Welcome back to the Discount Property Investor podcast. Our mission is to share what we have learned from our experience and the experience of others to help you make more money investing like a pro. We want to teach you how to create wealth by investing in real estate, the discount property investor way. To jumpstart your real estate investing career, visit freewholesalecourse.com, the most complete free course on wholesaling real estate ever. Thanks for tuning in.

David: Alright guys, welcome back to another edition of the discount property investor podcast. I am your host David Dodge and today I am joined by a friend, a fellow real estate investor, an author and just a beast at business, Eric Hatch. Eric, welcome to the show again. Again!

Eric: David, you forgot to say male model as well. I am always the before picture, right? You have the before and the after, and I get to be the before portion. It's unbelievable.

David: That is not true.

Eric: Double D, David Dodge. Great to be here man. Longtime listener, second time caller.

David: That's right. That is not true at all, you are one handsome SOB my friend.

Eric: Oh man, get that glaucoma checked buddy, but I appreciate it.

David: I love it. Well Eric, thanks for coming on the show man. I know we're going to be able to provide a ton of value to the listeners and the viewers. So you are the author of a book about leadership, what's that one called?

Eric: So it's- I'm so glad you asked, I happen to have it right here. It's called 'Play For The Person Next To You'. It's a guide to servant leadership and it's a book that I launched 2 years ago knowing that the mindset of leadership is the catalyst for growth in anything and anywhere at any time, and when a leader improves their ecosystem, everything around them gets better. And so for me, it was an intentional first book and it was buying into the philosophy of the businesses that I run, the properties that I take care of, the life that I live, the husband and the father that I am. It's all ingrained in that one spot of that book.

David: Phenomenal book. I did read it 2 years ago when you gave it to me. I think I'm going to read it again actually now. I love it.

Eric: Appreciate that.

David: Cuz mindset is everything man, it is truly everything and yeah, awesome, very, very cool. So guys go check that out, it is called 'Play For The Person Next To You'. Very very cool.

Eric: Yeah, just go to hatchingleaders.com. I put my name on everything David. So hatchingleaders.com is where you want to go to take a look at that book and order yours.

David: hatchingleaders.com. I love it, we'll put that in the show notes man. That's awesome.

Eric: Thanks buddy.

David: So hey, you got a new book coming out though and that's really one of the things I want to dive into on this podcast.

Eric: Yeah. I'm-

David: it's gonna be a blueprint, right? On how to- don't quote me on this but a blueprint on how to grow the perfect real estate business?

Eric: Yeah. So the title of the book is called 'The Perfect Real Estate Agent Blueprint'.

David: Okay.

Eric: David, you live in the wholesale world and the investing world. I am a wholesaler, I am an investor but I just scratched the surface on things like you do. Man you're- by the way, you're approaching a hundred properties, super proud of you because that is a big deal.

David: Thank you man.

Eric: I stopped investing in properties when I hit about 60 and I pivoted and I started flipping and so, I take a lot of my cash and I flipped and I'm getting a fast return on my investment there because I built what I felt was my steady base and now I'm using it to go after these projects, and it's a fun little return that I get because I have the original ones all set. You know, Ron Popeil used to say set it and forget it when it came to the Ronco food dehydrator, and that's what I'm doing with my investment properties and that's really fun but where I spend most of my time is in traditional residential real estate. And so, I run a large real estate team based out of Fargo, North Dakota and so-

David: What's that like being in the traditional real estate world? I don't know anything about it.

Eric: It's all-

David: I shouldn't say that because I buy that from people occasionally.

Eric: Yeah. You know David, it's all I've ever known when it comes to real estate. I've been a realtor for 15 years and now, I mean there's like 2 million realtors in the US and like any other profession, most of the work, it's done by a select few and so-

David: Yeah.

Eric: My real estate team, we're the number 40 ranked team in the industry. So out of 2 million realtors, we're number 40 which is a fun place to be and I only spend a day and a half a week in that business, but I've-

David: Dude that is crazy. You guys are number 40 ranked and you spend a day and a half in the business?

Eric: Yeah. Yeah, and-

David: What?

Eric: So we'll sell a 1050 to 1100 homes this year in Fargo, North Dakota which is a community of 250 thousand people. So we are selling- you know, I have a market share here of about 10%. So one out of every ten homes-

David: And that- I would've thought it would have been 60%. 1100 homes man? Holy cow.

Eric: Yeah.

David: That is crazy.

Eric: Yeah, so it's pretty great. I do have some expansion markets as well. I'm in 4 soon to be 5 other expansion markets too. And the residential real estate game is fun. It's an introduction to great relationships and I'm helping agents on my team. You know, if you're with me for 2 years and you grind and climb your way up, you'll make 30 to 80 thousand dollars a year for your first 2 years. I have agents now in Fargo, North Dakota that are making 5 and 6 hundred thousand dollars a year as their net, as their take home, and these are-

David: I don't know about Fargo, but I'm moving to Fargo man. That's amazing.

Eric: And these are guys that have very little risk in their life.

David: Sure.

Eric: They're hustling, they're working really hard and we're scaling up their business but they're doing it one commission check at a time and I get- I get a cut of it and I give them all the leverage and they get a cut and they do all the hustle to sell. And so we have guys that are 28, 29, 30, 31 years old that are making half a million dollars a year without-

David: That's wild.

Eric: You know, some without college educations and some just finding a way. So, I get to be a catalyst for that and we figured out a lot of things along the way and so what happened David is, I took all that information of what we've done with our team and I've been implementing that through my coaching company. That's where I spent my other 3, 3 and a half days a week, is with my coaching company. And so I've been coaching realtors and business people essentially how to get out of the messy middle. A lot of them will build up ecosystems of-

David: Oh man, I'm sure that is a massive, massive amount of value because that is a tough business. It's so tough that I don't even want to get in it.

Eric: Well, well, real estate is easy, people are complicated.

David: Yeah, and that's the problem. Yeah.

Eric: And you've chosen- you've chosen a life and a career where you figured out the real estate part where it's easy.

David: And I've outsourced the people part.

Eric: Once people get involved, it's a lot harder. Yeah.

David: At least on- at least on after the purchase, right? Everything after I've outsourced in terms of the people part but yeah, it's a people- it's always a people business, you know?

Eric: Yeah. And so what I've done now as I'm teaching these people all around the industry on how to grow their teams I think the right way, both to maintain the right profit margin and to have the right ecosystem. We're building a blueprint, it's called the perfect real estate agent blueprint, so it's going to be a trade book. We're about a third of the way through it but we have all of our materials and now it's just actually getting the flow of it and so it'll launch in early 2022. But this is essentially a guidebook to how to grow a great team and the idiosyncrasy that happens in traditional residential real estate is an agent says I got really good at selling houses and now I'm going to grow a team. And then the goal is to get out of production for people in the business. They want to basically work on the business and not in the business. And what happens is when these agents get themselves out of production, they all of a sudden realize oh crap, where'd all my money go? Let me give you a couple of examples David, okay? And I think it will help to paint the picture. Let's take a traditional real estate commission of let's say $10,000. If I myself can close 5 deals in a couple month period, I'm going to make 50,000 bucks, right? 5 deals, each worth $10,000. Now what most people say is all right I want to grow this business so I'm going to hire some agents to do those deals for me, right? We all- no matter what you're doing, whether it's wholesaling or investing, you want to hire leverage and you think that that's going to be your greatest tool at success.

David: Agreed, agreed.

Eric: Yep. And so you take those 5 quality that you would close on all 5 of them and you're thinking, all right this new kid on the block, I'm going to- I'm going to pay him a 50% commission or a 40 % commission, so I'm going to pay him $5,000 on every $10,000 deal so I'll make 25, he or she will make 25 and I'm going to have a great life and I'm not going to have to work and I'm going to make 25 thousand bucks. The problem is that person is usually under trained, their new to the game, they lack skill and precision and savvy and stick-to-itiveness. And so they don't close on 5 of them, they close on 2 of them. And what I just did is I just said, I could have made $25,000 but now I'm only closing on 2 of them so I made $10,000. They made 10 grand, I made 10 grand. That's a pretty crummy business model and yet that's how most-

David: Especially if you have a fixed cost of 20 thousand. You're losing money in here.

Eric: That's how most people start their real estate teams, and what we're doing is we're rewriting the blueprint and the model to say stop hiring all of these new untrained people and giving them commission based jobs. I think that if you're hiring somebody based on commission David, I don't care if it's your industry or my industry, if you're hiring somebody based on commission, they're one of five people.

David: Okay.

Eric: Number one, there's somebody with a sugar daddy or a sugar mama.

David: Okay.

Eric: Number two, there's somebody with a trust fund.

David: Okay.

Eric: Number three, there's somebody with terrible financial habits.

David: Which is most people.

Eric: Number four- sure is, that's why it's my middle finger. Right. Number four is somebody with a second job because they need some cash flowing in.

David: Okay.

Eric: And number five, the little pinky that remains on my hand as I count that off is somebody who actually saved up 4 to 6 months of income so that they can jump into a full-time commission job. And that is a sales industry, any commission industry whatsoever, that's who usually raises their hand to say I want to do this job is they either have money in the bank and that money maybe wasn't given or wasn't earned by them, and so they maybe aren't the most motivated. Of course, there are some that are trust fund kids and sugar babies that are doing really well because they work hard but I'm speaking in generalities.

David: Yeah no, I get it for sure. Yep. So this is the reasons that people would want to work in a commission environment.

Eric: Yeah. I say commission jobs are the wrong way to build a real estate team and the wrong way to build a wholesale business. I actually think that you need to have such savvy of your numbers that you hire somebody with confidence and you pay them a base pay, you pay them a salary. They can earn a smidge of commission on top of it, but I believe the philosophy is everything is earned and nothing is given because if you want to come into my world and make half a million dollars a year, you better start off on a 30 thousand dollar a year salary-

David: And earn it, yeah.

Eric: -and earn your way to the top.

David: For sure.

Eric: Yeah.

David: I love it.

Eric: You're gonna- I want you to get your MBA in real estate working under me and besides me and then you will go off and do great things because the failure rate in in retail real estate for realtors is over 80% of people fail on their first 2 years.

David: I would have thought it would have been the first 2 months.

Eric: Yeah, pretty accurate. It's- you're not far out because the amount of training it takes to be exceptional at this job is usually not done by most people that just get thrown into it.

David: Yeah.

Eric: And so I want to turn the model on its head David, and I'm doing that with my coaching clients and I've done it with my own team. Of every person I have on my team right now, we're a team of 58 people, 0-

David: That's a big team man.

Eric: 0 people have had real estate experience prior to working with me.

David: Holy cow, that's pretty cool.

Eric: It's all new people because I hire on culture and character, and then I train on skill. And I'll bring them in and they'll start, for the most part, everybody starts in a salaried position because David if I tell you, you have to make a hire, it's going to cost you 30 or 40 thousand dollars a year, your cash out of your pocket, you're probably going to be pretty precise in how you make that hire.

David: Yeah. Oh yeah.

Eric: Now if I tell you, you're going to hire somebody based on commission and you hope they work out, you're going to find anybody that raises their hand or fogs a mirror.

David: Yeah, that's true.

Eric: But let's go- let's go back to my first example is 5 deals each worth $10,000. That person for you is a $25,000 hire just for those 5 deals and you can get that done in a couple months.

David: In a couple months. That's so true.

Eric: And so, that's a $25,000 risk that you end up squandering because you're trying to save a buck and pay somebody commission instead of actually having your numbers dialed in and you have a supportive ecosystem. And so we're changing this game one hire at a time. It is irresponsible to give our clients an untrained, newly licensed, wet-behind-the-ears agent. They deserve better and I have a fiduciary responsibility to make realtors less lame than they are right now.

David: I love it. Guys, he just he just used one of my favorite word's which is fiduciary, and if you're unfamiliar with what that means, fiduciary is somebody that has your best interests in mind and they're not making necessarily making money just to sell you something, right? And I'm looking more of a fiduciary as you know versus like a broker in the financial planning, you know, landscape.

Eric: Right.

David: Now there's obviously still going to be pay. You're still going to pay these individuals but they have your interest aligned. They're not just trying to sell you let's say a home because they need to sell a home this month. It's like let's go find you a home that works and what is the po- what is the things you're looking for in a home and what's the things you're not? And so on so forth. I love that Eric, that is awesome. Very, very cool.

Eric: Thanks man.

David: So you're putting together a blueprint to teach I'm assuming teams or people that are in the agent or broker role that are the solo individual, and I Robert Kiyosaki's cashflow quadrant, so what I'm- how I'm interpreting this is you're looking at the people basically in the S quadrant. They're the self employed business owners, right? Or self-employed even working for another business owner because that's kind of how real estate works in some cases as the agent, right? But you're teaching them how to go from that S quadrant to the B quadrant by putting together a blueprint to build a team. Is that right?

Eric: Yeah, in laymen's terms I would say you need to go deep and not wide. I think that quite often we want to add other people that are doing our job or our similar jobs because we think that's where the biggest action is. See, we're telling people that your first hire that you should make is not another agent and is not a partner that's licensed, it's an admin because the first thing you need to do is get all that minutiae killing stuff off your plate.

David: Love it.

Eric: David, I don't care if it's your world or my world, the first hire you should make is an admin and this person is giving you time back because you're drowning in the things you are not naturally designed to do. And if you have the ego of yourself to say nobody can do it as well as I can, you will never have a life that you're actually called to and so the first hire is an admin that takes things off your plate. This second hire-

David: I'm going to-

Eric: Go ahead.

David: I'm going to parallel this. I don't mean to interrupt you, but I-

Eric: Interrupt away.,

David: I'm pretty confident I'm gonna agree with everything you're saying. So you're totally on the traditional side, I'm on the investment side. We're kind of- I mean you do obviously both but our main businesses are definitely very different. My first hire was an admin too.

Eric: Yeah.

David: And I made the first hire 7 years ago, brought in the guy to help follow up and work in my system so I didn't have to be in the system and so on so forth. So that's awesome, love it. Second hire.

Eric: Yeah, you want to spend all your time in high dollar producing activities. That's the goal and nobody's as talented as me, nobody's as talented as you. That is the last job you should hand off is that big swinging money earning opportunity, that's the last job. Don't go wide and put a bunch of other people that are supposed to do what you do. You go deep because you are the one that is feeding that ecosystem.

David: Love it.

Eric: The second hire David is another admin.

David: Haha. I love it. That's what I- that's basically what we did. I love it.

Eric: And the first one helps you breathe.

David: Yes.

Eric: The second one helps you grow, right?

David: Yes, yes. That's exactly right.

Eric: I remember back in 2012 when I started my real estate team, the first person I hired David was somebody who was a college admin. She was a college student and I hired her part-time. I don't like part-time help by the way, I think that you're gonna get part-time results with part-time help.

David: Yeah, exactly.

Eric: And so I hired her and instead of having her take stuff off my plate, I gave her all of my dream lists like I'm hoping to get this project and this is something I really want to tackle. Well, I had a part-time undertrained, underdeveloped person who then actually created more work for me.

David: Yes. Absolutely.

Eric: The first hire has to help you breathe more before you bring in that second hire to help you go and do more.

David: Yeah, and the first hire can help you train the second hire and so on so forth. So when you get up to well shoot, you're at 58, I'll be at like 13 or 14 here shortly.

Eric: Yeah.

David: Next week actually, I think I'll be at 14, but I'm going to have my entire team help train the first 2 weeks. You know like I will obviously be there to help too but it's like if I'm not able to be there for the 8 hours all day, like somebody else is going to be helping out.

Eric: Yeah.

David: I love that Eric.

Eric: David, in our blueprint that we're writing and it's for any industry, we're just using real estate as the backdrop for it.

David: Sure.

Eric: You are entering into what I refer to as the messy middle, and that is when you are I think between 10 and 20 people is like the hardest place to push through.

David: Yeah.

Eric: And the reason why is because there's a rule, it's called the rule of 3's and 10's. If you have the time and opportunity, Google it, but what happens in the rule of 3's and 10's is they say when your ecosystem is 3 people, 10 people, 30, 100, 300 and the multiplier goes on. Every time you hit that number, everything changes.

David: Yes.

Eric: Your leadership structure, your one-on-ones, your flow of operations, everything changes. Now, it maybe 8 or 9 people, it maybe 10 or 11 or 12 people but it's that same-

David: Yeah, but on average, it's gonna be a 3 and it's gonna be a 10, it's gonna be a 30. Yep, yep.

Eric: And so David, you're in a place right now where if you're going to grow, you got to start thinking like a leader of 30 people which means that your, issue now is no longer production, your issue is leadership development of the other people because you can't be everything to everyone. And now, you're having to transition from being the doer in the business to the worker and leader on the business, and it's a very very different skill set.

David: It is, it is a- that is so true. Very, very different skill set.

Eric: Now I go back to- I go back to my time in production. I haven't sold a house in 7 years now David, my team has. We have sold 5 thousand houses in the last 7 years. It's been a heck of a fun run and I've gotten to be a part of a lot of those trans- well all those transactions, but I used to be the top dog before I got out of production. I was selling a 150 homes a year myself.

David: Wow.

Eric: On top of what my team was doing. And so know that the average realtor sells about 8 homes a year, I was selling a 150. 50 of those were a builder contract that I had. I was working new construction. The other 100 were sphere referral and past clients. We call it PCSOI, past clients and sphere of influence. Now, I was working that and I had an amazing business and I did what I thought I was supposed to do and what I was taught to do is I'm supposed to get out of production and then I just refer all this business to everybody else on my team. Now- I al-

David: That's what you thought.

Eric: That's what I- that's what I did because that's what I was taught to do.

David: Right. Okay.

Eric: As I referred all of this business to everybody else on my team, they didn't crush 5 out of 5 like I did so I lost some stuff and some opportunities there, but as I handed, and understand our businesses are a little different but as I handed off the transaction to agents on my team, I unintentionally handed off the relationship.

David: Oh yeah.

Eric: And I look to say I was doing a hundred deals that were friends of mine and referrals and past clients. In 2013 and 2014, I did a hundred deals from that relationship. In 2019 and 2020, I did 36 each year. I lost 65% of my own personal production over a 6 year period because I did what I thought I was supposed to do and the model in residential real estate had taught us that you refer this off to your agents, you give it to your team members and it is the biggest financial blunder I've ever made. I did the math David on how much I've lost in the last 6 years by giving these things away and it's over 2 million dollars.

David: I believe it.

Eric: Because what I did is I tried to grow everybody else without maintaining my foundation, and the foundation for anybody if you make the hire and the hire I say is you hire admin and then admin and then in our world you hire a partner. This is a licensed agent who is my extension of everything that I do, they keep my micro business while I'm still adding other agents that are doing things but it's my business, my sphere, the stuff I've worked for, I need to keep that as close to my chest as possible.

David: I love that.

Eric: And so-

David: Admin, admin, partner.

Eric: Yeah, partner and this is-

David: Which isn't necessarily- and you're not referring to partner as like equity stake holder.

Eric: No, no, no.

David: You're referring to just somebody that has got your back and is gonna basically-

Eric: This is a showing partner.

David: Love it.

Eric: This is somebody who is the nurse to me being the doctor.

David: Yeah.

Eric: I don't need another doctor yet, They haven't earned that right. Remember, everything is earned and nothing is given and instead, I need a nurse. In fact, I need maybe a couple of nurses to tend to the triage of the day and to walk that person through the showings and to set them up with all of the communication and the hand-holding that goes through it. I'm here for surgery, I'm here for navigation and negotiation, I'm doing the heavy lifting stuff, but I don't need to pay somebody a 50% salary or a commission excuse me, I don't need to pay them a 40% commission. I pay them a base salary and then I give them a little override on that and they're going to earn their way to be a doctor.

David: I love it.

Eric: See, we're handing out far too much money and far too much irresponsibility and we wonder why our models suck. The issue is not that you made a bad hire, the issue is you put somebody into a bad model.

David: Yeah, and we put them into a-

Eric: And we have to change this model.

David: -into a situation, yeah, that's not basically giving you the greatest amount of value that could be created, instead it's just yeah, it's sometimes backwards. Man, that is awesome. So first hire, admin, second hire, another admin. I love that. I have like 7 admins right now.

Eric: You're a smart man.

David: You can, yeah, you can keep scaling that guys because again, you know, one of the things Eric said a minute ago was you know, put yourself in the position to where you are spending your time on the highest amount of income that you can earn in the hour, right? Work on the $500 an hour tasks or the thousand dollar an hour task or in some cases the $10,000 an hour, yes I said that, tasks, right? Versus the 8 or 10 or 12 or 15 dollar tasks. Absolutely love that. Third person, a partner.

Eric: Yeah.

David: Someone who's got your back. Your analogy of the nur- of the nurse to the doctor is beautiful. I love that, very cool. So we're onto number four, another admin?

Eric: No, well kind of, this is-

David: Could be, right?

Eric: This is an inside sales agent now.

David: Okay.

Eric: This is somebody who is setting appointments. This is somebody who is being the catalyst because the admin team should be taking care of itself, right? This is a leadership game David, that's why my first book was a leadership book before a real estate book is because we had to get-

David: I love that.

Eric: We had to get the hearts before the head. And people, you know, logic makes people think but emotion makes people act, and so we got to have leadership in everything that we do. And so with that, we're going to have an inside sales agents is what we call them. This is somebody who is fielding all the calls, they're generating new business for us because I am in high, high, high production. My partner and I, and maybe it's even two partners or three partners and I. One of my coaching clients has four partners right now, dudes going to make one and a half million dollars this year just with his micro team, just with his own production because his numbers are stupid, his opportunities are robust and he's just adding what is a proven model and I don't know of many people that have a small team with not a lot of leadership responsibility that comes with it that are making seven figures. It really doesn't happen, you have to either have your own production as a mass producing dollar income producing thing or you have to have a ton of people and you're going to get a little from a lot of people.

David: Yup.

Eric: And I actually think you can have both because you start with this micro team, this inside sales agent is setting appointments for you and you're showing partner and almost immediately that is going to create a demand for your next hire, your fifth higher and that is either another partner or more agents in your ecosystem that are not on your micro team. This micro team always stays the same. My production I shouldn't have given away back in 2014 David. I should have kept it and I should have had somebody run that. I should have had somebody close to my chest because great talent is looking for two things. Number one, they're looking for proximity. They want to be close to the power source, close to the influencer, close to the decision maker, and they want to feel important. And so my greatest talent, I keep close to my chest. There's a book written by Mike Michalowicz who's known for writing 'Profit First' which is probably his most popular book, but he wrote something called 'The Pumpkin Plan'.

David: I love 'The Pumpkin Plan', Mike Malachowitz or something like that.

Eric: Mike Michalowicz, yup.

David: Michalowicz, yes yes yes.

Eric: And in the pumpkin plan, he writes it on focusing on the seven steps that these pumpkin farmers take to grow these world-class blue ribbon winning pumpkins, but he writes it as a client book like here's how you tend to your big clients and make sure that they always feel important. I read it as a leadership book.

David: I did too.

Eric: That I need to give all of my time and attention to my top people. And so great talent wants proximity with the power source and in my ecosystem, I'm the power source. And so if I want great talents, I need to have them close to my chest. And the second thing that they need outside of proximity is they need customization. The mistake that we make is that we offer our team members a one-size-fits-all, here's the path, take it or leave it kind of option. And what's better is David, if you were in my world and you were my partner and I saw that you were talent with a capital T, I would say to you David what life do you want? I want to build a runway to help you get there. I want to give you a customized plan to have your dreams come true. I work for you David, how am I going to help you achieve a big life? Because I want that to be in my world because when you win, I win, when I win, you win, and I need to make sure that we keep insane talents around with proximity and customization. And so with this micro team, this foundational piece for real estate, I need to have somebody who is now navigating and negotiating all of my contracts. I no longer am the guy that's the doctor, I own the friggin hospital.

David: Yup.

Eric: Okay?

David: I love that. Yes.

Eric: And so in there, I now have raised up a doctor who is great at surgery, great at navigating and negotiating, and my job is to call my clients and treat them like big pumpkins. My job is to relationship the hell out of them and let them feel heard, seen, valued, because I need them to come back to me and I need my doctor to stay with me. And so my job is to then become the CRO, that's a Patrick Lencioni term. CRO is a chief relationship officer.

David: I love that.

Eric: I no longer have to do the transactions, I need to be the relationship guy David. I need to be the guy that is pouring into ecosystems of making people feel really good. That's a job, if I get paid seven figures to make people feel good, sign me up all day.

David: I know, who wouldn't want that job man, that's awesome.

Eric: Yeah.

David: Eric, I gotta- I gotta stop you just for a second. You've been throwing out so many gold nuggets here, this is crazy. So I just want to reiterate and repeat a couple things that you just said for the audience here.

Eric: You bet.

David: Great talent's looking for two things. They're looking for proximity and you phrased it, they want to feel important which I love and they want customization and I ag- I love it, I agree. I think those things are so, so important and that is exactly what great talent is looking for. Another thing you said, you may not even realized it, but caught me out of left field, logic makes people think and emotion makes people act. Wow, that is a powerful statement. It's short and sweet, but it is filled-

Eric: It's not- I heard it from somebody else but yeah.

David: That's okay. It is filled-

Eric: Some of the stuff is original but that one I stole.

David: -with cold hard truth, right? I love that. People want to be heard, they want to be seen, they want to be valued and build a business around that, right? Become the CRO, the chief relationship officer. Wow, that is awesome Eric. Thank you for sharing all that. Holy cow. So, you're- so like you know, we're talking about the first, second, third, fourth and fifth, admin, admin, partner, inside sales agent and then either a partner or more agents. When you get to the-

Eric: After that, it's a customized journey based on the talents that you have.

David: That's what I was gonna ask.

Eric: Yeah, it's- I would be foolish to try to say that my talents are the same as yours and that we want the same house, that were building the same thing, but I'm trying to give people the understanding that there are- that there's the foundation of sales.

David: Yup.

Eric: And we need to lean into that foundation with our own micro team. If we want a mega team, that mega team will stay healthy when you have a micro team because that micro team is a profitability center unlike anything else.

David: Okay, so speaking of that. I had a question about this a second ago, it slipped my mind but you just brought it back so thank you. So when you have your micro team and then you- so what do you refer to the rest of the team? If it's- if you have a micro team-

Eric: The mega team.

David: The mega team, I love it.

Eric: Mega team, yup.

David: So is there no overlap there or is there? And where do you draw the line? Because obviously you want your micro team to be working with your personalized relationships that you've built and you don't want to go from 100 to 36 or whatever it was because you're too busy, right?

Eric: Right.

David: So they come in and they help- basically, the way I look at it is they nurture the relationships that you've spent tons of time and money building.

Eric: Absolutely.

David: Right? Don't leave them behind, nurture them. So I guess the question is: is there overlap there? And if so, how?

Eric: Yep, there's a lot of overlap and so, we're all living in the same house, on the same foundation, I just have a master bedroom that I'm living in, you know what I mean?

David: That makes perfect sense.

Eric: And so here would be the four pieces that we're building on top of the sales foundation. These are the four pillars of growing a real estate business.

David: Okay.

Eric: The first pillar is leadership. You have your C-level executives, you have your hiring, an HR department, you have training and development, you have all these things that cater to a leadership pillar. The next is you have a service pillar. These are all of your admin support. So you have your transaction coordinators and you have your bookkeeper and you have all of these front desk people and admin roles and responsibilities that are helping everything with all those minutiae pieces that are no good for people like you and me. The third is the lead generation departments, and that lead generation department is fueling a lot of the sales and there's of course the responsibility that our agents are going to be bringing in their own deals, but there's also the responsibility of the company to set people up for big wins. And so that's a huge- my- to give you perspective David, to run my real estate team, I spend 90 thousand dollars a month in lead generation, you know?

David: Man.

Eric: So I'm spending over a million dollars a year to buy leads and at bats and opportunities for my team. The final pillar is the pillar of marketing, that were marketing and we're advertising people's own, you know, we're giving them client event opportunities, we're helping out on social media and we're helping them to really develop a brand because great talent will want the opportunity to shine, at least the egotistical sales people like you and me. We're going to want our ability to have our own name out there and I'm okay whoever's name is out there cuz I'm more worried about the name on the check than I am the name on the sign.

David: Agreed.

Eric: And so I'm willing to create a customized whatever somebody wants when they've earned it.

David: Yeah.

Eric: And those are the four pillars based on the talent that we have, where people want to go, that we add to and subtract to. So, we're all living under the same ecosystem, the same roof, the same structure. My micro team is relying on all those resources as well, I'm just feeding them more leadership and I'm feeding them more deals and at bats from my own personal production, but my commitment to everybody else is this David, is I'm not taking away anything from you. My job is to help you reach your goals and so I'm going to be invested with those four pillars, I'm going to be invested with my dollars, I'm going to be invested with my time and my job with all my agents is to help them reach their goals.

David: Holy cow guys, four pillars of growing your real estate business: leadership, service, leadgen and marketing, coming from a guy who spends a million dollars a year on marketing. Holy cow.

Eric: That hurts when you say it like that.

David: Hahaha.

Eric: Oh boy.

David: I love it man. I love it. Holy cow, this is crazy. When can I get my hands on this book?

Eric: We are hoping to finish writing it by about Christmas time. It's going to come out sometime end of quarter one 2022.

David: Perfect.

Eric: But we are- we are putting all of our stuff and all these resources are going to be available at hatchcoaching.com.

David: That was my next question, where does-

Eric: And it'll be on hatching leaders and hatchcoaching.com, yep.

David: So, that was my next question. Where would people go to learn more, not only about the new book but about how awesome and handsome you are and about how great, you know, this system is that you're putting together as well. So hatchcoaching.com and then what was the other one you said? Hatching-?

Eric: hatchingleaders.com.

David: Hatching leaders, man what a great name.

Eric: I kinda lucked out like, you have a great last name too, like Dodge is pretty awesome.

David: Yup.

Eric: But dodging leaders is maybe not- hahaha.

David: Yeah, yeah. It's good for certain stuff, right?

Eric: That's right.

David: So hatchcoaching.com and hatchingleaders.com. Those- are those different places or do they go to the same?

Eric: Yeah, they'll point to each other a little bit.

David: Sure, sure.

Eric: But yeah, they're different sites with different purposes.

David: Holy cow. Guys, I know that the majority of us listening to this right now are investors that are new. We do have a lot of agents as well and if you are looking to grow your traditional real estate team, I can tell you hands down there is nobody better in the business. I've known Eric for shoot, 3 and a half years I think at this point give or take, and every time I talk to this guy and meet this guy, I am blown away with how smart and intelligent and just awesome this guy is. Eric, you are the man. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Eric: Thanks David. You do a great job, this is super fun.

David: Oh man, I appreciate- I really really appreciate you. I'm super grateful for your time coming on today and sharing all this wealth of value and knowledge with everybody. And again guys, if you are in the traditional space and you are looking to grow your team, go check out hatchcoaching or hatchleaders.com. Eric, last question for you buddy.

Eric: You bet.

David: What is the best way, other than those two websites there, for people to connect with you? Do you have a preferred social media? Or is there a contact form on one of those sites?

Eric: Yeah. So like, I'm maxed out on friends at Facebook because you know, once you get 5 thousand Facebook fake friends, then they max you out.

David: Right.

Eric: But still follow me because you can get all my content, that's where I'm probably the most active is my Facebook page. So it's Eric with a K, Erik Hatch. Track me down.

David: E-R-I-C-K H-A-T-C-H.

Eric: No, no C, no C, heck no.

David: No C, no C, my bad, my bad.

Eric: E-R-I-K.

David: E-R-I-K H-A-T-C-H.

Eric: That's right.

David: Got it. Awesome. Eric, do you have any parting words for us today? This is an audience of individuals that are mostly new or newish and they are, you know, wanting to get their first deal. The name of the show is discount property investor, we teach people how to buy properties at a discount. What would be the parting words?

Eric: I will tell you this that most of you are trying to play the game where you get your numbers right, when you learn how to connect with people and how you make them feel will make all the difference in the world. I don't care if it's in my business or your business, this is a people game. Emotion will make them act, right.

David: That's it.

Eric: The logic will make them think and so yes you need to know your numbers but you got to make people feel good and if you don't do that, you won't have the opportunities that you deserve.

David: That was a massive gold nugget bomb right there guys. Holy cow. Eric, thank you so much for coming on. Guys don't forget, go visit hatchcoaching.com or hatchingleaders, I love that name, .com to connect with Eric. He has the best program on the planet for growing teams of traditional real estate investors, hands down and not only that, he is just one of the coolest individuals that I have ever met. Eric, thanks again for coming on the show brother.

Eric: Appreciate you double D, much love.

David: Thanks buddy. Signing off.

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