Matt Faircloth is the co-founder of The DeRosa Group, a multifamily syndicator of primarily class C housing. Their mantra is: “Transforming Lives Through Real Estate.” In this episode, Matt discusses the four superpowers at play in real estate investing and how investing groups can use them to build stronger teams and close more deals.
Matt Faircloth | Real Estate Background
- Co-founder of The DeRosa Group, a multifamily syndicator of primarily class C housing.
- Portfolio:
- 1,850 units in four states
- Based in: New Hope, PA
- Say hi to him at:
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TRANSCRIPT
Slocomb Reed: Best Ever listeners, welcome to the best real estate investing advice ever show. I'm Slocomb Reed, and today we're here with Matt Faircloth. Matt is based in New Hope, Pennsylvania. He's a co-founder of the DeRosa Group. They do real estate syndications. They have over 1,850 units in four states. This is going to be a bit of a targeted conversation; there are a couple of things that we want to discuss, but can you give us a little bit more about your background, and then we'll dive in?
Matt Faircloth: Well, first of all, Slocomb, thank you for having me. It was awesome meeting you at a Best Ever Con, and that you've been willing to have me on the show again. So I'm grateful to be here, and just want to acknowledge you and say thank you.
Our company is a multifamily syndicator company. We aggregate passive investors in the multifamily deals, primarily class C housing, which - there's some stigma, or whatever, but it's workforce housing. We house the workforce of America that earn at or around the median income of an area, that are the backbone of this country. So those are our tenants. Those folks that are earning in that area, and do the blue collar workforce jobs that we need here in this country. So those are our tenants, that's who we provide great housing to.
Our mantra, Slocomb, is to transform lives through real estate. So that is providing great passive investments, providing great opportunities for our workforce that work for our company, or work with our company, and providing above the market living standards for our tenants for a place they can call home, and have what a luxury environment we can provide them based on what rent we're getting from them, and providing great housing that they're proud to call home.
Slocomb Reed: Awesome. It was great meeting you as well at the conference. And that's where I want this conversation to head, Matt; you hosted a mini-event within the conference. It was called "The partner-hunting event." And it was about finding partners, but it was also about sharing, if I can say ideology, an ideology that you have at the DeRosa Group, around what you call the real estate superpowers. And you set up the event as an opportunity to effectively form or meet people and learn how to form super-powered partnerships in commercial real estate investing. Tell us a little bit more about those real estate superpowers.
Matt Faircloth: Well, you know, Slocomb, I learned the hard way that you can't do everything really, really well in real estate investing. And I call them superpowers because I'm a superhero junkie, and if you're watching live, you see I've got a Captain America taped to my microphone here. That's how much of a junkie I am about superheroes. So I feel like everyone can muddle their way through real estate; people can be a reasonably good underwriter, people can manage contractors in an OK fashion, people can raise capital mediocrely, or talk to people in their network, or present a deal to investors, and people can negotiate with brokers and find markets that are great for their investment strategy. But one of those things can be done really great by just about anyone. And the other things are done at a mediocre level.
So what I figured out, again, the hard way, by doing things I wasn't supposed to be doing - there are different education outlets that call them different things; not in real estate, but just these are all concepts outside of real estate, because I came from a world from outside of real estate, and my wife spent 10 years marketing a personality assessment called The Predictive Index. And that's probably, Slocomb, what opened my eyes to it. And the premise there is that not everyone should be doing everything. There's too many people in our world, in our country, in business, that are doing the things they shouldn't be doing. They're not their core genius. And these other technologies call it things like your God-given talent, your core genius, your purpose, your whatever it is... The thing you're really awesome at, let's just call it that. And the real estate superpower concept applies whatever you're really great at, whatever you're just naturally good at; whatever you love to do, whatever you could do for hours on end. We help folks figure out what that is, and then apply it to their real estate multifamily business, or whatever sector of real estate they're in; it doesn't matter. We help folks apply that, and then surround themselves by people that are great at other things, that they're not great at, to build their teams.
Slocomb Reed: That makes a lot of sense. At the conference you talked about there being effectively four superpowers. I'll drop the names here, if you could give us a little description of each and how they complement one another. I believe they were the money, the brain, the hammer, and the hunter.
Matt Faircloth: Yes. And I'll go through them real quick, because I touched on them a little bit. Those were the cool names we gave them, because everything needs a cool name, right? So the hunter is the one that is the market expert, and finds the opportunities. They may even live in the market. And when I say the market, I mean the geographic market. Atlanta, Charlotte, Charleston, Kalamazoo. Whatever the market is, that is the person that is in charge of bringing deals back to the company. They do that through broker relationships. If there are wholesalers that are active in that market, and in the asset class they're pursuing, then maybe they know the wholesalers. They even would do direct to owner marketing, whatever it is. Their job is of the rainmaker. They are the beginning of the funnel. Their job is to produce the opportunities.
And there are certain personality types that it takes, Slocomb. If you want to be a hunter, you've got to be someone who can get told no 400 or 500 times, and then get told yes. Because they know that if they get told no enough times, they're gonna get told yes eventually. So these are people that are not disheartened by No, because you're gonna get No a lot, from sellers, and from brokers. And they're okay to just swing at the plate, and they know eventually they'll hit a homerun if they strike out a lot. So that's the hunter.
Slocomb Reed: Yes, I remember you saying that it's good for some of these people to be more optimistic than more pessimistic. You expect some optimism from your hunter, right?
Matt Faircloth: It's a funny dichotomy. The hunter is always an optimist, because you've got to be. If you get a door slammed in your face that many times - man, you'd better be an optimist. Because if that happens to a pessimist, they're gonna walk out after the second door gets slammed, right? Like, "I told you so."
The optimists on your team are those that are finding opportunities and those that are finding money. Because those people get told no a lot. They need to be excited, and regularly excited, and just get their excitement from inside. So they're optimists. They're also extroverts, willing to generate new conversations with new people. And those folks are typically risk-tolerant. They're okay with risk, like, "Yeah, let's go. Let's figure it out." Have you ever heard the term "jump out of the airplane and build a parachute on the way down"?
Slocomb Reed: Oh, absolutely.
Matt Faircloth: That's those people. On the opposing side of it - and this is not me. I'm the money on my team, so as you can tell, I'm an optimist. So the other side of it is the brain, and the hammer. The brain's the underwriter, the person that builds a business plan for the opportunity, whatever that may be. So they live in Excel spreadsheets, and finance, and implementation, and stuff like that. And then the hammer is the one that implements that business plan; that takes the plan and makes it real. Those folks are pessimists, and they really ought to be, because they really need to be planning for the worst-case scenario... Although - again, hope for the best, expect the worst kind of thing. So the hunter and the money are hoping for the best, and conveying that hope to everyone.
The brain and the hammer are expecting the worst, and building the plan, to where it is there to safenet the company and the investor capital from the worst-case scenario. And if it's a good underwriter, and a good asset manager, they are thinking and planning for just in case; and just in case rarely happens, but just in case it does... Just in case interest rates go up a lot, or just in case a global pandemic happens, or just in case... Right? These things never happen, do they? So you have to plan for really bad stuff happening.
Nobody wants to hang out with the pessimist, because they're a downer, but they are phenomenal at making sure you're protected. And they do. The pessimist kind of worries about "What if really bad stuff happens?" So that is the dichotomy that's on a team. And if you've got a really well-functioning team, these sides don't always get along. There should be a brick and a balloon, a push-pull between the two. Envision like a brick and a balloon tied together. If they're properly balanced, you've got balance. If they're not, the balloon is gonna sail off into the sunset, and get lost, and the brick will land on the ground and ever move. But with the proper balance, that's a great dichotomy.
Slocomb Reed: And I will say, one of the reasons I was so excited to go to the Best Ever Conference- of course, I'm one of the podcast hosts, but I have been spending a lot of time thinking about what I need in a partner. And whether or not I really just need a COO instead of a partner - and I think I'm leaning much more heavily towards partner, for a handful of reasons... Let me just say, Matt, one of the reasons I connected with you at the conference was really to have this exclusive opportunity to talk about myself with you...
Matt Faircloth: Oh, do that. It's just you and me.
Slocomb Reed: ...and get feedback on me from THE Matt Faircloth, and then use that experience to add value to the Best Ever listeners, but really, especially, for me.
Matt Faircloth: Oh, please do. Tell me all about it. Let's go.
Slocomb Reed: So I'm absolutely the optimist. And I'm the optimist for a couple of reasons. Yes, I see the rosy side, I'm much more risk-tolerant... But I've built a parachute on the way down; best way to find the leaks is put the boat on the water.
Matt Faircloth: I love that one.
Slocomb Reed: But also, I know when things go South what I'm willing to do to make them right. I know the lengths that I'm willing to go to to make sure that whenever things don't go according to plan, that we come to the best possible resolution. And that for me allows my optimism, at least the way that I look at it. I have a JV partner on an apartment building here in Cincinnati, who before he was willing to close, he was doing all of the models and all the spreadsheets, and saying things like "This is 2021. We don't know what economy we're headed into. What if all the rents go down 20%? Well, we're still cashflow-positive, so... Okay, fine, here I'm bringing you a deal where even if the all the rents go down by 20% - below current; not below projected or below pro forma, but below current - then we're still cashflow-positive, and you're still trying to pick it apart." It drove me absolutely crazy; it caused some of that brick and balloon friction that you were talking about.
But absolutely, your event at Best Ever gave me the opportunity to say "Yes, I'm an optimist. And yes, frankly, I do need a pessimist checking me every once in a while." It's hard, because I know what I will do to make things right, but I also know that that will wear out my wife and my daughters if I have to. So my wife and children need that pessimist in my life as well, making sure I'm not committing to things that can go that far sideways.
Matt Faircloth: Yeah. Folks like you and I, if it had to do with my investors' financial success, or making things work, I'd live in a tent out in the woods for a year if I had to. But I don't want to subject my family to that. Right? So it also has to do with our loved ones, or whatever. Because the balloon is like "Whatever it takes, man. Let's do it!" It's a great life being a balloon person, because the sky's the limit, literally. The problem is, you can kind of end up flying away. And not to go down this rabbit hole, but folks like you and I could probably end up chasing some shiny nickels. Balloons do. And the magic is surrounding ourselves - and this sounds terrible to people like you and me, but it's surrounding ourselves by no people, that are willing to tell us no, and that we're willing to respect enough to listen to them when they do. "Alright, fine, we're not going to go and get into a whole new asset class in a whole new city, or go start buying real estate outside the United States", or some awful, terrible idea that we have. So I agree with you.
And your comment about finding a partner, versus hiring a COO - I touched on it right there, but I'll validate one more thing for you... That you need to have a partner that you view either as an equal, or someone who has a voice that's respectable to you. And it's hard to do that if you hire that voice. If you're cutting their paycheck, they might not want to tell you no; they might just do what the "boss" says.
A partner is not going to view you as their boss; they're going to view you as someone they're linked in arms with in success. Now, you can create that feeling with someone that's your staff, and create the courage that they're willing to speak up if you've got an open environment where they're willing to tell you what they really think... But a partner's job is to have a voice and to be in tandem with you... Which is why I like the partner model a bit better.
Secondly, the partner can really own more things, and just be responsible for stuff, and make their own decisions, build their own little temple, that is operations. You can really take your hands off a little bit more if that's an equity partner versus an employee. The downside of it is if things don't work out, it's very easy to fire an employee; very, very hard to fire a partner. Trust me, I've done it, and it's tough.
Slocomb Reed: Matt, I make for a very terrible employee. I just don't think like one.
Matt Faircloth: Most bosses don't.
Slocomb Reed: And it's been it's been a while since I was one. And I miss how deferential my employees can be to my projections, my opinions and my perspective, because I'm the boss. So you're right, a part of it is that I feel that I need that push-pull. Someone who expects me to be their equal and not their superior. Absolutely.
Matt Faircloth: Yeah. Because charismatic personalities can pull a lot of people along. They can drink your Kool Aid real quick. And all of a sudden, before you know it, you're taking you and a bunch of people off into the sunset, not sure where you're headed. It's good to have that balance.
Slocomb Reed: Matt, how familiar are you with the DISC profile?
Matt Faircloth: It's funny you bring that up. My wife sold the Predictive Index, which is a competitor to the DISC. But - don't tell her I said this, but it's almost the same tool. And she'd be like "No, it's not the same tool! It's completely different", whatever No, well, there's four major factors that are there: dominance, extraversion, attention to detail and patience. So I'm very familiar with it. I'm more familiar with my Predictive Index, so I can speak to you in terms of those things on my PI.
But to bottom line you, Slocomb, the DISC and things like that, that measure those four factors, are one of the major inspirers of the real estate superpowers concept that we came up with. Because when I first met my wife, while we were dating, she makes me take this personality assessment. I'm like, "oh, yeah, cool. No problem, honey; I'll do whatever you want."
Slocomb Reed: That's [unintelligible 00:15:48.04] right there.
Matt Faircloth: Right.
Slocomb Reed: "Let me hedge my bets now..."
Matt Faircloth: Yeah, yeah, yeah. "Let me figure this dude out." Now she's got me pegged to take my personality assessment, and she's like, "Oh, you're just a little sensitive because you're an extrovert. Or you just need some time to exert your thing." Or "You're just a little low-detail" or whatever. And I was like, "Man, you've got my [unintelligible 00:16:06.02] now." So yeah, I'm very familiar with it, and it is what inspires a lot of what we do at DeRosa Group, and we believe deeply in personalities.
Brief story, I had somebody apply for our underwriter position to be the brain for DeRosa Group. And he was an engineer by trade. And I saw his predictive index, which is very similar to this DISC profile, and he was high extrovert, high dominance, and low attention to detail, and low patience... Which would be a terrible underwriter. That's an optimist right there. That's somebody who wants to be liked, somebody who's willing to take charge of situations, somebody that's not patient, not willing to live in a spreadsheet forever, like an underwriter will... And would underwrite deals okay because of his engineering background, but I looked at that predictive index and I said, "This guy has a really strong resume, but would be a terrible underwriter." So I was able to go into his interview, and I said to him, I was like, "Why do you want to be an underwriter? Why do you want this job?" "So I can learn about real estate analysis, so that I'd be able to pitch deals to investors much better at some point in the future. So I can learn real estate really well, so that I can present equity." And I said, "That's a terrible answer." You can't do something you don't want to do. You can't do something you're bad at for a while, so that you can do something you're good at in the future. Think about how Looney Tunes that sounds like.
And I said, "What if you could sell equity right now?" And he said "Oh, that'd be great. I just don't feel like I know." I said, "Okay, but we'll teach you the functions of real estate investing, so that you can do what you're great at now." And then I showed him his predictive index and I said, "Look at that. You shouldn't be an underwriter. You're not an analyst." And he and I shared a laugh about it. Now I hired him, and now he is an absolute superstar equity sales rep for us. Had I hired him just on his resume, which screamed underwriter, because of the background in engineering, really, really smart guy, excelled at his prior company, owned a few rental properties... I probably would have hired an underwriter that would have been mediocre, because he would have been in the wrong seat. And that's why I love things like the DISC and personality assessments, because they really help you figure out where people are going to excel. And that's why we decided to really run out this thing, because really nobody else out there -- people feel inadequate sometimes in this business, Slocomb, that they can't underwrite deals, or they're not very good at it. And they have awful, terrible thoughts, that are "Maybe I'm not cut out for this thing. Maybe I shouldn't be a real estate investor because I'm not a good analyst, or because I can't put contractors in a headlock. Because I can't have difficult conversations. Because I can't raise equity." And they say things like that. "Maybe I'm missing that piece that's required to be a good real estate investor." And they're completely full of it, because all it means is there is a facet of this business you can't function in, but there are many, many facets in this business you would excel at, if you just focused and surrounded yourself by people that are good at stuff that you're not good at.
Break: [00:18:59.21]
Slocomb Reed: Matt, when I'm hiring, I have everyone, across the board, take a DISC profile for a very similar reason. And I know on the DISC profile where a job description needs to land in order to be a long-term fit. And I've had similar circumstances where I've had people apply for a job because it looks great, and it looked like the experience they wanted to have. But their inherent personality traits weren't going to be a fit long term. I liked the person a lot, so I told them, "I like you. As soon as I'm hiring for where I think you can thrive, I'm calling you first before you can post anything." And so I get where you're coming from.
Speaking more specifically to the DISC profile - I used to be a full-time professional youth minister, and I used to do a weekend retreat with them using the DISC profile. And I broke it down into two variables; like, if you wanted to graph a person's personality in the DISC profile, what's the X axis and what's the Y axis. And one of them was introversion/extroversion. Does your energy come from being alone, or does your energy come from being with people? Classic example - the brain needs time to themselves with their spreadsheets, pouring over that stuff, because that fuels them in a way that it drains me. But put me in a room with 1,100 other people who all want to talk about real estate and I'm gonna thrive, and I'm gonna leave four hours later feeling better than I did when I showed up.
Matt Faircloth: But the brain would need a nap after that room [unintelligible 00:21:22.06]
Slocomb Reed: Oh, they'd need a break. They'd need a quiet place. They would go to the bathroom just to sit on the toilet for a few minutes by themselves, maybe with their headphones in, before they could build up the courage to go back in the room. Yeah, absolutely.
Matt Faircloth: That's so funny. I know people that do that. By the way, I'm laughing because I know people that are introverts that do that kind of stuff.
Slocomb Reed: Yeah, absolutely.
Matt Faircloth: They pretend they need to go to the bathroom so they go be alone for a little bit. And I'm like, "Oh my God, that sounds like awful. There's people out there. I wanna go meet these people!"
Slocomb Reed: They're recharging their batteries, yeah.
Matt Faircloth: "Are you kidding me? What?! Are you gonna take me away from people? I can't do that!"
Slocomb Reed: I want to talk about the other variable here for a minute, especially talking about myself and my own experience. And I don't have a great name for it, but there are people who are tactically-oriented, and there are people who are people-oriented. And in the DISC profile, the I and the S are people-oriented, and the D and the C are tactics oriented. You need to be tactics-oriented to sit in a spreadsheet all day.
Matt Faircloth: Yeah.
Slocomb Reed: Whereas I need to be around people. Whether or not you're an introvert or an extrovert, you can be a people person according to DISC. And where you thrive is in your interactions with people.
Matt Faircloth: Yes.
Slocomb Reed: So a couple of things here... When I was taking your assessment for the real estate superpowers, there are a couple of things here; obviously, on any sort of thing like that - well, first of all, the brain is going to be highly tactical, the money is going to be highly people-oriented. Hunter can probably go both ways. Tell me what your thoughts are on the hammer. My gut instinct is you picked a hammer - that sounds very tactical.
Matt Faircloth: It is, because the way the language of the predictive index [unintelligible 00:23:06.13] is subjective and objective... Meaning I would call it "Do you make your decisions?" This sounds awful, but I'll say it; and you'll relate to it, because you're like me. So "Do you make your decisions based on your gut, or facts?" I'm not saying that I'm taking my business to the roulette wheel or whatever, but am I basing my stuff on emotions? And that's people. Emotions, gut people, my faith, if you want to go there... All that stuff that are non-tangible. And then the other side of it is dollars and cents, facts. And that's objective, right? That's like "This says this, and the data says this, so we must follow the data, and the data says that."
The hammer is 100% tactical and objective. Because remember, the hammer's job is to implement a business plan. And I'll give you a real way that these superpowers play together. The hammer is going to keep the business plan moving, and keep things going in that direction, and knock one domino down, and the next one, and the next one and the next one.
There's a concept called the Gantt chart. I love Gantt charts, and I can look at it graphically and I can see what I'm doing, on the left, and the right, and follow it down, and it tells me when I'm gonna be done, and I love it. Here's the problem with only tactics - folks that are like you and me, that are more subjective, are going to think more macroscopic. And we might look at this thing and say, "Hey, you know what, underwriter?" or "You know what, hammer? We're no longer going in the right direction. That endpoint all the way over here is no longer where we want to go." And the hammer doesn't look at it that way. They're like, "No, no, this is the plan. The plan is to continue to invest $6,000 a door, and renovate every apartment in this apartment complex." But the money or the hunter may look at it and say "Wait a minute, we could also just invest $2,000 a door, and get the same rent bumps." The hammer may not be thinking about it that way, because that's not the plan. The plan is not that.
So you need folks that are more people-oriented, more outside the box, more macro, to look at the entire plan and have the courage to change it. And then you've got someone who's focused enough and disciplined enough to implement that plan, whether it gets changed or not.
So that's the way the dichotomy on how these two play together. I don't know, did you find that in the ministry work that you did? The joy I find is finding how these personalities play together. Because a lot of times, it can be talked about how they don't play together, and how they disagree in that. But I love finding the harmony between the two. Again, going back to the brick and the balloon concept.
Slocomb Reed: Yeah. So my commentary here - and again, this is one of the things that I've been thinking about asking Matt Faircloth for myself, and I think this is going to add value to our listeners... The way that you explained it, the hammer is the operator, because they're so good at executing on a business plan, with regards to how it can be placed in a Gantt chart, to your point. And yes, Gantt charts absolutely wear me out. Going through Traction - fabulous book - I figured out that one of my four core values is adaptability. So when you give me a Gantt chart, I see a solid baseline, "We can start here and then see what happens" kind of thing.
Matt Faircloth: Yeah... When I look at the Gantt chart, I'm like "Hey, that's a phenomenal plan. I hope it works", you know? Where a hunter or a hammer would look at that and say "No, this is fantastic. This shows us exactly the ladder that we're going to step down." And they might be able to hold it to that, but I'm like, "Yeah, I guess let's get it in." And my hammer guy on my team hates this phrase, and I say it all the time, and it drives him nuts... "Well, let's get it and figure it out."
Slocomb Reed: [laughs] Yeah.
Matt Faircloth: "No! We can't figure it out. We've got to know where we're going." This is the dichotomy.
Slocomb Reed: Yeah. When the mess has already hit the fan, and you don't know what to do, that's when you need us... Because we'll just step in and figure it out as we go.
Matt Faircloth: Yeah. People like you are phenomenal at cleaning the fan blades. Once it's already hit the fan, they're like "It's all good." But we're not as good in staying disciplined, and implementing a plan.
Slocomb Reed: Absolutely.
Matt Faircloth: Because you and I could look at a plan that's working, and say, "Why are we doing it this way? Let's change it up." Right? When that's our flaw. And someone that's a hammer, that's going to keep driving and keep things going, and be patient - because that's something that we're not, is patient... But someone that's patient will look at it and say "No, it's working; let's keep going. Let's stay in this thing." And for me, things that are working are still something I'd love to change. I'd love to get in there and mix it up, just because I can. And then I've done that; I've taken a perfectly working plan, and mixed it up because I got bored with it.
Slocomb Reed: Yeah... We are running short on time; there are a couple of things I want to bring up, and then we'll move forward from there. Matt, I don't have a question here; I'm going to talk about myself and then I just want your reaction. So it makes sense that the hammer is the visual for an operator; someone who can execute on a plan. And I absolutely agree that I need a highly tactical business partner. However, as a people person, I will tell you that I am already an excellent operator when it comes to a property management company and the day to day operations of my portfolio, because I'm very good at finding the right people to do the things that I need to get done, finding the tactical people who can get into the weeds on those things.
It's interesting you talked about how people like you and me tend to trust our gut... And for the last few years, I've been telling myself I need to do that more, because my gut tends to be right. And I am not the right person to get stuck in analysis paralysis; let's let the brain do that. It's really their role. I just need to "What am I feeling about the situation? Trust my gut, execute on it."
Matt Faircloth: Yeah.
Slocomb Reed: And probably report back to a partner who's going to spreadsheet out whatever I just did. The reason I'm good at dealing with contractors is not because I set out a very specified budget and a very itemized contract on the frontend, and then I hold their feet to the fire... It's because my gut can tell me whether or not they are a good person, and then they know that I will take care of them. And because they know I will take care of them, they will take care of me. So if you replaced the hammer with a shepherd, then I would have been a no-brainer to be an operator as my inherent personality trait. That said, not good with the discipline, not good at sticking to a plan. Don't give me a Gantt chart. What are your thoughts on what I'm saying here?
Matt Faircloth: Beautiful. Thank you for your vulnerability, by the way. I totally see myself ind you and everything you're just talking about. The issue there - and that's why it's a hammer, not a shepherd, right? Think about what a shepherd does, right? A shepherd is looking at an entire flock of sheep that's out here. And they're taking the entire flock, "I'm going to take my flock from this hill, to that hill." But as long as the entire flock's moving in that direction, they're cool with it. What happens internally in the sheep -- if this sheep starts bumping into that sheep, or if there's like bully sheep in the middle, that keeps messing with the other sheep... As long as the entire flock moves from here to here, the shepherd might not even notice the inner workings of the flock. And maybe there's one bad apple sheep that starts telling you, "Hey, man, why are we listening to that guy?" And before you know it, you've got a mutiny on your hands. And the shepherd that's all the way out here isn't going to see it.
Talking in real business terms, what you're talking about is being a visionary from Traction; a phenomenal book that touched my life, and yours too, it sounds like. The visionary is a good people person. They're a good enroller, and they're good folks to say, "Hey, we're gonna go conquer that hill right there. That's where we're going. And this is why we're going to do it. Are you going to join me or not?" And people say, "Hell yeah. I love Slocomb. I'm gonna go with him." But once it comes down to -- getting people to a yes is something what you and I can do. What happens beyond Yes, and making sure that they remain Yes, and making sure that that contractor that you enrolled, that he implements your vision, and that knows that you're going to take care of them, because they love you, and because they love your vision, and they see where you're going... Making sure that they retain that loyalty to you is something that is done by the hammer, not by you. Because you're going to continue to love them no matter what, thinking they're a great person no matter what... And I've had people that I thought were great people, but then once you don't hold them accountable, they end up letting their darker side come out a little bit, or whatever... Because nobody's perfect.
And there is that dichotomy too, that the visionary, and also the hammer, and mostly the money, is like the enroller on the team; the company salesperson. And they can sell anybody, just like you and I can. But once they're sold, then you've got to keep them in the flock. That's my two cents. So I don't think that people like you and me should be the hammer, but that could be the enroller, and get people excited about working with us. And then once they start doing that, then somebody like a hammer holds them accountable to their obligations.
Slocomb Reed: Matt, that makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately, we're running very short on time. We're gonna skip the lightning round for now, especially because Matt's been on the show before. I wish I could continue this conversation.
Matt Faircloth: Let's do it again. We're gonna do it again.
Slocomb Reed: Absolutely. That being said --
Matt Faircloth: I'm gonna throw it out here right on the air [unintelligible 00:32:09.10] get back in the ring and do round two. I would love to.
Slocomb Reed: There's another opportunity here though, Matt, for our listeners to have conversations similar to this with you and your team, and I know there's a masterminding component. So the retreat - it's a two-day event coming up here very soon. Can you give us the details?
Matt Faircloth: Yeah, real quick... For those that want to get into multifamily, that either want to expand their multifamily presence, or get into multifamily from the get-go, you can go take all kinds of different trainings that are out there, but you're really not going to know what it is to expand further into multifamily, or to get into it to begin with, unless you put boots on the ground and walk a real apartment building. So we realized that, and so we are bringing folks with us for a site tour, a deep-dive site tour at several of our multifamily assets in Winston Salem, North Carolina. That's where we've got a strong market presence, and we're going to be meeting with the property managers, touring renovated units, unrenovated units, reviewing the business plan, looking at the before and afters for this multifamily property, and going completely transparent, going through the good, the bad, and the ugly, and the great, for this apartment building. So that's day one.
Day two is pretty much a lot of what you and I just talked about, and spending time with me and my team, and going deep-dive into your business as the participant in the conference room, and just really taking the layers of the onion off, and getting to the core and finding out what it's going to take to get your business to the next level. And it's a small group. This is not you and a couple hundred of your best friends. This is like 20 people.
So because it's a small group, we get time to spend time with each individual person, and go deep about their business, and talk about exactly what they're up to, and how we can help them get to the next level. So that's called the DeRosa Insiders Multifamily Retreat, and it is April 26, 27, 28.
Slocomb Reed: Awesome. The link to that is in the show notes. Outside of the retreat, Matt, what's the best way for people to get in touch with you?
Matt Faircloth: Well, they can hear about that and the very, very fun things that we've got coming up, whether you're a passive investor - we've got plenty of passive investment opportunities, and also we've got education outlets to help people take their business to next level, all of which is at our website, DeRosaGroup.com. They can even pick up a copy of my book there, that THE Joe Fairless wrote the foreword for. Super-proud of that, and I'm really grateful that I've had the support of Joe and the Best Ever group for so many years, and I can call myself like a student, and also partner with you guys. Grateful to have you guys [unintelligible 00:34:37.10] everything at DeRosaGroup.com, about that book and about everything else we offer.
Slocomb Reed: Awesome. And that link to your website is in the show notes as well. Matt, thank you. Best Ever listeners, thank you as well for tuning in. If you've gained value from this episode, please do subscribe to our show. Leave us a five star review and share this episode with a friend you know we can add value to through the conversation we had today about understanding yourself and the partnerships that you should be looking to engage in. Thank you, and have a Best Ever day.
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