We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alex Barberena a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alex, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with a hypothetical question – if it were up to you, what would you change about the school or education system to better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career?
I would change a lot in the educational system. Many things remain the same since I went to high school and that was 15yrs ago. I feel the education only focus on grades and not really teaching nesseasry skills for life.
Students need to learn real life situations in school. For example, having good credit, managing money, filling taxes, customer service, and healthy life choices.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am a Certified General Contractor & Roofing Contractor in Florida. I’m a home developer. And I also operate a 100% Legal Marijuana Farm in Colorado.
I started in construction in 2004 at the age of 16 working for my father. Got my contractors License at 20 and opened my own business named Xclusive Builders Inc.
The at the age of 28 I got into the Marijuana Industry and eventually bought my own farm.
Both industries are tuff. But i have learned that the only way to succeed, is by delivering a high end product at the end. Clients love to feel they are getting something exclusive, luxurious, and glamorous.
I want to make my clients feel they are being taken care of when we do business. In construction I always provide a luxury experience when building a high end home. We pay attention to detail and provide top of the line finishes.
In the marijuana industry I focus on good quality marijuana. My main focus is the medical side so I want to provide clients/patients with the best product for their health needs. Marijuana has a lot of medical benefits and helps a wide variety of medical conditions so providing patients with top shelf natural medicine is important..
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
I started recording myself in the luxury homes I build. People like to see the process. Its different when you are building a luxury home from the bottom and once the house if completed it becomes an incredible experience. Its like polishing a rock and in the end it turns into a diamond.
Then when I started filming videos with marijuana plants it created more buzz. Because marijuana is still a touchy subject and not federally legal. So it becomes a taboo. A lot of people have smoked marijuana but not many people have grown it.
So my advice is be real, be yourself & document your process. It helps connect with your audience. And promote yourself as much as possible.
I have been growing my YouTube channel by promoting it on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
When I started my construction business it was 2008 the economy was bad but I was working for a developer and I kept busy. I was able to grow my business while many others were going out of business. Then in 2016 I got in major debt I was 400k in debt but slowly I got back on my feet and was able to repay all my debt. The construction Industry was slowing down and I had to look for another income source so I turned to the marijuana industry. I was able to make money and use that money to become a developer myself.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.xclusivebuildersinc.com
- Instagram: @a100.ceo
- Twitter: @A100CRYPTO
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/A100CRYPTO