Success in business is about assembling the right building blocks to make a complete structure. The foundation starts from the bottom and is built up from there. Create a weak link at the bottom and it jeopardizes everything you’ve built since. Just like if you were to build a house, the structure sits on a foundation. If that foundation begins to crack and eventually gives, it compromises the rest of the house no matter how well it’s built. Constructing a business is vastly similar. Put together the right pieces from the beginning and you can build as high as you’d like to. This is the point of business in which I am now. Growth oriented. The main focus of this growth for me is to leverage and delegate responsibilities to talented and hard-working individuals. This will allow me to stop working in my business and instead turn my attention to working on it.
Doing it all
In the beginning, doing it all is a requirement. Most people get used to living in this world and view the work of running the day to day as being a business owner. In reality, the people who do this in perpetuity are not so much business owners as they are self-employed. If they stop working and facilitating the day to day, the business falls apart. They are the glue that is holding the business together. The confusion here is based on the fact that this person who thinks they own the business actually is the business, and in turn the business owns them! For this reason, it was important for me to get out of this stage as soon as possible before I could fall into this trap. Being conscious of this pitfall from the beginning is something not too many people are fortunate enough to be made aware of. Traditional wisdom tells you that you should be the jack-of-all-trades in your business and this simply isn’t an effective strategy for growth.
Laying the first couple building blocks
In my business, I have tried to do almost every task there is to do. Even when I tried to leverage some tasks such as cold calling, I didn’t have someone to watch over and train that person effectively. Instead, I essentially assigned a new job to myself to micromanage the person I hired for the very reason of eliminating a task for myself! Over time, I have learned from my mistakes. I have begun to build out my business by first recognizing what I don’t like doing, what I’m bad at, and what I know off the bat that I could find someone else to do better than me. The obvious position that stuck out to me right away was transaction coordinating. For those who don’t know, a transaction coordinator’s role in my industry of real estate is to take a transaction from contracts being signed, through escrow, all the way to closing. This encompasses writing up and explaining contracts to sellers, opening escrow and coordinating with title and/or attorneys, and doing all paperwork necessary in an organized fashion to eventually establish a date to close each file. This work was burdensome and time consuming for me. It kept me from growing and looking for more ways to get more deals in our pipeline (the pressing issue at that time).
I eventually hired my now transaction coordinator Nick to handle a file for me. Impressed at the extreme ease of the transaction from contract to close, I decided to use him again and again. His benefit far outweighs his cost by leaps and bounds and his efforts have helped me scale my business to the next level in a relatively short period of time.
The next piece of the puzzle I needed to figure out was dispositions or “dispo”. What this means in real estate is finding a tenant or buyer for our property once we close depending on our exit strategy. This takes time and a concerted effort. It is a full-time job and something I don’t want any part of. Because of this, my partner Zach has transitioned his efforts full-time into the dispo manager of our business. With his background as a realtor and marketing homes for sale as listings, his skills and experiences naturally transfer to this role making him far more suited to succeed in it than I am. Another building block of the foundation laid…
What’s next for me?
Currently, I head acquisitions for our team and I spend a lot of time prospecting for leads and raising capital to close these deals. I am also bogged down by admin work like bookkeeping, corporate structuring, taxes, and other similar work. I am currently on the hunt to find an admin who can handle these types of tasks for me and my team so that we can have someone far more organizationally savvy than me manage these systems and processes. In addition to this, I am also looking for someone who can work as an acquisitions manager, either part-time or full, that will work based off of commission. I have virtual assistants building lists of leads for me to call and there are tons of people to reach out to regarding deals that could be lucrative for us. Having someone who can take this place would allow me to focus my attention only on those prospects that are ready to be closed so that I can spend my time converting leads and building out more systems. My ultimate goal is to have a well-oiled machine that runs itself with or without me. I want to be a business owner, not a self-employed worker. I want to build something great, innovate, and create jobs for people in a proven system. I want to spend my time networking with high level individuals to think of new ways I can grow and expand my business to take it to new heights. Building out a replicable process I can use to acquire real estate passively in any market I choose is the outcome I desire. I want to create a system that adds value to the lives of all who are a part of it or are around it. This includes people who work for and with me, and those we serve, our sellers and tenants, on a daily basis.
If you are a creator and this sounds like something that you want to replicate in your industry, it is entirely possible to do so. I myself am a visionary. I can see the pieces of the puzzle coming together and I have the ability to rearrange these pieces and try again if needed. Through this process, I need people who can hold that puzzle together while I spend my time trying to tweak it and make it better. That is the beauty of business and entrepreneurship. It’s a harmonious relationship in which all parties benefit if business is conducted the right way. It all starts with the foundation and the building blocks you lay out for yourself from day one. Remember, you’re only as strong as your foundation allows you to be.