Thanks for tuning in today. I have a really exciting and special guest for you today. His name is Matt Boucheron. He's a self taught serial entrepreneur, and he's the cofounder of the Synergy Real Estate Group with his partner PJ Lucente under the Keller Williams Lifestyle Realty brand. He's also the president of Bouchanti Development.
Scott Dillingham:With his endless drive for success, Matt continues to open up doors of opportunities for himself and his family. So, welcome.
Matt Buschman:Scott, how are you?
Scott Dillingham:I'm great. How are you today?
Matt Buschman:Good, man. Good.
Scott Dillingham:Awesome. No. I'm really excited to to have you on, and I think we'll start, like, when it all started. So where did you grow up?
Matt Buschman:Well, it's actually funny because when you asked me to be on the show months ago, you had asked me about, we're gonna 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. I grew up in Leamington, Ontario. Extremely hard working family.
Matt Buschman:I think that's really where I get a lot of my work ethics from is my mom and my dad. I went to a school called St. Louis. There I think for me grades five through eight were extremely important. We had a teacher and coach that I think to this day really positively affected so many people in our generation.
Matt Buschman:When you think back to we had practices before school, practices during lunch, practices after school. You don't see that today. But what we weren't thinking was everything that you're creating for an individual. So the self discipline, the work ethic, all that stuff is when we look back today I'm like that was a major item for me. From there we went to I went to Cardinal Carter High School, continued to play sports awards here and there across the board.
Matt Buschman:But at that point it was interesting because I felt like I I wouldn't say got lost, but it was just you had to make decisions. What's the rest of your life gonna look like? And going through high school you come across subjects and grades and so on 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. Know what I want to know, they didn't teach in school.
Matt Buschman:And that was an interesting next step. So there was a co op program. At the time my dad was one, an entrepreneur. He was a floor installer and into renovations. And I said, you know what, I'll go work for him as part of the co program.
Scott Dillingham:Yeah. That's exactly what I did with my father. I started working with him doing carpentry and construction. Yep.
Matt Buschman:It was a couple of things. A, I got to be with my dad, which I thought was cool. Two was it got you exposed to the new build world. In in the back of my mind, I really did want to become a something in the real estate. I wasn't sure what existed.
Matt Buschman:I didn't know what options were there. So it's 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 right there I was sold. But at the same time I said to myself, god my dad works extremely hard. So I made a promise to myself that I was gonna try to change the course of the family and from there, kind of decisions were made.
Matt Buschman:Right? I decided to get into real estate. I asked my parents for a $47,000 loan. 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 back then.
Matt Buschman:But Yeah. I had a concept and idea I wanted to do. So I bought my first, first house on the West End and convinced my parents you can move in it till tomorrow. All we gotta do is change your paint and floors. So I take my dad through the house, and I lose him at one point.
Matt Buschman:He goes into the bathroom. All of a sudden, hear this massive crackling sound. It wasn't my dad. He fell through the floor into a crosshog. Long story short, that house, which was supposed to be a month of a flip, it ended up taking a year and a half.
Matt Buschman:And to this day, don't know if we bonded more than anything or if it was more than three first. But it was a great experience in some regards. But it got you exposed to the real estate world. You were now in it. Right?
Matt Buschman:Yeah. Sold it to this day. It's probably one of the more unique flips I've seen on the market. I've actually seen it 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.
Matt Buschman:And it was interesting because at the time through high school I used to that's where I was introduced to the gym. That was my passion. 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 that was huge. That was just a major thing for me.
Matt Buschman: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, don't want to work with you anymore.
Scott Dillingham:He might have been. He doesn't want to fall through the floor again.
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.
Matt Buschman:I didn't know what that path looked like. The first day of the job I remember one of my co workers saying that the bare minimum you're gonna meet people in this industry. Again, didn't know what that meant. Alright? To this day, missed the job.
Matt Buschman: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 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 Walker which was just great to see and again I said to myself I did not know this was a thing.
Matt Buschman: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 training a gentleman, super super nice family, that end up becoming my future partner in what is now known as Bashanti Development. Okay.
Matt Buschman:I presented him with my plan. It was a construction of three three four plexes in the part of a city that nobody want 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 and our mindset I thought made sense.
Matt Buschman:The demand was there. We 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 lease these things.
Matt Buschman:And by the way, once you're done, you got to manage these things. So now you got to build that back end platform of what that looks like. The unfortunate part, thousand and that was in 2005 is when Bershanti was created. 02/1929, the industry wasn't so good. My partner in the industry he was in was automated related and I was put in a bad position.
Matt Buschman:Completely understands 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 y z because we have to buy a partner and I believe this is where I wanna take the company and this is where I know we can do things and so on and so forth.
Matt Buschman: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 wintertime it got so bad during this time that I didn't have a dollar to my name to pay for water.
Matt Buschman:So you sit there and say, okay, your son asks you for x amount of dollars. He's not producing anything. Why would we do that? Long story short, did. Yeah.
Matt Buschman:And after that, it got fun.
Scott Dillingham:Oh, that's awesome. That's great. No. And that's what family is there for. My mom and dad, they would support me through anything and everything.
Scott Dillingham:So that's great to see that they're there for you. 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 or develop?
Matt Buschman:To this day, I've 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 haven't licked. You know what? Every property is completely different.
Matt Buschman: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. In your mind what you're doing is you're also creating a gut feeling of problems. Going through from start is there gonna be infrastructure problems, what are the load bearing, all these things come to life right?
Matt Buschman:Once you've done that your gut and I've always been firm on my gut makes a lot of my decisions because naturally your body's gathering all this information Yeah. And it's gonna give you a feeling of go or no go. I think one of the biggest hurdles for me would you going that through that process was you didn't really know a lot of people to get the jobs done. Like, were this young kid.
Scott Dillingham:I think it's still that way.
Matt Buschman:To some degree.
Scott Dillingham:Gotta find people.
Matt Buschman:Unfortunately, now I think we have a solid team. Some people go and come and go just because of industry related type But of I have to tell you, starting out, that by far, you have to have the 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.
Scott Dillingham:No, incredible. 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 get into more, but I'm curious about how you got your real estate license.
Matt Buschman:Yeah, it's funny because again, going through the gym years and 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. 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 home so I said listen beautiful house maybe this is my opportunity to finally commit to getting my license, selling the home and moving forward.
Matt Buschman: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, her husband owned one of the brokerages here in Windsor. The Valente 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.
Matt Buschman:And it was interesting because during that time of going through that process you're literally turning the page into something brand new. 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.
Matt Buschman:So you're all in type of guy. So anyways, the real estate item took off really well. I believe the first year I was rookie of the year at Valente, kept on growing from there. But I'm just huge on learning. I needed more.
Matt Buschman:And I'm a firm believer that anybody who wants to be successful, you have to have that naturally. Yep. If you're forcing yourself to, okay, that's not that's just not something that's gonna end it in a good scenario for you. So I just naturally love to learn. So during that time I said, what's next?
Matt Buschman:Why not buy a gym?
Scott Dillingham:Why not? Let's make it a little bit
Matt Buschman:a little bit messy. Long story short, while I was there, an opportunity came to buy a fitness studio which we did. We transformed that into Purefit at the time. My wife was funny because I have a picture of my wife the day one we're going through some renovations. We did a big upscale renovation and she was pregnant with our first child, Jax.
Matt Buschman:And I have a picture of her assembling her desk and she looks looks like she's ready to pop at So that point in we started that adventure like that. 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, what do we pick? We had real estate going on, gym going on, Vashanti development was continue to build buildings. So we sold that and I think she did a phenomenal job with that gym but that in itself was a great experience too. Okay.
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 gonna be successful. And there's that's something a lot of people in any entrepreneur I think can actually respect at every given day. So we did we ended up selling because families first. We're just huge with that mentality and we move forward.
Matt Buschman:During that time I was still facing some development challenges in the area that I was building. They decided to make a CIP designated area and what that meant was you couldn't plant a tree without having to go to council. I have a big fear of public speaking. So for me to go in front of council was like a massive ordeal. Lo and behold I had to do that four or five times and won every case continue to build which again just make you stronger.
Matt Buschman:And at this point in time we now have like I mentioned a 110 tenant base I think over all self designed and self built buildings. I 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. Again, going back to that, it allowed me to really transition hardcore into that market. With Valenti in 2018 there was a company called Keller Williams that came to the table. Again Valenti, that family was fantastic.
Matt Buschman:The operation over there was phenomenal. The building in my opinion is one of the best in the city. Location is 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.
Matt Buschman:They just brought things that Windsor didn't really have an option for at that point in time. To this day, I still see a lot of flavor in 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, it allowed us to really think about that.
Matt Buschman:PJ Valente was, I think, a coworker at the time there, and we were friends as well. And I think there's 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 PJMatt team. Yep.
Matt Buschman:It wasn't our names out there. It was the creation of something where if we were gonna 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 an immense amount of exposure on numerous topics. It allows us to travel.
Matt Buschman:We've been to New Orleans for family 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 another world of real estate. Yeah. So that was interesting. As of today, have a team of six.
Matt Buschman:I thoroughly believe we have one of the best teams out there. They 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.
Scott Dillingham:Yep. So you're mentioning you're looking to grow. So you're looking to get additional team members?
Matt Buschman:We're always looking to grow. One of my mentalities though is always it's a word called Kaizen. And Kaizen for me is it's always that what I call the fail stop. So if I'm ever going too fast in 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.
Matt Buschman:And it's got to be the right fit for both sides. So if an individual comes into the office and they've we've heard a lot of great things about you or we're interested to join a team, what do you have to offer? It's got to go both ways, right? So it's got to be a natural fit for both sides. We know we can bring to the table, but some people are shocked actually of what the industry actually takes to be successful and what For sure.
Matt Buschman:We have to do and the whole nine years. Yeah.
Scott Dillingham:You know, it's definitely different. So when you look at advertising marketing ten twenty years ago and then you look at it now it's drastically different. The needs are totally different.
Matt Buschman:100%. Everything's social media driven. Everybody's it's funny because in our team going back to synergy, 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. I'm sure people take care of that for me.
Matt Buschman:I don't know what they're saying. Listings go out and all that stuff but I'm not as I'm that young old fashioned guy. I'm huge on the conversation at the kitchen table.
Scott Dillingham:Okay.
Matt Buschman: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, you know 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 than to make a decision. And it's really the conversation of that kitchen table that's so important because that client at the end of the day, I'm hoping records proven that we're doing okay because of it I think, is that they're more apt to relate to you because you're coming from the right place.
Scott Dillingham:I love it. No. It's true. Trust makes the strongest relationships. So if you're going to someone's kitchen table and they trust you
Matt Buschman:Yeah.
Scott Dillingham:It's a much stronger relationship. Now I do have one other question for you before we head off for the day. Could say what the number one tip you can 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?
Matt Buschman:It's funny because I've been listening to your podcast and I think a couple of them I 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, just do it, but with a splash of education and risk assessment because some people could say, I'm
Scott Dillingham:gonna go diving. I'm gonna
Matt Buschman:go bike because they've watched so many shows or read so many articles and I'm gonna go do I had 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 of money or I need lending, find that individual that's going be part of that. That's so huge as part of that team effort. If your strength is you have so much energy, I'm a go getter, have vision, great.
Matt Buschman: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 12,000,000 million dollar portfolio and net asset of almost 9,000,000 and it doesn't really excite me.
Matt Buschman: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 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?
Scott Dillingham:Yeah, 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 two point zero. Buy it, it's on Amazon, I think it's $20. So in it, it outlines and describes what the different various strengths are and then it's got testing and you can find out what you're good at.
Scott Dillingham: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. Because a lot of people, they're doing things just to do it. But if you do something you're really good at and you love, obviously you're going to be happier. So that's a good book to get out there and purchase. And then one more thing, Matt.
Scott Dillingham:So if somebody's 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?
Matt Buschman:Yeah, absolutely. If that's something you're considering, you can reach out direct to the office (519) 566-7788. My direct cell phone 519999907. Either one will do that. Happy to set a consult with you and we take people through a process.
Matt Buschman:There's literally a we have a literally a test that it's created and it spits out some answers and it's interesting what it tells you about yourself.
Scott Dillingham:Yeah. Just like the Streaks Finder. It's the same type of thing. That's incredible. So that's awesome.
Scott Dillingham:So yeah. So then give him that office or his cell a call if you're looking to join a strong team and 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. Appreciate Scott. No problem.
Scott Dillingham:Take care.