In the world of business and the pursuit of financial freedom, most people set out to venture on the journey alone thinking that it is the best course of action for them. What these people, myself included, fail to realize is that it doesn’t matter how much content you consume, how much you know and think you know, or how hard you try, the power of collaboration with others trumps all. I have spent thousands of hours consuming content and trying my luck on my own, unwilling to “share a piece of the pie” with anyone else. What I’ve learned over the years is that collaborating with others and providing value will in turn create reciprocal value. This is the driving force and power behind my business and the success I’ve had thus far.
Starting off alone
In the beginning of my journey in real estate, I spent thousands of hours reading, watching videos, and listening to podcasts. Throughout this period, I learned innumerable material facts about real estate and how to perform certain transactions, but I lacked any sort of tangible experience applying it to the real world. I first ventured out on my own trying to wholesale for active income and failed miserably. I spent countless hours practicing a technique called driving for dollars in which I would drive past houses and bookmark them for later in an app for follow up. I didn’t really know what to do with my leads so that stopped me from really pursuing them. I was spending time, some money, and energy culminating leads I had no idea what to do with. I didn’t have any money to buy any houses so I thought my only option was to try to wholesale them. Needless to say, I didn’t have any success. It wasn’t until I joined a group online called Subto With Pace Morby where I found people who could actually help me do something with the leads I was getting. This was my first introduction into the collaboration over competition mindset. I was providing the value of doing the legwork of finding deals, while people at that time in the group were helping me find things I could actually do with these leads to potentially make money. This was game changing for me. It opened my eyes to all of the possibilities I was missing out on by staying secluded in my bubble. From there, my collaboration has only skyrocketed! I have multiple partnerships I am actively doing deal after deal with. I also have taken myself out of most of the roles I was once playing during the deal process.
The magic of creating win-win scenarios
When everyone brings their own value, the relationships that are formed are harmonious and extremely productive and profitable. As I grow and scale my business, I find more and more areas that are better to be delegated out so I can focus on building a higher level system. For example, my time is not well spent managing transactions in escrow and being a transaction coordinator. I am much better off delegating that role to someone I trust to handle that aspect of the business. Enter Nick. Nick (my TC) is highly skilled at organization and staying on top of things to make sure everyone gets what they need in escrow (two things I don’t excel in and would spend a lot of time and energy doing). Nick gets the benefit of handling multiple files from me and having a steady stream of income to grow his business and sustain his life all while I can now focus on systems and new deals feeling confident my deals that enter escrow will be taken care of.
Another example of this would be on the disposition side of things (meaning finding a tenant or tenant buyer for our properties). This is yet another thing that would not be the best use of time for me, so I delegate that role to my partners Gary and Zach who are actively learning about that side of the business and have more experience in it than I do. Instead of me picking up a new skill and deferring my time and attention from what is important for me, I let them take on that role. Learning the ins and outs of how to perform this role properly is a full-time job and Zach and Gary are well-equipped to handle it. They get the benefit of multiple deals a month to be a part of and make money while I can focus on what is important for me to do.
Who Not How
All of this is to say that I am rather quickly leveraging out the “heavy” tasks of real estate to others far more capable and eager to learn that facet of the business than me. This is the “Who Not How” principle that we’ve spoken about on this blog before. To recap, the book “Who Not How” is about finding Who’s to figure out your How’s so that you can focus on activities that are more growth oriented. This is how you create a scalable business in any field. Right now, my primary role in my business is acquisitions and raising capital. I spend a lot of time talking to sellers and wholesalers to make sure we are consistently contracting deals, and in addition to this, I’m raising funds to close them. I’ve already begun to outsource both of these tasks so that I can focus on even higher level activities. We are in talks of hiring a full-time commission based acquisition manager who can filter leads from our virtual assistant for us to ensure I’m speaking to leads that are ready to close. In addition to this, I’ve started to leverage the power of my Subto community to raise capital for my deals for me. These equal value opportunities are how successful businesses are formed and function. Having as many mutually valuable relationships as possible will turn your self-employment disguised as a business into a legitimate business you can own and operate. The power is in your hands.