The Family Office Club with Richard Wilson, CEO and Founder

Today, American Dreams host, Alan Olsen, sits down with Richard Wilson, CEO, the Family Office Club.

Transcript:

Richard Wilson

And then I said, Okay, who’s gonna pay a 22 year old kid $100,000 a year to do something I’m not bored have to didn’t want to do the risk consulting and I figured out I have to either do commercial real estate or raise capital.

Because it doesn’t matter how old you are. It’s just what you get done with the capital raising route, I moved to Boston, and started studying psychology of influence and persuasion there while raising capital during the day for investment managers, and I stumbled upon the term family office, and then nobody was a trail guide to me. So I started sharing what I was learning online.

And then my blog took off and started getting 1000 5000 10,000 hits a day, and then kind of started the whole business based on that been 15 years now. And we’ve hosted 185 live events, and I’ve written 13 books, and we have 3000 plus investors in the family office club.

And we have about 1000 members, which are basically charter members who pay for access to the investor club and our 15 live events a year.

Alan Olsen

When when you meet with the investment club, but it’s a profile of your typical attendee

Richard Wilson

Sure. So either they are a private investor who’s worth anywhere from three to 5 million up to several 100 million, or they are someone who is raising capital.

And it’s oftentimes we do have people who are new to raising capital, but most of the time, it’s someone who already is raising capital, and they’re trying to elevate from raising 50 and $100,000, checks to half a million dollar checks, or they want to figure out how to tap into the family office space and really partner in joint venture and close deals with the ultra wealthy.

Those are the two groups that come

Alan Olsen

you know, it’s quite a market out there right now, with all the volatility and and what do you see happening down the road? Do you see any trends that are up and coming or the you know, fear or panic from investors? What are people giving you feedback with?

Richard Wilson

I don’t try to predict because it’s so unpredictable. But I like to make sure I’m not completely dumb. And so I like to layer in the markets. And if the markets obviously sliding while everyone else is sitting on their hands right now, we’re buying assets at 20 to 30% off.

And if they go down, 40% We’ll buy even more, you know, we know we’re not buying at the top because the top was, you know, q4 last year.

And so a lot of investors who do try to guess say that things are just gonna get worse April through June next year, perhaps like the Ray Dalio and Jamie diamonds and informed family offices of the world generally guessed that they generally guess that interest rates will come back down and 2025 or so but who knows if any of that is really what’s gonna happen, right.

And so we believe in sticking to business niches where you’re adding value and forcing appreciation or building a real business. And because of that, you don’t just wait and try to time the market and say, Oh, well, if I can’t time the market perfectly, there’s no way to make money, that’s basically putting your hands up and saying you have no skills to add value to a platform or asset.

So a lot of our families are very entrepreneurial, and they don’t just stop and wait for the market to completely change. Yeah, so

Alan Olsen

Richard, in the family offices add when they’re coming in? Do you typically see them wanting to pull their funds with a venture or private equity group? Or do they want to go on a standalone basis,

Richard Wilson

it depends on the family. Some families are very control oriented and want to go direct to the deal as much as possible. But many realize that if it’s not the space where they created their wealth, they’re probably best off finding a partner or finding someone to allocate through, some families will do both.

And if you’re running a fund right now, or a sponsor platform, and you’re thinking, Oh, well, I don’t want to waste any of my time, because some of these families are just want to come in and go direct to the asset or go straight to the deal and not through my fund. Sometimes you can have your cake and eat it too.

And maybe by putting half a million or a million with your fund, they can now co invest with you directly as well. Or you can have a side letter with a fund to have them invest directly and CO invest through the fund. Another way is to even if a family says oh, well, we’re an expert in this niche.

So we do our own deals. You can say okay, but what if I found a deal that was better than any deal you’ve ever done in that niche that you usually like to do on your own?

Would you be willing to joint venture with us and we bring the asset to the table and some great ideas, and we’re just a minority equity partner, you bring most of the capital or all the capital, you’re in full control after that, but we’re included as a little bit of an equity partner, because we’re not real estate brokers, we’re an investment company.

And then that way we get some upside on this amazing deal that we found and most families will be reasonable and and want to work together on something like that. If the deal flow truly is exceptional, and kind of an anomaly deal flow that gets their attention.

Alan Olsen

What events do you have coming up?

Richard Wilson

So we do 15 live events a year. Our next one is called the family office Super Summit. It’s a 1500 person event in Fort Lauderdale, December 14 15th, and 16th. Most importantly, though, because some people might listen to this six months later, or a year or two later, every quarter we do 1000 person investment club event.

And they feature typically 70 to 150 speakers over two or three days. So over two or three days, you’re hearing from a lot of different brains on investment structures, strategies, best practices, and I don’t like getting bored at my own conferences, and I’ve had to go to all 185 of them.

So I script all the discussion panel questions based on what I’m curious about what my clients are asking me about. So it’s really a grounds for improving deal flow, investment structures, strategies, and also new investor relationships for myself, as well as our clients, right? Like, I want this platform to serve me and serve my clients at the same time.

So that’s why we work hard to make sure it’s excellent.

Alan Olsen

The person interested in joining the club, how would they go ahead and go about that,

Richard Wilson

check it out, if they go to family offices.com, then they go to forward slash join or just click the Join button at the top and they can check out what’s included with charter membership. Typically, if you raise an extra $40,000 or so or maybe $70,000 And you’ve gotten your money back on the membership, if you’re an investor, you can register with us at Investor club.com.

And private investors and family offices are able to attend the event if you’re raising capital or run a fund or syndicating deals and you need to register some charter members to pay to attend.

Alan Olsen

Okay, very good. A Richard. Well, it’s been a pleasure having you with us on today’s show.

Richard Wilson

Sure. Thanks for having here, Alan. Take care.

To view more content like this, click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel

And click here to receive our FREE Newsletter.

Sponsored by:

Thank You!