Gabe Einhorn: How LinkedIn, Bold Moves, and Faith Built a Real Estate Finance Career

Steven Weinstock: 0:01 Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Wealth Clock with Steven Weinstock. I have been investing in real estate for over 25 years, from single family homes to multi-family properties, to recently launching my own investment fund. This podcast is brought to you by WE Capital and the Goethals Capital Fund, where we buy properties in cash lock in deep discounts, eliminate mortgage risk in year one. We refinance later in order to scale. This show is not about me, it is about operators, founders, closers, who are building real results in real time. And today I am joined by someone who lives and breathes that philosophy. Gabe Einhorn. Gabe has built a reputation in commercial real estate finance, but what really sets him apart is how he shows up whether he is flying across the country with a handwritten note. I guess he will tell us about that. Some networking advice on LinkedIn. Gabe is proof that bold moves still matter. Let us get into it. Gabe, thank you very much. Gabe Einhorn: 1:07 Awesome. Thanks so much for having me, Steven. Yeah, I am coming in from Jerusalem, Israel right now it does not matter where, but we can make it work. So appreciate you having me. Steven Weinstock: 1:26 My daughter is actually in camp there for the summer she tells me everything is okay. So let us hope. Thank God. Let us get into it. How did you get into commercial finance? Gabe Einhorn: 1:37 Yeah, so funny story actually it is just about two years this summer. I finished out my undergrad and was starting my MBA at Yeshiva University while playing soccer there. And I decided the MBA program is online, so I was gonna start working somewhere. Always heard about real estate, did not really know much about actually working in it. Started off in the furniture side of things with my family. My family owns a furniture company, so I helped them out with sales, business development, just since high school when I was younger. Decided I wanted to go out in real estate and that summer I got LinkedIn. That was the first time I got LinkedIn cold DMed. A bunch of different people just looked up real estate and messaged every single person there asking for a job. Ended up getting a job at a small shop in New Jersey. I thought I was going in buying and selling. That is what I thought real estate was, and they just hit me with, yeah, this is debt financing, this is mortgages, this is how it all works. And I am like, I did not even know this was part of the game. So I spent the first couple months learning a lot to learn and ended up then six months later, moving to the shop that I am at now, the Caprio Group. I have been there for about a year and a half and just learning every day, hustling, putting myself out there and making connections. Steven Weinstock: 2:43 Gabe, you are extremely active on LinkedIn. Tell us about your LinkedIn journey. I know you told us you started out trying to get a job on LinkedIn, but tell us about what you have been doing. It could be a lot of our audience already knows. Gabe Einhorn: 2:56 For sure. Yeah. Yeah. So when I first started I just used it to basically make connections, reach out to people. And then basically the last year, the first year and a half that I had LinkedIn, it was just messaging people. Once I got the job, then messaging people to connect, get on phone calls to meet up as well. And I was not posting or anything, just really just doing cold outreach through the DMs. And then back in November time, someone told me, you gotta start posting. This was November 24, about seven, eight months ago. Gotta start posting. That is a way to get yourself out there, get more outreach. And I was like, no, no way. I am not posting, I do not wanna be putting myself out there on social media. And I actually listened to Gary V, Gary Vaynerchuk big social media guy and I heard one of his podcasts in early December saying, you just gotta post. It is free. You will get incredible results from it. So after hearing it a bunch of times, I decided I was gonna go for it. I started posting this past December, and ever since then, I said, I am gonna post every day no matter what. That is obviously there is a holiday or on Shabbos. I post Motzei Shabbos at nights, just something short just to get a post out. But basically I do not think I have missed one real day since December and it has been incredible. Steven Weinstock: 4:04 You mentioned before you were playing soccer, am I correct? Gabe Einhorn: 4:09 Yeah. I played soccer my whole life. I just finished this past year. I finished my MBA at YU and I played three seasons there. I was supposed to be playing this summer actually in the Maccabi games here in Israel. But that got postponed. They postponed the whole tournament because the war so it is gonna be next summer, so I gotta see if I am gonna play because I am done with YU now, so I am not really gonna be playing competitively this upcoming year. So I gotta see if I am gonna be able to find a team a way to stay fit for next summer and play because it is a high level competition. And if I do not play competitively this whole year it is not gonna be good if I come play next summer. Steven Weinstock: 4:43 As an American kid who grew up in New Jersey, how did you get into soccer? Gabe Einhorn: 4:46 That is a very good question. People ask me that a lot. I actually grew up one of two kids in like my whole school that played soccer. My dad is Israeli, so he got me into it at an early age. It was always my favorite sport was playing since I was three, four years old. And I would play for travel teams in Teaneck and then across New Jersey because it is obviously not really so active in the Jewish community. There is hockey, basketball, baseball. So I played all those sports because that was how you make friends. So thankfully I got pretty good at all those sports too. But soccer was always my main commitment. And I was always just very good at it. So I decided I was gonna go after schools play in these non-Jewish leagues. Met a ton of people, had incredible experiences. Played in five different countries now in Mexico, Argentina, Israel, America. And I played in Spain actually last year for a few months for a semipro team. So it has been a fun journey. Steven Weinstock: 6:20 We mentioned that you are active on LinkedIn. You are posting just about every day. How has that changed your not just mindset? How has it changed your business? Your networking? Has it helped? Has it hurt? Do you bump into people in real life and say and they come over to you and argue about a certain post? Tell us about how it has helped you in real life. Gabe Einhorn: 6:43 So thankfully I have not had much backlash. Definitely some uncomfortable times. Just people that oh, you are the guy on LinkedIn, or they will come up to me like that. Been getting that obviously, hear from some of my friends too that just gimme a mess around a little bit about me posting some stuff that they say is cringey or this and that, but have not had any negative comments. Really just been so positive since I started posting. I went from basically spending all my day from nine o clock on once I start working, just doing cold outreach, cold calls, cold DMs, everything. And now over the last two, three months, since I like got to that next level with my following, like I am getting people that are reaching out to me, people that are cold calling me sometimes just to connect. Say, oh, I follow you on LinkedIn, I got your number because I put my number on my bio. So it has been all positive, thankfully. I have just closed the my third deal directly from LinkedIn. The fact that it is generating real business and making money, there is no reason why I am gonna stop at all. I have been able to get into incredible doors, meet amazing people and yeah it is all almost all have been positive. Steven Weinstock: 7:42 Yeah, recently I saw that you posted where you are meeting people not just on LinkedIn, but you are meeting them in real life and I think that is extremely powerful. Who have you met? Anybody famous that we might have heard of? Gabe Einhorn: 7:59 Yeah, so my favorite one so far has been Bob Knakal. I met him actually, I have been communicating with him on DM since I started. He is someone who is just out there and he is so open to just connecting with people. He really has an open door to anyone, which is incredible for someone who is that successful, that busy. So I got to meet him a couple times. Eventually after our third meeting, I got invited to the map room and check out his whole office, which was really cool. I met Grant Cardone, which was very cool. Those are the main ones from LinkedIn and just trying to build up a whole roster. Try to do like a weekly thing every Tuesday morning post about someone that I met with in real life. I just met someone here in Israel. I am gonna hopefully meet one or two more people before I leave that are from LinkedIn. So it is cool. You could go anywhere in the world and meet people. It is just one DM, one message away. If they say no it is not the end of the world, so you might as well shoot your shot. Steven Weinstock: 8:46 I recently saw a video that you posted where you were standing, I believe it was in the streets of Manhattan, and you were holding a sign and basically said something to the effect, are we friends yet or are we on LinkedIn together yet? And I thought that was first of all, I thought it was very funny. But I thought it was genius actually. I can only imagine how you felt, that first like three minutes, standing there like this. I am sure it was tough. But I am sure the feedback you got following that was pretty good. How long did you actually stay out there? Gabe Einhorn: 9:18 I was out there for about an hour. The first 10, 20 minutes were like walking around, finding the best spot to go. I was standing in Bryant Park, then they told me I had to move because I could not stand like too close to the park holding up a sign. A lot of things in New York that I have learned with the signs, there is no soliciting in certain areas, so you gotta be careful where you park yourself. Even physically, just standing places is not allowed, which is crazy. But I was there probably in total, about an hour. It starts hurting your arms every couple minutes. You gotta put your arms down. But yeah, it was a cool idea. I wanted to do something special for hitting 10,000 connections. And that was a good idea that we had. Just holding up a sign, connecting with people on LinkedIn, seeing the goal was to see how many people I could find that I am actually connected to, just standing for an hour in New York City. I ended up finding two people that I was actually connected to. But then I got 30 new people that were like, oh, it was so cool. I will connect with you right now. So it is very cool. It was funny. It was like a mix of different. So that was something that you gotta stand out, you gotta be different. So that was one way I could do that. Steven Weinstock: 10:12 So it was 30 new people that day, but probably hundreds or thousands after the video. Gabe Einhorn: 10:17 The video, yeah, the video was even better. People were reaching out to me that it was so cool you did that. It was amazing that you had the courage to just stand out there with a sign and try to meet people. And it is funny because I am not like that. Like growing up I was always like the shy kid in class. I would not wanna be the public speaker in class. I would always be afraid to talk in front of the class. So if you told me a year ago I would be even on camera at all, I would have told you you are crazy. I think some people are born with it. But it is definitely a skill that could be developed and I am slowly getting more comfortable with it. I think it is just reps, getting in front of the camera. It is just like networking. You get more comfortable walking around, meeting people. So same thing with posting, putting yourself out there. It is just a fear I think of failure that you just gotta get over and realize that it is not the biggest deal. If someone thinks you are strange or weird or they do not like what you say, like there is always gonna be people like that. So you can not please everyone. Steven Weinstock: 11:05 When you are not posting on LinkedIn of you a video of you holding a sign sometimes I will see that you are posting creative workarounds with potential clients or existing clients in real estate. Maybe just tell our audience what exactly you do what debt financing means. Just a quick maybe a one minute explanation. Gabe Einhorn: 11:24 So obviously my main job is arranging debt financing. We are a brokerage. So essentially just targeting anyone and everyone who needs that financing. We have a full database of lenders. And the goal is really what I realized and after I spoke with actually Bob Knakal I was confused about what the best target is as a mortgage broker. Investment sales you try to target some sort of niche, some sort of area. And I actually asked him, I was like, what do you think I should do as a mortgage broker? And he said, it is more of a relationship game, right? You are not necessarily targeting one area, one niche. You are targeting a person. You want an investor, you want someone who you could handle their whole portfolio, whether they have properties in New York City and North Carolina and LA, but they are a good borrower and you could take care of all their needs. So that is really what I have changed my mindset to the last three or four months, is focusing on finding those really good connections where I could build a long-term relationship with them and just handle all their needs from refinances to acquisition loans, to construction loans and really just hook them up from start to finish. Steven Weinstock: 12:23 So you are able to facilitate all kinds of loans. Is that correct? Gabe Einhorn: 12:30 Yeah, so the lender relationships I am more on the origination side, so I am trying to bring in the clients. And then we got a team behind us who has all the lender relationships and they set it up from start to finish understanding really what the story of the deal is. And where the best fit is, and then understanding which lenders fit that bill. So it is obviously a whole game, and I am trying to learn that on the side while I am focusing on bringing in deals then trying to be a part of it as well to understand the whole backend side of things. Steven Weinstock: 12:56 The people you share in office with how do they feel about your LinkedIn? You are a young kid, you come in debt finance, commercial finance is an old stodgy product that has been around a long time. Sometimes it is people wearing suits and gray hair, et cetera. And here is some kid with funny hair comes in and he is a soccer player and he is holding signs in Bryant Park. What do they say about it? Gabe Einhorn: 13:17 Yeah. So I think at first they were like, not so sure like it was gonna work. They are like, okay. As long as you do not make the company look bad, and as long as we keep a good rep like I guess you could try it. I do not think they believed that like it would actually bring in business. They are like, okay. If you are gonna do it, go for it. I think they were definitely shocked when it started actually bringing in real business. And they are like, okay, I guess there is other ways to do it. There is no set rule book, obviously. Cold calling is important. You wanna get your calls in, dial in, and that is across the board. It is not so efficient, but it is effective, it works. People get business from it, but social media is here. It is an incredible way to get more outreach than you ever could from one single phone call. And it is building your name, getting your name out there. People recognize it. And then when they see you in the streets or they just think about financing, they think about real estate like they might have seen your post that day or they might have saw something that stuck with them. And it is just a good way to get your name out there. Bob Knakal actually he is definitely one of my mentors also for social media, and he says, it is not who you know, it is who knows you, right? So you can know a million people and it is great. Obviously connections are great. But it is even better when they know you and they think of you for certain things. That is you can not really ask for anything better than that. Steven Weinstock: 14:25 Yeah. It is definitely it is not who you know. It is who knows you. And you ever have a cold call you make the call and they heard of you or they have seen you on LinkedIn? Gabe Einhorn: 14:34 A couple? Yeah, a couple. And it is actually funny because I it is actually been happening in person now, which is crazy even. Yeah. Last week in Tel Aviv on Wednesday my second day here, and we are hanging out in Tel Aviv. I got a couple friends here who are in the Birthright Excel program where they are here for the summer. They are going into junior, senior year of college. And they are doing internships for startups. Two kids come up to me and they are like, I think we have seen you like on LinkedIn, like you are posting about real estate stuff. And I am like, yeah that is so cool. They go to the one goes to Maryland, one goes to Indiana University. It is just incredible. Like even in Israel, in New York City a couple events the last couple months, two people have come up to me. It is scary how powerful it is. So that is why I have been posting a lot of stuff about Israel lately and my clothing brand, my faith, just my Judaism. I think once you build a certain platform and you realize how far the outreach is it is very important to take the time, some posts, some conversations to promote things that could make a positive impact on someone. Steven Weinstock: 15:34 You just mentioned your faith. I noticed you started posting a clothing brand that you recently launched. Tell us about that. Tell us what your mindset is with that. Gabe Einhorn: 15:44 For sure. Like I said I am in Yerushalayim right now, so I got the shirt on here. Actually just came, I went to the Kotel this morning for Shachris and then stood outside the hotel asking people just what prayer means to them especially what prayer means to them specifically at the Kotel at a holy place like that. And then I went to the Shuk after asking people up and down the Shuk if they believe in God, if they pray today. The really the goal of the brand is we are doing different biblical quotes in the back of the shirt from Tanach motivational quotes in English. So connects to everyone, not just Jews, but Christians. Anyone who believes in something greater. It is a way to connect to them through the power of faith. Encourage people to be proud of it, to wear it. And then I started once I got comfortable posting on social media in March, I decided I spoke to people, they are like, you gotta now make a social media account for your clothing brand and think of an idea that you are gonna stand out, right? You could be a clothing brand, but there is millions of clothing brands out there. How are you gonna differentiate yourself that people are gonna know you? So I did some brainstorming and I decided I was gonna do some street interviews with the clothing brand. I was gonna wear the shirts and get microphones and walk around the streets in New York City, just stopping random people, asking them if they believe in God, if they pray today, how does faith play a role in their life? Is there time in their life where they really saw God? Just different questions like that. Sparking conversations with all random people across the world. So I started doing that in March. I have been trying to do that as much as I can too, and building a following there. Targeting some influencers, athletes too who have big platforms that people see them and talking about their faith, whether they are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, whatever it is. And it could inspire the younger generation. So trying to do that it is fun, it is meaningful, it is different than real estate. So it is something that gets me going. So it is not something I am gonna stop and hopefully keeps opening doors and gets big enough to make a positive impact. Steven Weinstock: 17:24 Do you ever get a negative reaction when you ask people about the faith or praying? Gabe Einhorn: 17:28 For sure. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Plenty of people that obviously, when you stop people in the street, plenty of people just keep going. They say no what are you talking about? Or people have said, I do not believe in God like God is fake. I wear my kippah. So like obviously in New York City I have had some pretty negative comments about free Palestine or you guys are killers like some disgusting stuff that obviously we do not put on camera. But it comes with it and I obviously wanna wear my kippah. We are talking to a lot of people from other faiths as well. Most of our content has been with people that are Christian. That is just the majority of people, there is a much larger Christian base than there is Jewish base. And the fact that I can keep my kippah on and have these conversations, just people know that yeah we are a faith-based brand. We are spreading the importance of belief in God and prayer. But we are still like, I am Jewish I am a Jewish brand. So that is just the root of it. So it comes with its positive negatives, but it is something, especially in the workplace too. I have only had I have had negative things that come obviously with wearing kippah whether it is at events or in New York City but most of it has ended up coming like something good has come from it, whether it is someone walks up to me at an event, they say, oh, I see your kippah like you are Jewish, and then it ends up building a good relationship. So that is worth all the negative stuff that comes with it too. Steven Weinstock: 18:35 I recently saw a video where you bumped into an athlete what was he, an NBA player? Gabe Einhorn: 18:42 Yeah. Did I see that correctly? We bumped into a bunch actually. I went to Fanatics Fest in New York. It was about a month ago, literally a three day thing. So we went Friday and Sunday. Obviously I could not go on Shabbos. That is when like LeBron James, Tom Brady all came and obviously we missed them. But we went Friday and we went Sunday and there was just tons of athletes, influencers just walking around, just hanging out. So I had my microphone, I had a bunch of shirts. Just walking around, just literally just following them around, getting five seconds, 10 seconds a minute with them, giving them a shirt to rep. So we met DeMar Hamlin actually, which is very cool. He is the player who almost died on the field a couple years ago. He had a whole cardiac arrest. He literally they saved his life on the field. So when I asked him about his faith he said, yeah, God is everything. God saved my life. So stuff like that is so cool to see. And these athletes have such a big influence on the younger generations on kids. And when they post about drugs, money, cars, like these kids follow it. So if they talk about faith that could have just a little bit of a positive impact on them. So those are big people we wanna try to target. Steven Weinstock: 19:43 I think faith is having a resurgence here in the USA the past few years. I know 20 years ago, 30 years ago, I think it was on the decline, but I think the last maybe it is even the last 10 years, it is not so cringey to go to synagogue or church which I think is a good thing. Country is better off when people have faith changes the way they think, changes the way they act, changes the way they lead their family. And in general, it is a net positive for the country. Gabe Einhorn: 20:11 For sure. 100%. That is really like how the idea came about the brand last year. Like I just realized like obviously, we are Jewish and we believe in God and we have a moral guidance, but really most people that believe in something greater than them, like it gives them some sort of guidebook. Like they do not think that they could control the world because they believe there is something greater than them that controls it. So that is just the way that we can all connect to other people who are just faithful that believe in God. And it is cool to believe in God. It is normal. It is important. So bringing it back to relevance is important too. Steven Weinstock: 20:40 All right, Gabe. I appreciate it. I know you asked for a shorter version because you are out in Israel right now touring. And I am a little jealous of you that you are there and I am stuck here in Brooklyn, New York. But definitely have a good time. One last question. How do you recharge? You ever I know we are lucky. We have the Shabbos, the Sabbath, where for 25 hours a week, we are mandated to shut off our phone. Not think about business, not talk about business. And it definitely helps us. Is that how you recharge? Anything else? Gabe Einhorn: 21:13 Yeah, a hundred percent. If I did not have Shabbos, I would be going seven days a week, 24/7, and you just burn out. Like it is really a forced stop in your life that no phone, no social media, and especially when you are so active in social media and you get more and more into it. And even just in the business world, like once I started working full-time the last two years, like you are always thinking about business all day. Like new opportunities, new relationships, new people. To have a full pause on it like it is a blessing. Like you grow up and when you are younger and it is oh, I can not watch sports, I can not go on my phone, I can not do this. And then once you actually appreciate it and realize I feel so good Saturday night just like refreshed, like ready to go, excited to get going the next week and like time to spend with your family, friends, God. Yeah, that is really my main recharge. Like right now I am locked in and trying to spend Sunday to Friday, really just grinding as much as possible. I know every week I have that 25 hours to rest. So my that is my mindset every week is I have Shabbos every week, so every other minute I am gonna try to optimize, maximize as much possible. Even just Shachris, Mincha, Maariv during the week too, like just having that prayer like at the time 30 minutes, 40 minutes where you just stop, no phone. You are just praying. That is so important. So that is also just short recharges throughout the day too. Steven Weinstock: 22:26 Any good books you are reading these days or anything to recommend? Gabe Einhorn: 22:29 So I just started the Alchemist. I am not sure if you have heard of it. I am only a couple chapters in. So that is pretty interesting. I just finished Bob Knakal book, which is very good. And I am also I got a book it is from I forgot what it is called, but they sent it to us for the Maccabi games. It is from a Holocaust survivor. It is forwarded by Ray Allen, the NBA player. So I am excited to read that too. I have been getting more into books. The Art of Making a Deal by Donald Trump. I read that over Pesach. That was really good. That one I wanna read again. Like when I finished it, I was like, I wanna read it again. So those are some good books I am reading. I do not really watch TV. I have not watched a TV show in a while. I watched Happy Gilmore last night with a friend. That was a good movie. That is the new one. Yeah, the second one. We watched the new one. That was very good. I have not really watched TV in a long time. When I have free time I like sports, so right now it is like a dead time. I am not so into baseball. Only Yankees playoffs, so now it is kinda like a time where it is chill travel, obviously in Israel a lot to do. So not too much time for shows. But yeah, I am a sports guy over TV shows. Steven Weinstock: 23:30 Any habits that changed your life recently? Gabe Einhorn: 23:35 Habits that changed my life recently. Wow. I guess actually the last two weeks. So I am a big workout guy. I have been playing soccer my whole life. And sometimes you overtrain a little bit, just going too hard. And I have taken the last two weeks, I have been in Israel traveling and just take a break from exercise, which is an interesting concept to think about. But with everything, it has to be done in moderation. And my body was just so fatigued, tired from working out 2, 3, 4 hours a day. I would go to the gym in the morning. I play soccer at nights. And we do that for so long and you do not give your body proper rest, just like with everything you burn out from it. So that is really, I feel so much better now just the last two weeks of just focusing on stretching, yoga, meditation, recovery and just day of my life in Israel traveling and taking a little bit of a break from real exercise in sports, which is interesting to think about. But that has been good. Steven Weinstock: 24:26 This interview is gold. I really appreciate it. Thank you for dialing international long distance to come to us here today. Just tell the audience where they can meet you, where they could reach you what they could do. Any phone numbers. I will put it in the show notes. Gabe Einhorn: 24:39 For sure. Yeah. First of all, appreciate you having me on and looking forward to meeting in person too. I think that is one of my next stops for my Tuesday post about from DMs to real life. But yeah, I am on LinkedIn, Gabe Einhorn. My phone number is on there, 201-759-7407, open to phone calls, messages, looking to connect. I am back and forth from New Jersey and New York. And then sometimes in Miami. So really anyone who is in any of those areas hit me up. Always open to meet up, coffee, lunch, you name it. That is it. And then you can follow PRAY Studios on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. If you wanna watch some faith-based content, some videos, some good meaningful content, check that out too. Steven Weinstock: 25:19 Okay. For everyone listening, if you want to connect with Gabe, check out the links in the show notes. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, share it with someone who needs to hear it. I am Steven Weinstock and this has been The Wealth Clock with Steven Weinstock. Gabe, thank you very much. Gabe Einhorn: 25:37 Thank you, Steven.