Maui Real Estate Secrets from a Billionaire's Agent with Dano Sayles

[00:00:00] Dano: my whole, goal in life is to, you know, live in a beautiful state as much as possible. I know there's suffering and. and I can't live in a beautiful state all the time, but I do my best to feed my mind positive thoughts and bring the aloha wherever I go.

[00:00:20] Suneet: Welcome back to the Reside Platform Podcast. I'm your host today, Suneet Agrawal, and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Dano sales founder and CEO of the sales team in Maui, Hawaii. Dan, how are you man? Aloha.

[00:00:38] Dano: Hello, sun. Nice to see you again.

[00:00:42] Suneet: Yes, sir. You know, I'm so happy to have you on here 'cause you always bring that aloha vibe and you know, I'm from California, so I bring the California vibe. I and I think you're from here too originally, right?

[00:00:54] Dano: Yeah, I was originally born seven miles, east of downtown Los Angeles, and I decided to, move to Hawaii in 1984. So I've been practicing real estate in the state for, this will be my 41st year in the business.

[00:01:09] Suneet: Wow. You look good, dude. What's the secret?

[00:01:13] Dano: Well, the secret is basically good organic food, strength training, exercise, walking, vitamin T for the local, you know, sunshine and just, feeding your mind with positive thoughts.

[00:01:24] Suneet: Yes. All right, let's get into it. So, like you said, you've been in real estate for 41 years, man, congratulations on that run. That's big. And you built an incredible reputation in Maui. What made you get into real estate when you got out to Hawaii?

[00:01:40] Dano: Basically growing up in Southern California, in Orange County and watching, cow Farms turned into master plan communities and neighborhoods, I. I was always inspired, by going into the new homes, models and meeting the sales guys when I was like seventh, grade. And I knew early on that's kind of what I wanted to do.

[00:02:01] Dano: And then when I started visiting Hawaii, when I was flying over South KeHE, I saw just a lot of, potential with all the vacant land and, been doing it, ever since.

[00:02:11] Suneet: So what's kept you passionate all that time about the real estate industry? You've probably seen a lot of stuff through the 41 years, right? Like you could probably tell us some crazy stories.

[00:02:21] Dano: You know, I actually, my passion, kinda went away a little bit and, I would say I was really into, you know, just my lifestyle and, traveling. So I put a goal up there to spend, two months a year in Asia, two months a year in Europe, and two months just random places. So I've traveled, I've been to like 65 different countries and then I saw a shift in our market here on Maui, last year.

[00:02:49] Dano: And, I said, you know what? You really need to go focus and be the team leader that you are for, for the sales team. My son Anthony has a lot of responsibility and I was researching, you know, how I was gonna grow my business. And so when I came across the reside, community, it, really helped me, inspired me and put a flame back in my belly.

[00:03:11] Suneet: Oh, so we got you back. Excited. That's so cool. Right on. So tell me, you know, Maui is like, I think it's a unique different market, at least from Sacramento. Tell me about what the market's like out there,

[00:03:26] Dano: well, one of the things, we focused on about, 15 years ago was really getting into the luxury part of the market. I had been doing a lot of new home neighborhoods and, and representing a lot of local families and that's been a very satisfying part of my career. when we stepped it up and got into the resort market, it's a whole other level of business.

[00:03:46] Dano: 'cause we're dealing with people that are buying their second, third, fourth homes. Lot of cash buyers, lot of high net worth individuals. So, in the last year, the market has really, really changed. we've seen inventory, grow in all segments and prices, have really dropped significantly

[00:04:05] Dano: at the point we are in our marketplace, a lot of the properties we're actually, trying to find out where the actual market is right now.

[00:04:13] Suneet: Mm. Okay. So you feel like there's been less people buying like their third and fourth homes out there?

[00:04:21] Dano: Yes, there definitely has in the last year.

[00:04:24] Suneet: Now, if you're selling luxury houses in Maui, what's like the coolest house you've ever seen, but what was one of the coolest features? I know you've seen something, I'm super curious

[00:04:35] Dano: One of the coolest houses I had the opportunity of represent the cellar on was a beautiful, oceanfront home in, McKenna, Maui, which is really becoming the enclave to billionaires right now. I. There was a home that was constructed, in pod like style, in Bali. So it was completely built in Bali, and then it was, broken down, shipped to Maui and reconstructed here.

[00:05:02] Dano: So the level, the level of artisanship in this particular property was just something that I've never seen the level of detail.

[00:05:10] Suneet: dude, you gotta send me a picture of that offline or something. I wanna see that. Maybe I'll look it up on Zillow.

[00:05:17] Dano: Yeah, I'll definitely, we have some really good, media capture on it and I'd be happy to share it with you, sun.

[00:05:22] Suneet: Yeah. That's so cool, man. So, you know, you're talking about your son having a lot of responsibilities in the company. Tell me, and I know you have Michael, who works for you too. What's Michael's role again?

[00:05:36] Dano: Well, I mean, with my coaching with Mia lately, we've been doing some lane exercises,

[00:05:42] Dano: so Some of the titles of the team, may be changing. Till recently, Michael has been considered the, you know, the director of our marketing and Anthony has been considered the director of operations.

[00:05:54] Dano: But we're really looking at, getting everybody in the right seat in the bus, so,

[00:05:59] Suneet: Oh, cool. So, I mean, yeah, that can be a challenge, huh? Especially when you're growing and people wear like more than one hat. Right.

[00:06:07] Suneet: It's interesting. I have these friends who started this board game. It's like a business board game. I, I'll have to show it to you sometime, show it's called 57 Hats and every hat is a different hat for a title at.

[00:06:20] Suneet: Any company, shout out to James Free and Mark Fire for this. I have a box here. and then you like, give the hats, give the cards for the people that have the job. And somebody might end up with a bunch of cards, right. And a bunch of jobs. And then they put what they really wanna do. And that's, been a cool exercise I have to see by, getting some boxes of that for us to check out.

[00:06:41] Suneet: So with like your son coming up in the business, how long has he worked for you for?

[00:06:46] Dano: Basically he's been, he came at a really another time in the, in my career that I was really lagging and with energy and things, and that was in, 2008. So he, he graduated from the University of San Diego with a business degree in a real estate

[00:07:02] Dano: minor. And he had an opportunity to work with the family business here in Maui or do another type of family business in Los Angeles. And thankfully he chose to work with us on Maui. So he's been with me, full time now for like 17 years. I.

[00:07:19] Suneet: Oh wow. And then when did you bring on Michael?

[00:07:22] Dano: Michael was our first hire. It was very interesting because Anthony, he got home and he was, be happy to start. He goes, dad, where's our assistant? He always told me if. You don't have an assistant, you are an assistant. And I said, you are the assistant until you can learn everything that the assistant would do, so you can actually train them.

[00:07:42] Dano: So about a couple years later, our first hire was Michael and Michael's been with me now close to 15 years.

[00:07:50] Suneet: So how do you handle like delegation and trust? 'cause you know, like when you're a real estate agent, a successful one, like you've been, and then you start hiring people, delegating can be hard, right? Because you think you wanna do everything by yourself. How do you handle that and how do you make sure that the team runs smoothly to your standards when you're gone half the year going to 65 different countries?

[00:08:15] Suneet: And I've seen some pictures. You go to cool places. So how do you do that? Or how did you do that?

[00:08:21] Dano: well basically, I followed, Tony Robbins and, went to a lot of Tony Robbins events and one of the events I went to, I was offered to be one of their platinum partners. So that's the closest power of proximity you can get to. Tony

[00:08:35] Dano: And I came back from an event. I said, yeah. Anthony, I wanna, travel around the world for the next year and learn from Tony Robbins.

[00:08:42] Dano: And that was in 2000, 14.

[00:08:46] Dano: And he says, well, dad, dad, I'm not ready to run the business yet. You have very big shoes to fill. And I said, well, you have bigger feet than me. And he, we both laughed. And, it took, about, three years. And then he finally said, I'm ready. Now, you know, after the training.

[00:09:02] Dano: So he was very well prepped. Michael came on board and, so I have a lot of trust, in Anthony and Michael, to delegate to them. And I just wanna clarify because I have been proud of the travels that I've done. I still want to travel, but I'm not gonna be gone quite as much because there's a lot of work to do.

[00:09:22] Suneet: I think that you should travel, man. Like find that happy medium right to where you can get everything done and see everything the world is a big place. have you been following the recent, I have to talk about this with somebody. You're the first person I've, I've seen since I've learned about this.

[00:09:37] Suneet: So I'm gonna ask you, did you see the recent things they found underneath the frigging pyramids?

[00:09:44] Dano: No, I haven't.

[00:09:45] Suneet: Dude, go look it up when we get off. They found like the underground structures with some kind of satellite. It's crazy. Maybe I'm talking a conspiracy, but crazy stuff they found under the pyramids the last week.

[00:09:59] Suneet: So check that out. It's super cool. I just, I just learned about it like an hour ago. What was the Tony Robbins experience like? I'm sure you went to Fiji then and did all kinds of stuff. Huh?

[00:10:09] Dano: Actually I was invited to Tony's, his most powerful event is one called Date with Destiny, and it's a seven day event and usually the date with destinies are, you know, close to, you know, three to 5,000 people. And, he did a special one in his resort in Fiji and there was just a couple hundred of us.

[00:10:30] Dano: And that was, amazing doing Date with Destiny in that small, intimate group. And that's where I signed up to be a platinum partner. But I, you know, I've done unleashed the power within in la London, New

[00:10:42] Dano: York City,

[00:10:43] Dano: business Mastery and Las Vegas and Amsterdam, and an adventure, trip that was pure adrenaline, in, New Zealand.

[00:10:52] Dano: So Where that was a very interesting experience because, it, it was really about getting over your fears. there was four different buses, 25 people on each buses, and when you were being picked up, you didn't know what the next adventure was going to be. So I, I mean, we did, whitewater rafting, and we did speed boats and we did the highest zip lines. And to cap it off, everybody was kind of fearful that we were gonna do bungee jumping. And it looked like the last day there was gonna be no bungee jumping and we're just gonna go to a special dinner. And when all hundred of us got to the special dinner, it was a full moon.

[00:11:30] Dano: They usually jump in the daytime and, and we were all, going to the oldest bridge to do bungee jumping. I.

[00:11:37] Suneet: And how, how was it?

[00:11:42] Dano: Exhilarating.

[00:11:43] Suneet: Yeah, that's an event that I'm gonna skip

[00:11:47] Dano: Yeah. A lot of people say they wanna skip, stuff, and then when given the opportunity to get past their fear, like a lot of people, there's, you know, seven to 10,000 people that unleash the power within for the

[00:11:58] Dano: fire walk. And a lot of people walk in and say, well, I'm not gonna walk on fire. And you know, by the end of the night he, Tony has you so mentally prepped that you're actually walking on hot coals barefoot and not getting burned.

[00:12:12] Suneet: Yeah. Right. obviously you learned so much about business and leadership inside of that stuff, right?

[00:12:18] Suneet: I mean, I'm totally curious 'cause I've been a big Tony Robbins fan my entire career as a salesperson at least over 20 years, and I've never been to an event.

[00:12:31] Suneet: just by own fault. Right. But what are some big things that you can share with me and the audience that you learned during all that time?

[00:12:38] Dano: I'd say again, it's, you know, having a mindset to play bigger, you know, really expansive mindset to just play bigger. And I think that was, you know, Tony's a physically large man, like six, seven, close to 300 pounds, and just he, his presence is like. Big

[00:12:55] Dano: and everything about what he, does and what he's teaching is just really thinking big.

[00:13:00] Dano: Also to another one of his favorite phrases is to live in a beautiful state. So I really work on, you know, my whole, goal in life is to, you know, live in a beautiful state as much as possible. I know there's suffering and. and I can't live in a beautiful state all the time, but I do my best to feed my mind positive thoughts and bring the aloha wherever I go.

[00:13:22] Suneet: Yeah, man, I, that's big for me too. I think that's. With everything happening, you know, in the world, in our business, in our lives, it's easy to start feeling bad for yourself. Maybe it's to start to maybe discouraged or frustrated and it's a slippery slope, right? I don't know about you, but I have a real strict operating system that I keep to maybe inspired by Tony Robbins.

[00:13:47] Suneet: Maybe not, I don't know. And it really, helps me make sure. What are some tricks that you use to stay in a, in that aloha state? De

[00:13:56] Dano: Well, Tony's really great of attracting very top people around him in the different fields. so one of the people that he invited to our event in New Zealand was Dr. Joe Dispenza.

[00:14:09] Dano: So Dr. Joe de Spenda, worked with us, and took us through a, you know, private training with him. And, that was pretty mind, boggling.

[00:14:19] Dano: I, I was one that would tell myself, oh, can't meditate. You, you know, the monkey mind would just constantly be going. So one of the things over the last couple years, I've, gotten into meditation on a, very regular basis, a minimum of four to five times a week. My goal is mostly every day, but sometimes I don't hit it. I've done a, a lot of Dr. Joe events and, have now, now training myself. You know, meditation has been very helpful. And then I, I'm extremely, blessed with my life. You know, I have three boys. My oldest son works with me in the business and has, I have two grandchildren. My middle son, a Alex works with me as doing our content creation in the business and he just had, twin girls.

[00:15:04] Dano: yeah, they just turned three months.

[00:15:06] Dano: so I've created a dream life and I wake up every morning and I look outside and see Holly Acala. And this dream I had at 18 years old when I first came to Hawaii moving here, getting married, having kids, having a job in real estate is something that I've, I've achieved.

[00:15:22] Dano: And so I get to live my dream daily.

[00:15:25] Suneet: Yeah. Sounds like you have a lot of gratitude for that, huh?

[00:15:29] Suneet: So let's get back to the real estate. So you guys have had a pretty strong online presence right? in the local market. What's been some like big game changing marketing things that you guys have done?

[00:15:44] Dano: Wow. Well, we're super excited to bring out some of the things that we've, you know, incorporated with the, the Reside platform. So we joined, at the end of 2024. And, one of the things that we, we have implemented, we're doing systematically implementation. So we got follow up boss, up and running by the end of January. We got our Sierra site up and running by the end of February and actually today, thanks to you and some of the other people, we justed our contract with fellow, so we'll have fellow up and running by the end of March

[00:16:19] Dano: And then, we have another company we're gonna do our direct marketing pieces with, real marketing. what I'm doing right now, a lot of people in my, local marketplace are really cutting back on their spending on

[00:16:33] Dano: everything. So I'm taking a different. approach and, I'm going all in, on a lot of different systems and, I'm confident that all of these systems that we're implementing are going to help us do a better job for our clients.

[00:16:48] Dano: So we're gonna attract more buyers and sellers and team members.

[00:16:53] Suneet: Yes, that's the way to go. Let me ask you, with all this new tech that you're implementing, you've probably tried stuff in the past too. what role do you think that technology plays in like the success of a real estate team?

[00:17:07] Dano: I'm not really, you know, the techno person on the team, but I really feel as the team leader, it's, my responsibility to know what's out there. And then getting back to what you said earlier about delegation. So if I'm going around and, and reading and learning and talking to other team leaders of what they're using, it's working for them, I'm willing to give it a try.

[00:17:28] Dano: I think, technology plays a large part, I. In the real estate business, that if you're gonna do anything more than one time, as many things as you can get automated, the better it is for your systems. I know it's

[00:17:42] Dano: a, you know, a flesh to flesh, business and they're never gonna take the people outta real estate.

[00:17:48] Dano: but just getting a lot more things, automated and consistent.

[00:17:52] Suneet: You must have seen like the whole advent of technology come into real estate, right? Probably. You've seen a lot of changes.

[00:18:00] Dano: Yeah, we used to have pagers and, fax machines to, you know, send over, you know, offers and MLS books. I mean, which you would Hold the near and dear to your heart. You know, like, oh, that's mine. You know, can I have it over the weekend? Oh, no, no. You can't have the MLS book. That's our proprietary information.

[00:18:20] Dano: So I think, you know, what we're learning from technology, is. The buyers are so sharp on what's going on before they even hit the island through technology, that it's really, if you're selling real estate, you need to, need know more than the consumer. and there's some pretty smart consumers out there.

[00:18:40] Dano: So I, think, technology can really help all of us, you know, just be very knowledgeable about the real estate industry.

[00:18:48] Suneet: And I think that you're looking at it right, man, because so many realtors that I know who have been in business for a longer amount of time, first they. You know, maybe not so many on the national scene, but so many here locally here in Sacramento, they were very hesitant when I first got my license. I've only been licensed 11 years.

[00:19:10] Suneet: I was like the first or second agent in my office to use the CRM. and like now, I'm on the CRM websites and I like the CRM me learning how to use the CRM that day. I'll never forget that day, changed my career and people are been hesitant to change and I think that's to their detriment and to your success that we're gonna keep crushing it. So you've built this career and the, this top performing team and sales, done these, all these great sales and these cool, amazing luxury homes. If you could go back Dano and give yourself one piece of advice in your career, just one piece. I know there's probably a lot. What would that piece be?

[00:19:51] Dano: Well, I have had this question asked to me a lot of times, and

[00:19:55] Dano: I've asked it, to my mentors and things, and you kind of said it a little bit about my travel. The one thing I would do differently or, you know, advise other people to do is I didn't spend enough time with my children.

[00:20:11] Dano: you know, growing up, I was a single provider for our family. My ex-wife, stayed home and, and took care of the children, you know, by agreement. We didn't want somebody else raising our children, but I was working seven to seven, seven days a week, you know, missing games, missing parent events, and, just had my blinders on and just did business, business, business, and.

[00:20:35] Dano: I definitely, don't. Have, my team members have that same thing. You know, they all have young children, so we work to cover each other so everybody can have balance. I was going to be in Salt Lake City, And, there was three team members out.

[00:20:52] Dano: So I sent Anthony to go to Spring Break and I stayed back to work with Michael

[00:20:56] Dano: and, hopefully that answers your question. Spend more time with your, children and your loved ones, and just don't get obsessed and sucked into this business.

[00:21:04] Suneet: Do that has been needed to have been said on this podcast. We're over a hundred episodes deep. It's like a hundred, 203 and I'm so glad that you said that. 'cause I think so many I. Professionals, not only in our industry, but they get those blinders on and they miss it. And here you're hearing the advice, right?

[00:21:26] Suneet: Looking back. That's the one piece of advice. Dude, that's awesome. before we wrap this up, what's next for you and the sales team?

[00:21:35] Dano: Well, another part of my growth strategy is an expansion team into a completely different market.

[00:21:42] Dano: so what we're doing now is, you know, we've, been known and we do a great job on Maui for our customers and clients, but me being from Los Angeles, I still have, you know, high rises in concrete and.

[00:21:54] Dano: In my blood. So, I'm building a whole new team on Oahu and I'm focusing on, you know, 40 story high rises and, you know, going into, you know, just a real urban market and city living and, you know, so I'm basically starting from scratch, no listings, no buyers, and it's, kind of exciting.

[00:22:14] Suneet: Yeah, sounds super exciting. Hey, if people out there wanna send you a referral or wanna learn more about you or your business, what's the best way for them to reach out to you?

[00:22:25] Dano: Best rates probably to reach out to is my cell phone. Text messaging is, (808) 870-4899, or we just launched the Sierra site, which is sales team.com. S-A-Y-L-E-S team.com. Those two would be the best.

[00:22:45] Suneet: I love that domain. The sales team. That's super easy to remember, man. The sales team. Good stuff. Well, Dano, huge thanks to you. Thank you so much for coming on. Very nice to hang out. And that's a wrap for today everybody. I hope you found it valuable. Don't forget to like, and subscribe and share with a fellow agent, our team leader.

[00:23:10] Suneet: Going back, we have a ton of great episodes with a ton of great content, so go play in our library and check out some more stuff. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode of the Reside Platform podcast.