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Fail Forward and Flourish: Dani Hampton's Real Estate Success Secrets

• Ed Mathews • Season 4 • Episode 122

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Leadership, Real Estate, and Balancing Life: A Candid Talk with Dani Hampton

In this episode, Ed Mathews from Real Estate Underground welcomes Dani Hampton from the Dani Hampton Group based in Roanoke, Texas. 

Ever wondered how to navigate the tumultuous waters of real estate investment? We unpack the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of running a successful brokerage. I recount my own experiences as a landlord in the challenging 2020 market, highlighting the importance of preparation and strategic financial decisions.

We delve into a variety of topics, ranging from real estate and leadership to balancing work and family life. Dani shares her journey of building a successful real estate team and her philosophy of 'failing forward.' 

Discover how learning from inevitable mistakes and making calculated moves can lead to financial stability and business growth, even in the most uncertain times.

Explore the diverse avenues of personal growth and development with us. Dani and I dive into our shared passion for consuming knowledge through podcasts and audiobooks, and she introduce the fascinating "Working Genius" framework that has revolutionized my approach to business. 

From the joys of beach relaxation and creative activities to the true meaning of success, our conversation provides a holistic view of professional and personal enrichment. 

Don't miss out—connect with Dani on Instagram at @theDaniHampton for more wisdom and inspiration!

00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview

00:16 Meet Dani Hampton

00:28 Balancing Family and Career

01:04 Building a Real Estate Team

02:50 Leadership and Emotional Intelligence

05:12 Creating a Positive Company Culture

10:16 Financial Decisions and Entrepreneurship

15:00 Lessons Learned in Real Estate Investing

22:09 The Final Four Questions

28:37 Conclusion and Contact Information

New outro for Season 4 (2024)

Additional Resources:

Speaker 1:

Greetings and salutations. Real Estate Undergrounders. It's Ed Matthews with the Real Estate Underground. Thank you so much for joining us today. Today is a cool episode. We're gonna be talking about yes, we're gonna talk about real estate, but we're also gonna talk about leadership and a whole bunch of other things, and I can't wait for this conversation. I'm joined today by Dani Hampton of the Dani Hampton Group, based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, if I'm not mistaken, roanoke, texas. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much, Ed, for having me.

Speaker 1:

My pleasure. So we were just talking offline about how we both have two girls, each and different stages in life, but I can't imagine not being a father of daughters. People ask me a long time ago do you ever want a son? I'm like nope, I'm good, this is perfect.

Speaker 2:

I have plenty of nephews in my life.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, my, so my two are number eight and nine of nine grandkids and a whole bunch of boys that I can go hang out with. So that's fine. There you go. Welcome to the show. How are you Doing great? Doing great, good, good. So, for those folks that haven't discovered your Instagram yet, I want you to tell us a little bit about who you are and your company, and we'll get into it.

Speaker 2:

All right? Well, I am a open book. A lot of people will notice that from my social media channels. I love to be transparent. I love people to see the good, bad and ugly of what life looks like, and I know a lot of people see social media as the highlight reels, right? So I feel like fortunately for me I've built my real estate business almost completely on social media.

Speaker 2:

I started when I was 22 years old. I am married to the man I met when I was 15 years old and we've been now married for 15 years. I don't think I'm old enough to say that, but I now am in that new era of our marriage. We're always failing forward in life of work-life balance, right? Is there such a thing? I'm not sure. I think we're all still trying to figure it out. Right, and I run a real estate team. I actually started on real estate teams in my first five years in real estate I just had my 11th anniversary. So the last six years, I have been constantly working on how I can make a real estate team succeed, right?

Speaker 1:

So congratulations on that and congratulations on your relationship. It was funny when you were telling that story about you and your husband, I flashed back to my own experience. So I met my wife when we were 18. So we've been together 36 years and I'm nowhere near old enough to be in a relationship that long. But nevertheless, here we are. Right In terms of one of the things that you said that really resonated with me is failing forward.

Speaker 1:

Right, and that comes from two really important places. One is leadership right, and the aspects of being a leader. But the other part of it is high emotional intelligence. Right, because when you are, when you're fine with people making mistakes, turns out, we're all human. Right, when you're fine with people making mistakes and the my daughter my oldest, my younger daughter plays softball and her coach always says don't worry about the errors, just learn from it. Right, and that's it, and it's something that we try to do here at Clark street. It sounds like it's what you try to do within your own company. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about your philosophy on that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So I think that, depending on if you're looking, looking for it, or if it finds you the right leadership and I feel like in a way, it found me I don't know if I necessarily went into it thinking that I wanted to be some head honcho of a company I think that I naturally just put group at the end of my name, just thinking I would have one assistant and that would be the extent of my business.

Speaker 2:

I'm like we are two people, we are now a group, and so I feel as if depending on anybody's real estate experience is, I felt very confident as a real estate agent, so, as much as I felt qualified to start having people come work with me, honestly, having myself build a real estate team and this is what I think you're going to laugh at, because we already talked about our families myself build a real estate team, and this is what I think you're going to laugh at, because we already talked about our families I think it's making me a better parent and it's making me a better spouse, because we're all working with different humans day in and day out, and then, especially when you start to employ or get an agreement with other independent contractors, I feel like we're at this mercy of.

Speaker 2:

We need to like each other, to want to work with each other and to be having a similar mission and vision and values, and that's probably what I would say summarizes it for me, because I don't know if I started a team and my failing forward experience has been all around me, me figuring out my mission and my vision and my values.

Speaker 1:

Right. It's interesting, and so when, now that you have built a team right and you're, it's a full blown company, how have you created that culture?

Speaker 2:

Yes, that, and honestly, that is probably the part that I've honestly pivoted in the last six weeks. I mean, that's the part where I'm like I've been building my culture. Honestly, I've been building my culture on something that I felt like I didn't know what my vision of the culture was, because sometimes you either are influenced by either a past experience and I didn't necessarily care for the cultures that I was a part of before. I could pick apart and obviously I left those teams, so I'm like I could pick apart all the things that I don't feel went right, but in those moments I'm like I got into real estate when I was 22. So I honestly didn't have a professional kind of corporate experience of working for another company.

Speaker 2:

Whole 2020-2021 movement, my culture has probably changed three or four times and a lot around the culture of accountability and the culture of caring, and that's honestly what I'm putting more efforts into. I've probably put too much focus into the accountability and the standards culture that I felt like there was some people that I think didn't realize that at the end of the day, we are human and we do actually care about our people, and so now we're starting to get to a point of going. How can we make sure that we still have a culture where we're like we care about you and that's why we hold you accountable?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, right, and I think that last sentence is really important, right. So I used to work for this guy. He's a mentor of mine, his name's Rob Bernstein, and he once told me he said our payroll is an investment in human beings, right, and so there has to be a return on that investment. And that's the accountability part, where, for every dollar they invest in, I was in sales working for him and the, for every dollar they invest in, I was in sales working for him. And for every dollar he invests in the sales team, he needs back a multiple of that in order to effectively run the business.

Speaker 1:

And it was a very important lesson for me to learn, because and I was mid-career at that point I didn't really think about it in terms of that I was actually advocating for a guy who happened to be struggling, and he was Rob, was pushing me to hold him accountable, and I, in that conversation, learned my job is not to coddle someone who's struggling. My job is to first is look in and say, okay, what could I do to from a training perspective, from a mentoring perspective, from a management perspective, from an accountability perspective? What can I do to from a training perspective, from a mentoring perspective, from a management perspective, from an accountability perspective what can I do to help this person? And then it becomes binary. If I've done all those things and they're still struggling, then maybe we let them off the hook and encourage them to go find someplace else to work. Right, and that's okay.

Speaker 2:

And that's been my experience for the last six months, really.

Speaker 1:

But it doesn't mean that person isn't valued right. It's just that they're in the wrong spot, and that's okay. And I find that when you hold somebody accountable, like you're talking about, and it either works out or it doesn't, in almost every case they're relieved right, because it's okay. Now we're real and let's have a conversation about that, and what do I need to do to perform? Well? Okay, we'll give you those tools, we'll give you that capability. You got to bring something to the table as well, and it either works out or it doesn't mean that person is any less. It's just not a good fit, and that's okay.

Speaker 2:

Yep, and that's on it.

Speaker 2:

So for that, I think that what I've gotten better at recently has been really trying to understand each other's expectations Right, our expectations of each other.

Speaker 2:

So I feel like the more I can prepare them for that culture or to prepare them that the reason why we hold you accountable is because we care, is because in most cases, this is not a volunteer job and that this is a job that we all are expecting some kind of money to come in and as much as that they need money to bring in to be able to support their lifestyles. We have to have money coming in to support the business and I think there's a lot of that piece, because even for us as a real estate team, we had to get away from the fact that they were thinking in sales. If a money of that part of their money is going towards the company, that's not my pocket. For it to be my pocket, it's going to the company, and this is why we have all the things that we have and the tools that we have, so I can support other agents and help them get their time back, because that's key, and I think we're all trying to find more time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the thing is that entrepreneurship is it's an interesting play because, yes, there is a point where it becomes lucrative, but that in-between point, that growth spurt, means that you, as the owner, as the entrepreneur themselves, are foregoing, deferring a lot of gratification, and that can be money, prestige, whatever. So the business can get to that point, and I think that's one of the reasons why it's something that you're really smart about, obviously, and it's a place where a lot of leaders, a lot of entrepreneurs, struggle. Is that delayed gratification, right? They start seeing money come in and they're like, ooh, I would that shiny car or that beach house or I'd like to upgrade whatever, and you forget that money is oxygen for your business, right?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and I, for even just being comfortable with speaking about failures, is something that I have had over the last four years has been two cars. I've always had two cars. I have a Jeep Wrangler that I actually branded to my business and it is my car, it's my marketing piece, but it's not a car that I usually like to drive as a daily driver, especially on highways when it's windy. So I've always had a family car of some sort, and we made a decision at the end of this last year, as we invested a lot in the business, just to be able to work on our branding and our marketing and to just build the vision that I've created and I've sold, I had to sell my one of my cars. I am now in Jeep Wrangler full-time.

Speaker 1:

All right, it's. Yeah, those are the. Those are hard decisions, right? And does that make it more convenient for you personally? Right, I just have visions of a five-year-old climbing into a Jeep, right, and that's not easy for her, right? But but that's what mom and dad are for. Give her a little scooch and get her up in the backseat. But the fact is, it was the right decision for your business and that is so important to remember, because, so, if you're out there listening and you just got a big honking check for a wholesale deal you just did, or a flip you just did, or a multifamily you just sold off, congratulations. But first, reserve a whole bunch of money for taxes and second, reserve a whole bunch more for growing your business, right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that something that was preached to me very early in business and over time has been just really building out that five year plan and making sure that you are keeping your eye on that five-year plan. And obviously, yes, you can pivot, you can make changes. But I think that, knowing I felt like we were nervous about that five-year plan, so we always only built out for a year and, as you shared, yes, you have great months and there was there when I felt very confident in real estate. I was like, wow, I'm able to be this person who has two cars. I thought that was like making it and I was like the fact that I have a quote, quote, fun car and to the point of you know what I in that moment and I was like this is a first world problem for me, for me to sell my car and I'm not having any more kids. My two kids are small enough right now that they can hang out in the backseat of that car.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and the cool part is you and your husband can still play man to man defense on the kids. Once you have the third, you got to go zone and the oldest one figures out they have you outnumbered at some point, then your life gets quite weak Exactly your life gets, why we exactly there we?

Speaker 1:

go, but the but it's such an important thing, right, because revenue is not income, right, yep, yep, and most, many, not most. That's not fair. Many entrepreneurs forget that and so they see money walk in the door and they're like I'm rich, you're really not right. Yeah, you're getting there, you're doing right, but you've got to push that ball down the field. Maybe sell a car, maybe not buy new computers, maybe not upgrade your offices, maybe just tap the brakes a little bit so that you can use that money A for reserve right and B as fuel to grow your business.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely and I think honestly, having that mindset of that played into my leadership, that played into just everything where I was like I truly have to put on the business owner hat and I think right, because of the way we are paid commissions or as if anyone was to flip or wholesale the, that kind of money that comes in right gets easily mistaken as income and unfortunately there's a lot of this that, depending on how the market moves, we need reserves.

Speaker 1:

Right, right, All right. I'm always interested in the mistakes that folks made, and before we started recording, we were talking about some of the things that you and I have done that we'd probably like to have back over the years. Right, so I'm curious, you've also invested in real estate and you've run you're obviously running a very successful brokerage right now. So what are some of the things? What are some of those things that you'd like to have back?

Speaker 2:

I just feel like I wish that I took more time to possibly read and understand what I was going to walk into for investing and gosh. It's so much if you have to go through the problem and then you start reading about it and then you're like, oh, that's how I would have fixed the problem yeah.

Speaker 2:

But I just made the mistake first. I don't know why we do that, but we I know that for me. I was taught I heard it in a conference that it was like okay, make sure that if you see an opportunity especially if someone has a real estate license is do you have an opportunity to help somebody. And, fortunately enough, in 2020, I had multiple opportunities come across that I was able to help someone who was scared about the market, who didn't know what to do, and I had the ability to purchase their home and let them stay in their home for some time and in the moment it felt great. But I think that when you only prepare so much, there's going to be mistakes that get made. And we did not prepare to be landlords, so we did not prepare to be landlords and understanding the ideal tenants that would be in our properties and how long we even plan to keep the properties, so there was definitely a lack of planning that happened.

Speaker 1:

And when you get sucked into that situation, you start herding cats real fast, right, like there are so many moving parts that if you're not systems, but here's the thing, and I hear you on the lack of planning thing, but I firmly believe, first off, it's okay to make mistakes. Of course you're going to make mistakes. I know of no one walking the earth that's perfect, no-transcript, right. It's great to read books, and I do, and it's great to listen to podcasts, and I do, and listen to audible books and all that, and I do. But that's theory, and it's folks who have baked, very kindly, baked five, 10 years of their lives and do 200 pages so that I can learn from them. But, man, I'll tell you, the best lessons I ever learned were the 97,000 mistakes that I made and fortunately I was able to fix about 30% of them and we were okay, right.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

That's okay.

Speaker 2:

Yep and we took an opportunity. So we I think it's just the way we look at it Right and I feel in the moments, I feel like what's happened in 2020, even as much as I could say that there was a lack of planning and preparing and knowing who would be the ideal tenants for us there was a couple of things I was proud of. Obviously, I think I had an ego move.

Speaker 2:

I had an ego move of being 30 years old and I own three rental properties, so I was like all right, I felt like that was a nice little thing to yeah exactly, but I felt like that was a nice little thing to yeah, exactly, but I'm like I'm putting that on a resume I don't even know if I have a resume, but I'm going to put it out there but the next thing was is that I, what happened in 2020, saved us in 2024. We, over the last I would probably say over the last two years we have invested so much into this business just to build the vision, to get the right lead sources, to get the right technology, to put us in a better environment. Just a lot of money ended up. I decided to. I know I learned best in that in-person environment. So when I kept hearing the surround yourself with the five people that you want to be like, and I was like, all right, I'm getting on airplanes and I'm going to meet some people, I was like, all right, I'm getting on airplanes and I'm going to meet some people.

Speaker 2:

And so this last two years has been all of that and, with that being said, it definitely had us put a lot of money on credit cards and there was some point where the money, the revenue right, was not matching the debt, and so we were able to make a decision that one of our rental properties. We found ourselves getting to a point where we were able to end a lease and we were like, okay, I think that this is the best property to sell in that moment and we were able to pay a lot of our debt off. And I'm like as much as I feel like in some investor worlds I've heard from many mentors that could have been suicide because I had a low interest rate on this but in the moment I was like it gave us peace back in our life that we weren't underneath this mountain of debt.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So somewhere out in podcast world there's been a whole bunch of people who just went right. But it's okay, that's what the assets are for. Right Is you at some point are going to sell them, whether it's you or your kids or whatever. And as long as you have a plan for that money, right, it's okay to sell assets. If you're selling an asset to pay off some bad debt, cool. If you're selling an asset to get out from under credit card debt or to add capital to a business that really could use a little infusion. What you don't want to do is sell an asset that's producing cash flow and put it in your pocket and go buy a beach house. Don't do that, that's stupid right. Okay, don't do that. That's stupid right. But if you're taking asset producing cashflow and you're just converting it into other cashflow producing things whether it's growing the business, it's avoiding bad debt, whatever there's nothing wrong with it. Right? You got to do what you got to do to get through the times where the collar gets a little tight.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and I feel like, if anything let's say, I was to delay the purchases that I made in 2020 because I felt like I had a lack of preparation right, just like you said about doing. I feel like, thank God I went and bought those properties because I had the ability to leverage, I had the ability to take my assets and know that I did make a good investment because I had positive income from that. The fact that I was able to do that and give us some relief, but also know that we have a plan now for where everything is going, that we're like all right, this wasn't like me just doing it for a selfish move.

Speaker 1:

Right, and that's the key. All right, so we've touched on a couple of things. So I think what we're going to do is start to land this plane and we're going to move on to the final four. All right, okay, buckle up. Okay. So first one is I want you to finish this sentence for us.

Speaker 2:

My purpose is bringing the light out of people, so I want to be able to attract people to their inner light and to just see themselves as their best selves.

Speaker 1:

Love that, All right. So I'm also curious about you had mentioned and this is one of the things that got me on this track surrounding yourself with the five people that are going to be most impactful to your business, your network, is your net worth, right? So what is the best advice you ever got from a mentor or coach, and who gave it to you?

Speaker 2:

So my mentor his name is Dustin Wright. He actually he ran our brokerage I was a part of for several years and the best advice was simply he's the one who has always shared with me understanding my five year plan and to always know my mission and vision and values, because that is your filtration system, right, that is your filtration system for the people in your life and that could be your personal, because you can have your personal mission and vision and then your business. And I think I ignored him for several years and he already knows I call him this year and I'm like, okay, I think I finally learned my lesson.

Speaker 1:

All right, you were right. Yeah, how about that the wise man? All right, obviously you are constantly growing the business and looking to sharpen the saw and get better at your job. I'm curious. Leaders almost universally tend to be readers, but readers these days means a lot of different things. Right, it can be a physical book, it can be audio books, but it can also be going to conferences and watching webinars and listening to podcasts and a whole bunch of other stuff. So I'm curious about how you take in information, how you learn, and I'm also really curious about who you pay attention to creators wise or author wise?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. I am. I was just confessing on my Instagram that I am a podcast junkie, so it most would listen to music and I listen to podcasts and, depending on my mood, I'll either be all. I have a bunch of saved podcasts where anything from motivational to business to faith and as far as my content, I would keep it to podcasts and I do audible books because I am in the car a lot Right or I'm always multitasking. To put me with a book in my hands has always been very better at my emotional intelligence. So anything related to emotional intelligence has been where I have been grabbing content from, and one of those things was the working genius. So I'm not sure if you've heard of the working genius, ed. Oh it is, it is a new. It's not even new, but it is a different personal. It's a different personality assessment. But the book that is surrounding it, the coaching programs that are around it I haven't taken their coaching, so I can't, I can't justify that piece but the book and the podcast itself.

Speaker 2:

It's very interesting to see yourself in a point where you know what your strengths are and we all have taken these personality assessments, but the way they framed work the strengths. So for mine, just to give a tip is, my strengths are invention, which makes a lot of sense I always like to start from nothing and galvanizing, which I don't. I was almost certain I Googled what galvanizing was when I got that word, because I've never used it. So that was great invention and galvanizing. But the I did learn what my frustration was. And now we're like okay, this is why I struggle in this place in my business, which was discernment and discernment is my frustration was. And now we're like okay, this is why I struggle in this place in my business, which was discernment, and discernment is my frustration. It's not where I should spend a lot of time, so tell me about galvanizing and discernment.

Speaker 1:

What does that mean?

Speaker 2:

Galvanizing and discernment. So galvanizing is more of rallying the troops. I can get people to buy in. If I need someone influence and I need to influence a group to do something, I am great at galvanizing. So yeah, the discernment for me, I do feel like I am able to make gut decisions and I can get that gut feeling. But if it's around certain topics that maybe I don't feel super confident in, I'd probably spend too much time trying to figure it out and I might actually make a mistake by being impulsive just to get away from it.

Speaker 2:

And yeah like an impulsive decision versus just being more of a. I'm actually going to feel my gut on this.

Speaker 1:

Right, gotcha Interesting Working genius. All right, I got a new one. I'm excited because whenever I get something new, I'm always going to pounce on that tonight.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 1:

Well, the last one, last question I have for you is I want you to finish this sentence. Success means. What does it mean to you?

Speaker 2:

Success means, I think, positive influence mean to you?

Speaker 1:

Success means, I think, positive influence, awesome. All right, dani, when you're talking about real estate or leading your company or helping people accomplish their own goals, what do you like to do for fun?

Speaker 2:

What do I like to do for fun? Well, I am on a mission to put myself on a beach as often as possible, and so I would love to tell you guys that I'm like a surfer or something really cool. I really am just someone who wants to just relax in a beach setting. I honestly have so much fun just creating things. Recently, I've been drawing pictures and my girls like the color and they are tired of buying. I'm tired of buying coloring books, so I'm now just drawing pictures and having them color my my drawings. So, yeah, I just I love to be creative anywhere I can be.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome, All right? Well, if so, Danny, I've really enjoyed this conversation. I've learned a lot and I'm excited about working genius. I can't wait to get it dig into that. So how can people get in touch with you or learn more about you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I am easiest to reach on Instagram and my Instagram handle is at the Danny Hampton. No docs, no underscores, no nothing, just the Danny Hampton. And yeah, you'll see my stories, you'll see my reels, you'll see my posts, and I post everything between life and business and work and everything in between.

Speaker 1:

Well, dani Hampton, thank you so much for joining us today. I am on your Instagram, I am a follower and you have an amazing business and a beautiful family, so congratulations on both fronts and thanks for joining us.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. Thanks Ed.

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Ed Mathews - Clark St Capital

Host