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Business Development

Accountability: 1 Necessity When Hiring Team Members

Looking for a way to keep all your team members doing their best work?

Hey Moguls, Matt Andrews here, and if you’re like me, you’ve found some awesome team members who you know are capable of doing quality work. But you also know it’s not a given that they will always give 110% on the job.

There’s one thing you can provide: accountability.

Hiring the Best

No doubt when you hire team members you look for people who are willing to be accountable for their actions – who take personal responsibility for the things that they should be taking responsibility for.

definition

When I look for contractors, property managers or anybody I’m going to work with on an ongoing basis to fix up or work on my properties, I look for people who aren’t afraid of accountability.

And a good construction crew leader, a good handyman, a good registered certified contractor—those guys, above all, should be accountable for what they’re supposed to be accountable for.

They should take personal responsibility for their work, and most of all, they should be where they say they are when they say they’re going to be there. And they should be doing the work that they said they’re going to be doing for the price that they said they’re going to be doing it for.

Sounds like common sense, but you’d be surprised by how many people I’ve come across who don’t follow these business rules.

“Accountability is the glue that ties commitment to results.” 

                      ~Bob Proctor

Just Stopping By

My role is to keep my team members accountable and make sure that they are working when they’re supposed to be working. I often show up at my properties unannounced. That’s all part of helping my team members maintain accountability.

I like seeing that my workers are on schedule.

Why?

Because most of the time, I already have tenants ready to move in. The sooner they can move in, the sooner I can begin collecting rent.

“A culture of accountability makes a good organization great and a great organization unstoppable.”                  

                       ~Henry Evans

Cash Flow for a Healthy Business

bigdealThis is really important – something I want to tie in that you may not have thought about as it relates to accountability…

If my team gets a project done on schedule, I’m more likely to make the cash flow I bought the property for in the first place. And that helps our whole team.

But I have another responsibility to my team. I need to find cash-flow positive properties that I know will make me money.

Here’s a great example of a deal I did recently...

I bought a property for around $60k. I put about $5k into it, mostly for painting, changing locks and landscaping. I was able to rent it for $850 a month. So $65k invested, $850 a month in rent, it’s a good, strong double-digit cap rate. And it will still make me a strong return of probably 12%-13%, even after property management, insurance, taxes, maintenance and vacancy.

For that deal, the numbers checked out, and I made sure of that before I invested in the property. I also considered the local market and the location.

And now I’m relying on my team members—both those who helped fix up the property and those who will manage and maintain it—to keep the cash flow coming for all of us.

So…

Hopefully now you see why accountability is important for you, your team, your profit and your business, in general.

Your Take

How do you keep your team members accountable? Let us know below!

 

Do It To It! Immediate Action Steps

1. Hire team members who take responsibility, own their work and keep their word.

2. Stop in to check on your team – randomly and unannounced – to help keep them accountable.

3. Evaluate a property before you buy to make sure it’s going to be cash-flow positive.

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