Flipping Houses: 8 Tips For Finding The Right People For Your Team
How do you find the right people to put on your house flipping team?
No matter what size your real estate investment plans and goals are, you are going to want to build a team. Your team helps you scale, get things done, maximize the ROI on your time, and turn your vision into reality. In fact; chances are that no matter how intelligent, skilled, and efficient you are personally, you’ll find that a lot rests on your time. They can be a speed bump to your goals, or they can take you farther than you imagined. So, how do you find the right team members?
To be clear; here we are specifically talking about regular staff and contractors, not third party businesses and professionals like real estate agents, mortgage loan officers, and insurance agents. Though many of the same principles may apply is wisely picking these team members too. It’s important. Your team will determine your altitude and velocity in the flipping houses game. So, how do you find your ‘A-team’?
- Know What You Really Want
Picking the right people requires that you know what role you are trying to fill. You need to have some idea of the job description to be filled. What tasks need to be done. What sort of person can do them. Plus, how you want them to drive your success in flipping houses in both the short and long term. Write this down. Peter Drucker recommends comparing this to potential recruits’ history and experience.
- Hire on Values & Attitude
It’s clearly a lot harder to train for values and attitude than skills and specific tasks. Yet, via Success, author and coach John C. Maxwell says 46% of hires won’t make it 18 months. 90% of those failed hires are the results of attitude based issues like coachability, temperament, and motivation. Ability and experience are important. Attitude, coachability, drive, are mindsets that can be great assets across a variety of tasks over longer periods of time. Remember, hiring is expensive. Keep your churn rate low if you want to maximize your venture’s net profits.
- Fit
Perhaps most important is finding the right fit for your organization. You don’t want a super-smarty pants with a great resume who isn’t going to fit in, and will work against you every day. They’ve got to fit in with the culture and be on the same page. Your styles have to complement each other. If they don’t it is likely to end on a sour note.
- Multiple Interviews
This is a strategy that both Brian Tracy and Tony Robbins employ. Robbins says his firm will even interview recruits at their home, and ride in their cars. Tracy recommends using the ‘Law of Three’. That means 3 interviews, with 3 managers, in 3 locations. That may be too much for some new real estate startups and house flippers who are just getting started, but it can help. It gives a much better perspective on the person.
- The Right Amount of Hoops for the Role
Being thorough in your hiring process is smart and valuable. However, this also needs to be balanced with who you are hiring, in what medium, and for what role. For example; when recruiting a new 6 or 7 figure salaried manager who is expected to stay on in-house long term – you want to be as diligent as possible. On the other hand; it may be a poor use of resources to put a part time, short term data entry assistant through the same hoops. A really talented freelance marketer or consultant is also unlikely to carve out days of their schedule and income to jump through your hoops, when they have plenty of work, and plenty of your competitors vying for their help. In this case you are going to be losing out by making it too hard and expensive to interview with you.
- Set Clear Expectations
Finding a good fit relies a lot on setting clear expectations upfront. This includes tasks, goals, and codes of conduct. If you don’t tell them, don’t expect them to know. Everyone is coming in with a different perspective and world view. Put it on paper, make sure you are on the same page. The more detailed you are upfront, the less issues you’ll have, and the less time you’ll spend fixing issues later.
- Build an Attractive Brand
Sourcing the best talent for a house flipping business is as much about being a magnetic brand as it is knowing where to reach out and look for help. At every step of building your brand keep in mind how your image will resonate with potential hires. Will it draw top talent to seek you out and offer to work for you at good rates? Or will it make them skeptical, even if you are headhunting with big sign-on bonuses to offer? This includes; what text you put in brochures, what videos are released of your office, what you say on social media, and reviews of your workplace by media and ex-employees. Are you a leader people will line up to work with? Have you been ranked a top place to work? What does it say about someone to be hired in your company?
- Hire People Who Force You to Level Up
Hires can either drag you down, or pull you up. One of the big mistakes real estate investors and CEOs make is to hire down. Some want to be seen as the smartest and most powerful in the room. Others hire the best, smartest, and most talented and experienced they can find. Why? Because they know it will propel them to greater heights. Don’t be afraid to hire veterans with 10 years’ experience, even if you are new. Hire older and more experienced help, and younger more tech and trend savvy recruits. Get the brightest minds on your team and they’ll make things happen faster and bigger, and will keep you on top of your game.