The Science of Flipping - Episode 147: Interview with James Hawk – Hiring, Building, Growing a Team and Marketing – Real Estate Investing

Episode Date: July 19, 2019

document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () { podlovePlayer("#player-5eb5ab2fc9696", "https://thescienceofflipping.com/wp-json/podlove-web-player/shortcode/post/3068", "https://thescienceofflipping.com/wp-json/podlove-web-player/shortcode/config/default/theme/default"); }); document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () { podlovePlayer("#player-5eb5ab2fc973f", {"title":"Episode 147: Interview with James Hawk u2013 Hiring, Building, Growing a Team and Marketing u2013 Real Estate Investing","subtitle":null,"summary":null,"duration":"","poster":null,"chapters":"","transcripts":"","audio":[{"url":"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/ed9b33/ed9b33fc-e0ed-45d7-b0b3-400cc0c82a94/472f6260-7fac-40f2-ae68-3584cf9f1931/147_tc.mp3","mimeType":"audio/mpeg","title":"AUDIO/MPEG","size":0}]}, "https://thescienceofflipping.com/wp-json/podlove-web-player/shortcode/config/default/theme/default"); }); In this great episode of The Science of Flipping, Justin Colby interviews James Hawk – Hiring, Building, Growing a Team and Marketing – Real Estate Investing. Exclusive strategy on Real Estate Investing! Get a Free Coaching Call with TSOF team. CLICK HERE TO FILL THE FORM. JOIN MASTERMIND — APPLY NOW!!

Welcome to the Science of Flipping Podcast. I'm your host, Justin Colby. Yo, yo, what is up party people? Welcome back to the Science of Flipping podcast. I am your host, Justin Colby. And if you happen to be watching this on YouTube or Instagram or Facebook or wherever this may be landing for you, you can see I have a very special guest here. And before I get to you, my man, this podcast, the Science of Flipping is all about the tools, the systems, the strategy to implement a real business so you no longer have to work in your business. And that's exactly why I'm bringing in a close friend of mine, a colleague of mine, Mr. James Hawk to come into this episode to rock the house. What's up, brother?

What's up, man? Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. And I look forward to, you know, sharing some info with your audience, bro. No doubt. Well, I appreciate it, man. Um, I know you've been on the move. I've been on the move. Um, and so we're actually both doing this from our homes. I know you're in your home. I'm in my home, uh, because we just, we try to get it locked down. So appreciate you tightening the time for my tribe here at the science flipping and dropping some knowledge. No, man, no worries at all. I'm like I said, I'm happy to be on here. Anytime that I can jump on, especially like, you know, with with friends like you, and talk business, you know, I enjoy doing it, man. So I'm excited. Yeah. And so one thing I always try to impress upon the listeners here is

that like the tools and strategies that we talk about are nationwide. And I say that because you're in Jacksonville, Florida, right? I'm in Phoenix, Arizona. And there's a lot of similarities in our business. This isn't like I'm just making shit up on my podcast about what works for me in Phoenix. This is like literally, we're part of several masterminds together. This is literally what the experts are doing across the country. This isn't like the systems and tools, oh, they only work for you, Justin, because you're Justin, right? And so, I want to talk about kind of what's going on in your business, how that's very similar, if not the exact same of what we're doing in our

business and how anyone can implement it. I don't care if you're in San Diego, Jacksonville, New York, Phoenix, it doesn't matter, right? Right. No, for sure, man. I mean, so obviously, you know, you know, I got a business partner, Hunter Hayden, you know, we're, we are all pretty tight. So, I mean, basically our business right now, I'm going to tell you, like, the team itself is so dialed in. Like, just the culture and, like, just the general just, you know, morale in the office is, like, really, really good right now. Everyone is working together so well. And, you know, they've really – we've watched them become a serious team, right? So that's allowed, you know, me to do stuff like, you know, move to freaking Miami. And it's, we're at a just a really good spot, right? So we're doing deals consistently.

We just rebuilt our entire marketing engine in our company. And we're really seeing some great things happening, man. We just integrated not long ago, doing a lot more of like seller finance subject to type deals. So great things are happening this year. And I'm pretty confident it's going to be our biggest year yet. My man. So let's, there's two subjects I definitely want to knock out in the next 20 minutes or so. I love this concept about team, right? I've been ultimately very, very successful building a team and keeping a team. And I'm always in favor of, it's because the people I'm hiring are in my sphere of influence, whether they're coming through friends, family, and or colleagues and or social media, right? And so, but then building a team

and keeping a team are two different things, right? And so let's talk a little bit about that. Because I know you and Hunter, you know, six months ago kind of had that come to Jesus moment like this is it. Yeah, no, we really did, man. Yeah, no, and it's tough, right? I mean, you got to understand that and I'm not saying it can't be done but it just requires a level of commitment just like anything else. You know, if you don't come from a background where, you know, you manage people and, you know, you build teams and everything else, like getting into this business, it's even much more than just about real estate, right? Like just management overall, accountability, you know, all these are like just different aspects that as you're growing and you're scaling, you're really trying to build something great that you're going to encounter. And, you know, we made a ton of mistakes, you know, in like, as we were building out the team,

it just so happened that we were hiring great people that were coming together. And, you know, we did, we had to reach out and really get help, you know, with like leadership and becoming better um you know making people more accountable and through that and through them seeing like how much effort we were putting into you know really becoming better leaders that really pulled them together right so they seen that and that motivated them right and that made them even more bought in than ever that they seen our commitment to them in turn, you know, their commitment just got stronger to us and to the company. So, what is one way, let's just talk about some of the systems or tools, where did you find your current team? You know, where did you find them in terms of whether it

was Craigslist, Indeed, LinkedIn, social media, where did you find them? Sure, sure. So, some of them were Indeed. And then also, there's some that were, you know, in our sphere of influence, right? So, actually, our office manager right now, she was our insurance rep for our insurance company for our property. You know, so we brought her in. And then also our, our lead coordinator, she worked at that same insurance company, and she brought her in as well. Right. So like, there's a there's a few that were just in our general like network. And then the rest of them were all like, indeed yeah i love it so you know and how that relates to me is i built my team the only person that i found uh through like a ad or anything is andrea and you know andrea well and right right now been with me four years and runs

my entire life um which is great um and so i i had a conversation with a client this morning i do one-on-one client work and and one of the things i was advising the client is you need to find an assistant because she's nuts like she just bought six homes in the last 30 days she's rehabbing to all this stuff yeah and i would tell you um first of all individuals like yourself or myself or, you know, high performing, the first hire, in my opinion, is always going to be you need a personal assistant, someone that can kind of do the day to day. But also, people I think have underestimated the power of Craigslist. I mean, I, you know, I think people are now trying to be all LinkedIn or Indeed or Monster

or whatever, all the, but you can absolutely find great people on Craigslist. And I think people need to continue to value that as a resource to find individuals. Yeah, absolutely. And I would say, where did you find like your acquisition guys right so i love that you found uh you said the manager and your lead gal came from your sphere of influence which was your insurance reps yep yeah acquisition team came from my sphere of influence from uh mariano to dave to anthony they all came from either a colleague of mine, Anthony, who was doing deals with me. Dave is Eddie's brother. Mariano is a buddy of mine from a while

that got into real estate. So, tell me about, you know, where you're finding your acquisition side. Yeah. So, I mean, all of ours have come from Indeed. You know, we've tried like, you know, the headhunters and stuff like that. We haven't ever had much luck on the acquisition side with the headhunters. I know some people do. We haven't. But yeah, I mean, all of them have come from Indeed so far, right? So that's basically, you know, that's been our primary source. but we are running like new campaigns now we're actually testing out like a facebook campaign um we're going to start doing like an ad campaign um because we want to bring in uh more sales people we're looking for another one now

um so we're going to be trying some new like innovative stuff this year um for acquisitions people um and then again you know think about like, you know, what niches like are the best and the most relatable to what an acquisitions person is, because it's a little bit of a unconventional job, right? Like no one's out there searching for that kind of job. So I think the more that you can think outside of the box, but like getting them excited about being in the box, if that makes any sense, you know, the better off you're going to be. So, but yeah, Indeed has been our primary source. I love that. So, what's your ad typically say, right? For the people that are like, okay, well, what do you say in the ad? What does it say?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of the gist of it is like, you know, fast paced environment. You know, we're going to give you the opportunity to do what you do best, which is close. You know, you're going to have all the support you need. But we also want a hustler, right? Like someone whenever we're not booking appointments for you that, you know, you're willing to go out there and do whatever it takes to make it happen, right? So, we're not looking for someone that's going to come in and like, all right, if it's a slower day, like I'm just going to stay home. We want someone that's willing to go out there and, you know, knock some door or whatever, whatever it is, whatever it takes, do some driving for dollars. That's really going to go out there and hustle and show us that they want it.

I always suggest people like I have an ad. So So for all my listeners, if you guys want any of the ad stuff, shoot me an email or James, if you're willing to offer your ads, shoot me an email. I'm happy to give you mine. James obviously said he's happy to give you yours or his. But I always say go into like sales and marketing in Indeed or Craigslist and see what other people are posting. See what's already out there because that's who your competition is. So you might as well look at it. And then you make yours more real estate specific than, you know, some call floor or some car salesman or whatever they're looking for. Right. Making more real estate specific.

So let me ask you, why are you looking to hire more? Well, I mean, we've basically just gotten to the point where, you know, like we keep increasing the lead flow. We just hired two callers. So it's definitely at the point where we're going to need that other person, right? And we also want to bring them up kind of like through the trenches a little bit, bring someone else in and have them, you know, we'll, we'll dedicate like a certain amount of leads to him or whatever her. And then also we kind of want to, you know, go through the gauntlet a little bit of really like showing them, bringing them up through the hustle and seeing what that looks like. Cause we really haven't brought too many in and like run them just straight through the gauntlet and where it's like, all right, for so long, you got to go out there,

knock some doors or whatever, right? Just really like make sure that that hustle mentality is instilled in them. So, we're going to try that out and see what happens. So, let's kind of transition over into what I believe this business to be, which is marketing, right? And so, the reason why you're building and keeping a team is because you're feeding them. They have opportunity, they have leads to work, they have offers that they can make because you're providing them enough leads. Before I get to marketing, how many leads per acquisition manager, specialist do you try to feed? Do you have a number that you're saying this guy, this gal can hold however many leads before I hire a new one?

I mean, we don't have an exact dedicated number. This is what I'll say. I mean, what we found is one acquisitions person should be able to at least handle anywhere between 60 to 80 like gross leads a week. I'm just saying gross, right? So between 60 to 80, they should be pretty good. So once you get to that, like what you don't want to see happen is that they're booking so many, you're booking so many appointments for one person that they don't have the real time to go out there and dedicate to that person, to that appointment, digging in, finding out what the situation is, building an offer around that solution based like. So, if they get

overwhelmed, we've found this time and time again that actually the lower the appointments each person has as a salesperson, the higher they convert, right? And I mean that might be a little bit to do with like all right these are my only appointments it also might have a little bit to do with like they have plenty of time to really be prepared and spend as much time as possible with that person without worrying about all right I only got like 30 more minutes and I gotta like get to this next appointment right so you definitely want to be cautious to like be overbooking and, you know, really like pushing them on like busting out many appointments. I prefer having them focus in and, you know, spend all the time needed at one appointment instead of, you know, booking them freaking 20 for the week.

No doubt. And another retention item is not only feeding them leads, they're making money, right? Your guys are making six figures a year in their role, right? They will stick around to that because there's not a lot of opportunity to go make six figures a year. No, there's not. And I mean, that's definitely a huge value proposition that those positions offer. It's like you have the, I mean, you have the ability to make a lot of money. It doesn't matter how old you are, how young you are, you know, man, woman, it doesn't matter, right? Like at the end of the day, that's just a job where

you don't necessarily even need like college education or anything like that to go out and make six figures. Like there's just not many opportunities out there for that. Right. So now let's get to what I think our business is, which is marketing, right? And so I'm a firm believer you have to have multiple marketing strategies. I think any given month, one of those will go down. I don't care if you're doing direct mail and PBC. I don't care if you're doing cold calling, direct mail, PBC, like I do seven, right? And the predominant one that is been around the longest is direct mail. I will never give it up even though it's not continuing to give me the returns. I started PPC about a year and a half ago, finally started working for me, right? Like I think we're closing $50,000 worth of deals this month just from PPC, blah, blah, blah, right? But the point to all that is,

there'll be months that PPC is terrible. And then there'll be months that direct mail is terrible. And then there'll be months that cold calling leads are terrible. And so, there's nothing that can be like, there's never a month when they're all on. And that's why I'm a massive believer that you have to have different strategies. And that goes for people that have no money. Like, you can door knock and you can cold call. That's two believer that you have to have different strategies and that goes for people that have no money. Like you can door knock and you can cold call. That's two strategies that you have. You can find money to put out bandit signs every month, right? Which is some money, but bucks a month.

The point to all that is what are you actively doing that you're finding the best results in? I mean, I'm going to tell you, man, like one tried and true, like, and you know, we've sent millions of pieces of freaking mail and, uh, still to this day, like we have never had anything else like over time. I mean, cold calling is great, right. But, um, you know, as far as if we look overall over the entire time we've been in business, we can contribute more revenue and profit to direct mail than anything else. It's expensive, right? But, you know, I agree with

everything that you said as far as like making sure that you have multiple channels going, because that is true. Like, you know, you're going to have months that, you know, the mail sucks and the cold calling is great or the cold calling sucks and the male is great. So it's like, it is important for consistency, you know, to always have at least, I tell everyone at least like three, right? Like if you at least keep three going, especially as you're getting started and you're getting going, trying to scale. I tell everyone at least three, but yeah, I agree with you. Yeah. If you had to give advice to someone who was just starting, where would you tell them? I mean, I have my, what I would tell them, but what would you tell them? Yeah. I mean, and you know, I get this question all the time. I know you do as well.

I tell them this, I say, I would get a highly distressed list, right? So I would, I would give me a highly distressed list and I would start pounding the phone or door knocking them, you know? I mean, pounding the phone or door knocking them. You know, I mean, that's really it. Or driving for dollars, you can do that as well. Build a driving for dollars list, skip trace them and start calling them. But one of those two is what I would be doing. I mean, for like lower budget, just getting started. And also, you're going to learn a lot through that process, right? That's what I love about it too, is, you know, you're really getting a taste of what it's like.

And that's going to help you as you're bringing people on. If you have an understanding of it, it becomes a lot easier to lead someone else doing it. Yep. Well, I know you do a lot of like teaching and educating on your social media. Where can people find your social media? Yeah. So Instagram is going to be the primary and it's at James the Hawk. Okay. At James the Hawk.

I love it. You are the Hawk. There's no doubt about it. And I say that only because he provides like, he's the real deal, right? Like he's not one of those gurus or out there just trying to sell shit. Like he's developed a really cool software. We can talk about that, but also like, he's the real deal, right? Like he's not one of those gurus are out there just trying to sell shit. Like he's developed a really cool software. We can talk about that, but also like he just gives away real content the same way I do. So if you're not following him at James,

the Hawk or me at the Justin Colby, you need to, cause we, the podcasts are great, but James does this every day. I do it every day. We do something on social media, primarily Instagram, that we're giving real content. So you need to be following at JamesTheHawk, at the Justin Cole, this. I mean, we will talk about this on so many different levels, but let's talk about the software you did create, which is really a game changer for the investor

that does have a team, but also can be a game changer for the investor that does have a team, but also can be a game changer for someone who's getting into the industry so that they start the business the right way, right? Like when I started, dude, I had notepads and I'm writing down, this address is here and this is maybe what I'm going to offer on this. And I don't know if that's the right number. Like you've been able to find something and build it into something that is like a pretty clear cut, you know, market leader here. Yeah, no, man, I appreciate that. I mean, yeah. So basically just on like the side of like the list costs alone, like the amount of like downloads and everything for like fresh lists that

you get in there every month. I mean, just on that, you save a substantial amount of money versus like going to like ListSource or like any of those big, big brand names. Right. So, but it does a lot of stuff, man. It's got built in skip tracing, the offer automator feature, which Sean Terry and I both developed together, which is, you know, you put in your property, then you can get your exit price to a cash buyer, max allowable offer your goal target offer

And then you know, it just does a lot man. It does a lot of different things So like email we have free email built in there or you can email for free so you can do email blasts And then the analytics and data and it's it's insane, right? If you want to know like where the hottest pockets are, like in the entire country, in a city, in a neighborhood, down to the street, like price growth, it just goes super, super in depth. And also like just the info on every property that it has, right? So like if you want to know like how much is owed on someone's loan, what their interest rate is, stuff like that, like how much is owed on someone's loan, what their interest rate is, stuff like that, like what liens they have on the property, like all that's in there,

any judgments. So it's just a really, really cool tool that you use, right? Like you're gonna, you're gonna own, you're gonna own your competition. It's really an unfair advantage. Um, you know, if you take it and implement the training and actually take action on it, that we give you all the training and you use it, um, it's a game changer, man. Love that. That's awesome, dude. So if you're interested in that, email me, I'll make sure to send you James way. And we'll give you guys a sweet deal on it for sure. There go i knew he would um but you know to kind of wrap the conversation as a whole like there's the difference between i think i get a little hesitant because people hear me talk about my team and the companies that i've built and you

know now i'm building a company down in san diego and there's 23 employees now that i'm running and we're doing you know a decent. And so scaling that business is even more convoluted. But, you know, I think there's a time where people really should not be hiring. And it's basically the connection between hiring versus marketing is when you are absolutely tapped out marketing and revenue, then there's a reason to hire. But people hear you, they hear me, they hear Sean, they hear Kent, they hear our circle. And they basically say, you know, Oh, I got to go hire. I have to go do it. And I'm not a firm believer on that. I'm a firm believer. Stretch yourself to a place where a, you're putting a quarter million dollars in

your pocket personally, but B you shouldn't have the feeling of like oh i need to hire so um i don't have to be in my business that's what the big catch word is i want to be in my business or i don't want to be in my business bro you're hiring so you can be more on your business creating more opportunity not so you can just sit around not doing anything and so what are you what are your thoughts about that? Because I have pretty strong thoughts about. Yeah, no, I, and I agree. I agree with that. Right. And I think that's, that's really a misconception a lot of people have. I think that when they hear us all talking about like working on the business, not in the business, you know, that's really what we're doing is we're working

on the business. Like we're working on going out, creating more opportunity, looking at different revenue streams that we could potentially open up, like stuff like that. Right. Like if you want to, but I tell everyone, you know, it really, you got to make a decision on what you want your business to look like and what you want your lifestyle to look like. Right. So if you want to have a smaller operation, you still go to appointments, stuff like that. And you know, you feel like that's what makes you happy. And you kind of work around your schedule a little bit. And that's fine if that's what you want to do. But if you want to really grow something that's serious and really scale, it isn't a situation where you're going to like start hiring people and then you're just going to sit around and be able to do nothing.

Like it's still going to require like your time, um, and your effort. And then of course you should be out there. Your team is depending on you to go out there and, uh, you know, innovate and come up with a new stuff for them to actually implement. Um, and you know, keep driving yourself forward in the market. So yeah, I know. I agree. I agree. There is a time to hire and there's a time not to hire. No doubt. No doubt. I agree a hundred percent. So listen, dude, where else, you know, I would assume you want everyone to find you on social media. Anything else you want to kind of leave

them with besides maybe Instagram or is that a good place to give to them or? No, man man I mean the Instagram is good at James the Hawk and like Justin said I'm always putting out new content every day so yeah guys come check me out there and you know we're really starting to ramp it up we're bringing the vlog back so a lot of big things are happening and I'm excited to share as much value with you guys as I possibly can. Yeah. And so if you, what did I tell him? I said,

I'd give them my ad. Um, and if you can send me your ad, then they can have our ads and they can. So shoot me an email, um, info at the science of flipping.com. That way myself and my assistant see it.

Uh, but I'll make sure I gave you mine as well as James's ad. If you guys are listening, um, follow him, the James, the Hawk at James, the Hawk and me at the Justin Colby. I know you're listening to me on podcast,

but I give away a lot of content there as well as YouTube. You know, as a matter of fact, what's your YouTube handle? Oh, it's just James Hawk. Yeah. Justin Colby,

VP, a lot of great content. He's not someone who's always going to be selling you shit. James will deal with successful business. So you need to be following both of us on our social medias for that matter. So thanks, bro. I really appreciate you, you know, spending some time with the science flipping. No, man. Thank you, bro. Thanks. Thanks everyone. All your audience.

And you know, I really appreciate it, man. I love being on. I love, you know, spending some time talking with you. Yeah, man. Exciting stuff. All right, guys, that is it for today. I look forward to seeing you guys on the next episode. Peace. Peace.