How Trey Chandler Built a 200+ Deal Real Estate Business with Systems | Investor Fuel Show

Mike Hambright (00:00.715)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. Really excited to have Trey Chandler on the show with us today. We’re be talking about a lot about processes. It’s not the sexy size of the business unless you’re, if you’re an implementer, you think it’s sexy, but a lot of us that are visionaries out there don’t like that part, but it’s critical to your success, right? So you have to have somebody that’s building those. We’re gonna talk about the success that Trey and his team have had, and we’re gonna talk about the importance of very specific processes we’re gonna get into a little bit today.

to learn about that. So Trey, welcome to the show. Good to see you.

Trey Chandler (00:31.532)
Thank you, Mike. It’s awesome to be here.

Mike Hambright (00:33.131)
Yeah, been a little while, always good to see you, buddy. So, hey, before we jump in, your life has changed a lot. I know over the past few years, you were in the military, you’re focused full time on your business now, have a few different businesses. I remember you guys when you had, you know, were just kind of getting started out. So great to hear of all your success. But for those that don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know much about you, tell us a little bit about your background.

Trey Chandler (01:01.518)
Yeah, yeah, a lot has definitely changed. so originally from Alabama, and then I found my way into the military, went to West Point, and that’s where I met my now business partner, Jordan. And we kind of kicked off real estate as a side hustle. He showed me how to make more in a year doing a flip than what we were making as officers in the military. And so that kind of that hooked me in. And so we

Mike Hambright (01:26.059)
Yeah.

Trey Chandler (01:30.242)
Co-founded the company My Tennessee Home Solution. And so we’re here in the middle Tennessee. We serve the whole Nashville, greater Nashville area. And over the years, you know, and through Investor Fuel and all the connections we’ve made there, we’ve just been able to kind of learn how to do things the right way. Obviously we’ve had some stumbles and whatnot, you know, who hasn’t, but we’ve been able to get to the point now and this year we’ll do around 200 to 250 deals. We primarily focus on wholesale innovations. We do some fix and flip. And then

From that, we’ve just been able to kind of get additional integration such as hard brokering, hard money loans, working through getting a brokerage in place next year, working through getting construction arm developed out and working on some land development. So all the things that are kind of touching real estate in some form of fashion, we’ve been taking the approach of get something really, really good and repeatable and then, you know, bring something new in such as brokering hard money and then.

focus on that for a year, get that to where it’s really strong, repeatable, and then we kind of entered the new thing. And so we’re just trying to get like a whole ecosystem here in middle Tennessee and just had a really, really good time. It’s been a great journey. yeah, life has definitely changed since doing this thing as a full-time active duty officer in a different state. And so I kind of like being here, able to operate things.

Mike Hambright (02:54.28)
Yeah, yeah. And you guys are very organized in terms of processes and procedures and putting that in place. And there’s a lot of real estate investors. We all know a lot of folks that are flying by the seat of their pants. And they might have some level of success, but the processes break down. And ultimately, then the businesses break down.

People like, you know, bolt stuff on in a way that leaves them pretty fragile. So if a key person leaves or the market changes too much or whatever, something suffers ultimately, right? And so maybe just kind of share your thoughts and philosophy on the importance of having very detailed processes in place so that it allows you to not only find success in one business, but potentially be able to bolt other things on that make sense and are like not fragile, like pretty robust.

Trey Chandler (03:42.348)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think early on, and this is something we experienced and is, you do kind of have to fly it, you know, as fast as you can, because you don’t know exactly what’s going to stick or work. But once you start to get some momentum, get some traction, think that’s where I think this is where why we’ve been able to have continued success is because we immediately knew the value in documenting and then showing how to do those steps. It’s a little painful.

But we’ve been able to do that gradually over time to where we don’t have to do bulk updates or brand new hours or weeks or month long of focus sessions. It’s a little bit minute and whatnot, but I think it takes some of that initial R &D or innovate aspects. Then you get proof of concept and you have to put the work in to get it documented so that it’s scalable. And then I think kind of the next evolution from that is now

take some steps out, take some of the fat, trim some of the waste out of it to where can be, things can happen a little quicker as you scale or at the most finite way, like what are the critical elements and could other things come out of that process? If it can, then take it out. Don’t add redundancies for no reason. so those are things at the quarterly level, I think that we’re getting a lot better at.

But it does take that initial time of just trying to figure out what’s going to stick, what’s going to make money. We’ve to make money. OK, how do we repeatedly make money? Write that down, assign it to someone, and then take out the unnecessary waste steps. And so even the way I just explained that, just try to simplify things as much as humanly possible to where others, they may not be able to do it as well as us, but that’s kind of the point. We just want other people to be able to come in and do it and grow from there.

Mike Hambright (05:34.091)
Can you share so there’s two things that I think a lot of people struggle with even if they create processes one is Continuing to refine them like they kind of build it and it’s documented and it’s out there And it’s and then at some point you’re like, yeah, it’s in Google Drive or Dropbox or it’s somewhere right or it’s in an Asana checklist or somewhere but

then people start to find workarounds and they don’t really go back and re-document that process. just kinda, somebody tweaked it a little bit, but it’s just in their head, right? So there’s that, like the constant refinement. And then there’s two is, how do you prevent building processes around specific people? And it’s the task or the seed instead, right? So I think, and in my experience, I’ve been guilty of this many, many times and I’m very much aware of the issue now is,

when you’re a small business, you generally don’t have much redundancy, right? So you end up like, well, this is what the role does, but yeah, they’re not great at that, and so I’m gonna have somebody else do that, right? And then you’re like, this person’s really good at that portion, and so you get these roles that are messy and they’re dependent upon the skillset of the person more so than what the role demands. So maybe talk to that a little bit.

Trey Chandler (06:49.601)
Yeah, I think that’s something we could have absolutely done a lot better in hindsight, which I think from the beginning of bringing anyone on is just trying to set as clear of expectations as possible. And early on and small and not as a high volume or whatever, I just think being clear of, this role is going to be dynamic and there’s probably going to be new things that are things that we haven’t even talked about today. Like, you know, when you’re first hiring someone that I’ll probably ask you to take on some of those things, but

That’s not an excuse to let that last forever. I think what’s critical and at a point that we’ve gotten to is, the role we make a success profile for the role that we want, and then what do we want that role to accomplish? What key performance indicator do we want that role to perform and provide to the company that’s revenue generating? And then we write out that success profile with.

the description, their key functions, their core responsibilities, and then now that role, that this is what that looks like, hire for that person, but then we make those processes all based off the title of the role. We’ve actually, the only time we’ll put a person’s name in is just so that we know who owns, which person on the team actually owns that role, and which means they own those processes. And so that’s been a pretty kind of…

critical shift for us. so that when we’re, when we talk about it, we articulate, Hey, like, you know, in the next 90 days, like if this person is not here, this role still exists. So this, these, the demands of this role and the process points that this role requires, like still has to be met. We just need to get a person in there.

Mike Hambright (08:30.506)
Yeah, yeah. And then it’s kind of hard sometimes to be hard and fast about like, well, this person can do 80 % of the role, but they kind of struggle with these things.

It’s hard to say, I’m going to let this person go because they can’t do 100 % of it. Next thing you know, you kind of modify either the role or the person. How do you manage that when somebody is good at a portion of their responsibilities but not all of them? And I think another area this happens a lot is when you hire from within. So you’re like, well, they’re pretty good at that.

I’m gonna put them in this role, but they’re not necessarily kind of, if anybody is classically trained for that thing. But how do you manage when somebody’s pretty good, they’re good, what does that like to say, a good athlete, they’re a good like team player, but they’ve got some challenges and certain things that you need them to own.

Trey Chandler (09:23.991)
Yeah, think for like quick feedback loops, I think is super important and having honest and clear communication. What that could look like is do your weekly one-on-ones. Like if have someone that directly reports to you, you owe them that as their direct leader and direct supervisor is do deliberate one-on-ones with them. Make it known what like, are your priorities for the week? What are your key numbers for the week? What are the obstacles in your way? Like what guidance do you need for me? And what training do you need?

you know, where is that gap? And don’t don’t shirk away or hide from communicating that. And I think at times, things can get kind of kind of flowery or kind of beat around the bush or just nudge that but hey, let’s have a let’s have a conversation. No one’s in trouble. I want what’s best for you. You want to perform you wouldn’t work here otherwise. And so you know, your success is the company success, which is everyone’s success. And so

Mike Hambright (10:21.896)
Yeah.

Trey Chandler (10:23.617)
think it’s a different conversation when you get resistance to that. But more often than not, those that are hungry and want to perform and want to, not necessarily people please, but they want to be seen as doing a good job, they’ll lean into that and take that feedback. But it’s the leader that has to really own that kind of conversation, put those things in place. then that’s at a weekly level. And then at a monthly level,

is something that we do that has worked well is we call it an alignment huddle, which is again, that kind of, you know, time that carved out time one time a month where we can really get into and just align like the word is for that and go over any key things. then the last thing that obviously, you know, there’s forms of pips and whatnot, we try to, you know, we have a different, we personally have a different name for it. It means the same thing, but

Again, it’s an effort to get people back on track or back to the path to green or whatnot. so, but having those kinds of measures in place, you’re, think, and that’s a process that you have to have a process in place for that. Like, how do you even objectively know, like, okay, this person isn’t performing at whatever level that I’ve outlined for them based on the role and the requirements of the role. And so, so much of it overlaps and nests to each other.

But if you skip one or two pieces, you’re going to have mismatched expectations. then usually when you have mismatched expectations, you’re going to have frustrations and then people end up quiet quitting or just cold quit.

Mike Hambright (11:57.975)
Right. Yeah, quiet, quit. I hate that phrase, but I know what it means. So, you know, I think a lot of the challenges that happen are when you’re working across departments, right? When you’re transferring things around, that’s where things kind of tend to break down a little bit, right? Would you agree with that?

Trey Chandler (12:16.076)
Yeah, 100%. Any change of hands is typically where you’re going to meet most friction points.

Mike Hambright (12:24.426)
Yeah. So how do you prevent some of that? You mentioned kind of cross-department kind of meetings and transition meetings or things like that. But how do you stay on top of that proactively instead of reactively?

Trey Chandler (12:24.436)
Yeah. And so.

Trey Chandler (12:38.912)
Yeah, one thing is honestly, role play it. And that’s something that we’ve done is before it’s an actual live file, especially for somebody new. Like, hey, let’s play this out as if it’s real of how do I, as an acquisition person, hand this seller off to our transaction coordinator? Or how does the Dispo person enter into this transaction to host the walkthrough to sell the deal? How does the transaction

coordinator owned as the primary point of contact through until closing. And when at certain objections or certain issue points does the salesperson need to re-enter. And so just different, there’s just different elements that you go through in a file and every deal is different, et cetera. But something that we try to do is really kind of role play out like certain instances like that. The other two things I think that have helped us a lot is ride-alongs.

cross-department ride-alongs. Have the TC attend a walkthrough. Have the display manager ride along with an acquisition agent. Have an acquisition agent go to a walkthrough themselves or sit with the TC for a couple hours during the day and listening to how things are transpiring or what the sellers remember, what the buyers remember, realizing too, like, if I don’t get my notes in on time, I am hindering my coworker.

or if I’m not setting the right expectations for what’s about to happen in this transaction, I’m making our Dispo person enter into a very awkward situation at the house. And so having, one, gives a lot of empathy and grace across the entire team. And it also just shows people like, wow, these little things, these little processes that I’m being asked to do, like it has a big impact on how other people’s day will transpire through the day or through the week.

Mike Hambright (14:34.036)
Yeah, and is everybody on your team local, like physically there?

Trey Chandler (14:38.054)
About 90%. And so vast majority are, we like the in-person. Again, quick feedback loops, can read body language really well, get more buy-in. We weren’t always like that. We did start pretty much completely virtual out of necessity to survive and do anything. Yeah, yeah, very.

Mike Hambright (14:39.56)
Yeah.

Mike Hambright (14:58.996)
that you were virtual.

Trey Chandler (15:04.012)
But then, but we’ve kind of made a kind of put our foot in the ground in a way as owners and want the in person and so it’s been good for us.

Mike Hambright (15:13.918)
Yeah, I agree. think a lot of people have kind of moved to more of a virtual model, just maybe out of necessity or depends on the business. I guess there are some there are ways to still do kind of a ride along, if you will, to kind of live in the shoes of somebody else for a day on your team, even if you’re virtual, I guess. Right.

Trey Chandler (15:33.962)
Yeah, I think because we’ll do that sometimes with even the lead managers, just so people have an idea of the amount of, you things they’re they’re responsible for, especially as that first your voice of the company, essentially. And so it’s very important.

Mike Hambright (15:48.649)
That’s great. I know one of the areas where a lot of things break down is on the transaction coordination side, right? Whether it’s unmet seller expectations or not communicating clearly with people and some investor comes in behind you or there’s a lot of things that kind of could go wrong.

But at the end of the day, it’s kind of funny because you’ve got processes for lead generation, you’ve got processes for disposal, you’ve got processes for all these things. And the only thing the seller wants you to do is what you said you were going to do. That’s all they care about is closing and getting rid of that house and getting their money or whatever. But we tend to put, if you look at the effort that goes into most companies, it’s like…

very small percentages around transaction coordination and clear communications, right? But maybe you should kind of share your thoughts on that.

Trey Chandler (16:36.3)
Yeah, that’s so true. just, it makes sense to a degree when you’re first starting out, because you have to get revenue. You have to get deals. You have to train sales. You gotta get the marketing in place. It’s so critical. it kind of goes back to what I alluded to a little bit earlier. Like once you kind of do have that proof of concept in place, you gotta have a strong person that can navigate through title complexities.

giving daily, weekly updates to not only the seller, but to the buyer and also the title company and potentially even the lender. And so that role and position has a lot of weight on it because that’s who’s closing your revenue to fund everything else. so it’s really a backbone of the company. And I think just as much as you train on role play and objection handling and whatnot for sales, a lot of that needs to turn, come down into the transaction.

Side as well like when something when the seller is upset and frustrated Here is a way that we can talk to that and then that way they’re not feeling that or going through that for the very first time on a phone call with a seller like They’ve trained on that stuff. So there very much has to be a lot of technical training for that role, but also just the the emotional intelligence the human element of things and and being able to really communicate what you need

Well, hey, I need this from the acquisitions or I need this from dispositions or I need this from operations. so clear communication and making it known to that, you know, like it’s like, please speak up, like don’t ever suffer in silence. And so a lot of our processes, pretty much all of them at some point, they’re going to lead to the transaction role to that department. And, you know, being very, very keen on whenever there’s a handoff, you know, that’s smooth.

and as smooth as we can make it and simple. Even from the setting expectations, we try to make it very clear with the homeowner. We may not be the ones to buy the home. Are you okay with that? Okay, what we’ll do is set up a partner walkthrough. are vetted buyers that are in our network. And what does our transaction coordinator say? Hey, it’s time to now set our partner walkthrough so our vetted buyers can come walk the property. And then what does our dispo say? Hey, I’m here to host.

Trey Chandler (18:57.641)
the partner market for vetted buyers to come walk the property. it’s just being very clear about what is said so that expectations are clear. The one the transaction coordinators make in their weekly updates, it’s not a, you weren’t told this? know, just, any time like that, and those will happen. But on the leadership side, like you got to lean into that and like extrapolate, okay, well what happened? Because now it’s a training, it’s a learning opportunity because we don’t want to repeat that.

So the, a lot of that, it all is going to funnel through your TC. And I think the last big thing I would say in terms of the TC piece is finding a way to understand their, like their true capacity. Um, cause not every deal is, should be weighed. You know, if I had to put a weight to something like it, they’re not all weighed the same. So really understanding what is my, what is the capacity of our transaction coordinator? And at what point does it make sense to bring in another?

or augment with some virtual assistants or whatever, but I just think that’s a role that too commonly gets overlooked at times.

Mike Hambright (20:02.878)
Yeah, it’s usually like the office managers does that as well or somebody else gets kind of thrown on somebody else’s plate and their real job, their kind of day job is something other than that. All right. Yeah. For folks that I want you to talk to the folks out there that are that have like, you know, so there’s two people. One is the bigger business, but the person that is the that’s leading the ship is more of a visionary. Right.

Trey Chandler (20:13.407)
Yes. Yeah.

Mike Hambright (20:30.698)
And so, talk to them first about how to get more processes in their life, and that could just be bringing on, probably hiring the right person ultimately, because it’s not gonna be them. maybe talk to that person. Then next I want you to talk to the smaller investor that’s wearing all the hats and doesn’t really think of their business as a bunch of departments, because they’re wearing all the hats. But let’s start with the larger investor first.

Trey Chandler (20:53.771)
Yeah, I think for the larger investor, if everything you’re saying, because I think from a visionary standpoint, right, so you got to think big picture, big goals, big aspirations, very verbal and how that’s articulated and for the most, more often than not, at least. And I just think if you’re not getting any pushback, that’s a red, that’s a little bit of a red flag, I would say.

I think it’s good to have not, you know, it’s just candor and wanting people that can, you know, not, not from a malicious or condescending standpoint, but just, you know, if talk, talking big numbers, big dreams, big goals, people have to execute that. The execution is what matters the most. so think the follow through of what will it take to get to that point? Not, not, not that it’s impossible. And

in five or 10 years, certain goals and dreams and revenue numbers or doors or different metrics and whatnot can absolutely get hit, but it will take the daily consistent execution in order to get there. And I just think not losing sight of that, that it’s going to take people to execute it and they got to get bought in to want to do that and meet you there.

Mike Hambright (22:18.794)
Yeah, think that’s why a lot of, that’s why there’s a lot of good partnerships. So you guys have a good partnership. My wife and I, we kind of describe ourselves as, well, I don’t know who said this, but I’m the gas and she’s the brakes, right? Like we’ve got the, need to have that yin and yang in your business of somebody that can be the visionary to come up with big ideas and push farther. And then the process person that’s gonna, you know, make sure that it all gets put together right. And can get executed properly and.

Trey Chandler (22:33.802)
Yeah.

Mike Hambright (22:47.282)
the business is not so up and down because of fragile processes. So for the smaller investor that is wearing a lot of hats that can’t really think of themselves as different departments and they just think of, well, I just do a bunch of stuff. There’s a lot of people that are operating even at two or three deals a month that are like that where they’re just wearing all the hats or most of them. And they don’t really think, it’s kind of hard for them to get out of the way to put…

processes in place because they know how to do it. Right. I mean, they’re very much like the owner operator. Right. But for most, I would say that wasn’t their goal when they started the business. But a lot of people end up there. Maybe talk to that. Talk some sense into that person.

Trey Chandler (23:27.901)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, AI is your friend. AI is your friend. can really help get a lot of things that are in your head into a process. There’s so many different tools out there now and just simply articulating and talking like we are right now about something that you do every day from a process standpoint of how you do something. Let AI transcribe all that and map that out for you. You know, really you have to think a lot smarter as that owner operator.

I think too it comes with a higher level of discipline needed, time blocking, setting a strong order of operations, and then things that can be outsourced to a degree from a fractional standpoint, because there’s so many different companies out there that want people to succeed, especially the smaller investor, like lean into those groups, that lean into the expertise, and they’re not showing your payroll, and so that’s an expense that if needed, you can cut it, but.

lean into expertise and people that want to see you succeed. And then I think my final thing would just be those individuals probably see someone like maybe an operations assistant or a virtual assistant or an executive assistant as an added expense, but you really got to think about what could that person unlock for you? How many more high revenue generating tasks or things could you accomplish if you had that one person?

So I think people at times can overlook the ROI on a hire like that.

Mike Hambright (25:03.496)
Yeah, cool. Good stuff. Well, Trey, thanks for joining us today. Great to see you, buddy. Yeah. And for those that want to connect with you or get in touch, where can they go?

Trey Chandler (25:08.318)
Yeah, use online.

Trey Chandler (25:15.25)
Yeah, I think I’m probably most responsible would be on Instagram. It’s _TreyChandler_. So that are obviously people can go to our website, mytennesseehomesolution.com and they can find me on there as well. But people that want to connect on a personal level, think my Instagram is probably the easiest path.

Mike Hambright (25:37.226)
Yeah, great, awesome. Guys, thanks for joining us today. Great, great knowledge. At the end of the day, you can’t build a business if you’re doing everything. You need to be able to, I mean, we talk about scaling a lot. It’s not necessarily to buy some fancy new toys. You can have that if you want to. at end of the day, it’s to be able to afford to build out a team that can allow you to kind of scale up and fill in all the gaps so that you’re not sitting on every seat on the org chart. So I appreciate you guys for joining us today. See you next time.