Joining Team Lally in this episode is John Aeto, the President of The Kālaimoku Group. John talks about growing up in Kalihi, Hawaii and how he was actually classmates with Attilio in their younger years. He tells us the story of how he started his 23 years of experience in radio and broadcasting, and also how they pioneered playing Hawaiian music in the local stations.
Team Lally Show with John Aeto
Announcer: It’s time to enter the world of real estate in Oahu with Hawaii’s only true real estate radio show, the Team Lally real estate show. Grab a pen and get ready to take notes! For the next full hour, Hawaii’s premier real estate leader, Adrienne Lally and Attilio Leonardi will bring you the latest in real estate news and real world strategies on how they can guarantee to sell your home at a price and deadline you agree to! Or they’ll buy it! Now, here are your hosts, Adrienne and Attilio!
Adrienne: Welcome to the Team Lally real estate show, home of the guaranteed sold program, or we’ll buy it! If you have any questions you can reach us at 799-9596 or on the web at www.teamlally.com.
Attilio: Well hey everybody this is Attilio. I was uh, what was I doing? You know what, I was up at uh, ___ um in ___ Schools, I was standing in line to get my ___ because you’ve got to go early, because it runs out right away. This lady taps me on the shoulder, started asking me a bunch of tax and legal questions. I said those are great questions, but I highly recommend you seek the appropriate licensed professional. And then I said, but Mom, what other questions have you got? So, if you hear anything on the show today that sounds like legal advice, Adrienne, who should they run that by?
Adrienne: They should run that by uh, Myron Kamihara and his team there. At www.kamiharalaw.com. You can call them at 352-6417.
Attilio: And if you hear anything on the show that sounds like tax advice, it’s not! So, but if it does, you know, run that past your CPA.
Adrienne: Speaking of taxes, its, you know, that time, it’s coming up soon. So!
Attilio: Boo!
Adrienne: (laughing) Okay, so I think we have some, some quotes to start our show with courtesy of Hawaii Pacific Property Management.
Attilio: Okay, and then right after that I want to talk about recruiting.
Adrienne: Okay, so here are our quotes of the day from Duke Kimhan. “The only difference between stumbling blocks and stepping stones is the way that you use them.” That’s an American proverb.
Attilio: I think it’s like when you trip over it too, if you swear a lot then it’s a stumbling block.
Adrienne: I think it’s all in the way that you see it.
Attilio: But if you bear the pain internally then it’s a stepping stone.
Adrienne: Okay.
Attilio: What’s the next one?
Adrienne: The next one’s from Audrey Hepburn. “Nothing is impossible—”
Attilio: You have to say it like her though!
Adrienne: I don’t know to say it like her.
Attilio: (high-pitched voice) “Nothing is—” No. Go ahead.
Adrienne: (laughing) “The word itself says ‘I am possible.'”
Attilio: I’m possible.
Adrienne: And then the last one is from Buddha. “There are two mistakes one can make along the road of truth.”
Attilio: Wait, wait, wait! The Japanese guy with a short haircut or like the real Buddha?
Adrienne: The real Buddha. (laughing) Okay.
Attilio: I wonder if the local people got that joke.
Adrienne: I’m going to have to start over again.
Attilio: Okay, what’s the quote from Buddha?
Adrienne: “There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth: not going all the way and then not starting.”
Attilio: And not starting!
Adrienne: So just keep going. Just keep going already!
Attilio: Like Nike said, just do it already! Nike. From the Greek philosopher, Nike. Ah, that’s a brand name, well actually no, it was one of the Greek demigods.
Adrienne: Okay, so what was it that you wanted to mention about recruiting?
Attilio: Well here’s what I want to talk to you guys about recruiting. You know a lot of people think, you know we do say in our advertising we’re looking for superstars, you know, top producers, stuff like that. But I think there’s a lot of people out there, they’re like uh, caged animals, you know, they’re, they’re in their jobs, they’re very frustrated with the situation they’re in, they have, they feel that internally and within their own mindset, they have the capability of earning more money. You know, Hawaii, come on you listeners!
Adrienne: It’s so expensive here!
Attilio: It’s expensive to live here! If your household income isn’t like at least above $100,000 all you’re doing is working to pay the mortgage and, and that’s about it.
Adrienne: Just get by, yeah.
Attilio: You know, growing up I, you know, I think before the, until I turned 18 to go off to college, I never left the state of Hawaii. My kids, I think by the time they were 9, they’ve probably been more places than I have, you know even at my age today! So, you have to have that income. So, if you, if you’re like that caged animal at work and you’re like there’s got to be a better vehicle, we want to talk to you about the vehicle called Team Lally. And so, I wrote it right here. Are you frustrated with the job you have not getting you where you need to be? And you say . . .
Adrienne: Our team members thanks us for being in a culture that promotes their dreams.
Attilio: And we’ve got an $80K guarantee on top of that great culture.
Adrienne: So, if you do everything that we train you to do and you don’t make $80,000 in your first full year . . .
Attilio: We’ll whack you!
Adrienne: No!
Attilio: No, no, no! No whacking!
Adrienne: We’ll write you a check for the difference!
Attilio: What?! Who approved this? Oh, that’s right, we did.
Adrienne: Yeah, we did. We came up with that together so go ahead.
Attilio: We have a proven track record of success. We have a proven track record of success, so the question is not will our plan work, but will you work our plan? So, if you’re thinking about it where should they go?
Adrienne: They can go to www.jointeamlally.com.
Attilio: Alright, sot hat’s, that’s what I wanted to talk about recruiting.
Adrienne: Okay, so—
Attilio: $80K guarantee, that’s redonkulus!
Adrienne: So, speaking of, of success we’ve got uh, the Mortgage Genius!
Attilio: Oh! Mortgage Genius.
Adrienne: On the line with her Mortgage tip of the week! Jody, are you there?
Jody: Hi guys!
Adrienne: Hi, Jody!
Jody: Hi, I’m here!
Attilio: You know, just, and just hearing your voice, the IQ in the, in the atmosphere of our studio just went up by 15 points.
Jody: (laughing)
Attilio: Because you’re the Mortgage Genius!
Jody: Oh, thank you!
Attilio: So, what’ve you got for us today?
Jody: Okay, so just again, based on the timing, it being the 5th of April and we do have a crucial day coming up pretty soon, with our taxes being due, I wanted to remind everyone, I don’t know, do you guys know what 2106 is?
Attilio: 2106, is that an address?
Adrienne: No.
Jody: No.
Adrienne: Sounds like a tax code of some sort.
Jody: So, it’s a form on the actual 1040 and the technical definition of this is a, un-reimbursed business expense.
Attilio: Un-reimbursed business—okay, that’s when you, you pay for out of pocket but you’re not getting reimbursed.
Jody: Right, so I know I’ve, I have seen you know, I’ve looked at a lot of tax returns and people, if it’s like let’s say you might owe at the end of the year and you’re like, ah darn! I didn’t think I was going to owe, or I don’t want to owe or whatever, right? Your tax preparer might be like, hey, well answer me this. Did you pay for anything throughout the year that you, that really was a work expense but that you didn’t get reimbursed for? And then so you might get creative and you might be like oh! My dry cleaning! And my, my union dues! And my work boots! And my uniform, or what have you. And so, you think that you’re coming up with this great solution because as the, all of these itemizations start adding up and all of a sudden you’re up to like $10,000 in un-reimbursed business expenses and now all of a sudden you went from owing taxes to now getting a refund and you’re ecstatic, um, what we have to do from the Mortgage Genius end of it is we need to deduct your income.
Attilio: So, it reduces your income which affects your, the amount of money you qualify for in a loan.
Jody: Exactly! And so, people are like, you know, honestly I talk to so many people and they’re like if, if my tax preparer had told me that, I wouldn’t have done it! Like I didn’t know that and, and that’s the thing, it’s not common knowledge and so that’s my tip. Be—
Attilio: Be cautious.
Jody: Cognizant about your, your 2106 expenses also known as un-reimbursed business expense. If you do think you’re going to be trying to buy in the upcoming year, I would recommend don’t do any!
Attilio: And, and look up that word cognizant!
All: (laughing)
Attilio: Because that, she just, she’s the Mortgage Genius, that word is at least a $1.57. And uh, what it means is if you have a baseball cap and it has the word thinking on it, that’s what that means. You’ve got your thinking cap on and be aware of it. So, this cautionary tale, if you wanted to summarize. If you’ve been writing off those tequila shots that you’ve been having at the bar in the middle of the work day, and the mileage to the bar and back to your workplace, don’t do that! That’s probably, no you shouldn’t drink—
Adrienne: Well, yeah, I mean like, I guess only, if you’re in the market to be buying a home. Right? You could be doing yourself a disservice.
Attilio: Well. Great news! Because you know why, I’m sure that you’re bringing this up because this has happened with real life clients, correct?
Adrienne: Probably multiple times!
Jody: Multiple times, and it’s gone from you know, sometimes it’s a big surprise because it’s like hey, I had your 20, you know I had your previous year, form the last time that we were working together with you. You had none. So now you’ve effectively decreased your income by, you know, up to, you know, depending, like let’s say in this example, she did $12,000, I have to minus $1,000 a month! From your income. That’s uh, that’s big!
Attilio: Yeah I don’t’ know this for a fact, but probably that’s another cautionary tale, that probably creates an anomaly. How do you say that word?
Adrienne: Anomaly.
Jody: Anomaly?
Attilio: Anomaly! See that’s why we’ve got the Mortgage Genius! So, we can correctly pronounce words. In your tax return from one year to the next, that’s probably flagging in their logarithms with the IRS. You might get an audit. So be cautious, be careful.
Jody: I would say, that’s definitely some sort of a red flag.
Attilio: Yeah because they don’t have people, they don’t have uh, gnomes in some big room in some warehouse looking at all the tax returns. They use computer software that knows, what’s that a-word again?
Adrienne: Anomaly.
Attilio: Those anomalies. I don’t know why I can’t say that! I swear! Don’t drink tequila before we do the show. But anyway, that’ll pop up on that. Alright! Well thanks.
Adrienne: Thank you, Jody.
Attilio: Thank you, Jody.
Adrienne: Excellent tip.
Jody: You’re welcome!
Attilio: Alright, people are like man! I want to increase my IQ by at least 10 points! And get a good, get qualified for a loan. What’s the number they should call?
Adrienne: They should call Jody at 488-5510. Or you can find them online at www.pacrimmtg.com.
Attilio: Yeah, give her a call. We’ve worked with her for years; her team is awesome! Uh, high levels of communication, they give you great advice and they’re going to help you buy that home!
Adrienne: Okay, so speaking of awesome, I’ve got uh, a testimonial here that came in the mail. To our team. On one of our, one of our awesome agents here. So, here’s the feedback from Keith and Victoria Weintraub. Okay, so—
Attilio: Wait, you’re not supposed to say the last name!
Adrienne: Oh, okay!
Attilio: Just kidding.
Adrienne: Well, okay, so they said that we were fast, efficient, service with pleasant caring people. We had tried another realtor through blank first and she was not a go-getter! We did not feel important. Tina Funk is a personal friend and she was very proactive for us.
Attilio: Awesome.
Adrienne: Good job, Tina!
Attilio: Alright, way to go, Tina! Oh, wait, we’re supposed to have Duke.
Adrienne: Yes, but he’s not calling in so we can—we’re going to do the tip for him!
Attilio: Hey, that’s what friends do, we help each other out!
Adrienne: That’s right.
Attilio: So, this next tip is coming up from Duke Kimhan over at Pacific—
Adrienne: Hawaii Pacific Property Management.
Attilio: So many, so many—
Adrienne: That’s okay, that’s why I’m here!
Attilio: All these sponsors with the name Pacific in it. Anyway, Hawaii Pacific Property Management and he’s got a tip of the week, which is?
Adrienne: The tip of the week for property management is hire a property manager!
Attilio: Ah well we, you know, we, we, hire a property manager um, the reason, Adrienne, real quick, let them know and we’ll get to this next break ere but why, why do, did we personally not get involved with property management? Lots of clients wanted us to.
Adrienne: So, no, so I actually personally, I have two rental properties here. And I don’t manage them.
Attilio: Why not?
Adrienne: Because it’s a pain in the butt! You get the wrong tenant in there that knows how to work the system and they can really make your life hell! And they can make it like you don’t even want to an investor anymore. They can’t deal with all of their nonsense. So, Duke and his team, they get to deal with that and they screen the tenants and they make sure that they have nice tenants, that are going to take good care of the property.
Attilio: So, a couple guarantees that they have and again, this is our recommendation, we’re licensed professionals, been doing this full-time for 10 years, we don’t’ even manage our own stuff! Risk management, cautionary tale here, 90% of, or a majority of the litigation that occurs in the real estate industry has to do with tenants and landlords.
Adrienne: Property management.
Attilio: If you haven’t already done so, Google the tenant landlord code, look at it, if you own property and you’re managing it on your own.
Adrienne: And it’s, and it’s written—
Attilio: In favor of—
Adrienne: In favor of the tenant.
Attilio: In favor of the tenant.
Adrienne: So, you know, you get, you get a tenant that’s really wanting to work you over, you know you’re going to, you’re going to be in for it.
Attilio: Alright, so 3 guarantees they have. They’ve got a rent guarantee, an eviction guarantee, and a communication guarantee. What’s that rent guarantee about?
Adrienne: So basically, if they don’t rent your home in 30 days, at an agreed upon price point, they will pay the rent.
Attilio: Alright, so that’s either crazy, or that’s good, but maybe they’re crazy good. Alright what’s that other one, with the uh, eviction guarantee?
Adrienne: So, they do such a great job of screening the tenants that they’re going to guarantee that person they’ve put in the home. So, if they need to be evicted then they’re going to do it on their dime. Now if you—
Attilio: Now if you put, if you insist on putting your drunk uncle in there with bad credit, that doesn’t count.
Adrienne: They don’t, they don’t guarantee the drunk uncle.
Attilio: They don’t’ guarantee the drunk uncle with bad credit. Okay. So, it’s based on their criteria, their screening process. If they put the tenant in place and they stop paying their rent, at their expense and time and effort and pain in in the butt-ness, they will take care of that eviction process. Last one is the communication guarantee. Any of our national association of realtors surveyed uh, clients across the nation utilizing real estate services and their number one complaint with us realtors?
Adrienne: Communication.
Attilio: Lack of communication. So, they’ve got a communication guarantee that they’ll answer their phone. If they don’t answer, they’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Their number one priority is making sure that there aren’t any challenges going on with your property or your tenant or your rental income. That is their number one, those are their priorities.
Adrienne: Alright, so, after hearing all these awesome things they do—
Attilio: They’re like give me the number already!
Adrienne: What’s the number? So, you can call them at 445-9223. That’s 445-9223 or check them out online at www.hipacificpm.com.
Attilio: I want you to call Duke and tell him this: hey, my drunk uncle is renting my O’hana unit, I have to get him out! Can you help me? Like tell him for real and then just tell him, just joking. Okay.
Adrienne: Alright so I think we’re going to take a short break. But when we come back we have a very special in-studio guest joining us, so stay with us.
Attilio: He’s going to be sharing some information with you that’ll change your life forever! So, stay with us!
[Music fades to commercials]
Announcer: The Team Lally real estate show continues!
Adrienne: Welcome back and thanks for listening to the Team Lally real estate show, home of the guaranteed sold program, or we’ll buy it! I’m Adrienne—
Attilio: And I’m Attilio!
Adrienne: And if you have any questions just give us a call at 799-9596 or check us out on the web at www.teamlally.com.
Attilio: Well we’ve got a special treat for you today! We have a guest in the studio!
Adrienne: Uh, okay! Prior to establishing—
Attilio: What you mean, ah okay?
Adrienne: I thought you were going to read that first part?
Attilio: Oh, is that what you did the ah, okay for?
Adrienne: Yes.
Attilio: Okay, let’s try that one more time, but you know, this is radio, go!
Adrienne: No.
Attilio: Oh, I go?
Adrienne: Yeah!
Attilio: Okay! Prior to establishing the Kalaimoku—uh-oh! You know why, Hawaiian word in there, that’s why she didn’t want to do it!
Adrienne: (laughing) You’re the Hawaiian!
Attilio: She stopped at the Hawaiian word! She’s like I don’t want to read no, nothing with no Hawaiian words in it. Prior to establishing—
Adrienne: I didn’t’ want to mangle it! (laughing)
Attilio: The Kalaimoku Group, our guest today was president of ___ Consulting, specializing in government, community, and media affairs.
Adrienne: He’s also been the general manager of VRE Hawaii, a locally-owned Hawaii broadcast company. He’s been in the media and broadcast industry for over 23 years and has held several key management positions in Honolulu.
Attilio: Please welcome our guest, the president of the Kalaimoku Group, John Aeto? Is that how you say your last name?
Adrienne: Welcome, John!
John: Thanks for having me!
Attilio: Yeah, so local style, when we bring a guest in and we kind of, you know, local style, you know, people from the mainland, they come here and it’s like, get straight to business and we’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa! Slow it down, our local culture here is we want to get to know the people first a little bit, talk story, get to know each other, so tell us a little bit about yourself. Now I know being classmates at ___ I know that you, you know, grew up here in the islands, but I could be wrong! Maybe you came from day one, born and raised?
John: Born and raised. Born and raised, ___ from kindergarten.
Attilio: From Kindergarten that’s right! Thirteen-year senior. Classmate of Atilio. We’re very proud of him, big class of ’85, Big Red we call her so. And uh, so yeah, I was born and raised actually in this area, beautiful ___, uh, we’re broadcasting from the studio, Salem Studios in ___ and I was raised uh, a couple of blocks from here. Went to school up on the hill and uh, went away to college, came back, uh, in ’88, and went to work for another radio station. Uh, and uh stayed there for 20 years uh, we were, uh, the first to play Hawaiian music on the dial and we expanded it to 3 radio stations, uh, sold it in 2000 to Cox Broadcasting and then stayed on another 7 years as an uh, management contract. And then I left uh, to create a state-wide uh, entity called uh, VRE Hawaii. And the uh, vision there was that in, in, in Hawaii, we’re at a disadvantage in radio stations because of our mountains and oceans. So, if you are broadcasting on a Honolulu station, you only reach the Honolulu market or the island of Oahu or parts of it. Whereas if you’re from Texas, you can literally broadcast that same signal and reach Oklahoma, Georgia, New Mexico. So, the thought process was how can we create a radio uh, product that reached the entire state. And so, that’s what we’re doing, we piece together 16 radio stations, and ran it as a state-wide network for about 3 years. Uh, the economy came in and uh, it was, had a big slow-down and we had to sort of shift our, our thought process and I decided that after 23 years in radio, it was time for me to do something else, so I took about a year off, uh, my wife and I traveled and uh, I was coming back from the Winter Olympics in Vancouver and I had this idea to create a native Hawaiian communication company. Uh, a firm that kind of specialized in the native Hawaiian community and the native Hawaiian organizations and so we’ve been doing that for the last uh, 5 or 6 years and it’s been uh, very, very uh, successful. We have a 3-person staff but our model is basically we use independent contractors very similar to you guys—
Attilio: Leverage.
John: Yeah. You don’t need to fire them! You know, you just don’t call them anymore.
Attilio: And don’t return their calls!
Adrienne: Stop giving them tasks.
Attilio: So, tell us about the name, Kalaimoku.
John: Kalaimoku, which uh, it means the advisor, and it’s a historic name uh, it’s named after one of my ancestors who was the Kalaimoku, uh, for the king and queen and he was their advisor uh and in our family, every generation has somebody named either Kalaimoku, Kalanimoku, or if you’re female, Kalaemoku, so that was the name of my grandmother, she was Kalaemoku, my mother is Kalaemoku, and then I am Kalaimoku and my granddaughter is Kalaemoku, so we kind of keep the name and that’s the name that we use at the, it’s our family name.
Adrienne: Nice. Okay, so, uh, with the, with the VRE Hawaii, uh, could you tell us a little bit more about what is, what it is that you do?
John: Yeah, so I was the general manager of uh, a radio group and uh, we, you know, as a, it was sales driven, so very, very similar to um, the radio station that we’re on, and it really allowed me to understand sort of the state in a more detailed um, fashion. And it really set me up to be able to be successful with uh, Kalaimoku, the Kalaimoku Group. Right now, our clients are the ___ we do a lot of work for uh, the HHL, Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the ___ schools, uh, one of our big projects that we’re focused on is the 2020 census. So, the federal government uh, did something really different this coming year and they’ve come to realize that America is so diverse, that they need different organizations talking to the different ethnic groups, so what they did was, they traditionally have a large PR firm that sort of messages the entire country, telling everybody to uh, participate in the census. What they’ve done for the first time is they’ve created ethnic uh, strands or ethnic experts so there it an Asian expert, that’s in charge of all the Asians, they’re a Hispanic expert, and there is a Hawaiian Pacific Islander expert company and we are that company. So, we’re in charge of getting all the native Hawaiians, all the Pacific-Islander to participate in the 2020 census so we will be going to every state, every community and as you may or may not know, we uh, anticipate in the 2020 census, that for the first time, there will be more Hawaiians living outside of the state of Hawaii than in the state of Hawaii. Right now, it’s about 20,000 difference if you looked at the 2010 census, there was about uh, 240,000 Hawaiians outside of the state, 280,000 in the state. But the trend is uh, making it clear that the, uh, native Hawaiians are finding their way to the continent, whether it’s for economic reasons or family reasons or whatever reasons, there is a large migration going that way. I read something recently that said 3,000 Hawaii residents leave the state every month. Yeah.
Adrienne: So, which, so which state are they headed to most frequently?
John: They like the west coast, uh and Hawaiians uh, are tribal people. What I mean by that is they, they normally don’t go to a place that there, that there isn’t family. And so, uh, or a group of Hawaiians and so there’s like these pods throughout the state and a lot of it is based on either uh, the location, which is the west coast, or Las Vegas, and it’s also based on job opportunities. So, there was a large migration of local people that followed the Continental Airlines closing of the Honolulu office. Bunch of mechanics, and uh, front office people were working here, they closed their office, Continental closed their office here, moved it, evyerone to Houston, and so the uh, community had to decide, okay, do we follow the job, or do we stay in Hawaii? So, a lot of these poeple followed the jobs, they went to Houston, and that became sort of the, the seeds if you will, for a large Hawaiian community because if you are um, you know, I was appreciating what you guys were saying earlier, if you’re not making $100,000 it is tough to live in Hawaii, you struggle in Hawaii and so a lot of people just come to the realization. I can’t make it work in Hawaii but my brother or my cousin is doing really well in Houston, they talk about living in a giant house, for $1,000 a month, and that’s where I want to go! And so, they go there where there’s family and friends and some job opportunities.
Attilio: Now, my suggestions for the survey, you know, the census to save money, is uh, just go to Vegas, Super Bowl weekend. Every single Hawaiian will be there. And you just catch us all in one spot!
John: It is very true!
Attilio: At the California Hotel. All around the craps table.
John: And at the ___ table.
Attilio: Yeah, there you go. But uh, yeah so, interesting that, that uh, the interesting fact that you mentioned, there’ll be more Hawaiians living outside the state of Hawaii than inside of the state of Hawaii. And I was reading some other statistics about pure Hawaiians, those are becoming, you know, right up there with the Sasquatch and the Abominable Snowman, they’re, they’re—
John: Very, very rare. Uh, hard to really identify what that number is but they estimated at about 30,000. That seems a little high to me, but uh, that’s what they estimate it as. And the other thing that’s been interesting is there was a report recently, by Estimates Research that said for the first time there are more people living in Hawaii that were not born and raised here. And that’s also a huge shift in the community.
Attilio: That sounds like Maui!
John: Yeah! Yeah, we’re, we’re catching up to Maui, and I mean, and, and, and, and you know, it all becomes a, a thing about what is local style now? So now for the first time, local style is the minority value and uh, you know there’s a whole pushback as to okay, what’s the assimilation? Who assimilates to who? The people that come here from the mainland that want to live in their big uh, ___ high-rises, you know they want Starbucks and they want Jamba Juice and they want uh, Whole Foods. Whereas guys that grew up in ___—
Attilio: We need ___.
John: We need ___.
Attilio: We need ___.
John: ____, ____ out of the back you know, store and so forth.
Attilio: Interesting, so, so I mean would you just, are you guys uh, like public relations, or are you more, it sounds like you’re more in a broad, broad spectrum of just overall communications.
John: We’re a broad, umbrella company and uh, my partner Cedrick Dwart, who’s also a ___ grad, sort of specializes in the PR advertising realm and then I tend to specialize in the government affairs non-profit arena and we really like non-profit work uh, we feel like uh, we can make a good living doing something that’s good for the community uh, last year we completed uh, several projects. One of them was the law enforcement memorial, uh it was a $7 million project uh, out in the capitol grounds where, any uh, law enforcement officer that passed away would be recognized and we were the only state that didn’t have one. Uh, so that was one of our projects, right now uh, we’re focused on the Senator ___ Community Center, which is in Kapolei. It’s a$12 million facility. We bought the land for $2 million and we’re fundraising for the $10 million. We’ve fundraised about 60% of that and uh just really amazed. You guys probably know more than me but just amazed at uh how fast Kapolei is exploding and the uh, opportunities there for land uh, every month I go out to our land site and just see the community, more buildings, more housing, more uh, infrastructure being put into that area, really it’s a second city.
Adrienne: Where, where is this community center going to be?
Attilio: Yeah, where is it going to be located?
John: Kiddy-corner to the high school. So, it’s right off of the uh, Kapolei Parkway and our neighbor is actually the brand-new Embassy Suites. Uh, and uh, we’re in the uh, development of the ___, we’re actually, Attilio and I uh, had ___ a couple of Wednesdays ago.
Attilio: So, we were looking out the, right across the street and kind of in that area.
John: Yeah, yup right next to it.
Attilio: Yeah just to give you folks an idea, you know, we moved into the community about 15 years ago and these were all empty lots. Now we’ve got uh, Embassy Suites almost coming up on completion, big uh, ten or eleven story hotel. We’ve got us ___ with their little, little—
Adrienne: Furniture.
Attilio: Furniture, gallery over there, uh, Kiddie Foundation is going to be moving there, a member of the St. Jude’s Church, you’ve got to give them a big shout-out, they’re building a huge—
John: Big church right in that area. And that’s just that community. If you go down the block you’ve got ___, which exploded, another hotel, uh, so you, basically you have this incredible growing community and I would uh recommend to anybody that is looking to buy a home to not only call Team Lally but to go and look into living in Kapolei because uh, it’s definitely becoming the city uh, of tomorrow.
Attilio: Yeah since they’ve opened everything—
Adrienne: A second city.
Attilio: Yeah, since they opened everything—
Adrienne: Living up to its name.
Attilio: Nobody goes anywhere. We’re actually thinking about fencing it off and then requiring like a visa or passport to come in and out and just uh, closing down all the streets and we’re just going to use uh, go carts and uh, bicycles. No more cars inside Kapolei because what happened, everything there, we can just walk to whatever we need!
Adrienne: Well I can say that I, if we can avoid uh, going to town, I’ll be like, so today—
Attilio: Today was a good example! That was an hour and forty-five minutes of our lives we’re not getting back! We had what, a car accident—
Adrienne: Traffic. Yeah, car accident.
Attilio: They closed off one lane. It was like a—
Adrienne: And then they had roadwork.
Attilio: And then there was roadwork at this intersection we’re trying to get down, we’re like—
Adrienne: The trifecta!
John: I was, I was a proponent and actually worked on the pro-rail project. I hope that that helps a lot. I’ve been disappointed to see how that has sort of matured and it seems like it’s still a lot more questions and uh, the cost is, has outgrown and then you hear these crazy things about hey, nobody checks the sewer pipes on this route, we need to move it and so forth.
Attilio: We’re just going to be flinging stuff off the sides, we don’t need to put it down a sewer line.
John: So, we’ll see, but I hope that the rail, would that be something that you guys would use uh if it was—
Adrienne: Oh, yeah!
Attilio: Yeah! It would be nice to come into town and catch that and then catch it back and—
John: Do work on your computer as opposed to driving, right and the, you know.
Adrienne: If um, they really wanted to make a difference they would push the rail all the way out to like the Leeward Coves, like ___—
Attilio: Yeah, that was our big thing because that’s, all those people going into town, I mean, some people, I had one person, one friend of mine, she’s like, I got stopped on the way back home, for a couple hours and then going into town, she like just took a day off, she’s all stressed out. Two days in a row. She’s like I’m taking a day off, I can’t handle sitting in this traffic 3 hours each way. And so, yeah, quality of life is a big thing with that rail and so we’re hoping that that works out and uh—
John: Yeah I don’t know how you guys do it, really uh, I live and work in town so, so I’m a little bit spoiled but I did some work for the HHL and I was going out there almost on a daily basis and just couldn’t believe the human resources waste of sitting in traffic every day I mean there was a study done uh, at one point that said all the hours and manpower that’s wasted on our, our freeways every day, we could have literally built pyramids with all that energy.
Attilio: To the moon. To the moon and back.
John: Exactly.
Attilio: You know, I had a question, you know, we have a lot of these smaller entrepreneurs and they love to tap into your years of experience in public relations, communications. You know, what’s, what’s a couple of tips that you could give to these entrepreneurs that are just trying to promote their little mom-and-pop business?
John: Read!
Attilio: Read?
John: Yeah! Um I just was reading an article that Warren Buffet spends 80% of his day reading. Uh, and uh, it, it got me, I was kind of in a funk earlier this year and I was trying to figure out ok, how do I get out of this funk, and what I’ve found for myself is I had to get back to the basics of reading and I try, I joined two book clubs. One of them is called Mentor Box, highly recommend it for you guys to look into it, they’ve got a Facebook page and, and a, and a website. But uh, what it does is it’s a book club that takes uh, it’s a, for CEOs and business leaders and they send you two books a month and, and it has a DVD as well, but your job is to read the two books and they, you know they give you crib notes, they give you uh, summaries but it, it, it puts you on a program that every day you’re reading 15-20 minutes and that discipline sort of gives, gives you, gives you rebirth to um, you know, to, to enjoy the love of reading. But definitely reading is the key because it opens, you know, it’s, it’s like mentors. Reading to me is like finding mentors. We all need good mentors in business and that, you know, a lot of times is the difference between someone being successful and someone not being successful. Who can you talk to when you have a problem? Or there’s an opportunity. And reading allows you to have access to the greatest minds in the world, Warren Buffet for business. Even Steven Covey for um—
Attilio: Seven, what is it? Highly successful habits?
Adrienne: So, what are you reading right now?
John: Uh, I’m’ reading a book called uh, Extreme Ownership.
Attilio: Oh, yeah! By the Navy Seals!
John: By the Navy Seals.
Adrienne: We just finished that book.
Attilio: Yeah, I only read halfway though.
Adrienne: Oh, I finished it, I couldn’t put it down!
Attilio: Couldn’t own it! Only went halfway.
Adrienne: I owned it! I was like, I, I have to finish this, it was a, it was a great book, great read.
John: It was fantastic. The big lesson I took from there was they, they, they, they have this uh, period in the Navy Seals uh, training, where they keep the Seals up for 5 days, I had no idea.
Attilio: Yeah, sleep deprivation.
John: Sleep deprivation and they make them do all these drills, they don’t feed them well and, and, and so this is like the make or break time and they run all these games and uh, how they grade the Seals is on time. So just kind of think of an agility course, if you will, that they’re running through—
Attilio: Over and over.
John: Over and over, and the—
Attilio: No sleep, no food.
John: The best, the best teams do it in the quickest time. And so, if you’re, if you’re the best team, you get to rest. You get to eat. If you’re the, if you’re the slowest team, then you just keep grinding it out. And so, one of the studies they did was they had this one team that was winning all the time and they took a break and they took the leader of the winning team and they replaced it with the slow team. And they found that the leader made all the difference. All of a sudden, the team that was coming in last was now competing for the first team. So, so, much of, uh, what the book talks about is leadership and owning whatever it is that is your ___, as we say in Hawaii.
Attilio: Yeah I think they gave it extreme ownership in that no matter what goes wrong within your organization—
Adrienne: You’ve got to own it.
Attilio: If you as a leader take full responsibility for it.
John: Absolutely. And that’s where it’s I mean, I’m reading this book and I’m watching CNN and you know, just scratching my head with the president.
Adrienne: They need to read that book!
John: They all, all of Washington needs to read that book.
Attilio: Alright, we’re going to take a quick break?
Adrienne: Yes, we’re going to take a short break, but stay with us, we’ve got more questions and open houses and uh, coming soon listings!
Attilio: Yeah, stay with us, we’ve got John with the Kalaimoku Group and he’ll be with us for more questions! Stay with us!
[Music fades to commercials]
Announcer: It’s the Team Lally real estate show. Here’s Adrienne and Attilio!
Adrienne: Welcome back and thanks for listening to the Team Lally real estate show, home of the guaranteed sold program, or we’ll buy it! I’m Adrienne—
Attilio: And I’m Attilio!
Adrienne: And if you have any questions you can give us a call at 799-9596 or check us out on the web at www.teamlally.com.
Attilio: Well hey folks, we’ve got uh, John Aeto in the studio! He’s with the uh, Kalaimoku Group and you guys are, you know what I like about your company? You’re helping uh, you’re helping get the message out from the Hawaiians!
John: Yes, yeah we try to be an uh, source for the native Hawaiian community and for the community trying to reach the native Hawaiian community so, I always say the native Hawaiian community uh, is like a different country that speaks English. We have our, our own leaders and our own way and you’ve got to know how to navigate them and how to communicate with them and find out what’s important to them.
Attilio: I think there’s a whole story just about the way you pronounce the word Hawaiian. Because we say it Hawaiian! How-I-an! How-I-an!
Adrienne: And what is that story?
Attilio: I don’t know, I mean it’s just, I don’t know it’s something like when you hear it, you’re like, okay, they’re local or when you say it you’re like, I, I don’t know what, what that connection is, maybe it’s nothing tangible that we can talk about.
John: Well I, the guy who explained it the best for me is uh, the late great Kenny Brown and he won uh, ___ of the year in like the late ’80s and one morning I’m getting, ironing my shirt for work and watching uh, Leslie Wilcox on the morning news interview him and her question was, what is it to be a ___? And he gave to me one of the most profound answers. He says to be ___, is to be ___. And I thought, there it is! Uh, ___, in Hawaiian means smart but to know that ___ in Hawaiian it means smart, is to be smart in a Hawaiian way, so, you not only need to be smart, you need to know that you’re here.
Attilio: Yeah, and by the way, you know ___, I, I’ve heard this, it was uh, it’s actually a technology company worth lots of money so somebody, they actually have that uh, domain name, ___.com.
Adrienne: Is it a Hawaiian owned business? Or they just ripped that off?
Attilio: No, it has nothing to do with Hawaiians! They just took, I don’t know, maybe the guy has a founder, maybe he’s a ___ school graduate, so I’m going to start this multi-billion-dollar technology company, and I’m going to call it ___!
Adrienne: There you go!
Attilio: You know why? Because all the domain names starting going so they’re like, you know, we better start going after the Hawaiian ones because, before anybody else grabs them.
Adrienne: But you have a, you’ve got a Hawaiian domain name.
Attilio: Yeah, you actually, I have a whole, uh, www.nativeHawaiian.com.
John: Nice!
Attilio: Yeah, so.
John: You own www.nativeHawaiian.com?
Attilio: I own www.nativeHawaiian.com, uh, office uh, I think it’s the Office of Hawaiian Affairs owns www.nativeHawaiians.com with an ‘s.’
John: Wow! Would you even sell www.nativeHawaiian.com?
Attilio: Yeah!
John: What would be the price point?
Attilio: Let’s see, I don’t know, I mean—
Adrienne: Just make him an offer!
Attilio: Make me an offer! Make me one ___ offer!
John: There you go! That’s worth something!
Adrienne: So, John is there anything that uh, you’d like to share with our listeners, uh, any final words of wisdom?
John: Uh, I just was uh, had the opportunity to speak at a business class this past week and one of the big uh, conversations was uh, market fit. And I think that’s one of the big things for the, for the budding entrepreneurs. You know, people tend to fall in love with their idea and the big question is, does the market love your idea and I’ll put it in the uh, sort of framework of an artist. A musical artist. So, uh, if you create music for yourself and nobody buys it, you shouldn’t be mad at anybody because you created it for yourself. But if you’re going to create music for sale, for the marketplace, then you’ve got to, you can’t create your music, you have to create marketplace music. And so, uh, and a lot of people ask me, well you know, uh, I have a product and I think the market loves it, but it just needs a little bit more time or I need a little bit more money or I need a little bit more PR and advertising to push it and, and the one thing I will say is if you have a product that fits the market, it is so magical, you need very little. It just takes off! People will, people will just buy it!
Attilio: Beat it back to your door.
John: Yup. And so, when the iPhones came in, or the apps or they, they have this whole thing about apps. What is a successful app and what is not a successful app? A successful app has 50,000 downloads in one day. And that’s when you just know.
Adrienne: It went viral.
John: It went viral. Your product fits the market perfect and it just shoots off. Now if we created an app and we’re getting 3 downloads a day, that’s probably not working. And so, it, people get stuck in I’ve got to work harder, I’ve’ got to put more money into it, and it’s just not, it’s just not what the market wants at this time. Re-approach it, do something else and don’t be afraid to fail. You know a lot of times, people are afraid to fail and as you guys know in, in the sales business, which I’m, I’m kind of in a part of as well, you know, it’s like a batting average, you’ve just got to keep on swinging. So, um, if you don’t make the sale today—
Adrienne: And then learn, learn from those mistakes.
John: Learn from it, how do you get better, and, and knowing that um, you know, the sale is around the corner. Sometimes you’ve got to get 3 no’s to get the yes, and you’ve got to get 10 no’s to get the yes. But you just keep on going. Every no is closer to that yes.
Attilio: Well, you know I know about that market fit example, we had the guy who came up with lawn darts and he was using the domain name ___.com. No market fit there at all! ___.com was not a good domain name for the lawn dart company. It was uh, anyway, they didn’t work out too good. So, speaking of lawn darts—
Adrienne: We’ve got uh, we’ve got Abby on the line. To talk about her open house!
Attilio: Hey Abby!
Adrienne: On Sunday. Abby, are you there?
Abby: Yes! Hi, hi, hi guys!
Adrienne: Hello!
Abby: Um, okay. So, I’ve got a brand open house to discuss for a showing for an open house, um, it’s going to be at ____ 92-464 ___ Street. So, if you’re you know, if you’re ___ just across from St. Jude church, just follow the signs open house, Team Lally and uh, you’ll get to the house. It’s a 3 bedroom 2 bath. I cannot say enough about this house, it’s beautiful! You have the forever views, uh, if you’re looking for a master bedroom, this is the master bedroom, just the size of the bathroom alone is the size of my apartment, so uh, it’s awesome! It’s got like this really ___ um top of the line chef kitchen and it’s just beautiful so, come on by, I know you guys aren’t doing anything this coming Sunday, there’s no football or um, anything like that, so come in! Come down and see it!
Attilio: Well if, well I go to, I go to St. Jude’s so I want to make sure you can either go to 9 o’clock mass or 11 o’clock mass and you have plenty of time to make it to this open house at 2 o’clock!
Abby: Exactly! Come down, have lunch and then come down to see me!
Attilio: Alright, thanks, Abby.
Adrienne: Thanks, Abby!
Abby: Thank you!
Adrienne: Okay, so next we’ve got Brooks on the line. To talk about a coming soon listing.
Brooks: Hello!
Attilio: Brooks, what’ve you got for us?
Brooks: Alright, okay, well you know, when you think of townhouses or townhomes, uh, everybody, our listeners probably think of uh, automatically think of Ocean Point and, or ___ or something like that and rightfully so, but I like to do pattern interruption and redirect people’s thinking to uh, ___ and the beautiful tropical wonderland of uh, ___ Valley. ___, so in the terraces of ___, there’s a unit there that’s going to go live fairly soon, like the middle of this month, first open house, uh, the grand opening house on the 23rd, uh, it, it features the ground floor unit just as a ground floor unit. What does that say to people? Well they can have their doggies running out in the yard as opposed to being kind of sequestered in a home, right? So, that’s a great, great feature so uh, look forward to that. It’s a beautiful uh, you know, uh, in terms of coolness being in central Oahu, cool night, cooler days, uh, the, the ambiance in that valley’s just tremendous because of all the trees, it’s like a tropical wonderland, so be on the lookout.
Attilio: You mean cool as in temperature, not cool like in the Fonzie?
Brooks: Ah, both man, come on!
Attilio: Alright thumbs up and go hey!
Brooks: Yeah, that’s the one!
Attilio: Alright, thanks, Brooks!
Brooks: Okay, thanks you guys!
Adrienne: Alright so now we’ve got Michael.
Attilio: Michael, Michael.
Adrienne: On the line to talk about, about his open house this weekend.
Michael: Hi guys! So, this is purely, purely selfish, I actually want you guys to continue interviewing John. That was a phenomenal segment there!
Attilio: Yeah, no, we’re going to hit him with more questions right before we end.
Michael: God bless. Uh, I will be sitting 92307 ___ Place out in ___ Ridge. So, come visit me, from 2-5, I’m going to be showcasing a beautiful single-family home, 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath guys, on a quite cul-de-sac, you have got to come down and see this place so before you even see Abby, because she’s going to be in the same area, come see me!
Attilio: There you go!
Michael: From 2-5! At 92307 ___ Place. I promise you, I will not be wasting your time!
Attilio: It’s a 360-degree cul-de-sac, once you go in, you can never come out, it’s kind of like the Bermuda Triangle.
Michael: Amen, yes, it is!
Attilio: Alright, thanks, Michael.
Michael: Aloha, guys!
Adrienne: So, if you want more details on any of those homes that uh, we just heard for open house you can go to our website at www.teamlally.com and uh, click on the open houses or just www.teamlallyopenhouse.com and you can see pictures and video of all of those homes.
Attilio: Hey, John, what, do you, do you, do you have a website or a phone number? Let’s say we’ve got some Hawaiian group out there, they want to get ahold of you, utilize your company?
John: Yeah, go to our website, www.Kalaimoku.com or you can email me at John@Kalaimoku.com anytime.
Attilio: Well hey, thanks for being on the show, ____ Class of ’85.
Adrienne: Yes, thank you, John!
John: Thank you!
Attilio: And uh, we’ll see, we’ll definitely have you on again and see how things are going with the Hawaiians! Out there in the community.
Adrienne: Okay, so uh, we’ve got a, a quick minute. And I just wanted to talk about an even that’s coming up, uh, the Charity Walk. That our, our team is going to be participating in and representing Project Hawaii. So, you can too! It’s on our website under the ‘Events’ so go check it out!
Attilio: Okay!
Adrienne: Alright well thank you for listening and thank you to our sponsors!
Attilio: Jody Tonga and Derek Tonga of Pacific Rim Mortgage!
Adrienne: Bradley Maruyama of Allstate Insurance!
Attilio: Woo-hoo! Nathan Baker, Pillar to Post Home Inspectors!
Adrienne: Ben and Tony Mamoon of Triple A Roofers Hawaii!
Attilio: Janice Myrland with Dream House Drafting!
Adrienne: John Speed of Kilauea Pest Control!
Attilio: Duke Kimhan with Hawaii Pacific Property Management!
Adrienne: Mike Metts of ___ Plumbing!
Attilio: Thomas Patterson with Patterson Land Surveying!
Adrienne: Myron Kamihara of Kamihara Law!
Attilio: If you want to get ahold of any of our sponsors, just go to www.teamlally.com.
Adrienne: We also want to give a big thank you to Lea, our producer here in the studio!
Attilio: Chi-hoo!
Adrienne and Attilio: And John!
Adrienne: Alright make sure to tune in next week we’ll have an awesome guest talking about something that’ll change your life—
Attilio: Forever. This is the Team Lally real estate show, home of the guaranteed—
Adrienne and Attilio: SOLD PROGRAM!
Adrienne: If we can’t sell your home at the agreed upon price and your time frame, we’ll have it bought for cash.
Adrienne and Attilio: THANKS, AND ALOHA!