Bill Hart; Business Coach

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Bill Hart: Business Coach

I’ve got Coach Bill Hart, a very well-known within the mortgage loan and real estate industry. I knew him because we spent time in jail together. If you want to know how or why he favors the top bunk, read the episode. I love the way that he also talks about scheduling time with your wife and children on your outlook or whatever your CRM is and why we should dream. Gain, learn, grow and share it around.

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Bill, welcome to the show.

Steve, thanks so much. How are you?

I’m doing well. Thank you very much for asking, very courteous of you. I need it full transparency. I’ve known you for a couple of years completely out of the blue. The book came out, you reached out, we met for coffee and we’d been best buds since. Getting to know you, I’ve noticed that there are a lot of people that know you both in the mortgage loan real estate industry and outside as a phenomenal human being, which let’s be honest, we all need more of those in our world and spectacular coach. I’m going to start with a weird question. I’ve asked a few people this and I’ve got many different answers. What’s the difference between a coach and a consultant?

I’ve been a coach before coaching was cool. I’ve been doing this for many years. Here’s my experience. I believe a coach comes alongside and speaks truth into you, which is often something you don’t want to hear to help you to get closer to where you want to go. At least that’s the way that I approach it.

What’s a consultant?

I couldn’t tell you. I’m not a consultant. I don’t know. I could find one for you.

I’ve asked that to some amazing people from Jay Abraham, Dan Sullivan and Tim Ferriss. The funny thing is you’ll often get two different answers.

When you spoke to Dan Sullivan, you were speaking to the coach’s coach. I bow my head to Dan Sullivan’s strategic coach. He is the man.

We’re in an environment where technology is changing at a rapid speed. You’re correct, you picked up on something that you were a coach before coaching became cool and trendy. Let’s be blunt. We’re entrepreneurs from an era when entrepreneurialism was not called in trendy. If you were an entrepreneur, pre-2002, it’s because you couldn’t get a real job and you were probably selling busted up cars or fake handbags. That’s what the idea of an entrepreneur was then. I remember, when I was at school there in East London, I’m not the best student in the planet, the teacher yelled at me that I was a hustler. If someone says to me, “You are a hustler.” You’re like, “I am.” At the time, she used it out on me as derogatory. Why are we seeing coaching now such an explosive trend?

Specifically, something that we see inside our company, Building Champions, is the idea of internalizing coaching into an organization. I believe that there was a long run. As I’ve said, I’ve been doing it for many years, Dan Sullivan longer than me, but in years, it’s blown up but now we’re seeing organizations who were saying, “We want to create a coaching culture inside our organization.” That’s becoming more and more popular. This is what I see, I’ve told you before, I have twelve coaching sessions a day, Monday through Wednesday, Thursdays or whatever and then Friday are what we call on-days are my speaking days. I’ve done this for 20,000 hours in this chair of coaching sessions. I believe that the draw is that everybody is running so hard and it’s like death by notifications. When we look at our phone or laptops, it’s Bing, notification, red dot or it’s something that I get pulled off task.

I’m sure you’ve had conversations with other guests about multitasking but it can’t be done. I know people will argue with that, but there’s hard science now that says you can’t multitask. The mind is not capable of that. When we get back on track with the other thing, it slows us down and take some time to get back on track. To your question, I think because people are flying so fast, they get hit with so many notifications. In many cases, they’re expected to multitask. If they’re not entrepreneurs, they are employees and their boss is sending them emails at 2:00 AM, they’re expected to respond. I believe that the attractiveness of coaching is to have somebody come alongside us, if not physically then metaphorically, and help us to create some boundaries for the lane that we’d like to be in.

I got you so far but there’s a problem with that. The problem is that most of us make decisions on uneducated viewpoints. We are peppered with our adverts every day in Facebook, social and then that pixelates over into any other website that we’re on offering this the latest six-week coach on how to become a millionaire by some person that’s about to shave standing next to a yellow Lamborghini that they don’t own. I’m not moaning or in any way, shape or form saying that coaching isn’t necessarily.

We need help creating boundaries for the lane that we'd like to be in. Click To Tweet

How do we get through to A) Find those that we want to work with, and B) What kind of coach we need from the client perspective? You’re the coach, you’ve been around forever, you’ve trained with some big ones. It has become a fad. I’ve seen names pop up out of nowhere. All of a sudden, I coach multimillion-dollar companies. There’s no way validating it. How long did you do this thing? There’s no way of us knowing anything and no one wants to prove. How do we get through it? How do people find the right coach for that right problem?

I’m talking to a client on my way to LAX, southbound on the 405 doing about twelve miles an hour, and a guy has reached out on Facebook and wants to talk about coaching. I thought, “Perfect time.” That’s a great time for me to take those calls. I’m talking to this guy and he has a hunger for systems. The more that I hear him, the more I realize I’m not his guy, I’m not his coach. I could come alongside him and there was a day full disclosure in the early part of my career, where I would have brought him on and we would have done the best we could to make that work. I recognized that wasn’t my strength.

I think you met Michael Regan when you worked with us at the Master’s Coach in Colorado. I referred him to Michael. Michael is a great systems guy. That’s not my strength. My strength is to speak honestly to people. There’s a lot of people that don’t want the truth. They don’t want to be spoken honestly. You even posted on this, as I recall. I speak truth to them. I do it lovingly because that’s my style. I don’t tell them that they’re lower than whale turds. I challenged them to think big. You and I spoke briefly about this before. I believe that’s one of the biggest issues that I find in coaching. I can’t believe how self-limiting most clients frame themselves.

My job is to help them to view what’s possible. What if you could do that? What would that look like? How would we create that? To answer your question directly, first and foremost, you would call it the chug test. That’s a close analogy. There’s a gut visceral feeling that says, “I get this person. They get me. I’d like to roll the dice on this.” You’ll feel it. The other thing that I would say is if there’s anything like you said, if it’s the bogus ads and the person in front of the borrowed Lamborghini or whatever, run away screaming. You don’t need that. As a coach, that should be somebody that comes alongside you that you speak truthfully to Steve, that you speak transparently to, and that you have complete trust with. I’ve got clients I’ve coached for fifteen years. I’m telling guys I love them at the end of phone calls. We’ve been hanging out for that long. Trust would be number one and trust your gut.

Here’s a loaded question. How long did you need a coach for?

As long as it takes. Here’s the thing. I often tell people to let’s commit to one year of coaching, but here’s what I mean by that. I’ll bet Dan Sullivan spoke to this, describe to me what you want it to look like, personally and professionally, at the end of twelve months, let’s move towards that. If we’re not there at the end of twelve months, I wouldn’t rehire me. If we are, we should have another conversation because I may or may not want to rehire you.

How important is it to make sure that you bring in the right clients over the right checkbook?

The checkbook is the initial qualifier if I’m honest. I’ll give you an exception to that. What I mean is I’m not talking to people that can’t afford $1,000 an hour for coaching. If they can’t pay me that, then we’re not talking. They don’t reach out. We’re not making contact but I will say this. I have a guy that doesn’t work for me around the house and he had a bit of a colorful past. Since you and I have spent some time together in prison, you will understand that’s where he’s been. He spent some time. That’s a whole another story. He’s a great guy. He works as a handyman. He has a record though, and he can’t get a job anywhere. You and I both know we’ve worked with convicts. We know what that looks like but he can find it in me.

You might want to explain that because if anyone grabbed that sound, they’re going to think that we would collect Chevy bunks in 4×6.

I had the upper bunk. I felt good about it. That’s not what happened. A little sidebar here. Steve introduced me to an organization called Defy Ventures here in California that works with convicts. You and I went to a level-four maximum security prison in California. These are guys that have been in there for some of them twenty plus years and some life without parole. This organization works with entrepreneurs and coaches and helps those that want to participate. The group we worked with was about 60, but I’m sure there are multiple groups going through who want to do something different with their lives.

They’ve made horrible mistakes, they admit that but they work on how I create a resume, which as you might imagine is a little challenging. In many cases, how do I create a business, to this guy’s point that I’m telling you about my handyman, that doesn’t require me to have a clean record. I don’t know about but when somebody comes out, if they hire somebody that washed your windows, I’m guessing you’re not asking them if they have a record. Neither do I have nor did I with my handyman. First of all, thank you for the opportunity for that experience. If you’re reading this and you haven’t done this, I would follow up with Steve and look for the next opportunity to go. That was one of the greatest things I’ve ever done in my life, Mr. Sims. Thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you for participating and for bringing everything. You came along and you committed. It’s not a pool you can half jump into and you went in with both feet. In fact, you brought other people as well. Thank you very much for being so open to growth.

Getting back to my handyman, he tells me at some point, “Coach, here’s the thing.” He tells me a little bit more about his record and I know about this. He said, “I’m ADD. I’m all over the place. I have all of these great intentions and I don’t know what to do.” Here’s what I know. He can’t afford me as a coach but I love this guy. He’s a genuinely good guy. He lives down the street from me. I bought him a book, we’re working together in creating a life plan for him, helping him to create that lane that I referred to. He’s got some boundaries to his day. He doesn’t have any boundaries in terms of what time he gets up, how he organizes his tasks, how he manages his email and text. Sometimes, those opportunities come up and I love stepping into those because I’m not going to make any money on that but I used to work for a guy years ago and he would put his hand on his heart and he said, “I’m getting psychic income from that. It feels great.” Does that answer the question between the ideal client or the checkbook?

It does. I’m a great believer that you should always focus on the client, but you’re also right. I’ve run a Speakeasy Event and I don’t talk to anyone until what they pay. Once they pay, then I vet them and we ended up sending people’s money back because we don’t want them at our event. It’s a qualifier, but it’s not a dictator. One of the things I’ve noticed and you’re very prominent. In fact, you’re one of the leading mortgage real estate coaches out there. How can people find you?

AMT 5 | Working With A Coach

It’s easy. On social, if you search @CoachBillHart, you’ll find me. CoachBillHart.com is my website. That’s the easiest way to find me and hit me up there.

Even though Bill is very prominent in the mortgage world, the real estate world and the loan officer world, the information is not just for that location, for that little box. I found a lot of the stuff and I’ve enjoyed watching your coaching programs. You had me as a speaker up in Aspen. I remember listening to some of the other speeches that were going on that I thought were better than mine. Todd Bookspan is up there and you had some good people up there that made a lot of sense that even though they were talking about one industry could very easily be utilized for the industry that you were in that will be completely irrelevant to it. The thing that I’ve noticed with coaching is that getting the right clients is great, but there’s something that has to happen to a client before they come. We’ve got this great thing now where we don’t know what we don’t know. What questions would you have someone ask themselves to find out if now is the right time?

We often refer to it internally at Building Champions as someone who is uncoachable. Honestly, that’s a little rare and it’s subjective. I’ll give you an example. I’ve coached people in the past that didn’t want to be sharpened. The Bible says, “Iron sharpens iron.” That’s a great way to look at what coaching is. If I’m not prepared to be sharpened, if I’ve got it all figured out, I am not a great candidate for coaching. For me, I just assume open up a vein and lay down in the bathtub and bleed out because that’s not my idea of a good time hanging out with that client. Number two is, am I truly prepared to pull the mask off?

A lot of people aren’t prepared to do that. I’m not saying that has to happen from day one but I believe, an effective coach, any good coach, has the ability to build trust and help that person recognize that they’re in a safe place. I don’t love using that expression because it’s overused in Millennials, especially in California. This is someplace that I can tell you, “I’m dropping the ball right here.” I had a client telling me, “I don’t know my son.” Steve, you have a young son, you understand. He tells me he’s got a fourteen-year-old boy. What I’ve learned is in 30-minute coaching sessions, my eagerness to want to fill silence with noise is I would generally jump on that and I had to process it.

It’s like, “Tell me more about that. What does that mean?” What it means is this guy is working 80 hours a week. By the time he gets home, his son is in bed. He leaves before he’s up. He realizes these are his formative years and he’s missing them. You and I as fathers, I’m sure we both have our regrets. We could have been better parents at some point in our careers when we were busy doing what we were doing. What I know is this guy was feeling pain. He only told me that for one reason like, “Help me fix it. What can I do about that?” At that point, what I try and do as a coach is to ask, “What would you like it to look like?”

This is somebody saying to me, “I’m 50 pounds overweight.” “What’s your optimal weight and why? Why is that important to you?” In this case, he described to me, “I don’t want to miss these moments with my son. I know I’ll never get them back.” I said, “You know you’re going to have to pay a price for that which means there’s a deal you’re going to lose. There’s a client you’re not going to have. There’s money you’re not going to make, but you need to create a framework for you that’s acceptable.” I call it the lane.

I interviewed a guy for my podcast, All In With Coach Bill Hart. This is a guy who is 40. He owns 100 rental properties, owns his home free and clear. All those houses are on fifteen-year notes. They’re all moving toward being paid down. He’s a positive cashflower. He drives a five-year-old Range Rover that’s paid for. He’s a responsible guy, but years ago, when we were coaching, he was the guy, not the guy I told you about, but he would tell he also was working too many hours until one day we agreed, he was going to put in the bottom of his calendar. Picture your Outlook calendar, 6:00 PM, dinner is on the table, time to go home. I asked him to send me a screenshot of it so that I could see it visually. I don’t want a client to tell me that. I’m like, “Show me in your calendar.” He has an unbelievable enviable relationship with his kids, quite a bit younger, but he’s also doing well financially. People that think that it’s one or the other, I’m going to tell you all day long, that’s not true.

As entrepreneurs, we end up leaving a 40-hour workweek to work for crap for 100 hours a week. That’s what entrepreneurs do. I liked the conversation you bring up about a lot in time for family. I’ve always been a great believer in booking time with your wife and your kids. I’ve got a five past one meeting with my son. Your calendar is full of going to the dentist, phoning up your accountant, phoning up your attorney, speaking to a client, 2/3 of those phone calls, I don’t want to be doing, visits or meetings but I booked them.

Why would I not book something with someone that I love and someone I want to see? The trouble is when you look at your calendar, you fill it up to be as proactive as possible. In doing all the stuff you don’t want to do and you put it in there, you lose out on the growth. That’s why it’s very important, that’s 6:15 dinner, that is tremendously important even breakfasts. I had 8:30 with Claire and we went for a walk. No money, no breakfast, but it was on there. The funny thing is when it’s in your calendar, you tend to do it.

That’s the key, Steve. I don’t know if you know the name, Gary Keller, but he started Keller Williams Real Estate. I interviewed him when he wrote his first book, The Millionaire Real Estate Agent. He told me something very important that we do now every year. I have most of my clients do this. You can go on Amazon and buy a 2×3 foot laminated annual calendar. It fits perfectly on the back of the door. The ideal place to put this is the inside of a door that nobody sees like that door from the kitchen to the dining room that’s always open, put it on the back of that.

He said, “Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to put in there the date nights that you mentioned with Claire, the lunches with Henry that you mentioned to me, the three-day trips, the seven-day trips when you go to Malaysia or wherever you go and you turn that business trip into a vacation. Enter all that stuff in, the conventions. The three days you’re going to stay afterwards and all of that. Once all that is in your calendar, all you have left to do is work.” It’s genius because what we do is we do it the other way around. We do it the way that we saved money. You ask most people, young, starting out, I’m sure you did this, I did this but at the end of the month, how much money do I have left to save? None, because I didn’t save it off the top. What I’ve learned is as a coach, help people to save their time off the top, just as you’re doing with Claire and Henry and others that are important to you. Schedule it. Miraculous, it happens.

That’s taken this down little path I didn’t expect it to be happening, but that’s very valuable. I would say I’ve mentioned it before in my events, “No one that is successful has done it alone.” Every single athlete, politician, superstar, actor, singer, they all have a coach or consultant. They always have someone in that corner. I was watching the motorcycle racing. There’s this guy that you don’t know. He’s got a cap on. He’s got the team colors on but he’s not holding a spanner but he’s whispered in the guy’s ear. He’s getting him in his right space. When he comes back, after all of that adrenaline, there’s the high five from the team. That’s the guy that puts his arm around him and walks into the corner, while he’s getting his on my off and he’s talking him to. He’s talking him down but he’s talking to him back in a way he wants to be.

I would advise everybody to ask yourself, “Do I need a coach? Do I need a consultant?” You can google the difference between both. I have a belief if I can share this, and it’s very loosey-goosey. I believe that the coach is usually the expert. I believe the consultant works with you to find the experts you need either within them or directs you over to the areas where you can go for your next step. I’ve yet to discover what I am. I think I’m just a who. I’m also a great believer that Ferrari is without a doubt, a phenomenal car. It’s a complete waste of time when you’re picking up the school kids on a Friday and then taking them to soccer practice. Get what you need for the problem you have. Ask yourself the questions and you put it up, “For Christ’s sake, dream.” We need to start dreaming more. As we were talking, it’s amazing how many people now diluting it, refusing, or even editing that dreams. I failed to understand why. Do you ever see any why they do that now?

I don’t have a theory around it. I don’t think that’s happening anywhere. I don’t know where younger people in particular are being encouraged to dream big. That’s why I love meeting your son, Henry, and seeing him being in your echo system. He’s watching that lived out. I don’t know what his life is going to look like 10 or 20 years from now, but I know it’s going to be big. It’s our responsibility, Steve. I’ll give you a quick example. I was talking to a guy, he’s in the mortgage industry. As you mentioned, he does very well and he makes a lot of money. It turns out he was a drummer early in his life before he got into this business. When I asked him to dream a little bit, he’s like, “I don’t know. I’m thinking about investing in real estate.” “Where’s that taking you?” “I don’t know.” “Humor me, dream a little bit.” He said, “I don’t know. I guess I’d want to play music.” I said, “Have you ever watched the TV show Songland?” He said, “It’s my favorite show.” Do you watch this, Steve?

It’s rare and a little subjective, but there will sometimes be people you find 'uncoachable.' Click To Tweet

I’ve seen a couple of episodes yet.

It is a genius where they’ve got young songwriters that come on in front of these record producers. There’s one artist for the film, Fast And Furious, Hobbs and Shaw, they were looking for a song. He’s in Nashville, I said, “What if in your town, you invested in a building and the first floor was a studio and you did something similar to this for songwriters, but you also had a place where maybe kids and young people could come in and gig and enjoy it? What if the second storey was an apartment that paid for the first storey?” You could see his eyes getting bigger like, “I could do that.” “Yes, you could do that.” To me, that’s our greatest opportunity and it is certainly my greatest pleasure. I love that you brought it up because we all need to dream a bit bigger.

The more that Amazon is controlling of our life and being responsive to orders, we’re getting used to dictate in. We should get back to creating and dreaming because there’s nothing that’s been accomplished. The first didn’t start with a dream of it. Bill, I had no idea what this conversation was going to go at the beginning. I knew it was going to be cool. Repeat it for those people that need to know a good person in the world. You can go to CoachBillHart.com and you can google, Bill Hart. Bill came to jail with me. I’ve had the pleasure of hanging with him in many different locations and I hope this is just a beginning. Bill, I want to thank you very much for your time. It’s been an absolute pleasure. Are there any parting words you’d like to give my bunch of misfits?

The pleasure is mine. Here’s what I would say to the misfits. I would say that in my mind if you asked me what coaching was, I would tell you three things. Number one, get clear on what you want. Everybody nods their head when I say that, but my experience is nobody is clear. Number two, come up with specific plans that will close the gaps between where you are and where you want to be. Number three, find someone that will hold you accountable to those things because that’s what will make it happen. That in my mind is what effective coaching is.

Bill, thank you very much for coming on the show.

It’s my honor. Thank you so much.

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About Bill Hart

I’m a light-hearted guy with a love for life. As a three-time cancer survivor, I feel responsible to remind everyone (not just my clients) that every day is a gift, and we shouldn’t squander the life we’ve been given. Before I became an executive coach I had 25 years of experience as a leader in the mortgage and real estate industry, so my perspectives are informed by a lot of time “on the ground” where my clients are today. Even after 19,000+ hours in the coach’s chair, I’m still energized by the work I do!