Episode 8: From Medicine to Multifamily — How One Entrepreneur Is Building Legacy Through Apartments

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You're listening to the Potentializer, the show where small apartment investors learn how to grow wealth faster with less effort, more credibility and real impact. Hosted by best selling author and platform builder, Lance Edwards, this podcast is your inside track to smarter models, collaborative deals and overlooked opportunities that create true freedom. Whether you're just getting started or ready to scale with partners, platforms and purposes, this is your launch pad.

Well, welcome to the Potentializer podcast. This episode, this is the show where we spotlight real stories, bold strategies, and smarter ways to build wealth without the grind. If you're ready to break free from the old rules and unlock your true potential through partnerships, platforms and powerful investments in in real estate, you're in the right place. And today I have a special guest, actually one of my clients, Mr. Alan Hirsch. We're going to be speaking to him about his journey, leading it into real estate. And very, very interesting background, very, very interesting journey and a very solid man. So I'm very looking, much, looking forward to this interview with Alan. So, Alan, let me welcome you to the Potentializer podcast.

Thank you, Lance. Pleasure to be here.

And I want to start off, of course, I know a lot about you, Alan. I want to get everyone to know you as well in this process. And for example, one thing, you've built a very successful career in medical practice management. And let's start there. What originally drew you into that field and what lessons have you carried forward from it?

So I came into this field way, way back in the late 1980s, early 1990s, when I was a much younger man, and I went to work for a company called Profes, which was a subsidiary company of one of the major insurers in the United States. And it was an interesting company because it was designed for health care professionals, dental and physicians, medical. So I got involved as a young man in that field and what I was looking to do was build up a client base. When you're young and new, it's difficult to get in front of people that are seasoned and making big money. So the place that I found a market that I could talk to was with interns and residents, residents in hospitals who were finishing up their training and looking for something to do. And when I say something to do, they're obviously going to go into their professional career. But there were various different choices. Do they go into private practice? Do they join another group? Do they join a hospital system which, as popular as it was now, was not so popular in the early 1990s. There was a different kind of a market in health care. So armed with all the literature and the paraphernalia that I got from this company. I went out to the marketplace and I used to go to hospitals to meet with interns and residents and they would always say to me, nice. And by the way, one of the things that Profesco also offered was equity products because it was part of a major insurance company and I think it was a marketing arm to get out there and get in with big earners so they would buy their product lines. Anyway, I got requests from doctors and I didn't go into the medical market, the dental market, only the medical market. So I got requests from doctors and they would say things like, al, you know, all this stuff you do is great, but we need somebody to help us find a practice or finance a practice or evaluate what I needed to do. So I went back to the company, I said, listen, I don't have people to buy right now. They're young doctors coming out. They don't have money, but they need help in all these things that they say we do. And they said, great, maybe you'll get an accountant to do that. We don't really want to do that. We want to get in front of them and offer them equity products and pension funds and things like that. So I was kind of in a place where I had a market now and I saw an opportunity, but I didn't have the support that I thought I had. So I spent a number of years learning in the craft a bit and had ups and downs and I learned my market basics by taking the bumps you take when you're new in the business. And I started to get pretty good at it. And then I learned about educational opportunities in this field. The American College of Healthcare Executives, which I joined and ultimately got certifications from there. So that sort of built my credentials. By then I was in the business, I don't know, maybe five, somewhere between five and 10 years making a living, but not making a crushing living, just making a living, getting by.

And so along the way I got the opportunity to see some other medical consulting companies and things like that and, and that interested me. So I tried to learn and build a medical consulting company and learned that very quickly. It was a very personal industry in that when physicians would hire me to come in and do some work and I say, okay, we can provide you with all of these services.

And we need to put a man in here to, you know, a man or a woman to help us on a day to day basis. They would say, well, and I'm paying you. I want you to come in here. So I had an attorney who said to me early in the game, he said, stop trying to build the big business and be the man yourself. If they want to buy you do do that. And so in my career, which has now spanned well over 35 years, I've had maybe six clients and two or three of them have been major clients along the way. And I'm still working with one of the biggest clients that I've had. I've been working with them since 2001. So that's kind of how my story evolved. And I've been very fortunate. Worked with some very hardworking doctors who built some good practices. And then along the way to kind of get where I am now was a little bit of serendipity joined with a little bit of knowledge. And that's when healthcare started to get crazy. And the HMO started coming around in the early 1990s. Now it's a, a function in the marketplace. People don't blink an eyelash at it. But in those days it was, what is this stuff? And.

Physicians were opting in and out. I was working with a group of doctors that were in a demographic market that was very positive for them. And it was Staten Island, New York, which was a very high, high level of blue collar workers, policemen, firemen and people. And all of their insurances were changing. So evolving. I learned how to manage that part with physicians well. And so the CL clients I've worked with have done better percent wise than their colleagues for the years we've worked together. And having had long term relationships, that's been a function of it.

All right, that's, that's phenomenal. I got to let me unwrap some of that. But basically what I heard, and I think this is a phenomenal part about you, Alan. Back in your early career, what you were trying to represent or to sell was not what the doctors you were speaking to wanted. They needed help with other services which the company worked for, didn't provide that service. They wanted to go, no go sell them this. And so you basically being, I say the entrepreneur saw the opportunity. Well, they're asking for this, I can deliver that. And that's what led you into what's now been your, you know, over 30 year business. Is that a correct summary?

That is absolutely correct. On, spot on.

That's perfect as I love that. So you got the entrepreneurial niche. All right, so.

All right, so one of the, I know this from you, that one of your guiding quotes is Teddy Roosevelt's quote, man, in the arena. So we wouldn't mind kind of unpacking that. What does that mean to you personally and how does it influence how you show up in business today?

Well, I think it's really a function of recognizing that A lot of people say, I want to do, I'm going to do, I'm going to be part of it. But it's the guy that actually does it, that, that works like a grunt at times, sweats, tries hard, fails, fails again. People tell him he's out of his mind, he should do something else. Here's a better way. You know, it's like the guy who's going to tell you everything to do with a woman, but he doesn't have a girlfriend. So, you know, there's people out there telling you what to do. But unless you're out there doing it yourself and taking the failure and doing the grinding time, I think it's hard to make an individual entrepreneurial business flourish unless you have some good mentors. And I have had a lot of great mentors. Some of them are in print and some of them are in person. But in the end, it's, it's the guy that's willing to take it on the chin that I think deserves the credit and the win.

Well, I imagine over 30 years, you've got all the experience to back up that. I'm pretty confident you do. Correct?

Yeah. Well, we've had some successes and that's been good. And most of the time. Not most of the time, all the time. When I was able to function with my clients and keep their interests in my best interest, it always worked out that way. There was a loyalty factor and, and there still remains that. I'm pretty happy when I know that I could put, you know, a bunch of people in the room that still know me and are working with me after 25, 30 years.

Oh, that's outstanding. That's outstanding. All right, so let's, let's transition. We talk a little bit about your background, what you've been doing for the last 35 years, kind of what drove you into this area of medical practice management. Let's talk about real estate. And I want to, I want you to share this story because I think this is very interesting. A lot of people can relate to this. Tell us about your very first spark of interest in real estate. And I understand it was a Carlton Sheets infomercial, may have played a role in this sometime, sometime back.

It played a role in it. It was the role in it. The Carlton Sheets late night television commercial along with Tony Robbins. The kind of guys that I would know. These are guys that were grinding it out. And Carlton Sheets was, I think, no money down. That was his course and how to do that. And I certainly bought it with the cassettes and all of those things. But that's part of being the man in the arena. That's part of the failure stuff. But it, but it was there. The spark was there.

And for those of you, some of you are listening. Who's Carlton Sheep? Well, Carlton Sheets was that a years ago he would run these infomercials constantly, constantly on a real estate system. And. But he's was a real deal. It was a real deal system. So I thought for those of you that have been around, like me and Alan, you've got to remember, maybe remember some of those Allen, some of those Carlton Sheet infomercials from years ago. All right, so got your interest there, got you started. Now you've done some flips and you've owned some small multifamily properties. So what did those early experiences teach you about resilience and adapting to market conditions? Especially I know some of those you had to carry through Covid. What'd you learn through that process?

Yeah, well, first of all, just to give the last kudos to Carlton Sheets, certainly the one thing he did instill in me was this thing about passive income and wanting to build passive income and trying to find some way to do that. That has never. That light has never gone out in me, even though I was out there working and I would try and it did fail and I think about doing it again. But yes, I did get into the real estate market again just a little before COVID and did some work up here in New Jersey, where I was living exclusively at that time. I did a fix and flip on a property that I think we did okay with, but it was nowhere near the performers. There were cost over runs and some issues with contractors. But in the end we came out unscathed. We didn't see the profit that we thought we would. But also simultaneously in that period, I was working and going to a real real estate group where they were doing a lot of work in Newark, New Jersey and they were doing Sect. 8 housing and some properties like that. So I did a couple of Section 8 passive income housing items. They weren't fully Section 8. So when we ran into Covid, we ran into the problem of people didn't have to pay their bills in Newark during that period. And that was kind of tough. The buildings were built on cash flow but also we were able to sell those properties and make a handsome turnover on our purchase price. So we, we got back some of the losses that we felt along the way. But it, it was certainly my experience in being the landlord that has really cemented my affections for the program you offer. I don't want to be the landlord anymore.

As part of that man of the arena experience, I would say. Oh, yeah, Alan, you went to the landlord route. Take it on the chin. All right, so you mentioned passive income and equity through apartments. So what is it that has prompted you now to get involved with this asset class currently?

So I've reached the time in my life and in my professional work that I take a look and I see what I've done and what I wanted to do. And I think that this is, along with maybe one or two personal items, this is something that I really wanted to put the energy into. And that's why I got very excited when I saw the program that you offered, because it sort of fit my model in terms of wanting to build a business but not being the guy that's going to be the landlord, not being stuck in that aspect and actually if put the efforts into it, the opportunity to build it really to a nice size of a business. And one of the things I learned in healthcare is it's nice to succeed and be on the high side of the game. And that's really what I'm after.

All right, very good. Excellent, Excellent. All right, so let's. Let's let people get to know you a little bit more. So if.

A broker or a seller is meeting you for the first time, or even a prospective private investor in one of your projects, what do you want to make sure they know about your character and the way you do business? What do you want them to walk away with about their impressions about Alan Hirsch?

I think it's all transparency. It's a function of.

Doing your homework so that you put the options together in an intelligent way and you're looking at something that has some feasibility to it. It's not a pie in the sky kind of a situation. And how you're going to go about doing the business and what you're going to be able to do. And you got to kind of be busy. Not only busy, but also very honest about it, and put out there what it takes, what your thought process would be to make the project work, what you can put into it and what they can expect of you. Are you the kind of person that's going to show up the way you need to show up at all times. And that's something that I, I am pretty proud of. When it. When the waters get a little choppy, I show up and we figure out a way to do something.

I would suggest that's more of that man in the arena background and quote you're referring to that you show up.

Yeah. You know, you vote with your feet.

Yeah. Yeah. That's good. That's good. And I've also heard you say a number of times, even with your dealings with your medical clients, your physicians, it's always being aligned interests. I guess I would put it that way. You've always tried to align the interests with them. And if you had tough times, let's figure this out together. Is that, Is that what I'm hearing, carry over into here with the real estate business as well?

Well, I would think so. I'm. Look.

Physicians are tough guys to manage. You can't manage physicians. In fact, one of the books that I read early in my career in practice management was trying to manage doctors is like trying to herd cats. So. And I found that to be true. But they're intelligent people who are able to understand. So if you, if you look to build rapport with them and be able to speak on the same. The same level in terms of what you're looking at and you're transparent about what you're doing and what you're trying to do, you can find good partners in there, smart guys. And so I think the real estate world is about the same way. There's a lot of people out there, and there are a lot of clever guys that have figured out how to do these things. Well, there are landlords with properties that they've managed for years, and maybe they're looking to step out of that later in the game. And I'd like to be one of those guys that they'd be interested in selling to or talking to at that time.

Excellent. Excellent. One of the things I know was important to you, you shared with me, is.

Being able to help your family. You've been obviously very successful, very successful in your career. And you mentioned to me about wanting to relieve some financial stress for some of your family members. How, if you don't mind sharing, how does that legacy or approach to a legacy affect your approach to real estate investing, particularly in apartments?

Well, I mean, the ability to leave for the future generations. Something I was very fortunate. I was in a relationship, in a marriage in the early 2000s, and we adopted two girls from Russia, and they adopted them. They were just Seven turning eight years old. So they were in the orphanage system in Russia, and they've been here now since 2004. So they're, they're amazing. And they're fully acclimated to America, America and English. And so they're great. They've gone to college. But, you know, you sort of have a feeling in your heart that you want to leave somebody. Not just something to remember you by, but something that's meaningful. And that would look to me to be some real estate ventures that I hopefully could build along the way as I'm doing this both for myself and for my family. And so that's really my real motivation at that level.

And I also know that one of your motivations and passions is being able to help children with down syndrome. And we've had some conversations around this. How does real estate help give you a. Maybe a platform to make that kind of impact. Impact? What is your vision there?

Well, I'm really hoping that it's going to give me the freedom, and that's the thing that I need most, because one of the things that I feel strongly about is I don't want to just put my toe in the water when I start to do that. I want to be able to commit a reasonable amount of time and be consistent, because I believe that's how you. You establish the rapport with people who have different, you know, ailments or, you know, issues in their lives. So I don't want to just come once a month. I'd like to be able to come maybe a couple of times a week and spend time with people. So in order to do that, freedom becomes critical. And I don't, I don't own it right now the way I'd like to. And so I'm hoping real estate, with some efforts, will start to provide me with that. And I have reason to believe that's true.

So time freedom, which is always, I think, always at the top of the list of what I'm hearing, time freedom to do these things.

Absolutely.

All right, and so you spoke about, you said you don't. You don't want to just want to dip your tip, tip, dip your toe in the water. You want to be able to do this in a meaningful way. So you could paint me a picture if those folks are going to be listening here three years from now. If you could look back three years from now and look back, what would have had to have happened, both professionally and personally for you to deem this had been a successful three years for you.

So, you know, I hate to talk in terms of money, but I guess money is really the way we look at things in the end. So if I could build some passive income of a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year, I think that would have changed my outlook on where I'm putting my time and energy, and it would provide me with what I really need, which is that freedom and the ability to still have a good income.

All right, and would you still be working with the medical practice?

I think that at some point or other over the next maybe three to five years would be the appropriate time for me to bow out and say, thank you, guys, it's been a great ride. I think my key clients are also around my age, so I think all of us will be thinking at some point, you know, it's time to get out of the way. I think real estate doesn't present a time for me to get out of the way, and that's where my interest lies.

Understood? Understood. All right, so what's maybe as a wrap up question here, Alan, what's the one key takeaway that you want brokers or prospective investors or sellers that are listening to this today to remember about Alan Hirsch and who you are and maybe why they should want to partner with you in helping achieve this vision that you have for buying up apartment buildings and serving these other desires that you have?

So I thought about that. I guess it's confidence and commitment. And the confidence I'm talking about is in my healthcare industry career, I was able to build a good reputation because I was knowledgeable and I was confident. And when I didn't know, I found a way to find out what was real and committed. Because once you start, that's the man in the arena. Once you start to build the. The house, you got to stay in the game, even when there is bad news, and you got to revise your plans and come up with a better plan. That's what I've done over the years. That's what I bring to the table. If there was someone that was looking to do that work with a group or people, I think they'll find me to be a committed individual.

All right, excellent.

I want to give you the opportunity. Now, I've been asking you questions. Is there. What. What question did I not ask that I should have asked that you would like to say about either your journey or Alan Hirsch or what you're looking forward to doing.

So I don't know that you didn't ask all the questions. You asked mostly the things that were on my mind. What I would just say in sort of summarizing is a bit of a reiteration of what I've said along the way here.

The confidence I have about the ability to create the kind of legacy and wealth that I believe is possible is a function really of what I saw in your boot camp. And the information that you put out, it sort of answered all my questions. And so it made it easy for me to say this is a legit kind of a place because over the years I've done some seminars and I've put my toe in the water here and there where different real estate enterprises. And I've got nothing bad to say about anybody along the way. It just didn't seem to work out. But I have great belief and confidence that coupled with my grit and the programs you offer, I can make it happen.

All right, Very good. All right, everyone, this is Mr. Alan Hirsch. And you know, man in the arena man, now man in the real estate arena with apartments, small apartments, with a big mission and, and a great entrepreneurial background and just a real successful track record. So I encourage everyone to know Alan Hirsch, have the opportunity to work, do business with him. Please do that and think you're going to find the real deal as hopefully came across in this interview today. So, Alan, thank you so much for taking the time to share your story.

I appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

And so everyone, thanks for tuning in to the Potentializer podcast where we turn possibility into profit one conversation at a time. Now for for a link and all the resources, remember, you can get the replay of this in the show notes. Be sure to Visit the Potentializer podcast.com the Potentializer podcast.com and until the next edition, make sure you're out potentializing your life. Take care, everybody.

Thanks for tuning in to the Potentializer, where we unlock the true potential in people, properties and partnerships through small apartment real estate. If today's episode helped you see a smarter path to wealth, authority or impact, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share the show with someone ready to grow. To plug into the platform, join the Mastermind or discover how to potentialize what you already have, visit wealthmastermindnetwork.com.