Ladies and gentlemen welcome back to another SLD meet up your host Avaranudya to bring another successful and interesting guest in this case is also a disruptor in the real estate industry His name is Ben Bacal and he's the founder and owner of Rev. Real State with over four billion dollars salty real estate and also the reason I call him a disruptor is because he's also in the technology space and he founded an apical Ryla Which Forbes called the Instagram of real estate? He has done a lot of successful deals He's the celebrity agent for most of people in the lay Beverly Hills and now they're transitioning as well here in Miami So he's gonna tell us all about the technology and the back end of his business and how he has able to leverage all of that To become one of the most successful real estate agents not just in the US but in the world. There we go.
What's going on? This is so cool you do this Yes, of course, and it's always nice to speak with individuals like yourself Well, thank you so much for having me. What are you joining us from the Sanjilis? Beverly Hills Yeah, we're in Beverly Hills and Wilshire and And Elm here got beautiful office.
We moved in here over a year ago super excited amazing congratulations Look, I just had I mean when I was looking at everything that you've done It's unbelievable and the reason I call you one of not just the celebrity agents But also one of the disruptors in the industries because you've been always very heavy in technology while everybody is very traditional You're finding an angle to tapping to technology to become a disruptor and also help other agents to like attain a higher success So with your company rebel real estate take us back to some of that combination between the real estate and the technology Well, I guess it started in the early days of preaching that video is really important and I was like one of the first guys to put a drone through a house and in 2000 like it's actually like 2016 and I should know it's early in that 2014. Sorry, that makes sense and Yeah, we sold that house and we sold another one of his homes for 70 million and another one for 94 million But I was a big proponent of video and today I think everyone's really caught up to that that position that people should be shooting content and that they should be using social to promote themselves and you know, also get down to brass tacks and really Get out there and prospect because there's nothing better to than the meeting people in person and make forging great relationships and following up with people so you can close real estate It's very interesting. I like that because I mean in one hand we see technology that it's really taken off in all areas of life I'm out with chat GPT and everything else like everybody has to be telling us But then you're also using technology to put real estate back in the agents hands You have this as a riler and you've been doing all these different things So tell us a little bit on how can somebody that it's starting in real estate tap into what you've built To accelerate their career. Yes Real up Ryla which you can call it either one.
It's the it's ability if it gives agents or even consumers the ability to see content That they can't see anywhere else So if you're going on Zillow and Redfin and Trulia and you see the same 10 photos for the six months or a year This gives an agent an opportunity to be the Yelp of real estate and give them a different perspective So you can actually list homes in a matter of a couple minutes and post their perspective for better or for worse So that's what Rilla is and we have a website too It's willa.io and we're gonna be indexing everyone's content So we can promote their unseen footage that you can't see anywhere else on the web that when people are searching for listings They can see that listing as well. So that gets back to like my original thing back years ago I was like, you know, everyone shoot, you know, these POV videos of yourself walking through a property people really resonate towards that kind of content so that's what I did with that with the tech company and That's cool. There's like about 6,000 users on it and I'm always encouraging my my agents to get out there and be proactive and connect with as many Sellers as possible so they can post off-market properties. They can list on-market properties Whether that's on, you know, their TikTok or their Instagram or their Facebook That's always great branding.
You know, I'm like Jason Piedler is one of my agents It was my head of marketing every day where he's on here right now watching and and he gets a lot of deals from social, you know But Google's also great You know we implement like the Google display network and we're shooting videos and we're making sure those videos are being advertised and other people's videos So they show up but everyone's on everyone's glued to their phone these days So it's a great way to I mean you got to expose your you know, if you're listening you got to make sure that everyone is seeing it So we do heavy social campaigns Eat we do we do great email campaigns with very different messages a b testing various messages and we send out an email campaign Saying, you know, what would you buy this house for and then it got forwarded to a buyer and showing an ultra high net worth The house this week for 30 million and she wants me to go see her house to sell her house for 20 So that was email marketing email marketing has got a great response more even more so than social so you know It's interesting right? I mean I like that because at the end of the day you want to find an angle how you can engage with an audience Well, also bring in attention because attention is one of the strongest currencies that you're currently doing that over and over with different ways from tapping into technology But sometimes a lot of the ages that are in the space especially in the luxury space because look anybody that is listening I'm seeing you selling all these multi-million dollar properties and working with these celebrities You got to understand that it didn't start right away like that You started somewhere Where's it always finding a way to be a disruptor from the very beginning or you were trying to build those relationships first and then tapping into what you were doing? How do you start? Let's say tapping into that multi-million dollar segment.
I would say my disruption was that I worked Ten times I think I worked ten times harder than the regular agent simple as that What everyone put in potentially, you know, a couple hours prospector and during the day I woke up in the morning and I got out there I didn't stop door knocking or quill calling until until someone went down I didn't get off my phone until midnight I was just relentless in my pursuit of connecting to people to connecting to potential sellers You gotta get out there just work really really really really damn hard So that was my disruptive my disruptive ability was to get out there and connect and then yeah, and then Sorry, no, I'm saying like that's a great way to put it and summarize it right I got a lot of people think disruption comes from all these different forms and shapes And it also comes down to just how much and how bad you want it right like what's your work? I think and how much you work on it But I gotta ask you again because now we technology of all the way that it has evolved You think that working smarter than harder is more important and more important than ever I will say with technology the way that we have it today Well, I think it's that technology just enables us to do things faster to write emails faster to get the message our messages As to Saint, you know to get our branding out there faster, but as far as No Right now yes, I can work super hard and I can be 20 hours a day door knocking But now I feel like with technology and social media if I'm smarter and I'm able to leverage all of that Isn't it more important to understand what we have access to rather than just working hard without knowing what we have access to and accelerate the process? I think you have to be honest with yourself and chase the deals that you feel are genuinely have motivation to close and Someone's like a real seller or as opposed to someone who's like not really a seller So on you know or like a buyer running around with a buyer that you know has real financial intent So that's how you should manage your time and then the day personal relationships win And I know you're just you're trying to parallel it to like technology But I separate the two hundred percent I don't think you can just sit at home and be in a computer or just do like videos and shoot content and be an influencer I think you have if you want to do that It's got a supplement also making for a lot of making personal connections And if you can make personal connections just on insta on doing a video with somebody so be it But most people are really busy and to catch their attention Just like you said attention is like so valuable these days how do you get someone's attention? You probably have to meet them a person and engage with them and look at them face to face because anyway If you're at a restaurant and you're on a you're with your friend how terrible is it when they're on their phone you feel very offended right?
Yeah, so they people really you know like that coveted personal touch is super important And I pride myself on making that connection with my clients and making them feel like they can talk to me 24-7 I'm always there to answer questions and I'm super focused on them And that's what I find hard about my business is because I have a handful of great clients and it's where I prioritize my clients and And for me, it's it's if they're really serious and committed and then I'm 10 times as committed as they are to take top and Through their real estate journey. So let's talk about time management because you talked about a really important point You're giving your attention. You're giving your time. You're giving your energy towards all these sellers And you're not just a new agent around the blog You're one of the top brokers in the world and you work with some of the most incredible people that are the other day They can be very demanding and how do you manage to keep everybody happy and to have full attention in every once requests?
Because you have a lot of listening and a lot of clients that you have to fulfill their needs. So how do you manage that? It's for me It's my team and having you know My lady that runs my show here Tory say hello I probably would have it would be disaster, but I got to write I got to care and I got Andy and I got all my marketing team that That are able to You know They're able to help me time time management my own time management also the business So it's having a great team not just yourself and being able to delegate and then using tools like you know see the right CRM's and the right marketing plans and executing on you know time tasks and having various people execute on tasks and Reminding each other of where focus needs to be Yes, I like it. What's a good team?
Well, I'm lucky. I'm also a pretty good I'm a good leader because my talent's been with me for decades and they haven't left so that's a good side, right? But yes, you don't let it go. That's good That's a lot of great talent out there's these days you know the tech companies are laying off a lot of their a lot of their engineers because things are changing with AI and There's just tremendous talent out there.
I think you just have to ask the right questions and and higher higher slow fire fast and You know if someone is you know giving you the wrong answer, you know, they're not dedicated then they're not They shouldn't be part of the team They just you know I think also as a leader you have to you know make make it make your make your people that you're working with feel like There's light at the end of the tunnel and they're not just working for a salary to like they're a part of something That's bigger and that they're gonna be financially rewarded at the end of this and they that's that's important And you know you were mentioning about Jason and this is a friend of mine and the way I got to know you or know about you was to Jason And he was speaking so highly about you. So Jason's I think that All kind warm-hearted guy and he he's so dedicated to his sellers. It's a man It's beautiful and buyers beautiful to see that his communication That's super important communication and feedback and he does all of that and more and then his marketing is amazing We just said he's doing a deal right now in Mandevo Canyon. It's gorgeous and the Tesla robot commercial Leverage that whole scene and we literally got a man from what we got in New York Post New York Times We we had a PR tackle that story and then because of that he's gotten like millions of impressions I mean just the campaign that we did by leveraging our PR He probably got hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of worth of earned media I thought that was so clever it's a smart one.
Yeah, we got lucky on that one, but you know There's no gimmicks here, you know, it's just hard work and making it happen and using you know great tools like chat TTP to figure out your your business plan and then at the end of the day if you're not out there executing in your plan with the right team and Being you know very focused on what you need to do every day prospecting a little bit of branding and using some of your income to promote yourself And using think I mean what you've sold to put back into the business and do postcards and you know retargeting and video ads and social ads and Display ads and doorknobging and calling and the right team It's it's all of that just working harder than anybody else and saying super focused and being nice and presentable and make sure you wear You know that you're doing every day You know we're offensive you know we're offensive do you order to because that's terrible? I don't wear it. I don't wear it. I don't wear it.
I don't wear it. We're a nice clone. Maybe they don't like you Yeah, exactly just because well if you have to be smell hey listen sometimes the little details This won't matter here, but if you have to go back to your younger self and you're studying all over What will you tell us the younger Ben? What would I tell me younger than?
Like the things I mess up on or the things I did my other guys You know younger than I'm proud of myself to say I did the right things I was relentless in my in my in my mission to meet as many salaries as possible the younger Ben would have told The older Ben would tell the younger Ben to put all those leads in a better CRM to follow up with people and to market to those people Insistently like in using my brand to continue connections with all those people and that's where a lot of things fell for the crack So that simple message I would tell that person to do that to put that put all of your leads in great pipeline and market to them appropriately over the years Otherwise, I'm so important. I love that by the way because it is so critical Your network is your network and sometimes we meet incredible people that we talk for a few times We might even work with them and then we don't follow up again. We don't know what they're standing So it's a great piece of advice My company that's different than all these other companies is we pride ourselves on coaching and teaching our agents to And keep them accountable of what they need to be doing every single day in order to keep that pipeline going So in 10 years, you know We don't have this problem that I'm talking about and that you have your business and people are calling you to do real estate To sell to to to to to transact So that's really powerful and we do that and and lots more But I'm really here for all my agents and in all my my leadership around me understands that message as well So we're constantly reinforcing that that message and I think it resonates and because of it my companies We're we're year one and line here a lot of companies are there not profitable and they're doing layoffs and We're slowly moving forward and we have a very startup mentality. I like to work at adaptive and relentless You know you got to be fast things are changing quickly in this world Well, this is what I see that the DNA of your business is all about It's about how to adapt how to you know come up with all the different things that you can implement on and be Disruptory in the industry, but it's something that you mentioned that it's very important I really like you said my mission to meet as many sellers as possible such two things having a mission first of all It's critical a lot of people getting to real estate and they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, let's make money Let's let's do something you had a clear mission Yeah, I put them into my phone is that's what I use my CRM for you know I use my phone to CRM and then I created a technology rilla you can download in the app store It's rilla.io Real social real estate, but it's actually a visual CRM So you can actually run around the city and you can if you can go to open houses You can create a visual listing of that property even if it's not your listening could be someone else's Yeah, it's cool because these listings expire and if they don't sell they're like, oh, I took a photo I was in that home.
I saw that home. I see my photo and it has a price and everything so it's actually really cool for agents to use right now But yeah, it's it's important to get out there and meet sellers. Yeah, that was important. Is your mission the same or has changed over time?
It's my mission to create as many amazing relationships as possible and and whether I've sold them a house I Would I still remain you know in contact with them? So if they need help with you know with the value of their home with any home equity evaluations or you know projecting where they want their real estate portfolio to look like in five years from now I can talk about that if that's multifamily if that's commercial and diversifying and leveraging their position in 1031 exchanges and You know the tax benefits of moving your tax moving your moving your basis if you buy something and and leveraging You know, I like all this act of to make to make things work for you Golden follow-up rule always that value. I like that I mean, honestly a lot of people don't know how to follow up And that's where everything falls to the cracks and people complain off people complain. Oh my god I know why is loyal here.
So not that nobody's loyal is that they forget about you There's a lot of people in the industry how you become relevant is by constantly being in front of them by adding value And this is what you just talked about so it's pretty cool. Yeah, exactly But bring people value don't just ask them for business for give them something I'm not or actually trying to talk about real estate just you know Maybe you're never gonna sell real estate I'm just be a kind person just connect with people and be cool Maybe that person is more to sell real estate But he has a friend that does because they like you and they're gonna introduce you to a friend So he's the right builder as well. I was about like closing a deal or meeting somebody It's just you know, I look you know what I like and the conversation by saying this I love this business because I meet some of the most amazing entrepreneurs on the planet and and The conversations I have I often I'm quiet when I'm with my clients I like to hear them talk because they're just brilliant in themselves And it's so incredible that I can even sometimes have five minutes to hear what they have to say and just to be in their presence That's gonna it's gonna pull like one-on-one with like a guy So they're coming for four billion dollars and or even like even a hundred even ten million dollars How they succeeded and what they did and you can learn from that. So yeah, it's it's pretty cool I love that you've got an intonulation of someone's if you lose a deal You don't want to break our break a relationship You don't want to like you know, I said about it because the reason why they didn't go with you We don't own clients they go wherever they want to go But they're loyal to guys like us because we're we're they know that we have integrity and we're gonna be we're committed to them So we appreciate their commitment back to us.
So all that is something you say something really cool there about listening as a superpower Because we often see a lot of people in this industry with high egos. So they go and they just want to talk and then you know I'm the guy that here. This is what you do And this is what you should be thinking on and you listen about what it works for some people We won't we talk at people, but I think most people will be heard, right? So yeah, so last question.
What is luxury to you? Luxury which look like that luxury real estate. There's a word luxury in general. What does it mean to you?
It means I guess it for me it means wearing being having something of Value that you That you I guess you get what luxury means me I guess it's it's a feel materialistic to say luxury is something that you work really hard to attain. It's it's um You know, it's at the you know, I drive a Bentley and that's very luxury It's luxurious because all the stitching of it took was handmade by somebody So it luxury is what it takes time for a craftsman to create and that's usually not done by like a robot or anything It's like the way you connect to something right and it feels good to be in it or to hold it or pan bag That's that's built beautifully in a home that has that's a curated stones and bespoke stuff. It's very hard to get that's luxury Yeah, 100% I agree with you and you know, just positioning myself in your shoes saying that it's so true So I appreciate you saying that I've heard all sorts of answers. So it's pretty cool Yeah, it's like a bit you buy painting you can tell if it's even a painting because it's not luxury No, like it's like in a sense it's luxury to have a luxury to buying a really great artist and having that in your in your house Right, yeah, as opposed to like a something from CB2 that was just you know whipped up quickly You can tell the difference, you know great great photographer It's got an amazing guy.
That's a luxury to have that right or you know And also like food look at air one everyone like me like food fancy you walk into the store And it's like you know in your city has the same kind of like these awesome grocery stores and that feels it feels luxury Just being in it. But also luxury is also great customer service also We're part of that you know luxury luxury service and just being Adaptive in and available all the time But all the time understanding with what what what their clients want at a luxury level for selling property You have to be very concise about what they want and really understand them If you don't understand what they want like I'm going out with a client to see some to see homes tomorrow and You know they've been telling me I want you know 35 million. I was asked my bike to 3545 And then I got a sense that they want to see more luxury something better So I said look I think we can you do a five minutes to get on the phone? I just want to make sure I get this right so I was a good phone good text message ready got on the phone and we went through and like I don't want to show you the 65 million dollar home tomorrow and Your partner turns to me back and didn't like they were not buying house for 65 I mean even though they could totally afford that so you just have to pay and understand and learn the nuances of what they want So when you're out there looking for homes, you're not wasting their time and then and you know exactly what they want And that way you don't show them everything all over the city you can pinpoint where you where you want to go.
Yeah, right? No, great I think that's an advice that the rest of it's well with everybody I mean time is luxury So you want to be efficient and respectful with everyone's time including your own time So the more the diligence that you do and the more that you ask the better that the time spent with those individuals will be so greatly set And I know that you're in your business. Let's leave up. What are you doing in your business?
Well, we are leveraging all sorts of relationships to celebrities themselves Multimedia our home so the whole idea is to create unique experiences within the properties with individuals like yourself and other luxury figures celebrities influencers and Well, this weekend we have another wellness retreat so all about wellness and all sorts of different things that we can bring into properties Make them famous and provide something that people will remember for the rest of the lectures you create experiences around properties. Yeah, yeah That's an as an event their events Yeah, we do different wow factor events that people will remember and that it will have a positive impact in everyone's life So we do that properties that are for sale whether it's our own listening or listening that we work with other brokers And yeah, we have a lot of fun doing that and then you bring sponsorships into it. Yeah Yeah, it's just just based in Miami. No, I mean we do a lot in Miami But we do all around the country and even internationally But you should call I would like to do an event with you here if we can figure out how to make it charitable also give a terrible You know, that always feels good.
Yeah, so we'll talk about that 100% you Marking my name is hopefully the really big listing and pretty excited about it So maybe we'll do team up on that. That'll be fantastic Because you know, we're in Miami. Yeah, I just want to imagine that yeah, so anything that we can support with here in Miami Let us know so let's do some business together. Let's let's you've got some and see if we can do some Some furniture or some sales or some collaborations with some events at my properties I mean I can run some PR around it too and let's share contact with each other and emails and so forth Yeah, well for anybody that wants to connect with you or wants to work or collaborate What's the best way to get it?
I think they can email me Ben at Rebel Real Estate is a good way to do that. They can also download the Ben Bocala States, which is my Instagram hey Johnny and And then real out you if you want to download the real app I have a map you can direct message me on real as well People to download the app and run around Miami and create listings. So yeah, let's do that. It's really easy We're gonna add batch uploading right now.
You can like upload one photo at a time So yeah, there's a little video problem we're having right now, but we're gonna fix that sounds good Thank you. Thank you so much. We'll stay touch. Thank you.
Bye for now. Ciao And thanks again for everybody tuning in today. We hope you enjoyed it and remember embrace it's beautiful success in life My name is Alvaro and I'll see you next time