How Do I Hold My Team Accountable?

[00:00:00] Welcome to the SMB Community Podcast with hosts Amy Babinchik, James Kernan, and Carl Palachuk. Produced by Kernan Consulting and for the international MSB community, we are dedicated to making every IT professional a successful IT professional.

[00:00:24] The SMB Community Podcast is brought to you by Kernan Consulting, your mergers and acquisitions experts. Since 2006, we've been through over 30 transactions, and just this past year, we've been involved in over six. So if you're interested in either buying, selling, or valuation information, please reach out. I'd love to talk with you. There's a ton of activity going on, and you can be a part of it. Reach out for more information at kernanconsulting.com.

[00:00:51] Welcome back to another edition of the SMB Community Podcast with your hosts, Amy Babinchik and James Kernan. How you doing, James?

[00:01:00] Howdy, howdy. Hey, I'm doing well. Did you get that howdy? That was my Western howdy from my Halloween costume I wore last week.

[00:01:10] Oh, yeah?

[00:01:11] The old cowboy hat. So I did post a picture on Facebook and LinkedIn.

[00:01:15] Oh, I missed it. I missed it. We typically have not gotten a lot of kids. In fact, I think it was last year, we actually got zero. The weather was crummy last year. It did snow and rain and all kinds of stuff. And there are so many activities for kids now that aren't going house to house that I think, you know, when the weather was crummy, parents just went, yeah, no, we're, we've done enough Halloween.

[00:01:42] Yeah.

[00:01:43] But this year, I don't know if it was different for you. This year, the weather was perfect. It was like in the 60s after dark. And it was dry. It had been sunny all day. We've just been having an amazing streak of sunny, dry weather pretty much all fall.

[00:02:03] And we had 30 kids, probably a couple of more, but, you know, I only bought 30 candy bars. So, you know, when we ran out, we were out, we were out. And that was amazing. That was the most that we've ever had in my neighborhood.

[00:02:19] So, yeah, we had, we had quite a showing as well here. The weather was nice. It was cooler, but weather was nice. And we had a lot of kids come early, a lot of kids come early. And we, we went big and bought the big box of the giant candy bars. You know, you want to be that. Remember that as a kid, you'd go get like little tiny pieces of bazooka bubble gum from someone, a jolly rancher.

[00:02:45] Then one house gives you the giant candy bar and they were my favorite neighbor forever. So we were trying to do that. We went through those big candy bars pretty quick, the 30 pack. And then I did buy strategically my favorite candy in case there was any leftovers, Butterfingers, Reese's, peanut butter cups and Snickers. But we didn't go through quite all of that. So I'm glad I went and picked up some extra candy. So, but yeah, it was fun, fun week for sure.

[00:03:13] Good, good. We sound like we have the same mission because I, I'd only give out the full size candy bars as well. And I'm hoping for leftovers. There weren't any this year, but you know, being the, I'm with you, you know, the house that gave out the, actually the homemade popcorn balls were some of my favorites also. There was a house in the neighborhood for that. And then, yeah, the full size candy bars, those were special. So we're always the full size candy bar house too.

[00:03:42] A, um, DadoCon happened this last week too. And, you know, you and I have, uh, dispirited DadoCon a little bit in the past. Not because of the conference itself, just that we don't hear anything.

[00:04:00] Like Dado's spending a lot of money on this conference and there's no buzz. Yeah.

[00:04:07] You know, the, I don't see it in the communities. I don't see it. You know, I see people going and I see them coming back.

[00:04:15] Uh, and they'll mention about the party, but you know, Dado released a, or Kaseya rather released a, um, a new security package at an amazing price.

[00:04:28] And they announced their acquisition of SaaS alerts. And, you know, there was a little bit of press in the tech press, but there is no buzz amongst the IT community.

[00:04:41] And that's the only buy I saw was from all the parties.

[00:04:47] Yeah. I saw pictures of parties and stuff like that, but you know, you should.

[00:04:53] You bring up a good point though. They're missing a huge PR opportunity of having a major announcement and some, you know, you want to learn something new at these events. That's why people go in person, not just to go to a big party. We, we all could do that.

[00:05:07] Um, but you want to hear something noteworthy and be there, you know, for some historic announcement. But I think again, they missed an opportunity there.

[00:05:16] Yeah. So Kaseya is listening to us next year. Make sure your attendees are buzzing about the content.

[00:05:26] Right. Yeah. You want to, again, you want to learn and it's an educational opportunity to get everybody on board.

[00:05:32] Yeah. I think Amy and I should be invited to come speak, right? Maybe that's a plug for us to go speak and bring some good content.

[00:05:40] Good point. Maybe they got the wrong people on stage. If they had us, there would be a lot, a lot of buzz and a word to IT nation. Same goes for them. Their conference is coming, coming up next week.

[00:05:52] So we're going to be looking, looking for the buzz that comes, that comes out of that one. Right. All right. We've got a MSP question of the week. Um, and this is a leadership type question on how do I hold my team accountable?

[00:06:10] Yep. Yeah, that's a, that's a good one. I hear this a lot. Um, and also what's interesting is I just saw a coaches poll that went out on social media on LinkedIn.

[00:06:21] And on the, the top, uh, response that people said, why would you hire a business coach? Why would you hire a coach? What, what do you need help with? And, you know, they had all sorts of great answers. The number one answer that came back was to be held accountable, to get things done and to be held accountable.

[00:06:40] So, uh, well, it's interesting, isn't it? Because when we think of accountability of your team, um, that whether or not the team members are being held accountable, how well they're achieving the goals, those are, a lot of times people think those are just measurements of the employees, but that's measurements of the management team too.

[00:07:04] Right. Right.

[00:07:05] Right. Like if, if your people are not doing the thing you're doing and they're not, they're not being held accountable and they're not up to snuff that reflects badly on, on the management. So yeah, if your team, you have trouble holding people accountable, that would be a good, good reason to hire a coach for sure.

[00:07:24] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But when, when I hear the question, you know, how do I hold my team accountable? You know, I kind of break it down into a couple different areas. Number one, I think we need to make sure that you create goals, not just for the company, but for the department. And then also down to the individual. I think it's really important to have department individual goals. And it's important to compare the actual performance.

[00:07:49] Performance to what the goal is. There's normally a gap, you know, and you want to communicate that on a, on a regular basis, at least a weekly basis, if not a daily basis. So creating goals would be number one.

[00:08:02] Then then communication of how we're doing. So, uh, most organizations, I would recommend having a weekly team meeting where you can go through the numbers, go through issues, talk about what we need to do, what your week looks like. If you have a hybrid team or a large, you know, or, or employees that are remote, maybe consider doing a quick daily huddle, you know, 15 minute huddle. First thing in the morning, get everybody fired up to do a check-in.

[00:08:28] You know, but I think that's important just from an engagement standpoint. So they know that leadership is cares and that we're all communicating. And then to me, I want to define accountability. Accountability to me is just communication. And most people think accountability is negative. You know, I, I felt when you asked that question, I felt a lot of the technical people, most MSP business owners are highly technical and they're also introverts.

[00:08:58] Most avoid conflict. Most avoid conflict. It's not conflict. Accountability is not conflict. It's just communication. You're just communicating how they're doing to the goals. So take that from a reporting standpoint, emailing, talking, uh, that that's important. And then my last point, I just want to say is make sure you train people. Um, you know, the training part, and we've talked about this before, you know, set goals and expectations in writing.

[00:09:26] Train your employees to meet and exceed your goals. And then, then you can hold them accountable. And if you don't do the first two set the goals in writing and then train them, you know, it's, it's really hard to hold people accountable. So don't forget the training part. That's, that's important.

[00:09:43] It's super critical. I'm glad you brought up training. That's always been my, my pet peeve. I see that under investment in training, not just amongst IT businesses, but even saw it in my clients as well. Um, and then they wonder why they're not getting peak performance out of, out of people.

[00:10:04] Right. I mean, of course I just used the phrase peak performance, which immediately sent my mind off into, into sports. But the analogy of that actually really works really well here. You know, you can't, you can't go out and be number one unless you train.

[00:10:19] Right.

[00:10:20] Right. And that's so applies to, to our, our businesses in this industry. And you can't hold people accountable for something that they don't know how to do.

[00:10:30] Exactly. Yeah.

[00:10:31] And they don't know how to do it well. Like they're, they're just going to wing it or they're just going to learn it by osmosis. That, that doesn't work. That'll lead you straight to mediocrity.

[00:10:41] And we, we've had some good training partners. If any of you are looking for a training platform, a training community, there's a lot of really good content out there on the SMB community podcast. We've, uh, Carl Polachek's ITSPU, um, you know, service provider university, uh, ITSPU.com there. That's a great community for training. Both Amy and I have taught classes up in that community before. Uh, empath is another big.

[00:11:10] Up and comer that's coming, uh, that that's doing really well. They've got a very broad range of training across the board from professional sales training, technical trainings, leadership, culture, lead gen, project management all across the board. And then, uh, Chip Reeves, uh, organization, uh, bigger brains is another good one, but that's more on the technical side, right?

[00:11:35] Um, yes and no. I mean, I, I have taught classes for him on the technical side for administrators, but a lot of their content is, uh, end user training materials, how to use, how to use the apps and that kind of thing. And then he also has, um, culture and compliance training as well.

[00:11:56] So he's got, it's really pretty, pretty well-wound materials over there. We lack no, there's no lack of opportunity for training in our industry at very low cost.

[00:12:08] Right.

[00:12:08] So, um, there's no, no excuse for not having all of your staff on a regular training schedule.

[00:12:15] Yeah, I, I agree. I've always said as, as a leader of your organization, it's your responsibility to make your employees better and how they get better is they need to train up and fine tune their skills and learn.

[00:12:28] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This industry doesn't stand still. If your employees are standing still, well, that's, that's a problem.

[00:12:35] All right. Let's, uh, let's talk about, that was, that was a great conversation. I like that. I like that broad look at, at accountability because it affects everything in the business.

[00:12:49] Um, let's talk about the news a little. There was a few things in the news. One of them is very interesting.

[00:12:56] So James brought me an article, um, that was on the consequences of getting hacked. Um, and it was talking about 23andMe and how their stock has sunk.

[00:13:09] And I think the founder is going to take it private. That's what she signaled her intention is.

[00:13:16] Uh, and, but I questioned whether or not that's actually a consequence of getting hacked.

[00:13:24] I mean, so they, they did get hacked and, you know, privacy information, not DNA information, but, um, everybody's, you know, if I look at my snail mail pile, which I do every couple of weeks, I got a big basket.

[00:13:44] I have a slot in a big basket and it all falls into the basket. And then when the basket gets full, I take a look at it. There is always privacy notices in there of somebody got hacked and they have to file their privacy notification.

[00:13:59] And, oh, here's, here's another year of, of, you know, free credit monitoring.

[00:14:06] Right.

[00:14:07] Um, I don't know that that's, I don't know that that's actually hurting anybody's valuation.

[00:14:13] Yeah. Well, you, you bring up a good point. You know, maybe it's a lack of innovation over the past few years.

[00:14:18] The article actually said three years ago, their stock, their market cap was higher than Apple.

[00:14:25] And think about that. It's pretty stunning.

[00:14:28] You know, the concept behind 23andMe and the DNA testing is really cool, but the database that they have is worth a lot of money.

[00:14:38] And I'm, I, I read it and, uh, maybe it's a little combination of both, maybe a lack of sales recently because of the hack and then maybe a lack of innovation where they haven't done anything else new.

[00:14:50] Um, I'm, I'm more concerned now. What if they sell to some big insurance company and, uh, they get access to, you know, everybody's, uh, medical records and know the, the history of different family members and whether if cancer runs in their failure or not.

[00:15:08] You know, that, you know, that.

[00:15:09] They are, they are, they are regulated by the FDA and I think they'd have something to say about that.

[00:15:14] Yeah.

[00:15:16] So it might, that, that's probably a concern, but hopefully, hopefully the FDA is on top of that and, and we'll handle it appropriately.

[00:15:26] The, um, I, I, so I'm a, I am a member of 23andMe.

[00:15:30] I absolutely love the concept of it.

[00:15:32] And for me, I'm happily give them my DNA and everything else they want to know.

[00:15:39] I sort of view it as donating my body to science, but I get to watch the science happen.

[00:15:45] Yeah.

[00:15:45] I mean, they have produced some really, really excellent science and had some, some great breakthroughs.

[00:15:52] What they haven't been able to figure out how to do is to turn that into money.

[00:15:57] Hmm.

[00:15:58] And they always knew that, you know, selling their test kits was not going to drive the company.

[00:16:03] What was going to drive the company is the data-based research that they were able to, to generate.

[00:16:10] And that hasn't happened.

[00:16:12] So, um, you know, they got squashed by the FDA and, uh, right out of the gate.

[00:16:18] They didn't, FDA said, oh, DNA isn't health information and you can't sell it that way.

[00:16:25] Yeah.

[00:16:26] We now know that that's not true because everybody's selling it that way.

[00:16:30] And the medical industry is all about DNA information now.

[00:16:35] Um, but I wonder too, how much that, that hurt them.

[00:16:39] So I, I'm hopeful they figure it out.

[00:16:43] We'll see.

[00:16:44] Yeah.

[00:16:45] Yeah.

[00:16:45] Yeah.

[00:16:46] It's good.

[00:16:46] Good company.

[00:16:47] I did it as well.

[00:16:47] I love the results and shared all my information with my extended family.

[00:16:52] And, you know, it, we kind of used it to help, uh, us, you know, build out the, the online

[00:16:59] family tree information to learn more about our heritage.

[00:17:02] So fun, fun gift to give, uh, you know, thinking of holiday gifts for people.

[00:17:08] I think I, I got mine as a gift a couple of years ago for Christmas.

[00:17:13] Yeah.

[00:17:13] I still, I still wouldn't be afraid to do it.

[00:17:15] I would still recommend to people that they do do it because the science that it's generating

[00:17:19] is good stuff.

[00:17:21] Whether the company can figure out how to make money from it remains to be seen.

[00:17:25] Yeah.

[00:17:26] But Hey, um, there's another big issue out there that's been in the news a lot.

[00:17:31] And I, I think we touched on it briefly, but it's worth diving into more in depth.

[00:17:37] And that is AI is sucking up all the energy in the power grid.

[00:17:42] Yeah.

[00:17:44] And more so, right?

[00:17:46] They're like running out of energy.

[00:17:49] And here's a, here's a funny thing.

[00:17:51] You've been, you've been up to Mackinac Island, right?

[00:17:53] Yeah.

[00:17:54] Yep.

[00:17:54] So there's a, um, there's a brewery on Mackinac Island as there is like on every street corner

[00:18:00] and in Michigan pretty much.

[00:18:03] Yeah.

[00:18:03] Only, so we went there over the summer and we're talking to, we're talking to them and

[00:18:09] they said, well, they don't actually brew on Island because there isn't enough electricity

[00:18:15] to run the brewing equipment because it's all, all, you know, they're not fire brewed.

[00:18:21] They're electric, you know, vats.

[00:18:25] Right.

[00:18:26] And so there's not enough, not enough electricity to power it.

[00:18:29] So they, they brew it on the mainland and then they, you know, ship their product over

[00:18:33] to the, to the Island where they've got their retail outlet.

[00:18:36] But, but that's just kind of tangentially related to the world running out of power.

[00:18:43] Like a little small example, but these AI data centers, they're so huge that they're looking

[00:18:49] at nuclear energy.

[00:18:52] Yeah, exactly.

[00:18:53] I mean, that, that, that's what jumped out to me.

[00:18:56] You know, the, the other, the irony of everybody worried about, you know, is there enough electricity

[00:19:00] to power all the cars that are going on the road, right?

[00:19:03] With the big EV vehicle push, you know, it's the data centers that are sucking up all the

[00:19:09] electricity out there.

[00:19:11] So they're looking at all the alternative energies.

[00:19:13] And I know nuclear energy is not very popular, but you know, what, what's one to do?

[00:19:19] So these data centers going in and just right here in my backyard and around the Omaha council

[00:19:26] bluffs, right, right off the Missouri river, it seems to be a hotbed.

[00:19:30] I think there were six massive data centers that went in Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon had one.

[00:19:39] It's, they bought up all this farmland right here in the, in Nebraska.

[00:19:43] And now these huge data centers went, went in and drove the property values up for that farmland

[00:19:50] from almost nothing to, you know, $15,000 an acre, which was unheard of years ago.

[00:19:57] So interesting to see.

[00:20:00] Yeah.

[00:20:01] I'm optimistic that they're going to find a more creative way to solve the problem.

[00:20:06] So I'm actually not opposed to nuclear because there's been a lot of improvements in it in

[00:20:14] the last 50 years.

[00:20:15] Yeah.

[00:20:16] Yeah.

[00:20:18] Bill Gates is at the forefront of that.

[00:20:20] He's a, he has funded a lot of nuclear energy research over the years and he has small reactors.

[00:20:27] And I think they're putting their first one online in Texas pretty soon.

[00:20:34] And his company, I think, I think his company is in New Mexico.

[00:20:40] But anyway, yeah, they're in, they're small and they use the spent fuel from the old reactors

[00:20:48] because there's a lot of, there's a lot of inefficiency in those original reactors.

[00:20:53] And the new ones use the spent fuel.

[00:20:56] They don't generate the heat.

[00:20:58] So they don't have the explosion risk that, you know, they're just an order of magnitude

[00:21:02] better.

[00:21:04] But that's a good point.

[00:21:06] I was always a fan of, of nuclear energy.

[00:21:08] It just seemed like it got too dangerous.

[00:21:10] We had some accidents and everybody pulled them offline.

[00:21:13] But, you know, it has so much potential and technology has advanced so much from, you know.

[00:21:22] It is.

[00:21:22] And I'm really optimistic that they will find more efficient ways to crunch through the AI

[00:21:30] stuff, right?

[00:21:32] So like the cryptocurrency, it was sucking up all the power in the data centers and everything.

[00:21:39] You don't hear about it anymore.

[00:21:41] And that's because they found ways to do the, do the math necessary without all the, the data

[00:21:49] center and all the energy that goes into it.

[00:21:52] So, so they were able to figure it out.

[00:21:55] I'm pretty confident AI is going to be able to figure it out.

[00:21:59] We won't have to put a nuclear reactor on every block in order to power it.

[00:22:03] Um, we are totally right about the cars versus the data centers.

[00:22:07] One data center probably sucks up as much energy as an entire state full of cars.

[00:22:12] If everybody was driving one, which they're not.

[00:22:14] Exactly.

[00:22:15] Exactly.

[00:22:16] All this is all coming together at the same time.

[00:22:19] It is.

[00:22:20] Yeah.

[00:22:21] And you know, it's not like our infrastructure is very healthy to begin with.

[00:22:25] We haven't really invested in the infrastructure in our own country in a long, long time.

[00:22:30] Yeah.

[00:22:31] Well, I think it's, I think regardless of whatever administration goes in after these

[00:22:35] elections, uh, I would hope and pray that that would be a top priority.

[00:22:39] It sure sounds like it is, you know, back in our infrastructure because we need it, you

[00:22:44] know?

[00:22:44] Yeah.

[00:22:45] I think we've kicked that can as far down the road as it could go.

[00:22:49] Gonna have to, gonna have to pick it up and do something with it now.

[00:22:53] Won't be cheap, but, but it's absolutely neat if we want to keep growing.

[00:22:57] And I am here with an example of success.

[00:23:00] Everybody loves hearing about successful business owners.

[00:23:03] And I'm going to interview today, uh, Dan Amaro out of the Ohio area.

[00:23:08] Dan is the, the owner or, or lead team member of the Dan Amaro group at Emerge real estate

[00:23:14] in Ohio.

[00:23:15] So, Hey Dan, welcome to the program.

[00:23:18] Thanks James.

[00:23:18] I appreciate you having me here and that was an awesome introduction.

[00:23:22] Thank you so much.

[00:23:23] You bet.

[00:23:24] You bet.

[00:23:25] Well, good to, good to connect with you.

[00:23:26] You know, I've been admiring you from a distance and watching you kind of grow up in the real

[00:23:31] estate market and eager to have you kind of share your successes.

[00:23:37] And, uh, but before I do that, you've only been in the real estate market, what two years,

[00:23:42] two and a half years.

[00:23:44] Under three years.

[00:23:46] Yeah.

[00:23:46] Under three years.

[00:23:47] Okay.

[00:23:47] So under three years and I've seen you just, you're a machine.

[00:23:51] You are, are winning all sorts of awards.

[00:23:55] You know, you're buying and selling properties yourself.

[00:23:57] So you're, you're drinking your own Kool-Aid.

[00:24:00] Uh, let's talk about that.

[00:24:01] So from a production standpoint to kind of put things in perspective, you know, how many

[00:24:07] homes and what's the value of the homes over that timeframe that you've, you've produced.

[00:24:12] So I have sold a little over 200 units since, uh, January 31st, 2022.

[00:24:20] That's when I got licensed and, uh, I've, I've, it's around 30 million out here in main,

[00:24:27] the Mansfield area, uh, which is the midpoint between Cleveland and Columbus.

[00:24:33] Uh, I, there's a lot of room for opportunities.

[00:24:37] So what I mean by that is the price of housing is affordable compared to the rest of the

[00:24:42] country.

[00:24:43] And average home this year in Richland County, for example, was around $185,000.

[00:24:50] Um, that's like a, that was the median house price in the markets that I'm selling.

[00:24:54] And my average, um, the average price of the home that I'm selling is around that as well.

[00:25:00] Yeah, that's awesome.

[00:25:02] So 200 plus homes.

[00:25:04] That's, that's amazing in a, in a short period of time.

[00:25:07] And you bring up a good point, you know, the, you know, there's a $30 million home, you

[00:25:12] know, for sale out in California, you know, right, right down the street from my old place.

[00:25:16] I mean, those houses in, in whatever market you're in, it could be really low or really

[00:25:20] high selling 200 plus houses anywhere is just super impressive.

[00:25:25] So, and again, as I said, I kind of been watching you from a distance and I see that

[00:25:30] your success you're all over social media.

[00:25:33] If, if you haven't, you know, if you're not following Dan, you should check them out.

[00:25:37] Dan Amaro.

[00:25:38] I'll drop his contact information in the, um, in the show notes.

[00:25:42] So make sure you follow him on social media, but you do a great job with your videos and

[00:25:47] kind of showing, uh, prospects out in social media land, you know, what you're doing and

[00:25:52] how to do it.

[00:25:52] So I've always appreciated that.

[00:25:55] So, um, tell us a little bit, just from a, a big picture standpoint, what were some of

[00:26:00] the greatest challenges that you've run into?

[00:26:03] You know, the real estate market's tough, you know, especially post COVID.

[00:26:06] I mean, the interest rates over this past year have gone through the roof.

[00:26:10] Inflation went through the roof the last couple of years.

[00:26:13] I mean, it's a tough time out there and normally inventory is low, or at least it is here in my

[00:26:19] part of the country.

[00:26:19] So how, what were some of the big challenges that you faced and how did you overcome them?

[00:26:25] So, uh, I'm not sure what the exact percentage is, but it's something high around 60 to 60

[00:26:31] to 80% of new realtors get out of the business within three years.

[00:26:36] You know, so, uh, I didn't know that until after I passed my test, but when I passed my

[00:26:42] test, I was so deep into it.

[00:26:44] Uh, I was already waking up every morning before I would work out to study real estate

[00:26:49] to pass the test.

[00:26:50] I was already before that studying investment properties on biggerpockets.com for fun on

[00:26:56] my own at 5am when I didn't know how, how I would purchase them.

[00:27:00] I didn't have any money to do it.

[00:27:01] Um, but I had a vision.

[00:27:03] I was extremely driven.

[00:27:04] So when I passed the test, I was like, okay, I have all this knowledge, but didn't really

[00:27:09] think about implementation and execution of like, okay, I've done sales before, but where

[00:27:17] are these people I'm selling to now?

[00:27:18] So I didn't think thoroughly about lead generation or cause like in retail sales, I've always

[00:27:26] just naturally had to convert leads, but lead generate was something that I never really

[00:27:32] wanted to do.

[00:27:33] And that's why I think frankly, most realtors don't do it because cold calling and door

[00:27:37] knocking usually isn't fun.

[00:27:40] Right.

[00:27:40] Especially if that's what you have to do to get the business just to work, which is kind

[00:27:44] of what I realized the first two weeks I was cold calling, uh, getting no slammed in my

[00:27:49] face.

[00:27:50] No one was nice at all until someday when I was on a break, someone cold called me, uh,

[00:27:56] cold called me asking if I would take a referral from them.

[00:27:58] Oh my God, thank you.

[00:28:00] Yeah.

[00:28:00] Someone I can work with and they ended up being my first client.

[00:28:02] So from there, having a taste of it, just getting a taste, I was okay.

[00:28:07] It was like blood.

[00:28:08] I I'm in being a shark, just amazing.

[00:28:12] Yeah.

[00:28:13] I love that.

[00:28:13] It's the hardest deal to close is always that first one and congrats.

[00:28:18] You got that monkey off your back.

[00:28:19] And so that was a referral that came in and then everything kind of took off from there.

[00:28:24] Um, you know, you, you know, I, I've, I see your drive and your persistence and I wanted

[00:28:31] to ask from your perspective, what, what are some leadership qualities that you have that

[00:28:36] you feel make you successful that make you different or better than your competition?

[00:28:42] Hmm.

[00:28:44] Something that I believe in is not reinventing the wheel.

[00:28:49] And so things that have worked for me personally, and like, I guess, you know, you only know

[00:28:54] what you know, but you know, you can educate and self-develop, but things that have worked

[00:28:58] for me have always been led from the front.

[00:29:00] Um, so having someone show me from a stranger to closed client for life, um, like from like

[00:29:11] no one did that for real estate, but my very first sales job ever they did for direct TV

[00:29:16] inside Costco's, which if no one would have shown me how to get somebody walking through

[00:29:21] the door, getting their attention, hooking them to come to the table, doing the presentation

[00:29:27] well enough to show value for them to sign up for the product, calling to put the product

[00:29:34] in for a sale, showing it from start to end.

[00:29:37] I would say that's my biggest trait is just making sure people understand within my company,

[00:29:44] not just my teammate, but my assistant, my virtual assistant, my media guy, making sure

[00:29:50] they understand exactly what I'm asking for.

[00:29:52] And if not showing them myself, even if it takes extra time.

[00:29:56] Yeah.

[00:29:57] Yeah.

[00:29:57] That's awesome.

[00:29:58] And, and just some qualities that I see from my side, you know, I've, I've seen you in

[00:30:02] your career and you're just what I call a go-getter.

[00:30:05] You know, you just go out there and go make it happen.

[00:30:07] You're not the normal Joe it's eight to five and yawning at four 30 and you're ready to

[00:30:13] go home.

[00:30:14] I mean, you're, you think of this stuff all the time.

[00:30:16] I can tell, uh, by, by your passion on your videos and what you're out there doing.

[00:30:21] And the other thing we didn't get a chance to talk about it is, you know, again, you've

[00:30:25] got six investment properties of your own and you, uh, tell us, tell us about this, this

[00:30:30] last one that you had.

[00:30:31] I think you bought it with, with no money down and everybody thinks that's impossible nowadays.

[00:30:36] Why don't you educate us of what you did on, on one of your properties?

[00:30:41] Yes.

[00:30:42] So I'm going to bring it back to the first property investment property I bought.

[00:30:46] Cause that's where it starts with the first investment property I bought.

[00:30:49] Um, I pulled money out from my 401k and this is when I didn't have any money or a job.

[00:30:55] This was a journey that led me to become a real estate agent was through buying this property.

[00:30:59] So I was making $16 an hour.

[00:31:02] I didn't know I had money from working at AT&T prior in my 401k.

[00:31:07] Okay.

[00:31:07] So when I stumbled across this and I was already working in the morning for a year, figuring

[00:31:14] out and understanding this knife, like, Oh wait, it's like, I can do this now.

[00:31:17] Oh my God, I'm going to do this now.

[00:31:18] It was like the preparation and figuring out I have the money led to this moment where it

[00:31:24] took six months finding my first rental property.

[00:31:26] We found my rental property.

[00:31:28] It was being underutilized.

[00:31:30] Um, at one point in time, it was a quadplex with a store attached to it.

[00:31:34] It, the guy who was living there, uh, made it just a hangout house and combined the upstairs

[00:31:40] apartments together.

[00:31:41] And he would just go all around and hang out.

[00:31:44] So when I bought it, I turned it back to what it was supposed to be.

[00:31:47] Uh, I used the store as storage for all of my building material and renovation stuff that

[00:31:54] I do.

[00:31:55] Uh, cause it's, I don't want to net my house anymore.

[00:31:57] When I bought it, I rented it out.

[00:32:00] I renovated the entire triplex this year and raise the rents.

[00:32:06] So the, the value of the property appreciated a lot.

[00:32:09] Yeah.

[00:32:10] Pushed it in and the rents raising helps my next door neighbor also sold and had it appraised,

[00:32:16] um, at 180,000.

[00:32:18] I bought mine for 70,000.

[00:32:20] So it was like just really encouraging and a lot of momentum.

[00:32:25] I closed on the second loan to pull my money back out of that property that I put into it.

[00:32:31] And that money is how I'm buying my next property tomorrow.

[00:32:35] Nice.

[00:32:36] Nice.

[00:32:36] All right.

[00:32:37] Well, congrats on that.

[00:32:38] Yeah.

[00:32:39] And good point.

[00:32:39] It all starts with that first one.

[00:32:41] And then you create, use the equity out of one for the second one and so forth and so

[00:32:46] on.

[00:32:46] And, and then is the long-term plan, are you going to hang on to some of those properties

[00:32:50] that cashflow out and, and let them appreciate and cashflow?

[00:32:56] Uh, yes.

[00:32:57] So the long-term plan is to keep buying properties that make sense.

[00:33:02] Uh, you keep pulling it out.

[00:33:04] I have two properties.

[00:33:06] Well, uh, yeah, I have two properties with cash.

[00:33:09] So I have two options to keep pulling them out and putting them back in.

[00:33:13] So I don't have to really come out of money anymore.

[00:33:16] And the goal is to buy them under what they're going to appreciate now.

[00:33:20] So I'm actually going to be making money when I take the second loan.

[00:33:25] Nice.

[00:33:26] Nice.

[00:33:26] Awesome.

[00:33:27] Love it.

[00:33:27] Love it.

[00:33:28] So let me circle back into what makes you successful as a real estate agent.

[00:33:32] We just talked about you, you know, drink your own Kool-Aid and, and that's really important.

[00:33:37] You know, someone like myself, you know, business coaches, consultants are a dime a dozen nowadays.

[00:33:43] It seems like it's the most popular job in America today.

[00:33:48] And most of the business coaches have never been there, done that.

[00:33:52] Or if they had been, they were failures.

[00:33:54] And, uh, you know, I've always prided myself in being honest, but, you know, bought, sold,

[00:33:59] owner, ran seven different tech companies, grew all into multimillion dollar successes.

[00:34:04] So I've been a part of a lot of successful organizations in that experience.

[00:34:08] Hence, just like Dan just talked about his experience buying and flipping properties translates into

[00:34:14] knowledge that he can teach you how to do the same thing.

[00:34:17] He knows that golden number of what cash flows out, what's a good deal and what's a bad deal.

[00:34:23] So, uh, that's a really important point, but let me, so here's, here's something I want

[00:34:27] to ask, cause I think it's really important in all business industries, not just real estate,

[00:34:32] but you said something a moment ago that really stuck with me.

[00:34:36] And you said you made a customer for life.

[00:34:39] Now, how marketing wise, Dan, how do you stay in touch with your customers over time?

[00:34:45] Once you sell them a house, I know it's not one and done.

[00:34:47] You stay in touch with them.

[00:34:48] What do you do?

[00:34:51] I do a variety of things.

[00:34:54] So, um, when I, it's not even like when we close, it's the process of going to close.

[00:35:00] We become almost cousins, uncles, aunts.

[00:35:04] When before we close, we're closing.

[00:35:07] We're, we're related now.

[00:35:09] And so from that, like I set the expectation.

[00:35:12] We're going to be in touch.

[00:35:13] Like I'm your realtor for life.

[00:35:15] If you know anybody at all, please connect us because that, that's how, that's my livelihood.

[00:35:20] Um, and you know, I don't take this lightly.

[00:35:23] I tell them my, my dream in my store.

[00:35:25] I tell them, you know, three years ago, I dreamt of doing this and, uh, I don't take

[00:35:30] it lightly.

[00:35:30] Thank you.

[00:35:31] Nice.

[00:35:32] I love that.

[00:35:33] If I Yabo, I do it.

[00:35:34] I keep up with them.

[00:35:35] I I'll actually call them all comment on Facebook.

[00:35:37] I have like a touch system.

[00:35:39] So, um, I think they'll get a total of 20, 30 touches of contact somehow, whether it's

[00:35:48] a text, it's a call, Facebook comment message over two, three years.

[00:35:53] And then it like resets.

[00:35:54] So over CRM, do you keep all your contacts and do you have kind of a central database

[00:36:00] that manages your contacts?

[00:36:02] Of course.

[00:36:03] Yes.

[00:36:03] I use bold trail.

[00:36:05] It's by inside real estate.

[00:36:07] Um, it's, it's pretty cool and intuitive.

[00:36:11] Um, they got me hooked on a, uh, 14 year contract.

[00:36:17] Wow.

[00:36:18] All right.

[00:36:19] Well, that's confidence stepping into that.

[00:36:20] I love the boldness.

[00:36:22] So, um, to everybody listening, the importance, all good marketeers like Dan use a strong CRM

[00:36:29] tool and you've got a strong process, you know, um, you know, you've got to be in the

[00:36:34] right place in the right time to sell something to someone.

[00:36:37] And you need to have multiple touches in a consistent way to just stay top of mind.

[00:36:42] It should, it's like that in any industry.

[00:36:44] So here's something else I wanted to ask you kind of a kooky question, but as part of your,

[00:36:50] uh, personal relationship with these customers, when you sell them something, a lot of people,

[00:36:56] you know, when you make your sale, you give some kind of gift, right?

[00:37:00] A gift basket, an edible arrangement, a thank you card, what have you, what do you guys do

[00:37:04] in your practice?

[00:37:07] So I would say, uh, it's very unique, whatever anyone wants to do out here.

[00:37:14] Anyway, they do it.

[00:37:15] There's nothing that's like, that's a standard.

[00:37:17] I personally will give someone a ring camera because normally that's the first thing people

[00:37:23] are going to buy for their new house is a ring camera.

[00:37:27] And it's like, I was already thinking about you.

[00:37:28] I got you.

[00:37:29] Here you go.

[00:37:29] And that works out.

[00:37:30] If it's a, if it's like high-end client, um, I mean, I have purchased a custom painting

[00:37:37] of the house for a client when we close, that was, that was pretty cool.

[00:37:42] Nice.

[00:37:43] Yeah.

[00:37:43] That's cool.

[00:37:44] Yeah.

[00:37:44] And I love that you customize it based on what you think the client wants and needs.

[00:37:49] Um, I think that's smart.

[00:37:50] There's a lot of people that have cookie cutter, like everybody gets a basket of cookies, you

[00:37:55] know, you know, but what if they may be gluten-free, you know, uh, you know, there's,

[00:38:00] you don't want to, you don't want to screw that up.

[00:38:02] So that's really cool.

[00:38:03] And then what, um, what would you say would be, uh, any advice that you would give to someone

[00:38:11] who's just starting up in real estate?

[00:38:12] Again, what a tough job to really get rolling and get established.

[00:38:16] You know, you've got to make your own cold calls.

[00:38:19] I mean, what, what would you say to someone that's just starting out to keep them motivated?

[00:38:24] So someone just starting out, like they just passed the real estate test.

[00:38:27] Yep.

[00:38:28] Like day one sales, sales world, uh, go, go make a sale.

[00:38:33] I would say the first thing that I'd recommend is training, just sales training.

[00:38:42] Um, know how to have conversations on the phone.

[00:38:44] Cause if you can do that, you can probably do it in person.

[00:38:47] Um, along with that though, I, I would say this that I haven't heard before from somebody

[00:38:52] else in real estate.

[00:38:54] Anyway, I didn't have goals when I came into it.

[00:38:57] I just, I just needed to make it.

[00:38:58] Like I just, I, I just had to make it.

[00:39:00] And then once I did, I realized the things in my previous life was a lot harder than what

[00:39:05] I just went through for this.

[00:39:07] I would say go in with like no number goals, like no actual set numbers other than like,

[00:39:15] leave it all out there.

[00:39:16] Like you'll know at the end of the day, if you made all the calls that you could make,

[00:39:19] if you call the people you were supposed to call, if you respond to the text messages,

[00:39:23] if you checked your email, um, like, like you'll, if you have any accountability, you'll know.

[00:39:28] All in, be all in.

[00:39:30] Yeah.

[00:39:30] You, you create now, I mean, I know this is advice for people just starting out, but just

[00:39:35] be all in, but do you have, would you recommend any kind of a, you know, KPI or, or goal for,

[00:39:42] for them once they kind of get moving to, to have, to kind of keep them motivated?

[00:39:46] Yes.

[00:39:47] And I got to go back a second.

[00:39:49] Don't go all in on real estate once you start.

[00:39:52] Cause I still worked job when I was doing that.

[00:39:54] I had to, like I said, have goals other than just to make it.

[00:39:58] I was in a situation where I could work whenever I wanted and still do real estate if calls

[00:40:02] came in, but it got to a point when I was doing my job, my phone was blowing up.

[00:40:07] I could not do my job anymore.

[00:40:09] So it was like, okay, I cannot do this job.

[00:40:12] So that came obvious to you that it was time to, to go full time.

[00:40:16] Yes.

[00:40:16] And like, I got to, I did the math with, uh, my mentor manager and he, he like did the

[00:40:23] math on paper for me.

[00:40:24] Okay.

[00:40:24] So how much do you make an hour?

[00:40:26] Okay.

[00:40:26] And how much do you make on a small closing?

[00:40:29] Okay.

[00:40:31] So you'll need to work this many hours to earn one closing.

[00:40:35] How many hours do you work on that closing normally?

[00:40:38] I was like, wow, a lot less.

[00:40:39] Well, James, that's a, that's all the news that, that hit us today.

[00:40:44] Yeah.

[00:40:44] Where are you going to be?

[00:40:45] What do you have coming up next?

[00:40:47] So I'm actually home for a couple of weeks and then I'll be back out on the road here.

[00:40:52] The first week of December, I've got a mastermind event in Scottsdale, Arizona.

[00:40:57] Uh, it looks like we've got record attendance lined up for that.

[00:41:00] That'll be at that talking stick resort.

[00:41:02] So if anybody's interested in getting a SMB community podcast, VIP free pass, just reach

[00:41:09] out to me at James at kerning consulting.com.

[00:41:12] We'd love to see you there.

[00:41:13] We are casting it on zoom, but we're trying to get, you know, the full experience is when

[00:41:18] you're there in person.

[00:41:19] So I would encourage you if you're even remotely close to Arizona, um, please plan on attending.

[00:41:25] It's a two day event.

[00:41:26] So even if you come one day, you can still learn a lot.

[00:41:29] We've got a ton of great speakers lined up really excited about this.

[00:41:33] Well, this will be our finale event of the year.

[00:41:36] And then the following week, I'm going to be in Dallas, Texas, uh, December 11th, speaking

[00:41:41] at a channel program, MNA event.

[00:41:44] So looking forward to that as well, but that's creeping a little close to Christmas for me.

[00:41:49] So, uh, but I'll be home after that.

[00:41:52] Yeah.

[00:41:53] Well, I'm a, I'm a homebody through the end of the year.

[00:41:56] So jealous.

[00:41:58] Yeah.

[00:41:59] I not don't have any plans to go anywhere.

[00:42:01] I did a couple of virtual events and a physical event is let, you know, last couple months,

[00:42:07] but November and December going nowhere.

[00:42:10] So I'm happy about that.

[00:42:13] Awesome.

[00:42:14] All right.

[00:42:15] Hey, well, thank you, James, for the session today.

[00:42:18] I think we had a great podcast and we will see you all next week.

[00:42:22] All right.

[00:42:22] You got it.

[00:42:23] Take care, everybody.

[00:42:24] Bye.

[00:42:24] Bye.

[00:42:24] Bye.