June 26, 2024
Something I’m Reading
I picked up "World War Z” again, one of my favorite fiction books. It’s been fun to read that before going to bed each night. Other than zombies… there is almost nothing the same in this book as the movie. Movie is “eh”… the book is phenomenal.
Something I Photographed
At the barber, with the barbers dog. He likes eating my beard.
Something I’m Excited About
Two huge events this weekend: Heading to see Morgan Wallen in concert in Denver, and then to the UFC fight on Saturday in Vegas! Both with my beautiful wife and a few friends!
Some Thoughts to (Hopefully) Make Your Life Better
Years ago, I read a “pivot book” that changed my life in a dramatic way: The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss.
This book really challenged the concept of “work til you’re sixty and then enjoy life” and instead proposed the idea of “why not enjoy life along the way, through mini-retirements, online entrepreneurship, and outsourcing to a Virtual Assistant.” It’s this last point I want to talk a bit about today.
One of the best things I ever did for business was hire a virtual assistant - someone overseas who could help take care of the digital details in my life so I didn’t have to. My first assistant was less than $1,000 per month for me (which was a solid, above-average wage for him) and it helped me grow in a lot of ways.
But nevertheless, the VAST majority of real estate investors and entrepreneurs I know do not have an assistant - and many express to me that they don’t see a reason for it.
So today I wanted to share briefly THREE reasons why you should definitely consider a virtual assistant.
(And next week I’ll lay out a few dozen tasks that a virtual assistant can help you with.)
Here we go:
1.) The Boring Work Gets Done: The mundane-but-vital work actually gets done (we entrepreneurs are terrible at doing the ongoing, repetitive, boring work that’s actually vital to getting a successful outcome. An example would be: If you spent 1 hour per day, every day, looking at the “for rent” ads on Zillow, and reached out to each owner and expressed interest in buying their home instead of renting it… and you sent 10 emails a day for 6 months, do you think you might land one deal? Probably. But if you’re anything like me, you’re not going to do that. A virtual assistant can help you with that - you (or they) can create a system (checklists, rules, steps, etc) that they will simply follow each and every day. They’ll put food on their table by doing the boring work you aren’t’ going to do - so you get the outcome you want.
2.) You can focus on higher dollar-per-hour tasks. Every task you do has a “dollar per hour” associated with it. Mowing the lawn: $30 an hour. Checking DMS on Instagram? $2 per hour. Talking to a motivated seller on the phone about their property? $1,000 per hour (or more!). When you have a virtual assistant do the lower-dollar-per-hour tasks, you can focus on the higher level tasks. And because those higher level tasks are worth SO much more, you can actually make way more money with way fewer hours.
3.) You learn how to better manage people toward a common goal. Learning how to manage people and lead a team is actually one the highest dollar-per-hour tasks there is. Perhaps THE highest paid task. By hiring a virtual assistant, you’ll improve your skills in managing at a fairly low-risk level. Even if you spend $1,000 a month and don’t get any tangible value, you’ll become better at managing (if you work at it, that is) and that is worth far more than $1,000 a month.
Next week, I’ll share a few dozen tasks a virtual assistant can do in your real estate investing and life to help you work less, make more, and enjoy the ride.
Talk to you then,
To your better life,
P.S. Comment below and let me know your thoughts on this week’s BTB! Please be friendly :)