More than anything, you want to build a successful real estate investing business.
Whatever it takes…
Okay… well, maybe not “whatever” it takes. You do want to build a thriving business, but you don’t want to build a miserable business — one where you and your employees hate coming to work every day, one where you’re the primary driver of sales and revenue, one where you can’t even take a week-long vacation for fear of everything collapsing while you’re gone.
Heck… would you really even be a business owner in that case? Michael Gerber would say “no”…
“If your business depends on you, you don’t own a business, you have a job. And it’s the worst job in the world because you’re working for a lunatic.”
The point is, not all real estate investing businesses are equal. There’s a big difference between a business you own — one that provides you with the financial and personal freedom that you crave — and one that owns you.
In this article, I’m going to walk you through the moving parts of a healthy real estate investing business with how-to tips for optimizing each.
Let’s gooo!
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Part 1: Finances
Every business starts and ends with money. If you don’t have money to start your business, you’re dead in the water. Similarly, if you have money but spend too much of it with too little return, your business won’t survive its first year. In fact, 29% of startups fail for the simple reason that they ran out of cash (according to an analysis of 101 dead startups).
While most entrepreneurs don’t set out thinking, “Damn! I LOVVEE playing with money and spreadsheets,” it’s a necessary to-do of every successful real estate investing business.
To make it easier, consider hiring an accountant and/or using a tool like QuickBooks — which simplifies taxes, expense tracking, and even invoicing. Also, if you need private investors for your business, check out this video where Ryan talks about raising his first $100k in private money.
And a final word to the wise: don’t put off this part of the business. Nothing is worse than having to dig through 3 years of receipts to try and get your budget in line (I have a friend going through this right now… I do not envy him).
Part 2: Marketing
This is where business gets a little more fun. Most entrepreneurs enjoy the marketing and sales phase of business more than the finances phase of business.
(Not all entrepreneurs, of course).
Whether you enjoy it or not, marketing is critical. If you’re wholesaling, flipping, or buy-and-holding homes, then most marketing and sales will happen when you’re trying to find motivated sellers — a little will happen on the buyer side.
Here are some of the most effective marketing methods for real estate businesses:

- Facebook Ads

- Cold Calling

- Search Engine Optimization

Those marketing strategies should keep you plenty busy. In the end, err on the side of choosing fewer marketing methods with greater optimization and execution. Marketing exceptionally just a few ways is far better than marketing everywhere with mediocrity. “Focus” is the keyword here.
Part 3: Sales
So long as your marketing efforts are a success, you’re going to need a sales team to qualify leads, respond to objections, and close deals. Or, if you’re a small operation, maybe you just take calls and respond to messages yourself.
Eventually, though, you’ll want to delegate at least the pre-qualifying phase of responding to incoming leads (that way, you don’t spend 18 hours a day on the phone with tire-kicking sellers — you have better things to do).
At Call Porter, we answer the phone for hundreds of top investors around the nation every single day. And all of our reps are based in the U.S., trained specifically to talk with motivated sellers. You can get a free demo over here. 🙂
Here’s some advice from one of our members:
Oh! And check out our YouTube series about how to handle seller objections — hope you get some free value out of it!
Part 4: Deal Coordination
Imagine that finances are neat and tidy, that marketing is driving leads, and that sales is closing deals.
All is well, right?
Kind of. To build a business which you can work on rather than in, you have to take it one step further. Because even though all of the pieces are in place for your real estate business to make money consistently (from marketing to sales), someone still has to be responsible for coordinating all of the different pieces.
Sometimes, this is called an Aquisition’s Manager (at least for finding the deals) and sometimes this is simply the CEO of a business.
Whatever the case, you need someone who can steer the entire ship so that… ya know, you can take a vacation every once in a while 😉
Here’s an article I wrote about finding the right person for the job.
Conclusion
You didn’t set out to build a failing real estate business. No. No you didn’t.
But you also didn’t set out to build a business which enslaves you.
Nope again.
You set out to build a business which provides you with the financial and personal freedom that your 9-5 locked away in a box at the back of the room — you’re trying to get it back.
And you can get it back, so long as you focus your time and energy on creating systems, hiring people, and building out automations which make your business run even when you’re at a wonderful restaurant in Jamaica, wearing a blue and pink flamingo shirt that screams “Sexy!” and “Tourist!” all at the same time.
Speaking of which (and by way of inspiration for your own business)… here’s me doing just that a few months ago…
So get to it! And don’t stop until you’ve built the business that you dreamt of building in the first place; it’ll be worth it.