Episode 046: Daniel Lesniak

Full Transcript

Rock Thomas: Hey you know what my next guest is a really badass super cool hyper fast agent..

Rock Thomas: Dan Lesniak is a billion dollar real estate agent. He’s a best selling author and investor or developer and a coach and the real all businesses that came out of the same business real estate.

Rock Thomas: We love real estate because real estate has helped so many people become millionaires and he launched his real estate career After completing successful careers, both as a Naval Submarine officer and a defense contractor.

Rock Thomas: Dan’s hyper local strategy led to one of the fastest starts in real estate. He made over $350,000 in his first year, which is incredible because I’ve hired over 1000 realtors in my lifetime.

Rock Thomas: And may be a handful of them have gotten to that level like he did so he got very committed. He was very niche and what he did.

Rock Thomas: And he’s incredibly resilient when it comes to not being afraid of failure and just taking feedback from the world and turning it into something that’s useful.

Rock Thomas: So I’m really excited for you to be able to listen to this.

Rock Thomas: He’s really great if you’re a real estate agent or you’re in real estate. He’s a really, really great guy to listen to. But the lessons are the same, whether you’re looking to make your life better.

Rock Thomas: Or you’re looking to become wealthy and financially free. This is going to be a great lesson for you. So let’s jump into the call right now with my dear friend, my go-bundance brother, where we hang out mastermind together. Dan lesniak

Dan Lesniak: Thanks for having me on rock. I’m super excited to be here and to share with your audience.

Rock Thomas: And let’s do just that. Let’s dive right into it. A lot of people are looking for the edge. They’re looking to live their life more fully alive and you’ve found a niche where you’ve been able to do both of those things. So what’s the secret sauce?

Dan Lesniak: I think the secret is, it’s all about mindset, right. So you hear a lot. I know you’ve

Dan Lesniak: we were trained by Tony Robbins, I had experience and training with him for a long time. And one of the key takeaways I got from him that I really try to focus on is life happens

Dan Lesniak: For you, not to you so you never know. You know what, what situation you’re going to be in, and you can’t control, really, the things that are going on, but you can control how you

Dan Lesniak: You feel that you can control how you react to it. So if you stay focused on your goals and and what you want and you know, even when you have a setback, you think of

Dan Lesniak: Like, okay, what, what am I gonna be able to learn from this or how will this teach me to have a better result. Next time if you stick with that attitude.

Dan Lesniak: You know, I think anyone can have success in anything. And the reason most people fail is simply

Dan Lesniak: Because they they don’t do it long enough, they don’t stay focused long enough and they and they quit because of minor setbacks or they haven’t gotten results quick enough and

Dan Lesniak: You know, a lot of times I think when when that happens, people are just are not realizing that just because they’re not seeing visible results doesn’t mean that changes are not

Dan Lesniak: You know happening beneath the surface like when united try something new. Like, we’re going to suck out for a while I take exercising right if you’re if you’re trying something new, like

Dan Lesniak: With your exercise or fitness, you might not see the change for three or four months. Right. The visible change but but beneath the surface at the

Dan Lesniak: Molecular levels like your cells are changing, your nervous system is being rewired, your blood chemistry is changing all that has happened to you if you quit. Just because you haven’t seen that visible results you’ll, you’ll never get to where you want to be.

Rock Thomas: So you know what’s so fascinating is. I love the scientific description of that. And ironically, you know, you’re all about hyper fast tips.

Rock Thomas: Yet you’re explaining the science behind it which is to chip away at your own success and judge not your results, but the efforts you’re putting into it because a lot of them are invisible until they become a parent. Does that, does that make sense.

Rock Thomas: Yeah, that’s exactly correct. Can you give us a specific example of something where you had to toil away for a long time, and finally broke through

Dan Lesniak: Yeah, like, I mean, one example is is in real estate and sales like I didn’t, you know, I got into real estate after a long painful process of

Dan Lesniak: Failing to get the job that you wanted. So I had my career in the Navy. I went to

Dan Lesniak: Graduate school got my MBA degree. And I thought, okay, punched all these tickets. Now it’s time for society to reward me and I’m going to go get my big

Dan Lesniak: Strategy consulting job and I’ll get to make $180,000 and travel four days a week for some consulting company, you know, 50 weeks a year and work 100 hours and but I’ll make one at like that’s that’s that’s what you do. And yet, you know, get your MBA from a good

Dan Lesniak: scrapes. Well, I did and I failed to get that job, but that failing really was an example of life happening for me not to me you know 55 interviews didn’t get the job.

Dan Lesniak: The common theme that that these interviewers told me was, we think you have the technical expertise and know how to

Dan Lesniak: Do the job, but we don’t think you have the sales skills. And so I said, Okay, what, what is the next step. How do I get another chance with you.

Dan Lesniak: And they all said, well, go, go get a completely different experience, learn a new skill and a new area for yourself and then apply back in the year. So I thought,

Dan Lesniak: All right, I know a little about real estate and have bought a few homes. I was getting a home at the time I thought I’ll get my real estate license and and help a few people and

Dan Lesniak: Six months later, that turned into, you know, just having this amazing start in real estate. I sold 22 million in my first year I made

Dan Lesniak: A netted 350,000 just a little above that and I didn’t have to travel. I didn’t have to work 100 hours a week and you know made double what I would have made it my dream job so it

Dan Lesniak: It really was this blessing in disguise, but had I not gone through that process of continuing to interview asking why I didn’t get it. You know, I would never have discovered that I had this ability to persevere and be successful as a real estate agent.

Rock Thomas: So they were more like your counselors, then they were potential employees. They said, Go over here, get some experience. There you go. Okay, never seeing you again.

Dan Lesniak: Yeah, I did not go back and apply a year later I just kept doing what was working so

Rock Thomas: Let’s talk about. I mean, I own a few real estate companies. I’ve hired over probably 1000 realtors in my life . Most of them make maybe 50-4050 grand in their first year.

Rock Thomas: The good ones 150 maybe 200 and their first year, but that’s exceptional to do what you did so. So what made you so successful.

Dan Lesniak: I think what really made me successful was being focused on a very narrow, narrow segment. So I focused on the condo building that I lived in. I

Dan Lesniak: I was determined to just know about every sale there. Not every buyer knew every seller and I really focused on those hundred and 89 I believe was number 189 homes and I ended up getting half of the market share in there like half of the sales and that building.

Rock Thomas: Out that year. I

Dan Lesniak: Got and then most of the people moving out or into it. I met open houses. And so I started to get surrounding business, but it was really

Dan Lesniak: But the result of having a very, very narrow clear focus and then just like not taking my eye off that. So the concept of like putting all of your eggs in one basket and really

Dan Lesniak: Watching that basket. Yeah, I think the Rockefellers or someone or something like that. And I think a lot of real estate agents start out and they just try to be everything to everybody.

Dan Lesniak: You know, they’ll, they’ll call their SLI, they call their friends, family, they’ll try and open house here at open house there and like

Dan Lesniak: All that effort is happening, but it’s not concentrated and to me it’s the difference between

Dan Lesniak: Like throwing a baseball through a window as opposed to throwing a handful of pebbles at a window like one’s going to have better results. It’s like concentrating

Dan Lesniak: The most energy, effort and resources into the smallest amount of area that’s big enough to, you know, still have an impact. Like, you don’t want to get 100% market share of two homes.

Rock Thomas: Well, you’re too young to know this metaphor, but back in the old days, we talked about the magnifying glass that you would hold over a piece of newspaper

Rock Thomas: And let the sun hold that one spot and it would ignite the paper, the same magnifying glass held but moved around in a circle.

Rock Thomas: Would never Ignite anything. So I like the fact that you that you became the expert in that area that you went all in that you were obsessed about it that you you became the go to person, and I

Rock Thomas: I think that’s great advice, not just for real estate people but for people that are trying out a new venture, the shiny object.

Rock Thomas: Is so tempting his world today to try to become a bit of everything to everybody. What do you think the psychology is behind that? Do you think there’s a

Rock Thomas: Salesperson that starts a little bit of scarcity and they’re like, Oh my God, let me take that 40 miles from here I can get a listing all over there and then

Rock Thomas: Oh, and that buyer that can walk to my Open House wants to buy 30 miles from air. Let me work with him. They get scarcity, or lack of a business plan of vision. What do you think it is?

Dan Lesniak: I think it’s, it’s all of that. I definitely think there’s a scarcity mindset and people are afraid to turn down any business, even if it’s business. They have no business taking so i think i think scarcity is part of it, I think.

Dan Lesniak: Lack of a business plan as part of it. I think a lot of people just kind of go in with the throw the spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks and and then I think some of it goes back to that first point of that I made about staying focused on something until you you

Dan Lesniak: You actually get the result. I think people kind of give up too soon, and they they try something for two or three months and they say, like, Well, that just

Dan Lesniak: That doesn’t work in my market or that doesn’t work for me and they move on to like the next, next thing rather than like sticking through until it does work.

Rock Thomas: How many years ago was that when you started in real estate Dan that was

Dan Lesniak: Eight years ago now.

Rock Thomas: And what kind of volume are you doing today?

Dan Lesniak: So now, yes, completely different a year, about a year and a half after my first year I met my wife, who was also in the business and we we merged at the time, but we were similar sizes and volume and starting to building, building teams and now

Dan Lesniak: Our goal this year is 1000 transactions for which should give us about 600 million last year we did just under 700 transactions and we’re right around 400 million

Rock Thomas: And how many people are in your organization in order to operate at that level.

Dan Lesniak: Right now we’ve got about 50 agents plus or minus a few and we’ve got about 3532 on our staff. So we’re at at in the 80s on total, total

Dan Lesniak: headcount but we should be I anticipate by the end of the year will be at 100

Rock Thomas: And How efficient are you, how much, how much do you know, do you get to keep at the end of all of this because there’s a lot of brokers out there that have great numbers? But what’s the point if there’s not much left for the person with all the responsibility. Right. Yeah.

Dan Lesniak: No, that’s a great point. We’re, we’re typically in the 25 to 30% range on

Dan Lesniak: Total profitability compared to gross Commission income. So that’s, you know, if, if

Yeah.

Rock Thomas: That’s a good number. It’s a good number. Congrats. What, what is your role in the organization. Now, what does a typical day do for you?

Dan Lesniak: So I’m running, you know, we’re running multiple businesses. So we’ve got a lot of different things going on. So we run in addition to real estate.

Dan Lesniak: Sales Team. We run a training company with a professional agent, we also run a lot of development deals. So we’ve got like 12

Dan Lesniak: Kind of projects now in the works that we, you know, raise money to help build and sell and so it’s like 115 units right now that are in our pipeline. So my typical day can usually start at 4am though I’m up early. I do.

Dan Lesniak: My version of the miracle morning and getting a workout in to get work in and really by the time like seven o’clock rolls around and my kids are up. I’ve already

Dan Lesniak: Exercise my mind, my body and usually get an hour of work, but for the real estate team I primarily focus on recruiting and operations and reporting.

Rock Thomas: Nice. So here’s the million dollar question. How does a person

Rock Thomas: Get the drive or have the consistent motivation to want to get up at four o’clock in the morning because we hear about the five o’clock club. We hear about people getting up at four o’clock in the dark can in the cold and I talked to people and they’re like, Yeah, that’s nice but

Rock Thomas: My bed is so comfortable. So what’s the gap? What’s the difference between you and the average person.

Dan Lesniak: I think it’s really just mindset and focus. I

Rock Thomas: Mean, my dad.

Rock Thomas: can break it down so people can understand it.

Dan Lesniak: Well, it’s, you have to kind of go back to, like, why are you doing it. So, you know, I want to be able to live, live a life where I have freedom of time, freedom of money. I want to be able to

Dan Lesniak: Spend time with my kids going to like bucket list type adventures. You know, like I was with you and go, abundance

Dan Lesniak: You know recently out in Aspen like so I want to have time and money to like do those kinds of things and just live life to the fullest and see how far I can get. See if I can become the best version of myself and I know the

Rock Thomas: Good job.

Dan Lesniak: Yeah, no, but I think we all you know we all want to like find out

Rock Thomas: You

Dan Lesniak: Know how far we can push and. And to me, it all comes down to like making, making little choices right like like every day we kind of have

Dan Lesniak: Just all sorts of choices, where we can either choose to indulge in short term pleasures, or choose to avoid short term pains that really, if we made a different decision would lead to just huge.

Dan Lesniak: Benefits, you know, long term if we compound those decisions. So like I don’t watch a lot of TV and

Dan Lesniak: I know people always say, like, how do you have the time to run businesses and do things with your family train for Iron Man.

Dan Lesniak: But you know the average American is watching like five hours of TV a day is something I read the other day. And so that’s that’s like, you know, if I cut that down to just 30 minutes

Dan Lesniak: Right, like, which I dug, I don’t even know if I watch that much. You know, every day. I don’t think I do. But, but even if I just cut it down to 30 minutes and and the course of one week I’ve, I’ve gained an extra work week on you if your average

Dan Lesniak: I think there’s just like little choices like that all around us where, you know, if we chose differently, we would have a bigger result if we did it for more than like a week. Yeah.

Rock Thomas: Well, well said. So for those of you that are listening. Dan and I spent a little time in Aspen, Colorado recently hanging out with some thought leaders and bought 125

Rock Thomas: extremely successful entrepreneurs and we got a chance to listen to add my lead and a few other people. Was there anything that you took away from that event.

Rock Thomas: One of the speakers or somebody you met that that you’ve taken home and you’re like, You know what, that’s a new direction. That’s a new thought, this new process or anything like that.

Dan Lesniak: I really liked how Ed broke down his day in the three days. I thought that was really, really clever. So he, I believe the timeframes. He used were like 6am to

Dan Lesniak: noon. Noon to 6pm and then 6pm to midnight, and then he tried to pack in like a full day into those six hour blocks.

Dan Lesniak: And you know his, his philosophy was if I can do that, then I’m gaining you’re never going to catch me. I’m going to gain three times, you know, on you, and every week and

Dan Lesniak: He would check in kind of at the top of every hour. So, I like that kind of, you know, get feedback on where you are, where you want to be. And then I liked his

Dan Lesniak: His, His like just overall, the way he just kind of broke everything down into these shorter

Dan Lesniak: Segments like like he would

Dan Lesniak: Instead of doing a 30 minute phone call with people, he would make it 15 and I’ve noticed. Like sometimes even on my calendar. Like there’s like

Dan Lesniak: When I talk to, you know, investors. They want to talk to me about a project we initially had it set up as 30 minute

Dan Lesniak: Blocks on my calendar and I realized like, I never talked to someone for over 15 minutes about right investment because it’s very simple. And I can have a really great

Dan Lesniak: Conversation and 12 to 13 minutes like I was one change. I made it right away, as I said, okay, chop that down to 20 minutes and that way you know I can get three of them in an hour, instead of two or whatever. So just things like that I think are, you know, can you get

Dan Lesniak: You know 30 minutes or what took you 30 minutes. Can you get it done in 20 or 15 and you know all those little things compound over time.

Dan Lesniak: Yeah.

Rock Thomas: Compounding is such a powerful force that I think, again, the person who’s looking for the immediate gratification doesn’t pay attention to.

Rock Thomas: You save two or three you change two or three half hour calls to 12 minute calls and now all of a sudden you’ve got 45 minutes to spend with your kids or to do something special, get a workout in or something like that.

Rock Thomas: So I’m a huge, huge fan of looking for ways to hack the system to be more efficient. Get the edge, be more energetic, what do you do energetically to bring the most of you to every hour of the day throughout a long day.

Dan Lesniak: Well I you know I I try to eat right

Dan Lesniak: Workout right like I think kind of that stuff helps helps me like I think if you’re not in great physical condition, it does get hard to have

Dan Lesniak: Huge days. So I think that’s really important. And then I spend time at the beginning in the end of each day just writing down like what I want to get accomplished that day at the end of the day, I, you know, look at the list and

Dan Lesniak: Write down what I didn’t accomplish that I want to do tomorrow or what maybe isn’t important anymore. And what new things came up, so I think

Dan Lesniak: Spinning and those have to be a lot of time, I could just be like five minutes or less really at the beginning and end of the day, I think, really, really helps me and then sometimes throughout the day I will

Dan Lesniak: Like I keep that notebook on my desk or with me. I’ll check back end and see how I’m doing on that list. Yeah.

Rock Thomas: Fantastic. Favorite book you’re reading right now thought leader is something that you can share with the audience.

Dan Lesniak: Yeah, I just read

Dan Lesniak: copywriting secrets.

Rock Thomas: So, wow, it was

Rock Thomas: Russell Brunson

Dan Lesniak: It was written by someone in his organization. So he’s like he published it. I’m not any i’m sure you give a lot of input, but he wasn’t technically the author. But, but, yeah, it’s, it’s a, you know, comes from that whole click funnels and

Dan Lesniak: You know that I’m big on because I still recruit a lot for the team and do do a ton of email marketing and just reading how

Dan Lesniak: You know some of the top people in the world are approaching email marketing, sales page funnels that that was a great book for me, just because that’s something that’s

Dan Lesniak: Pretty technical that I’m just really focused on because I think copy is extremely important. It touches like all aspects of marketing and sales.

Rock Thomas: What would you say your greatest strength is in what you know in sales? Is it people, is it discipline is at systems technology. What would you say is your greatest strength.

Dan Lesniak: I think it’s really, I guess, less sales but but more marketing. I think I’ve developed really great skills at, you know, marketing to the masses. And really, that’s just come from trial and air.

Dan Lesniak: Not like caring, but not caring so like I care about the results that my marketing gets but I have a thick skin. I know sometimes you

Rock Thomas: Don’t care about being right you care about getting it right.

Dan Lesniak: Yeah, care about getting it right and i don’t i don’t care if people give me negative feedback or throw rocks at what I’m trying to do like

Rock Thomas: You

Dan Lesniak: If you’re worried about that. You’re not going to

Dan Lesniak: reach your full potential. So I like I actually, I like it when I get a high unsubscribe rate and negative comments back on my emails I know if

Dan Lesniak: If you know 10% of the people really hated it. Well, I’m a bunch of people who must have really, really loved it. And that was one of the big takeaways from that book I referenced earlier.

Rock Thomas: Is that a

Dan Lesniak: Lover hate. There’s no money in the middle. And I really that resonated with me.

Rock Thomas: Kind of goes back to what you started talking about is just very niche. Know your market go for the one thing be the expert keep on going at it until eventually people are like, duh. That’s the guy.

Dan Lesniak: Yeah, like you, whatever marketing message you’re putting out in the world. Like, I know you’ve got the M one movement. So you’re putting out stuff there. And if

Dan Lesniak: And if you do a great job with that. I think people that love that that want to develop their mind, body, soul, the whole life millionaire, as you call it, like, they will they will love it but right but but then people that don’t want that they may hate what you’re saying, but

Dan Lesniak: But that’s okay. That’s, that’s good. You don’t. You don’t want them in your life. So you want to

Dan Lesniak: You want your marketing or your communications to really attract people that really, really want that really resonate with you and you, you want it to like to repel people that have a different mindset.

Rock Thomas: Yeah, I love that you wanted to repel the people. So they’re like, No, that’s not for me and move on. Instead of all this lollygagging maybe stuff that you got to deal with people on the fence and try to figure it out and convince

Rock Thomas: The clearer, you are, the better it is. It’s like I bought a Tesla a few months ago and I love the Tesla.

Rock Thomas: And recently, what we hear is that Tesla doesn’t do any advertising yet Ford and GM and all those other things are spending millions of dollars advertising trying to convince people to like a product that’s not that likable.

Rock Thomas: Right Tesla, they’re like you have Tesla. I’m a fan. I talked about it for free to a ton of people I love and backs up at parks on its own. It accelerates real fast, then that does it up.

Rock Thomas: So I think that being really clear on your message that is really key and knowing how to attract people. So how do you describe yourself as a leader for your organization and we’ll, we’ll end on how people can get in touch with you as well.

Dan Lesniak: Yeah, I, I try to really lead by example. So I want to, you know, be the first one up. I want to be working before other people are working and then

Dan Lesniak: I want to be working at the end of the day. I know I want to just be consistent with what I’m doing. So I think leadership.

Dan Lesniak: By example. I think a lot of times, people just see the result of some of the best business leaders in the world. And I know you know like tons of them and

Dan Lesniak: The one common thing. I think most of them have it like they put in the work. Like there’s no there’s no magic pill or or way to

Dan Lesniak: Like shortcut it like yes you can learn a lot from other people. And by being around other great leaders, but at the end of the day, like you gotta, you gotta put in the work. There are no shortcuts. So I just try to lead by example.

Rock Thomas: Yeah, well you’ve obviously done a great job. Congratulations to all your success and and I want to thank you for coming on to the I am moving podcast and sharing your wonderful success story. BY THE WAY, CONGRATULATIONS. How old are you, 30 I’ll be yeah

Dan Lesniak: probably by the time this drops. I’ll be 40 so

Rock Thomas: Well, you look younger than that. So it kind of kind of all goes together with your success and I appreciate you sharing your wisdom because it really is.

Rock Thomas: It makes it so much more possible for other people to do even if people did half or a quarter of what you did, they’d be way above average. So thanks for being a role model. Thank you for

Dan Lesniak: For having me on the show and and always love getting a chance to connect with you.

Rock Thomas: Awesome. Thank you so much. And let me remind the listeners of the I am moving podcast.

Rock Thomas: That the words and follow. I am following you. So describe yourself in a way that you’d be proud of the way that compels you to move into it.

Rock Thomas: You’d be like Dan and get up at four o’clock or you could be whatever you want to be just decided commit to it and language it so that you’re compelled to

Rock Thomas: Play out the role that you described for yourself. So until we see it on the next show. This is rock, Thomas for the I Am movement.

Rock Thomas: Thanks, Dan.