Episode 65: The 3 Stages of a Land CEO: Doer, Decider, Designer

Clayton Hepler (00:00)
Hello and welcome to another episode of the world famous, the highly rated, the Grammy soundtrack award winning, Ground Game Podcast.

Justin Piche (00:00)
Hello and welcome to another episode of the world famous, the highly rated, the Grammy soundtrack award winning, Rock It podcast.

Clayton Hepler (00:13)
This is your co-host, Hepler.

Justin Piche (00:13)
This is your co-host,

And this is your other co-host, Justin Piche And we're here to show you how to win the ground game.

Good afternoon, Clay. How are you doing?

I am.

Clayton Hepler (00:36)
Dude, am, it's

1.17 right now and I'm cracking open ⁓ some coffee. if towards the back of the episode my eyelid starts to twitch, you will know

Justin Piche (00:40)
and coffee. Ooh, coffee. Back to the episode, my eyelid starts to twitch. You

know why.

It's 1217 and I just cracked open a health aid kombucha. We're not sponsored by health aid, but maybe I should send him a email, ask him for some some brand placement money. Just kidding. Just kidding. Well, one thing I want to ask you as we get started, it started on this podcast is have you cut off anybody in a tunnel? This this last week since our last episode.

Clayton Hepler (01:11)
Have I cut off anybody in a tunnel?

Justin Piche (01:14)
Yeah. Last week you talked about an analogy for going in the fast lane on the side and then cutting over at the last minute. you gotten that done?

Clayton Hepler (01:20)
Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I

Justin Piche (01:22)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've done it. Not a tunnel though. There's not very many tunnels in Houston. What's been going on? How's your how's your week been?

How was your weekend? You know, a couple of things. You know, first of all, I want to just say Twitter. Is I'm not a big I you I

Clayton Hepler (01:33)
Dude, I've been a, you know, a couple of things. You know, first of all, I want to just say Twitter is, not a big, I kind of got

Justin Piche (01:44)
of got off Twitter.

Clayton Hepler (01:45)
Twitter

a

time.

I know, I call it Twitter, come on. X, dude, I got off Twitter for a long time. Like, I was just like posting, I had like my social team posting, and I'm starting to get back on it.

Justin Piche (01:47)
X. I know I call it Twitter. on. ⁓ X. Dude, I got off Twitter for a long time. Like I was just like posting. had like my social team posting like it and I'm starting to get back

on it.

Clayton Hepler (02:01)
If you find the right people to follow, it is actually so incredible the amount of knowledge that is on Twitter and the people, the operators that live on Twitter, the true operators.

Justin Piche (02:02)
If you find the right people to follow, it is actually so incredible the amount of knowledge that is on Twitter and the people, the operators that live on Twitter, the true operators.

Clayton Hepler (02:18)
It's pretty astonishing. So I've been back in the Twitter game. I've been ⁓ doing a lot of studying. I'm reading a book right now called Alchemy by Rory Sutherland. And he is the vice chairman of Ogilvy advertising, which David Ogilvy is one of the best direct response advertising kind of Mad Men era, direct response advertisers ever.

Justin Piche (02:18)
It's pretty astonishing. So I've been back in the Twitter game. I've been doing a lot of studying. I'm reading a book right now called Alchemy by Rory Sutherland. And he is the vice chairman of Ogilvy Advertising, which David Ogilvy is one of the best direct response advertising kind of Mad Men era ⁓ direct response advertisers

ever.

Clayton Hepler (02:47)
and really interesting book. ⁓ Doing a lot of thinking about competitive advantages, ⁓ what's my role as a CEO. And then I would say last thing, ⁓ we are, as you know, I'm pretty heavy in the land man community, building out my community, and it's been going bonanzas. It's been really, people are crushing it in there.

Justin Piche (02:48)
And really interesting book. ⁓ Do a lot of thinking about competitive advantages. ⁓ What's my role as a CEO? You know, and then I would say last thing, man, is. We are, you know, as you know, I'm pretty heavy in the land man community going out my my community, and it's been going bonanzas. It's been really people are crushing

it in there.

Clayton Hepler (03:15)
There

are couple people doing

Justin Piche (03:15)
There are a couple of people doing

Clayton Hepler (03:17)
100K months, which I was like, whoa. ⁓ So it's really cool to see. then people that are just beginning to, it's really cool to see. I really enjoy it. ⁓ It's cold though right now. It's cold up here. like dude, it's like freaking four degrees today. And when I woke up this morning, four degrees.

Justin Piche (03:17)
a hundred K months, which I was like, Whoa. Um, um, so it's really cool to see. then people that are just beginning to, it's really cool to see. I really enjoy it. Um, it's cold though, right now. It's cold up here. like, if you just like fricking four degrees today, when I woke up this morning, four

Yeah, that's brutal. So, um, life is good though, man. I'm having a ball. I'm learning. I'm learning.

Clayton Hepler (03:38)
So ⁓ life is good though, man. I'm having a ball. learning. I'm learning a lot.

Pushing boundaries, setting tone, setting the pace for the org, ⁓ doing some more interesting deals. Life is good. How about you?

Justin Piche (03:44)
pushing boundaries, setting tone, setting the pace for the org, ⁓ doing some more interesting deals. Life is good. How

about

Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad to be back in the swing of things. We had some good news on turn like financial front, got some approved for refinance of the house alone on the lot next door, which is fantastic. So those two things are going to move forward here in the next couple of weeks and give me a lot.

a more cash breathing room, I'm looking forward to. Family's doing good. Kids are back in the swing of school. Business front, know, we're just, I mean, we've got some pretty big deals locked up recently, like bigger than normal, six to 800K purchase price deals. So those are interesting because, you know, they're tougher than obviously like a small flip or a

even like a small subdivide, it's hard to get an $800,000 deal done without a loan. I finished taxes for last year. So income was good. So I have probably some breathing room, but I still don't know how much breathing room, how much capability I have to do these deals by myself, or do I need to bring in partners that can also be like guarantors on the loan? So they're kind of like right on the cusp. They're too small in my opinion to raise a fund for, but they're big, right? And so it's kind of like, what do you do with those kind of middle ground?

where it's not clear like, I need to raise a fund and like raise in a million dollars or whatever from, from investors. I may, maybe only need 350, 400 K, which is not a big deal, but the loan piece does make it a little bit more challenging. So got some cool, cool deals to work on there. we've got some great double closes, like never used to do double closes. obviously in today's market, I think it's really important to be able to execute on every single disposed strategy acquisition and dispose strategy you can.

You know, these are deals that I would never never buy outright ones buy for 350 We have it under contract to sell it for 75 Which is supposed to close last week or wait. It probably closed this week So it's not a huge double close in terms of like percentage But it's a solid double close in terms of like actual profit, right? And then we have another one that we have at 400 and we got a five hundred ten thousand dollar cash offer on

And you know, those are those are all that's another deal. I would never have bought that deal for only a 25 % margin But with the double close it makes it really worth really worth doing that exciting to have some of those deals start panning out

and Yeah, they're listed

Clayton Hepler (06:03)
Are you listing them?

on the

market with a broker or you self listing.

Justin Piche (06:08)
⁓

One of them is one of them is self listed and the other one we have a broker for yeah So anyway, I'm excited to have those clothes here in the next month or two for both of them You know one thing I found out this week which this is like maybe puts into some of the the Like what is the role of a CEO? kind of question is back in October

We got a contract. We look, we got a contract template from a friend of mine who used it in his business. and there were a couple of like terms in there that had really strong like protection language for the buyer. And I liked some of the language. And so I kind of flipped it over to my ops manager and said, Hey, look at this contract, like, see if we can integrate any of this into ours. And she made some changes and like sent it back. And frankly, I just didn't review it very well.

I just like, you know, I was like, she's got it. I assume it's fine. And so I said it to my acquisitions manager, like, start using this contract without really reading it in full. And we've been using it since October. And October through the end of the year have been our worst conversion rate acquisitions months that we've had in the business. And like a two week or a week ago, last week, my acquisition manager was like, boss, we really.

really need to do something about this contract. I am getting terrible feedback from like everybody we send it to. It's just not and I was like, what are we talking about? Okay, so I looked at the contract. I it's horrible. It's horrible. It's just a terrible like wholesaler predatory style contract. It's not the type of contract I want to send. It's not what I would sign if I was a seller and it was just such a silly dumb lazy mistake to make, you know something so

Like we focus so much on how do we scale marketing, right? How do we get our follow-up systems dialed in? How do we find the right data? How do we get the right people on the phone? How do we comp our properties? How do we underwrite? How do we get up? And then only to find out I made an incredibly dumb mistake and the end of the chain, all that could have been perfect, but the end of the chain puts a sour taste in a seller's mouth and we get ghosted. And like nobody wants to call us back because from their perspective, they had these great conversations.

somebody's willing to buy their property and then they get this contract that makes me look like a freaking scammer. And I'm like, I'm over my like horror, right? At first I had this just like horror of like, I cannot believe I was sending this contract to people. But now I'm over it. You know, had a, immediately, I immediately revised the contract. I did take out some of the.

Clayton Hepler (08:10)
Eww.

your social security

number in, right? Like that type of level.

Justin Piche (08:32)
No, it's not that

bad. No, it's not that bad. But it just had terms and conditions in the contract that were just so dumb. Like I would never ask a seller to sign something like that if I just read it. It's just a lazy move. You know, it's like when you're overwhelmed with everything and somebody's like leaning on your decision to do something and you're just like, look, they probably did it right. Okay, go. It's one of those situations and then not, you know, going back and reviewing it. So kudos to Magnus's manager for finally being like, we've got to change this. I know you told me to use this, but it sucks. Like we got to do something different.

and poo poo on me for not reading it properly. anyway, so maybe just like a quick, we don't often talk about our purchase agreement contract as is this, how important is this in terms of converging leads? And I would argue that it's really, really important, right? It's hard to have a contract that's super light, which we did for a long time, a one pager, right? One page contracts, super light on buyer protections, super light on seller protections, you know.

There's some enforceability to it, it's not really the ideal contract to deal with more challenging situations like a seller who refuses to sell to you or sign or anything. You can put specific performance in there and whatnot, but it's just like really light and then, you know, multi-page kind of MLS style contract, which is just excessive and like half the things you're not even gonna come close to using. So there is a nice middle ground with both of those things. And so now we've got a pretty solid.

two page, two and a half whatever page contract with some just solid negotiation points, right? It's our standard contract, we send it to people and then we have, we worked together on ⁓ the kind of scripting of overcoming objections. Like what are all the objections to each of these contract points and what is our reasoning behind putting these in the contract and what are we willing to negotiate on?

And why are they like all these explanation points? So, know, acquisition managers can explain to sellers why we have them in and what we're going to be flexible on and what scenarios some of these things might, you know, occur in. And like first day, you know, we we revised the contract. I had her delete, you know, all the old crappy contracts that I should never have sent to people out of DocuSign upload all this new contract with the same terms. And we got a big a big deal locked up like same day.

And we got another one yesterday. So it's like we were just, yeah, man. It's like sometimes it's the little things, you know, the little things that you're just. Yeah, look at everything. This business is complex. There's a lot of moving pieces.

Clayton Hepler (10:41)
that.

Justin Piche (10:52)
Yeah. This is this is actually perfect. You did it like you. You knew the top of today. Right, which is Java, the CEO.

Clayton Hepler (10:52)
Yeah, this is this is actually perfect. You dude, it's like you, you knew the topic today. Right, which is Java, the CEO. Dude,

Justin Piche (11:09)
⁓ dude, the more I, the more I interact with people, the more I like, internally

Clayton Hepler (11:11)
the more I the more I interact with people, the more I like reflect internally.

is your ability to prioritize the right thing to do as a CEO is

Justin Piche (11:17)
is your ability to prioritize the right thing to do as a CEO is.

Clayton Hepler (11:22)
one of the most important attributes as a CEO that you can have. Because oftentimes you are the bottleneck. Most of the land businesses I know, almost everyone is bottlenecked by the CEO. I don't actually know a land business that's not bottlenecked by a CEO. Right?

Justin Piche (11:23)
is one of the most important attributes as a CEO that you can have. Because oftentimes you are the bottleneck. Most of the land businesses I know, almost everyone is bottlenecked by the CEO. I don't actually know a land business that's not bottlenecked by a CEO.

Right? If you're needed at any, like even, I just saw something the other day with one of my team members that I was like,

Clayton Hepler (11:43)
If you're needed at any like even I just saw something the other day with one of my team members that I was like, how

is this even possible that this person did not do this? Right. And sometimes that happens and sometimes that's a result of you giving up control as the CEO. But I think it's really important to define the job of the CEO.

Justin Piche (11:50)
How is this even possible that this person did not do this?

Sometimes that happens and sometimes that's a result of you giving up control as a CEO. But I think it's really important to define the job of the CEO.

Clayton Hepler (12:05)
So we have a core concept here that we're gonna get into. ⁓ But one of the things that I do wanna just talk to you briefly about is the core jobs of a CEO. Like what are our core jobs as a CEO? You know, there's sort of like a couple of things. It's like, ⁓

Justin Piche (12:05)
So we have a core concept here that we're going to get into. But one of the things that I do want to just talk to you briefly about is the core jobs of a CEO. Like what are our core jobs as a CEO? know, there are sort of like a couple of things. It's like,

⁓ Set the vision is a lot of times what people believe the core values of the CEO is, right? ⁓

Clayton Hepler (12:27)
set the vision is a lot of times what people believe the core values of the CEO is, right? ⁓

hire and retain good talent, right? And some variation of setting standards, right? Setting speed, you know, there are certain things that a CEO should do. And for me, there is a, a standard that

Justin Piche (12:33)
Hire and retain good talent, right? And some variation of setting standards, right? Setting speed. There are certain things that a CEO should do. And for me, there is a standard

Clayton Hepler (12:52)
is required, which I would kind of bunch into setting the vision, this is who we are, this is our standard. ⁓

Justin Piche (12:53)
that is required, which I would kind of bunch into setting the vision. This is who we are. This is our standard. ⁓

Clayton Hepler (13:01)
there is a hiring and retaining of good talent that's the responsibility of the CEO and in clarity on the focus of the org. Right? And a lot of times you don't have a clarity on focus on the the org of what everyone needs to be doing, including yourself.

Justin Piche (13:01)
There is ⁓ a hiring and retaining of good talent. That's the responsibility of the CEO and clarity on the focus of the org. Right? And a lot of times you don't have a clarity on focus on the org of what everyone needs to be doing, including yourselves.

Clayton Hepler (13:19)
And you wonder why you know what why the results of the organization are not what you expect.

Justin Piche (13:20)
And you wonder why, you know what, why the results of the organization are not what you expect

Clayton Hepler (13:25)
Is there anything you'd add there man?

Justin Piche (13:25)
during thing you'd add their

man.

No, I mean, maybe a maybe an example.

Yeah, this is focusing on the outputs. We've talked about output thinking the book by the author John Cypher, Cypher and John Cypher. And that being such an important way to manage your team and manage expectations of what your team is working on and like a perfect example of how frustration can come from not fully knowing your outputs or knowing your outputs, but your team not understanding exactly what

Clayton Hepler (13:35)
Cipher.

Justin Piche (13:54)
outputs their response before and what their response should be in response to not meeting said outputs. So example is just outbound marketing. Let's just use outbound marketing example. I think most of us, I definitely do, you you got to control the controllables and you got to have a target for what you're trying to do each and every day. And so we have a marketing output like number that we are supposed to hit every day. And if we don't hit this amount of marketing that is going out, this amount of effort,

to generate leads, then how can we possibly expect to hit our annual targets or our quarterly targets or our monthly targets or have enough opportunities to do deals? And so the last couple of months of the year, last quarter really, along with this terrible contract debacle, we were just generating less leads than I was. It's really like the end of December into January, just generating less than I would expect. And I just kept getting so frustrated because I'm looking at the lead metrics as kind of my output that I was monitoring.

But that's not really the output. That's the result of an output. And I go, I dive deeper into like the, tracking of all our output, output marketing KPIs. And I'm like, why are we only sending like X amount of cold calls or Y amount of texts or what, like whatever these marketing channels are, why are we not hitting what I thought our target was? And so then I go and I, you know, call my, my outbound marketing manager and call my ops manager. We don't want to call it. I'm like, what's going on? And then I find out we have this host of like,

delays in getting like, or like the data, it's really not delays in getting data. It's, it's, there's a disconnect between how much data we're, we're providing in order to get, get these outputs and the amount of data that is actually marketable too. And I'm like, okay, so the issue is that we get 10,000 records, but our tools are only letting us send to 3000 people or 4,000 people. And so we think we're hitting we, and we thought we were going to be able to send to 7,000. So we're getting data to send to X amount, but we're only able to send to X to half.

Why wasn't that? Why weren't you guys like crying from the rooftops? You know, why weren't you telling us, you know, why weren't you bringing this up and every like weekly meeting or just pinging me and saying, hey, we can't meet our output targets. And then you look internally and you're like, okay, well it's because I didn't necessarily set for them. If we don't hit this outbound metric, we fail. You have to do whatever you can to hit this metric. You know, if you have X amount of data for a week and you, and you, say, let's say, let's use this. Let's say you're sending 10,000 outbound, whatever's per day.

You 50,000 per week you want to reach out to. Yep. And, and Monday and you segment your list because you say, okay, this is my Monday data. This is my Tuesday data. This is my Wednesday data. This is my Thursday. This is my Friday data. So on and so forth. You upload your first list of Monday data. You expect 10,000 and you come up with 5,000. What do you do? Do you just send Monday's list because you know, you have to use Tuesday's data for Tuesday, Wednesday's for Wednesday. And if you use, if you bring them forward, you won't be able to finish the week. Or do you hit your output target by bringing data forward?

Clayton Hepler (16:10)
right yep

Justin Piche (16:38)
and then reach out to the data team and say, hey, we don't have enough data for these reasons. Like, which is the right option? And that wasn't clear to my Outbound Marketing Manager of which option to choose. So I made it abundantly clear. The answer is to move the data up. This, our output is what's important.

Yep. Yep. Okay. So I want to add to this. This is so great. This is a great point. So someone might be hearing this and saying, oh my gosh, as the CEO, I'm supposed to be monitoring every KPI.

Clayton Hepler (16:54)
Okay, so I want to add to this. This is so great. This is a great point. So someone might be hearing this and saying, well, oh my gosh, as a CEO, I'm supposed to be monitoring every KPI.

Yes. But most importantly, the pace of the what the pace that you set

Justin Piche (17:06)
Yes, but most importantly, the pace that you set

Clayton Hepler (17:13)
for certain KPIs in the enforcing of these KPIs should be directly proportionate to the impact that it has on your organization. If you are not offering on sellers, that is a five alarm fire. That is a, we are, this is a problem, right? This is a problem. Cause we know that if

Justin Piche (17:13)
for certain KPIs in the enforcing of these KPIs should be directly proportionate to the impact that it has on your organization. If you are not offering on sellers, that is a five alarm fire. This is a problem, right? This is a problem. Because we know that

Clayton Hepler (17:32)
you ain't offering brother, you ain't getting any contracts, right? But if it's like, I'm not getting testimonials from sellers, it's kind of like, okay.

Justin Piche (17:32)
If you ain't offering brother, you ain't getting any contracts. I'm not getting testimonials from sellers. It's kind of like,

okay. There are more important things, right? So again, this comes down to the priority of the CEO, because there are so many things that you can look at and say, guys, we got to do this, right? We have to do this. And I'm just as guilty as anyone in making a

Clayton Hepler (17:42)
there are more important things, right? So again, this comes down to the priority of the CEO, because there are so many things that you can look at and say, guys, we got to do this, right? We have to do this. And I'm just as guilty as anyone at making

a fuss out of saying, man, like, why is this not completed? Like, why are we not achieving outcomes excellence in this specific area?

Justin Piche (17:59)
a fuss out of saying, man, like, why is this not completed? Like, why are we not achieving outcomes excellence in this specific area?

And hammering it while not actually solving the core problem of my business? Which is

Clayton Hepler (18:11)
⁓ and hammering it while not actually solving the core problem of my business, which is the constraint.

So the CEO's job, in other words, in this case is I, I'm assuming Justin, that that was a core constraint for you guys. Cause obviously you had a couple of months of, you know, results that were not up to the expectations of your organization. Right. And so that became the constraint. And so your role as a CEO is like, dude, doesn't matter what time of day it is eight o'clock, nine o'clock.

Justin Piche (18:21)
is I am assuming, Dustin, that that was a core constraint for you guys, because obviously you had a couple of months of results that were not up to the expectation of your organization. And so that became the constraint. so your role as a CEO is like, dude, it doesn't matter what time of day it is, 8 o'clock, 9

o'clock, 5 o'clock, whatever it is, 3, you're calling your ops manager. There's nothing more important to solve than this problem. Right. Right.

Clayton Hepler (18:38)
Five o'clock, whatever it is, three, you're calling your ops manager. There's nothing more important than solving this problem.

Justin Piche (18:45)
I mean, there's...

Like give yourself some grace if you also are struggling with something like this in your org, because you may be pulled in a million different directions, right? I mean, keep in mind, know, Clay and I have multiple other businesses other than just our core land business that we're running, right? I have this entire development business that is fundamentally separate. I mean, there's some overlap, obviously, but I have a lot of focus in that. And sometimes it can lead to slower responses or, you know, by requirement, trusting my team.

to handle and make decisions on the company's behalf, which is good. Like those are good things. That's the position you want to be in is to have your core team members, especially your leadership team with the ability and trust to make those decisions. But there are problems, there will always be problems that it requires a more holistic view rather than like a department head. And that's your job, that's your job. And you've got to properly prioritize the issues.

versus the growth and the other things you have on your plate. And I would, kind of lesson learned, let's just say, what did I learn from this? The biggest lesson learned is there are some things in the business that cannot be outsourced, right? And as the CEO, would say, your team accountable to outputs is not really something that can be outsourced. That's a key core responsibility of

the CEO period.

Clayton Hepler (20:05)
Exactly in the way the the the amount of energy right that you force in your organization And we're not talking about aggressive negative energy we're talking about positive productive Empowering energy that you bring to your org ⁓ Has it effect on those multiple levels below you if you're investing empowering and holding the standards of the level standards for the people that are part of your org

Justin Piche (20:06)
Exactly in the way the the amount of energy right that you force in your organization. And we're not talking about aggressive negative energy. We're talking about positive productive empowering energy that you bring to your org ⁓ has an effect on those multiple levels below you. If you're investing in powering and holding the standards of level standards for the people that are part of your

work.

Clayton Hepler (20:35)
In middle management, for example, you might have people in the middle of your organization. This is at least what I've experienced. They push that energy down. But it comes down to you as the CEO to cultivate that energy, set the standards, set the vision, and that creates the outputs, the standards, the operating principles that creates the decision making that would be your decision making in your stead.

Justin Piche (20:35)
In middle management, for example, you might have people in the middle of your organization. This is at least what I've experienced. They push that energy down. But it comes down to you as the CEO to cultivate that energy, set the standard, set the vision. And that creates the outputs, the standards, the operating principles that creates the decision making that would be your decision making in your

step.

Exactly. Exactly.

Clayton Hepler (21:00)
Alright, let's-

Justin Piche (21:00)
Do we want

to go through and define these different levels of CEO here?

yeah, yeah, yeah. think, yes, yes.

Clayton Hepler (21:06)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think yes, yes.

three stages of a, okay, yeah, let's, I used it that.

Justin Piche (21:10)
Three stages of, okay, yeah, let's, I did

Clayton Hepler (21:12)
So Justin and I had thought this through and we believe there are three stages of a CEO in a land business. Right. In general, there are three stages of CEO. Number one is the doer. Number two is the designer. Number three is the designer. Right. So for a doer, you know, you're the technician, you're getting in there, you're literally doing everything, everything in your business.

Justin Piche (21:13)
So Justin and I had thought this through and we believe there are three stages of a CEO in the land business. In general, there are three stages in a CEO. Number one is a doer. Number two is a designer. So for a doer, you're the technician, you're getting in there, you're literally doing everything, everything in your business.

Clayton Hepler (21:35)
⁓ this is the sweat equity that people talk about, right? And then from that's to about 500 K 500 K to about 1.5, you start to have a team, but you don't actually have middle management yet. You don't actually have people that can make decisions on your behalf. You're a genius with a thousand hands. This is the ultimate form of leverage from you. have just people doing the things for you, but you, everything comes to you. Decisions about closings, decisions about funding decisions about

Justin Piche (21:35)
This is the sweat equity that people talk about, And then from that's to about 500k 500k to about 1.5. You start to have a team, but you don't actually have mental management yet. You don't actually have people that can make decisions on your behalf. You're just putting a thousand hands. This is the ultimate form of leverage from you. You have just people doing the things for you, but you everything comes to you. Decisions about closings decisions about funding decisions

about.

Clayton Hepler (22:03)
deals,

Justin Piche (22:03)
deals decisions about marketing channels. So you just are the complete bottleneck. And then

Clayton Hepler (22:03)
decisions about marketing channels. So you just are the complete bottleneck. And then after this,

Justin Piche (22:10)
this, well, let's go into that for a sec because there's

an allure. There is an allure to this stage and staying here. And the allure is maybe you guys can relate to me. I don't know, but I am the type of person that when I am working and focused and like jumping from one fire to another and one decision to another like the entire day.

like into the night, whatever. I feel needed. I'm like, man, like this couldn't run without me. I am like the cog in the machine that makes it all. I am the engine that whatever makes this entire machine run. like without me, it would just stop and die. And there's this feeling of obviously like tiredness and stress that comes with that. But there's also this feeling of accomplishment or, you know, just worth that you can get.

from being in that world. There's an allure of kind of sitting in this position. You feel accomplished, right? You feel like you are completely just in control of everything, but you will quickly find obviously there's you can't get much past it because you are limited on your time.

Clayton Hepler (23:13)
Yeah, I mean, and you you build yourself a prison, man. This is where most people live. Because if everyone comes to them for everything, then you don't have a business, man. You're just a this is just a job.

Justin Piche (23:14)
Yeah, I mean, you you build yourself a prison, man. This is where most people live. Because if everyone comes to them for everything, then you don't have a business, man. You're just a this is just a

Yeah.

Clayton Hepler (23:27)
I didn't get into this business to have a job. I wanted financial freedom. Now, I do what my business requires of me. But at a certain level, your business requires you to exit.

Justin Piche (23:27)
And I didn't get into this business to have a job. I wanted financial freedom. Now, I do what my business requires of me. But at a certain level, your business requires you to

exit.

Clayton Hepler (23:39)
And your business requires you to do more higher level things. know, Justin, you, for example, you could exit your business right now and just do development deals. And that would be the highest thing that you possibly could do.

Justin Piche (23:40)
⁓

Clayton Hepler (23:54)
just from a friend, you know, I know you like from a higher value perspective, if you had the cashflow to maintain it, that would be the thing. Now you have the flips, you know, to keep the lights on and pay for, you know, the trips to wherever you're going and all that stuff. But,

Justin Piche (24:05)
the fifth

Theoretically, the ultimate version as you climb up is that it's becoming a designer and a developer.

Clayton Hepler (24:10)
the theoretically the ultimate version as you climb up is that it's, it's, it's becoming a designer and a developer.

Justin Piche (24:18)
But where people really mess this up is they get into the 500k to 1.5 million range, right? We all know people that are in this range. And then they try to add more people. They add more people to quote unquote scale. And they realize that about 10,

Clayton Hepler (24:18)
But where people where people really mess this up is they get into the 500 K to 1.5 million range, right? We all know people that are in this range and then they try to add more people They add more people to quote unquote scale and they realize that about 10 deal

my experience about 12 deals a month ⁓ Consistent buy side deals right 12 to maybe 14 deals a month. This business becomes pretty painful

Justin Piche (24:36)
My experience about 12 deals a month, consistent buy side deals, right? 12 to maybe 14 deals a month. This business becomes pretty

Yes it does.

We closed 38 deals in December, buy side and sell side. And it was the most stressful month of my life.

Clayton Hepler (24:47)
And we closed 38 deals in December, buy side and sell side. And it was the most stressful month of my life.

Justin Piche (24:55)
Yeah, dude. I know. I know exactly how that feels. And this is so funny.

Clayton Hepler (24:56)
38 deals.

Justin Piche (25:02)
to talk about these things and look at yourself in hindsight. Because we both have done, I did this, this was 2023 for me, 2023 and maybe the first part of 2024 was hiring, scaling and saying, this is the amount of profit we're targeting per deal, this is how many deals we need to get, we need more people, we need more marketing, we need more so on and so forth to achieve it.

And you just grow this big organization and you have a lot of output, but it's so stressful and it's so many transactions and so many things going wrong and right. And every which way it just becomes this crazy burden. think we've talked about this before. when we started this podcast and then maybe like when we said our first year ago, I think I had said like, I want to hit 5 million gross profit. Like that's my goal. And we had tried and we, didn't get there. We did not get there. We were, we were.

Clayton Hepler (25:48)
Yep.

Justin Piche (25:53)
We were like close to four, 3.8, I don't know, somewhere in that range. we weren't so far off, it was like embarrassing, but we did not get to five. the challenge that I kept running into is just the churn and stress and fires that start the more people and the more deals you do. And then the other challenge I ran into was the amount of data required and how often you can market to certain places and the complexity for one company.

You know, when you have, let's say you have, there's 20 different land investors. Each of these land investors can each pull the same data and send marketing via their various marketing channels. And some people are in the right place at the right time, right? To get certain deals and other people get certain deals, so on and so forth. There's only so much data. You can't multiply your business times 20 and send the same marketing to those same 20 people or those same people like 20 times. like, that's not an efficient use of capital.

But that's kind of what you're trying to do when you just keep scaling bigger and bigger. There's kind of almost like a natural big size of this business that makes sense before you start running into these problems left and right. And the only option for more revenue is bigger, not more.

Yeah. So yes. And I know I talked about this on a previous podcast about the land ladder, which I actually went through with you personally. And you're like, dude, this makes so much sense because

Clayton Hepler (26:59)
Yeah, so the yes ⁓ and I know I talked about this on a previous podcast about the land ladder, which I actually went through with you personally. And you're like, dude, this makes so much sense because

at 1.5 to two, other than that, it's like, you you, you accelerate up to that level. And then after that, it becomes like,

Justin Piche (27:14)
At 1.5 to 2, other than that, it's like you accelerate up to that level and then after that it becomes

difficult. Now, can you crack it? Of course you can. But you have the main businesses, like I think about it in two ways, You get like adding, you learn the skills of the business. So imagine, for example, you have a W-2 job.

Clayton Hepler (27:24)
Difficult now, can you crack it? Of course you can but you have that the the main businesses is like I think about in two ways man you get Like adding you you you learn the skills of the business. So imagine for example You are you have a w-2 job your

Justin Piche (27:42)
Your W2 job for me is your flipping business. Right. Right. You have the consistent income. It's more reliable. It's consistent. You build the base. And then how

Clayton Hepler (27:42)
w-2 job for me is your flipping business Right, you have the consistent income. It's more reliable. It's consistent you build the base and then how you

get the big hits is through the development deals, right? If you think about it, everyone talks about, man, real estate is not a great asset to build tremendous amount of wealth in because it's transactional, it's not like a real business. Well, actually, dude, land is the best version of real estate because you can do the,

Justin Piche (27:51)
you get the big hits is through the development deals. Right. If you think about it, everyone talks about, man, real estate is not a great asset to build tremendous amount of wealth in because it's transactional. It's not like a real business. Well, actually, dude, land is the best version of real estate because you can do the

Clayton Hepler (28:11)
you can build your income and you can also have these major liquidity events.

Justin Piche (28:11)
you can build your income and you can also have these major liquidity events

one two three five million dollar liquidity events if you you know build in these development deals right and so like shit man if you're selling a if you're selling a uh gotta take that out if you're selling a a uh pool business right or a hvsc business you might make five million dollars or 10 million

Clayton Hepler (28:16)
one, two, three, five million dollar liquidity events if you build in these development deals, right? And so, like shit, man, if you're selling a... ⁓

If you're selling a ⁓ pool business, right, or a HVAC business, you might make $5 million or $10 million,

right, after you do it. But you're doing the same exact thing with land, right? But there's so many additional exit strategies you can start building, you can develop on it. That's why I think it's just such an amazing asset class. But that's earned after you go from the technician

Justin Piche (28:40)
right after you do it. But you're doing the same exact thing with land, right? But there's so many additional exit strategies you can start building. can develop on it. That's why I think it's just such an amazing asset class. ⁓ But that's earned after you go from the technician

to the manager and then you become the designer

Clayton Hepler (28:58)
to the manager and then you become the designer thereafter.

Justin Piche (29:03)
Yeah, the designer, the final rule.

was of a CEO, at least in our estimate of a land business. So the designer is like, you're not, this is where you want to be. You're not doing the in and out work. You're not responsible for the daily outputs and you're not making daily decisions. You're building the systems, right? You're making the decisions for the direction of the company. And this is where you want to be, right? You're monitoring your outputs and holding the team accountable.

and hitting your numbers without being the one doing all the work. And this is tough though, because this has its own challenges. If this is your only thing, you might find yourself feeling not very useful. You might find yourself feeling bored, right? You're not saving every deal. You're not fighting every fire. You are, and this is a challenge too, just to like get to this position because...

Giving up control of a lot of the core processes in your business is a challenge in itself. But then once you get managers, you know, in place, giving up control of like ultimate decision making also is an even bigger challenge that I find. And there's this temptation to stay in the decider phase where you are still intimately involved in each department's decisions every day. You're needed.

Things a perfect like maybe one example is like purchase decisions, right? Purchases. Should we buy this property? This is one that maybe in a decider phase, you're still there. You have it. You know, maybe you have like an ops lead that is that is or an acquisitions manager. That's really high level that is getting you these deals. But in the end, they're sending them to you. You're reviewing them and you're saying yes, buy this or no, buy this or at this price or offer this or whatever. But but

I mean, as you scale your business, could be hours of your day. You might get pinged every two hours to make a decision on buying something and feeling like giving up that control can feel, can feel not good. You're like, I'm the only one who knows. I'm the only one who knows what the right decision here. I'm the one who's going to have to spend this money. So I need to make this decision, but then you just trap yourself. You just get trapped.

I agree. My COO signed for everything. yeah. Yeah. I literally, I don't like.

Clayton Hepler (31:00)
I agree my COO signs for everything man. I literally I don't like

I'm almost at the point that I trust my team to make decisions on my behalf for

Justin Piche (31:07)
I'm almost at the point that I trust my team to make decisions on my behalf for

buying deals. If it's a flip, you know, hey, we have this, we have a deal that we looked at, we're buying it for 165 and we think our minimum exit is like 250, 280. Beautiful. Great deal. And like, you know.

Clayton Hepler (31:28)
And I

was like, it's like, you know, the lower end is it too skinny? And they're like, guys, this is we're gonna buy for 165 sell for 280. We're gonna make like 80 K on it. It's a good solid deal. And

Justin Piche (31:29)
I was like, is it's like, you know, the lower end is it too skinny? And they're like, guys, this is we're to buy for 165, sell for 280. Yeah, we're going to make like 80 K on it. It's a good solid deal.

Clayton Hepler (31:40)
⁓

And so but other deals I don't even like look at them I don't even know where most of my deals are even I don't even go to transactions meetings anymore I don't know where any of them are because I have an operator now that it's living in ⁓ Making sure those deals get pushed through when you then have that operator is though the thing that I messed up early on Was I would then route communications?

Justin Piche (31:42)
And so but other deals, I don't even like look at them. I don't even know where most of my deals are even. I don't even go into transactions meetings anymore. I don't know where any of them are because I have an operator now that's living in making sure those deals get pushed through.

when you then have that operator is though the thing that I messed up early on was I would then route communications

Clayton Hepler (32:07)
through two individuals and not to the individual operator. And so I always like to say you have one throat to choke for any output. Right. And so he's he's the guy that has the you know, he's the throat to choke. Right. I can't tell me he's a military guy.

Justin Piche (32:07)
through to individuals and not to the individual operator and so I always like to say you have one throat to choke right and so he's he's the guy that has the you know he's the throat to choke right I can't tell me the

Clayton Hepler (32:24)
I tell

him I said Nick, you're the one throat to choke

Justin Piche (32:25)
I like that saying, you got one throughout the

Clayton Hepler (32:29)
And but it's true, right. So so then you route communications say Nick, this is not up to my standard. What we talked about earlier in CEO outputs.

Justin Piche (32:29)
But it's true, right? So then you ride communications saying, Nick, this is not up to my standard. Let me talk about earlier CEO

outputs. This is not up to the standard. This is not acceptable. This is not my intent as a CEO. Let's get

Clayton Hepler (32:36)
This is not to the standard. This is not acceptable. This is not my intent as a CEO. Let's get better.

Justin Piche (32:42)
Yeah, no, I agree with that. I'm thinking introspectively as you're talking because you talked about transactions and I would say like that's probably the main place where I still hang out as a decider and not necessarily a designer.

I think I was trying to reflect on the reasons like why is this a thing that I am not fully letting go of? And I think because you're talking about 38 deals, like, yeah, we've got like 50 deals right now just in the pipeline between acquisitions and sales and various ones have issues. And there's a lot of coordination that needs to get done. And I always feel like sometimes, especially with title companies, we're dealing with a lot of issues in title companies right now.

Sometimes you just need yourself to give them a call or send a strong email and I wanna be fully informed. And then the other aspect of it, at least for me, why am I still doing this, is the money. Where's the money gonna come from to fund all these deals? And so it's important for me to be up to date weekly on which deals are closing when, how much money is coming back in or out. And I think some of that could be mitigated if I had a really fat OPEX budget or a really fat OPEX reserve chilling in my account where I'm like, we're good for six months. But I don't tend to operate that

I tend to operate with maximum cash deployment. And so I'm pretty tactically involved in the day to day monies in and out.

So just like, know, you just don't have the right operator in the seat. Yeah, but I don't think it's that. I think I do have the right operator. I think it's something I could step out of. I just don't want to. But I think that's part of like the luxury of being in the designer phase is like, if there's a part of your business, like you really like, you can still hold on to it. It's not the optimum use of my time.

Clayton Hepler (33:55)
Yeah, I would say I would say that or you just don't have the right operator in the seat.

Okay. Okay.

That's right.

Justin Piche (34:16)
No, if I, you know, it's probably would be better if I was pursuing or spending that time that I'm spending in the, you know, transactions phase of the business on scaling the development side of the business or like actively searching for more deals on that side or networking with brokers and networking with other investors to get deals pitched to me or, whatever. There's probably a better use of my time, but I do, I still like being involved in that way

anyway. Yeah. So, so I think that

Clayton Hepler (34:40)
Yeah, so I think that what

the listeners can really get out of this is Justin and I have different ways of operating our businesses and we both been able to be successful. You know what I mean? So I would say that for me, depending on where you are at this stage of your business, I would really highly recommend that you focus on the biggest constraint.

Justin Piche (34:42)
What the listeners can really get out of this is, Justin and I have different ways of operating our businesses. And we've both been able to be successful. So I would say that for me, depending on where you are at this stage in your business, I would really highly recommend that you focus on the biggest constraint.

Clayton Hepler (35:09)
So, so, so, so if

you as a CEO, just focus on solving your biggest, biggest constraint, everything else becomes obsolete. It does not matter. If that's truly your biggest constraint, then 90 % of your time should be going towards that. And that's why I don't stay in transactions. Because, and it doesn't mean Justin's way is right or my way is right. But I'm such a zealot for the theory of constraints that, ⁓

Justin Piche (35:11)
If you as a CEO just focus on solving your biggest constraint, everything else becomes obsolete. It does not matter. If that's truly your biggest constraint, then 90 % of your time should be going towards that. And that's why I don't say in transactions. Yeah. Because, and it doesn't mean Justin's way is right or my way is right, but I'm such a zealot for the theory of constraints that ⁓

Clayton Hepler (35:37)
I know that ⁓

Justin Piche (35:38)
I know that.

Clayton Hepler (35:38)
me as a CEO, my time is best spent on ⁓ throughput, right? Throughput for our marketing ⁓ department. So looking at deals, pushing deals through on the front end, holding our team accountable to increasing standard speed on the front end. And look, if we can double what we're currently doing,

Justin Piche (35:39)
Me as a CEO, my time is best spent on throughput, right? Throughput for our marketing department. So looking at deals, pushing deals through on the front end, holding our team accountable to increasing standard speed on the front end. And look, if we can double what we're currently

doing,

Clayton Hepler (36:00)
We get to a, you know, we triple our business. Literally we will triple our business in terms of the subdivide development deals I'm doing. And if we increase the pace even more, we can build an eight figure business. Right. And so the way I looked at the way I look at it and it balls can be dropped, man. Like sometimes I come in and I'm like, what is, know, what's going on guys? We got to, get, get back to it. Get back to the standard, but

Justin Piche (36:01)
We get to a, you know, we triple our business. Literally, we will triple our business in terms of the sub-device development deals I'm doing. And if we increase the page even more, we can build an eight-figure business, right? And so the way I looked at it and it falls can be dropped in. Like sometimes I come in and I'm like, is, you know, what's going on guys? gotta, you know, get back to it. Get back to the standard.

But.

Clayton Hepler (36:28)
If I, if I can put all of my CEO juice into that and we can get to where we need to be faster. That's why I hired the operator in, in general, I hired him to be the person that I could just have kind of manage the main thing so I can go out and truly go after these things. Now, if I was in a different position in my business, maybe the acquisition manager role would be the one that I truly, I truly go after. Right. And by the way, ⁓

Justin Piche (36:28)
If I can put all of my CEO juice into that, and we can get to where we need to be faster, that's why I hired the operator in general. I hired him to be the person that I could just have kind of manage the main thing so I can go out and truly go after these things. Now, if I was in a different position in my business, maybe the acquisition manager role would be the one that I truly go after, right? And by the way,

Clayton Hepler (36:56)
as a listener, you don't have to operate your business this way. If this is more of a, ⁓ I want to run this business and I want it to be able to pay for private school and, I'm good at a million a year and I have a couple of team members, that's perfectly fine. I'm trying to build a $25 million a year gross profit business as soon as possible. So I have a different type of approach to it. Doesn't mean it's right or wrong. Whatever way you're doing is right or wrong. And I support anyone's kind of way of doing it, but I've just found that the constraint has been the

Justin Piche (36:56)
As a listener, you don't have to operate your business this way. If this is more of a, I want to run this business and I want it to be able to pay for private school and I'm good at a million a year and I have a couple of team members, that's perfectly fine. I'm trying to build a $25 million a year for a profit business as soon as possible. So I have a different type of approach to it. It doesn't mean it's right or wrong. Whatever way you're doing it right or wrong, I support anyone's kind of way of doing it. But I've just found the constraint has been

the

Clayton Hepler (37:25)
the best

way to get the highest leverage on my time as the CEO. And yeah.

Justin Piche (37:25)
The best way to get the highest leverage of my time as the CEO. And yeah.

Love it. Is there any, it was probably a point in talking about like, Hey, what are the key things you need to focus on to go from doer to designer to our doer? Yeah. Doer to designer essentially with decider in between. And I think for a doer to go to the decider, you obviously need to get all the do things off of your plate.

That's you building your kind of core output team, defining your core metrics, defining the processes and getting the people that are doing those day to day tasks. You're still responsible for all those decisions. You're making purchase decisions. You're comping, making comping decisions. You're making sales decisions. You're making transactions decisions, etc. You're still wearing a lot of hats and really intimately involved, but you're not the one generating leads. You're not the one talking to the leads necessarily. You're not the one listing your properties, maybe not the one negotiating with realtors or things like that. Other people are doing those for you.

And then moving from the decider to the designer, it's one more step of high level person that you can trust to make those decisions. so Clay's got his operator in place that is making those core decisions. I have my department heads in place that are making those core decisions. And yeah, there's some that I decide to hold onto. And there may be some that Clay decides to hold onto, but to get into that designer role, you need people that you can trust to make the right decision.

for your business in whatever capacity it needs to be made. So it's a people game. It's one of the hardest parts of building a business is getting the right people in place. And I think a lot of people's hesitation for all of these steps, I know this was my own personal hesitation, was both, was two things. One was certainly like the feeling of having to give up control of things. It's tough to give up control, especially with somebody who maybe isn't proven to you.

You know, you have a feeling, you've interviewed them, they seem to be aligned, they seem to be the right performer, the right person, but you don't know, it's impossible to know really. And then the next thing is the money, right? Now I have to share more of my profits with these people because people that can make the decisions that you are making now, they need to be paid well. You're not gonna find a $10,000 a year overseas VA that's gonna be able to make your decisions.

your hundred thousand dollar decisions for you. It's just, it's not gonna work. You're not gonna be happy. It's gonna be a challenge. And maybe I'm gonna take that statement and just say, that doesn't mean there aren't people that are willing to work for $10,000 a year that can make those decisions. It just means that it's gonna be way harder to find that person. And I don't know if I personally would want that person making the decisions that need to be made in my business. So those are really the big challenges is those two

Clayton Hepler (40:05)
Yeah. I mean, I'm going to push back on what you said. I don't think a $10,000 an hour, a $10,000 a year employee can make a hundred thousand dollar decisions because their skillset is being paid at $10,000 a year. so that the, know, within a, within a striking distance of 20 to 30%, right. Someone's not going to be able to make those types of decisions. Um, you can equip them with those decisions, but usually the pay grade is commensurate with the, you

Justin Piche (40:06)
Yeah, I mean, I'm going to push back on what you said. I don't think a $10,000 an hour, $10,000 a year employee could make $100,000 decisions because their skill set is being paid at $10,000 a year. so within a striking distance of 20 to 30%, right? Someone's not going to be able to make those types of decisions. You can equip them with those decisions, but usually the pay grade is commensurate with the...

Clayton Hepler (40:33)
right.

Justin Piche (40:33)
I'm

just trying to like...

Clayton Hepler (40:35)
You're trying to be nice. I know.

Justin Piche (40:35)
I don't know, maybe

we have some listener that has somebody hired in some country where the cost of living is so astronomically low, but they've hired the ex-CEO of the biggest company in that

country, but $10,000 a year is enough salary and they're like, I don't know, I don't like to be an absolutist, you know what I mean? I've been wrong enough times to not speak in absolutes.

Clayton Hepler (40:55)
Fair enough, fair enough. I respect that, I respect that. Yeah, so I think that these are core, like I think that the core parts is like as you know, the leverage in our business comes down to people. And so as you get up the levels, like obviously there's a direct revenue component, because the more productive that you can be as a CEO, the faster you can hire people and productive is measured by.

Justin Piche (40:59)
Yeah, so I think these are core. Like, I think that the core parts is like, as you know, the leverage of our business comes down to people. And so as you get up the levels, like, obviously, there's a direct revenue component because the more productive that you could be as a CEO, the faster you can hire people and productive is measured

by the speed with which you move towards your goal. in most of our goals in this business is getting, know,

Clayton Hepler (41:17)
The speed with which you move towards your goal and in most of our goals in this business is getting, you know,

making money. Right. And so the faster you can be productive in the way that the shorthand for that is focusing on the biggest problem of the business as the CEO. Because if you are focusing on the biggest problem, you're putting the biggest brain.

Justin Piche (41:25)
making money, right? And so the faster you can be productive in the way that the shorthand for that is focusing on the biggest problem of the business as a CEO. Because if you are focusing on the biggest problem, you're putting the biggest brain

Clayton Hepler (41:38)
Effectively, especially in the early stages of the business of the CEO right the founder the person who could make the fastest decisions attacking the problem

Justin Piche (41:39)
effectively, especially in the early stages of the business of the CEO, right? The founder, the person who can make the fastest decisions attacking the problem. And then after you tack the problem, you get up another level, you get people in and then, know, really the

Clayton Hepler (41:47)
And then after you tack the problem and you get up another level, you get people in and then, know, really the jump

for me is two to three is, is having someone in the middle management level doesn't even have to be a state side employee. It could be someone who's a chief of staff who has operations experience. They can start to make a decision, start to manage people and then you manage them. Right. So that's, that's really where I

Justin Piche (41:54)
Jump for me is two to three is having someone in the middle management level. Doesn't even have to be a state side employee. It could be someone who's a chief or staff who has operations experience. They can start to make a decision, start to manage people and then you manage them, right? So that's

Clayton Hepler (42:13)
people start to buy back their time is that they have a, ⁓ someone that kind

Justin Piche (42:13)
where I see people start to buy back their time is that they have ⁓ someone

that comes before them instead of them being the person that everyone goes to, right? There's like a filtering mechanism.

Right? Yeah. I think we go to the challenge,

Clayton Hepler (42:26)
I think we I think we go to the challenge brother

Justin Piche (42:33)
right. Go for it. What are you going to challenge the listeners with,

Clayton Hepler (42:36)
Yeah, I think that one thing that has always been very helpful for me is a time audit, seeing exactly what I'm doing. And obviously, if what you're doing today is the same thing that what you're doing last year, I can make a pretty strong wager that your income is pretty similar to what you were doing last year. Because if you're not changing what you're doing, ⁓

Justin Piche (42:36)
Yeah, I think that one thing that has always been very helpful for me is a time audit, seeing exactly what I'm doing. And obviously, if what you're doing today is the same thing that what you're doing last year, I can make a pretty strong wager that your income is pretty similar to what you were doing last year. Because if you're not changing what you're doing, ⁓

Clayton Hepler (43:04)
Unless

you know, obviously you're at a CEO level, then it's kind of different because like managing people, right? Managing, you know, vision, right? ⁓ But if you're not, if you're not changing what you're doing, attacking bigger problems, ⁓ you see that show up in your calendar. So really easy way to operationalize how am I ascending up this doer, decider designer stage comes down to your calendar. So look at your calendar, conduct a time audit.

Justin Piche (43:04)
Unless you know, obviously you're at a CEO level, then it's kind of different because like managing people, Managing, you know, vision, right? But if you're not, if you're not changing what you're doing, ⁓ attacking bigger problems, ⁓ you see that show up in your calendar. So really ⁓ easy way to operationalize how am I ascending up this doer, decider, designer stage comes down to your calendar. So look at your calendar, conduct a time

audit.

Clayton Hepler (43:32)
for the next 14 days and man it opens up a lot of context in what you're doing and what you can start to delegate so you can buy back more of your time to allocate that towards a higher dollar value task so that you can drive your business forward.

Justin Piche (43:32)
for the next 14 days and man, it opens up a lot of contacts in what you're doing and what you can start to delegate so you can buy back more of your time to allocate that towards a higher dollar value task so that you can drive your business

Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. I think for me, I would just say, empower your team to make decisions.

Empower the highest level employees that you have and see if you can get more out of them. And if you can't, then you need to find someone who can. If you want to get from the one level to the next, you've just got to focus on hiring the right person. That way you don't have to be the hero that saves every deal. You can be the architect who builds the system that doesn't need saving.

Clayton Hepler (44:12)
Couldn't have said it better myself. ⁓ So, guys, as always, at the end of the podcast, if you got benefit from this, please give us some feedback. Let us know what you think ⁓ about ⁓ the podcast by rate reviewing and subscribing. It lets us keep putting out this free information that we love doing everything a week to continue to add value to your guys' life. So we appreciate that. Anything else, Justin, before we hop off here?

Justin Piche (44:13)
Couldn't said it better myself. So.

Guys, always, at the end of the podcast, if you got benefit from this, please give us some feedback. Let us know what you think about ⁓ the podcast by rate reviewing and subscribing. It lets us keep putting up this free information that we love doing everything a week to continue to add value to your guys's life. So we appreciate that. Anything else, Justin, before we hop

there? Now that's it. We'll dive into some more land investing business topics.

next week. We'll see you guys next week.