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 35: Andrew Dansker, Founder and CEO of Dansker Capital Group
Andrew Dansker has carved out a niche in the origination world, and has used his unique value proposition to create an incredibly strong referral source of business. He walks us through his journey during this episode, as well as discusses that impossible thing for a sales person: work life balance.
TIMESTAMPS:
11:23: How To Align My Interests With the Interests of People I'd Like to Have as Referral Sources
13:06: Understanding What You're Selling
27:32: Growth and Learning Over Time
29:30: What You Do vs What You Do Well
37:39: Making Your Referral Source Look Good
38:39: Work Life Balance
46:41: At What Point Can You Start Setting Limits
51:09: Advice For Newer Salespeople
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 speak to the top 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 Andrew Dansker, Founder and CEO of Dansker Capital Group. It is very tempting when you start out in origination or brokerage, in the multifamily industry, to want to be all things to all people. You know, if it's a Class A, B, C, whatever the location, that you want to be the solution provider. However, the best salespeople ultimately carve out a niche. They figure out what their unique value proposition is, and that becomes their calling card in the market. In this interview, you'll hear about how Andrew figured out what his unique value proposition was, and how he's used that to create an incredibly strong referral source of business. We'll also talk about work life balance, which as a salesperson feels like it is an impossibility. But you'll hear how Andrew has carved out time for his family and the most important priorities in his life. So without further ado, let's speak with Andrew. Andrew Dansker, welcome to the Origination Podcast, it's a thrill to have you.
Andrew Dansker:Thank you for having me, I appreciate it very much.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So, Andrew, we've talked about a number of different things, but I'm going to start the way I like to start these things, and have you think about an early sales experience that comes to mind. So it could be high school, grade school, it could be college or after college. When I say your first, earliest sales experience and memory of selling something, does anything come to mind for you?
Andrew Dansker:That's an interesting question. You know, I was never selling cookies door to door, never had a lemonade stand. I didn't do newspapers. I don't have any good old timey stories about how I was an eight year old and created a network in my neighborhood of lawn mowing services or anything like that. I think that I was pretty opposed to being in a sales role when I first became a salesperson. I had always been on the, here's the track, follow the track, kind of trajectory. I found myself at a time where I didn't really know what else to do, or how to do what I wanted to do. And my first real sales job of any kind was, here's the phonebook of owner's in Manhattan, here's your phone, here's your desk. See what happens.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, and the tracked route, I think you went to law school. Is that Is that correct?
Andrew Dansker:Yeah, I did.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So, how did you find your way from law? You know, you went to law school, thinking that you wanted to be an attorney?
Andrew Dansker:No, actually. I went to law school thinking I didn't want to be financially independent. When I was graduating college, I got a degree in political science and I looked at jobs with the State Department, CIA, et cetera, all kinds of interesting Think Tank jobs. And my father said to me, either you can go to law school and I'll cover the cost, or you can graduate and I'll support you emotionally in whatever you do, but you'll be on your own financially the day after graduation. That to me was a very easy thing to come up with there, the decision to go to law school.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah.
Andrew Dansker:I never really wanted to be an attorney. No, I can't say that I did.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Got it. So you get out of law school and you say, I know what I want to do. I want to go into commercial real estate sales. What's the path?
Andrew Dansker:Yeah, not that straightforward a path there either. I got out of law school, I started to sit through the course to take the bar exam. I had accepted a position at Fried Frank to practice law. That was the year of the post recession, I guess it would be called, that was 2009. So, what happened in the in the law business, you got hired the year before. So I was hired into a big class at Fried Frank during good times, and then bad times came and they told our whole class, "we'll pay you half salary to go away for a year and remain available to us for next year." I sat in the class and was starting to study for the bar, or I should say was starting to be told to study for the bar, I can't say that I really did much studying. I just sat there and thought, I don't want this job. I don't even want a year off paid to come back to this job. I don't want this hanging over me. I just did three years of what I was told to do, and I don't want to sign up for another X number of years of what I'm being told to do. I want to go figure out what I want to do. So, I was very fortunate to get connected to an owner operator, who was in the middle, or had just commenced a really big project. He had just purchased the largest office building in the state of Connecticut and was undergoing a full rehab and re-tenanting. We got along, and I agreed to go work with him. It wasn't really part of a plan. It just kind of came together.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Got it. Is that the first time you get the computer and the phone?
Andrew Dansker:Yeah, so I spent a couple years with him, I did rehab work with him all over the country. I had a great time and I learned a tremendous amount. And after a few years of that, I decided it was time to park myself more squarely at home in New York instead of flying around every week to different properties. I started to look for a different development job, thinking that's the track I wanted to stay on, or redevelopment I guess that was. I couldn't find what I wanted and I didn't really know how to find what I wanted, I don't think I had yet the skills to go out and find what I wanted. I went to a friend and asked him for help. He was a mortgage broker, still is a mortgage broker, and he said, "I'm not going to help you find any development jobs, because I think you should come work for me." And I thought about it and I didn't have any development jobs that I wanted, I didn't have any other good ideas, and I didn't think I wanted to do sales. But I figured, you know, sort of like the actor / actress who's waiting tables while they wait for their big break, I figured I'll make some loans while I wait for my big development deal to come along. So that's when I sat down and started making calls.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah. And which firm was that?
Andrew Dansker:Cooper Horowitz.
Mordecai Rosenberg:All right. And that was focused on mortgages?
Andrew Dansker:Absolutely. That's right.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So they give you a computer and a phone and say all right, have at it? What does that look like? Who are you calling? How do you know what say what?
Andrew Dansker:Yeah, it was what I think of as an old fashioned New York brokerage moment of here's your list and your desk and your phone, go figure it out. I didn't know the answer to that question.I literally had a book, I think it was called Sanders, this big blue book that shows every block and lot in New York City, and who the owner is, phone number, etc. I just started going down the list, calling people and saying, I'm a mortgage broker, do you need a mortgage? Which may not be the most effective sales strategy but at that point, I didn't know any better and just figured I would jump in with both feet. So I did.
Mordecai Rosenberg:What year is that?
Andrew Dansker:That's late 2011.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Okay, so you start by calling saying, "do you need a mortgage?" How does that pitch land? Is there a point where you figured out okay, now I know what to say when someone phone picks up the phone?
Andrew Dansker:Yeah, it was an interesting trajectory for me, because I don't think that what was happening was immediately clear to me at that time. Although in retrospect, it's very clear and really informs my business model today. But at that time, in addition to that work, which to answer your question, it was about one in 100 calls would lead to to someone who said "yes, I'm interested in having a conversation" and then some smaller percentage of that that actually went anywhere. But what I did simultaneously was I started going to everyone I had ever met and saying, "do you know anyone in the real estate business?" and going to events, and so on and so forth. And I was very fortunate, my father actually introduced me to Shimon Shkury, who at that time had relatively recently started Ariel Property Advisors, and didn't have a capital markets division yet. And he said to me, yes, we need someone to help our clients with loans. And we'll give you a shot and see how that goes. Of course, I was relying on the expertise of the shop I was working at, I wasn't the one bringing the knowledge to the table, I was really making the connection. But what ended up happening was that I started to do work with Ariel, and with their clients, and that was far more effective and efficient than calling people all day who didn't want to talk to me.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Got it. So this showed you the the strength of a warm intro.
Andrew Dansker:A warm intro, and I think also the strength of a good referral.
Mordecai Rosenberg:A good referral. So the thing about referrals is that you need to align yourself with the referral source. So how do you take that strategy forward?
Andrew Dansker:Yeah, so the question you're asking is a question that I spent about five years even arriving at that question. Maybe I'm not the quickest mortgage broker in the business. So it took me a few years to even figure out the question. And then it took me some more time to figure out the answer. And I think that where my business really began to come together was when I had figured out that question, and then figured out a good answer. Which, for me, was figuring out how do I align my interests with the interests of the people I'd like to have as referral sources? And how do I understand, in my case primarily sales brokers. What they need from their business and their client, and how I can help them achieve that as part of the mortgage process.
Mordecai Rosenberg:That's great. You want to figure out how to be a hero to their clients. How to be a hero to them. Or maybe the best way to say this, you want to enable the sales broker to be a hero to their client through your services.
Andrew Dansker:Absolutely.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So how do you do that? What's the thing that you come upon it as an idea? Was there any kind of new thing that you realized or was it how you were presenting yourself to them?
Andrew Dansker:I think that there's a multi part answer there. Part of it, for me, was about really understanding what I'm selling as a mortgage broker. I think that there is a group of mortgage brokers that are selling a process. You want to be able to tell your investors that you hired a high profile shop and that they ran a process, and that you can't be held responsible for any mistakes, because you hired the right people. I'm not really selling that to that kind of institutional client. There are other shops that do a tremendous amount of volume, I think they're selling leverage, right? We're gonna get a better deal than you're gonna get on your own because we do so much business with such and such a institution. I'm not really big enough that I'm doing that. Occasionally, maybe, but generally not really. So what am I really selling at the end of the day? I'm selling information. What does that mean? To me, that means you're maybe a new entrant to the real estate marketplace, or you're a professional in retail, and you're buying your first resi, or you're very experienced in Boston, and you've just arrived in New York. For whatever reason, you need information, and that's really what I've conceived myself as brokering. And understanding that and being able to convey that to the sales broker helps them understand who to send to me and helps me achieve a very high level of success for them and their clients, as opposed to the frustrating experience of repeated introductions that don't go anywhere. That, I think, was a turning point. Because I definitely did a lot of work with some New York teams that were working with professional New York investors, and I had the same frustrating conversations over and over again, where they would make the introduction, I would speak to the client, and the client would say, I have a direct relationship with your community. Signature, Dime, at that time, maybe Astoria, investors, customers, and I'd be happy to hire you if you can find me something better. Which, once you blanketed the market with direct relationships, because you're a repeat player, it's very hard to do. As a sales broker making that intro, you can start to feel frustrated or unsuccessful in that intro. So understanding that that was the wrong client and that was the wrong target was critical. Besides that, really being able to present clearly the value proposition to the referral source themselves was critical. So beyond, here's what I can do for your client. And here is who the right client is, what's the benefit to you as a sales broker for doing this work with me. In my mind, one of the primary answers is simply that, as a sales broker, your transactions are large and infrequent and you need value add to give to your clients to maintain and deepen your relationships to prepare for those big moments. And that can be recurring updates on your valuation of the property, it can be referrals for legal services, it can be an update in the leasing market to make sure your client is maximizing their income, it can be a referral to someone for tax advice. I think in this case, all those clients are also financing, and knowing that you can add value to their ongoing business through financing, keeping the conversation tied to you and alive, is a critical value add to that referral source in particular.
Mordecai Rosenberg:That's so interesting. So the first point that you made is also I feel very critical. It's when you talk about referrals. So people think, introduce me to Blackstone. That sounds great but if Blackstone doesn't need you, then it's not valuable, it doesn't set you up for success with Blackstone, but also your referral source.
Andrew Dansker:Exactly right. I mean, I don't want to meet Blackstone. I mean, if they're listening, and they'd like to hire me sure, I'd love to chat. But as a general rule, I don't want to meet Blackstone, and I don't want to meet Cornado, and I don't want to meet Related. I'm not selling what they're buying so I'm not doing any good for myself, for them, or the person that puts us together to have that meeting. I would like to meet the person who owns three buildings and is buying a fourth one, and it's vacant, and their lender doesn't do vacant deals, and they need to know how to get a vacant deal done. I know how to do that, I know how to do it really well. I know how to do it with people who will deliver at a good price. And that's what I sell, that information and the ability to facilitate that transaction.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, I've seen a lot of times with sales strategy, a team will say, all right, let's look at the top 50 owners, and let's figure out how to how to get to them. And if you have a product that you think is different and the service is differentiated and would be appealing to them, then great. But another push is to look at who's already doing business with us, who are the people that we serve best, who comes to us and loves working with us, and we provide them a unique service and identify them. So I think what you did there was to help the sales broker know when they should be thinking of you.
Andrew Dansker:Absolutely, and I think it was critical for my own business and the development of my team's business because I think one of the places where so many mortgage brokers in particular get stuck is like you said, you're chasing the wrong thing. You're chasing the biggest, the most obvious, the sexiest, the highest profile target. And you can tell yourself that a bigger paycheck is the same amount of work as a small paycheck and that you should therefore go after the biggest thing you can find in the market, etc. But, you know, I just don't look at it that way. I look at it as really focusing in on what am I really offering, and who wants that?
Mordecai Rosenberg:Right. And then the second point about thinking about being of consistent value to your clients. Because whether or not you're a sales broker or your mortgage broker, it's still a periodic or episodic relationship.
Andrew Dansker:Absolutely.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Well, let's come back to that. I want to continue getting back to your story. It sounds like a pretty good niche that you found with Ariel Property Advisors. So from there did you go to Marcus?
Andrew Dansker:Yeah. That's exactly right, I moved to Marcus. I was given an opportunity that I felt I couldn't turn down, which was to partner with a team that is still in operation called New York Multifamily, which was at the time run by Peter Von Der Ahe, Joe Koicim. Shaun Riney became a principal member of that team and I was given the opportunity to essentially handle their business. And I think that, in retrospect, it's ironic, but the doors that opened up were the exact opposite of the doors that I thought it was opening up. So I thought that was the key into the introductions to the high profile repeat big players in New York, who I met with that were buying buildings from them. And then discovered that I was selling a product but they didn't want to buy. So it was very interesting in that where I thought that was taking me was not where it took me at all, which may be, could be the theme for the career trajectory, we're tracing, right, I thought I was going one way it turned out, it was a winding road, not a straight road. It's going a different way the whole time. But that took me to Marcus and Millichap. And from there was really where that strategy and that understanding that I just described came into focus for me, in part really in contrast with what I was actually trying to do.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Got it. So it sounds like you ran into some of the same challenges of, at the end of the day, do these people actually need that service or not? Right, the institution?
Andrew Dansker:Absolutely.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah. So, from there, you end up starting your own shop?
Andrew Dansker:Yeah, and for you, it was a short partial sentence when you said from there, but for me, that was a long eight years of figuring out what I was doing, understanding my product, understanding who I was able to sell it to successfully, understanding how to source those clients to to sell it to and understanding the value of those relationships. But yes, from there, I started my own company.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Well, let's delve into the 8 years a bit. So what did you get as far as your business strategy? You said that
Andrew Dansker:Sure. So I think to start off with, I started you expected one thing and the doors that opened ended up being with the same business plan as everyone else at that time, different. As far as how your business plan evolves over the course of that eight years, what does that look like? let's call it 2013. Benchmark is buying a lot of buildings, SLATE is buying a lot of buildings, there's a lot of guys out there buying buildings in New York, renovating them, cleaning them up, selling them, and I aspired to do business with them. That's what I thought I was doing. As I got farther along, I discovered they know the same people that I know, in terms of lending relationships, and the people who are hiring me are the people who say, I've just started my fund. I've just gotten to New York, I've just switched product classes, or I'm selling my product in New York, I'm buying in Florida. I don't know anyone in Florida. So there was definitely a long process for me of trial. I don't want to say trial and error or trial and failure, but I'm trying to do something right, which was to go after those big name repeat players. And discovering where I was actually succeeding and what that meant and using that feedback to define who my client was and what I was actually selling. So that for me is now in hindsight incapsulated very succinctly but was actually a multi year process of trial, failure, why isn't it working? What is working? That took years to come into clarity for me. And while I was there, I had gone in to do the work for New York Multifamily, but I ended up doing work for teams across the company. I did work with teams, not just other teams in New York, but also Brooklyn, New Jersey, Boston, Florida offices. I was beginning to understand what the real mindset of those brokers because I was working with them all the time. I was in the same company with them and understanding their needs and understanding how to tailor my quasi product offering, my value add proposition to their needs. It was, again, a multi year process of working with all those teams and understanding their businesses and understanding how they were understanding their businesses. So like I said, maybe I'm just not the fastest learner, but it took me about eight years.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah well, I wouldn't consider myself the fastest learner either. I feel like a lot of the smartest people are not the fastest learners.
Andrew Dansker:Listen, I think part of the challenge is that there's no great roadmap, no book on how to build a great, successful middle market mortgage brokerage company. Or mortgage brokerage business, if you're inside another company. There's no roadmap, it's not like school where there's a syllabus, and these are the books you read, and then you get all the information and draw your own conclusions, but here's the map. My experience was, it takes time in real life to even understand the question you're supposed to be asking, let alone what the answer is.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah. Right. And I guess that question is really, what value am I creating and for who?
Andrew Dansker:Yeah, absolutely.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So if you think about what your elevator pitch was at the beginning of those eight years, and then you think about what your elevator pitch was at the end of them, what would you say had changed? As far as your self perception and and how you explained the value that you added? What did you realize by the end of those eight years?
Andrew Dansker:180. I think that my pitch at the beginning was really narcissistic in a way of, you should hire me because I'm smart, and hardworking, and I want your business. And I left with a totally outward facing pitch which was, you should hire me because I know what you need to know and I can help you grow your business. Totally 180 reversal on that pitch.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah. I can help you grow your business. And the you is the sales broker, or the end client?
Andrew Dansker:Either one, either the sales broker or the end client. And I don't just work with sales brokers, I have a lot of great attorneys that send me clients, and I've done work with accountants, and so on and so forth. And there are multiple other professionals in that group of referral sources. But yes, it is both the referral source and the end client to whom I feel very comfortable saying, I have a very clear recipe and great track record for helping you grow your business, together with you. And that's a total 180 from where I started, which was, hire me because I want to make a living and I don't really know what else I'm doing.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Right. And I don't want to go back to a law firm. So if you're sitting with a client, and you're saying I know how to make you successful. What is it? You're sitting with a client and they're like, well, I've worked with lots of other mortgage brokers I know the drill. What are you saying that to explain that no, this is why Dansker is different than other groups that you've worked with?
Andrew Dansker:That's a good question. I think that one of the things I've found in our business and in sales in general, is that one of the hardest things to do is to turn something down. I think that a sales broker, or mortgage broker, or someone in sales, at least in my experience in the real estate business, really often struggles with saying, no, this isn't for me. And I think that what that leads to a lot of the time is people taking on things they really shouldn't take on. Andthen struggling to get them done, and then ending up with a bad result for the client. Whereas one of the things that we do, and I think we do well, is understanding what we do and what we do well, and being really comfortable saying to people, yes, I can help you with that, and I know how to solve the question you're asking, or the problem you're presenting. Or no, I don't, and I'm willing to investigate for you, if that's what you want to do. Or, alternatively, I'm not willing to investigate. But not starting off with the answer is yes to anything you ask for, and then I'll go figure it out after you leave my office. I think that coming from that position of confidence in our ability to generate a consistent business, and therefore, our willingness to focus on the things that we're good at, really distinguishes us in a way that meaningfully changes the result for the client. Because there's a total difference, would you go to a dentist that was going to put you out with the gas and you lay there, and then he opens the dental textbook and figures out how to drill your cavity? I mean, that's a terrifying prospect. Which should be no less terrifying if you tell someone, yes, I have a $20 million transaction, and I have a million dollar hard deposit and you leave their office, and then they're Googling lenders. That's scary and should be scary and that's the that's the thing that happens. So I think that's something that really distinguishes us is being comfortable saying, I know the answer to this question, or I don't, and be honest about that.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah. I imagine there's more to what you're saying also, because if their alternative is an upstart, fly by the night firm, that's one thing. If they're if their alternative is CBRE or JLL, or I don't know...
Andrew Dansker:Well, I disagree with your premise a little bit, because I don't think that most mortgage companies operate as a firm, which does distinguish us. We, in my firm, share information whereas most firms operate in a silo where each broker is on their own. And that's very different in terms of the quality and quantity of information available to me and to the brokers in my office. But I think also the symptom of insecurity that I just described to you is not exclusive to a fly by night firm. There are plenty of people who work at big, reputable companies, and are perfectly capable of placing a CMBS loan, or an agency loan, etc., and really have no business trying to place a vacant apartment building in Ditmas Park. But they will take the assignment because they don't have any other assignments this quarter and they figure how hard could it be? It's an apartment building. It's vacant. So I'll just look up the local banks. That happens all the time and has nothing to do with the quality of the firm.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I have a weird question for you. You've been around a lot of investment sales brokerage teams, Mark at your multifamily, Marcus, and you've also been around mortgage brokerage firms. Do you find that there's a difference in willingness to share information between investment sales brokers and mortgage brokers? And the reason why I asked you that I've seen that on the investment sales side, there's oftentimes an open willingness to share information. On the other hand, I have experienced what you're talking about on the mortgage side where it is siloed and protective. But I'm wondering if you've seen any difference, or if it's the same as it were, or maybe you haven't seen that differentiation?
Andrew Dansker:That's a good question. I think it depends. I think that sales brokers aren't exactly walking around to each other saying, hey, there's a hot buyer in the market. Here's his or her phone number in case you have any listings. But I do think it depends on the individual, their reputation and the culture they've created, either in their company or in the community. I had a call last night, actually, with a friend of mine who works at JLL. And I said, we're looking at a deal, it's a little outside our depth and I'd love your feedback to see if this is an assignment we should take on. If you have any suggestions for me, I'm poking around to figure out, can I take this assignment on with confidence? Which goes back to something I described about us. But the point here is, I feel very comfortable calling him and asking him that question. And when he calls me, I answer the same question. And I maintain that network throughout our industry to make sure I have the best information available, and I don't find the mortgage brokerage community to be any more or less protective of information than in the other.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah. You're clearly not like that. You have that willingness to share information and and learn from others, from what else is happening. I think that has differentiated you, which is great.
Andrew Dansker:Yeah, and it's a big world out there. I mean, there's plenty of money for everybody to make. Some other guy or woman is trying to make a living, it's not like if I don't tell them how to solve their problem that their client is going to just jump into my arms and do the deal with me instead. I think that's a weird fantasy of a mindset that I just don't ascribe to. I think there's plenty of business for everyone. There's no reason why I can't help somebody.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah, I think one of the big takeaways that I'm getting from this part of our conversation is, when it comes to the referrals, a lot of people are just working with accountants, attorneys or sales brokers. You think just announcing that you would like to be introduced is enough of a reason, or you say, I'll pay you a referral fee. And that should be enough. A referral fee that's nice. But if you're going to embarrass me in front of my friends, when we do, it's not worth it.
Andrew Dansker:It's not worth it at all.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So you need to sell that person and you need to make them, this referral source, a hero.
Andrew Dansker:I agree with you 100%. I think the referral fee is the least important factor in the equation for whether or not someone sends you a deal. And simply announcing that you'd like a deal distinguishes you from absolutely nobody. I think that where I really focus is, I'm going to make you look good, I know what I'm doing, I'm not going to take on something I can't do. I'm going to be honest with your client, I'm going to be respectful with your client. And also, if the client comes back and is talking to me about a sale, I'm going to tell you and not someone else. I don't pass people's clients around and I have a reputation for maintaining that confidentiality. And that's very important. There's no way I could work with 20 different teams in the same company if I was passing their clients back and forth. So having the reputation for those things and being able to understand how to add that value, I agree with you, far exceeds the value of a couple thousand dollar check.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah. So let's shift gears a little bit. You and I have talked about work life balance a bit. A lot of people think about it like have a work life balance, or be a salesperson. That salespeople are on call 24/7 and your work is never done. It could be it could be 9 or 10 o'clock at night, there's someone else who you could email or reach out to or find another lead. And I know you have two young kids who clearly you love and very important to you. How do you handle the work life balance? Because having little kids is also a lot of work. So how do you approach that in terms of ending a day or carving out time for them, or making space for your family?
Andrew Dansker:I think that's a great question. And I think it's great that you're even asking the question, I think a lot of people don't think about even asking that question until it's maybe a little bit too far in the rearview mirror to make the right choices. I think that I know that this is the most important thing to me. And, to me, knowing that unequivocally enables my decision making. I've been very fortunate in an incredible number of things, not the least of which is that I started my career in this business as a salesperson, before I had children. And I worked all the time, I worked at night, I went to an event 3-4 nights a week, sometimes I went to a breakfast event as well. I worked 10-12 hours a day. Besides those events, I went to the office on Sunday to get ready for the week. And I really used a lot of my downtime to rest, to be in great shape, mentally and physically, to excel in the time that I was working. So for me, it was a real cycle of work, recover, work, recover, which you could make an argument about whether or not that was healthy. But either way, that's where I was. And that enabled me to build a business, which I've been very fortunate to say, has achieved a level where I'm able to make some of those distinctions. I totally recognize that I have the good fortune of being in a position to say that I've concluded based on where I am, that the answer to how much is not more. And the answer to how much for me is enough. If you need a B plus to get into graduate school, and you're getting straight A's, you're wasting your time, you should get a B plus and do something else. And I feel the same way about money which is, could I work more and get more? Yes, you are right, I can stay here till 10 o'clock at night, I can email people, I can do all kinds of things after hours to add to the business during the day. I could work 24 hours a day. But the goal is not more, the goal is enough. And I'm very fortunate to have enough. And I draw the
line at about 5:30 every day, which I know sounds ludicrous in the city we live in, but at about 5:30 every day, I go home, and I see my kids. I certainly will take a call while I'm walking home, and that's fine, but by the time I walk through
that door at 6:15, I turn off my phone and put it down next to my keys. And I don't pick it up again until my kids are asleep. The reality of working and having kids is that you don't have a lot of time with them during the week. That time is sacrosanct to me, I don't care who is calling me. With respect to the head of every major investment firm in New York City, they could all call me at once at 6:30 but I'm not picking up because I have enough for what I need. And the rest is for my kids and my wife. And I recognize that that's a privileged position to be that I'm able to draw that line and I draw it very firmly.
Mordecai Rosenberg:I think what you also realize is, let's say it's 2-3 hours of time that you spend with your kids. It could have been that someone called when you're still in the office and on calls for the for the next three hours, and then you've got to call him back afterwards. And that is perfectly understandable. The fact that it's a block on your calendar doesn't mean that it's a higher priority than the other stuff that that's important to you. And the world isn't going to fall apart. Yes, you need to be available at a service
Andrew Dansker:Yeah, it's okay. I don't live in a world where if session, but everyone knows that people are busy and calling back a couple hours later is okay. you don't answer my email in an hour, I think you're ignoring me. And maybe some people feel that way if I don't answer them in an hour. But you know, the other thing I think is needed is drawing boundaries. The way I think about it is, the week has 168 hours in it, and that's true for you and for the CEO of American Express. The CEO of American Express is doing far more with their week than you are, no offense. I don't know how busy you are, but I'm guessing they're running a pretty big company. But they've got the same 168 hours that you do and even if they only need to sleep three hours a night and they don't eat and they don't shower, there's still a limit. So the limits that we place or the limits that we don't place are totally arbitrary. And even if you allow the work to run into your family life and you treat your family time as something that you can override if necessary, you're still going to hit a hard limit somewhere which is sleep and eat and shower. Which is going to max out at 168. So I don't feel that it's in any way more or less arbitrary to draw that line at family time versus basic human needs time. And I don't think that it matters in a way, obviously if you drew it at one hour a day, at some point, it matters. But to carve off 90 minutes for your kids is, is doable and survivable. And the other thing I think it does is it forces you to be more efficient, which is to say that, when I get a new client, it's a smaller transaction, it's a one off transaction, it's not someone I have a long term relationship with, I share it with my team. And again, that's back to that mindset that there's plenty to go around, which I think it's critical to continue to maintain but I don't mind sharing. I'm happy to see them succeed, I'm happy to see them make the fee, I don't need to reach in their pocket on every deal, or keep every deal that comes to me for myself, I'd rather share. But that also enables me to focus on the most efficient use of my time for the highest value targets.
Mordecai Rosenberg:So what would you say though, for someone who's new, a younger person entering in to the industry? Because, like you said, when you're starting out and all you have is your computer and your phone, you have to make a name for yourself. You have to get out there. Do you think that you still have to do your time?
Andrew Dansker:Absolutely.
Mordecai Rosenberg:At what point can you start setting those limits? Is it that you've got to do your hard time for 5-10 years, and then you can relax?
Andrew Dansker:I'm not a dues paying guy in the sense that I feel you need to suffer to suffer, to pay your dues. I do think however, there are some basic mechanics of our business, which if you understand them, then you understand why you have to overload your schedule to begin with, and then that you then have the ability to dial that back later on. And I think the amount of time it takes depends on how successful you are ramping up. Because basically, what you're doing in the beginning of your career as a salesperson in many ways is you're creating a funnel. What I mean by that is you're basically meeting an incredibly large number of people, if you're doing your job. And you're filtering through them for people that you like, that like you, that you connect with, that you see eye to eye with, and to whom you can add value and that you think can add value to your business. And that's essentially what you're doing at the beginning. And once you have created that roster of people, which you could call your network, you can run your business without really attending to it in the same way in the sense of growing it. You don't need to fill the top of that funnel as aggressively. Even if you add a little bit at a time, once you've established the baseline of a functioning business, you can dramatically scale back that those efforts. I would say there's somewhere between 50-100 people that I work with regularly either as clients or referral sources, etc. And I know that from some of them, I'll see a lot of deals in a year. From some I'll see none this year, some next year, and that's okay. But I'm not ramping up to that number every year, they follow along year to year, some will drop off some new ones come on, and that's okay. I think in the beginning of your career, you absolutely have to fill that as fast as you can. Once you get to 99, okay, so then this year, you don't do nearly as much you need to add one more to have a full complement. That's what I think.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah. Getting back to what you were saying at the beginning, you have to know what the value is that you're providing. Your sales calls have a much more rifle shot approach because you're here, you're gonna know within 10-15 minutes if this is someone who is a good client for And if you're a good match for them. At you.
Andrew Dansker:Absolutely. the beginning, it's just a scattershot, you're going after every one and you're trying to figure out, where am I going to get an in? Also, at the beginning, people will just take a flyer at something that they have no experience with, you know that vacated industrial building with zoning issues and environmental problems like oh, yeah, sure I could do that. And then they try to figure it out. Maybe sometimes if that's the only shot you have, you have to spend all your time trying to cut your teeth on it. But you have to get to the point where you have a track record, and track record will give you confidence, it'll make you better at selling. And so those first few years, I think your goal is to develop a track record. I agree with you 100%. I think that track record helps you define what you're selling, helps you get the experience to sell properly. I mean, I think an experienced person who's gonna hire you can smell that you've never done a deal before, if that's the case, and you've got to sell around that to begin, which is fine. I think you can sell around that, especially if you're with a strong company, and you can lean on that reputation. But I agree with what you said, 100%. It's about reps at the beginning, you just need to get your reps in, it doesn't matter what it is.
Mordecai Rosenberg:The reality is that when you're 25, you have energy, you can work untill 11 at night, and still be back at it. There were years when I was in sales that I was in the office every night untill 11-12 at night, and back in at 8 in the morning. Today, I don't think I could do that sustainably. So you wish there was something that you could tell a newer salesperson, some kind of silver bullets, stick to this course. What would you say to someone who's just starting out or f they've been in for a few months? It's a hall at the beginning?
Andrew Dansker:It is. I boil it down for the people I hired to two things. One of them is follow the business plan and don't give up. And that's it. Obviously, you need to be in a place where you understand what the business plan is, and you've been given a good business plan which functions. But assuming that to be true, it's purely about following the plan and not giving up. Everyone I see that fails, sales broker or mortgage broker, either they're not doing what the successful person or company has told them to do, they've decided they've got their own strategy, or they stopped doing it. I think it really boils down to those two things.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Scott Adams wrote a book, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Succeed. He says in there that he doesn't believe in goals, he believes in processes. For example, if you have a goal of losing 20 pounds and you lose 20 pounds, now what? Where do you go? Where do you go from there? And what if you don't hit that goal? Now you feel like a failure and you're not going to try again? But the process is alright, every day, I am going to put on my gym clothes, and that's the starting point. You could do that. Once you have your gym clothes on, you're probably going to go out the door and do something.
Andrew Dansker:Yeah, I agree with that 100%. When I talk to my team about building their business plans, I always tell them the same thing. I can't tell you the number of people I've hired who have told me they want to make a million dollars a year. And that's great. And you can back that into how much you need to make every month and every week and how much you do this and that. But at the end of the day, what you need on your business plan are action items. I'm going to sit down at 9:01, I'm going to make 100 outbound calls, and then I'm going to get up and have lunch, and that's it. That's the plan. That's a business plan. I'm going to make$10,000 a day, to me is not a plan.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah. And maybe that comes back to the same boundaries, because sometimes with that work life balance, you have to make boundaries at work. Because especially once you start getting deals, now you can just spend all day managing your deals. And you're not making the outbound calls. When I was managing a sales team, we had a thing where I think it was 9-11 in the morning, we were all going to just turn off computers, not take our calls, and just hit the phones. Then after 11, we get to managing whatever the fires were of the day, but you've got to carve out that boundary also.
Andrew Dansker:I agree with you, absolutely. I think that I see it every time with new hires. They come in, they're not making any money, yet they build up their network a little bit, they get some leads, they start closing some deals, they stopped originating, the deals closed, and all of a sudden, they have an empty pipeline again, and their income at the beginning is very wavy. And basically, for me, I try to get ahead of it, although it's a challenge, I think, because it's a skill set to manage those two things together. But I would say the sales coaching I'm doing for everybody who's about a year to 18 months in is how to overcome that wavy income and flatten it out. Yeah, once you figured out how to get the deals, how do you get the deals while you're doing deals? And then you can start thinking about how do you get more and bigger and more efficient, etc. But that's a big challenge.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Yeah. So as we finish up, I want to ask you our last question. If I asked you to fill in the blanks, you see that most salespeople do X, but really they should be doing Y, what's a mistake that you see a lot of a lot of sales guys
Andrew Dansker:I think I do have an answer to that. I built a very specific business, which is that I personally close one to two loans a week and have for more than half a decade. Yeah, making? Something that to you it's so clear that that you're six years, I've been running one to two loans every single week, missing the mark, this is what you should be doing? Anything no exceptions. There are absolutely zero loans among that list that would make the cover of the Real Deal, Real Estate Weekly, New York Real Estate Journal, not a single one. To me, that doesn't bother me at all. I think a lot of people are into what I call whale hunting. They want the big stuff, they want the sexy stuff, they want the cover page stuff, they want the stuff to tell their friends and family about. Nobody cares about the work I'm doing. Nobody was writing an article about it. come to mind? Nobody wants to hear about it at a cocktail party. I finance a 10 unit apartment building and a story that nobody cares. And that's fine. The person who's borrowing the money cares. But my business is totally built on singles and doubles. How do I consistently produce good results for my clients and my referral sources over and over again. And I see a lot of people attracted to the biggest name, the biggest deal, the biggest paycheck. And I just I think that's a mistake. Personally, I
Mordecai Rosenberg:Right, and sometimes it actually does die. don't want one $1 million paycheck every year. I don't have the intestinal fortitude to do that. You've been in this business for a long time as well, right? Every deal dies at least three times before it closes. And if that's your one paycheck for the year, you want to throw up and pass out at the
Andrew Dansker:Yeah, and also it does die sometimes, too, same time when the client calls you up and says, I'm not signing this. which makes for a rough year, if that's your only deal. I want to be in the position of I have three other deals to close this week. And if you don't want to sign it, don't sign it. I don't know what to tell you. I mean, it's a bank, they don't care that you don't like the font that the loan docs are using, or whatever you come up with. There's a certain point in which you have to detach from that. And the ability to detach, I think, is part of finding your own center of gravity and being able to survive long term, and to get out of that emotional roller coaster.
Mordecai Rosenberg:I love it. So Andrew, how can people find you if they want to get a hold of you for a loan or a job?What's the best way to get in touch?
Andrew Dansker:I appreciate that. For a loan or a job, you can find me at adansker@danskergroup.com. That's D-A-N-S-K-E-R. And you can email me directly. If you need a loan, I might do it or one of my team might do it. If you want to get hired, we have someone full time who's in charge of hiring and training. We were very hands on in that department, so we have a full time person whose job it is just to make sure that our new recruits succeed, which we have a great track record with, thankfully. And I'd love to hear from anybody.
Mordecai Rosenberg:Andrew, thank you so much for your time, this has been delightful and we'll be in touch.
Andrew Dansker:Thanks very much.
Mordecai Rosenberg:All right. Thanks, Andrew. Take care.