The Art of Leveraging Your Time

Oh boy, I love hiring someone else to do a job I don't want to do. Putting out signs? NO WAY! Stuffing, addressing, and stamping envelopes, Yah Right! I'm a big fan of leveraging my time to others and you should be too! As business owners it's easy to get caught up working IN your business instead of ON it. I know I was spending most of my "working time" doing tasks that someone else could have easily done with training or support until I started hiring out those tasks and was able to work ON my business instead of IN it. This post is going to shed light on how you can create more time and allow yourself to be free to make more money doing activities that will truly benefit your business.

Hire a Virtual Assistant

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Virtual Assistants. They are amazing time savers and eager to work for you. Virtual assistants can be hired locally (in your state or country), or abroad. Rates, experience, qualifications, time difference, and language fluency are some factors you should take into consideration when hiring a VA but nonetheless there are extremely qualified virtual assistants looking for jobs and will do pretty much any task you designate to them. I use my VA for property research, follow up, deriving lists, and other small tasks. I've seen others use a VA for social media marketing, blogging, SEO, property research, CRM management, web design, and so much more. The opportunities are endless and the best part about it is you can hire a great VA in the price range of $4 - $7 per hour. I hired two VA's last year and now have them trained in all of my systems for data scrubbing and property research for my non-performing note tapes (this saves me about 8-10 hours per tape and allows me to work on getting more inventory and making more offers!) I've also automated my lead capture with a CRM system from Only For Investors, which has been amazing. My VA is completely trained in how to enter, edit, and update properties and even works on my follow up with each lead! If you're scared about hiring a VA because you've heard "horror" stories, or maybe you've even tried but failed, don't give up. There's a science to hiring and training a good VA and luckily we've got it done pat. There will be additional blog posts on how to hire a VA and what to look for, but if you just can't wait visit our website www.NoteInvestingClub.com to see about our VA training system for note or REO investors.

Letter Writers

I hired my first letter writer in July of last year and boy has this been a time saver. The letter writer picks up the pre-printed letters and stamps from OfficeDepot or Staples (which ever is closest to you) and stuffs, addresses, and stamps my letters typically in 24 - 42 hours from pick up. I pay her .25 cents per letter and am able to free up time to work on my business instead of in it. Oh did I mention, the envelopes and return address labels are sent directly to their house - for free from Office Depot.com, which is AWESOME! If trust is an issue for you and your worried they won't be done correctly, or maybe a stamp or envelope will go missing, check their work by adding your address with a fake name in the letters to check. Although, I've worked with two different people now and had no issues with stealing items!

Signs

Alright, I'll say it. I HATE putting out signs. I hate it so much, that if I'm responsible for doing it...I don't do it. I hate the traffic, parking, buckling, unbuckling, honking, and time of it all. I hired my first sign placer recently and was happy with the results. I met with them (or you can have them pick up the signs after you "interview" them) and gave them a map of where to put the signs. I used the app simple crew to monitor their progress (they checked in each sign with a picture and geotagged their location) in the app. They sent me a message when they were done and paypal took it from there! You can pay $1 - $2 per sign depending your area, but if it's any less than that it's not worth the gas the spend putting them out, so make your pay worthwhile. When you first meet with someone for this job, talk about the best way and places to put signs - give a few examples and no-examples. If you notice they placed them in a bad spot or not facing the right way, etc, tell them that will be deducted from their pay.

List Research

I love to use public records to gather my lists for properties and I like my lists to be as fresh as possible. Although there are wonderful online resources like list source.com, I prefer to go to the courthouse myself and get the freshest data possible. I'm a school teacher by day, so getting to the courthouse before it closes at 4 was challenging if I wasn't on break, so I realized this needed to be hired out. While I have not personally hired this job out myself, I am working on the training and hiring process using my colleague and fellow associates method from Only For Investors. She mastered this and had two people in different counties in Florida, successfully getting them probate and eviction lists twice a month! Talk about awesome, right!?

Answering Service

Answering services can be a huge time saver and are always by the phone 24-7. I use this for all of my preliminary calls and it get's entered directly into my CRM system were my VA takes it from there (does property research then sends it to me to make an offer). There a lot of services out there and my suggestion is PatLive. They are very professional and offer their services at a reasonable price.

1. The suggestions for leveraging your time that I mentioned here are just the tip of the iceberg. There are a ton of ways for you to maximize your time by outsourcing it to others. The key is taking the time upfront to create clear plans of what you want, how you want it done, and training programs/examples for some of the tasks. It can be a daunting process getting it started but once it's in place you'll never look back (or have to do it again)! If you like this idea and want to learn more, visit our website, NoteInvestingClub.com and sign up to be a part of a newsletter.