Adam Torres and Mher Vartanian discuss business success.
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Show Notes:
New book alert! In this episode, Adam Torres and Mher Vartanian, Director at Scope CRE and General Partner at Hyperion Capital Partners, explore Mher’s new book, Mission Matters: World’s Leading Entrepreneurs Reveal Their Top Tips To Success (Business Leaders Vol. 10, Edition 15).
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About Mher Vartanian
As an accomplished, dependable portfolio manager, he has a proven history of exceeding goals and delivering measurable wins for the organization. His ability to be an influential communicator has allowed him to become adept at building a strong network of relationships with partners and engaging diverse prospects, clients, and leadership to negotiate and close deals which drive growth. With my broad experience across asset classes and financial markets, he has developed an eye for identifying and capitalizing on market opportunities. Recognized as an innovative thinker, he possesses the capacity to solve complex problems and judgment to make sound, impactful decisions. He is focused on integrity and customer service with a commitment to organizational growth, personal development, and shared success while possessing a strong ability for underwriting and modeling across multiple asset types.
About SCOPE
SCOPE is the Philadelphia region’s preeminent commercial real estate services firm. Privately held, SCOPE offers middle-market investment sales, debt consulting, and asset advisory services in multiple asset classes. By building a culture around collaboration, SCOPE empowers its agents through modern technologies and a free flow of information to bring the most powerful market intelligence to our clients that ultimately delivers an increased return on investment for their assets.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of mission matters. My name is Adam Torres. And if you’d like to apply to be part of our community, head on over to mission matters. com forward slash community to apply. All right. So today is a very special episode. We’re bringing back mayor Vartanian back onto the show.
We’ve been working with mayor on a book, which I’m proud to announce is finally out launched and live. So mayor is a director over. Scope CRE, and also a general partner at Hyperion Capital Partners. Hey, Merrick, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me, Adam. It’s good to be back. All right, Mayor. So your topic, first off, the power of delayed gratification and what you choose to write about, what you chose to write about near and dear to my heart.
I want to go into that. And we’re of course going to get into what you’re doing over at Scope CRE and also Hyperion Capital Partners. But before we do all that, you already know the drill. We’ll start this episode the way that we start them all with what we call our Mission Matters Minute. So Mayor, we at Mission Matters, we amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives, and experts.
That’s our mission. Mayor, what mission matters to you? My mission, I like growing businesses, man. I like seeing, starting things from the ground up and seeing where I can get them. And you know, getting a lot of people tied into them and then, you know, the stakes are always higher when you do that.
You have people’s lives that you’re, you’re helping in charge of, right. Employing people and, you know, watching them grow, watching their families grow. And it’s seeing how many times I can do that. You know, we’re, we’re here for a short amount of time on this planet. And it’s I, I like the process. I love, you know, getting that first draft of paper out and starting the business plan.
And, you know, looking back in a few years and seeing where I got it. That’s my mission. I do believe that’s my mission on this planet is to grow as many businesses as I can help as many families as I can and add value to as many people as I can. Yeah, that’s great. Love, love bringing on mission based individuals to share, you know, why they do what they do, how they’re doing it, and really what we can all learn from each other so we grow together.
That’s. The whole point of mission matters to grow together. So great having you back on the show. And I don’t want to assume that maybe some of our newer audience or listeners, we’ve been very blessed and the show has been growing. I don’t want to assume that our newer audience has, has caught some of our previous work we’ve done together.
So that being said, maybe just start with the, to get us kicked off with your background and really how you got started as an entrepreneur in the real estate. Yeah. You know, first generation American parents own a small dry cleaners in the suburbs of Philadelphia out here. Work there my whole life throughout high school and early college.
So it was, you’re always in the mix of the entrepreneurial lifestyle when you’re working with your parents. And if anyone who has worked with their parents knows it’s not always easy, it’s probably the most difficult working environment. You know, and there’s no HR so you have to you have to make do with what you have.
And then from, from there, it’s you know, when you’re, when you’re first in college and you’re getting your first internships, your first work experience, you see how corporate life is compared to, you know, the, the blue collar life of what, you know, you kind of grew up in and You start thinking, you know, there’s a happy median here.
I didn’t want to go the blue collar route. I went the other way, but being an entrepreneur growing up in that environment, I think shaped away for everything. And then as far as getting into real estate, it was more or less an accident. I thought I was going to be in wealth management, investment banking you know, worked at one of the big banks my first job out of college didn’t like it.
I didn’t see that, that growth aspect. I didn’t see what I can actually do that mattered. So I left and I, I, I put all that work and effort towards building something on my own. And it real estate brokerage was where I landed ultimately. I think it was different than what I thought I was going to do.
I it was a different field, something new to learn. So that was exciting to me and being a front and center interacting with clients was what kind of drew me to it. I wanted to be, I wanted to be the player. I wanted to be the guy that people can rely on that that they call. And now I am that, which is.
Very it’s crazy. Looking back at the short amount of time where how we got to where we are today. And then, you know, it’s it’s real estate brokerages. It’s more it’s an art and a business scaling. That business has been interesting to learn. But then also while doing that, perfecting my craft in how to run the process and.
You know, it’s the reason why people hire me, work with me and not others. Yeah. It’s a great story. And one of the things I definitely relate to you on is, well, obviously the wealth management side for anybody that has been listening to the show for a long time. They know I, that’s, I started out as a financial advisor for moving into media, but But just also that, that entrepreneurial background and that grit and watching our parents do other things.
And they’re like, man, like there’s, there’s, there’s other ways to do this to nothing that they did anything wrong. Right. I mean, they, they built the lives and they, they, they lived in a different time than we did. But the way I see it though, is that when I saw your chapter two, the power of delayed gratification, I saw it and I’m like, Oh, this is a, that’s something that I feel.
Like even just that concept of like apprenticeship and something when we think about that, like that’s gone for for many individuals to where they think that, you know, of the, the Facebook age or the, you know, you’re supposed to drop out of college or like and start this big tech startup and blah, blah, blah, All the stuff that we’ve been kind of inundated with.
But if you, if, if you look at a lot of the companies and how this country was built and, and many countries for that matter it’s been on the backs of like generations of work and labor and like, and methodical planning and executing day in, day out, whether it’s a dry cleaning business, whether it’s my dad’s auto body shop.
One car at a time. Right. Or whether it’s a, like, that’s the stuff that to me matters. And that’s what builds the infrastructure of the company as well. Like that are the country as well. Maybe just tell me why, like a lot of things you could have wrote about. So for everybody that’s watching this, just so you know when we, when we published an author, we asked.
them what they like to write about and kind of what matters most to them. So similar to the way that I asked the, what mission matters to you question. So, and then we take, we look at their feedback and what they want to, what they want to get out there and make sure it matches our audience, the book, everything else.
So that’s just a little back backstory for the audience, but this topic, like why was it near and dear to your heart? A lot of things you could have wrote about why this, why now? The late gratification it’s, I feel like it’s one of those things that we don’t think about as much anymore, you know, especially, you know, what you said, the Facebook age, like that’s bootstrapping a tech company, but then everyone’s inundated by that tech now, you know, like clips are 15 seconds long.
Music is. 45 seconds long. Now it’s where our attention spans are shorter. And I think that’s the biggest hindrance to that is the fact that thinking bigger, thinking more long term is, is hampered and building the business. Any entrepreneur will tell you it’s not, you know, putting out you know, putting your wares out for sale, your services out for sale and expecting paychecks tomorrow, you know, especially in real estate brokerage, you know, it takes by the time you list a property to closing it.
You know, we closed the property this week. It was under, it took eight months to close that out. Wow. Prior to Congrats. Congrats. I don’t like to, hey, I celebrate the wins of our community, man. You closed out a property this week. Congrats, dude. Thank you. Thanks. But again, that’s delayed gratification.
You, you, it’s, it’s hard to kind of always keep focused on. What you’re working for. Why, why are you doing all these L every little piece of every little bit of effort you put towards it. There’s something at the end of the tunnel and it’s keeping yourself mentally focused for it. I always tell us my, my team, we’re athletes, right?
You know, and we’re not, this isn’t football, it’s not 16 weeks. This is, this is baseball. We’re playing. You know, dozens of games and you, you know, just, just because you’re not happy, you know, you’re having a series that’s not so hot, you know, next week, it might be different. And that’s the week that can change everything.
Yeah. And that’s delayed gratification. I think it’s, it’s a backbone of any entrepreneur. And so only way you can actually scale multiple businesses or just your sole business, the one you care about the most to a meaningful level. And the other thing that I think having this concept going into something is that like false starts when I think about people, like a lot of times when they fail and things, and I’ll just use one particular example that I see over and over again is we’re, we’re in the podcast business.
I know you know that I know our audience knows that we produce a lot of shows. And because of that, there’s so many shows that I seen that were like, man, this will be a. Great show. And we, we launched the show, we do everything else. And then, you know six months down the line, the person’s not Joe Rogan.
And I’m like, nobody told you that your show, just cause it’s a great show. It is a great show, but you have to give in my business, you have to give the audience a bit of time to grow with you so that they know that you’re not going anywhere to win an audience’s trust. Takes, you know, not days, not weeks, not months.
It takes years. When you think about like the greats, like the Johnny Carsons of the world, or like the, or like Oprah or like, I mean, all of the greats, Howard Stern, like in his space, like. They didn’t earn, they didn’t have that name or do what they’re doing now. We’re talking, you know, in Oprah’s case, I use her, she’s done over 40, 000 interviews, like that’s, that’s a career.
That’s how she owns the, I owns her audience and has that. Type of loyalty and fan base. And that’s why people, so for when I’m, when I’m coaching new podcasts, like hosts or things like that, I’m like, it’s going to take some time, but, but you’re also going to grow through that process. So kind of relating that back to real estate in your particular business, like what have you seen, like on this, on this process of growth and things?
Cause I know another thing is, you know, your team’s always growing, you’re doing different things. You’re bringing the right types of individuals on your team. Like, tell me a little bit more how that resonates with you. It’s like me, a lot of the guys I bring on, it’s you know, real estate brokerage wasn’t maybe their main focus, you know, you, you don’t learn this in college and it’s a very gritty job, right?
You’re, I mean, it’s, it’s the very essence of sales. You’re, you’re cold calling, you know, it’s, and you know, for the first few weeks, starting out through a few months, starting out, you’re cold calling people and they’re just hanging up on you. It’s demeaning. It can be very. Discouraging, but seeing through that, understanding your goal and then it changes your perspective.
A lot of people always ask me for a script or what to do or how to do something for the first two, three weeks I give almost zero guidance. I like I, because that’s how I learned. Get in there, get beat up. It’s the only way you can understand to really see what’s going to, it makes you think more in parallel or the process.
If you need to understand what, you know, understand getting beat up helps you understand what people are looking for. And then you’ll better, then you’ll be able to play the verbal judo better understanding how to Hold a conversation with a complete stranger. It’s, it’s, it’s again, it’s a skill that no one really learns.
We’re taught how to write emails in college, maybe not, not how to make a cold call. And then from there, it’s refining it, refining your your conversation, your, your skill set and how you’re actually going to start adding value. And then once, then you can think more holistically after you Kind of go through the steps.
And then that’s where I really step in is, is building out a strategy, building out a plan. How do you want to define yourself in the marketplace? How do you want to define what you bring to the table? Is it something you can be consistent with? Because what you’re saying, like 40, 000 interviews, that’s consistency right there at a grand scale.
And anyone’s Career consistency is always key. What gets measured gets improved. I’m a strong believer in that. So how can we quantify your actions every day built? And you know, that shouldn’t be a second job either. You should, you can’t think about, you have to think about both these, in parallel, because one drives the other.
And you can’t have one over compensate for the other. And you’re an accountability partner. You know, I want them to be accountable. It’s just a meritocracy. I just, cause I’ve been doing this longer than they have. Does it mean like what I’m doing is right or wrong? I mean, so I have people critique me all the time.
I’m looking for that. I, you’re always improving your game. You’re always changing something. And it’s, it’s. Constant growth. And as you’re, as you’re doing that, you have to be open minded. And I think that’s, that’s part of the journey. That’s part of the fun part about getting to the, that, you know, that finish line that doesn’t really exist, you know, the next closing, the next big deal, or, you know, getting yourself to a place where you’re just comfortable taking your family on vacation, simple things like that, but.
It’s all like building the the building box to get there. Yeah. I think it’s exciting. Once you kind of shift your mind and that mindset, and you just understand like there’s a process and that others have gone through this as well, then to me, it lifts off. Some of that pressure, you still have to do the work.
Like you still have to, in your case you still have to, you know, get beat up by if you’re a new person in commercial real estate you got it, got to get beat up on the phone. Right. That’s that’s. And, and I like that you say they don’t teach that in college. I’m like, you know, I don’t have kids, but hopefully one day I will.
And if I do, I’m like, I want one of their. First things when they’re young to be to be, make it some cold calls because I feel like that it just builds another level of character and lets you be able to really, you know, hold your own in a society that’s not always going to be like nice to you. Not everybody’s going to be nice and we’re not always going to have participation awards, maybe that.
Maybe that age isn’t a pendulums now shifting now, and maybe we’re moving away from participation awards. I don’t know. I don’t have that crystal ball, but I do know this. Make it some cold calls will build some character that I do know so looking at I want to talk a little bit about the, about your areas because, If you do this, if you have delayed gratification, if you consistently build, if you pour into others, like you’re doing with your team, if you give people that deserve attention through their efforts, attention, then you can establish yourself and not everybody can do this.
I mean, you’ve been doing this a long time. But you can put yourself out there as a market leader and a market maker, which is, I think something super unique. I know it’s something that your team and what you’re known for in your area. Maybe talk a little bit about how that came about and really how you lead in that market.
Yeah, you grow into it. You start while you’re making a market. You don’t realize you’re doing it typically. While you’re building part about it, I feel like also like you, you look up one day cause you’ve been grinding so hard. You’ve had your nose at the grindstone and you’re like, and you’re like all of a sudden like.
Whoa, we’re setting the market. Go ahead. I just had to throw it out there. Yeah, no, you’re absolutely right. You look back and you’re like, Whoa, like we just did that. Like, and you’re looking at all the pieces that came together from the first conversation to the last signature. And you’re like, wow, we did that.
We, we put that together. And. It shifts the landscape. You, you, you start getting phone calls from people, you know, appraisers, buyers, sellers, everyone’s asking you questions. And, you know, you, you did that. And it’s one of those things where people know if you played a role in it or not, right. It’s if, if you’re the reason that happened there’s, you know, you asked the right questions and the guys who know what they’re doing asked the right questions.
The guys who have been in this industry longer than I’ve been alive. I asked the right questions and all of a sudden they want to hang out. They want to be with you. They want to pick your mind, pick your brain. And you know, is it, do you do it with purpose every time? Or no, not necessarily. You’re, you’re dealing, you’re working with the tools you have.
You’re working with the, what you’re in my case, what I’m, the product I’m selling at the time or the clients I’m working with, every situation is different and that’s the best part about real estate, no two buildings are the same, no two Apartment buildings, warehouses are the same there, everything’s different and everything.
There’s a caveat for everything we do. And it’s exciting because it’s, it’s a new problem every day, but with new problems come new solutions. And those solutions are the reason you’re getting higher. The, the, the building we closed out this week, there is many problems, you know, we’re not, you know, where we are today, October of 2023.
Not the best economic environment. Banks, banks collapsed a few months ago. Lenders aren’t lending. And you know, we still, we, we still were able to over appraise and you know, we got bank financing, traditional bank financing. It’s, but why it’s because the pieces we put to. To place in the beginning of the process carry, you know, they slowly carry through to the end and we got done what we had to get done and you know, we got an applaud from it, from our buyers and our sellers and it’s, it’s, you, you learn this though.
No one taught us how to do this. You can’t teach it. You have at a certain point, you have to just do it. Embrace the failure because we failed a lot, especially in the beginning. We’re failing every day. And from. Failures are only failures if you don’t learn anything from them. Yeah. And if you can take something from it, it’s like, you know, why not?
You, you, you’re going to be able to apply it for the next time. And that’s, that’s again, what separates us. We don’t fear failure. And if anything, we, if we see the, the abyss, if we see the unknown, we run right into it. Maybe we’re cowboys. I don’t think so. We have a process in the back that’s kind of.
Functioning in the background that gets us through it. But we can say we’re market makers now. And it’s, it’s a, it’s a good feeling. What keeps you going? What keeps you motivated right now? When I, some of the things that you said, like externally, maybe certain areas in real estate aren’t doing too well.
And it is a, it is a, for context for everybody that’s watching this or listening to this, we’re recording this on October 26th 2023 for some context there, but you know, it’s, it’s a rough real estate market. I think some, some areas are still fine, but. Overall, like there’s, there’s some things happening.
Interest rates affect everybody on some level. And at some point in the supply chain, whether it’s building, financing, whatever. So even if you have deep pockets, like you’re paying attention right now, let’s put it that way. That being said, what keeps you motivated? What keeps you going? Like what’s your North star right now?
It’s always perspective, right? The reason I am where I am today is because I’m an entrepreneur and I did, I remember when. My first woke up call was in the beginning, the first, you know, six weeks of COVID when people were furloughed, working from home, all that job security, all of a sudden went away.
And you know, I remember getting an email saying, you can’t go into the office and I sat at home for a week, think it was going to take a week and they’re telling me I can’t, you know. Like I can’t come into the office and I’m like, wait a minute. I’m my friends are working from home. I can’t, I, I’m, I have to be out there in the streets talking to clients doing deals.
I can’t just sit around and wait. And it’s basically that same, we didn’t. And that’s where we capture the most market share. While our competition was sleeping, they were hanging out, they’re waiting. We weren’t, I’m impatient. So I went after it. This is the same situation. It’s a different scenario. It’s, you know, the, would you say you thrive in these situations too?
Like you’re, yeah, this is like when, when things are tough, it’s just a reason to work harder. Like tough times, create tough men. I believe in that tough people. And you know, three years ago, my, you know, my, my grandmother was able to write a 3 percent interest mortgage now getting financing’s difficult.
And this is, you know, this is what separates the, this is where we can. Really define the fact that we are market makers. We are market leaders because we’re still transacting in this environment. If it gets even worse, I’m just going to work harder. And if it gets better, I’m just going to work. I’m just, I’m still going to work harder.
It does. We’re building the momentum and the second we stop our momentum stops and then the rest, not just, I’m not going to feel it. My partner is not going to feel it. Everyone else is going to feel it as well. Our clients are our staff, our employees, the rest of our team. If I stop, I’m letting down dozens of people.
That’s what motivates me. That’s the constant pressure that’s over my head. Everyone. I don’t have children. But my employees do my, my other agents do, they’re all like, I’m, I’m working for all of us. It’s exciting when you wake up in the morning and you have people relying on you. It’s, it’s, it’s probably one of the most exciting feelings in the world.
It’s a lot of pressure. But it’s, you know, it definitely gets me going, man. Yeah, for sure. Well, Mayor, I do want to spend a little bit of time with some of the time we have left is maybe just talking about geography, your specialty, your areas you work in. So whether it’s SCOPE CRE and with Hyperion Capital Partners.
So maybe tell us a little bit more about about your specialties. Yeah. So I just joined scope about a month ago as I came in and started again, thank you. Me and my team, we’re leaders at a, one of the national firms. We and the way we did things was different. We, we bring a very white glove approach to our process.
And. The way we wanted to scale, we didn’t think we can do it there. So what we did was one of my, a good friend of mine, Phil is managing director at scope. We joined up with him as his team to kind of scale are very I want to, it’s more of a, like, I call it like a luxury brokerage. We more hands on.
Service that our clients are expecting from us. We’re, we’re filling in gaps that we couldn’t at our, at, at our old shop. And then on top of that, not and really scaling that out on top of that, scaling out scope as a brand regionally. So it, it is again, a more holistic view of it. Mm. And it’s building businesses within businesses that we’re, we’re, we’re here to sp spearhead.
So that’s exciting. And it’s, you know, it’s been a month. It’s been great. And that is exciting. Congrats. We’re breaking all kinds of news today. It’s awesome. Yeah, no, it’s, it’s, it’s you have to keep, keep it changing constantly. I thrive and change, change excites me. And then with Hyperion capital.
It’s our acquisition firm you know, a small family office between my partner, myself you know, it’s, it’s our own real estate portfolio that we’ve been, we’ve been growing and operating with some friends and families as well. And that’s just, you know, it’s, we’re, we’re patient with that. We don’t rush into anything.
We’re very focused on that as well. And, you know, we’re growing that out at a slower pace, but it’s, that’s, that’s there for us. And that’s kind of our our safety net at the end of the day, you know, when we retire. So that, that’s been, that’s been fantastic to watch what we’ve turned that into and where we’re going with that, the other ideas and concepts we have brewing in the background.
And that’s another thing. A lot of this is finding people to align with, you know, the delayed gratification isn’t an easy concept to wrap your head around because you don’t know when that gratification is going to hit it. You know, we’ve been doing this, we’ve had so many successes in the last few months, last few years, but we’re still not It’s we’re still not gratified.
Yeah, right. It’s, it’s, we don’t know where we’re, where we’re going. And finding other people that align with you, surrounding yourself by that, that, that kind of. Like mental workforce is, is exciting because it’s like playful competition. I’m on the phone with my partners talking about different ways we can do things and are we ready for this?
Can we do this? Maybe we should look into that, spend some money on this, gamble with it, take a chance. And you know, like. It’s exciting. I mean, it’s, it’s great being in those rooms. It’s like, you know, the, the, the late night conversations about just how to run the world, how to rule the world. Yeah. You know, it does never get old.
Oh, that’s great, man. I love it. I love the story. And again, I love, I love you bringing this news to here and new I’m working with with. With scope now. So that’s awesome to hear and closing deals, man. I expect nothing less of you. And I knew every time you come on the show, you bring, you bring the fire, you bring something different and new, and you always got some news.
So thank you for that. Well, I just have to say it has been great having you back on the show. I like launching the book with you so much fun. So it’s so good working with you and to continue to get that out to my audience and for the audience, just so you know, there’ll be a link in the show notes for you to pick up a copy.
So you can also read more about Mayor of Mayor’s writing and our other authors that participated in the book as well. But that being said, Mayor, I mean, what’s next? What’s next for you? What’s next for your career? I don’t know. It’s we’re again, some deals. I already know the answer to that question.
Yeah, it’s, it’s closing deals. That’s just, we’re at a point where that’s just happening, right? That’s the lifeblood of our operations at a new shop, getting things that we’re assimilating, we’re, we’re starting new processes. I was. Before the show, I was telling you how we’re looking at making more hires in this environment, especially growing our international team.
So you know, we’ve been working on that this week and, you know it’s, there’s only two months left in the year. So it’s going to be a mad dash and I’m going to try to, you know, I’m going to be the first across the finish line. It’s awesome. If somebody wants to follow up and learn more and connect with you and your team, what’s the best way for them to do that?
LinkedIn is a great way to reach out to me. Twitter, I’m very active on there. X, great communities in there. I’m very easy to contact. I want people to be able to reach out to me. My phone number is everywhere. Give me a call. Shoot me a text. I’m around. Awesome. And we’ll put all that information in the show notes so that our audience can just, you know, click on the links, head right on over, and check out your profile.
Speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters or engaging in an episode, we’re all about bringing on business owners, entrepreneurs, and executives, and having them share their mission, the reason behind their mission, you know, why do they do what they do? And what can we all learn from that?
So we can all grow together. If that’s the type of content that sounds interesting or fun or exciting to you, we welcome you hit that subscribe button. We have many more mission based individuals coming up on the line and we don’t want you to miss a thing. Mayor, as always, thank you for coming back on the show and I appreciate all you do, man.
I appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me.
