Episode 5 - Adam Hergenrother's Success Unplugged
100 pound overweight and insecure as a kid to being Ironman-ready while growing a $180 million empire!
Adam Hergenrother was born in Colchester, Vermont and was raised there until his Junior year in College. He then moved to Australia for 8 months and while there, he had aspirations of coming back to the U.S. and working on Wall Street. However after living in Australia for a few months, he realized how much he loved the beautiful state of Vermont so he moved back.
When Adam was fifteen years old, he was a hundred pounds overweight and turned to drugs to cover up his insecurities. He was also failing Freshman high school. One day, he reached his breaking point and made the firm decision to turn things around. He resolved he no longer wanted to live in mediocrity and a life full of regrets. A year later, he lost over a hundred pounds, got rid of his so-called "friends" and became captain of the football team. Although, his Freshman grades were not that impressive, he was determined to finish school and did so by studying harder than everybody else. Adam got into The University of Vermont, and he kept studying and working hard; which allowed him to graduate at the top of his Finance course.
While in college, he had his first experience in leveraging. His friend owned a car dealership and asked if he wanted to invest $500 in a car. Adam did invest and a couple of weeks later the car sold and he doubled his $500 investment. From then on, Adam and his friend kept flipping cars and rolling his money until he had enough to buy his first investment property in 2004. The market was climbing and Adam sold the property in 2005 making eighty thousand dollars; which was the highest unit selling price in that area for about 10 years.
After college, Adam started as an underwriter but was fired six months later. Having firmly decided that he needed to go out there and not let anyone or anything put a box around his ability to think about how he wanted to build his life, he went into real estate even though the market was crashing in 2006. While others thought this was a silly idea, he believed that people who were buying and selling homes still needed him and he could add value to their lives. He first went to ReMax but eventually wanted his own brokerage so he opened the first Keller Williams in Vermont. Six years later his office became #1, they went into expansion, started BlackRock Construction, a development company with a financial capital component to it, a foundation and The Adam Hergenrother Training Organization.
Today, The Hergenrother Group has sold $180 million in volume, $5.1 million in GCI in ten states and twelve locations and has recently opened a $30 million healthcare campus.
How does he do it?
Adam is a family-oriented guy with an amazing wife, kids aged 5 years, 3 years, and 4 months old and is also training for Ironman. He doesn't work at night or on the weekends and invests time on improving himself. So how does he juggle time for his family and growing his empire? Adam's first experience in leveraging taught him one thing and that is to hire people who can go out there and execute BETTER than he can. He's taken this practice into every organization he’s built; which also allows him to rarely travel to his businesses as he relies on those that were put in place to execute the business plan. In fact, he's only been to one of his other business locations!
He also believes that if you support and invest in the key people are around you, they'll invest in the people around them. Ultimately creating a victorious cycle for your organization. Mentors have also played a huge role in Adam's growth. He's surrounded himself with people who can think bigger than him and has brought out the better version of himself.
You gotta earn it!
Adam believes that business skills are learned through self-awareness. Knowing and understanding your strengths and weaknesses allows you to set yourself up in the right position and capitalize on your strengths. People don't simply inherit skills. In fact, Adam believes oftentimes people who inherit items will turn around and lose them because they didn’t earn the right to have them in the first place.
Go hungry!
Adam's biggest advice is to be hungry for self-improvement "as if you want a breath when you're drowning." No matter what type of business you're in, business is a channel for your personal growth, and when you start looking at business as a means for improving yourself, you become more confident and ready for any battle.
