How to Avoid Training Your Competition

One of the questions I am asked frequently is, "If I get an assistant, how do I avoid training my competition, but also get someone with the initiative to make things happen on their own?" This question assumes that the only people with initiative are those who are interested in investing in real estate. This is simply untrue. Dont you know plenty of people who are interested in real estate, but dont take the initiative to do anything about it? Likewise, there are plenty of people with initiative who would be willing to work as your personal assistant, but are not necessary interested in investing themselves.

How many secretaries and office managers do you know that work for accounting firms and actually wish they were crunching numbers and preparing tax returns? How many receptionists in law firms want to be the ones preparing legal briefs at 1:00 in the morning or cross-examining a defendant in a heated courtroom? Probably not too many. Assistants apply for their jobs because they like working as an assistant, not because they are fascinated with the type of product or service their employer provides.

Real estate investing is no different. It is not necessary to hire someone who is interested in doing deals of their own someday, and I dont recommend it. It is likely that with such a person, any of the following things will happen:

They will leave you in order to go try to do deals on their own. They may be completely unsuccessful and never become a major competitor, but it will still waste your time replacing them with someone new.

They might steal your prospects, deals, and secrets. They might start their own investing business while working for you and steal your seller leads, potential buyers, private lenders, and top-secret marketing methods. This could cost you tens of thousands in lost deals.

They might ask you to pay them more than you need to. They feel like theyre doing as much work as you, so they should be entitled to a piece of the action. Little do they know that anyone can spend their time working on a deal. But you are the one putting your name and money on the line and obligating yourself to perform every time you do a deal. If this doesnt mean anything to them, ask them if theyd like to share the risk as well and owe tens of thousands on a deal that goes bad. The chances are they wont, and if thats the case, why should they get a piece of the profits when things do go well?

They might get jealous and difficult to work with. In this case, you can either continue to deal with their bad attitude and let them hold you hostage, or you will let them go and spend your precious time hiring and training someone else. Either case is a waste of your time and should be avoided.

Because of these reasons, I dont believe its worth the risk in the first place to hire someone who wants to learn how to be an investor. If they want to learn how, let them find some deals and wholesale them to you. Anything else they do is not worth paying more than an hourly rate.