032: When Plans Go Awry

SHOW NOTES FOR EPISODE 032 – WHEN PLANS GO AWRY

What happens when you set your goals, you’re plowing forward 90 miles an hour and something happens to prevent you from achieving your goal?  In this episode Bill discusses what is an inevitability for anyone pursuing goals – not meeting your target.  How do you handle it?  Are you prepared for the disappointment?  What will you do when don’t make your goal?  He shares a real life example that recently happened to him and how the experience actually helped him regain proper priorities.

Introduction

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you learn along the way.”

It’s good to set goals.  Achieving goals helps you get to where you want to be.

One of people’s biggest fears is setting goals and not achieving them.  So some people don’t set them at all. That way, they can never fail.  But that can be a big mistake.  Great things are accomplished by setting and accomplishing goals.

In the Old Dawg’s podcast  episode #010 (Setting Your Real Estate Investment Goals) we outline how to set and achieve goals and the benefits of doing so on a regular basis.

But what happens when you don’t achieve your goals?

• Do you get discouraged?
• Do you quit or give-up?
• Do you stop setting goals or ignore your goals?
• Do you regroup, retool and adjust your plan?

Learn from the experience, re-access, re-tool and move forward.

• Did you set your goal too high?
• Did you set your goal to low?
• Maybe it wasn’t the right goal in the first place

Being goal oriented is a good thing but it can also be a detriment if you let your goals control you and cause you to take your eyes off of what is most important.

I recently encountered this exact problem

• As you know I have set a pretty ambitious goal – to 1,000 units/doors by 2020
• It will require me to double the number of units from the previous year
• Recently acquired a 22-unit
• Developed a pretty aggressive plan to re-position the property involving rehab, expense reduction and rent increases within a very short period of time
• It required my “boots on the ground” property manager to coordinate rehabs, worth with existing tenants, market aggressively to attract new tenants and more. Most of the weight of the plan fell on him
• It also required a rather quick cash flow boost in order to cover the mortgage and cash-out re-fis and the ongoing rehab.
• It was a tight but achievable plan
• Shortly after we launched the plan, a tragedy struck my property manager when his wife has hit with a double brain aneurism that put her in a near coma
• His life was flipped upside down and emotionally devastated
• I was very concerned for him and his family
• Unfortunately, I started focusing more on my goals and getting stressed out rather than focusing on what was more important — my PM’s  situation

I have had to readjust my goals and finances to adapt to the current situation.  Yes, it will be difficult and yes, it will even cost me money but that’s OK.  I don’t want to lose myself because of my goals.  It’s more important that I not lose sight of what is most important.

Well, that’s it for today!

So, until next time, remember CASH FLOW IS KING AND REAL ESTATE INVESTING THE MEANS.  Thanks again for listening and God bless!

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