The Best Real Estate Team Ever
How many people do you partner with each day in your business? Or do you call it “collaborating”? Either way, you know by now that you can’t do business in a vacuum. At some point, you have to work with people who have different skill sets or connections that you need to get things done. It doesn’t make sense any other way. Partnering is an effective way to do business.
As real estate investors, we know that the biggest payoffs come from building the perfect team of specialists. Even if you’re going solo, you don’t have to create a formal partnership to get things done. When we talk about partnering, we’re talking about knowing your shortcomings and finding people who have those strengths to help you finish certain projects. You have to think like a team leader and assemble the right group of people to achieve one common goal.
Think of yourself as a football coach, if you like. Obviously, you have to bring the players together as a team, but you’re also coordinating the efforts of the rest of the coaching staff to bring those plays together. You’re working with your team owner and their staff on the administrative stuff, you’re teaming up with the media to manage the publicity – you’re building a network of relationships with one common goal: encouraging the players to win games.
The same goes for completing a real estate deal. Get to know a good real estate attorney to help with the contracts and legal problems. Choose an accountant with experience in real estate so you can have someone to go to with financial issues. Start networking with lending professionals so you can find seed money more quickly. Now, who else should you have on your team?
Your first step is to find a go-to person who has been around in the real estate game for a while. This is your partner for those trouble spots you’re going to find in almost every deal. Even better, find someone with experience in coaching new real estate investors. Now, that may sound like an opinion rather than fact – especially since I’m a real estate coach – but I promised to tell you what I know about making more money than you ever dreamed, and this is the way to go. Think of it as an extremely cost-effective continuing education program.
Don’t forget to partner with your own employees! You may only have one assistant in your office, but that one assistant can be your greatest ally. Make sure they know everything about how to help you best and how to help the deals flow. You never know when they’ll need to be the one to keep a deal from blowing up.
You’ll also need to build a relationship with someone who knows how to solve title problems. You never know when you’ll run into an issue with one of your properties, and you’ll need to be able to untwist those situations before the deal closes. Get to know an attorney or a title expert who knows the system, and save yourself a lot of grief down the road.
Partner with people who give you referrals and keep in touch with them to make sure your leads keep coming in. Give them incentives in the form of referral fees or commissions, encouraging them to tell you when they find someone who might need your help. If you’re a coach, these are your talent scouts. If you don’t have the big deals, you can’t make the big money.
You may find that real estate agents make the best referral sources. They are the first contact for most homeowners who need to sell, and there are limits to how many of those homeowners they are able to help. Maybe they’re just looking for someone to take over dealing with all the problem properties they find. Maybe they know enough people that they hear things others don’t. Get to know a few of the busiest Realtors and make sure they remember what you can do to help.
As you approach your new team members, remember that you have something to offer them as well (besides referral fees and paychecks). When you specialize in short sales, you have knowledge and skills that not many others in real estate have. You are the expert on problem properties in your area – and if there’s an area in this country without real estate problems, I’d love to hear about it.
Your quest for great partnerships will be an organically cultivated adventure. It really does take a collaborative mindset to function as part of the real estate scene in any area, especially in a struggling market. Build the best real estate team you can, become a part of your community, and invest in these partnerships to get the most profitable results for you and for every homeowner you meet.
If you would like to learn more about developing partnerships in your real estate business, check our our blog post about building your real estate business on our Strategic Real Estate Coach website!
