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 26: Nathan Schuss, Founder and CEO of Harper Capital Partner
How do you know if starting your own business is right for you? Nathan Schuss grew from originator to founding and being the CEO of Harper Capital Partners. In this conversation, Nathan and I discuss his journey, as well as the immense potential for both growth and its opposing limitations.
TIMESTAMPS:
2:28-4:32 Early Sales Experience
4:32:00-12:28 Lessons Learned
12:32 - 32:59 Getting Started in Business
32:59 -36:28 Self Awareness
38:08 -52:27 Leadership
lenders, market, people, loan, client, equity, selling, deals, screen protectors, year, calls, rates, business, borrower, easy, long, sales, chase, interest rates, debt
Hi, and welcome back to the Origination podcast where we speak to 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 Nathan Schuss founder and CEO of Harper Capital Partners. Now, I hear a lot of originators talk about a desire to one day start their own business. They dream of more freedom and more wealth that might come with that. I also have spoken to a lot of former janitors who are now running their own businesses and he found that perhaps the grass wasn't quite as green as he had hoped it would be on the other side. So how do you know if starting your own business is right for you or not? Certainly, there is immense potential for growth but other limitations as well. I speak to Nathan about this question and many others on this far reaching conversation. So without further ado, let's speak with Nathan. Nathan Schuss. Welcome to the Origination podcast.
Nathan Schuss:Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
Mordecai Rosenberg:It's a delight to have you. I think I'm going have to keep myself from, we were talking about humor before, I have so much experience with with your humor, so you have to try to keep it together with it.
Nathan Schuss:I'm going try to spare everybody with my humor also. So we'll see if I can resist.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, well, it's hard to prank people, you know, over a podcast. That's true, we could find one. Hmm. That sounds like a challenge, that would be interesting. So, Nathan, let's start. The question that I like to ask people at the beginning is if you think about your earliest sales experience or at least how you remember selling something. It could be your elementary school or high school or college or after, but if you said the first time you felt like you had to sell something, what comes to mind for you?
Nathan Schuss:So I was actually a lifeguard in a day camp when I was younger and most other staff members couldn't leave during the day, but me and one of the other life guards would leave during lunch because there were no kids swimming during lunch. We would go to Starbucks, because there was nowhere else to go. I think it was the last week of camp, we just had this idea to collect orders from people and pick up Starbucks for whoever wanted. Our deal was, we would go pick it up and we just keep the change. The first day, most people ordered frappuccinos or whatever it was and at the time, I don't know what it cost now I'm not much of a coffee drinker, but at the time it was like $3.65 or something like that. Most people would give us a $5 dollar bill. So for every order, we were making $1.35, which was a pretty good deal and we were going anyway, we had nothing to do. We only thought of it in the last week of camp, but the first day we each made like $3 or $4 dollars. Then, people told people and on the last day we each made $20 or something like that. It was such a thrill. It was so much fun and we were just letting people decide what they wanted to pay us. I think there was only one person that I could think of that counted out the change and they're like, here's a dime for your service. But everybody else was either lazily or intentionally generous. I feel like that was my first experience and that was actually a pretty good lesson about how people operate, that sticks with me today.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Hmm. Can you elaborate on that? What did you learn about how they operate?
Nathan Schuss:I found that people just want you to make their lives easier and if you stress fee then people are going to be very conscious of the fee. But if you make it very easy to do business with people, and you really don't stress fee too much, then I think people are actually pretty happy to pay you what they feel you're worth. That tends to be a pretty fair amount and I think a small portion of people are going to really try to knock you down and get the best deal that they possibly can when you're really not focusing on it.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, that is really interesting. I guess people like to be generous, you know, and they like to compensate for service, but as soon as you say "alright well here's my fee" all of a sudden peoples' defenses go up. It reminds me of a client that I had a number of years ago. He's a huge multifamily owner, I mean just an absolute goldmine of a client and he would never negotiate fees. Right? And I remember we'd always strategize about what fee should we charge? We would be very nervous, because if he doesn't like the fee he's not going say anything, he is just won't do his next deal with you. So we ended up negotiating ourselves down without the other person even saying anything. But first, we came up with the idea we're doing it for a point that we're taking down to three quarters of point. Then we said, alright if we're depending on the volume, once you're doing this kind of volume, we're doing it for half a point or whatever, but we kept on pushing our own pricing without him saying anything just because we wanted him to be happy. I wonder with lenders and brokers, I don't know how many people would want to try this, but if you start out by saying"Okay, we charge 1 point" then people are going to push against you then people say, "Oh no, I don't want to pay anything. I want to get it for free." But if you said look, you fill out the fee that you think we're entitled to. If we're able to achieve this, what fee do you think we're entitled to and make it worth our while. Because if you don't, if it's not worth our while, that's fine but we're not going to do the next one. So what do you think it's worth? You might end up with a higher amount than they would have?
Nathan Schuss:Yes, for sure. For sure. I think very realistically, you just take negotiation out of it, which I think has a tremendous amount of value. It removes a tremendous amount of friction from the conversation also.
Mordecai Rosenberg:People want to be generous and they also don't want to be cheap. That's why when it comes to, let's say, I know my kids go to late camp, they say you're supposed to tip the counselors, but how much do you tip? Well, they come out with a suggested amount and obviously I'm going to give more than that because I don't want the counselor to say "oh, yeah, this kid's parents, like really gave me the bare minimum." So now I'm worried about how they're going treat my kid, if it's going be different. If you said "Look, most of our top clients pay us three quarters of a point or a point, that's just what we do. If you feel like the service isn't worth that much to you, then you put what you want." But the people who are sophisticated and are able to discern value from not, they typically pay us this fee.
Nathan Schuss:Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense.
Mordecai Rosenberg:I don't know where the thread goes, but it's just interesting when you're selling to someone else. They have a perspective on how they want to feel about themselves in terms of what you're selling and how they envision it. You can talk about and ask do you want to be one of these kinds of people? Or do you want to be one of these kinds of people subtly? But why don't we put a pin in that, as they say, and we'll move on.
Nathan Schuss:Before we put a pin in it, I think your point is great and I think the key is to let them decide. Make them feel like they're in the driver's seat then they're not worried about what you want from them. They're really just focusing more on how they want to be perceived by us, which really flips the situation?
Mordecai Rosenberg:Hmm. It also becomes their choice. That's the other thing is that people want to feel like they're in control, so if someone tells me what is the price for a hotel room and I think that's expensive, I'll try to negotiate a better deal, right? But if they show me three options, here's what it costs with just breakfast, here's what it cost with two meals, and you choose. Now I'm thinking, well, I don't want to be the guy who chooses the cheapest option and how much is it actually between the third option and the first? But because it's my choice now, that feels a lot better than just being told, here's the only option.
Nathan Schuss:Which just makes me feel like humans don't really evolve too much from childhood. I know you have kids and I have kids. That was one of the greatest tricks I've learned, well it's not even really a trick it's just human psychology. For a kid, they're being or they can be told what to do every moment of every day, but if you let them choose you can take a bath now or you can eat dinner now, it is very different than saying you're going to take a bath now and then you're going to eat dinner. You just give them a choice. You just gave them a little sense of control in their lives and they're much more likely to listen and much less likely to resist.
Mordecai Rosenberg:I definitely find that even with teenagers, I'm always on one of my sons who forgets to shower. I always have to remind them, but then it's like, you're a nag, and then you get push back. The game changer was at night for me to say to him "hey, are you going to shower tonight or in the morning?" And as soon as I ask that it was like "Oh, I'll shower tonight." Because you they get to choose, people want agency.
Nathan Schuss:Yeah. Or HUD
Mordecai Rosenberg:or what?
Nathan Schuss:or HUD.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Or HUD--I see you slip that in. Agency. Yeah, because agencies mean Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Right and highlight.
Nathan Schuss:We'll edit that one out.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, or not, we'll see how it goes. Okay. So that how old were you when you did that?
Nathan Schuss:I was probably 17 or 18.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Now I remember when you were at Greystone, we talked about this a lot and now you have your own firm, but they're all you always had that entrepreneurial fire within you and you knew that one day you would want to go off on your own. As far as when that fire was first lit, would you say that it was then or do you think it's later on? Or before?
Nathan Schuss:I actually think that it was then and maybe even before that. As long as I can remember, it just felt like something I was meant to do or felt like I was going to do or was hoping I'd be good at or? I don't know, sometimes the path just sort of lays itself out in front of you. There was definitely a thrill that I got just from letting people decide how much money I was going to make and how we made more money than if we were to charge a fee. If you think about it, from a percentage basis it was just easier for people to just give us a $5 bill. Yeah, no matter what the cost, so that was fine and I think something was there.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So we'll fast forward a bit now or ever before you came to Greystone you were working for a waste management company or the mafia, or maybe both. Can you describe what sales look like? In that role?
Nathan Schuss:Sure. I was there for about two years and I spent the first nine months at that job. It was a waste consulting firm and we specialized in saving shopping center owners of shopping centers and malls money on their monthly waste bills in a bunch of different ways and a lot of that was just based on inefficiencies. You would have the schedule for when a dumpster was supposed to be picked up. I mean, you had a shopping center, so it was 25 dumpsters. Half of them are supposed to be picked up on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and the other half on Tuesdays and Thursdays or whatever the case. I spent the first nine months actually going to sites to take pictures and basically climb in the dumpsters on the night before a dumpster was supposed to be picked up to see just how full it was. If you saw that there was a dumpster that was 35% full and it was being picked up the next morning, and you're getting charged for 100% of the dumpster size then there's a lot of inefficiency. So, I spent the first nine months learning the business that way. I was flying all over the country and looking at garbage. Dumpster diving. Then after about nine months of that I switched, to sales and in sales there was, to me, felt similar to selling mortgages. It was selling to real estate owners really selling to the same type of people, but it was a ton of cold calling people all over the country. A lot less FaceTime than some other sales jobs, but it was high volume, low hit sales. I remember going into it at first, I mean I've never had formal sales training or experience or anything like that and I thought 'Oh, I like people and people usually like me, this should be a breeze. I'll smile and be nice over the phone, everybody appreciates nice and I'm going to be great at this.' That was such a rude awakening to find out that people really hate being sold. Really, they hate being sold and even getting the opportunity to get on the phone with somebody to let them hate being sold, was a privilege that had to be earned. I understood pretty quickly why so many people would not want to be in sales, but there was something about it that even though I found it incredibly difficult, at the beginning, I just had a sense that it was going to be important for me to really put my head down and get good at this. And that's what I did. I just failed over and over and over and over and over and really dug my way out.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So how did you get better? I mean, bottom line is people don't like being sold, let's say that truth. Right? So how did you improve?
Nathan Schuss:I think most of all, I just kept doing it. And I think there are easier ways to learn and harder ways to learn. I mean, you can only learn from your own experience by doing it yourself. You can learn from other people's experience by talking to people or reading up on it or whatever else and I did all of that. The company that I was at actually sent me and the other salespeople to sales classes, which was also helpful. Understanding that most salespeople are experiencing exactly the same things that you are, learning tools and skills to work through those things. That was very helpful, but I think most of all, you just have to put your head down and keep doing it and you learn from your mistakes. You can't do the same thing over and over, you have to have a skill.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yet, I have this debate a lot with salespeople about whether or not it's a numbers game. They'll have people who might say "look they're not having a lot of success. It's just a numbers game, you got to keep on going and eventually it'll turn." I am not always so sure that it's just a numbers game because if you keep on doing the same thing, why is call 1000 different than call one. What's your take on this? At the same time you do have to put in the time and you do have to put in numbers also.
Nathan Schuss:I think it's for sure unquestionably both. I think if you're willing to work hard enough then you might be a terrible salesperson. But at some point, you're going to find the guy who just happens to need what you can offer them and it might be right after they just had a horrible experience with their existing vendor, or service person, whatever it is. If you put the work in you're going to get lucky. You have to work hard enough to get lucky. But the better you are, the more frequently you can sniff out those opportunities. Once you get good, once you get better and once you've closed a few deals your confidence is up the people on the other line or across the desk or however you're selling to, they feel that. They for sure feel that and you know it comes from confidence. You can't fake that you've been there, people sniff it out so quickly. You need to actually have been there and people will sense that whether they realize it consciously or subconsciously. If you're acting they're going to know something's off which is what makes those first couple deals so difficult. How do you win somebody over when you really need to have been there to win it in the first place. And I think it always just comes down to the right place.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense. I remember when you were coming to Greyston, that one of the things you can be very good at selling a product, but it has to be a profitable product to sell. Right?
Nathan Schuss:Certainly doesn't have to be, but it makes your life a whole lot easier if it is--and even that is a whole lot better than so
Mordecai Rosenberg:Right. So I think that's something I feel like people need to think about, I find that in origination in particular. For some reason people, they start in the industry and get into learning a particular product and then they just keep on selling that product and it's hard for them to learn other products. If that's it, certainly there are exceptions to that rule, if you are deciding that at the beginning of your career which product you want to go into then you have to look at what's the revenue that generated on many other industries. selling that product? If you're making a quarter of a point on million dollar loans, it's going be a lot of effort, right? If you can make-- Sure, I'm saying that's just gross. Then whatever your cut is, but if you're making $100 per loan closing, it's going to take you a lot of closings to get to a million dollars, right? Yes. If you put yourself in a position where you can make a million dollars on a loan closing, Well, then a lot fewer deals. When you make the transition into the industry, how did you find that was? Did you find that the sales was similar? Is it still you talking to the same kinds of people? As far as the reception that you got or the skill set required, did you feel that it was just the same thing or very different?
Nathan Schuss:When you enter a new industry the sales skills transfer, what doesn't transfer is the product knowledge and the industry knowledge. I thought it was going to be easier to pick up those things, then it was. I didn't have a deep understanding of what a mortgage was and how it worked and so on and so forth. I didn't have too much exposure to real estate either. I understood, I had sold to real estate people and real estate owners for a little over a year but really only from one angle. Learning two other languages, which is really, you need to be able to speak to people in order to sell to anyone or to have a conversation with them. You can't make them feel like they know their business better than you from the angle that you're trying to speak to them about. I think that was the challenge. I had already gotten past the fear of failure and challenges with just picking up the phone and thinking what if somebody is mean to me or I can't get through to them or just the idea that it's such a low percentage game, I was already past that. Sales was something that I understood, but now I'm in this whole new industry and to build up the confidence to feel like I can actually offer somebody something of value, that certainly takes time.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Do you remember a time where you felt like it shifted? Where all of a sudden you felt there was a glimmer of light? Was there a moment or a time we're you're like, 'Okay, I think I got this?'
Nathan Schuss:I mean, I think, something in sales, that is extremely important especially for people who are just starting, is to keep in mind you can't go in hoping that this is going to be good. I think if you really want to succeed you have to go in with complete conviction. It's not, hopefully this will work out and I'll be good at this and I can make a great living off of it. You have to know, with 100% conviction, that this is going to work out. Once you've decided that it's a foregone conclusion and that the future you want is the future you're going to have, every hurdle is really just a hurdle. Every challenge is just something you have to work through. I picked that up just from reading a lot of books and learning from other people's experiences. I believed that concept early on, so when I had started at Greystone I definitely felt a level of impatience, but I had sort of felt and knew this opportunity came to me for a reason, and that it is going to bring forth everything that I'm hoping. My frustrations were not 'is this going to work out', my frustrations were really just sort of felt like an athlete who was on the disabled list or something like that. I need to work through the rehab, in order to be able to play again, and that was all about learning, learning that language. In terms of when learning that language and sales skills, everything came together for me I think was probably around eight or nine months. At that point I brought in a couple of deals at once. Yeah, and that really shifted the confidence. At about the year mark, a lot started flowing. I think you just get better, you just get better with time. You just get better and better with time and you experience more and more. Again, you get on the phone or meet people in person, and they can feel that.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah. I remember you telling me a story. I don't know if this is from when you were in high school or afterwards about basketball. You said that you play basketball and every time you took a shot there was some doubt in your head of, is the ball going to go in or not? There was, I guess, just one moment where it just clicked that you have to be totally confident that your ball is going in. And then all of a sudden, your game was transformed. It just made a huge difference in your game. I don't know if that is something you can teach. We all have that voice of self doubt in our heads.
Nathan Schuss:Well, I think you're talking about is actually even bigger than just a confidence conversation. What I had realized, the voice in my head was telling me was that I would play well in a game where we were up by a lot or I would play well in a game where we were down by a lot, right? But in the pressure situations, I noticed that I would shut down and it was through reading some books that really got me to focus on my psychology and that inner voice in my head where I realized that it was completely a defense mechanism. I was so worried about failing and I was so nervous that in the heat of the moment I would try my hardest and still not come out with the win. That was fear of failure that pushed me away from trying to begin with. That was the realization that was completely life changing for me, because I realized was the moment, I'm glad you brought that up, because that was the moment when I was at the waste consulting firm and I had been doing sales for a couple of months. My reaction was 'Wow, I really put myself out there. And I could fail.' I had realized that about myself and the old me in that situation would have given up on sales, because I don't want to really try, I don't want to give it my all and then find out that I'm not good enough. So it's better not to try at all. I realized that having that defense mechanism was going to pull me away from everything I wanted in life. In life, everything worth going after, I think takes really, really hard work. I think it's designed that way, so that you can actually be fulfilled by working towards things and achieving and that realization gave me the ability to flip that. Just be aware of it and decide that, in those moments, I'm going to give everything and if I fail, at least I tried my hardest. It ends up leading to success that you never thought you could have had otherwise.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Hmm. I mean, first of all, I think it's a remarkable realization. I feel like a lot of people spend their lives trying to get to that point of just recognizing. In that moment, there's two seconds left to the game and you're taking the shot. What's happening in your head? There's fear like 'oh, my gosh, I'm not going to hit this.' And therefore, maybe you'll pass it off, or you're just prove it to yourself that you're going to miss because then it proves to you that you weren't capable of doing it then you'll learn your lesson next time. You want to take that shot, but if you can look at that fear as really the trigger to say, 'Oh, I see what's going on.' This is a moment where I can either step forward, right, or I can just live in that protection of the fear. There's immense potential.
Nathan Schuss:I would say it was when I came to that realization and decided that this is something that I needed to change, the change came basically immediately. It was within that moment that I had decided in the big moments you need to try. You might fail and that's going to be more okay than not trying. But that recognition was so valuable because once you recognize the ability to change it, the change itself can come immediately. I think that's exactly what happened.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, I don't know that is thing that can be taught or even learned per se. The human mind is just so complicated and complex. Thinking about with the kids, let's say, how do you teach that to kids? I guess you can talk in that vocabulary or you can about them noticing how they're feeling and notice the fear, but it's an immense amount of courage that's required. What do you think? I mean, do you think that can be taught or learned? Or is it just kind of like something that just thought you fall into, you have to have one of those moments of revelation?
Nathan Schuss:I mean, listen, I feel extremely lucky to have recognized that because that moment really just, I think affected the rest of my life, but it didn't come about by accident. It takes a self awareness and it was not self awareness that I had. I spent years and I still do, just reading self help books. That involves a lot of psychology and if you commit to a better understanding of yourself and spend the amount of time, I'm sure some people spend a lot more time, but the amount of time just trying to improve yourself then those opportunities will come up. If you don't take any time to self reflect or self improve then it's very unlikely that you're going to notice anything big about yourself or you come about change accidentally.
Mordecai Rosenberg:I think that's also a really interesting perspective about salespeople. The stereotype is you want to keep your head down, keep on calling, and keep at it. You don't hear sales people say,'oh, yeah, well, you need to take time for self reflection.' But if you recognize that all of this is really teaching you about yourself and to watch your own reactions to things like,'Oh, how did I react to that? Or why did I say that? Or how did that make me feel? Where am I feeling successful?' Your sales can ultimately be just an amazing curriculum for self development. If you're aware of just the impact that it's having on you and adjusting,
Nathan Schuss:I think it's bigger than sales, I think anybody who's committed to success in any field will do so better as a better version of themselves. No matter what you're doing, if you can constantly try to be better in whatever way, certainly in a leadership position for sure. If you're letting your ego make most of your decisions, then you're probably creating a very toxic environment. If you can get to a point where you're really secure with yourself and you're really not operating with ego then you take challenges. We had somebody in our company leave recently and it was the first experience where somebody who was really embedded into culture left. They went to go work with their father in law and I really didn't take it personally at all because I felt like it was great for the time. We were lucky to have this person for the time that we had them. They were great because they really helped shape the company into what it is today, but a more egocentric version of myself probably would have taken that a lot harder. Who knows what kind of decisions or conversations come from that?
Mordecai Rosenberg:Sure, let's talk about leadership a bit. So you're in sales then you decided that you were going to be a CEO and you were going to start your own land lending business. What are some of the things that surprised you about what it takes to be a CEO? Something never thought of, until you were in that seat?
Nathan Schuss:I wouldn't say I haven't thought of this until I was in that seat, but it certainly rings a little bit more true while sitting in that seat. As a CEO everybody thinks that you have employees, which I guess you do, but you work for those people now. I think a lot of people have that backwards. Your responsibilities are to the people whom you're trying to help. They're their livelihoods, their success and their fulfillment. It's your job as a leader to make sure that everybody has the tools to be able to do that. I'm certain that before I was in this position, I thought it was the opposite. I think it's a good thing that by the time I was here, I recognized that.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah and that's a big shift for a salesperson because salespeople are typically kind of about themselves in some regards. You're trying to get commissions and then you're negotiating with the company you work for. Its always about the commission splits or revenue credit and all of a sudden it's no longer about you right now. There's no fighting for yourself. Your job is to support the people that are around you, so I would imagine that for a lot of salespeople that might be an impossible chasm to jump. It probably takes a particular kind of a person to make that leap.
Nathan Schuss:I mean, I think that's probably true and I'm sure I'll always feel this way. Definitely still trying to figure everything out. You're never done. But going in understanding that the people who you are privileged to have as part of your team is 100% your job to help them.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Anything that you wish you knew before? It's like, man, if I wish I would have known this five years ago, or six years ago or however long it's been?
Nathan Schuss:Not really. I'm surprised to hear myself say that, because you would think that there would be some surprises. For the most part with all the macro stuff, I think it's really sort of been what I've expected. Again, I think that comes back to all the reading that I've done. I've read biographies on so many different business leaders, all the self help stuff, business books and everything that I've read, you realize, you get to live through other people's experiences and because of that, it just brings fewer surprises. The challenges that you encounter are most likely very similar to the challenges that you've read about before. When you've read about it before, you've experienced it through somebody else's eyes. It's just a lot easier to handle when you're going through it yourself.
Mordecai Rosenberg:That makes sense. Yet I feel like for salespeople, certainly in our industry, there's always this question of people asking should they go off and start their own business? People who work for brokerage shops or work for lenders? It's like, should I go off and start my own thing? I'm sure now you have people ask you your opinion on whether or not they should do the same. What would be your advice to a salesperson who maybe very successful in their current role. They're top guy or girl in their firm and they're thinking about going off on their own. What advice would you give someone like that in thinking about that decision?
Nathan Schuss:This is definitely something I've thought about and discussed with people who have asked, and I think it really comes down to what do you enjoy about your job today? What are the aspects of the job that you're doing right now? And can you continue doing those things? If you take that leap, are you still going to be enjoying it? Everybody needs to make money and everybody's in it for the money to some extent, but at a certain point it certainly has to be about more. If you're not enjoying what you're doing every day, then that's a very difficult life to live. You spent so much time working that if it's not fun, challenging or engaging, that's not going to be so enjoyable, it's going to spur some need for change. For myself, I enjoy the sale and I enjoy having deep relationships with team members as well as clients. Money is important and a business has to make money to be successful, but beyond that it's really just about connecting with people and getting to know them in a deep way. That gives me a lot of fire. If I wasn't able to do that in my current role, I wouldn't enjoy it as much. Steven and I started this together and I'm good at so little and Stevens' good at so many things. Our skill sets complement each other well. I don't actually have deep interest in running the operation side of a business. Luckily, Steven and his team handle that stuff. Because otherwise, I mean, I just wouldn't be able to do that myself. So my role actually hasn't changed all that much from what my role was at Greystone and because of that I think it works. To somebody asking me advice, I say, pay very close attention to the things that you enjoy about your job and understand all the other things that come with running a business, you might be a great salesperson, but if you don't enjoy managing people and you're intending on growing your business then you're really not going to enjoy that aspect of the job and that's probably what the job becomes at a certain point.
Mordecai Rosenberg:I've seen that a lot with people who have starting their own businesses. Salespeople, what are they looking for? They're looking for more, in theory, more freedom and more money. Oftentimes that is why they would start their own shop. But what they forget is that once you own your own business, now you have to manage a business. I have met with a lot of CEOs of smaller shops that they've started and they'll say, 'Man, I just wish I could be originating and just selling and now I have to deal with operations, payroll, bills and figuring all that stuff out. So if you like to sell and that's what you're really good at, it may make sense for you to just do that. You may make money even if you're making a lower percentage, theoretically, but if you can just focus on selling, you don't have to spend 80% of your day on figuring out operations. Maybe you can make more money and have a good satisfying life. If you enjoy leadership and you enjoy managing people, and that's part of what gives you energy then you'll figure out how to do that. But you have to realize it has to be someone who does get energy and enjoyment out of developing people and growing people. Yeah. The other thing I would say is that you pointed out that you started your business with Steven. I interviewed JT Staton on another episode and he also, like Greystone, was like an incubator of stuff for startups. I would also advise probably a salesperson never to leave on their own, without knowing who's going to fill that role of getting all of the crap set up. Someone who's going to figure out the office space that you're going to lease? Who's going to get your website set up? Who's going to get your phones connected? Who's going to set up expense reports? Who's going to do payroll? Who's going get all the licensing done? No one. I don't think there's a single salesperson that is good at that stuff and enjoys doing that stuff. I'd find your operations guy and your execution person. To me, that's probably the most critical for first hire even before you start.
Nathan Schuss:Yeah, I think that's 100% accurate.
Mordecai Rosenberg:It's amazing to see what you've grown. I mean, how many people now do you have working for your firm?
Nathan Schuss:We're 11 now and looking to add a couple more soon. As I mentioned before, for me, it just has to be fun and enjoyable. We have no aspirations of being big for the sake of being big. We're extremely careful with hires, making sure that they're a cultural fit because everybody we have really enjoys each other. That just makes coming to work fun. We're slow and steady and just doing what feels right.
Mordecai Rosenberg:I think that also comes from just self awareness. What are you after? What are you doing this for? In terms of starting your own business, selling, growing, or ultimately you want to be happy with your life and your existence. If you're someone who gets joy out of growing to be a big 500,000 person company then that's great. But if you achieve that, now your life is more stressful and you're not enjoying your days.
Nathan Schuss:I can say with full confidence that if I was interviewing somebody who let's just say they're at another company that is originating a billion dollars a year in business, but I feel like they're not a cultural fit, I can say, with complete confidence that we wouldn't hire them. It would just make the the environment unenjoyable. Ultimately would probably end up costing you money the first couple years, maybe they're bringing in business, but everybody else is unhappy. That originator probably isn't that happy, either because they're not having fun. It's a very, long term over short term decision.
Mordecai Rosenberg:We'll finish up, but one thing I would leave you with. I wonder, let's say you had a billion dollar guy who was interested in joining. One part of it is thinking about where you want to be as a company, but I also wonder going back to earlier in our conversation, is there some element that goes back to the basketball? Where it's a moment of, 'Oh, should I take this shot? With two seconds left or not?' You can play it safe with growth also and that's not to say, I don't know what the right answer is? I don't think that bigger is always better. I really don't, but I guess that's just something to ask yourself in terms of growth. How much of it is legit and how much of it is that voice saying, 'look, just stick to your corner'. When you're capable of playing a more dominant role on the court.
Nathan Schuss:That's something that I have thought about, and my gut tells me that being big doesn't give me any more satisfaction. I think it would be really fun and nice if we could continue just adding the right people at the right times. It'll actually be organically and naturally and potentially grow into a large company that way. Big for the sake of big doesn't bring me more satisfaction or happiness. More money doesn't solve a problem, but it can create a problem. That's really how I've thought about
Mordecai Rosenberg:It makes a lot of sense. Well, Nathan, I'm inspired by your growth that you've had over the last few years, you're doing great stuff. I always enjoy our conversations on camera and on camera.
Nathan Schuss:Same here. I never know where they're going go or where they're going end up and I always learn something new. So thank you for that.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Me too. Alright. Well, thank you for your time, and I'll talk to you soon.
Nathan Schuss:Talk to you soon.
Mordecai Rosenberg:All right. Take care.