Erik Hatch: Broker, Coach, Author, Investor & Leader of 20+ Companies
LISTEN TO FULL EPISODE ON:
Erik Hatch is a masterful entrepreneur. Originally a youth paster, Erik started out in real estate part-time and closed 0 homes his first year! He kept at it and slowly grew his business before jumping in full-time about 10 years ago. Since then he formed a team, became a brokerage, formed a coaching company, began investing (he now owns 60 doors), flips 25-30 homes a year as part of his Snap Offers program, wrote a book, and recently started doing Airbnb. Hear Erik talk about his journey, how he allocates his time and sets his priorities to grow his companies, and how he's built a great team of people along the way that loves winning alongside him.
In this episode, hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:
- How Erik career got started and his background
- Erik has 20 businesses
- His background is in ministry
- His net worth increased by 400% in 10 years
- You need to let go of where you were and grab on to where you are going
- Started Snapoffer as a way to provide a guaranteed offer for his clients
- Because of Coronavirus, he had to shift some of his investments and started Airbnb with some of his properties and has had great success doing it in Fargo
- He wrote a book about servant leadership
- All of his time throughout his day is accounted for because he time blocks his tasks
- Today, his main focus is his coaching business, and has people he trusts working on the real estate side
Timestamps: If You Want To Jump Ahead To Your Favorite Part
0:00 - Intro and overview on Erik’s career
14:04 – How he grew his investments
25:45 – How he started Airbnb's
30:30 - How he started his coaching business
39:50 - What his future looks like
Links In This Episode:
Erik's Coaching Website: https://www.hatchcoaching.com/
Erik's Real Estate Team: https://www.hatchrealty.com/
Erik's Snap Offer Program: https://www.hatchcoaching.com/snapoffer
Erik's Book: Play For The Person Next To You: A Guide To Servant Leadership
Erik's Book Recommendation: Who Not How
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Full transcript here:
Mike Swenson
All right, welcome to another episode of REL freedom. And today we've got Eric hatch on and Eric is a entrepreneur extraordinaire. He has 20 businesses just doing a lot of really great things in real estate. So we've got hatch real estate, his brokerage that he has in North Dakota, hatch coaching, he's an author. He also does a lot of investing in real estate as well, and has a background in youth ministry. So just an all around great guy, building businesses, building people, and just changing lives through that. So welcome, Eric. We're so excited to have you.
Erik Hatch
Buddy, buddy, buddy, good to be here. I'll tell you. I have an old youth group kid named Mike Swenson. So it is going to just mess with my head a little bit here. You have way better here than him. So we're off to a good start.
Mike Swenson
Thanks. Yeah. So Eric, do you want to just just to kind of start us off here, give us a little bit about your background,, kind of before the real estate leading up into real estate, and let's maybe just kind of talk about those first couple years and how you got some of those seeds planted to what you're building today?
Erik Hatch
Absolutely. So I reside in Fargo, North Dakota, lived here my whole life. In fact, every time I've tried to run from here, God has pulled me back and said, I'm not done with you yet. And now, I am thrilled that I get to live here, except for these cold winter days. I love this place. As I've done, if I look at my life, my career, and everything else I recognize I was an entrepreneur early on from the lemonade stands on a street corner, to selling everything just to try to make an extra buck. I then pursued, I went into food service right away. So I was at the age of 14 and 15 years old, I was waiting tables at a restaurant, because I loved the idea that the harder I worked. And the more the more suave and connected I was at building relationships, the more I would make, the idea of a salary was repulsive to me, I, I if I could have lived on tips for my entire life, I would have included in that I was really I was that kid in school that was like the club geek, the nerd who raised I mean, I was our class president.
Erik Hatch
And I was volunteering for everything. Because I love the social connection of being with people. And then I got to build things in those organizations. It was unbelievable the opportunities that were afforded to me in high school and college. By building things within my own ecosystem. I went to NDSU, North Dakota State University in Fargo, and had an amazing experience. Yes, the classroom was good but it was the extracurriculars that I got to do. That was that was really special. I joined a fraternity which I never thought I would do. In fact, I mocked and made fun of people that weren't Greek. And then I joined and we turned a place that was doing really poorly. And we turned it into an amazingly healthy organization by the time I left, and I was just one of the many people that had their fingerprints on that.
Erik Hatch
But I recognize what it meant to build something, and to create something. And as I graduated from college, my dad had never been in the picture, abandoned our family when I was two, and my mom passed away when I was 21 in college, and my church had put me under their wing and just really took me out. I'm so grateful for that. And so orphaned at 21, and I'm this entrepreneur, and no idea what to do with life. The church really said like, Hey, man, you can build you can fulfill this passion. And we'll give you a very meager salary to do it. And so jumped into ministry and loved it but I was flat broke Mike, like, I had no money whatsoever. And so halfway through my professional ministry career, I got my real estate license.
Erik Hatch
Here's how everybody wants to know like, what's that story of how did you get into real estate? I was broke. And a buddy of mine named Jason is like, hey, he was a realtor. And he's like, hey, Eric, you're good with people, you should sell houses. And I'm like, Okay. And he was a modern day prophet for me by simply saying, like, you'd be good at this, give it a run. And so I got into real estate and my first year hold on now, my first year sold zero houses. Oh, yeah. Major success, that was 2006 2007, I sold 10 houses. In 2008, I sold 12. In 2009, I sold 20. In 2010, I sold 24. And there's all as a part time agent, and all of a sudden, I was like, whoa, I'm making some serious money, more so than I was in my ministry career, but I loved ministry.
Erik Hatch
I didn't want to leave it. throughout that time. My wife and I were battling major infertility, trying desperately to become parents. We miscarried a number of times we went the medical route of IU II and IVF and it was a big old pain and an emotional drain and we ran out of Insurance, but it didn't cover it anymore. And so the only way I could become a father is if I financed it. And so sure enough, I got into real estate full time in January of 2011 10 years ago almost to the day, I got into real estate full time. The thing that matters more than my real estate career is the fact that we have two kids at home now Simon and Finley, Finley six, Simon's four, she's a princess, and he's a dinosaur. So it's the greatest thing that I get to have. And we can talk about money and we can talk about success all we want, but my greatest success happens at home. Now in the last 10 years, I went from getting into real estate in my first year full time I sold 52 houses, and that was without buying any business or leads, it was all for my own sphere of influence. And then I built a team and then I got kicked out of a brokerage that I was at, then I went to a really bad rebound, girlfriend brokerage and lost so much money, I almost had to file for bankruptcy. And then in January 2014, I opened up hatch Realty, we've been open now seven years. And we are a team Ridge where we function only as our team.
Erik Hatch
We're one of the top selling real estate teams in the country. Even out of Fargo, North Dakota, we sold 868 homes in the last year for just over $6 million in GCI and just over $200 million in volume. And we're doing that out of Fargo, North Dakota, which is pretty awesome. And so through all that, Mike, back in 2012 is when I really started investing, and I'm sure we'll get into the details, but I'll share with you 10 years ago today, my net worth has increased. I did the math has increased 4,000% in 10 years, and that's been an intentional strategic move. I still think that my greatest worth is as a leader and not as an investor, investing my energy and time into people because that's going to give me the greatest output. And so I do so with my family and I do so with my team. That's that's a long nutshell.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, no, that's great. Talk me through a little bit, then, the backend side. So you, as an entrepreneur, looking at I'm just curious, like as you thought about starting your own brokerage, as you thought about getting into investing, how much of that was intentional with your plan versus how much it is like the the one step led to the next step, what's the next step and all sudden you look up and you're like, oh, shoot, I'm an investor now, I guess, so I'm just curious, like, how did you get the ball rolling on that?
Erik Hatch
You know, that's a really good question. I am an accidental entrepreneur. It was simply because I was broke and somebody believed in me that I got into real estate in the first place. I look at kids going to college. Now they're doing these business courses and they can major in entrepreneurial ism. Like, I didn't even know what that word was, let alone how to spell it until like my mid 20s.
Mike Swenson
That's actually what I majored in. Entrepreneurship, back in I graduated 2004.
Erik Hatch
I live in that out man, I'm two years older than you, but you are many years wiser than I am to get that.
Mike Swenson
Well, the difference. The difference for me, though, was I understood what I should do. I wasn't willing to take the risk. And so that was always my hold up was I had the head knowledge of what I needed to do for entrepreneurship. But it was I could never commit to jump in because I was raised, have a stable job with benefits consistent paycheck, and that's how you earn your life. And so it took me a long time to be okay with jumping in both feet with taking the risk. So that was kind of the holdup for me of why I didn't start my team till recently.
Erik Hatch
Yeah, it's, it's it's proof that I was a scaredy cat just like you because it took me a long time to really, and I didn't ever want to leave the ministry, but financially, like emotionally, I was tied to the ministry. But financially, it was not what I needed to support my family. And so I had two jobs. Even when I went full time into into real estate in 2011. I still got a job on ndscs campus as a minister for 15 hours a week, because I just needed to make sure I was gonna be okay. So I didn't I didn't have these big guts, these brass components, like I didn't have that mic. I was always scared of failing. And then I remember midway through 2011, I'm like, Okay, I think I can make it as a real tour. But I really am just drowning and all this extra work.
Erik Hatch
So I hired an admin for $10 an hour, and she was going to work with me 20 hours a week. And I thought how $200 a week how in the world am I going to pay for that? Now my monthly expenditure budget is $200,000 a month for running my team. Hmm. I mean, I have I have just saying that feel so uncomfortable. You know, it's so exciting. But I see what God has done through me and with me, and it's pretty, pretty amazing. And so to your aforementioned question, Mike, I never took big swings right away. I always dipped my toe and I was a part time realtor. And then I hired somebody to be a part time assistant, and then my friend house I bought was 2012 was a foreclosed property. I now own about 60 doors, myself and then some partners but I'm, I'm sold on probably a third of them. The first house, I'm like, okay, I had 30 grand to put down I had a 30% to put down. But I was afraid to do it on my own.
Erik Hatch
I wanted to mitigate the risk, whatever, what if, what if that's all that ran through my mind was just the end of that, of course, my wife, who is super gun shy on being any sort of risk taker, like, I'm a gambler by nature, like in fact, I have a gambling addiction. I've been clean from playing cards, since 2008. But I used to be a professional gambler. Like I was making great money and playing professionally, but the addiction took over and I had to get rid of it. As you are a youth pastor, national gambler and youth pastor Ah, yeah, I'm a hot mess, buddy. And, and I'm fueled to try to like blackjack for me was irresponsible gambling. But poker was a skill game, because I was reading the situations and the energy and the and the cards that you're dealt, to try to figure out where's that opportunity.
Erik Hatch
And I'm doing that today, but at very much higher stakes. And I'm doing it with people's careers. I'm doing it with hundreds of 1000s if not millions of dollars with investments. And it's pretty wild. Yeah, pretty, pretty wild, the gambling that I do regularly, but when when I bought my first investment property, I only wanted to put down a third of the money and I had two other partners. Now I can I can share the math of you know, you put it on a 15 year mortgage on the property should come close to doubling every 20 years in the end. So it made financial sense to even put 10 grand in. But it's it was I was always gun shy Mike, I was always scared to jump in just the same way I wish you were because I was willing to bet on other things, but betting on myself, I didn't feel like I was a proven commodity.
Mike Swenson
I find that that's the case with so many people, especially realtors that have said I've always thought about investing, I've wanted to get investing, they just need to do it. Like you just need to get the I say you can't get to your 10th property until you get to your first and you got to find a way to just get the first one under your belt and even if it doesn't net you money, it's going to net you knowledge. And you can then apply that knowledge to the next one, to the next one, to the next one. But I think that's what holds people back is at some point you got to take the step, you got to let go of where you were and grab on to where you're going. And for you, that turns into 260 doors but you had to get that first one and take that little risk right away.
Erik Hatch
Yeah, that's a that's a great analogy. And I'll tell you, I didn't have the confidence in what I was doing early on this. Now whether it's investing or running my team, it is as predictable as the day as long, the only thing that I can't predict is the weather. The weather can be COVID, the weather can be dried up inventory. Right now the weather could be a hot buyer's or seller's market, I can't predict that. I mean, I can watch the trends. And the things that happen on the coast usually hit us secondarily, out here in the Midwest. But everything else I feel like I'm in control of. And I've taken what felt unpredictable, and it feels predictable now, and for me, I feel like I'm not gambling as much because it's it's a proven entity like and yeah, I can lose on one or two of my investment properties. Like they can sit vacant for six months, and they have to go under a whole lot of repairs and you have bad tenants. And then the seasonality of our market says it's not going to get rented out. But because I'm playing a larger game and a larger strategy with that many doors, it now doesn't feel like a blow. Sometimes when you have one, you're all in and all out. When you have 10 you make more sensible decisions you make healthier moves, when the more that you add to the to the mix.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, it's diversification, right? You know, you're not it's not all up all down. It's balanced out. So let's talk a little bit about the the investment growing then how did you the business partners that you had, were these friends and family were these other agents? How did that then turn from from where you're at, into into 60 into 60?
Erik Hatch
Well, I said 60 I think it might be a 56 now because I sold like four in the last year. And in fact, I'm not trying to buy rental properties anymore. I'm flipping them all because I'm making more money flipping and then I am with my with my long term investments. Now I think that the first move that anybody listening or watching should do is to get some rental properties. It is the most alluring thing. I partnered with a one buddy who is a doctor and one buddy who is a high school friend who works in the medical field also. And so we we got after it and we started investing I was the only person with real estate knowledge and so we were still a third a third a third partners.
Erik Hatch
I got Commission's on the deals that we did and that was the reason why it was advantageous for me to come To drive the ship, but they're both silent partners. They're not at the table trying to make decisions. I have some other partnerships that are 5050. And I have the smallest share, I haven't something that's 33 and a third percent. Otherwise, I'm 5050 or more. And so I just I started getting after it, and I don't invest a family, I do that I'm like, proud to be trailer trash. My family doesn't have the money to invest. I've been able to change my stars, which has been great. But it's been all on my own accord and I don't like the strategy of taking money out. Some people with their properties have constantly refi there's of course, the bur method to continue to rehab and refinance and repeats, and I'm not interested in constantly doing that I want to find something that's a good deal and just hang on to it.
Erik Hatch
Because that's my kids savings account for college, I don't have a savings account for them. I don't, I'm not planning on that. I'm just buying more houses. And so that's been really advantageous to me. So the math is really simple as this is a home according to the federal government should appreciate 4.22% annually. That means that with compounding interest about every 20 to 25 years at home should double in value. I just need a lot of houses. And so that'll double in value. And I know I can put down 20 to 30% on a property. And then that property should make me the numbers I abide by as I should profit a minimum of $400 a month on that property.
Erik Hatch
This is single family I'm speaking I do on some some multiplexes and stuff too. But in single family, I want to make a minimum of 400,000 or $400 a month. In order for my numbers to work out, you know, a furnace goes out or sits vacant for six months. And that money is totally gone for a year or two. But I wanted to make sure that I was paying down my mortgage always on a 15 year note, I have a couple of that I put on 20 year notes, because I couldn't get the numbers to work to make my 400 a month. But otherwise, I have stuck to that strategy. And I've been doing it now for nine years. And so I have a number of properties that have like 30 or $40,000 left on them. I have over you know what, what was an original 10 or 20 or $30,000 investments, I now have $100,000 sitting in there. And I love that method. So I have three methods I do make the first is the rentals and that was my first foundational piece.
Erik Hatch
I have added two new arms in the last two and a half years that have proven to be more financially lucrative. These are more of a gamble. And so I want to go back to hedging your bets doing the thing. That's the predictable money. And I think that a good investment property is predictable money, you should do that first. The next two steps that I've done. And it's come almost at the same time, however, it's two different paths. One is the short term vacation rental, Airbnb or vrbo. There's very, very big money in that when you do it right and the other is fix and flip. So we unveiled a strategy called snap offers. It's essentially my ibuyer movement, where I'm a wholesale buyer, I'm providing opportunity to the seller. And what's unique with us as a traditional real estate brokerage is that we should be offering more than one choice.
Erik Hatch
Most real estate brokerages probably yours included, offers, hey, here's what we can do. We can sell your house, I don't know when it's going to sell. I don't know what it's going to sell for. I don't know how many interruptions you're going to have. I can't guarantee that that buyer is not going to back out at the last minute, you're going to get beat up on inspection, then the appraiser is going to come through then the mother in law and father in law, the crazy uncle are all going to come through. And by the way, I can't promise that any of this is going to come true. But do you want to sell your house? I mean, isn't that the value proposition of real tours is that pitch? I mean, we butter it up but it's that pitch. And we found that consumers are craving certainty. Zillow did a study on the two biggest pain points of a seller. Number three was price. number one and number two are uncertainty and interruptions. Those are the biggest pain points that sellers have. And they say that selling a home is oftentimes more stressful than losing your job or getting married or anything like that selling a home is more stressful.
Erik Hatch
So we created two and a half years ago our snap offer platform and there's nothing unique about There's lots of people in lots of markets that are doing it. But we offer consumers Hey, do you want to roll the dice as we were just talking about? Or do you want a guaranteed offer from Eric, Erica, buy your house you pick the closer that you don't have to fix anything. You don't have to pre pack you don't have to clean. Like we're just going to come through and take it as is. And sure enough, I'm buying 25 or 30 houses a year from that. Now, occasionally, Mike all hang on to some of those. If it's a perfect rental property, I'll hang on to it. Yep, what I'm doing for most of them is I'm doing fixin flip and here's my math on it. Let's, I'm going to use very simple round numbers, is I think that if I buy a property for $100,000, I should be able to turn around and sell that for 130 or 140. Without any fix up.
Erik Hatch
Let's say you come to me and you have a $200,000 property, I'm going to offer you 70 cents on the dollar. We're going to say I'm going to offer you 140 on this. Yep, you're going to do the math and say does this work? Does this not work? I don't know. If somebody says yes to it. Well, I'm going to pay commissions to my company because I'm an I'm an investor, it's a separate company. It's going to pay commissions to my company when I buy it. I of course paid Commission's when I sell it. So my brokerage gets two wins right there and then me as an investor, my goal from the time in which I close on the house, until the time in which I close on the house again, I want to be in and out in 120 days, four months. And with that four month period, Mike, I believe that I can make 12 to 15% on my return in 120 days. So if I buy that place for $140,000 I think with confidence I can make 18 to $25,000 on that place.
Erik Hatch
I just sold a house today that I may I paid a total of I think $140,000 for turned around and sold it got it sold in a week, it'll close in 30 days. And I'm gonna make $29,000 on $140,000 investment like that. Mm hmm. Now, this is a gamble though, because I have other stories where I lost 50 grand on a deal, right? You know, I have my I have my rental set, and I have my rentals figured out. But chasing after these fixin flips, I think in 120 days, I can make 12 to 15% on average for each deal, do that three times in a year with the same money 360 days, and I can make a 36 to 45% return on my money. Hmm, that's crazy money, Mike to be able to make a 36 to 45% return on your money. So if I did the math on this, if I take an original $10,000 investment today, the January 2021, I make a $10,000 investment.
Erik Hatch
I just keep recycling it three times a year with a rental properties, I don't have to add another dime to it, I can just recycle it on these flips. I said rental properties have been flips in less than 15 years that $10,000 is a million bucks. The beauty of all this is I put in about $400,000. And so how fast is that going to compound and earn more and more and more in my ecosystem? It's and then I'm paying my company a lot of commissions, right? And then I'm providing inventory for the buyers that can't seem to find what they're looking for. And there's just, it's so ripe with opportunity. And I've loved every second of it. And we're teaching and training people around the country and how to do it as well. In fact, that's how we first rubbed elbows with that.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, I think that's what I love about, as we know, realtors and people in real estate like to chase shiny pennies, right. And, and, and the beauty of what you're building, just it aligns. And so, you know, when we talk about diversification, like not only are you diversifying your, your real estate assets, but because you have this vertical integration, when you win on a fix and flip, you're also winning as a broker. And, there's agents that are working that too, so the agents are happy, you're providing more business because you're not doing all these deals yourself personally as the agent so agents on your team are making more money.
Mike Swenson
It actually reminds me back of growing up in a small town, they always talked about spend local versus spending your money somewhere else and they said that dollar will circulate in our small town six, seven or eight times before it leaves. And so it's like, that dollar turns into 678 dollars when you're buying locally at the local athletic store versus buying on Dick's now this was before a little bit before the internet really popped off. Butit's that concept, right? Like your, dollar is staying in the air catch world, and it's recycling around, which is turning into more and more dollars for other people on your team as well.
Erik Hatch
We didn't even touch upon all the listing leads that come from now advertising these things offers and how that continues to grow our ecosystem as well. So you're exactly right. There are massive opportunities and so much so I've now opened up three months ago, I open up hatch handyman, another company that services now and does all my flips, and then they're catering to our past clients, and they're helping with inspection. Instead inspection addendums, and things that are getting flagged there. They're helping people to grow. I can't find enough employees for it. I think I have six right now. And I need 16 more. Because we've now created again, I think hatch realty is a marketing and servicing company. And we can add as many legs to this stool as we see humanly fit.
Erik Hatch
Now, Mike, the other piece that I want to touch on, that I think is opportunistic for people is the Airbnb model, or, or the vrb model. Yep, I started this by happenstance. And I started this. I have a couple of downtown condos in Fargo that I had been doing with it. And it was fine, because downtown is a hub for entertainment and people traveling and that sort. But I own a 10 Plex, next to ndscs campus. And I had such a hard time getting great tenants. And then COVID hits and all of a sudden those people they all know like Oh man, this is gonna be really rough. I had in a 10 Plex. I had 40% occupancy sites, six vacant units. Well, four of those units were like dorm rooms, 150 square feet, room for a TV, a bed, a mini fridge and microwave that had a full bathroom. Like I was renting it out for $375 a month to college kids, right?
Erik Hatch
But now all of a sudden COVID heads everybody's gone. And now I have these vacant units and like what am I going to do? How do I get these filled? I can't I can put it out 100 bucks a month. But then what kind of tenants Am I going to get in there too. And it was such a struggle. And I'm like, I'm gonna try Airbnb. I don't I don't know if it's gonna work. People weren't even traveling. And so these four units I furnished. If you look at Airbnb furnishing a bedroom is about $2,000 this was even I was 1000 bucks to furnish each bedroom is super inexpensive. Like, I'm gonna throw some money at it to see if I can fix the problem. The first 30 days I probably had 10 days booked at $30 a day.
Mike Swenson
Per unit or it'll between the four of them?
Erik Hatch
Yeah, per unit, I was probably bringing in 300 gross. And then I pay my Airbnb manager 25% a property manager is different than Airbnb manager, because they are so much more hands on, right. Yeah. And so I I wasn't even making I mean, I was I was netting to 25. And I had just put in 1000, I need to be at 375 that my numbers work. So it was just rough. All of a sudden, booked 30 days out of 30 days were three of the four units. And the other one was like 25 out of 30 days. And I had travel nurses, I had construction workers that were in town and doing business.
Erik Hatch
And those people oftentimes get a per diem, they get a $75 a day, here's your lodging, and whatever it may be. And if they can rent my place for 30 bucks a day, they can keep the other 45 they're going to do that. So sure enough, we have found what we think is a sweet spot. In fact, we're starting to raise the price up ticket up two units have become vacant in that 10 Plex. And so now I have six Airbnb that I'm running out of there, and what average between 375 and 550 a month for rents. I'm now bringing in a net profit of 800 to $1,000 per unit per month and I am salivating. I'm doing the same place with my Lake place, dude. I just bought a lake place, I'm gonna vrb it out for half the summer in three weeks time I'll pay for my mortgage for the entire year.
Mike Swenson
Well. I think the beauty of it is just not to not to mitigate because we're both Midwesterners and the perception is not a lot of people like to travel the Midwest like I did an episode with a guy who has Airbnb is in San Diego and he was talking about how great that opportunity is like, here Here you are in Fargo. Keeping the occupancy up on these Airbnb is that just that, to me that just shows how much of a need there is out there. And like you said, Why spend 100 bucks at a motel when you can spend 30 bucks and pocket the additional money like it just makes sense. It's a win for them. They're really excited to be in your spot and you're really excited to rent it out for 30 bucks a night.
Erik Hatch
All day, every day, the wear and tear the housekeeping that all the housekeeping gets charged to them to it's it's it's a pretty great business venture. It takes a few months to get off the ground. And I will tell you this, there is a Netflix show called stay here. And it is I think it's an eight part series and it's all about how to maximize the value for an Airbnb. And it was really helpful because I have a super cool downtown condo that we just renovated. And we watched our bookings about triple, because we made it prettier. And we made it where people are going to now take a picture in front of a mural that we did, right? Like we're putting all these awesome touches on there that are changing the way in which consumers find our place. And we're going to compete with the local hotels and do really well.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, that's awesome. That's, that's great. Now Now, we've obviously spent a lot of time on that stuff. Let's just touch for a little bit on some of the other stuff that you've got. So you know, we talked about the brokerage, you talked about that growth, you also have a coaching company, what do you want to share about that, and how that's grown over the last few years.
Erik Hatch
So our coaching company has been open just over five years, and we started at a really unique spot, I started coaching, probably the top 1% of realtors is how we got started, as we understood the team model, we had really great retention and really great success from our agents. And people wanted to learn from us with that. In addition, we had and still have the top ISA inside sales agents team in the country. And we were doing that on a really high level. And so people wanted to know, how can we convert really well? How can we how can we spend less and make more. And together my partner Robbie and I have done an intentional build out of hatch coaching over the last five years.
Erik Hatch
We now are servicing over 500 realtors throughout the country with different coaching products, training services, and systems and messaging things. So you can hire me. And I'll coach you one on one we built out we have hundreds of training videos that are available for people if they're looking to grow, either lead conversion or marketing or build a real estate team, whatever it may be. We in fact even have a 49 video series on training and onboarding so that you don't ever have to figure out how to onboard somebody into real estate, which is always a complicated piece. And then we have a whole lot of technologies that we've been building out and partnering with Sierra interactive, we're soon to release some follow up boss with structurally with why lopo. And so we're finding these companies that are doing great things.
Erik Hatch
We're bringing our enhancement, all the work that my ishs have done for hatch realty to run a top real estate team. We're giving that platform to other people at an easy subscription rates. And that has been so much fun to see we have a guy out of Irvine, California, who's in our network and obviously big sales prices there. But he said last year, he grossed about 350,000 bucks. And the only thing he changed this year was he added on our messaging and our systems within why Lobo and Sierra interactive. And he grew by better lead conversion, he had a gross commission over a million dollars. And that's the only thing that he changed, added a couple of people that could do that work, and then had that extra touch to it. And so these technologies and systems that are afforded to people are some of the biggest no brainers in our industry right now.
Mike Swenson
Awesome. And then on top of that you wrote a book, right? Any anything you want to share about that?
Erik Hatch
Well, I will always keep it on my desk. So I can do a shameless promotion, it's called play for the person next to you. It is all about servant leadership. And so the way in which you can get really successful I think in success is not money. Success is wealth. And wealth is a combination of the right culture, the right time in your life, and, of course, the right resources and money as a part of that. And so we're on the pursuance of wealth, and a servant leadership approach for me feels the healthiest way to get there. And so it's my first book, hopefully, it's not my last book. And I won't ever declare myself as an expert in leadership. But I'm a very passionate student who's taken some very big at bats over the last couple of years.
Mike Swenson
How do you find the you know, so as you look at your time, and you look at where's the best use of my time? How do you how do you plan out your day? And then let's talk to a little bit about finding and building great people around you, because there's no way that you could build what you're building without having very reliable, solid, amazing people on this journey along with you.
Erik Hatch
Yeah, the idea of a self made man is an asinine idea. I am a product of the people that I've invested in and they've invested in me as well. And so there's a book right now that's been buzzed about a lot. It's called who not how, who, not how, and it is really an articulation of what I think is true to my heart, and that is, if you find the right people, and if you become the right person, the right leader that people want to be around, everything is incrementally easier. And so for me, as I've grown this ecosystem, I balanced my time out very, very rigidly every 30 minutes of my day. For my lunch break is accounted for my drive time is accounted for. And when you look at my calendar from 8am, often 7am to 5pm, every minute is accounted for.
Erik Hatch
I am a stern believer that I just need more discipline in my life and more intentionality with the time that I'm disciplined for. And when that happens, you know, Bill Gates said 24 hours in a day. Beyonce has 24 hours in a day. But somehow they found a lot more success, because they've probably been more disciplined with their time. And they've been more intentional and intense with the time in which they've been given. So I have a very intense and intentional person with my time hoping that that leads to amazing results. As as for the people side of things, I've hired hundreds of people at this point, we follow a regimented nine step hiring process that is a really deep and thorough process to make sure that we both Connect personally and professionally, if we're ever going to dance together.
Erik Hatch
Now, I wouldn't get married to somebody after a couple of dates, or even after a 30 minute conversation. But that's what most people do when they hire as they they spend 30 minutes looking at a resume that could easily be falsified. And they ask surface level questions, then they invite people into their world. And for me, remember, Mike, my background is in ministry. It was I, I was immediately drawn to the idea that I could be really popular in ministry, right? Like I worked at a large congregation 4000 people. And I was well recognized, I don't know if I was well liked or not, but as well recognized by a lot of people, and that feeds my high ego. But it didn't mean that I made a difference whatsoever. And the way in which I changed my, my mindset was really a discipleship model. You know, Jesus had 12, and I'm not Jesus, so I can't have 12.
Erik Hatch
So that means I need to have five or six people that I pour into intently, and I give all my time, all my energy, all my development, I don't chat with them with my phone in my hand, and I'm not connecting with them while I have other distractions, the only person that can interrupt this one on one is if my wife calls, I'll literally I don't care for an a podcast or webinar, if my wife calls she I know that she's more important than you. But otherwise, the person that I'm face to face with, that's the most important person, and I turn everything else off, and I go 100% all in for the time in which we're allowed. Now the difference is, leadership shows up both in the schedule that I just talked about, but also in the sporadic, it can't be if you do just one without the other, you end up having, I think, an interesting imbalance of personal and professional connection. See, I think the foundation of anything is built on personal. And when you have that trust, you can go exceedingly high. I gave, I gave a TED talk a few years ago that talks about the importance of trust in an organization and how you can instill more purpose in the relationship that you have when trust is the foundation.
Mike Swenson
I remember I went to a seminar where it was talking about the speed of trust. And it was Stephen Covey and he was talking about how great book right yeah, I mean, and and simple model and yet when you start to think about it, it's like that can really change because there's there's no questioning of motives, there's no question is this person out to to screw me over? Or do this or that and and so when you build that trust, yeah, you can, you can move a heck of a lot faster. Because there's there's the politics are gone. The emotions are different, because it's built on love. And we're growing together versus on kind of just, maybe I'm in maybe I'm out. I don't know. So I totally agree.
Erik Hatch
Yeah, the the value in the love and the trust comes in the sporadic not in the schedule. And so you have to have that too. Which means a great leader should always have an open door policy, but not the open door policy. Most people think of most people think of the open door policy to say, Mike, you can come to me anytime you have something. But if I'm your leader, that open door policy is for me to get the hell out of my office to go to you to say Mike, how you doing, man, I'm here with you. And that makes that makes all the difference that open door is not for people to come in. It's for me to go out.
Mike Swenson
Now. This is great. Thank you, thank you so much for sharing, I you know, like I dressed here, you've got all these different things that help feed each other. It's it's very strategic, it's moving in a good direction. It's built around great people. Talk them for just a brief minute about kind of the goal of this is to gain financial freedom and time freedom because there's at some point, Eric, you're not doing this stuff because you have to do to make money you're doing it because you love it. And then you're also building great people because it's now allowing you to spend your time however you want to spend your time. What where do you see this continuing to go and what is what you've built meant to you in terms of financial and time freedom.
Erik Hatch
I'm putting most of my energy right now into my coaching company. My my real estate team has never been healthier. And the reason why is because I know who I need to be in that ecosystem. My role as the CEO is I am the chief marketer and cheap chief vision caster for the company. I am the head coach, and I am a person who leads the leaders. Other than that, I don't do jack squat. I'm Colonel Sanders at this point, I maybe created the recipe, but I'm not in the kitchen anymore. And I've empowered really great people to run that company. And they have really great lives as well. And there's just, it's something really special investing happens because I built a team for that. And we've got some marketing plans for that. That's all set and taken care of.
Erik Hatch
I'm giving almost all my energy right now to hatch coaching, both in one on one and large trainings, speaking from main stages, all those things that are afforded to me, because my call in this world is to be a chapter in as many books as possible. So what I'm designed to do, in fact, as the intro of my own book is to say that my desire is to be a chapter in as many books as possible, because this isn't about accrual of wealth. For me, it's about helping other people so that they can have what it is that they're designed to have in life. And when the tide rises, I get to benefit from that. Also, Zig Ziglar says you can have everything in life you want if you help enough, others get what they want. And that's what I've been pursuing stuff.
Erik Hatch
And sure enough, it's created a lot of opportunity for me, and I'm very clear on the time that's needed for that. My goal and what I'm striving for is to work less and because remember, I said I'm intense and intentional with every 30 minutes of my day. I just want an extra half day a week to go off. And so and so that's my that's my goal, by the time summer hits is that I can carve that out as well. And I have no problem being intense with what I do. I have no problem controlling the time and what I do. I know I can say no at any time, but it feels so good to say yes.
Mike Swenson
Well, thank you so much for coming on. Anything that you want to plug for folks, obviously, you know, real estate needs Fargo Morehead, hatch realty, hatch coaching, what else? What else do you want people to know? How can they reach out to you?
Erik Hatch
I think one of the value things that we can do, and I never want to do a sales pitch, I seriously subscribe to our YouTube channel, the Hatch Coaching YouTube channel, we put on new content there weekly. I'm constantly trying to share the ideas and the visions that I have. We are offering something here is a little pitch, we have something called the hatch huddle that we're doing every Monday at 10am Central Time, if you go to hatchcoaching.com you'll see about it, it's a 45 minutes kickoff of training, and think of listening to hopefully a high level podcast with some actionable things for your own world and that's what we're doing with it.
Erik Hatch
You choose the topics because we take submissions from other people. And that's the direction that we go. As an example this last week, we talked in pretty great length about how you can go and get more listings. Because we know that that's drying up everywhere. And that's an easy thing. It's 99 bucks a month, that's not going to break the bank, we think for anybody, and it's a chance for you and your team or just you to come and get a new level of education and opportunity.
Mike Swenson
Awesome. Well, thanks so much for your contribution. I mean, so much great wisdom, and just really love what you're doing and what you're building. So thanks so much for coming on.
Erik Hatch
It's been a joy.
