Building Multimillion Businesses By Turning Setbacks Into Reinvention Opportunities with Jose Berlanga

Jose Berlanga has mastered the art of reinvention, building multi-million dollar businesses across four industries. 

- Learn his secrets to sustained success.

- What does it take to rebuild after massive setbacks?

Jose Berlanga shares the raw truths of entrepreneurship and the power of starting over.

 📚 The Business Of Home Building: How To Start And Operate A Residential Construction Company by Jose Berlanga https://amzn.to/4jKc2dD

🌐Learn more at  https://joseberlanga.com/

🤝Connect with Jose https://www.instagram.com/authorjoseberlanga/

Simple & strategic marketing solutions for the busy coach and consultant. Visit www.reinventingperspectives.com

Transcript

Jose Berlanga: [00:00:00] preparation is awareness. Awareness that anything that is worth something, anything that is valuable to you. Any level of success, any level of achievement, we need to understand that it's gonna be extremely difficult. If you are in denial and you think that things are just going to happen magically, that's the first surprise and that is the first obstacle and perhaps the biggest one. If you understand it, you're gonna go, oh, okay, this is supposed to be hard. 

It's.

Priscilla Shumba: Welcome to the Lessons of Entrepreneurship, the Journey of Reinvention. Jose Berlanga serial entrepreneur. You've done everything from petrochemical [00:01:00] machinery to Italian coffee bars to residential construction, to now having one of the leading construction firms.

Priscilla Shumba: You've built multimillion dollar businesses across different industries. What would you say is the core skill or the core mindset that you think has been present in leading all those things to success?

Jose Berlanga: Perseverance, persistence willingness to keep moving forward. I think that is the first one. It's really the desire have and to own a business. I think ambition is something that we are somewhat born with. I've dealt with a lot of people over my lifetime that. Didn't necessarily have that desire and the willingness and, ability to deal with all the stress that comes with this territory. So that would be it. Just knowing that you want it and everything else just starts coming together after that.

Priscilla Shumba: That's such an important one because sometimes we think we want it and [00:02:00] then we hit the first couple of setbacks and the setbacks keep coming. I'm interested to know how you dealt with those. Is it a muscle you build up over time? , 

Jose Berlanga: as a matter of fact, I'm writing a lot about entrepreneurship now after doing this for decades. Because , there is not necessarily a manual there is not a very specific way of going about it. But I truly believe that being realistic about what to expect and researching and understanding a little bit of what it means to own a business goes a long way because like you said, a lot of people get in it and they have no clue what they're getting into. They have no preparation, they have no understanding. They don't have the , fortitude they don't have the resilience and the resistance. to start dealing in, absorbing the punches when things get bad. And in entrepreneurship, it's undeniably, normal for things to get very [00:03:00] difficult.

Jose Berlanga: I think that preparation is awareness. Awareness that anything that is worth something, anything that is valuable to you. Any level of success, any level of achievement, we need to understand that it's gonna be extremely difficult. So, that's my reminder. If you are unaware, if you are in denial and you think that things are just going to happen magically, that's the first surprise and that is the first obstacle and perhaps the biggest one. Because if you understand it, you're gonna keep going and you're gonna go, oh, okay,

Jose Berlanga: this is supposed to be hard. This is supposed to be a mess almost every day while I get somewhere. So once you're aware of that, then you begin to at least mentally prepare yourself.

Priscilla Shumba: Maybe you can tell me, , but I think you hit that point where you think, am I cut out for this? [00:04:00] Have you had that? Or maybe I'm not cut out for this, 

Jose Berlanga: you'll be surprised I'm one of those entrepreneurs. that is far from arrogant. I'm the opposite. I'm a very realistic, humble a true pioneer and entrepreneur in the sense of the word that I understand what it means. I talk about the realities of it. I don't often just focus on the glory and the great days and the success and the fun aspects as a lot of successful entrepreneurs tend to focus on. I like to tell people the way that things are. Over my career, I am still yet to feel fully comfortable with it. This is the irony. I've been an entrepreneur for going on almost 40 years, and I'm still dealing with having to be comfortable with the number of days when everything goes wrong. You either. Get used to [00:05:00] it and understand it, or eventually you'll wanna walk away from it. And to be more specific in answering your question, even today I get into deals, transactions, or partner in some businesses where once I'm in it I asked myself, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? Is it worth the pain? And. Are we cut out. It's something that over time you start finding out and the more your desire and your stubbornness and your inability to walk away from your mission, that starts clarifying that you are cut out for this, but. I wouldn't interpret discomfort, difficulties, setbacks, failure as synonym of I'm not cut out for it. Now that's far from it, you're still going to go through [00:06:00] all those motions and all those emotions, but if you can tolerate them, that's the only difference. And if you can just keep moving forward one day, things start getting better.

Priscilla Shumba: , Jose. I think we've started off really well here, but I'm so excited. Jose, I want people to know, a little bit about you, your backstory and what your mission is.

Jose Berlanga: My mission changes over the years and that is to know that you have one. So, my first, answer and perhaps message is make sure that you have a mission and a purpose and a reason behind what you're doing because perhaps a big mistake that I've made over the years is that , I wanna make money, I want to be successful, and that's very abstract. that leads nowhere. It leads to just having more things that you don't even know if you want them or what do you want 'em for? We need to as an entrepreneurs stop asking ourselves [00:07:00] what do we want? And ask ourselves what do we want it for? Every time that you put a number, every time that you just say, I want money, I want success. That mission gets very blurry and very confusing, the road gets harder because you really don't understand what it is that drives you and what it is that motivates you and gives you that incentive to put up with difficult things. in my earlier stages, I think it was self-explanatory on the exterior, I wanted to be successful. But not so self-explanatory in the sense of a purpose and a mission. A lot of my failures. I attribute the lack of a mission Over the years. I began to,, try to respond to that question, who am I trying to help? What am I trying to do better? how it is that I'm trying to improve. , my business or the environment that I operate in. And when you start [00:08:00] giving a little more clarity, then you start finding that mission. Right now, of course , a big part of success is finding a good quality of life and eventually finding some balance, which I always say that in entrepreneurship its very hard to find it particularly at the beginning. You just have to focus on your work. And as you succeed and as you begin to delegate and as you begin to improve your skills, now you can start finding that balance and a better quality of life.

Priscilla Shumba: Because of the online world, sometimes we don't understand what does focus look like we. Dunno if we're doing enough or we think we're doing too much and we're hardly doing much. And I'm interested to know what does, a day in the life of the early entrepreneur Jose, trying to make it happen?

Priscilla Shumba: What did that look like?

Jose Berlanga: Focus can mean different things to different people. To me, being a little bit of an obsessive compulsive behavior, [00:09:00] where partly is my nature, partly is a way that I was brought up. I don't believe in ending the day until I am about to drop dead. That . is just my personality, but I share that personality I think with a lot of entrepreneurs that . Don't know the answer to, what am I doing enough? We always feel like there's more to do. Something that entrepreneurs have is the ability to generate work. Nobody gives you work. Nobody tells you what to do, nobody gives you homework. You generate it, you figure out what you want to do. You figure out how fast you want to get there, and you keep making those goals harder and harder to reach. That is just part of this process , in having a better understanding of, am I doing enough? I think this starts unraveling itself. When you begin to work and do so much. When the day goes by [00:10:00] and you don't notice it, there's a very big difference between working for somebody and working for yourself. When you're working for somebody else you can't wait for the end of the day so that you can go and live your life. When you're an entrepreneur, you don't want the day to be over. You want more hours, you need more hours, you need more time to get to the surface of some of the tasks that you set yourself out to achieve in any given day. So there's a big difference there.

Priscilla Shumba: Absolutely. Thank you for saying that because I think sometimes we don't know, when you're starting out, you're coming from having worked a job. That attitude of like you're watching the time, you're waiting for it to be time to go home and now you must run your own thing. That shift that has to take place.

Jose Berlanga: Yeah.

Priscilla Shumba: you recently published the business of building a masterclass and how to start scale and rebuild wealth. Maybe you can tell us about that.

Jose Berlanga: [00:11:00] Yes. Yes. And as a matter of fact, now I'm so excited. I just got a copy of my second book, which. dirt rich. This is the second one. The first one is the business of home building, which is really a book about how to start a business, how to build a business in the construction business, particularly, although it applies for just about any industry, because all of the fundamental aspects. Of starting and building something are somewhat similar. So, I tell a little bit of my story, I share a lot of anecdotes, a lot of how to some of the things that I been through that I recommend in order to avoid. Making as many mistakes as I did over the years I'm loving this process of writing and communicating and passing on a lot of this knowledge and information and experiences.

Jose Berlanga: But I'm starting with the industry where I've spent the most of my career, which is real estate. My second book is more about land [00:12:00] investing, land speculating, land development. The meaning behind these resources in commodities that represent the real estate industry. I'm having a great time doing it and hopefully this is not the last one.

Jose Berlanga: I have many more books to come.

Priscilla Shumba: I'm excited for that. Now that you talk about land real estate, a lot of people are buying land, which is something that maybe you can speak to, something we didn't see very often before. It was more of like people buying properties and that kind of thing.

Priscilla Shumba: , dirt rich. I got the right person to ask about this. What is the trend that we are seeing?

Jose Berlanga: Yes. This is an interesting question. What is the difference between just buying land, raw land versus buying other types of real estate? The real estate landscape? It's so broad, , people don't realize that not all real estate is the same. And this is a lot of what I talk about in this book, differentiating some of the aspects of this industry from [00:13:00] building entry level homes, single family, multimillion dollar homes. Multifamily, commercial, industrial retail, and of course developing land. In the world of land development. There are so many utilizations now, of land, but backing up to answer the question , there are different purposes. There are investors that are simply holding land. The more money people have, the more they're attracted to this limited resource. We're seeing the billionaires buy millions and millions of acres around the world. They're accumulating it because they understand how precious this commodity is and how valuable there are other investors, the not uber wealthy, let's call them that are buying raw land for a purpose. They either wanna hold it for a short term and eventually flip it. They're not buying it to [00:14:00] hold it indefinitely as some of these bigger investors are. For example, in my case I buy land and eventually I either find a purpose. I figure out what the best utilization is according to the market, according to the location, the region, so on and so forth. But people are realizing that this is a commodity that continues to go up in price, that it's always appreciating faster than currency. And if you know how to do it right, this is something that's not only very profitable, but it gives you a lot of options and possibilities. So that they're buying it with either the intention of holding it for a little while and then flipping it, or eventually developing it and turning it into something more profitable.

Priscilla Shumba: I remember there was a headline some time ago where they were talking about how much land Bill Gates owns or something like that. And you see these things, but when you're not in that industry, you don't [00:15:00]quite understand what is the significance of that?

Priscilla Shumba: I'm interested to know what is it that you talk about in your book? Dirt Rich.

Jose Berlanga: Oh I talk a little bit about it. First of all I don't write. Groundbreaking information. I love writing general information that's thought provoking. I talk about, first of all, how it all came to be. For example, as you travel through your city through the streets and you see commerce you see retail, , you see shopping malls you see gas stations, you see , schools, parks, coffee shops. have you ever wondered how did it all come to be and what is the right balance, the right architecture, zoning? Why are some things where they are? Why do you need certain aspects of your, convenience closer to you while you are willing to drive longer or distances for other things?

Jose Berlanga: What is the correct [00:16:00] layout and how have these cities evolved over decades and over generations? I talk a lot about , how interesting some populations. grow the different levels. What is the significance? Most of all of this commodity where if you really think about it, the multi-trillion dollar industry that represents real estate, it all begins with somebody selecting the right raw piece of land. It all begins that way, and this is part of. That message, how did it become from let's call it a natural resource to gradually a very important commodity, and why are prices the way they. Are in different areas, different regions, different neighborhoods. So I talk a little bit about how it revolves around our lives and what is a true meaning of this resource in relation to our communities and our societies.

Priscilla Shumba: That's very [00:17:00] interesting. Thank you so much for bringing that perspective to us. It's very interesting. , Jose, you've run your businesses through a lot of uncertain times and right now. With the tariffs, with ai, with robotics, with currencies, with the global political climate maybe you can tell us a story you've experienced these downturns and industry shifts, and what would be your game plan?

Jose Berlanga: Entrepreneurship is cyclical in most cases. There are moments in time when things are very uncertain right now happens to be one of them. And of course there are some industries that are more cyclical than others. That's been one of my specialties in life. And in my career from the time that I started very early on, I was in industries that were very cyclical.

Jose Berlanga: The petrochemical, the oil and gas exporting where currency shifts economic shifts, political changes those would affect immediately. [00:18:00] My current industry is one of 'em, so I'm very familiar and very used to dealing with uncertain times. They are not fun. A lot of investors look for them.

Jose Berlanga: There are specific investors that actually make their money during these downturns, not only in real estate, but in the stock market and many others. Where they're waiting for things to crash so that they can jump in and start investing and buying companies or assets, so on and so forth. A lot of younger entrepreneurs get very comfortable when they start doing well without realizing that throughout the history of humanity in every, developed country, every economy has gone through a number. Of ups and downs that you have to prepare for. So I tend to not be pessimistic let's call it, but just realistic about the fact that it's just a matter of time [00:19:00] before markets change you just get better and better at not only forecasting them, but preparing yourself with cash reserves with not getting too aggressive with growth, not over leveraging your company, not borrowing. Too much money when years are good. So this is something that a lot of humans lack. The preparation, the carefulness to know that it's matter time before things turn.

Priscilla Shumba: I wonder your first time experiencing this reality of the uncertainty of the markets. Maybe you can tell us what was going on and how did you respond? 

Jose Berlanga: When things go wrong in business most of the time they turn out okay. But not right away. Sometimes , it takes a long period before you recover, before you get back to normal. The initial impact is horrible, by the way, and it has been horrible. A lot of [00:20:00] people ask me if the second time that I lost a business or that I failed in my attempt to build a business.

Jose Berlanga: Was it easier? And the answer is no. Every single time, it was just as hard and as painful. I was there before, but I don't think you ever get used to, going through difficult times. You just perhaps handle it a little bit better. The first time that I was in the exporting business, I was doing very well, very young and it came from out of nowhere because my exporting to Mexico and Latin America, , my customers, were paying me in international currencies. all of a sudden when their currencies got devalued, were not able to convert their money into dollars properly in order to pay me.

Jose Berlanga: So I started having trouble paying my vendors until they put me out of business this was a very difficult period in my life. When you lose a business you feel like it's the end of the world. Like you're never gonna [00:21:00]recover. And it was a period until little by little I started climbing myself out of this mess, but when you do the right thing. When you face the problems, when you pay your debts, when you figure out how to avoid bankruptcy, even if you have to lose it all I attribute, this is always a good recommendation that I make When a business goes bad, , for whatever reason, if something didn't go the way you planned it, do whatever you can to not go bankrupt, to not file for bankruptcy, even if you have to use your money and your savings. To pay off debt and figure out how to navigate through that period of time, because that way , you'll have a clean record, you'll have a clean reputation where you can eventually start something new and get back on your feet. But once you are on record to have passed through or gone through a bankruptcy, it becomes much [00:22:00] harder.

Priscilla Shumba: Thank you for sharing that with us. Jose if you had to start over today, what do you think you would do first in today's environment?

Jose Berlanga: I hope it doesn't happen. I really do. I'm becoming. More cautious, more conservative in business and in transactions and in everything that I do. But I'm gonna give you the true answer and then the romantic answer. You can pick. Whichever one you like. The reality, the real answer is that I would take whatever opportunity I had if I lost it all, and I had to start all over. We can dream about how we would go about it next time and what business and what industry we would pick. No, none of that. When you need a job, when you need an opportunity, you will take [00:23:00] whatever is there and take it gladly and gracefully.

Jose Berlanga: And thankfully, particularly if you have a family to support and take care of you, don't get picky. This is something that I always like to remind people who need to start all over. Stop being picky. Take an opportunity, get started, get moving, go out and try to start earning a living again.

Jose Berlanga: In little by little, all the pieces of the puzzle start coming together. Sometimes it takes months,sometimes it takes years. So that's a real answer. I wouldn't even think about what I want or I wouldn't get picky. I would get up, go to work and try to find something. Now the romantic one is if I didn't have the responsibility, the family to support and all the obligations I would definitely [00:24:00] start something that was pleasurable, that was something that I truly enjoyed. is the message that I give the new generation that is so stuck on finding a passion, finding what they love, and finding something that is fun for them. And I'm all for that. I think that's a very reasonable request, but not right away. First, you need to learn how to work. You need to learn how to put up. With pressure, with stress and earn a level of achievement gradually, and then eventually start mixing the two between doing what you love and earning a living. But we cannot just focus on all the things that we enjoy and forget the fact that we are , a responsible society that needs to earn a living and support our families.

Priscilla Shumba: I appreciate the realness and the message that you bring, and I'm [00:25:00] really excited about your book, Dirt Rich. Your number one principle, whether it's a biblical principle or a business principle that you live by.

Jose Berlanga: Every morning I have a new one. Perhaps one of my principles is integrity. To always do the right thing. I am a big believer in karma, not only personal, but in business, in every sense of the word. And I think when you do the best that you can, when you give it your all, and you are honest, you are ethical, and you try to make the best decisions that you can. Somehow things always work out , there are no shortcuts in, at least for me, there never has been any quick way to solve problems in a quick fix to make money.

Priscilla Shumba: Integrity is always best. What are you excited about as you look out to the future trends that are taking place within your industry or the general [00:26:00] marketplace?

Jose Berlanga: I want to continue, reinventing how I do things. Believe it or not, at my age, although I've been in business for so long. I'm still striving to be better, more efficient, to do more things in one day with less effort to get smarter, to get brighter to perhaps be a better communicator.

Jose Berlanga: This interview, this talk that we're having, it's something that I enjoy a lot because it. Allows me to share some of my knowledge, but also to, get better at communicating some of these experiences. And part of the journey that I'm traveling through right now is writing because something that I'm really optimistic, having a lot of fun is that I hope that one day I can devote more time to mentoring speaking . training new, , business owners, leaders, entrepreneurs. That is something that right now it's probably on the top of my list as I phase out of my day-to-day activities, which [00:27:00] I'm working on. But it's never easy by the way. When you run a business, it's very difficult to just fully delegate unless you sell it and get rid of it or you have a very sophisticated management structure but that's one of the things that I'm looking forward to is devoting more time to public speaking and writing that's been my new most fun activity.

Priscilla Shumba: We're excited to see more of that, Jose and I'm glad you've passed through our way and we'll look forward to watching you do that. Thank you so much, Jose. Is there somewhere where you're active online for people to follow you?

Jose Berlanga: Yes, Jose Berlanga.com , I'm very easy to find, in all the social media outlets. And hopefully one day I will visit you in your hometown. In Australia.

Priscilla Shumba: I look forward to that. And thank you so much for a great talk. It's been a pleasure.

Jose Berlanga: Thank you so much.