How Being Lazy Can Help You Grow Rich
To be successful you need to commit to working long, hard hours. You need to commit to doing whatever it takes, even if that means working evenings and weekends. Becoming rich and building a company successfully - including a real estate investment company - means you need to work hard AND smart. I know the gurus out there that will tell you this business is easy and anyone can do it. That sounds great, but because I am not here to sell you books, tapes or a coaching program, I feel comfortable telling you the truth. The truth is I don’t know anyone who started a real estate investment company and made it successful without total commitment of time and energy.
When I was getting going with my investing career, I was a full time student and worked part time at a bank. I spent my lunch hour and weekends calling and meeting with motivated sellers. Nobody has ever told me I am lazy, at least not directly to me, but I like to think there is a time and a place where being lazy will help you. Actually, I believe that being lazy on certain things is required to run and grow a successful company. Sound crazy?
With very few exceptions, every item I work on makes me think about a new way to do that particular task. I am always thinking about ways to never do that task again. Is there a way I can automate this, outsource it, or hire someone to do it?
For example, the least fun part of owning property for me is when a tenant moves out. I don’t like visiting a vacant house to check the damages and the cleanliness. I don’t like lining up contractors to do the “make ready”, and I don’t like setting up a marketing campaign for a new tenant. I don’t like showing the property, collecting applications or screening tenants. I don’t like any of it; but, I love owning rentals.
If you know me at all, you also know that I am not very fond of property managers either. I only use management companies when I feel it is necessary. Instead, I have property management systems in place and a great staff to help me. For example, it makes perfect sense for me to outsource or automate my property turnovers. When I have a turnover, I have a leasing agent that will view the house along with one of my contractors. Together they will tell me what needs to be done and then it gets done. From there my leasing agent does all the work until I have a qualified tenant to move in. Of course this costs money, but it makes sense to hire someone to do what they enjoy and are good at.
Another way to think about this is you need to free up your time so you can focus on high paying work. The highest paying task you can be doing is finding deals, so anything that distracts you from that could be outsourced or delegated. Your time is worth the value you put on it. If you can hire someone for cheaper than you feel you are worth, then you need to find a way to do that. Focus on the high paying work and you will get rich. Focus on not doing any work and having your business continue to run and you will be financially free.
The bottom line here is that as long as you are willing and committed to making sure the work gets done, it is healthy to not want to do the work and to try to find ways to “get out of it.” Oftentimes it makes sense to document your work, even though that makes the task take much longer than normal, so that you can turn that task over to an assistant sometime in the future. You should constantly be thinking about being lazy and not working at all in order to eventually make that a reality.
By: Kevin Amolsch from Pine Financial