Title: “The Land Investor’s Playbook: Winning Strategies for Maximizing Returns”
Episode: 226
In this episode of Profit First for REI podcast, we are joined by Dan Haberkost. He is a real estate investor focusing on new development, land investing, and consulting.
Dan talks about marketing and the fears he had about spending money on it. He also talks about incentivizing employees and the expectations he sets for them.
Listen and enjoy!
Key Takeaways:
[00:41] Introducing Dan Haberkost
[01:55] The Big Picture Blueprint
[02:34] How did you land on land?
[07:27] Land Investing
[09:59] Room by room rentals
[13:23] Why did Dan choose land investing?
[20:32] The fear of spending money
[26:07] How do you incentivize your employees?
[28:53] Dan’s advice to real estate investors
[29:51] Connect with Dan Haberkost
Quotes:
[07:48] “Land is the means of making money. You can do it from anywhere.”
[09:28] “I’d rather focus on the active income… and just buy nice real estate.”
[28:55] “Get clear on your goals and pick the asset and the business that align.”
Connect with Dan:
Website: https://danhaberkost.com/
Tired of living deal to deal?
If you are a real estate investor or business owner who is tired of living deal to deal and want to double your profits, head over here to book your no-obligation discovery call with me. Either myself or someone from my team will hop on a short call with you to get clear on your business goals, remove any obstacles holding you back, and map out a game plan to help you finally start keeping more of the money you work so hard to make. – David
Transcript:
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Understanding your numbers. I think if I had done better there at tracking and been able to just look empirically and say, oh, I’m getting X return for every thousand dollars or $10,000 I, I should spend more, that probably would’ve helped.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
If you’re a real estate investor who’s sick and tired of living deal to deal, then welcome home. Hear from everyday real estate investors just like you, and discover how they’ve completely transformed their business by taking a profit First approach. This is the profit first for REI podcast, where we believe revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. It’s time to start making profit a habit in your business. So here’s your host, David Richter.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
We have Dan Bercot on the show today, profit First RAI podcast and he talks about how to never have to worry about marketing. And I really think this is so key because he has an area of the business that you might not even do in real estate and it really is applicable to any part of real estate. And then he also goes into how he incentivizes employees and the expectations he sets. Just someone who’s doing a lot of great things in the real estate world I know you can take away from. He also talks about the fear that he had around spending money around marketing. And no matter what side of the fence you are there, you’re probably going to resonate with some of what he says there. Thank you for being a listener of the Prophet first RI podcast. Enjoy the episode. Hey everyone, it is David Richter here again with Dan Bercot. I’m super excited to interview him. He had me on his podcast, so I’ll make sure Dan, that you give the name of that show so they can go and check that out. But on here today, he’s a land investor. He’s going to tell us why land, he’s going to tell us lots of different things, what’s working today in marketing, really excited about this show, so let’s dive into it. Dan, thanks for being on today.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
David, thanks for having me. Looking forward to talking.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah, I really liked your show. I feel like you guys asked pointed questions, you and Mason when we were on there. Can you give everyone that name of your podcast?
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Absolutely. It’s the big picture blueprint and we really focus on number one, not being a one-on-one, a Newbie Investor podcast. There’s plenty of those. So we don’t define every term and go over the basics. We focus on high level stuff for business owners. And then number two, we really try when we talk to people like you who’ve been interviewed a thousand times to ask different questions and not just ask how’d you get started?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah, yeah, that was great. So you get started. Just kidding. So from here though, but if people don’t know you, you want to give ’em a high level overview of where you were and where you are today and definitely segue into land. How did you land on land?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Oh, definitely. And I haven’t been interviewed nearly as much as you, so it makes far more sense. So anyways, Dan Bercot, I live in Colorado and I’m originally from Ohio. Growing up there, very rural town, everyone kind of just got a job and some went to school, some not, but nobody really owned a business. I didn’t know anyone that did that. And so I started working pretty early and through high school and college, the people I worked for, I did help them run their businesses. And in fact as a teenager even I managed a farm where the owner would go to Aruba for most of the year and I’d manage his farm and his rental properties. And so that was my first experience with real estate as a teenager and that taught me about the real estate I don’t want to own, but anyways, to keep it short and sweet.
(03:15):
Did that through high school, ran a landscaping company through college while going to school and that was not a whole lot of fun. Alls I did was go to school and go to work. Did not have any fun at all in college, but around 20 ish I was planning, reflecting what am I going to do when I graduate? If I can work full-time and go to school, I can certainly start a business. And so I started reading different books about equities, different businesses to start all that and everybody else, it was when I read Rich Dad, poor Dad that it was light bulb moment, I said real estate, it is. So bought a duplex as a house hack when I was 21. I still own that one today. And ended up moving here to Colorado, bought another house hack. And it was around that time that I realized the low and no money down stuff is great for an active business.
(03:59):
It’s great for a couple house hacks, but if you really want to accrue a large portfolio of rental properties, you need to make a lot of money and have some sort of active income. And so that ultimately is where front Range land came from. So I met a guy here in Colorado Springs who had been doing land and development for the past 45 years, and I would drive an hour south every weekend to Pueblo, Colorado to go work with him, work for him, just learn from him. And it all started with simple infill, new construction. And so I started participating with him, helping on these builds and then ultimately sourcing land. And so that is where Front Range Land came from. So fast forward to today, if you think of what a single family wholesaler does, right, the word wholesaler, it’s just a giant marketing funnel going direct to seller. And so Front Range Land is a giant marketing funnel going direct to seller for land, buying it 30 to 70 cents on the dollar depending on what we’re going to do with it. A lot of it is just simple arbitrage. We buy it and sell it occasionally do assignments. I’ll still do new construction on a few lots at a time and working on putting together some larger subdivides. So that is the active business that has scaled my income and then allowed me to continually buy more and more rental properties.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Awesome. So that was a great overview. You’re good at this life story stuff. So let me go back though, because you said something that was very interesting. This guy was a farm owner and went to Aruba while you ran his farm, but he had rentals too. And you said this is not the type of rentals I would want to own. It sounded pretty as I was listing, why wouldn’t I want to own these rentals? He’s going to Aruba and keeping you to run them. So I’ve got that huge question here.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yeah, well he had me to deal with the headaches, so these were very old because every piece of farmland he bought had an old house on it. And so we’re talking 18 hundreds and so constant problems. And then he had a terrible dynamic with his tenancy was he was good to me, but he could be vindictive, let’s just put it that way. And so there was all kinds of conflict and then I got in the middle of these uncomfortable situations. So it taught me that I want to own nice real estate and also take care of the tenants.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Okay, so this was Yellowstone or something earlier. He is just going in there, yeah. Okay. Now that helps me a little bit. I was like why? It sounds like his situation was great, but it was more like he was going in that he was going off and then you got to deal with all the
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yes, exactly. All the
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Headache. Yep. Okay, that makes sense. So then from there you took your real estate journey into the house hacking. Where did you learn house hacking? Where did you learn that original source of okay, I’m going to live in one side and then rent out the other and house hack?
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah, BiggerPockets. Honestly, after reading Rich Dad, poor Dad, I think I just Googled real estate and investing podcasts and that’s how I found BiggerPockets and yeah, so ultimately they helped me learn about that.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Okay, cool. So that’s where I feel like a lot of people learned about it. So I just wonder if you had the same experience or where people, and obviously you read Rich Dad, poor Dad, that’s the gateway drug into the real estate world, I feel like. Yes, one of ’em. But then you switch over to land it sounds like because there was, would you say that switching to land was area specific for you or would it be like I would do land no matter which state I lived in, I would still focus on land investing.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
So one clarification and then I’ll answer your question. I didn’t switch to land. I was continuing to invest, but I closed on fourplex two weeks ago. Property manager handles it. I don’t think about it that’s going to benefit me come tax time, it’ll make me a little bit of money and I’ll appreciate over time that I think of as a totally different bucket. And so land is the means of making money and yes, you can absolutely do it from anywhere. It did help. And it was more locally available because I’m in Colorado, there’s a ton of land out here, there’s a few big subdivisions that failed a long time ago that are just sitting there with infill lots. So that helped. But even if you’re in Manhattan, you can still start a land business. You’re just not going to be doing it locally.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
That makes sense. So then you have two different buckets, like you said in your brain. You’ve got the active investing, which is the land business, and then you’ve got buy and holds that you still collect throughout your investing journey. Are you taking the excess profits from the active income and then investing them in the land or like, oh, have you, I don’t know, recycled the deals or the bur method or do your own type of funding? It’s like, is that what you’re mainly doing is reinvesting a lot of the profits back into the long-term deals?
Speaker 1 (08:41):
So I take from that active bucket, front range land and I buy their rental properties. And the way I like to do it, and this is just opinion, this is not me saying this is the way because I enjoy building front range land, I don’t deal with big rehabs, I’ve done it. I don’t want to deal with big rehabs and that sort of thing. So my rule now is properties younger than myself and where I can get 700 or better credit score tenants. And so right now I’ve got a couple duplexes I’m having built, I’m just going to keep brand new construction, great areas and so that’s how I want to approach it. You can make a great business going and rehabbing old distressed real estate. You can make a ton of money dealing with C-Class apartments. A lot of my friends do. That’s just not what I want to do. I think about the levers I can pull and I’d rather focus on the active income and really focus on that lever and then just buy nice real estate.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Do you mind me asking then how many units you have at this point?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Yeah, so five houses, two of those houses are rented by the room. So there’s four tenants in each of those two duplexes, a four plex. And then I have two more duplexes being built that I’m just going to keep.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Okay. There’s so many questions now. So you’re renting them by the room, how did you do that? Is that a pad split situation, that type of cover or how’d you get into renting by the room?
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Well, just leaving the house hack. So again, going back to initially learning from BiggerPockets, so I have a lot I can say on this that could be a great strategy. You can scale that one of the room by room rentals. I’ve had the same tenants there. One of ’em has been there five years, one of ’em, two of ’em have been there three years. One just turned over. I definitely avoided renting to people my age, I’m being honest, but they’re just room by room rentals and just very, very clear expectations. And there’s such a housing shortage where we’ve consistently been able to place 700 plus credit score tenants in those houses in individual rooms.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
So then these people are not, would you say these are college age then or are they typically,
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Do they
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Have a family or
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Nope. Middle aged divorces or just single guys in their late, I mean I had a dentist rent the basement room in one of these. She had an eight 10 credit score. So it, it’s just been that there’s been such a lack of rental units that have been, we’ve been able to get good tenants for years and years.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Wow. That’s just so interesting because like you said, if there’s a shortage of any kind, then it is, this makes sense. Or if it’s just goes bonkers, we’ve seen pricing just everything else. Wow, that’s so interesting. I love that. I feel like even though you have the active business, which is land and you’ve got buy and holds, you kind of have diverse buy and holds. You’ve got room by room, you’ve got the different types that you do as well, but you’re like, are you taking each individual property and just saying, this is how I can maximize this piece of real estate?
Speaker 1 (11:47):
No, honestly, it’s because I had great tenants. That first one carousel lane, that was the first house I ever bought here. I lived in, it moved on to Pando Avenue. So I left Carousel rented by the room and those same tenants are there from years and years ago. And so we just haven’t touched it. And then same thing with Pando a before I moved into this house here, I had lived there and house hacked there. I stopped renting out rooms after that one, but I just left the tenants. They were great. And so those ones have remained room by room. If there’s ever a major turnover, I’ll probably just run ’em out traditionally, but for now it’s working.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
That helps me know too, your thinking process is it’s worked for this, why go and upset the apple cart or it has not also had an impact on when you’ve rented new properties of I should do this room by room or I should do this type of investing. Either.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
No, especially as I was kind of alluding to a minute ago, as time gone on, I’ve gotten really clear where I want to spend my time, so I want as close to truly passive properties as possible going forward, but I wasn’t going to kick out good tenants that had been with me for years. So that’s why I’ve left those as they are.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Okay, okay. I’ll leave those alone for now. Let’s get into the land side because I am interested because on here, this podcast, it’s like the framework of make spend, keep, you got to make the money, you got to spend in the right place and I want you to keep some of the money too. Why did you choose land as the big ticket item for you to make the money? It sounds like that’s your ATM machine and I’m wondering what the thought process was to go down that road.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
So part of it is I did just stumble into it, but I think I got lucky in the sense that land is incredibly inefficient. If you want to go direct to seller for houses or apartments or industrial buildings, you’re competing against some big players, highly sophisticated people within those spaces. There’s lenders available endlessly for any of those assets. Well understood. I would liken them to being more similar to equities where if you want to just go buy a stock at a discount, that’s really hard to do. It’s a highly efficient, not perfect, but more efficient market. Whereas on the opposite end of the spectrum, I would put land in the same category as what mobile home parks or storage units were 10 years ago, fractured, inefficient, not well understood, not a lot of big consolidated players. And so that all of that hard to price leads to mispricings and the opportunity to go buy it at discount.
(14:15):
So I mean it’s gotten more competitive, but when I started with land, I could get a deal with a hundred mailers easily. It was just unbelievably more of a blue ocean than the other assets within real estate. And yet at the same time we’ve been in a housing boom for quite a while here we still are. There’s still a lack of housing. I mean I do a lot of business in the Carolinas in Florida and down there it’s indistinguishable from 2021 for me, I mean land, it’s like liquid, it just sells so fast in the markets we’re in. So that presents an opportunity because it’s a highly inefficient, not well understood market. And I’m not with BlackRock, I would be if I was trying to go after single family houses.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Would you say, and you said today it’s still the same as 2021 where it still feels inefficient or do you feel like it’s becoming more of a red ocean today?
Speaker 1 (15:04):
So what I was referring to there is just how hot the market is down in the southeast and how quickly we’re able to sell this stuff.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Yeah, that makes
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Sense. So it has gotten substantially more competitive, but the competition is so bad. None of them have money, none of them can close. They don’t know anything about land. They’re trying to market. They don’t understand the avatar. I mean I have done hundreds of these deals and the avatar is not distressed. The vast majority of the time is not distressed and they’re trying to market for the distress. So yes, it’s gotten more competitive, but it’s a lot of bad competition that gets us deals where someone else will offer more, they’ll sign with that person, that person won’t close and then we get that deal.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Okay, so you brought up marketing. So what is working today in your marketing? And that was so interesting, you said it’s not distressed seller. So who is the typical avatar then?
Speaker 1 (15:51):
So for anyone inland that’s listening, I’m mostly in Florida, the Carolinas and Colorado and done a few in Arizona and all over the place, some fractured deals. But generally those areas and if you think about land and especially 20, 30 years ago, pretty much had to buy it for cash and that still tends to be the case. So the sellers that we buy from often bought 5, 10, 20 years ago. And so if they were able to buy for cash, then they tend to be in a pretty strong financial position now. Or it’s a retired developer who are investor who built on or sold off most of the portfolio and they got a couple lots left. And so the avatar is slightly more sophisticated, not always, they’re still mom and pops and it tends to be more apathy where the buzzwords, when I see in my acquisition manager’s notes, they just want to get rid of it or they’re just ready to sell and they can’t stand realtors, oh, that’s a buzzword, or they decided not to move there and build, so just want to get it off their whatever, stop paying taxes, stuff like that where it’s more just they’re irritated with it and they don’t want to deal with it.
(16:55):
I can give you a really easy anecdote from my own life that illustrates the point. I was talking to my dad, he just retired last year and he and my mom traded in both their cars. They went single car, they bought a nice truck and when he told me he traded in his Subaru, it was only a couple years old dad, you could have sold that and got substantially more yourself. They just flipped that and he goes, I’m tired. I’ve optimized for that my whole life. I just wanted it done. That’s the avatar. That is who sells land at a discount all day. And so all that to say our marketing is focused on legitimacy and certainty at close because who’s the target of scams most often older people. And so we focus on proof of funds, call our attorney or title agent depending on the state and verify that we’re real.
(17:44):
Here’s our frequently asked question sheet, we’re on better business bureau Trustpilot, consistent marketing and logo everywhere. Very clean, organized where we can confidently say, yes, we’re going to close. No, we’re not a scam. That is the focus of our marketing. So mentioning proof of funds, that’s a big thing. We put that on our letters and then right now just being that it’s tax season, I’ve got a fun one, I’m trying, it’s a big headline that says, does the government really need more of your money and then goes into quit playing property taxes on land you’re not going to use. So anyways, to summarize, succinctly, our marketing is focused on legitimacy and certainty of closure.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
So it’s still a motivated seller, but it’s just a different type of motivation versus distressed seller of like you said, these aren’t people that usually, I’m sure they’re out there, but usually they have means here, but they’re not the typical house seller. It could be anyone. And between that above, below that, and this is more of I’m just done with this, can you just take it off my hands? I don’t want to pay realtors. I want it to be easy and I want you to be legitimate and really send the money over to the title company and to the attorney. That makes a lot of sense. So what I’m getting from this though is that you really understand who your seller is, who your avatar is. So how did you dig into that? Was this from just doing a lot of deals or did you go into it being day one, I need to know who I’m buying from or was this an evolution?
Speaker 1 (19:22):
I’d love to say it was that intentional, but no, it’s just a matter of iteration over the years of really figuring out what do these people want? What are the red flags of, Hey, no, this person should just go sell with a realtor and then vice versa the hey, this is a hot lead. So just a matter of iteration and kind of building that profile out over time.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Okay. Well that helps me a lot where, so if you’re listening to this and you’re jumping in, it’s like you’re going to need to skin your knee a couple times or see what goes on and really get in there. But then I like the clarity. You have a lot of clarity around who you’re really dealing with and how you really help them and what they’re really thinking as well too, which that was great info because that’ll work any day, every day, all the time if you can really figure out who you’re trying to help and what they’re needing. Okay, so we did talk about this before the show. Some of the pain around marketing that a lot of people have is either they overspend or they are afraid to spend the money on marketing. Have you ever been in either of those positions and can you give me a little bit of that background?
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Growing up, a lot of fear around money. My parents were very conservative. Again, grew up in a very rural small town and so that carried over into adulthood. We would drive miles to save 5 cents on gasoline, that sort of thing. So yeah, all that to say I myself or limited myself for years where I was afraid to spend more money on marketing when it was really producing and that concept, the concept of course what you do and what you drive home of understanding if I spend a hundred dollars, what do I get back? I didn’t have that fully drilled into my head and I conflated expenses with investments. And so yeah, that’s probably one of my biggest, I guess not regrets, I don’t really have any regrets, but things that has held me back and could have allowed me to accelerate much further if I wasn’t so afraid to spend money on marketing when things were going well and markets were really producing. And so that’s taken a long time to get over. I’m getting better, but I’m still can be stingy there. But yeah, I guess it’s better than the opposite, but nonetheless, understanding your numbers. I think if I had done better there at tracking and been able to just look and empirically and say, oh, I’m getting X return for every thousand dollars or $10,000, I should spend more, that probably would’ve helped.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Okay. That’s what would’ve helped. Back then you said you’re constantly getting better. Is that what’s helping you now? Is having that clarity? Do you track that return? At this point
Speaker 1 (21:58):
It’s much better, but I still have here, I’ll tell you, I’d love to hear what you think. So we got one of the deals we got last week and another one I think we should get this week. We got that lead a year ago. Both of them, they were from mailers a year ago. And this happens all the time. We’ll get a lead three days after the postcards hit and we’ll close it and then we will have some that take 12 months. So there’s such a wide swath of, as far as the time, the average would probably be really misleading because we have such a wide range of how long this takes now, some of these 50, 60, 70 followups over the course of nine, 12 months. So I’m still having a hard time getting accurate numbers where two problems, number one, being able to track far enough in arrears to get accurate numbers. And number two, oftentimes because we’re doing so many separate markets, having a basic understanding of statistics, am I really getting a regression to the mean if there’s 2000 vacant lots in this market or a thousand and we mail to them three times in a year, do these averages really mean anything? I’m not sure. And so that’s another thing that I’ve struggled with. So I have a big spreadsheet where I track all the mail that deals that come from the mail, all that, but I’m looking for a better solution.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Yeah, well first of all, I think just knowing that is a good first step. Where should I be able to take the info from or I should be able to track this. I like what you were saying too, it’s like, okay, I need to know my returns in order to know where I need to spend the money if it’s over the year time or all of that. A I feel like too, it depends on your business. Are you scaling? Are you keeping it smaller? If it takes a year turnaround time in some places, and that’s the data that we have, then obviously if we’re going to keep going that route, we need to build a pipeline now for 2025. And I like what you had said before earlier on, it’s inefficient or there’s less people in that pool, even if it’s become more competitive, you’re still one of the real buyers out there.
(24:04):
So it’s like what are those channels that are really helping us get to where we want to be? And yeah, I like the route you’re going down, but it is that iteration of, okay, where am I asking yourself some of those deeper questions. I would point you to, if you’ve never read Keith Cunningham’s book, the Road Less Stupid, I love that one because how do I ask myself the right questions for this situation and not give you answers? It’s like you take your situation and ask yourself the harder questions and whatever you’re going through, you don’t even have to read the book literally. It’s like I just go through it and what is the issue that I’m facing? So that would get you, that would give you a lot there. So if you’re listening to this too, I highly recommend that book one of my top five business books of all time, but especially with a question like that where it’s like, well, let’s dig into your business.
(24:48):
Let’s go behind the scenes. Well, here’s how you can ask yourself some good questions too. I like that though, where you were, you said fear of spending money, marketing. I was really going down that road and then it really turned into, okay, I have to spend it. I know that we can spend it in order to get what we need. And part of that is getting that clarity and no, it might not be perfect at this point, and you’ve got deals from year ago, you’ve got deals that are happening different places, or you’re not able to grab all the numbers, but still it’s that awareness like you said, of I know if I’m getting a return, I shouldn’t be as trigger shot or gunshot to pull the trigger on those marketing. I like that a lot. I did like what you said too, that land for you is that active income and it’s what works for you.
(25:37):
You’ve really found that niche, you’ve found that mind to the seller and really gotten in there. I think that’s key. That is so key if you want to unlock the make money skill as well too. Now, a couple last points here, a couple last questions. You do work with employees, right? You have a team, it’s not just you. So you had mentioned about incentivizing employees and I love that topic of conversation and just how do we make sure that they’re set up for success? So how do you do that? How do you incentivize the employees that you have on your team?
Speaker 1 (26:09):
I’m working on getting better now. I have two acquisition people. One I just left and I’m replacing her right now, and I was just revamping the job description, revamping the onboarding, all of this. So it’s a great time to talk about it. And one thing that I want to do, and I am doing much better this time is setting really clear expectations. So in the people I’m interviewing, the first thing I say to them is, I paint the picture, David, this is the role you’re going to do. Having them start with a lot of calling before they get a lot of mailers sent to their numbers, so it’s going to be more outbound to start. And so I’m setting that expectation, Hey, if you enjoy kind of the hunt of sales, of gamifying and of going and making more money, you’re going to love this.
(26:49):
If you want to be in a growth-oriented kind of more aggressive sort of sales environment, great. If you just want to check a box, you’re going to hate it. And I’ve been actually saying that you’re going to be miserable doing this. And so starting at the very top of the funnel and just being really clear with them is something I’m working on doing much better now as I’m interviewing then going forward, painting a better picture of where they can go, alright, I’m hiring right now. Outbound lead specialist is what I’m calling it as opposed to acquisition manager. This is me trying to improve the whole process where the goal is to become an acquisition manager in about a year. And so here’s the path, right? You start here, you work to become an acquisition manager where you’ll have more inbound leads and less cold calling.
(27:33):
And then from there you work into a more advanced role where you’re not just closing the simple stuff, but you’re also helping work on some larger subdivide, going after big pieces, projects where there’s a lot more involved, but then also a lot more upside and a lot bigger numbers. And so all that to say number two is making sure they have a clear commission structure that’s aligned with their goals, where they see how they can hit that and how that all leads back to those initial lead measures. And then also seeing the progression of, okay, if I master this, I can move on to the next stage and the next stage and we can do bigger deals and it will lead to ultimately that individual making more money. So expectations along with clearly showing how our incentives are aligned and how all the lead measures that they have to hit lead to them hitting their goals.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
That makes sense. That’s really good. It’s just setting those proper expectations from day one. That’s what I was hearing. And then making sure that they have a clear success path of what you want for them and what it looks like. So I really like that too. And the words you use and the titles that you use, it just sounded all very intentional. You’re very intentional with where you want their path to go, so I like that a lot. Last few minutes here, one final question. What advice general or around the finances, around anything would you give a real estate investor listening to the podcast,
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Get really clear on your goals and then pick the asset and the business that align? I personally like dividing the investing in the active business in two different buckets. I mean, you don’t necessarily have to, but, and then once you’ve made those decisions of what business you’re going to start, what asset you’re focusing on, focus on that relentlessly and don’t vary from it. Again, the shiny object syndrome is easy for all of us to get, and you can go make millions of dollars in any of these asset classes, but you can’t do it in all of them.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Yeah, I really like that advice. Focus. Focus on what you’re good at. I also, like you said, to just really dig into your avatar, know who you’re speaking to, know who you’re really trying to help, and then making sure that if you’ve got the marketing in your business, you really are tracking, where’s it going so you can see what you can pour the fuel on. That was really good advice here during this podcast. How can people get ahold of you or how do you want people to connect?
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Dan habers.com or Dan Habers on Instagram or Facebook?
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Awesome. Bercot is H-A-B-E-R-K-O-S-T, so if you’re looking him up on the website or on wherever, your socials, everywhere else, that’s how you can find him. Dan, this was awesome, and I want to make sure if you’re listening to this and you were like, Danny, you said, oh my gosh, I really resonate with the fear of spending money or of overspending. Maybe you’re on the other side of the coin and you’re like, I’m just trying to see what sticks. Whatever situation you’re in, if you need clarity around the finances, go to simple cfo.com. We want to hold your hand through that process because lots of people are allergic to spreadsheets, so we want to help you know exactly where the money’s going and give you that peace of mind and financial coaching there. Simple cfo.com. Dan, thank you again for being on this podcast. I really enjoy, I think you gave some great advice here to the listeners.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Thanks, David. It was fun.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Yeah, and remember, if you’re listening to this Make Profit a Habit in Your Business,
Speaker 2 (30:50):
This episode of the Profit First for REI podcast is over, but there are plenty more where that came from. Are you ready to learn how David and his team can help implement the Profit First system in your business? Schedule a discovery call@simplecfo.com right now. We’ll see you next time on The Profit First for REI podcast with David Richter.
