Ep005: Turning Your Real Estate Side-Hustle Into a Rewarding Career

Transcript

Welcome to the Connect Practice Track & Grow podcast. Habits, routines, motivations, and mindsets from some of the most successful real estate professionals among us. Check out the show notes at ConnectPracticeTrackGrow.com. This show is brought to you by the Strategic Resource for Real Estate Professionals, creating and coaching business opportunities and strategies that support and add value to the lives of real estate professionals at the strategicresource.com. And by ROOST Real Estate Co., today’s real estate agent doesn’t follow old rules. She makes new ones. Learn more at careerwithroost.com. I’d like to introduce Josh Hufford to the Connect Practice Track & Grow podcast. Josh is a realtor and lead property manager for ROOST Real Estate Co. in Springfield, Ohio.

Josh started out as a client, referred to me by RightPack Credit Union, and he later became a realtor while still working a full-time management job with a local insurance services business. Later he became a full-time realtor and a property manager. Josh’s practice is built around his friends, family, as well as business and referrals he receives from his property management clients. And Josh is a busy guy. I think you’ll get a lot out of listening to this podcast. Josh’s story of getting his real estate license starting out with real estate as a side hustle and then his side hustle turning into a successful career is a great story that new and experienced agents alike can learn from.

I guarantee you’ll find inspiration, timely lessons, actionable tips and tricks, daily habits and mindsets you can use in your business to generate more leads, book more appointments, write more contracts, close more deals, earn more referrals and make more money. And now here’s my interview with Josh Hubbard. Hi Josh. Hey Chris. How are you this morning? Not too bad. Not too bad at all. Can’t complain. Well, thanks for doing this. I know you don’t have time for it. So I do appreciate it. So why don’t you just tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, how you got started, family, all that good stuff. Okay, well, I am married and my wife Katie’s a graphic designer. We have three kids together ages nine, seven and five. So that keeps us pretty busy.

It seems like all of them are in two or three sports at one time. So a lot of running going on. But with my family, we’ve always had a background in real estate, whether it was building construction, flipping houses, roofing companies, the Hufford name and Springfield, especially does carry a lot of weight. My grandfather and uncles and great uncles all built up the condos there in Northridge. So Fox Ridge and Victorian Village, they built all those. My other uncles had roofing companies. My dad was always involved in a little bit of everything, whether it was flips. So the interest to real estate has always been there. And so I just decided the route I want to take was let’s give being a real estate agent a shot.

Let’s try sales so far. So good. But that’s kind of how I got started. My family thought it’d be a good idea to give it a go. And like I said, so far it’s worked out well. I think it’s worked out incredibly well. Quite frankly, I think you’re being modest. So I just want to kind of go through you got your license was a 2015 or 2016 2015. So this and so be seven years then see I think this month October. So that is hard to believe. So when when did we first meet was that must have been 2014 2015. Let’s see. So we bought our first house in Beaver Creek for you. So that was let’s see here.

My son was born in 2013. So that would have been 2012. Oh my gosh. So it’s been 10 years. Yes. So I went back and looked at your sales. So in 2016 and these are just rough calculations, but it looks like your first year with a license you did like just over a million dollars in sales, which is really great for any brand new agent. And it’s exceptionally good because you were still working at a full time job. And then in 2017. Actually, I don’t show a lot of sales at all very limited to 300,000 something like that. Was that the year you started with us full time and property management?

What year was I believe I started full time property management and 17. I think I’m seven year five. Okay, so that makes sense. That makes sense. So as your first year when you’re still at the insurance services company, you did over a million bucks. The year that you started full time with a job with us, which is at least 40 hours a week in property management. It was a huge job you do for us. Looks like about 300,000. And then you move into 2018 and you’re at almost 2 million. It looks like maybe just under $2 million. And then in 2019, jump to about $3 million.

2020 COVID year, your business increased again. To about 3.5 million. And then what’s really interesting that really want to try to hear from you what changed between 2020 and 2021, your business doubled to roughly $7 million in sales. And you’re on track this year, depending how we finish up. But it’s the end of October that we’re recording this, you’re at least going to do another 7 million and probably finish up more than that. That is just incredible. I mean, you have to be proud of yourself for that performance. Yeah, I think you mentioned why maybe the huge increase to double. And I think that’s when really a lot of the referrals started to hit.

So I had a few clients that had already bought a new home and then a couple years later, they’ve maybe outgrew it. So I had a lot of repeat clients and customers. A lot of referrals started coming in. So that was probably, let’s see here, year four and five. So yeah, so a lot of referrals started coming in. You take care of people and also along the way, I mentioned with the kids sporting events, I’m meeting people along the way too. So most everybody I introduced myself and they kind of, what do you do for work? So I’d be sure to, I’m sure to put my name out there and maybe slip them a business card.

So yeah, it’s just a culmination of things. Referrals, repeat clients and then just meeting new clients and customers and friends along the way. Well, it’s cool that a lot of folks get into the business thinking that it’s going to happen for it quickly or they’re going to get rich quick. And the reality is it takes a few years to get established and start to get that repeat business. And that’s exactly what you’ve done. You started off strong, but the real beauty of your career so far is the steady increase in productivity and sales year after year. So in a typical year, it sounds like your business comes from friends, family.

What’s this past year looked like for you if you think through some of your fires and sellers came from? So yeah, a lot of friends and family still of course. And then also I’ve gained some investor friends along the way, investor clients and they’re looking to expand their portfolios. So we’ve been able to find them some deals, whether it be apartment buildings or just multi units or just single families. So along the way, those investors have still been growing with me and wanting to grow their business. So I think that’s a great thing to have in fortune enough to be able to help them. Yeah, I think obviously some of your businesses come from the property management client base that you work with every day, those owners.

And that’s a great, great source of repeat business as long as we take care of them as property managers. As long as we do that, they’re thrilled to have us help them with their actual purchases and sales. So that’s a beautiful thing. We kind of talk about that as return on portfolio. Property management is, it’s a tough business, but it’s a great service. We’re owners and our owners are very loyal. And it’s not like anybody’s getting rich quick off of the money we make on property management, but that total return on relationship or that total return on the property management portfolio is always significant because anytime they buy and sell, they do it with you or another agent in the office.

That’s just great revenue, pure profit almost, but not free because there’s a tremendous amount of investment that you’ve put into to earn that referral in that business. So you said that you get some business with the kids, sporting events and stuff. How else do you make connections with people? Like I said, just referral of mouth, referral of Facebook, if you post, you know, that you’ve sold something and you maybe have a good review, then, you know, it’s out there for the world to see. And if it’s good, then, you know, someone else sees that review and say, hey, I’d like to work with this guy.

So they may shoot a message over or even call or text me the database as you’re still working on expanding that a little bit. But the database helps sending out those monthly flyers and all of that. So that’s one of my goals for the rest of years to build that up and start actually utilizing that a little bit more than what I have in the past. Yeah, we’ll talk a little bit about that. But yes, as a coach and mentor, we need to have you be a bit more intentional about your database and so forth because a lot of different reasons. One is, you know, you work incredibly hard.

And at some point, we want you to build a business and a practice that, you know, works for you versus the other way around. And then the other thing is, and you’re a young guy, of course, but, you know, at the, at some point in your career, when you decide that you want to slow down a little bit, your database is the, you know, it’s the savings account. So to speak, it’s the investment account that allows you to refer out to other agents and earn fees that way and even sell your practice someday. So there’s a lot of intermediate term benefit and a tremendous amount of long term benefit that sometimes in the heat of the battle, we don’t consider when we start talking about your database.

So I think one other thing I wanted to mention that I should have added in there about gating business is also networking with other business professionals. I have a lot of good friends that are in insurance. So if they sell home insurance or insurance like that, they may refer people over to me. I’ve networked with a couple of local attorneys. So if they need, whether it’s an estate or maybe they’re kind of going through a divorce or something to where they need to sell the house. I’ve kind of networked with them and I’ve got some leads and some closings and met new clients that way as well.

Yeah, that’s perfect. So do you have a what I like to call a personal connection standard. So what first of all, what does that personal connection that race personal connection standard mean to you. This is what we talked about right before the podcast. I was a little unsure of that. Well, so one of the things that you do and I think it comes naturally for you and I don’t know that you I don’t even know that you think about it because it’s just part of who you are. But when we talk about personal connection standard, it’s about basically it comes down to how many contacts are you going to make with current and future clients in the given weeks.

So how many phone calls are you going to make how many text messages are you going to send with a purpose outside of getting a deal done. How many personal notes are you going to write how many stop buys are you going to do this is the gratitude season coming up on Halloween or coming up on Thanksgiving holidays. There’s a zillion reasons to reach out and thank a client and just remind them that you’re here for them and whatever their plans are for next year you’re there. And then the fifth thing that you know is important about a personal connection standard it’s setting a goal for yourself as to how many additions, qualified additions you’re going to make to your database in a given week or a given month.

So some people may say well I’m going to make at least three calls a week. I’m going to write two personal notes. I’m going to do at least three or four. I’m going to do four stop buys. Stop buys in some of this cluster those you know in one place and do them every quarter that’s more than fine to and then the big one is as you build out your business. How many people are you going to set a goal for to add your database and that could be one a week, five a month that could be any number. And I think for somebody like you who is so active in so many things, you could probably set a pretty high bar for a qualified person to add your database so that that’s what we’re talking about with the personal connections standard.

And yes, you do have to go back and sort of collect everything you’ve done the last two or three years and get your database updated. But that’s a one time event. It’s really more about how will you be intentional about making those connections and tracking them going forward. Right. Yeah, one thing I do weekly is I do I make probably three to five calls a week. Just check it on people, especially when you get a sale done and you get a closing done. I check in with the new people. How’s the new place everything going as it should any issues. Always quick to follow up with that.

So I just want to make sure everything’s good there. Nothing was missed, especially when a lot of times people don’t have an inspector. So if I recommend a good inspection company, I want to make sure that everything’s good, which and it has been I haven’t had any issues, but always just like to follow up quick follow up call or text just to make sure that everything is going as it should. Everything is normal. No issues. I do have some stuff planned here for the end of the year. Some customer appreciation stuff. Like you said, it’s that time of season. We have Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up in the new year and all of that.

So I have a few things planned for that for some pop-bys. So I’m looking forward to connecting with some of my past clients and hopefully gaining some future clients. Yeah. And that follow up after the sale is so important. I think it’s a great secret to your success because I would venture to say that even 90% of your fellow realtors don’t do that. The sales over, they got paid, went to the bank. They’re on to the next opportunity and the secret to earning referrals and repeat businesses that after sale follow up. I’m so adamant about and encouraged about the whole database because as you and just to kind of describe this for our audience, we send out something every month from every agent to every one of their.

A plus A and B clients called Bruce ramblings. And it’s just a silly postcard, super duper informal. There’s nothing really salesy about it, but we set them up so that they come directly from the agent. So they’re personalized. And at this point, we’re sending out over 3000 postcards, oversized postcards a month and we’ve been doing it literally for years now and we’ve never missed a month. And the beauty of it is that one piece that keeps everybody top of mind with their sphere of influence, friends, family, past clients, etc. It’s so simple. It’s so low tech, but it makes all the difference in the world and we can go back and we can see the people that that mail out 50 a month do, you know, a third to a half of the business that people who mail out 100 a month and the math just keeps there’s a straight correlation there all the way up to maybe 200 or so.

The goal for those database ads and the people that we send Bruce ramblings out to is 150 people is kind of the magic number. And those 150 people, the criteria that you want to keep in mind is these are people that you would recognize at the grocery store if you ran into just out of the blue on a Saturday afternoon. So it’s really interesting and I want to do a blog post on this and really share the numbers, the direct correlation. And again, over time, it doesn’t happen overnight, but over the first two, three, four years as to how much business is generated just by that one thing that we do for our agents and it just happens and nobody has to think about it.

So anyway, I’m going to I’m not going to preach anymore. I’m not going to lecture you but I want to say on the restrain links. We’ve got a lot of good feedback on that. It’s a no pressure type of flyer. It’s something the clients look forward to whether it’s tips on whatever we’re talking about that month or like a joke or something, but it’s a no pressure thing. It’s not Hey, this is from Josh offered he wants to buy I want you to buy our list with him. Yeah, that’d be nice at the end of the day, but this is a no pressure flyer. It gives helpful tips and I know a lot of people look forward to that.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that testimonial it really does work and we’ve gotten great feedback on it. So again, great agents connect we create nurture and leverage your relationships by staying in touch. That’s the key part of connect practice track and grow. So let’s let’s talk a little bit about your actual actual practice of real estate and as you said it does involve a lot of investors and a very diverse group of clients but what in your mind sets your practice apart from other agents practice. I think that I’ve kind of come up through the system I started with you buying my first house. So you kind of laid the groundwork there on what to expect during the process and how everything should go and that’s always stuck with me.

So I feel like I had a great foundation on the buying process dealing with lenders what questions to ask stuff that I didn’t know about until I sat down and talked with you. So I feel that foundation has been strong for me and I think I’ve had an upper hand as far as just a normal real estate agent because I’ve already been through the process. I know now a lot of techniques that I use from day to day because that’s what you taught me and that’s what I learned going through the actual buying process. I think that’s given me an upper hand. And also I think I have a good I think my networking has really helped out especially I said with the kids being in sports you meet a lot of people every week whether some of them attorneys lawyers insurance agents that I’ve linked up with especially in the Beaver Creek area.

I just we moved here about three years ago so we’re from Springfield moving down this way. We didn’t know a lot of people we didn’t know a lot of I have a lot of professional friends so meeting them helping to grow my portfolio of clients really. I would say the location change has really helped as well just kind of opens up a door for us. Well it’s also going to help us open up Dayton and all points West so I’m glad to hear that you feel like that’s being you’re successful with that. So you’ve become an expert on the management of investment properties because you’ve been doing it full time for several years now and obviously one of the keys to your practices you’re just a huge resource for investors as as well as owner occupants.

How I believe you you I know you’ve had some success with this but you’ve actually sold some houses within the owner group haven’t you. Oh yeah that’s one of the first things I tried to do if an investor says hey we’re thinking about cash on these couple properties. I try to reach out to other investors who are looking every week we seems like I have an investor looking to buy or sell so if I can link them up especially with on the property management side and try to keep things in house. That’s been good good database that keep everybody together. Yeah I mean it’s market making right somebody says they have a house to sell you go to the owner group and you say I’ve got somebody with the house anybody interested in adding their portfolio somebody raises their hands everybody’s happy and everybody wins so that market making making within the owner is just a huge thing.

Why don’t you will tell us this for people listening I mean you’ve got three kids great family. You’re active in the community you’ve got a full time job and you sell a ton of real estate how do you juggle the sales aspect the family aspect and the fact that you’re working 40 hours a week as a property manager. Just try to obviously organizations key prioritizing you know a lot of people a lot of clients want to look at houses in the evenings just because that’s when they’re off work so a lot of the talking with my wife scheduling who’s taking who where who’s picking up who when you’re just fitting finding time for clients I mean that’s what you have to do if you don’t have if you can’t make time for clients then somebody else will and you’re going to lose that business so talk about prioritizing and just making it work one way or another.

I think you’ve done a great job to better than most of setting boundaries for yourself you know you you’re consciously able to get away with the family and your wife and so forth from time to time and you’re at a wedding this past weekend and I absolutely applaud that because you figured how to protect personal time and get away and you’re far better than most of us will ever be at at being able to shut off the incoming with the phone and so forth for a certain period of time and spending quality time being in the moment with your family and I absolutely applaud that I’m so impressed with that behavior.

Tell us about your personal investing experiences you’ve been helping a ton of our clients our owner clients make a ton of money over the past few years tell me about your personal investing experience. So we have one of our one of the first investments I ever have is that we build a lake house property down in Norris Lake in Tennessee. So teamed up with a couple friends and we built that so that’s about three or four years old now we use it we run it out year round it’s constantly booked so that’s been a success. And then this past year we were fortunate enough we picked up to two flips that we’re able to get the work subbed out and get them listed and make a little bit of money along with that we picked up one rental.

So the past year I’ve added three investment properties to our portfolio which two of them being flips one run testing. It’s just like everybody else it’s it is tough to find a good flip especially in Springfield but you can find them and I got a lot of people calling me daily like hey find me a flip find me a flip and it seems like that’s what everyone wants to do and but if you can find a good one there there’s money to be made and you can get things rolling in your investment portfolio buying buying a cheaper and all the Christy have a lot of rentals but we picked up our first one and it’s been it’s kind of you take a leap of faith with that special building that house in Tennessee just one of those things were Katie and I went back and forth and like alright let’s go for it but as one of my work out really well for you though I mean you took a calculated risk and you’ve done well with that.

Right and so then we built this brand new house down there and then covid comes a year later and so we’re looking at each other like okay here we go do we make the wrong mistake but luckily we stayed solid with bookings didn’t have hardly any cancellations so we’re able to work through that with our business partners and just keep it moving. Yeah, yeah well and again real estate investing again it’s not just like the practice of real estate it’s not a get rich quick scheme it’s taking a long term and if you have a loan on the property it’s taking the time it takes to pay that loan down and off and have something of significant value at the end of that term so congratulations on that.

Thank you. So great agents connect they practice and great agents track so this is something that I’ve really been working closely with a lot of our folks but what does tracking your business mean to you. I tracking business me means that constantly I always look at my numbers where I’m at sales wise compared to last year we’re going to be next year if you don’t know those numbers and I don’t see I can really progress so and it’s not even really I wouldn’t say volume and sales but sales. As far as number of sales I should say but just how can I be last year what can I do to work harder to have more sales by the end of the year in tracking so constantly looking within the MLS looking at numbers I’m I look at it about every other week just to see where I’m not really to compare myself with others but just see where my numbers are so I can play for next year and plan out my goals for next year.

I think that’s absolutely wonderful and it’s critical to moving forward I also like the fact that you’re focusing on units and which is really at the end of the day people helped because you’re doing it in terms of relationship versus in terms of dollar volume. Do you know what percent of your business comes from past clients and referrals. I would say over 50% I would say probably closer to 60 between 60 and 70% I bet you would see them bigger than that to be honest with you and that’s why I really want you to focus on getting your getting your information caught up in your database and continuing to get that added on some way we’ve got to help you do that get help for you to do it or whatever we need to.

But the cool thing is one of the neat things to track is your return on relationship in that return on relationship calculation is really okay what were the you can use dollar volume you can use units but. Yes the first metric is what percentage of my business is coming from referrals and so forth but what percentage of my business is coming from those top hundred and fifty people that I’m mailing ROOST Ramblings to every month. And I’ve seen agents move that number from 5060% to 90% over the course of a couple of years just from being more intentional about it. And the more people that you get into your database the more people Angela sends ROOST Ramblings to and the more repeat business you get so before you know it.

We could be talking again in three or four years and instead of seven million you could be 12 to 14 million. I don’t know if you want that kind of business you’re going to have to get the second team to help you but you got the wherewithal and the raw material to make that happen. I mean you have a significant business now but God Josh where you are you know the sky’s the limit it just depends on what you want. The only other thing that I would say to you is you said that how much harder can I work I’m not sure how much harder you can work.

But I know there’s always a way to embrace the team and look for ways to continue to work smarter and more efficiently. But good God man you work harder than most people I know so I’m more worried about you burning yourself out than not. But anyway so it goes also goes back to the other kind of numbers I like to track are what are your sales unit sales look like relative to your personal connection standard. What’s a really an interesting number and it only works over time is now what were my sales relative to how many contacts I made over the course of the year.

So that’s an interesting metric to watch and it’s a number that we can move. So that’s all tracking that man you’ve got the basics down pack your way way ahead of the game by just just watching the actual transactions that you’re completing so congratulations. Thank you. So great agents grow so we go back to connect practice track and grow agents that focus on three things connecting with the current future clients practicing their profession tracking their numbers tracking their business. They can’t help but grow. And we’ve already said that the thing that really kicked in for you between was a twenty twenty one and twenty twenty one was the fact that you were in the business long enough and doing enough of the right things long enough that you started to get repeat business and referrals.

So is there anything else that’s kind of happened in the past few years that would you say has contributed to your growth. I think it’s mainly been those core things that you just mentioned repeat customers and referrals mainly I really outside of those things meeting new people along the way and getting new clients just by word of mouth whether the kids are wearing their russ sweat shirts around or I’m always get a lot of questions generated from that which is cool because you know it’s free advertisement free marketing but really I mean but just taking care of people who take care of people the way that you would want to be treated and you get good reviews that people see that and they want to you know they’re intrigued by that and they want to reach out and that’s what they want their agent to be so.

Yeah I gotta tell you russ sweatshirts t-shirts are the best advertising money I’ve ever spent in my life because everybody wears them everybody loves them and I just get such a kick out of just being out in public and seeing somebody with a ruse shirt on it just makes my day. So Josh I like I said I really appreciate this what just as we start to close out what does the next phase of your career look like for you what are your kind of what’s your next set of goals look like for the next couple of years and beyond. I really you mentioned that 1213 14000 $14 million mark and that’s really where I want to be like I just want to keep keep ascending keep going towards those numbers.

I think probably I need to sit down and really maybe think about getting like a personal coach because I think that could help take me to the next level. As well I’ve seen some of the other agents in our office Priscilla mainly work with coaches and I know that’s really helped her business so that could be an option for me in the near future but really just work it hard and keep those referrals generated keep taking care of my clients. You know seven or eight million and sales is fine for now but I don’t want it I don’t want it to level off there like to keep going up.

I applaud the idea of a personal coach I had a Buffini company personal coach for years when I was actively practicing every day and Diedre had a coach from the Fini off and on Priscilla said the same coach for years and her business is I think tripled in the past few years. Tina’s using a personal coach from Buffini so I think that’s a wonderful thing because the cool thing is about working with the company is it’s not just about helping you get to 14 million it’s about helping you get to 14 million or whatever your goals are while having a personal life while integrating your property management job.

It’s a holistic approach to life and business I’d like to think they’re the masters that helping you design a life that’s worth living so I think that’s an incredible goal so congratulations. I have to tell you this has been a joy I’m thrilled that you’re with us it’s been a great my God almost 10 years and I hope we get to do this before the next 10 years are up. Thank you so much Chris we really appreciate you as well. Alright we’ll talk to you soon. Thank you. And there we have it. Thanks for listening in. If you want to continue the conversation go to www.ConnectPracticeTrackGrow.com.

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