5 Proven Lead Generation Strategies for Thriving in Industrial Real Estate

Michael Stansbury (00:01.601)
Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Mike Stansbury. Today we have Phil Maisano. Maisano, man, you know what? We talked about this before the podcast. How to pronounce your name, Maisano. Did I get that correct? All right, I’m not gonna start over because I think I nailed it the first time. Well, Phil, thanks for being on the show. This broadcast is brought.

Phil Maisano (00:18.914)
That is correct. Very impressed. You did, you did.

Michael Stansbury (00:28.631)
to you by Investor Fuel. help real estate investors, service providers, and real estate entrepreneurs two to five extra business to allow them to build a business they’ve always wanted and allow them to live the lives they’ve always dreamed of. Phil, thanks for being on the broadcast. Now, read a little bit about you, gonna go into it. You started out in the military and then transitioned into real estate. Tell me about that. Give me Phil’s origin story into what you’re doing now.

Phil Maisano (00:55.724)
Yeah, I mean if I were to backtrack back to 2020, I was in the Air National Guard and I went full-time for the Air National Guard and you know kind of hit a point to where I thought I could be doing a lot more if you know the harder I work and the you know the more work I do you get paid more. So I thought real estate was the ultimate path for that which I’m sure many could agree. You know your paycheck could be living less depending how well you do in real estate.

That was my transition. I jumped ship. I did not renew my contract and we were just talking about before we just started Mike, but I did not renew and first day was COVID. So I had to figure out a way to sling deals from home, started in residential and here we are now, 2025.

Michael Stansbury (01:44.939)
Yeah, that disruption. It’s one of those things that I like to, I, know, COVID was one of those things where people sometimes don’t like to look back on it, but it’s always interesting to see where people were headed when it, when it happened and how people pivoted from there. so you, you COVID hits, you get your real estate license and then you realize, okay, the world has changed in a drastic way. What do, what do I do next? Kind of what was the first steps? Where, where did your,

you know, where did your path take you from there?

Phil Maisano (02:15.852)
Yeah, I would say since that first day of COVID and not be able to show a house, which at the time I look back and I thought real estate was very singular of you get a license, you show a home and you try and sell a first home buyer or a seller. And little did you know, there’s so many different paths you can go down, which I know, like you said, you’re flipping houses yourself, which I don’t even know that was a thing.

So when I couldn’t show anything up in Pennsylvania or Jersey, I had to get paid somehow. I only had five or six thousand bucks in my account living in a home. kid is living in their mom’s basement. We had a lot of time, so I was up top. But the only way I could really make money and was cold calling. mean, I didn’t have enough money to pay for Zillow Leeds. You know, people weren’t.

You know, weren’t calling my phone. I didn’t have a website. I had no marketing. So you just got to get down and dirty pick up the phone, you know.

Michael Stansbury (03:17.877)
And so you picked up the phone, you started doing deals and kind of, do you remember your first deal and how it happened and kind of what the, you know, how you disposed it or yeah, tell me a little bit about that or tell me like an early win that you were like, okay, I got some, I can, this is something that actually has legs.

Phil Maisano (03:36.334)
My first deal was as a residential homebuyer and I learned quickly that I did not like residential. And just me being upfront, I hated it. It was a very emotional process and I’m not gonna say I’m not an emotional guy, but I’m very analytic. Does the deal make sense? Does it not? I’m not gonna terminate a half million dollar house because the sink is gold. Yeah, I can’t do it.

Michael Stansbury (03:47.201)
Right?

Michael Stansbury (03:58.603)
Right, Phil, but you gotta hold the wife’s hand and you gotta do all the things. You gotta…

Phil Maisano (04:05.336)
Couldn’t do it. But I can skip forward to my first commercial one if that makes sense.

Michael Stansbury (04:09.895)
Yeah, no, I actually love this story. So you realize right away that you’re, I can be emotional when I need to be, but I don’t want to be, right? And so, and then you realized, okay, there’s some, the dawn was breaking and you realized, okay, there’s other verticals with inside real estate that I could probably do. But I think it’s actually key to think about something. You could have just quit. You could have just said, all right, this not for me.

I’m not doing this. This is not what I signed up for. I don’t want to show people houses on Saturdays and Sundays. You said that, but you said, there is something else here. So yeah, tell us about your first commercial win, your deal. How did that happen?

Phil Maisano (04:50.208)
Yeah, mean directly after that, started, like I said, cold calling and I ran into somebody who was in my office. His name was Colin Conway and Robin Burrow who are one of my best friends now and they’re developers in Philadelphia. And they told me, they’re hey Phil, we’re cash buyers. If you find me something on this street.

We’ll knock it down. We’ll build some. I’m like, dude, is there any, like, again, I’m still new. So I don’t know what the terms were. I’m like, you’re to do a home inspection. He’s like, dude, I’m knocking this down, that thing down rehab and I got cash. So,

Michael Stansbury (05:25.877)
You were stuck. You were stuck in that residential real estate mode. That’s so fun.

Phil Maisano (05:28.302)
I was, I was. And I called the for sale by owner and I didn’t know how well it was priced at the time, but it was in Graduate Hospital. It’s like number two neighborhood in Philly. Ended up locking up the deal, closed in 30 days. I got paid.

No questions asked. I sold the property seven to eight months later for 1.25. I was like, dude, this is crazy. That was such an emotionless process. And I’m like, can I get to kind of do another one of them? You know, it was a, it was a little addicting at that point.

Michael Stansbury (06:05.323)
Yeah, so it’s interesting. you actually found somebody that was, you found a cash buyer, somebody that’s have an interest in doing things in this location and I have capital and you found them a deal and they closed and then they, guess, am I hearing that right that you got to relist it once it was complete?

Phil Maisano (06:25.39)
That was their, let’s see, that was their point of like, know, any deal I had is to call them first. You call me and give me the deal, I’m gonna give you the back and I don’t care what it is. Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (06:36.973)
Yes, yeah. And that’s again a nugget for some of our guys that are investing in commercial or residential. One of the things that we do here is if I have my license, I don’t use it.

Because if I’m gonna if I’m gonna buy a house from an agent I want them to get all the commission because I want the deal and then the other thing is is I will list it for List it with them if I end up getting a deal I’ll list it with them so they’re able to Get paid what they’re what they’re worth because they procured that buyer. We got the deal works

And now you have a great relationship with somebody that you can rinse and repeat. And you did that on your first commercial deal. So you got the bug from there. So tell me how things went after that.

Phil Maisano (07:22.318)
After that, I quickly learned I did not like doing open houses, but didn’t close that first deal, or my first residential guy for like seven months, I did not get paid. Down to my last dollar, I did that with Colin and Rob, and I figured, you know, the more, I put the same amount of time and energy into a $100,000 deal and a $15 million deal.

So over the past three years, I finally found the niche, is industrial down the Southeast. It’s the same process. I’m calling from nine to 12. No one knows the numbers better than me. I know how to talk to shop. I know who to talk to. I know who the buyers are. I know the cap rate. I know all the questions they ask. So taking that same experience from calling a four cell by owner, doing a knock or a tear down as land and converting that to industrial, nothing really changed. It was just the question.

I was asking and what’s the word I’m looking for and just bigger numbers. That was it. That’s it.

Michael Stansbury (08:24.171)
Yeah, variable. The variable is, know, if you can, you know, if you can sell a $50,000 house, you can sell a half a million dollar, you can sell a, $3.5 million industrial. You just, it’s all in the numbers. so now you’re talking to, now you just realize that, okay, if I’m going to spend my time three hours a day, cold calling, it’s not going to be for these smaller deals. It’s going to be for these, these bigger deals. And so yeah, tell me, tell me what a typical, how

like a successful cold call works with you. How long does it last and then what’s your follow-up system from there? I’m interested in this and kind of how the sausage is made.

Phil Maisano (09:05.109)
Yeah, I gave you actually a really good example of the one I just did. I closed it back in December. My friend in my office had a listing in Northern Liberties, Philadelphia for eight million or eight or nine million dollars. And I knew at the time I didn’t have the right buyer for it. I actually ended up taking five or six people through that just it didn’t work out. And I was like, you know what?

I know the best buyer would be for it if I just called the neighbor. So I picked up the phone. I did my research on reality and CoStar, which I use for my commercial stuff. And I called the immediate or one of the immediate neighbors. And he’s like, dude, I’ve been trying to buy this site for like eight, nine years. And thank God you called me. So since then, I mean, it was a crazy deal. We got, ended up getting into the bidding war. We closed it in this past December, but

If I didn’t just simply pick up the phone and call all their warehouse owners or even just the neighbor at that point, probably, I never would have closed that. And I wasn’t even the listing agent on it, my friend was. yeah.

Michael Stansbury (10:14.881)
That’s great. Yeah. So the low hanging fruit is, you know, so I’ll give you an example that just ties exactly into that. There’s a house that we picked up for a nominal price right by a church, right? And then we’re like, well, Hey, before we list this or before we rehab it, let’s see if the church wants to buy it. And they did. They’re like, yeah, we want that house. We loved it. And we’re like, okay, we didn’t know it was for sale. I’m like,

Yeah, it is now. So what you did is you just thought through the progression and you found a solution. I love it. So that’s great. All right. So one of the things you mentioned too before the podcast is, you were in the Air Force and you taught mixed martial arts. you still do that as a discipline or what’s that look like?

Phil Maisano (10:42.264)
Yeah.

Phil Maisano (10:54.04)
Yep. Yep.

Phil Maisano (11:07.938)
Not as frequently. My friends always make fun of me because they’re big time ball breakers like I am. I used to go to mixed martial arts. I still do once a month, but I’m really into hot yoga now, believe it or not. Hot yoga and pickleball, man. That stuff keeps me young.

Michael Stansbury (11:20.31)
Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (11:23.741)
Man you sound like my buddy’s been trying to get me in a pickleball. have not yet look I got a rat. He just got me a racket And look at still got the plastic on here Okay, gotta get there. I’m afraid of two things number one. I’m afraid that I’m gonna hurt my ACL But I’m I see nine-year-olds out there slaying it so I should be able to do that

Phil Maisano (11:32.92)
You gotta get out there, that’s nice.

Phil Maisano (11:44.514)
Yeah, but gotta watch out for them, man. They’ll tear you up. They tear me up all the time.

Michael Stansbury (11:48.735)
Yeah, so and hot yoga too. So those are the disciplines. But one of the things always that’s always interesting about really the some of the successful people is they they you you talked about your day and you have a very disciplined day. You do the cold calling from nine to 12 and the rest of the day when you’re working, you’re either showing property or trying to get deals done. And then after a certain time, you know, I’m out.

I’m taking care of myself. So, you know, where did that discipline come from? How did you procure that type of mindset? What did that look like?

Phil Maisano (12:22.432)
If I were to go back and almost that first residential deal, I mean, I was getting phone calls at seven, eight, nine at night on Sundays. mean, I’m at church at 1130 on Sunday, religiously. I’m up on Saturday. My fiance and I go get coffee, like a new coffee shop every time. And when people start to interrupt that, it made me a little upset. And I understood the business side of it. You’re going to deal with it. You run a business. You’re an entrepreneur. Whether you’re flipping a house, calling broker.

investor, whatever. You’re going to have those calls. But I noticed that in the commercial world, industrial multifamily, those guys are busy too. They’re at the coffee shop, you know, they’re doing their thing on Sunday and they’re not worried about closing a deal. No attorney or no title rep is answering the phone on a Saturday night. Your buyer might for residential, which is fine, but I’m not built for that. So going back to that first deal when I knew immediately this is not something I want to do, I had a pivot

again. So going back to the call calling, you know, doing that first commercial deal was, was, was attractive. So

Michael Stansbury (13:30.903)
So know thyself. mean, knew the lane that you wanted to stay in. You weren’t a guy that wanted to show houses and close deals on a Saturday and Sunday. You had those things that were important to you and you kept it going. So you and your fiance, they get coffee. Now let me ask you, this is the real question. Do you put anything in your coffee?

Phil Maisano (13:51.233)
I don’t I mean I get the craziest kind of coffee there is I don’t if it’s like I got a cream circle last week I don’t know what it was it was like it was crazy

Michael Stansbury (13:57.473)
Wait a minute, what I meant by that is do you have black coffee or do you have like a really wild, are you just like, hey, let me try something new at the coffee shop? Okay, fair enough. Fair enough, so I like it, so you’re not in the middle. So I would say that there’s the black coffee person, which I am, and then there’s the person that is just buck wild, which you’re on the side, that’s where you’ve got little more variety, and then there’s the person that maybe gets the, you know, I’m just a caramel macchiato person every time.

Phil Maisano (14:06.648)
Dude, I’m buck wild. I don’t care what, yeah.

Phil Maisano (14:13.954)
you

Phil Maisano (14:26.156)
Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (14:27.849)
So I like it, I like it. All right, so now you’re in industrial real estate. you any kind of, to get continued education and do this better, what are some of the things, some of the either coaches, mentors, or books that you’ve read that have helped you along the way? What did that look like?

Phil Maisano (14:48.44)
Yeah, I tell you what, the glass is never full. I think having a mindset of being coachable and understanding that you’re not the best in the business, I think comparison is the thief of joy. think, yeah, yeah, I do read my Bible often. But I think watching these people, like, you know who Bob Knuckle is by chance?

Michael Stansbury (15:02.977)
Sounds like somebody’s been reading Proverbs or something. Come on, Phil.

Michael Stansbury (15:13.505)
Bob Mackle. don’t, but I’ll look him up. Knackle.

Phil Maisano (15:15.596)
Yeah, Bob, Bob knackle is one of the top commercial brokers in the country. I think he sold over 20 billion in real estate over the past 30 or 40 years. He is somebody I look up to greatly, you know, very smart guy, but very disciplined. I’m not a big book guy. I do love podcasts.

And nothing that has to do with real estate actually. It’s more of your mindset than anything else. For me, I’m a very big visual learner. I was not the best in school. I’ll tell you that immediately. Did not finish college. My wife or fiance is the complete opposite of me.

very booky, I’m not. But I’d say mimicking someone like you, Mike, or someone who just has done the plan already and following their blueprint and almost sitting down with them like I’m doing with you. If I don’t know how to flip a house, I want to ask you and I want to ask you how you did it, who did you do it, where did you get your money from and just copy the blueprint. I’m not going to reinvent the wheel as a commercial broker. People have done it before me and I’ve done a million times more than I have. in terms of learning, I’m always looking for people who’ve done significantly

Michael Stansbury (16:08.727)
Right?

Phil Maisano (16:30.848)
better than me and just asking them. You know, it’s… I can’t compare myself. I’m not on that level, you know.

Michael Stansbury (16:36.917)
Right, that’s good. One of the things that you mentioned is, you mentioned Bob Nackle and you mentioned like seeing somebody that, they’re doing, what are they doing that’s better, not better, or what are they doing to get to that level and just, hey, okay, they have a process.

let me copy that process and let me add those things to what I’m doing on a daily basis. And then you mentioned some of the, you know, the comparison is the thief of joy envy. One of those things, it’s a struggle for real estate entrepreneurs and is if you look at other people and see where they’re at.

and go, wow, how did they get there? Well, they’ll tell you. Most people want to tell you. Most people who are at a place where they’re at a place where they can teach and educate people, they want to tell their story and they want to help people.

But here’s the thing that you just dropped for our listeners is you got to ask. It’s just feel free to ask. And if they don’t want to, then you know, OK, this is not a person I do want to talk to because you’re not going to ask in a way that’s not probably edifying what they’ve accomplished.

Uh, and I, I, I try to do the same thing. Whenever I meet somebody, I asked them, you know, how did they get where they, where they were at? What, what were the valleys and what were some of the aha moments you had an aha moment. realized, okay, this residential real estate is not, not for me, but there is something. And, uh, you got serendipitously, you found those two people who are your, who are good friends and they, changed your life. You know, change the trajectory.

Phil Maisano (18:10.604)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Michael Stansbury (18:12.745)
So, interested, what are the podcasts that you listen to? And this is good. You said specifically, it’s not real estate related. I know it’s probably related in some way because of the mindset. It may not be focused on the numbers or real estate per se, but what are some of those things that help you out there?

Phil Maisano (18:30.87)
Yeah, I would say my top maybe three is the Positive Mindset podcast. That’s one. School of Greatness, that’s with Lewis Howes. Yeah, Lewis, he’s the man. And I love the Tony Robbins podcast. I’ve been to a couple of his seminars and always gets me charged up. Yeah. Have you ever been to any of his before?

Michael Stansbury (18:40.395)
Lewis, yeah.

Michael Stansbury (18:49.451)
Yes, that positive energy. I have been coached by one of his students, but I’ve never been to one of his events before. All my buddies have. I’m in the season of, I’ve always been in this, I’ve got four kids and life, and so whenever I travel, I’ve gotta be, I’ve gotta really, it’s gotta be really something that.

that I need to go and I need to go to that one. I need to prioritize that one because Tony’s got some good stuff. But I go to a quarterly masterminds every year, all through the year. Some, it kind of seems like it’s real estate related because there were a bunch of real estate investors, but it’s more mindset and being exposed to other people that are doing things at a different level and also helping in other areas of your life. You mentioned the Bible, a of these guys are

followers of Christ and they go, we go specifically and we get in that book and there’s just a goldmine of business related tactics and then how to just live your life from the good book and so that’s what they extracted out of. So, but Phil, so right now it’s those podcasts, it’s the hot yoga, it’s the pickleball, that’s what you do recreationally.

Phil Maisano (20:00.194)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Stansbury (20:10.025)
And then you mentioned that you have a fiancee. We have a date soon or what’s that look like?

Phil Maisano (20:15.412)
Yeah, we’re in November of 2025, so I’m slinging as many deals I can beforehand.

Michael Stansbury (20:22.379)
Are we going to do that in Pennsylvania? we going some location?

Phil Maisano (20:25.876)
Now we’re gonna go to the Jersey Shore. Jersey Shore near Avalon, Sea Isle, right down there. Have you ever been to Jersey Shore?

Michael Stansbury (20:28.141)
All right.

Michael Stansbury (20:33.441)
Alright. So this is gonna, I’ve never been north, well now I’ve been to Boston. I haven’t been to New York. But when we travel, go to lot to Florida and Texas and out west. But I’ve never been on the Jersey Shore, no sir.

Phil Maisano (20:50.286)
That’s all right. Nothing special down there, really. No, I’m No. Yeah. It’s close. It’s close.

Michael Stansbury (20:52.141)
Well, it’s gotta be special for you guys. It’s gotta be some reason for it to be special. Yeah. So Phil, the other thing about real estate and what you’re doing every day is the discipline of doing three hours of cold calling every day. How do you get better at cold calling? Is it just, hey, you just gotta put time under tension or did you take any kind of instruction courses? How did you develop that lead generating skill set?

Phil Maisano (21:18.542)
I’ll be honest Mike. I hate it cold-calling and I still do But that’s it’s just a necessity of my business, you know I think the skill came from making a ton of mistakes and dropping the ball on a lot of deals it was you can pay for all the courses and Conferences and YouTube videos in the world at the end of the day. You really just got to pick it up and learn it on your own

Michael Stansbury (21:27.573)
Right.

Michael Stansbury (21:45.452)
Right?

Phil Maisano (21:46.158)
Everybody will tell you don’t say this say that it’s Yeah, I think I I’m definitely open-minded and pivot sometimes when I think it’s appropriate but Being a chameleon on the phone and matching people Tonality how they speak what they say repeating it back to them. There’s that book Never split the difference Chris Voss that was a phenomenal book. Yeah banger book

Michael Stansbury (21:59.927)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Stansbury (22:07.849)
Yeah, Chris Boss. He’s a banger. Yeah. You said you didn’t read books. You misled us. Or you probably… You listened to that one on Audio Pablo.

Phil Maisano (22:15.096)
That well that one That one was a it’s like that mastermind online video Yeah

Michael Stansbury (22:21.165)
It is, it is a boomerang book, so I try to read that every year. I have a buddy of mine that we try to criss-voss each other once or twice a week. We try to like, while we’re talking to each other, kind of do those things without us knowing and then we, you just bossed me.

Phil Maisano (22:36.952)
Yeah, that’s awesome. I guess I’ll use that. It just lost me.

Michael Stansbury (22:38.923)
Yeah. Well, hey, listen, I will tell you this though, the mirroring part, you’ve got to use it on your fiance. Like when you, so I started, you know, I’ve been married for 23 years. You’ve got it. You read the book that he’s got some great stuff. just don’t treat her like a client, right? But like, you know, when you are, when you’re talking to her, look in her eyes, kind of mirror what she’s doing, just like what you do on the cold college.

Phil Maisano (22:52.556)
I need the secret now.

Phil Maisano (23:00.172)
Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (23:07.859)
and just do everything that she does and just get on that conversation roller coaster with her.

Phil Maisano (23:14.222)
Yeah. She catches on pretty quick. She’s very smart. Very smart. Yeah. No, she has not. No, she’s a, she’s a nurse and going to be a practitioner. So anything numbers or real estate, she’s just like, I don’t even want to, I don’t even want to look at it. I’ll stick to my lane.

Michael Stansbury (23:17.633)
Yeah, no. Alright, has she read the book too?

Okay.

Michael Stansbury (23:32.461)
Gotcha. All right. So, but you mentioned Chris Boss’s book, you mentioned when you’re cold calling, it’s just the tonality and matching somebody’s voice and, and, um, and then you have the cadence and everything like that. So was that learned through, Oh, I, that person talked about that and I’m going to use that. Or did you kind of find that on your own?

Phil Maisano (23:50.658)
was definitely a mix of both. think after messing up the hand full of times and let’s say I got an objection and I didn’t know how to handle it, excuse me, I would research and listen to somebody who’s overcame that. There’s actually, you ever heard of Andy Elliott?

Michael Stansbury (24:08.418)
Yes.

Phil Maisano (24:08.854)
He’s like, I was always very skeptical of him and I still kind of am, but I’m actually coming around a little bit. I got to give it to him. I got as a really good marketer, some things I disagree with, some things I don’t, but he does drop some nuggets. I got to give it to him with sales. Whether he’s legit or not, he does have objection handlers. So.

Michael Stansbury (24:28.717)
Isn’t that funny though? Some people like we end up like we watch their stuff or like oh that’s kind of that’s kind of cringy cheesy and then they go oh you’re like oh okay let me write that down and and yeah I got a few of those. Well that’s good man that is really good stuff and some of the things that I think one one of the things that we can learn here is of course continuing education you you know the podcast

Phil Maisano (24:38.902)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (24:52.481)
Being able to fill your mind with stuff that is going to keep you with that mindset of, I’m doing this for a reason and I want to be great at this. so, you said what most people, the thing that most people do is they hate lead generating, but they know that it provides a result. So in this business, sometimes you got to do with what you hate because you know there’s a result at the end. And those podcasts, the Chris Voss books, they help with the mindset training.

So really appreciate you going down that lane. Phil, if somebody, if one of our listeners was like, I’m in industrial real estate too, or maybe I have a deal in Texas or a deal in Florida, how would they be able to contact you? What’s that look like, Phil?

Phil Maisano (25:39.262)
I mean I can give you my email. I’ll give you my I’ll even give you the Instagram if you want I will always Answer I love helping people. I’ve been there. I’ve been through the mud I’ve been broke so I get it. There’s some way that I can Circulate and give that back when we just say it you do is that?

Michael Stansbury (25:58.451)
I tell you what, say the IG and then we’ll put it in the show notes so people can click the link below and reach out to you. But you’re on IG, on Facebook or any of that stuff.

Phil Maisano (26:03.756)
Yeah. Yeah.

Phil Maisano (26:09.494)
Yeah, IG is P, Maysano, it’s P-M-A-I-S-A-N-O-R-E. And then LinkedIn, you can just look up the first name and last name and I’ll be on there.

Michael Stansbury (26:20.823)
Yeah, we got that LinkedIn account. All right. Well, thank you, sir, for being part of the Real Estate Pros podcast, folks. Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you next time.

Phil Maisano (26:29.826)
Thanks Mike.