The Role of the Inside Sales Agent - a podcast by Nate Joens, Robby Trefethren, Erik Hatch

On the first episode of Real Estate ISA Radio, your hosts, Nate Joens of Structurely and Robby Trefethren of Hatch Coaching, are joined by the one and only, Erik Hatch - Founder and CEO of Hatch Coaching and The Erik Hatch Team.

isaradio-podcast1-9-3-18.mp3

[00:00:00] Hello everyone. This is Nate with Structurely welcoming you to our first ever Real Estate ISA Radio podcasts where we give you an inside look into the science and setup of building a successful inside sales team for your real estate business. I'm here today with some special guest. Robbie T and Erik Hatch. Robby, I'll let you introduce Erik!

[00:00:38] Awesome. Yeah. So I got Erik here. Erik is literally right down my right hand man said it to my right said seated my right. But you know Erik is not just a co-worker he's one of my best friends and he's our partner in crime in believing in this ISA world. And honestly being the person that first dreamt somebody doing it at his highest level. I want introduce Erik a little bit. We're based here in Fargo. And Erik has built now a team that will do seven hundred-ish deals give or take some 700 or 750 depending on how things shape up. And he's got his hands and fingerprints all over Fargo here as well as real estate interests like our Hatch coaching and. Erik, you want to introduce yourself a little bit and tell people who you are.

[00:01:35] Well Nathan and Robby it's an honor to be here especially in the first episode of Real Estate ISA Radio this is this is great stuff. You guys are up to something that that's cracked the code for the ISA piece you're able to elevate your game your business your service and all the fun from maybe 60 or 70 percent functionality right up to the top 100 percent.

[00:02:00] And so it's been an honor to be on the ride with Robby and a fellow ISAs in Fargo as well and we weapons. So thanks for having

[00:02:08] Us Yeah. We're really excited for you to have to be on our very first episode today. So with that I do want to just give a quick background is this is our first episode on myself. My name is Nate I'm the CEO. Structurely we're an artificial intelligence based inside sales company for real estate out of Ames and my co host Robbie t who has a great deejay nickname at Deejay Robbie T. I'm sure that's going to stick. We're looking out right now by the way. I love it. Yeah and we're where we're the cohosts of real estate ISA radio moving forward. So without further ado we really want to jump into our first topic which is just simply the role of the inside sales agent. We're going to touch on describing the framework of a new lead journey from when they register on a Web site or portal to when they get to your ISA. And then when they're passed off to an agent we're then going to touch compensation structure of the ISA you know what makes them tick what a typical day in the life of an ISA is like. And I think that you two especially are going to be great with this topic so that further do Erik come to pass this question off to you. What exactly does an inside sales agent do in real estate.

[00:03:25] Hopefully everything.

[00:03:28] I mean I would say this is that you don't have an ISA you are the ISA. So whether you are somebody who is brand new to the business or you have a team of 90 people whomever is the lead converter is the ISA. ISA stands for inside sales agent but really I think it's inside service and inside sales that acronym is ISIS and we probably don't want to be calling these crewmembers ISIS. And so instead we're just trying to call them ISAs. The truth of the matter is when a leader signs out when they have raised their hand whether it be signing up through a Web site or party vendors Zillow or realtor.com that they call them to our office. We've structured our team so that our ISAs are the first touch for and have not met anybody who we don't have a relationship already established with. And so it's their job to nurture maintain massage listen to pursue. And basically they are the keepers of those relationships. Converting have not met into mats.

[00:04:35] Their job their goal is to of course protect them strategically design their action to protect the company's dollar so that it can go for may have not met from somebody who has signed up to a match which is it kept appointments and so that's the ISAF main role and function awesome.

[00:04:54] Yeah I think that's a great great introduction to start. So when when did it make sense for your team attached realty to actually add an inside sales agent.

[00:05:04] So that's realty functions only as a team. The air catching up had fidelity and an outside hatch Cochon because Embury an original when it comes to anything when they hatch by the time this is done.

[00:05:21] And my new company happily set a structure there that gives me a firebrand. That's right.

[00:05:30] I go back to 2013. I started my team in 2012 and I can't tell you how much money I wasted on trying to figure out how to convert leads.

[00:05:42] In 2012 I hired a whole bunch of agents and I trained them poorly and they were always out doing showings and distracted. And traditionally if we got back to any Internet lead within 24 hours we'd like give ourselves a pat on the back thinking that we were crushing it. And then in 2013 I was studying what other models were doing and I saw other people doing the I'd say and so I said well they look smarter and more talented than these. I'm just going to copy printer this and call of our own. And so I hired my friend Josh who was drawn to real estate had a career in higher education and an amazing thing happened.

[00:06:17] Josh wasn't a great ISA in terms of structure or the things he said or the way he acted but he did this crazy thing called answering the phone and responding to leads in a timely fashion. And we watched the amount of business that came from have not grow substantially and we recognized right away that we were on to something because we realized that speed to lead was this crucial form age. It didn't even matter if he was good at what he was doing. If he responded quickly and promptly we had so much more business than we ever had. And so in most real estate people are structured where they are the ones receiving the calls but the moment they're with a client or a family member or if they are in another appointment or if they're distracted on another call maybe they're not able to respond to speed to leave and that that's not a high function for them because of that that's there's this massive gap in people's businesses and those that have ISAs are watching their businesses surge because people want immediacy.

[00:07:18] And we've figured that out back in 2013 and now it's more prevalent than ever.

[00:07:24] That's great. And you know you can you kind of touched on your first ISA you know didn't have phone skills maybe necessarily but you know could you talk me a little bit about what made that ISA special what makes your ISA special today. What are those skills that they typically have.

[00:07:43] Well Josh was the same way. We think that whenever we're hiring somebody we use a three three tiered system of the first 50 percent this culture. We need people to fix the organization that we're running. We call ourselves a team. I don't have employees. I don't have people that work for me. We have a team and a family that I work for everyday. And so with that intentionality makes I make sure that these people are of the right culture that they fit that they're not the church and the punchbowl. These are people who we think are our people but I'm willing to invest in support into and they're doing the same for me and so whether it be Josh or Robbie or any other ISA that we've hired the first piece is culture. From there we think of a DISK profile or a personality profile we'll try to figure out what matters and what matters and this is a hot button topic needs oftentimes. And Robbie laughs already because how many times have we heard the hire a High I in the ISA Role.

[00:08:43] I would say it's an almost any main brokerage or main brand.

[00:08:48] It's it's the talk of the town as you hire a High I in the ISA Role

[00:08:52] And if you're a High I I'm a 99 I Nate. I mean in fact it's like bursting out of me. If I have to call somebody and talk with somebody that I don't. Now it's really fun for an hour and I want to be done with my day and go actually be face to face with people as to who has high I's and most sales people are high Is because they like that social interaction. An ISA I don't think looks like a traditional sales person. I think they're oftentimes the Star Wars nerds the people who have passions that run deep but maybe don't align with necessarily pop culture type things.

[00:09:28] Our ISAs are passionate. They're people of character but they aren't the typical sales person that wants to be funny faces and so we think that 25 percent of the equation is their profile and we recommend a DC or a CD that somebody who's dominant and thick skinned somebody who is a driver and then somebody who's also analytical and good with numbers and systems and processes. We want somebody to be able to be diligent enough to get knocked down and get back up again thanks to tub thumping for leading the way.

[00:10:00] So thank you for that.

[00:10:03] And I just want to add that I think the main reason a lot of people are saying you should hire a high I as an ISA is it really comes down to what's your intent with the ISA.

[00:10:16] Well most companies you hire and ISA. And the goal is to have them graduate and be a real estate agent and don't do it.

[00:10:27] There a couple problems with that.

[00:10:31] And I'm afraid we're telling his story in a little bit. But this game of tracing online internet leads as a long term play.

[00:10:39] And if you're Taizé long term leads I mean it's easy to be chasing them for the long term.

[00:10:46] And this is what happens is you see a lot of these people come in as high I's as ISAs and then six months later of course they move out of the ISA roll into becoming a joint partner or an agent listing agent or buyer agent whatever it's all the same thing.

[00:11:00] And low and behold they move into that role and what falls off are all of the prospecting all of the chasing of the lead. And from our point of view it just seems like it's such a waste of potential opportunities.

[00:11:13] So when we say that we don't want to I it's because our ISAs stay ISA and that's a fundamental shift compared to most people that are either in ISAs.

[00:11:25] Now it is here large enough for scale I think of my friend Lance Loken in Houston for example Lance requires all of his team members who are going to be producing agents to start as ISAs as he wants them to understand and appreciate and to also prove their worth and to get a little bit gritty but he also has he has permanent ISAs that stay in that role so that these nurturers and these long term relationships are fostered.

[00:11:52] My favorite story of that is this is it's Robley story right. Robbie started as an ISA in 2014. 2014 you helped to close. How many deals probably it's some SCCA 60 some I write that down some is very angry.

[00:12:09] Robbie second year in 2015 helped to close over 150 deals right. I think those are 167 ones. 167. OK. Now you're in a little more specific now and then in 2016 Robbie only was an ISA making phone calls for January and February. Very part time very part time and then get to this coaching role and you focus a lot more on helping to lead our team and to help our have coaching well as well as the only make calls for two months. You have to close. Holman who deals in 2016 knows about a common app. I mean did you catch that. He made calls for two months in his third year and helped appose 150 deals.

[00:12:50] This is a long term game and you cannot and should not look for an ISA to get in the role and then leave after a few months. It's why the culture piece matters and it's why this piece really matters for their profile. They need to and want to stay in that role. The final warning. You're getting them fired out here and then to the finals 5 percent that we make matters a lot is Gretz it's hunger it's tenacity. It's somebody who has a chip on their shoulder.

[00:13:25] We have some people who have some chips on their shoulder in our world. They have to prove wrong. And so every day they wake up a little more hungry and a little more tenacious. And so for us that's the equation coach you're 50 percent D'Este profile personality profile 25 percent and their Gretz and hunger 25 percent. And that's what we look for in an ISA.

[00:13:45] Awesome. Yeah I think that makes for very successful ISA and you guys definitely proof that. I think there's a lot to unpack there. We can definitely you know I'm thinking through it now that the disk profile sounds like another great episode were for a few episodes that we could really dive into some of those specifics. And I absolutely think that you guys have proven so successful with your team because you've you've slipped the same model on its head. I think there's been you know there's there's been so much turnover traditionally in the same role. But you guys have been able to combat it extremely well and I think that you guys put that that that culture first and it's very apparent so kind of you know touching on the greatness.

[00:14:31] I would that it was named 10 or 15 years ago by Gary Keller and Gary Keller as far as I'm concerned is one of the if not the guru for this industry and when he was reading the millionaire real estate agent book he talked about having having things like call centers and having things that were a coal color system as a part of your formula to grow a really large team.

[00:14:55] I think that Barry was on to something. And I'm curious to see him create 2 comes out to see how he interprets it now. But Robin he has been one of the lead people in this country in this industry to make it not about cold calling and to make it not about simply smiling and dying and trying to maneuver that person so you can get a quick sale. Robbie has turned this into a relationship business and has has found a way for these ISAs when they're making their calls live not about I'm trying to sell you something. It's rather trying to serve someone that's rooted in a relationship and it's rooted in understanding what that person wants and desires are and so approaching it differently and approaching it as a service role looks far different than a call center model to try to get somebody who has a low hanging piece of fruit.

[00:15:44] Absolutely. It's funny that you mention Gary's book. I literally have it sitting here on my on my desk as we speak as I'm looking at it right now. So he's definitely touched every aspect from tech to everyday agents lifestyle to ISAs. He's really created the blueprint for the industry and it's exciting for the it's exciting to see how far it's come and how far he's been able to reach. Very true. So you know kind of what I was diving into was you know what a little bit more about the mindset of the ISA say what are some what are some of the common issues that your ISA might face that you know would would be troublesome for them or you know might make them second guess their their position at their job or the role Nate I've met you in person before.

[00:16:32] You're a good looking guy. You're easy on the eyes you're handsome on right. Like you probably don't get rejected all that often.

[00:16:42] If you were to go to the bar as if you were to pull yourself together that sort of thing like I rejected very often I won't speak to that but I appreciate it.

[00:16:56] Nate I'm I'm nearly in a midlife crisis with my hair falling out probably as I'm talking and I bet that heavier set and it's more difficult for a guy like me. And so I develop a little bit of thick skin because I get rejected maybe more often now. Fortunately I found a wife who was way hotter than me anyways input and output. When I bring that up because we have to talk about rejection and we have to talk about the ability to have a why and purpose that is bigger than the phone call that you're on. Our purpose only. Come home we live it out through someone else and to have the ability to serve means that you're serving the person on the other end of the phone as well as your service that are working on as well as your serving our family and your God whatever that may mean for you. And so to have a larger purpose is imperative with this because if you're starting off as an ISA Nate and you're calling people that you've never talked to before the steps that we've run say that for a random paper click Internet lead you're going to be lucky if you can them in six months after 20 or 30 conversations. And so I want you to think of what day one week one looks like as an ISA in and you're calling a whole bunch of people and 95 percent of them don't answer anyway because most people want to text nowadays and then when you actually get somebody on the phone somebody is pretty upset it's you or they don't want to put up with you or they're going to hang up on you.

[00:18:26] You're really surprised at how many people when you greet them with warmth and are trying to be a sleazy salesperson will respect that and give you that same kind of dignity.

[00:18:35] But an ISA has to be prepared for it copious amounts of rejection. It will take I think six months to possibly get your first commission check if you're if you're getting compensated based on the transactions that close I think you get a commission check within six months of you started the job. You're going to be sitting pretty and Robbie story was that when he started 2014 your first question probably came in May or June. Right. But that all of a sudden the next six months at so more food on it. And then fast forward two years and the damage two months of phone calls and got paid on 150 transactions because of the work he did two years prior. And so you think about this and how many people are living in immediacy. Most of us are of them microwave oven generation where we have things that come to us quickly and we're not used to waiting in order to have this ability to play the long term game. You need somebody who has long term goals and your ability as a leader to speak to those goals and to remind them of what's really at play here is going to be imperative.

[00:19:48] Speaking from my point of view as well I agree with Erik and moral the same that will just beat you into the ground is the days where you make a thousand calls and you speak to 75 people and you get zero appointments and you don't have something larger that you're looking at something larger about what's you.

[00:20:10] If you don't have some form of hunger or purpose it's really tough to transition and go and do that again and again and again I think in this role there nailed it on the head.

[00:20:25] It's so frustrating because you can be killer at this role and you won't see a payoff for six months or 12 months if not longer.

[00:20:34] And that's frustrating most of us especially in our generation made us millennials as Erik said we want out now and you can't blame us right if we play something on Amazon that shows up on your doorstep sometimes in some cities a few hours later.

[00:20:51] But this takes a lot of work a lot of rejection and it's such a long term play. So I think that's probably one of the most frustrating pieces that you have to keep in mind is seeing where are you going and who trusts trusts and can make these calls.

[00:21:12] If I do what I'm supposed to be doing that it will lead to the results to kind of put a bow on all of this.

[00:21:18] I described the ISA role like this if you were at the beach half a little Tylor if you have kids you probably have seen this little sand sifters and that's really what an ISA is doing is they're taking a bucket of sand and the say are the hands and the sifter that are shaping the living.

[00:21:35] I had a saying and when you shake it all of us for the big pebbles and that's all we're doing is ISA Ages frankly. You have to shake the heck out of this thing to get rid of all the sand and or you will lose and burn out in this game is if you look down and you see the pilots and that's sitting there and you say those are all opportunities you will outlast this world. You have to be focused and low in the air and see the goal posts the little or the pearls whatever.

[00:22:08] Wow that's what we've got to be focused on in this role whether it comes down to made is this realtors love shiny objects. Most people are looking for that podcast or they're looking for that thing at a convention that's going to make them rich quick. An ISA it's not a get rich quick scheme and in fact it is a disrupter in your business if you're a full functioning team right now. However this is part of the infinite game and Simon Senecas been hot on that as of late talking about the differences in the final game and the infinite game and I'm convinced that the ISA are part of the infinite game the long term strategy and the relationship nurturing.

[00:22:54] But if you're signing up to be an ISA if you are not coached and led properly and if somebody is trying to squeeze you to get that new deal to close you are set up for summit failure. And I hear so much about it.

[00:23:10] Absolutely. I think you guys covered so much about what the the role of a successful I'd say it looks like there there's there's so much more that we can on back in terms of you know what the day to day looks like from from everything that you guys covered there. And I love your analogy Robbie that you mentioned about the sifting through the sand. I want to stay kind of on on the topic of the mindset of the psychology of the of the idea say while we're while we're here I think you guys can offer a really unique perspective on this next question because you coach ISA teams even ibises yourself you manage other ISAs internally. So from all of your unique vantage points what is it that an ISA is looking for in a role at your company.

[00:23:55] Why did why would they want to join your company. That's that's a tricky question. We know what we're looking for.

[00:24:07] But I'll be honest if I have prided myself for the last four or five years to be exquisitely refined at higher traditionally when somebody comes into our world they have more success than they would imagine. And we have done exceedingly well except for the ISA departments and half of the ISA is that we hire traditionally don't make it. And every realtor I've ever hired otherwise has made it in the business but not in the ISA roll because it's tough and if therefore avoided gurus of this and we only about 50 percent. That means that you made that you know 20 30 40 percent maybe. I hope you can teach us some things because we really are craving learning as we go. But to answer your question Nate what are they looking for. I hope that they're looking for something that isn't immediacy. Well we was struck with the last question but this is a long term game and we need somebody who is bubbling up to be more of a lifer and to have a career rather than be at that that a mediate get rich quick scheme. The icy roads isn't isn't what it is in it for. In our world we don't allow people to graduate from the ISA to being an agent at least until they do that job for an extended period of time and proven that they earn that next opportunity for something else.

[00:25:32] But we've hired so many weirdos in this department that we really we really have hit some home runs with the guys that have lasted and that have demonstrated. Well I'll I'll say this. Here are some things that we found that have worked really well.

[00:25:48] Our ISAs that have lasted never came to us through an ad we placed online.

[00:25:55] Instead they've come to us through relationships and understanding that they wanted to be a part of the fiber of our company rather than be a realtor. It's interesting whenever you put an ad out there to hire a realtor you're going to get people who love each HGTV and those people don't make great ISAs and you're looking for people who you know maybe you want to make a lot of money and so they see commission. ISAs it's a longer longer term game and clusters of the lower and lower commissions. And so the people we've had our best luck with have sought us out and have come to us through relationships where they understood the fiber of our company in addition to that we have some great commonality with them military experience. It doesn't mean that you have to hire somebody that has military experience but a lot of our hires have had armed forces or you know policemen type jobs.

[00:26:44] And so that's the nice commonality and star wars it started that Danila a secret. I've I've never seen Star Wars anyone but myself and many of the people right now but I ISAs have a weird passion for Star Wars or something peculiar and I'm not saying that Star Wars is peculiar but we have one guy who loves like music boxes and this is the weirdest thing.

[00:27:11] But he had he has a hobby that is passionate about that is obscure and we have another guy who's a geologist. Right. And it's just that of your passion and hobby. And then there's Robbie who is like an encyclopedia and reads 100 bucks a year. And then we have our other say who loves birds. I don't know why but he's so excited about owls and it's just weird to me. But it works.

[00:27:34] So basically what you're saying is if you're hiring for the ISA role go set up shop whenever the next whatever the next Star Wars movie is. And that's where you should be recruiting from.

[00:27:45] That's one of my plans. There you go.

[00:27:48] Was on a secret a couple hours on it's on right on on all of us especially the Star Wars art.

[00:27:55] And there's no way in 90 percent of people are going to be ostracized by missing out because of Episodes 1 2 3 3 Star Wars nerds.

[00:28:03] So anyway I digress.

[00:28:07] One of the things we're spoiled with here is we when you join if you come to Fargo and you're exposed to ads realty if you follow what we're doing you've been exposed to coal from leadership that's probably second to none in this industry.

[00:28:27] And I think sometimes we overlook it and we're spoiled by it or sometimes just forget about it.

[00:28:36] But the that's one of the pieces.

[00:28:39] He said they're being drawn and it's because people were consistently named one of the best places to work. People talk about us people want to be a part of what we're doing. And that's not just you know the hiring because Erik gave about finding people not through an ad ad buy that for almost every position on our real estate team.

[00:29:00] The vast majority of people that have joined come from some connection that we already had. Now some say that it does work. But we already knew them. So I think the Colts are the big piece. Gonna have a place that people actually want to work. As simple as that sounds. The other big thing if you were to go a Haci I'd say is that that have made it in our world including myself.

[00:29:23] There's gotta be opportunity and shirr doesn't need to be you know size you know two months away really worth a million dollars. But there's gotta be some financial opportunity related to this role.

[00:29:41] And I actually think this is a really good transition point because you said he wanted to get into comp. So if you don't mind briefly breeze through that and put a little ASRock on this.

[00:29:53] That's it that's all right. Absolutely yeah.

[00:29:56] Before we go the first thing I want to say is every market is going to be slightly different and we're going to share our numbers what we do and it honestly may have zero relevance for you because I have open lines that them in different cities and the numbers would never make sense.

That's all we have for The Role of the Inside Sales Agent today. You can find more free insights like this at by searching "Real Estate ISA Radio" on itunes or google podcasts - or on https://www.theisaradio.com/ . Be sure to also check out the best in ISA coaching at https://www.hatchcoaching.com/  and the most insightful artificial intelligence ISA at https://structurely.com/ . Until next time, happy closings.

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