernstein: 9:00

So you started getting into real estate within PWC, I guess.

Gary Brandeis: 9:03

Well, so I started to get more real estate clients because I asked for them. Yep. And so I was doing accounting and auditing and tax work for some of the bigger real estate companies here in Philadelphia, because I was in the Philadelphia office of PW and um got to see some of the people who are.

Marc Bernstein: 9:18

I keep saying PWC. No C. Right, right.

Gary Brandeis: 9:20

Yeah. Uh so so I really liked it. And then and then after I passed the CPA exam and had my required work experience, I decided that I wanted to go into the real estate business and uh ended up getting a great opportunity to move to the Washington, D.C. area and and took a job as a controller and a real estate developer and really started from the ground up. So I was doing property management accounting, construction accounting, uh, and things like that. You know, not very glamorous, not very exciting, but but I would tell you now as I look back on that, it gave me an amazing base of knowledge. Right. You know, if you can do the accounting for a construction project or do the accounting on the management of of office buildings and industrial warehouse buildings, you really understand the business from the ground up. And I think that was really important for you.

Marc Bernstein: 10:05

Well, and I I think with what you're doing today, numbers and tracking your uh you know, occupancy and all that kind of stuff and the financials are extremely important, I would think. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Gary Brandeis: 10:14

It's it's it's really important, right? Um I mean I I what I say about our company is you know, our first job is to make a profit, right? We're not a non-for-profit, we're not a charity, right? So our business is to make money for for our investor partners to make sure we can pay our mortgage and and we can we can you know have a profitable business, right? And so withn without a profit, we don't have a business. So my first job is to make a profit and provide a good return for our investor partners. My second job is to reinvest in our physical assets of the building and our people and and making sure that our buildings are well maintained or clean, they operate properly, and our guests can have a good experience in the physical building. And then if I can do that, then outside of investing our profits and and and cash into the building and our people, if if we have something left over after that, then we can be a great community partner, right? We can invest in our community, we can sponsor charities, we can host events and give back to the community. So it kind of happens in that order. Um but that's that's really important. That's how we that's how we focus our efforts.

Marc Bernstein: 11:15

So how did you get from PW? By the way, I went to high school at Plymouth Whitemorse. So that was the other PW in the film. So that's why I tend to say PWC. The acronyms can always make a mess of things. Anyway, but how did you get from PW to to what you're doing today, scholarhood?

Gary Brandeis: 11:31

Yeah, so so I I started, I I left PW, went to work for a big national real estate development company in the DC market, worked there for for about a decade or so, and was able to start out as an accountant and then work my way up the chain. You know, and I think I left as a I left my first stint as a vice president, and then I left for three years and then opened an office for that company here in Philadelphia, and then became an operating partner for the company, spent another five years with the with the firm, and then left and started the company I have now back in 2005. So we're gonna have our 20th anniversary this summer of when we started the company. Congratulations. Thank you. Cool. So But but really we are the company I have today, and we started 20 years ago, is we're an owner operator, which means we're a vertically integrated real estate company. So we raise capital, we invest that capital and investing it in acquisitions, obviously buying existing assets or building new assets, but we do the development, we do the construction, we do the capital and the financing of those assets. And then once we're done, then we operate it. And so uh about 15 years ago, we really pivoted toward hospitality. One, because there was a lot of opportunity that we were seeing in hospitality.

Marc Bernstein: 12:39

What were you doing prior to that?

Gary Brandeis: 12:40

Mostly office and industrial development. And that's what my training was when I worked for the national development firm. And so we really pivoted toward hospitality because one, there were opportunities in the market for that type of asset class. And after we bought our first hotel, I really fell in love with the fact that one, I was able to continue to do the things I always did in real estate, which was the physical aspect of the building, the financing and the capital raising around the physical building. But instead of just trying to lease space to other people and sign long-term contracts or long-term leases, we actually had an operating business that was attached to our real estate. And so we were selling rooms, we were selling conference and meeting space, we were selling bottles of water and potato chips at the front desk. We were hiring people in management and sales and operations. So so in addition to doing all the really things I liked in the real estate space, we actually got to run a real business as well. And to me, that was a completely different dynamic than the other real estate classes.

Marc Bernstein: 13:36

Aaron Powell I remember this right? Are you also a little bit in the restaurant business here? I thought you were too.

Gary Brandeis: 13:41

I mean, uh a lot of our hotels have full service food and beverage outlets. And we're also in the wedding business and corporate meetings business. So we do all those things. Right. But but I still get to be a real estate developer at the same time. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Interesting. Yeah.

Marc Bernstein: 13:53

Do you do you have to be a jack of all trades? Because those are a lot of different businesses. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Gary Brandeis: 13:57

You really do. For me, I do. Now I have specialists in the company that are that are real specialists in, let's say, revenue management and sales and marketing and you know, chief engineers of our building that maintain our physical assets as well. For me, it's about knowing a little bit about a lot of things. And for for me, and I I teach a class in real estate development, the you have to do three things really well in in real estate. One, you have to be able to crunch the numbers and do the analysis and look at the returns. Two, you have to be able to do a market analysis and understand what the market is driving towards your building. And then three, you have to under the physical part of the building.

Marc Bernstein: 14:33

We are it's time for a break right now, so we're gonna take a quick break, and then Armon has a question for you.

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Marc Bernstein: 15:38

We're back here on Founders Forum and Armon Vincent, take it away.

Armon Vincent: 15:42

Thank you. So I'm always fascinated by how entrepreneurs become entrepreneurs. What did that leap look like for you?

Gary Brandeis: 15:51

I think it was a a long lead up to that leap, right? I always knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur and have my own business, and I just happened to be in the real estate business from my training and the jobs I've had. And so I knew my leap was going to be in real estate. And I think in 2004, uh I had my second stint at the national firm with my office here in Philadelphia. And we had built a pretty successful local business. And that that company in particular was, hey, here's a business card with our name on it. You know, go make things happen. So I was kind of an entrepreneur in a way with a big national company behind me, which was really, really great because it gave me some good experience. But but I had a lot of people behind me supporting me, you know, in the corporate office with capital, with insurance, with financing and things like that. And so what happened was after we had sort of built up the our portfolio here in Philly, I realized when I started to look at the PL for our region, I was like, wow, we're making, we're making money. This is great. And then I realized how much of that money was actually going into my pocket, which wasn't that much, to be honest with you. And so I said, Boy, you know, I I I could do this myself, and all the money could go into my pocket, or most of it, anyway. And so that was sort of the leap. And at the time, I was married, had had two young kids, and sort of it was a tough leap because I had a lot of responsibility at home. Uh fortunately at the time my wife was working and had benefits, health insurance and stuff like that. That that helped me, that gave me that a little that additional sort of comfort to take the leap and to really try to go out on my own again. And I think a combination of a couple of those things really drove me to do it.

Marc Bernstein: 17:24

A follow-up to that that I'd like to ask you is uh a lot of times I Armon and I were talking, I'm not sure we talked about on the show, but I said, who was your model for entrepreneurial? He said, nobody. He said, you know, he said, I he said I was always kind of independent and I always asked questions and I always, you know, and I and I and I you know I had to figure I figure things out and that made me entrepreneurial. Did you have any, was there any blueprint that you had, or was this just something out of because you saw an opportunity, you took it?

Gary Brandeis: 17:52

I would tell you that's probably one of my biggest regrets, Marc, and when I look back on my career that I didn't have a real mentor. Um I had a lot of great bosses, but they were my bosses in the company. So if I was the vice president, they were a senior vice president or something like that. Um so I I I would tell you that I I didn't necessarily have an entrepreneurial meeting.

Marc Bernstein: 18:09

You didn't have parents that were in business or anything like that, or not really.

Gary Brandeis: 18:12

But but actually I I what I would say, and I've said this before publicly, and and my father and I have had lots of conversations about it, but I think my father was a motivator for me to be an entrepreneur because frankly, I saw him struggle throughout his career to find a place or to find a company or to figure out what could he could do to be successful. And I think he found some avenues for that, but not something on a long-term scale. And I think in seeing him with his career and and and struggle at dirt different times of his life, I I knew that that I didn't want to do that. And so that was also a motivator for me. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Marc Bernstein: 18:48

So, like a lot of entrepreneurs, it was a way to control your destiny.

Gary Brandeis: 18:51

Yes. And and so one of my biggest fears was uh I don't want to be a 55-year-old guy who gets laid off from his job. Right. And what do you do next? Right. And so I didn't want that to happen to me. And I saw it happen to other people, you know, y older people that than I was at the time. And and I felt that um I I never I never thought I was gonna be the smartest guy in the room, but I thought that I could outwork people and outwit people in a way. Yeah. Uh and and find opportunities where others didn't or hadn't before. And that's sort of the I think if you look at our company and the successes we've had, I think that's probably where I would point my finger to most. Hard work and and finding opportunities that others don't either don't want to do or don't see. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

Marc Bernstein: 19:30

So it's interesting because and fear was a motivator to a certain extent, which a lot of for a lot of people it is. It's interesting. A lot of people become entrepreneurs for all different reasons, and it's and it's fascinating to me. I always enjoy hearing about that. So I'm glad, Armon, you asked the question. Um what what kind of challenges do you have to deal with in your business? And I know um Financial Times are are one of them. I know in recessions is an example we've talked about.

Gary Brandeis: 19:57

So we we have two primary you know, our business is really broken up into two buckets. One one is the real estate bucket, right? The building, the capital, the equity, the debt, right? And then we have the operating part of our business and the hospitality side. So that's hundreds of employees, you know, sales, marketing, you know, what kind of benefits do our employees get? How can we control those costs? All those types of things. So the the the risks and the challenges are a little bit different in both. So on the capital side, it's you know, interest rates, right? Um are the capital markets frothy or or or thin, right? Is it easy to get capital both from equity and l and debt? Are lenders lending or are they really pulling back?

Marc Bernstein: 20:36

So those types of that's where the economy has a big impact.

Gary Brandeis: 20:39

Definitely the economy impacts everything, but in the capital markets is really sort of the real estate side of the risk. And you know, right now it's been challenging because for many years we were paying two and three percent on our debt, now we're paying seven, eight percent on our debt. So even though the properties are performing really well, some of our most of our properties are performing well, a lot of the free cash flow is getting eaten up by interest costs, whereas before it wasn't. So I think on the real estate side, it's mostly capital markets that really drive the risk, and that's economically driven by the Fed and other things that are happening in the world. Uh on the operating side of our hotel, the challenges also are impacted by the economy, right? You know, we're in the hotel business, we're in hospitality. So people are if they're traveling for leisure, it's disposable income, and where should I spend that money? Um corporate travel, also, right? Are court are people traveling for work? If they are, great. If they're not, obviously what's happened post-COVID with Zoom and Teams, a lot of things can happen without face-to-face travel. So the other things that impact us on the operating side are access to staff and employees, right? Um the can't you know the employee markets are pretty thin. It's hard to find people, right? Um and you know, providing good benefits and providing the things that people need to sustain themselves. Those things are becoming more and more expensive. So the challenges are different, and then you know, the and they're combined with each other.

Marc Bernstein: 21:58

By the way, I should mention the name of your company is called Scholar Hotels, and we didn't talk about why it's called that. Let's talk about that for a little bit. Well, so so and how that impacts because it puts you in a slightly different market than that. It does.

Gary Brandeis: 22:09

And and I think you know, when you look at the commercial real estate landscape, hotels have historically been considered the most risky type of investment. Because there's five types of real estate, commercial real estate classes. So you have office, commercial, real uh I'm sorry, office, industrial, multifamily apartments, retail, and hotel. And so four out of the five categories get their revenue from contracts or leases, right? So you sign a lease and you know what you're gonna get for the next year, two years, five years, even ten, fifteen years. In the hotel business, we we essentially get a one-night lease or a two-night lease, right? It's a little bit of a wacky acronym or cliche a bit. But but you can create more volatility, boo.

Marc Bernstein: 22:50

A lot of volatility.

Gary Brandeis: 22:51

You know, if I have a 100-room hotel, I have to sell over 100 rooms every night. And so and so traditionally it's been considered the most risky. Not as many people go into it. And then the operating business on top of it makes it even a little bit more risky, right? And so we looked at that business and said, well, how can we mitigate that risk? How can we reduce the risk? And so at the end of the day, if your property is in close proximity to a big demand generator, something that creates consistent and reliable demand for your hotel, then boy, that that's a way to mitigate risk and and reduce the the ups and downs of of the sales cycle. And so um I as a Penn State grad and spent time in Happy Valley, you know, that was a market that was starving for more hotels and hotel rooms. And so we took the leap and built a ground up $55 million development right in the downtown area across the street from campus. And and we opened that hotel in March of 17. And boy, that the impact of being next to a $10 billion uh public university hit us square in the head and said, wow, the the there's business. I mean, the business was crazy consistent. Um you know, it we were really busy at certain times of the year. But even when the I was gonna say it's a little seasonal, right? A little bit, but less than you think, right? When you have a when you have a major public university that has 50,000 students, a thousand clubs and organizations, division one athletics, um research and development, that particular market, I think.

Marc Bernstein: 24:16

All kinds of people visiting all the time. All kinds.

Gary Brandeis: 24:18

And I would tell you, if you look at any large public university in a small town, which is what that is, it's it's one of the most unique markets in the country. There's only 10 of them that you can really point to that have the same sort of demographic of small town with big public university, it it's it's a great it's a great opportunity. So we ended up investing a lot of money and and really sort of doubled down multiple times in that market to build the portfolio there that has a lot of staying power. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Marc Bernstein: 24:45

Specifically in state college.

Gary Brandeis: 24:47

Correct. But we have hotels in other college markets. But our goal is to own hotels and operate hotels that are in very close proximity to major colleges and universities, because one, we think it's just a good business idea, but it also mitigates a lot of risk. And we think because of the consistent and reliable revenue streams we get out of the university, that our hotels are worth more than a traditional hotel, meaning our income is more valuable than income from a traditional hotel.

Marc Bernstein: 25:12

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well, if you look at your your uh your cap rates, right, you I I would think they they're gonna be higher, right? Trevor Burrus, well, they're gonna be lower. Or lower, I mean lower.

Gary Brandeis: 25:20

And that's exactly right. So if I've got $10 million of income or net income from my hotel portfolio and they're all supported by major college universities, and you have another $10 million of income from another hotel portfolio, that's hotels randomly spaced out in in a in you know a few major markets, a few at the airport, a few downtown, a few in the suburbs, I would bet, I would make a bet that my income is more valuable by anywhere from 100 to 150 basis points.

Marc Bernstein: 25:48

So is that your is that your your when you look at your forward focus, is that is that going to be the focus going forward to the Aaron? It's definitely part of it. Yeah.

Gary Brandeis: 25:55

Yeah. And again, that's what the real estate side of the business is all about, right? Consistent consistent and reliable income that drives cap rates. Cap rates are risk, right? Lower risk, lower cap rates. So if there's lower risk in my revenue models, then I sh I deserve a lower cap rate.

Marc Bernstein: 26:13

Uh we we I'm gonna ask you about challenges, but you've talked a lot about the challenges as we've gone along. Let me ask you this. If this were three years from today, Carrie, and you're looking back at the last three years, what would have to happen for you and I if we're sitting there talking about it to for for you to feel that that was a successful three-year period in your business and your life, if you'd like.

Gary Brandeis: 26:33

So what we're trying to do now, Marc, is we're we're trying to take our university hotels, because we believe that those types of assets are what we call generational type assets. Meaning, you know, Penn State, as an example, you know, isn't gonna go out of business. The main campus, right? And that's topical for today, but uh, it's gonna continue to grow and and it's uh someone's not gonna move the main campus to somewhere else. So we believe that having these assets in close close proximity to this large public university, these are generational assets. So my goal over the next few years is to shift the capital structure of these assets out of sort of a traditional investor model and put it into what I call a perpetual capital bucket so that my company and myself can own these assets for a long, long period of time. Yeah. And and so shifting from you know, real estate investment funds with investor partners, family offices, high net worth individuals, things like that, to more of a retail investor model uh where I can have larger number of smaller investors that know that they're gonna be in these deals for a really, really long time. Nice. Uh that's sort of my plan for the next three years.

Marc Bernstein: 27:40

Of course, I I we'll have to ask you offline because we're out of time, but uh how how do you who continues to run that? You your succession plan you know for perpetual business.

Gary Brandeis: 27:49

Exactly. So as I get older, I'm looking for that. What's what happens next and who's gonna be running the company and who's gonna benefit from it?

Marc Bernstein: 27:56

Exactly. Uh well unfortunately, I think that's all we have time for today. So I was gonna ask you about legacy, but you just talked about it to a certain extent. So uh but we thank you all for being here this week on Founders Forum. And Gary, thanks for being here. Armon, thanks for being here, and uh thank you, Eric, for engineering, and we'll see you all next week.