A quick ad before we jump in:
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I launched a business brokerage with my father.
We now have 600+ buyers on our distribution list.
When we get a listing we’ll do a podcast episode with the owner, a breakdown of the business to my 80,000 newsletter subscribers, and several tweets promoting the listing.
Wanna sell your small biz? I can get you a great deal. Click here.
Want to buy a business? Click here. Want to invest in a business? Click here.
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The most valuable trait of an entrepreneur:
A sense of urgency.
Most people walk slow, think slow, move slow, make decisions slow. They lolly gag around life. No energy. No excitement.
Those people never end up making it happen. They end up working for the man, clocking in at 9am and clocking out at 5pm. Doing the absolute bare minimum to get paid next Friday and not get fired.
Never making moves to chase additional opportunities, never taking a stab at entrepreneurship.
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Very few real estate investors (relatively) buy deals over $1MM.
Of the ones who do, they outgrow the $1-3MM deal quickly, moving up to larger deals.
Therefore:
$1-3MM is the perfect place to buy RE locally for an aspiring RE investor.
Sub institutional, too rich for mom-and-pop.
The way to make real money:
Buy 5-10 good deals in this range over a 3-5 year period.
Group them together as a larger portfolio -> Attract sophisticated buyers -> Exit -> Get very wealthy.
This is the playbook most real estate shops are after. They roll up smaller deals and create opportunities for bigger groups to deploy larger amounts of capital.
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There is always a bottleneck in business.
First it is customers. Then it is laborers to execute on the work the customers need. Then it is a management team to manage the laborers.
As a business owner, you’re always after something and as soon as you get it the goal post moves further away.
Here are the stages:
1.Customers
You already have the ability to provide the service yourself, you just need a customer or two.
As soon as you get that first customer you have a business.
2. Laborers
You needs somebody who can do the actual work you’re going to charge the customer for. You still do all the admin yourself.
These folks show up and do the work and gat paid by you.
3. More customers
Generally this is in the form of marketing and sales. You need a website or paid marketing or Google rankings from SEO services or a sales team.
If you stop here you can make real money.
With only you managing the operation, companies can grow to 10+ employees and a few million in revenue. Generational wealth can be built here over time.
You have a basic marketing machine (or maybe you’re in a good business with strong word-of-mouth and you don’t need it) and laborers you oversee.
But warning:
You don’t own a business, you own a job. Your business isn’t generally worth much money because it isn’t self-sustaining.
And no vacations or 5 hour work weeks because all the laborers at your company need you to make every decision. Clients and customers still call your cell phone.
This is where most small businesses top out.
4. Somebody to manage even more workers
You need a foreman or account manager to oversee more workers and make sure they can deliver. This is when your company grows to 20+
These are the managers who make decisions and interact with customers. They get work done from start to finish and have a team of laborers working for them.
5. Improved systems and processes
Your software and operational procedures. Who does what and when.
How are decisions to be made and by who?
You have to build a way for information to make its way around the company in an efficient manner.
Steps 3, 4 and 5 are really hard.
Getting more customers is hard and expensive. Hiring middle management is hard and expensive. Improving and building systems is hard and expensive.
Getting a few early customers and hiring laborers is the easy part but so many folks can’t get past it.
One of these 5 areas is the bottleneck of every business.
And as a business owner you’re always jumping around from one of these bottlenecks, solving it, and then watching the business grow.
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One of the best investments for quality of life has been a country club membership.
The golf, dining, events, community, pickle ball, kid activities, pool and being able to share with clients / family / friends are worth 10x what it costs.
Should have done it years earlier.
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Business isn’t the olympics. You don’t make more money by jumping over 7 foot bars vs 1 foot bars.
Go get the money AND THEN change the world.
Onward and upward,
Nick
P.S. I’ve began working with Bold SEO and it has been an absolute game changer for my business.
If you want to structure your website correctly to get found in search and build domain authority through high-quality backlinks, this service is for you.
They’ll get on a call with you and basically give you a free 30 minutes of consulting and a game plan for your website during the sales call. I recommend setting up a call with Bold SEO and getting the process started.