Need Vs. Want: Should You REALLY Hire an Acquisitions Manager?

Mike DeHaan: [0:02] On Air Brands.

Speaker 2: [0:07] Welcome to the collecting keys real estate investing podcast with your host, Mike DeHaan and Dan Austin. From wins, losses, horror stories, and tactics for optimizing your business, Mike and Dan take a real uncensored deep dive into the ins and outs of running a full time real estate investment and wholesaling business.

Mike DeHaan: [0:31] Alright, everybody. Welcome to episode 28 of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast. Twenty eight weeks

Dan Austin: [0:39] of listening to these jokers.

Mike DeHaan: [0:42] I mean, it's a long time. You think about it, it's when I got a thing the other day, and it was like, congratulations. Your podcast is six months old. And I was like, that sounds even longer than twenty eight weeks. Right. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [0:52] And then it's like when you have kids, you know, people, count in months. Like, how old is your kid? It's like, 36. It's like, no. Come on now. Like, when you graduate to saying years, you've been in Pittsburgh.

Mike DeHaan: [1:01] What what what was that movie? There was that movie with I forgot the the fat comedian. He's always in, like, UFC. He's in, like, in the in UFC stuff. He was, Paul Blart. You know that that actor? Oh, yeah.

Dan Austin: [1:14] Yeah. Yeah. Kevin Kevin James.

Mike DeHaan: [1:15] Is that Kevin James? Yeah. Paul Blart mock up. Yeah. Well, oh, no. There's a different movie he's in where his his wife's, like, breastfeeding their kids, and the and the kid's, like, big, like Like, five. Yeah. He's, like, five. Yeah. And and they're like he's like, oh, how old's your kid? He says, like, oh, 60 or something. Oh, god.

Dan Austin: [1:34] Yeah. It gets a little weird. It definitely gets a little odd. I mean, more power to you, I guess. But, come on.

Mike DeHaan: [1:40] I know. It's funny. But just the way people frame that. But,

Dan Austin: [1:43] yeah, we We're gonna have to have, like, a celebration episode. Like, what are we we're have, like, a fan a fan giveaway. Is that what you do when you get to, like, I don't know, a 100?

Mike DeHaan: [1:52] A 100. Yeah. Maybe. Like a Yeah. Some sort of so, like

Dan Austin: [1:57] Did you I did you did you ever listen that drinking bros podcast? Yeah. Some of their, like, milestone podcasts were ridiculous.

Mike DeHaan: [2:05] Were they? Oh, they would just do, like, insane stuff?

Dan Austin: [2:08] Yeah. Like, I I you know what? Maybe well, I can't remember what episode it was, but they had two guests live for three hours Oh my god. Doing things, a male and a female while they watched and commentated. I'm gonna try to keep it as PC as possible. I don't wanna do that, but I was like, that is ridiculous.

Mike DeHaan: [2:27] I think that's outside the zone of this show, Dan. It's probably

Dan Austin: [2:31] Yeah. We shouldn't go that.

Mike DeHaan: [2:32] We let's not do that. As a as a as a business, an entrepreneur focused podcast, I don't think that's a good fit.

Dan Austin: [2:38] I I was more thinking, like, we should bring, like, a guest on that's been listening. Maybe they join the instant investor program after listening, bring them on and interview them, see how they're doing or something like that.

Mike DeHaan: [2:46] Yeah. I I was actually thinking about that. We should have an interview at some point. Don't want this to be an interview focused show, but I I do think that there are some people that have good insight, especially in the weeds, so I have people that are, you know, actually running businesses like this, which are shockingly few and far between, but they always have a different perspective on things because there's no right way to run this business at all. Yep. And, you know, everyone sort of comes at it from a different way. Not necessarily like, I guess probably because of that's you know, people think about it differently, but also too, honestly, you kinda have to try different things to find what's gonna make you successful.

Dan Austin: [3:24] Yeah. I always like to say, like, there's no wrong way, but there's definitely a right way. It's there. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, like, because if you're not gonna be if you're not successful, you're, you know, you're not doing it the right way, but there's so many different ways you can cut the pie Mhmm. That works for you. Kinda like you and I have adapted, but we think is a pretty great system, especially for our lifestyles and what we're doing and our skill sets, and how we've built our business with our employees and all that sort of stuff. Like, that's for us, and it works great. And we have other peers that are very similar to us, but they had to adapt it slightly differently.

Mike DeHaan: [3:57] Mhmm. Yeah. And I I think you're right. The the base process is very much the same, but it's kind of how you get there that varies a lot. You know? And it and it can look super different whether that's by marketing style, by team style, by, you know, your office structure, by what, you know, your day to day business processes look like. You know, there's you can kinda copy people's road maps and get you to point in the right direction. But if you're gonna have sustained success, you'll have to find what works for you at the end of the day. And what, you know, helps you give, like, that 1% competitive advantage over other people that are doing the exact same thing because that 1% over an extended period of time is what gets a lot of their results. You know? But, like, even looking at our our setup, you know, we have a relatively small team. We don't have a ton of overhead or completely virtual business versus I know so many companies, see, over Instagram, these sort of things, like, even our competitors here, they, like, have their offices and they, like, have the secretary at the door. They have people that, you know, have to come in there every day and report and do all these things. And, you know, some of them, they'll even be like, oh, we have, like, ping pong cables. We have pinball machines for, like, a startup.

Mike DeHaan: [5:03] Whatever. And you're like, it's a real estate company, bro. Like, we don't have any of that, but we do just as much business as as a lot of those groups, if not more.

Dan Austin: [5:13] Yeah. I again, there's, like, not not necessarily a wrong way to do it, but, like, we've been able to kind of push and gut it out because we're so lean and we've ran so lean. And it doesn't mean that, like like, being lean is the right way to do it, but that's the way we did it. And running lean gives you so much more overhead space so that you can try different types of marketing. You can try different types of business so that you can fine tune to get to where you're at. If you're like, oh, I needed to match this, and I need all these people. Now we gotta rent an office space. Even if your office space is $400, thousand bucks, whatever, like, that's more marketing money that you could be spending. And then when you look at your staffing, like, where who are you hiring for something? Is this something that could be done by a VA for $200 a week? If so, like, do it. Don't go hire somebody you're gonna pay $2,000 a week to do it poorly, mind you, compared to a VA who's gonna work his ass off.

Mike DeHaan: [6:04] Mhmm. Yeah. Well, then yeah. For sure. Then I'll like, besides the, like, those little nuances. Right? Like, a lot of the overhead people pick up. It's kinda just overhead for the sake of overhead, which a, allows you doesn't allow you to take as much profit as a business, and b, doesn't allow you to pay your staff as much. You know? And I think this is something where traditional people tend to overlook the the current situation of just like the world. You know? COVID's wrapping up, all these sort of things. All these businesses are like, oh, time to come back to the office. And, you know, they start having these ways, these, like, perks, right, at the office. Like, you know, know, they have recreational activities. We have taco day again or whatever those BS people do.

Dan Austin: [6:45] And Food truck in the parking lot.

Mike DeHaan: [6:47] Yeah. But, honestly, workers don't want that shit anymore, man. Right. Know? Like, what workers want is they want flexibility, and they wanna make money.

Dan Austin: [6:54] Yeah. You know? And I think workers utilize those resources, so to speak, because they're there, and they're like, well, I guess I'll use them. But in the absence of being there, they would not care.

Mike DeHaan: [7:07] Yeah. I mean, I would be interested to see a poll of if you had if you went to some of these companies I know and I know some people like going to the office. That's fine. But I think for the most part, if you go to a lot of these companies and you're like, hey. Would you rather have this office that has taco truck Tuesday and a ping pong table and a nap pod and all this sort of BS, or would you rather make an extra $4,000 a month because we don't have all this additional overhead that we need to cover? I bet you that the vast majority of employees would rather make that extra money.

Dan Austin: [7:38] Yeah. They're like, I'll buy my own ping pong table.

Mike DeHaan: [7:40] Yeah. Right? With that extra money I'm gonna make every month.

Dan Austin: [7:43] I think companies get it wrong too. Like, when you especially when you think about, like, let's step up to, like, the corporate, like, the larger the companies that we see, not necessarily a small real estate business like ours, but, like, their biggest hang up about post COVID is, like, we gotta bring people back because we need to build our culture and make sure that's good. It's like, yeah. But once you get to a certain level of employees, and it's not very big, it's maybe, like, 50 to a 100, you already have a culture that you can't necessarily control. Like, you can you can get them to to to scream the mantra of your business, but, like, there's microcultures within your company. Right? There's factions of people that some people are, like, the fanboys, some are, like, dissenters. Like, that's just gonna naturally happen.

Mike DeHaan: [8:23] Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [8:23] And, like, have it like, you do not need people to be next standing next to each other to build a culture. I think about, like, our relationship, like, and I met in college, and, like, you went off, did your thing, I went off, did my thing, and we've kind of remained pretty virtual as a relationship for the last years, I think, or more. And you now live, I don't know, like, five minutes from me.

Mike DeHaan: [8:48] So we

Dan Austin: [8:48] spend way more time on Zoom, and we still had to, like, foster relationship. Now, yeah, we would visit each other when we were in different cities and still did that sort of stuff, but it wasn't like we saw each other every day. And in fact, we might not even like each other if we saw each other every day.

Mike DeHaan: [9:01] Right. Mean But we

Dan Austin: [9:02] talked to each other hours every single day.

Mike DeHaan: [9:05] Yeah. I think that I think that's a super valid point. Right? Might not like each other if we hung out Yeah. Every day. Right. Our our wives definitely wouldn't like that because you'd have to one of them would have to listen to us just talk to work constantly constantly. Yeah. Exactly.

Dan Austin: [9:17] But it's like we still have, like, a we still have, like, hobbies in common. We have things in life in common. We know lots about each other, but we didn't have to do that in person and be there in the office. Mhmm. Now there is something to be said about, like, human interaction, and, like, I feel like people should have that, like, in person interaction. But to run your business to build a culture, I would argue you do not need that.

Mike DeHaan: [9:37] Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. I would agree. You know? And and you can see even, you know, not necessarily directly in our business, but our business relationships that we have through different masterminds and, you know, communities that we've been involved in, whether, you know, different, you know, real estate specific masterminds or or GoBundance. I mean, we've developed friends all over the country, you know, all over the world even in some cases Yeah. That I would say are probably better than a lot of my local friends, if I'm being completely honest.

Dan Austin: [10:04] Yeah. You know? Oh, yeah. Could pick up the phone, and I do, and call certain guys I've never met in person.

Mike DeHaan: [10:08] Yeah. And we chat. Mhmm. Yeah. All the time. I mean, even yesterday during during we were putting together another one of these shows, and one of my buddies from Texas just called me, and we chat on the phone for, like, twenty minutes. And I've literally met this dude in person one time. One time. Exactly. But we text on a regular basis. We communicate on a regular basis. Yeah. And it's just very easy to do these days. You know? And so, like, there is value in getting together and, you know, meeting face to face, but it doesn't need to be the cornerstone of your business. And I think especially if you are trying to run a profit focused business, you're trying to move fast, if and you're starting a business and you want a certain lifestyle, and that extra overhead is not productive

Dan Austin: [10:46] at all. Well, let's be honest. Most people right now, like, in the last, you know, half a dozen dozen years have stepped into real estate for lifestyle and freedom. Mhmm. So now if you build a business around an office and people and being there and you needing to be there, like, that is not the cornerstone of freedom Mhmm. Or or, you know, financial freedom even, so to speak, because you're like spending more money to build this this business that you have that you don't need to spend. And then naturally, if you are all in the office every day, people really do rely on that, like, let me just stop by the office and say something, as opposed to figuring out a better way to communicate that and a better communication cadence so that if you as the owner or person aren't there, like, the business can go on. And it has adapted to that lifestyle. Doesn't mean that you're not involved in it. It just means that people have adapted to that communication style with you as the owner.

Mike DeHaan: [11:40] Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, there's definitely a lot less just, like, standing around by the water cooler. And even when people do connect virtually, like, you know, people within our business do that with each other to have casual conversations or, you know, business meetings and stuff that we have all virtually will go off and and become social, and that's totally fine. But it's still very easy to make that a small smaller part of the day because you're not, you know, like, trapped in a situation where you're just kind of, like, right at each other's desks and they just chat all day long. Yeah. You know? Because I mean, looking back to my, you know, corporate days, there were periods of time when it was slow, and, literally, we would just, like, talk to our neighbor, like, all freaking day. You know? And, like and all we do is everyone would just build disdain for the situation. Whereas now here, if it's slow, like, you know, yeah, you still got work to do. You gotta, you know, do your task for the day. But after that, go freaking I don't know. Go better yourself, employee. Yeah. Like, and work on the gym

Dan Austin: [12:35] doing anything. We're a very performance based business. Right? And so there's no trust issues. It's like if you don't do your job, you're just not gonna perform, which means that correlates right directly to your pay.

Mike DeHaan: [12:46] Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [12:46] And most people are incentivized by performance for two reasons. One is pay. The other is just ego and pride. They wanna do a good job. And if you don't do good in those roles, then maybe you should go work in the corporate job where they hire you for your capacity. They may not need you every day, but when they need you, they need you. Mhmm. That's just not the kind of business we operate.

Mike DeHaan: [13:04] Yeah. And and there are a lot of people that fall into that. Right? And they don't do well with, like, the different styles of compensation, especially when they're tied directly to their performance or to deals closing and things like that. And that's fine. Like, I think people need to be honest But about also too, I think that people try to build their business environments around, like, wanting people to sort of be that way. But in reality, you know, that's that's not necessarily what's gonna drive people, especially in the real estate industry. You know? But, I mean, there are businesses like that. There are businesses in our own town that every single person's on salary, and how their career stays committed to the cause through the ups and downs of this business. Knowing yeah. Like, that'd be tough. Right? Especially, you know, there's a lot of business to be made on the back end. Employees know. If you have an employee that you're just, like, paying a $50,000 a year salary with no upside compensation or not not tied to anything. It's kinda like a weird deal. You know? And then along with that too, giving people opportunity. Like you said, a lot of people get into real estate to pursue financial freedom and, you know, giving those opportunities for people to see all sides of it and get out in the field and do all these things rather than having to be tied to an office all the time.

Mike DeHaan: [14:18] Right. Super, super major. But Yep. You know? Because, know, people, they get into this. They wanna flip past it themselves. They want their own financial freedom. Otherwise, they would just go to school and work a job where they could make, honestly, probably a lot more money without having to deal with as much as many ups and downs just on a day to day basis.

Dan Austin: [14:37] Yeah. Yeah. That's a great point, especially now in in the culture of real estate. People are coming to this Mhmm. This type of business, a small business like ours, because they want more opportunity than what is going to be steadily put in front of them at another job, at a bigger business where they're just gonna show up and punch in and punch out. They're choosing to show up and look at the world through a different lens of opportunity and abundance, and that's why they join your company.

Mike DeHaan: [15:02] Yep. Yep. Exactly. So I think that's a a pretty good transition into where our topic for the day was gonna be, which is how and when to hire an acquisitions manager for your real estate business. And really quick, though, before I go into that, I wanna talk about our instant investor program, the mastermind group that's been kicking off. And there's a it's actually a pretty prudent one for them because I know this has started to come up a couple times with people as they started to get some leads on at what point does it make sense to hire someone to run the sales for you. So we'll get to that in just a second.

Speaker 4: [15:37] Hey, guys. I wanted to take a second to talk to you about our instant investor program. The instant investor program is our group coaching program, and it is an eight week program with the goal being to have you talking to motivated sellers within the first two weeks. Believe it or not, you don't have to be the person that's out there overpaying for investment properties and competing with everybody else on the MLS. You also don't have to be one of those investors that flushes thousands of dollars down the toilet on ineffective marketing methods. To talk to motivated sellers on a regular basis, all you need is an effective marketing system, and we will give you the system that we have been using for the last two years as well as a weekly call where you can sit in with us and other investors and just be a part of a group discussion while everyone works to optimize and grow their businesses. At the end of the day, our goal is to create a like minded community of people who not only are trying to grow as real estate investors, but as people and as business owners so they can go and take the knowledge they learn from us and use that to change their lives just like Dan and I have been able to do. So the question I have for you is, do you really wanna keep sort of standing by and waiting for these opportunities to land in your lap, or do you wanna get started right now? And if you're ready to jump in and start changing your life for the better, go to instantinvestorprogram.com and book a call with me, and we can hop on a call and see if

Mike DeHaan: [17:00] the program's right for you. Alright. So first off, acquisitions manager. Dan, what exactly is an acquisitions manager?

Dan Austin: [17:09] Oh, great question. They are exactly what you want them to be. Right? We've actually used acquisitions manager in a few different roles. I will say starting out, you definitely want to, you know, focus them in one area. But, acquisitions managers, typically, the way it's structured and the way we run it is they are the person that is engaging with those leads once they come into your system. There's different ways to bring those leads into your system and different phases at which you can have your acquisitions manager start working on them. But just fundamentally looking at acquisitions manager, if somebody calls into your business, that's their lead, that goes into their book of clients, and they're in charge of doing all the follow-up, all the sales calls. They'll run appointments typically, whether that's managing a virtual appointment running or doing it themselves like we have locally. Our acquisition manager runs those appointments. They'll typically get the contract signed. And once we're at that phase, then they throw it over the fence. So they're really they're your salesperson. They're your the face of your business. So it's

Mike DeHaan: [18:08] a pretty critical role. Yeah. It's super critical. And, you know, like I said, there's a lot of different roles and response roles and responsibilities that they have. But I think the number one thing is they are the the customer facing person of your business. And whether that stops at purely just being the point of contact or that's the negotiator or that's the person actually making offers or all those sort of things, it's kind of up to you. I know people run their businesses very differently. Some people, they have the acquisitions manager do the entire process where they're actually making the offers, and, they trust them to go through that whole that whole process. Right? Whereas other people, they literally just want their acquisitions managers to go out there and be like a parrot for them, like, in the backroom, kinda like a car dealership, you know, where they're out there and they try to get someone on the hook for a conversation, and they have to go talk to the guy in the back to figure out if the offer makes sense. You know, it really varies a lot, like I said, virtually. Yeah. In person. It's at the end of the day, it's it's a role that is, you know, very conversationally focused and will be what everyone like, what the seller uses as, like, the way to interact with your business, right, as this person. Yep.

Dan Austin: [19:19] Yeah. And they there's different degrees too. Like so, like, let's start with, like, if you're a solopreneur, that's you. You're doing everything under the sun. Right? Somebody calls in, you take that call, you nurture that call, you run your, you run your appointments, you run your follow ups, you make your offer, you underwrite the deal, you're doing all of it. And with, with your acquisition manager, you know, a lot of companies will have like a junior ACC and a senior ACC, and, some like us right now, like we do a lot of the underwriting ourselves still. However, the as that acquisition manager kind of grows more in senior level and learns more, then they can really start helping develop and underwrite deals, which gives them just so much more confidence when they're negotiating and being able to kind of go up and down in prices they need to.

Mike DeHaan: [20:00] Yeah. And I I think that the best way to sort of do that portion is kind of a mix. This is my opinion because, you know, as the business owner, the person's actually signing the contract, you're the one that's on the hook if they make a bad offer. Right? So you you know, we build out tools and things that allow our acquisitions managers to make offers and sort of have a general guideline of where they're gonna be, but you always wanna give it, like, a final approval, obviously, before something closes or really gets moving forward too much. Right? So I think one of the the main conversations that a lot of people have is at what point in my business should I hire an acquisitions manager? And there's I I think that it's not about winning your business you should do so, but at like, is that a role that you honestly need to be filled based off of, a, your strengths, and, b, what you like to do? Because you go through any of these, you know, masterminds, groups, whatever, that's the biggest thing that so many people are like, oh, yeah. You build out these systems, you hire an exchange manager, and now you can bro down because they're the one that's doing all the work. Right? Which is, a, not true at all. If anything, it creates more work because now you're managing people and processes, and you have to, you know, spend your time generating opportunities for them so they can get paid. Mhmm. And then also too, for a lot of people, honestly, if you're the guy that's crushing sales, the guy or girl, you're the person that that's what you do and that's what you enjoy, which is a lot of people that we've met in this space, you probably shouldn't hire that out because you're never gonna be happy with their performance, honestly.

Dan Austin: [21:31] You know? If you're really good at something, you enjoy it. Like, there's no way anybody's going to meet your expectations, and you should continue to do that. Like, what we found talking to other investors that are kind of at that breaking point where they're like, I just don't have capacity to grow my business or whatever reason, but they love the sales. It's like, okay, maybe you need to hire somebody to do all the back end work and take care of that so you can be the face of your business. Or maybe you need to hire a lead manager who's going to take the front end of your sales and just schedule you appointments Mhmm. And help you with some of that cold follow-up so that you can focus on all your hot leads and and focus out in the field with your customers.

Mike DeHaan: [22:09] Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Right? And that and that's such a key key point. I mean, one of our good friends down in Texas, he went through this whole period of time, like, over the last couple of years, we've known him, where he was trying to sort of grow his business, and he kept trying to hire these different roles to do sales. And he went through so how many go to, like, six different employees in, like, a year?

Dan Austin: [22:30] Think he fired one within, like, a week or two.

Mike DeHaan: [22:32] It was even it was, like, two days.

Dan Austin: [22:33] Two days. Yeah. You're right. It was fast.

Mike DeHaan: [22:35] Yeah. Because they they showed up, but they weren't what he needed. Right? Mhmm. And he was going through this whole deal, and then finally, the realization was he likes that process. He likes meeting with sellers. He likes doing the actual face to face portion of it, and he was good at it. So instead, what he did is he found a partner who was really good at the marketing and operation side of it. And now they're probably one of the most successful little groups that we know. Like, they're just

Dan Austin: [23:01] just They're killing it.

Mike DeHaan: [23:02] They're just a small I think it's just the two of them that are that are running their business, and they are destroying it in San Antonio right now. That's awesome. Absolutely demolishing the investment game. And, you know, that like, the part of guy that he partnered with wasn't great at sales. You know? He wasn't great at operations, and boom. Just filled the gap. So I think that, know, this kinda goes back to what we talked about in the first half of the podcast and you're building your business. You kinda have to look at what you want it to what you want your business to look like as a whole. And honestly, when you're hiring people, you gotta be hiring for need more so than want, especially when you're starting out. You know? Because if are parts that you're good at and you don't mind doing them, just do it. You don't need to bring someone in to do that role.

Dan Austin: [23:48] Yeah. And taking a true assessment of your strengths and your weaknesses, and if something is, like, feels like friction to you Yeah. That's probably not what you should be doing. That's probably where you should bring somebody in. If you just don't like it and you you every time you think about it, it just makes you feel uncomfortable or you just hate it, don't do it. Yeah. Just get somebody else to do it. Because you could probably hire that skill out for a reasonable cost.

Mike DeHaan: [24:11] Mhmm. Yeah. I mean and and that was why we decided to bring on an accusations per person several years ago. We were going through the full process of just us, And, you know, we discovered that we didn't like the process of calling leads, following up with leads, and doing this whole thing. You know? And not that we wouldn't do it. I mean, we we we weren't super great at it, but it was also just because we didn't enjoy it. So we didn't give the time that it needed. Yeah. Right? And so, I mean, that was kind of the turning point for our business was when we built out that process and brought on our first employee and found someone that did really enjoy that. And all of a sudden, it was like, oh, wow. We're we actually have a business that's doing things on a regular cliff now. You know?

Dan Austin: [24:51] Yeah. When we started out, you and I were doing everything, and that's like another point too. Like, we were doing everything, and we didn't really have, even though we tried, a great delineation between who was doing what. So like, you'd be working some leads, I'd be working some leads. Sometimes we'd run appointments together, sometimes we went in. We had all these other systems and marketing and things that we were all just kind of doing everything and not a lot was getting done. And then so once we niched down to what your skill set was, what my skill set was, and we brought in somebody to focus on the piece we didn't enjoy the the most, which was the sales Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [25:20] Our business just slowly started ticking up. Yep. Yeah. And so yeah. Then then then it becomes a question as well. Hiring for this role is really it's a it's a weird position to hire for, you know, because, like, what this person does does not necessarily look, you know, if you're if you're given the honest description of the role, it does not look like something that anybody would really wanna do. Right. Because, you know, an an honest acquisitions manager job posting would say, hey. You're gonna be spending hours and hours a day trying to track down and communicate with people that are slightly irrational in their houses that, you know, smell like dog piss Yes. That are full of trash, and you're going to be working with them to purchase their largest asset at a significant discount. You know?

Dan Austin: [26:16] Right.

Mike DeHaan: [26:17] Yeah. Like, you list that anywhere.

Dan Austin: [26:18] I'm just gonna be

Mike DeHaan: [26:19] like, what the fuck?

Dan Austin: [26:19] Like, what is That sounds hard.

Mike DeHaan: [26:21] That sounds hard, and it sounds scammy. It sounds super weird. Right?

Dan Austin: [26:25] Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [26:25] So, you know, how we list it I mean, I guess, how how how we have listed the role is kind of as a traditional sort of sales role. Right? Like, a real estate sales role that leaves out a lot of those details. But I think the bigger thing is when you have people that start to inquire, honestly, what you're looking for, depending on the size of your business, I think if you have a super virtual business and you're getting a ton of leads and you're you know, have a huge marketing budget, you can look for, like, those hard sales roles, like, you know, insurance salesman, car salesman, those sort of things. But if you're a smaller business like most people are, you're honestly, what you need is someone that's gonna have grit to, know, have those hard conversations, work with people, go through these full processes more so than someone who's, like, a hard salesperson. Because if they're, like, a super professional salesperson, they're not getting a ton of leads all the time, they're gonna come in and they're gonna be like, man, I'm have to try and help this old lady, like, find a place to go and move. Like, f this. Like, I don't wanna do this. I I can go and I can sell widgets somewhere else and make significantly more money without having to do this. Right?

Dan Austin: [27:35] Yeah. It doesn't always feel like progress when you're first starting out and you're, like, a smaller business too for a salesperson. Like, it like, you might have a lot of days where you're not selling widgets because, like, some of the sales process is so long. The life cycle of some of these deals are so long. But once they build up their book of clients and they're rolling with it and you're feeding them new quality leads every week, then it really gets in the groove. And I would say, like, the one slight, like, counterargument to what you're saying is a lot of people don't hire, soon enough because they're worried for two things that that they have to get some of their profit Mhmm. And two, that they can't pay that person. Mhmm. When we hired our first acquisitions manager, I don't think we even had payroll for that person for the first month. Right? Like, we didn't have enough money.

Mike DeHaan: [28:17] We had no money. We had, like, $4,000 in the business bank account.

Dan Austin: [28:20] Right. And so but what we had was confidence in our systems and confidence in our ability to bring in, you know, quality leads. And if they did even equal to what we were gonna be able to do by ourselves, that they would be okay. And and lo and behold, we're here, we've never missed payroll. And we've always been able to pay our acquisitions managers pretty good, pretty good, salaries or commissions on all the deals because that's the thing. It's performance based. And so if they're closing deals, they're getting paid.

Mike DeHaan: [28:45] Yeah. Exactly. But, you know and and people need needed to be in a position where they understand that cycle time as well, which is also something else that as we're interviewing people, it is challenging because a lot of people honestly aren't in a position where if they're not getting paid every single month, especially out of the gate, like, a pretty decent amount, they can't afford to live. And with this business, I mean, our average contact to contract is, like, forty eight days. Right? And then after that, it's usually a thirty day close. So that means very realistically on this commission heavy job, they can be working for you for, like, three months before they're really getting their first decent paycheck.

Dan Austin: [29:24] You know?

Mike DeHaan: [29:24] Right. But that they're generally rewarded by that because once they have a book of clients, once they're going, they're gonna start having some big months. I mean, like our our guy right now, James, I mean, I think this month, what we had six or seven closings fully commissioned, like, he's making some good money at this point. Coin.

Dan Austin: [29:41] Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It it snowballs.

Mike DeHaan: [29:43] Right? Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [29:44] Yeah. And the other thing I would say to about hiring this person, remember, they are the face of your business. And something to think about is your business brand and how they are working with your clients and how they're working with other investors in your community. Because naturally, in our market, any market, there's gonna be a community of investors that know your act manager by name. Mhmm. Right? They know your dispositions manager by name. And, like, having that credibility for your business through that person. So, I just think about some other folks locally that, you know, you have these act managers that maybe bounce around and maybe their credibility isn't that strong. Mhmm. It's like, do you want that brand for your business? Yeah. Don't just hire an acquisitions manager because they have experience somewhere else. In fact, we've had better luck, I feel like, with inexperience. Maybe they have other sales experience, but they're not necessarily experienced in real estate because we could teach them that piece.

Mike DeHaan: [30:35] Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [30:35] Right? But then also they don't have a bad brand coming into your business or bring in something negative to your business. Yeah. I think I

Mike DeHaan: [30:42] think that's huge. You know? And and also as well, people are hopping around businesses like that locally. I mean, the off market real estate community is generally pretty small. So if you have one that's hopping around between those, I mean, I don't know. It's like, if you start seeing a girl that is you know, she's cheating on her boyfriend with you, what do you think is gonna happen to you down the road? Right. Right. Yeah. Exactly. So the same thing here. If you're if you're picking up people from every every other business, like, you can expect them to to move on pretty quickly if they're not getting what they want. Right. And, you know, and there's I mean, that that is what that is. Right? Especially here, like we talked about earlier as well. You know, there's a lot of money to be made. People definitely see that. You know, a lot of acquisition managers want that for themselves. And you have to understand that that's just kind of the process too. I mean, people want things in their life, believe it or not. Most people, their goal is not to work for you. So what you need to do is you need to give them adequate opportunity to, a, make money, to, b, grow, and to see, honestly, if they're in this business, they're gonna wanna invest themselves. You know? They're gonna wanna flip their own houses.

Mike DeHaan: [31:46] They're gonna wanna be able to buy rentals. And that's the other thing that's super fascinating to me with this business is how many companies either don't allow their employees to do that because they don't wanna miss out on the profit, or they allow them to do it, but they charge them absurd fees. Right. Absurd. You know, like like Unethical. Unethical to the point they're taking advantage of their staff. You know, I've I've when I used to work for a hard money lender here in town, we would get some of these loan applications from, like, businesses here in town, and they would be selling houses to their family members or to their staff. And the act the assignment fees that they would have on there, I would be like, bro. Ugh. It's not not even a freaking deal anymore. You're basically charging them to get it to retail value, and you're taking advantage of this person. You know? And and you're you're able to do that even more so than if it's a buyer because they trust you, and they feel trapped in this business. And they're like, hey. This is the only option I have is to buy this house with, like, a $70,000 assignment fee at, like, retail value. Right? And just like

Dan Austin: [32:49] That's terrible.

Mike DeHaan: [32:50] It's insane. And it would be stuff like

Dan Austin: [32:52] that terrible.

Mike DeHaan: [32:52] On a regular basis. You know? And I'm like, don't do that. Like, you know, I I I don't give them a house for free. I think they still gotta pay a fee for the businesses commissions that need to be covered by the rest of the staff for marketing costs. I mean, we do that. We pay when we buy a property from the business, we pay an assignment fee. You know? And and it's it's funny because I had a conversation not too long ago, and there was this belief that so our our guy bought a flip from us, and we had a conversation. He's like, don't wanna have to pay this fee. And I'm like, me neither, bro. It's like, but we do the same thing when we freaking buy it. And there was this belief that that was going to line our pockets, you know, that he's paying, like, a $20,000 fee, and that's coming to us. Like, no, man. That's keeping the lights on in the business. You know? Like, all the properties that we bought this month, we paid an assignment fee to the business that is coming out of our pockets to go and fund marketing for the business. It is not going to give us bonuses. It is not going to give us

Dan Austin: [33:49] Yes.

Mike DeHaan: [33:49] You know? It's not gonna it's not gonna pay my car payment, that assignment fee that, you know, we paid. It's going to give everyone more opportunities to keep investing and keep making more money and more commissions down the line.

Dan Austin: [33:59] You can't just suck your wholesale business dry just to have the opportunities because pretty soon, your wholesale business is not profitable, and you can't find more opportunities.

Mike DeHaan: [34:07] Yeah. Yeah. That whole cash balance. That's another thing. I may have already touched on that on when to wholesale versus flip up, so we did a few weeks ago. Yeah. But that cash balance makes it so so challenging, and it only gets more challenging as you have staff. But at the same time, when you start to have staff, you know, you can grow so much quicker. But Yep. Cool. But either way, I think point being, when it comes to having an acquisitions manager, it's not 100% necessary for your business. You need to look at if it's honestly a weakness of yours that you need to hire out. Also, I guess, you're to a point of lifestyle if you want to outsource that position, you know, realize that, especially if you are a key salesperson, that they will not perform as well as you, and you just have to sort of accept that. Like, the way I've always viewed it is if you're willing to accept 80% effectiveness for, you know, more time to work on other parts of the business, that's literally what having employees is. But, you know, there's no right or wrong way to do it, and you really just gotta find someone that has the grit and the understanding of what this job really entails because, you know tell you what, I like, here's something else I would say too just really quick to finish this out.

Mike DeHaan: [35:19] When you're bringing someone on, especially if you have a business where you are facing customers directly, like, their homes and meeting with them, go with them. Find, like, the worst appointment that you're going to in a week where you're gonna be walking through a house that's just reeks and that you know is gonna be in a terrible neighborhood and bring them along and just pick up on their body language because you will know extremely quickly if they're gonna have what it takes or not. Just how they how they, you know, react to this whole situation that realistically will be the norm for them.

Dan Austin: [35:50] I like it.

Mike DeHaan: [35:51] Cool. Alright, guys. Well, do guys have any questions about hiring or anything like that? You should shoot us a message on Instagram. You can hit me up at Mike underscore Invest. You can find Dan at investor man Dan. You can follow us both at those, and you can follow the podcast at collecting keys podcast on Instagram. Besides that, you guys should go check out our instant investor program at instantinvestorprogram.com. We are building up this mastermind group for people that wanna build businesses exactly like ours. It is a complete turnkey playbook that we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in the last number of years building out. We basically give to you so you can just hit the ground running right away, and you can instantly become an investor.

Dan Austin: [36:33] So Oh, is that why we call it instant investor?

Mike DeHaan: [36:35] Exact Oh, makes sense. Crazy. Yeah. So it's a self driven video course and then a Slack group with a bunch of other investors nationwide and then a weekly Zoom call where you can connect with us. So go to instantinvestorinstantinvestorprogram.com and schedule a call, and we'll see if you are a good fit. And then besides that, go and download and subscribe to our podcast. It does wonders for getting us up in the algorithms. And if you're new, go and download every episode, and then you don't have listen to them. Just delete them. It just helps us boost up the rankings even more.

Dan Austin: [37:09] There's your call to action. Get out there. Get

Mike DeHaan: [37:11] out there. Exactly.

Dan Austin: [37:12] So cool. Alright. Well, I'm investor Mandan with Mike Invest, and we're signing off for the week. If you're thinking about hiring an ACC manager, give us a call and don't rip them off. I think that's the moral of the story today. Right. Treat people like people. Don't take advantage of your employees.

Mike DeHaan: [37:29] Alright. See you guys next week. See y'all.

Speaker 2: [37:32] Thanks for listening. Please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, and check us out at collectingkeyspodcast.com for tips and guides on starting your own real estate investment and wholesaling business.