February 25, 2025 • 24 mins
In this podcast episode, Andy McQuade explores the importance of strategically investing time over cost-saving measures in real estate, emphasizing opportunity cost, the benefits of hiring professionals, and effective time management for maximizing business growth.
Highlights:
- 0:05 - Introduction: Andy McQuade discusses the importance of prioritizing time investment over cost-saving measures in real estate.
- 10:20 - Opportunity Cost: Exploring how opportunity cost can impact real estate decisions and long-term growth.
- 18:45 - Hiring Professionals: Highlighting the benefits of hiring professionals to enhance efficiency and business success.
- 25:30 - Time Management: Strategies for effective time management to maximize growth in the real estate industry.
Video, Summary, Show Notes & Transcript
Please take the time to support the show - we’d appreciate you subscribing and leaving us a review! YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Learn more about Andy McQuade Visit his website Check out Andy's Consulting Firm
Follow Andy on social media LinkedIn | Twitter/X | Instagram | Facebook | Reddit
Andy's Podcast Recording Tech Stack: If you use these links, we earn a small commission on your purchase which helps support the show. Shure SM7-B Microphone Cloudlifter CL-1 Inline Preamp Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Gen4 Audio Interface Heil Sound HB-1 Mic Boom Sennheiser HD 300 Pro Headphones
Want to know more about The TCO Method ®?
Check out our website Sign up for our Newsletter Join our Patreon Donate and support the show
Find us on Social Media LinkedIn | Twitter/X | Instagram | Facebook | FB Group | Subreddit
Question? Feedback? Comment? e-mail us
This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal or financial advice. You should always consult with insured, licensed, and qualified professionals about your specific, individual situation. Read the full disclaimer.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Today, we're going to talk a little bit about the ROI on the time you spend or waste
(00:08):
shopping for products and services for your real estate business.
Coming up right now on the first episode of 2025, the TCO method, season 2, starts now.
Welcome to the TCO method, the only show.
(00:47):
Focus on helping you massively increase your net operating income.
I am Andy McQuade.
Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode, the first episode of season 2 recorded
in 2025.
And today, we're going to talk a little bit about the ROI, Return on Investment of your time
(01:07):
as it relates to shopping for products, services, and other stuff that you need for your
real estate business, whether you have two doors or 20,000 doors.
Disclaimer, just because I talk about it doesn't mean you should do it.
I have to do this now.
(01:28):
Thank you, insurance people.
2025 sucks for insurance.
Had to raise my GL policy to cover this stupid show.
It's not a stupid show.
I love my show.
I had to raise my GL policy to $4 million.
Why?
Because they said so.
And thus, here we are.
My disclaimer is, this is not financial, legal, business, investing, otherwise, blah, blah,
(01:55):
blah, tax, nothing.
No advice.
This is my opinion.
This is for entertainment purposes only.
If you want to take some education from it, great.
Research everything that I say independently on your own with your team of professional
advisors.
If you don't have a team of professional advisors, you best get some.
(02:16):
Anyway, moving on.
So a couple days ago, I had an old customer of mine from when I was at the big orange box
reach out to me and asked me exactly what I did for businesses in real estate that are
looking to do value ad rehabs on apartment complexes.
(02:37):
So I told them, give them a couple of local examples you could go look at here in Rochester.
And he said, at the end of it, he was kind of like, well, so if I've already got relationships
with insert box stores here, both of them, then I should be good for purchasing and stuff,
(02:59):
and I wouldn't need anybody to help me figure that out, right?
Except for no.
So the first thing is if you own a real estate business as an owner operator as a DIY investor,
as a large multi-state corporation, managing properties, I'm pretty sure that you have better
(03:26):
things to do with your time, then argue with a sales guy about a 65 cent difference in
a pecs fitting, okay?
And I say this with love from my heart because I used to deal with this on a regular basis,
and now I deal with it even more directly, but I do it on behalf of other people who don't
(03:48):
have the time to do it themselves.
And it's not that they don't have the hours in the day.
It's that they're spending their time doing things that actually move the needle in their
business.
Starting with a sales guy, about 20 cents a square foot or 50 cents for a fitting or $2 for
(04:11):
a square of shingles is probably the lowest value you can deliver to your business per hour
of your time.
And I understand it needs to be done occasionally.
But just like when we look at hiring a VA, a virtual assistant, just like when we look at hiring
(04:37):
an executive assistant, just like when we look at hiring employees, number one, we bring
people in who are better than us at doing something because they do it every day.
So hopefully they have skill sets in practice and street smarts and current up to date informed
knowledge of whatever it is that you're having them do for you, but also hopefully you're
(05:05):
going to pay them less than you pay yourself.
If I'm an owner of a business and let's just say I want to pay myself $100 an hour, so
I make $200,000 a year that I can take home and say, look at me, I did good, honey, let's
go on vacation.
Why would I not hire somebody to have that conversation with a salesperson, to have that
(05:35):
purchasing contract look that, to have that service contract look that?
Now I understand that in some cases you're talking about thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds
of thousands, millions of dollars that go through your business in this one section every
year.
And it's important because about 30% of the cost to do a project, whether it's a value
(06:00):
ad rehab or maintenance or whatever, about 30% of it on average comes from the material
side, right?
And the rest is labor.
But if you're paying yourself $100 an hour and you spend an hour to save yourself five
(06:21):
bucks, shopping between two or three different places on an order, did you actually save
five bucks or did you just light $95 on fire?
And here's what I'm getting at.
If you're the owner of a business and you're paying yourself $100 an hour, don't you think
your time would be better spent focusing on the things that you're good at that you know
(06:49):
how to do you understand all of the dynamics of and it will move the needle in your business?
You can't save your way to wealth.
And if you're paying yourself a hundred bucks an hour, you better be spending that hundred
dollars on things that make your business grow, right?
(07:12):
When you're saving, yes, it impacts N.O.I.
It impacts the bottom line to the business.
Yes, it looks good on paper.
Yes, it probably makes you feel great.
It really does.
But here's the reality people.
You could have spent that hour on the phone looking for deals to buy your next property.
(07:34):
You could have spent that hour learning something that will help you grow your business.
You could have spent that hour meeting people who will help you run your business.
Your ROI in everything you do in business is what matters.
(07:58):
Spending time on stupid crap that doesn't move the needle for you is why so many small business
owners spend their wheels and never get where they want to go.
Well, somebody's got to do it and I don't trust anybody else to do it right.
Or I've been doing this for years.
(08:18):
If you ever say to yourself, or you hear in your head, I've been doing it for years.
You have to understand that your perspective is very narrow.
You've been doing it for years in your business with your experience level.
(08:40):
Remember that to a consultant, a lawyer, a CPA, whatever specialized job interacts with
your business, you see your narrow field of view of your business over here and how you've
(09:01):
been doing things and that you're pretty good at certain stuff, but you don't have a
point of reference.
I know plenty of people who thought that or think that they're very good at what they do
for this particular part of their business.
The problem is they don't usually leverage that part of their skill set exclusively and
(09:27):
frequently enough to actually be good at it, right?
You get good through reps, you get good through practice.
That's why I make fun of gurus who have done something for like two or three years and
done it like five times.
Now they're selling books and courses like, "Guys, no one cares about your opinion.
You're 26 years old."
Now you're some sort of mastermind guru who's going to teach a 40-year-old who's been doing
(09:51):
the industry for working in the industry for 15 years.
You're going to tell them how to do something that they mastered 10 years ago and somehow
you're better than them at 26.
I'm not saying it's completely impossible, but it is highly improbable.
Like a 25-year-old life coach, bro, you were in high school six years ago.
(10:15):
You don't have a life, okay?
You do something for five years and maybe you're okay at it?
You don't even know how to wipe your ass correctly when you're five, okay?
If you think that little kids learn a hell of a lot faster than adults do, throw that out
(10:36):
there.
If you think that you're qualified to do that at 26 years old, 30 years old, you're going
to guru people.
You've done something like twice.
No one cares.
No one believes in fake it to you, make it.
Guess what?
Fake it to you, make it in business.
If you're selling services.
It's called fraud, bro.
(10:57):
It's bad.
It's a bad look.
Stop.
Just stop.
Don't talk.
Shut up.
You might be very good at what you do in your mind.
That does not make you good at what you do in the real world.
Well, the only thing that matters is that I'm 1% better than I was yesterday.
Well, cool.
But that doesn't actually mean it's going to save you any money, okay?
(11:21):
There's value in knowing how things work and knowing how to do things yourself.
And then there's more value in going to somebody who does it 10 or 15 times a week for 10
or 15 different companies.
And they see not only a wider variety of issues and problems and experiences, but the reps
(11:47):
they're putting in pile up a lot faster than the reps you're putting in.
Plus, because of privacy laws and all of the other stuff, they're going to see things
that you don't see because I don't see your competitors opening their P and Ls to you.
(12:08):
I don't see them opening up their books and showing you what they buy and what they pay
for every single item or what kind of price they negotiated with Joe Bob over here who's
going to do service X, Y or Z for them for the next year versus what you're paying Joe
Bob.
And guess what?
Companies adjust how they price things and the service level they deliver because both
(12:33):
of those cost them money.
They have a P and L to worry about too.
They price things based on what value you are going to deliver to them.
They're not going to give things away to you if they lose money at the end of the day
after they turn the lights on, open the doors, pay their people, pay all of the bills, and
(12:55):
then take a look at their math and go, "Why am I giving this stuff away to this guy that
doesn't spend anything as a huge pain in my ass?"
We're in a charge of more and just make him think he's doing a great job.
That happens a lot, by the way.
In sales, I was an outside sales guy for a long time.
(13:17):
I did national account sales for a long time.
If you were a low volume high pain in the ass customer, I made a lot more margin on you.
That's reality.
Got to pay the bill somehow.
My time is worth something.
So is yours.
(13:39):
But your perspective may not be 100% accurate because you have nothing to wait against.
You don't have a comparison.
Well, I don't want to compare myself to other people.
All I care about is being one percent better shut up.
No one cares about your self-help book you just read, okay?
(14:00):
Just shut up.
It doesn't affect reality.
I know people who think they're getting a great deal on something who are literally paying
15 or 20% more than they should be.
And that doesn't even get into people who are paying a low cost for something to get something
(14:22):
from a supplier who sucks at delivery, sucks at supply chain, sucks at availability, terrible
terms, outrageous credit costs, hard to deal with because you can't get ahold of people.
We're going back to the ROI of your time.
Okay, great.
(14:42):
You saved $10, buying widget A from this store versus buying it from the other store.
Then you spent three hours chasing the other, the, the first store to get what you paid for
(15:04):
and now you're $300 in the whole, I'm sorry, you're $290 in the whole because you pay yourself
$100 an hour.
And that doesn't include the labor it takes to meet a delivery truck, get the stuff where
it needs to go.
People with the bills and invoices later if it's in some sort of chaotic credit card system
(15:29):
that doesn't make any sense, right?
There's all these pieces and parts that go into what you really pay for product.
A part of total cost of ownership is acquisition cost and disposition cost, the beginning and
the end.
(15:50):
If you buy something and you save $10 on the product, but then you spend $290 more dollars
of your own time trying to figure out that $10 and make it work in your business, you lost.
Having to explain to people that just because you can do something doesn't mean you should
(16:14):
do something is a big part of being a consultant.
Common sense seems to check out when it comes to people thinking that they're good at something
because they've done it and they've had success to a point where it worked out for them.
(16:37):
But with no perspective on just how good that could have been, that whole experience and
how much it impacts your bottom line, they continue doing bad things.
It's dumb things, things that lack common sense.
It's not okay for senior leadership in a business to spend their time stepping over dollars
(17:06):
to pick up pennies, okay?
It's just not.
And I'm not trying to sound kind of, yes I am.
I'm trying to sound kind of sending, okay?
There it is.
I'm trying to highlight through New York sarcasm that you're lighting money on fire for no
good reason other than because you've done it that way and your ego won't allow you to
(17:32):
entertain the possibility that you have no idea what you're actually doing.
The same can be said for people who put all their eggs in the basket of a purchasing system
that just orders product and miracles it to your door with no oversight, right?
(17:52):
There is a limit of oversight that needs to be imposed on your purchasing.
I'm not saying that there isn't.
It's a totally different topic for a different episode and I've already talked about it in season
one.
Pay for the results you get and measure the ROI.
If you're going to do it, hand it off to somebody that makes less than you whose job is to make
(18:20):
it happen.
I was on Yona Weiss's podcast last month in January of 2025 and we talked about this.
We talked about hiring a person to run your purchasing and procurement in your shop and
how much money you can save versus those automated systems where they just buy the stuff and it
(18:43):
shows up because you're paying the middleman in that point.
Why wouldn't you want to hire the middleman in control the entire process and get transparency
on what's really going on?
Especially if you have any kind of volume.
It's really more of a message for very large organizations that have thousands of doors
under management and are spending millions of dollars on product.
It's still important for the small guy with one or two houses that they manage part time
(19:08):
while they're working at W2.
But it's all about ROI.
What is your time worth and what are you paying yourself to do this versus the benefit?
Like when I was a sales guy, I used to laugh at the guy who was building a deck or building
an edition or doing a roof or doing siding, windows, whatever, who would go to seven different
(19:33):
vendors and brag about how you got the lowest price he possibly could was $50 less and it
only took 17 hours, 14 trips, 33 phone calls, 22 emails and 600 headaches to save that 50
bucks.
(19:54):
Think you got a sold another job in the same amount of time that you just spent fighting for
50 bucks?
You're working for 12 cents an hour, man.
Little common sense goes a long way, but people get so caught up in the thing and then
they feel good, right?
It's the endorphin rush when you complete something.
(20:15):
Boom!
I did it.
I saved 50 bucks.
But you don't see how painful it was getting to that 50 bucks because you don't have
perspective because you're not focusing on the right things.
I really have anything else to talk about except for this.
Best ever conference is coming up next week.
(20:38):
I will be flying into Salt Lake City on the first.
My part of the conference starts on the second and I will be there until Thursday.
I fly out Thursday morning from Salt Lake.
If you're going to Best Ever, reach out to me.
Let me know.
You can email me if it involves the show.
Just podcast DCO method dot com.
I will be recording an episode with Lexi Turnabelski on site live on the Best Ever Conference
(21:03):
stage while I'm there on Monday.
I will be recording with Lexi so he'll be returning to the show.
Talk about a couple of really cool things that he's got going on right now.
His new app GP LP match, sort of like an app in a website that algorithm all blended into
one.
He's still working on it.
(21:25):
It's working progress but he's got about a thousand people on that website right now and
it's kicking some serious but no he did not pay me for this.
I'm just saying that we're going to talk about it on the show.
Then I'm going to record another episode while I'm there.
I don't know who it's going to be with yet but I'll find somebody really cool to interview.
Hopefully a good operator who gets it and has some experience and some skin in the game.
(21:47):
And then we'll be back with some episodes that were actually recorded before the end of
season one that I still haven't published.
There's a couple of those hanging in the wings and I'm going to try to do two episodes
a week again and hopefully a interview episode at least once or twice a month coming out
(22:10):
on Saturdays is the goal.
Yeah.
That's been busy.
I spent some time with Ryan Panetta.
I'm going to release an episode with Ryan here shortly and I spent some time over in the
school community with Alex Hormosi who I'm more and more a fan of all the time.
(22:35):
He takes a lot of shit but some of it's deserved and some of it's not right just like everybody.
You don't have to agree with everything I say just to appreciate the good thing.
And the things that they come up with.
I started rewriting my book again actually after listening to Alex because the book while
full of really good information and facts was not an easy read.
(22:56):
So we're working on making it a little bit more digestible but again you can get all the
content right here on the show or you just hire me and I'll come do it for you.
Either one works right.
I think that's all I got.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
Please if you're watching this on YouTube subscribe leave me a comment on the episode.
(23:18):
If you're listening on Apple podcast, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts subscribe
to the show.
Leave me a review.
Leave a comment if you can.
I do respond to all of them and I collect emails from people from prior episodes who
write in with questions and I will handle questions actually probably on my next episode
(23:41):
on Thursday.
I will do a holy crap.
I didn't record squat for episodes for the last 12 months and now I'm going to go through
all of the questions and comments I got from last season and I'm going to address as many
of them as I can get to in 40 minutes on the show on Thursday.
Just tune in for that.
(24:02):
Thank you so much for joining me.
Have a great rest of your week.
Go do some real estate.
[Music]
(upbeat music)
(24:23):
[MUSIC]
Today, we're going to talk a little bit about the ROI on the time you spend or waste
(00:08):
shopping for products and services for your real estate business.
Coming up right now on the first episode of 2025, the TCO method, season 2, starts now.
Welcome to the TCO method, the only show.
(00:47):
Focus on helping you massively increase your net operating income.
I am Andy McQuade.
Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode, the first episode of season 2 recorded
in 2025.
And today, we're going to talk a little bit about the ROI, Return on Investment of your time
(01:07):
as it relates to shopping for products, services, and other stuff that you need for your
real estate business, whether you have two doors or 20,000 doors.
Disclaimer, just because I talk about it doesn't mean you should do it.
I have to do this now.
(01:28):
Thank you, insurance people.
2025 sucks for insurance.
Had to raise my GL policy to cover this stupid show.
It's not a stupid show.
I love my show.
I had to raise my GL policy to $4 million.
Why?
Because they said so.
And thus, here we are.
My disclaimer is, this is not financial, legal, business, investing, otherwise, blah, blah,
(01:55):
blah, tax, nothing.
No advice.
This is my opinion.
This is for entertainment purposes only.
If you want to take some education from it, great.
Research everything that I say independently on your own with your team of professional
advisors.
If you don't have a team of professional advisors, you best get some.
(02:16):
Anyway, moving on.
So a couple days ago, I had an old customer of mine from when I was at the big orange box
reach out to me and asked me exactly what I did for businesses in real estate that are
looking to do value ad rehabs on apartment complexes.
(02:37):
So I told them, give them a couple of local examples you could go look at here in Rochester.
And he said, at the end of it, he was kind of like, well, so if I've already got relationships
with insert box stores here, both of them, then I should be good for purchasing and stuff,
(02:59):
and I wouldn't need anybody to help me figure that out, right?
Except for no.
So the first thing is if you own a real estate business as an owner operator as a DIY investor,
as a large multi-state corporation, managing properties, I'm pretty sure that you have better
(03:26):
things to do with your time, then argue with a sales guy about a 65 cent difference in
a pecs fitting, okay?
And I say this with love from my heart because I used to deal with this on a regular basis,
and now I deal with it even more directly, but I do it on behalf of other people who don't
(03:48):
have the time to do it themselves.
And it's not that they don't have the hours in the day.
It's that they're spending their time doing things that actually move the needle in their
business.
Starting with a sales guy, about 20 cents a square foot or 50 cents for a fitting or $2 for
(04:11):
a square of shingles is probably the lowest value you can deliver to your business per hour
of your time.
And I understand it needs to be done occasionally.
But just like when we look at hiring a VA, a virtual assistant, just like when we look at hiring
(04:37):
an executive assistant, just like when we look at hiring employees, number one, we bring
people in who are better than us at doing something because they do it every day.
So hopefully they have skill sets in practice and street smarts and current up to date informed
knowledge of whatever it is that you're having them do for you, but also hopefully you're
(05:05):
going to pay them less than you pay yourself.
If I'm an owner of a business and let's just say I want to pay myself $100 an hour, so
I make $200,000 a year that I can take home and say, look at me, I did good, honey, let's
go on vacation.
Why would I not hire somebody to have that conversation with a salesperson, to have that
(05:35):
purchasing contract look that, to have that service contract look that?
Now I understand that in some cases you're talking about thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds
of thousands, millions of dollars that go through your business in this one section every
year.
And it's important because about 30% of the cost to do a project, whether it's a value
(06:00):
ad rehab or maintenance or whatever, about 30% of it on average comes from the material
side, right?
And the rest is labor.
But if you're paying yourself $100 an hour and you spend an hour to save yourself five
(06:21):
bucks, shopping between two or three different places on an order, did you actually save
five bucks or did you just light $95 on fire?
And here's what I'm getting at.
If you're the owner of a business and you're paying yourself $100 an hour, don't you think
your time would be better spent focusing on the things that you're good at that you know
(06:49):
how to do you understand all of the dynamics of and it will move the needle in your business?
You can't save your way to wealth.
And if you're paying yourself a hundred bucks an hour, you better be spending that hundred
dollars on things that make your business grow, right?
(07:12):
When you're saving, yes, it impacts N.O.I.
It impacts the bottom line to the business.
Yes, it looks good on paper.
Yes, it probably makes you feel great.
It really does.
But here's the reality people.
You could have spent that hour on the phone looking for deals to buy your next property.
(07:34):
You could have spent that hour learning something that will help you grow your business.
You could have spent that hour meeting people who will help you run your business.
Your ROI in everything you do in business is what matters.
(07:58):
Spending time on stupid crap that doesn't move the needle for you is why so many small business
owners spend their wheels and never get where they want to go.
Well, somebody's got to do it and I don't trust anybody else to do it right.
Or I've been doing this for years.
(08:18):
If you ever say to yourself, or you hear in your head, I've been doing it for years.
You have to understand that your perspective is very narrow.
You've been doing it for years in your business with your experience level.
(08:40):
Remember that to a consultant, a lawyer, a CPA, whatever specialized job interacts with
your business, you see your narrow field of view of your business over here and how you've
(09:01):
been doing things and that you're pretty good at certain stuff, but you don't have a
point of reference.
I know plenty of people who thought that or think that they're very good at what they do
for this particular part of their business.
The problem is they don't usually leverage that part of their skill set exclusively and
(09:27):
frequently enough to actually be good at it, right?
You get good through reps, you get good through practice.
That's why I make fun of gurus who have done something for like two or three years and
done it like five times.
Now they're selling books and courses like, "Guys, no one cares about your opinion.
You're 26 years old."
Now you're some sort of mastermind guru who's going to teach a 40-year-old who's been doing
(09:51):
the industry for working in the industry for 15 years.
You're going to tell them how to do something that they mastered 10 years ago and somehow
you're better than them at 26.
I'm not saying it's completely impossible, but it is highly improbable.
Like a 25-year-old life coach, bro, you were in high school six years ago.
(10:15):
You don't have a life, okay?
You do something for five years and maybe you're okay at it?
You don't even know how to wipe your ass correctly when you're five, okay?
If you think that little kids learn a hell of a lot faster than adults do, throw that out
(10:36):
there.
If you think that you're qualified to do that at 26 years old, 30 years old, you're going
to guru people.
You've done something like twice.
No one cares.
No one believes in fake it to you, make it.
Guess what?
Fake it to you, make it in business.
If you're selling services.
It's called fraud, bro.
(10:57):
It's bad.
It's a bad look.
Stop.
Just stop.
Don't talk.
Shut up.
You might be very good at what you do in your mind.
That does not make you good at what you do in the real world.
Well, the only thing that matters is that I'm 1% better than I was yesterday.
Well, cool.
But that doesn't actually mean it's going to save you any money, okay?
(11:21):
There's value in knowing how things work and knowing how to do things yourself.
And then there's more value in going to somebody who does it 10 or 15 times a week for 10
or 15 different companies.
And they see not only a wider variety of issues and problems and experiences, but the reps
(11:47):
they're putting in pile up a lot faster than the reps you're putting in.
Plus, because of privacy laws and all of the other stuff, they're going to see things
that you don't see because I don't see your competitors opening their P and Ls to you.
(12:08):
I don't see them opening up their books and showing you what they buy and what they pay
for every single item or what kind of price they negotiated with Joe Bob over here who's
going to do service X, Y or Z for them for the next year versus what you're paying Joe
Bob.
And guess what?
Companies adjust how they price things and the service level they deliver because both
(12:33):
of those cost them money.
They have a P and L to worry about too.
They price things based on what value you are going to deliver to them.
They're not going to give things away to you if they lose money at the end of the day
after they turn the lights on, open the doors, pay their people, pay all of the bills, and
(12:55):
then take a look at their math and go, "Why am I giving this stuff away to this guy that
doesn't spend anything as a huge pain in my ass?"
We're in a charge of more and just make him think he's doing a great job.
That happens a lot, by the way.
In sales, I was an outside sales guy for a long time.
(13:17):
I did national account sales for a long time.
If you were a low volume high pain in the ass customer, I made a lot more margin on you.
That's reality.
Got to pay the bill somehow.
My time is worth something.
So is yours.
(13:39):
But your perspective may not be 100% accurate because you have nothing to wait against.
You don't have a comparison.
Well, I don't want to compare myself to other people.
All I care about is being one percent better shut up.
No one cares about your self-help book you just read, okay?
(14:00):
Just shut up.
It doesn't affect reality.
I know people who think they're getting a great deal on something who are literally paying
15 or 20% more than they should be.
And that doesn't even get into people who are paying a low cost for something to get something
(14:22):
from a supplier who sucks at delivery, sucks at supply chain, sucks at availability, terrible
terms, outrageous credit costs, hard to deal with because you can't get ahold of people.
We're going back to the ROI of your time.
Okay, great.
(14:42):
You saved $10, buying widget A from this store versus buying it from the other store.
Then you spent three hours chasing the other, the, the first store to get what you paid for
(15:04):
and now you're $300 in the whole, I'm sorry, you're $290 in the whole because you pay yourself
$100 an hour.
And that doesn't include the labor it takes to meet a delivery truck, get the stuff where
it needs to go.
People with the bills and invoices later if it's in some sort of chaotic credit card system
(15:29):
that doesn't make any sense, right?
There's all these pieces and parts that go into what you really pay for product.
A part of total cost of ownership is acquisition cost and disposition cost, the beginning and
the end.
(15:50):
If you buy something and you save $10 on the product, but then you spend $290 more dollars
of your own time trying to figure out that $10 and make it work in your business, you lost.
Having to explain to people that just because you can do something doesn't mean you should
(16:14):
do something is a big part of being a consultant.
Common sense seems to check out when it comes to people thinking that they're good at something
because they've done it and they've had success to a point where it worked out for them.
(16:37):
But with no perspective on just how good that could have been, that whole experience and
how much it impacts your bottom line, they continue doing bad things.
It's dumb things, things that lack common sense.
It's not okay for senior leadership in a business to spend their time stepping over dollars
(17:06):
to pick up pennies, okay?
It's just not.
And I'm not trying to sound kind of, yes I am.
I'm trying to sound kind of sending, okay?
There it is.
I'm trying to highlight through New York sarcasm that you're lighting money on fire for no
good reason other than because you've done it that way and your ego won't allow you to
(17:32):
entertain the possibility that you have no idea what you're actually doing.
The same can be said for people who put all their eggs in the basket of a purchasing system
that just orders product and miracles it to your door with no oversight, right?
(17:52):
There is a limit of oversight that needs to be imposed on your purchasing.
I'm not saying that there isn't.
It's a totally different topic for a different episode and I've already talked about it in season
one.
Pay for the results you get and measure the ROI.
If you're going to do it, hand it off to somebody that makes less than you whose job is to make
(18:20):
it happen.
I was on Yona Weiss's podcast last month in January of 2025 and we talked about this.
We talked about hiring a person to run your purchasing and procurement in your shop and
how much money you can save versus those automated systems where they just buy the stuff and it
(18:43):
shows up because you're paying the middleman in that point.
Why wouldn't you want to hire the middleman in control the entire process and get transparency
on what's really going on?
Especially if you have any kind of volume.
It's really more of a message for very large organizations that have thousands of doors
under management and are spending millions of dollars on product.
It's still important for the small guy with one or two houses that they manage part time
(19:08):
while they're working at W2.
But it's all about ROI.
What is your time worth and what are you paying yourself to do this versus the benefit?
Like when I was a sales guy, I used to laugh at the guy who was building a deck or building
an edition or doing a roof or doing siding, windows, whatever, who would go to seven different
(19:33):
vendors and brag about how you got the lowest price he possibly could was $50 less and it
only took 17 hours, 14 trips, 33 phone calls, 22 emails and 600 headaches to save that 50
bucks.
(19:54):
Think you got a sold another job in the same amount of time that you just spent fighting for
50 bucks?
You're working for 12 cents an hour, man.
Little common sense goes a long way, but people get so caught up in the thing and then
they feel good, right?
It's the endorphin rush when you complete something.
(20:15):
Boom!
I did it.
I saved 50 bucks.
But you don't see how painful it was getting to that 50 bucks because you don't have
perspective because you're not focusing on the right things.
I really have anything else to talk about except for this.
Best ever conference is coming up next week.
(20:38):
I will be flying into Salt Lake City on the first.
My part of the conference starts on the second and I will be there until Thursday.
I fly out Thursday morning from Salt Lake.
If you're going to Best Ever, reach out to me.
Let me know.
You can email me if it involves the show.
Just podcast DCO method dot com.
I will be recording an episode with Lexi Turnabelski on site live on the Best Ever Conference
(21:03):
stage while I'm there on Monday.
I will be recording with Lexi so he'll be returning to the show.
Talk about a couple of really cool things that he's got going on right now.
His new app GP LP match, sort of like an app in a website that algorithm all blended into
one.
He's still working on it.
(21:25):
It's working progress but he's got about a thousand people on that website right now and
it's kicking some serious but no he did not pay me for this.
I'm just saying that we're going to talk about it on the show.
Then I'm going to record another episode while I'm there.
I don't know who it's going to be with yet but I'll find somebody really cool to interview.
Hopefully a good operator who gets it and has some experience and some skin in the game.
(21:47):
And then we'll be back with some episodes that were actually recorded before the end of
season one that I still haven't published.
There's a couple of those hanging in the wings and I'm going to try to do two episodes
a week again and hopefully a interview episode at least once or twice a month coming out
(22:10):
on Saturdays is the goal.
Yeah.
That's been busy.
I spent some time with Ryan Panetta.
I'm going to release an episode with Ryan here shortly and I spent some time over in the
school community with Alex Hormosi who I'm more and more a fan of all the time.
(22:35):
He takes a lot of shit but some of it's deserved and some of it's not right just like everybody.
You don't have to agree with everything I say just to appreciate the good thing.
And the things that they come up with.
I started rewriting my book again actually after listening to Alex because the book while
full of really good information and facts was not an easy read.
(22:56):
So we're working on making it a little bit more digestible but again you can get all the
content right here on the show or you just hire me and I'll come do it for you.
Either one works right.
I think that's all I got.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
Please if you're watching this on YouTube subscribe leave me a comment on the episode.
(23:18):
If you're listening on Apple podcast, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts subscribe
to the show.
Leave me a review.
Leave a comment if you can.
I do respond to all of them and I collect emails from people from prior episodes who
write in with questions and I will handle questions actually probably on my next episode
(23:41):
on Thursday.
I will do a holy crap.
I didn't record squat for episodes for the last 12 months and now I'm going to go through
all of the questions and comments I got from last season and I'm going to address as many
of them as I can get to in 40 minutes on the show on Thursday.
Just tune in for that.
(24:02):
Thank you so much for joining me.
Have a great rest of your week.
Go do some real estate.
[Music]
(upbeat music)
(24:23):
[MUSIC]
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.