Epic Real Estate Investing - How to Get Success when Starting Over in Life, Part IV | 863

Episode Date: December 11, 2019

Time is money! Therefore, on this final episode of this 4-part series, Matt shares how to get more done while freeing up your time to do more of what you do best! Stay tuned and find out more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Terrio Media. Success in real estate has nothing to do with shiny objects. It has everything to do with mastering the basics. The three pillars of real estate investing. Attract, convert, exit. Matt Terrio has been helping real estate investors do just that for more than a decade now. If you want to make money in real estate, keep listening. If you want it faster, visit R-E-I-A's.com.

Here's Matt. Hey, Matt here. Welcome to another episode of the epic real estate investing show. It is way back Wednesday. This is the day where we reach back into the archives and pull out old classic episodes. And we've been reaching back into the archives of the Do-Over podcast, the podcast that started it all. And I got another great one for you today. Enjoy.

During an era where countless people, businesses, and organizations are feeling the pinch, running out of time, running out of money, losing confidence, feeling as if life is unfair, praying for another chance, and unless something is done, life is going to pass them by. Fortunately, in the nick of time, there is now a place where the ignored, underestimated, and unknown steps to producing results, and making life work are revealed. Save your career. Save your business. Save your health. Save your relationships. Save your life. Get from where you are to where you want to be, faster, and with greater ease than you ever thought possible. Say hello to your do-over.

Welcome to Your Do-Over, coming to you once again live from downtown Los Angeles, and this is the place where I show people who want more out of life, people dissatisfied with their current situation, how to start over and begin a new life, setting goals and objectives so they can create wealth and live life to the fullest. You can jumpstart your do-over and lay a solid foundation for a better life by downloading the three pillars of creating the ultimate do-over for free at free do-over.com. It's a 55-minute MP3 audio program that I made just for you with three specific steps on how to get success as you start over. The three pillars of creating the ultimate do-over will put the legs under your table.

They will lay the foundation for you to achieve. They will act as your traveling success coach. And they are yours for free at freedover.com. so I'm very excited about today as we conclude our series on how to get success when starting over our life. This is part four. And I've really been looking forward to this episode as I wish I would have embraced this concept so much sooner. But before I do, just wanted to say thank you to a few people. AJ Investor left me a comment on iTunes, both inspirational and transformational thanks.

Five stars. Matt, great stuff. I'm hooked and can't get enough of your podcast. Both your do-over podcast and your investment podcasts are amazing. Your approach is honest, action-driven, inspirational, and transformational. Not only do you teach more effective ways of thinking and working, but you also inspire your listeners into becoming better people and doing the right actions so everyone wins. Thank you for what you have done and continue doing.

I look forward to both listening and doing. AJ Investor, you are very welcome and thank you for leaving that great comment. Another one from PD-6866. Great, great, great stuff. Five stars. Motivational, inspiring, and full of. valuable information. After you start listening, you'll be hooked and you won't want to miss any of it.

Thanks, Matt, for the great work. PD686. I wish I knew your name so I could thank you properly, but thank you for leaving that great review. And last one, awesomeness, five-star rating by Wanbley. I was, am, going through a rough time and this podcast has been helping me to get to the next step in my life and have a better foundation. Thanks for always making new podcasts and consistently motivating me. Wondley, you're very, very welcome.

and thank you. Okay, today's episode. How to Get Success When Starting Over in Life Part 4. And we're going to talk about getting success by leveraging your time. I mean, the subject, it's gotten a lot of coverage over the last few years, especially since the release of the four-hour work week, the book written by Timothy Ferris. I mean, that subject being outsourcing.

And for the last couple of years, I've been using a couple of websites to hire people to complete some of the more mundane tasks I have to do on a regular basis. And as time has passed, I've outsourced bigger and bigger. projects. I've had some great experiences and I've had some terrible experiences and through those experiences I've created a system of which I leverage my time through outsourcing and I get a whole lot more done and I get it all done very, very inexpensively. So at first, when I got started at any time a small little menial or mundane task came up that had to be completed and I didn't

want to do it, I would then stop my day. I'd log on to a number of virtual assistant sites and and post some jobs and wait for bids to come in. Now, if you don't know what I'm talking about, there are a bunch of online resources, websites, Elance is probably the most notable, the most popular, the most famous, that they'll give you access to something called virtual assistance. And they're essentially your assistance, but they work virtually. They don't have to physically be there.

I mean, as long as that virtual assistance personal presence isn't required, I mean, just about any task that you have or can think of, it can be delegated to someone else and free up your time. So you can do what you do best or you can do what you want to do rather than having to do what you have to do. Okay. I mean, some of the tasks that virtual assistance can carry out for you. They can take on your inbound calls or they can make your outbound calls. They can manage a help desk for you.

They can provide email support services for your business or chat support services for your business. They can do, say, Spanish telemarketing for your services. If you have a Spanish clientele but you don't speak Spanish. yourself, you can hire someone to do that for you. They can do data entry, data conversion, data processing, all kinds of transcription services and translation services. Maybe they'll do your billing or your bookkeeping. They might do some coding for your website or your online presence.

Maybe you need writing done for you. They need to write a brochure or they need to design the brochure. Maybe they'll conduct your accounts payable services or accounts receivable services. They can make your collection calls for you. I know I used to own a record label and I used to hate to call to collect for the records and stuff that I sold. So I would have loved to have had them back there to make those calls for me. Maybe you have a need for payroll services.

A virtual assistant can do that for you. Or software development even or website design. Maybe photo restoration or conversion of raw images or image enhancement services. Data auditing, dashboard creation services for your website and reporting and analysis services. I mean, you name it. They can do just about anything. So as I was saying at first, I would just post jobs randomly. as these types of tasks arose.

And it worked amazingly well with the majority of the time. And then I got to a point where I noticed that I had been spending a great deal of time posting jobs and hiring people and managing these people, which was taken up basically the same amount of time if I had just done the jobs myself. Now, at this point, although this hadn't become much of a time saver, I was still in love with paying a few bucks for someone else to do all of the work for me. I guess I felt a little bit of power or significance with the whole process. I loved talking amongst friends about how I had someone on the other side of the globe doing my work while I slept.

But after a while, you know, the novelty it wore off as I didn't really free up any time as the management of these jobs was a full-time gig. I mean, my whole intention was to replace myself, not to create a new job for myself. And then one day I was listening to a podcast on time management and efficiency. And they had a really brilliant idea. I forget what their actual context was, but I took that idea of creating a procedure list. for various parts of my life. And I put one together for my very own procedures, the stuff that I do on a daily basis.

And I extracted those tasks from those procedures that I didn't want to do, the tasks that I didn't want to do, and I hired a virtual assistant on either a part-time or full-time basis to do them for me. I mean, depending on the responsibility to carry out those responsibilities on a weekly basis, or sometimes even a daily basis for me, I hired someone to take those on for me.

And since doing it this way, I've alleviated a bunch of time for essentially pennies and freed up a whole lot more of my time to spare it where I want or where I'm most valuable inside my business. And you can do this with your personal life as well. But typically, I'm using it for my business. And I'll give you an example. With this podcast, I mean, if I were to execute this procedure flawlessly, of which I think, I don't know, I've only done once by myself in the last year. I'd begin by outlining the subject matter of the episode. I would then record it.

and then I'd have it transcribed, then I'd write a blog post about the content, and then conduct search engine optimization by writing multiple articles from that blog post, then I'd submit those articles to article directories, then I'd post the article to social sites like Facebook and Twitter, and then I'd build links around the internet pointing to that blog post to increase my Google search results.

And that would take me two to three days per episode. And then it was essentially time to do it all over again. And it was exhausting. I mean, it was a full-time gig just making this podcast and marketing it around the internet. Not only was it exhausting, it really produced minimal results. I mean, it would take essentially, I don't know, a year or two of doing that as a one-man band to experience any sort of real success online

for you to start really seeing the results. So what I did is I created a very detailed procedure of that entire process in a written step-by-step format and then I hired a few virtual assistants to execute the procedure for me. So now all I do is create an outline for the, show. I record the show and then I post it to my podcast host. So I hired a VA, then I had her subscribe to the show, so each time I post a new episode, she receives it and then transcribes it. She then writes a few articles for me based off of the content and then she sends them to my search

engine optimization expert, of which then submits those articles to online directories and then he creates the links to those articles to my blog post and to the podcast. I mean, that happens automatically. And I've done something very similar with my real estate investing business in a way that all I have to do is call motivated sellers and put deals together. Everything else is essentially done for me. I mean, that type of time leverage is how to get success in a very efficient and much more enjoyable manner. Now, I'll direct you to where I've found to be the best virtual sites. And believe me, I've tried a bunch of them. I know the ins and outs and the quirks of each site, but first I want to walk you through creating your procedure list or lists. And if you're

If you've never done this before, it might be a very fun experiment to see what you actually do. I've had a few jobs in my life where they had this procedure list or the procedure manual. And it's this big, giant, thick manual that I don't think anybody ever really read. But now I really understand the value. I understand the type of impact that can have on your efficiency, on your productivity inside your business, or even your life altogether. Okay, so procedures. Procedures are instructions. So put yourself in the user's shoes,

the person that's actually going to be carrying out the procedure, and write from their perspective. In other words, unlike other types of documentation, you don't need to give the reader very much background details. So do the following. You want to do the following. You want to write in the present tense. The user is performing the task now.

Don't write in the past, conditional, or future tenses, unless you have good reason to do so. And then you're going to want to avoid ambiguity. You want to be really clear. You want to be concise. You want to use short words. I mean, this isn't a romantic novel you're writing. There's no extra credit for creative writing.

Keep the words short and get to the point. And then you want to move from one step to the next in a very logical manner. Steps should follow each other in a very logical order. And then you want to highlight exceptions. Use a symbol to flag this as an exception and how to handle it. Then highlight warnings. Again, warn the user that the caution must be used in this scenario. Warnings must stand out.

use a larger font or a warning icon, and then you're going to want to reduce the word count where possible without altering the meaning of the text. You want to just keep this clear and concise in a very logical step-by-step process. Now, things not to do. Do not introduce acronyms without explaining what they mean. What does OLA mean to you?

I know, but most folks don't. Another thing you don't want to do, don't be vague. Don't use the word may, if possible, as it implies the user can do something under certain, conditions. Instead, be positive and tell them exactly what to do. And don't get the sequence wrong. Make sure you get the sequence right. Steps have to be in the correct order. And do not list steps that should be numbered. What I mean is that some items can be listed, for example, a list of ingredients when cooking. But you need to number the steps in the correct order so the cook can prepare

the dish and you get the right result. I mean, the best approach to writing a standard operating procedure is to perform the procedure, write it, and test it, and then write it again. So, perform the procedure and make note of each action you take, and then test it, and then write it again, and number each step in the procedure. Now, every procedure lists the actions that the reader must take. Now, once you've completed your first list, first, highlight all of that which you don't want to do, okay?

Highlight the stuff that you don't want to do. And second, highlight the stuff that you're really not very good at, okay? And then third, highlight that of which doesn't really directly accomplish the goal. In other words, if you have a job that includes sales, you're going to highlight pretty much everything other than the items that actually make you money, that actually convert the sale. And you've got a few options. You can search for a team of people,

or you can search for one person that can do everything for you. and you'll have some tasks that are part-time responsibilities, and you'll have some that are full-time-type responsibilities. Now, the two sites or services that I like to use are leveragemightime.com, leveragemytime.com, and VA1stop.com. VA1 stop. Now, here's the difference between the two. I use leveragemightime.com for those part-time tasks or those specialty tasks.

And the reason that I like this service is that while your VA is working, the service will actually take scumptuble. screenshots of their computer while you're being billed. So you can be sure that when you are being billed, that the VA is actually doing your work. I love this feature. Okay? The whole site, it's very user-friendly as well.

So you go there and you'll post your job. So, for example, every Monday, I'll send you a report and I need an Excel spreadsheet created that looks like X and calculates like Y. And when it's complete, I want you to email it to Joe Schmo at gmail.com. That might be a job that. you hire somebody part-time.

So every Monday, they're going to carry out this certain procedure for you. You are going to send them a report Monday morning. They are going to convert it into an Excel spreadsheet that looks like the example that you've provided. And when they're done with it, they're going to email it to whether it's one of your customers, whether it's a fellow associate or even if it's your boss. I called your boss, Joe Schmo at gmail.com. All right, whatever it may be.

But that could very much be a task that takes you hours of which causes you to get home late on Monday nights and miss your favorite TV. show or you miss time with the family. Or maybe you can spend that extra time doing what you do best or what you like to do. So how this could look, for example, what I've actually done recently in my real estate investing business is that I have one virtual assistant post a classified ad on Craigslist, eBay classified and back page. I have them do that every single morning five days a week, Monday through Friday.

I mean, that is a very mundane, time-consuming process that is really like, first. freed up my morning so I can spend more time in the gym, so I can spend more time getting in shape, something that's really important to me. I mean, those ads that they place, they drive traffic to a special landing page. And when those visitors fill out the form on that page, it sends an email to another virtual assistant of which calls them within 12 hours. And she asks them three specific questions of which I gave her to ask. And based off of those answers, she'll either input them into a database for me with notes on the

conversation, or if it's a really hot lead, she'll either three-way me into the call or send me a text message with that leads information depending on the time of the day. And I've set up all those parameters in my procedure list. And by setting up a system of which the same person does the same tasks every day, I mean, real efficiency can be injected into your life. And we all know that time is money, right? And for that type of virtual assistance, I recommend leveragemytime.com. leverage my time.com. Now the other type of virtual assistant is one that you might want as a full-time assistant to work for you, like to one, someone that's going to work for you day in and day out,

doing certain tasks or conducting certain responsibilities that have to be conducted on a daily basis. And for that type of VA or virtual assistant, I'll call them VA's from this point forward, I would recommend the service VA1stop.com. VA1stop.com. It's a one-time fee of around, I don't know, 300 bucks or so. and they find the exact type of VA with all of the specialty skills required for your job. They'll go out and they'll search,

they'll conduct interviews of, I don't know, maybe 10 candidates, and they'll narrow it down to the three, and then they'll send you those three VA's information, and then you can interview those three to see if they're right for your job. For example, I used this service to find my SEO guy, my search engine optimization guy.

His name's Alan, and I use the same service to find my transcriptionist, Tony. and I have them working together to keep my blogs full of content and to make sure that when certain keywords are typed into Google, that I come up amongst the top results. Now, both of these services, I mean, they've freed up so much of my time that I get to spend the majority of my time doing what I do best, and that's creating content,

that's creating this podcast, that's doing deals on my real estate, not shuffling papers, not building links on websites, that's actually doing the deals in my real estate investing business. and the other thing I get to do is I get to be there for my newly born son of which just turned four months by the way but I get to be there without a whole lot of stress and then you'll get to do with your time whatever you want and just imagine what else could you do with your time

if all that stuff that you have to do on a daily basis the stuff that you're just tired of doing the stuff you don't like doing the stuff that you're not very good at the stuff that just kind of removes the fun from your work what if you could eliminate all of that from your day to day activities. What could you do with all that free time? I don't know. You know your life much better than I do, and I'm sure you've already got some ideas. Okay, so here are some tips for finding a good VA. Tip number one, first, the price, okay? VAs, they can range from $4 per hour to $40 per hour. Yep, you can get much of the stuff on your procedure list completed for $4 an hour. Okay, you getting a little

excited already? I know I was when I discovered that. However, I will never actually hire based on price alone. I used to do that, but I won't do it anymore. So take your time to read your VA's profiles, their work history, qualifications, and customer ratings. You'll get access to those through those two websites that I gave you. And every once in a while, I've gotten amazing work for cheap,

but for the most part, even around the world across cultural lines, you do get what you pay for. So don't hire based on price alone. Two, prepare for cultural differences. I mean, if you're outsourcing abroad, you definitely need to be aware of the cultural differences that will arise.

I mean, outsourcing your calls, for example, would mean your provider would need to be attuned to the cultural and social customs of your business. If you're outsourcing web design, you're going to want to make sure that the language your provider will be using fits your demographic. Customers are very observant, and they can tell very quickly if the message they are reading is of a low quality or if it's poorly translated. Third, location. VAs, they span the globe and are available on every continent. Now, being an American, I have found that the greatest success to experience to price ratio with VAs is in the Philippines. They speak English better than most other countries, and I've found the thought process and the logic to be the closest to the American culture. And I don't mind paying a little extra in the Philippines for a stress-free experience.

Now, they are on an opposite clock as we are. So if you need someone to be working during your hours, that might not be the best solution. but I have found it to be pretty much overall the best results, the best experience. My relationship with my VAs is so much stronger than in the Philippines than it has been anywhere else. And I'm not saying there's not other good VAs. There are good VAs everywhere. It's the best success to experience to price ratio that I've experienced. Four, take one project at a time.

Don't move so fast, okay? Don't sign any long-term contracts until you've seen that this provider has had success on smaller projects. and if possible, test the outsourcer first by giving them a comparatively small task to accomplish. Their ability to handle this project is going to prove whether they are a good match for the long run. And just like the people that you interact with on a day-to-day basis face-to-face, it's important even with your VAs to know whether you click or not,

whether you enjoy working with that person. It's going to make a big difference in your whole experience. Number five, brace yourself for challenges. Now, as great as it would be to immediately hit the ground running with your new provider, your new VA, realistically, it's going to take some time to synchronize operations and build a professional relationship. Now, in order for outsourcing to work, you and your staff, you're going to need to be patient.

You're going to need to be prepared for small missteps that may happen in the beginning. For example, if your provider is offshore, there's going to be this time zone difference that I mentioned earlier. And that can really hamper proper communication. And setting up a realistic schedule that meets your needs, that might take some practice and might take some adjustments and some refinement before you get it just right. And if all parties are invested, though, a little practice and management of expectations is going to sort everything out. Six, be aware of the full costs.

Many companies they outsource to save money. That's understandable. But outsourcing, it can get pricey too. I mean, are your outsourcing projects going to require you to employ telecommuters or freelance staff who work remotely? If so, I mean, this could be costly depending on where the workers are based. And what about equipment? Do the outsources have their own, or are you fronting the business? on that. Make sure to get as much

information as possible about the total cost before it's too late. And seven, are your expectations the same? Are all involved parties clear about what the end result should be? I mean, miscommunication about benchmarks and milestones, it can cause a real, I don't know, it can cause issues.

But be clear about communicating what success looks like as well as when you expect to get there. I mean, if possible, provide the outsources with a concrete example of what you'd like their finished product to look like. I mean, for instance, perhaps you are outsourcing the redesign of your site. Is the vendor up to speed with the latest content management system and development software?

Are they up to speed with the latest technology? I mean, you should know what capabilities you want your site to have and ensure that your provider has already been able to provide that level of quality to other clients before giving them the job. And eight, get clear. I think I've somewhat mentioned this twice, but it's really important. Get clear. Set clear deadlines and project descriptions.

One of the best byproducts of outsourcing is it teaches you, how to clearly define a project. It teaches you how to create a procedures list, that standard operating procedure. And it'll also identify steps that often get missed when we do our own work. And without a clear project scope, outsourcing, I mean, it's futile.

Also, properly defining a job at the beginning gives it a better chance of success. Then when you put time parameters on it, it's all that much more efficient. Okay, so that's how to get success when starting over in life by leveraging your time. And my two favorite websites, In fact, they are the only ones that I use now.

Leveragmiteam.com and VA1stop.com. A couple others that I've found to be really fun are Fiverr.com. It's a great little place to go for people where people share things that they're willing to do for $5. Okay. So if you've got small stuff that's not critical to the mission, that might be a good place to check out. It's Fiverr, F-I-V-E-R. There's two R.R. It's Fiverr.com. And then a new one I just found called taskrabbit.com.

taskrabbit.com. And you can get just about anything done by, you know, safe, reliable, awesome people. And right now they're just currently serving Boston, San Francisco Bay, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Orange County inside of California. And they'll actually do stuff face to face.

They'll do stuff like they could do stuff around the house or do stuff that you need an actual physical being there for. So check that out. That's task rabbit.com. Okay, but for serious day-to-day responsibilities, go to leveragemytime.com and VA1Stop.com. That's it for today. God loves you, and so do I.

I am Matt, the do-over guy, and I will see you on the next episode of Your Do-over. Thank you for tuning in to Your Do-Over, where the ignored, underestimated, and unknown steps to producing results and making life work are revealed. And remember, knowledge is potential power. Take action on what you learn today. This is not your Learnover. It's Your Do-Over.

To view the resources referenced in today's show and to retrieve a complete show transcript, visit www. www. The doover guy.com. Stay connected with Matt the doover guy, Terrio on Twitter at the doover guy, and on Facebook at www.

facebook.com slash doover guru. This podcast is a part of the C-suite radio network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-sweetradio.com.