Money, Money, Money, MuNAY

Sing along with me, money, money, money, muNAY! I have a corny old adage I live my business life by, and that's "you can't have one eye on the customer if you have both eyes on the bottom line". CFOs and other financial types tend to frown on business people who worry about anything other than the bottom line. By my way of thinking, THAT kind of thinking is a large part of what is wrong with the world, and particularly business today. The days of actually serving the customer, you know, customer service, have been replaced by lip service from companies of all kinds, public, private, large, small, utilities, you name it, who have not only lost their way, but don't even remember ever having one!

Yea, yea, so where am I going with this.... If you focus on the costs and the price and nothing but the $$$$ you will lose money, you will not make as much, you will forego forging relationships that in the end will mean lost opportunities, and yes, lost money. Focus on doing things the RIGHT WAY. Focus on doing quality work and feeling like what you're putting in will maximize your return and NOT on spending $10 less because "it doesn't matter". Quality sells and in the end you will be rewarded for doing things the right way.

Many of the modern investing programs will teach you to NOT manage rentals yourself, to not try and sell properties yourself, to not waste your time ane energy doing the manual labor yourself. Listen to the people with the experience and wisdom. Trying to save commissions will result in getting less for the property in more time. Doing work yourself will generally result in sloppier work (assuming this is not what you do for a living — the hands-on part) and take longer. Managing rentals will, well, drive you crazy and probably out of the passive income game.

Do right by your properties and tenants and even employees, and they'll do right by you.

Yes, I had to have one crazed, naive post in here somewhere....