Episode 336: 10-01-15
On this week’s show, we discuss CCIMs as business brokers, how green energy affects family offices, and how to face pet cancer.
CCIMs as Business Brokers
Our CCIM Voice – Agustin Duarte – has been a real estate business person since 1991. He brokers the sale of businesses and restaurants. He is also an investor and developer.
We discuss CCIMs as business brokers and how he assisted in the USA roll-out for Giraffas Restaurants and other single-tenant properties.
Family Offices and Green Energy
Don Weidenfeld, Managing Member at Magnum Energy Solutions, explains how to save up to 40% on your commercial real estate operating expenses and take that right to the bottom line. Engineered Tax Services builds on those installations to help save family offices millions each year.
ETS is one of the only qualified professional engineering firms that has a staff comprised of its own licensed engineers, to include LEED Accredited Professionals and tax experts ranging from CPAs to a former senior IRS executive.
We discuss how to modify your building to save money and pay for it through green energy tax credits.
How to Face Pet Cancer
Our Home Town Hero – Dr. Stephanie Correa – is the founder and lead oncologist at Animal Cancer Care Clinic, South Florida’s leading veterinary oncology practice.
As a healthcare partner of your pet’s family veterinarian, they work closely together to provide the best diagnoses and treatment options.
We discuss how they can help you and your family face pet cancer together.
Episode 336: 10-01-15 (To download, right-click and select “Save Link As”.
Transcription:
Jim Fried: Alright, everybody, we are back with another edition of Fried on Business. I’m back in the studio in Sweetwater. Back from Gainesville. I had a great week up in Gainesville. Now we are back and we’ve got a great show for you today. We’re got, our start is going to be the CCIM voice, with my good friend Agustin Duarte. Then we’re going to have Don Weidenfeld. You know him. He’s the managing director at Magnum Energy Solutions. We’re going to talk about how he helps everybody save money on their buildings, drop it to the bottom line creates value. My goodness, making money, creating value with real estate, the capital gains idea. We’re going to finish up with Stephanie Correa. She’s the founder and lead oncologist at Animal Cancer Care Clinic. She’s going to be our hometown hero today. So, stick with us all the way to the end. We’re going to have all kinds of good stuff about how to keep puppies and kittens healthy. We’ll be right back after this. AC, take it away, it is yours!
[commercial break]
Jim Fried: We are back and we are back with the CCIM voice. Today we’ve got Agustin Duarte here with us. Agustin has been a practitioner since 1991, right?
Agustin Duarte: That’s right.
Jim Fried: Alright. And he does self-investment, he does development, but his specialty is the roll-out of restaurants. Welcome to the show, Agustin.
Agustin Duarte: Thank you, Jim.
Jim Fried: First of all, how has the CCIM impacted your business that you’ve been doing? Were you originally real estate, out-of-school real estate guy?
Agustin Duarte: No, my sideway to the business was financing, mortgages, insurance and I was out of the business for probably about 10 years. And then when I came back in I decided to get into commercial via business brokerage, primarily restaurants, cash flowing business etc. So I thought CCIM would be a perfect way to open up real vast and expert network if you will and that’s kind of my niche and that’s what I’m specializing in and so far CCIM has been really beginning to open a lot of doors for me.
Jim Fried: So you’re basically your own brand and then you teamed up with CCIM to enhance your personal brand.
Agustin Duarte: I’m with RE/MAX. Primarily residential but there’s a couple of commercial guys there that have given us all their support and as a matter of fact, two CCIMs within that South Miami office.
Jim Fried: That’s absolutely terrific. So, then really it does help you stand apart and truly build your business.
Agustin Duarte: Absolutely. No doubt.
Jim Fried: Okay. You talked about restaurants and roll-outs. What’s one of your bigger clients?
Agustin Duarte: One of my best clients is the renowned Giraffas. This is a huge brand based out of Brazil. Really poised and positioned to make a presence here throughout the United States but obviously beginning in South Florida. These guys have a fantastic product and they’ve acquired some really professional management. Guys at the home are really people I would drive this business and really we’re configuring the brand and I’m very excited about it. We have just taken up a group to actually develop and put up about 10 stores throughout of west coast of Florida and some non-traditional venues and it’s exciting.
Jim Fried: What do you consider a non-traditional venue?
Agustin Duarte: Non-traditionals are stadiums, hospitals, universities, sometimes food courts, most things in that nature but it’s not traditional I guess by definition because once terrain there that’s captive, so the brand that wear this that you can potentially get from one of those venues is like nothing else, there’s no advertising dollars that can really get you that many touch and feeling. So I think it’s a strategic and it tells the way to grow that brand here locally.
Jim Fried: It’s not like a pre-standing triple net thing, it’s not in line, it’s inside the specific building. I think that people that are in a hospital, to capture the audience they’re going to want to do that. What are the couple of other concepts you’re representing right now?
Agustin Duarte: Right now we have represented other concepts but really in the restaurants I’m representing Giraffas. I have got them on business brokerage. Usually things that have multiple units are at least certain cash flow, I’d say at least $1 million cash flow a year. So there’s some meat in the business and kind of some infrastructure which is something that I think is a lot sellable, a lot more sellable than maybe a one-store or one-business type or one-unit type.
Jim Fried: A lot of the folks that listen to the show are investors, they invest in stocks, they invest in bonds, they invest in real estate. You would invest in real estate. Why don’t you talk a little bit about some of the real estate investments that you have and that you’ve done and how that impacts your ability to help your clients do good business deals?
Agustin Duarte: I think right now, especially with some of the trends and things that are going on with for mortgage, it’s a really interesting time because what you do have is you have groups coming in here where they like to collateralize maybe their investment via real estate. So I think things that capitalize really capture if you will that sense of security where it’s not a speculative. If there’s some kind of cash flow, there’s always a way to make that better, whether it’s value add, growing a piece, splitting things up but there’s a cash flowing component to it where it kind of makes some sense. In particular, one of the things that we’re looking at now is EB-5 which I think is a very strategic way to raise capital. It makes some sense because obviously, we have job creation and in addition to that, you definitely have larger maybe reach to institutions that can buy into that and parlay it. So, I’m excited about that as well.
Jim Fried: We have a really interesting perspective on commercial real estate. Things that you focus on, the restaurants in both traditional and non-traditional locations. What do you see for real estate going forward? And I kind of like it to talk about it two different ways because you brought it up, not me. You’re talking about these non-traditional locations. That’ll be people that are going in these high-density urban core locations. And then also, you’ve got clients that I would have to believe would also want to go out into a standard historic triple net outparcel type of the situation. How do you see the two of those balancing out going forward?
Agustin Duarte: If you really want to build something, you have to do it both ways. I think the non-traditional service have a very specific purpose because you are front and center and the middle of a venue whether it’s at a hospital or at game or stadium, whether location it may be. So it’s important to have that type of platform. You also need the traditional platform whether it’s in-line or endcaps or things of that nature so that a regular consumer can see it and I think a good mix of those two is how you really build something whether it’s restaurants or any other business for that matter. And obviously I think the contrast is that the non-traditionals are always tighter and smaller and you’re kind of operating in sharing maybe your food space or your customer space where the traditionals are more it’s just you and it’s not about your neighbor and you can get a better cost per square footage but you probably want to have same line traffic so I think the best way is to have a decent mix and roll things out and not be afraid to scale a back and maybe change your platform a bit.
Jim Fried: We’ve only got about a minute or so left, so I wanted to give some contact information for you, Agustin. If people want to get a hold of you, how do they find you on either a website, your Internet address or cell phone? But please, go slowly because a number of people who listen to this show are New York Jets fans.
Agustin Duarte: Oh boy. So, my cell phone, which doesn’t stop, is 305 450 5992. My webpage address is www.magiccityinvestments.com.
Jim Fried: Okay, that cell phone again was 305 450 5992. With only a few seconds left now, what’s a really good takeaway that you can give folks about this CCIM and investing in restaurants?
Agustin Duarte: I think the CCIM is something that I would really encourage any real estate practitioner to at the very least take a class or two even if they don’t go the full six courses because it’s for them and I really think it gives you one on insight to the way that everyone should handle their real estate business, I really do. And I think the most important thing is in that work the quality of person that I have met in the CCIM in a very short period because I just got my pin in March is second to none. I think it’s something that really everyone should..
Jim Fried: Frank decided to call in at the end and blow the whole time frame. Frank, you’ve only got time to say hello now.
Frank Rodriguez: Hello.
Jim Fried: Okay, goodbye Frank. I’m kidding. Say hi and tell us what you got on your mind, Frankie.
Frank Rodriguez: Hi. Agustin, I hope it’s been a great session for you. I want to remind everyone that we have 16th October a joint event with FIU. It’s a networking event for professionals and basically CCIM is having a mentoring program developed for FIU students. And that’s 16th October at American Social at 6:00 PM in Brickell. And we hope to see you all there. Jim, you’re invited too. Agustin yourself.
Jim Fried: Listen, man, send us the email and next time you got all this stuff coming up, Frank. Send me an email so we can do your dirty work for you on the air.
Frank Rodriguez: Absolutely. I’ve just forwarded it to you and you’re more than welcome to post it on your site and make sure everybody gets invited.
Jim Fried: Okay, we’re going to do that. Agustin was great. You got to find somebody better next month. I don’t know how you’re going to do it, Frank.
Frank Rodriguez: We keep getting better and better.
Jim Fried: You do. I want to thank Frank, I want to thank Agustin, I want to thank the CCIMs here locally and the CCIM Institute and I got to just say one thing right here: AC, it’s yours!
[commercial break]
Jim Fried: Alright, you heard the promo that 880 is where money talks. Well now we’ve got money talking on the other line. We’ve got Don Weidenfeld. Don Weidenfeld is a personal money manager for some of the biggest sports owners in the United States. He also is an investor in a company called Magnum Energy Solutions. In fact, he’s the owner and Magnum makes all kinds of great stuff to help you green up your building. Don, welcome to the show.
Don Weidenfeld: Thank you very much, Jim. I appreciate that, thanks for having me again.
Jim Fried: It’s my absolute pleasure. We talk about the fact that you run your own family office and then the fact that Magnum helps family offices green up their buildings and save money. Why don’t you tell folks a little bit about what that all means at your family office? I know you work with Julio and his family office. In fact, didn’t you help Julio and his family save money on their building?
Don Weidenfeld: Absolutely. We sure did. We retrofitted their building with all the, do HVAC in full. Magnum’s products save between 25%- 40%, we’re in the wireless control business and we use occupancy sensors with window and door sensors to reduce the amount of energy consumption. Another thing, I wanted to just bring up, why don’t we take in Agustin out to lunch. It sounds to me like he’s in control of a lot of restaurants. Magnum does monitoring for restaurants, HVAC control, LED lighting, everything.
Jim Fried: We’ll going to have to call him in the morning and tell him that because he just ran out because his segment was over. But we’re going to definitely do that. Now restaurants, what restaurant clients do you guys have?
Don Weidenfeld: We’re working with a number of them out there. We installed it in a number of Subways, we’re currently working with some Mid-West restaurants, we are at a number of additional ones around the country, I just thought I want to describe.
Jim Fried: I know that sometimes you can’t talk because you’re in the middle and sometimes it’s private because maybe they’re public or something. Then, let’s talk a little bit about what you did for Julio. Julio Gonzalez is the perfect example that people will listen to our show. He’s a wealthy business owner, he owns his own office building, he met you, you said ”I can save you money”, he said ”Show me what’s next”.
Don Weidenfeld: Your first question, back to the family offices and with Julio. Julio runs his own family office business and what we do with a lot of family offices around the country is their significant owners of real estate. How do you increase the value of a piece of real estate on cash flow? One of the areas that you really need to focus on that you have no control is your energy consumption. You can reduce the amount of energy consumption and therefore increasing your net operating income you’ll increase the value of your building. One of the areas with Julio’s building which was very interesting that he works out of tax credit of $1.20 per square foot roughly up to $1.80 per square foot any I wanted to do in a building envelope or not. In addition to that, they do cost segregation but in reference to the savings in his building we took his electric bill, reduce it by about 30%. At the same time, our equipment costs roughly $1.20 square foot to go in so the property owner which in this case is Julio, they got 100% of the money back of the federal tax credit. So, it really cost him nothing to put it in. We reduced his energy bill by a significant amount of money being 30% and that brings it right to the bottom of the line. We increased the value of his property. It’s a small building, 10,000 square feet. So his electric bill is approximately $8,000 a month and we reduced it by $30,000 a year which increases the value by between $300,000 – $400,000 depending on the cap rate. He’s investing nothing and he’s put in $400,000 in value this month.
Jim Fried: Wait, $400,000 that he can realize and the tax to further event by financing the building again. And by the way, that means Julio call me! Call me! I can help you with that. So, Don, that’s one of the business deals that we got to get together as you and Julio start doing those installs we got to start doing the mortgages for him at the Aztec Group.
Don Weidenfeld: 100%, absolutely.
Jim Fried: Aztec Group, I’m advertising for the Aztec Group.
Don Weidenfeld: I’d like to just mention something else that we’ve just..word that we’ve got. In New York we’ve got actually the utilities so in addition to the tax credit that Julio can get we have the utilities. Con Edison in New York is paying for 50% of our installation. Depending on if we hit a certain threshold on the savings which we generally do. We get a 50% rebate from the utility. In California we have Sacramento municipal utility in specific cast on electric that are paying for 90% of our installation. Your payback is less than 6 months in most of those cases.
Jim Fried: That just sounds absolutely awesome. But Don, I want to ask you a question because I know you’re an opportunistic investor. How did you find Magnum as an opportunity to making investment in?
Don Weidenfeld: Magnum was brought where we were doing some research and some due diligence on another company, actually in the medical device business. We didn’t like some of the things that we found but we met some of the key management people, the national sales manager who’d mentioned to me that Magnum was looking to raise money, we’re looking for a partner and when I started reviewing and discussing with other developers around the country what area is that they can’t really control, that would really bring the value to their properties up significantly and skyrocket, he pretty mentioned Magnum. Magnum’s out of Ohio. 100% of our products or made in the USA and we do nationally around the country and then internationally worldwide through some of our partners.
Jim Fried: Let me ask you this: do you got any rocket scientists working over there?
Don Weidenfeld: I don’t have rocket scientists but, it’s funny you say that actually because our head software engineer we brought him over, he built the missile defense system in Germany and was involved in writing all of the software for Siemens and what not in Germany so he was in charge of that. We brought him over to the United States, gave him a new home here and he loves it here in the US and he’s staying with us forever. It’s amazing. All of our products because of him and the encryption it’s all there, all 256 figures encrypted so we can sit on the GSA government network as one of very few energy companies that can do that. We’ve done some key platinum energy buildings in Colorado.
Jim Fried: Let me ask you this, Don: so that means that some person can drive by my house with their phone and turn on my lights unless they really have the code?
Don Weidenfeld: No, 100% they can not do that. That’s actually one of the issues that was always the concern with wireless is the security and our equipment as it can sit on the GSA network we are also sitting on the internal networks with some of the biggest hotel chains around the country.
Jim Fried: Can you imagine some of those? Can you imagine some of the hotels you do business with?
Don Weidenfeld: Yes, we’ve done installations at the highest Hilton hotels and Marriotts. All of the big national chains around the country. We’re actually currently doing a thousand units shared in one of the states in the South West.
Jim Fried: Why would they hire you to do that? Why would they want to have you come in and put your stuff up on the thousand rooms? I mean, when I get to a hotel, I just want to walk in, snap down the AC and go out to the gym and forget about it.
Don Weidenfeld: Exactly. But our two biggest verticals are hotels and time shares and then universities. And why is that? It’s because the owners pay the electric bill and the customer actually has control of the thermostat but does not pay the electric bill so generally go into a hotel room, he pushes the air conditioning down to 65 degrees, you spend the evening there and let’s say you walk out, you don’t adjust the air on. Well that’s significantly, the expense of that is just enormous to a hotel. So we can come in and in some of the universities we tested it high as 43% savings. And most of the hotels were between 25% – 40% but we land there on 33%.
Jim Fried: I think I know why you’re on those storm rooms. The people are leaving the AC blowing hard to let you see clear out the air.
Don Weidenfeld: Exactly.
Jim Fried: I cracked up AC, he’s cracking up on the other side of the window, Don. You can let it go, it’s all right.
Don Weidenfeld: No, actually it was pretty funny and you probably understand that in Colorado we couldn’t figure out why the students if the university is out there, they’re leaving the windows open at the same time their air conditioning are turned on.
Jim Fried: Colorado universities. The Mile High State. Hey, listen, Don, that’s funny stuff. We’re going to break it right there. Can you stick with us around the bend?
Don Weidenfeld: Absolutely, Jim.
Jim Fried: Alright, we’re going to have some more fun with Don Weidenfeld around the corner. Smoking hot great stuff, smoking hot for the air conditioning and energy, right? AC, it’s yours. We’re going to do a little health and welfare. We’re back with Don after this.
[commercial break]
Jim Fried: We’re back with Don Weidenfeld. Don is a managing director and the owner of Magnum Energy Solutions. Don, welcome back!
Don Weidenfeld: Thank you very much. Glad to be back.
Jim Fried: Are you having a diet coke there or something? Anyway, Don, I don’t know how you’re going to beat that first segment and the comment about the kids at the university of Colorado dorm keeping their dorm windows open and not being able to figure out why the AC bill was so high. But we’re going to try.
Don Weidenfeld: I knew you’re going to let that go.
Jim Fried: I can’t let that go. That was great. Now, Don, what are some of the more interesting installs that you guys have done? For instance, do you do up-scale houses? I see all these centralized systems now that go in the middle of a house, that work all the Bluetooth stuff. Do you guys got one of those?
Don Weidenfeld: Yes, as a matter of fact, we are in a process of launching, it’s currently where it’s going to be called ”The Root”. It’ll be a state of the arts. Thermostat will not only control your HVAC but it’ll also control your lighting, your music. It runs on five different protocols whether it’s wireless, Verizon, for instance, it’s got a chip in it. In addition to that, it’s got ZigBee as well as an OceanChip so you can connect it with a number of different ways and you can also connect appliances to it as well. So, it can be used like a hub of the house.
Jim Fried: One of the things that’s really coming to into usage and stuff has been these new lights that are replacing the bulbs but as soon as they started coming out, they replaced them with something else, LED lighting. Do you guys use that for any of your products too or how does that influence what you guys do?
Don Weidenfeld: Actually it’s interesting you bring that up. LED is actually a phenomenal way to reduce your energy consumption from your lighting. Magnum was originally focused on reducing the consumption from your HVAC, your air conditioning. But with the advent of the LEDs, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but LED prices have now come down pretty significantly and that makes them a lot more economical to be used in your whether it’s your residence or your commercial property or your office building, hotels and what not. We just signed an agreement within the last 30 days. We have a new partner that they manufacture their LED lights and we’ve got an exceptional pricing on them. I don’t know if you’re aware of how LEDs work but let’s say you have a 60W candle in. And LED light would be roughly between 12W – 15W as a comparison to put out the same wattage as your 60W light. In essence, what you’re doing is you’re saving 75% of your wattage and putting out the same amount of lumens. So, in essence, if you put these in your house, and these lights used to be $25, $30 a light and now we brought them down significantly into that $10 range. You can really, economically it works really well.
Jim Fried: What are some of the other things you see on the horizon? We talked about ”The Root”. I guess in this segment we’re talking about the future here. We talked about the LED lighting. What are some of the things you’ve got coming out maybe early next year or later next year?
Don Weidenfeld: Actually, we’re in a process of launching a node. We’re launching it with the world’s largest lighting manufacturer. And it is a node that is going to automatically put into your tubelight and your tube fixtures that go into commercial properties. These nodes will make the light automatically work at its own occupancy sensors. When you walk into a location, walk in a conference room or walk in the hall the light will automatically go on because it will sense you. We make the wireless node and we’re not installing this at manufacturing and this is going to be available in stores in the next 60 days as well.
Jim Fried: I guess I’m asking all the right questions. Let’s bring it all together now. Where do people go to learn more about Magnum and what are the best types of folks to be calling you?
Don Weidenfeld: As you can tell, we actually work well in all verticals of real estate. Obviously, if your customers are hotels and what not you say the lot more to your bottom line that as the owner. But obviously, every piece of real estate in the country uses lights, every piece of real estate in the country uses HVAC controls. We just do that, we do it better, smarter and much more efficient. You can reach the company’s website. It’s www.magnumenergysolutions.com.
Jim Fried: Thank you for going slow for the Jets fans, Don.
Don Weidenfeld: Okay, sorry. It’s www.magnumenergysolutions.com. Or you can always reach me at 561 702 9000. That’s my international number, it’s 561 702 9000 can be reached worldwide.
Jim Fried: Now I want to kind of go back a little bit a talk a little bit about your relationship that you have with Julio and Engineered Tax Services because you talked earlier on the show and people probably have tuned in again. So I want to go back to that now. You helped Julio refit his building. We’ve only got a couple of minutes left so go through this fast but 10,000 square foot building, you helped him rehab the building. What did it cost and what did it save?
Don Weidenfeld: In essence, this is a relatively small installation but it really brings the point across very simply. If you have a 10 000 square foot building, we gave him the equipment, it was $1.20 foot, it was a $12,000 installation cost. His electric bill is roughly $8,000 a month. Will be saving let’s say 30% which is about $2,500 a month, that’s $30,000 a year. So his out-of-pocket expense was $4,000 which he was not out of pocket because he got a federal tax credit so it cost him nothing. And he’ll be saving $30,000 a year on his electric bill.
Jim Fried: And he’s the guy that helps you get the tax credit so he’s a very integral part of all this.
Don Weidenfeld: 100%. We’re working with a timeshare group right now while with Engineered Tax Services and the timeshare group has 28,000 rooms and we’re bringing in Engineered Tax Services to come in and do the energy savings audit and whatnot.
Jim Fried: It sounds like he’s got a great team that works with him and he really can help people save money. We’ve only got one minute left on so why don’t we give your phone number again and then we’ll go?
Don Weidenfeld: Okay, my phone number is 561 702 9000.
Jim Fried: Don Weidenfeld, managing director, president owner, chief cooking bottle washer at Magnum Energy Solutions working with Julio Gonzales of Engineered Tax Services to help bring energy efficiency to real estate owners across the world and to help family offices be profitable done. Thanks for being on the show today.
Don Weidenfeld: Great, thank you also, Jim. I appreciate that, I always love being on your show. You’re the best.
Jim Fried: We’ll have you back again next month, Don, and better bring your buddy Julio with you that time. You’re the best.
Don Weidenfeld: Don’t question about it.
Jim Fried: You’re the best. AC, it’s yours. We’ll be back right after this with puppies and cancer. Stick with us! You’re going to want to hear this. It’s terrific. Back after this!
[commercial break]
Jim Fried: AC is pointed, that means you must hear me again. A couple of weeks ago I reached out to my good friend Stu and I asked him to find me a local positive person that we can make our local home town hero. I said no politician, no pro athlete, no rich big shot and no movie star. Find me just a normal person. And I want to tell you, he has come up with an absolute winner. I want to introduce everybody to our guest. She’s the chief oncologist at the Animal Cancer Care Clinic and I am blanking because Stu did not put her name on the paperwork so: hi, welcome! Forgot your name, doc.
Stephanie Correa: That’s okay. I’m Dr. Stephanie Correa and I’m with Animal Cancer Care Clinic.
Jim Fried: Thanks. As I was fumbling I got the whole thing wrong after I made such a big stink of how good I was going to be and how great I was going to out Stu and I made myself look like a goober. But here we go, we’re going to have a great talk. Tell me, Animal Cancer Care Clinic, how many of these are in the United States?
Stephanie Correa: Specifically, veterinary hospitals that take care of animals with cancer, I would say there are probably five in the country, they’re one of five. So, really difference concept, different model but cancer in our pets is something that many people have dealt with and need to find the specialist to get help.
Jim Fried: My sister walked in on Monday. She’s crying. I go ”What’s the matter?”, she goes ”My doggy is dying”, I go ”You’re not going to believe what we’re doing this week on the radio”. She’s still crying. I think they’re giving like the last rights today. And I don’t want to make a small of it because it’s very important to her. Now, doctor, so there’s only five of these in the country. How did you decide that you want to open up one here in South Florida?
Stephanie Correa: I grew up here in South Florida and went away for many years to do my training and just love South Florida, I wanted to be back here. I knew there was a huge pet population here that really needed this sort of care so starting in 2000, I was the only veterinary oncologist here in Dade, Broward in Palm Beach area.
Jim Fried: You detailed the answer, leads me to one other question. Do you do just general veterinary work there?
Stephanie Correa: I don’t. I only do animals with cancers, so just oncology.
Jim Fried: I just have to ask you a quick question. They’re raising the drug prices on the dogs with cancer too?
Stephanie Correa: Yeah. I mean, because we use the same drugs that are used for people. It’s the same medication, same chemotherapy, everything.
Jim Fried: Oh my God. Put an angel. Yours too. You’re the greatest. Thank you for bringing this woman to everybody’s attention. I guess that’s like my next question. What kind of treatments? It sounds like the same but tell me anyway. So my doggy is not feeling well. What’s the tip off that I might have to come see you?
Stephanie Correa: Maybe you noticed that’s he’s not eating as well or maybe you noticed that he’s slowing down on a walk, maybe you noticed a growth on his skin or in his mouth even. And that leads you to either taking him to your primary care veterinarian and the primary care veterinarian does some tests and maybe you end up with a diagnosis of cancer. And that’s when I get involved. So, my job is to sit down and look at the whole pet, how old is the pet, what is the cancer and then we talk about what options are available. And I’ll tell you, I mean, dogs and cats get the same cancers that people get.
Jim Fried: So, then, if dogs get the same cancers people get and drug manufacturers use the same drugs on them, then do you do – you know, we have UHealth on the show all the time – so you’re like UHeath, you do trials for these animals?
Stephanie Correa: We do.
Jim Fried: Oh my God.
Stephanie Correa: We are involved right now in clinical trials looking at immunotherapy to treat cancer. And there’s been a lot on the news actually lately about immunotherapy in people for melanoma. Dogs and cats get melanoma as well and so, yeah, same sort of treatment and often times our dogs and cats get the treatments first and if they work, and if they’re safe and if they’re efficacious then these treatments end up going to people. Dogs and cats can be a model for human cancer.
Jim Fried: You know now, this is just a great things too. I can’t tell you. I’ve never done a segment like this, and this is just amazingly great stuff. You’ve got to have some kind of approach that you use, some kind of theme that just wraps around everything you do other than being good people and stuff and hugs and kisses. What is your general philosophy, your model, if you will?
Stephanie Correa: We are compassionate cancer care clinic so Animal Cancer Care. Care is really the operative word in our name because clients that are coming with their beloved pets are scared when they get a diagnosis of cancer. Like you’re person that works here. You’re not scary. And so we want to be of course the medical resource but we also want to provide support for the client and help them sort of go through this process. So, care and compassion. And it’s a pet, it’s a dog, it’s a cat, it’s very difficult, there’s lots of feelings and emotions and all sorts of things that we’re dealing with on a daily basis. We just want to be there for the people.
Jim Fried: How do people find you and get in touch with you because we’re kind of nearing the end, Dr Correa, and I want to make sure that we get all this right.
Stephanie Correa: I think the best way is www.animalcancercareclinic.com. Go to out website, I have lots of information there, our phone numbers, our addresses, lots of information about pets and cancer and you can find us there.
Jim Fried: Dr Stephanie Correa of the Animal Cancer Care Clinic. Thank you for coming on the show. I’m just disappointed. You didn’t bring one of your puppies.
Stephanie Correa: Oh, gosh, next time. Invite me back.
Jim Fried: I’ll invite you coming back with two cats next time. I want to thank Stu, I want to thank Dr. Correa, I want to thank Don Weidenfeld, I want to thank Agustin and the CCIMs, I want to thank South Florida Business and Wealth Magazine, KIND Snacks, all our sponsors, Warren Henry Automotive, The NFL Alumni, The Miami Dolphins, The Miami Marlins, Social Media 305, The Aztec Group, Lauren’s Kids, Bergstorm Center for Real Estate Studies, UHealth, but the people I really want to thank are you because without our listeners I wouldn’t have a show. I’ll thank you to, AC. Please go to our Facebook page and like our show and tell your friends. Join our community and give us feedback and comments. Tell us who you want to hear from. @JimFried is Twitter, @FriedOnBusiness is Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, the websites get above loads of hits every week. I’m checking to make sure. I knew I did not thank all of my sponsors. So, I want to thank Engineered Tax Services, Magnum Energy Solutions, Bergstorm Center for Real Estate Studies, and I think I mentioned all. Oh, Xpresso Marketing, EarlyShares, South Florida Business and Wealth Magazine, I got to redo my list. If you missed today’s show, it’s going to be bumped on our website www.friedonbusiness.com as soon as AC can get it to me and I can get it up on the website. So, this is Jim Fried for Fried On Business. Look for us next week on 880 AM at 6:00. And boy you’re going to want to tune in. We’ve got Cesar Alvares, the chairman of Greenberg Traurig at UHealth, then we’ll have the Miami Center World Developer, Dan Kodsi. You go ”Jim why do you do this?”, I go ”Because I love doing this”. Remember this is not a rehearsal, this is your life. The person who wants to do something finds a way, the other finds an excuse. Now go out there and make it happen.
