Greg is a serial entrepreneur, real estate developer, coach, and mentor. He has bought, developed, and sold over $250 million in real estate, built and renovated hundreds of custom homes and commercial buildings, developed residential and mixed-use subdivisions and started 12 different companies from the ground up.
Greg currently coaches and mentors some of the top entrepreneurs and real estate investors worldwide, helping them start, grow and scale their business, raise more capital and do bigger deals. Greg’s current clients have over $2 billion in AUM and deals in the process.
In this episode, Greg shares his approach to leadership and addresses the fear many employers have regarding providing external training and learning opportunities to their employees. We also discuss how corporate America is adopting environmentally responsible practices and how there’s no better time to be an entrepreneur due to the social shift in business. Join us in this epic discussion on leadership and business trends!
Interested in Impact Investing with Evan and Holladay Ventures for recession-resistant returns and having a positive impact on your capital? Set up a call with our investor relations team to see if it’s a good fit: https://holladayventures.com/investors/
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TRANSCRIPT OF THIS WEEK’S EPISODE
Evan Holladay: Guys, welcome to Monumental. I’m your host, Evan Holladay. Today on the show we have with us Mr. Greg Dickerson. Greg, how are you doing?
Greg Dickerson: Doing great, Evan. How are you?
Evan Holladay: Doing well. I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with Greg quite a bit the last week or so, on multiple different things, and he actually spoke inside of our Quantum Mastermind. As a quick side note before we dive in, Greg is a mastermind behind helping many entrepreneurs and real estate investors grow their business massively.
We’ve personally learned a lot, both myself with Holladay Ventures, and within our mastermind work as well. Quickly about Monumental and what we’re diving into today, it’s really about sitting down with entrepreneurs and leaders like Greg, and like other guests that we’ve had on the show that are having monumental, massive impact in the world.
Helping others, helping individuals, just helping people have their own impact in the world. That’s what we’re all about, and that’s what we’re talking about today with Greg’s work and what he does. A little bit about Greg, he’s a serial entrepreneur, a real estate developer, coach and mentor. He has bought, developed and sold over $250 million in real estate.
Built and renovated hundreds of custom homes and commercial buildings. Developed residential and mixed use subdivisions, and started 12 different companies from the ground up. He currently coaches and mentors some of the top entrepreneurs and real estate investors in the world. Helping them start, grow and scale their business, raise more capital, and do bigger deals.
His current clients have over two billion, billion with a B, in assets under management and deals in process. With that, Greg, let’s just dive right in to how you got down the path of both entrepreneurship, development and then coaching.
Greg Dickerson: Yeah, awesome. Thank you. I appreciate you having me here. I love Monumental, all about the impact, that’s a fantastic mission for the podcast. All that stuff that you’ve mentioned, that was last week. This week – [laughs] just kidding. I’m one of those natural born entrepreneurs. When I was a young kid, and I’m talking elementary school age.
Kindergarten, first, second, third grade on up from there, I was always looking for ways to earn money, do odd jobs. That was something that was instilled in me as a young kid. I was never given money. If I wanted something, I had to go earn money to pay for it. I would go door to door, knock on doors, “Hey, my name is Greg. I live down the street. I need to make some money.
I’ll do anything. I’ll wash your car, cut your grass, rake your leaves. What do you need done? I’ll clean your house, babysit your kids. If you don’t have kids, I’ll get you some kids.” It was like that, just natural born salesman, natural born entrepreneur. Again, what I learned was very early, two things. If you want something, go create a way to get it.
Don’t ask or expect somebody to give it to you. Find a way to get it. Number two, solve problems. I’d just got down the street and if your grass looked like it needs cutting, I’d knock on your door and say, “Hey, I’m here. It’s hot. You’re sitting inside. It’s a weekend. I know you don’t want to cut it. Look, 10 bucks, I’ll cut your grass.”
Here’s this little kid smiling. I got my lawn mower, I got my gas. How are you going to say no? I was prepared, I was ready, I was a hard worker. I’d be up early, and I would be working all day till the sun went down. Then I had the money for whatever I wanted.
The things that I wanted money for, I was in martial arts as a kid. If I wanted to test for the next belt or buy the belt, buy uniform, things like that, I had to go earn money to pay for it. It was those types of things that I was taught.
Evan Holladay: Real quick, Greg. Where did you learn that discipline at a young age?
Greg Dickerson: My dad was military, and he rose through the ranks. Went in enlisted, came out an officer and he was promoted very fast. Hard worker, work ethic and it was beat into me by him literally. I think that was a lot of it, and what he taught me was you take care of business first then you have fun later.
I always had chores, I always had things I had to do. I took care of everything around the house as soon as I was old enough to do it. All the way back, I grew up cutting our grass, trimming literally with the hand trimmers. We had a fence in our backyard and had to go around fence and trim with these little hand clippers on my hands and knees.
I had a manual edger, roller edger for edging. We didn’t have electric power stuff. I did have a power mower eventually, but we had the old rotary blade push mower. That’s what I started out with. As I got older I was like, “Dad, I’d be a lot more efficient and better if you get some power tools.”
We started buying some stuff. We had a pool, and I had to take care of the pool, the chemicals and clean it. Then we had a wood burning fireplace. I grew up in Pensacola, Florida. That’s Northwest Florida, Mississippi, Alabama right there. Then we’d get cold in the winter, we had a fireplace and we’d burn wood. He’d get me up at six o’clock Saturday morning.
We’d go out, cut trees down in the woods and bring it home, and I had to turn it into logs for the fireplace and split wood all day, every day on the weekend. It’s just the way I grew up, and it’s what he instilled in me, taking care of things.
If he let me use the vehicle, I had to bring it back with a full tank of gas and clean. It was odd how it was always empty on Friday when he handed me the keys to the vehicle for the weekend. [Laughs] he had gas all week on my nickel. That’s how I learned it.
Evan Holladay: I think that’s really powerful, learning at a young age the value of earning your keep, earning a dollar and being able to have the power to then go spend that dollar however you choose. At a young age, that’s such a powerful lesson because I had similar experience growing up. We did so many odd jobs.
I remember we would paint the signage for their address on the front of their door, and we’d knock on everybody’s door. Most people were like, “I didn’t really ever think I needed that, but now the way you described it, yeah it’d probably be a good idea.” Just getting in that habit of selling a service that people need, or didn’t know they need sometimes I think is so valuable.
Greg Dickerson: Nowadays it’s DoorDash, and UberEats and Uber Drive. I’s a lot different now. Social media management, graphic design, making thumbnails. It’s amazing the things that you can do to earn six figures in this day and age. Back when I was a kid, I was making 100 bucks a week as a kindergartener, elementary school kid.
Evan Holladay: Fast forward to today, now you’re in real estate investing, developing, coaching. How did you get into that avenue?
Greg Dickerson: It’s how I am and how I’m wired. I was natural born leader, so entrepreneur leader in every little activity. As a kid, I was always chosen as the captain. When I entered the military, I went in the Navy right out of high school, I was selected in boot camp as a section leader. Then I was a leader in my division on the ship.
I just didn’t even volunteer, I was just appointed. I’m just one of those people that if there’s something to be done, I’m the first one in line to do it. I lead from the front, and let’s go get it and lead by example. As far as in terms of becoming that leader, delegator, motivator, coach, mentor, in everything that I’ve done.
A lot of what you described was done between a period of 1997, starting with nothing from nothing. Didn’t go to college, had no money had no backing. I’ve worked a few jobs. I had some side businesses along the way between ’89 and ’97 when I got out of the military. Worked in restaurants and construction.
Always had a construction side business during the day and worked in restaurants at night. During that period, I learned a lot. Then when I decided to start my first main building company in 1997, I started out as a remodeling handyman contractor. Grew that to a $30 million building company, exited it. Started 12 other companies along the way with it.
At the same time, I was chairman of the Remodeling Council, Vice President of the building association in our area. Board of Trustees at our church, on the board for Babe Ruth Softball. Board for Parks and Recs Education Foundation. You name it, and coaching all my kids’ sports. I had two kids at the time and then a third one later, coaching all their sports.
All of that all at the same time, during that seven-year period while I was building these companies growing and scaling. You asked me earlier about the number of clients I have and I’ve over the years and how I keep track of all that. That’s how. It’s through leading, delegating, motivating, and having people execute for me. What I was very fortunate in learning and understanding early, and a lot of it was through the military.
Learning about chain of command, discipline, things like that. Leading, becoming a leader, delegator, motivator, was getting results through others by inspiring. Leaders inspire results out of others. Leaders set the pace of the pack. Leaders motivate the team to achieve the end goal. It’s all about impact, number one. Again, I’m just wired that way.
Number one, I’m wired to solve problems. Number two, I’m wired to give back. My goal has always been, when I started out in business, little remodeling handyman guy was me. Then I hired one person, and then I hired another. I was literally working in the field with my hands, doing the work. Going out, giving the estimates and then I would do the work in the field with the guys.
When I hired my third person, I was able to step out of the field. Then I hired an office manager/administrator. Then grew and scaled from there into different avenues. My whole process was to find people better and smarter than me at these areas, and then put them in a position to succeed. Coach them to success, and let them do what I brought them in to do.
I was very fortunate early on to realize you needed to surround yourself with great people. People that were better than you, and smarter than you. All of my executive team had degrees, MBAs. My chief financial officer and bookkeepers, and the president of my companies, they were all highly educated, very well trained people. Here I am, just a kid who grew up with a GED.
In my senior year I left school, got my GED so I could join the Navy, and built this company and these businesses from the ground up. Very early on, I was very fortunate to come across some books and start pouring into myself, developing myself, educating myself and realizing that in order to achieve anything, you have to achieve it through others.
The only way you can do that is number one, you have to be a servant leader. Bottom-up leadership, not top-down. I came up very top-down leadership. My dad was very disciplined, military, strict type of a leader. The military that I joined was very much follow orders or people die kind of thing.
But I learned in my career through the organizations that I was involved in, and through developing myself as a leader that leadership works from the bottom-up. You have to serve. The leader has to give everybody in the organization everything they need. Tools, training, systems and support to be successful. Clear direction and no uncertain terms, exactly what’s expected and when.
Then you got to put the right people in the right places, aces in places. More importantly than that, you got to let them do their job. You bring Tom Brady into Tampa Bay to win a Super Bowl, do you tell him how to do his job? Uh-uh. He’s already won seven, or six, or whatever it is before he met you.
You bring him in, you pay him whatever it takes to get him in. You say, “Go win a Super Bowl.” You let him do his thing. That’s what I was very good at doing is putting that ego aside, realizing that none of us are as smart as all of us. That I don’t know anything and the more I learned, the more I realized I don’t know.
Again, finding great people that have been where I wanted to be, and surround myself with them. Learn from them, and then inspire them to achieve the results through a vision of a mission to impact the community around us. That’s what it is. It was the ability for people who come alongside me, join me in these organizations to be able to make an impact.
Give back and accomplish the things that they wanted to do, not only in their lives, but in the community at large. We were always looking, how can we serve? How can we serve the community? How can we serve our employees? Ultimately, how can we give back as an organization? All of my business plans were always reverse-engineered.
Number one, keep people busy. Create opportunities to keep other people busy. Create jobs, create opportunity, solve problems. Number two, give back. We created an organization that would fund community events so that we can make an impact in the community, in the world that we were in.
Evan Holladay: That’s amazing. In going back to team building and finding the right people for the right seats, it’s funny, I had a meeting with my CPA this morning. He’s like, “I work with hundreds of real estate investors and successful entrepreneurs and leaders. You know what their number one problem is? It’s people.” He said it’s just people not being prepared or fully prepared, or putting enough time into their people.
I just thought that was so interesting, and I think that’s so true is your organization, your team, your growth, your trajectory, your vision for your impact and your company is only as good as the team that you can build around you and the team that you can pour into. Pour your energy, pour your coaching, pour your mentoring, pour your time into. It’s only going to be as good as they are, and as far as they grow and they enjoy it and they ultimately have a good time in what they’re doing.
Greg Dickerson: Yeah. It starts from the vision. You got to have that vision, and then you put the mission behind it and it has to be bigger than just let’s go make some money, or let’s just go do a bigger deal, or let’s just go build a great company. You have to have something that’s bigger than all of you, and people want to buy into that.
Then you have to develop your people. You have to learn how to recruit, hire, then train, and then consistently develop. That’s the biggest thing I get when I work with people in companies, and I work with all kinds of different entities. Everything from real estate developers to syndicators, to house flippers. I’ve got some tech companies, I’ve got medical professionals I work with.
Just all over the world, I have people all over the world. I’ve got a guy in Australia that’s flipping houses. That’s a lot of fun. I got people in Canada, Europe, it’s really cool. The real thing, what it boils down to and what a lot of them ask me they’re like, “Number one, how do I recruit? Where do I find the right people? Number two, how do I interview them?”
There’s a process and a system. Depending on what position you’re looking for, there’s certain ways that you want to go through that process of recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and then training those people. A lot of people just will hire somebody and say, “Go do your job” like a Tom Brady. In the real world, there’s a system that you still have to get involved with and learn of that organization.
They have to learn the systems, and they have to know what’s expected of them and when and all that. Then you have to continually develop your people, and that’s the biggest thing. I’ve had so many people say, “Well, I don’t know how to develop people. What does that even mean? How do you develop somebody?”
It’s those types of things, like you said, pouring into somebody. What does that mean? What does that look like? What I did in my organizations, number one, I hired great people that already do what I wanted to do. If you want to be a real estate syndicator, and you want to build a big organization that owns apartment buildings, go hire people that work for top organizations who are doing the same thing and fill your roles with them.
Then continue to pour into them through educational training and events. You send them to seminars, you hire mentors, coaches. You buy courses, books, things like that. That’s what I did in my organization. My mentors were outside consulting firms for very specific things. Then the people that I worked with, our contractors, I poured into them.
All of our trades contractors, I would hold events every so often and do personal, professional and business development with those organizations to help them be more successful. Again, everything is approached from the standpoint of bottom-up leadership. My job is to serve this organization, and everybody in it.
Usually people go right here and the CEO is up here, and then it all falls down. You flip that upside down. As the leader of the organization, I have to give everybody everything they need to be successful. Number one, the opportunity. Number two, the support, the systems, the tools, the training. All of that is done through mentors, books, courses, seminars, events, things like that.
All of my people, I put them through any kind of certifications that were needed in their industries to make them the top in their industries. I pay for it, send them to these things. I’d send them to the homebuilding show. I didn’t go, I’d send my people, because they were the ones out doing it. Those types of things. That’s how you develop your people.
Where a lot of companies, a lot of people worry about that kind of stuff is, like I helped all my guys get their licenses and all these types of things. They worry, well, if you develop your people and you pour into them too much and they become super qualified, won’t they leave you and go somewhere else or start their own company? How do you stop that? I said, “Well, I don’t stop anybody.”
What I always told everybody is hey, if you feel like you’re better off somewhere else, let me help you find that opportunity. If you want to start your own business, I’ll help you. You want to leave me and start your own business, I’ll help you. I’ve done that over and over with people. If you want to leave me and you’ll get a better job because they can pay you more, I’ll help you do that.
I’ll give you a great recommendation. What can I do to help you? I’ve always approached it from that standpoint. In every company meeting, it’s really funny, I would have that talk and say, “Look, you got to be happy doing what you do where you’re doing it.” We have to work, we have to earn a living so you want to be where you feel like you’re going to be the best possible you, you can be.
Where you can grow the most, developed the most. If that’s not here, let me know so I can help you find where that is. Occasionally, somebody would come up and say, “I feel like I’ve outgrown this organization.” I would help them move to the next level and understand what that next level was. Either for themselves as a business, and I would hire them.
They’d become a contractor or whatever, and I would hire them and help them get their business started. A lot of people are afraid of that, and you can’t be. You can use employment contracts for certain professional jobs that require a certain investment on the employers’ part that you need to get the ROI on that investment.
There’s times when employment contracts are appropriate, and you can have a long term relationship there. But at the end of the day, you got to set all your egos and all your worries aside. You got to pour into your people to make them the best they’re going to be, so they can go win that Super Bowl for you.
Evan Holladay: I love that you brought that up, because I feel like that is a prime example of servant leadership, is not thinking about it to say, “Hey, what’s in it for me? What’s in it for the company?” Say hey, let’s treat our team members like people, like real human beings that they are.
Think about things from their perspective and say hey, we ultimately want what’s best for them as a person, and want their growth and happiness. If they’re ultimately not happy here, if it’s not a good fit or they feel like they could do whatever other venture or what have you, I think just giving the open space to allow for people to think in that way, gives them a lot of freedom.
Also, maybe even that turns around and now they say, “Well, this organization treats me really well, because they give me options.” Now they have the option to, if they want to go off and do their own thing or go to another company, it gives them that freedom. Ultimately, that may breed more loyalty to your cause.
Greg Dickerson: Yeah. It’s just a matter of number one, realizing that people are your most valuable resource in any organization so you have to put them first. You have to continue to develop and to empower them to be part of the overall movement, and the overall vision of the company. In terms of impact in the community, every year and as we went along I would say, “What organizations do you want to support this year?”
We would not only support financially, but we would volunteer. I would tell the employees, “Look, we have a budget for giving. Tell me what organizations you’d like to support, and we’ll cut checks in your name to these organizations.” Then we had other organizations where we would volunteer time, and one of them was for Habitat for Humanity.
I know you’re in the affordable housing sector, so we used to build a house every year in our area for Habitat. Literally, we would go, we would frame it in a weekend. That was the worst, most time consuming part of that process for that organization. They’re like, “It takes us forever to get it framed.”
We’d go knock it out and have it dried in in a weekend. Then they would use the schools and other volunteers to finish out the inside, as well as the homeowners. It’s all about impact, it’s all about giving back. When you put that first at the forefront of your organization, people, operations, then profit. You got to put your people first. That’s your employees, that’s your customers, your vendors, your suppliers, the community.
You put people first, then the operations. You have to be efficient, you have to be organized, and you have to be disciplined. You have to be operationally sound at all levels. Then you focus on the profit after that. That’s the three legged stool under any business that if you take care of those things in that order, everything will take care of itself.
Evan Holladay: I love that you said really putting impact first. You mentioned the getting involved with outside groups, community organizations, Habitat for Humanity. How do you see some of your coaching clients or groups that you’ve worked with having different ways of impacting either through their work or through partner groups like nonprofits?
Greg Dickerson: It’s really cool, because I’ve been a coach and a mentor my entire career in all the different businesses that I owned. I always had an operator in there that I was coaching. Over the last few years that I’ve developed my school of entrepreneurship, where I have courses, I’ve created an MBA type program for the everyday entrepreneur to help people with different business models, and things in the coaching program.
What’s really cool to me is hearing from my clients how their growth and their mindset shift has created opportunities for them to give back in their own ways, in terms of maybe it’s helping other people. Younger people in the industry, coming alongside them and helping them as deal sponsors, investing in opportunities, bringing them on board.
In terms of collaborating, and/or employment, giving back in the community and being more profitable through growing their organization or growing their deals to where they can now give back and support other organizations. I had a husband and wife team that were flipping houses. I helped them basically the first three or four months they were working with me, make four times more than they’ve ever made in their entire lives.
They were in tears about how that gave them the ability to fund their daughter and husband going on mission, and their ministry. They’re full time missionaries, and they were able to fund their ministry. They were just tearing up over and said, “If we hadn’t met you, we never would have been able to do that.” They wouldn’t be able to do what they’re doing.
Evan Holladay: That’s amazing. I think that the beautiful thing about impact is it usually comes back tenfold. Not only just the way you feel about the work you’re doing and the cause you’re doing and the team around you, and they feeling more tied to and connected to and happy about the work they’re doing.
It could even bring in more business. There’s just such a multiplier effect when you put that energy out there and serve others without expecting anything in return. It usually does still come back, and somehow serve you as well.
Greg Dickerson: Yeah. Some ways, then there’s ways you’ll never hear of and it’s really fun over the years and even little things. I remember one time we had this organization that was raising funds, and they did it through a Christmas tree auction every year. These were decorated trees with presents, so different businesses in the community would sponsor tree. They would put all kinds of stuff.
Some of these things were worth $5,000, $10,000, with all the stuff that they would put with it. Then you’d have this dinner, and this was a battered women’s shelter. This was their annual fundraiser every year, and people would bid on these trees. Some of them would go for $3,000, $5,000, $10,000. Some will go for $200, $300, $400. There was 30 or 40 of them. This thing would raise a lot of money.
One year, there was this perfect tree. It had all kinds of toys, and I can’t remember who. It might have been Walmart or something that donated it. We’d bid on it, and I don’t remember what the price was. This was a long time ago. Then what I did, there was a foundation also in the community called the Angel Tree Foundation.
I bought two or three trees that night, and then I gave them to the Angel Tree Foundation so that they could in turn give it to some families. It was really cool when you think about the butterfly effect. That one charity benefited from the sale of the tree, but then that tree ended up benefiting three or four or five other families, because you even got the tree fully decorated.
Somebody got the tree, then different people got the presents. It’s like that when you impact somebody. When I impact somebody like you at your point in life in your organization, and you’re not my client for people watching. But if you were and I impacted you, gave you the ability to grow and scale and then you started impacting the different causes and organizations you’re involved in, including your own.
Then now they go out and impact people and organizations and things, and then those people go out and impact. It’s just this butterfly effect that is just really mind boggling to think about it. It’s any community organization you get involved with, anything you do. Now, I’ll give you one more example.
I had a group of guys, we had this group that met. It was a Bible study group. We meet every Wednesday morning at [6:00] AM. One of the guys was the chief of police in the city that we were doing this in. He’s coaching baseball. He’s like, “I’ve got this young mom. She’s single. She’s got six kids, she doesn’t have a car. Can anybody help her?”
Afterwards, I pulled him aside. I don’t say this for any other reason, just how these things can work. I pulled him aside, said, “Look, let me know what you need to do.” He said, “Look, she she’ll pay you. She doesn’t have the money for a vehicle, she can’t get financing. She’ll pay you back.” I said, “Whatever.” I think she found a suburban, it was like, I don’t know, 5,000, 6,000 bucks, 8,000 bucks, something like that.
I bought it, held the title. Sure enough, she made payments for years and years and years, and then finally paid it off three or four years later. I never asked for a payment and everything, but it came in on time every week. Well, here’s the cool part. I was in Ace Hardware one day, and I was getting something and I had an account there.
My name pulled up and the kid looks at me and he goes, “Are you Mr. Dickerson? So and so’s dad.” I’m like, “Yeah.” This was like 10 years down the road. He said, “You bought my mom a car one time. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate that, and how that impacted our lives. We would never have been able to do this and go there. That changed my mom’s life.”
I had no clue. I didn’t want her to know who I was, but she had to, to write the check to pay it. It all went through a friend of mine. I guess he told her who I was, but it’s really cool. I mean, I didn’t know the kids. Never met any of them, never met the woman, never saw her. My friend handled all of it. It all went through him, but going through that one day and have the young man say, “Man, you did this for my mom, and you have no idea how that impacted us.” That’s pretty cool.
Evan Holladay: Yeah, that is amazing. I love that story. I think it speaks to, like you said, there are some impact avenues that you really don’t even know the full effect of it. I think it’s even like you said, even just impacting one person, they can then impact others by what you teach them or what you give them and what you empower them to do.
Greg Dickerson: Yeah, those little random acts of kindness. Like you said, does it come back? Who knows? But what were they able to do from that? That kid is going to remember that the rest of his life, and so is all his other siblings. So what might they do for somebody else down the road? Those are the types of things that are really cool.
You can do little things like go through a drive-thru and pay for the car behind you. In a restaurant, you see some police officers or firefighters or rescue squad, buy their meal. I used to do that, I’ll do that all the time. I’ll see somebody sitting there and I’ll pick up their tab, and just walk out. That’s pretty cool when that happens.
Evan Holladay: Yeah. One other thing I wanted to talk about was last week when we were on Quantum Mastermind call, we spoke about, what are new opportunities coming up in the investing space? You had mentioned green investing or making your buildings more energy efficient, or real estate investing with sustainability.
Could you talk a little bit more about that? Personally, I’m really interested in that and I think our Monumental listeners will be as well. That impact investing piece mixed with the sustainability.
Greg Dickerson: It’s all about ESG now. In corporate America, in company. Environmental, social impact and the impact on the environment socially, economically, as well as environmentally. There’s obviously tax incentives, there’s incentives through the utility companies, things like that. There’s special financing for net zero real estate assets, as well as energy efficient real estate assets.
There’s a lot of investors interested in that right now. ESG is a big topic of conversation right now in the corporate world out there. It’s a lot easier to raise money if you’re doing those types of projects, because people are looking for those types of projects to invest in, those type of companies to invest in. If you’re a solar company or any kind of energy efficient net zero, just reducing our carbon footprint.
Anything like that, that you have an idea as a business. Very easy to raise capital, very easy to get people behind you. Now, it’s not flipping people out for money. You have to be sound operator, you have to have a good organization. The project has got to be sound, but that’s the buzz right now and what everybody is looking at in corporate America. You see it in big companies, how their board and their governance is now putting ESG compliance in place in their companies to make that purposeful.
Evan Holladay: I think that’s fascinating. I think that’s honestly in my eyes, a huge turning point for environmentally friendly sound investment. Also, especially within the last year, just the amount of investing in BIPOC companies. Just the ripple effect that’s going to have, and how people are opening up their eyes and saying, “Wow, yeah, we should be actually having some impact with our capital.”
Let’s not just look at the ROI on capital, let’s look at the ROI on people, the planet and capital. I think it’s when you have people like Chase Bank, and even now big oil companies are basically like you said, their board is forcing them because some of the leadership, they don’t want to do it but the board is like, “No, we need to get with the times.”
Greg Dickerson: Exxon just went through this whole deal where they had a couple of activist investors basically come in and take them over for that reason.
Evan Holladay: Yeah, I think that’s powerful. I think that speaks volumes to what people want. I think people are wanting more impact with what they’re doing, and where their money is going, and where their actions are going. I think that like you said, I think it’s going to be a trend going forward of more and more people are going to be looking for impact driven opportunities to invest.
Greg Dickerson: It’s environment, it’s social. Look at the national home builders. One of the hottest items out there right now, a lot of builders are pivoting to net zero construction. Building single family homes for a net zero effect, and then to sell power back to the grid. Not only self-sustaining, but creating residual power to put back on the grid. It’s pretty interesting times that we’re in, in a lot of different ways, economically, socially, environmentally.
I think people have finally risen up to a point to where it’s affecting corporate America now from the very top down. Not just political, but the banks, where the money is, and big companies. It’s really fascinating times and tell you, there’s never been a better time to be an entrepreneur, to be in the real estate space, to be out creating opportunities and doing deals. It’s really incredible right now.
Evan Holladay: In all of your coaching clients, what do you think has been the overarching themes that you’ve seen within your clients of what has held them back, or what kind of breakthroughs they’ve had? A lot of your clients are looking for guidance or mentorship to help get to that next level and massively grow their company, their impact, their profit, their lifestyle. What has been the one thing that’s held them back, and then how they’ve been able to break through that?
Greg Dickerson: You just don’t know what you don’t know. At the end of the day, all you know is what you know, and what you don’t know, you don’t know. The worst most dangerous thing is to think you know when you don’t. I have different people doing different things. I have groups, they want to go as big as they possibly can.
For them, a lot of it is on the technical level. They just don’t know what they don’t know at that level, but it’s the mindset of how big can I go and those limiting beliefs. Not the whole self-help guru limiting beliefs, but a limiting belief in terms of anything that stops you from doing something because it’s just too big.
$100 million deal is just too big, I can’t do it. I can’t raise the money, I don’t know how to do it. Sure, you can if you have the right organization, the right systems, the right team. That kind of thing. You can do as big a deal as you want to do. A lot of people just don’t know they can do that, and they don’t know how to do that. There’s a process.
Then I have people that are fine in terms of where they’re at, but they’re either into something or heading in a direction they have no experience with, like real estate development. I have people that haven’t done that yet, and they want to hire an expert to help them through that process. Whether it’s a project or a couple of projects.
I have people in companies with businesses, putting structures in place, the systems and recruiting, hiring and training. Growing their organization and putting the right people in place, and in the right systems to grow and scale their business or to refine their profitability. It just depends on what people are doing.
I have a husband and wife team, had been flipping houses for 10 years making maybe 100, 150 grand a year, but they had no systems. They had no awareness of what they needed to be doing. Within the first month of working with me, they ended up putting some systems in place, had deals coming in. And had already made more money in the first 30 days than they made in any year that they’ve ever been on their own, because they just didn’t know what they didn’t know. That’s really what it boils down to. That’s what it’s been for me.
I remember that when I first realized the power of what you don’t know, and when you start hanging around the right people, you just start listening to the level of the conversation, and you become aware of there are no limits and things that are out there. That’s what’s really cool.
Evan Holladay: Yeah, I completely agree. Especially, even on our Quantum Mastermind call you mentioned raising $50 million fund, raising $100 million fund, and the amount of deals you could do. The amount of power you can have with that capital is tremendous.
If you’re within the first, the smaller growing phases of your business, most groups haven’t done a $50 to $100 million fund. That’s a pretty substantial size fund, and so for a lot of people that sounds unattainable, or that sounds unachievable, or outside the realm of reality or possibility.
Greg Dickerson: That’s one of the things right there. When you say 50 or 100 million, most people are like, “Wow, I don’t know that many people. I’ve never raised that much.” Those limiting beliefs and then what you just said, that’s a lot of money. That’s a big fund to you, but to others it’s a drop in the bucket.
There’s people out there raising 500 million, a billion, 10 billion. So 50 or 100, that’s nothing, that’s average. That’s easy money to raise. Let’s talk about a billion, that’s a little different. It’s just that awareness, and it’s that mindset of going from, “That’s a big number” to, “That’s just what I do.” That’s the difference in terms of what I do with people, and how I get them to that point.
The analogy I love to use is the martial arts. A lot of people get into martial arts, and I did that as a kid and came back to it as an adult. I talked about earning money to get my belts and uniforms, and testings and all that. A lot of people get into martial arts with the goal of getting a black belt. Everybody thinks that’s the pinnacle of your martial arts success.
Once you get there, what you realize is everything to that point is all about preparing you now to be a beginner and to learn. When you get your black belt, that’s when you are now ready to begin your journey. Where everybody thinks that’s the destination, and Vic will give you a testimonial, Viking Capital, that their goal was to get to a billion.
I looked at him and I said, “Well, that’s when you’re ready to start. We got to get you there so that you can be ready to begin.” There are some people that that’s what they want to do. Others, they don’t want to be part of that. It just really all depends on where everybody is.
Usually, that’s the biggest thing I find with people is, wherever they’re at they have something that they want to do that they just think is unattainable. Generally, what I tell them is well, once we get you there you’ll realize that now you’re ready to begin. That’s not the resting place. That’s not the threshold. Once you get there, you realize wow, that wasn’t bad.
Evan Holladay: That is powerful. You’re really ready to begin once you get to that point that maybe you originally thought was the destination.
Greg Dickerson: You can always go farther, you can always go deeper, you can always learn more. That’s what’s really cool, it never stops. Then the big key is having somebody that not only believes in you, but just knows where you’re going to be.
Then having that behind you, and you experienced that today with Robbie on the phone. They can just text me and they’ve got somebody that knows where they want to go and that believes in them and knows they can do what they don’t even know they can do yet. That’s what’s cool.
Evan Holladay: That’s the power of a strong coach and a mentor.
Greg Dickerson: Yeah, it’s a lot of fun. Let’s go back to the sports analogy. You bring people on your team, and they’re coming into a system and you got Tom Brady at the helm. Tom knows what he can do. He knows, he’s been there. He knows and he’s going to tell you, “Look, if you just run this pattern and just do what I tell you, the ball will be there.”
He’ll know how to catch it. Just believe that it’s going to be there and then when you get there, the ball is there and that’s right exactly where he said. It’s going to be three feet off the ground, two feet you your left. I’m going to hit you in your third step when you come in from the sideline. That’s when that ball hits you on that third step.
Evan Holladay: Greg, I feel like we could keep going, but let’s dive into our Monumental questions. What does success mean to you?
Greg Dickerson: If you want to culminate everything because you’ve got different areas, to me at the end of the day it’s all about impact.
Evan Holladay: I love it. I couldn’t agree more. What about your daily habits or morning rituals that you have?
Greg Dickerson: First thing, make the bed. Jump out of bed, make the bed. Then I’ll sit down and have a little coffee. Watch the news, catch up on what’s going on in the morning. Then I hit the gym. Get some exercise, hit the gym. Then, I’m into business and I take care of things first thing and knock them out.
I don’t have a list. I don’t have backlog. I have zero backlog in my life. Every day before I’m done, I take care of everything that needs to be taken care of that can be. Inbox, that stuff, I never have any backlog. Then when I get up in the morning, I just start knocking stuff out. I already know what I need to do.
I have my calendar, I have my list. Whatever needs to be done is just knocked out, and taken care of. I don’t put anything off, I don’t put anything on the backburner. Then I have zero stress, zero anxiety, and zero backlog. That’s pretty much my routine. I just knock stuff out and get it done.
Now, I do a lot through others so it’s not like I have all these things. That’s the biggest thing that people make mistakes with is they try to do everything themselves. You got to delegate, you have people, you have resources. Delegate them, and if you don’t, get some.
Evan Holladay: Yeah, I 100% agree. It’s funny. We hired an assistant I guess about nine months ago. We’re like, how did I get anything done without an assistant? [Laughs] It’s amazing how much delegating to a rock star can help empower you to actually fulfill your full potential.
Last question, what about favorite book or book you’re currently reading?
Greg Dickerson: Wow, at the moment, man, I’m reading so many. One of the most interesting books I’ve read recently, I have four or five going right now. Happiness by Harry Edelson is a good one that talks about zero backlog. Start with Make the Bed, that’s a good one. That’s a speech that you can watch on the internet from the navy seal commander. That was a good book.
Those are two good ones right now. I always review the old good ones. How to Win Friends and Influence People, Power of Positive Thinking, Think and Grow Rich. I’m always reviewing those. I read so many. I’d have to go through my list.
Evan Holladay: I love it. Well, Greg, phenomenal episode. I know I got a lot out of this. As far as where our Monumental listeners can follow you, reach out to you, connect with you?
Greg Dickerson: Yeah, gregdickerson.com. Everything is there. YouTube channel, I put out content every day on all kinds of things. The economy, real estate, business, cryptos, all that kind of stuff. A lot of people getting into cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin. I’ve been putting some information out on that lately to help people understand what that’s all about, where the markets are and things like that. It’s gregdickerson.com.
Evan Holladay: I love it. Guys, take Greg up on that, especially YouTube channel. He’s providing massive value there, and also through his coaching programs and online programs. Greg, thank you so much for being on Monumental. I really enjoyed today’s episode, and you always bring massive value, so thank you.
Also, guys if you enjoyed today’s episode, please make sure to share it, and also please leave a rating and review wherever you’re listening today on Apple podcast or Spotify or YouTube. With that, have a monumental day.
