Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Haydn Halsted. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Haydn, appreciate you joining us today. Looking back at the decisions you made early in your career, particularly whether to join a firm or start your own, do you feel you made the right choice for that stage of your career?

Here in the state of Washington, you actually have to start at a Firm or Brokerage as it’s more commonly known. You have to be a licensed realtor for 3 years to be able to take your Managing Brokers license and then that would allow you to start your own Brokerage. So as a new agent you really have two options, start on a team or be a solo agent.

I chose to start on a team and I think it’s one of the best moves I made or any new agent could make, here’s why.

Starting out as a brand new realtor, you know absolutely nothing! They make you go through a 90 hour course and take a 150+ question test that basically teaches you nothing about what you will do day-to-day. So it really is a lot of “on the job” training and figuring it out as you go.

I knew that I wanted to spend less time trying to figure out what I was suppose to do and just find somebody that knew what to do and could just show me the way.

So, I ended up joining a team that was underneath Keller Williams. I had a designated mentor that I worked really well with and he showed me how to fill out contracts, talk on the phone, and schedule my day. I was also surrounded by other agents and seeing their successes and failures and was able to pretty quickly figure what I needed to do and what I wanted to do.

A lot of agents don’t like to join up with teams because a lot of times they’re taking as much as 50% or more of your commission. That 50% goes towards paying for your marketing, office space, and leads which “leads” me to the biggest benefit of being on a team.

If you start out on your own, unless you’re lucky or extremely talented right when you start, generally most new agents have a lack of leads. They have no one to talk to meaning they have no one that needs to buy or sell a home.

Joining a team allows a new agent to have tons of leads and opportunities to actually sell houses. It made a way bigger difference in the years after. If I had been a solo agent I might have closed anywhere from 3-6 homes my first year on average. I was able to close 24 homes my first year which create a much larger list of past clients and people that I could and already do get referrals from which has helped me continue to build my business today. Now that I am a solo agent, that base has helped my business tremendously.

So, if you’re thinking about being an agent and you’re reading this, I would highly recommend interviewing as many teams as you can and joining up with one. You only need to be there for a year and then you’ll have enough to go out on your own. But maybe you’ll love it there and stay!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

So for any of you who don’t know me, my name is Haydn Halsted. I’m a realtor, real estate investor, and help people with their finances as well all here in Spokane, WA.

I’m born and raised Spokane but left for about 5 years when I attended the University of Montana to get a degree in Music Education. I’m a drummer and still play in multiple bands around town and even get to do some small traveling gigs on the weekends but as I finished my time at the University, I felt like I had a drive to something a little more in my control. Anyone who has been my boss before or even my parents know that I really don’t thrive in an environment where I’m told what to do or how to do something. I like having a lot of the control of my own situation and so even the idea of being told how much my time was worth every year was not something I was interested in being apart of.

I also had a decent sized student loan that was going to be more than my first years salary and was a little curious how I was going to pay that off. I was never warned about the true weight of student loans and debt in general but I’m very fortunate to have figured out right after graduation.

So, I went to what I call “Youtube University” and got my B.A. in personal finance. I knew that student loans would be my only consumer debt and I would pay them off as soon as possible, I just needed to make some money. I also discovered this amazing thing (and I kind got sold on the idea) called “passive income” and what everyone likes to talk about is rental property investing.

Now, I have much different views on passive income and if rental property investing even does that for a person, BUT this fire that was lit underneath me was really the major turning point in my life. A few other life events had happened and I would say I found my “rock bottom” being financially broke and emotionally broke at the time and ended up moving back in with my parents as many college graduates do.

After having the itch to get into real estate and having the opportunity to help someone flip a house that they owned, I knew I needed to get my real estate license.

I didn’t have a job besides doing some doordash/uber eats and basically studied 8 hours a day for about 2 weeks. I was a licensed realtor in about a month and went full time January 1st, 2020. Honestly, this moment and momentum that I got is something that I’m very proud of. I was in a pretty dark space in my mind and I turned it around quickly. I didn’t care that I had no money and lived with my parents, I knew that in 2, 3, 5 years my life would be massively different for the better and it has!

Fast forward a few years and nearly 100 real estate transactions later, I’ve now found a business that I’m extremely passionate about, getting to serve people every day while creating a life by my design. I recently bought a house for a client and am helping them purchase it from me because they wouldn’t have been able to beat out the other offers in our competitive market. I offer financial solutions to people struggling with their budget and their debt for free and help them get their life back. I love every aspect of getting a home sold from the marketing to all the systems and processes that need to take place and think I have one of the best, most seamless systems for a home seller to work with.

I’m really proud of what I’ve learned and built over the last 3 years in this business and love that I get to share it with my clients and other real estate professionals so they can live the lives they were meant to live as well.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Something I had to unlearn was the my previous definition of hard work.

I would say my dad is one of the hardest working people I know. My entire life he’s woken up around 4:30am to be at work around 6:30am and would get home 12-14 hours later and do it all over again 5 days a week but many times was called to work on the weekends and he never had a holiday off.

It seemed like in order to be a hard worker you had to put in the hours. This is true to some degree but in different careers, in different lifestyles, there are ways to put in that hard work to actually get your time back for yourself, rather than continue to give your time to someone else. Someone that you make money for.

And even my role models as a teacher would work 12-15 hour days to provide an amazing environment for their students, but they couldn’t get a raise for their work ethic. They could only get a raise for getting another piece of paper that they had to go pay for.

To me, as someone building a business, hard work looks different. I still work plenty of 12 hour days, but once I made first hire and got my first assistant, I realized that I don’t need to do everything all the time. I didn’t need to be the one working on everything so that I felt like a hard worker. I could actually get more done if I would leverage my time and have someone help me.

Once I realized that it’s not me sacrificing my time to every task that generates revenue for the business. Other people are just as good if not better than me at most things so I need to find out what is the one thing that no one else can do better than I can. And when it comes down to it, if I do that one thing highly effectively, I might only need to work 4, 5, 6 hours a day. I could be like Tim Ferris and only work 4 hours a week on that one thing. But ultimately, my business will do better, I will be happier and less stressed, and can work on more projects that I’m passionate about.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

In terms of growing my clientele, I would say I’m still figuring it out but it’s getting more consistent!

To a fault, I want to try everything. I have a solid base of referrals and past clients that keep things steady but in terms of growing the business I’ve worked a lot on building out a great experience for any lead that comes through my website.

I use tools like Google PayPerClick, different real estate referral programs, Biggerpockets (a website that is basically like Facebook for real estate investors), Youtube, and Instagram to attract clients.

Attracting clients to the website is one thing and honestly not that difficult, it’s the experience they have with you from that point that makes the difference.

I’m sure there will be a day when my phone is constantly ringing with people wanting me to help them (lucky me, as I’m writing this article that rare text did come through!) but for now I have to continue reaching out to as many people as possible.

I think the thing that helps me is when people are put into my CRM (customer relations manager) they don’t get bombarded or spammed, but they get a lot of educational content/value and then a call from me every once in awhile. But, the number one thing is to always be following up in some capacity. Only 2% of people will transact after the first conversation. The average use to be about 7 interactions but now it can as much as 18.

People have a lot of options for real estate agents but they have a lot of options for most aspects of their life. It’s just a matter of who do they think about first, who was the most recent person to talk to them about that topic?

Contact Info:

• Website: haydnhalsted.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/haydnhalsted
• Facebook: facebook.com/haydn.halsted/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haydnhalsted/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@Haydnhalsted