Is Your Culture Wrong?

05/06/19 • 45 min

Nate Joens: [00:00:03] Welcome everybody. My name is Nate Joens. I am the CEO and co-founder at Structurely we've got a really exciting episode today of the ISA radio with our friends at Hatch coaching Hatch realty Erik Hatch Robby Trefethren guys. Can you tell us a little bit about your business. Robby I I'm very bad at pronouncing your last name Colorado everyone is you crossed it and there's a reason I sort of go by Robert T. Yep. It's the first time I've actually tried to pronounce it live. So we did you that well and the guy's house as he says it.

Erik Hatch: [00:00:38] His last name sounds like a pharmaceutical drug trial here. I've heard that one. It's great. So thank you for the introduction.

Erik Hatch: [00:00:46] And it should be known that Robby and I are huge fans of Structurely you're not even paying us to say that we just simply like you guys a lot and we think that what you're doing in the ISA and artificial intelligence world are game changing. So really elated to be partnering with you on this here at here in Fargo North Dakota. We have a couple of different ventures that are rolling out and it all started with Hatch Realty. We run our real estate company as a team. So our team consists right now of 35 people that includes three expansion markets. We run a different model than most people do even that are running teams. In 2018 we did six hundred and sixty foreclosed transactions just a hair under 5 million in volume 5 million of GCI and just over 150 million in volume. So we've had a fun run of things so far about three and a half years ago I had been getting coached and I was doing some coaching on the side and really felt like we had a unique voice in the market and it was different than what other people were doing and so especially with Robby by my side and I'll let Robby share his story and his journey. But what happened is we saw that there was a need and an opportunity for us to try to influence an impact in the best possible way. And so that's We curated Hatch coaching now. We we catered to some of the top coaching clients some of the top realtors in the country and we are honored to be a part of it. So Robby Your journey has been similar but different.

Robby Trefethren: [00:02:24] Yeah I started up a team back. Jeez it would be January of 2014. Does that sound right. I mixed up all the years a while ago and I started on the team as an as an ISA which is why we created this whole of the ISA radio and everything goes along with it. And when I came into the game I remember my first day I walked in and Erik kind of gave me a remember the script book right and old school script book filled with I would refer to it as a bunch of junk because it was all focused on I like to say manipulating and coercing and really trying to take advantage of the other person.

Robby Trefethren: [00:03:05] And what I found was I wanted to create a way that really put the other person first because I think that's a better way and a more sustainable way to do business. And in my heart it felt right. So went down that route and now we had some major success. We have an ISA Department now with five full time ISAs of course.

Robby Trefethren: [00:03:26] And they were featured on one of the other podcasts as well. And I have the privilege and honor of coaching most or a lot of the top teams and ISAs teams throughout the country. So that's awesome.

Nate Joens: [00:03:41] Yeah. For everyone listening. Definitely check out the sixth episode of the ISA radio so you can hear firsthand from from these ISAs with hatches as we referred to them on the episode. The actual rainmakers.

Erik Hatch: [00:03:56] Thanks for that. Yeah I agree 100 percent man.

Nate Joens: [00:04:00] Yep awesome. So we're we're switching this one up a little bit today not necessarily ISA focus not necessarily script focus but kind of giving you the inside look into the culture that has been built at hatch from the rainmaker himself. Mr. ERIK Hatch I want to do a rainmaker or I may go. We'll just get everyone's kind of a rainmaker right now so we're gonna kind of dive into culture and how you can build culture successfully.

Nate Joens: [00:04:47] Like the guys that Hatch have they might not agree that they have had it had it figured out from the start.

Nate Joens: [00:04:55] But as we like to say every time here we've kind of fumbled forward and figured out the right culture to attract and retain some of the top producing talent in the industry. So guys can you kind of tell me a little bit about the culture at hatch and kind of how you got there wher...

Erik Hatch: [00:00:38] His last name sounds like a pharmaceutical drug trial here. I've heard that one. It's great. So thank you for the introduction.

Erik Hatch: [00:03:56] Thanks for that. Yeah I agree 100 percent man.

Nate Joens: [00:04:47] Like the guys that Hatch have they might not agree that they have had it had it figured out from the start.

Previous Episode

Building a Bench

Nate Joens: [00:00:02] Welcome everybody on this fine and freezing Tuesday morning out of Fargo and great state of Iowa. I am Nate the CEO Structurely these fine gentlemen or with Hatch coaching we're about to start our what is this our fourth webinar. Fourth or fifth team 18 20 18 eighteen hundred webinar which is how to build a bench. Erik in Robby are gonna be leading this one giving us some insights into really frankly they lost two thirds of their sales team at Hatch Realty. Guys give us some background. Let's get this thing started.

Erik Hatch: [00:00:58] So people used to ask me how much do you bench. My answer would be most of the game. And so it's fun to talk about benching once again. And so here we find ourselves dive in and I'll give you a brief synopsis in twenty seventeen. At that point that was our highest year of production for our team. We we had thirty eight or thirty nine people we sold six hundred and fifty two homes in Fargo North Dakota which is a city of one hundred and twenty thousand. The counties we serve in total are about two hundred and fifty thousand but are our main metros one hundred and twenty thousand. And we did. So we had grown exponentially and our team members never left. The people that we started with five years ago and four years ago were basically still with us and our agents were like the top of the top producers are our average listing agent sells anywhere from what is it Robby 90 or 100 homes for a listing agent and a floor is about 75 80 ish up to 1 10.

Robby Trefethren: [00:02:01] So yeah average in 90 95.

Erik Hatch: [00:02:03] Yep. And then our buyer agents were averaging you know the floor was probably thirty five for our bottom producers and ninety five for our top producers we were averaging about 60 transactions on the buy side. Now right away if you're B.S. meter is like mind you say how in the world can each agent produce so high and it's it's the leverage that we give them we have we have shown partners we have ISAs we have great admin and so the agents and their actual tasks that what they have to do on a regular basis is maybe different than most people's. And we had a group of people that had never left our turnover that happen annually was only coming from us removing people from the business. Occasionally somebody would move to a different part of the country or what it would be or we would help them find their way out the door if they weren't the right fit. And so we had 90 percent plus retention year over year. Robby what am I missing here and kind of our background.

Robby Trefethren: [00:03:03] Yeah I think just to emphasize the point of a lot of people think 90 60 homes per person that seems like the essence of valid thought I want to re-emphasize the amount of leverage and specialization that we have built in.

Robby Trefethren: [00:03:18] When you say our team was thirty nine people at peak that includes you know we have three full time ISAs as well. So there's a lot of leverage to bring temps. There's a ton of love to bring to the table as a value proposition to our team frankly and to our clients right.

Erik Hatch: [00:03:39] And so obviously the topic of this of this webinar and for us to dive in is to really understand how did we lose everyone and how do we continue to sell more houses because I told you in 2017 we sold six hundred and fifty two homes in twenty eighteen we did six sixty four we sold twelve more houses while losing five of our eight buyer agents by losing two of our five ISAs by losing a couple of admin. And here's what happened. Let's rewind the clock and I'm gonna have maybe flashbacks here. So if I start twitching you know why in February we had just an issue with the team member that didn't go so well and we had to remove him from our business when that happened. This was a friend of mine a good in fact a great producer a hard worker charismatic as the day is long and the guy who was like one of the founders of the company he was ingrained in the fiber of our business and we oftentimes allowed the little things to be ignored. And if ever we're a trigger for anybody listening right now I think that if you ever have a statement that says oh well that's just Robby that's just the way Robby is that that's just Robby if that's something that happens in your organization.

Erik Hatch: [00:05:03] I'm guilty of it. Across the board where we've just said well that's just that person and we haven't allowed them to necessarily be coached exceedingly well or maybe they're just stubborn and they don't w...

Next Episode

Top ISA Series: Jim Renfrow - Hatch Realty

Nate Joens: Hi. Welcome everybody. We're finally going to get this thing started. I was just waiting for a train to pass, so if you happen to hear me ... Hear some loud rumbling it could still be a train. Welcome from the great State of Iowa. My name is Nate, I'm the CoFounder of Structurely - one of your co-host today. I am with Structurely, we're really excited to kick off our conversations with the top ISA series. This is the first episode, starting off right with one of the best in the country. This will be a seven part series with some of the top ISAs in the country. Myself and Robby, with Hatch Coaching will be interviewing them. You can catch all of these on our YouTube channel, we'll be recording them so you'll be able to catch up on them at any point afterwards and also will be available on Real Estate ISA Radio. We're really excited to get this one kicked off today. Robby, tell us who we got here.

Robby T: Awesome. Well, again Robby T. here with Hatch Coaching. I want to start a fight with you real quick Nate, you would said one of the best and I'm going to say we wanted to do this series right by bringing the best to the table. We got the man, the myth, the legend, Jim Rentfrow. I call him Jimmy. I probably make a nickname out for you every other day and I'm sorry for it. I just want to tell you guys a little bit about Jim before we get into the ISA stuff, stack pro. I have the pleasure of being an ISA alongside Jim. Jim isn't just a top producing ISA. He is this guy with a massive heart, too big a heart sometimes and we've had to call you on that.

Robby T: Jim is truly one of the best people I know. I'm so excited for today because you guys get to hear from his mouth, his approach, what he thinks of this ISA role, how he's been successful? We got a great list of questions for all of you and the ones that we've created. Before we get into that, I always like to start with numbers. We're going to start with this, Jim. Tell us a little bit about your numbers. You started as an ISA, how long ago and just give us [crosstalk 00:02:29].

Jim Rentfrow: I started in July 2014 and I think July '17, was my freedom day, as I call it, the day I came over and started over here. Since then, 331,600 dials, about 43,000 emails I've sent, 49,000 texts. The emails and texts have been since we started tracking, which was what, Robby? 2016 I think when we started tracking those numbers.

Robby T: Yeah.

Jim Rentfrow: I think I roughly have spoke to about 18,000 people and have set 1700, 1800 appointments and I have 706 closings as of right now. I popped into CT and checked it out right before this. My volume is about 155 million since I started. Yeah, I've done right.

Robby T: You're scrub. You're terrible.

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah.

Robby T: Jimmy lumped a lot in there, so let's just make sure everybody heard that. I'm just going to ask directly, and I want you to tell me the number.

Jim Rentfrow: 330,000.

Robby T: Roughly, how many calls have you brought in? 333,000.

Jim Rentfrow: 18,000.

Robby T: Right. How many rough contacts, give or take?

Jim Rentfrow: About 700.

Robby T: 18,000. How many appointments?

Jim Rentfrow: Little over. Seven or six.

Robby T: Then 700 some closings, correct?

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah, pretty much.

Robby T: You're like a real estate team and other yourself.

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah.

Robby T: Awesome. Well, I love it. well, thank you for sharing that. I want to start here. I want to start very 10,000 foot view with this today. What do you view your role as? You're an ISA and ISA is just inside sales agent, but what the heck does that mean to you, Jim? What is your role on a team? How do you describe it? What are you doing every day? What does ISA mean to you?

Jim Rentfrow: I struggle with this because the industry looks us ISA as the starting point, the lowliest of the lowly and the way I look at it ISA is I am basically the coal in the steam engine. If I don't put the coal in, this train doesn't go anywhere, nobody's dreams come true. While that's a lot of pressure, it is also really liberating because whatever I do has impact and that's the reason I came to this job is the ISA is the impact person. It is who drives the ship, it is who makes this whole thing work. Eric and I have talked in its description too of, we're the insurance policy on the database, we're the insurance policy on the money spent, but really the way I look at it is we're the coal that makes this whole thing work.

Robby T: I love it, Jim. That's a great analogy. We've talked a lot about insurance policy. What the heck does that mean? I think we all understand that you guys are really the engine, the steam engine, you're putting that colon and making the whole machine work. When you say insurance policy, what the heck is that?

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah. I mean, wh...