JBT Investment Group LLC

02/04/2023

Dave Conord
Oct 10, 2017

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3 min read
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The 5 P’s Every Leader Needs To Know

View from the Eiffel Tower observation deck. Conord 2017
Define your team culture using the five P’s.
Nearly every successful business points to its culture as the driving force behind the results. It is commonly accepted that a thriving culture will attract and keep the best talent, and will keep productivity at a consistently high pace. However, it is also common that many launch into the process of building a new team or business without giving enough thought to the culture, the personality, the environment, they want their business to have. Every business has a culture, whether it is by design or default.

As a leader, there are five P’s to remember when planning and building your team culture:

Principles, Picture, Purpose, Process, and People.

1) Principles: (who you are) Your team principles are the core values that define how each team member will treat each other, your clients, and anyone they come in contact with. While these can (and must) be shared clearly and regularly with them team, it is important to determine before the hire if candidates already share your principles and exhibit them in their relationships.

2) Picture: (what you are building) To help avoid conflict and increase speed toward the team’s goals, it is important that everyone is rowing in the same direction. As the leader, one of your primary responsibilities is to paint a clear picture of where you are going, and why. Some refer to this as your vision. The picture should be specific, inspirational, and concise enough for the team to be able to memorize and share it easily.

3) Purpose: (why you are building it) Your purpose is why you do what you do. Some businesses define their purpose by creating a Mission Statement to clarify how they hope to make an impact in the world around them. Defining your purpose helps you identify others who share your passion for serving the people in your market. You should be able to clearly articulate what drives you and what sets you apart from others. United around a common purpose, the team is more likely to work well together and provide great service to your clients.

4) Process: (how you will build it) Once the team is aligned in their purpose, striving toward the picture you have provided, every member of the team must be clear in their role to move the team forward. Clear processes with expected results and accountability to the team for performance allows your talented team members to have the freedom and autonomy to succeed in their role. Clarity of process reduces stress and allows you to run as fast as possible.

5) People: (who will help you build it) The most critical step, of course, is finding the right people; the ones who share the qualities, principles, and purpose that are important to you. Great leaders understand the importance of selecting carefully and then investing in the lives and success of their people. One wrong hire can wreak havoc on your business and destroy your team. Defining the first four P’s in a way that is congruent with who you are will help you attract candidates who are already a fit.

Startup
Leadership
Culture
Team Building
Business Strategy

10/11/2022

These 20 housing markers are cooling the fastest, according to 📉

According to the latest data from Redfin, the housing market is slowing down in several major U.S. metros. The report included the top 20 U.S. hotspots.

05/18/2022

The market is shifting…ask us how we can help you!

14 Rules for the Shifting Market Don't overreact! The market is shifting, not crashing. Knowledge = Confidence and Ignorance = Fear. If you expect buyers

02/05/2022

Why Warren Buffet Says To Buy Single Family Investment Properties Right Now
August 4, 2020
By offergeeks

I found a video recently of the world's most successful investor… Warren Buffet… talking about why right now buying single-family homes and renting them out is one of the smartest things you can do.

Check out the quick video of Warren below: (click the video to play)

Warren Buffett talks about investing in single-family homes on CNBC
If you’re at all thinking about buying some rental properties anytime soon… right now is that time.

What’s Coming Down The Pike (and already happening)
Already institutional investors like hedge funds, mutual funds, private equity firms… etc. are shifting from buying stocks… to committing hundreds of millions of dollars (in some cases, billions) to buying foreclosed and REO houses… and renting them out.

The returns they can get doing that are much greater right now than they’re seeing in the stock market.

So, if you wait… the supply of bargain properties will be way down… and will make it harder and harder for investors like you and me to find the best deals.

So, if you’re interested in picking up a couple extra rental properties (or a bunch)… make sure you’re on our VIP Buyers list on this site so you can get our Discount Property Alerts every time we tie up a deeply discounted property.

Happy investing!

written by offergeeks

01/05/2022

Tampa is named the hottest city for real estate for 2022. We do a lot of business in this awesome city. If you are looking to sell, give me a shout. Jim 610-203-8843

Information on Zillows history, management team, Real Estate offerings, and the benefits for consumers and Agents.

11/22/2021

Word of wisdom from one of my mentors is below. This Zillow meltdown is really just their problem. Most people in Real Estate know that Zillow is a flawed system. The real estate market is strong and will stay strong as long as these inventory shortages persist. This shortage started after the Crash in 2008. Builders stopped building and have never really gotten back to a pace that is necessary to push through this. This will be a problem for the foreseeable future. The bottom line, machines can't take the place of real hustlers...

Man Vs. Machine
If this drama with Zillow has taught us anything, it’s that an algorithm is never going to make the same kind of decisions as a person.



In case you’ve missed it, Zillow’s bustling little “side hustle”—that is, investing in millions of dollars worth of houses, sight unseen—is the American economy’s newest cautionary tale in letting online shopping get the best of you.



Hey, I get it. If I were a big company like Zillow, I would’ve also been thinking creatively about how to monetize the endless window shoppers that regularly come through its app. But, on the other hand, I know better than to buy in bulk when prices are record high and I don't have personal knowledge of the product.



How do I know? I’m not a machine.



I’ve got decades of experience in real estate, and even more in business. When we look toward investing in a house, we have boots on the ground in each market plus a host of historical comps we’re reviewing before our teams decide to buy a property.



This situation with Zillow is everything we at our company warn investors about. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Don’t get lulled into thinking the market is on your side. Don’t buy long-distance without a trusted team on the ground. Above all, don’t expect flipping to be easy.



Don't Count Your Quarters Before They're Rolled
You know by now that I’m not against a good side hustle. In fact, my first foray into real estate was actually buying a few carwashes in Texas when I was in my mid-20s.



It seemed like a simple enough investment. Because they were self-serve, I didn’t have to worry about employing anyone to take care of the day-to-day. I could take the sacks of quarter payments from the carwashes, cash in the quarters in ten dollar rolls, and repeat. The only other thing I needed to do was keep the sign lit, lights on, and the water running. Right?



Wrong.



For every dollar I made, I was spending a dollar on maintenance and repairs. Soap would leak. Drains would get clogged. Some idiot would drive off with my hose wrapped around their car antenna.



I learned early on that no investment is a one-time payment. All the little details add up to big dollars, and if you’re not prepared you will lose out.



That’s how I knew when I got started investing in residential real estate, that when you’re considering an investment, the listing price is only the beginning. Sure, you might buy a house for $200,000, but if you sell it for $250,000, that doesn’t mean you made $50,000! From beginning to end there are fees, interest, renovations, replaced appliances, inspections, and more. Your profit margin is small, and shrinks with every set back.



Zillow's gamble to buy high, sell high relies on an impossible world where renovations won't also be high.



Inspect What You Expect
You have to be careful not to get ahead of yourself when it comes to expanding your business. Sometimes the market isn't right, sometimes the returns aren't there, and sometimes consumers aren't ready for your product or service.



Does anyone remember when online grocery delivery orders first became popular as an idea? No, it wasn't with Instacart during the pandemic. Actually, most might not remember that in the late 90's, Webvan attempted the same thing.



Its plan was to fulfill online grocery orders within 30 minutes, with a bold claim to begin operating in nearly thirty cities across the country. Over a billion dollars later, they barely reached ten, and never made it past the West Coast. Before they'd learned their lesson, they tried expanding, buying HomeGrocer. Clearly, the market wasn't ready. It all ended in a big, fat, expensive failure.



Like renovations in real estate, operations in any business is a major investment. When your vision also involves scaling across several markets, you can't make a blanket plan.



That's why, when our company breaks into a new market, we have to have real confidence. It's not just about affordability. It's about long-term operational costs, too. How many staff will it take to renovate and manage each property? Do we have the kind of reliable vendors we need? Are there older, established neighborhoods, or is there more of a build-to-rent trend in the works?



Every answer comes with costs. Often, doing our due diligence means that the answers aren't in our favor, and we have to press pause on a particular market.



Zillow's algorithm wasn't looking at crunching those numbers. What it was designed to do was swim into a competitive market, and it had the dollars to do it. With houses empty, and no way to operationalize in the midst of this second act to the post-pandemic market, they're learning the hard way that the market was competitive for a reason.



Now, they are dumping 7000+ houses, and because Zillow seems determined to sell in bulk rather than to individual investors or home buyers, we may not see the full effect for years to come. What we do see is that Zillow is estimated to lose over half a billion dollars in value on the houses it bought and will lay off a quarter of its employees.



All due to a bad expansion decision and relying too much on machines instead of people. Due diligence is a must!



Commit to The Grind
I won't pretend there aren't downsides to having people behind the wheel. People make mistakes too. But with people, it’s often easier to clean up those mistakes. We say, “Accidents happen,” and with any luck they learn their lesson, never to make that same mistake again.



What do you do when a machine makes a mistake?



It’s a lose-lose.

Until next time,

Article Graphics (8)-1
Kent Clothier

Chief Grind Officer

11/08/2021

From one of my Mentors. Always adding value!

First Things First
It’s not easy getting started—on anything. Buying your first investment property. Opening the doors of your first business. Taking that scary next step toward financial independence.



No matter the industry, getting started is the toughest part, and as a beginner entrepreneur, you are guaranteed to encounter a lot of barriers to entry—starting with building trust.



When trying to get their feet off the ground, new businesses often don’t have the experience to warrant our trust. As consumers, if we have the choice, we’re going somewhere tried and true with our business, and we're often more interested in new companies who are doing something new and different.



I have news for you.



When starting a business, you’re going to encounter a lot of firsts. If you’re going down the difficult path in search of something more meaningful to you, I would go so far as to say you’ll see endless barriers, which means endless firsts.



Why? Because that’s the cost of winning. In order to make it past the first step, you've got to be ready with a vision and knowledge that whatever journey you are starting can be done. You can't focus on the constraints, limits, or boundaries you have to cross. You just need to have passion, set daily goals, and move forward with a "get it done" attitude.

Back in the Grocery Days
I'm going to take it way back to a time when paying with a credit card was rare and online payments were unheard-of technology. While we use modern payment technology today of course, I knew when I was starting out that I had to instill trust with clients by delivering on-time rental payments from residents in their investment properties.



As a newcomer in real estate and property management, I had just left the grocery business and I knew from that experience that I should never accept another personal check from a customer again in my new industry.



In a lot of ways, I was leaving at the tail end of the idyllic, good old days of grocery stores. Ladies coming in with their glass bottles were met at the door, so that we could swap out their Coca Colas without headache. Team members met shoppers at the end of the register in order to usher them through check out. No shopper ever took their own bags to their car.



That doesn’t mean everything about those days were idyllic. Nothing about keeping up that level of service was easy or stress-free, and, on top of all my other duties, I spent too many mornings calling up the previous day’s shoppers who’d written us bad checks. I never wanted this to be a constraint to my business again.



So, when it came time for me to implement payment procedures for investment properties that we were managing, I made my line in the sand clear: no personal checks.



That was a strange move for someone breaking into the investment property management industry.



Really? You don't even take cash?



No!



That was likely the first time any of those residents had ever lived in a place that required money orders for monthly rent payments. It drove home, though, that we were a serious business that worked with quality residents, and we weren't going to let the little things slide.



It also set an expectation of trust for our investors, who could see we were different from our competitors. If you work with us, you're going to get a return on your investment. No two ways about it.



No Shame in the Sales Game
One of my team members recently made reference to those signs you see on the corners of most busy city streets: Cash 4 Homes! We take over payments! Cash... Fast!



Little did they know that we got our start with similar, gimmicky "bandit signs."



I put them on wooden light posts myself. When people would take them down, I'd come back with more. The second or third time this happened, I backed my truck up to the post and put my sign up twelve feet high.



Try telling me I can't, and I'll show you I will.



Sometimes you start out with a cardboard sign. That doesn't mean you won't someday have yours on the side of a building, or in brick on the nice side of town. Always think big and never limit yourself.



I take special care to remind our newer team members about where we come from, so that they truly understand how we got to where we are now.



Every step along the way was difficult. Risky. A first. Even if it was just a first for us.



That hasn't changed. When a member of my team gets flustered because I move up their goal mid-year, I say, "You've proven you can hit this. Now, show me you can hit that." I often tell people to "think bigger."



All it takes is doing it once. Breaking through and reaching that goal you never thought you were capable of achieving. Then you'll get addicted to more and more personal firsts.



When the Storm Breaks
Not all breakthroughs are ones you chase after. Sometimes, they find you.



This year, when record-breaking ice and snow storms hit states across the mid-south and southeast, we were in new territory. We were managing assets in markets across Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee affected by the weather, and our phones were ringing off the hook with scared residents and worried investors.



We didn't have time to look around and see what our competitors were doing. We had to act.



We put together a task force that worked day in and day out to assess and address each problem. All properties under management were divided and assigned to team members who reached out to every resident every day. We asked, are you safe? Can we put you up in a hotel until the issue is fixed?



COVID-19 required us to follow the same protocol, albeit virtually. Same for when major flooding or hurricanes hit our markets. Each time, a task force is on round-the-clock duty—weekends too—to help residents and investors weather acts of God or nature.



Our plan was simply prioritizing people. A happy result was the continuation of income for us and our investors throughout the worst of the pandemic in 2020.



After decades in business, I can say with confidence that there's never going to be smooth sailing. If you're scared of the new and unknown, you won't make it past the storms.



Commit to The Grind
Life isn't a montage of highs and lows before the big win. All the little moments, when you're tired of forging new skills or looking for new angles, are what add up to success.



I don't think I'll ever get tired of doing something for the first time, or being the one to think of doing it first. I know I will never get tired of being first place.



How you get from one to the other is what will define your grind. Remember, in your business, you're in control.



Don't be afraid to break through. Often times, barriers are there only because no one thought to cross them.

Until next time,

Article Graphics (8)-1
Kent Clothier

Chief Grind Officer

11/03/2021

Another one about Zillow.

The move should take several quarters and will also result in Zillow reducing its workforce by approximately 25 percent.

11/03/2021

A funny story...remember talking to your realtor about the Zestimate being so inaccurate for the sale of your house? The seller saying Zillow says my house is worth $xx...but the comps in the area don't support the same value? Zillow a tech and data company has been messing up real estate for a long time, and they have now been a victim of themselves. So it looks like their algorithm did not work too well for them either - Can you say KARMA.

Zillow was able to negotiate access to real estate listing data and created a platform that seemed awesome at first. It was a digital way of looking at houses and "NOT TALKING" to a realtor or so consumers thought. Zillow tracked everyone that entered the site and sold the info to multiple realtors in that area. Zillow made it easy for realtors to stalk potential buyers and seller with their shinny object website. Zillow charges agents A LOT of money for these leads.

Zillows next progression was to become a brokerage and list homes. Which seems crazy because they are now competing against the same agents who pay them for leads. It seems like they really don't care about the agents who pay their bills.

And here is more to the funny story. Zillow entered into the IBuyer market aggressively as they are now a broker. They used their Zestimate system to buy and sell houses and it even seems like they were aggressive using this tool as well. Zilllow has now stopping buying houses as it found out that their tool had them overpaying for houses and now will need to sell them for a loss.

Let me know if you have any questions on what is going on in real estate these days. We work in multiple states and get homeowners retail number for their houses with no commissions. Let's talk if you are thinking of selling in this hot market!

Zillow Group Inc. is calling it quits on the home-flipping business, while disclosing losses of more than $550 million on homes purchased in the second half...