Investing For Freedom: Scaling Your Personal and Professional Life
Successful individuals — especially self-made millionaires — who have achieved financial independence all have one thing in common . . . they’ve all learned to create and achieve multiple streams of income. I’m not talking about moonlighting at another job. I’m talking about scaling.
“Time cannot be managed. Choices can. Freedom comes by managing your choices — not your time.” — Mike Ayala
Original Story: Link
By age 24, Mike founded his first construction company and has been involved with over 2,000 projects totaling over $1 billion, including hospitals, courthouses, federal buildings, casinos, mills, gold-processing facilities, civil projects, multi-family homes, and shopping centers. Of the companies he started, most notable is the construction company that scaled quickly to more than 100 employees and sold at a $12 million valuation, making it onto the Inc. 2009 “2500 Fastest Growing Companies in America” list.
Investing For Freedom: Scaling Your Personal and Professional Life
Guest Blog by Mike Ayala
Most self-made millionaires are entrepreneurs and made their money starting and running a business or made their money in one particular industry. They know the capital, learning curve, and time required to successfully start and run a business. They also know it’s not practical to replicate their formula for success in an all new business, investment class or geographic location and juggle the new enterprise with any of their existing ones.
The public perception of ultra-wealthy investors is that they’re arrogant, power hungry, micromanagers. Some may be, but for many, what is more important to them is time — time to spend on personal relationships and interests. Many have achieved the pinnacle of their careers, professions, industries, etc. at the cost of significant family and personal sacrifices to get there. At this point, money becomes a means to an end — the end being more time with family and time to pursue personal endeavors like charities, traveling and pursuing hobbies.
Scaling is what sets the financially independent apart from those who are wage-rich — the doctors, lawyers and CEOs of the world. Despite their stereotype, these ultra-wealthy investors are not arrogant, power hungry or micromanagers. They’ve already been there, done that. It’s exhausting. They were tired of the rat race and found a way to get out — through leverage and scaling. That is why they’re willing to defer — defer to the expertise and time of others — in order to scale their wealth and their time.
Without getting too much into the details of leveraging financial capital — especially with investments in tangible assets — the ultra-wealthy leverage the power of bank financing to investment in multiple projects instead of just one. This increases returns by multiples — even when taking into consideration debt servicing.
Even more vital to the ultra-wealthy than their ability to leverage financial capital is the ability to leverage human capital — outsourcing many duties, tasks and responsibilities that can be replicated in order to scale their investment portfolio.
The Successful Active Investor
Successful active entrepreneurs and investors have many common attributes, including:
- They’re well-connected in their local market. They foster personal relationships to find and sniff out off-market deals.
- They’re good at analyzing deals and conducting due diligence.
- They do their homework and ask the right questions.
- They’re good researchers and market analysts — able to decipher market trends and demographics.
- They’re financially savvy. They know how to read and analyze spreadsheets and financial reports.
- They’re skillful negotiators.
- They’re hands on. They could do most of the work themselves even if they ultimately decide to outsource some of it.
- They’re good multi-taskers.
- They’re good bookkeepers.
- They’re hard workers — willing to put in the time and the effort to see a project through.
- Willing to devote the time to acquire the knowledge and expertise to become successful
The Power of Virtual Assistants
The successful active investor has built an impressive knowledge bank of investing — whether in a business or with a particular asset class. There are only so many hours in the day, so it’s impractical to work endless hours to start a new business and oversee more than one business or investment actively. Human cloning is still decades away but what if you could clone your knowledge?
- WHAT IF YOU CAN TEACH SOMEONE ELSE TO DO WHAT HAS WORKED FOR YOU?
- WHAT IF YOU COULD TEACH MULTIPLE PEOPLE TO DO THIS ACROSS MULTIPLE LOCALES?
- AND WHAT IF YOU CAN DO IT AFFORDABLY?
VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS ARE THE SECRET TO SCALING
Virtual assistants (“VA’s”) have evolved from the days of purely cold-calling into highly specialized and skilled assets that can execute many tasks once thought impossible — and all for pennies on the dollar of doing these tasks yourself. What ultra-wealthy investors have learned is that many of the tasks that made them successful active investors can be performed by competent virtual assistants.
Real Estate Investing Case Study
What kind of tasks can a virtual assistant perform to help the real estate investor scale? We break it down by real estate investment phase.
Deal Flow & Acquisition
- Market Research — VA’s can be hired to research potential markets targeted for investment, including demographic research, studying feasibility studies and
- Seek and Establish Relationships — VA’s can establish relationships with local brokers, agents and real estate investors to seek out under-the-radar and off-market deals.
- Due Diligence — VA’s can gather and organize all relevant data and documents to streamline the due diligence process.
- Closing — VA’s can organize with the appropriate parties the closing of acquisitions.
Post-Acquisition
- Renovations — VA’s can seek out potential contractors and subcontractors and solicit bids in connection with renovation projects.
- Marketing — Utilizing traditional and social media resources, VA’s can be involved in the marketing aspect of acquiring tenants for the real estate asset. They can also be involved in branding with website design, graphics and video editing.
Property Management
Administrative — Common administrative task VA’s can perform include:
- Bookkeeping
- Collections
- Social media management
- Maintenance Scheduling
- Tenant Relationships
- Virtual Tours
- Handle Calendar, Appointments & Calls.
- Manage Email Accounts
- General Coordination
Disposition
- Listing — Undertake real estate listing and coordinate with appropriate third-parties as needed for sale of assets.
- Closing — Gather and organize required documents and coordinate with appropriate parties for closings.
Conclusion
Why reinvent the wheel? VA’s allow investors to scale their professional and personal lives to achieve the wealth and lifestyles they desire. As VA’s have become more and more sophisticated, the type and numbers of tasks they’re able to take on are substantial enough to relieve much of the burden from investors doing everything themselves.
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Did You Know? MyOutDesk’s origin story is set during the last global financial crisis of 2008. Yes, that’s right — our business started by scaling businesses with virtual assistants during a recession! Pioneers of virtual assistant services, our first client in 2008 went from five to seventeen VAs with a completely revamped organizational model in short order, and he told MyOutDesk, “Our virtual professionals have shaved $250,000 off our monthly overhead.”
See also:
https://www.myoutdesk.com/blog/lpmama-real-estate-isa-guide/
