Beware: It's Actually Pretty Easy To Fall Into a DIY Trap | Ep 32

James: Welcome to the Furlo Capital Real Estate Podcast where we dive into the intricacies of passive real estate investing. And our mission is to equip people to invest wisely in both property and people so that together we can build wealth while improving housing. I'm James, and this is my wife, Jessi.

Jessi: Awesome. I'm going to throw you for a loop because I'm going to die. Something, something different. So every time you say, and it's our mission, I think in my head, should you choose to accept it? I'm like, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. I'm like, duh. I think that in my head, I'm like, yes!

James: Alright, I gotta, we should figure out how to create like a custom.

It's not that, but when people hear it, they associate it with it, you know, one of those. Like they do a lot of follow up movies where it's like, this is kind of the theme song, but not really. And that's what we should do just to really nail that association. All right.

Jessi: All right. Let's get this. Every time.

And our, and our mission, our mission, should you choose to accept it, our vision, I

James: could do that. Mission and vision, our values. Whatever. Yeah.

I've been reading about culture values recently. It's interesting, but we're not going to talk about that right now. Okay. I have a confession to make. Oh boy.

I blew it this last week or so. I know better, I don't know I'm setting you up here, but I did it anyways and it is so hard to fight this particular urge. Oh boy. But I did a lot of work myself this last week and a half. Like physical

Jessi: work.

James: Yeah. Yeah. Physical work and just work in general. So let me, I, and the worst part is while doing all this work, I've been listening to not only audio books, but also podcasts and it wasn't one podcast that talked about this.

It wasn't two that talked about this. It was three separate podcasts talked about this very idea of. Transitioning from doing everything yourself to moving up the ladder and having, you know, using your time more wisely. And I was just like, all right, Lord, I get it. I guess. Like, what are you trying to tell me?

I feel like I was in an episode of seventh heaven. I'm like, dude, why is it hitting everything over the head right now? Yeah. Just kind of insane. So so there's I first read about it in Michael Gruber's book called E Myth, and so there's a bunch of different language around it, but essentially he talks about that there's three types of roles.

You have your technician. This is the person doing it. You have your manager. This is the person doing it. And then you have the visionary, the person looking to the future of what will be done. And he talks about how there's different pushes and pulls between them. Like for example, he talks about how the manager wants systems and everything to be the same and be done the same, the same, everything to be done the same way every single time.

Whereas the visionary is always like, how can we change? How can we get better? Let's do it different. And the technician's like, dude, just leave me alone and let me get it done.

Jessi: Yep.

James: And, and he talks about how. If, depending on the hat that you put on or the tendencies that you have. Will could put limits on your business and what you're able to do.

He talks a lot about in his book, you'll have people who were a technician, they were an employee, they did the stuff and they're really good at it. Highly skilled. He goes, and then what they do is they're like, well, I think I can make more money if I go off and do it on my own. Awesome. Cool. They do. But then they primarily stay as a technician.

They do all the work. They never hire anybody to help them because they're like, I can do it better than anybody else, which is genuinely true. But it also means it become an army of one. Yeah. And they can't multiply their time and it just makes it really hard. Yeah. And they don't understand the, like, they don't take the time to learn the more business strategy types of stuff.

Here's how to do marketing. Here's how to do pricing. Here's how to do negotiations. They just don't learn that stuff. Yeah. They don't learn how to lead. And it makes it very hard. And a lot of businesses run into that problem. Mm hmm. And then I was listening to this podcast, he used slightly different language.

He said, when you do it, you start off as a DIY er, you're doing everything yourself. He goes, and then you move into more of a supervisor, project manager type of role. You're, you're now having other people do it. And then eventually you reach a, a COO, like an operations guy, you're overseeing everything going on.

He goes, or an architect, which is, here's how you want to structure it. It's more of that visionary type of thing. So he's kind of got that same type of structure. And I was listening to another podcast and he was talking about the idea between makers and managers and how you want to structure your days very differently in the way that you approach decision making are very different.

I was like, okay, that's cool. That's cool. And and then what was the, I'm trying to remember the third one. It was very, it was like almost the exact same language. As as the, as that first one talking about like a DIY er versus an architect type of thing. And And so for me in my business there I, I will admit that I have a tendency towards the, the technician, the DIY, I can do it better than everybody else mindset, which if I'm honest, in a lot of ways is very true.

I'm pretty good at making spreadsheets. I'm pretty good at underwriting. I'm decent at making repairs. I'm pretty good at making phone calls and doing the bookkeeping and making sure all the numbers add up. Like, I can do a lot of that stuff. But I also, shockingly, only have a limited amount of time. And if I'm spending all my time, redoing a piece of drywall, which is what I ended up doing recently.

Then that means I'm not making phone calls and creating things like this and doing other content. And as a matter of fact, I actually forgot to do something that was due because I was too busy doing the wall, which in that particular case I did the math and because of what was going on, it was going to be a very, very expensive repair to hire someone else to do it.

Like to replace two sheets of drywall, it was going to cost 4, 000. Which is a lot of money. And I went, and I made the decision at the time. I was like, you know what? Like, no, that's this is not a 4, 000 job. I know it. It's some time and materials. And so ultimately I sacrificed my own time and paid for the materials.

And so it was like, yeah, it was less than a hundred bucks. But, and I kept telling myself like, okay, there's only gonna be a few days worth of work. It's only a few hours. Okay. Cool. But then I ran into the trap of, well, since I'm already here, I might as well also do this. And I might as well also do this.

You took on more projects than you, than you would have. And so, yeah. It ended up being a week and a half worth of work instead of spending, you know, four hours total of tearing it down, putting it up and doing all this stuff. And so I, my, my average hour went way down as a result of it. So I blew it. I kind of went down that DIY path and then I know it.

And that's something that I'm actively working on. Trying to say like, okay, how do I get here? Now one of the other things I've, I've recognized about that is oftentimes in order to step out of that DIY or technician role, you have to have the margins in the business to be able to afford to hire another person and hold some for yourself.

Maybe not necessarily, but you at least have, not in a way, but But you at least have to have line of sight to it in the future. And and I, and again, I always, it's a push and pull for me. I've, I struggle with that type of, yeah. Well, there's this,

Jessi: there's this thought too, of, I, I, I understand like all the frameworks that you're talking about.

And I see it in a different way. Oh, okay. With my working, you know, it's like, I could do all the things, I can't do all the things for my job because there's like multiple classrooms, can't be in all of them at the same time.

James: Yeah.

Jessi: But, there's certain things I could do behind the scenes. Or, I could use my time on something of higher value or different value and have someone take over.

But the thing that I was just thinking about is like, When you do that there's you often have to factor in there's this training period as well Yeah, I think about it with our kids as well. I'm like, okay, we want them. That's right Take on the other

James: episode was talking about hiring a VA Again, it was that exact same.

That's what the episode was Yeah, and the point they made was like when you bring on a virtual assistant There is a training period, and then it's like six weeks later you actually get it

Jessi: back. That was

James: the other one where they were talking about that idea of often you start out doing it all yourself, and then you move up the stack, and here's a cheaper way to do it.

Sorry, I remember the third one now.

Jessi: Yeah, which, it makes sense, but there's that, there's a transition period. You know, a great example is, We kind of redid our chore chart a while ago and my, in my thinking I was like, yes, like the kids are going to take on more jobs. This would be great. I'm going to get to do less or do different things.

Which is true for the most part. Although like there's some training that I feel like I kind of skipped over. It was just like, Oh yeah, you're just going to vacuum. It's like, Oh, okay. Well, so that I don't have to go back and vacuum the corners. Like I have to actually teach you vacuum in the middle.

And the corners. Yeah. And then it's all done. You know, so it's like, all right, it's not just day one, you hire help and they just take it off, you know, take it over and it's great and perfect. It's like, okay, there's this training or transition period or maybe trial period to grow or to do something different for yourself as well.

I feel like if you're going, like you were saying, you're in that technician DIY mindset that to jump to doing different work is, is. Legitimately different, a different use of your brain or your skill sets.

James: Like,

Jessi: I remember in my mind, I was thinking like my current job, it does have a teaching aspect to it, but it has a lot more of a management, like managing people aspect than I was.

Anticipating.

James: Oh, really? And so that

Jessi: first year I kind of be like, that was like 80 percent of weird. Yeah. But like in my mind, it was just like, Ooh, cool. I'm going to be, I'm going to get to see the curriculum and like train people how to use it and like be in the classroom. And it was like, no, a significant amount of my time is like scheduling and having followup conversation with people and making sure that they're all doing good and signed up for the right spots.

You know, which was different. Yeah. Yeah,

James: and that's that transition, right? Of being a technician to the manager or the visionary. Yeah, it's

Jessi: a different job.

James: Yeah, yeah, no, it's totally true. And to make this relevant for a passive investor, right? That's the difference between saying, I'm going to find my own property.

I'm going to learn how to, I'm gonna learn how to acquire it, fund it, fix it up, manage it myself and saying, you know what? Maybe that's not my role. Maybe my role is to be more passive to say I'm going to let someone else do that. I'm going to delegate that to someone else because they're better at it.

They have time, they have the expertise. I don't have it and I can actually make more money doing that than doing it myself. Or at the very least I can spread out my risk because I'm not putting all my eggs into this single family home or this duplex. I'm able to be a small fraction of a larger property or a bunch of larger projects.

And, yeah, and Yeah, and spread out my risk that way which I think is, which I think is good. And I think that's part of that, not necessarily following that framework, but it's, that's the difference between being an active and a passive, being a DIYer and like a true investor type of person. I think it's just, and, and I guess at the end of the day, I think what was frustrating to me was the initial decision was a conscious one and I think it was the right decision for the situation.

Yeah. Yeah. But then I unconsciously or unintentionally, I should say, yeah, kind of let it bleed into that. Yeah. Cause you know, part of it's like, man, I do enjoy it. It is fun. There's something about construction projects where it starts off, it looks gross and it's bad and then you do a lot of work and then it looks beautiful.

Yeah. Yes. That feels really good. I enjoy that. And I got to figure out a way to still enjoy it when someone else does the work. And I feel that way with our yard and we have a yard guy who does all of our yards now. And I'm always like, I look at the grass and go, that looks nice. And I'm really glad I didn't do it.

So you got to remember that. I got to remember that. So this is. So this is just as much a reminder for myself and for people to hold me accountable to say, James, are you doing too much? Do you need to delegate? Are you spending your time intentionally on the highest value things for your business? And because I do have investors and I need to, like, I need to honor the funds that they've given me and spend my highest, best time to get that return for them.

And so that's, that's my confession slash just out of

Jessi: curiosity. Like, I mean, I have someone who asks me those, my boss, asks me those types of questions. Like, are you, what are you spending your time on? Are you spending it on the most, best priority items? Do you have someone asking you that?

James: Do I have a mentor or coach helping me out is what you're asking?

I, yes and no. I have different friends in my life who I check in with and they will ask me those kind of things. There's two guys in particular who I'm thinking of. We don't, we haven't hung out that much. that often lately. I don't know. I thought it was, they were always excellent at pushing me and

Jessi: being

James: like, I'd be like, Oh, I've got this idea for 10 and they go, yeah, what about this idea for a hundred?

I'm like, Oh yeah, that's a much better idea, but I got to think bigger to do it. And like, yeah, so think bigger and do it. Well, which I do appreciate. But yeah, so I've, I have some unofficial people, but not someone who I would say, I'm regularly checking in with who's, who is also, Like, maybe three or four steps ahead of me going, Hey, and here's how you break down the barriers.

Here's how you go to the next step. And but yeah. That's a good question. Interesting. Maybe something worth thinking through. But again if you're thinking about passively investing, it's part of that mindset switch. Realizing I'm not the technician, I'm not the DIYer in this situation, and being intentional about that.

And depending on the situation and where you're at, like you can make a lot more money going that way for a whole lot less time, which is pretty nice. And or you can spend your time also focusing on other stuff, which is either more fun or more valuable.

Jessi: Yeah.

James: Or something.

Jessi: Take more trust. Yeah, totally.

You're trusting that the other technicians will get it done and do a good job. Yeah, just like me

James: too. And that's why, so I finished this project and again, did a lot myself and it was good. For our next project. I've signed up to do a small piece of it to do the demo. But I'm also like, ah, it's easy and I do enjoy it.

But the rest of this entire 100, 000 project, I'm not going to touch. I'm going to have someone else do. And I'm generally going to, I'm going to manage the process. I'm not necessarily going to architect or vision near that process. But that's okay. Yeah. You know, that's what we got to start with. Yeah.

So there you go. Cool. That's what I got. That's my, that's my confession. My thoughts based on what I was listening to. So there you go. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast and we hope that you did, we would appreciate it if you left either a like or a comment, wherever it is that you listen to podcasts, and if you'd like to learn more about investing with us, you can check us out at furlo.com and with that, thanks for listening and have a great day.