Learn How To Delegate Tasks In Your Businesses | Land Investing Podcast

Hey, it's Mark Podolski the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and I'm really excited for today's guest. He's like our doppelganger with systems and automation. But clearly I'd be remiss if I didn't properly introduce my co host, the brain, the professor, your flight school sherpa. You know him? You love a, you love him. Scott Todd from Scott Todd.net landmodo.com Learn anything about anything. Investor ninjas.com Scott Todd, how are you, Mark?

Man, I'm great. How are you?

I'm excited to learn on better ways to get out of our businesses. Are you?

I mean, look, that's the thing is like we should always be working to get out of our businesses and let the business work for us.

Us.

Because that's what a business is. It's a bunch of systems.

Right?

So let's see, let's see what someone else does.

Yeah. So our guest today is Bill Allen from blackjackre.com he has ostensibly a house flipping business, but really, if we're really going to be accurate, he's a house flipping entrepreneur. Bill Allen, how are you?

I'm good, Mark, how are you?

I'm great, I'm great. So Bill, let's rewind the tape and talk to us how you got started and how you transitioned from being in your real estate flipping business to getting totally out of it.

Sure. So about six or seven years ago I flipped my first house. I was a navy pilot, so I flew helicopters and airplanes for the navy for I'm still a reservist, so I still fly for them part time. I'm on 18 years so I'm almost done at my 20. But I was active duty for the first 15 years after college. So I just worked for the man, got a paycheck, got deployed, came back and discovered real estate like seven years ago. Bought a couple rental properties, flipped my first house, made $43,000. And I was like, wow, this is half of my salary for the whole year. And it felt pretty good. So I said, can I do this again? And I was doing it like one house a year for the first couple years until I kind of bumped into somebody who showed me the way, said that like systems and processes are the way to go. I'm an engineer and that was interesting to me. I love like automation and systems and back end numbers, number crunching and stuff. I don't really love like the, I didn't really love the People side of things. The I like the back end. I like the numbers. I like making money. So I flipped, like, two houses, one a year for the two years, and then somebody said they were doing 150 houses a year, and I didn't believe them and started kind of understanding. Listen to a podcast just like this. Got interested, figured out how I could get into a room with that person, and I did. And then I realized that they're not really any smarter than me. They weren't any different than me. In fact, I probably knew a lot of things that they didn't know. And it was interesting to see somebody who couldn't screw in a light bulb that was flipping 150 houses a year. And I had no idea that that was possible.

That's how Scott Todd felt about me when he met me.

Well, it's true. Seriously, people listen to. There's all different kinds of people out there that have built automated, systemized businesses that don't have to be run with them. And so when I saw that, it just showed me that it's possible. Right? So then I went on this mission to figure out how to do that, and that was kind of it. I started trying to grow a business instead of another job. What I found was I created another job for myself. I had the side hustle of house flipping, and I was going to the job site on the way to go fly. I was stopping by on the way home. The contractors didn't do what they were supposed to do. They were all gone. Nobody was there to babysit them. And it just would take me six months to do a house, and then it would take me six months to find the next one. So I could only actually do one a year because I was getting in the way. I was there every weekend. I was there in the nights. I was there in the mornings. I was away from my new baby, all this stuff. So I just. There's got to be a better way than that. Just like Scott said, like, we're trying to figure out how to remove ourselves, like, actually create a business to remove ourselves. And I didn't understand that concept then. I just wanted to make more money. Like, you know, my goal was to flip 12 houses a year, figure out how to do that, and that would bring in, like, another $300,000. I'd be living the good life on a retired Navy commander pay. So that was the goal. It changed when I met this guy, and it showed me that it's possible. So that's kind of the beginning. Maybe that's a Good place to start.

No, that's a great place to start. And first and foremost, thank you for your service. Scott. Todd, how did you feel about that story?

I mean, Mark, I think that's a great story because what happens is, a lot of times is, you know, we look at people and we think, well, wow, man, they're doing it and why aren't I doing it? Or they must have some secret ingredient or. Or they have lots of money or whatever. Like, we. We make excuses for ourselves. We justify our existence. And the reality is, is what we should be doing is kind of what Bill did, or like I would say, even what I did when I started, which is, well, if they can do it, I can do it. What gives? You know, it's just. It comes back down to desire and stop giving yourself excuses.

Yeah, I know. Exactly. And so, Bill, you know, this is sort of a mental hurdle for a lot of people. So can you remember when you were. You built yourself this. This job, and it might have been a really good job, but it was still a job. And then you had to figure out, well, how do I make this a real business and get myself out of it? And that mental sort of switch where, well, the cheapest person I can hire is myself, but I don't scale. How do I do this? Can you kind of walk us through the steps you took to get from I've got a job for myself to I'm going to start scaling this.

Yeah. I think the first thing is, like Scott said, you got to realize that it's possible and other people have done it before when you get to that point. I said, I just did a quick exercise. I took the last. The last year of the amount of. How much money did I make in the last year? I looked at approximately how many hours I worked in the previous year. So I included all my rental income, my Navy pay, the houses I flipped, my dividends in my stock, my ira, all that stuff. How much money came in the last year? And then how many hours did I work? And then I just took the money that I made. I divided by the hours that I worked, and it's a rough estimate, but I was at like 55 bucks an hour then. And so I said, that's pretty good. You said, like, we're the cheapest person that we could hire. Well, I really wasn't the cheapest person that I could hire then. And I actually realized it. And so now I can hire. The next step I did after that. So now I know My value is $55 an hour last year. I want to get that up. And I had kind of two choices at that point. I could get it up by working less hours and just doing the same tasks that I was doing, trying to figure out how to do that or make more money and work the same amount, or do both. How can I make more money and work less? That's kind of where I wanted to be, right? And so then I said, what am I doing? Like, writing down all the things that I'm doing? I just took a sheet of paper and said, what am I doing? At that time, I was buying lockboxes from Lowe's and Home Depot. I was putting lockboxes on houses, I was turning on utilities, I was going to the auctions, I was going on appointments, I was sending out mailers, I was actually handwriting mailers and mailing them out to homeowners. I was comping properties. Everything that I was doing, making offers, even the high level stuff, I was mowing my grass, I was doing, like, what was I doing throughout the day? And then I looked at it and said, would I pay somebody $55 an hour to do some of this stuff? So I knew if I could get some of that, those things off my plate for 10, 12, even $15 an hour, then I could work less and just do the same things that I'm doing, make more money. So that was the next step that I took. And that was the kind of aha. That I had, that I didn't really put a value of $55 an hour. Nobody ever told me what they make per hour other than their salary. So I knew that I was making like 110,000 as a military pilot. But I never looked at it, like, how many hours that I work and how many I'm trading hours for dollars. So a lot of people do think like that, like they're a $10 an hour employee or $15, and if that's the value that they put on themselves. And I got to this place, I think, you know, personally of saying, I'm never going to. I never saw anybody that made more than $200,000 a year. Like, in my world, that was it. Like. And now I'm getting around people that are making millions of dollars a year. And I wanted to make a million dollars in my whole life. So it just changed the whole concept and mindset that I had. So now I said, well, why do I have to put a value on me and my time? Like, I should never put a number on that. So how can I get it to $100 and eventually $1,000 an hour, $10,000 an hour, like what's possible. So I hired a $12 an hour person. Like that was the next step is, hey, I got a whole list, a job description for this person. 12 bucks an hour. You can put lockboxes on, turn on utilities, make phone calls, answer the phone, send out some marketing pieces for me. And I did the higher level stuff. I made the offers, I went on the appointments, I pulled the lists, I did the things that I can do. I did some backend data analytics and stuff, but they did the QuickBooks, the number just put data entry, all that stuff I had. And that was the big shift for me to hire that first person. Scary as all get out. I could lead people in the military as an officer. I've been on deployment, I've been overseas, I, I've done a lot of crazy things and I just never thought of myself as somebody that would hire, like be responsible for someone. So that was the scary part and that was like the next hurdle that I had to jump over after that.

Wow. I mean, I love the logic of just figuring out what your time is worth. Scott, Todd, what were your thoughts as walk us through his process?

Yeah, one of the things that like drives me crazy is when, is when I see people doing stuff that they can hire somebody for cheaper, right? Like I always ask in flight school, I'm like, hey, how many of you are still uploading your list into LG Pass? And they're like, yeah. And I'm like, why are you doing $4 an hour work? You can hire a VA to do this for $4. Why are you doing it? And they're like, what? And you know, ultimately it's so much, it's so easy to do the low dollar amount work. That's not the scary stuff in the world, right? Like the when you allow yourself to do thousand dollar an hour work or ten thousand dollars an hour work, that's scary because now you're pushing outside your comfort zone and it's easier to go do the work that like, I don't know, upload a listen to LG Pass, then to go change, you know, like where your comfort level lies. And that's ultimately what you want to try to do is as Bill said, let me go do the $10 an hour work. Get rid of that. Let me go do the $50 an hour work. Hundred hour, thousand dollar, you know, $10,000 an hour work. That's where, that's how people make money, you know.

Absolutely. And so Bill Once you figured that piece out and you started delegating the lower dollar an hour work, how did you get to even that next level where you're doing CEO type of work?

Yeah, you know, I think the big thing that Scott touched on it, like, scary to hire that person for some reason. It's more work in the beginning when you start hiring these people. And I think for us, we're like, well, I could just do it, or I could show somebody how to do it and go through that whole process. So the downside is the fact that, yeah, you got to actually take a step back before you take two steps forward. And that's what I realized. I said, I got to pour into this person. And for the first year and a half, two years, I would say I did a pretty good job of that and that kind of growth. I organically grew my team that first year from just that one person I called my lead manager to about. We had five of us on the team, including me. So we had four people at the end of that first year. And we went from doing one deal to doing 67 deals the first year. And that was only in about eight months time because it took me about four and a half months to get my first deal under contract as I was running. So that was this organic growth that started happening. And I still remember you're asking me about the next step, but the next step was I was sitting around a conference room at my quarterly meeting. So we operate off of Eos. It's a book by Attraction by Gino Wickman. So we run our company off Eos. And I was at my quarterly meeting, I look around the table and everybody was looking at me for the answers to everything. Like my marketing manager, my sales manager. I had one salesperson, I had one marketing person, I had one lead person, I had a dispositions person who sold all the contracts for us and all of them, and a transaction coordinator. Every single one of them would look to me for the innovation and the answers to the questions. They weren't the experts in their field. I was the expert, just giving them and delegating the tasks like you talked about. And that was a big problem for me. I started instead of reading books about real estate and things, I started reading books and listening to things about what CEOs do and business owners do. And that's when I realized, like, I have to be actually be the dumbest person here, not the smartest person here, or the person that knows the most, because I would never be. It would always have to flow through me, like, if I wasn't available to take a call, they couldn't make decisions. And so. And I was failing them because I wasn't empowering them to do those things. I was actually giving it to them. And I would usually say, what do you think? But then I would kind of say, that's wrong, and make a change and adjustment. So what I realized is I was failing to grow the company the way that I wanted to.

I.

Because I'd always be a cog in the wheel. I'd never be able to get myself out. And so that was the moment for me that I said, I've got to make a change. I've got to start empowering them. And if they're the wrong people, then I got to go find the right people that are the experts at marketing or are the experts at sales or they empower themselves just as much as I empower them. So we kind of kept growing for another year or so. And I think the big catalyst was when I got to the point where I could bring in a COO and. And somebody who could really run the company and make the decisions that need to be made. So that next step for me was kind of realizing the fact that I'm the thoroughfare here with every decision that gets made.

Yeah, there's this great Harvard Business Review article called who's got the Monkey? And it really just encapsulates everything you said, where someone would come to you with a problem, that's the monkey, and then they would give to you, and now you've got the monkey. And, you know, for whatever reason, intuitively or instinctively, we like to be valued or useful, so we just go ahead and solve the problem. But by doing that, we're actually hurting our team and hurting our productivity and hurting our own business, which hurts everyone on the team by not empowering them to. To think for themselves and solve their own problems. But I'd love to know Scott Todd's thoughts, because he comes from a Fortune 300, like, with 50 background, big company.

300, Fortune 300.

300, Fortune 300. It's big.

You know, it's big.

You manage, like, hundreds of people. So what are your thoughts, Scott?

Well, I think that that's the thing is, like. And Mark, you mentioned it, and if anybody goes back and listens to the podcast that we did with Mike Michalowicz, he mentions it. Right? Like, what happens is we want to swoop in, and Billy even mentioned it. Like, someone would say to us, you know, well, what do you think? Or what Do I do here? And we forget that we're paying people for one thing and one thing only, and that's their brain. Right? Like everybody that we pay, we're paying them for their brain. So when it comes to making decisions, we want them to use their brain. But oftentimes we swoop in and just.

Go, I got it.

Here, let me just do it for you. They didn't learn anything. Well, what they learned is to come back to me next time they have a problem. And then beyond that, what they, what they, what happened was, and Michael, it's brought this up. Look at, look at any superhero. They swoop into town, they solve the problem, they fly off again. What's left in Gotham City? Mess, Right? Like, we swoop in, we solve the problem. The team didn't learn anything. We, we now have a mess and they're now picking up the pieces while we go off. And we thought we saved the day. Well, all we did was we disempowered our people. Empower your people. Let them make decisions. Let them fail. Let them flop. It'll be okay. They'll learn from it. We all learn from our mistakes.

Absolutely. So Bill, you've now gone from doing everything to now creating the systems, the processes, the automation. What is life like now for Bill Allen? What the hell do you do all day?

Well, so we got it to the point where I was working like an hour or two a week and I just bought another company like a year ago and started over. So I left the military after 15 years. I went into the reserve. So for the past two and a half, three years, I've been in the reserves. I have three little boys. I have a six year old, three and a half year old and two and a half year old. My middle son had open heart surgery. So the reason I left the Navy was because he had four open heart surgeries the first six months he was alive. He's got a bunch of special needs things going on. So I was there for every single, every single time that I could be there. Doctor's appointments, all these things. I was there for our oldest son at the time where my wife was at the hospital and somebody needed to care for Will, our oldest and, you know, just be there for the family at that time. And then, you know, I'm a worker though. Like I'm not just going to sit, sit around and do nothing. So I wanted to figure out other ways to make income, other things to do other creative things. So, you know, I, I went and started helping with that, that group that I joined. So the guy who was flipping hundreds of houses joined his mastermind group and became kind of a leader inside of there. And then I ended up buying it from him. So about a year ago now I'm doing it all over again. Like I am starting over. I'm rebuilding my team and that company, building the culture, doing all that stuff. I always say, like, I'm one hire away from removing myself. So like right now I just hired a COO for that company. He's part time now. He's kind of hiring somebody for his flipping and wholesaling company and onboarding him. And eventually he'll come over here with me and then I can work less and do it again, I think so. You know, the interesting thing that Scott said was when you empower your people, here's the problem that I had. And I think a lot of people are gonna have this problem. You, you have the answers. Like, you know the answer. You know what you, what you would do if you were in that situation. Like, you know, and not telling them is hard. Especially when you're like a driver, a leader, an entrepreneur like you. You're like, I think I have the 90% solution here. Right? We never really have the 100% certain what's going to happen, but you got two options at that point. You can give them your 90% solution, which they probably have another way that they're going to go about doing that thing. When they come to you and they say, hey, what do you think about this, boss? And you say, no, do it like this. They're going to have a 50% buy in with that. Maybe they definitely won't have 100% buy in. They won't be on board. They won't be excited about it. They're going to be like a little bit beaten down that you didn't like their idea. So they got, you got that. You give them the 90% solution with the 50% buy in or they bring you the 70% solution. It's not exactly how you would do it, but it's, it's probably really good. It's a good idea, but it's not exactly how you think it should be done. But they have 100% buy in. They are going to execute that thing. It's gonna, it's gonna be more effective. Even with the 70% solution with 100% buy in that I found is instead they'll turn, everybody is listening to this. They've turned around and walked away from the superior manager, a boss, somebody in your world, and gone he doesn't know what the heck he's talking about. This is wrong. I'm going to do it because they told me to do it, but it's not right and they're not going to put 100% into it. So that's what I've had to realize the hard way a lot of times because I am the person in the meeting who's like, I don't know. Sometimes I'm like, I got it wired. I know what's going on and I'm going to give them the answer. I have to sit on, I have to sit, I have to be quiet, I have to relax and I have to force myself to not give my input. Otherwise you'll be in your business all the time. So that's what I'm doing now. I really actually work more now than I did before, but I'm also having a lot of fun doing it. But I also get to spend. I'm in marketing. So I just volunteered myself to do the Cub Scout popcorn sale because we just got into Cub scouts for my 6 year old and I'm listening to them talk about how they need more money for the the pack and I'm like, you guys only sell $6,000 of popcorn a year. Like I could sell $100,000 of popcorn tomorrow. And so they're like, alright, you're hired. And so I'm doing some of that stuff, coaching the soccer teams, stuff like that, just kind of hanging out. I bought an airplane, I get to go fly in it from time to time and just, you know, take some time off. Thursday, I'm going to take time off. I'm going to go canoeing with my son and just try to, try to have some fun. So that's what I do.

Bill, you and Scott have a lot in common. Scott's a pilot as well and he owns his own plane. Go ahead, Scott.

Yeah, it's right this second. It's getting the end of the overhaul, but yeah, it's going to be nice to get back in it again.

So, Bill, your mentorship has been really great. And before we get to the tip of the week, I just want to mention our sponsor, Flight school is sponsoring this week's podcast. Learn how the next 16 weeks can literally transform your life. Work when you want, where you want, with whom you want. Be a Bill Allen. Be there for your family when they need you. Be completely present because you've built this passive income machine. But how are you going to build it? Well, let Scott Todd be your Sherpa up that mountain of land investing and take you from where you are now to building that machine in only 16 weeks. Learn more go to thelandgeek.com training thelandgeek.com training alright Bill Allen, what is your tip of the week? A website resource, a book, something actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What do you got?

Well, I'm going to give a book that pretty much changed the way that I look at my company and even my personal life. And it may have been said on here before, I have no idea, but I had this guy at my event last year speak to everybody in October. His name is Jocko Willink. And him and Leif Babin wrote a book called Extreme Ownership. And that book right there really kind of changed the way that I look at things, simplified a lot of things that we do. Was able to allow me to delegate a little bit better. And we've hired him to come in a couple times, him and his team and just some amazing stuff. So those guys are awesome. They're also former Navy guys just like me. So we've got a lot in common. I've flown them around in the back of my helicopter there in San Diego, dropping them off and letting them parachute and fast rope out of the helicopter. So that's it. Extreme ownership. I'd say every single person needs to read that. On the planet of planet Earth, we would all be a lot better at treating each other kindly professionally and our businesses would be more successful if we follow those very simple rules.

That's a great book. And for those of you that are not familiar with Jocko Willink, go ahead and google him, but his bicep is bigger than my head. Scott's head. He's just unreal guy and an amazing leader. Has some amazing stories. That's a great book, Scott. Todd, what's your tip of the week?

Mark, Here we go. Here, do something different, right? Like do something completely different. And here's, here's what my recommendation to you is. Arrange for all your friends, family, whatever, a zoom party. Have you had a zoom party yet, Mark?

No, because. No.

Okay, look, do this, look, go to this website. Go to.

Actually I have with my fraternity brothers. That was fun.

Okay, okay, go to goparagon Co. Goparagon Co. And hire an entertainer, hire a comedian, hire, I don't know, a chef, hire whoever you can. Hire people, you can find people. Right on. Go Paragon. Book them like you can get a comedian. $150 an hour. Okay, well get some friends together. That's like a night out, you know, have some fun, laugh, break the mundane world that we have going on. Treat yourself.

That's a great tip especially I'm doing it.

I'm definitely doing that. My tip of the week though, could be life changing. Learn more about Bill Allen. Go to blackjackre.com we'll have a link to it blackjackre.com Bill Allen, are we good?

I'm good. Are you good?

I'm good. Scott. Todd, are we good?

I'm good.

Mark, I want to thank the listeners and just remind them the only way, the only way we're going to get the quality of guests like a Bill Allen from blackjackre.com is if you do us three little favors. You got to subscribe, you got to rate, you got to review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review to support@thelandgeek.com we're going to send you for free the $97 wholetailing course how to double your money 30 days or less. So please do that. Alright, Scott, are we ready to do this?

We are, man. Let's go.

One, two, three.

Let let freedom, freedom Ring. Ring.

Pretty good.

Not bad, not bad. Bill's like, that's the last time I'll come here. Thanks, guys.

Take care.