Sunday, August 25, 2013

Lessons Learned

This summer has been fun, busy, crazy, and lesson-filled. We currently have 4 flip properties - selling 1, listing 1, and finishing up the other 2. It's been interesting having this many properties at once, with each one being in a different stage. Learning to juggle accounting, shopping, hiring, scheduling, ordering, communicating, etc. has become even more important. We've gotten pretty good at it! But, one of the main lessons we had to re-learn is in this business is you have to be prepared to deal with people who don't stand by their word. Most people are looking out for themselves - even if it's not in their best interest. It just happens to be the easiest way to a payday. Nevermind all those conversations had and promises made. Even by those you've hired several times in the past...

For instance, one contractor - we'll call him John - was hired by us to fix up one of our properties. Now, John is known for being slow, unreliable, messy, and unorganized - but his prices worked in our budget and we had used him on a few properties in the past. We knew his weaknesses and felt like we could work with him if we broke the project down into chunks instead of handing him the whole job without supervision (he had issues with details and task completion). Now, John came up with the complete date, the price, and the timeline of tasks. At completion of the project, his excuses were endless as to why he shouldn't be penalized ($50/day past completion date...again, agreed to by him). The rain, his children, his subcontractors, his bank account...I could keep going. But I'll spare you. All excuses we had heard 1,000 times in the past. He could not grasp why we would hold him to the contract. He fully expected us to give him pass after pass. This is after we found out he had been sleeping at the job site with his wife and child...among other things. Long story short, his wife called (yes, can you believe it??) and needed to be informed as to why his check was short. After having a conversation (with her crying most of the way through it after realizing her husband was lying to her), we got off the phone exhausted, bewildered, perplexed, frustrated, and extremely amused that THAT experience actually happened...And remember, this was just the short version. Just believe me when I say the whole experience was exhausting from start to finish...

But, I'm reminded that is not the only attitude we've dealt with this summer. Another contractor we have used on many occasions thanked us for some recent work we had given him. He was struggling a bit in his business and our "job came at a much needed time." Now, this man is educated, hard-working, knowledgeable, and dependable. Working with him is always a pleasure...getting a "thank you" was just a bonus. Those positive experiences remind us  to not dwell on negative experiences for too long. We always need to learn from them and use them to help grow our business into a thriving, profitable enterprise.

Speaking of growing our business, here's a pic of Flip #12...She's going on the market this week! She's come a long way from the day we bought her off our truck magnet sign. And to think...we are projecting a profit of 5 figures from this deal. Well played, truck magnet. Well played. :)

Before & After...