Latest / Results Driven / Episode 181: He Was Doing $1.8 Million a Year but Still Running His Business Blind with Hieu Bui

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Episode 181: He Was Doing $1.8 Million a Year but Still Running His Business Blind with Hieu Bui · Results Driven

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sales is actually a sport.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: We don't go play a real match without practicing.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: So right now we're we're really big on before you know the match begins, before they call real sellers and agents.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: We have a one-hour uh role play with them every morning and the the whole team joined, right?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we can uh and then uh that basically comes from your your playbook.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Are you a driven real estate investor tired of inconsistent deal flow and ready to scale your business?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Tiffany High.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm Josh High.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the Results Driven Podcast, where we share proven strategies to build systems, master sales, grow your team, and create a self-sustaining business with predictable income.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're a one-person operation or building a team, our mission is to give you the tools, support, and mindset shifts you need to succeed.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let's dive in.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome back everyone to the results driven podcast, where today we have a very special guest, Hugh, who has actually done some really cool things in his business.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm excited to dive into all of that with you guys here on the show today.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: Hugh, welcome to the show, man.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you for having me.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I appreciate it.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: So uh just so glad to be here.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, man.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: We're we're super excited to uh to have you on here and and share some of the the wins, honestly, really the journey from just with what you've experienced in your real estate business and some of the improvements that you've made here over the last six to twelve months.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: So if you don't mind, man, I like to open up, I like to open up these conversations to allow everyone to get to know you a little bit better.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: What was your background like before you got into real estate?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then we'll dive into like how that team building process went and things from there.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I started in real estate part-time in 2020.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was an engineer back then, so I worked my W-2, decided I hate it because uh I'm not good at engineering, and I just cannot envision myself doing this for the next 25-30 years.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: So through some Googling, find a bunch of different things, but actually decided to start off with buying rentals because that was all the guru selling back then.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like, hey, buy enough rentals, you can quit your job.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: And now that I know it's a lie, but back then I bought the thesis, so save up some money to uh buy up my first rental, and through that I learned how to find off-market properties, basically what wholesaling is.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: But at the time, wholesaling was not the focus.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I'm just wanting to buy my first duplex.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: So through trial and error, you know, find my first duplex, it turned into the second and third one.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Then fast forward in two years, I was able to have probably 10 to 12 properties uh in my portfolio.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: And at that point, back then the interest rate was between three and four percent.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: So most of these cash flow decently.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I do a quick calculation with a spreadsheet, and I realized like the portfolio can pay me about three grand per month passively.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously I make way more than that at my uh W2 job, but at least uh I'm a frugal guy, so it actually would last me uh a whole month with a 3k a month.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: I can actually afford to live off of that, right?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know if it's true or not, but at least it gives me the confidence to have my base cover.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it gave me the confidence to to quit my job and go do this full-time.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then fast forward, you know, uh a couple years, a lot of things fail.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, uh we have the 2022 market turn, so that changed the business a little bit.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: I actually decided to go back to my W2 for uh a few months.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow and then realized I I still hate it, so I quit again the second time.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh luckily the second time around, uh I learned to uh build my business the right way.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: And after that, it's just slowly building the business one piece at a time.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: I start with with just myself and then I bring on a buddy who uh help handle the dispo side of the business.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: At the time when I go in full-time, I officially switched to wholesaling to uh provide me more income rather than just buying rentals because you cannot live well off of that.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you might be able to retire off of that, but you cannot replace your current income with that.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: So just one break at a time, and just start out with just me and then bring on a friend.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: I teach him how to do dispo.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: So he helped me with the dispo side of things, allow me to focus a lot on acquisitions, and then we bring on uh an assistant who helped with the TC tasks and helped with the lead generation task, and slowly over time just bring on one employee at a time.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Fast forward to now, uh before I joined Resort Driven, I was at$1.8 million in revenue for uh 2025.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: And with a team of roughly like, I think seven, eight people, I crossed acquisition TC and dispo.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of where I'm at from the very beginning to uh up to visit driven.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's incredible, man.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what a journey.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: You have an engineering background, that's my background as well.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: I was in civil engineering, and I had the same realization.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, uh yeah, I don't I don't want to be on AutoCAD, that's for sure.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: Can't stay in AutoCAD.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then I was like, all right, let's go into construction.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I learned a lot in the construction management side of things.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think that helped me as a flipper.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: Going back, you said uh, so has it been it's we're coming up on a year, right?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: Since you've been with us, it's not quite there, but has it been that long?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think uh it's been like five.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: I I think uh definitely not six months.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think we're we're coming up on like I think four or five months.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: It seems like it's been a lot longer, man.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's only a feel longer because I show up to every week call and I buck Kelsey every week.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: So even though you guys only stuck with me for four or five months, I make sure that I utilize my uh my hour very much.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we like to work with action takers at the end of the day.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: We can teach you everything we know, but it it doesn't does you no good if you don't take action on it.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: So what the business you kind of talked through, so that would take us right to about February of the year.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: And of 2025 uh of this year.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: And you just came off what sounds like it was was that the biggest year you'd ever had last year in 2025?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's actually keeping growing over time.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I remember in 2023, I think we we didn't hit the million.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's uh probably mid six figure, probably three or four hundred K.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then in 2024 we hit 1.3, and then 2025 we hit 1.8.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so it's organically slowly uh building over time.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: So you're growing, right?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: You have that progression.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: Why did you come seek out results driven?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: What were you hoping to solve?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because actually uh a few things that sold me about you guys is I actually heard you guys on a few different podcasts from remember, I think it's Brent Daniels and then Brian DeVilla, all of the guys that I I know personally too.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it just dawned on me that like I know I have a$1.8 million business, but my system and my processes is nowhere like close to details as you guys.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I can only help but imagine that if I implement a better system and structure, I can scale more, right?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: And also, too, uh not only about scaling, but like I always feel pretty insecure about my business because we're doing great.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't know why we're doing great.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what what what lever move the needle?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like I have a bunch of guys here, which one is the good guy, which one is the non-performing guys?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: What metric should I track?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: I know we were making offers and we're tracking that, but like I feel like that's just a whole lot of that I don't even track.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just I don't feel great about my business, even though I have good income.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't understand if something were to break, but I wouldn't even begin to know what to triple shoot.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a big thing that you guys talk about constantly uh on your podcast and on also on your actual coaching.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: You basically dissect the business into multiple, multiple parts, there's multiple KPI to look at.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: So if something breaks, we can pinpoint exactly what happened and and how.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: And also at the time, I was the CEO, but also I was a sales manager too.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it was pretty exhausting trying to run a sales team.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: So part of the reason why I'm also joining is I want to build my sales manager role the right way.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of just me putting in the fires every time and overlooking everybody, make sure that everybody uh shows up on time, make sure I review KPI with everybody.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the managing part of it is pretty exhausting.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: So when I join you guys, also when I decide to promote one of my closers to be my first ever sales manager, and I just have no clue what to do, how to train him, what he should do, and things like that.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people online talk about how to be a solopreneur.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: They even talk about how to, you know, have a small team working for you, but almost like nobody talk about okay, if you want to be fully removed from the business, yeah.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like how to hire the key man that's gonna help you manage everything.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's I feel like that's what you guys have to provide.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: So that's awesome, man.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: So you jump in, right?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: You've got this this business.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of questions around how is it working?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: Not really like we know it's it's something's working, we just don't know exactly what.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: We don't have clear line of sight to the metrics, we don't necessarily know what those things mean.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: We want to groom people up within our organization.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh there's a lot to tackle there, uh obviously at that point in time.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: So, what were the first like two to three things that you had focused on the moment you started working with us?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, actually, I wrote a few of those on my board.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: I erased the one I'm working on already, so it's kind of hard to tell now.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: But I still remember the first thing that we work on is like how do I improve my KPI tracker to be better.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now, uh, get no wrong, I don't want to make it sound like I know nothing about my business and make 1.8.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, that's not true.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: I tracked some KPI, I just didn't track them like as detailed as you guys have.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, to give you an example, we used to track how many offers we make, right?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: But we didn't track how many offers we take to get to one contract.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because, and the problem with that is now that I know, if we only focus on the volume of offers, we don't control the conversion rate and we don't control how good our closer sounds like.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: And when I find out one closer takes 10 offers to get to one contract, the other closer takes 70 offers to get to one contract.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, we have a huge problem, and I always know something is wrong.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: I just didn't have that number right in front of me to realize that.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that's number one.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Number two is uh I only look at the KPI weekly.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: While that is good, it doesn't let me know how well my team has been doing for the past 30 days because everybody can have a good week, a bad week.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: So what happened to me was I was over harsh on my team when they have a bad week, yeah, and I get overly excited when I have a good week.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Versus if you uh what you guys teach is like we do a four-week rolling average so that we can look at the whole metric like objectively, because maybe he has a bad week, but overall it's still good with the four-week rolling average.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: So it it allowed me to like judge my team more fairly and and just like remove my emotion out of it because yeah, when I should look at one week, there's a lot, it's just a lot of emotion going to my thing.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: We're like, okay, we have a good week.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yay, we have a bad one.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what the hell happened, guys?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I couldn't believe it.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you guys want to be like, want to get you guys doing work here?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I just it's just remove a lot of like you know, emotion up and down uh for me personally.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: So going deeper into the KPI, like even as nuanced as like you know, how many uh leads does it take to get to one offer, we begin to track things like that at time goes on.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: So, which we we clearly have a KPI attractive before.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I'm not gonna say we didn't have anything, but like it wasn't anywhere near as details as it should be.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what's interesting that you talk about that rolling four weeks, and we used to see a lot of people, and even to this day, we still see a lot of entrepreneurs where they treat their business on a week-by-week basis, meaning one week it's you know, they're crushing it, like, yeah, we got five contracts.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like, our goal is to do five this month, and we did five this week, and they're like, We're on top of the world, and then the next month they have zero contracts, and they're like, We gotta burn the business down, it's failing, it's you know, this and that and whatever.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it's that's just not the way to run a business.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm sure you can appreciate this too coming from like a science major and having your degree in engineering.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: They always talk about the bigger the sample size, the more accurate the data.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: But yet we're running our business on a week-to-week basis, and so it's just interesting.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what's really critical about this, and and I think this is a point everybody who's listening here needs to understand the first thing you probably did with your coach, I would imagine, is you went through and you started with the revenue goal and you reverse engineered exactly how many offers, how many appointments, how many leads, all of these things on a weekly and a monthly and a quarterly basis.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so now when you go and you like you set targets based on standard conversions, like for example, maybe your team on average converts one of 15 offers per contract, and you're gonna set that as a control.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: So now when you're looking at these KPIs every single day, every single week, if that conversion is off, instead of one of 15, it's one of 25, or heck, even one of 70, like you said.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: Now all of a sudden it's like, holy smokes, we've we've got an issue and we've got to dive into this.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: And most people don't understand that they're flying their business blind without tracking KPIs like that.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: Because then you're just guessing at what to solve, and then next thing you know, you're working on the wrong things, you're putting more money into marketing channels that your team's just simply not converting because it's a conversion issue, it's not a marketing issue.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I love that you guys dialed into those KPIs first.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: What were the red flag indicators that you worked on and how did you go about fixing those?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, obviously, as I mentioned, the offer to contract ratio is a big one for us.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, what happened with the guy who had 70 offer to one contract?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we are able to dive into his pipeline and we're able to look at, okay, he'd never follow up on the offer that he made.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because we were so focused on, hey, you have to make five offers today, you have to make five offers today.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: He was literally just like do everything he can to make five offers a day.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: But then once he makes the offer, he doesn't follow through with the follow-up to make sure it's converted.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: With our method, uh, I usually reach out to real estate agents.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't have a one call close because the agent is not gonna sign the contract for the seller.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: So typically we have to have a follow-up sequence where, like, okay, after we make the offer, we have to follow up, you know, three, four, five times uh until we receive the contract.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: That wasn't happening with my guy.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the first thing that we see.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Another red flag would be we just don't have a good like training like rhythm because yeah, how I used to train my team was uh we're gonna meet once a week, and it's just whatever I feel like for that day, it's gonna be the training topic, right?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, sometimes we pull up some random calls and we listen to it.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, you know, we find a topic and we talk about it, but just it just wasn't no structure.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: So after we figure out the KPI, another red flag in the business that I know going in is I don't have a good consistent training system.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: So that's when I tapped to you guys, and I literally just like copy the rhythm of how much you guys do training.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: So and now that when I realize, okay, it should be once a day, it shouldn't be once a week.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: So we change that from once a week to once a day, and we actually have theme, the topic that we're gonna talk about.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just like when I realized sales is actually a sport, we don't go play a real match without practicing.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, right now we're we're really big on before you know the match begins, before they call real sellers and agents, we have a one-hour uh roleplay with them every morning and the whole team joined, right?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: So we can uh and then that basically comes from your your playbook where like one person be the lead, one person be the caller, they just roleplay, and that's allow me to see, okay, shoot, doing the roleplay, I actually find out they did not follow my script, even though I have a script.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: I was just assuming they followed my script.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: So then actually that's when it's click, like, okay, if they don't even follow my script during role play 100% of the time, they will not follow my script out there on the field.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it's allowed me to like, hey guys, it just reset the expectation.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like the script is here for a reason.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: You have to follow it.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: So that's when, you know, at least I will be able to hear that they they follow the script during our role play.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we go over even that too.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: I just there's just so many things that I pick from you guys.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, like the um how to set up expectations with the agent or the seller, how to ask permission to say no.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: All of the great thing that we want them to follow the script.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: We make sure that they do it during the roleplay.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then after that, everybody else have like a one-on-one uh once a week.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: In addition to the roleplay, uh, every salesperson has a one-on-one between my sales manager and and the closer.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: And they actually uh listen to the call, and that's when we're able to see in real practice that okay, you sound good on the roleplay.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Do you actually use it in real life?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: So we're able to control that loop a lot tighter than like, hey, just once a week review on whatever before.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's way more intentional, it sounds like.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: And that's that's amazing.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this actually reminds me we had a good friend that would always reach out to Tiff and myself, and he he would be like, you know, I'm doing all these things, like I have the pieces in place, but it's almost like puzzle pieces.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: If you're not intentional about putting the right pieces in the right order in the right way, even though you have all the pieces on the table, it doesn't mean that it's gonna work correctly.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like, you were doing consistent training, it just wasn't daily training.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then not only that, but it was also it wasn't intentional around okay, well, we're gonna focus on this specific part of the sales process because this is where the KPI is off.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so now you're able to channel all of your energy to that one conversion between that acquisition reps one-on-ones, their call reviews, your daily trainings, and the KPI tracker now because you're doing that consistently, and then boom, you're able to see the performance that you want to see.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: So, what yeah, it's like uh go ahead.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: You I didn't mean to cut you off.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say that the crazy thing now, after implement all that, I'm able to see it now.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like in the past, I forced them to make 15 offers a week, and then we convert like like crap.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: Right now, we're able to get more contracts signed per month and they actually make less offer.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right now, our average uh offer per week is only 10 per acquisition manager.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: It used to be 15, so I was able to make less offer, but like because we make the process more efficient, we should actually be able to close more deals because of that.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the team love it too, because they don't have to grind through like calling a lot and just getting so little result.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right now, they were able to just focus on the lead that matter the most uh through you know qualification process that we have.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh again, stealing from you guys the um the UMBC.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: I really love that.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: So once we implement that and we implement the training, we're able to get less offer out, but more contract and is it's increase our conversion rate.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right now, we're averaging uh 10 offers to one contract, and for a director agent model, that is really high because the industry standard, I I think is between 15 and 25.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: So wow, yeah, you guys are less than half of that.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's incredible.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome, man.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, so um, what's like a current challenge that you and your coach are working through together right now?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I think right now, one of the challenges for me is like I think we just have to have a standard for for my team because if you look at my team, you'll see that I think we're a team of seven, so that's one or two, like it is two rock star, and then you know, just three or four people that just meet mediocre, right?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: So right now the challenge is like how can I be more firm with my standard?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: And with that comes with one of the things we talk about is like constantly keeping the hiring funnel going.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: So like we only attract the best, so that if somebody falls below standard, we give them, you know, the first warning, the second warning, and then boom, they they have to be replaced.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it's gonna allow me to basically, again, going back to sport, we want I want to assemble like the Avengers.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want, you know, one hope and then a bunch of like peasants.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I I want to be, I want to assemble the Avengers.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I realize now it's like we can keep everything the same, but if we attract better people to work for our business, we will just do more what we have because we already see that okay, there's a huge difference in like performance between my top guy and my worst guys, right?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, like not everybody can be like the best, but like if we can slowly like just to trim the fat and then just replace the non-efficient people with somebody who are more committed, who can get stuff done, then essentially you know, keep the whole thing the same, just be more efficient.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: No, I absolutely love that.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: And and I don't think people realize, I mean, you hear the saying, like there's multiple of them hire slow, fire fast, or only we all want a players, a players, but what most people don't understand is that those A players and attracting those people starts with you.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what I love.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like I hear it in your language because you're saying you've got to become the person that deserves the Michael Jordan.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody wants the Michael Jordan, but you've got to be the Phil Jackson who deserves to have a championship caliber player, right?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it starts with your actions, it starts with the standards that you set within the organizations, it starts with and this it all boils down to what John C.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: Maxwell calls the law of magnetism and his 21 irrefutable walls of leadership.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: He says that you will attract people like yourself.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: So if you don't like the people that you're attracting, then maybe you should look in a mirror and make sure that you change that person that you're looking at, which is awesome.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: I love that your head's already like in the right.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: And and to be clear, like uh in the past, like it's hard for me to do that because again, I if I don't even know my KPIs uh clearly, then how can I tell if somebody's doing a bad job or it's just because I don't meet them the right way.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm just giving early with my training, then then I just don't know.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: If I don't even have like a way to score my team based on the performance, then I don't really know if I have a good, you know, uh higher or not, right?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: So all of the pieces seem to be more clear now.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it's allow me the power to have like not like a I I think I I say this when I came to your two-day workshop.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: I want everything to be black and white.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: I really hate being gray.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: So now it's it have the right, I have the right tool to be able to do more black and white.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Here are the standard, if you fall below that, we have a proven process already.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: So we right now we track everything really good.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we know that if you fall below that, that's on you, that's not on us anymore, because we've done our part to make sure that the training, the leads and everything is dialed in.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a matter if you perform or not.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then we actually have a way to track if uh with gosh, if with AI nowadays, we're able to track really well if if they're following our process or not.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, for example, we have your uh your script uh checklist, right?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of like manually fill out one by one uh if they follow the script, and which is great, but it's gonna take like two hours every day to listen to those calls.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: We're able to feed that through Kelsey helping with it too.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're building a platform where the AI kind of rank it automatically.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it cut down, uh, it's just streamlined the time that we're reviewing with them.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: So for example, AI will see okay, they hit AI of 10.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: These two.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Things here, I didn't see them mentioned anywhere, so be sure to dive into it, right?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it just helped me have an eye out on the guys more, right?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, because if they know that they're being scored based on their the way they follow the script, or not, they're gonna take it more seriously.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: I say, Yeah, follow the script, but like it's up to you, we don't check it.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, yeah, whatever you want to do.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: We missed a while at West.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, that's awesome.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, that's a dangerous place for a lot of like newer leaders or newer entrepreneurs who are building teams, is where they're guessing.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I kind of talked about this before, but it's like, I kind of feel like, and this was us when we first built a team.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: Unfortunately, we did it all wrong.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: And we would be standing over an acquisition specialist's uh uh shoulder, not even listening to the call, and we would coach them up on what they had said, and then they would look at us and be like, What are you you didn't even hear what they had to say?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what are you talking about?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: And it became this like, well, I feel like, well, maybe this.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: And no, when you come in and you say, Here's the psychology, here's the process, we've set expectation, and now you know why it's important, and you didn't follow it.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna hold you accountable in this manner, which we've already discussed in our expectations that we've set.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so here's how we're gonna proceed.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's a completely different conversation, and you're able to coach your team the right way, they actually implement and they go get the results that we want, right?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: So that's really cool to hear you talking.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: We went through a lot of the same things, which is kind of funny.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's just um in the end, like getting a better grip on my team, make sure that they are being held accountable, like from the KPI, but also like the thing that they say too.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: And again, it's really easy.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: Already have the framework, you know, from you guys.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: If I were to do like the seller, I would follow your process like 100% of the time.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: But because we're doing direct agent, we have to modify it a little bit.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I was really appreciate Kelsey uh specifically like being able to like flexible, and even though I don't have the exact same like you know, model with with resource driven, he was able to like, okay, you take this with your thing, combine it together, change it a little bit to to fit your uh to fit your model.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: He was extremely like uh flexible when when working with me.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's I'm not you know, it's not like I'm not like uh the typical uh student that came to research driven, but he was able to be patient with me and kind of just help me like customize the business uh towards my model.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, that's all that's awesome to hear.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that's honestly the value of working with someone one-on-one is it's a truly customized approach.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: And like one thing that we realized is yeah, we you know, we we talk about small group and our one-on-one coaching kind of like a franchise where it's a business in a box without all of the bad that comes with a franchise.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so what's unique though is that not any one specific person or their business or even where they are in life is the exact same.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: Goals are different, right?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: So even though there's frameworks within the business in a box, there's still nuance that's gonna be different, and that's where having that true one-on-one customized plan is so powerful.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: So if you don't mind, what's the team?
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: What's the business look like today?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: So we know what it was at the end of 2025.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: How has that progressed?
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Man, it's it's freaked me out every time I look at my head count because I didn't envision it to be half that many people, but I just got a notification from Slack that I was over the plan limit, so I have to buy more seat.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so so right now, I think we're at eight people for acquisition.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that includes uh, I'm pretty sure two lead managers, three closers, and one sales manager.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe there's a part-time lead manager because we need that's one person that's doing both acquisition and dispo because we're struggling with keeping up with the acquisition right now.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: So he comes in to help out.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the acquisition side.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: On the dispo side, uh, the thing that's unique about my company is I think I have a bigger dispo team than most people.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll explain why for that.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: But on the dispo side, I think we have one head of dispo, which is my friend that I trained from early on.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: He's my closer, he does the final negotiation.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: But under him, I think we have like four or five, you know, dispo specialists that help him with displaying the deal.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I don't have the exact count as we're constantly hiring.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, what unique about us is our average fee is much higher than the standard.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, last time I checked, it was between$25,000 and$28,000.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: But the key thing is we only do wholesale.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: We don't mess with flips.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: Most of the time, I flip like one or two houses a year just to show my realtors that I actually have a flip going on to prove it.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but uh for the most part, we wholesale.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think we're averaging$28,000 right now.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: And part of the reason why, that is because I treat this bow as intense as I treat acquisition is like a funnel.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: We market uh our deal out like really aggressively, and then we have constantly half reps uh calling buyers in our list, and also half reps calling new buyers.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: So on every given deal, we have two full-time persons working.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: One is uh calling the existing buyer list, one calling new buyers.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, so that's one of the reasons why we're able to get higher assignment fee um for our deal for the most part.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: Got it.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then one TC, yeah.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like I think uh 15, 16 people.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, congratulations, man, on all the success.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: You're putting in the hard work, you're really challenging yourself.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: I see it through the results.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: You're challenging yourself to be the person that deserves the result.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, and I I think you're reaping the the reward, man.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: So congratulations on that.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, appreciate it.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: I always like to wrap up the conversation here with what's one piece of advice if you could go back to where you were.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm gonna let you choose.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like coming out of 2025 or even going into 2025.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, let's do this.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: Coming out of 2025, you just had the best year you've ever had.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: What is one piece of advice that you would give someone who is in the exact same shoes that you were in at that time?
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: I will say that unless you're doing like a million dollars a month, as I think most people do, like there's always room for improve.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to be honest with with yourself to look at like, okay, do I actually have the processes like as detailed as I would like?
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: If not, then there's always room for improvement.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: Me and you being in engineering background, like we don't like just most of our job is not to be a rocket, right?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's for the scientists.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: We just basically make the rocket run 1% faster.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: We make the car 10% more efficient.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: We just basically change the assessment chip that and make it slightly better.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I would I would recommend that people basically reinvest into uh I think the best thing you can reinvest into is like, I don't want to sound cliche, but it's you have to to look at like where you want to go next and see if somebody's already there can help you.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, part of the reason why I look up to you guys is because I know that you guys do more than me with less people, and it's like, okay, it doesn't make any sense.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: They have the same team, they just they just like do like three times the amount.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: So again, like you have to to look, you have to find somebody who is where you want to be.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: And if they're allowed you to learn from them, then that's really just the shortest way to accomplish something new.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: I have people reach out to me all the time.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they're in the phase where like they are making 100k, 200k from real estate agent.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: They know they have a good model, they know it's working, they just don't know how to go past it.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: And they look up to me because I was doing the exact same thing, but just make five times the income, right?
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're willing to trade place with the people that you look up to, you should listen to them, right?
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: So for for me, when I look up to you guys, you guys are able to do more with less people, and then it doesn't seem like you're like stressed out about your life either, right?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where I want to go.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: And when I look for a mentor, that's the thing I want to keep in mind.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Are they actually doing a business?
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: Are they actually just just talking, right?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: And are they doing something that I want to have also in my business?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know you guys are super big into processing systems, KPIs.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: I know that is my weak spot, and I I can appreciate you know being more like lean more into that, right?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: So just basically take a look at your whole business, reinvest into the part that you know is weak, and then see who out there can help you achieve it.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: I well, I appreciate you sharing that, and a lot of that resonates with us.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: And there's two points I want to touch on here really fast.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: Something I've seen from the most successful people is they have this mentality of they never believe that they know it all.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, they're most of the time, and this is why I see in you, Hugh, this is why I'm bringing this up.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: Most of the time, they're the most humble person in the room.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: They're asking more questions than anyone else in the room, and they have the mindset of there is always something to learn.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: Because the moment you think you know it all, it's gonna be a rough day and a rough year and a and a rough time moving forward.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: But the other thing is I I loved how you talk about this Tony Robbins like concept of modeling.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: Find someone who's doing what you want to do and go do the things that they do in order to get the results that they have.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: And that's exactly what you've done.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: And and I love that you say, okay, who's actually doing it?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I love that you say, Do they have what I actually want?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: Here's a couple of things, if you don't mind me sharing, that we've added to that list because we've always been the same way.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: We also ask ourselves, do they live the lifestyle specifically?
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: And do they have kids?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: What's their relationship with their kids?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: And the last one is what's their marriage history like?
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: So we want to ask all of those things because if we're taking advice from someone who's been divorced five times, well, Tiff and I don't want to be divorced.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, if they don't have kids, it's gonna be really hard for them to understand what it's like to have kids and the lifestyle around that.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: If they don't have the lifestyle that we want, and and obviously doing the business and having the results that we want are no-brainers.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so I want to add on to that because you make you actually make a good point.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Even though I don't have kids, right?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: Even though I have a girlfriend we're not married yet, but like if you have all these responsibilities and you can still achieve the life that you want to achieve, then I should look up to that, right?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: I should not go reverse.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: I should I should not look at somebody who don't have a wife, don't have a kid, just go 80 hours a week, because even if that person is success, I don't want to that, I don't want to be that person in the future.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: And like if if you can choose to, and it's also depends on what your is your definition of success to, right?
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: My definition of success is like we want to achieve like the business, the career, whatever, but like we have to be able to sleep really good at night.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: I I want to wake up with a freshman.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to carry all the baggage when I go to Disney World.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to think about contract when I'm riding the roller coaster, right?
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't want to live that life.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: So like if you already like why we look up to you is you you already show that you have you have a ton of responsibility outside of you know yourself.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: You're able to run your business this way.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's no excuse for me to like if if I implement your your system and you know I'm not having a family yet, it's just build me up to be that in the future, right?
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas if I look up to Elon Musk, he's a great guy and he's very smart, very successful.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: But like, do I really want to become a billionaire?
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what is the responsibility that comes with that?
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: Do I do I really want that?
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: Success as you define it, man.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I can tell you put a lot of thought into that.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well, so Hugh, I greatly appreciate you coming on, man.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for sharing the journey here.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: And and for everyone that's listening, like, there's some really good stuff that was dropped today.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I highly recommend if you want to go back, listen to this again.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: Great conversation.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: Hugh's doing big things in his business, continuously growing, has that growth mentality.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: And guys, that's what it takes to be successful in any business.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: Doesn't matter if it's real estate, doesn't matter if it's a plumbing company, doesn't matter what it is.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: If you have that mentality and you go and do the modeling like Hugh has done, like Tiff and myself have done even, those are the recipes for success.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you again, Hugh.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, everyone, for tuning in.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Josh.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: Have a great day, man.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: This episode has come to an end, but your journey continues.
• 33:23
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• 33:26
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• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's the results driven podcast.com.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next time on the results driven podcast.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see you next time on the results driven podcast.