We always do a year in review and this year it holds particular significance to go back and look at our wins, failures and the changes we are making, because who could have seen COVID coming? We are going to take a look at the goals we set, what worked, what didn’t, how we pivoted, and the lessons we are walking away with.
At the start of the year pre-COVID we set a list of goals for ourselves.
What We Wanted To Do:
- Update and fully dial in our EOS system hitting metrics.
- Make $1 million in gross profit in new markets.
- Document our core processes, video trainings etc.
- Do 2 land and multifamily deals.
- Do 50 deals using a new nationwide offer tool that the team was creating.
Our Big Picture Goal was to do $3.5 million in gross profit.
Then COVID-19 happened…
So how did we do?
When COVID hit we adjusted our Big Picture gross profit goal down to $2.75 million and we planned on doing 200 deals.
This is a Goal Breakdown and How We Did.
- EOS tracks our metrics on our goals. I started noticing that we weren’t hitting our action markers and that is why we weren’t hitting our larger goals. With everything going on in the world it is understandable but we still hit right around 70% of our action metrics.
- We went into 4 new markets but we didn’t hit $1 million. We did encounter challenges in the new markets and we learned a great deal from them.
- Core Processes we did really well with. This year we learned a great deal about how we operate internally, what was needed, and how to refine our process to align it with what the company needs, what individuals need, and how to merge the two efficiently.
- 2 land and multifamily deals. This was a HUGE win for the company. We have two land deals under contract. We didn’t close on them but we are really excited about it. We are taking large plots of land and shifting it from agricultural to residential and selling to a developer for a large profit. Multifamily we closed a 21 unit down in Huntsville as well as 2 more multifamily deals with large profit margins. Definitely a goal to celebrate!
- 50 deals using a new offer. We struck out big time here. We wanted to go nationwide and have the ability to close deals in any city in the United States. We sunk about a quarter million into developing this project but we were having personnel and people issues. We had key people leave the company and it really slowed us down. With this came a big lesson.
The Big Lesson:
When senior members leave the company and a major pivot is required, if the leaders have been putting minimal time in the company they need to step back in and help revision during this shift. Bill admits he didn’t do that and it really affected the company. The owner and visionary needs to be there at the helm to steer the company in a new direction.
What We Ended Up with and the Difficult Decisions:
We ended up with about 2 million gross profit before expenses, so it wasn’t a financially profitable year. We had to make an important decision about our new New Offer project we sunk a lot of money into. We had to ask ourselves:
What do we really want for the company’s future?
We knew we were close to success with this tool but in our personal journeys we realized that it was going to take us in a direction that we didn’t really want to go.
So we pulled the plug. We took a hard look at what individuals needed to feel supported and to really move forward in their personal jobs and in the company. We realigned the Visionary and the Integrator of the company (Bill and Nate).
Where Are We Going?
We have been doing about 200 deals a year. We agreed we needed to make a change but wanted to shift to a more administrative business while keeping the same amount of deals.
We wanted to bring the team in on our larger deals, and step away from it being primarily 3 leaders doing the bulk of the major deal-closing. We asked what if we had a smaller team of 4 or 5 people that are trained to take on more aspects of the company so our senior leaders can spend more time prospecting the bigger deals?
We moved some people to other companies, and we kept a really strong core team of people that can all close about 50 deals a year. We are looking to bring in a variety of deals that are play to the strengths of all the members of the team.
We are keeping our baseline wholesale and flipping deals steady to fund the administrative side of BlackJack. When we close larger land and multifamily deals that are great for us as individuals and as a company, we don’t have to work 50 to 60 hours a week.
What We Learned We are Really Good At and Will Build On:
Our core competency is strong now we are teaching more members of our team to create even more competency.
We employed over 20 people through this pandemic. We didn't drop anyone from our team. We didn’t have successes in terms of hitting our goals however we had to make pivots and difficult decisions to handle COVID. We chose to keep everyone on payroll even if it came out of pocket and we are really proud of that.
We were able to be generous in a time of struggle!
We had a goal to give away a few houses to homeless veterans with the Veterans Community Project and we met that goal through a fundraiser giving away a tiny house to a veteran in need.
We also fixed up a house and gave it to a Goldstar family.
We donated additional money to charities in need.
To Sum It All Up:
Sometimes you have to pull the plug on something you have invested a great deal in.
With the hard decisions come the Wins!
We are excited about taking our single family knowledge and applying to multifamily deals.
Business is about learning from our mistakes and making adjustments. Hypothesize, Test and Pivot. It’s an exciting time, our foundation is strong and I can’t wait to see where we go.
