Today’s REI Classroom Lesson
Today, Justin Wilmot explains why having a few key employees can not only help with efficiency, but also handle areas of the business you might not be an expert in.
REI Classroom Summary
Having a hardworking and honest internal team alleviates the workload from yourself and allows your business to grow. Find out what’s needed if you’re in multiple markets also.
Listen to this REI Classroom Lesson
Real Estate Investing Classroom Show Transcripts:
Mike: Welcome back to FlipNerd.com REI classroom where experts from across the real estate investing industry teach you quick lessons to take your business to the next level. And now, let’s meet today’s expert host.
Justin: How are you? Justin Wilmot here, aka the 10-Hour Wholesaler, part of the Atlantic Real Estate Connections CEO Team Manager and I am your coach, educator, mentor for today’s REI Classroom.
Mike: This REI Classroom real estate lesson is sponsored by UglyOpportunities.com
Justin: All right. So today, we’re going to talk about your internal team. Extremely important. We had talked about your external team previously. In your internal team, one of the most critical points, first and foremost, especially if you’re just starting to build your internal team, this number one person that you need to have has got to be your operational manager. Your operations manager is critical. A lot of times, people are confused on what it is that an operations manager would even do.
For the most part, operations managers are going to be responsible for inbound and outbound calls. They’re going to be responsible for putting together marketing campaigns. They’re going to be responsible for . . . after that marketing campaign is out, let’s say it’s for motivated sellers, they’re going to be controlling your call center. We use Vumber.com.
They’re going to be taking all of those inbound calls, assessing the deals, determining motivation, equity and inputting them into your CRM. Very, very critical. Many more things that need to be done with an operational manager, but I can tell you right now, we had talked about finding what you’re good at in this business and then focusing on just that.
Well, your operations manager is that critical piece of your internal team that’s going to be responsible for the things that you’re not good at or that you don’t consider yourself a fan of. I only say motivation’s like bathing, that’s why they’re recommended daily. So we need to outsource the things that we’re not going to keep up with on a regular basis and get somebody in place of that task that’s better at it than we are. It’s important to be able to realize that.
So an operational manager is a critical part of this team and sometimes people are surprised and say, “Well, where do you find this person?” I look for people that are good, hard workers. That’s it. You don’t need to know anything about real estate. I teach you that. You can teach anybody about real estate. You just need good, honest people that are good on the phone.
Some people say, “What about sales?” They do need to be good at sales, but you can also teach sales too. But you can’t teach good, honest, hard work. That’s in somebody or it’s not. So that is the critical part of your operational manager team.
Someone else that you will need on your internal team would be your acquisitions manager. Acquisitions manager is going to do all the work as your operations manager just can’t do, which is fieldwork. They need to be relative to the market. Again, if you’re in multiple markets, you need to have an acquisition manager in each of your markets. They also need to be someone that you can highly trust. Some of the tasks that they’re going to be doing for you will be going to the actual properties, taking pictures of the property so that you can post them on your marketing. Again, this is for wholesaling properties. They’ll be taking pictures, assessing the repairs, making sure the repairs are what the seller told your operational manager on the phone, kind of checks and balances there.
Let’s say we get the property under contract, they negotiate, they go there with a file with the comparables and they help get that contract signed. From there, when it comes to selling the property, you’re going to need to bring your buyers through there, right? You’re going to need to put a lock box on there. You’re going to have to set up buyer appointments. Especially if it’s occupied, there are some obstacles to get through.
Your acquisitions manager should be responsible for all of that, not you as the business owner. There’s no consistency if you’re just a one-man band doing it all. You don’t have a real business. You don’t have anything you could sell. You’re just a technician.
I don’t know if you watch the “Shark Tank,” but Mr. Wonderful says that, “If you get hit by a bus tomorrow, then what happens? Where’s my money? Well, it’s harsh, but it’s true. You don’t have a business if you’re the only person running this company. So these people are critical of your internal team.
Lastly, virtual assistants. Now, I have a couple of virtual assistants in addition to my internal team. The VAs do the mundane work. Mundane work is just a task that you wouldn’t even want your operations or acquisitions manager to do because their time is extremely valuable. Your internal team’s time is valuable and they need to be doing only the money-producing activities, talking to sellers, talking to buyers, going to the properties, getting the deals under contract. Period.
They shouldn’t be looking up phone numbers, data mining, putting together Excel sheets, organizing Excel sheets . . . maybe your operations manager should be doing some of that. But for all those types of tasks, we use virtual assistants for. That is wrapping up your internal team. I hope this stuff helped and we’ll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
Mike: HomeVestors, the we-buy-ugly-houses folks, is a franchised system of hundreds of real estate investors and have purchased over 65,000 houses. If you’d like to learn more about the most powerful real estate investing system in existence, whether you’re a pro looking to take your business to the next level or whether you have no experience at all but a burning passion to be successful in real estate investing, please visit FlipNerd.com/ugly to learn more.
Please note the views and opinions expressed by the individuals in this program do not necessarily reflect those of FlipNerd.com or any of its partners, advertisers or affiliates. Please consult professionals before making any investment or tax decisions, as real estate investing can be risky.
Are you a member yet of FlipNerd.com, the hottest real estate investing social community online? If not, you can join for free in less than 30 seconds and get access to hundreds of off-market deals, vendors in your market to help you in your business and you can start networking with thousands of other investors just like you. Get your free account now at FlipNerd.com
Please check out the FlipNerd family of real estate investing shows where we host four great ongoing shows at FlipNerd.com/shows or simply research for FlipNerd in the iTunes store.
Justin: How are you? Justin Wilmot here, aka the 10-Hour Wholesaler, part of the Atlantic Real Estate Connections CEO Team Manager and I am your coach, educator, mentor for today’s REI Classroom.
Mike: This REI Classroom real estate lesson is sponsored by UglyOpportunities.com
Justin: All right. So today, we’re going to talk about your internal team. Extremely important. We had talked about your external team previously. In your internal team, one of the most critical points, first and foremost, especially if you’re just starting to build your internal team, this number one person that you need to have has got to be your operational manager. Your operations manager is critical. A lot of times, people are confused on what it is that an operations manager would even do.
For the most part, operations managers are going to be responsible for inbound and outbound calls. They’re going to be responsible for putting together marketing campaigns. They’re going to be responsible for . . . after that marketing campaign is out, let’s say it’s for motivated sellers, they’re going to be controlling your call center. We use Vumber.com.
They’re going to be taking all of those inbound calls, assessing the deals, determining motivation, equity and inputting them into your CRM. Very, very critical. Many more things that need to be done with an operational manager, but I can tell you right now, we had talked about finding what you’re good at in this business and then focusing on just that.
Well, your operations manager is that critical piece of your internal team that’s going to be responsible for the things that you’re not good at or that you don’t consider yourself a fan of. I only say motivation’s like bathing, that’s why they’re recommended daily. So we need to outsource the things that we’re not going to keep up with on a regular basis and get somebody in place of that task that’s better at it than we are. It’s important to be able to realize that.
So an operational manager is a critical part of this team and sometimes people are surprised and say, “Well, where do you find this person?” I look for people that are good, hard workers. That’s it. You don’t need to know anything about real estate. I teach you that. You can teach anybody about real estate. You just need good, honest people that are good on the phone.
Some people say, “What about sales?” They do need to be good at sales, but you can also teach sales too. But you can’t teach good, honest, hard work. That’s in somebody or it’s not. So that is the critical part of your operational manager team.
Someone else that you will need on your internal team would be your acquisitions manager. Acquisitions manager is going to do all the work as your operations manager just can’t do, which is fieldwork. They need to be relative to the market. Again, if you’re in multiple markets, you need to have an acquisition manager in each of your markets. They also need to be someone that you can highly trust. Some of the tasks that they’re going to be doing for you will be going to the actual properties, taking pictures of the property so that you can post them on your marketing. Again, this is for wholesaling properties. They’ll be taking pictures, assessing the repairs, making sure the repairs are what the seller told your operational manager on the phone, kind of checks and balances there.
Let’s say we get the property under contract, they negotiate, they go there with a file with the comparables and they help get that contract signed. From there, when it comes to selling the property, you’re going to need to bring your buyers through there, right? You’re going to need to put a lock box on there. You’re going to have to set up buyer appointments. Especially if it’s occupied, there are some obstacles to get through.
Your acquisitions manager should be responsible for all of that, not you as the business owner. There’s no consistency if you’re just a one-man band doing it all. You don’t have a real business. You don’t have anything you could sell. You’re just a technician.
I don’t know if you watch the “Shark Tank,” but Mr. Wonderful says that, “If you get hit by a bus tomorrow, then what happens? Where’s my money? Well, it’s harsh, but it’s true. You don’t have a business if you’re the only person running this company. So these people are critical of your internal team.
Lastly, virtual assistants. Now, I have a couple of virtual assistants in addition to my internal team. The VAs do the mundane work. Mundane work is just a task that you wouldn’t even want your operations or acquisitions manager to do because their time is extremely valuable. Your internal team’s time is valuable and they need to be doing only the money-producing activities, talking to sellers, talking to buyers, going to the properties, getting the deals under contract. Period.
They shouldn’t be looking up phone numbers, data mining, putting together Excel sheets, organizing Excel sheets . . . maybe your operations manager should be doing some of that. But for all those types of tasks, we use virtual assistants for. That is wrapping up your internal team. I hope this stuff helped and we’ll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
Mike: HomeVestors, the we-buy-ugly-houses folks, is a franchised system of hundreds of real estate investors and have purchased over 65,000 houses. If you’d like to learn more about the most powerful real estate investing system in existence, whether you’re a pro looking to take your business to the next level or whether you have no experience at all but a burning passion to be successful in real estate investing, please visit FlipNerd.com/ugly to learn more.
Please note the views and opinions expressed by the individuals in this program do not necessarily reflect those of FlipNerd.com or any of its partners, advertisers or affiliates. Please consult professionals before making any investment or tax decisions, as real estate investing can be risky.
Are you a member yet of FlipNerd.com, the hottest real estate investing social community online? If not, you can join for free in less than 30 seconds and get access to hundreds of off-market deals, vendors in your market to help you in your business and you can start networking with thousands of other investors just like you. Get your free account now at FlipNerd.com
Please check out the FlipNerd family of real estate investing shows where we host four great ongoing shows at FlipNerd.com/shows or simply research for FlipNerd in the iTunes store.
