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172: Ask Buck
Podcast: Download
A while back, I had a guy on the show who had created an entire business focused on the creation of new Udemy content. Udemy is an app that allows anyone to make a course and publish it for others to buy.
Courses are peer reviewed so you get a pretty good idea of what might be worth your time. It’s actually a really good deal. You can cherry pick only highly reviewed courses and buy them for just a few bucks. It’s amazing how cheap learning can be online these days.
Because of that, I have developed a rather bad habit of accumulating courses that I never watch. So, this morning, while at the YMCA chugging away on the elliptical, I decided to pick out a course to finally start. I had several options dating back to over six years ago. Most of them were not really that relevant.
The archive of courses gave me an interesting glance into my thought patterns over the last few years. I once bought a course on how to buy probate properties. It’s probably fine for someone doing this kind of thing full time, but the idea of sending out letters to executors about buying single family homes and hoping someone responds doesn’t quite make any sense any more.
It sounds like a lot of work for relatively modest gains—sort of like wholesaling or flipping houses. I know some of you are probably really good at it but it’s not an easy thing to do and even harder to scale into an eight or nine figure business.
Frankly, I have come to realize that the effort required to scale something to eight figures is not any more than what it takes to get to six figures. The only difference is the monetary reward of each endeavor. If you are in the wrong business, you can very easily be highly successful yet struggling to pay your bills.
So, if you are just starting out, make sure you focus on something with some real upside. Here’s an example—rather than flip houses, why not flip apartment buildings instead? You can make millions of dollars that way. Don’t think it can be done? Well, that’s how Western Wealth Capital started and now they have over a billion dollars of multifamily real estate under management. Just watch one of our Investor Club presentations and it will blow you away!
It took me a while to come into this kind of state of mind—to think only big and to say no to everything else. I used to have a problem that a lot of entrepreneurs have—chasing shiny objects. Not anymore!
That’s why you don’t see me at every conference and you don’t see me investing with a million different groups. It’s really not about how much you work. It’s about spending your time doing things that are actually impactful.
I have found that the best course of action is to find something that works that is scaleable and keep working on it rather than looking for new projects or partners.
I wish I had come to this realization earlier but I’ve never really had a mentor to help me get there quicker. I’m not sure it would help as I have been told that I am uncoachable anyway. That said, I am always happy to share my own experiences and evolving perspectives these days to anyone who will listen. That’s why I do “Ask Buck” shows like the one I recorded for you this week!