From Handyman to Real Estate Mogul with Greg Dickerson

[00:00:00] Hey gang, on today's episode Greg Dickerson joins me with Dickerson International. Here's a guy that has done some amazing things in real estate and business and entrepreneurship.

[00:00:07] Didn't have a college degree, went through the Navy, came out of Navy, went through the school of sort of not hard knocks but learning on your own self education.

[00:00:16] Devoured books, devoured tapes, devoured seminars and grew a company from his first company from zero to thirty million dollars in seven years and sold it in the real estate world.

[00:00:26] Parlayed that into twelve other companies, ultimately over two hundred fifty million dollars. Done some amazing things in real estate and real estate investment.

[00:00:33] Some amazing things in terms of coaching and leadership and mentoring he's done. Strap on your seatbelt. It's going to be a fast ride. Greg is full of energy and he's got a lot to give and a lot to give back so you don't want to miss a second of this show.

[00:00:47] Welcome to The Brick and Mortar Money Show. The podcast dedicated to helping business owners and professionals achieve wealth, autonomy and control through commercial property ownership. Join us as we unlock the power of real estate to transform your business and investment strategies.

[00:01:07] Whether you're seeking to expand, invest or gain more freedom in your entrepreneurial journey, this is your destination for insightful stories, expert advice and actionable strategies. Welcome. Hey, welcome to the show today. Listeners, I have the great distinct honor and privilege of having Greg Dickerson on the show.

[00:01:30] Greg has been super successful in real estate. He's a serial entrepreneur, real estate developer and mentor to high level investors and entrepreneurs. Starting from nothing he's bought, developed and sold over two hundred fifty million in real estate, built and renovated hundreds of custom homes and commercial buildings,

[00:01:47] developed residential and mixed use subdivisions and started, scaled and exited more than a dozen companies. Greg currently mentors some of the top entrepreneurs and real estate investors and developers around the world, helping them start, grow and to scale their business to raise more capital and do bigger deals.

[00:02:04] Greg's current clients have over two billion in deals and process. So Greg's got a lot going on. I'm excited to have him on the show today. Greg, welcome to The Brick and Mortar Money Show. What we call the business owner's path, the wealth through property ownership.

[00:02:15] Excited to have you on here today. Hey Paul, thanks for having me. Yeah, I love the title and the mission. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[00:02:23] And I'm excited to dig into your background before we get into what you're new in today and how you're helping to advance the cause and mission yourself. Tell us a little about it from zero to two hundred fifty million in real estate and all the other things.

[00:02:33] What's what happened? What's your story been? Yeah, and so that was just me, my own money, no investors. I did that all on my own over the years. I've been doing this about 30 years. The bulk of that came in the first seven years.

[00:02:46] So in addition to that, my first main company I started with zero started from scratch. No money, no investors. Nobody in my family or entrepreneurs. I went to the Navy right out of high school. I did not go to college, but I'm very highly self educated.

[00:02:59] So I poured into myself, but my journey started with building businesses to generate cash flow to invest in other assets, real estate. Before I even knew anything about the stock market and I got into that 0809 at the bottom. So I've been doing both ever since.

[00:03:12] And then I've done hundreds of millions with investor capital and joint ventures and hundreds of millions of equity capital buying companies, taking over companies, scaling them, actually.

[00:03:19] But that first initial 250 million, that was just me, my own money going to the banks on my own using the cash flow from my companies to compound into the real estate investment. So started in 1997.

[00:03:31] I was on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, which is a little barrier island off the coast of North Carolina. Most people would know it where the Wright brothers took off Kitty Hawk, kill double Hills area, start a little remodeling.

[00:03:41] Hainyman Company with again, no money just me by trucking tools did 250,000 in revenues. My first year, seven years later, we were one of the largest builder developers in the area doing about 30 million a year. And that was my first big exit. I exited that company.

[00:03:56] But along the way, I started a dozen other different businesses, mostly ancillary to the real estate construction industry. So I had a building company, a real estate company, real estate brokerage company.

[00:04:05] Yeah, I had a pool spa landscaping company, hurricane shutter company, electrical company, plumbing company, painting company, et cetera. Those types of things I had some restaurants, retail. I had a pool, a cheerleading trampoline gymnastics program.

[00:04:18] So it was gymnastics cheerleading and trampoline school, very high level junior Olympic kind of level coaching. Mostly that was a community passion project. I did it ultimately turn it over and take it nonprofit.

[00:04:29] But that was a lot of fun started that one from about 70 members in a very small demographic area, built it into over 300 members in about six months. And then ultimately took it nonprofit.

[00:04:40] That that's my long story short started that first company, built all those other businesses and the whole purpose, the whole goal of doing everything I did was I read Rich Dad Poor Dad. And out of that book, I didn't get real estate.

[00:04:51] I didn't get I want to be Kim and Neil Robert Kiyosaki and Kim. What I got out of reading Rich Dad Poor Dad was I wanted to be Rich Dad.

[00:04:58] I wanted to be the guy that had all of the companies that had everybody coming to him with deals and opportunities. He was coaching and mentoring everybody else, which is what I am. And what I've been my entire entrepreneurial journey.

[00:05:09] I'm no expert at any one thing when I'm an expert at is finding great talent and coaching those people to success. That's what I've done in all my businesses, all my companies.

[00:05:17] And that's what I saw in Rich Dad coaching Robert and his friend and teaching them how to become entrepreneurs. But the biggest takeaway was build businesses that generate cash flow to invest in other assets. So that's what I did.

[00:05:30] And I did that really went after that first seven years from zero to 30 million, from zero to 250 million. And then I've done compounded it all from there. Like I said, got in the markets at the bottom of way to nine.

[00:05:41] But here's the biggest thing during that seven year journey. I had kids, they were young. I coached every one of their sports. I was there for every single event in their schools.

[00:05:49] We took four weeks off a year on vacations, usually spring break, couple of weeks at Christmas and then another long weekend here or there. I was home every night for dinner, you know, took weekends off. And I was, I had people in all my businesses.

[00:06:02] So I was a leader, delegate or motivator. So I during all that time, I was also volunteer at my church, taught Sunday School Church leader on the board, chairman of the trustees. I was on the board of several nonprofits, the recreation, parks and recreation education foundation, Babers softball.

[00:06:18] I had all girls so coach them all year round again, coached all their sports. I was a chairman of the homeowner association on the Outer Banks president of remodeling council.

[00:06:27] All of that while I was building all of these companies, doing all the things I did and still was able to live life on my terms, do what I wanted to do.

[00:06:36] Home every single night had weekends off took four weeks of vacation and never missed one thing for any of my kids events throughout their growing up years,

[00:06:45] which is clearly a priority of yours because you had to define that before you went into this because many entrepreneurs and business owners, they become the e-myth.

[00:06:53] They think they're an entrepreneur, but they're really a technician and they go into business for themselves and they lose track of why they went into business. And literally the business owns them and they just trade time for dollars. But you had this. We work in the business.

[00:07:06] Yeah, exactly. They work in the business instead of on it. And I was very fortunate to learn again, I wanted to be rich dad. What did he do? He coached everybody. He wasn't in any one business. He had people in all of his businesses.

[00:07:17] So really the power of books. And also I was very fortunate. So after the Navy, I did two things. I worked in restaurants and I worked in construction. So I always had a little construction business on the side.

[00:07:26] I learned the construction business by I was working in a restaurant when there was a guy putting an addition on the restaurant I was working in. And he saw that I was a hard worker and he said, Hey, I'll pay you cash. You come clean up after me.

[00:07:37] So he was knocking down the wall and I was like loading the block into a wheelbarrow and into the dumpster. And like I said, I'm a hard worker. He asked me to help him on some other jobs. So I started learning from him.

[00:07:47] Eventually I was able to parlay that and to do a little handyman stuff, little small things. But I also worked in restaurants and after the Navy, I worked with Lone Star Steak Oathes.

[00:07:55] Lone Star was very good in terms of teaching you how to become a leader, delegate or motivator, how to manage people, how to run systems, operations, people, operations profit. All about leveraging other people's time and talents, leveraging systems and focusing on operations. You take care of the details.

[00:08:12] You take care of the corners and the floors will take care of themselves. So that's where I received the best business training I've ever had in my life was for Matt Company.

[00:08:20] And we had some very foundational books we had to read that was our management philosophy and the culture of the company. It was the one minute manager series of books. So on top of Rich Dad Poor Dad, I read Thinking Grow Rich.

[00:08:30] I read How to Win Friends and Influence People. I read The Power Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peel. Obviously Napoleon Hill, Thinking Grow Rich. And then I had these other books. It was the one minute manager series of books. There was three books in the series.

[00:08:43] There was Managing by Harold Genine. He was the CEO of ITT, the first multi-billion dollar multi-international conglomerate. And then we read High Output Management for Andrew Grove. So these were all the books before the e-myth and all that stuff.

[00:08:57] And of course I read the e-myth and all of those things. So I was very fortunate at a very young age, early in my career, before I started all my companies, to understand how to lead, delegate, motivate, how to focus on operations, how to put systems in place.

[00:09:09] So that's what I did. So the systems, the people ran the systems that ran the business that were working with me. And that's a key right there.

[00:09:16] So the biggest thing that I do and that I teach and the way I operated was the normally in the corporate structure, you have the pyramid, right? So you have the CEO and you have the president, the vice presidents and... And I had all that.

[00:09:27] I had presidents, vice presidents, I had a CFO. You had 20 people in my organization at the executive level that ran all of my companies at the time. But I flipped that pyramid upside down. I was at the bottom. I was not at the top.

[00:09:40] I was at the bottom serving up. So as a leader, your job is to give everybody in the organization everything they need to be successful. Tools, training, systems and support, clear direction and no uncertain terms exactly what's expected and when.

[00:09:52] And then you hold them accountable to the goals. So we all work together. And my job was to give the organization what they needed to be successful so that they could in turn build better businesses without me.

[00:10:04] And the true market of a great leader is how well does your organization run without you, not with you. And that's why I keep driving home.

[00:10:11] I did all of this while I was able to spend time with my family, live life on my terms and do all of those things because that's ultimately where it's at.

[00:10:20] A true entrepreneur is somebody who creates value in the marketplace, empowers others to be successful and isn't absorbed or focused on one single thing. And I know in this day and age, especially with younger people, there's this whole hustle culture, right?

[00:10:34] Where you got to get out there and you got to hustle and work 24 seven and do this and that. You need to hustle. You need to be focused. You need to be disciplined.

[00:10:43] You need to be determined and you need to outwork everybody else, but it doesn't mean 24 seven and it doesn't mean you need to be obsessive or compulsive or a workaholic.

[00:10:51] It just means you need to be smart, efficient and you need to leverage the time tools and assets of other systems and other people to be successful. So that's why I drive that home all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. This is an education. Just listen to you talk.

[00:11:07] And so many things come to mind. The idea of servant leadership and accountability and putting others first. The idea of Dan Sullivan's who not how concept.

[00:11:17] You have limited ability on yourself, but if you can empower others to do to be successful in whatever system you've developed and then help them improve the systems right over time and leveraging that.

[00:11:30] So you read a lot of books and obviously you said you started a Navy didn't go to college. So that was probably an advantage for you. You didn't go to college and you went after self education, but it's somewhere along the line. Where did this click for you?

[00:11:41] Because it's a it's a concept that so many entrepreneurs take. It takes years and years to get to the point where you finally realize, oh, that's right. I'm building a business. That's the whole idea is this business is the product that I'm not the product.

[00:11:53] I'm selling a product. The business itself is a product and it shouldn't be dependent upon how much time I put in or how much time I don't put in. Yeah. So yeah, exactly. You want to build equity and equity comes in a lot of different forms.

[00:12:05] It comes in the traditional forms, multiples of your revenue, EBITDOT. It also comes in brand. And that's where the biggest takeaway from this could be for a lot of people. You want to build brand equity? I read guerrilla marketing as well.

[00:12:17] So yeah, even though I didn't go to college, I did retail in the Navy. So I learned a little bit about business in the Navy. I had that training at Lone Star Steak Houses. So I learned a lot about business and operating systems there.

[00:12:26] And then I read a lot of books on branding and marketing and old school days back before the internet, back before all of that. And how do you build a brand? You got to get it out there. And it all started with that first company.

[00:12:37] I wanted to build a brand and a business that succeeded me, that didn't rely on me, that could be sold. Every every venture that you enter into needs to have an exit strategy. Right? We're all going to exit. None of us are going to live forever. Right?

[00:12:51] Ain't nobody getting out here alive. So every business you build, you're going to exit. So you don't want to build that business based on you and your name and your brand. You want to build that business where you can develop brand equity, Coca-Cola, Pepsi.

[00:13:03] They just think of all the biggest Apple, Google, Facebook, Meta, whatever. They made a mistake there. I would have never done that. I would always kept it Facebook. But anyways, he's a billionaire. What do I know? I think I've been very successful there.

[00:13:13] So you always want to think with the end in mind. Whenever you start a venture, whether it's real estate, multiple exits, you want to be able to sell, lease, refinance, pull your equity out, owner finance, lease option, rent out.

[00:13:23] You always want to have multiple exits because you never know when that environment is going to change and the values are going to change. When you build a company, always start that company with what kind of brand do I want to build?

[00:13:33] How do I want to exit this? And what I want this to look like after I'm gone and you start there and then it takes on that shape. Again, highly self-educated. I constantly poured into myself.

[00:13:43] So back in the day, it was cassette tapes, Sony Walkman, books on tape. That's all I had, books on tape and sales, business operations, motivation, all that stuff. Tony Robbins, all his stuff, Zig Ziglar, thousands and thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of hours.

[00:13:58] I don't even know over the last 30 years that I've just been pouring into myself all this information, all starting with the one minute manager and those foundational books that I mentioned. That's where I learned the power of reading a book and what it could do.

[00:14:10] But it's more than just reading and taking in the information. You've got to put it into action and do something with it. And all of the stuff you mentioned, traction, U.S., all of these different things, they all come back to those foundational books that I mentioned.

[00:14:23] That's where all that information comes from. It's just repackaged. And what a lot of the new stuff misses is the leadership and management of the human capital aspect. But back to the brand thing in the education, went from cassette tapes,

[00:14:36] the Sony Walkman to the CD player to the 80 gig iPod. I still have the 80 gig iPod, the original 80 gig iPod. With a hard drive in it, right? Nope. Yeah. Yeah, I had that. No music, just nothing but books on tape in that.

[00:14:49] So every second I have driving around wherever I was out exercising, I walked at least a half hour to hour every day, always have staying active and fit. I was always pouring that stuff into my head. I was never just mindlessly listening to music,

[00:15:01] not listening to music occasionally, but mostly if I had a minute, I was educating myself, pouring into myself, reading, constantly learning, going to seminars. And then I brought consultants and experts into my companies to train and lead on all my company's personality profiling,

[00:15:16] the women manager system, all of these things I would bring in and pay these experts to manage the companies. But the way I built the brand initially identified a problem when I started this first company as a remodeling company.

[00:15:28] I bought a house, I was trying to get some work done. Nobody would return my phone call. So where there's a problem, there's an opportunity. So I started this little remodeling handyman company just to do the little things that nobody would return your call for.

[00:15:39] But I started, I always had that end in mind. I said, what kind of company do I want to build? I want to build something that sounds like it's been here forever so that I had instant brand equity sounding like I'd been there forever

[00:15:49] because I just moved there. So I came up with Outer Banks Construction and I want to limit myself to just remodeling because I knew eventually I might want to build this thing. So I said, OK, nobody has the name Outer Banks Construction. I couldn't believe it.

[00:16:01] So I went, registered the name on the other banks. Yeah, I was on the other banks. There was Outer Banks, everything that made me sound like I've been there for years instantly, instant credibility in the marketplace, even though I'd only been there a few months.

[00:16:15] I went and registered the name because back then again, there was no Google, there was no dot coms. This was before computers and all that stuff were really a thing. This was 1997. I didn't even send my first email till 2001. I didn't get my first smartphone until 2011.

[00:16:28] I'm very good with technology, very sophisticated with technology. But anyways, I said, OK, I want this to sound like I've been there forever and I wanted to be able to capture the market and not limit myself. So I didn't call it remodeling. I didn't call it handyman.

[00:16:40] I called it construction because I wanted to be a builder. That's what I knew. So that opened us up to everything. We ended up doing all kinds of residential, commercial, multimillion dollar beach houses and tearing down hotels and rebuilding

[00:16:50] and started with flipping a couple little houses to buying hotels and building multimillion dollar beach houses. And I started doing commercial and multifamily, industrial. I did land development. All in that, out of Mexico, Carolina to Virginia region was in my territory over the last 30 years.

[00:17:04] And then ultimately when I sold my building company, I just became a developer where I'm at higher builders. You have to do the actual vertical for me and just leverage the time and talents of others instead of self performing. So that's how it all evolved.

[00:17:16] But yeah, the key takeaway is begin with the end in mind. Whatever you're setting out to do, think of a brand that can build equity just in the brand alone and the name long after you. And then you have multiple exit opportunities as you go along.

[00:17:31] Along those lines, so you talk about beginning with the end of mind and as you go out and you're building like you're starting with the first opportunity, you're like, OK, here's a handyman opportunity. But then now I want to ultimately I want to do construction.

[00:17:42] I imagine that at the early phases of this journey, you didn't see doing necessarily hotels and larger industrial buildings and that sort of thing. But it's something that was a progressive thing. I get the sense that as you had some success in a taste,

[00:17:59] you kept expanding that vision to say, hey, we want to make this bigger and bigger to improve the brand and strengthen the brand. Because you have a lot of people, we have a lot of investors that are just getting started. They have a hard time seeing that far.

[00:18:09] But you and I both know that it's a journey. It's a process. We don't have most of us don't. We're not born thinking, OK, I'm going to be flying a Learjet. But we have the pictures on the wall, but it takes a little while to get there.

[00:18:20] So what was that like for you in the journey? Was it a kind of a progressive thing that you had one success? OK, I can see a little bigger and then now you're surrounding yourself with other people that are opening doors and opportunities.

[00:18:31] And of course, all the books you're reading and the people you're associating with are expanding your vision as well. So it's a feedback loop that kind of grows over time, right upward towards that end vision. So I always had the vision. Let's go back. So I'm two things.

[00:18:44] I'm a natural born entrepreneur. So I started out as a young age. I was very fortunate. Yeah, again, we didn't have a lot of money. My dad was military, career military. He went in and listed, came out an officer. So he's a hard worker. He was a leader.

[00:18:55] So I picked up on some of that from him, but he wouldn't give me anything as a kid. If I wanted something, he said, you need to go figure out how to make the money to get it. So I learned very early if I want something,

[00:19:06] I need to figure out a way to create value in the marketplace so I should get the money to get what I wanted. And I wanted to take karate. He said, hey, go earn the money and pay for your karate lessons. So those were the lessons I learned

[00:19:16] and I would use his lawnmower. Yeah, I'd go around knock on your door. Hey, my name is Greg. I live down the street. I need to make some money. I want to take karate lessons. What do you need done? I'll cut your grass. I'll rake your grass.

[00:19:24] I'll wash your car. I'll babysit your kids. I don't care. I need to make some money. So that was me. I was not afraid to knock on doors and I was not afraid to ask for what I needed. But I provided value first in exchange for that.

[00:19:36] So I learned that at a young age and I even had to pay my dad for the gas for his lawnmower and clean it. If I used his stuff, I had to pay him a percentage of what I made to cover those costs.

[00:19:46] If I drove his car when I was young, I had to bring it back with a full tank of gas and clean and wash. And somehow it was always on empty on Friday when I needed it. Yeah, it was always dirty and empty on Friday

[00:19:55] when I needed it. Imagine that. On Sunday. You had a full tank going into the week. Yeah, yeah. So anyways, valuable lessons. The other thing that I learned at a young age. So I always played with erector sets and tinker toys.

[00:20:08] If you remember those back in the day, I'm 56. Those were the things. So I loved to building things. I love creating and building. And I always wanted to be a builder. I was one of the build buildings, right? That was a vision that I had.

[00:20:19] I just know how to do it. I didn't know how to do it. I didn't have the means. I didn't have the education. You know, those types of things. So when I started out remodeling, the goal was to ultimately be a builder and build buildings.

[00:20:30] But I didn't know how to do it. So I figured, okay, I'll start with this. It's easy. I know how to do little things. And I'm not a craftsman. I'm not skilled at all, but I can fix stuff. So I started out like repairing door locks

[00:20:39] and putting a screen on and building little decks, whatever I could do. And as the company grew, initially that's all we focused on remodeling because nobody else did. Other people were building houses and they didn't have time for the little job.

[00:20:51] So a lot of my work came from the other builders that didn't have time to do the little stuff. So I started out doing that. And then as the company grew and as I learned more and more, ultimately got my general contracting license,

[00:21:03] I realized that the bigger dollars were in the bigger structures. So again, I didn't know how to build a house before I started building multi-million dollar beach houses. So what'd they do? I went and hired some of the best people from the best biggest companies in the area

[00:21:15] that have been there 20 years, building the types of houses and buildings I wanted to build. So I went and recruited them to come to work with me and build this company together. I am in same thing when I got into commercial. I didn't know how to do it.

[00:21:27] So I hired somebody who knew how to do commercial construction. I brought them in to work with me to build a company doing commercial construction on and on. Same thing with all of the other different companies. I'm not a painter. I'm not an electrician.

[00:21:38] I'm not a plumber, HVAC. I don't do all those things. These were either opportunities that came to me asking me for help, people that worked for us as an organization doing our subcontract work like my plumber. He was one guy, it was him and another guy

[00:21:52] they had two trucks and he was going bankrupt and about to leave the area. And this was back in 2,099, 2,000 timeframe. And it was very difficult to get somebody to do your work because everybody was so busy. And I said, huh, okay, there's a problem. There's an opportunity.

[00:22:06] His name was Bob. I said, hey, Bob, I'll tell you what, I'll buy the company, I'll pay off all your debts and we'll build this thing together but you prioritize our work. So that's what we did. And I went and I took him over

[00:22:16] instantly went out and bought eight trucks. So we took him from two trucks to eight. There was another big plumbing company that was imploding and going out of business. So I immediately hired an administrator for him an office manager slash bookkeeper slash personal professional administrative assistant slash.

[00:22:32] That was my first key hire too. Initially it was just me, my truck and tools. My first key hire was that office manager, bookkeeper, administrative assistant, executive assistant slash. And she ended up working for me and with me for the entire time until I exited that company.

[00:22:47] She ran all of my business. One person kept the books and ran all of that stuff for me for all my businesses and all my real estate deals and all that. Of course we had to see up when we had the accountant outside the firm as well.

[00:22:58] So anyways, we put that person in position with him hired supervisors and grew him and he became the largest plumbing company that went from doing a couple hundred thousand a year to over a million a year in a matter of months.

[00:23:08] From me coming in, taking him over, blowing him up. How did we create the brand? So this again, this was back before the internet back before Facebook ads and social media ads and all that. So what I did was when I wanted to build my company

[00:23:21] and build his company we took out full page ads in the phone book. That's back when people actually used a phone book. I remember those days. Yeah, and full page ads in the newspapers. People thought I was nuts. I spent a ton of money in the phone book

[00:23:31] and the newspapers. It ultimately turned into one of the best investments you could ever make because it put us out there on the map and instantly generated all kinds of business. And then again, just like a little kid knocking on doors

[00:23:43] I told you all my work as a remodeling contractor came from other builders. I went to the meetings where they were and said, hey, all I do is remodeling. If you have anybody you can't get to, send them to me.

[00:23:51] And I didn't even pay referral fees or anything. They were just happy to have a resource to refer their customers to. Same thing in the plumbing. I leveraged all those relationships and said, hey, I got a plumbing company. We'll prioritize your work.

[00:24:02] And same thing with all these other businesses. Again, I just have people in my pool spa landscaping company was the guy that sold me pools. He came to me and said, hey, I always wanted to start my own business. He was a manager for this pool company.

[00:24:13] He said that I don't have any money. I don't know how to do it. He said, if you'll help me, we can start this business and you can buy all these pools at cost. I was putting in 30, 40 pools a year and hot tubs and all my houses.

[00:24:24] He said you can get them all at cost and make some extra profit. I'll run everything. You just show me how to do it and you provide the capital. So that's what we did. And again, I came up with a brand for that company

[00:24:32] that's still there to this day operating. This was probably 15 years ago now that we started that company, maybe 20. I can't remember now, what is this 2024? That was yeah, it was about 20 years, or 304 is when we started that company. Time flies, man.

[00:24:46] And so I created the brand and the problem. Again, we solved a problem. Builders had to hire a pool contractor, had to get a separate vendor for a spa hot tub, had to hire somebody separately for landscaping, had to hire a different sub

[00:24:59] to put in the concrete deck and the fence. We packaged it all up, one phone call for a builder. Pool spa landscaping did it all. Installation and maintenance and built that into a huge company and but still down there, I've worked this day.

[00:25:12] That's how things work and how I progressed and the opportunities came to me because again, I was rich then. People knew I was successful. They knew that I was somebody you could come to for help or to do something with.

[00:25:22] And I didn't do something with everybody who came. Not everybody was right for it but I was good at understanding who's the right person. And it usually started with somebody coming to me first that already been successful somewhere else and had an idea or vision.

[00:25:36] And they came to me and said, hey, I wanna do this thing. They took the initiative and showed me that they have what it took to be successful. And then others as I grew my businesses, I would pluck them from other companies where they were successful.

[00:25:47] I would recruit them to come work with me and build the company. And I did that all of my companies. Which because of the brand you had in success, obviously you were a very attractive place for these top producers to wanna come join your team,

[00:25:58] be a part of your organization that you're developing. So winding down now, so what are you doing today, Greg, to help for yourself, for your business, for your enterprises? And obviously you've been intimately involved with people and coaching and mentoring the whole time

[00:26:12] and this is really your secret sauce. So how are you helping people today? What's your focus? Yeah, now I do, people started approaching me about three or four years ago, wanting me to coach them. I've been on a couple of podcasts and things

[00:26:24] and they asked me, hey, would you coach me? I'm like, I don't really do that. I've done that in businesses. And they're like, no, I just need somebody to coach me in my business and there was a lot of real estate. Some of them just growing companies.

[00:26:33] So now I'm in my giving backstage. I've done all these different things. I've got all this experience. So now I don't know, I've had about 100 people come through my system over the last three or four years and I'm coaching all around the world doing all kinds of things.

[00:26:43] Teach them how to be real estate developers, teach them how to grow and scale their real estate. Could be syndicators. I've got people that started with nothing and helped them do their first hundred million multi-family deals or commercial or whatever it is.

[00:26:54] I've got people I've taken from a hundred million to a billion assets under management. I've got people that I'm helping them scale their companies and do rollups for an exit. All kinds of different things. Teach people how to raise capital, how to build companies like I did,

[00:27:06] how to recruit, train, hire, lead, delegate, motivate, how to implement systems, put systems in place but take action and implement those systems on how to do what I did. That's the stage on my life and why I created the courses that I have

[00:27:19] in the coaching programs is that's my school of entrepreneurship to give back and do what I love. I love coaching, I love building, I love building things but the most important thing what tickled me more than anything else, I love building people.

[00:27:31] I love helping other people achieve the dreams and the visions and the goals that they had in their mind like the plumber that came to me. He was broke. He was bankrupt. He was about ready to give up, leave, pack up

[00:27:42] and go back to West Virginia where he came from and never owned a house, never had really done any more than a couple of trucks and he was doing okay. And by me helping him, he was able to buy his first home.

[00:27:54] He was able to build his life and just send his kids to the schools he wanted to and take the vacations he wanted to take and all these different things. So helping people change their lives and their families' lives and reach their goals

[00:28:06] but more importantly, everybody I work with, the number one thing I hear from is I would never have been able to give back in the way I do if it wasn't for you. Like it could be ministry thing, it could be a community nonprofit,

[00:28:19] it could be whatever it is. Everybody has these projects that they wanna support, these things that they wanna do. People wanna help other people, they wanna give back. You have to put yourself in a position to be able to give back and to me, that's impact.

[00:28:31] So what I'm after the rest of my life when I've done it being on boards and nonprofits and helping in the communities, I've always been a big supporter and advocate for community organizations both in the nonprofit world, in the faith-based world

[00:28:45] and there's multiple sports and organizations for kids, things like that. I've always been very passionate about kids and youth sports. So being able to help people impact their world and that butterfly effect that goes out there, right? We're only here for a very short time.

[00:28:58] You can spend your entire time on this planet, on this earth and this life, whatever you believe, you're getting one life. You can spend all that time consuming and selfishly consuming everything that you've done. That doesn't fill most people and it gets boring. It gets dull.

[00:29:14] But when you pour into other people and you see the impact and you see them flourish and you see them be successful and you see that sparkle in their eye when they finally reach the goals that they're trying to reach, to me that is the most exciting thing

[00:29:27] that any deal you can ever do. I've done all kinds of deals, all kinds of businesses, made a ton of money. It's fun and it's exciting and all that but nothing is more exciting or inspiring than helping somebody else figure out why God put them on this earth

[00:29:40] and helping them live that out and impact their world. That's why I do what I do. There's just nothing else that can match that feeling. That's a great mission. I agree at 110%. I think that's, as Maslow would put it in the secular world, right?

[00:29:54] The hierarchy of needs is we move up, we have purpose and we wanna help others and you also said you can't do it if you don't have, you didn't say specifically the resources but you have to have the resources of time, of money, of influence.

[00:30:04] The more you have, the more you can help. What an exciting opportunity to be able to do what you've done and then now leverage it to multiply. As you say, the butterfly effect through other people. So now you're multiplying your charitable endeavors

[00:30:18] through other people who are multiplying it out and leveraging it and that's an impact and a huge way. Greg, how does someone get up with you? If they're interested in coaching, they wanna be mentored, they wanna be part of what you're doing

[00:30:28] or at least learn more about Dickerson International and all that you're a part of and all that you have. Yeah, so just go to my website, greggdickerson.com, DickersonInternational.com, both of those lead you there for the easiest one to remember is greggdickerson.com. And everything's there,

[00:30:44] I've got a YouTube channel with thousands of videos, all different types of real estate and entrepreneurship, different playlists that'll teach you how to do what I've done. I've got courses if you wanna take it to the next level and then yeah, if you're looking to really achieve

[00:30:58] that level of success and really impact your world then I do one-on-one coaching and mentorship and I've got people all around the world that are just knocking it out of the park and killing it and all their testimonials are on the website in terms of

[00:31:08] what they've been able to achieve but more importantly, how they've been able to give back. That's what's really cool. Wow, that's fantastic. Greg, that's exciting. All right, so we go to greggdickerson.com, we'll get that in the show notes. We've got your YouTube channel,

[00:31:20] we can start at courses or if you wanna go to the top level we can engage you for some coaching or mentorship and just really get the one-on-one treatment. So Greg, thank you so much for being on the show today. I really appreciate this, learned a lot

[00:31:31] and exciting to hear a lot about your roots and the Navy and the Outer Banks. I'm in that area too from my background. It's just exciting to cross paths like that. So once again, I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having me, Paul.

[00:31:42] Enjoy the time and hope to see you again. Hey gang, just winding down here today. Thanks for listening to the show. And as always, if you need capital to grow your business, you're looking to purchase commercial real estate or build a building or invest in commercial real estate

[00:31:58] or you're looking to acquire a business or a competitor or just need growth capital. We'd love to talk to you. We fund businesses all day long. Our mission is to help entrepreneurs win and to fund their businesses and fund their dreams

[00:32:10] so that they can make an impact in their community. Reach out to me today, go to our website, click the button, schedule a 20 minute conversation, discovery call, we'll have a quick conversation, see if there's a need, see if there's a fit and we can take it from there.

[00:32:23] The website is vpcviktorpaulcharly.capital. That's vpc.capital. All right, there's no.com on that. It's vpc.capital. As always, keep crushing it and hope to see you soon around here.