She’s GOD (General Operations Director), He Says 'Yes Dear': Making Family Office Work

Eti Lazarian

Eti Lazarian learned leadership skills early in life, completing her mandatory service in the Israel Defense Forces, where she rose to become a Staff Sergeant in the Givati Brigade, an elite infantry unit. She followed that by completing both her BA (in finance) and her MBA at the University of Derby in the United Kingdom. Several years later, Eti moved to the United States to become a G.O.D.- General Operations Director for insignia, LLC where she oversees a variety of real estate projects that the firm handles.

One of her deepest passions in life is philanthropy, a passion she has passed on to her daughters involving them in projects from food distribution during the Covid crises to arranging small suitcases for children in shelters, a passion that continues with new projects each and every day under a simple philosophy of “Be Kind”.

Chaz Lazarian, Esq.

Chaz Lazarian arrived in the U.S. at 14 without family, quickly adapting to a new culture and language. Fluent in multiple languages, he built a successful career spanning law, commercial banking, and real estate. A cum laude graduate of John Marshall Law School, Chaz has developed and managed millions of square feet of commercial property and led major lending and development projects. He is Managing Director of Insignia LLC and a principal of Elle Family Office in Atlanta.

 Kirby Rosplock

Welcome to the Tamarind Learning podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Kirby Rosplock, and today we're talking real estate and leadership and the family office. We have two wonderful folks with us today, and they are co-preneurs. They are Eti and Chaz Lazarian, and they are wonderful because they are co-preneurs leading their family office and their real estate company together. And that's Insignia LLC. It's a commercial real estate development company based in Atlanta. And their boutique real estate commercial development company is really specialized. It's been established in 2011. It's high touch, it's family-owned, and it's operated by the two of them together. And so we're really lucky to have them with us today because they're extremely busy. They're traveling all around the country looking for very specialized deals. Eti and Chaz are going to tell us how they've been able to structure their office and work together in a very unique way because there's not a whole lot of family offices that I get to see that have this unique approach to working together, especially husband and wife. So Eti and Chaz, welcome to The Tamarind Learning Podcast.

Chaz Lazarian

Thank you for having us. It's great to be here.

Eti Lazarian

Thank you. We're excited to be here.

Kirby Rosplock

I am so excited to lean in and learn because literally, I don't think I've ever met a husband and wife that have the gumption and the abilities to lead a family office together. Chaz, maybe you can just first tell us a little bit more about your family office and your real estate investment company. Tell us more about what real estate investing that you do.

Chaz Lazarian

We mainly focus on commercial real estate. And what we do, we like to do complex real estate deals. And when I say complex, it's the type of deal that the average investors doesn't look at. For example, average investor may want to buy something to where it's a stabilized property. There's an income coming in on a steady basis and divide on a cap rate, which is basically a return at a fixed return. We're looking for more of a value add type deal or deal to where it may have what we call the head of the hair on it. So it's a complex deal. It could be anything from buying a bank note or a foreclosed property or a deal that went into bankruptcy. We like to deal and chase the type of deals that the average investors might not look at.

Kirby Rosplock

Eti, can you share a little bit more about your background and how do you work with Chaz? What are you doing versus what Chaz is doing?

Eti Lazarian

How far do you want me to go? I've been in this country in America the same amount of time where I grew up, I grew up in Israel. And at this point in my life, I've been here just as long as I've been there. I have really strong values and strong foundation because it was serving in the Israeli army, and it was all about protocols and special way of how we used to do things in order to stay alive back then. But I learned a lot from it, and I implement this strategy in my family life, really, and in my office, and in my company, and everything that we do.

Kirby Rosplock

Chaz, tell me a little bit more about what you're doing in the family office.

Chaz Lazarian

In the family office, so we set up the family office about a year and a half ago. And part of the reason we set up the family office, we have three young kids. We're getting to a stage in our life we wanted to really formalize the family office, and we wanted to give some directions to our kids. So I came to the US as a 14-year-old child without my parents here to study. We never really had direction in life, what to do, how to do, and how things work around here. We figured it out over the last 45 years, got to a certain point, and we really wanted to set a good structure for our kids to follow. And we formalized the family office. We actually brought in an outside CEO to run the family office, versus just saying, we have a family office, we actually set up a family office, and it's a single family office. We formalized it, and we brought in the outside person to run it and to help our kids by educating our kids and having our kids have someone to where they could go to and ask questions.

Chaz Lazarian

And this individual, Wendy Kraft, who's been with us. She's our family office CEO. She's been with us a little over a year now, sits and meets with a kid twice a week, educates them. The kids can reach out to her at any time. She really sits down and talk to the kids on global issues and on micro issues with regards to what things done, how other businesses work, not necessarily our business, what's out there, so they can go and explore the world as to grow. Our idea was to try to set some foundation for growth so the family can take this to the next level as the kids mature and grow older.

Kirby Rosplock

That's fantastic.

Eti Lazarian

Raising a family from very young children to teenage kids, the way I look at it, it's very important to keep the kids busy and to keep them engaged and to really make sure that they know what mommy and daddy are doing. Every phone call, I never hide from them, I never say I need to be in my office when I'm having a business phone call. They're listening, they understand the terminology, they understand the lingo. I feel like my five-year-old could have been a property manager when she was five. They really understand real estate. They look at certain buildings in a way that normal 15-year-old will not look at a real estate deal. It's very interesting how kids, people have tendency to say, Oh, they're young, they don't understand. But actually, they understand more when they're young because you mold them in a way that they really grow into the business and understand the fundamental of the business from a simple call all about whatever the issue may be, if it's a technical issue with something broke at the building, up to purchase of a multimillion dollar package that we're doing together. We really believe that family is a family in all aspects of the families.

Eti Lazarian

We take the girls, we bring them to business meetings. They understand what we're doing. They've seen all the properties. They know what's the name of all the property we name. The girls have nickname for themselves. So we name the properties with their nicknames. So we keep the family very engaged. Another thing that I really believe is you have to keep the kids busy all the time to avoid problems with young kids, especially privileged children. From the minute they get back from school, they have activities. If it's tennis, if it's Taekwondo, whatever it is. And to teach them that in the way we are, we're not quitting. If you're doing Taekwondo, you're going to take it all the way to Black Belt. My daughter is working on her private pilot license. She's going to take it to the finish line. My other daughter is in golf, tennis, whatever they do, they have to be excellent in what they do. And it keeps them busy and it keeps them away from problems. That's just my philosophy and how I see it.

Kirby Rosplock

Yeah. Well, it's obvious that you both are very driven and passionate, excelling yourselves in your real estate business. So that's translating as parents, as leaders, as entrepreneurs. So I can see that in your parenting style. If you're telling me that your children are also seeing you, model that behavior. So that's translating and that's rubbing off. If they're seeing that right first-hand, and that's part of your family culture, that you're showing that to them, and they're learning from you vicariously. So tell me more how that inspires them. I think I read recently that one of your children is even interested in getting an internship, even in this area. So I can see how impassioned you are just around this whole family office industry. Maybe tell me a little bit more, I mean, back to your roles. We heard a little bit more, Chaz, about your role, Eti. Tell me a little bit more. You have an interesting title, right?

Eti Lazarian

Chaz was speaking about a family office. I think you're asking about my title in my company Insignia. So it's General Operations Director. Which the acronym is GOD. The way I look at myself as a mother, as a businesswoman, as a female entrepreneur, as just a businesswoman in this world, it's like you have to look at everything in a God scale of things. You have to have a vision from top. That's why I joke always that I'm God, but also a mom. Look at everything from the top. See every person in your organization. See everything that needs to be done. Don't try to micromanage people. Hold people accountable for what they do. Teach them what you expect of them, but let them do it in their own manner and the way that they're doing things. And it's the same thing with my daughter. My daughter wants to get into real estate, but she doesn't know if she wants to do exactly what I'm doing. We have this conversation all the time. I'm like, You're not me. You're you. You do you. You be you. You're amazing. You're intelligent. You have incredible sense of seeing things in a different eye.

Eti Lazarian

Use that for your advantage. Do things the way you can do. When you push the kids, I always say, you have to be, you have to push them, but don't push them over the edge. Just encourage them, talk to them, show some interest in what they like and what they don't like. But you have to run their them. It's a different type of person. It's a different type of personality, and you have to let them find what they like to do and what they want to do. To excel in what they in their lane, basically.

Kirby Rosplock

Yeah. Now, I'm so curious, Chaz, what do you think is one of the secrets to successfully working with your spouse?

Chaz Lazarian

Always have the last word, and that is yes, dear, whatever you want and whatever you say and whatever you think and whatever, whatever. Look, it's not an easy task. When we started, there was definitely different opinions. Everybody have their own ways of doing things. I'm set in a certain way. I've been in the US a lot longer, so I'm accustomed to certain things business-wise, and I've been in the business a bit longer than she has. But over time, we just found a lane, and each one of us basically starts swimming in their own lane. So we cross over, we have interaction, but we each have the forte of what they need to do. I hunt deals, she scans the deals. So I'll go chase the deals. I'll go out there, use my resources, use my contact, use people that I've grew up with over the last 45 years that I've been doing business with and try to bring the deals here. And once I bring them the deal, I hand it to her and she does what she does best, which is interact with anybody, from the tenants, the vendors, to anyone else that needs to be around the deal.

Chaz Lazarian

And once the deal is our deal and wants the deal is our deal in essence. And that's what she likes to do. And I like just to chase the deals. I don't want to spend as much time interacting with a daily operation. So we found very good niche for each one of us to do. And they do cross each other because it's important. It's important to create a good deal, and it's important to run a great deal also at the same time. So it's important that both component work together. But there's difference of opinion, there's difference of how things get handled, and there's definitely friction on certain things, how things need to get handled. But over the course of time, you learn the strengths of each person and just enhance it and let each other do what they need to do best. And that's how we're successful doing it.

Kirby Rosplock

And Eti, what do you think if you were to give some tips or some words of advice to other couples who are like, Should we? Should we not? Is this something we might consider? Maybe, maybe not. What would come to mind? What would you tell them?

Eti Lazarian

It's really important to know your work-life balance. Work is work, and it consumes you. And when you work together, also as a family, you bring work home, and you talk about it all the time. And they have to be special protocols and special guidelines and really talk together to each other and establish this bylaws, define the roles in the relationship, define this is your responsibility, this is my responsibility. I talk to him all the time. It's to a point that when I have a problem, he doesn't even have to ask me. He sees it in my eyes and he's like, What do you need? How can I help you? Even if I'm in a predicament, in a situation, he understands it. You have to keep work at work. It's really easy to take all your workload and bring it home and then talk about it in the bedroom and then keep yourself up all night and argue about it. There are a lot of difference of opinions. When you get to this situation, when you have different of opinions, they have to be a specific protocol, how to resolve conflict, problem resolutions, to say, We have a protocol who says the last word home, who says the last word in the business.

Eti Lazarian

If we are in a situation that we cannot agree on, we established this that if it's at work, Chaz is saying, vetoing it. And if it's at home, I'm vetoing it. If it's something related to the girls. You have to keep professional manners at work. You have to keep yourself professional. Even if you fight about something, and at this moment, I'm not even talking to you, don't even talk to me. You're at work. Everything is normal. You're talking to each other. You want to fight with me? Fight with me at home. You're not. You're keeping yourself super, super professional at the office. Keep separate workplace. I think it's super important that he has his office, I have my office. We work together technically for the same company, but we do completely different things. What we do has nothing to do with... I mean, it's important for the well-being of the company, but it's completely different things. And financial boundaries, that's something that I think it's very important also, especially for women. And I tell to my girls, all the time. You have to be responsible for your own finance. It's great that you have things together, but also take care of yourself as a female.

Kirby Rosplock

Those are all really good points. I know we didn't really talk about this prior, but what do you guys think about when you think about your own succession? What do you guys think about what's next?

Chaz Lazarian

I always thought before we got married and when we got married, it's always been great to have boys, and boys will come and take over the business, and we have three girls. And then as you learn with the three girls, the next thing that comes to your mind is like, I want all three of them to be just like us. And as they grow older and you realize that each one has a different taste from clothing to food and to opinions and what they want to study, you slowly start to come to realization, okay, there's a chance to maybe one of the three or two of the three, I don't know, maybe three of the three, if we're lucky, may follow in our footsteps or not. But it's difficult. As much as you want it, you got to do what's right for them and let them chase what they love. And we professionalize our office. Our operating company is very professionalized with the way it's run. We have enough people here to run the business, do what the business needs to do. And as I said earlier, we professionalize the family office. So the family office, keep an eye with what needs to happen with regards to the kids in the future.

Chaz Lazarian

So part of the succession is that if the kids decide to come to the business, there's definitely a place for them here. We encourage them to go learn somewhere else. We encourage them to go work somewhere else so they can bring some different methods and different studies that they've seen outside to the business, and then they can decide if they want to run the business. If not, the business can keep continuing running the way that it has as we keep growing and we professionalize it more and more over time. I think it could keep running for them if that's what they wanted to do.

Eti Lazarian

We have three very strong girls, very strong. And I think my youngest one actually has incredible managerial skills. She can really take the company to the next level. She's so... Her personality is so strong. Everything has to be her way. She's very interesting the way that she is. She's young, she's a young girl, but you can already see she's going to be something very special. Of course, the other two really listen. I talk to my girls all the time and I give them special scenarios and I tell them my challenges. I tell them what I'm going through. I describe situations that I'm in and I'm asking for their opinion. What would you have done if you were me? I'm telling them what I do, but I listen to what they have done. Often in a conversation, I say to the person on the other side what they told me to say. It's really important for me to show my girls that I'm listening to their opinions, that I'm respecting them and engaging them in the company. If, God forbid, something happens to me in just tomorrow, so at least they know what we have, what to deal with, so at least they're somewhat prepared and doesn't all jump, fall on them in one day.

Chaz Lazarian

It amazes me a lot of times when I see some of my kids' friends and ask them, what does your parents do for a living? And most of them don't even know how to answer. They just, my dad works for a company. Okay, what's the company? I don't know. What does he do? I don't know. Our kids at least have an idea what the core business is and what we do. And they may not know how to run it since they're young, but at least they have a good understanding of what we do for a living. Whereas a lot of kids, my dad works for ABC Company, but they don't know exactly what they do there, which is understandable. Kids that don't need to know. But we try to at least instill some understanding in our kids. Like, this is what mom and dad do for a living and at least have an idea.

Eti Lazarian

I talk to my girls all the time about financial independence and how to take care of themselves and never to be dependent on anybody else, that they always have to take care of themselves and each other. These are conversations that we have often. And I think it's very important for people to talk to the next generation and tell them what they expect for them from them and to make sure that they convey the message in a way that is very clear to the next generation. Because sometimes you say something and they understand it differently. I always say to my girls, I'm only responsible for what I said, not for what you understand. So it's really important to read between the lines and to understand the other side, what they got from the conversation.

Kirby Rosplock

Yeah. Well, I mean, one of the things I love about what you both represent, your incredibly strong marriage. I mean, you chose to work together, right? You had the capacity to both be successful in your own, right? But you chose both in marriage, but both as business partners. And that is something really unique because there's not a lot of people out there who can have a successful marriage. One, we know 50% aren't successful. And two, have a successful business. We know that most businesses don't survive, right? And three, be successful as co-preneurs, I mean, most business partners don't necessarily succeed. So you are a unicorn right off the bat.

Eti Lazarian

Yeah, I hear you. But you have to remember that there was a long path, a long journey that brought us here. So Chaz and I, in our personalities, we're not quitters, and we always work on our relationship. He sees in my eyes if I'm not happy about something, and even if it's the craziest day, it's insanely busy. He'll drop everything. Come on, let's go. We're going to lunch. Let's go get a foot massage. Let's get out of this situation. Let's do something else. He understands the situation, and he drags me when I need to be dragged. It's really important when a couple work together, not to drown in work and also maintain the personal relationship between a man and a woman. It's super important. It keeps you grounded. It keeps your sanity. It keeps you mentally balanced. And it's something that people often forget to take care of the soul.

Chaz Lazarian

The end result is we want something to be successful for us, for the family, for the kids, for future generations. So we both are fighting and working hard for the same goals. It's about lifting each other, about being successful. So it's not a competition. We're not here like, Oh, I've done more than you. You didn't work as much as I did. So it's not like your typical partners to where you may have two people that put equal money in the work, and then one person works longer hours than the other. So it always creates a friction between partners. The way you could see, I worked harder or I brought this deal. You didn't bring that deal. So you could see that. So you really got to find the niche of what each one is good at. And don't judge or micromanage the rest of it. And as long as the end result is there. At the end of the day, you got what you needed to get out of the deal. We're happy with it. It was other partnership that lacked out because they're trying to be on equal footing all the time. And it's hard.

Chaz Lazarian

It's really, really difficult to be on equal footing all the time because there's always one person to where they may do more, lift more, do something extra because it's their personality. It's the time of day that we're just there. And for us, again, we're not there to judge what each other is doing and how much each other is doing as long as the end result is positive for all of us.

Eti Lazarian

And ask for help. If you need help, ask for help. I am at least very big in asking for help. If I'm feeling like I'm overwhelmed or something, I will always say, I'm hitting my limit. Help me.

Kirby Rosplock

Well, and I love what you're saying because you're basically winning for each other. So it doesn't really matter if I put in more time or you put in more time because you know that the time you each put in is to win for each other and for your family as a team. So essentially all the hard work is going towards really the investment you're putting into your family capital which is your next Gen. And when I think about real estate, it is the most recession proof, patient capital, most powerful asset that most families can hold. And so it's, to me, the most logical asset class that most every family office and most every high net-worth family I know has exposure to. It sounds like it's the core asset that you focus on. I mean, it's, it's very logical. It's very exciting. If there's just one or two things that you might want to leave our listeners and viewers with today about the success that you've had as leaders of your real estate investment company in your family office, What would you want to leave us with today Eti, Chaz?

Chaz Lazarian

I would say we live in the best country in the world. There's no ifs or buts about it. When the people say, American dream, this is the American dream. You could do anything and everything here, and it just... I came here as a 14-year-old kid with $70 in my pocket to go to school, and no mom, no dad, barely spoke English. And it was a lot of trials and tribulations to get to where I did. But this country can afford you anything and everything you want. Education is important. At least study something and master something. Instead of just being all over the place, try to master something and try to stay and get really good at then great in one particular thing. And then from that, you can build into other things. So stay in focus on one thing to be successful versus trying 50 different things to see if one thing will happen and not quitting. Even though the real estate market is great, we've gone through a 2007 recession. We're going through a little bust in the office market and hospitality right now. It has its ups and downs. Also, you just got to weather the storm, be smart, be educated about what you do, not over lever yourself, and just stay really focused.

Chaz Lazarian

And we live in the best country and the the best opportunities in the world to go out and create an amazing life out there. Stay focused.

Eti Lazarian

I will add to that. I agree with what my husband said 100%. The only thing I will add to that is believe in yourself. I'm really a big believer in staying focused. And if you have a dream to accomplish something, just go with it. Even if you have noises from the side saying, this is not the best idea, you should not do it. If you believe in your dream and you think this is the right thing to do and you feel it in your gut, it's probably the right thing to do. Believe in yourself. And the other thing that I strongly recommend, and I talk about it all the time, is your network. Use your network because you can always... There's so much to benefit from good friends, from good colleagues, from people that will help you in a time of need. Use your community, use your network, and push yourself forward.

Chaz Lazarian

Be around people that will lift you.

Eti Lazarian

Yeah. Always be around people that lift you up. Never be around people that puts you down.

Kirby Rosplock

Yeah. Well, you two lift me up, and I am so inspired by the working relationship you have and your leadership just in our family office space. If our listeners and our viewers today have an interest to learn more about Insignia LLC, the amazing real estate investments that Chaz and Eti are doing out there, and if you want to find out where they're speaking and where they're out in the family office community, you should just reach out to TamarindLearning.com and you can find out more through our podcast and get in touch with Chaz and Eti. Please like us. Please subscribe to our podcast. And thank you so much, Chaz and Eti, for being our guest today on the Tamarind Learning podcast.

Chaz Lazarian

Thank you for having us. It was great.

Eti Lazarian

Thank you. Thank you for having us.