She Built an Entire Real Estate Portfolio in Just 2 Years with THESE Tools

Ashley:
Owning rental properties doesn’t get easier. As you grow, it gets more complicated. And if you’re running your real estate business through texts, emails, and spreadsheets, that things are going to start slipping through the cracks.

Tony:
Our guest today built a cash flowing real estate portfolio in just two years, but what most investors don’t see is the systems behind that portfolio. And today she’s breaking down how she digitized her project management so she could run multiple rentals across multiple markets without losing control. So get ready to take notes because this episode is packed with tactical takeaways you can actually use today.

Ashley:
This is the Real Estate Rookie podcast, and I am Ashley Kehr.

Tony:
And I’m Tony j Robinson. And with that, let’s give a big warm welcome back to the show to Jamie Banks. Jamie, thanks for joining us again.

Jamie:
Thanks so much for having me.

Tony:
So Jamie, you previously joined us on episode 5 42 where we got to deep dive your story, your origin story as a real estate investor. But one of the things you mentioned during that episode was how you built systems around your portfolio and we thought it was such a cool little tidbit that we wanted to bring you back. So we’re excited to today go into not the portfolio itself, but the tools and the systems and the processes that have allowed you to scale this portfolio.

Ashley:
So Jamie, let’s start with someone that maybe has one or two rentals. They’re listening right now. What are the most common ways you see them accidentally creating chaos in their business?

Jamie:
I would say having more than one way of doing something. So I remember one thing that was a big irritation for me was having more than one way of paying vendors. It was one property you have for short and midterm rentals, cleaners, handyman, and women vendors, maybe a runner, someone who stops by and I remember just taking whatever way they’ll take payments. And so I’m creating PayPals, Venmos all of this versus having one system that I was using. And then kind of same thing with communication, text, email, WhatsApp, turn messages, lists can kind of go on and on. And I think it’s just so chaotic then when you want to recall the information or remember how or who to pay when you have so many different sources you’re looking at for that information.

Tony:
That’s a great point and just multiple ways of doing it. And it’s so funny you mentioned payments because that was one of the first big pain points for us where we were scaling our short-term rental portfolio. We were paying a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons and we were still using Venmo and I don’t know if you guys know this, but there were caps on how much money you can send through Venmo on a weekly basis. And we kept hitting these caps, so we’d use all of the money for my wife’s account until she hit her cap. Then my account, then our partner’s account, it’s like sometimes we would spend so much money that all of our accounts would be caps and then we’re trying to figure out how to do that. So side note, I know we’re going to talk about project management software today. One of my strong recommendations for you guys is to get the right business banking platform. I use Relay Ash, you use Base Lane, but having a tool that’s actually built to support small business and real estate investors in particular can save a lot of that headache. So not to go too far down a tangent, but you just said that and it brought back a lot of dark days of sifting through Venmo transactions, trying to figure out who got paid for what reason.

Jamie:
Yeah, it seems like some PTSD, but I definitely get it. It’s so hard, especially then with bookkeeping tax season, it can kind of just not having the right system again with just one property can really create a headache for all different reasons.

Ashley:
So how do you help someone tell the difference between normal growing pains and I need a better systems now?

Jamie:
That’s a great question. I think really identifying what is the problem. I can give a perfect example. I remember I was talking to someone who was like, my virtual assistants are the problem. I’m like all of them, every single one. And they were from different places and I’m like, five people can’t be the problem. Let’s talk more about it. And it really was all of them were complaining that there wasn’t one place for them to look. So if they’re like, oh, who’s the cleaner for 1, 2, 3 Main Street? And it was someone doing arbitrage scale, they have over a hundred properties, it would take them 30 minutes to find the vendor. And this is an emergency situation. And so I think just digging in of what is the problem or coming in from what a system fixes, because usually you can, whether it’s a communication issue, whether it’s I can’t find things issue, whether it’s not clear on the process issue, it usually can come from having a better system, having a standard operating procedure or SOP. I feel like that’s usually the key of most issues where growing pain is just going to be that there’s maybe things are happening too fast, but again, with the right system, I think a lot of the growing pains can go away.

Ashley:
And Jamie, can you explain what an SOP is and what it stands for?

Jamie:
Yeah, so SOP stands for a standard operating procedure and just a fancy, I was fancy way of saying just like what is your procedure? So before we did this interview, I have a new sales rep I created A SOP for that was literally four sentences, one sentence per bullet because that’s all I have for right now. But it’s a new role and as it develops, that list will kind of go on. So if it’s handling a maintenance request, you get the maintenance request, you delegate the maintenance request, then you pay the vendor. Obviously very, very simple way of putting it, but really that SOP is going to be the base of how something you want it to happen.

Ashley:
Are you using any software to create these SOPs? I know I’ve heard of Tango or Loom to help you create these things instead of just doing it from scratch.

Jamie:
Great question. So I use kind of a combination of Loom Scribe and Chat GBT. And so it really, I won’t go too much into the type of SOP, but with Scribe or Loom, those are going to be better for a simple process. For example, how I pay my vendors, I can record my screen and scribe just for people who don’t know, creates a document based on I click in the base, I use Base Lane team, you click in the base lane, you go to this tab, this tab, it would create an SOP for you. But with Loom I would say it’s more explaining it’s going to be a video. This is great. I have mostly Filipino virtual assistants on my team and that’s great because they’re very visual. However, both scribe and Loom, we would download into whatever method like CSV or docs they would download in, we put it in the chat GBT to put it into my ideal formatting.
And then I would say sometimes you’ll have a longer process like maintenance requests. You can’t really use Loom or Scribe for one of those because a maintenance request is there’s a lot of different steps and what ifs and if this happens then do this. And so that’s going to be something that I probably would start in chat gbt because guess what? Every real estate has dealt with a maintenance request and it can give you a basic of this is what happened. And then as you’re going through a maintenance request kind of live, which I always recommend making the SOPs when you’re doing it because if not, it just kind of creates duplicate work and then you might forget things. And so as you’re updating it, then you actually update it to your exact process.

Tony:
Jamie, I couldn’t agree more with that last point you made of making the SOPs as you are doing it. And I found that to be one of the best ways, and we will talk a little bit later about how it’s actually go about building these out, but I can’t agree more with that statement. But I want to go back because I know that we maybe all can deal with a little bit of pain in our business, especially as we’re scaling. There are certain things we’re just like, yeah, it sucks a little bit, but hey, I can manage it. I guess when you were personally earlier in your portfolio, what were some of those things that were painful but manageable at first that later became maybe bigger pain points or bigger bottlenecks for you?

Jamie:
I would say not logging just key information on the property and what I would say the key information was the furniture. I have all midterm rentals, so just understanding what I bought, how old it was, because then when it’s time to replace it or you’re submitting an Airbnb request because someone broke something, you need to know exactly what that is. I would say another thing is just the key information would be, well, my clothes on the property and we have our inspection reports, we’ve gotten all this information on the property and then also your insurance agent, what insurance do I have on the property? The coverages I would say of the first year, I’m like, I don’t need to log all this. And then comes tax time and then you’re like, oh shoot, what is going on? Or you’re at the point where you want to get another quote and then you have to go through your email to find what was my insurance information so that I can get quotes.
And so things like that that I would say that happen during the acquisitions process or even things that might just happen once a year come that second year, you’re going to be really upset at yourself for not at least having it saved in one area or one source of record for that information. I think tax time is usually when investors really realize how not disorganized they’re, because then everything’s in different places. So information like that is definitely something that’s key to, although it may seem redundant and a lot of work, but just something for me that was like, okay, I need a little bit better systems just to make tax time a little easier.

Ashley:
If an investor is ignoring these problems and just continues on, and I personally have done this when I first started out and waited a long time before I put my systems in, processes in place. But if they just keep managing everything manual, what starts to happen if they ignore these problems?

Jamie:
I think two key things, one is burnout. There will become a time where you’re like, you can’t do it. I’ve seen people are like, I just had to extend my taxes. I don’t care how much I owe because I just cannot do it too much. You don’t want to get to that point because that’s not just burnout, that’s also missed opportunity slash money because you’re paying or even opportunities where now I can’t take on additional properties or if you’re co-hosting or providing services, you can’t take on additional clients because you’ve reached your max. And so if you’re at the point where burnout is something that just is taking you and then also saying no to things, not because you don’t want to because your business can’t handle it, that’s a key sign as well.

Tony:
And Jamie, I think that being a real estate investor forces you to wear a lot of different hats and someone could be really, really good at door knocking and finding good deals and talking with sellers and doing all the work to acquire the deal, but they could also be very, very poor at what goes into being able to manage that asset and actually see it reach its full potential based on whatever underwriting you initially did. And I get that systems isn’t the sexiest word, but it is such a necessity for anyone that wants to scale beyond one or two properties because as you add more chances are you’re probably doing this while you’re working a busy day job while you’ve got maybe family commitments or community commitments or whatever it may be. You’re not doing this in a vacuum. So you’ve got to be able to make sure that you’re maximizing your impact while minimizing the amount of time it takes for you to actually manage these properties. And it starts with what we’re talking about here

Ashley:
After the break. Jamie breaks down how to replace chaos with clarity without getting lost in tech or over building systems as a real estate investor. The last thing I want to do or really have time for is to play accountant, banker and debt collector. But that’s what I was doing every weekend, flipping between a bunch of apps, bank statements and receipts, trying to sort it all by property and figure out who’s laid on rent. But then I found a base lane and it takes all of that off my plate and it’s actually BiggerPockets official banking platform that automatically sorts my transactions, matches receipts, and collects rent for every property. My tax prep is done and my weekends are mine again. Plus I’m saving a ton of money on banking fees and apps I don’t need anymore. Get a $100 bonus when you sign up [email protected] slash bp BiggerPockets pro members even get a free upgrade to Base Lane Smart that’s packed with advanced automations and features to save you even more time. We’ll be right back. Okay, so now we’re back and we’ve talked about why systems matter. Let’s get to very practical. How does someone with one or two rentals actually start building them? So Jamie, someone listening and maybe they feel overwhelmed right now thinking that we have been talking about them and this is how they feel. Where should they even start? What’s the first system every investor should build?

Jamie:
I would say a system that’s your centralized operating system, which really is just going to like a fancy way of saying your system of record. This could be a Google sheet or an Excel file where you have a list of all your tenants, all your properties, all of your insurance or utilities. I just think that having something centralized, it’s going to help and then you’re going to build off of it when you’re buying, when you’re applying for loans, there’s a lot of different times when property information is needed and even if you have two properties, instead of having to memorize the address and making sure that the zip code is right, just having a Google sheet of what that information could really help out in the long run.

Ashley:
That is one thing that I created and I love, I call it my master entity list and capital letters and it’s like starred in my Google drive to the top thing to easily access. And I have the LLC name, the EIN number, I have each point of contact, so who’s the accountant, who’s the bookkeeper, who’s anything that anybody would do for that LLC, the va. Then I have which properties it owns. I have any mortgages that are in any of those properties, who the lender is the bank accounts. I have the routing number, I have the account number. I can’t even tell you how many times I go to have to look up the routing or account number to do a quick pay an invoice through email or things like that that this has made it so simple. But I think just I agree, starting out with some kind of spreadsheet or document that all of that basic information in one place for you has been super, super helpful for me. As just a starting point too,

Tony:
I’m going to echo what both of you just said. I call ours isn’t the, what did you call it? The entity master, command center, whatever it’s called. Ours. I like the man center. Ours is just called the property tracker, but it has a lot of those same details and I just pull mine up. So we have the date that we purchased it. We have our purchase price, what we originally bought it for, the escrow company that we used, our settlement statement, our closing disclosures, the entity name, our short-term rental permits, our parcel numbers, what day the trash gets taken out, because that’s big for short-term rentals. I like to have in the bank details where we have the last four of the debit card associated with that property, the door lock type. We have different door locks on different properties. So just all those details that you feel like you find yourself trying to reference, getting them into one location, especially as you start to build the team around yourself. One of the best things that I think we’ve ever done now, Jamie, one of the reasons that I think we all kind of bonded over this is because we’re also using the same tool, I believe for most of this. So I use Monday Ash, what are you using?

Ashley:
Yeah, I’m using Monday.

Tony:
Monday And Jamie,

Ashley:
Yeah, monday.com.

Tony:
Monday.com as well, right. So we are all monday.com evangelists. So Monday, if you’re listening to this, you got to make sure you sponsor some episodes in the future because we love the product. Jamie, sir, are you building out your, I guess lemme maybe frame the question this way. How do you decide what lives inside of a tool like monday.com? There are other options out there like Airtable notion, there’s lots of other popular options out there.

Ashley:
Google

Tony:
Sheets. Google Sheets even. And I guess that’s what I was going to ask. How do you decide what lives inside of just a basic Google sheet versus what makes more sense inside of your actual property management software or management tool?

Jamie:
That’s a great question and I think it really comes to the intended purpose, right? So let’s say you’re someone who has one property, your purpose is just having the information somewhere. I’ll tell people all the time, don’t use Monday, use a Google sheet. If you have one property, your might not buy another one for a while. Google Sheet’s probably going to be your best bet. But the great thing about Monday, and I’m a Monday nerd, so there’s work management, which is probably when you think of Monday, when you Google Monday, that’s what comes up. But there’s the Monday CRM, just know I’m particularly talking about the Monday CRM because it has different capabilities. With the Monday CRM, it really takes things to the next level of like, okay, so I have a property in New Orleans, I have to get termite pest control. If you don’t get it exactly 364 days before, it goes from 300 to 3000, so I need to pay the three, that’s a scam.
But anyway, I’m not missing that date. And then also I want to do it after the fiscal year for tax reasons, whatever, I’m not missing that date. If it was just in Google Sheet, I would still have to put a reminder somewhere of that date or I’m not going to remember. I know now because it’s like PTD, it’s January 7th, but I don’t want to have to remember that date all the time. But in Monday I can have it listed, have it, mine’s called just like my property management board, and then I have a reminder of, I think it’s 14 days before that due date. I’m getting a reminder and then I build off of that. Now I have a virtual assistant who handles property management, so he’s getting that information in an email and is told to pay it. And so then monday.com or any system like Asana notion, there’s similar systems that will do those actual automations for you.
And I think another thing is with this Monday CRM especially, it could take some of those tasks away. So a lot of times things we have to do as investors or email someone or a checkout is happening, a maintenance request is happening, someone needs to stop by the property for X, Y, ZI, for me, wanted to use a system that can then take care of sending that email. Because if I’m sending the same email to the same person, even if it’s quarterly, bi-annually, if it’s annually or if it’s every three years, I want to be able to send those things automated. And that’s from maintenance requests. I raise private money for my deals. There’s not really a system when you raise private money of making sure that those lenders are getting the information and are getting paid. And so really monday.com for me has really helped me take that next step. And for people who actually want to be able to do some of those things, those automations and things, that’s where a system like Monday could help versus a Google sheet or another spreadsheet.

Ashley:
Jamie, I want to clarify a little bit here. Are you using monday.com as your property management software then too? Or are you using anything else outside of that?

Jamie:
No, I use monday.com literally for everything. I say acquisitions when a new, I pretty much buy things on market. My virtual assistant scrubbing Zillow based on my criteria, entering the data into my money.com board. So the data you would get from Zillow, the price they want, not the price I’m going to pay, but square footage, bedroom bathrooms, because I’m buying a certain type of property in the same market. All my calculations are done by Monday. I know I can get a thousand per bedroom. So Monday’s doing those calculations and spitting out my projected cashflow. And then if it meets my criteria, I’m being alerted to take the next step and basically do some more due diligence to make a offer. Or if it doesn’t meet my criteria, I don’t see it. And so from that to property management, the only thing Monday can’t do is rent collection. So I use baseline for rent collection. It can’t collect any type of payment. And then even from asset management. So I have an equity partner on a deal and she’s getting basically automated reports so I don’t have to email her every quarter to tell her what’s happening.

Ashley:
Yeah, that’s interesting. I never thought of it as a property management tool, but that would definitely work. I use for my short-term rentals, I use Hospitable, then I use Turbo Tenant for my long-term rentals. And then my monday.com board is more of just tracking or if I’m doing a rehab to track the rehab project, different things like that. Tony, how are you using Monday and then what other software are you using to compliment it to manage your properties?

Tony:
Yeah, more the way that you described Ashley, it is more of a repository of information, but I’m still using my property management software hospitable for my short-term rentals, price laps or pricing, all these different things. But we are using it similarly to how Jamie described where we wanted to automate some of the work associated with these things. I’ll give you guys a real example. We had a property where we missed the deadline to renew our short-term rental permit. And when that happens, it is the worst thing because not only do you effectively have to close your short-term rental until you can then go through the entire approval process all over again, the price is also double for a new application versus a renewal. So even though we’re the same exact donors, same exact property, nothing changed. They’re treating it as a new application because the original one expired.
So instead of it being, I dunno, I think it’s like $400 for a renewal, it was close to a thousand dollars for a new application. So we’re doubling the cost there. So anyway, it was a big deal. We had to shut the property down, had to pay double the fees, wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again. So now inside of Monday we already have the short-term rental permit on there. Now we just added another column that says permit expiration date. And we have now reminders that go out 90 days before that expiration date, 60 days before that expiration date, 30 days before, 21 days before and seven days before. So now literally there should be no chance of us ever missing a permit renewal. And it’s because all of that’s automated through Monday. So that is one of the big reasons that we like it because there is that functionality there. So it’s a bit of a blend ash, we’re using it both in the way that you and Jamie are using it. So Jamie, you talked about this a little bit, right? You talked about acquisitions, you talked about the actual property management, but how do you personally break your rental business into its different buckets or categories and how does that kind of correlate with how you’re using your project management software?

Jamie:
Yeah, so I break it down into, I call ‘EM department. So acquisitions, property management is an asset management, also dispositions if I’m selling anything. And then I have a CEO kind of department where it’s basically things that I have to do. And so I think with that it helps because back in with monday.com, but also I’m sure with other tools is you can build your automations based on those things. So if it’s an acquisitions tool, we know time is money. We know that with acquisitions that goes a lot faster. So our automations for due date is a lot sooner of something comes in, we need to do it now where maybe asset management, that’s really going to be the things that are done. Think of your owner’s reports, think of your high level, how is my portfolio performing? Could also be looked at as portfolio management.
That’s really for me and my partners internally, that’s not something that needs to be done right now. So we can kind of set due dates apart from that. And then I think too of what I want to delegate, I know I mentioned a little bit, I use virtual assistants and my goal is to not have to work. And I have a consulting business with Monday com and I hope investors with their systems. And so I want to focus on that. I don’t want to be focused on my midterm rentals day in and day out, especially with midterm. And my average length of stay is about five to six months. We don’t have a lot day to day. And so the things we do have are going to be your, when someone moves in, all of those, the messages they’re getting, the moving instructions, the confirmation, reminding them of trash day and beloved trash day or wifi, things that we might already tell them, but we know they’re going to have a reminder in. And then also the things for the move out instructions, some properties in an HOA that they have to turn in their parking badge and things like that where there’s things that are happening at the beginning and end of that process. So automating those has been really helpful. And then just having the virtual assistant in the middle. So anything that I can delegate, I want to have categorized or put into money.com because then someone else can do it. And then also I would say things that are happening, and reoccurringly could be monthly or even annually.

Ashley:
Can you maybe walk us through how you turn something messy into something beautiful like a turnover or maintenance issue into a repeatable process that someone could do over and over again?

Jamie:
Sure. So I would say let’s do my maintenance process. So my strategy, and I’m talking about in the last episode is more working with businesses for midterms. So while my properties are on Airbnb and different sites are mostly working direct, and the problem with direct is direct could be email, it could be text, it could be different things. And so one thing I do, the only way that we take maintenance requests is by someone filling out the maintenance form. If you text us, if you email us, if we tell you, however we’re not, we’re going to say fill out the form. What I’ve done is took it a step further. I have a QR code that’s actually on the refrigerator of each property that takes them to the form so that I’m sure you’re eating every day. So you can see that the maintenance request form is there, and I just tell all my tenants that just ensures that we get it timely.
And then also it asks all the questions that we’re going to ask anyway. And so it’s a short form, maybe five questions in monday.com, you can have triggers. So if someone says it’s water rate, water is very bad and can be very detrimental to a rental property. And so there’s additional questions, where is the water? Can you include a video? How deep is the water if it’s a standing water issue? And so then they fill out the maintenance request form, a few things happen. One, they automatically get an email that says, hi so and so. And then based on what they select, there’s an automations on what this will say, but essentially says, Hey, so and so thank you for your maintenance request. If it’s urgent, it’s going to say, we got the request, we’re on it. We’re going to be in touch as soon as possible.
If it’s wifi, we remind them our business hours are nine to five, we’ll get in touch with you when we can. It’s something more professional than that. But even I jinx, I have four properties, but I still want to run a professional management company. And so even them knowing and just getting the confirmation that, oh, hey, they got it. I know they got it, I know they’re handling it, that’s helpful. And then on the backend, it’s being logged into the system. Everyone on the real estate team, which is me, and then also one of my virtual assistants is being notified of that request. And then my virtual assistant is taking it forward. We have another, they’re called boards of the property vendors because I’m in three different markets. And then, so based on the category I’ve selected, my virtual assistant would choose the appropriate vendor.
Then once they’re selected, they’re notified automatically via email as well of the request. And then from there, there is a lot of back and forth, not a lot, but there could be back and forth depending on the maintenance request. And just what my so p says is that it has to be logged. So even if I’m dealing right now with a washing machine that knock on wood, hopefully done, but there’s been maybe three or four different conversations with the tenants with my handyman of this install. And so every time something happens, it’s being logged in Monday, like talk to handyman, wrong washer was bought or talk to tenant, wash machine still isn’t working. All of those things were logging so that when it comes down to five months later, and maybe there’s an issue, maybe there’s not. Or maybe unfortunately, sometimes there’s, especially with Airbnb, like a tenant could come back and say, Hey, this wasn’t done.
Or the Airbnb usually coincide with the guest. And so even having that log that I could print out, that I could download the PDF screenshot, whatever I want to do to show, okay, this is exactly what was done and this is when it was done. And so that means with the maintenance request, we’re not going through email, text, whatever other WhatsApp and Airbnb, let’s say, although there might be a different method of communicating, everything is logged in Monday. And so I know my VA knows if someone else is hired on the team, they know exactly what happened with that request. And then a good thing, when I say with asset management, what I do of putting my CEO hat on is quarterly I’ll review the maintenance request. So with this washing machine issue I’m having, I noticed that there was three repairs. There shouldn’t be three repairs on the wash machine. That’s wasting money. We can just replace it. Replace. And so that’s something that my retro assistant isn’t going to say, Hey, this is the third one, because I’m not dealing with it day to day. But as I saw it and I was doing my review, like asset management, I realized, okay, I’ve spent X amount of money on this repair that’s been through repairs. It’s time to replace this.

Ashley:
Jamie, I guess, why haven’t you decided to switch to a property management software that has a lot of this already integrated into it? So for the maintenance issue, like switching to a property management software that has the troubleshooting built into it, the AI chat that’s talking with the tenant and then having all that communication in one place instead of having to screenshot it from text and then uploading it into Monday. What do you see as the benefit of using Monday compared to a property management software?

Jamie:
I would say of using a, because I have used, and I used to co-host, so I used a software and if you used to have short-term rentals as well, there’s no channel management. So that’s a drawback that monday.com has. But for me, when I had a property management software, I also needed something for the information because I think a property management software will do some of the things, but you can’t keep, I have three lock boxes for all properties. One that’s visible, two that are completely hidden because I’ve had too many lockouts, I couldn’t put all the different locations of those attached to my property file. As well as I have different types of business. I have a business, my portfolio, and then also I hire, I’ve hired a few virtual assistants this year. I can also have my hiring process on Monday. And so for me, when I was looking at different tools, I realized, one, as I want to grow a business that I can delegate and then also sell one day.
I want to be able to have a tool that’s the source of record. And definitely Monday can have the drawbacks with payment. You can’t collect payment. But then also Don have to set up payment once. So it’s okay with going outside of the platform to set it up once. But I think for me, just having a system that I can train that my virtual assistants and other team members can really learn, and then also just having multiple hats of my business departments of my business in the same place helps me. And then also too, I think with there’s different integrations and Monday can integrate with QuickBooks, Monday can integrate with different things that I’m also using for my bookkeeper, for other outside vendors. And so I like that. And I think I always tell people to try out multiple to see, because for me, I, I felt like doing property management half in the software and then half on Monday or even Google Sheets because I had to keep the information where someone maybe who has short-term rentals, it might be better suited for them to have a property management software or channel management software like owner Sify, et cetera, and then just use Monday as a backup.
But for me it was just personal preference of really wanted everything in one place. And also, I’m a data nerd, so I like analytics. And so I can track a lot of the data by my average rent rate or raising private money, I can use those analytics to then show my private lenders like, oh, this is how my property’s performing. Loan me all your money. So a few different reasons for that.

Tony:
Well, Jamie, we talked about why building out these systems and processes are important. We covered how to actually start going about building those out. And I actually want me and Ash to share how we’ve started building out those in our own business as well. But then more importantly, once you’ve built it, how do you make sure you stick with it? So we’ll cover those right after. A quick word from today’s show sponsors. Alright, we are back here with Jamie Bakes and we just discussed why creating systems and processes are so important as you build your real estate portfolio. And Jamie shared some really strong tactics on how to start building those out. But Ash, I want us to kind of open up, give a peek behind the scenes for our own business as well. If you remember, if you can, what was maybe one of the first things you built an SOP around and what was your process for actually putting it together? Because I think a lot of folks, again, can understand the importance, but it’s the how where they actually get stuck. So I know I’m sending you in the time machine right now, but if you remember, what was that first one?

Ashley:
Bookkeeping

Tony:
Time was also bookkeeping. That’s funny.

Ashley:
It was an SOP of enter the website for the bank, get the bank login, log in, go to bank statements. And then I was using QuickBooks login to QuickBooks, go to this entity, go in, go to reconcile. And it was like going through the monthly bank reconciliation from start to finish of what you would need to do. And that was my first one. It was just literally a Google Doc step by step by step by step. Yeah,

Tony:
Mine was almost exactly the same thing. We were using ESSA when we first started and when we first launched our portfolio, I was doing all the bookkeeping and that was one of the first things I wanted to get rid of. So we hired a virtual assistant, and as part of her training, I just recorded myself going into essa, categorizing every single one of the transactions, attaching the receipts, and that was the first SOP that I created. But now obviously we’ve got lots and lots and lots of SOPs. We primarily use a combination of Loom and Google Docs for hours. But Jamie, I’m curious for you, how do you decide what actually needs an SOP versus something that can just remain as a one-off? Where is that tipping point on the scale where it actually makes sense to turn it into an SOP?

Jamie:
I would say I myself, two questions. One is someone going to have to do it again? I know I like to spend my time thinking about growing my business, not thinking about a process that I had to do a year ago, and now I have to remember. And then also, will it be delegated? A lot of times I’ll do something once and I’ll decide, okay, this is something that I’m then going to delegate. And so just taking that extra 15 to 30 minutes, it’s not always fast to create the SOP, but taking that extra time to create it then will save me time later. And so I feel like if it’s something that you’re not going to do for a while or you’re still maybe deciding between softwares probably doesn’t make sense to systemize it, to put it into an SOP, but yes, you’re going to be doing it on a recurring basis or delegate it. That’s kind of like my trigger is an SOP is needed.

Tony:
I would agree. Anything that I find myself repeatedly doing that I don’t want to do, that’s usually the trigger for me. Okay, I need to put this into an SLP. Right now we’re actually dealing with this in our business where we switched over to new payroll and scheduling software for our hotel, and I was the one that spearheaded setting this up. So I’m still the one with a lot of this tribal knowledge and it’s been working great. But one of the things that I haven’t offloaded yet was the actual publishing of the schedule. So literally, I’ve been getting texts from my team like, Hey, Tony, schedule’s not out yet. Schedule’s not out yet. So I’m like, I just need to record the SOP so I can then give this to someone else to go knock out. But there is that pain of like, man, it just takes longer when you have to record it and voice through everything that you’re doing. But now, this is the fourth week in the road that I’ve done this, and had I just done it the first time, I wouldn’t have to be doing it anymore. So I get that it’s painful, but we’ve got to be able to kind of move through that pain so that we can delegate it to someone else.

Ashley:
It’s also so awkward talking through it, especially the first goal times you do it. Okay, now I’m going to go into this. I think the first time I ever did that, I stopped the recording and start it over three or four times, and eventually it was just like, okay, it doesn’t matter, just record it.

Jamie:
Yeah, I think with Loom it’s really cool. They have Loom ai, so it takes out your As and ums and filler words and stuff because then I’ll forget, I’m recording and I’m sitting there, I’m like, what am I doing? Oh, I forgot. So yeah, it’s definitely something that can be awkward, but I feel like now I don’t even know the number of SOPs that I have, but I realized that it’s easier to have it because then I can, even if I have three or four SOPs that are a few lines long, I can throw that into AI chat GBT to kind of boost up to make sound a little bit better, or to even combine into one process. So instead of like, oh, how to list on Airbnb versus Furnish Finder, you could have one that take two kind of incomplete ones, put it together so AI could create one for you. So AI definitely specifically, excuse me, chat GBT for me helps. And then also on chat gbt, you can actually upload your SOPs. I think I have the business chat g bt, but you upload your SOPs as your company knowledge. So if my VA’s asking about what’s the checkout time at X, Y, Z property, it pulls my SOPs, it links to monday.com, it links to everything, and we’ll tell ’em the checkout time. So that’s another reason for having it is because then you can also train the AI tools on how to work smarter for you.

Ashley:
I remember we had a guest on who talked about this where they took everything, every document they had for their company, and they fed it to ai. And so it was like their company directory, so anybody on their team could ask a question. I just remember my brain exploded after they said that. Like, oh my God, that’s such a good idea still.

Jamie:
Yeah, now it integrates. Well, now it’s even easier because it integrates with Google Drive. So assuming you have all your SOPs on Google Docs, it just takes a few minutes. But that’s been so helpful. Or it’s like, oh, that’s why I’ve created all these SOPs and taking so many hours. They’re right at the end of the tunnel.

Tony:
I believe it also connects to money.com. Now, if I’m not mistaken, chat GT does. So if you’re saving those things in any of those places, you can go there. So Jamie, obviously we talked about why it’s important. We talked about how to do it, but I think for a lot of folks, they’re worried about perfection as they start to build out that first or those first few SOPs. So how do you balance just getting it out versus it actually being good enough to be useful? How do you strike that balance? Because in my mind, it’s an iterative process and what your SOP looks like today is probably different than what it might look like a year from now, but you got to start somewhere. So I guess how do you draw that line of like, okay, it’s good enough. Lemme just hit ship. Let me hit publish on this one.

Jamie:
Yeah, I think for me, I look at it as the first time you do it, maintenance requests, but that’s at the big SOP. But if you’re sitting down and you’re doing the request and you’re putting every single step and let’s say three to four different sections, you have number one A, then you have the Roman numerals, right? You’re never going to finish that. SOP, that SOP is going to be a work in progress for probably the rest of your life. And so what I like to do is like, okay, if I’m starting the SOP today, that’s the one I started today. I have four or five steps. I’m not going into that next section. If you’re on Google Doc, I’m just doing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I’m saying go to this website. Number two, submit the details, whatever process. And I would say of just put enough so that if you weren’t feeling well or you were on vacation the next time it came up, someone could read through it and at least know where to go.
Or at least I’d rather someone come to me with one question, not 20 questions. So just starting somewhere is important and I think, or even something sounds I’ll do, because again, I love SOPs and systems. It’s all just time block. Okay, I have 30 minutes to get this SOP to the correct place. Because if you’re a perfectionist or you’re like, oh, well what if this happens or this, it’s just like it’s better to have something than nothing because remember, the purpose of the so P is to help you that next time. If you’re doing it, you don’t have to start from scratch or if you’re delegating it, they have a base to start. And so you’re not going to start perfect. I used to work for a large corporation. I worked for Capital One, and that’s where I learned system and processes. And so obviously my systems and processes aren’t as great is Capital One that’s been around for, I don’t even know how many years, that’s 40,000 employees.
That’s my level of perfection. My system suck compared to them. But just knowing that I have the steps that I need to get through and just know of, for me, I’ll create an SOP. Well, guess what? I’m not going to be doing it. My virtual assistant is So if my virtual assistant can do A to B without asking me, it’s a success. I don’t care what the so P says, right? It’s a success. And so realize too, if you’re doing it for you to remember and then you’re like, oh, it’s not perfect, well guess what? Oh, you’re going to see it. Or if it’s for your VA or another team member, just making sure that it at least has the, its intended target of getting through the step. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Again, I don’t know. I use open phone. They changed their name to, I don’t even remember. So technically half my SOPs are wrong because it says open phone. That’s okay. Next time that we use the SOP where we need that system system, we’ll just replace it because you’re always going to be updating your SOPs. It’s going to be a living, breathing document.

Ashley:
I’ve also done SOPs with people’s names, as in then if the position changes, it’s not their name anymore, but I find and replace on Google Docs. Very, very useful in situations like that. But I guess, Jamie, before we wrap up here, when is the time that you fix a system? When do you realize that it’s breaking and you actually need to go in and change or adjust or create a new system for something?

Jamie:
Honestly, if you’re spending more time thinking about how to do the process than doing the process, it’s broken. So like a maintenance request, I shouldn’t be thinking about what to do. I should be calling, emailing, doing what I have to do to get the maintenance issue solved. Or even this one key thing, underwriting, right? If we’re analyzing deals or you haven’t looked at a deal in a while and you’re trying to remember how you analyze or remember your underwriting assumptions, and remember, you could just have the SOP because you should be spending your time going from point A to point B and securing that deal, analyzing a deal, writing in your offer, that’s where you’re actually going to make your money in that deal not and trying to remember how you analyze the deal.

Ashley:
Well, Jamie, thank you so much for coming on today and giving us a mini masterclass and SOPs and project management. You mentioned monday.com, there’s Asana. There’s a ton of other programs that you can check out like Jamie had said a bunch of times, like Find what works for you to be able to do this. So Jamie, where can people reach out to you and find out more information?

Jamie:
I’m most active on Instagram. It’s under my name, Jamie Banks and in Real Estate.

Ashley:
Well, thank you guys so much for listening today. If you enjoy the show, make sure to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform and make sure you are subscribed to Real Estate Rookie on YouTube. I’m Ashley. He’s Tony, and we’ll see you guys on the next episode.