Table of Contents
Podcast Transcription
[00:00:00] Scott Dillingham: Welcome to the wisdom lifestyle money show. I’m your host. Scott Dillingham. The goal of the show is to show you how you can grow personally, financially, have a larger net worth and leverage your largest asset to help develop you into the person you want to. I take you through all the steps I did coming from nothing being told, I was nobody and that I was never going to accomplish anything.
Getting kicked out of high school to owning a multi-million dollar real estate portfolio, and my own company, you’ll meet our partners, you’ll , meet our friends and you’ll quickly discover how you can improve your life.
So listen in and enjoy the show. Thanks
tuning in today. I have a really
exciting and special guest for you today. His Matt Buschman.
self-taught entrepreneur and he’s the
co-founder of the
synergy real estate group with his partner PJ Lou Senti.
Under Keller Williams
lifestyle Realty brand.
He’s also the president of development with his endless drive for success. Matt continues to open up doors of opportunities.
For himself and his family. So Matt welcome.
[00:01:07] Matt Buschman: Scott, how are you?
[00:01:08] Scott Dillingham: I’m great. How are you today?
[00:01:09] Matt Buschman: Good.
[00:01:10] Scott Dillingham: Awesome.
No, I’m really excited to have you on. And I think we’ll start, like when it all started. So where did you grow up?
[00:01:17] Matt Buschman: It’s actually funny. Cause when you asked me to be on the show, you. No months ago, you went to ask people.
We’re going to start this with your life story.
And at that time,
I never actually really thought about that. You sit back and reflect on, how do you get to where you’re at? And it’s mind boggling, actually the steps to get there. Grew up in Leamington, Ontario extremely hardworking family. I think that’s really where I get a lot of my work ethics from is my mom and my dad.
Went to a school called St. Louis.
There, I think, for me, grades five through eight were extremely important. We had a a teacher in in coach that I think to this day really positively affected so many people from our generation.
When you think back to, we had practices before school practices, during lunch practices, after school.
You don’t see that today, but we, what we were thinking was everything that you’re, creating for it, an individual. So the self discipline, the work ethic, all that stuff is, we look back today. I’m like, that was a major.
Item for me. From there we went to, I went to a Colonel Carter high school continued to play sports. Awards here and there across the board. But at that point, it’s interesting because I felt like I, I wouldn’t say got lost, but it was just, you had to make decisions.
Yeah. What’s the rest of your life going to look like and going through high school, you come across subjects and grades and so on and so forth, but, I had a hard time really honing in on what made sense for me.
I was an entrepreneur just didn’t know it. You know what I wanted to know. They didn’t teach in school. And that was a kind of an interesting next step. So there was a co-op program.
At the time I died was one. He an entrepreneur, he was a, a floor installer. And. To renovations. And I said, you want, I’ll go work for him as part of the co-op program.
[00:02:50] Scott Dillingham: Yeah.
That’s exactly what I did with my father. I started working with him. doing carpentry construction,
yep.
[00:02:56] Matt Buschman: it was a
couple of things I got to be with my dad, a. Which I thought was kinda cool.
Too was, it got you exposed to the new build world and.
in the back of my mind,
I really did want to become a something in the real estate.
I wasn’t sure what existed. I didn’t know what options were there. So it was neat. So we would go in and do new build projects and you got to see from ground up what these things and what that process would look like and rate that I was sold. But at the same time, I said to myself,
Oh, my God, my dad works extremely hard. So I made a promise to myself that I was going to try to change the course of the family.
And from there kind of decisions were made, right? I decided to get into real estate. I asked my parents for a $47,000 loan.
I was in high school still, and I wanted to buy my first flip. So back in the day you scroll through MLS and it was dinosaurish back then, but yeah.
I had a concept, an idea I wanted to do swipe on my first.
First house on the west end.
And, I convinced my parents. You can move in it to what tomorrow. All we got to do is change your paint and flourish. So I take my down through the house and I lose him. At one point, he goes into the bathroom. All of a sudden, you hear this massive crackling sound. What was my dad? He fell through the floor into a crosswalks.
Long story short that house, which was supposed to be a month of a flip, it ended up taking a year and a half. And to this day,
I don’t know if we bonded more than anything, or if it was more three first.
But it was a great experience than the summary guards. But it got you exposed to the real estate world.
You were now in it, right?
Sold it to this day. It’s probably one of the more unique.
Flips I’ve seen in the market. I’ve actually seen sell twice after that. Which was neat. At that point in time, still working for my dad one day in the van, he says, mom said, they’re hiring.
At lifestyle, family fitness on Manning. It was interesting because at the time through high school, I. I that’s where I was introduced to the gym. That was my passion. You.
I would work out two times.
a two hours a day or two times a day. Before and after work or after sports for school. And I was huge. That was just a major thing for me. Again, bringing in that grade five through eight experience of practice.
Work. So I said why not?
And at the time, I didn’t know if he was saying, I don’t want to work with you anymore.
[00:04:58] Scott Dillingham: He might have been, doesn’t want to fall through the floor again.
[00:05:01] Matt Buschman: You’re a little too dangerous for my health.
Or go do what you really want to do.
Like I’m okay. Type of thing.
I went for the interview and lo and behold got the job, and for me, that was really a game changer.
That was a time in my life where I didn’t know I was going into it with two things. I love the industry, but I still have this passion for real estate. I didn’t know what that path look like. The first day of the job. I remember one of my coworkers saying that the bare minimum, you’re going to meet people in this industry. Again, didn’t know what that meant.
[00:05:29] Scott Dillingham: All Right?
[00:05:29] Matt Buschman: To this day, I miss the job It was great. Working with clients. I love working with people, love helping people in any way.
but during that time again, I was in real estate. So I’m like, okay, how do I take this to the next level?
Lo and behold, the owner of the gym to this day is actually one of the largest commercial developers that I didn’t know at the time, but I saw what he was doing. He was doing plazas. He slowly built up Manning road and he got into a bunch of other developments in a Walker, which was just great to see. And again, I said to myself, I did not know this was a thing.
I did not know that was something that you could actually do.
I didn’t know how that worked. So I said let’s downscale that and what can we do?
So I put a plan together and at the same time I was treating a gentlemen. Super, super nice family that ended up becoming my future partner in what is now known as bushati.
Shante development. Okay. I presented him with my plan. It was a construction of three, three fourplexes in the part of a city that nobody wanted to necessarily build.
let alone live. And we had to rent 36 of these things out. Risky. Yes, but the cool part was that the game plan in our mindset, I thought made sense the demand was there. It would just, we had to sell it.
We sold out. We rented them all out. The first
Literally the first three months during construction. It was a great experience because I was exposed to how that worked.
Right down to the financing aspect.
To what it takes to construct these things.
To what takes the least these things. And by the way, once you’re done.
you got to manage these things right. So now you’ve got to build that back end platform of what that looks like. The unfortunate part, 2000 and that was in 2005 is when was created, 2000. 7 8, 9.
The industry. Wasn’t so good. Yeah, my partner, the industry he was in was automated related and I was put in a bad position, completely understand his position, but he basically said, Matt,
You got to buy me out or we have to do something here and I had no money. We just started these things. Again, I go back to parents.
We need a loan for X why’s.
Because we have to buy a partner.
And I believe, and this is where I want to take the company. And this is where I know we can do things and so on and so forth. And I’ll give you an example of how interesting the situation was. Sure. At that time. I left the gym. Was working for my partner. On other ventures. Had just built a custom house.
Had very little to no money. And he comes to the table and says, here’s what we have to do. On top of that, as an example. I would do the, our own snow and grass in the winter time had gone so bad during this time that I didn’t have a dollar to my name, to pay for water.
[00:07:54] Scott Dillingham: Wow.
[00:07:54] Matt Buschman: So you sit there and say, okay, your son asked you for X amount of dollars.
He’s not producing anything. Why would we do that? Long story short? They did.
Yeah. And after that, it got fun.
[00:08:05] Scott Dillingham: Oh, that’s awesome. That’s great. No. What family is there for? My mom.
[00:08:08] Matt Buschman: And
[00:08:09] Scott Dillingham: dad, they
would support me through anything and everything. So that’s great to see that they’re there for you.
[00:08:13] Matt Buschman: Now,
[00:08:14] Scott Dillingham: While you’re developing a property, let’s say, was there something that like a major issue that you kept repetitively seeing, or is every property different for someone who’s looking to. Build their development.
[00:08:25] Matt Buschman: We can, to this day,
I built.
A lot of multi-res Buildings we’ve gone through over 900 tenants.
It’s been interesting. And it’s you think by this point in time, you have lit.
You know
what every property is completely different.
My biggest thing is I’ve always, I was always big on max use. Okay.
So If you looked at a circumstance, what’s the max use of this property?
And work the numbers backwards right. in your mind. What you’re doing is you’re also creating a gut feeling of problems, right? Going through from star. Is there going to be infrastructure problems? What are the load bearing? All these things come to light, right?
Once
you’ve done
that.
Your gut. And I’ve always been for a month. My gut makes a lot of my decisions because naturally your body’s gathering all this information.
And it’s going to give you a feeling of go or no bill, right? I think one of the biggest hurdles for me. Going through that process was.
You didn’t really know a lot of people to get the jobs done.
Like you were this young kid.
[00:09:15] Scott Dillingham: I think it’s still that way.
[00:09:17] Matt Buschman: to some reread.
[00:09:17] Scott Dillingham: To find people.
[00:09:18] Matt Buschman: Fortunately
now I think we have a solid team. Some people going come and go just because of industry related. Type of thing.
But I have to tell you anybody starting out that by far, you have to have a team behind you.
You have to have people that will show up to the job. You have to have people that do it to the level you need to be done. That was huge.
[00:09:36] Scott Dillingham: No.
that’s in. That’s incredible. We’re going to be right back now when we
come back.
Matt’s
going to go over
he did together, money for his next project,
which very interesting. And then how you became. from that
into where he was to a
top in your producing realtor.
Welcome back.
[00:09:54] Matt Buschman: So
[00:09:55] Scott Dillingham: Matt, I’m really curious. So you’ve had a lot of things that you’ve done in your life, and it sounds amazing. And you’re going to get into more, but I’m curious about how you got your real estate license.
[00:10:03] Matt Buschman: Yeah, it’s funny because again,
Going through the gym years and
And who are you working with my dad? And even back to my teenage years.
I’ve always wanted to get into real estate. Again, I didn’t know if it was from a development from sales. I did both. And oddly enough, a game changer moment again, was, that position of my partner saying, We have to do something here. Again, just built custom homes. So I said, listen, beautiful house. Maybe this is my opportunity to finally commit to getting my license.
Selling the home and moving forward.
Ultimately, that’s what I did.
At the time. By the way I met my future wife while working at the gym. And her friend husband owned one of the brokerages here in Windsor.
The Valencia family. And I think they’re a fantastic group. I highly recommend them any given day.
I was there from 2007, right through to 2018. I believe.
And it was interesting because during that time of going through that process,
You’re literally turning the page into something brand new.
Yep. All the while Juggling the development stuff.
I didn’t have an admin. I didn’t have a secretary. I didn’t have any of this stuff. So you’re all in type of guy. So when it was the real estate items took off really well.
I believe the first year I was a rookie of the year at Valenti.
Kept on growing from there.
but I’m just huge on learning. I needed more, needed, more needed more, and I’m a firm believer that anybody wants to be successful. You have to have that unnaturally.
[00:11:19] Scott Dillingham: Yep.
[00:11:20] Matt Buschman: If You’re
forcing yourself to.
Okay. What’s not, that’s just not something that’s going to end in a good scenario for you. So.
I just naturally love to learn. So during that time, I said, what’s next.
Why not buy a gym?
[00:11:32] Scott Dillingham: Why
[00:11:33] Matt Buschman: Let let let’s let’s make
it a little bit. A little bit messy. So long story short while I was there an opportunity came to, to buy a fitness studio in which we did. And we transformed that into pure fitness at the time. My wife, it was funny cause I have a picture of my wife the day one, we’re going through some renovations. We did a big up-skill renovation and she was pregnant with our first child Jackson.
And I have a picture of her assembling her desk and she looks like she’s ready to pop.
at that point in time. So we started that venture like that.
[00:12:01] Scott Dillingham: Yeah.
[00:12:01] Matt Buschman: X amount of years later, we sold it actually with our, I think it was our third child had just been born.
And at that point in time, we made a decision. To say, okay, what do we pick? We had real estate going on, Jim, going on Bush Shaunti development was. Continue to build buildings. So we sold that and I think she did a phenomenal job with that, Jim, but that in itself was a great experience too.
[00:12:23] Scott Dillingham: Okay.
[00:12:23] Matt Buschman: The gym environment, going back to your roots of passion was interesting because if that’s what we wanted to do,
But it was also a life lesson in the sense that just because you’re passionate in something doesn’t mean it’s going to be successful. And there’s, that’s something, a lot of people in any entrepreneur I think can actually respect. That every given day. So we did well. We did, we, we ended up selling because families first. We’re just huge with that mentality. And we move forward.
During that time, I was still facing.
Some development challenges in the year that I was building. They decided to put, make a CIP designated area. And what that meant was you couldn’t plant the tree without having to go to council. I have a big fear. Public speaking. So for me to go in front of council was like a massive ordeal, right?
Lo and behold, I had to do that four or five times one, every case continued to build.
which again, just make you stronger.
And at this point in time, we now have like I mentioned,
110 tenant base, I think over all self design and self-built buildings.
Was very fortunate. Last year to finally make the decision of hiring a full-time VP to run that because my passion.
Is equally as good for real estate sales. So again, going back to that,
It allowed me to really transition hardcore back into that market. So with Valenti in 2018.
There was a company called Keller Williams that came to the table. Again, flinty that family was fantastic. The operation over there was phenomenal. The building, in my opinion is one of the best in the city. Location’s fantastic. Keller Williams at the time, just really offered.
That team growth environment, which is a new topic for Windsor.
In fact, they brought tech to the topic.
They just brought things at Windsor.
Didn’t really.
Have an option for at that point in time.
To this day, I still see a lot of flavor and different brokerages. They’re now gearing a lot of their marketing towards some of the things that Keller Williams.
brought to the table, which I think is fantastic.
A lot of individual agents are really gearing the way they do business into that kind of mentality.
which I thought was fantastic.
But with the team environment allowed us to really think about that. PJ Valenti was I think a coworker at the time there, and we were friends as well. And I think there was a unique opportunity for us to do something which. We set out to, to do, and we created synergy real estate group.
Now the premise of this wasn’t the PGM mat team. It wasn’t our names out there. It was the creation of something where if we were going to create a team.
Everybody coming to the table, brought their own set of skills.
And together as one, it was a pretty powerful entity.
I think the company has brought a lot of unique things to the table to think about. We’ve learned.
I think in immense amount of exposure on numerous topics. It allows us to travel. We’ve been to new Orleans for family. You.
Family day functions with the company and so on and so forth. And it really exposes you to, again, another level of real estate.
Now you’re talking insider reprograms, you’re talking international developments, you’re talking just a whole nother world of real estate, right?
So that was interesting. As of today we have a.
A team of six. Okay. I thoroughly believe we have
One of the best teams out there.
the Each one of them bring their own skill sets. Each one of them is highly driven.
We’re slowly working towards, I think stepping out of a sales role to some degree and really growing that part of the team, because there’s just so much out there that we can do.
So
[00:15:38] Scott Dillingham: you’re mentioning, you’re looking to grow. So you’re looking to get additional team members,
[00:15:42] Matt Buschman: We were always looking to grow.
What am I? My, one of my mentalities though is always it’s a word called Kaizen and Kaizen for me is it’s always that.
What I called the fail stop. So if I’m ever going too fast and something I bring this word up and it forces me to slow down and then go that pace. We’re huge on expansion, but it doesn’t have to be overnight.
and it’s gotta be the right fit for both sides. So if an individual comes into the office and leave.
Yeah. We’ve heard a lot of great things at Bellevue or we’re interested in joining a team. What do you have to offer? It’s gotta go both ways, right? So it’s gotta be a natural fit for both sides. We know what we can bring to the table, but some people are shocked actually, of what the industry actually takes to be successful in what.
We have to
do and the whole nine yards. Yeah.
[00:16:24] Scott Dillingham: No it’s definitely different. So when you look at, advertising and marketing 10, 20 years ago, and then you look at it now it’s drastically different.
The needs are totally different.
[00:16:33] Matt Buschman: 100%. Everything’s social media driven.
Everybody’s put, it’s funny. Cause in our team going back to synergy, it’s. My strengths might be my partner’s weakness and vice versa.
I’ll be
the first to admit I’m not a social media guy. Like I.
I’m sure I.
People take care of that for me. I don’t know what they’re saying.
The listings go out and all that stuff, but I’m not as sure.
I’m that young, old fashioned guy.
I’m huge on the conversation.
at the kitchen table. Okay. Because that’s really where my strengths come out.
And, you can’t portray that through a message on social. So when you’re backed by trust and experience,
In my conversations, it’s not about sales ever. In fact, I probably express dialogue to clients more often to make sure they don’t make a decision and to make a decision.
And it’s really the conversation that kitchen table that’s so important because that client, at the end of the day,
I’m hoping and, record’s proven that we’re doing okay. Because of it. I think.
is that they’re more out to relate to you. Okay, because you’re coming from the right place. I love
[00:17:28] Scott Dillingham: it. No, it’s true.
Trust. Makes the strongest relationships. So if you’re going to someone’s kitchen table and they trust you.
[00:17:35] Matt Buschman: Yeah. Yeah
[00:17:36] Scott Dillingham: it’s
a much stronger relationship. And I do have one other question for you before we had offered the day.
[00:17:41] Matt Buschman: say.
[00:17:42] Scott Dillingham: What the number one tip, you could give someone to be successful or a trial and tribulation that you’ve overcome. Where you could share some advice on that. What would that be to someone listening today?
[00:17:51] Matt Buschman: It’s fun except, and listening to your podcast. And I think a couple of my really hit the nail on the head of. Just do it.
I think Nike had a great slogan when they said that, So I would offer two things. Number one.
You don’t just do it, but with a splash of education, and risk assessment, because some people can say, I’m going to go dive in. I’m going to go buy it Because they’ve watched so many shows, or read so many articles and.
I’m going to go and do it at a splash of education.
My biggest thing though, I offer everybody is recognize your strengths and supplement your weaknesses and really think about that. because you’re not going to be nobody’s fully balanced. So if your weaknesses. You know what? I’m a little short on money or I need lending find that individual that’s going to be part of that.
[00:18:29] Scott Dillingham: Yep
[00:18:30] Matt Buschman: That’s so huge as part of that team effort, if your strength is you have so much energy, I’m a go getter I vision. Great. You’ve identified that your job now is to mold them together.
and create your next steps. And the big one is the big, why.
Why do you want to do this?
At one time, my motivations were potentially money.
But I’ll tell you right now, we have a 12 million million dollar, portfolio, a net asset of almost 9 million and it doesn’t really excite me. What excites me is the opportunities.
That now opens up and what we can do. You’re always raising the bar now.
So at some point in time your, your motivations will change, but I would clearly ask everybody to define your why. What is the why factor as to why you might be thinking about getting into real estate or getting into investing in real estate? Yeah,
[00:19:14] Scott Dillingham: no, I love it.
And for those of you listening that.
You’re like, I don’t know what my strengths are.
There’s this book it’s called strengths finder 2.0.
All right. buy it. It’s on Amazon. I think it’s 20 bucks. So in it.
Outlines in describes what the different various strengths are and then it’s got testing and you can find out.
what you’re good at. So ideally what the book is saying is.
if you do something that’s within your strengths, you’re actually going to be happier overall. Cause a lot of people are doing things just to do it.
But if you do something you’re really good at it and you love. Obviously you’re going to be happier. So that’s a good book to get out there. All right. And purchase. And then one more thing that, so if somebody is looking to reach out to you or they’re looking to join a strong real estate team,
How would they reach out to you or contact you?
[00:19:58] Matt Buschman: Yeah, absolutely.
If that’s something you’re considering you can reach out a direct to the office 519-567-7788.
My direct cell phone.
(519) 999-9907. Either one will do that happily. Do you sit a console with you and we take people through a process.
No, there’s literally, a, we have a, literally a test that. is created and it spits out some answers. And it’s interesting what it tells you about yourself.
[00:20:24] Scott Dillingham: It’s just like the StrengthsFinder. It’s the same type of thing. What’s credible.
[00:20:28] Matt Buschman: Yeah.
[00:20:28] Scott Dillingham: So that’s awesome. Yeah. So then give him that office or his telecall. If you’re looking to join a strong team and have your strengths be brought forward and used every day. And thanks for listening, and I hope you have a great day. And thanks for coming.
Matt
[00:20:43] Matt Buschman: Appreciate it, Scott.
[00:20:44] Scott Dillingham: No problem. Take care.
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