312. He Built a 17-Property Portfolio for His Family’s Future - Here’s How

He Built a 17-Property Portfolio for His Family’s Future

- Here’s How

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What does a $370,000 mistake really teach you?

In this first episode of Lessons Learned, I sit down with Marcus Kittrell—founder of Marc-1 Car Washes, partner at Mammoth Holdings, and 40+ year commercial real estate investor—to unpack one of the most expensive lessons of his career.

From building car washes in the ‘80s to scaling a portfolio of 17 commercial properties and launching a private equity venture, Marcus shares what he got right, what he got very wrong, and how he’s preparing the next generation to carry on his legacy.

Get commercial real estate coaching, courses, and community to jumpstart your investment journey over at CRE Central: www.crecentral.com

Key Takeaways:

• The $370K underwriting mistake that changed everything

• How Marcus scaled from one car wash to a multi-property empire

• Why strong banking relationships are a growth cheat code

• The power of treating tenants like partners •

• How he’s setting his kids up to run the family portfolio

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About Your Host:

Tyler Cauble, Founder & President of The Cauble Group, is a commercial real estate broker and investor based in East Nashville. He’s the best selling author of Open for Business: The Insider’s Guide to Leasing Commercial Real Estate and has focused his career on serving commercial real estate investors.

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Episode Transcript:

Unknown Speaker 0:00

Owning the real estate was always a priority for me. Some of the very successful business entrepreneurs around town, everybody owned commercial real estate. That was always my, my end goal. And so most of the real estate that I acquired early was owner occupied. There was no grand plan of of a big commercial real estate portfolio. He was on the real estate that the crawl washers sat on, and eventually either lease them out to some of the business side, out to someone or, you know, sell the business eventually. That's what I ended up doing, was selling the business part and kept the real estate the most painful lesson probably did a very poor, sloppy job of underwriting. Kent stone, what did the sloppy underwriting cost you, so I went 370 over. So what a couple 100,000

Unknown Speaker 0:49

this episode of the commercial real estate investor podcast is brought to you by my cre accelerator mastermind, where you'll get access to my step by step investment blueprint, essentially a library of resources on how to invest in commercial real estate. You'll get connected to a supportive community of other commercial real estate investors that are doing projects just like you. You'll get personalized coaching and feedback from me every step of the way. Go to www dot cre central.com to learn more. We're down here in Alabaster, Alabama for the inaugural episode of lessons learned with none other than Marcus Kittrell. Marcus is founder of mark one car washes. He is a partner at Mammoth holdings. He was the former president of the International Car Wash Association, and he's a member of the inner circle in my cre accelerator mastermind, and today we're gonna sit down with him and learn the lessons learned directly from the man himself, after investing in commercial real estate for over 40

Unknown Speaker 1:51

years. Marcus, you bought your first car wash in the 1980s I mean, you built it. Built you built your first car wash in the 19 my father's Hell Yeah, way. I mean, way ahead of the trend, right? Because now car washes are very trendy. The last 10 years they have but you got into this this very early on. How did you get into the car wash industry and what made you want to start building and growing your own portfolio of those assets? When I was 16, I went and got a job. I needed a job, part time job at a full service car wash up here in Birmingham. And so that's kind of how I started. And then a few years later, my dad had a piece of property that he was going to lease to a guy that was going to build a self service crawl wash on. And something fell through on that, and he asked me what I'd be interested in doing it. And of course, jumped at because I was already in the full service business working. And so, you know, when 80s, in 1985 we started the project and opened up in, I think, May of 86 it was a little six base self serve car wash that I still have today. And so that kind of started the journey. And you know, as time went on, I would buy another one, fix them up, sell them, and do things like that. So I think at one time I was up to maybe six or seven of those type of washes. And then in in 95 and at that time, I was still working at the full service crawl wash that that a friend of mine got me the job. So you're still working full time, absolutely, while starting your own car wash. Yes, that's amazing that. And to me, that was probably the best thing that I ever did, was stay working, because you just kept learning more and more about the business. I mean, I'm 20 at that time, when I built it, I think I was 21 or 22 so you're talking about very young, you know, in business. So having a, a guy that I work for kind of as a mentor to help tremendously, you know, even though it was two separate businesses, he had a full service car wash and, and I'm building a self service car wash so, you know,

Unknown Speaker 3:59

different, nuts and bolts, not, not, not, yeah. And so you're, we're having to, I'm having to learn as I go, but that's that's got to make the bank feel good, right? About working with you on these car washes, because you're still working in the industry, it's got to make you feel good, right? Because, you know you've got cash flow coming through. I mean, I know that's a lot to balance, but at least you have cash coming in while you're getting these up and off. Yeah. I mean, I would work during the day and then go take care of my crawl washes at night, and it was seven days a week. I mean, that's just how you did it. That's how we did it back then. And so, you know, did that stayed working until 2000 but in 1995

Unknown Speaker 4:37

I went to work for a company called universal crawl wash systems. And they actually installed crawl washes serviced them. So I got a whole another five years of learning the mechanics in and out of the business, and then in 2000 I went to visit a friend of mine in the industry that had started this Express concept. And so you.

Unknown Speaker 5:00

You know, it was something that I said, You know what this is? I think this is the avenue I want to pursue. I love the self serve, but it is not a growing segment of the industry. And so I wanted to stay into the conveyor type of business. And so I was able to

Unknown Speaker 5:16

go over there, kind of pick up what they were doing, rebrand it for what I want to do here in Birmingham. So in 2002

Unknown Speaker 5:24

started the the mark one Express concept. We were the third in the country to do so. And so, you know, from there, it really took off the the Express that's why you see so many Express tunnels now, that's what we call them in our industry. Is, the Express model. Yeah, they're everywhere now, and it's, and it's brilliant, right? Because everybody's added the subscription model to it, which, that's what brought the private equity in, right? Is when you could, when you could

Unknown Speaker 5:52

somewhat determine your revenue per month, and you wouldn't depend so much on weather, that would that that changed the game in in our industry, you know, before then, if you own the full service Carl wash, you would say, Okay, I'm gonna own the real estate. I'm eventually gonna sell it to either pass it on to my kids, or we're gonna end up, you know, selling the business and leasing it out. That was kind of the maybe the concept back then completely changed when private equity came in. Yeah, they've totally changed the game. We're definitely going to be diving into that today, because you had your own private equity venture that you're still working on. But before we get to that, I mean, when you're when you're talking about getting these car wash started, like owning the commercial real estate, seems very natural and normal to you, whereas today, a lot of these operators seem to be doing absolute net or triple net ground leases, where they're coming in and then they're selling off the real estate for you. Why was it so important? Or why did you decide to buy the property with the car washes? Was that even a thought that crossed your mind?

Unknown Speaker 6:57

Owning the real estate was always a priority for me,

Unknown Speaker 7:01

and so, you know, I think it just seeing some of the very successful business entrepreneurs around town, that everybody on commercial real estate, and so that that was always my, my end goal. And I can, I think it was in 94 I did, I did a S Corp for the business. And I want to say 96 or 97 we end up opening, we had our first LLC to own the real estate. So we, we first everything was in the S Corp. Then we moved it out the real estate, out portion to the LLC, and just started that process. And so most of the real estate that I acquired early was owner occupied. That's how we, you know, so there was no grand plan of of a big commercial real estate portfolio. It was on the real estate that the car washes sat on, and eventually, you know, either lease them out to some the business side out to someone, or, you know, sell the business. And eventually, that's what I ended up doing, was selling the business part and get the real estate. Yeah, it's a great way to get it started. In commercial real estate, there's a lot of accidental commercial real estate investors, yeah, right. Because you start off with a business, you just, you buy the building that your business operates out of, and then you outgrow that building, so you buy another one and and you keep the process going. And I do the same thing. I mean, every now and then I'll go and buy another building for one of my entities, simply to take advantage of the better terms you can get from financing. And also you're going to have your business pay to be somewhere you might as well be the landlord, and so you're responsible for paying yourself. And they always said, pay yourself first. I think that's something I've always heard. So that's right, Profit First, yeah. And so, you know, that's something that we kind of followed, and, you know, fortunate that we're able to do it that way. And, you know, it's been a really good run, yeah, so you've grown to a portfolio of 17 properties today. Talk to us about the journey from 1986 with your first location to Mammoth holdings, your private equity venture. Yeah, it's been there a lot of steps between then and 2018 when we did mammoth holdings. But yeah, it was really one property at a time. You know, every other year, I think, kind of what we were on the pace on and so I would, you know, buy the real estate early, a year too early, get, you know, get the funds up to build the building and and so did that for, you know, 1516, years, and then in 2017

Unknown Speaker 9:28

a friend of mine came to me that's an investment banker, and said, Listen, why don't you consider joining forces with me and my partner on a

Unknown Speaker 9:39

kind of a private equity deal. And I knew nothing about private equity back then and so, but I knew I was, I was getting to the point in life I was 5455 years old. Said, Listen, I got to start making decisions kind of long term. And I knew back then that real estate was going to be what I wanted to do. So I started.

Unknown Speaker 10:00

Position myself to do that.

Unknown Speaker 10:03

And then, you know, in 2018 we pulled the trigger on private equity that called mammoth holdings. We partnered in with Red Dog equity, out of Atlanta, and been great partners. You know, private equity is, is

Unknown Speaker 10:18

it's great sometimes and it's bad sometimes, there's ups and downs to it. And so you don't always agree with the the private equity side of the business, but you learn to work with it. And I think at the end of the day, they they, they want to do what's best for their, your people and the company. So that's the way I've experienced it so far. Yeah, it's, it's, it's gotta be interesting going from taking the reins for 30 years, yeah, and then handing it off to somebody else, yeah. This marks my 45th year in the car wash industry. Started with 1981 when I was a sophomore in high school, and the transformation from 1981 to now is unbelievable for our industry. I'm real. I'm really proud of my industry, and I industry, and I was able to serve as international crawl watch President in 2024 and serving as past president now. And really seen our industry grow tremendously in all aspects, but saw a lot of great advances when the private equity came on board, because they brought resources and experience and outside thinking that we just didn't have back then we were just Car Wash guys, right? Yeah, it's interesting how quickly that can change an industry. Because, I mean, I'm sure everybody has noticed this, but within the last five to seven years. I mean, it really seems, especially since COVID tunnels are everywhere, yeah? And, you know, we, we were able to kind of stay open during those during the COVID year of being essential. And so people would just kind of wash their car, stay in their windows, would stay up, they could buy their club or membership online. And so we wouldn't have no interaction, which was kind of weird. But you know people, you know it was back then. It was just a different deal back then. And so you want to respect everybody's position on it, and so, but we washed a lot of cars, and we had to close our vacuum area. So, I mean, you're talking about efficiency, we were about the most efficient business out there. You just roll through the car wash one after another, and everything is subscription, so you're getting paid online, and so you didn't have to, have to, you know, work a whole lot. It was actually pretty good, yeah, make sure the gates open, make sure the soaps full, and just let people do this rock and roll. And we had a, we had a we had a good year. Unfortunately, it was a tough year for a lot of people, and definitely realize that. But, you know, a lot of businesses, unfortunately, didn't make it through COVID, and so that was that's really sad to see. Being a small business guy myself. You know, you wish the best for everybody. Well, it's a testament to what the industry is doing, yeah, right. I mean, it's, it's nice. You never know until when a black swan event like that happens, how resilient you can be. But Car Wash is pretty resilient. Even our little self serve models, I still have four of those today that my son has. And so even those were pretty were pretty steady, even those were kind of your Do It Yourself washes, you know, we just, we ever kind of worked through it, and, you know, we just kind of worked out. But,

Unknown Speaker 13:17

you know, I like, I love the industry, and love the business part of it. And so it's really allowed me to to

Unknown Speaker 13:24

to move more into more commercial real estate, which I definitely enjoy. Yeah, it's a it's a fun game. I mean, you don't get to a portfolio of 17 properties by accident, right? It takes a lot of work and a lot of strong relationships. And I know that for you, building those relationships with lenders has been invaluable, and I think that's something that a lot of investors take for granted. They look at lenders as a necessity or a necessary evil that they would prefer not to deal with, but have to, because they have the money. You took a completely different approach, and it helped you scale a lot faster than I think most people ever could without those relationships. Can you kind of tell us about your banking partners and how you really treated them like partners? Yeah, you know, we used a small bank,

Unknown Speaker 14:22

and this I can remember walking in his office

Unknown Speaker 14:27

in 94 I believe it was 9495

Unknown Speaker 14:29

and I was applying for a car wash, the loan for another self serve car wash. And it was him and his dad and his his uncle, and those were that was the loan committee back then, and he goes,

Unknown Speaker 14:43

Marcus, I don't know. Let me talk to my brother, my dad and my uncle, and I'll get back with you tomorrow. And we didn't know each other. I just had met him, and so I thought, Well, great. I'm not going to hear back from this guy. He calls me back and he goes, Yeah, man, let's, let's go with it. Let's, let's give you a run. See how you do you.

Unknown Speaker 15:00

And it's been, it's been great, but it is relationship to me, you know, I value their relationship. I've watched their their business grow. There they went from they started, they had one bank back then, I think they got six or seven now. So they've grown. They got their separate mortgage company. And, you know, they're doing, they're growing. They're one of the best banks in Shelby County. Just got voted Best bank in Shelby County.

Unknown Speaker 15:23

And so they're, they're a relationship bank. And so I think it's very important to to start those relationships early and and, you know, embrace those because they're important. You gotta have them. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the takeaway I have there is, if you get Marcus Kittrell to bank with you, you can six to seven extra bank over the next couple

Unknown Speaker 15:44

that way, but

Unknown Speaker 15:47

correlation,

Unknown Speaker 15:49

yeah, so I'm sure I'm thinking I was a small part of that, but they, they would have been just fine without Marcus. They just the way, they do a great job. Yeah, that's great. I love it. Well, Marcus, talk to us now because, you know, post private equity, which I mean, you're still in, but since you've largely sold and combined with them, you're now starting to focus more on your commercial real estate portfolio, and you're starting to diversify into a wide variety of assets. So tell us what you're interested in today and kind of what your portfolio looks like. You know, Tyler, I think was what I am doing. I've kind of watched you do, to be honest with you, you know, you're really big on the

Unknown Speaker 16:30

Not, not being in just one asset class. And so I've kind of taken that to heart and said, Okay, I like the retail. I like the office. I'd like the office warehouse,

Unknown Speaker 16:43

you know, the triple net stuff, and so, you know, I think, I think you can be good at all of it. And I think it's, I think I heard you on a podcast before, just, you just, kind of, you know, spread your eggs out a little bit more and not be so reliant on one industry. Because we've seen, you know, just in my few short years, in the commercial, I've seen, you know, multifamily, you know, Spike and go down. Never had it. I've never had an interest in residential, a lot of because I hear you talk about your non interest in residential. I said, Well, we'll scratch that off the list of Tyler. Don't want to do it. I don't want to do it, yeah, and so. But I love all that, you know, I love all asset classes when it comes to that, you know, as long as it's commercial real estate, I'll take a look at anything that's right. I mean, it's, there's so many different ways to diversifying commercial real estate, and you're tending to follow kind of my same model, which is, pick an area, pick a neighborhood. Yep, you know, it seems like Pelham and Alabama, or, you know, really, where Shelby County home and Alabaster, Yep, yeah, Shelby County is really kind of where you're focused, which allows you to get to know the area really well, so you can then decide, okay, well, yeah, actually, this hotel would be a good investment, or this shopping center would be a good investment. Yeah, it's not just knowing the areas, also knowing the people and the brokers in the area, knowing the mayors, the city engineers, and so when they see you do a nice project, when you bring another one to them, they know you're going to do it right. And so you know they you might not have to jump through as many hoops. You still have to jump through a lot of hoops, but I think your reputation is everything in commercial real estate, whether it be with the broker, you know, whether it be with your bank, you know, we use a

Unknown Speaker 18:29

third party for just about everything when it comes to like AC maintenance, HVAC maintenance, plumbers, electricians. So we our third party. All that out, and it's important to have people that know you rely on you for work, but also I can rely on them to get the job done for our tenants, and so that's important. But the relationship side of it is everything I've just carried up to the crawl watch, because we all, I look at everybody as a customer, even if they're a vendor of ours. I look, I look them as a customer. Yeah, you're incredible with that. You know? It really shines through. And I think that focusing on relationships first opens up more doors than than probably anything else that you could ever do. Yeah, you know, I always, always tell people, you know, to be unclear is to be unkind. And I use that phrase all the time. I have to remind myself, I think you're very clear. If you're very clear with your vendors and your tenants, your broker, your banker. It just, it just makes things a lot simpler. I think, you know, and they kind of appreciate that type of approach, because a lot of to be unclear, to be unkind, a lot of those are tough conversations with people. I mean, it's just reality. So listen, you know, This work's gotta get done. Or, you know, you know, Marcus, I've got a leak in my roof. You know, we need to get that fixed. And so, you know, you're, you're relying on, on your relationship to get stuff done. And so, you know, relationships are everything to me. What are you most proud of out of your commercial real estate ventures over the last 40 years? I.

Unknown Speaker 20:01

Uh, probably,

Unknown Speaker 20:03

probably the relationship sides, really. I mean, I want my tenants to be very successful, and to date, we have not lost any tenants. So tell us more about that, because you, you, you don't just say, like, you do actually go above and beyond for your tenants, and that helps keep vacancy. Yeah, we now, we've, we've, there's some tenants that maybe moved to an area they wanted to be in, like, I think we've maybe two or three, but every tenant that we have signed or resigned has have stayed. And so I, you know, I believe it's a partnership. I look at, I look at a tenant landlord as a partnership, not a the typical type of tenant landlord relationship. I understand small business. I want them to be very successful, and I think I'll play a part in them being successful. And so, you know, we were having a conversation earlier about, you know, HVAC maintenance. And, you know, when I started doing, I guess, the buying the commercial buildings, you know, before I was the landlord, so I was responsible for everything, and I just thought that was kind of the way it should be. And, you know, I was owner. I was owner occupied landlord.

Unknown Speaker 21:12

And so I was asking my broker. I said, well, then what's, what's the typical arrangement with that? How does that work? And he said, you know, normally the tenant is responsible for everything. I said, Gosh, that just that doesn't feel right to me on things. And so how do I, how can I make it work where, you know, where I can help participate with that? And he says, Well, you know, let's bump up the per square foot price, because I'm probably higher than the market just about with every property,

Unknown Speaker 21:43

but I take care of our tenants, and so if there's a HVAC issue, then, you know, I have an HVAC guy that will go in, you know, and take care of them, and I don't have to worry about

Unknown Speaker 21:58

them being ripped off by someone that They had called just a, you know, out of the, out of the, you know,

Unknown Speaker 22:05

out from a number. And so, you know, I can kind of control that process. And so to me is the relationships that I built over the years with my tenants and, you know, my bank and everybody else. Yeah. I mean, it matters maintaining a relationship and really a reputation like that, right? Because small business community is pretty small, yep. And it doesn't take too many businesses saying, Hey, don't rent from this guy to start causing you problems. I mean, I see it all the time in East Nashville, there are certain landlords that even the businesses know, don't go deal with them. Well, there was, there was a property. I'll give you an example of that. There was a property that we own. We had just bought it back in July, and it's about 3000 square feet that we were trying to find a tenant for. And the tenant at, one of the tenants at Kent stone mom referred a business to go there because they were moving, and so that that came from a tenant we have. His mom referred a tenant to come to us, and we signed them a couple months ago, and now they're in but I had nothing to do with that. But the mom of the guy that rents from us had a relationship with the lady that needed to move and need a little bit more space. And it just it, literally, I got a phone call, and I turned over to my broker, I let him make the Commission on it, and said, Listen, man, this is an easy one. I just served up to you because I want to take care of them too, because it allows me to get first phone calls when things are, you know, come to market, or before they come on market, I always get the first phone call.

Unknown Speaker 23:43

What's, what was your biggest mistake? What were the, what were the lessons that you learned from that

Unknown Speaker 23:49

the, the most painful lesson in the commercial real estate side of it probably did a very poor, sloppy job of underwriting. Kent song, you know, you know, I got with you kind of on that process. And, you know, you talked about underwriting, and I, you know, I said, Listen, I'm a I can, I know what I'm doing. I can, I know how to do this. I've built Carl washes. I can, I can manage this. And I was so

Unknown Speaker 24:19

that was a mistake. I should have done more than underwriting. I think we would have been closer to budget, even though it was, it was a post COVID, it was an expensive build. I look back now and say, Gosh, man, we could have done better job there, and it just being sloppy. What did the sloppy underwriting cost you?

Unknown Speaker 24:36

You know, I would say, probably, you know, I always allow a 10% to go over. So a million dollars a meeting, one meeting, 150 so I went 370 over. So what? A couple 100,000

Unknown Speaker 24:49

and so that was

Unknown Speaker 24:50

because the numbers are good at Kent stone, and I'm very proud of that project. That was my new that was my first new construction of a non Carl wash property. Mm.

Unknown Speaker 25:00

And so,

Unknown Speaker 25:02

and that I said, you know, I'm on, this is going to be a really nice project. And, you know, you look at the numbers, they're good, but they could be better, and and so that that was the, probably my biggest takeaway.

Unknown Speaker 25:17

I mean, kudos to you, though, because even at $370,000

Unknown Speaker 25:21

over budget, you're still at a 7% cash on cash return, yeah. And if you look at the effective return, I think we're about 17 or 18% right, you know, for the first year depreciation. And that's things I've learned really Tyler with, you know, being, being with your group, is that, you know, I never, I heard about that stuff, and my CPA was really good at taking care of that stuff, but now I'm learning it, and so I can understand better the results of the

Unknown Speaker 25:51

depreciation. And I understood in the car was pins for equipment, but when it comes to commercial real estate, it's a little bit different. I mean, you don't there's some things you get a first year write off on, but I was used to, you know, first year depreciation of a million dollars on that solves a lot of problems. That solves every problem, yeah? You know, I think our we had 140/8001

Unknown Speaker 26:09

year, or something like that for Kent stone. So, you know, you just learned it's different. That's like half a car wash back, yeah? So you're going, wow, you know, is that it? Is that all I got for the first year? But then it really adds up. If you look at cash on cash returns, I never really thought about returns like that, because I've always did my properties to hold and so, you know, I said, Well, I can, I can make mistakes here and there, but that's, that's, that's, that's not good thinking. You've gotta be smarter than that. And so that's what I'm trying to get better at, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 26:43

you know, Marcus, there's, there's so much throughout your career and your life that I find unbelievably admirable. And one of the most interesting things that I think you're working on now is setting up your family for the next step. Yep, right. And you know, you're bringing buddy in, and you're showing him, kind of how the business works and what the portfolio looks like. I mean, whatever you're comfortable sharing around that, can you kind of tell us about how you're bringing your kids into it? Because so many investors get into commercial real estate for the generational side of what they could build, but they don't get to hear what that actually looks like. So can you tell us kind of what y'all are doing? Yeah, yeah. You know, buddy worked for me at the crawl wash when he was a kid. I mean, he's been around crawl washing all his life. And I went to him before I went, I did the problem. He was a freshman in college at University of Alabama, and I went to him, I said, Listen, I'm thinking about selling the business and doing the commercial real estate. And I thought he would be really maybe upset or disappointed, and He almost said, thank goodness, because he saw the work it takes to run these things. And he goes, Dad, just I want you to do what you want to do.

Unknown Speaker 28:00

And if you know, I'm probably going to take a different path. And so once you graduated college,

Unknown Speaker 28:08

I think he could see that, listen, you know, there's nothing wrong with coming back to the kind of the family business and learning the crawl wash industry. And so he did, and he still works for mammoth holdings now as one of the maintenance techs. And that's, that's kind of how I learn. And you got to learn the you got to learn the bones of the business. And so he's been transitioning this past year or so in the commercial real estate side. We came up to your first event. He loved it.

Unknown Speaker 28:36

And so, you know, I think it's important, I never want my kids to be surprised at what we have or what we don't have. I'm very transparent when it comes to that. So we do what we call a family board meeting every year that has my attorney, my accountant, my wife, my two kids, my assistant,

Unknown Speaker 29:00

and I think my mom came to the first one, but I lay out, it's a board meeting, and we lay out everything. I mean, you know, with what debt we have, what payments are, you know, what assets we have, what insurance we have, yeah, I'm just very transparent when it comes to that, because I think your kids need to know this stuff so they're not surprised that if something were to happen, they kind of know the plan, and they know what steps start to take. And some kids react to it differently, but I think if they're exposed to it early on, they have a greater, more respect for what you're trying to do. And you know, when you when you say, Hey, we're trying to do this, we need to be patient here, not spend here and do this. They understand what you're trying to do and so. But, you know, the family board means kind of where I start. I started this about three or four years ago, and it's been very vital, matter of fact, buddy, this last time he goes, Dad, I'm so glad we do this every year, because I see, I see the company growing, but also understand.

Unknown Speaker 30:00

Uh, more and more of what we are trying to do. And he said we are trying to do in the future. And so to me, that's what you want to hear, you know, not what you want to do, it's what we want to do. And so I think that's important. I think that's really neat. I mean,

Unknown Speaker 30:15

the way that you've set it up, and the fact that, you know, I mean, they're in their 20s, right? And they're 27 Yep, yeah, they're getting this exposure to seeing how that's properly done. I mean, most first generation that builds the wealth, most of that first generation shelters the second generation too much. They don't they want the attorneys to handle it or whatever. And so by the time that second generation has the responsibility for managing the wealth or the properties or whatever has been accumulated. They don't know anything, no, and that's that's another part of the board meeting, because the attorneys there, and they have tough conversations with the kids. You know, my daughter, she's 22

Unknown Speaker 30:53

they gave us our first grandson, and so she'll be more involved in the business as we go once the once my grandson gets a little bit older. But right now, her first response, first responsibilities is raising our grandson. That's right, but, but she's in the meeting too, and she's she's right there, and she understands it, or she doesn't understand everything, but she's least hearing what's going on and so, but I think it's just super important to that my attorney talks to them, that my accountant talks to them like adults. And so, listen, this is real world stuff. This is not, you know, this is not a case study. This is, this is reality, and this is how you know business needs to be done. And so it's not a it's not a family get together. It's actually a family board meeting with an agenda we go through and my attorney is when it leads it, and so we kind of go, it takes about two and a half hours to get through it. So that's great knowing what you know now. I mean, 40 years of investing in commercial real estate,

Unknown Speaker 31:55

if you could go back and tell yourself one thing back in 1986

Unknown Speaker 32:00

what would it be? Well, that's a great question.

Unknown Speaker 32:04

You know,

Unknown Speaker 32:08

to be unclear is to be unkind. I think if I'd have had better communications back then, I think I could have done better in business all around and relationships. I mean, so if I could go back in time, I would learn how to be a better communicator and have the tough conversations early on with I've lost a lot of good

Unknown Speaker 32:34

employees over the years just because of not communicating well, and so I stress that to to everyone I come across now, you know, brand yourself,

Unknown Speaker 32:46

but learn how to be a really good communicator. And that takes a lot of listening too. You have to listen to what people are trying to tell you and so, but you know that that would be my biggest, my biggest takeaway is, is to be a better communicator. Yeah. Marcus, thanks for sitting down for lessons learned. If anybody listening wants to learn more about mammoth holdings and what y'all are doing there, or just follow you. Where can they find you? Yeah, I'm pretty simple. I do have a Facebook. I do have an Instagram. It's Marcus Kittrell, but email at Marcus, dot k at Mammoth holdings.com,

Unknown Speaker 33:22

or Marcus at kitchen development.com, and so can we reach to those and be glad to speak with anyone about anything you know? To be honest with Todd, if I didn't have the if I didn't have the people that helped me, there's no way in the world I would be sitting in this chair. BM, do what I'm doing now. So I think it's important to, you know, share information

Unknown Speaker 33:46

and be available. I think it's important, yeah, I feel the same way. I mean, that's, that's why I started the mastermind. Yeah, that's the best thing that I joined, because it's helped me focus. You really have have, you know, coined some, some questions that have helped me think longer term about different properties. And, you know, you know, learn, hey, there's always a deal out there. Yeah. So, you know, you can pass this one up if it doesn't quite fit everything. And so I think that's important. I think that's very important to say there's always deal out there. You just have to hunt for it and learn to unwrite better

Unknown Speaker 34:24

so we get we can always polish up on our underwriting. Yeah, well, I think you've done a really good job of it, and so that's one reason I joined your syndication too. I said, you know, I'll let Tyler do the properties that he wants to buy and sell, then I'll jump in that so that I'll hold long term. I'll do that. That's right. So never, never a bad choice. Yeah, awesome, man. Well, thanks for doing this. You.