McDontalds and the Belgum Fry

I can't call what MickyD's sells a French fry any more.

Why?

Because McD in their system to promote your addiction to their food actually REMOVES all the natural potato taste and replaces it with a proprietary "potato formula"

Now there are many systems in place here.

They had to test to find what "tasted" best.
They had to test to remove "real" food from their food.
They had to test where to put that process in the chain of events.

So we see that good systems can produce poor results.

Ask yourself, if your systems are enlightened.

Do you sell homes for 125% of value because you're "selling the future value" on a lease option?

How enlightened is that? Why shouldn't a tenant buyer be able to build equity?


--------

Donna is back, but sick. So I'll have to hold off on her story.

For now, I will tell about the small deviation very in line with Matt K.'s comment about payment systems.

We usually do a specific billing procedure, most of you have it. In this one case, a service provider for us for whom we had terms in all other cases, wanted to charge right away 50% of the cost of the service.

We said sure.

Our office manager, who knew about this, got the credit card bill and didn't recognize these daily charges for $300.

He thought maybe it was my Travel or Donna's Travel (Hotel expenses or something).

I couldn't think of anything, so told him to dispute the charge, cancle the card, etc. (That was the system and procedure on hand after the phone call to verify).

Well, now, we have a vendor who got all his charges disputed from us. Makes us look bad. Keep in mind it was like a week of charges 1 to 3 a day but it was a month later.

Add to that, we had to shorten the credit history on a card.

These are all "bad things" which came from a deviation in the system.

Here's your homework.

Comment into the blog:

What system would you create to "capture" and "brainstorm" the impacts of a small deviation in a system?

When is it worth LOSING business to maintain the system?

Warmly,

Paulie Sabol

Hey friends, I'm frantic today.

I'm getting on a jet to leave for 7 days.

However, I do want to prep you and ask you to think about these two ideas and post your thoughts while I'm gone and looking to get on to post more details.

1) I want to talk about unenlightened system - I'll be brining up our old friend McDonnalds and talking about systems which work but hurt!

2) I want to talk about how a deviation from the system can bring about disaster -- even when it's small, makes sense (at the time), etc.

and

3) Donna is going to share a system story. It's quite a good one (if only in my business I could remember it).

So here's you assignment.

1) What could an unenlightened system.
2) Share a care of where deviating from your systems this month impacted you (for the good or bad)... Think back to another case, maybe as much as before this program started, have there been effects to this day?
and
3) Do you have a system story to share with your peers?

Here's a few powerful facts...

Go to www.realestatelink.net and listen to the call by Steve Cook.

This guy understands buying back his time.

In his first two years of REI he did 100 deals.

In his last year of REI he's done 14 (he hoped to only do 5)...and he made more money this year than the first.

You also saw this in an email; however, it's critical you go to AM2Gold and consider this powerful network. We all know a team is a major part in buying back our time. This is the team that will turn your business into an Internet money machine. And perhaps even line extend it into other online sources of income.

I've been selling houses while out of the state and out of the country because of my most recent Real Estate Intern, Casey P. He's been terrific. Have you met your goal in getting more help?

Questions to answer in the comment section!

1) What one thing did you pick up from the Steven Cook call?
2) What one thing stood out to you at http://www.tellallguide.com
3) What is your goal for adding team members? How many have you added so far?

Warmly,

Paulie Sabol

Blogging from the Big Seminar.

This weekend I've been at the Big Seminar in Atlanta Georgia.

The "Big Seminar" is for Internet based business owners.

Again, I must say how clearly superior the Internet is as a system to most other areas.

Programming is the key. Likewise, the technology "gap" is the systamtization cap.

How so? Well, programming does exactly what it's told, every time, any time, all the time. Programming is the ultimate static and dynamic tool. It can generate random, fuzzy data or highly invariate. Programming is incremental, it can be improved, isolated, "fired" or "hired" without legal entanglement, etc.

Programming and technology does have a limit to it's implementation. That is the learning curve and the technology gap.

Even still 1 in 4 or 5 homes are not online. That's still a huge market offline exclusively (or at least other than if they sneak an online activity while at work).

Further, I know I personally own dozens of automation tools which remind unimplimented because of the learning curve associated with FIRST getting them in place and SECOND instructing the users (both internal and external) to adopt them.

So here's the question: What are the ways we as real Estate Investors can use Internet to make our business better? What are the limits because we really are a DIRT business?

Where are you using the Internet? Does it help with your systematization? Let's share.

Warmly,

Paulie Sabol
In Atlanta.

April Fool Checking IN

Okay, I sent out the email the other day. By 2 PM on April Fool's day, here's the results I show

21 Units were delivered. That's 100.00 (No bounces!)
7 (8) Opens. 33.33%

One third of us have opened the email. One of us opened it twice.

So, now the real issue is, perhaps some of our friends WANT to open it but arnt' getting the email.

Let me tell you some more.

Randy & Heather Carson
April 1, 2005 10:08:21 AM 2

Kunle
March 31, 2005 08:30:25 PM 1

Jeffrey Nelson
April 1, 2005 12:00:26 PM 1

Sophann Im
March 31, 2005 09:55:53 PM 1

Marcus Curry
March 31, 2005 10:08:11 PM 1

Martha Chiriboga
March 31, 2005 11:22:00 PM 1

Malik Samba
April 1, 2005 08:56:59 AM 1

Interestingly, 2 of the key people who called me to tell me they're not getting the messages have not "opened" them. Grrr.

Now you can see why we're moving to this tool.

Warmly,

Paulie

PS I just talked to Matt Kern, so I suspect we'll be seeing him soon.

Avoiding the email peril

In an effort to avoid the perils of email (one of my posts had a 80% bounce rate just 3 weeks ago to our small group).

And, if you remember, at least twice I spoke of blogs and the power of blogging.

If you got that email :) Then you know one of it's advantages is it gets up and around email filters, domain blocks, etc.

Consequently, my new system will be to post the weekly visit here.

I want to also encourage the use of the "comment" feature.

I don't know as much about where you all are in your business as I'd like to. As with anything in life, what we can mine out of this process is going to be a function of the "natural resources" of the soil and our willingness to dig an 'inch wide' and a 'mile deep'.

Remember, every day we use systems. EVERY DAY.

However, how many systems have we documented this month?

I personally documented 5 systems for RealEstateLink.net and 3 systems for a new barter company being launched.

I also established 3 systems with my real estate team member, Casey. Who I must say is one of the best 'internlike' partner's I've added. He's a true joy to work with and reflect on his growth.

Additionally, I send out the conference call announcements for RealEstateLink.net for you all. Of course they're subject to bounce.

One of the reasons, I've learned, emails can bounce or be blocked is because of length. So it's possible I've been able to get a 'creative' to you (an email with just a picture) and not these missives I write.

Let's start the commentary here.

In April. On what subjects would you like to see more investigation and commentary?

Also, I'll try to send out the announcement for this blog via, a creative email.

Please REGISTER to be a "member" so I know you've found your way.

After a couple weeks, I'll stop emailing reminders and call anyone I can to see if he/she has their focus somewhere other than systematizing a business.

Warmly,

Paulie Sabol