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Show Summary
In this conversation, Eric Hamilton shares his journey in real estate and sales, discussing the importance of having multiple revenue streams and the challenges he faced along the way. He emphasizes the significance of building an ecosystem of support, learning from failures, and the impact of financial literacy. Eric also introduces his concept of a ‘blueprint’ for success, which he plans to expand into a book and podcast.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Eric Hamilton (00:00)
I didn’t understand was how to be a real entrepreneur.I didn’t have a real system for how the money was allocated. I was grabbing the money from the rental place. I might go to my boy house and go to the club or something because I wasn’t disciplined. I didn’t understand.
And so I was taking the money and not doing right by that, especially in the beginning. Long story short, it ended up getting me into a jam where I had to file for bankruptcy. That was in 2009. And that was because of a bad business deal and lack of structure.
Q Edmonds (02:04)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the real estate pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds and I stand by it. I say it all the time, but I’ll stand by it. I am excited to be here today. I am excited about my guests. They, they have a way of just fire me up, getting me, I suppose making them comfortable. They got a way of making me comfortable, taking off the edge, getting me, having me be, you feel relaxing and feeling like it’s going to be a good episode. And so I really feel like today.is going to be a great episode. I got a gentleman here listening to experience of what he does. ⁓ He loves building an ecosystem. He loves helping people manage that today to day operations. And so he really helped people get their systems in place. And so I am super excited for us to peek through the lens of Mr. Eric Hamilton. Mr. Eric, how are you doing today, sir?
Eric Hamilton (02:55)
It’s absolute pleasure. appreciate it. Thank you for inviting me to your show. And you know what? You mentioned that you from Baltimore. So I heard a little bit of Baltimore when you said something that I remember playing that on the wire. I remember.Q Edmonds (03:10)
Well, listen get hold on buckle up because you won’t hear it a lot because I don’t hear it it comes out naturally But I’m Baltimore and here we go through and through me ⁓ through it through like so it’s gonna come out I guess educated. I like being articulate. I like being eloquent, but it’s still gonna come out ⁓Eric Hamilton (03:31)
theQ Edmonds (03:36)
Absolutely. But you know, I represent where I’m from. love where I’m from. Baltimore is exactly what you think it is, but it’s so much what you would never expect at the same time. We claim who we are, but it’s so much beauty has come from Baltimore. And so it is what it is, man. And I’m excited for them to learn about you. I’ll be on here to chew.Eric Hamilton (04:00)
anything below right?Q Edmonds (04:04)
But look, man, I want you to take us kind of into your world, right? Tell us what your main focus is these days. Give us a little bit of origin story of how you got started, where you came from, we love what you’re doing, and then tell them what market you’re in as well, man, where you’re from. so, Mr. Eric, you got the floor, man. Appreciate you,Eric Hamilton (04:23)
Absolutely. So thank you again for the opportunity. Eric Hamilton. I’m currently based in Dallas, Texas, but I’m originally from Michigan, small city called Kalamazoo, Michigan. And so today as I’m in Dallas, so from a day-to-day perspective, I oversee sales for a large SaaS organization. So that’s what I do in my day-to-day. But as everyone knows, you got to have multiple revenue streams. And so I found out early that you need multiple revenue streams because if you got one revenue stream, that’s easy to dry up.You get fired from your job and everything goes. That’s a problem. So it’s important to have the multiple revenue streams. Now I’ve been in real estate for 25 years. I bought my first one in 2021. Uh, and just to give you a synopsis of how I got here, you know, as a young single at the time, professional, was in sales, but I was young. was 19, 19, 20.
And my mom mentioned to me that I needed a tax shelter. I said, uh, a what?
tax who? Yeah, she she spit the first game to me. She spit then she was not a real estate investor. She was not the most financially literate person. But she had an accident from Chicago, Illinois, and my mom knew how to get money. And one of the things she said is you got to protect your money. And so what I did is I reached out to again, remember, I’m 19. And I reached out to a bunch of realtors. Nobody wanted to show me a place. No.
Q Edmonds (06:07)
Come on, mama.Eric Hamilton (06:33)
They wanted to ask all these questions. were talking for days and days. And then she said, okay, I got one more person. His name was Henry Kellum. He’s still alive. I don’t want to say what his name is. And immediately when I reached out to him, he had me looking at four houses within 24 hours. Now, again, you might be thinking that that’s normal because things move quick now, but I just told you that I was six, seven days in with multiple realtors and nobody wanted to show me anything because I was young. I was black and everything else that you want to say. They didn’t see it. Like I saw.Q Edmonds (06:43)
ThankEric Hamilton (07:02)
What they couldn’t see is my drive and my hunger. That’s what they couldn’t see. But Henry Kellum did. So he showed me these places and he kept talking to me about location, location, location, all this good stuff. Boom, I bought my first duplex. And the concept behind it was, all right, how can I take this property that I don’t know a lot about? One of the units needed a lot of work. The other one looked absolutely beautiful. Could I put somebody into the nice one while I fix and I live in this one? I’m single.So can I live in this and fix it up while I’m doing that? And that’s what I did. Over the course of six months, I’m not really a handyman, but you will make yourself into a handyman when you in a place and you got YouTube. So I began to fix the place up. And now what I was noticing is this is covering my mortgage. Let’s call it 100K for the property. What they’re paying for rent, $1,000, $1,200, that’s covering my mortgage. That means I’m living, I’m kind of living free, but at the same time I’m building this thing called equity.
So same concept is once I got the unit field and it looked good, I went and I bought another duplex. I did the same thing. I said, you know, I’m going to live in one, rent out the other. And that was my start. That’s how I got started into real estate. Now it changes after I got married. Yeah, we’re not just going to keep popping into these rental units and I’m not just going to stay. But anyways, I’ll get into that later, Q. But the point of it was that’s my start into real estate. Oh yeah, you know what I’m saying. That’s how I got started.
Q Edmonds (08:20)
man, beautiful story, wonderful story. Shout out to mom for putting you on game. Like, I love that man. And I wasn’t actually going to ask this question, but since you brought up moms and I’m listening to you, just the way your brain work, right? Everybody, I always say destiny has no wasted moments. And I say that meaning throughout your life, as you continue to grow in every aspect of your life.you develop tools that are transferable. so rather than, you know, sales, real estate, like wherever you go, some of these tools are transferable. So when did you know, or can you think back to when you were a child, when it clicked to you that you would be an entrepreneur, a business person, be good at sales? Like, what is it that in your epigenetics that’s inating you that would like, yeah, I could see back then that I would see myself doing something similar to that.
Eric Hamilton (09:14)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that’s a really good question. And at an early age, I knew conceptually what I wanted. I wanted to be, wanted to play in the NFL. Like I used to write my signature down with my number. Like I had it all down pat. And like my boy, he wanted to be a lawyer and he did everything focused on that. I had another friend wanted to be in hockey and ultimately my goal was I want to be rich. don’t know what that even meant. I thought it was a mint. I don’t even know if I thought it was a million dollars. Like at that time, this, we were talking like 1990 or something.Q Edmonds (09:35)
Hmm.Eric Hamilton (09:42)
So I didn’t know, just wanted to be the word rich because it seems cool and I didn’t know how I get there. And so that concept of how, what I wanted to do, not really knowing how I was going to get there, but that led me into what I do now, which is sales.So before I knew it, I was actually selling these things called, we’re going to date myself, Pagers. yeah, I started by selling Pagers. was LCI, I selling Pagers and long distance on the street.
treats. Like that’s how I started. And what I seen about the concept was, cause I’ll pull all this back to real estate and to just us in general, is that whether we like it or not, we’re all in sales. If you are a business owner, no, no, no, you are in sales. Your brand, when you go outside, when you go to the store, when you are online, that is your brand, whatever it is, good or bad, that is your brand. You are selling your brand. You want someone to come purchase a service or product from you.
Q Edmonds (11:11)
Mm.Eric Hamilton (11:11)
And you’re the owner of the company, you in sales, brother, sister. And so what I discovered quickly is, all right, I have a product that people want. I’m going to exchange it for money. All right. I started doing that. Then I started doing more sales. I ended up getting to this cable company and this, this thing, this concept of telemarketing that everybody hates. was that dude. Q, I was, I paid my way through school. I was on the phone selling cable services in the evening.to households, I would call and say who I am from this company and this is what I got. And it was a lot of rejection, but boy did it teach resiliency. Boy, teach you to be strong because you know what, Q, I go and I look in that mirror, as soon as that person hung up on me, him with a smile, go back at it. And that smile that I had shows on the phone, right? So I went back to work, boom, boom, boom. And you know what, knocking them down, knocking down records and I moved up and I moved up. But.
What this did, it allowed me to follow and fuel my passion. My passion isn’t sales. I did write a book on it. We’ll talk about that later. Passion has nothing to do with sales. It’s actually helping people and a piece of that is real estate. Like sales helped me on the real estate side. How I began to accumulate all this stuff was the first duplex.
Without the sales job, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. But I had freedom and I had money that was coming because I was good at sales. And sales has nothing to do with your race, where you’re from, your education. None of that stuff really matters when you’re in sales. It’s I have a product, a person that I’m talking to has an issue or a challenge that they’re trying to solve. I’m going to talk to them. And if it’s a good fit, we’re going. So I got a little sidetracked, but I think that’s important. That’s my journey of getting into sales. And I’ve been in there ever since.
Q Edmonds (12:54)
Yeah, no man that you for me you were spot-on because I am listening to you. Like I said destiny has no wasted moments. I’m listening to the confluence of What helped you in sales will help you in real estate right because like you said Sales you might not say that exactly this way, but this is how I took it sales taught you confidence Sales taught you confidence and once you was able to look at yourself in the mirror and have confidence in yourself skies was the limitEric Hamilton (13:14)
Yes.Q Edmonds (13:22)
So now when we get into real estate, it’s like, we got the confidence. I just need to find a deal. I just need to find the right system. I just need to find the right person. Like I got the confidence because rejection ain’t nothing. If you reject me here, I’m just gonna find a different way to get what I need to get done. ⁓ And so I hear it, man. I hear that innate ⁓ thing that’s in you, that you build confidence on. You get the right information like what you got from your mom.And even right getting the right information from this guy, Henry Kellum. And I think that’s kind of where I want to go next. So you met Henry, he showed you the rope. You started building in real estate. Did you hit any other obstacles or adversity? Was it smooth sailing after that? Or was there still some adversity that you had to work out in long term?
Eric Hamilton (14:10)
That’s a good question. No, it ain’t no dang smooth sailing all the time after 25 years. No, you’re going to hit some rough patches. You’re going to hit some bad. Now, here’s the area that I had to grow in. So while I understood the importance of real estate now and how, if you buy a duplex and you rent one, you basically got equity and you’re living for free for the most part. Right? So I understood that concept.I didn’t understand was how to be a real entrepreneur.
I didn’t have a real system for how the money was allocated. I was grabbing the money from the rental place. I might go to my boy house and go to the club or something because I wasn’t disciplined. I didn’t understand. So as long as it was enough money to cover a couple of things in my account, boom, we just move it. So I’m knocking on your door, hey Q, you know what time it is, boom, all right. I don’t care if it’s a whole bunch of ones. It could be a check, like it doesn’t matter.
structure. I like business structure.
I like discipline at that time because I didn’t understand. I didn’t know. And so I was taking the money and not doing right by that, especially in the beginning. Long story short, it ended up getting me into a jam where I had to file for bankruptcy. That was in 2009. And that was because of a bad business deal and lack of structure.
And a lot of businesses struggle from this. They’ll get some money going in, but they’ll let expenses creep up on them.
And now you’re, you’re paying out more than what you’re actually doing, or you’ll find that your business, you’re not running your business. That’s why we have to have structure. So this process, it taught me structure. That was the biggest hurdle. The biggest obstacle that I ran into is I was exposed. I was exposed that I didn’t have structure. And after that bankruptcy, you know what I did? Boom. Same thing I teach in sales is structure. Everything has a flow. Every meeting should start a certain way. It should end a certain way.
I got structure around the business now. Now I have an ecosystem of people where I know I have an accountant that has this right here. I’ve got a lawyer that can help me with this. I got an accountant on here. Like I got an ecosystem. I got the right people. I got a management company, all these things. Now I have structure. Now I feel more confident. That was a big obstacle for me.
Q Edmonds (16:58)
Yeah, man, thank you, man. Thank you for painting that picture because as you talk, we talked about structures. All I could think about is if you have an improper structure that doesn’t have the right foundation, doesn’t have the right fusion, doesn’t have the right systems in place, a building that is not properly structured has the capability and possibility of falling down. And it may not happen the first year, may not happen the second year, but eventuallyEric Hamilton (17:18)
Absolutely.Q Edmonds (17:22)
That thing comes down and it causes you to have to rebuild. And so when you talk about structure, all I could think about is definitely having the right support in place, the right means in place, the right whatever in place to make sure that the structure is sound. And if you need to, you can continue to build on or you can continue to expand either way. So I love the picture you painted about structures.Let me ask you Mr. Eric, what’s the next real goal for you man? Where you looking to go next sir?
Eric Hamilton (17:53)
Absolutely. So my youngest son is 16. He’s got he’s a sophomore in high school. He’s got two more years. He’ll be the last of my children to finish up. So at that particular time, what I’m going to do is my wife and I’m going to walk away from corporate America is my plans. Real estate would be a big piece, but then consulting will be the other piece that I really go hard or go heavy into. So that’s on top for me. So things that I’m doing to prepare for that one, I’m always looking for additional real estate.Right. Cause if I can get to the point where that real estate is almost one for one, a pretty dang close to my W two. All right. Hey, you know, it is what it is. And then secondly, it’s as we prepare for this. Now I have to build out my brand, right? So I’m doing more of these right here over the last six months a year, really that I’ve done more podcasts and done some TV shows and some magazines. And that’s to get the brand going. So I can share the expertise that I have in real estate and.
coaching and leadership and finances. Cause I also think I want to get sidetracked, but financial literacy is extremely important to and for like, we just need to do a better job, financial, literate, financial, financially educating our people. And so I do a lot of time that I’m not a financial expert. I don’t claim to be one on TV, but I can teach you principles and framework and I can talk to you about what I’ve done. I can talk to you about best practices and things of that nature.
So I’ve been really focusing in on that. And then lastly, what’s next for me is I’ve been talking a lot about dropping my own podcast. So in 2026, I am going to release the Blueprint Experience. that’ll be my first endeavor into the podcast. So I’m pretty excited. 2025 has been a great year. I’m really pumped and stoked to see what 2026 is about to do, because I know God’s got something coming.
Q Edmonds (19:44)
Ooh, yes, he does. Yes, he does. Man, like, I hear it, man. Like you talked about the blueprint. Like, I hear it. I wasn’t going to ask this question, but why is that word blueprint? Like, what does that word mean to you? Because I think you have a book about blueprint. You got the blueprint podcast. Why is that word ringing so loudly out of your message? Please talk to me about that word blueprint. Where does that come from?Eric Hamilton (20:11)
Absolutely. So it comes based a concept that I established in sales. So I would check this out. I would get recruited to these organizations and I wouldn’t know what the product is. Right. It’s almost sad to say, but I’ve taken two or three jobs where I knew about the company, but I didn’t really understand the product. And so what I would do is I would come in and I would sit for a minute. would like to understand like, what is the process?And then I see what’s working. I see what’s not. And then collectively we build out what I call a blueprint or framework. Well, here is how, here’s how you prepare for a meeting. Let’s do these three things. And here in a meeting, here’s what you do. And then after the meeting, here’s what you do. You debrief and then you send this note out saying, Q, I appreciate your time. Thank you. Here’s the items that we talked about. Let me know if there’s anything off. Like we, we put that framework in place and I call it a blueprint. So I took that from the previous company, build a high performing team. We absolutely blew the roof off.
I came to this company I’m at now, did the same thing. I knew nothing about software. At all. in, took the pro, used the process, built out what I call a blueprint, which is basically you come in, think about this. I’m from Michigan, but I live in Texas. If I go to Michigan and order a double cheeseburger from McDonald’s and I order one in Texas, the burger will be very similar. The only difference will be the experience with the person.
So I want to build out a model that’s a blueprint where you can plug and play your own personality comes through, but here’s the concept. And so I took that whole blueprint, I started talking about blueprint and this kind of leads into the book and I’ll be quick on this one, but I was asked at this organization to present the blueprint to the organization, like walk through like some slides on how I did it. And so I said, you know what, if I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna make this fun. I’m gonna make this for me.
So say, when I think of blueprint, you know who comes to mind is Jay-Z. They got a blueprint album. So I did this presentation of 1,500 people, with me being the minority of the minority, I’m gonna say, so just, and every slide, actually on the first slide, it was Jay-Z’s blueprint cover. So I didn’t even know if Cath would understand, and then every slide it had a Jay reference.
And boy, you would be so surprised with the amount of response and positivity I was getting through Slack and email. And that night I went home to my wife and I said, you know, I might be able to do something with this. so Q, that catapulted me to say, okay, I’m about to go to work. So I’m built and I start writing this book called The Sales Blueprint, What Winners Do Differently. And the whole premise behind this is that framework about how to prepare for success.
That is transferable to you being a single parent, you being an entrepreneur, you being whatever you want. It’s how do I prepare? How do I get my mind right? How do I think about this? What does success actually mean? All this stuff, like how do we balance family and work and health and faith and how do we do these things? Like all of those topics are rooted in. And while it’s called the sales blueprint, it’s really a blueprint for success in general. I just happen to have 25 years of sales experience. So.
That’s a lot of information, I think it’s I want to make sure I answered your question.
Q Edmonds (23:21)
I’m going tell you what’s crazy. I’ve been resisting all show because I’ve had a couple of spots where I wanted to quote Jay Z. And so I’m going go ahead and do it. I promise you. Because when you started talking about just how you have built different systems, like when I talked about that transferable skill from just when you were younger, the confidence to when you’re now, I kept hearing, I’m not a business man. I’m business man.Eric Hamilton (23:46)
Actually, it’s 10 chapters, so that means 10 J quotes in there. Every chapter has one J quote, because that’s my favorite artist.Q Edmonds (23:55)
Yeah, man. Listen, guys, you know, we ain’t gonna go too far off, but it’s a book by, which was an Eric, the Erd Jerome Dyson, is that the same? But he wrote, he wrote a book about Jay Z really showing just how poetic Jay Z really is. Like the rhyme schemes that he do, the poetry schemes that he do. ⁓ I know some of y’all looking like, man, y’all saw Jay Z, but Jay Z I’m telling you.He’s brilliant philosopher. know y’all want to hear that from people, but I’m telling you, like, yeah. So it makes sense that you would just use that system, use him as a instrument, just a tool, as a muse to kind of build what you have to, because the blueprint is the blueprint, you know? And when you find the right blueprint, you can build whatever you need to build. so Mr. Eric, this has been phenomenal, man. This has been fun. so listen, man, if someone wanted to reach out to you,
Eric Hamilton (24:24)
⁓Q Edmonds (24:50)
connect with you, learn more about what you’re doing, grab the book. How can people get in more in contact with you,Eric Hamilton (24:56)
Absolutely. So website is the easiest place to see all the information that I have going on. just did a website redesign, but it is www.thesalesblueprintforsuccess.com. On social media, Facebook, Instagram, you can find me, Eric Hamilton, Sales Blueprint. I’m all over the place. And anybody that calls, if you reference Q’s show,I will provide a 30 minute free consultation. So, but you do have to reference that you heard this conversation on real estate or whatever you want to talk about on Q show. I will provide a 30 minute free consultation just to talk and I’ll share some best practices.
Q Edmonds (25:38)
There it is, man. Thank you so much. Listen, man, sincerely, and I say this sincerely. One, thank you for your time. Time is a precious commodity that we don’t get back. And we’re just trying to find ways to kind of get our time back, right? So thank you for your time. ⁓ Thank you for your story, man. Thank you for what I call your gift of vulnerability, because you shared things today that you didn’t necessarily have to share. And so I thank you for that.And then thank you for your perspective. Thank you for the way you think, the way you’re wired. ⁓ I really believe you’ve given nuggets that in cause some people have a mind shift around different things that they’re dealing with in their journey within real estate. And so I really thank you for being here today, Mr. Eric.
Eric Hamilton (26:21)
Absolutely, man. Thank you for having me on. Really strong show, got Q. I appreciate it. And if there’s anything I could do for you in the future, just please let me know. I might make my way up to Baltimore at some point.Q Edmonds (26:32)
Listen man,bro you you come man crab cakes. I will take you out man. Look bring your wife We’re hanging over my wife. We’re making a whole a whole thing. You know what I’m saying, but you got that for sure Well, listen y’all got it y’all got that y’all got the nuggets y’all got the value from Mr. Eric Definitely check him out check out his his website book podcast as soon to come But you better make sure you’re subscribed here
Eric Hamilton (26:43)
Yes, yes.Q Edmonds (27:00)
Because I promise you, we’re going to continue to bring up incredible people just like Mr. Eric. So sir, I thank you again. And to everyone else, we’ll see you on it next time.
