How MiCard Is Replacing Traditional Business Cards in Real Estate Networking (NFC + SaaS Explained)

Ralph Perrone (00:00)
⁓ we flipped ⁓ 300 million into 1.2 billion in conduct.

Conversions. We renovated the Mar-a-Lago Mansion. ⁓ that was what she got as her winnings. So through that process, the $300 million to $1.2 billion in condo conversions, that was my first real big whack.

Michelle Tack (01:51)
Hi everybody, I’m Michelle Tack. ⁓ welcome to Real Estate Pros Podcast. And we have an unbelievable operator today, Ralph Perrone Jr.

What is amazing about Ralph is a couple things that he helps real estate folks ⁓ really tap into technology and their assets to be well known, ⁓ to take advantage of discounts and to do a number of other other things for from his MiCard that he’ll get into. He also is an author of three plus books, ⁓ does an incredible amount of ⁓

charity work through his two charities and has invested in real estate over the course of the time. So Ralph, thanks from very much for joining. For people that may not be from your world of you know ⁓ developing something to assist people in the real estate business, specifically in terms of networking and something that’s easy to use, can you describe a little bit about what you’re doing with the MiCard?

its value and what markets it serves.

Ralph Perrone (03:02)
Absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate you having me on, Michelle. The the MiCard was a system that I created after about 25 plus years of being one of the top real estate agents in the country. ⁓ I’ve been blessed to be very good in the space of sales. ⁓ and I feel that you know confidence is really important in sales. So what I found is being one of the top realtors and then becoming a top broker and then training others to be you know duplicative was that they didn’t have the confidence sometimes they needed to go out there.

Michelle Tack (03:05)
Absolutely.

Ralph Perrone (03:32)
Sometimes it was a lack of information, knowledge, or maybe just how they looked. It could be a lot of things. Many people was a mindset that they didn’t have the right thought process. So what I learned was is by giving them a couple little tools, little pep talks, I was able to increase their productivity quite a bit. So what I did is after 25 plus years of training other people, ⁓ geographically, you know, real estate agents are pretty stuck to where they got a license or how far your car can take you.

⁓ so I kind of ⁓ I look at myself as being a tech broker now. ⁓ and I’m helping others learn more about that, whereas essentially there’s a big gap between what real estate agents know in the technology space and how to utilize it to close more deals. And I think that I can bring that through the introduction when you meet somebody, you introduct yourself and you say, Hi, my name is what you do, where to find you, and everything from there is where we kind of take it.

Michelle Tack (04:32)
That’s awesome. Can you talk about a couple of things? ⁓ it’s for the United States or is it international? The card is now for domestic ⁓ use here in the US.

Ralph Perrone (05:31)
absolutely. We are currently deployed in the app stores and we have ⁓ contractual relationships in place with companies that have 15,000 realtors, another one that has 85,000 realtors, and then a couple have over 300,000 subcontractors. so we’re looking to do is we’re deploying this from a top-down approach. We also started communicating with several board realtors. the boards like it because the process of our card, what makes it unique.

It’s kind of like a link tree, which gives you the ability to put everything into one spot. I like that, but it doesn’t really look that great. Then you go over to like a pothole or dot, and that’s where you get the functionality of the NFC, but you’re really held hostage and you don’t get to fulfill your brand. And branding is so important today in all industries, not just real estate. So what we did is we took our two different worlds, we created a hybrid product, which is MiCard.

So when I introduce somebody, I tell them, hi, here’s MiCard. And by name of default, that’s kind of where it came from. And people were like, well, that’s very you know interesting. How does that work? And of course, on their cell phone, it just pops up on the NFC side. So you just take this and you swap it, it’ll pop up on their cell phone. And then you basically can go right to all their information. Then you could exchange. That’s where so many people kind of just don’t know how to break that ice.

Michelle Tack (06:57)
Yeah.

Ralph Perrone (06:58)
We do is we make it so easy. And one of the books that we have is 101 ways to kind of break the ice. And we believe that if you just take a 30 minutes, maybe 40 minutes at home, and you take your Instagram and you take a couple of your best videos and you take, you can curate your own personal highlight reel so that when you meet somebody, you’re you’re giving your best foot forward. Yeah. I ⁓ I laugh all the time with my wife. I I say, have you ever left the house without doing your hair?

your makeup and getting dressed. And it’s like, no way, I would never do that. So why don’t you ever leave the house and not, again, as a professional, look your best and put your best foot forward.

Michelle Tack (07:39)
Agreed. We’re talking about branding and networking, and we’ll get into the MiCard a little bit more in a moment. But in terms of, you know, you you have a prolific ⁓ environment where you’ve done a number of different things, but getting into the software as a service business and making it specifically for a tailored audience, which is great, can you talk about how you’re keeping the operational side of the business running efficiently and

And smoothly as much as that can be done when, you know, it’s you know, you’re you’re you’re out of beta, you’re GA, you’ve been there for a while, ⁓ you you’ve gotten some interesting and good feedback from folks. But how do you keep it going ⁓ from an operational standpoint when you have other things that you’re doing as well?

Ralph Perrone (08:28)
Yeah, very interesting. I I was able to shut down most of the stuff. I used to have a car dealership, a landscaping company, had a gym. I had about a hundred employees and about 75 realtors. ⁓ through the process of doing and developing this and becoming the CEO, ⁓ taking this not just United States nationally, ⁓ we’ve got enough contracts to kind of get through that this year. we just started waiting lists in Honduras, Mexico, ⁓ Nigeria, Germany, Australia.

So we already have Canada. One of our bigger clients that signed a contract is in Canada. The deployment is pretty simple. We just have to go through some legal channels in those countries. But we’ve already deployed in the App Store here, which makes it very easy as a SaaS to continue to go through those other nations. So that’s where we’re really excited about the expansion side. What we’ve been able to do from an operational standpoint is one of our tech partners has spent several hundred million dollars.

⁓ developing well, they have their own blockchain. And then they essentially they have a company that’s identicai and they’ve basically given us access to it before the general public. And we’ve been able to use it to cut our expenses in about 50%. ⁓ it is it for for very little dollars. ⁓ it is very, very, very, very, very inexpensive ⁓ to do. And what we’ve been able to accomplish by

Michelle Tack (09:43)
That’s huge. That’s huge.

Yeah, that is great.

Ralph Perrone (09:57)
Setting this up. Most of most AI is is people are using it like Google. They’re just doing a quick little search and getting out. They don’t truly understand the power of ⁓ you know everything that’s out there from MANIS Claude to just getting into the depth of it and automation. ⁓ soon to find out, we’ve we’ve learned that we have to provide more of a product because the consumer it just goes.

Michelle Tack (10:02)
Right, that’s right.

Ralph Perrone (10:26)
right over their head. It’s a little scary. So that’s where we kind of come in and kind of chop it up into smaller pieces.

Michelle Tack (11:06)
That’s really important because it’s a very for those of us that have been in the SaaS world or technology, some of those maybe on the phone, we know how deep this can get. And it it can be overwhelming sometimes. So it’s interesting that you’re able to contain that, know the audience, and be able to operationalize what needs to be done, right? ⁓ what have you. In terms of and this can be about MiCard or

or other businesses, I, you know, what have you, for every operator that I talk to, ⁓ and not just myself, but we know that as you become more successful, and I’ll just use that term as success is defined by everyone differently, but just let’s say you’re taking on more revenue, more responsibility, differentiation in products and services. ⁓ you know, what have you ever had a situation

Where a deal went sideways and you had to react quickly to that and you’re able to salvage it, or maybe you weren’t, but it was a cornerstone for you and your business that you learned from and said, Wow, that was really hairy. I was either to like I learned X, Y, and Z, or you did. We’re not judging here, but can you share any of your your ⁓ experience relative to that?

Ralph Perrone (12:33)
Where you want to start? I mean you lose you learn more about the mistakes and losses in life because that pain is real. And when you feel that pain, you never want it again. Yes, that’s right. My first real big pain would probably be in the when my business partner won the TV show The Apprentice. ⁓ Donald Trump has. He was the first female. ⁓ third season, her name’s Kendra.

⁓ we flipped ⁓ 300 million into 1.2 billion in conduct.

Conversions. We renovated the Maro Lago mansion. ⁓ that was what she got as her winnings. So through that process, the $300 million to $1.2 billion in condo conversions, that was my first real big whack.

⁓ I was a multi-millionaire, ⁓ probably at 27 years of age about that time, and then the market collapsed. So announced to me, external factor. I you know I lost all of it.

had 10 properties that I had to go short sale or do something with because I was I owed the bank like 200 and the property is worth like seven, eight ninety. they’re worth like half of what I paid. So I had to work out deals with them. You know, that was tough. And then in real estate, you’re always constantly battling the art of the deal. You know, you’re constantly trying to put something together where you’re if everybody wins, that’s the that’s the respect. You know, if you’re if you’re really good at what you do, everybody walks from that table with a smile. You know, that’s the art.

Michelle Tack (13:56)
Yes.

Ralph Perrone (13:58)
Know most people think that you gotta get blood and you gotta beat everybody up. I don’t I don’t pride myself on beating people up. I come with facts and information. I make sure everybody leaves with a smile. As long as everybody’s happy, that’s how deals get done. ⁓ and the last part would be in the SaaS business where I’m at now. You don’t know what you don’t know. Right. ⁓ that’s probably the biggest thing in the tech space is is one, you gotta be very close with your developers and very close with your team.

because they they can control quite a few things that you you may not like. ⁓ and also to that, you don’t know what you don’t know. Meaning back to the SAS, when I first met with the ⁓ the tech gentleman who actually is a venture capitalist, he looked at me straight in the eyes and said, You have no idea what you have. And I said, I do, I built it. He goes, You don’t have blue. And I said, Yeah, I do, I built it. He’s Sir, you have

serious data. Do you know what your data’s worth? And I said, I don’t even know what are you talking about. He goes, my point. So I have to go through months of education of what a SaaS valuation would be. And I didn’t truly have an exit strategy. I thought like real estate, I was just going to enjoy this forever. But with the tech business, you’re looking to grow and exit and hopefully be purchased or you know something with you know out there. So we worked on an exit strategy and scalability and stuff like that. And then growth mechanisms and

things of that nature and then with today’s landscape you’re looking at affiliates and and you’re looking at brand ambassadors you’re looking at like tick tock and instagram influencers it things are different today so marketing is is not the same as it was you know just a couple years ago

Michelle Tack (16:18)
So can you give me an example of something where you pivoted quickly? I mean, the tech world is fast. it may be in the MiCard or not, but where you were like, ⁓ I realize that I gotta, I gotta address this and you did.

Ralph Perrone (16:30)
That’s that’s a great question. I’m gonna point right at the decentralized world. Decentralization. That to me, I didn’t know I didn’t know. I went and took this app after I took it as a progressive web app and I started to raise money. They wanted to raise it as an app. So I just started to build the app. I went to the app store to deploy it for testing, and the contract required a 30% of all.

Monies. I didn’t know that. See? You’re you’re smiling because you knew that. I did not. So I lost my mind. So click about phase called the attorney. So you want to talk about really quickly having a problem. Well, after you spend a million plus dollars and use of your own and you put in a year of your own time without pay and all the other wonderful things, the last thing you want to know is that hey, there’s a 30% rip you didn’t know about, right?

Michelle Tack (17:05)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Ralph Perrone (17:30)
⁓ so after talking it through, that’s when we decided to come up with this methodology. Instead of raising another X amount of million to go to famous stars and celebrities to pay for their and paid endorsement, we decided to give that 30% that they wanted at the app source to the people. So what happens is every time somebody says, Hi, my name is this is what I do, where to be found, and they exchange that, we’re basically

rewarding that person for marketing our product because they’re actually using it and we say thank you by providing them a monthly passive income versus giving that to the apps.

Michelle Tack (18:10)
Yep. That’s great. ⁓ can you talk about how you’ve used your network ⁓ to facilitate, you know, there’s a lot of money that has to go into building a software as a service product. ⁓ how do you use the network in terms of relationships over time to assist you? And what is it, your your network?

Ralph Perrone (18:33)
Well, real estate is my backbone. So real estate of of you know twenty-seven plus years now. I think it’s been twenty-eight to be exact. I’ve been broker. ⁓ so for me, ⁓ my father started in real estate when I was so it was 1985. I’ve I’ve just been in real estate my whole life. I’ve been I flipped 166 properties. I’m in I’m in one now. ⁓ so I flipped properties. I’ve we’ve got right now 20,000 lots.

⁓ under development. We basically purchase land and we do land development. We sell the DR Horton and Nationals. ⁓ So we are, you know, we have a hundred million dollar fund that we do raise money and partner there on. We get pretty good returns. We do ⁓ ground up. ⁓ So we just do a lot of different things. It’s just really, you know, the network, we’ve got about 300 commercial tenants in our portfolio, which allows us to do a lot of unique things. ⁓ like we just donated one of our boats was about a hundred and

$25,000 our boat and we just donated it for our local thrift store to raise money so that we can get a vehicle to help the older elderly get around to their medical appointments. So those are the types of things you use your network for is to really give back and help others.

Michelle Tack (19:40)
That that’s that’s incredible.

So you sort of touched on that before, but when we talk about twelve months out in terms of opportunities for you, and again I allow you to d define what opportunities mean, ⁓ not me to define it. Can you tell me what opportunities if we met, you know, in in Florida twelve months from today, what would you say, hey, I’m really psyched because I was able to do blah blah blah blah blah. What would that be?

Ralph Perrone (20:09)
I believe that this year we’re we’re the philanthropy side of what we do is is gonna be pretty special. We did set two world records last year ⁓ with the team. We did the most toys given away in one day at BMO Stadium in LA. about 119,000 toys set with the Guinness Book World Records on site ⁓ video recording. And then we did another world record ⁓ with a consecutive toys. We’re gonna break that this year. ⁓ I believe I’ll be working with Damon John from the Shark Tank ⁓ at Madison Square Garden.

And that’s gonna be very exciting. Last year I got to work with Alan Iverson, ⁓ Tom Brady, Snoop Dogg. So we do we do a lot of really unique stuff. And it’s really special to see all these kids when they come out and their faces get light up and just roll running around. We try to make sure everybody gets five toys, and we just do a lot of really good things. And that’s that’s really the the benefit about the cash flow because I I this guy Dan Locke wrote a book that I read a long time ago. It’s just FU Money.

Michelle Tack (20:41)
Well cool.

Ralph Perrone (21:05)
And obviously we know what the F stands for. Yep. ⁓ what it really means is that you have to look at your life as a cash flow analysis side. And if you look at money as a financial instrument and how to be leveraged, people could really understand it better. The problem with our system today is we live in a debt slavery system where people don’t even know the word mortgage. Mortgage means death pledge. And most people don’t even know that. ⁓ and I challenge people to go look it up. Go look up the root word of you know mortgage and it’s sad.

Real estate agents and mortgage brokers don’t even know that. So the white picket fence that they sell you as a real estate agent, it’s not the American dream. The American dream isn’t to go get into debt and go pay, you know, some banker, you know, a bunch of ⁓ interest that you know you’re gonna refinance or move out of the house before we get to the the the heavy side, anyways. So what I do is I teach people if you do create a passive income that offsets your guaranteed passive expenses, whether it be 3,000, 5,000, and 10, that income.

They could cross each other out. That provides you true financial freedom. And that’s when your life will start. The air will be better, water. So what we like to do is we we truly teach cash flow. You know, we want to teach people that you know you may want to get $100 million, but you only need $5,000 a month right now. Then your life will start and you can figure that out. And that’s really what most people are. They’re trading time for money. And we really want to help people through the process. So we do a lot of education as

Michelle Tack (22:30)
I appreciate that. ⁓ one last thing I want to ask you if you could keep it to about a minute, is the main and people can get online with with the MiCard and see really the details of the card, but can you talk about the main grouping of items that it the main grouping of items that it facilitates when you have the MiCard. So the social media, et cetera.

Ralph Perrone (22:55)
Yeah,

but seven or eight different modules. One module will be your social media. You know, instead of meeting somebody and being like, well, here’s my Instagram, you give them the mic card. And inside of the MiCard, you’re gonna put your YouTube, your TikTok, or your Facebook, whatever you want. And you have the ability to curate your videos. You could put one, none, five. You get to put maybe your listing presentation or maybe what makes you different, maybe testimonials from your clients about what you you know, why they would love to work you or recommend you.

We also give you access to a customer loyalty program, same one that Capital One uses and other major Fortune 500s. Most people can’t pay 20, 30,000, 40,000 a month. So we embed that for a fraction because of the size of the company. ⁓ that gives cash back and loyalty points to your clients, which gives them reasons to keep your contact information, not just grab a piece of paper card and put it in the trash or in the envelope. You can put your calendar in there.

We also get you the ability to put a map so they can just one click and go directly to your office if you like. ⁓ so there’s just a lot of functionality. So think of like a link tree and a popple ⁓ had you know a hybrid product. ⁓ we provide you the popple, the NFC, with the Link Tree ability to just kind of put all yourself there and at the same point, time look your

Michelle Tack (24:12)
That’s awesome. ⁓ I want to thank you. You’ve provided a lot of great content. I love the technology. I love the fact that you you have such a, you know, ⁓ depth of experience in doing so many ⁓ transactions ⁓ and your desire to ⁓ help others and be of service is certainly to be admired. ⁓ can you provide those that are listening on our podcast today ⁓ how they could contact ⁓ you and or

⁓ the MiCard and just give ⁓ your information please.

Ralph Perrone (24:46)
Yeah, my name Ralph Perrone. Just go to RalphPerrone.com. And from there, that’ll take you directly to my personal MiCard, which you can kind of see at that point what the technology looks like. You can play with it. You’ll have my contact, my social media, you’ll have my calendar if you’d like to schedule. And at the bottom, if you want to get a card for free, just go all the way to the bottom and click the little button.

Michelle Tack (25:07)
Well, can you just spell out that entire because some people may misspell your last name, please?

Ralph Perrone (25:12)
R A L P H last name is P as an Paul. E R R O N E dot com.

Michelle Tack (25:21)
I really appreciate having you on. ⁓ for those that are listening or subscribers, ⁓ if you found this of value the content, continue to ⁓ step in to real estate pros and listen to other aspects of real estate and continued learning. For those that may be new to ⁓ real estate pros and have not subscribed and you find value, ⁓ please do. Again, Ralph, thank you very much. Continued success. Thank you.