Are You Duplicable?

Do you approach your real estate investment business with the end result in mind? It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day details of running a business, especially when you’re a landlord or you have contractors working on your properties.

If you’re working in your business, you’re probably not working on your business. This is a core tenant of author Michael E. Gerber’s book, The E-Myth. This essential entrepreneurial read tells us that we’re usually the problem in our businesses. If you haven’t read it, you need to pick it up as soon as possible.

The premise of the book is that you should be working yourself out of your business from Day One. If you’re constantly working on the minor details instead of hiring someone to do it for you, you’re working too hard in the business and not on the business. The implications here are that you’re going to be spending time on minutia and come up dry when it’s time to secure the next deal.

How do you break this cycle? You make yourself duplicable! That means that you need to develop methods and systems for running your business that other people can learn and do for you. It’s time to take the time to walk through the steps of running your business and make checklists and set up systems or “if this happens, here’s the next step” models. Then, and only then, can you pass the job on to someone else.

Here are a few of the tasks that you can get other people to handle for you:

1. Bookkeeping – You should be signing checks and reviewing the books, but you shouldn’t be handling the bookkeeping. Make this your first priority when you begin developing your systems.

2. Social media – If you’re not using social media to add to your buyer’s list, stop reading here and check out this article. Then, come back and understand why it’s so important to have someone help you manage all of these free methods for driving business.

3. Finding deals – A wholesaler, bird dog realtor or other real estate professional can do the deal hunting with your list of criterion and work on your behalf for a percentage of the deal. You protect your profits by setting up the system of how they will get paid and work deals for you.

4. Property management – Getting a good property manager is a good idea for dealing with the maintenance, the rent collection and other landlord hassles (especially those 3 a.m. on Saturday calls) so you don’t have to. Here are a few resources on finding a good property manager.

5. General business tasks – A good assistant is worth his/her weight in gold. She/he can handle many of the daily details and help you focus on growing your real estate empire. One of the growing trends is to use a virtual assistant or a part-timer. Just be sure your systems are in place and that you find a reputable resource before you hire this essential team member.

6. Repairs and property maintenance – Many real estate investors let the property manager handle the maintenance with their handyman. If you’re a smaller operation, you may find the services of an independent handyman essential to duplicating yourself. If you find someone you can trust at a reasonable price, you’ll save more time than you know on the bidding and managing of maintenance and construction projects.

7. Interns – You can kill two birds with one stone on duplicating your efforts when you enlist a team of interns. These university-educated assets to your company are numerous (thanks to the economy) because they are seeking experience. You can offer them experience and they can offer you assistance in many of the daily tasks to get you working on the business instead of in it.

Next Steps: Check out my recent call with Justin Lee on how to leverage interns to grow your business here.