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Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. Today’s guest is Terry Hess, principal at Trident Capital Holdings, a strategic investor and capital partner dedicated to unlocking growth in small and midsize companies. With more than 20 years of leadership experience as a CEO, CFO and investor, Terry has helped businesses scale profitably while managing risk building systems and driving enterprise value at. Terry and his team. Invest in companies with revenues between 30 to 100 million, providing not just capital, but the strategic and operational horsepower to help those businesses reach their full potential. From leading turnarounds to structuring over 1.1 billion in transactions, Terry brings a hands on, disciplined approach to growth, helping business owners turn vision into measurable. Terry, welcome to the show.

Terry Hess: Thank you. Trisha. Very nice to be here. Thank you.

Trisha Stetzel: Nice. Nice to have you today. So tell us a little bit more about Terry.

Terry Hess: Um, well, I, uh, start off with this sort of a similar introduction. I’m a mutt. Uh, my background does not make a lot of sense, but, uh. Yeah, I majored in finance, went to Wall Street, uh, was on Wall Street for four years selling European equities. I was actually terrible at it. Um, what sort of, you know, put me into a different area, but, uh, so then I went and moved on to a, uh, a hotel brokerage firm in Manhattan where we were, uh, brokering, uh, either the sale of an asset or equity or debt financing for trophy assets, mostly in Manhattan and Chicago. Um, I, uh, shifted from that, actually, to take, uh, control over a family business, uh, down here in Atlanta and got into the secondary education space. So after high school, it was a skilled trade company. Uh, ran that for about nine years as the CEO. And, uh, after when that ended, then became a consultant to, I don’t know, it’s probably 30 plus companies across various industries. Again, I get back to I’m a mutt.

Trisha Stetzel: So, you know, these days, Terry, we don’t call them mutts. We call them designer. I’m just saying.

Terry Hess: Work with that. Even better.

Trisha Stetzel: Sounds fancier. Right. Uh, let’s talk a little bit about, um, Trident Capital Holdings. I know I, uh, gave a lot of surrounding information around, but what would you like for the audience to know about? Ach.

Terry Hess: Yeah. So TSH got really. It’s, uh, impetus was I work, you know, when I got into those advisory roles for the 30 plus companies, uh, you know, inevitably you get surrounded by other advisors, and most of us are in the sort of fractional space. So fractional CFOs, chief operating officers, uh, VP of sales, HR, etc., so any, any folks on the C-suite level. And, um, there was a common frustration that we shared, which was, uh, not 100% of the time, but in many cases, we would get into these companies, provide this professional management and leadership and watch them be successful. And, um, so, you know, there’s a compensation structure with that. We got paid. Well, uh, but in many cases we wanted to, you know, get a further a bigger stake in the upside of those companies. So Trident, um, we got a lot of our interest, if you will, from these advisors. And, you know, myself and my colleagues were part of several advisory networks, but that’s the idea. You know, these folks are in companies. A lot of these companies are at various stages of growth. And, you know, they either need additional capital to kind of scale and grow and, you know, fulfill their vision. Um, and so that’s how we got started. So we’re trying to, you know, bring not only capital to the to the table to help these companies grow and scale, but also the advisory piece of it.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay. Interesting. So tell me more about the companies you support.

Terry Hess: Um, so I guess, uh, so it is across the map. Um, I’ll just kind of share some of the stuff that Trident in particular has, has spent some time on. So we’ve worked with, uh, underground utility rehabilitation companies. Um, we’ve worked with transportation companies that are sort of advising, advising municipalities and state Dot’s. Um, there are several companies within that purview that, you know, could use, could could come together, if you will. Uh, we look we look at distressed commercial real estate? Uh, a commercial laundry operation that that’s very disruptive to the way that the industry is currently done. Um, we look at petroleum refinery carbon credits, uh, farming in Colombia. It’s all across the map. Um, of those that I just mentioned, I should say that it really took us evaluating about 80 plus projects to kind of whittle it down to those that we, you know, we see an ongoing interest, if you will. Okay. Um, yeah.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay. Uh, so pretty broad. Do they all have some common challenge or challenges in common? And the reason why they’re, uh, interested in working with you?

Terry Hess: Yeah, the common thread is all of these folks, we vet those 80, 80 down to this is that they have a viable, um, entity that, you know, has a significant growth opportunity. And, um, many of these projects, um, you know, so in the publicly traded world, there’s a, you know, risk reward, the higher return, the higher the risk, if you will. In our case, many of these things are, you know, we try to de-risk them as much as possible. And also we retain those that, you know, are going to generate above average returns. Um, typically that means that there’s some sort of, uh, collateral component that’s tied to it. And if it’s not for that specific investment, when we combine all these together, there’s a collateralization benefit to the portfolio as a whole. Sure.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay. Totally makes sense. So, uh, you guys go way beyond just simply investing capital. I know you’re often embedding leadership. You talked about fractional positions at some somewhere along the journey and probably internal to teach as well. Um, so embedding leadership strategy and systems post investment. So can you unpack that model and what active ownership looks like in practice?

Terry Hess: Yeah, absolutely. That’s an excellent question. And I should preface this. This also ties back to your original question. The other common thread is this every investment that we look at, there’s someone in that that’s, you know, bringing this idea to the table and there’s significant expertise in that vein. We can’t get comfortable unless somebody, you know, there’s been a career with with that individual, their team. And again, we it helps us to gain visibility into the future uh, future picture relatively quickly. So it all starts there. You know, we our team we’re not trying to deploy advisory. That’s not the mission. The mission is to support the folks that are, you know, bringing these investments to the table. And they have the vision, and they can convince us that if they pair with us and we put capital to it basically afterwards, once we deploy the capital, we’re just trying to keep the train on the tracks. Um, it’s a very, very supportive role. Um, and so, you know, they they may need us. So a fractional visor for six months or 12 and then they go with a permanent solution. Um, so we’re, they’re able to pull a lot of levers to, again, just keep the train on the tracks.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So through that, um, you know, through the, the turnarounds or the rapid growth or growth or even, like cultural rebuilding in these businesses. Um, when you step in, how do you because you’re in an advisory role as well, how do you identify which levers to pull first? You know, we’ve got people, processes and even product in some cases.

Terry Hess: Yeah. So in any in any of these ventures, um, uh, really there’s never been less than probably a year to three years of either them or us, you know, really having a lot of conversations. And, you know, it all starts with sort of underwriting or putting a projection together. And frankly, we go back and forth and test that, you know, we try to poke holes in it. And, you know, we add our other ideas, they come up with ideas, etc. so it’s a very iterative process to gain that level of comfort. Um, and really that’s where where it all starts. And, and then in that process there’s also assessment of, hey, what are your needs? Um, and then the other side of the coin, I think this is not uncommon. It’s what a lot of investment firms do. But we also bake in a lot of, you know, just sort of there’s unknown risks, right. Whenever our plan is never no plan ever goes the way that anybody ever intended. So, you know, provided that you put in sufficient, uh, you know, resources so that, hey, when a mistake does happen, we’re not all trying to go raise another round of money. We’ve got, you know, substantial capital on hand that we can sort of correct and fix a problem or spend additional money or what have you.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So tell me more about the the values or guiding principles, if you will, around your due diligence to mitigate as much of that risk as you can.

Terry Hess: Yeah. Um. I think the, uh, in my position and I think for a lot of my partners, the guiding principle is really the relationship. Mhm. Um, the reason I say that is this is, you know, we’re not doing we’re not we’re not reinventing anything. It’s, it’s putting money to work. Right. Um, but I think that one of our gifts, if you will, is being able to have what many people perceive to be uncomfortable conversations quickly upfront to try to gain and establish a level of trust so that they see, hey, listen, you know, we’re not just here to put money to work, walk away and make make money again. Like I get back to keeping the train of the tracks. A lot of people come up with wonderful ideas, and then when they get $30 million in their bank account to move forward, it’s not not everybody, but some people get an ego or this big boost of confidence. And again, we’re here to say, you know, don’t we? There’s another day that we gotta, you know, wake up and do the right thing. And so, yeah, not a lot has changed. Like everything you said, everything we’ve been talking about and trying to work for, uh, we just, you know, stay on the path. Obviously, we make adjustments and trajectory changes along the way, but, um, it’s a relationship guided, uh, endeavor. That’s the key. That’s the principles that all of our advisors have as well. And that’s how we’ve been able to get work with so many different clients across many different industries and maintain them. And so, yeah, relationship is the driving principle.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. Well, we share that in common too. It really is about relationships and, you know, knowing and understanding people and sharing values, sharing guiding principles for sure. I know people are already interested in getting to know more about you or having a conversation. So, um, Terry, tell me the best way for folks to connect with you.

Terry Hess: Yeah, the, uh, I’d say the easiest way is just through email, which it’s a tea or it’s Terry Hess. Sorry, Terry. At Trident. Com. And just to avoid confusion, Terry is t e r r y at Trident. Com. Yeah.

Trisha Stetzel: Perfect. Thank you. Terry. And if you guys are looking for him anywhere else, his last name is spelled h e s. Of course, I’ll put this in the show notes. So if you’re in front of your computer, you can just point and click and connect directly with Terry. Um, you have such a diverse background, how it sounds like you’re using all of the skills that you’ve learned over the course of many years in the work that you do with teach. But what are some of the the real standouts for you from experience and expertise perspective that play into what you’re doing with teach?

Terry Hess: Um, trusting people. And, you know, I have a lot of us have a wealth or a body of knowledge. We can’t do it all. There’s not enough even there’s. Even though the skill sets. There’s not enough time in the day. So it’s really, you know, building strong relationships and, you know, putting people in place that can that can help. Um, again, I get back to the relationships. People have to feel comfortable and confident that you don’t always have their back in good times. But, you know, we anticipate that, you know, and frankly, not only do we anticipate that bad things are going to happen, we also try to anticipate, okay, we know the bad things are going to happen. What might those be okay. And when you can plan for those when they do come or some version of them comes, everybody’s that much more comfortable and calm and and it just breeds helps to breed success and you know, stay on the path.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So I’m sure that you’ve got all kinds of deep relationships with the people that you work with or you bring into, uh, an engagement that you trust. How do you go about building the relationship with your clients? You talked a lot about relationships. So how do you go about building that trust and relationship with them?

Terry Hess: Yeah. Um, for me, because we we do the same. It’s we have to be comfortable being candid with each other. Just very open, very honest. Um, I’m particularly interested in what are your raw emotions? I don’t need them polished or or. Okay. I don’t need them clean or unclean. I just need to know where you’re at. Um, again, it’s much of this stuff to me is just sort of touchy feely, if you will. Um, and I think that that kind of gets right back into the relationships. You gotta know where people are at. And, uh, I’m sorry to keep harping on that. It may sound. No.

Trisha Stetzel: No, it’s it’s good. And I think that some of us do get a gut feeling, and sometimes we don’t listen to our gut, which is like our second brain. Right. And we really do need to listen to it. And, uh, the people that, uh, we feel good about, typically we can build a relationship with them, uh, so long as they’re not faking too hard. Right? Yes.

Terry Hess: Absolutely. Yes. Which we all do to some degree.

Trisha Stetzel: Sometimes. Sometimes we fake it a little bit. Uh, if you don’t mind, I’d love to talk about your hobby just for a second, because I. I think it is a really cool hobby. So will you, uh, just I we talked about it before we started the show today, but something that you do for downtime, we talked about that we all have to step away from work at some point. So what do you do to relax or step away?

Terry Hess: Yeah. Uh, so I love woodworking. Um, and I’ll sort of share with you why I think that I like it so much. Um, I get back. So at one point, my career, I was the CEO, CEO of this, uh, the trade school. And you got to bear in mind our product was students. Okay. And so when you walk into any one of our buildings in any given day, you are literally surrounded by up to 500 different people. And guess what? Every single day, without fail, those 500 people each have their own individual set of emotions and experiences and motivations and intentions, etc. and to try to get all those people to go down, you know, a certain lane, if you will. You know, one is always stepping off it and then you have all these employees. Woodworking is there’s nobody chiming in. It’s just you and the wood. So all the mistakes that I make, which I make, I’ve made every single one you can think of. But all the mistakes, it’s up to me and you know, and time to correct them. It’s just. It’s peace and calm, if that makes sense. No. No drama.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, I love it. I think, you know, we just spent all this time talking about relationships and now you have relationship with wood. It’s okay. Right? It’s okay. It’s just you and the wood. Uh, I shared with you that I like to garden, so it’s just me and the plants, and it’s fine, right? I don’t need anybody to help me with that. Uh, good. Thanks for. Thanks for sharing that. Um, just circling back and thinking about how, Um, we’re in or you are in installing leadership disciplines. So, yes, there’s a leader in the business where you, uh, go and assist and you bring all of the people that you know and love and trust and to make this work. How do you build lasting capacity inside of those portfolio companies?

Terry Hess: Excellent question. So, um, there are many different leadership and management systems. Um, from my perspective, you know, 80% of them are saying 80% of their material. I should say 80% of the body of the work is saying about the same thing as any other system. So, um, you know, one of the ones that we use pretty regularly is called EOS, which stands for Entrepreneurial Organization Systems. And again, it’s basically just this apparatus. It comes with books, materials, forms, consultancy, uh, to instill how does this company train and sort of keep a platform for its leadership and management. Um, so again, like I would argue, I would argue that we’re agnostic, but you do have to have some system. Um, and again, you know, that’s sort of a, a good vetting point as well. So, you know, can we be candid, can we develop a relationship and then you, the founder or leader, are you open, you know, sort of take an extreme picture. Can I help you to understand that, to do the next step, it’s in the realm of possibility that you are going to your body of knowledge, and your impact is going to be you as an individual. It’s going to be much, much less. So how do we extend you and your brain and your knowledge to the rest of the group in a, uh, in a managed fashion? And it’s not an overnight solution. It’s a process for us in particular, they they sort of advise all their folks that it’s a two year endeavor to fully implement the US system. So, um, so but yeah, just it’s important to have a system in place.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. And, you know, I’m just thinking about change. Change is hard for everyone. And although there’s a leader with a vision, change still has to happen with them and their team as you’re integrating. You talk a little bit about change in these businesses.

Terry Hess: Yeah. Um. I’m trying to think of how I could collapse that into a, uh, a good how would I advise on that? Okay, so I guess let me say there’s sort of two extremes. There’s companies that, um, that do adopt the change. Um, typically, um, it is because those companies and the leaders have, you know, beat their head up against the wall. They’ve tried their method or their ego. And, you know, Frank, thankfully there’s been enough money in the business, has had enough success. So they can sort of still stay a going concern. But there’s a lot of frustration of, you know, beating your head up against the wall. And so those are typically the ones that adapt to the change the quickest. Right? Yeah. Um, I can’t remember the saying from one of my colleagues, but, uh, it’s something to the effect of the pain of change has to outweigh the pain of the status quo in order for a change to take effect. Uh, so that’s something that’s 100% true. And so that’s one of the distraction you get people that beat their head up against the wall, they’re willing to make a change. The other end of the spectrum is typically it’s young men.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay.

Terry Hess: That have yet to beat their head up against the wall. Yeah. Um, you know, and but they’re just, you know, they they’re they there’s a lot of ego or bravado or they’ve had a lot of success. And they think because they had it in the past that it’s just going to continue going forward. But change is inevitable. I mean, I think, you know, for for society as a whole, it’s with, with, with AI and how fast AI is coming. And, you know, I think UPS laid off 48,000 workers this week. We need to get our head wrapped around what that means. So yeah. Anyways, yeah, but back to your point. You need to adopt change. And that’s also how we cull out those 80 that we you can sort of, you know, by talking with people and, and trying to see if you can establish a relationship if they’re not open to change. We just don’t bother.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. Well, they have to be dissatisfied. There has to be some kind of vision, and you guys can come in and help them with those first steps, right. To help them, uh, start to move the needle. Um, what about a turnaround story that really stands out for you? Uh, yeah.

Terry Hess: I’ll tell you one of my favorites. Um, okay. This is a guy that start, uh, a very, very rough background. Um, you know, if, if you choose chose to get in it with him, you would wonder why he’s not in jail. Still, um, but I think that that, you know, at some, at some point the light bulb clicked for him that he doesn’t want to keep going down this path. He’s married, he wants to have kids. And I give him a tremendous amount of credit. He put he just put the bootstraps on and went to work in a very, very difficult, very dirty industry. And uh, seven years later had, uh, $3 million worth of equipment in his shop. And, um, he’s a guy that, you know, again, because because of that success, he thought he could, you know, continue to grow and scale. He’s a prime example of someone that beat his head up against the wall. So when I came in and when I came and got involved, it was a very, very toxic, uh, wildly profitable, so very profitable, but very toxic environment. And, um, you know, all the skills that, you know, the modeling and the looking at the business and the strategy and, you know, putting the right people in place, all that was done.

Terry Hess: But the real driver of changing that company was Basically just being a sounding board for this person. I needed to relate to him. There would not have been anything that we could have done unless he got started to take steps to get his mind correct. And, uh, again, I just, I tie it, you know, all the business acumen was there, but if we just let that be, it would have failed. Um, and now, you know, cut to two years later, what he is doing and what everyone else in the company is doing by repairing his psyche, for lack of a better word. It’s it’s phenomenal. It’s wonderful. I mean, just to give you one little metric that went from, uh, a visible pipeline of $1 million, I think for the next 12 months. And, uh, now I think again in two years, it’s probably close to $12 million of a visible pipeline, not to mention what we could get if we just keep going after it.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. Wow. It is amazing what a mindset shift can do. Or the right partner, the right person to have those conversations with. Wow. Congratulations! It sounds amazing. I can’t wait to hear the rest of that story. Um, as we get to the back end of our conversation today, we’ve got one last question for you. For the entrepreneurs or leaders, owners who are listening today who feel stuck between that potential and the actual performance or the activity, right. That gets us where we want to go. What is one mindset shift or action step they can take in the next 90 days to move their business closer to its true value?

Terry Hess: Yeah, um, there’s so many resources, but I’ll just throw out two that I think would be helpful. Um. Uh, there’s I’m blanking on the name of the book, but there’s a, there are several EOS books. Um, and I can’t recall the name of the, uh, the bread and butter one. Uh, it might be rocket fuel, but anyways, I would recommend going on iOS, going on their website, their their series of books and the the foundational book is on there. Also, there are a list of consultants across the geographies. Are there available for people to review. So that’s one path. And then the other path is this is I would strongly recommend if you are in that place where you want a mindset shift, hire a business coach that that, uh, they will do volumes for you. You know, you are so many people in those leadership positions. They’re so used to and accustomed to being responsible and to, you know, keeping people accountable. Um, and because of that, they kind of, you know, get in this island unto themselves. But to have an outside individual that can be that for you, it may it’s that basic and simple, and many people just shy away from it because they feel like they don’t need it. I’ve seen a lot of examples. If you’re open to it, it does wonders.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. Well thank you Terry. This has been a fantastic conversation. I appreciate you taking the time to join me today.

Terry Hess: Excellent. Thank you very much, Trisha. I really appreciate it.

Trisha Stetzel: You’re very welcome.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. And shout out to Steve Landrum for putting the two of us together. Uh, glad to have you. All right, guys, that’s all the time we have for today. If you found value in this conversation I had with Terry today, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur, veteran or Houston leader ready to grow. Be sure to follow, rate, and review the show and helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours and your business, your leadership and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. It is my pleasure to introduce you to my guest today, Michael Dodsworth, founder and CEO of Fanfare, a platform that helps brands turn product launches, events and collaborations into unforgettable experiences. Michael and his team are redefining what it means to launch something in today’s attention economy, helping companies not only create buzz but capture real, actionable insights that drive loyalty long after they drop. So sneak peek into things that we might be talking about from ticketing and retail to live events and brand partnerships. Michael’s journey has taken him through some of the most high stakes, high pressure corners of commerce, including launch disasters, sold out moments and everything in between. His mission, with Fanfare, is simple but ambitious to make every product launch feel like an event fans remember and brands can learn from. Michael, welcome to the show.

Michael Dodsworth: It’s great to be here. Nodding along to my own intro. It’s a good sign.

Trisha Stetzel: Well, I’m so excited to have you on the show. So Michael, tell us a little bit more about you.

Michael Dodsworth: Uh, so I, as you can probably tell from the accent and not from around these parts, uh, Fanfare is based in LA. I found myself on these shores through all kinds of different forks in the road. Uh, but started life in the north of the UK. Uh, became an engineer pretty early in life. A software engineer. Um, my brother brought home a Commodore 64, and that was me hooked. And since then, I’ve been building software. I’ve been building platforms. Uh, found my way into San Francisco through an acquisition of a very small company and had the opportunity to work in amazing places with amazing people and on issues of scale that I think is pretty rare and unique and has helped kind of build this appreciation for these, these moments, uh, these launch day shenanigans that we all see. Um, but these surges in traffic, the bots, the bad actors, like these are all very, very gnarly technical challenges to try and get your arms around. And we don’t see we don’t see a lot of brands and vendors, even even people with lots of resources been able to take those on. So that’s that’s kind of the, the, the origin of me. Uh, the origin of Fanfare really came out of just frustration as a consumer, having spent my life loving going to live events, going to festivals, and Struggling every single time to get tickets. It’s just incredibly painful and it’s a pain that we all share. Like everyone has their their bad moment like it may be.

Michael Dodsworth: You know, you sat in line for four hours, for five hours, and you saw all the tickets vanish onto the secondary market. But maybe it’s, you know, you booked tickets to the US open, and when you turned up, the tickets were not valid. They were illegitimate tickets. Uh, so I’ve, I’ve heard all kinds of stories, uh, on that spectrum. I’ve felt a lot of that pain. And, uh, I set out at the start of, uh, when was this? This was 2016. Uh, we started a company rival, which, as the name suggests, is going after the likes of Ticketmaster and so on. And we really wanted to provide some competition. Uh, we felt like there really needed to be a better way for consumers to do this. You quickly realize that it’s not just the consumers, it’s the people on the other side of the fence, the teams, the promoters, the artists are also having horrible moments when things go on sale. Uh, and we we built this platform, uh, it was looking good. And when we were at the start of the pandemic, uh, rival was scooped up by Ticketmaster. And that kind of I was hopeful that this would allow me to solve for these frustrations at a larger scale. But that’s not how things turned out. So I ended up just, uh, being frustrated that these problems weren’t being solved and starting my own thing to to go after this.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay. All right. So in the vein of Ticketmaster, uh, or beat them at their own game, what lessons have you learned with the experiences as you’ve moved through this journey with Fanfare?

Michael Dodsworth: Yeah, I think, uh, we, I mean, we had all of our values on the wall, and one of them was, uh, respect the problem, solve it simply. Uh, the more we spoke to team owners, to promoters, to venues. The realization of all of the complexity of what they’re doing, just managing these venues is incredibly complex. Working around the seasons of all of the different teams, the sports, the artists like, it’s incredibly, incredibly difficult what they do. And it’s not something that you can just stand up a platform that does something very simple, and they’re going to be able to do their day to day. So that was one, um, it was interesting learning about the the different incentives that different people have in the ticketing industry. You know, I think, uh, and, and often at cross-purposes. Uh, so we really wanted to slow the process down and make it more deliberative and more more careful and so on. But the promoters want to say, you know, sold out in 50s. Right. And so you’re kind of thrown at odds in all kinds of different circumstances. And I think that’s the source of some of the frustration that people feel when tickets go on sale. And there’s there’s only a small sliver of tickets available.

Michael Dodsworth: That’s often because the teams have kind of passed off risk by giving tickets to brokers and third parties and so on. So there’s a lot, I think, at play there. Um, and I think one of the really important, like, um, things to learn from the teams was they, they were they were all trying to create moments. They weren’t just trying to sell tickets. They were really especially the the really forward thinking teams were trying to think about ways that they can really create fandom and really go after, you know, creating experiences that people will remember. Well, uh, good experiences, like the moment they took their kids to see their first baseball game and what could they do to try and elevate those experiences? Like, could they offer them, like a better seat if they knew that this was their first time, could they try and get them back in to the venue if they knew that? These people are kind of on the cusp of becoming lifelong fans of the Dodgers. Say, uh, so these are, I think, interesting realizations. Like, they’re really thinking about how they can, like, create something that’s memorable and they just didn’t have the means to do it.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. The client journey, that’s what’s really bubbling up for me, right? This whole client journey. So you started your story with being on the other side as a patron, trying to buy tickets, and now you’re on the inside working with the teams who are trying to create moments. How did you at what point did you realize that it wasn’t just about selling the tickets, it was about these moments that these teams wanted to create for these families or people who were just buying tickets?

Michael Dodsworth: Yeah, I think it was it was more just reminding me Of. Like what? What memorable moments have I taken? Like, why am I a fan of a particular person or a particular brand even? And it is often these kind of special, special experiences that we share. Right. I think, um, you know, I can remember my first football game. I can remember a rugby game, uh, rugby final. Like, these are like memories that really stick. And, uh, I think hearing the teams talk about what they wanted to do and thinking, like, living in that, you know, the, the, the mind of the family going in and having like, special treatment and like, merch given like all of those things I think would just have created an amazing experience for me. Um, I think Covid taking that away also reminded me how much I missed those experiences. Like being around people, been around groups of people who all like, commonly share in something. I think I really missed that. And, uh, yeah, I think that reinforces me how. How important these, these opportunities are for teams, for artists, for for brands. Even so. I think that’s that’s where it came from.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. So there’s so much noise out there, Michael. Just so much noise. And we’re all bombarded with so many things that are going on. So how does Fanfare cut through the noise and really create this moment or this journey for the client?

Michael Dodsworth: Yeah. What we’ve seen is like, why the noise gets created is often because the brands have very little information or understanding of what works, what doesn’t work, so they end up just bombarding people. Like my inbox is filled with, with the only one.

Michael Dodsworth: Absolute like I, you know, I have just kind of carved out an inbox over there that I just occasionally look at. Um, just because they don’t know what channel works, they don’t know how often they don’t know, like what’s really going to move the needle with people, what’s, you know, what’s important to people and so on. So I think without all of the, the information and the the ways of using that information, they just kind of scattergun approach it. And that’s what we all feel like when we see those messages go out. Uh, emails in particular. It’s because they’re just, you know, they’re trying their best, but they don’t really have any way of focusing. So I think for our brands been able to give them those tools. If you want to create an experience that’s special, you need to carve out some experience just for your VIPs or just for your, you know, loyal subscribers. And then you don’t want to send messages too often. The most effective way is to reach people is maybe the Friday before, maybe two weeks before. And here’s the channels that work with these people so that, you know, there’s there’s a very high signal to noise on the messages that the brands send out. So when people see a message from a brand they care about, they know it’s not just spam, right? They know it’s something important and they may want to look at. So I think that’s how we’ve tried to help brands with this, like provide them data so that they can make more focused decisions about how they reach people.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. So we’re moving from Michael, the patron, to Michael, the engineer businessman, making sure that we’re looking at the data. Uh, and I think that is so important. Um, as we get kind of to the middle of our conversation, I know folks are already interested in connecting with you. So would you give us the best way to find you and connect with you?

Michael Dodsworth: Yeah, I’m on LinkedIn. You can find me Michael Dodsworth. Uh, is my handle. But there are not many Michael Dodsworth’s in the world, thankfully, so you can find me pretty easily. Grab some time. I’m always happy to talk about this stuff if you have something coming up, if you know you have a launch coming up or something you want to get on sale, please reach out. You can also find us on Fanfare. Uh, we’ve been trying to produce articles and blogs, uh, some content around all of these releases. Whether they go well, whether they don’t go well. The to do’s, the the do not do’s of these kind of events and what we’ve learned from it.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you for that. All right you guys LinkedIn Michael Dodsworth is the best place. That’s actually I think that’s how I found you. Or maybe we found each other on matchmaker FM which is a podcast matching. Right. Which is great to, uh, to go and meet some really cool people. Excited to have you on today. Can we do just have one little fun conversation around Taylor Swift, maybe? If there are any Swifties out there. Uh, all right, tell me the story.

Trisha Stetzel: How so? Tell me about switch to and the drop that broke everything.

Michael Dodsworth: Yeah, I mean, these these things happen so frequently. Uh, there’s the feeling I remember a friend reaching out after the switch to release and he said, I think this is part of the process when things fall over. Uh, I think this is deliberate, like it must be because it happens every time. There’s no way this is just they can’t scale to meet these requirements. And I’m like, no, no, no. They lost business when this happened, right? People went to Best Buy. It fell over. So they went to Walmart or whoever. So these are these are painful moments. And I’m kind of surprised still how often like if I need to find case studies of people who’ve had drops go badly. It’s a really easy dip into X or wherever you can quickly find people who’ve had issues. So, um, I mean, Taylor Swift, uh, everyone on the inside, I’m sure, saw that coming. Uh, you know, just a high volume on sale on Ticketmaster. These things, I mean, they go badly almost every time they happen. So Oasis shortly after that, Ariana Grande recently all had serious issues. I think in the Taylor Swift case, this was a presale that fell over. So not just in the general on sale. This was just her most loyal fans showing up excitedly to try and get Taylor Swift tickets.

Michael Dodsworth: And they’re met with just, you know, an error page or worse. Like they get their tickets and then they vanish. So, I mean, this comes from, you know, kind of an ailing platform like Ticketmaster has been doing this for a long, long time. And I would say, you know, having not invested as heavily as you would like on the technology side, um, having like scooped together all kinds of acquisitions and kind of glued them together. What you end up with is a system that, you know, when you really pressure test it, when you really put some, you know, put some people in there at high scale that it just falls apart. And that’s what you see with with Oasis, with Ariana Grande. Like all of these things just really challenge a platform that is difficult to now. Right the ship. Um, you know, I’ve worked at places where we’ve had platforms that have some years behind them, and it’s a real it’s a constant effort to make sure that they are current, to make sure that they can deal with the traffic volumes as they increase and to keep on top of things like bots and so on. So I think this is just, you know, it’s a difficult problem to solve. Um, but it’s it’s not something that you can kind of tack on after the fact easily.

Michael Dodsworth: It requires like a multi-year effort. And I, I haven’t seen that kind of effort from many platforms, uh, on in the ticketing industry, which is, I think, why rivals approach starting something new, knowing that these kind of traffic volumes happen, that you should prepare for them and you should build everything you do, uh, around those kind of events is where rival came from. And that’s what we’ve done here is just knowing that, you know, at the scale of 3 million Swifties, a lot of things can be put under a lot of pressure, and you have to be the platform that stays up around these things. So, I mean, I’ve been in situations where we’ve had outages, where we’ve had these kind of moments on the other side. It’s incredibly painful. It’s I mean, there was an outage yesterday from AWS. Uh, these things cause enormous damage. And as an engineer in those moments, there’s some scar tissue for sure, built up around those moments. Um, but it really is just been very disciplined about how you build and really keeping like this particular feature, this particular element of what you’re doing top of mind whenever you do it. So nothing really gets into Fanfare without it being fully, uh, Pressure tested to make sure that we can stay up.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. Okay. So now I’m. I’m wondering, like, business lessons from Michael. Like, what have you learned about doing business along this journey? From being a patron, taking your, uh, engineer skills, building the platform, staying ahead of the game. What have you learned about business on this journey?

Michael Dodsworth: I mean, I’ve had to learn a lot quickly. That’s the. That was actually one of the reasons for starting Fanfare is I felt like as an engineer, like I had the engineering chops, but there was a whole world out there that I was less familiar, that I was less comfortable with. And the most, the quickest way of getting there was to start something myself and really test myself in that way. So, I mean, I think realizing coming from an engineering perspective, like there’s always the focus on the product, like what it does, how it does it, and the quick realization that people don’t really care too much about that. They don’t care about the details. They don’t care about the amazing engineering you may have done to build some feature. Like, I see a lot of engineers who quickly jump into the walkthroughs and things like that. And it’s not about that. It’s about understanding people’s pain. Like what are they trying to do? Why can’t they do it and listen to how they’ve been going through the motions and what they’ve done to set this up? And what are they really trying to achieve from this? Because, you know, sometimes the answer is not your platform, right? Sometimes the answer is not the cool feature you’ve built. It’s, uh, you know, it’s really talking to to people and understanding what they’re doing. So I think that was a, an adjustment. Uh, like sometimes you think you’ve gotten there and then you, you know, you read your own notes, uh, you go back and look and you’re like, I’m, I’m definitely still talking about how the platform can solve a problem they’ve not talked about yet. Uh, so there’s some great material out there. There’s a book called The Mom Test that someone, uh, pointed me at. And I point people at, uh, generally it’s just, uh, a good way of kind of level setting on that and making sure that you really are getting the right answers. Uh, and not just trying to reaffirm something that you already believe and things like that. So I think that’s been an important lesson.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. I think oftentimes we lean into all of the bells and whistles. Let me tell you about all these amazing things on my product or my service and the way it doesn’t make them feel anything. Right. Those don’t create an emotion. For some people it may, but it doesn’t create that emotion. And you, you talked about this at the at the top of our conversation around the journey and the moment. And that’s really what matters. That’s what people are looking for. And I love that. Fanfare is really focused on that. I think that’s amazing. Okay, so if it’s all right, I’ll switch gears just a little bit. You talk about the sneaker culture. Can you give me a little more insight on that?

Michael Dodsworth: Yeah. So I’m an aspiring sneakerhead. I have a large collection in my wardrobe that’s a little bit embarrassing when people come across it. Um, I think there’s a lot people can learn. Brands can learn more, traditional brands can learn from sneaker culture. And I see I see more established brands reaching for this kind of model. Um, and the idea of, you know, running limited sales, doing collaborations and again, like trying to create a community feel around a product like sneaker heads are a group, right? They, they, they understand each other. They know the pain that each other went through to get the products. Like, you can see people walking around in, you know, Travis Scott dunks, for example, and most people don’t notice it. Most people look, look past things like that. But people who know know that they went through incredible pain to probably get those products. So I think it’s that feeling of creating a community around a brand, uh, Supreme were incredibly effective. Like anything that went on sale with the Supreme logo on people would jump over to to to get after. So I think that’s a really important lesson, is trying to create a community of people who love your products, who will espouse, uh, the products, values and, and kind of bought into the story.

Michael Dodsworth: Um, and we see people doing that all kinds of different ways. Sometimes it is the narrative of the brand, sometimes it is having people buy into the, the, the origin story, uh, what the brand is going after. Sometimes it’s just the quality of the products that people put out there can, you know, form a community around that brand. People do it in different ways. Uh, we saw a soap brand in LA called Doctor Squatch do a collaboration with Sydney Sweeney where they had, uh, Sydney Sweeney infused bath water soap. Uh, like, completely bizarre but incredible way of just getting attention to your brand and driving people towards it like you’re the brand that’s, you know, it’s soap. Uh, but you’re trying to deliver and, like, inject a bit of humor into it and a little bit like, uh, you know, trying to do something a little different. So people do it in different ways. But I think trying to do something that creates this, this feeling of community, I think is really important.

Trisha Stetzel: Mhm. So tell me a little bit more about Fanfare and the role that Fanfare is playing in creating these communities. And uh, why someone would want to go and check out Fanfare.

Michael Dodsworth: Yeah. So we kind of facilitate these launch experiences. So if you have a product that’s going on sale, uh, like I say, building a community may mean rewarding your most loyal subscribers, let’s say. So you want to create an experience that goes on sale at a particular time, and you want someone else to take care of how that on sale happens. You don’t want to be scrambling around in the moment to try and flip things on flip. Flip things off. So we facilitate that. You want to also make sure that they are messaged in the right way, through the right channels, at the right time like that. We can help you structure all of this as a marketing and event. So all the way from announcement through to actually running the experience itself. And then once you’re in the experience doing things that I think help foster that fandom. So things like moving your most loyal members forward in line or giving them exclusive access or rewarding their time even if they’re not successful, like if you’re selling only ten of a thing, most people are going to be disappointed in some way. But if you can give them something in that moment, if you can give them early access to the next drop. Uh, we’ve seen a brand Do they call it the L club? Uh, the people who failed five times to get some particular product were now eligible to an exclusive drop. Like, if that really keeps people, uh, engaged with the brand, there’s a feeling like you are having this exchange with the brand. Like you’re giving them your time and attention, and they’re giving you something back in return. Uh, so I think that’s how we can help.

Trisha Stetzel: Um, I love that. And just creating this community and getting people involved and making them feel special.

Trisha Stetzel: Right. Making it feel special. So who do you serve, Michael? Uh, for those people who are listening, who might be interested, who do you serve?

Michael Dodsworth: So we I mean, we started life going after the people who are running drops, who know drops, but are struggling to manage the process. So streetwear footwear is where we started life. But this is like any where you find scarcity is a good place to to add Fanfare. So this can be you have a a loyal audience, you have a following online and you want to put merch out there. You want to monetize what you have. Like this is a great way of doing that. Live events, luxury products, collectibles. Um, we heard from a guy who he loved ten figure coffee grinders and was frustrated with the process. Like, we found all kinds of places where you have these scarce products and a bad process. So that’s where we can come in.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay, fantastic. You guys, if you’re interested, please go take a look. It’s Fanfare and it’s f a f a r e at I o is where you’ll find that. Or you can find Michael Dodsworth on LinkedIn. I’ve got one more question for you. Before we wrap up today, you’ve seen both chaos and even magic in the world of of launches. So if you could leave our listeners with one piece of advice today about turning high pressure moments into lasting momentum. What would it be?

Michael Dodsworth: Yeah, I think the brands and the people we’ve seen successful on this really are trying to really are trying to create something that’s kind of magical for the people who care. Uh, I think, you know, trying to just give people coupons and discount codes just doesn’t cut it, like trying to to engage people, you know, and trying to keep those people engaged with the brand is a real full time effort for people. Um, and I think, you know, trying to do that and trying to create special moments for, for people, for their loyal fans is is incredibly powerful. Like, we see people really move the needle like I think, um, uh, I’m trying Stanley was a great example of that. You know, I think trying to create something that went viral was was their target and their sales numbers. I think it was three x their revenue every year for the last three. Like incredible growth from really going after this model.

Trisha Stetzel: And everybody wanted the pink one and they were always out. I’m just saying this Stanley mug. Everyone needed one. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, Michael, thank you so much for being with me today. Anything else that we didn’t cover today that you wanted to chat about?

Michael Dodsworth: I think that I think that covered a lot of it. I would just say if you if you are struggling with some of these events, uh, as a consumer, like, I’m with you, I’m with I’m with you there. Like, this is painful. Um, and I’m always open to hearing about new and interesting ways people find this problem. Um, whether that’s a brand, whether it’s, you know, people trying to book swim lessons for their kids, uh, these are all painful processes that we go through. So I’m always open to hear about this.

Trisha Stetzel: It’s not just the big things. It’s the everyday things that we’re trying to do as well. Thank you so much for being on. This has been such a great conversation.

Michael Dodsworth: Thank you so much.

Trisha Stetzel: All right, you guys, that’s all the time we have for today. If you found value in this conversation that I had with Michael today, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur, veteran or Houston leader ready to grow. Be sure to follow, rate and review the show. It helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours and your business. Your leadership and your legacy are about one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. Is my pleasure to introduce you to my guest today, who is Chad Ackerman, founder of CARE. We’ll talk more about that. And Chad Ackerman Real Estate, which those two things may be synonymous. You’ll see as a and a certified focal point business coach, which is how we met. After spending more than 25 years in corporate leadership, Chad made a bold pivot into entrepreneurship and investing, co-founding Left Field Investors, a nationally recognized community that supported thousands of passive investors before being acquired by Bigger Pockets and rebranded as Passive Pockets through care. Chad now helps new and aspiring limited partners build confidence, take action, and make smart, sustainable investment decisions. He’s passionate about making passive investing approachable for everyone, not just the pros, and teaching business owners how to grow income streams that align with their goals and their values. Chad, welcome to the show.

Chad Ackerman: Thank you. Can you hear Focal Point material in there as you read that too? Maybe a little. I’ve tried to bleed that in. It’s been very fruitful you know to get that focal point background. So but no thank you Trisha, I really appreciate you having me on the podcast. Really excited to have the conversation with you today. It’s great to see you again. Uh, thank you for all you’ve done for me to help get me to this point as well.

Trisha Stetzel: Hey. You bet. Uh, and I’m glad that you reached out. You know, you reached out just because we’re rekindling, uh, a relationship where we had a community together, and I said, hey, why don’t you come on the show? Let’s talk about what you’re doing.

Chad Ackerman: Yeah, you’re part of my Champions Network now, so I gotta work that Champions Network. That’s right.

Trisha Stetzel: So, Chad, for people who don’t know you, tell us a little bit more about you.

Chad Ackerman: Yeah. So, uh, again, thank you for having me on the show, but I was a career W2 guy. I was in human resources of all places, not the, you know, hunting grounds for turning into an entrepreneur, necessarily. But it worked for me that I did 25 plus years in HR and mostly focused on compensation, which was analytical at heart. I switched jobs, and when I switched jobs, somebody at the new job kind of put the bug in my ear that they were looking for multiple income streams. And that kind of triggered with me of, oh, you know that. Yeah, I’m getting later in my career looking for other options. I should look into this further. And this new job gave me windshield time. So I started listening to podcasts, I started doing audio books and so forth, focused on real estate investing and looked at a lot of shiny objects, a lot like like a lot of people do, and ultimately ended up falling into a local meetup group here in Columbus, Ohio, a beautiful Columbus, Ohio, where I am, and the last meetup that I attended, the founder got up and talked about how he left his W2 by investing passively in real estate, and that was kind of the switch that flipped for me of like, I gotta meet this guy, I gotta figure out what this is. And he ended up being one of the co-founders of Left Field with me as well, before it was over with.

Chad Ackerman: It’s his idea, really. I was a co-founder of his is what I should say, but I got very passionate about it. It left me built an opportunity for me to leave my W2 in 2022. Uh, so I’d say I’m retired from the corporate world anyway, but I wasn’t done by any means. I had to fill my time somehow, and I went out and bought a Focal Point franchise at that point in time. Got to go through some wonderful training with yourself and, uh, spurred me out and I, you know, I was soul searching, trying to figure out what to do with Focal Point, really find my customer. And somebody finally put the bug in my ear of saying, why don’t you go coach professionals that want to learn about passive real estate? And I’m like, yes, let’s blend focal points, materials, resources, knowledge with the knowledge I built by running left field and doing passive investing myself, and try to go help people that are just like me. My avatar is me, you know, my target audience is me. So, uh, try to go help people that have a curiosity about investing passively. Uh, just don’t know where to start. You know, those are the people I’m trying to find and help out now at this point in time.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. So, Chad, it took me six years to figure out that I am her. She is me.

Speaker4: I am right.

Trisha Stetzel: You learned that lesson a lot faster than I did.

Chad Ackerman: Maybe you you you gave that to me subliminally without me realizing it.

Trisha Stetzel: Maybe I did, or maybe I spoke it at some.

Chad Ackerman: Yes, at some point.

Trisha Stetzel: Some class somewhere. Um, okay. So I, I love this idea of you shifting from your W2 into investing into coaching and now blending those things together. What lessons carried over into what you’re doing now from your corporate experience? I’m asking you to lean back into that a little bit and tell us what you bring to your business now, from those lessons you learned then.

Chad Ackerman: Yeah, I, I learned it in corporate focal point. Put this in us as well with your training and everything to to me this this space I’m in now trying to help people. It all starts with goal setting. You really gotta build your foundation first and foremost. Otherwise, you make mistakes and you only have a limited number of resources to utilize in this space. You don’t want to waste any money. You don’t want to waste any time. So I really Call coach people to sit and spend time on your goals and your strategies. I’m proof positive. My very first passive investing investment I got into was a 17 story building in Cleveland. That was an office space that they were going to gut and turn into apartments. Sounds sexy. Sounds fun. I was excited about it. Was definitely a shiny object. Um, but I didn’t realize at the time my real goal in all this space was cash flow. I wanted to build passive cash flow. Well, a basically a ground up development is almost what it was isn’t going to cash flow for a long period of time.

Chad Ackerman: So it was a mistake to get into it. I thought it was still going to be okay and I could ride the wave. It actually turned out that the gentleman didn’t operate it very well, so it ended up being bad all the way around. But the biggest lesson learned was pause. Take time. Figure out what you’re really trying to do in this space. Ask yourself those questions of what do I want out of this? And honestly, the the biggest benefit to what I’m doing now, the passive real estate investing. There’s a ton of noise in this industry. There’s shiny objects everywhere. Having your goals set really gives you alignment and cuts down on a lot of those noises. I can ignore all the noise that I see because that’s not what I’m looking for. So it really trims down that funnel then, so you can focus on what is important to you, what you’re really trying to do. So I learned it in corporate, learned it with Focal Point. And it definitely sticks with this space as well.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay. So now I’m going to ask you to put your coaching hat on. Is this something you do with your clients? What if somebody comes to you and says, Chad, I don’t know what I want. I have no idea what my goals are.

Chad Ackerman: So then we start asking the questions. Then we dig deep with them and really start asking the why, why, why, why questions to them. Um, and it does take time. It took me a long time to kind of really nail down my goals. And you, you start with high level. I feel like, oh, I just I want to build my wealth. Well, okay. Why do you want to build your wealth? What’s your lesson behind it? Oh, well, I want to, you know, be able to leave my W2. Well, why do you want to leave your W2 at some point in time? And, you know, you see I like your lighting up about this. So my coaching is kicking in. But it it gets down to honestly at the end of the day, majority of the time it ends up being time freedom discussions that people are looking for, not financial freedom. Financial freedom, ultimately is the tool that lets you have time freedom. But it’s majority of these people that I coach. They’re missing kids soccer games. They’re, you know, working 60 hours a week. They’re doing all this. It always boils back to time. Freedom at the end of the day, is what they’re looking for. But it’s it’s helping them understand that on, you know, on the surface, they’re just like, I want to build my wealth. I want alternative investments to outside of the stock market to blend in and diversify all that’s good. But there’s more. Why behind all of that that I try to help them get to. So it means more to them?

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. Wow. This sounds like business coaching, Chad. Mm.

Chad Ackerman: It’s, uh. It’s amazing. Once I kind of figured out how to blend this, that it’s. Yeah. Business coaching fits in so many arenas. Um, it’s it’s borderline life coaching. It’s borderline. I always view it as accountability coaching. You know, this is what you taught us as well. At the end of the day, I’m just helping you think through what you already know or may know, helping you just take a clear lens to take a look at it and then hold you accountable for what you say you want to do. That’s ultimately my goal with the people that I coach keep them on track.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Um, so if someone is listening to the show today and they’re like, oh, this sounds like a really great idea. And listen, Chad, you have the experience. You’ve got a reputation, um, in this passive Investing space and making it approachable. Um, why do you think so many people are intimidated by it? Even those people who are listening who are like, oh, something I want to do, but I’m never going to get into that because it’s scary.

Chad Ackerman: Yeah, I, I think there’s a lot of myths related to this industry. I actually have a webinar I do that covers seven myths that go with this industry. That first and foremost is people have fear, the fear of investing, which the risk that’s involved. I could lose everything that I invest. Well, there’s a risk in every investment that you do. The the beauty of investing in real estate versus the stock market, the stock market. You’re investing in paper, which could go to a value of $0. I mean, it could the building could close, the business could go out. Uh, it could be, you know, a total disaster for you. At the end of the day, with real estate, even if the whatever building it was, if it was self storage, if it was apartment building, whatever, if it burnt to the ground, you still own the ground. There’s still some value that you hold there because it’s real estate. You probably had insurance on it so you can get. I mean, you shouldn’t invest in anything that doesn’t have insurance on it. So you better have insurance, right? So even if it does burn like you’re going to get that back, you mitigate a lot of the risk because it’s a real tangible asset.

Chad Ackerman: Um, that’s one another big myth that people always think is you gotta have, you know, I gotta be a millionaire. I gotta have a lot of money to do this. Well, there are avenues most of the retail investments I’ve gotten into you can get into for as low as 25 grand. Now 25 grand. Still a lot of money, by all means. But it’s not millions of dollars. But there’s a business that we work with that we partnered with called Trivest. They help you pool money together. If you have friends and family that want to invest in real estate, too, and you don’t want to put a bunch in, you can pull money together into an LLC. And then you go invest and then you mitigate that risk even further. So I try to teach the myths so that I get people to understand these shouldn’t be obstacles. These shouldn’t be roadblocks for you. Let me get you comfortable. My whole point of care is to build clarity around these obstacles so you can have confidence, so you can take action. That’s what I’m really trying to coach on at the end of the day.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay? I’m really excited about what’s happening here. This is such a great conversation. Uh, you mentioned a webinar, and I am sure that there are people already wanting to connect with you, Chad. So what’s the best way to connect with you and find out more?

Chad Ackerman: Yeah, so I’m all over LinkedIn. That’s a great place to go or go check out my website at Real Estate. Com all one word Chad real estate. Um, a lot of material out there. I’ve tried to put some free material, glossary information, how to get started. These kind of things just it’s where Care was built. Chad Ackerman Real Estate was built to be educational, to help people get educated. I my goal, my legacy, is to educate as many people that this is a tangible way that they can diversify their portfolio. I fell in love with it so much. So I liquidated my 401 and moved it over. And I don’t I don’t encourage people to do this. This is a path. It’s not the path to do this. But I love the space. So I want to teach people, hey, if you want to diversify, if you’re looking for something else, that is a can be a passive investment for you. Check out real estate. And there is there is opportunity here for people and so forth. So go to my website. Go go to the LinkedIn. Check me out there and see, you know, reach out to me. I personally, the biggest thing I get joy out of is just having conversations with people to hear their journey. Where where are you? What have you done? What do you think you’re trying to do? And can I help you out in some way or shape or form? I, I tell my story on podcast all the time. I love hearing stories from other people is what I really strive to do.

Trisha Stetzel: And you guys can find the past podcasts on his website as well. By the way, his last name is spelled a, c k e r m a n. Just in case you’re looking for him on social or his website. You started down this path, Chad, when you were talking about care. And I know it’s Chad Ackerman Real Estate, but you started care and you said clarity. And I thought you were going to go into this using that acronym for your coaching as well.

Chad Ackerman: I have one I’ve tried to figure out, should I get away from Chad and real estate and use the clarity as the C? Uh, but I, I haven’t totally pivoted there yet. I honestly thought it worked out great. Chatgpt you.

Trisha Stetzel: Can use.

Chad Ackerman: Two.

Trisha Stetzel: Right?

Chad Ackerman: You can have your.

Trisha Stetzel: Your coaching acronym and your business name acronym. Okay. Um, the the next piece that I would like to jump into is really community as a business strategy and kind of left field investors and talking a little bit about that. But before we get there. Community makes me think of champions. And we mentioned that at the top of our conversation. Not everyone may understand what a champion is. And I think that let’s start there and then let’s dive into community as a business strategy.

Chad Ackerman: Yeah, yeah. So to me, champion is that everybody has them. You don’t maybe label them that way, but it’s that. Who is that mentor that you’ve worked with. Who is that person that when you’re in a group discussion they’ve got your back or they talk highly of you or whatever? Who are the people you can lean on when you have questions and you want to just kind of partner up with somebody to help you out with an issue or whatever. Um, those are, I think, of my corporate world. There were people that when I was trying for a job or I needed a reference, if you will. They were perfect for that. They were the ones that would kind of stick up and say my names. But it’s it’s so much more than that. It’s that that person that’s kind of looking out for your best interest. Um, that is your true champion in my mind. These are the people I’ve gone back to to kind of let them know what I’m doing now. And they’re the ones that are out there sending referrals my way because they want to help me out. So we all have those people, and they’re very important in our lives, by all means.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. They are. So, uh, I would be remiss if I didn’t if we didn’t talk about why you reached out to me as a champion and the connection that we have there. So let’s talk about this idea of connecting with veterans who may be interested in passive income.

Chad Ackerman: Yeah, yeah. So when we were running left field, we saw different pockets of groups of people. I mean, at the end of the day, the target audience for passive investing is a very broad topic. It’s anybody that’s that’s interested that has the means to do it. Uh, you know, so it’s a broad topic, but we would see pockets. We saw first responders that were trying to organize themselves. We saw military, we saw people that saw entrepreneurs, that sold businesses. So there was various avenues that go, but it was always trying to reach out and connect with those people where they are to help introduce the space, especially in a place that they’re comfortable and they’re surrounded by people that there is in their network or their community, so that they could kind of hash it out after conversations and vet it themselves of like, does this seem legit or not? Or whatever the case is, veterans was a big group of that. There’s there’s a lot of people that came into left field that were active duty still that had disposable income that they were trying to invest while they were still active, um, to put it to use. So it wasn’t just sitting around and, and was building wealth for them when they were ready to retire out of the military and so forth. So it was an avenue that after talking to you, I’m like, you know, there’s there’s a lot of work that could be done there, I think, to help introduce this space that I well, not just in military, It isn’t introduced. Well, one of my I’ll use the word legacy again.

Chad Ackerman: One of the legacies I wish we had from left field was I wanted to build educational material that might be taught in schools, whether it be college level, high school level. I’ve actually started a couple books, and one of them is a book that would be for kids 6 to 10 years old to start introducing it then so parents could read it to them, get interested themselves, but be able to have that conversation with a child growing up. I have two children. They’re they’re one’s 21 now. One’s 19. So they’re not going to read that book for me necessarily. But I put them in a tribe in an LLC with me, and I invest with them so that they could learn. My goal was to teach my kids my why was teach my kids about this at a much earlier age than I learned, so they can make more decisions around this than me learning it in my 40s. And I had a lot of, you know, expenses I was responsible for a lot of responsibilities, period. Uh, you know, they’re they’re living the cheapest life. They’re going to live right now because their expenses are as low as they’re ever going to be. Let me teach you how to manage your money. The money you do have, that’s extra. Instead of wasting it. All of it. Have fun. But let me teach you a way to save some extra money and invest it, uh, in a diverse asset class of some kind that just builds your wealth in a different way. That was a lot. A lot of information.

Speaker5: That was awesome. Okay, so did you write the book yet? Chad? Did you write that book?

Chad Ackerman: I wrote the book. The kids book is done. I need to get an illustrator. If anybody’s listening illustrates books, let me know. Okay. So yeah. Yeah.

Speaker5: Awesome. Yeah. Um. All right, so for business owners.

Trisha Stetzel: Entrepreneurs, anybody who’s listening who wants to step into investing, what’s one key mindset they need to make before taking that leap.

Chad Ackerman: Um, get get your get your business, your investment business structure. Before you get started, there are several things that you should think about. Do you want to form an LLC or do you want to invest in your own name? Do you want to? Where’s the money going to come from? Is it, is it um, if you have money in A41K that you wish you could use, there are tools called solo for one or checkbook for one. They have a lot of different names that you can move money out of your 41K into one of these, and you can invest it in anything you want then at that point in time. So there are multiple avenues. So it’s it’s spend time on the business side of this to understand all the different things you need to structure to be ready to invest before you go pull that trigger. And then it’s let’s teach you how to first vet an operator. Vet a general partner. Um, we we have a saying you’re betting on the jockey, not the horse, really is what you’re doing. So we’ll teach you how to vet a deal. But before you ever get a deal, you need to learn how to talk to the operators and get through the marketing that they do and understand the proforma that they send. That is a shiny object as well. That every deal that comes from an operator looks like it’s the best deal that’s ever existed. How do you find the ones that are really there? Well, you start with the operator. Do I trust them? At the end of the day, you’re turning your. The biggest risk that we have is you turn your money over to somebody that isn’t going to operate the deal the way they say they’re going to. That that’s the biggest risk in this.

Chad Ackerman: This gets back to the community discussion. This is why we form left field. This is why I’m a firm believer in community learning. At the end of the day, I won’t invest today with somebody that I can’t go into our forum on passive pockets and say, hey, I just talked to Chad Ackerman, general partner, and I’ve never used him before. Has anybody ever heard of him? And if the community of passive pockets, which is fairly large, I don’t get any responses out of that. I’ll go back to that general partner and say, look, I’m not saying no forever, but I’m saying no for now. Nobody in my community has heard of you. I need to follow you for a while. It’s too big of a risk to too much unknown here. That community, that word of mouth I can get from other people that say, oh, yeah, I’ve worked with Chad and he has great communications, and he followed his pro forma, performed well. He made it through this last economic cycle. That’s been terrible. He did really well with it. That gives me the courage then to go invest more or not invest in other research them more. I should say invest in understanding who they are, maybe before I invest with them. But it’s it’s called passive investing. But you have to be active when you start this process up until when you write the check and you invest in the deal, that’s when it becomes passive, really. So you got to put some effort in up front to make sure, you know, like and Alike and trust the operator. And you’re willing to do this and you like the deal, then you invest, and then you can sit back and be passive with it.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay. So I think it’s worth. We’ve got a few more minutes. I think it’s worth taking a little bit deeper dive into left field investors. So for those who are listening today and they heard bits and pieces of what you’re talking about, like you’re you get vetted through this group and all of these things tell me, take us like through the kindergartner version, like the Trisha kindergartner version of what left field investors is. And how is it something that if I’m interested, I could get involved in? What does that look like?

Chad Ackerman: So yeah, it’s it’s a membership community. Left field got bought out by passive pockets or by bigger pockets. It’s now called passive pockets. But it was we developed it when we were developing Left Field purely as a place to put like minded investors together in one space and share experiences and gain education off of those experiences by sharing with one another and networking with other people doing it. Passive investing and real estate is still new enough that we couldn’t talk to our neighbors. We couldn’t talk to our family. Our name, Left Field, came from when we had those conversations with people. They’re like, oh, you don’t want to do that. That’s out in left field. You don’t want to do that. So that’s exactly why we named it what we did. So we built a community then around like minded individuals just to share. So the intent was for us to become better investors ourselves is why we built it. Then it grew into a culture, and then we started having operators decide they would pay us to come advertise to it. And we’re like, oh, this is actually a business. Wait a minute. But the intent of it was just to put all these people together so that they could learn off of one another, because there wasn’t enough information out there to educate people. If people go Google this, you’re going to find a bunch of information to teach you how to flip single family homes or wholesale them, or do single family stuff, or you’re going to find a bunch of information to teach you how to be a general partner and go buy an apartment building and run it. But there wasn’t hardly any information about being that middle guy of, I just want to invest in the real estate.

Chad Ackerman: I don’t want to run it. I don’t want to be a landlord. I like my W-2, maybe, so I don’t want to leave my W-2. I just want to invest in real estate, and I don’t want to have to go to my single families every night and hammer a few nails, or clean a toilet or whatever, or run out of tenant, whatever the case is, this was that middle ground that gives you that flexibility to do whatever you enjoy doing, but you’re investing in real estate at the same time. You get all the benefits that real estate offers to it. So we put left field together just to bring all those people together, um, and allow them to share their stories so we could all learn good and bad. We had red flag sections of like, hey, who’s had a bad experience? Share that. That’s valuable information so we can know to well, it’s it’s your own personal risk assessment right of well somebody didn’t like the way they communicated. Well, maybe I don’t care as much about communication. So that isn’t as big a red flag for me. But other people, it’s one strike and you’re done kind of thing too. So it’s up to you. I mean, it’s a very individualized thing. Um, this is why, going back to my original comment, setting your goals and knowing your strategy is so important because don’t fall into the groupthink, your risks, your where you are in your life is everything that drives what you should be making decisions off of, not just what somebody else has done kind of thing.

Trisha Stetzel: Oh, brilliant. Okay, I have one more question as we finish up. Absolutely. If you could leave the listeners with one piece of advice about building confidence and taking action, it’s nice to talk about. Right, but actually taking action. And some may consider, especially in uncertain markets. Right. What would it be? What would it.

Chad Ackerman: Be? So very good question. And I was I was I fell into this myself. I had analysis paralysis for a long time. It took me 2 or 3 years to invest in my first deal. Um, what I will say one I am a firm believer there are deals to be found in any economy. You just gotta do your due diligence. You gotta know your goals, know your buy box, have a community to ask questions in, and you can find deals no matter what it is. So if you have money to invest, you don’t have to sit on it forever. You can find it. But to take action, you learn so much more from taking action. Um, I guaranteed you want to mitigate your risks with that first one, but even if that first one does end up being a mistake, you’re going to learn so much from actually doing it because you can read the books, you can listen to the podcast. You’re not going to have a full, firm understanding of it until you actually pull the trigger on one and try it out. And this is where things like tribe, this, this company that let you group invest, I think are huge and so important for new investors of instead of having to put 25 grand in, maybe you’re only putting five grand in because there’s five of you. Um, you know, that makes it a little bit easier to take that first action and learn and then get comfortable enough to keep going. That’s I want to I want to make the the process to get you there as easy as it can so that you do feel confident. It’s learning the terms, learning how to vet, learning how to ask questions of the operator that builds your confidence to get you ready to get in there. And that’s what I built care for, is to help out with all that kind of thing.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. All right, you guys, if you’re ready to have a conversation with Chad, I know many of you already are. You can go to his website at Chad Ackerman Real Estate. All one word last name spelled a c k e r m a n. By the way, as always, the links to all of these will be in the show notes. You guys who are sitting in front of your computer can just point and click. If you’re in your car, please don’t do that, Chad. This has been fantastic. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Chad Ackerman: Oh thank you I really enjoyed it. Love talking to you anyway. But this is a great way to do it too. So thank you for having me on.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah thank you. All right guys that’s all the time we have for today. If you found value in this conversation that I had with Chad today, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur, veteran or Houston leader ready to grow. And as always, be sure to follow, rate and review the show. It helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours and your business. Your leadership and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.