Erin Torres: New In Real Estate To President of Herg Group in Five Years
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You can be anywhere you want within five years. Erin Torres is proof of that. Having worked past jobs that left her bored and unfulfilled, she met Adam Hergenrother and it all changed. In 5 short years, she's moved up to President of Herg Group, a top real estate team that closed 3,000 units with 240+ agents in 24 states. We talk about how she found the role, her journey in real estate, and how she has 12 streams of income coming from 3 main areas that ALL worked synergistically to help feed each other. Plus she has some BIG projects on the horizon for this upcoming year.
In this episode, hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:
- How Erin’s career got started and her background
- She met Adam Hergenrother through a craigslist job posting
- How Erin is now in her new role of President of HergGroup
- Since she started, the team grew $650 million in volume
- Surround yourself with the right people who can implement that vision
- Prioritizing culture is key
- You need to think of hiring people as an investment and not an expense
- Her team has a 96% retention rate
- You need to have consistency on tracking your daily tasks to be able to balance everything
- You can't control the past but you can control where you are now and where you are going
- If you work with people you trust, then you are able to take breaks and not have to worry if things are being taken care of
- She wants her growth to create opportunities for other people
Timestamps: If You Want To Jump Ahead To Your Favorite Part
0:00 - Intro and overview on Erin’s career
8:13 - Her journey to becoming part of Herg Group
15:15 - How she grows herself as a person
21:38 - How she allocates her time
36:00 – What her future looks like
Links In This Episode:
Herg Group Realty website: https://www.herggroup.com/
Business & Life Coaching: https://businessandlifecoaching.com/
Erin's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/travelikealocalvt/
Erin's Travel Blog: https://travelikealocalvt.com/
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Full transcript here:
Mike Swenson
Hello, everybody, welcome to a new episode of REL freedom stories. And we have a wonderful guest here we have Erin Torres, and she is going to share her journey. You know, one thing that's an interesting about Erin is she has a lot of different streams of income, which is important. And yet one thing with her that that I really love is is she's she has a lot of strategy behind it. And so for those folks that don't know, Erin, she is the president of her group. And her group is one of the top expansion teams with Keller Williams and currently they have 3000. So last year, 3000 units, 240 agents, and 24 states with 30 teams. That's quite an accomplishment. So congratulations on that. Erin, if you want to just go ahead and take a minute and introduce yourself.
Erin Torres
Yeah, of course, you did a great job with those stats better than I could have done. It's a lot of numbers to keep track of. So I am, as you mentioned, the president of her group, I have been with the company for about four and a half years, I am truly an example that you can achieve anything that you want to achieve within five years. So I came into Adam hurting authors world, not from real estate, my mark, my background is marketing and lead generation, I worked in a whole host of different industries from wellness and fitness, to K to 12, education, education, technology, higher education, education has always been a theme which will I'm sure pop up in this conversation. But I came into Adam's world four and a half years ago saying listen, I'm tired of being with companies and feeling like I'm stagnant.
Erin Torres
After three years like I have nowhere to go nowhere to grow, nothing more to contribute. I don't want to live a life of mediocrity. I don't want to live a life where I'm stagnant. And he promised me at that point that his world would always be big enough to sustain my growth. So I came into his organization as a director of marketing and lead generation. Within a month I was working on all of his companies. He has a coaching organization. We have an expansion team, which I am the president of now. He has a foundation, BlackRock construction and development. And then you know, he has a foundation too.
Erin Torres
So I started working on all those different avenues. And then as my tenure with the company has grown, I became Chief Operating Officer for her group, I really solidified my role pouring into the growth of that organization, which has grown from I think when I joined, it was about seven teams. And now we have 30 16 million in GCI last year, about 650 million in volume. So it's a big business. And it's been really fun to see the development of it and how we can attract culturally minded people into our world who want to big are wanting to build big lives, but also really create big lives and big businesses for themselves.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, and I think one thing that a lot of people probably want to know, if you want to share a little bit is how did you and Adam Connect, because I know we talk a lot about if you want to grow a big business, you have to have great people. So you know, here's Adam, you know, running his companies. And obviously, he attracted you and you guys connected. So talk about that. Because I know a lot of people always want to know, they're always looking for the silver bullet of like, how do I find great people on my team? And they just think it's the it's the easy button? And how did that work for you and Adam to meet up and to get into the organization?
Erin Torres
Yeah, so it's actually really funny. And it speaks to some of my other income streams, and also just the synergy of everything in my life. And I really look at my life and how everything has kind of connected, right. So at that point, I was working for a company about an hour south of where offices now, I was very bored. So I was doing a ton of freelance consulting work on the marketing side. And I had been working for a fence company doing some consulting and marketing. And I sat down with him for lunch one day. I've been working with him for probably five years at this time. And he said, I want to tell you about my new coach.
Erin Torres
This guy added Herman Rother, you must have heard his name, he has this guaranteed sold program. And I was like, Huh, I think I've heard his name. I think he's like one of the top real estate agents in the state of Vermont. So the next day, I went to Craigslist, back when, you know, Craigslist was still a thing for finding jobs. And I found a director of marketing job posting for Adam Horton author. And I said, Hmm, this, these are stars aligning for me right now, this is something that universe is trying to tell me that, hey, I need to apply for this job. So I went ahead and submitted an application. I met with Howie Warner, who's Adams chief of staff. We had a very, you know, great conversation, met with Adam, right from the get go.
Erin Torres
We had great synergy went through the whole career visioning process with him, and then we kind of recording her four or so months. I mean, at that point, I was a pretty big investment for an organization that was pretty small. And it's one of the best things that Adam ever did. I think, for me, it was just taking a chance I may be new to real estate, being new to sales and being expensive. I mean, I I had proven myself in different industries. So he had to take that leap, and really make that investment in me. And that's one thing that we always strive to do is viewing people as an investment, not an expense, because it's an investment in the future of our company and investment in the future of our lives as well, because we all all shape the framework of one another's beings and one another's lives as well.
Mike Swenson
And I think another key is, you know, people always talk about, you're constantly looking for talent, you know, because, because there is no silver bullet, because there's not one right way to find somebody, yeah, you, you might win off of a Craigslist post one time. And yet, you might not win every time off of a Craigslist post. And, you know, as your organization is growing, you're always going to be looking for pieces of who you need. And I think a great tip for people is to really plan out what your organization is going to look like in the future.
Mike Swenson
So now it's a, it's essentially a puzzle that you're putting together. And you might not find people in the order that you wanted, or exactly how you plan, but you might be able to make a fit and find those few benchmark people. And so, you know, to have an organization that's growing, if you're always looking for talent, it may be a different story, a serendipitous story, you know, for the next person that comes along with Adam. But for you, it happened to be a Craigslist post. And so what a phenomenal way. And yet, he also hasn't doubled down on Craigslist post as being the only way that he finds top notch talent, right.
Erin Torres
Or we don't actually find a lot of talent on Craigslist, or indeed, most of it is networking. Most of it is people in our world who say, I'm listening to your podcast, I'm reading your blog, every week, I've read your books, I'm following up with what you're doing, because I care about it. And it's important to me. And as you said, it's so important to be building the bench, one of my favorite things is putting job ads out there for positions that you're not actually hiring right now, just so you're actually meeting with people on a regular basis, interviewing people, you never know when you're going to find talent.
Erin Torres
And also when you find talent, they're probably happily employed. So that's going to take a period of time to actually show them what the opportunity is develop that rapport and develop that relationship. It's kind of the same with a real estate client, right? I mean, it's nurturing them into a point where you find a line in between where their career is headed and what you need in your business. And then that's really that when the perfect match comes to be,
Mike Swenson
yeah, and it's it's finding it is like, you've talked about finding the right fit. You know, you you've probably grown as a person during your time with Adam, but it's not like all sudden, you just flipped on the switch after you started working with him. So you're a very talented person just didn't have the right match of skills and abilities and future opportunities with what you are currently doing. And so it was a little bit of square peg round hole. And so it's finding the right person in the right fit can really be that that rocket fuel, or like you guys talk about, you know, the the force multiplier in an organization because it is like that match that takes off when you've got the right mix of people and opportunity. And you're certainly example for that.
Mike Swenson
So I think it was good to just just chat about how you got where you're at. Because I know people are always curious. They're always asking the question like, how do we find these? How do we find these great people? So okay, so so digging in then a little bit as we talk about building your income working towards financial freedom and time freedom. Talk about your journey a little bit, you know, leading up to becoming a part of Adam's world and kind of where it's gone from there. Talk about those different streams of income and how you've built and grown those.
Erin Torres
Yeah, so I want to start I graduated from college, I had plans to move to me and I live in Vermont. I was hired actually by the college that I was attending, to work in college advancement. So I was the assistant director of stewardship. Essentially, I was ghostwriting for the president of the college, I was telling stories of students who are being impacted by donors at the college. I was making I think like 30k out of college, first job, first apartment, first everything. And I was so so bored that I started. You know, doing freelance design work, I taught myself a lot with marketing and graphic design.
Erin Torres
I also started bartending and serving at a high end restaurant in town, as again, something to fill my time. I was there about a year and a half when a voluntary separation package came along. And I said, You know what, I can be paid for six months, I can have health insurance for a year. This is the stability that I need to make the leap into something that's actually going to make me feel fulfilled. So I went to another organization where I was a freelance surfer, I think three months, hired full time within a few months, I was given a leadership position there overseeing the whole team and this was eatingwell. Magazine at the time. eatingwell.com now owned by Meredith Corporation. It started here in Vermont.
Erin Torres
And I was I think, at that point 2324. And it's funny, I always tell the story that one of the women who was on my team actually hot she started crying when she found out that I was going to be a boss because here's this 23 year old kid who doesn't know anything but someone saw leadership talent in And she's suddenly going to be her leader and her boss. So I have a stepping stone of whenever I wanted to actually grow my salary get somewhere new, I would have to make a leap of industries of companies, but the people are the constant. So throughout all of those things, and those are the things that have led me to develop different streams of income. So before getting into Adams worlds I, throughout my whole life, who am I connecting with? Who can I do freelance work for? Who can I do marketing work for? Who can I consult for I managed to wedding bands right now in Vermont, a lot of that came from the networking that I do, those are two streams of income that I've been doing for five years.
Erin Torres
And it's just something that's so systematized Now that may take 10 minutes a day, but it's relatively lucrative. Also, at that time, I love traveling, it's my big why it's collecting and experiencing things out there in the world. And I started a travel blog here in Vermont. And that opened up a lot of doors for me, it opened up Instagram influencing, which I do a lot of right now. It opened up a book deal for me where I get royalties, I'm in the process of writing a new book right now. So that was all kind of before I came to the world of real estate. Now within real estate, how I kind of want to talk about how this all ties together, so bear with me, but I came into Adam's world, I have a salary position. I'm also a coach and trainer. So that's a 1099 income through his training organization. I am a realtor, I sell about 20 homes a year in Fremont.
Erin Torres
I have some equity in our company. So I'm a business owner, I also have profit share through Keller Williams. So there are you know, five income streams right there that all fit into a nice tidy little box within real estate and within Adams world. Now the cool thing about how these different buckets of my streams come together is my presence as a local expert, as a travel blogger in Vermont feeds my real estate business where I would say 85 to 90% of my actual real estate clients come from Instagram, they're come list me there, oh, I see this house that I want to buy.
Erin Torres
Can you help me also with weddings, and working with wedding you know, the industry, a lot of couples were getting married to buy homes. So again, there's just so much synergy here how they all fit together, I would say also the the backbone of them all is the systems, the tools, the efficiency, because I wouldn't be able to have a diluted focus and still maintain my sanity and not work 100 hours a week, I've just been able to use systems and tools to really fine tune my work in those areas where I'm feeding these different sources. But they all work together. And there's synergy between each and every one of them.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, and you've really built a essentially a platform that everything's grown off of where like you said it's it's not like hey, I'm a brand new agent now. I'm gonna door knock and pound the phones. It's because because you've built this presence with all these people that know like and trust you from the other areas that you've you've started those streams before you came to real officially came to real estate now that's paying off in spades for you because it is the coolest music and so it's not you know, hey Erin, actually thanks for your time.
Mike Swenson
I'm interviewing five other agents and I'll let you know when I decide it's we followed you we know you because they've they've gotten to know you without physically knowing you for a lot of people it's it is the Cutlass meets the easy stuff. So now you're able to leverage that into Okay, take the listing have the closing and it's it's you've leveraged all your work before to feed your real estate business. I love that.
Erin Torres
Yeah, definitely. And I always like to have the mindset of you never know who someone you need to how they're going to impact your life or create an opportunity for you. So Instagram, for me has just opened so many different doors. And as you were saying, people get to know know you like you trust you. Also, it's a platform for you to be your genuine, authentic self. So when people meet me in person for a real estate appointment, I'm probably wearing a fleece I'm probably wearing shorts in the summer flip flops or whatever else. I am genuinely authentically myself, because that's how I appear on social media. And that's the person people want to work with. So it's all about brand building, it's all about being yourself and embracing yourself, putting yourself out there and attracting people who want to work with you.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, and that's the that's the tough part for a lot of agents to see. Because agents think transactionally they could because we talk about things transactionally right. You know, we were we're on the up side A lot of times and we talk about, you know, live contacts and appointments and closings. And so when we tend to treat people like numbers, it's easy for the agents to treat people like numbers. And and when when you spend time building relationships with people, you'll find that you're way more efficient than if you just cold call a bunch of people that you don't know, you know, and try to drum up business that way.
Mike Swenson
So it's, it's harder to quantify, yet you still have to get out there, right? You have to talk with people and so you can put goals around having conversations with people but if you Have more conversations with the people you already know, you're bound to see fruit from that than having a bunch of conversations with people you don't know, to feed your real estate business, of course, 100% correct. So let's talk a little bit about your, your opportunity here with with her group, because the company's grown a lot.
Mike Swenson
And so for people that are building a real estate business, what can they learn from from you, and from Adam and the rest of the folks in the company about how they've grown? For some people, this may be way larger than they've ever imagined. And so there may be a solo agent or an agent with an admin. But what are the principles that they can put in place that you've learned from your time working with her group?
Erin Torres
Yeah, I think a big component of it is having a big vision. And that big can be whatever big means for you, as you were just saying, big vision is key, but then also being surrounded by the right people who can implement against that vision. It was interesting this morning, I was doing a life coaching session, it was gifted to me by one of our CEOs and someone I coach, and one of the exercises and it was calling people from your sphere who know you and asking some questions. And one of my team members said that I was the mast to our sales within the kind of the ship that is her group.
Erin Torres
And it was so heartwarming to me, because that's the role I like to play and really know that, hey, I'm making this massive impact through being that person who is really implementing, executing against the vision and reality. So bringing those two things together. So I think vision, of course, is key being surrounded by the right people. I also think prioritizing culture, first and foremost, is key. So for years and years and years, we were kind of a revolving door, as is often the case within it within real estate, right? So we would throw a dart, see who sticks. And we were onboarding as many agents as we are parting ways with. And then I want to say about three or four years ago, we made the decision that we're going to be extremely choosy with who we partner with, right? Not everyone's a fit for us, we're not the fit for everyone.
Erin Torres
So at that point, we made the decision that culture is gonna be 51% of everything that we do. productivity, yes, the financial piece that's so important, that's 49%, neck and neck there. But when we prioritize culture, first, I mean, we get about people, it truly opens up so many different doors of opportunity for us. So I would say, also for attracting the right people and getting those people into your world, you have to have the vision that enables a growth path. So I'm really proud of our leadership team, everyone has been with us for 568 years, you don't see that kind of track record company is anymore. And I want to build the company as a leader that no one ever wants to leave. And right now we have a 96% retention rate that we've been holding steady for over a year, where we make sure we partner with the right people, that we're growing them as a person and their business acumen as well.
Erin Torres
We're showing them, Hey, this is where you can grow, grow in the future. So you never have to leave our world. You can build whatever you want for yourself, within this kind of overarching foundation that we're creating in this world that we're creating. So it's really a balance between vision casting, making sure that you have growth paths forward, doing the whole Disney exercise, where do you want to be? You're doing the future self exercise? They're one of those? Where do you want to be in three years? Where do you want to be in five years? Where do you want to be in seven years, personally and for your business? One of the things that I love that we do every single day, we have these things called five questions that everyone in our organization sends to their leaders.
Erin Torres
The questions are, what successes Did you have today, so a lot of people never stop to actually celebrate their successes. And we made a decision that we don't want people to wait a month for the next call, or quarterly reviews are yearly reviews to celebrate those successes. So let's talk about them daily. Second, what are your struggles? How did you overcome your struggles? What's your mindset on a scale of one to 10? And then the last one is what's your next growth opportunity? So every single day everyone in our organization is thinking about what is my next growth opportunity? Where do I want to go? Where do I want to grow? What is that next kind of step going to be for me, where I'm having a greater impact, I'm really propelling the business forward.
Mike Swenson
That's wonderful. Because you know, one of the things that I I've been talking about with our team is you know, you have to think about you know, vision is like a magnet it's it's pulling people where they want to go and and that's going to be the thing that drives people through the ups and the downs. You know, if you've got your eyes on where you want to be in the future, you don't necessarily get distracted by what happens side by side every day, because you've got your eyes straight ahead. And so I think that's the the impactful thing for you.
Mike Swenson
You think about like you said, you want to go somewhere where you're This is it for you. You know, like you don't have To feel like, I'm gonna peek out here, you know, I'm going to hit a plateau or a ceiling here, I've got to wait 10 years to my next promotion. And so you want to play sets that's growing. And then you want people that, that push up on leadership because they want to be growing too. And together that that pushes everything forward. And so I think that is a big part of the secret sauce of what makes you guys successful is everybody's pushing up because they want more. And when they want more, it forces you to want more, you know, and ultimately, because you have this big vision, that's going to be large enough, a large enough umbrella to hold everybody.
Erin Torres
Yeah, and one of the things that I think also makes a different difference in our organization is everyone is there ready raising that collective leadership, lead, feels ownership, whether they're actually a business partner and have equity, put that aside, everyone feels ownership over all of Adam's companies, which is really tremendous, and that people are okay, kind of wading through the messy as I like to say, because when you're building big businesses, it's messy every single day, you at some point are going to get to that point where you're just solving problems. You're just, you know, getting through challenges and struggles and, you know, things that make you pause and consider why the heck am I doing this right, hard moments, but when you know that you're growing something, and there's going to be more opportunity for you and you're a part of that growth, it just makes again wading through that that messiness. so rewarding.
Mike Swenson
So let's dig in a little bit. So you had talked about the different buckets that you have. And so maybe, cuz you've kind of alluded to, you know, like, your, your band stuff, you know, takes 10 minutes at 10 minutes a day. How do you plan out your time to hit those different buckets? Yeah, your intentionality to make sure that these buckets are growing over time? Or maybe they are maybe they aren't, depending on the bucket. But, but walk through, you know, you're you're at year end. Okay, now we're looking for 2021. What goals do I set for each of those buckets? And how do I allocate my time?
Erin Torres
Yeah, so time management and being disciplined about your time, we always talk about it, but it's a fundamental, you have to manage your time. So I always talk about GSD, getting more stuff done daily. It's what I live in breathe. And Adam has said a lot of things to me over the years that really resonate with me, we all have 24 hours in a day. Why do some people achieve so much and some people achieve so little, it comes down to discipline, and discipline equals freedom. Also, early on, I used to be that type of person who be like, Oh, I work 16 hours a day. And Adam looked at me and said, I don't care how many hours you work, I care about the impact that you make. So I you know, talk to our team members about that, too.
Erin Torres
If you can do what you need to do and get it done and work for four hours work for four hours, I don't care, I care about that impact that you're making. So for me, it's been very much I need my calendar to be super specific. I put everything on my calendar, when I'm waking up what my morning routine is. I have themes to my days. So you know, Monday is more project based Tuesday, Thursday are all coaching calls where I'm back to back to back to back coaching people all day long. Fridays, I always kind of set aside for project based work, any websites I have to build, I still do a lot of tactical tangible things for the company to which I think allows me to help bridge the gap sometimes between leadership and execution.
Erin Torres
I always want to be a leader who executes but it comes down to being extremely disciplined about my calendar. And I know that we always talk about that. But I coach so many people about it to really getting clear on what are those non negotiables for you. And I've had to be a work in progress. Because there are days where I will work 14 or 16 hour days, but I'm not being present at home. And that's an issue. So now I have triggers in my calendar that say, no meetings after 430, you know, six o'clock, you're off, check email at 815 whatever else, but for me, it's just saying, hey, in fact, there's been people for the band 10 minutes in the morning, right before anyone's up 10 minutes in the evening, whatever that looks like.
Erin Torres
And then in terms of goal setting, so I actually have a very simple spreadsheet that I put together every year, I outline my different streams of income, and then I put targets on it to say, Okay, I want to make 100k here, I want to make 50k from this effort. 40k from this effort 20k from this effort, whatever it might be. And then I literally have month by month by month by month, totals are not totals, but by month I track the totals, and then I track my my space to actually hitting that goal. So what that delta is in terms of what I need to achieve. And I look at that every single morning. I look at my bank accounts every single morning, I look at my net worth tracker every morning, I step on the scale every morning now something again that you know Adam has brought visibility into is you need to have the consistency around the data.
Erin Torres
Whether or not the data is is good, bad sideways, I don't care. You have to have the data. So You actually know where you are. So you can make improvements. So for me, it's very much looking at the buckets, I wouldn't say okay, I'm going to grow 30% here year over year, it's more how has in the past year my business grown? So for instance, I've been licensed, I want to say three and a half years, the first couple years, I only did a handful of transactions. This past year, I figured out all right, we have so many people wanting to move to Vermont, how can I leverage showing assistance?
Erin Torres
How can I get really clear on my process before we even step foot into a home, so I'm only showing people one or two homes, we're running a competitive offer, and we're getting accepted. So my real estate transactions are so buttoned up from a place of, again, this system behind it, where they don't take me much time, right, because it's so systematized, they're such a process that I can follow. So if every you know, avenue of my life allows me to have a system and a process. It's just about actually being disciplined and structured.
Mike Swenson
And I think people completely gloss over the the nuance of what you've just said, it's like, people wake up and they think, oh, Erin, she's so successful. I want to have what Erin has. And then you talk about getting up every morning, checking your bank account, stepping on the scale, looking at your calendar, and doing that. And then and then people gloss over that. And then like and then you wake up three months later, like, Oh, I'm not where I want to be. I just I just want to I just want to do it. Erin does. Well, what does Erin do? Erin wakes up every morning, she looks at this, she looks at this, she looks at this, she's got this schedule. And there's there's freedom in that because you don't have to, you know, get out get out at let's say 10 o'clock here and look at like, Okay, what am I going to do now?
Mike Swenson
There's, there's a decision fatigue of, I need to now think about what's the next thing that I'm going to do. If you've got it on your calendar. It's now just I go from this bucket to this bucket to this bucket. You know, for me, what I wear is a pretty easy decision I've got you know, right now polo shirts that I wear and that's it like you you depending now in the winter here, I'm in the basement. Sometimes I wear sweatshirts I typically don't wear sweatshirts on days when I have video calls. I don't know why that sounds so silly. But but it's it's very simple. Like you go to my closet, and this is what it is, you know, like I always wear jeans. You can't see it on camera now.
Mike Swenson
And I always just wear regular socks, I don't wear dress socks, you know, it's it's it's very easy, because it's a decision I don't have to make every day of you know, what, what color scheme Am I going to go with today? You know, what, what type of this? What type of that. And so it's the same thing with like a schedule. I'm also pretty boring in terms of what I eat. It's it's pretty much the same thing now that I have a I have a shake that I have for lunch, it's the same thing. I don't have to think about what am I going to have for lunch today? It's the same thing. And so there's a freedom in in the not having to make decisions around everything that that really is, is good for at the end. But people see it. They don't see the the good that can come from it.
Erin Torres
Yeah, no, it definitely does. And as you said, it's about simplification, where since I don't have to make decisions of what's next, you know, being thinking all day long, what I'm actually having conversations or working on a project, I can be present in that conversation or present in that project. And that's where I'm making decisions, I'm making those decisions that are actually going to impact our business. Because I know what I'm doing next and know what I'm eating for dinner, I meal plan everything I prep all my food, I have that all super regimented. And I will say that not always been like this. I mean, it's really been in the in the past, I would say two, two and a half years, I used to never step on the scale, I used to never check my bank accounts or look at my credit card statement or whatever else. Because it terrified me. I was so fearful of that data because it wasn't where I wanted it to be.
Erin Torres
But the best thing for me and I tell agents this all the time when they don't know their numbers in real estate, you have to know where you're starting, or else you're never going to get started. And you're never going to improve. I was telling Adam, just last night, we were talking about my net worth and my network, my net worth calculator. I told him I had done one a few years ago, and I deleted it because it was not where I wanted it to be. And instead of actually saying, I'm gonna acknowledge this, it's not I'm not gonna bring any emotion to it. It is what it is right? I made the decisions that I made in the past, I spent the money that I spent whatever else. I can't control that. But I can control where I am right now.
Erin Torres
And how I want to approach data without having any emotion involved. And then it's just simply data that it's just simply Okay, this is my foundation, this is my baseline. And seeing that growth is cool. I also had this mental shift where I have been on the quest to pay off just a ton of debt. Right? And like a lot of us are and something changed in my mindset from wanting to spend which typically when I spend money, it's not on clothes, it's not on you know, amazing house, whatever else it's about experiences and travel and whatever else going to NFL games with our whole family taking our family on vacations, but I gotten to a point where it became more fun to save money than spend money?
Erin Torres
And I kind of view that as a turning point in my life where, how can I make a game of my savings? How can I make a game of my budget every month to be trimming things that don't matter to me? Why am I spending money over here that if it's not actually bringing me any kind of fulfillment? And how can I redirect that in a way where it is going to set me up for investments for actually making an impact from that money. So it was a huge mindset shift for me to say, instead of the the joy spending can bring, the joy seeming can bring and how that really can transform your life and bring more discipline just to every asset of your life and every avenue of your life, I would say,
Mike Swenson
and they say to you, no, more money just makes you more of who you are. So if you're not disciplined with what you have today, how are you going to expect to be disciplined with what you have in the future, and a lot of times people feel like, oh, if I just make more money, now, I'll have everything that I want. But guess what, when you make more, you're gonna spend more, because you don't you haven't developed the discipline of, of saving the discipline of like only really spending on what you need. And then guess what you can put away the money into the fun accounts to go have the fun stuff and do the fun travel. But if you don't get disciplined on your finances, when you make more money, you're just going to be less disciplined and have more going more coming in and more going out, there's not going to be more hitting the bottom line.
Mike Swenson
And so, you know, they talk about how, you know, wealthy people, you know, I'm reading Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. And they talk about how, you know, wealthy people talk in terms of net worth, it's not about income. Because if you're not putting stuff to the bottom line, you're not actually growing your net worth for the future. And so you can make 100,000. And if you spent 100,000, you've got zero net worth, if you then make 200,000, fantastic, I'm glad you doubled your income, but you're probably going to guess what spend 200,000, and you're still gonna have a net worth of zero. So what did you really gain from that. And so you have to learn the discipline from from 100,000 to 200,000. Somewhere along the way, you've got to change how you treat money. Otherwise, you're just gonna have the same thing at the end of the year.
Erin Torres
100%, we always like to say that it's not about how much you make, it's about how much you keep, right. And also, you know, not spending money as making money. Which again, that was a big aha to me that they don't actually spend this money, you know, I'm gonna have it for other things. Yeah, it's whole, it's a whole interesting thing, just the the mindset around money. And I told them to probably about a year or so ago, that when I was making, you know, 35k, I was just as happy. I sure I had a little bit more stress here and there. And now I have a nicer house, and we have nicer cars, and we can take better trips. And we can give more. And we can take our family for you know, trips and whatever else. But happiness hasn't correlated at all to that, I would say, which is a good realization and a good thing to reflect on. And I think journal on as well.
Mike Swenson
Well, and I think one interesting thing along those lines, for me, for me personally, you know, I took time, transitioning from from my job that I was in to starting the real estate team. And, and there's a bit of a runway that needed to happen. Well, all the money that I lived off of that I had saved up was when I worked for a nonprofit when I was 22 to 32 years old. Because when I worked with my previous company, I now had three kids. And so it was a lot harder to save money. So I was a diligent saver early on in my life. And so the money that that I've been that I had lived off of here during this transition was all the money that I made when I was making 30,000, a year that I was diligent with and now it's grown over the last 15 years.
Mike Swenson
It wasn't the money that I saved when I, you know, made more money last year, it was because I was diligent in my early years, and I had those good habits is what brought me through. And so it's crazy to me to think that, you know, the vast majority of my, my saving really has come from those first 10 years being really diligent. And now I haven't, I do have, you know, where I transfer money into separate bank accounts, out of sight out of mind, you know, things like that, that are happening, but in some ways, I don't even think about it, because I've just been doing that for 20 years. It's just a habit that I now have of money comes in money goes out and I don't get to feel it in my bank account. I shouldn't say in my checking account, you know, I have it in a separate savings account. But it's those types of habits that as your income grows, that's how your net worth can grow.
Erin Torres
Yeah, money is just a number. Money is just a tool. It's just a thing. And I think a lot of us just from our childhoods or whatever else have this deep seated notion about money. And I think it's just so important to get past that to realize, hey, it is a tool. It is just a number. I mean, like I look at myself not looking at my bank accounts for years because I was like, Oh, I don't know see how much money I have or how much I don't have. I mean there's something wrong If I'm actually doing that.
Mike Swenson
But at some point, you're gonna have to know what you have
Erin Torres
to face it and grow from it. But there are so many agents, you know, who I've spoken with and who I coach who will make 250 $300,000, you know, great incomes, great lives for themselves. But at the end of the day, they still don't feel like they're making progress, because they're not saving, because they're not actually invested in things that are going to grow them grow their families, grow their wealth. And so I think it's really just important to also be strategic about the spending, and really sticking to a budget, we always say in our organization, that we're not about shiny objects, we're about back to basics, we're about keeping things simple. Everything that we've talked about, it's simple, it's just a matter of staying on task, it's a matter of actually doing it getting beyond the fear or whatever, that what's holding you back and taking action.
Mike Swenson
So as you talk about, you know, thinking about freedom here in the future, you know, time freedom and financial freedom, you talked about traveling, you talked about, you know, going to Dallas Cowboys games and stuff like that on the road, what what is this life that you're building gonna fuel for you here in the next 1015 years? In terms of time and financial freedom?
Erin Torres
Yeah. So even right now I have time where I don't work on the weekends, Friday afternoons, typically, if I don't have some project to do, I'll check out you know, I'll go to the lake in the summer, or whatever I need to do just to have some me time and some thinking time. So time is not something that I necessarily need more of, because I have great people around me. So you know, on my honeymoon, I took two years or two out two years, two weeks, degrees. And I 100% disconnected. Sure, I text by email, I think two or three times, but I have great people around me who that's the whole thing, you need to replace yourself to a point where you can disconnect, and know that the people around you are better than you are.
Erin Torres
So you don't have to worry. I think that's a big component of it. I mean, in the future, you know, we're launching the mortgage company here. In q1, we're looking at title, we're looking at insurance, we're looking at property management, we're on the quest to do 6000 units this year, really doubling what we did in 2020. All of those things allow us to invest in more people, they allow us to diversify our income streams. You know, for me, and a lot of my side hustles, I've been thinking, Okay, can I create an opportunity for my sister to maybe take over something, can I create the opportunity for someone else in my world in real estate, as you might have more time, or really be at that growing point to take that over.
Erin Torres
And for me, it's all about opportunity creation, it's about really getting to a point where our business growth in my business growth and my personal growth financially, is allowing me to create opportunities for other people. And other those opportunities might be taking my whole husband's family to a cowboys game, which we do every year, I have a goal of renting out, you know, a box there and inviting tons and tons of people and just having a great experience all together. I mean, I have tangible goals like that. I want to be able to take two weeks off and go abroad every year, I want to take, you know, a trip quarterly for a long weekend or so. But again, it's about surrounding yourself with the right people who are going to show up and who are better than you to give you that freedom.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, they say, you know, if you're doing all that you can do and it's not enough, you're missing a person. And going back to you know, where we started today is you you talked about how you know, Adam had to make a leap to hire you. And so now you think, you know, you look back was would Adam say that he's happy that he did that? Well, of course, because now he's got a new president of his company, right? And so you know, there, there is a little bit of a risk that has to happen, there's a leap that has to happen.
Mike Swenson
And that's a reason why, you know, my REL freedom logo, I've got a guy leaping off of, you know, a roof of a house because it involves taking a leap, you know, and the word freedom is on the right hand side, he's leaping towards freedom, because there's, you have to let go. If you're gonna jump from run one rock to another, at there's a point you have to let go before you make the jump. And and so you know, in Adams case, he had to make the jump. And I think he's happy that he did that. Right. Well,
Erin Torres
I mean, I took a salary cuts have come here. But again, it's one of those things where my wealth has grown tremendously. Sure, I took a little step backwards. But I did take that leap forward in many, many different ways. So I think it's funny to just thinking back about Adam, and when that all happened, he point blank, we asked me how I was going to pay for myself. And I was like, Huh, no one's ever asked me that
Mike Swenson
Pain for me. I'm not paying for myself.
Erin Torres
I was like, What am I gonna pay for myself? And then I sat down and he when he taught career visioning for the next two years, we were talking about this, I put together like a 24 page deck about how I was going to bring income to the company. And that's kind of the thing that sealed the deal that like, Hey, this is an investment because she already knows how she's gonna make an impact. So for me now, my impact is truly How can I grow wealth of the 200 and you know, 60 people Who are in our organization? How can I create new opportunities for them? How can I pave the path forward that's also being given to me. so other people can live their life by design. Other people can have different income streams and really feel like they're on that path where they never have to leave our world because there's always somewhere to go.
Mike Swenson
And I'm guessing starting a mortgage company wasn't in that 24 page document.
Erin Torres
No, that's not something my Adam approached me and was like, Hey, can you figure out how to start a mortgage company? I was like, Oh, boy, here we go. And I think a lot of it just comes down to confidence, right? I don't know what sort of mortgage company but you talk to enough people, you have enough confidence in yourself that we can figure anything out anything out collectively, we always like to say that together, we achieve more. When you surround yourself with amazing, smart people who are motivated and want to make an impact, you really can achieve anything and transform a whole heck of a lot of lives in the process.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, sometimes I use the analogy of it's like a Rubik's Cube, right. Most people don't know how to solve a Rubik's Cube, that doesn't mean it's not unsolvable. Because there's people that can solve it in 20 seconds. You know, it's a series of twists and turns and puzzles. And once you know, that pattern, you can do it. And so, you know, starting a mortgage company, it's, it's essentially, there's other people that have started a mortgage company before, so they've solved the Rubik's Cube.
Mike Swenson
You just got to go find out what the code is to go solve that Rubik's Cube. And once you talk to the right people, you figure out the process, now you can execute it. So it's not on solvable. You know, it's it's just finding the right people surrounding yourself with the right talent, putting together the right opportunity. But there are profitable mortgage companies out there. That's been that's been proven, you just got to go figure out how to do it for you.
Erin Torres
Yeah. And we always like to say that we're master modelers, right? We look at other models, why are you going to create something, when you can replicate something and make subtle tweaks, tweaks and optimizations and, you know, move forward in a way that's going to prove successful and take less time, you know, for us, and that's why people partner with us an expansion it's that acceleration is about, it's about plugging into a platform that works so that you don't have to build it. That's the same thing that we look at. We look at other people who've done it before. What can we learn from them? And you know, the educational piece of it's truly fundamental as well. Yeah.
Mike Swenson
Great. So Erin, if you want to just take a minute here and share for you know, people listening, if Erin stories resonated, how can people find out more about you? How can people find out more about Adam and her group and all the great stuff that he's doing?
Erin Torres
Yeah, so there's a ton that you can learn on adamhergenrother.com You can reach me at Erin [email protected] and you can find me on Instagram @travelikealocalvt search travelikealocalvt.com is my website. You can Google ErinTorres or Erin McCormick, which is my maiden name and I will come up you'll be able to find me pretty easily. But yeah, there are so many different avenues. If you're interested in any of the income sources I have or just getting into any industry and breaking through. We're happy to have conversations or help however I can.
Mike Swenson
Wonderful. Well, thanks for your time today. We appreciate having you on
