The Importance of Systems - For Beginners

Without structure, the average person tends to follow the path of least resistance. We procrastinate, get lazy, and don’t achieve our full potential. I have noticed this in myself as I continue my own investment and real estate journey.

The BiggerPockets podcast has a number of great shows that talk about systemization. These guests have already achieved immense success and describe how their systems, goals, and KPI management relate to their businesses with multiple employees. How does this relate to the beginner investor that also works a full-time job?

I suffered from the lack of real estate progress that is brought about by a lack of systems and lead measures. It is extremely easy to come home after a 14 hour day, make some dinner, and sit down on the couch for an hour before going to bed to start it all over again. Notice how nowhere in there did I do anything that furthers my real estate business. Yes, it’s a business even though I have no employees and have only 2 properties, and it should be treated like one!

When I purchased my second home, I wrote down the entire process from beginning the search to placing a tenant, so that I could easily repeat this with future purchases and not have to re-learn the difficult lessons that anyone new at a challenging activity must learn. From there, I was able to develop a step by step guide for my company (currently – just me!). Once these systems were developed, I took a step back and analyzed what it would take to move from one step to the next. Some were easy. To get financing, one must talk to banks and submit applications. Some were more difficult. To get a house under contract at a price that will make financial sense, you need to make multiple offers (especially in a hot market). It is not uncommon to receive 10 “no’s” for every 1 “yes.” Being too afraid of this rejection to even make an offer will guarantee you will not get the next property under contract.

With a set of steps, and a list of goals on how many actions I must take to get my next house under contract I am now armed with what I need to organize my day, be held accountable my myself and my confidants, and achieve the goals I lay out at the beginning of the year and beginning of each month.

Fellow beginners – take the time to disassemble your big goals into simple, manageable steps that you can take every day to continue the slow march towards real estate and investing success.