I'm sure he could give you some pointers on setting up a business and creative ways to save money.

Using the 203k or now the HomeStyle loan you can buy a fixer upper and get all the money to renovate. 

They could make more money working part-time at McDonald's.I think construction is one of the best opportunities if you can find the time.

Every day I mark how many calls to leads I made, how many people I contacted (and was it email, call, text) from my database/past clients....how many social media posts I answered or made, etc.I don't know if that's automating, but every week I can quickly see how much of each money generating thing I did.Do you use Google Calendar? 

A property manager should always account for both income and expenses—you’re the owner, and you have a right to see exactly where your money is going.It almost sounds like he thinks he’s doing you a favor instead of working on your behalf.

They would be putting in some money and their service as sweat equity, and we would be putting up money and my wife’s services. 

If you don't want to separately meter for gas (which would be expensive but you would recoup the cost many times on a long hold), you are going to constantly be feeding this alligator of tenants wasting your money with liberal use of heat. 

Structuring Financing for Volume-Based InvestingTraditional financing methods like hard money loans work well for single properties but can be less efficient when you're scaling up.

You should have money set aside for litigation.

Quote from @Jaikevis Reams: In order to put a property under contract I need to provide proof of funds I know that I can get that from a hard money lender but I don’t meet there criteria for a loan approval what should I do?