Hiring as you Scale, Embracing Abundance with your Staff, What Business Influencers Get Wrong

Mike DeHaan: [0:00] Think something that's really tricky with small businesses is that like, when you're building out, you know, your initial sort of roles, and like what that person looks like, and what their position would look like, you always kind of are trying to do it. Like most people are trying to do it like that person's going to work with them for years, like they're gonna have a marriage with this person that's very long term. When I think, let's say you and an acquisitions manager, that acquisition manager is probably not going to be the same as if you decide to scale to $50,000 a month in marketing and three different markets. The company now looks completely different.

Dan Austin: [0:37] Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [0:38] And that acquisition manager very likely is not going to fit that piece anymore. What's going on, guys? Welcome to this episode of the Collecting Keys Real Estate Investing Podcast, where I, Mike DeHaan, and my cohost here, Dan Austin, talk about real estate investing business and whatever else we feel like that week. I wanna know who the sick person was that bought 11 BDE shirts on the Kleppinki store. That's the real

Dan Austin: [1:11] One person paid for 11?

Mike DeHaan: [1:13] Yeah. I mean, it might have been me and it might have been me sending me up to one of our friends.

Dan Austin: [1:19] Oh, wait. So is that the is that the dump that you you paid?

Mike DeHaan: [1:22] Yeah. But Yeah. Was. Yeah. That huge

Dan Austin: [1:24] I was like, that is not okay. Like, you should not be buying 11 BDE shirts.

Mike DeHaan: [1:29] No. No. No. I just thought it was super funny, though, because as I as I was going through, like, all our sales, I was like, and there was this one, like, huge order, and I forgot that I ordered it. And I was like, someone bought 12 shirts, like, what the hell? And then I remembered it was it was it's got my

Dan Austin: [1:43] face on it. Why? And I figured they would,

Mike DeHaan: [1:45] it was be sending it to Aaron. But we've been selling some shirts, though, man. So we kind of cool. Just like what so whoever you sickos out there that are buying collecting key shirts. I mean, listening to these fucking sellouts. Yeah, Dan. Yeah, right. You make $3 a shirt bastards. No. But no, it's been it's been cool to sort of get that process up and going. And I'm excited to sort of, I don't know, expand that out. For sure. The day that we are somewhere and I see someone wearing a collecting t shirt, will be the day that I think we've officially made it. That's my goal now is to be somewhere random.

Dan Austin: [2:21] Do you just wanna come over to my house? I can show you my neighbor has one. Yeah. Can tell him to put it on.

Mike DeHaan: [2:26] No. I wanna go to like an event or to like a airport or like somewhere random and have someone wearing collecting t shirt. And if that ever happens Yeah. My life will be done. Like I'll That'll be complete? Be complete.

Dan Austin: [2:41] That is the yeah. It'll happen, trust me. It's gonna happen just because we've sent so many out to so many or people to random people. I mean, there's probably a 100 people total out there rocking these shirts.

Mike DeHaan: [2:49] I think we've sent literally tens of shirts to people. Tens of shirts? So the odds are pretty slim. They're all people that we know, so it's not gonna be like a random or like more people. We did the little campaign for a while where people sent us five star reviews. We sent them a shirt. So we have a bunch of those that went out.

Dan Austin: [3:06] Did you at least send our guy I can't remember his name now off the top of my head that got the tattoos. You at least send him a T shirt?

Mike DeHaan: [3:11] He didn't ask for one.

Dan Austin: [3:12] Oh. He's got the tattoo.

Mike DeHaan: [3:14] He's already got the tattoo.

Dan Austin: [3:15] Bucks for that.

Mike DeHaan: [3:16] So that is true. But yeah, man. No. It's it's it's been cool to see that going. And then, man, we had such a crazy week last week. I don't know how many times this sort of scenario I was like, it's like cadence of the business has happened since we started doing this thing, you know, the years ago where feel like it's kinda just like, not too crazy, business as usual, kinda slow. And then seemingly out of the blue stuff just goes insane. And like most random twenty four to forty eight hour period where I had no idea it was gonna take off. But, you know, if it's been yeah. So business as usual, and then what did we get? Seven signed around on Friday, and we had several more signed around over the weekend. All of a sudden, we're sitting on Yeah. Yeah. Like, 10 contracts in we've got three days.

Dan Austin: [4:04] There are new sales guy did he set a record for getting his first contract? How many days was that? Oh, for getting his first contract?

Mike DeHaan: [4:11] Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [4:12] Yeah. It's like getting because I think he what did he start a week ago or was it two weeks ago?

Mike DeHaan: [4:16] We have one that's about yeah. He started beginning of the month. So he got one signed around. I guess, technically, that might be a record if you get one in the first two weeks. Yeah. But then we had our other new sales guys been with us for what, two months, set a record for most in one day. So he got what seven on Friday. Yeah. Most we'd ever had as a business before that was five. And he said he did seven just by himself.

Dan Austin: [4:39] So That's pretty impressive. Plus several more over

Mike DeHaan: [4:41] the weekends. He's doing pretty well.

Dan Austin: [4:43] Exactly. I was like, dude, stop. Like, I was busy on Saturday, and I was like, stop. Slow down dude.

Mike DeHaan: [4:49] I know, that one I was thinking too is we both have like family stuff going on, know my parents are in town.

Dan Austin: [4:54] He's out there crushing it.

Mike DeHaan: [4:55] Yeah, you're stuffing with your in laws and it's just like oh. And they're like hitting me up, call me like, hey, we need to like get this stuff sent out. So I'm like, Like, I'm trying lunch with my parents. Yeah. They're down just for the weekend.

Dan Austin: [5:08] Just bust out your laptop right there.

Mike DeHaan: [5:10] Yeah. Yeah. Right. No. It's out that's all stuff's always a good test, and actually really like where we're at. And this is something that we've been focusing on with our business coach, with other stuff too, of building that bigger vision of the business. Mhmm. And getting people bought into the long term view, because I found that when you do that, you have more engagement with your staff in regards to actually optimizing your processes and making things better.

Dan Austin: [5:38] Right.

Mike DeHaan: [5:38] Versus like, if someone feels like they're just filling a role, they have no long term incentive to help you make things better. Something kinda sucks or is kinda clunky. There's like, well, that's just the way it is. Versus if you say to them, like, hey, look, this is where we're at. This is what we're trying to get. This is our vision for the business and what that looks like for you. They're like, hell yeah. I wanna help you make this better, say, well, I'll make my job better over the long term because I have a long term vision about working here. Right?

Dan Austin: [6:05] Yeah. It's pretty sweet to watch folks in our company just like making things better too by themselves. I know. Just getting to see the work they're doing is like, damn, that is way better than I thought.

Mike DeHaan: [6:14] Yeah. And

Dan Austin: [6:14] Way better. It's like, I like the analogy I've learned a while ago. It's like, here's a rock. They were like, I want you to find me a rock. I don't know what it looks like, but I'll tell you when you bring it to me if it's the right rock or not. And it's like, man, they're going out and they're bringing rocks that I didn't even know existed.

Mike DeHaan: [6:27] I know. Well, and this is the first time we've experienced that as business owners, and I think, like I said, a big part of that is sort of having that longer term vision, and sort of leading from that spot of like a, I don't know, driving the ship. Right? And I think this is somewhere that a lot of, especially wholesalers and like small time investment companies get stuck, is they're so involved in their own business. They're trying to have so many their fingers on everything. Right? That they never even give the opportunity for that to happen. Sure. We talked to so many people, you know, in the instant investor program and other groups we're in, and they're always trying to figure out how can I make it so that my my sales team, my internal team, so that they don't mess up anything and everything is, like, perfect all the time? And ultimately, what happens is you build out all these systems, you get all the structure in place. First chance they can, they find the, you know, like, the one off, like, side case or whatever. You know what I'm saying? Like, the, like, the exception to the rule, and it throws off everything versus if you give them, like, the guide rails to sort of, like, stay on track, and then all of the exceptions that come through, you're like, how should we do this so that it can be easier for you? And they say, oh, well, let's just do it this way. I'm like, perfect.

Mike DeHaan: [7:43] That's the new process. Instead of you trying to figure out all the edge cases all the time.

Dan Austin: [7:48] Yeah. Don't waste your time filling it, or finding edge cases, and it's challenging. Like, what you just said is easier said than done. Totally. Especially for some people who want control, that's really hard for them to let control, and then the other people that don't wanna think about it, then the opposite of that is is the people don't know really what the expectations are. Like, they have no idea what the NCDMA needs to look like, so they can't improve it. But if you can find that strike that good balance of like, I'm not gonna waste my time trying to tell you exactly how to do your job because it's not probably the best way to do it, and it's not the best way for you or that you will find. So here's the end state goal. This is really what we're trying to do and share that vision with that, and then have them come back and develop what they need to to make it a better process or to make a process in general. That's the fine balance you gotta walk.

Mike DeHaan: [8:31] Exactly. And then, you know, you document it. You know, you put it somewhere where all the new people that come in after them can just pick up that same thing. And next thing you know, do that over a couple years, and it builds a system. And I will say too, I think that that's really challenging for people because most people scale, especially when you're new in this business, when you have small scale, it's expensive to make mistakes. And this is also, I think, one of the things about small business that a lot of people don't talk about is you don't have a whole lot of room for air. And in a real estate related business, where it is an expensive business to run between the marketing, but then also the money you have to put into the projects. And not only that, but it is the return. Right? Like, what was the term for it? Like, when the gap between when you spend the money, when you get paid? There's a business term for that. You have an MBA? You must have something.

Dan Austin: [9:20] The gap, I don't know, if you're on net 30 or net 60 or

Mike DeHaan: [9:23] whatever you're saying. Well, like the payment cycle, right? Takes a long time, but when the marketing goes out to when you get paid, whether it's an assignment fee, you know, a flip house, all that sort of stuff. So it's a hard business to run-in. If you're a small business, like, you're, you know, only spending 5 to $8,000 a month on marketing, getting in full of leads, if you have an acquisition manager that comes in and screws up a deal, that could, like, sink your whole business.

Dan Austin: [9:46] Yeah. Yeah. The timing of those funds, the the timing of the revenue is highly important when you don't have when you don't have deep coffers to hold onto to make that mistake.

Mike DeHaan: [9:55] Yeah.

Dan Austin: [9:55] That's absolutely super challenging. And on top of that, like, when you're trying to like, actually, I'll step back. There's a balance here too when you're a new person and you're in this business because one thing I think about and I try to coach people on is, you're right, Mike. You can't make mistakes, but you also can't be, like, lazy or wait for things to come in. Unless you have more money. Right? I would just spend more money. Right? Eventually, if you keep getting better and you spend more money on marketing, you'll get more deals, and that one you lost won't be a big deal. Your ROI on spend is gonna go down because you're paying for your mistakes. But in in return to that, if you don't have the money, but you have the time, you've gotta do the hustle part of it. Uh-huh. You have to pick up new lead sources, and you have to find ways to extract every little bit of dollars. So if you're like, hey. I've only got, like, $3 a month to spend on, like, marketing. Perfect. That's fine. Do that. But if you're new and you're just starting out and you don't have a shit ton of leads to follow-up with, what are you doing in your other time? What are you doing in your spare time? You have that extra time to make up for the lack there of opportunity because you're new Yeah. Or young or small.

Mike DeHaan: [10:58] Yeah. And that's where the hustle comes in. And and I'll say what most people do spend that time on is probably not what they should be spending their time on. Right. Like a lot of people, they spend that time on, you know

Dan Austin: [11:07] Designing their logo.

Mike DeHaan: [11:08] Yeah. Designing their logo. You know, watching YouTube videos about real estate or, like, these different creative

Dan Austin: [11:14] Trying to dial in their script.

Mike DeHaan: [11:16] Yeah. Their scripts. They're, you know, trying to figure out different creative financing tactics. I'm gonna watch the seventeenth video on subject to financing just to make sure there is, you know, something else that I'm not missing. Right. When realistically, what you should be doing is finding every way possible to get more opportunities, more shots at goals. So, yeah, like you said, more marketing, looking at cold calling, looking at building an SMS system, analyzing your data, making connections with other wholesalers. Yeah. No. We're

Dan Austin: [11:43] to see. We're on the same page.

Mike DeHaan: [11:44] We are. We're oh, we're in two syncs. But, you know, connecting with our wholesalers or realtors, finding money, talking to lenders, things like that. But those are all things that take, you know, kinda effort that most people don't like.

Dan Austin: [11:56] They do take effort. And and I mean, it's important. And from a lead source standpoint, you never know when your next lead is gonna come in. So go out and get all the free lead sources you can because, like, you can go talk to lenders, you can go talk to probate attorneys, you can talk to all sorts of people out there that will help you within your system, and that you're just networking anyways. Right? You might need a probate attorney in the future, but if you look at that probate attorney, not only as a person you might need in the future when you're doing a deal, or just a person to learn from, it they might actually turn into a lead source. And same goes for anybody in your network, whether it's other wholesalers or whatnot. It's like that networking piece. I can't stress that enough because that's free, and it is valuable, and they can become a lead source.

Mike DeHaan: [12:34] Yeah. I mean, absolutely. And we know people that have built whole businesses off that. Right? Of, like, Jess being the go to person for all the other wholesalers in town. And if you wanna wholesale yourself and you don't wanna actually buy their deals, if you build your own buyers list, you can connect people and you can make money. Mhmm. Like, we've j beats up with people. There's whole companies who build out dispo shops. And if you do that, you can't say you're a wholesale company because you're a liar. I mean, people do it.

Dan Austin: [12:59] I source one deal a month.

Mike DeHaan: [13:00] I mean, there's people that do it and then say that they're the the largest wholesale company in the country, but they're giant liars. They're liars. So, you know, you gotta you gotta source your own deals at some point if you want that title. No. And it's been, yeah, it's been interesting just sort of like going through that process. And especially we've had a lot of staff turnover over the last bit as our business has grown. And this has actually been an interesting thing as well, as I've been thinking about this, and we've had several instant investor people looking at bringing on different acquisition managers and, like, going through that hiring process. I think something that's really tricky with small businesses is that like, when you're building out, you know, your initial sort of roles, and like what that person looks like, and what their position would look like, you always kind of are trying to do it. Like, most people are trying to do it like like that person's going to work with them for years. Like, they're gonna have like a marriage with this person that's very long term. When I think, sure, that happens, but I actually think that going into it with that mindset kind of holds people back from doing what they need to do, which is honestly kind of like filling a c and getting someone that's good enough so that they can grow the other parts of the business. Because realistically, when it's just you, let's say you and an acquisitions manager, that acquisition manager is probably not going to be the same as when you do this. But if you decide to scale to $50,000 a month in marketing, and three different markets, right, the company now looks completely different. And that acquisition manager very likely is not going to fit that piece anymore. So it's like, why are we if you're trying to scale a business, why are you trying to hire someone that's gonna go from, like, basically the beginning to, like, the very end when realistically, that's just not going to be how it works?

Dan Austin: [14:44] Well, they're different employees anyways, and that's okay. So like, for example, a startup employee is different than a sustained employee. So a startup employee, there's people that wanna work for companies that have 10 to 15 employees, and they're kind of jack of all trades. They get to provide value wherever they can. Person them themselves as a person is providing value in many different aspects, and they get they like that. And then you have other people that don't want that, and they wanna be in the the, you know, employee number 1,000 where they can just show up, and they just get to do this punch in, punch out type employee. And you need both of those employees, and you need them both at different times in the trajectory. But I think what you're bringing up to is, like, that traditional advice people give you. One is, like, you and I have had to talk about this and figure this out, is the whole hire slow, fire fast. But when you have nobody to give work to, hiring slow, especially in a tight labor market, is really hard, and so sometimes you need that person to fill a seat, and they might not be, to your point, who you have here in six months or twelve months once you get to your goal, and they they might be I don't wanna use this term because it sounds negative, but like a stepping stone because they're just not that person that you're going to they're not gonna fit your vision, and that's okay.

Dan Austin: [15:55] But you gotta fill somebody in that seat, right? So it's kind of tough when people say that term to me, I'm like, hire slow. I'm like, but who the hell's doing the work?

Mike DeHaan: [16:04] Yeah. See, and that's the thing, is that it's the owner, right? And then they're like, man, I thought I was in the hamster wheel, I'm not able to scale, because you are your own speed bump, right, at that point. Right. It's just interesting, because I realize I mean, as we've gone through this, I've realized how much business advice there's like these one man operators that like, they eat up the business podcast and the books. So much of the business advice out there is not meant for

Dan Austin: [16:26] you. Sure.

Mike DeHaan: [16:27] It's meant for the person that has five years of business experience. They have a personal assistant. They have a sales team. They have, you know, some sort of corporation. They're more established. More established. Right? They have enough runway that they can go in and bring people legitimate wages. Right? They can pay them money, give them bonuses, do all that sort of stuff. They absolutely should hire slow and fire fast. Have an onboarding process, they have HR, have all these sort of things. When it's just you, you don't get that luxury if you want to

Dan Austin: [16:56] the luxury of the hire slow thing,

Mike DeHaan: [16:57] yeah.

Dan Austin: [16:58] Well, and you and I have gone through many iterations of our business, and where we're at now, I'm super excited and proud of all the employees we have. We have people that I feel like fit where we're at Right? Right And they we do and I believe, like, the people we have also can grow in scale. That's, I think, what we both can imagine. But for, like, where we're at, like, we've got, like, solid people. Once you get to that spot, then you start thinking and seeing things a little differently. But I remember, especially when we first started hiring, and the first salespeople we had, it was just a different company, and you and I were in totally different places as well, and our ability to operate a company.

Mike DeHaan: [17:34] Yeah. And I mean, I'll say too, I feel like this is the first time I felt that way with our team, where we have a group of people that are all aligned, that I feel like are all not only aligned with us in the business, but are actually appropriately placed in the roles. Yeah. But it's taken, what, almost three and a half years for us to get to that point now?

Dan Austin: [17:55] Right. That's such a funny thing you said too. Not funny, but good, is appropriately placed in their roles because we've done this, we kinda still do this sometimes with VAs, and I hear a lot of people doing it of like, well, just put them in that role, and then if they don't have enough time filled up, just let them do this other task and this other task, and next thing you know, you have this person who you hire to do one thing, but you're making him do four or five, and it's just really hard to find a person that can do that. It is. There's some people talk about an executive assistant role, and those people, you kinda want them to be really well. It's an important position, right? And they can generally do quite a few different tasks, but I'm talking more like, oh, we're gonna have them do some lead management, maybe some transaction coordination, maybe we'll throw in some cold calling like five hours a week just to fill their time, like, all that sort of stuff. And it always turns into a problem, especially with, like, virtuals if you're if you're dealing that with VAs. We've had that experience. And so having people appropriately placed and giving them the latitude to grow within that role, I think, is super, super important to success for that employee and for the company.

Mike DeHaan: [19:00] It is. Yeah. Well, and it takes some trial and error to get there too. Right? Like, that's one of those great things that I think when it comes to hiring, a lot of business owners, they stress about getting it right the first time because they understand you're taking someone's livelihood kind of under your wing. Right? Giving them a paycheck kind of pay their bills. So everyone wants to have a perk, but that's not how life works. And I guess here's here's some context actually. I'll look

Dan Austin: [19:22] at this. So I just pulled up like

Mike DeHaan: [19:24] our Slack admin. Slack is how we is our kind of our headquarters for our business. We care we have 10 people that work for us right now. 10 active people. We'll have 12 starting next week, so we're gonna have some new rituals. Do you know how many people we have had in Slack over the years?

Dan Austin: [19:42] Your About outside of these 10, maybe 30 other people? 35? Okay.

Mike DeHaan: [19:47] So we've had 52 total members in our Slack. Oh, wow. We have 10 active. So we have had 42 people come through our company who no longer work for us. Between American based people At various levels. Virtual assistants, you know, different things all in there. Right? Some people that, like, have been virtuals that have been in for, like, a couple of weeks or, like, a week. Other people that were with us for years and everything in between. Right? So we have have, you know, had 42 people that have either quit or fired our business. That's actually kind of a lot. Because that's crazy. Right? Honestly, that so if you look at look at the time, that is more than one per month.

Dan Austin: [20:26] Yeah. Yeah. And we and we're at the highest probably capacity of a number of employees as we've ever had right now.

Mike DeHaan: [20:33] So last year, last fall, before when we had our third partner, some other stuff, we were up to, I think what, 15 or 16 people. Really? Because we had a lot of bloat, we had the sales guys that weren't really doing stuff, We had all these VAs that had gotten brought in that were working for the

Dan Austin: [20:50] sales guys we have.

Mike DeHaan: [20:51] We had That we did. You know? So yeah. So we had this other partnership that we were doing that kinda collapsed, and we parted ways and half the team went with them. So we're up to 16 people at that point. But yeah. I mean, so that's a context for people. Right? So even if you drop, what, the five people that he left, we still have 30 something, what, 38, 37 people that have we have personally hired and let go, or have hired

Dan Austin: [21:15] Another and they've fun conversation to have, and maybe not today, but is talking about how you get to that point, and how you hire employees, and how do you financially understand that. Because you and I famously always talk about our first employee, we didn't have enough money to pay them. Mhmm. We're in a totally different spot now. Totally. And I don't know that we'd be taking on those types of employees for the roles we need now in that way, but from what I would still recommend what we did to solopreneurs and those sorts of people, But how we budget, how we look at our positions and our roles, and how we forecast that out, because I think that's super valuable to people. Because everybody's like, well, like, I need that person to grow my business, but I need my revenue to grow before I get that person's like the chicken and egg thing, but I think there's kind of a tactical way that we've figured out how to do it. Yeah. That might be valuable for others.

Mike DeHaan: [22:00] I mean, what is that tactical way?

Dan Austin: [22:03] Throw darts at a dart board, and whichever one gets the highest number, that's what we budget.

Mike DeHaan: [22:06] See, you're kind of joking, but that's honestly what we've done. Which I don't think is the worst way to go about it.

Dan Austin: [22:12] Well, we've had vision, I think is what it is, and we said, well, if we can do this, we should be able to get to that. Uh-huh. And if we have that, then we should be able to support this type of expense budget. Yeah. But there's a whole another conversation too, because this is where other people people get wrapped up around also like pay and like the prop first model, you know, I talked about before, and like these other models of like how you pay yourself and making sure that your business is growing, but you're also able to pay yourself as an owner so it's not all for nothing, because that's really easy to do. It is super

Mike DeHaan: [22:41] easy to do. I think that so I know I've done the vast majority of the hiring, mostly because I connect people. I'm like, cool. You'll do it. I toss them in. Hire fast. No. No. But but real talk though. Yeah. The vast majority of my hiring, it's based 100% off of how I feel when I'm talking to them.

Dan Austin: [23:02] Right.

Mike DeHaan: [23:02] Like, you know, it is totally culture fit, and then you can train the skill set. And, you know, obviously, it hasn't been perfect. We've had 30 something people that have trained through.

Dan Austin: [23:13] Definitely not been perfect.

Mike DeHaan: [23:14] It had definitely hasn't been perfect. But but I do think that going off of that at least makes for a easier transition in and out of the business, and a kind of an easier day to day. Right? As opposed to what most people do, and we hear this all the time, is like, oh, I have this candidate, like, have this fifteen years of sales experience, and most of yourself, and they are going completely off of that, and not versus if they fit the culture of the business at all. If you go and you find that person that has fifteen years of sales experience coming from a big corporate company, and you try to plug them into your two person wholesale operation, that's not gonna do very well.

Dan Austin: [23:49] Yeah. Right? There's a lot to do with that. That's oh, man. I could that's an interesting conversation itself. You're you're really flirting there with that one.

Mike DeHaan: [23:58] Dude, we got we got fifteen minutes. No. No. But seriously, though, I know there there's so many things that people don't understand when they're hiring. And I think I think wholesaling real estate and off market real estate is specifically unique in this manner, because everyone's business is completely different. Yep. And I would argue very heavily that there is no other business out there that has as many ups and downs as a wholesale business, in terms of opportunity, in terms of the processes that you have to have, the edge cases that come up, you know, and just like the emotional craziness. Like, how many of these deals have we had where we are literally one to two days before closing and the thing goes tits up? Happens all the time.

Dan Austin: [24:40] Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [24:41] Right? And like so, like, a lot of people can't deal with that, and but you have to be able to.

Dan Austin: [24:45] Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [24:45] Right? And then we also have deals where they make the same amount of money that the person our sales guy grinds for eight months to get it. K? And that's the same value as the person that calls, send a contract, sign, close two weeks later. Like, how can you possibly train someone for that? Like, is why why are their business even, like, similar to that outside of real estate? I'm

Dan Austin: [25:07] I'm sure.

Mike DeHaan: [25:07] So there's something. Someone someone, please DM me on Instagram and let me know, because I'd be fascinated. I just like it as a case study.

Dan Austin: [25:13] I think there's probably a lot of sales people that are in the ups and downs, but I think within our business it is unique, because you're right, you could have an actual contract, and it just falls through. Yeah. Which is essentially signing a contract with a client if you're selling widgets, right, and they're like, yeah, we're gonna close in the day before you've built the widgets, the widgets are sitting on the truck outside the customer's door, they're like, nah, we're gonna turn that away. Bud Light's figuring that out, I think, right now.

Mike DeHaan: [25:37] Yeah. Brad.

Dan Austin: [25:39] Well, you know, you get what I say there. Yeah. And and I guess the reason why I say, oh, you're kinda flirting here with that one, is this is an interesting topic because I'm in totally in alignment and agree with you, especially when you're talking about small business. But there's this idea that cultural fit is maybe not an inclusive way to hire for your staff. So, you talk about corporate America, that would almost be a negative, a frown, if you're hiring for a cultural fit, because that means that you're just hiring people that are like you.

Mike DeHaan: [26:06] That's fine. That's why I only have 10 people. I don't need to worry about if I'm not woke, I'm going broke. That does not imply that does not And matter in

Dan Austin: [26:13] knew our small it. I love it. I knew you gonna go. So, anyway, but to be actual serious here with this too, is that does matter because when you're in a small group, it's like being on a small boat, you guys gotta have something in common here, and you need to hire you said earlier, you're hiring we're hiring for the roles that we need to fill. You and I are hiring for roles that we're not filling because that's not an alignment for us. Otherwise, we've learned enough that we would not be hiring out things that we are really, really good at at this point.

Mike DeHaan: [26:40] Mhmm. Absolutely. You know

Dan Austin: [26:41] what I mean? Eventually, maybe we would do that. Maybe we would have to hire those roles out, but what we're really good at, we're not trying to hire those out and just give it away. We're getting people that have a fit, and naturally, I think that just is additive to our business, and actually builds it, and makes it just kind of a fun team as well.

Mike DeHaan: [26:57] It does. It makes it a fun team. I mean, because that's the other thing too, is that culture fit when you're a small business, sure it's not inclusive, all those sort of things. Like I said, it's a small boat. It's not like we don't have the departments, right, that are gonna get clicky. There's 10 people, and we're all geographically separated. And realistically, we all spend thirty to forty five minutes a day together because we're a virtual business. Virtual. Yeah. And so it doesn't matter necessarily if we get along personally. Right? There's not gonna be like internal clicks like that. What matters is, do people have the culture fit of the like, they need do to hustle? Do they have the desire to learn? Do they have the understanding that the bitches will have a lot of ups and downs? Right? And that the future over the next three to six months is could be anything. Yeah. Right? It could be three x. It could be zero. Like, honestly, though. Right? And Yeah. They need to

Dan Austin: [27:51] That's the exciting part of it.

Mike DeHaan: [27:52] It is. And they need to have buy into that Because we have a lot of candidates, and especially over this last little bit of hiring I've done, that are coming from these big companies. And this is the other thing too that I hear a lot in different groups is they're like, oh, yeah, I'm bringing on someone that was like a salesperson at some giant company, and used to close a 100,000,000 a year with them. I'm like, what the hell are they gonna do with single family homes for you? Right? Like, they are used to that pipeline. They're not gonna be as comfortable spending time in these crack houses with weird ass irrational people. Mhmm. Yep. So, but that's like the culture fit that I'm kinda talking about.

Dan Austin: [28:27] Absolutely. Yeah, you're 100% right. They have to be they have to have that vision and be ready to go along for the ride. Yeah. So Small business. I mean, it goes for anything. But our business, I think, is somewhat unique, especially on the sales side of things of who you're gonna have. Fortunately, now that I mean, we're a 100 really virtual. Even our sales acquisitions are virtual. We don't even have to walk into crack houses anymore.

Mike DeHaan: [28:47] Yeah. I know. Yeah. We just we just leave it up to all of our our partnership clients for the most part. But yeah. Yeah. They like it, though.

Dan Austin: [28:54] Yeah. They like in the afternoon.

Mike DeHaan: [28:55] Yeah. Yeah. So no. It's just it's just been interesting as we've been going through that, and especially working with some of the instant investor members that we have that are getting to that phase we're looking to hire and talking to just different investors, like, some of the key people that they found or the people they try to work with. It's just really interesting. Like, I how convinced I am that everyone consumes the wrong advice. And more often than not, most people are listening to these different business books, peer review, all those sort of things which are not applicable to what you're trying to do.

Dan Austin: [29:27] And depending on, like, who like, what group you're in, things run rampant. They do. Like, if someone will be like I'm trying to think of a book. Like, GoBundance is a good example of that. Like, where, like, there's a ton of great things about GoBundance, but if, like, one person that's prominent says, like, this book changed my life, everybody's gonna read that book, and then they're you can't go anywhere without somebody talking about that. And so there's a lot of mastermind groups that are the exact same way, and real estate in general. Right? There's there's a handful of like major influencers that everybody knows, and if those people are saying to do things like like here, I just told I told the black guys in my GoPod over at GoBundance, I said one of my goals was to to read some books for self development this year. I got about a month into it, and I was like, guys, I know this is a goal of mine. I hate it. I'm not doing it ever again. Yeah. You know, so, like when people are like, I read 10 books this month, they're like, I don't care. Yeah. I'm not doing it, and I'm not going to follow your subscription to whatever you're preaching because I'm not, I'm just, that's not who I am.

Dan Austin: [30:21] Yeah. But a lot of people generally get caught up in what the norm is within that group that they're following, or those influence that they're following. They have like, I don't know what these books are, but it's just like these teachings, I should say.

Mike DeHaan: [30:34] You're right. And like, it's not always books, but it'll just be podcast topics, things like that. Like, how many people are buying mobile home parks right now? Yeah. Exactly. So many people. How many people were doing that before Brandon Turner started doing it like four years ago? No one. Like, there was like niche people, then he was gonna do that, everyone's like, what? I'm gonna buy mobile home parks. And then they got to the RV park person. Right? And now they're doing that. And then it was midterm rentals. You know, it's funny. We're we're having Sarah Weaver on this podcast. Actually, when this one comes out, she will have just been on, like, the episode before this one, talking about midterm rentals. Those are everywhere because like that started to come up. Everyone's doing freaking creative financing because Pace Morby is putting $100,000 a month into Facebook ads talking about subject to. Right? And so those are the flavors of the month. But it's like you have to actually understand how those things relate to where you're at in your business and how to actually put those into action, otherwise it's all pointless. Right? Yeah. You gotta,

Dan Austin: [31:30] like, actually and it's hard to do, but you actually have to take a stake into what you're like, where you're at, who you are, how that actually applies to you, and be okay with it not applying. Uh-huh. Because like, the point of it applying to you is just so somebody can make a lot of money on that mantra or that saying or whatever that is. And like, So be okay with being different, I guess.

Mike DeHaan: [31:49] And I think too, is if you find people that are like that, like the kind of influencers, coaches, stuff like that, that you vibe with, go and re consume their material. Like, if you're if you're and you like, you vibe with these people, you wanna be lunch with people, go re consume their material when you have some success, and it'll be a completely different perspective, either positive or negative. Right? Sure. So like, BiggerPockets, for example, I go and re consume a lot of that material, stuff that they've posted in past. I'm like, this is actually kinda like shitty advice for people that want wanna do bigger stuff. Right? When I started out, it was great. Now it's now I'm like, looking back, I'm like, you could do better than that. And even David Green even posted something like a month ago. He was like, I don't know anyone that's making money in real estate right now. He's got shredded by all these people that are like, what are you talking about? But, like, kind of the contrary on that is Alex Tremozi. Right? He's a big name. Mhmm. I started listening to his stuff, I don't know, a year and a half ago, when we started trying to scale our business a bit. And I was like, oh, yeah, it's pretty good. I can see how people enter this. He talks super intensely and all these sort things.

Mike DeHaan: [32:49] Great tips about sales. He's recently started posting some of his stuff that came out around the same time that I remember listening to like a year and a half ago. Totally different. Totally different context. This is so freaking good. Like, there is so much applicable stuff, but because we are in a place where our business is more, like, kind to what his was, like, in the in the historical stuff that he's talking about, which is, like, five years earlier for him. Mhmm. But there's so many people who are like, haven't started out yet that are trying to consume that. Right? And take what he's saying and put it into action. You know? That's like if you've never worked out before and being like, I only take workout advice from Arnold. It's like, why? That is a bad thing to do. It just doesn't make any sense.

Dan Austin: [33:32] Yeah. I'm laughing too because that also reminds me of those people you see them, and they go to, I don't know, every month or every couple weeks, they're at some other conference that's like a totally different one than the one they went to last time. I'm like, how do you consume all this? You can't do all of that. I know. All doesn't, like, help you. Like, what's going on? And so you you're just oh, it's like, just because it's there doesn't mean you need to consume it. That's kinda my point of view.

Mike DeHaan: [33:55] Well, they're like the education junkies. There's like the conference people that go to every conference. And we know a lot of people that are like this too. They're like, oh, I go to the best ever conference. I go to BP conference. I go to the cell storage conference, the mobile home park, whatever. I'm just like, yeah, but what are you actually investing in? Like, I'm still trying to figure it out. I'm like four years in.

Dan Austin: [34:18] I know. I know. Yeah. It would be one thing if they're all the same. I'm thinking that

Mike DeHaan: [34:21] I know.

Dan Austin: [34:22] But they like because you're networking with the same people, but they're not. Like, they're going to just random things that don't build on each other at all. It's like that is I don't know. It's just not my thing.

Mike DeHaan: [34:30] Yeah. Yeah. It's it's interesting. I think it's like the big takeaway from a lot of this stuff is, you know, in this conversation that we've had I don't know if there is a takeaway. I'm just kidding. I have a takeaway, bring it full circle. Yeah. If you're a small business, right, don't try to make your business exactly like the people who have larger businesses than you.

Dan Austin: [34:52] Don't square peg.

Mike DeHaan: [34:53] Don't don't don't square peg in your round hole, as Dan would say.

Dan Austin: [34:59] I've come into a realization that I say a lot of things wrong. Yeah. Like, when you were telling me the whole keep it simple, stupid is not the right way, I was like I was like, holy shit. That's right. It's not the right way. I'm not an intelligent person. I just there's some sayings that I do sound quite unintelligent. The square pegging, yeah, that. Yeah. I've got a so if you guys hear me say anything, you're like, that is not right, hit me up. I wanna I wanna know. Yeah. I'll have a

Mike DeHaan: [35:25] good laugh. Yeah. That square pegging on last that was funny. Several people brought that up. People thought that was funny. But yeah. But seriously though, like that that we need to make that their shirt now. Because the psych tabs come up and it's equally as applicable as don't square peg. In fact, that's the shirt Don't right be a square peg. How about that? So but and then but then vice versa too. If you're scaling your business, don't try to do the same thing that you did when you're brand new. Because that's another area people get stuck as well. We that's something that I think we've been dealing with more so recently.

Dan Austin: [35:52] Mhmm. Yep. You gotta adapt. And and you have to continue to share that vision with your staff as you grow too, and recognize that some of them aren't going to be adaptable. And then that's okay. It's their career too. Let them make those choices.

Mike DeHaan: [36:04] Yeah. And just one thing to add on that. So many people I've found are, especially when they're small, they are afraid of sharing their vision with their staff because they don't want their staff to know how much money they make. They don't want their staff to steal their system to go start their own business. And they kind of have this disparity mindset around what they're doing. Don't be that way. It doesn't freaking matter.

Dan Austin: [36:27] Yeah. If you're really worried about your I mean, okay. For let's okay. At our level, like, if you're really like, if there's, like, a patent out there, I guess, but, like, that is, like, really key, maybe you're a drug company and you're selling, like, Paxlovid or something for, like, COVID related Whatever that commercial is

Mike DeHaan: [36:45] Oh my god.

Dan Austin: [36:46] Then you got a problem. But, like, even like, I'm not a fanboy. Okay. I am a little fanboy, but even Elon Musk says like he's open sourced all this stuff because he's like, go ahead. Like, what are you gonna I'm still gonna do it better. Uh-huh. Right? So within your business, like, who cares if they steal your IP for your wholesale business? Someone else is probably already doing it anyways. Let them steal it. Yeah. Just do better. Like, that should be your plan anyways. Absolutely. And an employee taking your stuff, or an employee understanding how much you make as a company is what's going to hurt your business, and maybe, a, you got the wrong employee, or b, you got the

Mike DeHaan: [37:15] wrong company. Absolutely. You know, and people always ask, it's funny, people have like legitimately asked this with our partnership program that we do. So because I haven't heard about our partnership program, we essentially stand up wholesale businesses in people's markets, and we run the entire system for them for a monthly fee and a small part of the deals. But we actually, you know, basically run the roots of it. Right? I've had so many people be like, aren't you worried that you're gonna stand it up, and they're gonna take it and go start their own company there? I'm like, great.

Dan Austin: [37:42] Yes. Good

Mike DeHaan: [37:43] for them. I already know what's probably gonna happen is they're gonna come in, they're gonna see what our sales guys are doing, they're gonna see all the marketing stuff that goes out, all the processing, and be like, I don't wanna manage that. I'll just pay these guys to do it. Yep. And if they decide they do wanna stand it up, like, take what we taught them and just go run with

Dan Austin: [37:58] it Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [37:58] Cool. I just helped make someone's life better.

Dan Austin: [38:00] Right.

Mike DeHaan: [38:01] Perfectly okay with that.

Dan Austin: [38:02] Yeah. Absolutely. There's a whole lot of other markets we can do, and we'll be their competition if they want. Totally. You know what I mean? We'll find another client in that market, and we know that we've done it at such scale that we know we can do it better. It's like, I'm not worried about that.

Mike DeHaan: [38:15] Yeah, absolutely. So it's interesting, but I think it's that, like the challenges of scaling a business, as we start to get more and more scale ourselves, you can see why it's hard to go from, like, like, I would say, like, that good to great. Yeah. How that's, like, such a huge stepping stone. Right? Because there's so many things to overcome, and a lot of it just revolves around education and people's own comfort levels. And I think the challenging thing is you can't actually, like, learn it from studying. You have to just learn by doing it and making mistakes, and most

Dan Austin: [38:49] people aren't willing to do that. Absolutely. Yeah. And we'll we'll circle back in a year from now and let you know where we're at on this. As we as we've grown to another level, as we step functioned up to whatever level we are there, we can look back and say, well, yeah, here's the changes we had to make.

Mike DeHaan: [39:02] Yeah. Exactly. I'll circle back in a year when this completely evolved, and we're no longer collecting keys, but we're like Mike and Dan interviewing Steve Buscemi, or some other random ass celebrity for no freaking reason. Topical, just, yeah.

Dan Austin: [39:13] No, that's not what it is. It's going to be some version of AI, like a ChatGBT thing, where we, you and I, have just taken a few photos of ourselves, and we just tell ChatGBT to create a conversation between me and you based on all of our old conversations, and then it'll just be us talking. But it won't be us. It'll be AI.

Mike DeHaan: [39:32] That's that's actually crazy. Is that possible with AI?

Dan Austin: [39:34] I'm trying imagine it is. They can already do it. They can obviously do the they you know they know how to do, if they take a video of you, right, they can obviously read AI can recreate you talking. That way, know how to the deep fakes, all that stuff is possible. And then you could literally tell ChadGPT to do anything. And I say Chad GPT. There's like tons of these GPTs, and there's other things. That's just one module. But, yeah, they can they can do a lot of cool stuff.

Mike DeHaan: [39:58] I wanted someone to put something together really random. I want, like, Venus Williams talking to Andy Dick about Yeah. Like, do doing an like, a impromptu what are they called, like the the plays, or they don't like have a script. You know what I'm talking about?

Dan Austin: [40:23] Oh, yeah. What are you what are you talking about? I know you're talking about. Improv do. Improv.

Mike DeHaan: [40:27] Yeah. Want Andy Dick and Serena Williams doing an improv sketch about firefighters.

Dan Austin: [40:33] That's what I want. That is super random. Won't work. Get it out there.

Mike DeHaan: [40:37] You do that, AI can't do it. I guarantee it. There's no way. Impossible.

Dan Austin: [40:41] You don't think you can make that skit? Like, conversation?

Mike DeHaan: [40:44] No. I want the voices. I want the voices. Oh, well, yeah. It get the voices

Dan Austin: [40:48] and the audios or the video is easy.

Mike DeHaan: [40:51] Was it? See, see. The reason I think that's tricky is because Andy Dixon have a lot. Venus Williams isn't. But most of her sound is her playing tennis, so we all know what female's tennis sounds like, so it'll be great. No. It's supposed to be that was true. God. Damn.

Dan Austin: [41:06] Yeah. That is gonna be a weird conversation. Just random screams in there.

Mike DeHaan: [41:10] Alright. We're getting stupid. Alright guys, well thanks for listening. If you can make that AI for me, you'll be my favorite person ever.

Dan Austin: [41:19] Don't say you're gonna give a thousand bucks unless you're rolling one because we found out that I

Mike DeHaan: [41:24] already made my big bet and someone did it in twenty four hours, so I'm not doing that again.

Dan Austin: [41:28] Yeah, exactly.

Mike DeHaan: [41:29] But anyways guys, thanks for listening. If you have any questions about hiring, or building teams, or scaling, you should hit us up. I'm at Mike underscore Invest on Instagram, Dan is at InvestorMan, Dan. I would say of all the topics right now, that's the kind of stuff I talk about. People hit me up about like marketing and these things all the time. I'm happy to chat about it, but like that's not interesting to me. If you wanna talk about actually like the business side of it, I'll chat your ear off. So you can you can hit us

Dan Austin: [41:55] both on Instagram with that.

Mike DeHaan: [41:56] Besides that, please share this with your friends, anyone who has interest in business real estate, or listening to Dan make jokes about square pegging. This could be for you or for your friends. And go to store.collectingkeyspodcast.com and buy yourself some collecting keys merch. Shirts are pretty sweet. I actually just added a couple new colors up there too. So if you've been looking, they didn't like any color, you should go check them out. But right now, guys, thanks for listening. We'll talk to y'all next week.

Dan Austin: [42:22] See y'all.