“If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs.”

— Dhirubhai Ambani, founder, Reliance Industries

Where are you on your investment journey? Are you still working to help someone else build their dream? Or have you started down the path of building your own dream?

Wherever you are in your investing journey, I want to help you build your dream in a way that is scalable and sustainable. Because building it is one thing, but building it in a way that is sustainable for the long term, so you don’t have to go back to building someone else’s dream in the end, is another thing entirely.

To truly have the freedom to sustain your dream after it’s built, it’s important to recognize what it is you’re actually building. Your syndication business is just that – starting and running a business.  This information will help you to be successful and be able to grow.

Are you now ready to make that leap? Are you ready to cut ties with your W2 job and fully commit to  running or scaling up your own business as a syndicator?

Video – Build, Scale, Run a Successful Syndication Business

This month’s enlightening video interview is with real estate investor Ellie Perlman. Her company, Blue Lake Capital’s current portfolio has $100M in assets under management. 

Ellie is a different kind of multifamily syndicator because she started her business with the mindset of, “How do I create a process that can be scalable?” rather than “How do I get this deal done so I can move on to the next one?”

In this month’s video I will show you exactly how to:

• Build your syndication business from the ground up
• Decide what you should do yourself and what you should outsource
• Know when to hire and when to fire

Let’s now dive in deeper and see what you need to know to turn your dream into reality.

The Secret to Success

I have boiled it down for you, to a secret sauce of 3 simple steps:

1. Make step-by-step instructions for everything you do
2. Automate
3. Delegate

Step 1 – Make Step-by-Step Instructions for Everything You Do In Your Business

“If you can’t describe what you’re doing as a process, you don’t know what you are doing.” – W. Edwards Deming, Management Consultant and Author

Your start-up will only be scalable if it can function without your involvement in every minor task. You’re not a superhero no matter what your mother tells you. 

To scale-up you’re going to need the help of other people to whom you can delegate.

Never try to scale up without proper standard procedures in place. If you do, you will find yourself and other members of your team constantly frustrated and unable to complete necessary tasks. This is the path to implosion.

As you complete a task, make note of each step needed. The next time you complete that same task, try following your instructions and see if anything was left out or could be simplified. Then try having someone else follow those instructions and see what questions they have or what problems they run into. That gives you invaluable feedback for refining your process. After a few different people have tried it out a few times and the variations are eliminated, you know you have a good process that will work for you as you grow.

If your assistant is completing tasks regularly, have them make note of each step needed for each of their tasks as well. Then  if / when another person needs to handle their tasks, it’ll be easy to pass them off and business won’t have to come to a screeching halt.

Here’s a for instance:

Here are just some of the parts to that process that may need to be included in your standard procedure doc:

1. A list of podcasts that are suitable for your subject and audience
2. Send an e-mail pitch template about what I can offer their audience (after writing said template)
3. Follow-up to e-mail pitch at least 3X (Follow up after _ days; Again after _ days)
4. A list of subjects that you are prepared to talk about
5. Listening to the podcast to prepare for the format
6. Creating and sending your bio and headshot to the podcast host
7. Sharing your availability or schedule the interview
8. Prepare questions as a suggestion for the podcast host to ask
9. Sharing the interview with your own audience via different platforms
10. Deciding on social media tags

When you create a process you’re creating a recipe for that task that anyone can follow to get a consistent result. 

Even if at first your team is just you, a standard procedure is invaluable for tasks that only need performing once in a while. Especially if there are many steps, without a standard procedure it’s easy to forget something critical.

With written, standard procedures in place you won’t have to squander your mental energy on remembering or figuring out the steps every time.

The Benefits

• Save time and mistakes
• Reduce training costs
• Get consistent results
• Empower your team
• Enable you to delegate work

It may seem like a lot of work at the outset but it is so worth it. Doing this will save you 1,000s of hours in the long run.

With your list of standard procedures prepared, you and the one(s) assisting you will have clearly in mind what the task is and how it gets done.

Step 2 – Automate As Many Tasks As Possible

If any part of your syndication start-up is labor intensive, it is not easily scalable.

Automation makes repetitive tasks more efficient and leaves you free to use your skills for more complex jobs. It also cuts your expenses when you can automate before you delegate. Don’t pay a VA an hourly rate to do work that a computer can do for you! Part of your continued growth will be reducing your expenses and running with the lowest overhead.

Automation can also improve accuracy as well as efficiency and consistency.

In today’s digital age so many things can be automated, from managing your appointments to generating and following up with potential investor leads.

What To Do & How:

Look back at your list of standard procedures. Choose the ones that are good candidates for automation (tasks that are repetitive, time-consuming and easy for algorithms to handle 100% accurately without your input).  Work on making as many tasks as possible more efficient by automating them. 

Choose the tools you’re going to use to make things happen such as Zapier,  IFTTT, Active Campaign, Slack, Acuity, Mailchimp, etc.

Be aware of and alert to recognize tasks that are repeated over and again. These are tasks that you should automate so that you can focus your energies on tasks that can’t be automated.

A Few Examples of Tasks To Automate:

• Send Slack notifications for new Calendly appointments.
• Create new WordPress posts from Google Docs files
• Automatically save Gmail attachments to Google Drive.
• Post new WordPress posts to Facebook.
• Create Asana tasks from new emails in Gmail.
• Create a Google Spreadsheet backup of your contacts.
• Get a weekly digest of your calendar appointments.

You can explore Zapier just browsing around their inspiration section, or try a search for ideas based on the apps you already know and use to see what can be automated.

Step 3 – Outsource & Delegate

Remember, you can’t do everything yourself. Thinking that you can do it all or that no one will do it as well as you can really stall the growth of your business.

I like this quote from the co-founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman,

‘No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.’

Co-founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman,

As you know, there are so many moving parts to a successful syndication. In order to scale-up you will need to have the right partners, team members and assistants.

Right from the beginning though, why not consider outsourcing and delegating at least some of the tasks you do?

Technology has made outsourcing an option for small businesses.

You now have access to virtual assistants and professionals anywhere in the world and it may be possible to hire an expert to do a task for you at a very affordable rate.

What To Do & How:

Look back at your list of standard procedures. Which items are the most important? Which of these tasks do you do well? Which tasks can be automated? All the other tasks are the ones you should consider outsourcing. 

Still not convinced? Here’s where I play my ace card. (The Pareto Principle).

The pareto principle is the 80-20 rule: 80% of your results come from 20% of the tasks on your business procedures list. Those 20% of tasks are the ones you or one of your expert team members should be focusing on personally.  Ultimately, everything that’s not in that 20% should probably be outsourced.

By outsourcing the day to day back-office tasks, you will have more time to focus on key tasks such as finding deals, underwriting deals and finding investors.

Here’s how to do it:

• Write out a description of what you want this person to be able to do
• Post a job posting 
• Review responses, check their previous feedback
• If this is for an ongoing position, Interview your top picks
• Choose the person that is the best fit for your team and the role
• Let your new team member do the job you’ve hired them to do, try not to micromanage

Outsourcing can be done very economically at first. Included in the free toolbox below are some great places where top syndicators find people to hire who are willing to work hard at affordable rates.

Ready to start building your own dream in a way that is sustainable & scalable? 

Don’t forget the secret sauce:

1. Make step-by-step instructions for everything you do
2. Automate*
3. Delegate

* The Power Of Automation And Your Website

An obvious starting point when it comes to saving time and getting better results through the power of automation is to get your website up and running.

ApartmentInvestorPro.com can have your site up and running today. 

How will that help you reach your automation targets?

Automatic Lead Capture

Your website will include contact forms so that your potential investors can connect with you and you can start building the relationship. 

These forms can be connected with third party services such as Active Campaign for CRM and email marketing purposes.

Lead magnets, for more aggressive lead capture, are included in your website with certain plans.

Pre-qualifying Potential Investors

The website includes an Investor Profile form that pre-qualifies investors for you by capturing the following information. 

• SEC accredited 
• Net worth
• Amount available to invest

Authority Building & Education

Whether you choose to write the articles yourself or outsource the task to a content writer, you can regularly upload articles to the blog section on your website.

By doing this you can establish yourself as an expert in multifamily and educate your potential investors.

The first three blog articles are written for you and included with certain plans.

Are you ready to quit spending all your time and energy to build someone else’s dream? 

To get your professional investor site up and running today visit ApartmentInvestorPro.com