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Jim: What I enjoy most about my life now is my time. One of the things that we developed,
because of the For Rent Method and because of this stuff, was automation in our business.
Without the automation that came out of Joe's program, I would be tied and working every
second of every day because we'd be that busy. When you're brining in 30 or 40 buyers a day,
if you're not automated, you're sunk. The next level -- I guess the point is everything
kind of comes in increments. When we started, that business was absolutely incredible. When
we developed the For Rent Method, it changed everything, but with that change came all
this necessity that we had, too, that was a necessity for making the business on autopilot
and developing tools to be able to manage that business.
Jim: Because, again, one of the things that Joe and I really covet is time. That's, I
think, the most important thing. Money's great but it's the lifestyle -- getting to spend
the time with our families and getting to enjoy our lives. And so what came out of that
was all this incredible automation. The emailing systems that we put together and the voice
mailing systems that we put together allowed us to be able to do 15 deals in a weekend
and sell 10 properties a month and still have time to deal with and have fun with your life
and your family. That's really the point. What good is it if you get so busy that you
can't enjoy your time? The other incredible part of being with the group was what evolved
out of that, which was this automation. The automation allowed us to really make the business
run and hum and do extraordinarily well and still give us the freedom for the time that
we wanted. Jim: That's what I liked most about our group,
is that we decide how we want to live our life and we decide how we want to do business,
and then we figure out ways to make it work that way. And that was what the best thing
out of Joe Crump and the mentoring program is -- we decide how we want to live our lives
and then we make our business work for us, which is entirely different from most other
businesses and things and other ways of investing, because most of the time that's dictating
what you're doing. What we get to do by all of the automation that we do, the auto emailers,
the scripts, the voice mail blasters and all of the things that we figured out to automate
the business that we have, is that it gives us the time, and nothing's better than that.
Jim: I started with my one house and then we went on from there. Now on my website,
4 or 5 years later, I think when I left for this weekend, I had 49 houses on my website
so life's changed a little bit, obviously. And so to do that kind of volume, again, one
of the things that we had to do was automate our systems. We had to be able to market cheaply
and effectively and do that as good as possible. Jim: The thing that becomes the most important
and the thing that I harp on about all the time to my students and to the team is buyers
-- bringing buyers in and keeping them in the system and keeping them involved, and
keeping houses for them. It becomes the most important thing ever. So again, I started
a couple years ago with one house and a couple of buyers. My website now has 49 houses and
I've got a couple thousand buyers, and the automating allows me to keep those buyers
in the system, keep pushing those houses in front of them and keep getting back to them.
All of my buyers feel a connection to me because of that. I'm able to do that and not pull
my hair out trying to get to them all and whatnot. My business has grown, too -- again,
I've got a couple thousand buyers who want to do rent to own's in my area alone -- that's
not even including the other areas, that's just my own personal stuff. That's not the
Michigan business or the other people coming on.
Jim: That makes it possible for me to be able to do 49 houses and keep that kind of volume
up. That having 2000 buyers gives me the ability to get houses from builders. Having 2000 buyers
on my list gets me business from real estate agents and business from all kinds of different
places; completely new territory for investors, places that nobody's ever gone before -- because
of generating that list of buyers. Having the couple thousand buyers allows me to do
a whole bunch of really interesting stuff. Jim: The most exciting thing about this process,
for me... God, there's so many things. Mostly, my freedom has been the most important thing,
and when I say freedom, I mean my time, financial freedom, freedom of my time, freedom with
my family -- all of that stuff is the best stuff that's come out of all of this. I really
enjoy most of the aspects of doing this. I get to help a lot of different people when
I do this. I get to help sellers. I get to help buyers. But what I really enjoy on the
most selfish level I guess is that I have the financial freedom and the time freedom.
Jim: I mean, a lot of people get financial freedom and are constrained and tied to a
job that they have to go and get in their care every day -- I get to spend a lot of
time with my family, which is the most important thing to me. I've got two little kids. I've
got a 9 year old and an 8 year old and the best thing in the world is that my wife and
I and my kids get to spend all the time together in the world that we want, and I'm able to
do that in a business that I'm proud of doing, that I enjoy doing and that helps people,
and that is the best thing in the world. Jim: One of the things that I'm most proud
of doing is being a team leader. I've been a team leader for many years now and its one
of the things that as somebody who helps students as a teacher, I'm most proud of. Once a week,
with Joe's mentor students, I do a phone call. I do mine on Thursday nights. It goes for
2 hours, usually, by the way. And the people on my team get together on a phone call once
a week and we talk about the deals going on, and that I think has made - the reason I'm
so proud of it is because I think it makes such a big deal and it really changes the
lives of the investor students that we have. Jim: There's somebody that they can go to
every week. They have access to Joe every month and being on the team, not only do they
have access to me but they have access to the rest of the students. We all get to talk
about what's going on, what's working and how to help everybody.
Jim: So even though I'm the team leader, I've learned volumes by doing it, because I know
what's working in California and I know what's working in Michigan and so it gives me this
incredible insight. It also gives me the ability to help those same people or the people who
are in Texas or the people who are in Michigan. It allows me to help them get up and running.
And the people who get on the phone calls and the people that get on the team, the people
who do that, the people who get in and stay involved -- they all do well. So I'm most
proud of that. I'm proud that I'm able to give my time to those people.