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Posted about 14 years ago

Working ON Your Business... Versus, Working IN Your Business -- Part 2

I would like to start out the second part of this article by sharing a short story that drives home the importance of having a vision for you business. 

As discussed in Part 1 Michael Gerber identifies in his book The E-Myth Revisited, that vision as one of the critical legs that all entrepreneurs (read real estate investors) must possess to grow and build their business.  Yet, most real estate investors only have a glimpse of that vision on the day they start their business… and then it gets relegated to the back corner never again to see the light of day.

Now… on with the story…

There once a great timber company that possessed the best lumberjacks (technicians) and whose (managers) the had developed the best and most advanced processes and methodologies for cutting down trees.  Their reputation was the envy of every timber company in the region… as this company could enter a forest and harvest more board feet of timber in one day then most companies could harvest in a week.

And that is what they did… Day-in, day-out! 

In the middle on one highly productive week where the technicians and the managers were cutting timber at an awesome pace, the owner decided that he would climb to the top of the tallest tree to observe his splendid operation.  Once he had climbed to the top and he started to survey the operation he went into a panic!  To his horror his efficient and profitable operation was cutting down the WRONG forest!

I will let you imagine the consequences of having realized that not only had his highly efficient operation cleared out the wrong forest, but his company had just spent a small fortune to get this forest cleared.

Lets take a look at what happened here.

As presented, this company had the best processes and methodologies… which means it had great managers.  Those individuals who Gerber claims are obsessed with making sure everything works according to the plan.

Also, it is evident that this company possessed some of the best technicians in the area as they were able, working with the managers, to use the processes and methodologies at a highly productive rate.

So, what was missing?  How did the highly capable company end up in the wrong forest?

Simple… the owner was not clear on the VISION for his company and allowed the managers and technicians to cut down any forest that got in their way… and they did a darn good job of it!

OK… you say to yourself… how does this apply to me as a real estate investor?  What is the point?

The point is simple… as mentioned in Part 1, every real estate investor must have the capability to: (1) create and articulate a vision, (2) develop repeatable process and methodologies, and (3) adequately perform the tasks at hand in order for their company to grow and prosper. 

The challenge however is that most real estate investors don’t have a vision for their company.  They just want to invest in real estate and make money.  It doesn’t matter how.

And so… they find themselves jumping from one approach (forest) to another, recreating the wheel every time they perform a task, or they do such a poor job executing the task it might have been best not to do it.

My question to you is this — “where do you fit in this scenario?”  Are you the visionary?  The manager?  Or the technician?

I will close out this series with a discussion of the roles of the manager and technician and how real estate gurus create huge problems for the uniformed entrepreneur.

To Your Success...

Pete

 

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Peter R, Giardini is the founder of The Club, Real Estate Mastermind a National Real Estate Investor Coaching program whose philosophy is that real estate investing coaching/ mentoring can only be provided by experenced "local" coaches in a one-on-one environment. To find out more about The Club visit or send an email to .  To learn more about Pete visit www.theclubteam.com/about.asp.

You can listen in and participate in Pete's Real Estate Investors' Mastermind radio show every Thursday night at 9:00PM on BlogTalkRadio... .  To hear my weekly Current Market Update click on the green button at the upper left of this post.  Copyright 2010.  All rights reserved. 


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