How to Pivot Your Productivity and Communication in a Crisis
Dave Hook describes how to restructure your day during crisis: habit chains, 90-minute work blocks, and strict social-media windows. He also shares Project Lamplight, an anonymous fund that his team uses to help neighbors in urgent need, serving 81 people last year through quick Google form nominations and 24-hour payouts.
Welcome back to the Business Freedom Podcast. This is going to be part two of just an interview I did with one of our members, Dave Hook. He really unpacked some wisdom around leading and communicating and your productivity and your finances around crisis. And I just, I don't believe we're out of any sort of crisis whatsoever. There's still, I think there's like 37, 38 million jobless claims, 20 million continuing. And so I think this is going to be a multi year thing that we're dealing with and there's just a lot of wisdom. So whenever you're listening to this, it's going to be 100% appropriate and applicable. And if you're at the point in your journey, I'll say this before I let you listen in on part two of our conversation. Me and Dave Hook, he came into our world as like doing 70, 80 units and just working in equipment amount of hours per week, 7080 plus hours a week and in a three to four year period. I know this because his wife Jenny was pregnant with their first child. He did 2.4 million last year and didn't do any production personally and has a nice small little team in Central pa. So he's just got some real world working knowledge of what it takes to go from busy real estate agent to true business owner that has time and money, freedom and not a bunch of stress. And so really dig into this conversation if you're at the point in your journey where you maybe you haven't gotten over the hump yet. You know, real estate B school has traditionally started out with for agents that are building a team or thinking of building a team and they've already achieved about 500,000 GCI. If you're under 500,000 GCI. We just launched a program called Business Foundations and it is for folks that have this vision of building a business but you're not quite there in terms of being able to afford our higher level training, implementation, support and coaching. So the program is awesome. Getbusinessfoundations.com get over to the website. You'll see a replay of a webinar that I did really great content in the webinar. At the end I explained the program and I really go into exactly what you get. There's live coaching four days a week and there's a weekly live training that I do personally. So the value for the price point is unbelievably awesome. And it's on a month to month cancel anytime basis. So it's really just our response to what's going on in the industry, knowing agents are going to struggle. And there are agents out there that absolutely, with the right guidance, you could take advantage of what's going to happen in your market. So go to getbusinessfoundations.com if you're interested. And stay tuned for part two of the interview with Dave Hook. Let's talk about productivity. You know, in a time like this, you're sort of on the extreme. Not all states are operating the way that you are. Talk about like daily routine, discipline around productivity. How do you, with your team having all different sort of sets of, you know, mentally responding. Some are fear, you know, fearful and anxious and others are like, you know, let's go. How do you manage productivity?
Yeah, it's, I don't think any of us are immune to like what's going on.
Right.
And for that two weeks that I was in my head and was experiencing some not so healthy, like I just wasn't sleeping well and am I supposed to have all the answer kind of that whole cycle, you know, I realized as I kind of prayed about it and you know, my faith's really important to me and two, turn things over to God and just every morning when I struggle, get anxiety, that's where I go, fortunately for me. And it really centers me. And as I was doing that in those first couple weeks, I realized it was just important for me to have the discipline to be accountable to my team and my family and my wife and my kids during this time. And I don't need to have all the answers, but I need to generally be healthy and have things together so I can serve them, you know. And so it is, it's, it's, it's hard enough. Like it's hard enough when things are normal. And you know, you, you, you commented on a post that I put on social media where my kids were outside the door in my office here and they're like, I walk out, I'm in the middle of a constant conference call. My three year old and my five year old are like running full bore into a mattress. And I'm just like, what is happening? There's popcorn all over the floor. And like, and you know, you're, it's tough to concentrate because you're in like a different, a different environment. And my wife and I sat down and you know that the time management thing, the time blocking and we did a Whole40 calendar system training on that is important to me and I realized my calendar needs to look a lot different during this time and I needed to Have a different routine. And the news is baiting us with fear. Like fear based marketing on a 24 hour cycle and social media, like I was in it more than I ever had been. I would like, I was just getting a dopamine hit, like checking it like every half hour and like the notifications. And I was like getting something from doing that. And after a couple weeks of that I was like, this is not going to be my life for the next couple months because I need to be more accountable to the people that are putting their faith in me. And so what I did was I started a habit chain on a calendar. And I think in Atomic Habits there's conversation about, there's different ways you can form habits. For me, a habit chain has always worked really well. And it's just the idea. Jerry Seinfeld, he wrote on a calendar like every morning he had to write a joke and he didn't want to break the chain. And so for me, that habit chain was just. I was going to wake up earlier, my devotions were going to be a full 25, 30 minutes. I was going to have a clarity break every afternoon and take a walk outside, get out 30 minutes and just think, which I've never done before. A 30 minute workout every day was mandatory for me. My phone was in a basket at 5:45 and I was only on social media to post something to give information to the community that was positive and I was not going through other than that time blocked 15 minutes. So for me that routine has changed. It went from me being in my head and me like just seeking a numbing, I think to being really disciplined over the last, I think it's probably been five weeks I've been disciplined and it's been such a change. Like Jenny will tell you, I've been more present now during this time, I think because of that routine. And I feel like I'm in better shape. I've been doing that workout every day, seven days a week. And it didn't start like that. But that routine has really changed my mental state. It's been super, super helpful. And then there's the discipline to focus on the work that I'm accountable for to my team.
Right.
Which is a different conversation. That's just like we have projects and things coming at us and so I don't know how much you want me.
To get into that.
But you know, there's the routine and then there's the projects.
Yeah, I think I can cover. I want to, I want to talk about the communication stuff here. Too. I think one thing, if you can. Even before any of this, you always had just a really good discipline around. Like, okay, this is definitely the most important thing that has to. Regardless of where you were in the journey. So even when you were at 100 units and you were still doing 70 of them yourself, you were like, okay, based on where I am right now, we have to do this one thing. It might not be the most fun thing to do. This thing has to be focused on. And then you would just commit to three time blocks, a week of 90 minutes, from what I remember.
Yep.
And basically one where you'd unpack a system, one where you start to build it, you know, rebuild it, and then a third where you start to, like, communicate and get help and. And so just the discipline to go about having those working on your business in your calendar. It's the thing that is going to separate you three to five years from now to actually having the business that you want. It's those time blocks, and only you can control that and be accountable to it. And so I just think there's a lot to be said. We can do a whole day on all of that. I just want to pause. If you're not at the point in your business where you have the freedom you want, where you're, you know, you're bringing others into your world that you're holding accountable and empowering, and you're getting closer to living the life that you want, it's because you're not committing to the stuff that might not be fun. I remember you telling me, and we spent a lot of time on Boxer during this time, and it was like, every Saturday morning, it was like that 6 to 8am where that was, like, for the most part, immovable. And you were working on stuff that nobody wants to work on. Like, all right, let's read this. Lead management policy. We're gonna read it, and we're gonna make it our own. It's like. But you did it at that time because you knew you can get a good night's sleep the night before. You knew you'd have quiet time, and you just did it. And so that's all I really want to say on that, because there's some. Unless you have a comment on it, I've just seen you do that over and over again, and it was always the next right thing.
Yeah, I have. I have. I have three comments on that. And I agree with you that if you can get that right in business, it's the thing that allows you to develop systems that Changes that gives you a business.
Right.
And so for me, the three things I'll say, you've got to have a projects list somewhere. And when you come to these events, you put this information on the projects list as a note. You don't just do things because they seem like they're a good idea and it interrupts everything that you're doing. Like, you have to have the discipline to not do that. You put it on your projects list. Number two, every quarter you gotta meet with somebody. I don't care if it's, if it's my wife or a team member. And triage the health of your business and decide what projects you're gonna choose off the projects list to work on for the next 90 days. And then number three, you got to write what the project is and you got to write a clear outcome as to what is a win. That means that you've got an A plus on the project and you've got to present it to somebody else on your team and be accountable that they're going to expect you and they're going to be responsible for approving whether it's an A plus or not. And then when stuff comes at you during that quarter, you're accountable. Like, you know, you can't be distracted and do this other thing before you finish the thing you committed to that person that you're gonna do. And so those are the three things that have helped me.
Awesome. Let's shift to the last thing I want to get you to unpack here, your communication. I thoroughly enjoy the Facebook post. Just about like, what do you call them, like real life quarantine or something like that. So I just think those are interesting and super engaging and just really transparent and just funny. But talk about how you've shifted some of the marketing communication. And then I do want to end here with some time around how we can be a light and what that tactically means, what that practically means in our business. So start with marketing. Then we'll get into Compassion and Lamplight.
Yeah. So for marketing, I do think our messaging needs to change as markets change and of course, people, the community looks at our, whether it's direct mail, email marketing, video marketing, social media marketing, wherever they're gonna see us. And for me, I think it's just, again, we have to get in the minds of our audience. And so while I know, I feel every team member needs to be answered in the three questions, what am I doing? Why does it matter? And how can I help? I feel like right now the audience, as we're going through. This is our community, our clients, our customers. And it's trying to consistently answer two questions for them. It's what is the experience going to look like when and if I do business with you guys? So there's just some weird like psychological uncertainty about like even what's a showing like look like? And there's some fear around that. So it's trying to get some messaging around removing that uncertainty. And then the second thing is how are you going to keep me safe? And so I think it's just back to they ask you answer type educational based marketing. And it's what are the questions the audiences out there are asking right now? And we gotta get in front of them and to the best of our ability trying to fill that gap. Because people have expectations and they were here and now they have a new reality that has occurred and there's a gap and they can either fill that gap with their own narrative which isn't going to be accurate and it's probably going to be based on a 24 hour news cycle and it's not going to be helpful to you or your business or you can recognize there's a gap there and you can fill it with truth. And so our marketing, our external position needs to be answering the questions that they have so they're not filling that gap with a false narrative that is not helpful to them or anybody else. That's just a little bit about marketing. You could check out, I don't know that we have the best marketing out there. You can check out some of our social media to, you know, we have the emoji heart our community right now. And all of our messaging has been shifted to serving and helping and giving accurate information. And our social post calendar has changed and the content of our Facebook lives have changed and all that has changed. That's a little bit about marketing, our sales. And then the second thing you wanted to talk about I think is conversations with people and our dialogues and really leveraging and leading with, you know, compassion and our nonprofit Project Lamplight. Yeah, right.
Awesome.
So do you want me to get, get into what do you want me to unpack in?
Yeah, let me, let me tee it up a little bit. So it was probably four years, maybe even, maybe more than four years ago. You, you kind of mentioned what you're doing, you know, with your, it was, I don't even think it was called Project Lamplight at the time, but it's, I've always struggled, you know, how to, how to really have a meaningful impact in A business. You know, yes, we help buyers, yes, we help sellers. Yes, we enrich the lives of our team members. And then beyond that, you know, what. What could we do in our communities to. To help? And what would that look like on a practical basis? And you had already set up your compassion program. I think it was what you were calling it then. Now it's called Project Lamplight. And I just think it's. So essentially, it's asking the question to most everyone you come into contact with, who do you know in our community who has a random urgent need that we can serve anonymously? So it's. That's the script. It's the whole script. You just say that and then you just. You're quiet. And so it's not a PR move. It's not like, look how. You know how great we are. I mean, you people will know that you're a conduit to serve these needs. So you need help. Your database is an extension of, you know, serving these needs. You're not doing it for that. You're doing it for whatever reason you feel called to do it. Right. And I just thought it was awesome. And I think during a time like this, if you don't have a version of this or even if you don't put in a formal version of something like this, I just think it's awesome. So just explain Project Lamplight what it is. There's a couple videos that I think Drew dropped a few weeks ago that we could drop in the chat as well. We could do that on the break. But yeah, just kind of go into how that's. How that's sort of come. Come to light during this time.
Yeah. Yep. So when we, you know, we. What I said when I started out, as we were. As I was juggling all those plates five, six years ago, you know, I was going to get out of real estate. I had been overseas to developing country and kind of experienced what poverty looked like at. You know, the kids that I was meeting were literally eating. They were cooking mud. They were cooking mud in the city of Port au Prince, and they were baking it and they were putting sugar on it and they were eating it. And it was just to get rid of hunger pains.
Right.
Like, no nutritional value. And I was flying back from Haiti and I was going to land and make a decision as to what color granite countertops. Like, we were wrestling, my wife and I, with, like, what color countertops are we going to put on our house? Like, that was. That was the stressor in my life. And I was Just done with it. I was like, we could sell a kazillion houses and like, I'm talented, I've got all these businesses and all this stuff and none of it. It just didn't feel like it was that impactful. And I just was thinking about, you know, this is a little morbid, but the truth is like my kids and the end of my life and what I was doing stuff for, and I just was thinking about getting out of the business and starting like in ministry. And some folks talked to me that were in ministry and said, people in ministry have the same problems that you do, of overwork, of exhaustion. And the reality is you have the ability. You have a database of thousand people. You have their contact information and their phone number. And a certain percentage of those people know people who have problems. And you're in a position that most pastors or therapists aren't. You're in their house at their kitchen table and they're telling you about their issues and their struggles and their death in their family and their bankruptcy or their foreclosure, their job loss or their baby. And you know, I was going in and out of them and we weren't ever touching on any of those things. We were just touching on how to get their home sold. And so we just decided to start by giving each team member $50 and asking them to give it away and tell the story about how that went. And that evolved into us calling through our database around client events and asking people just a 16 word question. You said, who do you know in the community with a random need, who we can serve? Just like when you call a database or you touch in with them and you do that enough and you say that you're in real estate, you'll get referrals if you ask the other question enough and you put it out there enough. Over the course of a year, you'll start to get text calls and emails with people that have financial crisis. They were in an accident and didn't have an emergency fund and their husband's in the hospital and they can't afford groceries. The only person they weren't too proud to tell was their neighbor who happened to be in my database as a past client. And the neighbor, Mrs. Smith texted and said, hey, that thing you have, you know, my friend needs some grocery money, you know, and we send her a form. We have a little board that's made up of some team members and eight question Google form gets sent to the partner, Mrs. Smith, and Mrs. Smith fills it out on behalf of the recipient and says she could use, you know, $500 to get her through the next six weeks for a giant gift card. And so the board votes over email and in 24 hours we have a check. It doesn't have our team name on it or anything. And one of our team members delivers it to Mrs. Smith. And Mrs. Smith gets to go to her neighbor's house and give her a check for $500 for her groceries and just tell the neighbor that a faith based local business wanted to help her out. And then Mrs. Smith will usually email our board back and say how it went. And then our board will have the opportunity at every team meeting to share with our team the stories that were filled out in the Google forms, the people that we were able to serve as a team because of their hard work, you know, selling homes and being in the trenches and doing the work that we do every day. So yeah, you said it. We celebrate the stories of clients that had a good experience and we enriched their lives that way at every team meeting. And we also get the opportunity to review the stories of the people that were financially helped in crisis because of our ability to sell homes and, you know, financially be able to put some money aside in each home sale and then have a very simple, very scalable system to just be a blessing to all the people in our community.
Yeah, that's awesome. And just so, just so you know, we've been running this program for, you know, four years or so and Mimi on our team runs Compassion for us and it really takes her a couple hours a week to run the whole program. And we served, you know, 81 needs last year and we'll probably do a little bit more than that this year. So it's not. When you say board and you know, I know others are overwhelmed and like, how can I take on a whole nother company with a board? And it's super nimble and you know, it's, it's literally just as needs come in, you know, ours is compassionimpact.com so you can see what the form looks like. That form, you can't tell who, who, who that form is from. It's, it's, it's just easy and we just do a percentage. And there's two videos on there. The second video actually goes through the nuts and bolts. If I remember correctly, the second video is like 12, 13 minutes. The first one is two to three minutes. So guys, grab those videos and don't watch them now, obviously, because we're moving into another session. It's Just a really, like, at the end of the day, the stuff we stress out about, and I've done it too, and I continue to do it and I continue to slip back into sweating over things that really don't matter. When it really comes down to it, the regrets that we'll have in our life revolve around not making the impact that we could have made, whether it's with a conversation with a team member or making that extra time for your family every day, or actually doing something about the jacked up stuff that exists in your. In your community. And you will be blown away by the struggles that are around you and the suffering that's existing that can be solved for $400 cash or $1,000. Right? And yeah, it's just awesome. So here's what I want to do. Dave Hook, you're amazing. You continue to push and inspire me to step up as a business person and just as a guy, as a husband. Dave Hook challenged me to write one awesome thing about my bride every single day of 2018. And I did it. And I even fell behind. And I told Dave and he said, well, you've got something to do this weekend. You've got to catch up on the 60 days you fell behind. So he's just a cool dude and a blessing to us. Here's what I want to do. I want to break out for, let's do five or so minutes. I'm going to throw you all into breakout rooms. Dave, thank you very, very much. And I want you to share two or three things that you're going to take away from Dave's talk. It doesn't mean they're going to come projects that you work on tomorrow. Right. Dave made that clear. But what are some things that you'll take away? Write them down and share them in a breakout and then we'll see you back here in just a few minutes. Thanks, Lars.
Lars, Lars. Before you let us go. Hold on, Lars. Lars. Can we all, like, thank Dave for his contribution today? This has been awesome. Thanks, guys. I appreciate it. And that Google form is in the chat. That Google forms in the chat, Lars. So you can see the actual questions that are sent.
Awesome. Yeah, appreciate that. I forget there's no clapping at this event, so we have to like, all right, let's break out and then we'll come back in here. Thanks for listening to the Business Freedom Podcast. If you're getting value from the podcast, would you please leave us a five star review and share it with others who might benefit from the content? I'M sharing. And if you're ready to scale your real estate business sustainably and profitably, there are a couple options for you. If you're doing under 500,000 in annual GCI, our business foundations Program is for you. Head over to get businessfoundations.com that's getbusinessfoundations.com and learn how you can make the shift from overwhelmed real estate agent to true business owner. If you're doing more than 500,000 in annual Team GCI, there's our graduate program designed for top producers and team leaders who want to grow their team and scale their business. If that's you, go to realestatebschool.com and apply for a free Business Growth Strategy session. No matter where you are in your business growth journey, we have the tool, systems, strategies, training and coaching to get you where you want to be. Remember, only you can create your future, so take action now.
