Your job title should never limit what you do to best serve your clients.
A sound piece of advice from Michael Chase, the managing director of the Boston regional office for NorthMarq, which provides capital solutions for commercial real estate owners.
It’s lessons like that that he first learned as a kid in the family business… and then later at a small real estate firm. These are places where the company culture encourages problem-solving, taking responsibility, suggesting a company-wide change that could have a positive impact, and doing whatever needs to be done to keep the business thriving.
He found the same philosophy in his current position and added something else: It’s key to understand your client’s business plan and needs and then structure the best capital for their investments.
We get into all the details on that, as well as…
- What an early mentor taught him that changed his career
- The traits he looks for in his clients (he doesn’t take just anybody)
- Parts of a real estate loan’s structure that many borrowers ignore at their peril
- The true value of win-win deals
- And more
Listen now…
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Jay Sparks: Hello, this is Jay Sparks your host of Finding Unique Value where I interview business leaders that have found unique value in their business or industry that others have not yet seen or explored. And we’re excited to be joined today by Michael Chase, who is a managing director at NorthMarq in Boston’s regional office. NorthMarq is a commercial real estate equity provider. And while NorthMarq Michael has been involved in closing transactions worth over $2 billion for a variety of different types of clients, which is really incredible. Many of these firms tend to be very, very specific in who they serve. And the commercial lending world is very competitive, and it’s very commodity. So I’m very interested in learning from Michael, how he provides value and how he sees value in this very crowded marketplace. So welcome to the podcast, Michael. It’s great to be speaking with someone that’s as accomplished as you are.
Michael Chase: Well, Jay, thank you for having me joining me today. I really appreciate it.
Jay Sparks: Great, great. Well, could you take a minute because I, you and I’ve had a, you know, a couple of conversations? So I’m a little bit more aware of your background than most but could you just take a minute and just, you know, introduce yourself and let us know your background so you have a little better idea of the kind of skills and experiences that you’re bringing to your firm?
Michael Chase: Sure, not a problem. Again, I’m Michael Chase of NorthMarq I’m the managing director or co-Managing Director of the Boston regional office for NorthMarq. And NorthMarq is the largest privately held commercial capital intermediary in the country headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We have 36 offices all over the country with Boston being one of them. And I’ve been in the business for 20 years. I started at a company that was based here in Boston called New England Realty Resources. And that company was acquired by NorthMarq in 2012. And I came along with that acquisition.
So I’ve been involved in commercial real estate finance for 20 years. And I think that I bring value to my clients by helping to structure their capital requirements, debt, and equity that fits their business plan. I don’t want to use a cookie-cutter approach or put a, you know, a round peg into a square hole. I really try to understand my clients’ business plan and structure the right capital to fit that plan.
Jay: Just saying well, I’m interested that you have two major things. One, you’ve been doing this for 20 years for essentially the same company, right? Because they got bought over and everything retained. Everyone’s together working in the same chair. Yeah. So that’s extraordinarily rare. These days, right. It was much more common many years ago. What is the secret from your perspective to be able to do that because you know, having a turnover or bouncing around is difficult sometimes as needed to get different experiences? And obviously you haven’t had to do that you stayed with one place and you continually moved up and gain more experience and more responsibility. So how was your standpoint? What were the secrets of being able to do that?
Michael: Sure. Thank you for asking. So the first I would say from my perspective, it was just having a great group of people to work with my former mentor who was the owner of New England Realty Resources and in sold in NorthMarq his name was Jim Murphy. And he was a former head of the Mortgage Bankers Association, a trade group that’s very prevalent in the commercial capital markets. He was just a great person to work on the rest of the team, both at New England Realty and then subsequently with NorthMarq have just been outstanding to work with such a great cultural fit that I never felt the need to go through. See if the grass is going to be greener on the other side of the fence because the grass always seemed pretty green on my side of the fence. So that will be the one thing and I think people have kept me around because I hopefully provide value. I’m always happy to pitch in, do more, willing to answer questions for folks. And never really felt that your job title or job description should limit you have always looked to see what else can I do, both in the company and then outside the company for my clients as well.
From New England Realty to NorthMarq
Jay: It’s interesting. So you Right, right from day one, it sounds like you’ve taken the set, right? You’re trying to figure out how to how-to, you know, make things work and make them better and taking responsibility for your results. And you were allowed to do that. Also, right? And some organizations you’re not allowed to take that approach. Right? You need to do what you’re told. And that’s kind of it sounds like this culture well, one aspect of it anyway is, is giving you responsibility to make decisions, was that the case right from when you started? Or did that evolve over time?
Michael: That very much that is very much the case. So, I guess a little bit more about my background. I got exposed to business as a paperboy, way back when I was in high school, and you kind of run your own business in that aspect. And then I had a, I grew up in a family business. My family had an optics shop, based in Boston. And when you’re part of a family business, you get exposed to all different aspects of you, you know, you’re growing up, but you’re going and you’re helping your parents. You’re putting mailing labels on to things you’re helping to package things up. You’re sweeping the floors, doing those types of things, anything you do to help than ever graduated when I joined doing when realty resources was a small independently owned mortgage banking firm in While I was learning the capital markets, I was helping with it doing marketing, bookkeeping, office management, and all that, you know, that willingness to go off, you know, outside of my job description came from, you know how I grew up and being part of a family business where you had to do everything. And Jim Murphy at New England Realty really fostered that he was willing to let you get involved and learn whatever you wanted to learn and do whatever you could do to help.
And then at NorthMarq, while it’s a national company. It’s very much a small business field, especially at the regional office level, they allow autonomy at the regional office. While there is an overall corporate culture, each of the offices do have their own personalities and you are able to, again, they allow you the freedom to go beyond your job description and help out in any way you can be involved in different committees within the organization to provide a voice for other people in the organization to share your expertise with others in the organization. So, always trying to pitch in wherever possible.
Jay: Now that’s fascinating. So it sounds like, you know, from a leadership perspective, right, they wanted people like you. And a great result of good leadership is they create more leaders. So you, you sound like you start with a great kind of a great baseline based on your family business experience, but you’re able to grow it within this industry. That’s that’s really, that’s really fascinating, because a lot of organizations that you’re not allowed to do that you really have to leave, if you want to take on more responsibility or make different decisions so that that’s great that they allow someone like self to stay, but why didn’t you stay in your family business? Because that would have been a natural step for the same reason that you stayed in this current business, right? Because you knew it. I’m sure you could have, you know, run it well. Was that not something that you even considered or was it just not, you know, not really We have a great opportunity for you?
The Choice To Leave The Family Business
Michael: Sure, thank you that’s a good question. So when you grow up in the family business, you’ve kind of keep an eye on well, am I going to be the next generation? You know, do I want to take this over? And my parents after they receive the… they took the business or from my grandfather, who so my parents were this third generation of a family business, but the nature of the business, it was an optics, binoculars, telescopes and some weather equipment, but it’s really a luxury item. And for a small shop, it’s a very market, cyclical industry or business. So, you know, when there’s a downturn in the market, you don’t you know, you have to buy food, you have to buy clothing, but you don’t have to buy a telescope. And I don’t think at the time, it was the mid-90s when I was the one I was graduating, you know getting close to graduating out of college, and then I believe there was a downturn at that time and the business had taken on some debt. And I realized that, you know, even before Amazon came onto the scene, it was going to be a need for scalability, that we didn’t have it at that time. So I think it was a decision for all that. Maybe the family business had done a good job and supporting our family to that point, but probably wasn’t going to be the best, best suited going forward. So I went off into a different direction was but went to business school, and study finance and ultimately real estate finance. And that’s where I found my niche.
Jay: Excellent. Now, is the family business still running or did they sell it and move on to something else?
Michael: It ultimately did close, yes.
Jay: Got it. Okay.
Interesting. That’s always a dilemma for family businesses, right, what to do next. Right. So you know, the other thing that you mentioned that is is interesting that is it? I don’t know anybody, any successful person that I’ve studied that do it by themselves, right, and you’re no exception with the mentor the persona you mentioned, Jim, Jim Murphy, how did that? How did you recognize him? And how did you? You know, I know once I get him, but you know, how did that, you know, the ability to be mentored by someone who’s very experienced and sounds like he’s a good fit for you. How did that come about? Because everyone’s looking for that but it’s very hard to find and to foster.
Michael: Right. Sure. I would say some of it is luck. I interned with New England Realty Resources and Jim Murphy’s company. There’s my senior year in college. I was studying finance at BU, and the majority of my classmates were going to be more looking towards heading down in New York and joining some of the big financial firms down there. And I just thought that you know, Being another stock or bond analyst seemed like such a herd mentality. So I was lucky enough to get a part-time job with knowingly Realty and with Jim. And that gave kind of that, that trial period. They got to like me, I got to like them and they hired me after graduation and after that, it was all just a matter of hard work, being willing to learn. He took me under his wing and us kind of went from there and it was I couldn’t have asked for a better mentor. And hopefully, he was a that he had some pretty good health which allowed him to, you know, get a few more rounds of golf every year.
Jay: Absolutely. So how did that initially start because you’re doing the work so you’re having conversations and obviously he valued you enough that he, you know, he hired you and gave you responsibility, but how did the kind of the extra piece happen? Did you go to him and ask him to Mother things is he sees the potential in you and proactively kind of come to you and give you some, some thoughts of his? Or how did that how that works?
Michael: I think that’s one of the beauties of a small business is there, you don’t have this large hierarchy where you have to climb your way up to get face time with the head of an organization. You’re talking about a one-office operation where everybody’s door was open. And Jim was very much a mentor open to teaching himself as an educator. And he recognized in me, hopefully, someone that would add value to his business. So as I grew and learned and asked him more and more questions, and he imparted upon me, some of his knowledge, it was great because as a young version, you’re going out there and pretty technically alive. You know, I’m working on my spreadsheets and my financial models. Jim could get out of a car, look at a building and go. Yeah, that’s probably worth about $12 million. And I would turn to him and say how do you know that? I’d go back, I’d spend an hour and a half running all the income and expense statements. And wouldn’t you know, it would come in at 11,000,960? Do you know?
Jay: Sure. Experience counts for a lot. Right.
Michael: Exactly, exactly.
Jay: Yeah. But can you both right, so you know, the kind of the, you know, the, you can show the math, right, and you now I’m sure starting to develop that intuition. So you can tell if the math says one thing, the intuition says something else, you need to double-check things, which is, which is very valuable. So this is fascinating. So you really do have a lot of the things that, you know, I see from very successful entrepreneurs, even though you’re not necessarily the business owner, you’ve been acting like it since before you were there, which is really valuable.
So that’s, you know, all So something that, that business owners and executives should be looking for people that haven’t experienced it that you have, because you can’t teach that mindset, right? You showed up with that already. And Jim and his rest of the team kind of helped process that’s great. But if you’re looking for, you know, you know, borrowers or business partners, what types of things are you looking for? Like what are the best kind of people for you, for you and NorthMarq to work with?
Who Does NorthMarq Work With?
Michael: Well, we’re looking for clients who are looking to leverage us to get to structure the best capital for their deal, those who understand that they’re not in the business of the day in day out, putting together their capital structure. I kind of think about Tim Wakefield, who’s, and as you may know, he’s a former longtime knuckleball pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.
And yes, this day, every time I take the mound, half the stadium thinks they can throw the knuckleball and the other half thinks they can hit it.
Jay: Yeah.
Michael: And a lot of times when it comes to when you say I put together with dead equity for commercial real estate, you have people go, you put you’re going to help me find a loan? Well, I’ve gotten a loan for my house. I know what alone is I know how to borrow money. Can I go and do that myself? I’ve got you know, if you’re there a successful business person, they probably have some banks who call on them and they may have some banking relationships have had for a while. But still, if you’re not in the business just doesn’t I’m not in every other type of industry day in day out, develop that expertise that that broader view of the capital markets. That’s what we want. We want a client who is looking to work with the right professionals who are going to work to understand their business plan, and put together a capital structure that will best be best suited for their transaction and for their overall goals.
Jay: So that’s a really good point because, unfortunately, Wall Street, you know, preys on people that are uninformed or misinformed, right? Their job isn’t to inform you, their job is to make money. And that doesn’t always result in a win-win type of scenario. And it sounds like that’s what you’re looking for, you’re looking to help. So what mistakes do you see business owners making that maybe are over overly reliant on somebody may be more basic relationships who say, hey, I need X amount of money and they get it at a certain rate? And that’s really it and there is no context there is no looking at options. There is no kind of discussion that you’re describing. How does that hurt you know, the borrower?
Michael: Sure. I think when you’re talking about debt in particular, you’re most people start off focusing on how much do I want to borrow and at what rate and they focus on their loan amount and their and their interest rate. And so they can focus on those two basic aspects of alone, that they miss the other very important parts of a deal structure that can be a detriment for them down the line. So, when I sit down with a client, I want to know, what is your What are your plans for the future? How long are you looking at, to hold this asset? Are you going to be looking to develop the property further?
Are you envisioning handing this off to your children? Now, what stage of your business career are you? And you can, if you have if you answer some simple questions on front, you can place a client with the right capital provider because there are a myriad of capital providers out there between life insurance companies, banks, CMVS, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the agencies for multifamily deals, pension funds, and all of them have a little a niche in are a better fit for certain business plan. So, and also there are times in a market cycle where one source of capital will have an advantage over another.
For example, earlier this year, I would have advised clients that if they want to lock in long term fish raised money, life companies are certainly a way to go. And then as the year progressed, with the way interest rates were moving, banks came on and became very, very competitive. So then I was, you know, advising clients to start looking at bank financing. So if you’re only working with one lender or one or one type of capital, you can sometimes miss those other advantages and opportunities in the market. Or you might be missing out on potential structures, a 20 year fixed rate opportunity that a lot of companies can do, that banks really aren’t able to do as well. Or very open prepayment flexibility that the bank can give you. That might not be available from a CMVS or a Wall Street transaction.
Jay: Sure, sure so that’s like going to a captive agent versus someone that is more of a broker and has many different relationships and knows how each of them operates. Yeah, that’s something that is definitely amiss.
So how would… Are you working primarily with business owners or institutions? Or is there a mix? I mean how did how does that like from your from who you’re actually talking to directly? How is what does that look like?
The Right Mix of Clients
Michael: Sure, great question. It is certainly a mix. My client base ranges from retail and institutional funds, who are looking at Real Estate strategies down to people who are just starting out. The person who bought their first three families was living in one unit is gotten a taste for A real estate investor and now wants to look to grow. I want to, I want to help them get as much as I want to help the large fund because someday, that person who starts out with two units could become the next national multifamily owner. So, you know, I want to help give them advice. Now, I might not be the best fit for them today. But I can point them in the right direction, I can give them some, some free advice for now. And hopefully, they will come back to me later on. It’s really a matter of taking a big-picture approach, which I like to think that I do throughout that’s really my business philosophy is taking a big-picture approach to things.
Jay: You know, it’s obvious it’s serving you very well. So, how do you switch and compensate a little bit? How does like the length someone may be holding the property affect what you what type of structure, you would use?
Michael: Sure, the most simple one is just the term of the loan, you could do a shorter-term loan, you can do a long term deal. For example, as I’m working with a family group who knows I’m buying this asset we’re planning on putting it away and holding it forever. And we want to manage our interest rate risk. We think that today is a pretty attractive rate environment. So we just want to fix it in but we know we’re not going to be looking to sell it, we’re not going to do anything with it, then we can place them on a 20 or even 30 year fixed rate loan. And that that will fit them at the same point, though, I will want to advise them that even though I’m going to put you into a 20 or 30 year fixed rate deal, there are going to be periods in the future where someone might want to be able to tap that equity that’s built up in a building that appreciates. There could be times when there are tax advantages to doing a refinance because there’s a crossover point on an amortizing loan, it becomes a point You’re paying down more principal than the interest, and you lose some of the tax benefits of the interest right off. So at that decision point, and at that point, you want to maintain flexibility because the law in general, when you do a longer-term fixed-rate deal, the lender is counting on that interest return. They’re offering you that long term. They’re not doing it out of the kindness of their hearts. There, they’re doing it because they’re trying to match up a liability on their balance sheet. And oftentimes, it comes with stricter prepayment penalties. So how can we structure a loan so that the flexibility is still maintained, while still offering the client what they need now for someone as a short term owner, maybe they don’t even need a fixed rate deal in this current environment where we’re seeing the Fed make rate cuts, maybe floating-rate deal is the best fit for someone whose business plan isn’t for more than a year or two.
So why put them into a 5 or 10 year fixed rate, financing structure, when there might be something that’s a better option for them?
Jay: For sure. And that’s where taking the bigger picture and getting the context helps, right? Because if you didn’t know that you wouldn’t necessarily talk about larger prepayment penalties on that larger loan. But if you’re just trying to sell the loan, just gonna sell it and if they say yes, you kind of have conversations over so it takes a little bit longer on your end. But you know, people eventually do find out these things quickly with the money that you’re you’re working with, so I can see where your clients are so loyal. Now, do you have? Do you have any? Do you have any, I guess opinions on directions of industries or do any of your clients with that enter into this conversation at all?
Michael: Absolutely. There’s that’s always at the forefront of a lot of conversations because it will determine when they’re looking to act as they want to act earlier or later. Is I often tell my clients, if I knew exactly where interest rates were going, then I wouldn’t have to talk to them.
Jay: It’s like if you think rates are going to stay low, right, then, you know, the adjustable rate isn’t necessarily a crazy idea for someone who has, you know, a longer-term horizon that you can always, you know, refinance into a fixed rate. But I don’t know if you advise doing that, if that’s a smart strategy, or if it really is like we were saying earlier, you know, case by case basis.
Michael: That’s correct. So we do try to have a feel for the direction of interest rates, at least in the short term in terms of maybe six to 12 months. So in the current environment, while rates can always go, I mean, as we’ve seen over the just over the past five days, the 10 year Treasury has gone up 20 basis points. That’s certainly a short term movement, but overall is still a rate that’s below 2%. So when I’m advising a client who might be looking to exited deal. And the next uh you know, value-added reposition deal over the next 18 months. We tried to, you know, take that into consideration. What is the likelihood that this rate is going to bounce up over 3% over 5%?
And, you know, how do we manage that risk? So, yes, we can fix in a deal we can fix in a rate if it makes sense as if this is an opportunity to do so. We can also talk about floating rate deals with maybe some hedging, you know, maybe there’s a cap or a collar that can be used to give you the benefit of a floating rate deal. The law you some of the benefits of rates continue to drop, but also protect you as rates rise. So there are a lot of different strategies that can be implemented.
And if you’re asking me about what is the near term view, I think in general, the near term view is that rates are probably going to be within a fairly low band You know, probably not shooting the 10 year Treasury not going too far, you know, above three for the near term because people are just very much concerned about the economic outlook over the next 12 to 18 months. So they’re still kind of waiting to see what’s going to happen. And there’s a lot of also global capital flows. You have a, you know, $18 trillion of negative interest rate out there. that money’s got to go somewhere. And while a 1.9% 10 years Treasury seems like a pretty short yield to Americans, that looks like a great yield if you’re looking at a negative 10-year interest rate in Germany.
Jay: Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah
Michael: So on our own domestic bond rates, almost have a cap to them just by the global flow of funds. So trying to understand you know, those aspects of the market and how they might influence our rates. That’s what we try and how we try to advise our clients.
Jay: Oh, that makes sense so so for business owners or like the real estate investor that you example you used earlier what mistakes Do you see them making? See them needing your knowledge more than kind of your institutional for lack of a better word clients could they they want you to know, your access and you know, kind of your idea to kind of look at different particular structures and sources but but I gotta think like that person that owns three families, they really need your counsel. Because they don’t, they probably have some relatively limited options, but if you picked the wrong one, it’s going to hurt them a lot more. So what mistakes you see people making that you know, print, start taking out a loan that’s, you know, less than $5 million.
Michael: One of the common mistakes might be how much leverage they think they may need. If you over leverage your property, I mean, leverage can be a very good thing. It can help growth happen quicker just because you have a greater availability of capital. So you can either invest in different things or you can buy more property, then you might be able to if you just use your own cash, you can certainly help to improve your returns. And there are tax benefits to it over if used on wisely or structured and appropriately, then, you know, if you over-leveraged then you create a risk. If there is a downturn, you know, you have three-unit multifamily. That’s not the same as 50 units or 100 units. So one of those goes dark for an extended period of time. If you’re over-leveraged, that could impact you, you might, you know, you might lose that property is you’re not looking to be in that property forever. You’re looking to kind of build up a small portfolio then looking to sell, you might have structured your portfolio or your loan in such a way that you don’t have the prepayment flexibility to get out when you Want to get out? You might be giving away guarantees personal guarantees in a deal, you know, and that’s some of the trade-offs in terms of leverage and personal recourse, that we sit down and we talked to bars about how much do you want to be on the hook? And would you know, do you really need those extra dollars to put yourself personally liable? Or would you rather maybe borrow a little less, but then relieve yourself from that risk of being personally liable?
Jay: I know signing off by you know, or giving personal guarantees is something that most people don’t want to do for, for obvious reasons. What types of is it just the type of loan you’re saying is can you can help with that? Or is it more how the structure is the setup? It can limit them.
Michael: It’s generally how the structure is set up. If you’re telling me if a client comes in and says I want nonrecourse financing, then I can give them a The general parameters of what it would take to get non-recourse financing. I had a client come into me the other day and said, you know, myself and a couple of buddies were putting together a partnership group, we want to go invest in some multifamily properties. We just saw an OM from a broker, an investment offering memorandum. For those who might not be familiar on a property down in and Louisville. We’d like to borrow 75% with a couple of years IO. And the question, my first question was, okay, are you looking to avoid personal guarantees? Are you willing to provide some personal guarantees? And they said, Well, we would prefer non-recourse financing. So then, of course, that led to a certain direction, which means you’re probably not gonna be able to borrow from a live company. And you may not be able to borrow from a bank without some limited guarantees, but you could be may potentially be a fit for an agency execution. Then I talked a little bit more about Fannie Mae, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac financing, but also gave them the warning that as new investors, they’re going to need to come up with ways to meet their sponsorship and experience requirements for those types of lenders. So the conversation kind of leads you to different capital sources and different loan structures.
Jay: So are you seeing more now you see, you know, more Real Estate Buyers like what you just described or is or do you actually also see you know, business owners that have no property attached to their business and aren’t real estate people that need somebody to help them navigate the kind of the industry?
Michael: Sure, I think we see it in a different direction and several different directions. Certainly there are a lot of young investors who are looking to get into real estate and typically the initial entry point is multifamily. They again, they start off with that smaller property there they’re living in the one unit renting out a couple of There’s the get a taste for it and then they move up and get into more multifamily. And then at some point, they realize they don’t want to be answering a phone call at 4 am fix the busted pipe so then they might move into a different type of asset class and away from multifamily into retail or office or something else. In terms of business owners, we see it go in both directions. We see certainly some business owners make the decision of well I need capital for my business and I’m not really a real estate owner. So then maybe I’m going to sell the real estate into a sale-leaseback and that will help me you know, provide some more capital for my business. And then there are others who feel that the real estate’s a good asset.
They don’t want to be beholden to a landlord so they like to own their facilities. And then over time, we often see the transition of a business a family business that was operating in one asset but they own all their real estate and then maybe assembly in the future. They sell the business and then become real estate owners.
Jay: Interesting. Yeah, I see people going, going both ways like it, like you’re saying you’re leaving kind of the real estate and or going into depending on what stage of life they’re in and what their experience has been. And you can help them on, you know, the whole way which is, which is great.
Michael: And so that is also going to be impacted by regulatory changes that may happen, tax advantages, you know, whether or not you know, a certain right off or local is going to allow them, you know, is going to make it more or less beneficial to own or least we have an accounting change coming up. That is going to be impacting the real estate industry in terms of leases that are now going to have to be recorded on a balance sheet as a long term liability. And it may change the way leases are structured instead of being gross leases, there may be an affinity for triple net lease is it may shorten the duration of leases because they don’t want to have any long term liability on their book, they might want to shorten that up. So that’s something that we’re using is an accounting rule principle that’s working its way through that’s going to be implemented shortly. That will be interesting to keep an eye out for but something like that could be the difference between a business owner deciding do I want to lease or do I want to own
Jay: Sure, those are all things that unless you’re sitting in your seat you wouldn’t necessarily be thinking of or even aware of. Right, so it’s really important to have you have someone like yourself and NorthMarqinvolved in these decisions. Wow, was it really been fascinating Michael, I didn’t. I didn’t know all the different facets that you were you were involved in and I think the most incredible thing is just how you got to where you are right because you found a company that had the culture that fits you. Right because that that that’s important. are a lot of people that are working. similar companies are really unhappy because they didn’t do that. Right. So you’re less productive. And he found a great mentor. And I know you were I think you were very, very humble and saying it was luck. I think that you made your luck, right? You were looking for that and he was there and you took advantage of it, which is great. Because again, I don’t know anyone that can get by without that, that saves you a lot of kind of figuring out yourself time and then always been an entrepreneur, right?
I mean, you had that you know, so you got in there, you kept you kept learning. So that’s why even now, I think you probably have a depth of knowledge that most of your peers don’t have. You know, because you you’ve been, you know, trying to learn all this this this whole time and most people have 20 years experience like you they have, you know, one year repeated 20 times, right, because they learn enough to get to close the deal. They don’t learn anything else, right. So, yeah, so I’m glad. Glad to see that you’re doing well in your firm is also doing well. I know that there are people in my network they’re going to hear this and are going to want to speak to you what is the best way for someone to reach out to you, Michael, and to contact you?
Michael: Oh, great. Certainly they can reach me on my direct dial here in my office, it is area code 617 728 9534. And even when I’m outside my office, I have a forward direction to myself. So I’m always available to my clients. They can also email me, my email address is mchase@northmarw.com. And they’re also free to look me up on LinkedIn and connect with me there and I believe my LinkedIn is MJ Chase.
Jay: Okay. Great. Great. Well, it’s been a fascinating conversation, Michael. I’m looking forward to more and I know people will be interested in finding that and finding you as they come into these situations that you mentioned. And for everyone else, thank you for listening to Finding Unique Value. We look forward to sharing our next guest with you soon. Bye for now.
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