Origination
Join us as we delve into the world of multifamily and commercial real estate, engaging in insightful interviews with industry-leading loan originators and salespeople. Discover the secrets that set apart these top performers from the competition as we uncover the strategies and skills that drive their success.
Origination
Episode 25: Dan Sacks, From Underwriter to Billion Dollar Originator
Dan Sacks made the leap from underwriter at Freddie Mac to the top originator at Greystone, within a few short years. During this episode, we run the gamut from selling (and tasting) chocolates to an illustrious sales career and the transition to leadership.
1:30 - 7:00 Early Sales Experience, Lessons as a Kid
7:00 - 10:00 Career Development
10:00 - 19:00 Creating a Skill Set, Adding Value
19:00 - 27:00 Adapting to New and Changing Markets
27:00 - 35:00 Building Confidence as a Salesperson
35:00 - 45:00 Discover and Strengthen Unique Abilities
45:00 - 51:00 Lessons in Management
51:00 - 58:00 How to be a Good Leader
lenders, market, people, loan, client, equity, selling, deals, screen protectors, year, calls, rates, business, borrower, easy, long, sales, chase, interest rates, debt
Welcome back to the Origination podcast where we interview the top originators and salespeople in the multifamily industry to try to understand what separates the top performers from the rest of the pack. On this episode, I'll be speaking with Dan Sacks. Dan came to Greystone with an underwriting background having worked at Freddie Mac and Wells Fargo. However, it was very clear from day one that Dan had the heart of an originator. Now, there are many underwriters who think they might want to make the transition to origination. And maybe some even do make the transition. But I have not seen very many who have achieved that outsize success that Dan has. Within just a couple of years. He was Greystone's top agency originator, and has brought in about seven and a half billion dollars of deals in the last five years. How do you do it? And how do you make the leap? Well, let's find out and speak with Dan. We have the legendary Dan Sacks. Dan, welcome to the Origination podcast. It's great to have you.
Dan Sacks:Thanks for having me, Mordy. It's good to be here.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So, Dan, you've had a very interesting path in multifamily finance and I want to talk about your path from underwriting to origination in a little bit. But first, I was curious, is there any earlier sales experience that comes to mind? What's the first thing that you remember selling? It could be selling chocolates in school, or in high school, or job, like anything else come to mind as far as earlier sales experience?
Dan Sacks:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I can remember selling lemonade as a kid. Going to the park and making a lemonade stand and trying to court parkgoers to pay 50 cents for some lemonade. I remember some of the drives at elementary school where you go door to door selling chocolates. And they would keep tabs on how many you know what kind of numbers everybody made in chocolate sales. Unlike some, my parents refused to sell any chocolates on my behalf. I had to go door to door and actually, I enjoyed it. I found that fun. Probably even younger than that, I can recall creating a store in my house of pots and pans, and putting prices on them, and inviting my parents to come buy back their home furnishings; using my brother as my general manager.
Mordecai Rosenberg:That's funny. I threatened to do that with my kids the opposite way. Where I say that if they leave a sweatshirt on the couch in the living room, I'm gonna keep it and make them buy it back from me. Yeah, they want it back. So a little different idea. The chocolate sales, you know, I remember those chocolate drives. And I'll tell you, I also remember going door to door, I must have been in third grade or so. I remember just hating it and being terrified, absolutely terrified to like knock on doors. And the truth is that like initially when I got into sales and started cold calling, I was also terrified. Coaching and practice until I got comfortable with that. It's interesting to hear you say that you liked it. What did you like about that? Do you remember, like what your approach was when you knocked on the door?
Dan Sacks:It's a great analogy. You know, today and through any career, I think sales is one of the most marketable and important skills to to have. I have always felt that the best way to sell somebody something is to be passionate and have conviction that you are offering them something of value. And that always brought me comfort, to meet strangers, or to talk to people I've never talked to. Not much has changed over life; doing that door to door to raise money for the school, Parent Teachers Association. Selling chocolates to selling mortgages.
Mordecai Rosenberg:I guess the value you felt you're providing is that you're doing a service for the school. Right. And so it was inherently positive activity that you were doing, and maybe the chocolates were pretty good also.
Dan Sacks:Yeah, of course, I tried a chocolate bar and put $1 in there, and knew my product and knew that it was for good cause. And then I turned it into a game. That's another important kind of element that I think is important to good salesman is being competitive and pushing yourself to exceed your own expectations. And being kind of committed to wanting to win. For the sake of proving it to yourself.
Mordecai Rosenberg:How did that game work? What was the game that you played back then with the chocolate?
Dan Sacks:Well, at first, I would go to a door and try to make a sale. If that the first sale didn't lead to a closed sale, it probably took me a quarter around the neighborhood until I refined my pitch. To be effective at every excuse as to why somebody was not interested in purchasing the chocolate: I have my own kids selling their own chocolate, we just bought a lot of chocolate from somebody else, we don't eat chocolate. So there are multiple ways to improve to be prepared for that. I would then tally what my my sales were, and try to improve on those. And I had fun with it. It was more of an experience that I found engaging as a child, and perhaps a lot of those, that same process, is kind of applicable to every type of sales initiative or process.
Mordecai Rosenberg:That's right. So we'll dig into that in just a little bit. So your path again, you did not go straight into origination, when you got into multifamily, right? And you came up through an underwriting channel, right? There's lots of people who come up to an underwriting channel and say, oh, I want to be an originator. They'd like to make some more money, and they want to make that leap. Now, a very small percentage of those people actually even try, right, because it's a hard leap to make. You're going from a salary to commission based job like that's a tough leap. But out of those people that do make the leap, very few of them actually succeed in in origination. You went from not only did you make the leap, but became, within just a couple of years, you became a top agency producer in the company. I have a lot of questions. But let's say to start out, you know, when you graduate college, and did you go to Freddie Mac, right from college?
Dan Sacks:Correct. I started at Freddie Mac, upon graduating from the University of Maryland, in 2009.
Mordecai Rosenberg:And what was the thought process with that? How did you, you know, what made you think about Freddie Mac? That's also unconventional to go to, well not, the public sector; but it's a big agency. I didn't have a lot of classmates who went to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. So how did you think about that?
Dan Sacks:So fortunately, they posted a listing for new college hires on the Robert H. Smith School of Business is a portal, and it caught my eye. Because it was it was local, and it was a fortune 500 company that specialized in real estate. I wish I had much more intelligence at that point to understand the the macro perspective of their operations, but I was just a young hungry college kid that needed a job out of school and, and applied.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, so you didn't think as far as being in real estate. Did you know that you wanted to be in real estate or just was just sounded like an interesting opportunity?
Dan Sacks:I did plan to be in real estate. I I've always thought that real estate can't become obsolete. It can't go away, it's always going to be here and carry value. And it was something tangible that I could see and touch and and easily understand. And so, I tried to tackle it from: how do I enter the real estate industry? What are the skills I would need to have to succeed?
Mordecai Rosenberg:What were those skills that you thought you would need to have?
Dan Sacks:Well, when I started at Freddie Mac, I tried to identify what is it that I need to know to advance. I dedicated a large percent of time to meeting with with coworkers, and colleagues, and those more experienced than me, to ask those those questions. I was told by a friend Aaron Dunn, who was working on the securitization side of Freddie Mac's business, that the mortgage bankers are those that are creating the transaction, and then selling them to Freddie Mac. The perspective of how Freddie Mac views transactions, and prices transactions, and executes in the secondary mortgage market was very helpful information to obtain. And the people at Freddie Mac really carry an important industry function in the execution of the mission of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mac, for that matter. Yeah, which, is the stability and liquidity to to the mortgage market. Diagnosing what skills you need to have. And then identifying what role that those would correlate to, and you should look to pursue, I think is a strong foundation prior to making a move. I tried to gather that study, as soon as I joined the workforce out of school.
Mordecai Rosenberg:I always thought it was amazing that when you're applying for a job out of school, right, you don't really know what the difference is. You know, if I applied to an investment bank, I don't know what the difference is between sales and trading, and client coverage, or Treasury Department. You just want to get a job, right. But then you get that first job, and all of a sudden, now you're on a track. Right? And now 20 years later, that's your career. So as far as getting that first job, sure there's a bit of of just good fortune in that, but as far as leveraging that to the full extent possible, you were intentional about it. Wasn't just like, Oh, I'm just gonna do whatever work they they give me. Sure, you have the work to do, but you also want to know that that simple question of what do I need to know in order to advance? Right? I mean, just imagine the difference if first secondary analysts, right, if they came in and asked that question. What do I need to know to advance? To me, it sounds so obvious, but I really don't think a lot of people ask that simple question.
Dan Sacks:I felt that that was critical to not taking too much risk; making moves that were not cohesive with growth or that trying to reduce the probability of failure. To establish the set of skills that were marketable and create a floor on my earnings as a contributor, as a team member. By learning skills, or focusing on developing those skills, needed to obtain the proficiency in those areas. So I knew I would always have a job and be important to my employer.
Mordecai Rosenberg:It's also interesting, starting with one of the agencies; let's say if you start as an analyst with a lender. So you're gonna start, you're gonna learn how to size deals, and you're trying to figure out, alright, what is going to be a fit for Fannie Mae, or Freddie Mac, or FHA, or our bridge program. And then, out of the deals you size, if one out of 10 or one out of 20 makes it to application, then you're you're submitting it and you have some involvement to see what happens with that. But if you're starting on the agency side, every deal, every single deal that you're looking at from day one, you're the decision maker, right? And so if you want to know, if you want to learn how the agencies think about a deal, you know, I wonder about just how accelerated your education is starting at an agency compared to starting at a lender.
Dan Sacks:It was certainly beneficial to understand how Freddie Mac and ultimately, you know, Fannie Mae view transactions, view credit risk, price deals, fulfill their mission. And the best way that I got up to speed on that was twofold. One was by reading their guides, backwards and forwards, and going to the source data to become fluent in all of those parameters. I always saw it out in the information that was published, to study and understand, and then apply to real life scenarios. I think the first time I ever sized the deal; I left Freddie Mac after two and a half years, because I I believe that was I felt at that time, Freddie Mac was transitioning to their K Series model. But my division was not yet putting together the underwriting themselves. So it was a different model where the lender was was doing a lot of that. And I felt like I needed to understand fully how to put that together. I accepted a job Wells Fargo Multifamily Capital. And I was on the production screening side, putting together deals, and so I spent the time to read the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guides. Then I tried to apply that to real life scenarios, and you know, pulled up one Excel workbook of a completed deal that was similar to the one that I was working on. And taught myself the formulas in the completed workbook to input the information and to understand kind of where the transaction that I was working on was shaking out. Then reference the guide, and continued to just build on that. And through then repetition. And asking some questions when you don't know the answer, or you think it could be either A or B. You start to build on your knowledge base, which, over time with strong work ethic gives you an exponential level of growth in your skill set.
Mordecai Rosenberg:It's funny, I remember doing the same thing with the sizing sheet. When I started as an analyst doing FHA. There was one tab that was your final loan amount. That's it. Okay. That says minimum of ABCDE. So okay, well then, what ABCD and E? Well, one is, you know, 80% loan to value. All right, what's loan to value?
Dan Sacks:Right? We start with ABCs. No one is going to sit down and tell you each thing. But Google is a tremendous resource in today's day and age. Yep. Where you can Google just about anything and read up on it, but you have to have that competitiveness or that drive or be a self starter, and challenge yourself to find the answers the best you can. To kind of help yourself, you can ask people for help, but nobody is going to give you the script.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Did you work with Alan Wiener at all at Wealth?
Dan Sacks:So Alan Wiener was the group head, and I believe still is, I worked on a number of his prolific deals in in Manhattan. At that point in time were well into the hundreds of millions. And that was also very good experience to cut your teeth on. But I can say that I didn't treat any differently, the $150 million deal I was working on that was Alan wieners client, or the $6 million deal that was someone else's client. I was focused on understanding how do I get an edge and a competitive advantage to delivering enhanced terms on whichever transaction that I was working on.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So I know that one of the things that you got very good at is knowing where you could push the agencies. When you came to Greystone, that was something that was a revelation to me, when I started working with you is that we thought that you have this pricing grid, and there's debt service coverage, and LTV, and that's what you have. And you kind of opened my eyes to this idea that like, oh, no, that's your starting point. But we're gonna push for a 40 basis point pricing waiver here. And I know that I'm confident that I can get it. So where in terms of knowing that there's that ability to bend? Did you learn that from working at Freddie? Well, it's like, you can read the books, but when did you realize that you can also bend the books, as well, so to speak.
Dan Sacks:So a lot of that came from reading the guide. As far as credit underwriting goes, and after I was well versed in the agency domain, I did the same with HUD, I continue to read the guide. Because the guide tells you what you can do what you can't do. And then there's what's not said in the guide, should all be said and incorporated in your presentation of the transaction, with support, and mitigating elements to any levels of risk to the transaction. That you're sending to the agencies, or to anybody that you're requesting a quote from, for that matter. And I think that's what puts the deal in the best light to get the best terms is when that's well thought through, well researched, and, you know, what parameters you're otherwise constrained within. As well as which you're not.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Mm hmm. Right. And then just doing transactions and seeing--
Dan Sacks:And then repetition. It took it took a long time, and I still see some problems I've never encountered before. But by and large at this point, I have seen a lot of the regular issues, which I've tried to incorporate in our processes to mitigate, and be in front, of so that they don't occur. But I've also seen those that are outside of my control, and now have experience in dealing with those to be able to advise. With some things, just require practice and tenure, and consistency, and experience. There's no shortcut on that front.
Mordecai Rosenberg:That makes sense. So I remember when you started at Greystone, or maybe it wasn't right away, but but fairly soon after you started it. So we actually even though your background was on the agency side, you know, we hired you onto the FHA team. Yet, and I don't know, probably a lot of lenders are set up this way; but Greystone was set up, still is to a large extent, with an FHA division, and salespeople that were largely focused on FHA. And you had an agency division and the salespeople that were largely focused on Fannie and Freddie. Then the CMBS division, we're largely focused on CMBS, etc. Now, I grew up in FHA and our clients would have agency needs. We would submit term sheets to them, based on, you know, the sizing guidelines that we had, and we just were not winning deals. Someone else, another agency lender, would come in and was able to provide more money, at a lower rate, and we just looked pretty silly. So what we realized is that we really needed training. We needed support because we just didn't know how to bid aggressively. All right. So you came in and at the beginning didn't go right into origination. But we had you working hand in hand with all the FHA originators who want to get agency deals done. So can you describe that experience? What was that like? And do you think it was unique as a role in the industry?
Dan Sacks:Yeah, I think that that was that was one of the more creative things that Greystone did at the time to bring somebody with agency experience. And place them under the FHA division, which nobody else was doing. Each product had its own siloed kind of group in companies. That's how it was at Wells Fargo. And that's my understanding how it still is today. But the the objective was to be able to provide clients with the entire set of options, and do so in a way that was industry leading with expertise within the team as it pertains to each execution. And by way of that, I learned a tremendous amount amount about FHA. And I hope my my colleagues in the FHA group learned a lot about agency. But we were able to serve the client in such an advanced way, in faster response times. Because we were placed together in working on the deal and servicing the client. I felt that many people learned and they've worked really well for for the customer. And I credit Greystone and yourself when you were running that division for that foresight, and creativity, and being focused on the customer, and bringing about that kind of level of competence within your group. I think Greystone really benefited from seeing that model work and being able to deploy that in other areas across the firm.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, thank you for saying that. But it's a simple thing. When you're thinking about how to get business done, you have to understand that your salespeople, you have to meet people where they are. There is this idea that you could train FHA guys to just be able to do agency. And my experience is that salespeople, at least in our industry, I don't know if this is true in all industries, but for some reason in our industry, like multifamily finance, it seems like salespeople learn a particular product, and they get very comfortable with that product. And it's very difficult for them to start selling something else that they have. They don't have the confidence in it, you know, so you can try to make that different. It makes our salespeople learn how to sell something else, right? Or you can meet them where they are, and just say, look, let's find it, let's give you a resource to give you the confidence. Now, one of the things that I think you also gained and they gained, was that they trusted you to just be right up in front of the client. Probably a lot of those deals, they're just like luck."Dan, just, you know, go run with it". Maybe copy me on emails, but I want you handling this. So now you were able to, I guess cut your teeth, but really get a lot of transactional experience working with owners working with brokers. Building up that confidence on that. Do you agree?
Dan Sacks:I do and you know, I have no qualms of ever playing Robin to anyone's Batman. It is not about what I'm doing. It's about what we're doing and how we're working together. And and I always thought that all that preparation, which was about six years, of the standard person works nine to five, which I don't. I never understood how somebody can work nine to five and actually get ahead, but perhaps that's a separate conversation. So I, when I was working out, I committed my early years of life to this, to being an expert at this, and hoping that I would find an opportunity to be able to deploy that edge. That's kind of the saying, when preparation meets opportunity, you can get to a really incredible place. That kind of just happened. But I think it happened because I was prepared. And I sought an opportunity to kind of deploy that skill set, and while it was a multi year kind of strategy, I felt like I built a strong foundation in obtaining specialized skills; that I was always fine being the complimentary adder to get experience on transactions and see real life examples of how this works. Then I built the confidence because I was solving the problems. At that point, once you're there, you're feeling confident in going out and developing your own client roster.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yet, you mentioned before, when you were talking about selling the chocolate, that you felt like you needed to have conviction that you're providing something of value, demonstrated value to the client. That is difficult. It's something that I always felt challenged with, you know, selling agency business because it's designed to be kind of a commodity. The agencies wanted to be mostly a commodity.
Dan Sacks:I think that the agencies want the perception that all lenders are equal to them. And they are all equal to them. But I think the market may think that agency financing is a commodity. But I think I'm an example to demonstrate outsized results. As I'm not only competing on customer service, I'm looking to win on terms. So I think that's a good point.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So and I agree with that. And that was something that I thought firsthand. You know, I remember, there was a client that you and I worked on together, early on, where we had been losing agency business, to other lenders. And you started quoting their business and you're coming in above, right? More loan proceeds, you know, better rate. And the clients like, "Well how are you guys gonna achieve this?" I guess other lenders aren't saying that. You had the confidence to say, "No, we're going to do it." And we did. So to have the confidence to say, look, I can get you max dollars, I can get you absolute max dollars on this deal. Right? That's something that in the end, those Max dollars will be higher than the max dollars you would get from another lender. That is something that is very compelling, right. And that's only comes from knowing those having the experience of being inside the deals, doing the legwork to research the guide. I think that's unique for a salesperson to want to delve so deeply into details.
Dan Sacks:Yeah, I think so. I don't think innately I'm a natural born salesman. I think that certain salespeople are very effective at cultivating relationships, and presenting, and being persuasive and polished at making a sale. I never found so much satisfaction in what what I felt was perhaps manipulating somebody to make a purchase in and of itself. And therefore, I always felt that there's no way that a client would not appreciate somebody providing a sophisticated opinion and a value set that that was different based on my opinion This is what I would do if I were them. And I have dedicated a tremendous amount of time to really study my domain, my sector. Yeah, I just found that the sale then is more natural, it was more natural to me. And I think I've seen some very talented salesman, even within the Greystone organization and those at other firms. It's interesting to me, the dynamic and the makeup of each of those that are really successful, still is quite different one to another.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, I would even go further to say that, you know, I've had about 25 people or so on the podcast and there's not a single one that's had the same strategy as another, as the same way of doing business. They all come at it with our own their own flavor, you know, of how they approach it.
Dan Sacks:One's not necessarily better than the other there. I think it's important to develop your flavor.
Mordecai Rosenberg:And your flavor is based on your own natural born capabilities. You know, if you're someone who's not a big picture guy, who's not into the details, they're not going to be able to dig in and know all the nuances of the guide. Right? And so fine, you have to take take your own approach. Maybe you're good at just big picture transaction, structuring, maybe you're good at, I don't know, making connections and providing value that way. Right. But your flavor of sales has to be based on what you are already good at.
Dan Sacks:I couldn't agree with you more. Probably the most impactful book that I ever have read, and it was the shortest, is Tom Rath Strength Finders. The concept of focus on the skills or the elements that you're already good at. And forego trying to be good at everything. Understand who you are, and what your skill set is that motivates you, that you are already better than average at and focus on being excellent at those. And that was that was very different than what I've been taught and what I expected out of myself, as an analyst, right, coming, you know, in my mid 20s, wanting to impress everybody that I did work with, right? And coming to the realization that I just wasn't good at everything.
Mordecai Rosenberg:It's liquid, that's what we're taught in school. When you go to parent teacher conferences for your kids. What do they talk to you about? Well, you know, they're struggling in this. It's about very specific things. They're not saying, you know, he has an excellent way of organizing teams on the playground. He just really knows everyone's strengths. You know, he knows how to put together a great football team on on the playground.
Dan Sacks:That kind of color from a teacher in elementary school would be quite beneficial to a parent. But yeah, that's not how we get it.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So we go through school and all we get attention for is what were our weaknesses. And we're told to work on our weaknesses. Dan Sullivan, my executive coach, you know, he says that, if you're just working on your weaknesses, when you die, you'll just have a bunch of strong weaknesses. Right. But if you work on your strengths, that you could be the best in the world. You know, how is Michael Jordan's serve in tennis?
Dan Sacks:He might care a lot of his competitive spirit, but beyond that...
Mordecai Rosenberg:Who cares? Right. Not a very well rounded athlete. I mean, he's more well rounded than most but...
Dan Sacks:It's true. And we are taught the opposite. We are taught that you need to develop this well rounded skill set and focus on your weaknesses. And I embraced my natural strengths and my natural weaknesses. And I think one of the best functions or most important functions in building a team, is not to build a team of everyone just like you. It's to find those that are good at certain things and better at other things. And complement one another. Right? But I'm, I'm such a big believer in having passion for what you're doing. And I think that's super hard also to have in improving weaknesses. Right. And I think that's the concept in that equation is that the amount of work and gravity against you taking a weakness and turning it into an absolute strength. It's probably greater than taking something that you are passionate and enjoy doing. So you're not fighting that element of gravity.
Mordecai Rosenberg:I don't know if I've talked about it on the podcast, and maybe I'll get into it another episode; but I believe that that everyone has an unique ability. And that's also a Dan Sullivan concept from Strategic Coach. That's something that you are already, it's not like, if only I would have gotten violin lessons when I was a kid, I could have been a concert violinist, right. But the thing that you're already very good at, we're very good at it from a young age. And there are a couple of clues that God gives us to tell us when we're doing something that's within the field of our unique ability. So one, the biggest one is energy. Right? Look at your energy levels, right? There are some things that are very energizing activities where when you're doing it, like man,I could do this all day and all night. Even if I weren't getting paid for this, I would still do it, because it's just so much fun and energizing. Right? On the totally opposite end of the scale are things that are energy depleting. Energy depleting things are not your unique ability. So for me to plan any kind of Logistics is like you're not my unique ability. Another sign is you get an exponential impact on your time, right? So your 30 minutes for you, Dan, you spend 30 minutes on financial statements for property, right? And you'll get 10 hours worth of like results. It's like, here's what you have to do, here's the thing, right? As opposed to working outside of your unique ability, where your 10 hours of work might produce 30 minutes of, of productivity, right? My example of logistics, like for me to plan a vacation for my family, or with my wife, I'll spend 20 hours because I want to research the hotels. I do a good job, but it's energy depleting. I don't get a good return. If I called a travel agent in 30 minutes, they'd be done, did it right, done. So that is, I think a good thing for people to keep in mind when they're trying to figure out what their strengths are is just like look at the energizing activities.
Dan Sacks:Yeah, I will say I think that that's really deep focusing on the energy element and aspect of it because that is what you know, what what ultimately drives you in your inside. What gives you that energy, find that energy, find that spark, and play to that because whatever that is, that is going to just make you happier over time. And fighting that over a long period of time can just reduce your overall happiness. Irrespective of how successful you are, you're not. I actually subscribed to that's one of the definitions of
happiness is when I can deploy:"Where I get the most energy?", and I can focus and do that every day. It has nothing to do with money. I mean money you need to provide security and at a reasonably lower level, which that's a matter of relative consideration; but more money doesn't make you happier above thresholds that are not considered vastly rich. So you have to find something else that drives you to really get energized and enthused. There are many people who make a ton of money are very lonely and very unhappy. And I I can speak to my own experiences in certain segments of just my career quite recently where I was not enthusiastic about certain initiatives that I was considering venturing into. And so I diligence them and I made an initial effort. And I concluded to I'm not energized by pursuing them. And not that they're not good opportunities, or that they're not profitable opportunities, I don't have a predisposition to want to do that every day. And so I tried to channel that to the areas and elements in which I do.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Makes sense. So we've got about 10 minutes left. One area I wanted to transition to is leadership. When you started at Greystone you were on your own? And I've seen you evolve as a leader. That's something that is leadership of managing other people. And leadership is tricky. There are books written about it, but there's a lot that you have to figure out over time, and you've evolved into a very talented and effective leader. What would you say you've learned, if you think back to your first management experiences, and looking to today, what are some things that you've learned?
Dan Sacks:I love that topic because some of the things that I experienced that Freddie Mac, and then Wells Fargo, which are larger enterprises, and thus more traditional in the corporate environment, or corporate culture called Corporate bureaucracy, that really had an impact on me. And in those that stayed with me, that always bring me back to trying to create something that I thought was more effective. Those were that I felt like, no matter how dedicated and focused to success, that I was being pigeon holed and lacking guidance and oversight. Somebody who could help me advance really, really motivated me to find the right culture of employment. That I felt was going to bring out the best in me. Providing that type of advancement and opportunity for those that I hired and lead was always foundational to me, because I put myself in those shoes. And honestly, today, aside from growing my clients portfolio, and serving as a valued advisor to them, that's one of the things that really motivates me and turns me on. Helping my clients achieve success over the long term, but with every transaction along the way, more so than doing a bunch of transactions for one off people. I like to build, and I like to grow. And I like to see how that is carried forward from one to another. But the other that gets me out of bed every morning is knowing that as I built a team, my responsibility is creating growth for them, because they are going to need that growth to advance their own career, or they're going to need to find an opportunity elsewhere. And so I've strived to find and hire for ambition and serve as a coach with respect to the details. Because I can't create passion, I can't create energy. But if I have those things, then I can train somebody in commercial real estate underwriting, or the intricacies of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and HUD. We can grow over time to achieve the same levels of knowledge, and education, and experience that I myself got as an analyst. I have tried to create that environment for my team in a way that I didn't have as a employee coming up right out of school and trying to make my own way. Dealing with the standard culture, which is you have a job to do, do the job. We value you, we appreciate you, you're doing a great job. But I was always committed to more, I was always committed to enhancing my value to the firm. I felt like the firm didn't appreciate, didn't want that value extracted from me. And if that's the set of dynamics, then I'm not going to appreciate it, even if you do extend it. We've created a culture here that I feel is conducive to growing talent. And building the strongest group in the industry that I could assemble, based on my experiences in the industry, as I was coming up, trying to be the center point, playing to everybody's strengths, and putting together a dynamic enough team that had different strengths. So that collectively we were the strongest, but motivating everybody by growth and advancement. And focusing on passion, energy, ethics, kind of building and growing from there.
Mordecai Rosenberg:All this talk about the great resignation now. We're sitting here, February 2022. I've always felt that there's always talk about how do you retain employees? And certainly, you want people to want to stay with you. Right? That being said, I don't really want to be someone's last stop on the train. Because someone who's really ambitious and wants to grow, they're going to have some future. And you're going to be part of their career, but probably not the last stop on it. So I'm very open about telling my team that I want to know what they want to do next. I want to help them prepare. What can I do to prepare you for your next role? Whether it's at Greystone, if it's at another company, but what are the capabilities that you want to develop? Right? Now, the irony, or perhaps not irony, is that if you are always providing those kinds of opportunities for your people they're going to want to stay.
Dan Sacks:They want to stay. As they appreciate their growth, and advancement, and skills that they're building. Honestly, I think that the ultimate feeling of your manager caring about you, and your professional career, as well as your personal life, and well being. It's such a deep concept, which every employer makes an effort and an attempt, but the jury is the employee.
Mordecai Rosenberg:It's hard to do when, especially in the origination business, where things are just so busy all the time. There's deal flow, and there are fires, right? How do you take the time to actually work on development? But if you can start with that mindset of, I'm here to facilitate the maximum success of my team members. Just that small switch in perspective, just every conversation you have with them. It's like, alright, what can we do? What's going well, what capabilities were in our annual reviews for our team? You know, one of the things that I asked is, what are three capabilities they want to develop this year? Maybe it's a class, maybe it's working with another team, but I'm always keeping as much of an eye out for opportunities for them as much as they are. Maybe not quite as much as they are, but I never want to hold on to an employee. I want them to work with me for so long as that's the best thing available to them.
Dan Sacks:You're gonna get as a result, you're going to get the best for them. And when we talk about careers, and we talk about these things, it's important to note that. God willing, everybody has a long time horizon where people may come back with extra skills. Your your hiring needs may be different. I hold myself to a the standard that I want my employees to be able to replace me, I never want to stand in the way of their growth. And I will be successful if they can replace me, in part and ultimately in whole. And then I can focus on a higher value initiative to provide further growth yet for our whole group to kind of continue to ascend upon.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Look, if you want to ever be able to go on vacation for a week, with your wife, your family and not have to, check email. The only way to do that is to set up your team to be able to replace you, right? And maybe it's just for that week, but they have to have all of those capabilities that they can stand in and do what you do.
Dan Sacks:It takes time to accomplish, it really does. Because, I mean, I was a big micromanager from the beginning. I still have certain issues with letting somebody else take accountability for my responsibility, and not have anxiety that it could end badly. I think that kind of philosophy, this philosophy does create the most productive, fulfilling work environment, that the best people should seek.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yep. What else would someone want?
Dan Sacks:That's where it starts with energy, it starts with passion, it starts with understanding. And I've had people that always think the grass is greener on the other side, and sometimes you just have to let folks learn their own way. But when you care about your employees as they're an extended part of my family, I do view that. And I also recognize that those leading really big corporations may have much larger teams, and it's hard to take such a personal focus to each one. But by the same token, I think it's the obligation of the firm. And I think the firm learns from its leaders, how to cultivate and grow talent. I think I learned that from Steve, your father, and how he attacks business every day, as well as his own code of ethics, and his own demeanor towards every person. And every employee in the firm. And a lot of that has shaped my philosophy on on how we engage with our staff, but not everyone does it that way.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Well, the success of your team speaks for itself. Dan, I've been now watching from a little bit more of a distance, and I've been incredibly proud of the results that you've achieved In terms of production, but also as a leader and developing as a human being. So keep up the great work. And it's been a delight to have you on the on the podcast. So thank you.
Dan Sacks:You're most welcome. And I appreciate being with you. Thanks for having me on.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Awesome. All right, Dan, I'll talk to you soon. Take care.