Running your real estate investing business can be a joy, where you only work on tasks that you actually love, where you inspire your workers to do their best, and where money comes flowing in droves.
Or, as you already know, running your real estate business can be a bit of a nightmare. You hire people to take over certain tasks, but they don’t do them correctly and you have to pick up the slack. Every closed deal brings a massive headache with it. And you can’t seem to catch a break from your ever-growing to-do list.
Your head’s above water, you’re trying to survive… but you can feel yourself slipping.
Fortunately, running your real estate business doesn’t have to be miserable. It comes down to working on what you love doing every single day and hiring amazing people who love to do what you hate doing and can make up for your natural weaknesses.
We all have weaknesses…
But successful entrepreneurs hire A-players to make up for those weaknesses and reap the benefits of running a joyful, money-making machine. Here’s how to hire A-players that support YOUR entrepreneurial personality.
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1. Identify your biggest weaknesses
While I’m not a huge fan of personality tests, they can certainly help to give you a sense for your natural strengths and weaknesses. Here’s the personality test that I prefer.
Take it (if you haven’t already) and then go read through the strengths and weaknesses section of your results, nodding all the way to the bottom.
Look — before you can hire people who are good at what you stink at, you need to know what you stink at. You need to be honest with yourself.
Make a list of the things which aren’t your strong-suit.
Here are a few typical examples of things entrepreneurs stink at.
- I stink at scheduling things.
- I stink at organization.
- I stink at planning.
- I stink at coordinating.
- I stink at acquisitions.
Perhaps the best way to identify what it is that you’re not very good at is to determine what you hate doing. You’re never going to do a good job of something that you hate doing.
(Even if you used to enjoy it, were good at it, but now you hate it)
So make your hate list. And then create positions which will tackle those tasks for you.
2. Identify the things you LOVE doing
Conversely, figure out what you LOVE to do and don’t give those things up.
To figure out what you love doing, ask yourself: what gives me energy? What gets me fired up? What do I lose track of time doing?
Those are the things that you love most to do.
(You can also use the personality test mentioned in point #1 to help determine what you love doing)
Maybe you love managing people, maybe you love writing sales copy, maybe you love marketing…
The problem is, as your business grows, becomes more complicated, and requires more of your undying and unexpected attention, you miss out on doing the things you love.
Avoid that at all costs.
Hire more people to fill the gaps for things you don’t enjoy doing. Hire a coach who will help you manage your time better. Or schedule time to work on the things you love.
However you do it, never sacrifice working on enjoyable tasks just because there’s other tedious work to be done… chances are, someone else can do that tedium for you.
3. Make your interview process more intense… no. More. MORE.
You’re running a medium-sized business. Nothing tiny. But also nothing huge.
You’re definitely not running some multi-billion dollar corporation.
So there’s no need to make your interview process overly complex, right? Just post a job on UpWork and hire the first person who applies — simple!
No. Wrong. Bad entrepreneur.
The truth is, most people who are applying for your job posting don’t currently have a job.
(Seems obvious, I know)
Why don’t they have a job? Well, sometimes (not all the time, of course) it’s because they leave jobs easily, because they are unreliable, because they are non-committal…
Which means you MUST thoroughly vet the people who apply for your posting. Corporations do this religiously, hiring — on average — one person for every 250 applicants.
The more time you take to vet applicants, the more applications you collect, and the more rigorous your interviewing process (within reason, of course), the better chance you have of hiring an A-player who is passionate about the things you stink at.
How can you make the hiring process more rigorous, though?
Here are a few ideas.
- Require at least 3 interviews before you hire anyone.
- Send over a long-winded application for all applicants to fill out (this will help weed out the non-committal people).
- Take time to understand the applicants fears, desires, strengths, and weaknesses (have them take the same personality test as you and see how they measure up. Will they support you? Will you support them?)
- Don’t be in a hurry. Take time to make sure you’re hiring the right person. Bad hires are expensive. But great hires will make your business a breeze.
4. Have a test-period
Don’t get stuck with a bad hire.
Even the best people-readers make mistakes and hire someone who’s not a fit for their business, position, culture, or workload.
If you’ve done everything in your power to train them, motivate them, and inspire them… but nothing gives, it’s probably time to get rid of them.
Which is why you should have at least a 90-day test period for all new hires. This gives you public permission to let them go if things aren’t working out and it also tells applicants that you’re taking their performance seriously.
Trust me, the person of your delegation-dreams does exist. You just have to take the time to find them.
Once you do, you’ll wonder how you ever ran your business without them.