Everything gets easier when you put in the hours up front. Whether you’re buying real estate, starting a career, or launching a business, things snowball when you invest early.
Do it now. You can’t start any younger.
I had an enlightening conversation with Sam Silverman, Vice President of Sales at Prometric, about how he got started early by investing in real estate to create multiple income streams.
“If your goal is to buy your freedom back or to have the financial flexibility to live on your own terms, build your investments in a way that you can live off the cash flow itself,” Sam said.
His top three pieces of advice are:
1. Make a big effort up front to get the snowball rolling.
2. Figure out what people hate doing, and get really good at those things.
3. Use the law of compounding everything to your advantage.
Starting a side hustle
Investment pros tell us to diversify our holdings in the stock market. We need to diversify our own revenue streams, too.
But where do you start?
Stocks? Crypto? Real estate?
“I grew up in New York City,” Sam said, “there, you’re only investing in real estate.”
So Sam bought a house as soon as he could, following his own advice to…
Make a big effort up front to get the snowball rolling.
The earlier you start, the earlier you learn what not to do.
Such as investing in single family real estate…
Toilets, termites, and tenants proved to be a pain Sam couldn’t cope with. Or he could, but it was too much effort for too little return.
When you consider your side hustle, think about it in terms of how you earn your salary. Salaried employees rely on a consistent base amount. But other employees get reimbursed based on their performance, not the time they put their butt in a chair.
If you make your money in sales, you need to allocate your time and money to whatever returns the most for your time and effort. Same goes for side hustles.
As Sam learned, single family homes don’t offer a high ROI.
“You’re managing property managers, you’re managing tenants, you’re managing renovations,” Sam said, “but all of those things take away from your core function.”
Mistakes tell you why and how you need to educate yourself.
Educate yourself
For any business, scaling is everything. Do your research on how to scale.
“Commercial real estate always pops up because it’s the most money you can do in a transaction,” Sam said. “Specifically, multifamily properties were my focus.”
Doing research and educating himself led Sam right to fractional ownership of larger properties. That’s how he learned his second piece of wisdom:
Figure out what people hate doing, and get really good at those things.
Sam listened to real estate podcasts to understand the guests. He even called them up and interviewed them. This approach allowed him to vet people before working with them.
“The biggest thing is just trusting who you’re investing with,” Sam said.
When to add staff members to your team
Online virtual assistant. Certain things can get outsourced to a virtual assistant. Maybe they can do website updates, sales, marketing, whatever takes your time away from your core focus.
Know your limits. But remember you’re going deep — very, very deep — not wide. Keep your primary responsibilities as an investor front and center. If adding a team would distract you, don’t add one.
How to get started
Once you have some success, it compounds quickly. The sooner you land a successful venture, the sooner you can enjoy the benefits of compounded success.
Remember the law of compounding interest: When you let money accumulate over time, it grows. Exponentially.
The same law works with any income stream. Early, long-term investments grow. Exponentially.
Use the law of compounding everything to your advantage.
It’s never too early to start.
At the beginning, it’ll seem like you’ve got your shoulder to a boulder. But eventually, you’ll feel like you’re running a hundred-yard dash.
Whatever you do, the earlier you launch and the more committed you are, the more money you make. That’s especially true in real estate. Younger people who invest in property have more potential down the road after they know what they’re doing.
Building multiple streams of wealth, through real estate or any other source, eventually gets you the flexibility and freedom you want so you aren’t tied down to a job you may hate.
Then you can decide what you want to do, not stick with something you have to do.
As Sam puts it, “Do a lot of things that suck until you get good at them. Then, everything gets a lot easier.”
Get in touch with Sam on LinkedIn.
For more engaging sales conversations, subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or on our website.
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