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Hannah Hammond – The Firm
On the Power of Having a Solid Team: “I think if you are your authentic self and you are putting yourself out there, then people who align with you are are gonna reach out to you and be like, I wanna work for you.”
Real estate investing is one of the best ways to grow your wealth. But where do you start and how do you invest in real estate?
Hannah Hammond was a self-made millionaire by the age of 25, has invested in residential and commercial properties, started her own real estate brokerage firm and has build a lending company to help get deals done. On top of all of this, she happens to be an incredible person to chat with.
Like the best entrepreneurs that find success, Hannah has taken on the mission of learning more so she can share more, helping other entrepreneurs and inspiring almost everyone that is lucky enough to meet her.
Listen as Hannah shares her story, from starting and building her companies and the challenges she faced along the way. Problems are a sign of life, and it is the grace that Hannah has shown as she navigated these problems that helped her grow into the powerhouse she is.
Enjoy!
Visit Hannah at: KashedLending.com and https://realestateatthefirm.com/
Podcast Overview:
00:00 Wanted wealth, found guidance in “Rich Dad Poor Dad.”
06:11 Retired lender offers private loans in Arizona.
09:38 Managing a fund requires more diligence now.
12:22 Transitioning from microloans to broader real estate funding.
13:37 Small loans have higher interest; larger loans lower.
20:20 Seeking balance beyond work-focused identity through meditation.
21:46 Authenticity attracts aligned talent through social media.
27:05 Commercial real estate sales down significantly post-COVID.
28:57 High prices persist; real opportunities require recession.
32:57 Had to self-manage finances for better outcomes.
34:03 Started own brokerage to handle both markets.
38:05 Hire values-aligned, entrepreneurial, independent, self-led individuals.
42:54 Real estate remained my consistent career path.
44:25 Partnerships are challenging; independence feels compromised.
48:08 Sharing experiences organically attracts interested individuals.
50:54 Driven by healing childhood trauma and self-worth.
56:18 Assistants handle comments; direct messages prioritized.
Podcast Transcription:
Hannah Hammond [00:00:00]:
I think if you are your authentic self and you are putting yourself out there, then people who align with you are gonna reach out to you and be like, I wanna work for you. And you almost get, like, a cult like following.
James Kademan [00:00:15]:
You have found Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found in the podcast link found at draw in customers.com. We are locally underwritten by the Bank of Sun Prairie, Calls On Call Extraordinary Answering Service, as well as The Bold Business Book. And today, we’re welcoming slash preparing to learn from Hannah Hammond, the founder of HB Capital and The Firm RE. So, Hannah, how is it going today?
Hannah Hammond [00:00:45]:
It is awesome. Thank you so much for having me here today.
James Kademan [00:00:48]:
Yeah. I’m excited to talk real estate with you because, well, it’s a shifting market, but shifting in different ways that I didn’t necessarily expect with interest rates going higher and then kinda lower and all that. So let’s just start with the foundation here. Tell us what you do.
Hannah Hammond [00:01:05]:
Yeah. So I, I’m here local in Arizona, and I own a real estate brokerage called The Firm, and we do commercial and residential purchases, sales, leasing for our clients. And I also have a national private lending company. So we specialize in offering bridge loans to real estate investors so they can acquire value add assets at a discount, get quick cash, do their capital improvements, and then they generally will refinance us out within 12 months with a conventional loan.
James Kademan [00:01:33]:
Nice. Let’s chat about the way beginning. How did you end up getting into real estate?
Hannah Hammond [00:01:39]:
So, I came from a family that didn’t have a lot of money and wasn’t very entrepreneurial, and I really wanted freedom in my life and was very drawn to, my best friend who had a lot of wealth and her parents her her dad owned a large company and, real estate portfolio, everything like that. And, I just started researching, like, how to build wealth, how to build, how to make a lot of money ultimately and how to have freedom in my life. And I found Rich Dad Poor Dad by Ryan Kiyosaki.
James Kademan [00:02:11]:
The Bible of Real Estate Professionals. Right?
Hannah Hammond [00:02:14]:
Exactly. Yeah. So, he’s, he’s a good friend today, and that book was kinda my lifeline as a child. And I decided I was gonna be an entrepreneur, and I was gonna be a real estate investor. So at 18 years old, I signed up for real estate school, and here I am 10 years later.
James Kademan [00:02:30]:
Wow. At 18, you signed up for that. That’s pretty insightful.
Hannah Hammond [00:02:33]:
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I think, by 18, I bought my first property. I sold a few $1,000,000 worth of real estate and started doing the renovation value add, and the ball just got rolling.
James Kademan [00:02:45]:
Nice. How tell us about that process. Because I imagine when you’re 18 and you go to get a loan, the bank is gonna say, what do you want? Or something like that. So I imagine that had to be a challenge.
Hannah Hammond [00:02:56]:
Exactly. Yeah. I had no no credit, really, no money other than the commission, and I had just sold. Fortunately, my very first deal was a $1,100,000 commercial property. It was a lot
James Kademan [00:03:08]:
At 18.
Hannah Hammond [00:03:09]:
Yeah. And I, it was the only person that showed up to the open house that I held for another agent at my residential brokerage office. So talk about, manifest destiny and
James Kademan [00:03:21]:
Yeah. Right?
Hannah Hammond [00:03:21]:
Hard work. Yeah. So I got that deal, made $36,000 and was able to use that. My very first condo I bought was $76,900. I still own it today. It’s been cash flowing about $2,000 a month over the past 10 years. It’s, you know, gone up over time, but I always have done, the short term, midterm furnished rental with it. And so I’ve always been able to cash flow a lot more than traditional.
Hannah Hammond [00:03:46]:
And, my mom helped me tremendously at 18. She cosigned on that loan. It was like a $50,000 loan. It was not a huge loan. And I did have you know, I got a credit card right when I turned 18, and did all the credit card tricks of, like, you know, put a few $100 on it, very low of what you’re able to spend, and then just pay it off right away. I did that so I had a, like, a little tiny bit of credit. And, I think I was almost almost 19 by the time I closed on it, and then she cosigned and and helped me out and that got the ball rolling. But, I quickly learned that my own credit was never gonna get me very far, regardless of how good it was.
Hannah Hammond [00:04:26]:
And so that’s how I found out about private lending, which is now the business I’m in now. And I found out about them by starting to use private lenders for my own real estate invest investments because the banks were an absolute nightmare. And as an entrepreneur, you know, we write everything off. We depreciate everything. And so it’s, just a nightmare to try to get bank loans.
James Kademan [00:04:48]:
Yeah. I remember when we tried to get our first house, I had my own business. I’m sorry. 2nd house. I had my own business, and the banker just said, don’t we’re not even gonna look at your income. We’re just gonna look at my wife’s income. And I’m like, what? I think I make more than her. Yeah.
James Kademan [00:05:07]:
They’re like, small business. No. Look at w two. We want w two’s kinda thing.
Hannah Hammond [00:05:12]:
Exactly.
James Kademan [00:05:13]:
So it was interesting, but whatever. That’s the that’s the game that they have. Tell me about that financing and, the private, private financing, I should say, because that’s a world that I just actually got introduced to. I’m gonna say relatively recently that I didn’t even know as much of a thing. I knew of outside financing besides banks, but I didn’t know it was I didn’t know that it was as spread out as it is now. So tell me a little bit about that.
Hannah Hammond [00:05:39]:
Yeah. And that’s the exact reason I just, started the debt fund because, it’s an amazing way for investors to make really high returns and keep their cash very liquid. And if they have a self directed IRA, then it’s also tax free. So it’s been amazing for me. I absolutely love being the bank and same concept. I didn’t think I could ever be the bank. I thought only banks could be banks, and I didn’t think banks could be individual people. And if they could, I thought you’d have to be, you know, Uber super crazy rich or billionaire or centimillionaire or something to even think about that.
Hannah Hammond [00:06:11]:
But I, knew this guy local to Arizona, and I ended up using him for a private money loan, started chatting with them, and he said he had saved up $10,000,000 over the course of his career. He was kind of a retired, older gentleman, and he’s like, yeah. I just, you know, get referrals from friends and family in Arizona, and I know real estate well, and I lend them, you know, up to 75% loan to value on their fix and flips. And I just charge them interest only, a point a month, and, they pay me off whenever they like, and that’s it. And I’m like, okay. Well, that sounds really awesome. And so I, hired an attorney, kinda learned everything I needed to learn, and my very first loan I did was $50,000. So you can really start with any amount of money.
Hannah Hammond [00:06:56]:
And I, you know, I’ve charged I’ve charged 45% interest a year, on those smaller loans. So I’ve had very high returns and very short term loans, so the cash is super liquid. And then I take that income, invest in real estate, cost aggregate, the real estate to offset my income so I don’t pay taxes, and then I can compound my wealth quickly every year.
James Kademan [00:07:18]:
That is cool. So how do you market something like that? Because who are you looking for as far as a target audience, and how do you get them to know you exist?
Hannah Hammond [00:07:25]:
So for me, I have always built all my leads from my network and from social media. So I literally just went on real estate investing groups on Facebook and started posting that I was a private lender. I could fund within a handful of days, and, no credit pull, no background check, asset based lending. And let me tell you, there are unlimited amount of people looking for money at all times no matter what market you’re in. So That that Yeah. I think I had the money out, like, in 2 days of making those posts.
James Kademan [00:07:55]:
Nice. Yeah. And are are you lending mostly Arizona ish, or is this nationwide?
Hannah Hammond [00:08:01]:
No. I, it’s actually illegal to lend in Arizona without a banking license, union broker’s license. And so I have been lending mostly outside of Arizona. Also, our property values are very high here, and I wanted to start smaller because I was learning, and I didn’t wanna risk, you know, $1,000,000 on my first loan. And so I started in, like, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, North Carolina, some of those places. And, you know, many states don’t require licensing for investment, loans. And as long as they’re, you know, not owner user, there are a lot of laws around that with Frank Dodd and everything. So, yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing.
Hannah Hammond [00:08:42]:
Now I’m licensed to lend in 45 states. I can lend, pretty much nationally, and, have been able to scale that way.
James Kademan [00:08:50]:
Nice. I was just gonna ask you about that. As far like, SEC, do they get involved with all this?
Hannah Hammond [00:08:58]:
You it depends on what type of fund you want. But if you’re just private lending your own money, no. There’s no SEC involvement. If you wanna start a fund like I did and you want, to turn it into like like, take it to the, you know, stock exchange and start selling shares, then, yeah, you’ll be regulated by the SEC. But there’s every everything in the, everything in between. I’m private placement, so no SEC regulation for my fund.
James Kademan [00:09:24]:
Nice. So people come to you and they say, hey. I got this super awesome deal. Hey. And I need a little bit of cash. How do you tell or figure out who you’re gonna lend money to versus who you’re not going to?
Hannah Hammond [00:09:38]:
I usually I mean, now with the fund, things, have changed a little bit. Right? Because that’s other people’s money. I need to I’d be a little bit more do a little bit more due diligence and underwriting. And then especially if you scale a fund and then you wanna leverage bank warehouse lines to further leverage the fund or if you’re gonna be selling notes, then, you know, the people who will be buying the notes called aggregators, they’ll want credit checks, background checks. They’ll want more of, like, a full file. But if you’re just, like, a individual person, you could do as much or as little as you want. Obviously, the quicker and easier the money is, the more you can charge. So it’s a little bit higher risk.
Hannah Hammond [00:10:18]:
But if it’s if you truly are only looking at the asset and you don’t care if the borrower doesn’t pay his very first payment because you’re like, I want that asset anyway, and I’ll take it. And as long as you have a heartbeat and an asset, that’s all I need, then that’s great. And that’s how I had been lending with my own capital. I didn’t ask I didn’t do credit check. I didn’t do background check. I didn’t do liquidity check. I did nothing. I just underwrote the asset.
James Kademan [00:10:41]:
Okay. And did that work for you? I imagine it did Yeah. For the most part?
Hannah Hammond [00:10:45]:
Or Oh, yeah.
James Kademan [00:10:46]:
Any horror stories there?
Hannah Hammond [00:10:49]:
Oh, yeah. For sure. I’ve had, more recently since the economy’s shifted, I had no defaults for the first two plus years Wow. Even in charging, like, 45% interest, per year, which most of these loans were only out, like, 2 to 6 months. But, yeah, recently this year, I’ve had a handful of defaults, and now I have to, you know, hire an attorney and, get get the properties back. But they’re all, I wanted to go through those defaults before I started my fund. So I kinda saw the bad side and made sure all my docs were dialed in, made sure I understood the regulations in each state. Now I kinda know which states I don’t like or which states I’ll charge more in or be stricter on because, you know, they’re judicial foreclosure states versus nonjudicial foreclosure states.
Hannah Hammond [00:11:37]:
So there’s all of those things that I’ve learned over the years. And, like in Arizona, it’s super easy to get a property back. If you have to foreclose, you can have the property back in 90 days. Versus Oklahoma, it’s, like, 18 months and 40 grand in attorneys attorney fees. So yeah. So those are the things that I’ve learned as I’ve lent in many different states and now have the best attorney, in the country to help navigate those those waters before I get
James Kademan [00:12:07]:
Alright. That is super cool. Tell me just a typical deal. Someone finds a property, is this multi units, multi 1,000,000 of dollars, or is it just little stuff and they don’t have money to make it work? Who’s typical client, I guess, as far as that goes?
Hannah Hammond [00:12:22]:
It’s everything in between. So when I was just doing my own capital, I I was going for the little guys because I was doing just I call them micro loans, very low dollar, high interest, short term loans, you know, on small fix and flip properties. Now with the fund, we’ll be doing everything. So from 1 to 4 units, all the way up to, large commercial assets. You know, probably we’ll specialize, anywhere up to, like, $20,000,000. And then once you get over $20,000,000 loans, usually, the there’s just BlackRock, and those kinda more institutional funds play more in that game, like large city developments and large sky rises and things like that, which I have no interest in being in. So, yeah, kinda that that one to 10, one to $20,000,000 mark from single family all the way to, multifamily storage facilities, retail, office condo, things like that.
James Kademan [00:13:15]:
Okay. So help me understand. They’re getting the money, but it’s only for a couple months or a few months because I imagine they’re not paying 45% for 30 years. So how how do they make their money back to pay you back?
Hannah Hammond [00:13:29]:
Well, with the fund, more traditional hard money, the average rate is 12% interest per year.
James Kademan [00:13:35]:
Got it. Okay. You mentioned a point a month. Got it.
Hannah Hammond [00:13:37]:
Okay. That that can vary depending on the market and the size of the loan. The smaller the loan, the interest goes up because you’re you need to make, you know, make it worth it to pay for your staff and stuff, and for your time. So, like, on these $50,000 loans and things like that, you can charge 35, 45 percent interest if there’s no usury laws. But a lot of hard money lenders won’t do loans that small because it’s not worth their time. So it’s actually a great market if you’re just trying to get started because there’s not a lot of competition in that micro cap space. However, yeah, once you’re about, 200,000 and up, your average rate’s gonna be about 12% interest, couple points upfront. And then, they generally, they’re people that are buying, either a a residential asset or a commercial asset that has a value add component, and they need quick cash because they’re getting a really good opportunity to buy it, whether it’s at at auction or, you know, wholesale deal or whatever the reason.
Hannah Hammond [00:14:34]:
And they they’re able to take your hard money down for a 6 to 12 month loan while they go make the capital improvements to the property, whether that’s a renovation or, you know, adding amenities or whatever that looks like. And then they’ll up the rents, or sell the property and then, either refinance you out or sell the property to take you out.
James Kademan [00:14:55]:
Got it. Okay. That makes a lot more sense. That makes a lot more sense. Okay. I appreciate you informing me. It’s so interesting learning about the real estate and the lending game because I, I guess I’m just dumb when it comes to this stuff. I just assumed it was banks.
James Kademan [00:15:09]:
You get a house, you move on with your life, all this investment stuff. It is crazy how deep this rabbit hole goes.
Hannah Hammond [00:15:16]:
Oh, yeah. It’s a fun game. Let me tell you though, being the bank is a lot more fun than doing the projects, doing the work. I bet. Permian.
James Kademan [00:15:24]:
Oh, just swing as many hammers. Right?
Hannah Hammond [00:15:25]:
Yeah. I like to just sit back and relax and tell them that they got this. You’re doing a good job.
James Kademan [00:15:33]:
They work harder. That’s cool. And then then I suppose they’re the ones that are hunting down the deals, doing all the stuff, acquiring it, selling it, all that jazz, and you’re making a little slice of that pie. So that is super cool. What do you have as far as competition in that realm? Because I imagine there’s people doing what you do all over the country, maybe.
Hannah Hammond [00:15:54]:
Oh, yeah. There’s lots of competition, especially in the residential space. It’s, I don’t know if you know in the in the fundraising space, like red ocean versus blue ocean. But, in the residential space, yeah, there’s a lot of competition. There’s some really big companies like Keyavi and, Lima 1 Capital. And these they have basically unlimited institutional funds, so they can charge much lower interest. And then someone like myself, they’re probably gonna be 2 to 3 points lower. But they’re more of a traditional bank process where you’re getting, you know, credit check, background check, appraisal.
Hannah Hammond [00:16:30]:
They gotta go visit the the property. They need it’s gonna take 30 days to close, so you can’t do that if you need to you need cash tomorrow to buy this auction house. So there’s pros and cons for sure, but there’s everything from that, which is more of like a bank process to just a a one stop shop, you know, like my mentor who taught me who, will give you the money the next day once he’s got the title report in insurance. So it’s, everything in between. There’s definitely not one size fits all. In the commercial asset space, though, just like in the residential brokerage space, there’s a 1,000,000,000 residential agents. Right? It’s like everybody you know and their brother is a residential agent, but nobody is a commercial agent. Same concept in the private debt space.
Hannah Hammond [00:17:17]:
Not a lot of people do commercial asset private money because they just don’t know the space. And they’re bigger loans. They take longer to sell if needed. They’re just higher risk. And, so I really love that space because I am a commercial broker and a and a commercial investor, And, there’s just not a lot of competition there, so I think that’s definitely a great opportunity.
James Kademan [00:17:40]:
Nice. So your mentor, you just met this person randomly, or how does that work?
Hannah Hammond [00:17:46]:
Yeah. Yeah. I just met him. He’s just a guy in Arizona. He’s not my mentor. He just was someone I borrowed money from for a investment, and I just I just asked him. I was like, hey. Is this just your own money, and how do you do it? And he just said, yeah.
Hannah Hammond [00:17:58]:
That’s my own money, and this is what I charge, and this is how I do it. And I love it. It’s been great. I’ve been doing it for, however, many 40 years. And, yeah, that that’s just what kinda planted the seed, and that was about it. But, yeah, we’re we don’t really we don’t talk or anything. It was just kind of a one conversation thing.
James Kademan [00:18:15]:
Gotcha. Alright. So the the investment side or the, I should say, the lending side, has that been taking over more of your time than the real estate, or you’re trying to juggle both essentially? Or I should say all 3, commercial, residential, and the lending side?
Hannah Hammond [00:18:30]:
Yeah. Recently, because of starting the fund and scaling that, it has been taking a lot of my time. But my overall vision for my company is basically like, you know, Hannah Hammond Enterprises, and I build my personal brand, because that’s what I do best. I I like people. I like connections. I like networking. I have a great network and love building it. And so, basically, I’m the the lead funnel, and then that lead funnel will go into all the other companies, such as the real estate brokerage, the capital raising, the lending brokerage, the coaching, and all of those things.
Hannah Hammond [00:19:08]:
And then operations are run from my teams or partners in those companies. So that’s kind of Gotcha. How I’m trying to build everything out so I’m not bogged down in operations for any you know, siloed into any one specific thing.
James Kademan [00:19:22]:
Fair. Tell me I’m gonna deviate a little bit here. It sounds like you’ve been very successful very young. How do you not just, I don’t know, hit the beach or something like that and say, you know what? We’re good. We won capitalism. We’re all good. We’re just gonna chill.
Hannah Hammond [00:19:37]:
Oh, boy. I am working on that right now. I do not know how to relax. I don’t enjoy sitting on the beach. I can’t even watch TV. I haven’t turned off Hannah.
James Kademan [00:19:50]:
Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Hannah Hammond [00:19:51]:
No. I haven’t turned on
James Kademan [00:19:52]:
TV. I don’t even
Hannah Hammond [00:19:53]:
know how to work my remote.
James Kademan [00:19:55]:
It is so funny that you say that because I just had this conversation with my uncle in Colorado. And I’m like, I don’t even understand why they put put TVs in hotel rooms. I didn’t come to the hotel wherever I’m at to watch TV. Like, I’m going doing stuff, and I’m so that’s so funny that you say you have such a hard time relaxing. I’m the same way. It’s just not built that way. So thank you so much for saying that. That is super cool.
James Kademan [00:20:20]:
Yeah.
Hannah Hammond [00:20:20]:
Yeah. It’s true. I may I mean, my relaxing is like hiking a mountain while listening to an audiobook on personal development or building wealth or scaling company, like, you know, something. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I even I fall asleep to to to books or learning or something. Now I started a meditation practice because I’m trying to slow down, be more present, enjoy, you know, just the simple things, and not always having to be have my identity based around my production and my business because that’s, you know, it’s kind of a an empty life at the end of the day if if that’s all you
James Kademan [00:20:55]:
Fair. Totally fair. Yeah. It’s interesting you mentioned meditation. I just I shouldn’t say. I just started that. I started that a few years ago, and it took me, I don’t know, 6 months a year to actually sit still for 10 minutes and not do something that I considered productive. But the benefits have been it’s one of those things where I’m like cost benefit analysis.
James Kademan [00:21:18]:
Okay. Meditation passes. We’ll allow it. Let’s keep going.
Hannah Hammond [00:21:22]:
Right.
James Kademan [00:21:22]:
But it, man, it took me a while, so I get it. Super cool. Tell me about let’s shift into employees because you have a team. And I imagine you want a team that’s gonna have your similar traits. So how do you find a team that’s as driven as you are?
Hannah Hammond [00:21:40]:
That’s a tough one. Let me know if you figure it out.
James Kademan [00:21:44]:
No. I have not.
Hannah Hammond [00:21:46]:
I think, you know, since I started being more active on social media and building my personal brand, which has been recently, and, I the right talent has been drawn towards me. I don’t have to find them. And so that’s been a really big game changer because I think if you are your authentic self and you are putting yourself out there, then people who align with you are are gonna reach out to you and be like, I wanna work for you. And you almost get, like, a cult like following if you’re really your authentic self. So I’ve built I’ve acquired or met or been connected to more incredible people that I think will be with me forever, over the past few months since I started building my social media presence and not out all my channels than any of the years before where it was just like word-of-mouth or putting out an ad for a job post or anything like that. Because at the end of the day, loyalty and commitment and vision is everything, and you should be attracting the talent to you for people who really align with you. Because if if they’re just finding you because you pay a little bit more or because, you know, you work from home or whatever, like, they are gonna they’re not loyal to you, and they will leave. So they have to really have a a a deep reason why they want to be with you and your company and and and grow with you long term.
James Kademan [00:23:09]:
That is cool. That’s impressive. Tell me I wanna run down the social media role or rabbit hole, I should say. It’s my, I’m just thinking 10 years ago when you started, social media was different animal than it is now, good or bad. There’s also a huge time commitment to a lot of social media stuff, which I had been outsourcing, but I feel like it’s not necessarily the voice. So tell me how have you done social media in good and bad, I guess, both ways.
Hannah Hammond [00:23:40]:
Yeah. I’m no expert. I’m about 3 and a half months in from, like, really my first post. I think I met almost 20,000 followers on Instagram. Well, you know, alone, I have all the other channels now too that I’m building out, but, and I think 3 months ago, I had a 1,000 followers of that. So
James Kademan [00:23:58]:
Nice.
Hannah Hammond [00:23:58]:
It’s been building, and, it’s just organic. I think, it is a lot of time. It is a lot of money. I do outsource all the editing and the posting and comments and things like that. I don’t I don’t wanna get consumed in the attention, so I try to not like, I don’t actually look at social media. I just I just record content, and that’s pretty much my role in it. And then I still manage, like, my direct messages to keep the relationships with people because I really that’s what matters to me. I care.
Hannah Hammond [00:24:25]:
I don’t wanna be a robot. However, the big thing for me, I think, is just not being afraid to speak your your voice and be your authentic self. And a lot of people, it’s just the same bullshit. Excuse my language. It’s just the same, it’s just the same crap. You know? They’re just like, oh, let’s just talk about the market or let’s just talk about how cool we are. Let’s just talk about this and that. And I’m out there being like, I was suicidal when I was 18 years old.
Hannah Hammond [00:24:54]:
I struggle severely still to this day with anxiety, depression, self worth, and, all of these things. I am a hardcore Republican because I believe capitalism, and I believe that we should have control and freedom to create the lives that we want and be able to impact other people’s lives and and create employment and create change in the world and not be a communist society. I, like, I speak. I don’t filter anything. And although yeah. Sure. There’s gonna be half the people that are that hate you and are enraged by it. I could care less.
Hannah Hammond [00:25:26]:
Those aren’t my people, and it will draw in the people who are your people and who are learning from you, growing from you, and whose lives you are changing. And, those are the people that are, like I mentioned, committed to you forever. Like, I have a a couple of my employees like that. I know that they will be by my side forever. I mean Nice. No matter what.
James Kademan [00:25:49]:
Yeah. I always think that there’s a sex in the city episode. I don’t remember forever ago, but, whoever the blonde one is, that was the marketing person. Mhmm. She’s getting some actor guy famous. And I remember the school girls coming to him when he’s on the street, and she’s like, this is the first step. 1st, it’s the school girls, and then she just labeled who’s coming after next that he knows what level of fame or success, whatever that he achieved. And so it’s interesting because there’s once you reach that level where you have some haters, you’re like, alright.
James Kademan [00:26:22]:
We’re getting noticed. I always joke with people. I have a call answering service, and we’ll have clients that complain about telemarketers. And I said, you gotta worry when you don’t have telemarketers, because that means either people don’t know your number or they know your number and they think you’re broke. They don’t even think you have money to spend on telemarketers. Yeah. So, like, telemarketers are a little bit of a way for you to tell that you actually have a pulse. So Mhmm.
James Kademan [00:26:48]:
Appreciate them to a point. Tell me about the real estate side on the commercial end because that’s been a little bit of a rocky tour the past, I don’t know, 5 years. I mean, pandemic really shook it up, especially office space. So tell me what your experience has been there.
Hannah Hammond [00:27:05]:
Yeah. You know, I think since the real impact outside of office, office was severely impacted by COVID, the other asset classes soared through through COVID when rates were low like everything else. But since rates went up, commercial investment sales have been significantly down, and a lot of the owner user space was office, which got kinda wiped out. So commercial in general has been suffering, at least in my market and from, you know, the reports and stuff I look look at is pretty consistent across the country. Of course, there’s differences in each market, but it’s been you know, transaction count has been down 70 to 80% over the past couple years, which is
James Kademan [00:27:45]:
Wow.
Hannah Hammond [00:27:46]:
Horrible. It’s significant. So, the the reason I started the firm was because I do do not like the way commercial brokerages operate. Not that they’re wrong. I just didn’t want that for my business because there’s you know, you they silo you into an asset class. You can only learn and represent this specific asset class, this specific representation, this specific location. And I think that’s a recipe for disaster because market shift and change. For instance, all the office brokers now have no skill to sell anything else and no book of business because all they did was office for 40 years.
Hannah Hammond [00:28:20]:
And so I sell every asset class. I do every representation, and I also have a full residential division and sell residential real estate as well. So regardless of what’s going on in the market, I can just shift and pivot, to make sure that my business continues to thrive. And that’s what I’ve done. So I’ve just, medical office, owner user medical office, I’ve done a lot of that recently. You know, my volume has gone down as far as number of sales, but I’ve been doing bigger deals. So, fortunately, my business hasn’t really been impacted at all. But, you know, almost everyone I know has had a significant impact on their their business.
Hannah Hammond [00:28:57]:
So we’ll see with rates coming down. I think it’ll, be be, obviously, a better opportunity, but prices are still super high here in our market. Even with rates dropping a little bit, the numbers don’t work. You’d have to put 50% down to break even, and it just doesn’t work. So I think the only real opportunity is if we have a significant price drop, you know, or recession of some sort. And, I think with a lot of the assets that were bought on floating rates or with rate caps, you know, back in COVID time frame when rates are very low, those rate caps are expiring. Usually, those are anywhere between, like, a 3 to 7 year lock. And if that jumps from a 2 a half percent to a 5 a half percent, you’re underwater.
Hannah Hammond [00:29:45]:
You know? And then we’ve had rate rents going down. We’ve had vacancies going up. So just a lot of negative factors, especially in the multifamily space in particular. And so, and, obviously, office and things like that. So it’ll be interesting. It’s kind of a it’s a tough time for sure. And then lately, the excuse I’ve been hearing from buyers and sellers is we wanna see what happens to the election. We’re not making any decisions until we see what happens to the election.
Hannah Hammond [00:30:11]:
So, everybody’s kind of just, like, holding their breath right now.
James Kademan [00:30:15]:
That’s so it’s interesting. I’m gonna pick on those people if you don’t mind a little bit. Because I always when I’m trying to sell people something, they’re like, we’re gonna wait till after Christmas. We’re gonna wait till after this holiday, after my daughter graduates, after something. And I’m like, what do you think is gonna happen the day after the election or December 26th that is really gonna change this thing that we’re talking about? We’re not talking about what kind of t shirts you’re wearing or what kind of flag you’re gonna put on your truck or whatever. Like, we’re talking about commercial property for your business or something that’s really not necessarily dependent on this arbitrary thing that they put as a deadline. It’s interesting. They kinda
Hannah Hammond [00:30:52]:
Yeah.
James Kademan [00:30:53]:
I mean taking the can down the road.
Hannah Hammond [00:30:55]:
Yeah. I get it. I do think that whoever who gets elected will have a significant impact on the real estate market. I do believe that. So I
James Kademan [00:31:03]:
Imagine so. Yeah. I mean, over time, but it’s not gonna be an overnight thing.
Hannah Hammond [00:31:07]:
Right. It’s not gonna be like November 6th. Here we go. But I think it’s just, the outlook of the buying an asset that they’re gonna hold for the future. You know, I I I could see that. Like, if, one party gets elected, the republican party gets elected, I think the real estate market will do a lot better than if the democratic party gets elected. And I think pretty much everyone I know is on the same page with that. That’s in that’s a real estate investor.
Hannah Hammond [00:31:35]:
So, that that’s why they’re kinda, like, on the sidelines just because of the policies that
James Kademan [00:31:40]:
are
Hannah Hammond [00:31:40]:
in place on that party, not to has nothing to do with 1 person or the other. It’s just the, the policy that the, you know, the real estate policy that would go into effect or not go into effect depending on who gets elected, which will have a significant impact on, investors. Like, cost segregation is a very, very important policy, and that will have a huge impact on the real estate market if that gets taken away.
James Kademan [00:32:05]:
Is there talk of that getting taken away?
Hannah Hammond [00:32:07]:
Well, it’s already been being taken away for this is the 3rd year.
James Kademan [00:32:11]:
Oh, right. Right. Right. Right. Because it was 100%. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Hannah Hammond [00:32:14]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we’re at 60%. We’re almost gonna be at 40%. Right.
James Kademan [00:32:18]:
You
Hannah Hammond [00:32:19]:
know, and if Trump gets reelected, it’s gonna be back to a 100%. So, I know we’re we’re all chomping at the bit for that.
James Kademan [00:32:25]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’m just going through my first one of those right now. And I feel you know, I’ve talked about this on other podcast with some accountants. I’m like, why did I have to learn about this on YouTube instead of my accountant saying, hey, James. Funny story. Cost segregation is a thing.
James Kademan [00:32:43]:
But instead of worked out where I had to go to my accountant and say, hey, account guy. Funny story. What does it cost segregation? And he’s like, oh, yeah. That’s a thing. Like, what do I pay you for? Shouldn’t you?
Hannah Hammond [00:32:55]:
Oh, yeah.
James Kademan [00:32:55]:
Yeah. Oh my gosh.
Hannah Hammond [00:32:57]:
I had to teach my, now fired accountant what cost segregation was. And, that’s when I realized, you know, every time I I mean, my whole life, it’s like nobody is there to help you. They’re out to help themselves, and you have to mind your own business, meaning mind your own money, have your own business, care about your own money, and not expect that anybody you hire is going to do it for you. And so now I have the best CPA in the world. He was a IRS tax auditor. And
James Kademan [00:33:32]:
Oh, nice.
Hannah Hammond [00:33:33]:
Yeah. He he’s like, oh my god. He has saved me a lot of money. So he he’s awesome, but it took me a long long time to find him. Unfortunately, he’s getting ready to retire. I don’t know what I’ll do after that, but now I now I know all the knowledge in my head, so I can teach the next idiot.
James Kademan [00:33:52]:
Yeah. Oh, that’s awesome. Tell me let’s dig into a little bit about brokerage. Why did you end up starting your own brokerage, and how big of a deal was that, or is that to start your own brokerage?
Hannah Hammond [00:34:03]:
Yeah. I really wanted to get serious about brokering being a commercial broker. I did not wanna let go of my residential business that I had built up over time because I still buy my own residential properties, whether it’s primary residence or investment property, and I still get referrals all the time for residential real estate. And I know how to sell them, and so I sell them. And, you know, brokerages are either one or the other. They don’t let you do both. And I wasn’t gonna accept that as an answer. So I knew I had to start my own brokerage, and I started the firm.
Hannah Hammond [00:34:37]:
And, you know, we have the the 2 divisions, and agents can do both if they like to do both. Like, obviously, they always kinda specialize in one, but they have the opportunity to represent their parents or represent themselves on the other side and their support to help train them through that
James Kademan [00:34:49]:
if they don’t have
Hannah Hammond [00:34:49]:
that experience. And then, also, I wasn’t excited about paying 50% commission splits to CBRE either. So now I make 50% more on my money, and I wasn’t excited about being siloed into any specific asset class or any specific representation. So, ultimately, it came down to freedom. I, freedom is my highest virtue in my life, and it’s pretty much been the theme of my life for as long as I can remember. And the brokerage allowed me to have ultimate freedom in my real estate business. And, I don’t I I don’t have a ton of agents. We only have about 20 agents, and that’s intentional.
Hannah Hammond [00:35:25]:
I didn’t I didn’t open the brokerage to recruit a bunch of agents. I did it more from my own book of business. But people, you know, will come to me. And and if they’re a really good fit, then I will allow them to come aboard and they get those same benefits, but I definitely do not recruit or anything like that.
James Kademan [00:35:42]:
Twenty that’s still decent size. I’ve certainly known brokerages that were smaller than that. So, yeah, that’s alright. Yeah.
Hannah Hammond [00:35:49]:
Thanks. Yeah. It’s it’s, it’s more than enough. It’s more
James Kademan [00:35:52]:
than enough.
Hannah Hammond [00:35:53]:
I can only imagine. Yeah.
James Kademan [00:35:55]:
I can only imagine. If I can imagine you’re probably similar to me in the in the morning. You get those text messages or your phone rings or dings, and you’re like, what fire is vibrating my phone right now? Especially the early one, the 7, 7:30 in the morning ones.
Hannah Hammond [00:36:13]:
Yeah.
James Kademan [00:36:13]:
Because it’s never like, hey. How’s it going? I found a bag of money for you at 7 in the morning.
Hannah Hammond [00:36:18]:
Oh, yeah. No. I wake up now. As soon as I wake up, I meditate in bed. I lay down. I do a 10 minute meditation, and that has really helped me just start calm because I used to start with my frequency like through the freaking roof. I wake up like, alright, here we go. Like, I’m on the roller coaster ride, and I changed that pattern.
Hannah Hammond [00:36:36]:
So, 28 years later, I finally wake up and I have a calm energy. I go for my morning walk. I journal all of this before my phone comes off do not disturb. So nothing can mess up my brain until I am in a peak state of mind every single day. I refuse to look at my phone. And so that’s been really helpful. And then, it’s like, that’s what we do as entrepreneurs. We’re problem solvers.
Hannah Hammond [00:37:01]:
And so I just try to really I think that has to do like your success in life and especially business has a lot to do with your, ability to react, to respond. Like, responsibility is your ability to respond to the situations that life throws at you. And if, you know, you can’t handle the problems that arise every single day and they really rattle your feathers, then it’s gonna be really tough to to really accomplish a lot in life or take on a lot of responsibility because, you know, you’re just gonna be a a a wreck and you’re not gonna be happy. Right.
James Kademan [00:37:41]:
Yeah. You end up having a heart attack. Your business will kill you.
Hannah Hammond [00:37:44]:
Yeah. It will.
James Kademan [00:37:45]:
That’s not cool. Mhmm. So your you have your cool people, the brokers know what jazz, they can do what they want. Tell me about training for them. Because I imagine that’s a challenge getting people wherever they’re at in their career to know what to do and to make sure that they maintain the principles that you have with your business.
Hannah Hammond [00:38:05]:
Yeah. So, I train values first. So I only allow anybody to come aboard if they have the same values as I have, integrity being number 1, continuous improvement, you know, a variety of those types of things, positivity and all the things that are my highest virtues. And then, I only hire people that are heavily entrepreneurial focused. I don’t hire employee mentalities or people that I need to babysit. And I’m very blunt and that forward, in the beginning. And then I have a full back office that has a mentorship program with recorded videos built out so I don’t have to continue to repeat myself over and over again. And then once they have clients, like for my commercial mentorship program, once they go get a lead with all the tools that I taught them in the mentorship videos, they go get leads.
Hannah Hammond [00:38:53]:
And then once they’re ready to write LOIs and, or purchase contracts, anything like that, then, I I have a I have a staff that can help them, and then I can also help them as well in in real life so they could just get the experience firsthand. So it’s been it’s been fine. Like, it’s been great. I love teaching and training. I get a lot of fulfillment from passing on my knowledge, and it helps me hone my skills as well. And especially as I learn new things and then teach it back, it, really imprints it into my home brain.
James Kademan [00:39:22]:
Yeah. It’s one of the things. Right? Is the more you teach the thing, the more that you know it. So very cool. Have you ever had any are they employees? Don’t know if it was real estate or the employees. I don’t know how that works.
Hannah Hammond [00:39:34]:
Technically, I mean, they’re they’re 10.99 contractors, but Got it. Yeah. They, you know, you you pay them.
James Kademan [00:39:40]:
Alright.
Hannah Hammond [00:39:40]:
Yeah. Yeah. They’re they’re employees. They’re just not w 2.
James Kademan [00:39:44]:
Got it. Okay. So your employees, have you ever had someone that was really driven, they got the right mindset, but it’s just not happening? They’re not making the sale or not meeting the people through their network to actually close deals?
Hannah Hammond [00:39:56]:
Oh my god. Almost all of them. The success rate is very low. Yeah. Okay. In in real estate, I mean, it’s like in any business. It’s like a 95% failure rate.
James Kademan [00:40:07]:
And how does that conversation go between you and them when you gotta tell them, hey, it’s not me. It’s you.
Hannah Hammond [00:40:17]:
They they know. Okay. Like, they know. I mean, they’ll they’ll point the finger and be like, oh, well, I want more training or I want more one on one time or I want whatever. So, you know, I’m gonna I’m gonna go try out this other brokerage. And I’m just like, I think that’s a good idea. I think that’d be great for you. And if, if you’re someone that needs, you know, more support or needs a change, then I I really support that.
Hannah Hammond [00:40:39]:
Like, I I want people to flourish. I I do not have agents there for my own gain because I make a lot more money doing other things, than than teaching or, you know, doing that type of thing. So that’s really kind of my my passion project and how I give back and help bring other people up to teach them you know, try to get them to get to where I am faster than I would did and make less mistakes than I did. So, yeah. I’m sure I have those conversations with them,
James Kademan [00:41:11]:
and that’s totally fine. And I
Hannah Hammond [00:41:11]:
help them provide resources for other places that might be a better fit, to give it another shot. But, you know, I always say you can’t put in what God left out. Some people, like, some people just don’t have it in them to be an entrepreneur, and that’s okay. Because if the whole world was entrepreneurs, then, you know, there would be other thing other jobs that weren’t filled. Yeah.
James Kademan [00:41:31]:
You needed to wait.
Hannah Hammond [00:41:33]:
Exactly. And so that’s okay. Like, if you if you’re not cut out to be a entrepreneur or maybe it’s just not a real estate entrepreneur, maybe your passion is somewhere else. And it’s all part of learning. I’ve started multiple businesses and ended up getting out of them, you know, and that’s okay.
James Kademan [00:41:49]:
Fair. Totally fair. You wanna talk about any of those? I’d love to hear.
Hannah Hammond [00:41:53]:
Oh, yeah. I’ll I mean, oh my gosh. I mean, most of my my Achilles’ heel is is relationships. You know, I I start businesses with men, and it’s supposed to be a business relationship, and then they always agree to that. And then they, you know, end up wanting to be with me and marry me and live happily ever after. And I’m like, no. I told you in the beginning, I did not want that. And it’s supposed to be a business relationship, and now I’m, like, in in between a rock and a hard place, and I now I lose my business.
Hannah Hammond [00:42:25]:
So, that’s unfortunate that I I could continue to make that mistake and continue to get into partnerships and thinking that it’ll be different the next time. So now that’s a hard rule for me. I will never partner again, at least not with a man because it just doesn’t work. I’ve done it 5 times. Oh, that’s dumb. Five times has ended up the same way. So, yeah, I’ve restarted 5 times. I’ve had, you know, I had 3 construction companies, general construction company, roofing company, glass company.
Hannah Hammond [00:42:54]:
I moved out to Hawaii for a brief time. I got my real estate license out there. I worked as an engineer for CAT and ended up quitting. That was my very first job right out of college, and I ended up in a relationship with one of the managers there and ended up leaving that that career. So I’ve had so many career changes and everything like that. But, ultimately, I had a drop shipping business right out of high school. When I was 18 years old, I built out a whole drop shipping store. But, you know, real estate was the one thing that stayed consistent in my life year after year after year.
Hannah Hammond [00:43:33]:
Even though I was doing other businesses or jobs or sabbaticals or whatever I was doing, I was always doing real estate. And so, finally, I was like, alright. I’m gonna stop trying to find something else. Like, real estate’s my thing. Real estate’s where I built my wealth. Real estate’s what I consistently enjoy, and, I’m just good at it too, which helps. So, yeah, here here I am today, and I what I I actually did with HB Capital, I was gonna bring in a partner, and I recently stopped myself. And I’m like, nope.
Hannah Hammond [00:44:05]:
I’m not going down that that path, and so I, I I did it. I I said no, and we’re going we’re going gung ho. Just just Hannah. Just Hannah.
James Kademan [00:44:16]:
That is cool. That I mean, not the the downsides and all that jazz, but it’s a it’s a journey. Right?
Hannah Hammond [00:44:22]:
Yeah. No. It all worked out great. I don’t regret anything.
James Kademan [00:44:25]:
Man, I’ve the partnership thing is challenging because I’ve had partnerships that went really well. I’ve had partnerships that were train wrecks, and I I shy away from them. Certain not for the same reasons that you have, but it’s just I don’t know, man. Independence, freedom, it’s tough to do when you have a partner in that realm. And I guess you feel like you’re doing a lot of the work, and you’re like, wait a second. This person is making some some cash of my hard work and or I suppose it could work vice versa too. It hasn’t in my world, but it can. So, yeah, it’s tough.
James Kademan [00:45:02]:
Partnerships thing is tough. It’s a relationship just like anything else.
Hannah Hammond [00:45:06]:
Yeah. It is. And Good
James Kademan [00:45:07]:
or bad.
Hannah Hammond [00:45:08]:
Mine have all come to an end. So I
James Kademan [00:45:11]:
Well, they all do eventually. Right?
Hannah Hammond [00:45:13]:
Yeah. It’s just a matter of when. Like, they might be a a 50 year relationship. It might be a 5 month relationship. You you just don’t really know until you know. So Yeah. Yeah. I’m gonna go more the the approach of, maybe profit sharing or phantom stock or just employees or, you know, commission commission based or things like that over or if there ever was a partner, it would be a they would be a minority partner, and I would have full control, and there’d be an easy buyout opportunity or or exit opportunity for both of us.
Hannah Hammond [00:45:47]:
So I definitely am gonna do things different. No more like 5050 down the middle, we’re in this together type of stuff. I think it’s an absolute disaster, and it it it doesn’t normally end well. But, you know, sometimes, like, for for instance, getting started in my construction companies, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to grow to a 100 employees in 12 months if I didn’t have him as a partner. So
James Kademan [00:46:10]:
Holy cow.
Hannah Hammond [00:46:10]:
You know, I learned a lot, and it gave me a lot of confidence to then go start my next company on my own. And, well, I ended up bringing a partner in on that one too, but, it, it all works out. You know? Sometimes if if it’s either bring in a partner or do nothing, then bring in a partner because then you get the experience, and then you get at least take action.
James Kademan [00:46:33]:
Mhmm. Fair. Totally fair. Yeah. And it it helps. There’s confidence or, I guess, I don’t know if it’s necessarily confidence, but you certainly have someone else that you can bounce ideas off of if you don’t have enough experience in that realm or that particular industry. So that’s fair. Tell me, I guess I don’t have too many more questions because I know we’re running out of time here.
James Kademan [00:46:56]:
Tell me the social media thing. I just wanna dig into more because I know that that’s been a huge, huge tool for people. What do you find that people like or really I guess, one of the posts, I guess, that you’ve seen that have really grown that have helped your business, not necessarily just people clicking the like button or something like that?
Hannah Hammond [00:47:18]:
I mean, I don’t have a call to action. I think that’s the number one thing is don’t just start a social media and immediately start selling something. You know? It’s like, I plan on providing value for 3 years before I have any call to action.
James Kademan [00:47:32]:
For 3 years?
Hannah Hammond [00:47:34]:
Yeah. For 3 years.
James Kademan [00:47:35]:
Holy cow. That’s a while.
Hannah Hammond [00:47:37]:
Yep. Yep. And so that’s how Alex Hormozi did it. That’s how Gary v did it. That’s how a lot of these guys who have very big quote like followings did it because all they did for years was provide value, and they spent 100 of 1,000 of dollars to provide value, and they still provide incredible value. But now they have so much trust and they’ve they’ve helped people so much, that those people now have the funds to reinvest some of that into continued growth and and success in their business. So that’s gonna be my approach as well. That is my approach.
Hannah Hammond [00:48:08]:
I just put out value. And, yeah, I get people reach out all the time and they’re like, hey, I wanna, you know, I want a loan or I wanna invest money or I wanna buy real estate or I wanna sell real estate. And that happens, but I don’t have I’m not asking for it. I just share what I’m doing and I share my journey and my struggles and my wins and what I learn and what I do, and, then people just organically will reach out. But my biggest viewed post has, I don’t know, like, almost 600,000 views, and it’s just a 62nd reel. And that post says, 9 out of 10 entrepreneurs have lived or witnessed some sort of trauma in their childhoods. And entrepreneurs have a sort of comfort in chaos, and they almost feel, uncomfortable when they there is no problem to solve. And that’s just something common.
Hannah Hammond [00:49:04]:
And so, you know, just being able to resonate with people and, just talk about things that are real and not just, I don’t know, surface level stuff because there’s there’s a lot of that out there. There’s a lot of me too stories. There’s a lot of people just talking about themselves in in a way that’s not really serving other people.
James Kademan [00:49:27]:
No. That’s fair. That’s totally fair. That’s that is, I’m gonna dare say, impressive because you’re you’re young. And to have that kind of insight instead of just a superficial look at me, blah, blah, blah, making money, whatever. I’m on a boat kinda thing. That’s pretty cool. That’s very cool.
Hannah Hammond [00:49:45]:
And Thank you.
James Kademan [00:49:46]:
I would certainly say you’re not wrong. Out of 9 out of 10, that’s probably 9 point something. Right?
Hannah Hammond [00:49:52]:
Right. Yeah. And if they say they don’t have trauma, they just don’t know. They they don’t know it, but they do.
James Kademan [00:49:57]:
Yeah. And I I suppose it goes back full circle to the whole having a hard time relaxing. Like, when you’re relaxing, you feel like my job on this earth is to help people grow. And it’s really tough to do that unless you’re chatting with them, sipping my ties on the beach kind of thing.
Hannah Hammond [00:50:15]:
Yeah.
James Kademan [00:50:15]:
Yeah. Certainly can help them grow sipping my ties and that kind of stuff. But Yeah.
Hannah Hammond [00:50:19]:
It’s just
James Kademan [00:50:19]:
one of those things where if you don’t have a problem, you’ll almost create a problem.
Hannah Hammond [00:50:23]:
Exactly. And I’ve been studying a lot of doctor Gabor Mate and stuff because I realized I am very disconnected, and I have used workaholism as my coping mechanism. It’s not just like,
James Kademan [00:50:33]:
oh, I’m a successful person. Like, no.
Hannah Hammond [00:50:34]:
It’s a I’m a person. Like, no. It’s a I’m a disconnected person that is, not attached to my body and my feelings, and I am creating self worth and identity in my production and my success. And that’s ultimately what it is. I have to be beautiful. I have to be rich. I have to be successful. I have to be this.
Hannah Hammond [00:50:54]:
I have to be that. Because ultimately, deep down, as a child, I thought I was a worthless piece of crap, and I was ugly, and no one loved me, and no one wanted me, and no one would listen to me. And I had to take care of myself, and I had to prove that I was, valuable and worth something. And so that has driven me my whole life, and I didn’t necessarily even know that until now that I’m doing all of the work. Right? That’s what the work is. You go to therapy and you start to learn about trauma and healing. And, doctor Gabor Mate says that the primary trauma in people isn’t being, like, beaten or starved or sexually abused or anything like that. Obviously, those are severe trauma, but the primary trauma in people that even open the gateway to that other thing that those other severe traumas happening is not feeling seen, heard, or protected by your parents when you’re just a baby to an infant, like from 0 to 5 years old, or, you know, or all the way up to 18 years old.
Hannah Hammond [00:51:54]:
And so that little thing, which is so common in almost so many households, because if your parents have that trauma, then they can’t see you. They can only project their own wants, needs, fears, desires onto you. As much as they try to love you, as much as they try to see you, as much as they try to be good parents, they if they haven’t reconnected to themselves and they haven’t dealt with their own pain and suffering, then they will pass that trauma right back onto you because you as a child didn’t feel seen, heard, or protected. And that’s, that’s how we, develop these addictions. And most entrepreneurs struggle from addiction, whether it’s work addiction, sex addiction, food addiction, alcohol addiction, drug addiction. They’re they’re very addictive people, and usually they have that common trait.
James Kademan [00:52:42]:
Fair. No. It’s interesting. I have a 10 year old son, and I I wanna give him a better life than what I had as a kid. But then I think the life that I had as a kid paved the way for what I’m able to do right now. So it’s this conundrum of giving him a good life, not giving him such a good life that he’s a little pansy or just some worker bee that’s not really making the world a better place when he grows up and gets out of the house.
Hannah Hammond [00:53:10]:
Yeah. And the thing the the the thing to give him a better life is to make sure that you see him, you hear him, and you protect him, and that that’s actually him, like, for his wants, his needs, his desires, his authentic self, and not what your fears are. Like, oh, you know, whatever. Like, I my parents didn’t, like, know where I was at and something really bad happened to me, so I’m gonna be a control freak. Like, not like that. Like, what like, I’m gonna see my child for for who my child really is and and and love them unconditionally and be there for them unconditionally, outside of money or lifestyle. Right? It’s just, like, truly being there and seeing them as a child because that’s what that’s where the trauma comes from is them not feeling that way. So I I don’t have kids, so don’t don’t take your parenting advice from me, but that’s just from what doctor Gabor Mate, who’s a parent, that’s kinda what what he teaches.
Hannah Hammond [00:54:07]:
Like, that’s the best gift you could give to, your child however way you’re raising them.
James Kademan [00:54:12]:
Fair. Yeah. They don’t come with instruction manual, so I’m certainly not saying that I know what I’m doing. Yeah. It’s just one of those things where I I guess I used to play with boxing a little bit. It was one of those things where you never or you rarely found a person that was a boxer that grew up rich. It was typically poor people because that’s what you have to do, survival thing. Yep.
James Kademan [00:54:34]:
So, like, the Mike Tysons of the world and all that jazz came up that way. So it’s it’s similar in that. And, you just want them to have something that makes them stronger, but you also don’t want them to have to suffer through some stuff. And it’s it’s a conundrum because you’re like, well, in order to get stronger, you have to suffer at least a little bit. So and that goes with entrepreneurs in any realm when they complain about problems or don’t learn to solve problems or make decisions fast kind of thing. It can be challenging. So you learn that.
Hannah Hammond [00:55:07]:
Well, I mean, the journey is all just the the challenges. It’s ups and downs. It’s peaks and valleys. It’s just like a heartbeat. And if you want a flat line, then, you know, flat line is dead.
James Kademan [00:55:20]:
So True.
Hannah Hammond [00:55:20]:
I just I I I I welcome all of it. I don’t ever wish my challenges away because No.
James Kademan [00:55:28]:
Oh my gosh. Nobody gets excited to go on a flat roller coaster.
Hannah Hammond [00:55:32]:
No. No one wants that.
James Kademan [00:55:34]:
No. Hannah, how can people find you?
Hannah Hammond [00:55:37]:
Best way, Instagram at Hannah b Hammond, and, all my other links are on there. I have a link to me. It has all my LinkedIn, YouTube, all all Facebook, everything like that. And then if you DM me on Instagram, I I do manage my inbox and to can get back to you as soon as I can.
James Kademan [00:55:54]:
You’re on Instagram, you do?
Hannah Hammond [00:55:56]:
Yep.
James Kademan [00:55:57]:
You have to be a busy woman.
Hannah Hammond [00:55:59]:
Oh, yeah. I have hundreds of notifications at any given time, but I try you know, usually on the weekend, I’ll spend a few hours, like, trying to catch up.
James Kademan [00:56:08]:
Wow. How do you not go insane with that? Because that I mean, it’s gotta be tough to scale.
Hannah Hammond [00:56:18]:
Well, I don’t real I don’t manage really my comments usually. I, like, have my, assistants kind of respond and, like, comments and things like that. But direct messages, I have a system. I have a primary, like, personal folder that has all my private friends. I have a general folder that’s, like, all my business connections, and then I have a request folder that’s all, like, the people who I’m not connected with that don’t, that I don’t follow or I don’t know. And then those are the ones that I kinda get to eventually as soon like, when I can. So I just have a a prioritization for it all.
James Kademan [00:56:56]:
I’m so happy that you said that you have a system that is super cool. I am. Everything.
Hannah Hammond [00:57:01]:
Yeah. And I have my employee, like, go through the general and the request, and then they’ll send to me the things that need my attention. And if it’s, you know, if it’s something that’s just like spam, like marketers, like, there’s a bunch of marketers trying to, like, hey. Can I edit your videos and stuff like that? Then, you know, they just handle that.
James Kademan [00:57:21]:
Gotcha. Super cool. Thank you so much for being on the show, Hannah.
Hannah Hammond [00:57:24]:
Thanks for having me.
James Kademan [00:57:26]:
This has been Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. My name is James Kademan and Authentic Business Adventures is brought to you by Calls on Call, offering call answering and receptionist services for service businesses across the country on the web at callsoncall.com. And of course, the Bold Business Book, a book for the entrepreneur in all of us available wherever fine books are sold. We’d like to thank you, our wonderful listeners, as well as our guests, Hannah Hammond of HB Capital, as well as The Firm. Is it real estate? I just see r e, but I suppose it’s
Hannah Hammond [00:58:01]:
r e. Yeah.
James Kademan [00:58:03]:
Fair enough. And, Hannah, can you tell us that Instagram handle one more time?
Hannah Hammond [00:58:07]:
@hannahbhammond, h a n n a h b h a m m o n d.
James Kademan [00:58:14]:
Perfect. Thank you so much. If you’re listening or watching this on the web, if you could us a huge favor, give us a big old thumbs up, subscribe, and, of course, share it with your entrepreneurial friends, especially those that may need a little bit of inspiration or they’re in the real estate game on either end. Past episodes can be found morning, noon, and night. The podcast link on at drawincustomers.com. Thank you for listening. We will see you next week. I want you to stay awesome, and if you do nothing else, enjoy your business.