Today we are showcasing some key ideas shared by Gabriel Garcia during the Expert Real Estate Investing Show #320 with Mike Hambright by flipnerd.com. We believe that some of them are really useful for growing investors, as well as for established ones. So, without further ado, let’s dive right in the interview. Enjoy!
Mike: So what’s fascinating about what I know of you is that you’re very thoughtful and insightful in terms of growing your business, and it’s something you’re passionate about which is why we’re talking about it today. So in a short period of time, two or three years, you’ve gone from doing your first deal to doing 100 plus deals a year. And I know it’s been very methodical.
Gabriel: So I would say there’s a couple different aspects to it. The first aspect is maybe the spiritual or mental aspect if you want to talk about. And for me, you know, there is always a desire for growth. Obviously, growing just because you think it’s cool, it’s not really a good reason, right?
Mike: Well, let’s kind of dive into some of the specific things that allow you to scale.
Gabriel: You have to have the numbers. I mean, this year was more methodical than any other year that’s ever been and that’s the reason why we’ve been able to pretty much over-double what we’ve done from last year to this year because we have our numbers at this point. And we know exactly on every department, the numbers that are needed for us to achieve whatever that goal is.
If it’s to do 150 deals, I know what it costs to generate one lead. I know how many leads convert to a deal. I know how many leads convert to an appointment. I know how many appointments convert to an actual contract and how much does it cost me to bring in a lead. How much does it cost me for that deal? So you have to have all this data so you can reverse engineer the business and say, “Okay. If I want to do 300 deals this year, this is what it’s going to take. Is it even feasible?”
I’ll say, like, if you’re a new real estate investor, if you’re a one-man shop where you got one or two people on your team, I would say the most important thing you can do as an entrepreneur is to learn how to stop and look at your data. And if you don’t have the data, figure out how to get it because you need to realize the difference of when you’re working in the business and when you’re working on the business.
And you got to dedicate at least a certain amount of time of your time to work on the business on a weekly basis because that’s the only way you’re going to be able to go up. I like the way that classifies it the most, you know, from the technician which is you’re the guy actually doing the job, from the manager, being the one that oversees the technician and then being the actual entrepreneur, the one that actually owns the business.
You got to ask that time once a week to go through that or maybe once a month if you can’t even do once a week and then look at it every quarter and you just constantly want to be doing that stuff. For us on a quarterly basis, we take a day off just to work on the business the whole entire day. I mean, I don’t particularly work in the business. It’s mostly on it because now we’re on the managerial part but you got to do it. You got to think big picture and you got to stop. If you’re always hustling and you’re always grinding, you’re not thinking, you’re just doing, doing, doing. And you have to know how to turn on the other side of your brain.
Also I’m sure real estate investors can relate to this. If you’re a rehabber, would you ever rehab a house without making a plan first? Would you just go in there and do whatever you need? You probably won’t. You have a plan and you’ve seen like when you actually build, if you actually build a house, you have an actual set of drawings of what it is you’re going to build, how exactly is going to be laid out so that someone can read it and know exactly what it is that you’re doing, that’s there to some to know, “Okay. I got to build this exactly here or here.”
So that’s in essence what you’re doing, you’re stepping away from the work, you just build your plan. You need to build your plan of where your business is going to go and how it’s going to look like and that stuff.
Ideas shared by Gabriel Garcia during the Expert Real Estate Investing Show #320 with Mike Hambright by flipnerd.com
Listen to full episode here: https://flipnerd.com/show/expert-interviews/scale-real-estate-investing-business