Lessons - The Secrets of a Real Estate Mogul | Alvaro Nunez - Founder & CEO of Super Luxury Group

So even like the the first iteration of your career, which like when I look through your resume and what you've built at its core, it was real estate at its core was real estate, which is probably one of the most oversaturated fields in the world. Like I think everybody and their mother is like a real estate agent. Everybody. Right. So like it's not easy. So how did you started? So you come to the US. Did you did you try other things first? It didn't work out. No, of course. And look, I've always believed that you need to become really good at one thing at the beginning, focusing one thing become the best at it so that you can add value. Whatever capacity is in that space. Because if you try to do everything, you might not be able to grow efficiently in any particular space. So for me, it was marketing. You know, I graduated in business of marketing, but then I did my master's, I did an MBA and focusing on marketing and everything that I was doing throughout my education was always applied to real life projects, you know, studying little businesses and everything with the angle of marketing. So always helping little businesses to stand out. And I saw the importance of digital marketing, not only traditionally, but digitally with social media, Google AdWords. And I've always had a passion for marketing. I think that branding and both you and I can agree on it is one of the most important things, both at a personal and a corporate level in branding is everything. So when you understand how to operate at high levels in marketing and how it can change the complete game. Then you want to get really deep on it. And in this case, everybody can do real estate. Yes, of course, but if nobody knows about you, then who cares? That's everything via. And if you do a little bit of research on the statistics, 95% of the people that jump into real estate, they have zero global marketing. So for me, I didn't start traditionally as everybody else with real estate, you know, you get your license, you place your license in a brokerage, you start learning. No, I didn't fall into that. I build my own business from scratch and I never work for anybody. But the idea was, how do I tap into a luxury market without having that much experience? Well, you need to understand luxury first, you need to understand the lifestyle first, you need to brand yourself of somebody that understands it. So for me, I started by doing luxury villa rentals. I was organizing all the high end experiences in Jetset locations. So just to back it up a little bit more, I had the opportunity to go into the Dominican Republic. After I worked my first job here in the States and no longer was able to stay because of my visa, I had to then transition and was either going to Spain and get back to a regular, you know, less entrepreneurship, find a job basically or try to, you know, proceed that entrepreneurship. So you went to the Dominican, I went to the Dominican, because that's where initially my parents after all these crises and all this thing that happened moved into, you know, my father is an architect and developer, my mother was doing real estate. And one of the houses that is old is the guy that bought is like, look, I'm not going to be here more than maybe two weeks a year. So could you guys rent that short term? And this is when Airbnb was starting, this is when, you know, everybody was like, okay, what is this platform to rent homes? Like, what is it? It's not a hotel. I don't, I don't exactly like, you know, especially in the Caribbean, you don't trust this size that much. So they asked me, like, look, you are the marketing guy. How would you promote this home to rent that short term? I was like, you know what? Good thing. Let me go check it out. So I went to check that out and it was really interesting because have you been to the Dominican Republic? Yeah, yeah. You know, it's a really interesting country. You know, it's beautiful. It's paradise. It's in the Caribbean. There's amazing beautiful homes, waterfront, and most of them empty. At least back in the day, I know that I know that a lot of, I know that a lot of Canadians go down their own property there, but it's all gated. And like, there's a misconception that, I mean, a lot of it is not safe, but I mean, the gated community, luxury, it's all gated. The luxury communities are the best. Casa de Campo, Capca, and a certain club. It's beautiful. Now, I'll tell you this. When I got there, I went to see the property and I saw the ones around and we're all empty. And I'm like, what's going on here? So I started door knocking, sweating like a crazy guy. And I started talking to the lady that was at the house, you know, just taking care of it or the gardener. So when I was asking, is the owner here? Oh, no, he's in Canada or Russia or, you know, overseas. Yeah. It's like, oh, when do they come here? Oh, maybe like a couple of times a year. It's like, wow, could I speak with them? I have some people interested on potentially renting this place. So I started to talk to them. I started to tell them like, look, I believe that we can, you know, generate some income for your property. While at the same time, I could manage it and make sure that it remains, you know, in good status, because otherwise the property is targeting damaged. If you don't really take good care of it, it's always the way to make money through marketing. You make a good presentation. You show them how you could do it. And they trust you. You put them on the OTAs, which is all these different platforms like Airbnb, Expedia, Home Away Plus on your social media plus on your website. And slowly you start seeing more people coming in, coming in, coming in. And not only you start renting the place out, but you also start providing an experience. Whether they need, you know, an activity or a private chef or transportation, and the whole goal was to keep yourself elevating to a more higher degree of quality. Whether that's through the properties, through the type of experience that you offer, and the clientele that you're building is something that you're carrying with you for whatever else they might need. And tell relationship business, you know, you're at the end of the day providing value through the services that you can offer, which is the properties, the experience that you're building that relationship. You know, one of the things that really turned out to become really interesting is that once you build that infrastructure and it's working well, you start seeing on how do I tap into a higher community, how do I tap into building my community, how do I bring more people on board. And you start seeing all these big companies like luxury retreats, which are acquired by Airbnb or you look at inspirato or LVH, all these big companies that operate internationally and with the most high end clientele, they need some local partners. They need the people that offer these super high end properties and can provide the whole service. So I started reaching out to these companies and said, look, I don't see in your portfolio that you have any properties in Dominican Republic. This is what we could offer and I would love to work for you, you know, so any client you bring, it will be, you know, representing your brand. And they will super open to that. So we started to work with, you know, a certain degree of clients that, you know, the A-listers that otherwise I would not have access to. So once you start building relationship with these people and understanding the game, you're like, well, I want to become that big guy. So that's when you take that leap of faith and decided to expand a bit further, you know, and no longer remain local, but how you can build your own local partners in other different destinations. So the whole idea was to expand throughout the Caribbean, the brand not make it only locally, but also make it a bit more international and slowly while expanding in the Caribbean started to do it in Europe and became that jet setter locator guy that could provide you with. The most high-end properties, you franchise yourself out at this point, you franchise yourself out. I was not franchise in, but I was utilizing the same business model that these big companies were doing. So basically you create, not ambassador ships, but you create local partners and with other real estate agents. So it's another company that's all about experience. And then also the X factor is the fact that you can always guarantee because you are a marketer that these homes are going to be filled. Yes, and you know, like what matters at the end of the day is to keep things consistently. So instead of building a business, you're building basically a brand, a brand that when people book through this brand, they understand that they're getting the same quality of service, they're getting the same results. No matter if they book in Miconos or they book in Dominican Republic. And the reason for that is because what we did is we ensured that whatever property was in our portfolio, they will go through a different type of checks. You know, it's like okay, the same type of service, the same type of quality when it comes to the mattresses, the lighting, like the minimum details. And again, these local partners are people that have specialized on becoming the best of what they do in that particular region. And also the experience piece is important too. They know the best people to go to for this. So much. So much. And it's a faster way to expand your business. Otherwise, it will take many, many years. But if you know how to plug in with the right people that have already built that for years, you just need to provide a brand because what do these guys care about to have access to our clientele to expand, you know, their bookings. So for us, we became like the middleman and it worked pretty well. Now, one of the things that was really interesting is that all these clients, what they do at the end of the day is they want to have a great time, but they want to make sure that everything goes smoothly. So at the time, I was 24 years old. So they will they see the energy, they see their hustling in me. So they're like come with us. So all of a sudden, I'm organizing a private jet and an amazing villa and they're taking me with them. So no longer you're just working, but you're also experiencing this luxury lifestyle living. And it was fascinating, you know, for somebody that was coming at that moment from nothing to all the sudden, be living this life and making money with it was fascinating. You really get to know the insights of what these people really want, what they care about and how they operate. And it really gets you to a different degree of understanding, right, because a lot of people try to sell luxury, but they don't understand it. So I was actually living it through this type of services that I was providing. And slowly you start seeing that there is commonalities, right, like a lot of these big players, they love to have a beautiful woman and the great setups. And so I was like, how can I access to to provide this value and make it even to my advantage and also help everybody else like a win-win situation. And that's when influencer marketing came into the playground. Influencer marketing was something that at the time it was not really that well known, especially in real state. It was zero. It's going to say, this is not what you learned from your marketing and your MBA. No, no, no, no, zero. And you know, that's a funny part because, you know, just to trick you a couple of years before all of this happened. When I finished my MBA, I was, you know, at a startup working at a decent job and slowly I progressed to become the director of operations. I had a, which is a friend in common that we have, Benny, Benny, I would. So I was working for him, you know, and he plays me in a really top position at a really young age. I was 22 and I was, you know, leading a really long large team. And all of a sudden, I'm like, I have no clue what did I learn in school that is not helping me now. I have my MBA too. I don't think I've actually ever thought of anything I've learned in my MBA. Zero. Like that I actually used my day to day. I learned everything actually before my MBA because I worked in startups before my MBA. And then you learn everything because you're just doing it. No, but I recommend a lot of people say, oh, I'm going to take another program. I know there is a good dude. Just get to work. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on. Start experience. It's okay to keep it. I mean, I encourage everybody to keep educating yourself while working.