Finding An Assistant That Becomes A Profit Center for Your Business with Tim Francis

Welcome to another episode of the Smart Real Estate Coach Podcast, your source for actionable real-life examples and advice to help you move to the next level of investing. Each week we help you make a quantum leap in your business, your finances, and/or your life. We want to help you take back control, help you thrive during chaos, and lead you through the current crisis to a better tomorrow. For more resources, check out smartrealestatecoach.com and be sure to give us a rating and review on your favorite platform. Good morning and welcome, Wicked Smart listeners. It's Chris Pree, your host again, and I have a super cool guest that dates all the way back to, I think it's 2018, when he attended our QLS Live event in Newport, Rhode Island as a speaker because we had started using his services back then and still do to this day. Let me explain. Tim Francis is the founder of greatassistant.com. He and his team have helped over 800 entrepreneurs like you and I get trusted, high-level domestic executive assistants. I'm going to explain the big difference here between this and VAs in a minute, virtual assistants. Tim's appeared on websites of Forbes, Inc. magazine, and he's been a guest lecturer at Yale, NYU, and University of Texas. He lives in Austin, Texas. As of today's filming, he's actually at a mastermind with my Sun Alarm partner, Zach Beach. So this is super timely. He regularly publishes his newsletter at truthandmastery.com. Okay, Tim, with that as a little intro, welcome back to the show, my friend. It's been a while.

Yeah. 2020 or something like that.

2020. I just, for everybody to know, I didn't say it 2 seconds ago in the intro, episode number 152. We're over 500 now. So episode 152 back in March of '20, go back and listen to it. Because frankly, you will hear how Tim has grown too, right, Tim? I mean, naturally since then.

Yeah, indeed. Yep. And had a great dinner with, uh, with your guy Zach last night here in Austin, Texas.

I heard. Yeah, I heard. Uh, that's awesome. And it's good for the Wicked Smart listener to know, I, we bring 2 people to the show, right? We bring experience and we bring people that we utilize and, and you've got both of those. So this is good stuff. Let's go back to the beginning though, 'cause it's been a while. Like, over 5 years and talk about sort of what got you to this aha, holy, holy, you know what? I gotta like, I gotta work on this executive assistant idea. Like what sparked it back then? And then we'll talk about today.

The real estate crash of 2008, my friend. So back then I was a touring drummer, believe it or not, but my band broke up 20 minutes before going on stage at the Western Canadian Music Awards. I had 4 properties when the real estate market crashed and I lost effectively in today's money around $350,000 of investor money. And on top of that, one of my mentors was the lead promoter of a $12 million Ponzi scheme. I didn't know it, but it all came, this, all this happened in 18 months and all this came to light. And I developed a stress-related illness unbeknownst to me on December 26th, 2010. I went from feeling fine, walking around on my own 2 feet, And within 5 days on December 31st, 2010, I couldn't walk anymore. It hit me like a hurricane and went to see 3 different doctors and they all agreed that it was a very, very rare illness called erythema nodosum. And there was no medication, there was no physical therapy, and maybe the most cruel of all, there was no timeline. I didn't know if I'd ever walk again. So not knowing if I'd ever kick a ball to a son or walk a daughter down the aisle in my life, I had to come to terms with a few things. One is how could I be still happy even if I lost the ability to walk, which is a whole spiritual journey in and of itself. And I also had to figure out how am I going to repay $350,000 of today money even though I'd made only 28 grand the year before. So it was an emotional rollercoaster, the highs and lows day in, day out, not knowing what the next day would bring until about 8 weeks in, 6 or 8 weeks into the illness. Suddenly I woke up one day, I felt a warmth in my body and I heard some words and the words were, is this what you want? And I have no idea if a minute went by or an hour went by because time stood totally still. And then I heard a second voice, my own voice deep down inside, and it said, yes, this is what I want. So it was a wild experience. I don't know if I would believe it had it not been me being there. And what I ultimately realized was that I'd been chasing fame and fortune through rock and roll and real estate when what I needed to be chasing was truth and mastery. And so in all the years ever since then, I've just wanted to get 1% better at being a human being, being a son, being an entrepreneur, a leader ever since. And so I got back into business and the good news was within about 7 months, I had sort of regained my income, which was like this massive relief. I didn't have to ask my parents for money anymore and I could start paying people back, which was a long road. But I also had the inconvenient reality that being back in business was great, except now it meant there's a lot of work to do. So I had this moment in my 1974 townhouse. I remember it was the upstairs bathroom. I looked in the mirror and at that point I'd failed 5 times at getting an executive assistant. I had not succeeded once and I'd lost around $10,000 just to getting EAs that never worked out, never worked out, never worked out. I tried using agencies, I tried doing it myself, and it dawned on me that like a person who's been divorced 5 times, I was the one who was the common denominator. So I stepped into the shower. I get a lot of my best ideas in the shower, maybe like a lot of people. And the strangest question, Chris, floated into my head. The question was, What would have to be true if I was legally bound to staying with my next executive assistant for 3 years? Can't fire them, can't reassign them to a different role, legally bound for 3 years. And suddenly it hit me that I would have to do things very, very differently. So for the next few days, as I walked around my everyday life, I had my phone in my hand and I was making notes. I was like, well, I wouldn't hire overseas. I wouldn't hire the first person who applies. I would create a hiring funnel with multiple interviews. I would make candidates jump through a bunch of different hoops so they could prove themselves, not just tell me that they're great, but actually show me they've got attention to detail and their instinct to close loops and tech comfortable. And they're looking to me to be more than just a paycheck. They actually believe in what we're doing, my purpose, mission, values. So, you know, probably about 25, 30 items on this first list on my phone. And then a second question hit me because I was feeling guilty, feeling like I'm legally bound to my next assistant sounded like such a negative question. So I flipped it around and I said, what if I get to be with my next assistant for 3 years? Like, what if it actually worked out? We get along, they pick it up quickly, they enjoy the work. I could even see them growing in the company. We enjoy each other. And on and on. So I made a second list on my phone. What would I do if I got to be with my next assistant for 3 years? So I started making that list. And that list is like, well, I'd want to get to know them as a person. I would be a patient coach. I'd be a thoughtful delegator. I'd get to know them as a person. What about their spouse, their kids, their dogs? You know, on and on and on. So that list ended up being about 20 to 25 items as well. So I jumped onto my computer. I pulled up these 2 lists, put them side by side on the screen, And Chris, it hits me like a freight train. I hadn't done a single thing from either of these 2 lists with any of my first 5 assistants. Eureka. And that became the foundation of how I went about getting my next assistant. So even though I was $350,000 in debt, even though I'd made only $28,000 the year before, I'd only ever tried going overseas because hiring a North American assistant seemed way too expensive. It was like 4 times the cost of someone overseas. What I knew was I'd made a handshake with God that I would fulfill my potential in this lifetime if, you know, he, well, whether he let me walk again or not, I would still, I was still committed to it. And there was just no way that I was going to sell myself short or sell my relationship with the divine and my parents and my family and whatnot by doing anything that was half measures anymore. I was done with being an amateur. It was time to go pro. And so I hired Sarah. She was a former paralegal from Kokomo, Indiana. She actually had never been an assistant before, which shocked me. She was my top candidate of 200 assistants I looked at, but she changed my life. I mean, within 1 year, she was taking over my email inbox, my calendar, travel planning, even a few things related to my own home. Some home maintenance type stuff. She was dealing with clients directly. She was doing reports for me. It was breathtaking. So a lot of my entrepreneur friends, they really wanted to know how could they get a Sarah too. So I started a couple entrepreneur friends to get their own Sarah. And before I knew it, more of my friends wanted to know how they could get a Sarah than really anything else that I knew how to do. So I thought, ah, there might be something here. So I started this company called Great Assistant. That's over 10 years ago. And since then, we've hired nearly 1,000 executive assistants for entrepreneurs. The assistants are all remote, so they're not in person. They are remote. However, they're all in the United States and Canada. And one of the big ahas for me is that it's not just having a higher-level assistant. It's about us becoming better leaders. And so part of our Great Assistant Secret Formula is not just that we help entrepreneurs get a great assistant, But we actually take the entrepreneur or the investor or the leader of the nonprofit, whoever the leaders that we're working with, we actually take them through an 8-week training program where we work with them one-on-one to make sure they have everything they need to be ready. So they know what to delegate, how to delegate, they know how to onboard, how to have a weekly meeting with their assistant, everything they need to be successful. And I think that it's this kind of one-two punch that's allowed us to have by far, and it's not even close, the highest success rate in the entire assistant industry on the continent. We have a 96% long-term stick rate. And if anyone knows what NPS is, it's a customer satisfaction metric that goes from -100 to +100. Good is usually something like +30 to +40. We hover between +90 and +100. And it's because we have that combination of great assistant plus great leader. So here we are today, Chris, happy to be Serving, uh, Smart Real Estate Coach with, I believe it's 5, if not 6 great assistants now over the years. And it's been so—

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let me just comment on a bunch of things you said. You saw me taking notes, Tim, because I, I couldn't, well, I couldn't agree more because here, here's the deal. I've told numerous people this and then they end up calling you. Right. But the issue is you, we didn't, we hired great assistants from you, but I don't think there's been one exception to this. All of them have grown to management positions in the company. All of them. Now, one or two might not be here, but that was for moving on reasons. Like, it wasn't negative whatsoever. They moved on to bigger and greater things, and good for them. But we, we still have, uh, 2 people, for example, in my brain right now that are running the company. One runs the community and one runs operations. Zach may have told you when he was with you, but she, She runs him and the company. So that's a lot of work. Amazing. They are top quality. Uh, so I guess, all right, there's a bunch of things I want to unpack. One is, uh, interviews. Let me just, I'll go from the beginning of my brain as you were talking. How many, on average, how many people will you interview? I want them to understand how deep your process is. How many will you interview? You're going through, we're about to hire everyone right now with you. How many did you interview? For Shayna to get to the point of we're almost hiring one? I'm curious.

Shayna's great. Oh man, we're talking like your, your great assistant Shayna, who helped you get a little while ago, and she's now growing in your company. Now she's the one actually getting a great assistant, which is so cool to see when an assistant gets an assistant.

Oh, she runs, uh, when I say runs operations, she runs everything. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That's, yeah. She's so coachable. She's so upbeat. She's, she is like nothing. She does not miss a detail. She shows up. She showed up to every one of our coaching sessions, like, ready, hungry. I was just like, wow, this is really amazing. I didn't do the hiring of her. It was my team who hired her. So I hadn't met her before, and I was so delighted. So what's interesting is getting a great assistant is oftentimes like finding a needle in a haystack. The trick is there has to be enough hay for a needle to show up. So one of the secrets of Hiring a great assistant or really any role for that matter is just pure volume. You just have to look at enough candidates. And former me, like most entrepreneurs, thinks that's like, oh, I should probably look at like 3 to 5. And that gives me a good sense.

That's what we used to do. No.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're looking at anywhere from dozens to hundreds. Like, uh, what earlier days when we didn't have the, the communities and the kind of professional level tools that we had, we would look consistently at 100 to 200 candidates. Now, because our company reputation has gone up and we have so many great candidates who've heard about us, we don't actually have to look at oftentimes 200. We can look at something more like, uh, 50 to 100 or something like that.

Yeah.

But it is still, Not 3 to 5. It is like 50 to 100 typically for us to bring a winning finalist.

Okay. Who wants to be the next apprentice? Pretty interesting, guys. We started this apprentice program back as a July 4th, 2024 promo. That's where it started. And it was so incredibly effective. We were just going to run it for the summer. It was so effective immediately we kept it. It's in place now. And what is it? It allows you to get into the community, the Wicked Smart community, for less dollars than the QLS Home Study Course sells for right now on our site. In fact, when you go to smartrealestatecoach.com/apprentice-pod, apprentice-pod, when you go there, you're going to see that as an apprentice, you're going to get over $13,000 worth of coaching, the possibility for you to touch base with us if you want to, 4 or 5 times a week. And it doesn't exist anywhere out there, frankly. That's why we did it. We did it for 2 reasons. One, no one is giving you the support out there. We keep hearing feedback, which is how this was born, that other educators are not giving support. They're just selling stuff. So it doesn't exist anywhere and nowhere in the real estate education or coaching space. And we want to help you do one thing— deals. So we've wrapped the support mechanism around this. We've allowed you to get into a Slack community where the other associates who previously were protected in Slack. And now you get to jump in there and experience that for 12 weeks. You also get to come to the In the Trenches boot camp, which is private. It's a chance to hang out with the family team and one of the coaches for 2 and a quarter days in our conference room, roll up his sleeves, get calls done, get deals done. If you come with leads, you leave with deals. Absolutely incredible. I could go on and on. Go to the website right now. Check out more information about the apprentice and I'm going to give you the In the Trenches boot camp site because you don't have to become an apprentice. It just happens to be free with apprentice and associate. So 2 links I'm going to give you, super important. SmartRealEstateCoach.com/ITTB-Pod. That's going to give you some information about the boot camp. If you want to buy a ticket to the boot camp, it's more expensive, but you can just come check us out. About 1 or 2 people every time we run it do just that. Or become an apprentice and it's for free. smartrealestatecoach.com/apprentice-pod. That's awesome. And I, and I ask that because I want them to hear how much you, you do for them. It's crazy. Aside from the training you mentioned, everything else you mentioned, and again, the success rate with us is insane. That's why we're back to the table with you. So we wouldn't go anywhere else. Now, here's what I want to point out and have you comment on it. So in our community anyway, you're dealing with solopreneurs.

They start like that.

And then you take a, I'm going to use another person that you may not know the name, but Rick is in our associate community. And Rick went to you and he said he had 2 VAs calling. Fine. They're good calling. We have a group that calls just for that. And they're not as expensive, but they're trained to create real estate. But as soon as he got to his second or third deal and his life became a mess, And this, you know, all these things he had to juggle and all these plates. I said, okay, next is this, Rick. And he said, you gotta be kidding me. I can't afford that. So he went through that whole thing and now he speaks from the mountaintop. He screams that, oh, it's the best thing I ever did going to Tim. And, you know, they run his company now. So if you could comment on the difference between adding another, say, and I'm not poo-pooing any one service. I'm just saying the VAs, especially out of the country, aren't necessarily the answer when you're trying to scale a quality Process. Uh, any comment on that? Because there's a big difference in your EA versus just a BA.

Yeah, you bet. Uh, I don't know if I'm allowed to say his name, but we're talking about Rick A, right?

Yes.

He's the first.

Yeah. Oh, he's, he's one of our coaches. He's awesome. And he did what most don't do. And you know, you coached him. He, he'll say, oh, you gotta be kidding me, but he'll do it. And then he'll say, oh, you were right. And this happened like 10 times. It's, he's coachable. So yes, it's him.

I remember talking to Rick, this is years ago now, and he had not quite left his day job yet. And he was already coaching with you guys. He was making incredible strides with you guys as he's building his real estate business. And he gave me his final quitting day that he was like his last day in his day job. And I put it in my calendar and it was, I think it was a few months later or something. And And I made sure to email him on his quitting day because that's such a special day for every entrepreneur, for every investor, a day we remember forever. And it was so special to be able to celebrate that with him. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so to me it's like, you know, when you get someone who's domestic, who's in the United States or Canada, yes, it's going to be more expensive. I'll also say that what we're not looking to do here, we're not looking to get you an assistant. What we're looking is to actually duplicate you. Anything that you touch, whether that's related to marketing or sales or negotiating or deal craft, you know, or around your home even, or even if it's finance or Whatever. To me, it's not about you're getting a marketing assistant or a deal processing assistant. No, we're getting a mini you. Anything you touch, we want to take the bottom, say 50% of anything that you touch, want to get that off your plate and onto the hands of your great assistant who's based in the US or Canada, similar, same time zone, language, business culture. So there's no problem with them talking to anyone on your behalf. There's no time zone gap. It's, it's like an extension of you. Now, it's not a clone of you because a lot of investors and entrepreneurs, uh, they're not sure they'd want a second one of themselves because they have 100 great—

Yeah.

Yeah.

You don't want that.

Yeah.

You don't want that.

Yeah. Uh, they're good at throwing balls in the air. And so what they need is not a clone, you know, they need a complement. And that's what a great assistant is, is they have great attention to detail, very organized. After you throw all the balls in the air, they'll catch them and they'll organize them and they'll close loops and follow up to help keep you organized. And so here's the thing. If you imagine a surgery room, we could have 1,000 nurses in a surgery room, but no surgery can happen until there's one surgeon. You could have one surgeon in a surgery room and no nurses and surgery can happen. And the challenge is a lot of leaders will get really good at their craft. And then after that, get bogged down by all the work that goes along with that. And even if a person isn't like elite Olympic level at whatever they do, you know, but if you have base competency, you know, they're getting some traction that they've gone from being a nurse to being a surgeon. Well, the problem is they can only do one surgery per day because they're cleaning the surgery room and they're getting all the tools together and they're coordinating with the patient and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So what I propose is that the leader, the investor, the entrepreneur takes a look at their day and says, okay, what in my day is metaphorically speaking surgeon in the room work? And I'll expand on that in just a second. And what is it that is nurse in the room or janitor in the room or phlebotomist in the room kind of work? And we got to work as quickly as possible to get all that off the leader's plate. Now, how do we know if it's surgeon in the room work? Well, there's 3 categories of tasks that make up surgeon in the room work. The first is strategy. The second is high-level skill, and the third is high-level access. So what would that mean for a real estate investor? Strategy would be, okay, are we doing sub-2s? Are we doing buy and hold? Are we doing lease options? If we are, where are we doing it? Who's going to coach me on this? Smart Real Estate Coach is an obvious decision there. Then from there, how many deals am I looking to do? Who's going to be on my team? Am I going to continue to have a day job or am I going to get some other like today money while I'm learning Smart Real Estate Coach's methods? And that's like strategy, right? And then there's even more granular strategy, like how do I want to negotiate this deal or what terms do I want to give to my tenant? So that's all strategy. High-level skill, negotiating, very much a high-level skill. You don't delegate that to an assistant. Any kind of selling that needs to happen, Any kind of like knowing about financing, knowing about negotiating and deal structures, not just price but terms, all the craft that you're learning from Smart Real Estate Coach, that's going to be high-level skill. The third category is high-level access. So only the surgeon in the room has access to their medical license to sign off on certain things, just like a real estate investor has authority to sign off on documents and open bank accounts and that kind Only a surgeon has high-level access to other surgeons to say, hey, I have a tricky MRI, can you take a look at this? Just as a real estate investor has high-level access to their mentors, including at Smart Real Estate Coach, including to their peers, their fellow students at Smart Real Estate Coach. Might be a little weird if your assistant is trying to text your mentor. Yeah, I mean, that might be okay, maybe not. But I mean, if the surgeon is contacting the mentor, then it's good to go. So you can take any area of real estate investing or any part of entrepreneurship and you can split it into that category. Now you might say, well, hold on, Tim, my assistant can't negotiate deals for me. And I would say, that's absolutely correct. So let's say, what's the surgeon and the room work? The surgeon and the room work is going to be doing the negotiation. But when is What's the non-surgeon room in the work? How do we prep the operating room for you, the negotiator? Well, you could teach your assistant how to get comps, to look at the market to say what other properties in the area would be a good benchmark for us. Your assistant could then take that information, put it into a Google Doc, and that becomes your deal negotiating prep notes. And then they could take the link to that Google Doc and they could put it in your Google Calendar and attach it to that moment where you have to go do that negotiation. And your Google Calendar becomes the surgery room. And every single time entry on your calendar is the surgery room. Well, if we've got a surgery room, we want to make sure all the tools are in the surgery room. So that's why we put all the Google Docs and spreadsheets and whatever, we put that into the Google Calendar entry. One of the big errors I see over and over again, including in my former self, is I lived in my email inbox. First thing in the day, open it up. Sometimes I haven't even used the restroom in the morning. I'm rolling over, waking up, looking at my phone and looking at what's happening in the day. I think a winning situation is actually that an entrepreneur lives out of their calendar, not in their email inbox. So when an assistant can tee you up for every part of your day, whether it's negotiating or talking to the accountant or dealing or troubleshooting something with a tenant or a study session or coming to one of Smart Real Estate Coach's events and they're handling your travel and whatnot, that is where we want an assistant to be the mini-me. if you will, is anything you touch, they become an extension of you.

And that's simply awesome. Thank you. And that, here's the other big thing. I think, you know, I'm going to go next and that is the expense versus looking at it as a gen— a revenue generator. Again, had that conversation with Rick and many of our people because they go, oh, I can't do it yet. No, you can't afford not to. And here's what I relate it to, Tim. Our 3 paydays average per one deal, $45,000 to $350,000. In Rick's case, average around $100 grand each. That's why he left his job. So, okay, so you pay an assistant X and X is a fraction of one deal per year. It's just crazy. So could you just maybe lightly touch on expense versus revenue generation mindset?

Hey, I'll say if there's no business case to get an assistant, don't get an assistant. It'd be crazy to get an assistant if there's no business case. And that's true whether it's a North American assistant that we help you get or whether it's an overseas VA you get off of Fiverr. It doesn't matter. If there's no business case, don't do it. So I think that, I mean, in fact, there have, I mean, this doesn't happen super often, but I have literally been in discovery calls with potential clients. Sometimes they're real estate investors, sometimes they might be an attorney or like a coach or consultant, because we serve a lot of different industries. And I look at their situation and I say, it's too early. I don't think you should get an assistant, not from us and not from anyone. How about we book a call for 6 months from now or 3 months from now? And let's use the rest of our time in this discovery call to build a roadmap to say what would have to be true. And if we can't build that roadmap or we can't get there, then I really, I'm the world's worst salesperson. Don't buy from me. It's not right. So I think that's a personal decision that a person needs to arrive to. And we have spreadsheets for that. We can help a person figure that out if they want to, if they're curious, you can book a discovery call with us and walk them through that. I'll say that one of my big ahas is that yes, your assistant will forever be an expense, By the laws of accounting, your assistant is an expense on your P&L. There's no two ways around it. However, your relationship with your assistant is likely going to be the biggest profit center of your entire career because they're free. Your assistant is freeing up your number one asset, that's you, to be able to go and study more deeply with Smart Real Estate Coach, to go do more deals and It's actually you that's the number one asset. When I think about what Great Assistant does, it's actually not about getting you an assistant. In fact, it's not even about getting you your time back. To me, it's about fulfilling your potential in this lifetime. That's just never going to happen if you're stuck in your email inbox all day, or if you're stuck in a death loop of hiring and training and firing and rehiring and training and firing assistants that are not very good. I know I lost $10,000 on my very first ever hire, and it was very, very painful to be stuck in that death loop of having to rehire all the time.

No, it's months and it's, forget the stress, it's months and it's a lot of dollars. We've been there, especially prior to meeting you. So I couldn't agree more. Um, Tim, awesome stuff. Um, I'm sure, and I don't know when, but I think you're coming to a Wicked Smart Sit Down soon again, I hope. And if not, it will be on the books. Um, so for the Wicked Smart listeners, that takes place every Thursday at 4 o'clock and we bring in trusted advisors like Tim once or twice a month. So that'll be coming up. Tim, you have a book coming up. I don't know how soon, but do you want to talk about that a little bit? Yeah.

If people want to get on the list, depending when they hear this before it comes out, you can go to greatassistant.com/book. Great assistant, all one word, .com/book. You can register right there. And it's really the book I wish I would've had 11, 12 years ago. Ultimately, our time on planet Earth is limited. You know, in like Eastern philosophy, it really splits up the world into that which will be crushed by time and that which will not be crushed by time. And that which will be crushed by time is like our bodies and our bank account and our businesses, sooner or later we all do move on. In fact, if you're to extend it and say, given enough millennia, the United States will be gone and planet Earth will be gone. And given enough millennia, I mean, we're talking like maybe millions of years, but like it will be crushed by time. What will not be crushed by time is our spirit, is love, is items like this. And so to me, I want to support entrepreneurs in the limited time that we have in this lifetime. To arrange themselves such that when they reach the pearly gates, they have no regrets. There's this incredible quote, hell is meeting the man I could have been. And there's also an incredible book by Bonnie Ware. I think it's called The Regrets of the Dying or something like that. And she said the number one regret that people had on their deathbed, she was a palliative care nurse, I should add that. So she was talking to the dying every single day in her job as a palliative care nurse. The number one regret was that people had not lived a life truer to their desires. And I sincerely hope that every single person hears this, even if they're not with Smart Real Estate Coach yet, even if they never become a great assistant client, even if they are in a 9-to-5 job or they're a homemaker or anything like that, is that they can live their life minimizing the regret they may face by the end of their life, because we do have this life, time is ticking and every single day is precious. And I hope that the book can be a contribution towards people fulfilling that for themselves.

I love it. I will, you saw me jot that down. I'm likely get that for all of the higher-level coaching clients on my end. And we'll talk about that when you come on the sit-down. Do we have a rough date for that yet?

So we're recording this, it's August of 2025. It'll be probably middle to back end of 2026.

Great. Awesome.

Awesome.

I look forward to it. I know it'll be awesome. Guys, smartrealestatecoach.com/greatassistant for more information. Tim, is there anything that either a way to reach you or that we didn't just mention or a nugget or two that we didn't bring up that you'd like to share before we wrap?

If anybody wants to reach out, greatassistant.com is our website. If you want to book a discovery call with us, It's greatassistant.com/apply. It doesn't cost anything to book a call. If you're on the fence, not sure if it's time to get an assistant or not, we can walk you through a couple exercises to find out. And if we think it's not the right time, we can suggest other resources or other timelines for you to revisit this. And then from there, if anybody wants to find me, whether it's on LinkedIn or Uh, you know, YouTube or Instagram or whatever. All my social handles are Real Tim Francis and Francis is C-I-S at the end, not C-E-S. So Real Tim Francis with I-S at the end.

Sweet. Tim, you are awesome. Uh, thanks for hanging out with Zach and providing what you did for the last few days. I heard that was outstanding. And thanks for being part of the Wicked Smart community, buddy. Good to have you on again. We will not wait 5 years this time.

Thank you so much. Being a part of your journey and everyone who's listening, even, you know, whether it's a small way or a big way, is just such an honor and such a privilege for me. Thank you. Thank you so much, Tim.

Make it a great week, buddy. Okay. Wicked Smart listeners, that wraps up our time together today with Mr. Tim Francis. I want to make sure you guys get the link that we mentioned and that Tim can specialize in helping you get an executive assistant versus a virtual assistant. I'm going to make sure you all get this and I'll put it in the show notes. It's smartrealestatecoach.com/timfrancis. Great assistant. He will take amazing care of you, and he's done that for some of my highest-level President's Club, Chairman Club, and High Six associates that I personally work with. I hope to see every single one of you, space allowing, at our November 3rd, 4th, and 5th private In the Trenches boot camp here in Newport, Rhode Island. We just came off of the QLS Live event in Boston, so I can tell you that the boot camp's probably going to be super full. If you're new as a Wicked Smart listener or for whatever reason haven't taken action and gone and check out what the heck is the In the Trenches Bootcamp, go to smartrealestatecoach.com/ittbpodcast. That's smartrealestatecoach.com/ittbpodcast. Make it a great week. Hey guys, are you simply sick of juggling a dozen different software tools for your real estate business? I know I was, and I know I'm not a tech person, so it was frustrating. A subscription for this, you get a subscription for that, and they don't even work together out of the box. That's very frustrating, especially in the real estate world where your best time spent is going to be out in the field or on the phone with sellers. And now you're stuck hiring a tech guru just to make all that sync up. So let's ditch the chaos and let REI BlackBook handle everything. Automate your lead follow-up, track every deal, analyze things quickly for you, make offers all in one platform. In fact, with the Wicked Smart platform, we now have access— if you're in the Wicked Smart community, to all the other associates' properties. Can you imagine that? So you're brand new in the business perhaps, and your seller looks on your website and sees 20, 30, 40 properties, instant credibility. So you're going to get everything on REI Black Book from our custom workflows for lead generation all the way to closing. It has it covered. Try it today for just a buck. $1, guys. Visit smartrealestatecoach.com/reibb. hyphen DD. smartrealestatecoach.com/reiboy-dd. All right. Thanks for tuning in to the Smart Real Estate Coach Podcast. If you got value from today's episode, guys, be sure to subscribe so you never miss a future episode. It literally takes one nugget to access some of the things we're doing. And when you're talking the amount of the size, rather, the paydays, it's an opportunity cost that you can't let go. So don't miss an episode. And for goodness' sake, share it with someone who needs to hear it. If you're ready to find your best path for getting started on your real estate investing journey in general, head over to smartrealestatecoach.com/getstarted. We're going to help you take the guesswork out of your next steps. See you in the next episode.