Plans for 2014

[Bryan L.]

Looking for your feed-back BP. Help me to figure this out and tell me if I'm on the right track.

There's been a lot of activity and discussion about plans and goals for 2014. I've had some issues in my mind that I couldn't sort out and I decided to read "The 4-hour Workweek" before I set any goals for next year.

Basically, I've been struggling/wrestling in my mind with the issue of hiring an assistant and/or partnering with another Realtor to work through and follow up with my leads that I get from my marketing. And realize that I always try to turn these leads into Realtor listings for myself if they are not a real motivated seller. But, I just don't have time to follow up with these leads, keep the marketing fresh, do the research, etc and it's something that I'm really not good at anyway (not good at following up with people). But then I read the elimination chapter in 4-hour workweek, and now I'm thinking of eliminating this whole area of my business. Considering the 80/20 principle - I've bought over 30 houses over the years, and only 3 have been as a result of my marketing; all others have been MLS-listed. That's not even 20%. Sure, I do get some listings from my marketing (actually, this is where 80% of my listings come from), but my income from listings is again in that 20% category.

So, BP Nation. What do you think? What would be your advice for me? My thought is to cancel the marketing and Realtor work all together and to use the new-found time to hunt for and obtain an additional MLS deal.