She Built an Entire Real Estate Portfolio in Just 2 Years with THESE Tools

Owning rental properties doesn't get easier as you grow. It gets more complicated. And if you're running your real estate business through text, emails and spreadsheets, things are going to start slipping through the cracks. Our guest today built a cash flowing real estate portfolio in just two years, but what most investors don't see is the systems behind that portfolio. And today, she's breaking down how she digitized her project management so she could run multiple rentals across multiple markets without losing control. So get ready to take notes because this episode is packed with tactical takeaways you can actually use today. This is the real estate rookie podcast and I am Ashley Care. And I'm Tony J Robinson and with that, let's give a big warm welcome back to the show to Jamie Banks. Jamie, thanks for joining us again. Thanks so much for having me. So Jamie, you previously joined us on episode 542 where we got to deep dive your story, your origin story as a real estate investor. But one of the things you mentioned during that episode was how you built systems around your portfolio. And we thought it was such a cool little tidbit that we wanted to bring you back. So we're excited to today go into not the portfolio itself, but the tools and the systems and the processes that have allowed you to scale this portfolio. So Jamie, let's start with someone that maybe has one or two rentals. We're listening right now. What are the most common ways you see them accidentally creating chaos in their business? I would say having more than one way of doing something. So like, I remember one thing that was a big irritation for me was having more than one way of paying vendors because it was one property. You have, you know, for short, midterm rentals, cleaners, handyman and women, vendors, maybe a runner or someone who stopped by and I remember just, you know, taking whatever way they'll take payments and so I'm pretty capable of been those all of this versus having one system that I was using. And then kind of same thing with communication, text, email, WhatsApp, turn on messages, listen kind of go on and on and I think it's just so chaotic that when you want to recall the information or remember, you know, how or who to pay when you have so many different sources you're looking at for that information. That's a great point and just multiple ways of doing it. And it's so funny you mentioned payments because that was one of the first big pain points for us where we were scaling our short-term rent support fully where we were paying a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons and we were still using Venmo. And you know, I don't know if you guys know this but there are like caps on how much money you can send through Venmo on a weekly basis and we kept hitting these caps. So we like use all of the money for my wife's account until she hit her cap than my account that our partner's account. And it's like sometimes we would spend so much money that we like all of our accounts would be caps than we're trying to figure out how to do that. So side note, I never going to talk about project management software today. One of my strong recommendations for you guys is to get like the right business banking platform. I use relay as you use baseline, but like having a tool that's actually built to support small business owners and real estate investors in particular can save a lot of that headache. So not to go too far down to Tanger, but you just said that and it brought back a lot of dark days of sifting through Venmo transactions trying to figure out who got paid for what reason. Like some PTSD, but I definitely get it. It's so hard, especially then with bookkeeping, tech season, it's, you know, can kind of just not having the right system, again, which is one property to really create a headache for all different reasons. So how do you help someone tell the difference between normal growing pains and I need a better systems now? That's a good question. I think like really identifying like what is the problem? I can give a perfect example, like I was talking to someone who was like, my virtual systems are the problem. I'm like, all of them, like, you know, every, every single one and there were from different places that I'm like, five people can't be the problem. Let's talk more about it and it really was all of them were complaining that there wasn't one place for them to look. So if they're like, oh, who's the cleaner for one, two, three main street and it was someone doing arbitragex scale, they have over a hundred properties, they would take them, you know, thirty minutes to find the vendor and this is an emergency situation. And so I think like just digging in of like what is the problem or kind of coming in from what a system fixes because usually, you know, you can, whether it's a communication issue, whether it's a, I can't find things issue, whether it's like, you know, not clear on the process issue, it usually can come from having a better system, having a standard operating procedure or SOP, I feel like that's usually kind of the key of most issues. We're growing pain is just going to be that there's, you know, maybe things are happening too fast, but again, like with the right system, I think, a lot of the growing things can go away. And Jamie, can you explain what an SOP is and what it stands for? Yeah, so SOP stands for a standard operating procedure and just a fancy, I was like fancy, like way of saying, just like, what is your procedure? So like before we did this interview, I have a new sales rep, I created a SOP for that was literally four sentences, each one sentence per bullet because that's all I have for right now. But it's a new role and as it develops, that, you know, list will kind of go on. So if it's, you know, handling maintenance request, you get the maintenance request, you delegate the maintenance request, then you pay the vendor, obviously very, very simple way of putting it. But really that SOP is going to be the base of like how something, you know, you want it to happen. Are you using any software to create these SOPs? I know I've heard of Tango or Loom to help you create these things, yeah, instead of just doing it from scratch. Great question. So I use kind of a combination of Loom, Skryde and Chat GBT. And so it really like, I won't go too much into like the type of SOP, but like with Skryde or Loom, those are going to be better for a simple process. For example, how I pay my vendors, I can record my screen and scribe, just for people who don't know, creates a, kind of like a document based on, you know, I click in the base, I use base landing, you click in the base lane, you go to, you know, this tab, this tab, it would create an SOP for you. But with Loom, I would say it's more explaining. It's going to be a video. This is great. I have mostly Filipino virtual assistance on my team and that's great because they're very visual. However, both Skryde and Loom, we would like download into like, you know, whatever method of CSV or like docs they would download it. We put it in the Chat GBT to put it into my ideal formatting. And then I would say, well, like sometimes you'll have a longer process, like maintenance requests, right? You can't really use Loom or Skryde for one of those because a maintenance request is, you know, there's a lot of different steps in and what else. And if this happens, then do this. And so that's going to be something that like I probably would start in Chat GBT because get to it. Every real estate and restaurant that was a maintenance request. And it can kind of give you a basic of this is what happened. And then as you're going through a maintenance request, kind of live, which I always recommend making the SOPs when you're doing it. Because if not, it just kind of creates duplicate work and you might forget things. And so as you're updating it, then you actually updated to your back process. Jamie, I can agree, agree more with that last point you made of making the SOPs as you're doing it. And I found that's be one of the best ways. And we'll talk a little bit later about how to actually go about building these out, but I can't agree more with that statement. But I want to go back because I know that we, we may be all can deal with a little bit of pain in our business, especially as we're scaling, like there are certain things or just like, yeah, it sucks a little bit, but hey, I can manage it. I guess when you were personally earlier in your portfolio, what were some of those things that were painful, but manageable at first that later became maybe bigger pain points or bigger bottlenecks for you? I would say not logging just like key information on the property. And what I would say, the key information was like the furniture. I have all the terminal. So just understanding what I thought how old it was and because then when it's time to replace it, or you know, you're submitting an Airbnb, you know, a request because someone broke something you to know exactly what that is. I would say another thing is just like the key information would be like when my clothes are on a property and we have our inspection report, you've gotten all the information on the property, as it not so your insurance, you know, agent like what insurance do I have on the property, the cover days, I would say of like the first year, I'm like, I don't need to log all this. And then comes time. And then you're like, oh, shoot, what is going on? Or, you know, you're at the point where you want to get another quote. And then you have to go through your email to find what was my insurance information so that I can get quotes. And so things like that that I would say that happen, you know, during the acquisition process or even things that might just happen once a year, come that second year, you're going to be a really upset at yourself for not at least having it saved in one area or one source of record for that information. And I think like tax time is usually when investors really realize how not this organize they are, because then everything's into complicated. So like information I thought is definitely something that's key to although it may seem redundant and a lot of work, but just something for me that was like, OK, I need a little bit better systems just to make tax time a little easier. If an investor is like ignoring these problems and just continues on, and I personally have done this when I first started out and waited a long time before I put my systems and processes in place, but if they just keep managing everything manual, what starts to happen if they ignore these problems? I think two key things. One is burnout, just there will become a time where you can't do it. I've seen people were like, I just had to extend my taxes. I don't care how much I owe because I just cannot do it because it's too much. You don't want to get to that point because that's not just burnout that's also meant opportunities for money because you're paying or even opportunities where now I can't take on additional properties or if you're co-hosting or providing services, you can't take on additional clients because you've reached your max. If you're at the point where burnout is something that is taking you and also saying no to things, not because you don't want to because your business can't handle it, that's a key thing as well. Jamie, I think being a real estate investor forces you to wear a lot of different hats and someone could be really, really good at door knocking and finding good deals and talking with sellers and finding, doing all the work to acquire the deal but they could also be very, very poor at what goes into being able to manage that asset and actually see it reach its full potential based on whatever underwriting you initially did and I get the systems isn't like the sexiest word but it is such a necessity for anyone that wants to scale beyond one or two properties because as you add more chances are you're probably doing this while you're working the busy day job while you've got maybe family commitments or community commitments or whatever it may be, like you're not doing this in a vacuum. So you've got to be able to make sure that you're maximizing your impact while minimizing the amount of time it takes for you to actually manage these properties and it starts with what we're talking about here. After the break, Jamie breaks down how to replace chaos with clarity without getting lost in tech or over building systems. As a real estate investor, the last thing I want to do or really have time for is to play accountants, banker, and duck collector. But that's what I was doing every weekend. Flipping between a bunch of apps, bank statements and receipts, trying to sort it all by property and figure out who's laid on rent. But then I found a baseline and it takes all of that off my plate. And it's actually bigger pockets official banking platform that automatically sorts my transactions, matches, receipts and collects around for every property. My tax prep is done and my weekends are mine again. Plus, I'm saving a ton of money on banking fees and apps. 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And right now, rent a retirement offers some amazing incentives on turnkey, new construction properties. Just for example, you can get up to 30% off new build prices, or you can get 0% down loan options, or interest rates available as low as 3.99%. So don't miss out. These deals will not last. Text r-e-i to 3,3,7,7,7, or visit biggerpockets.com/retirement to start investing in top cash flow markets today. Okay, so now we're back and what we've talked about, why systems matter? Let's get a very practical. How does someone with one or two rentals actually start building them? So, Jamie, someone listening, and maybe they feel overwhelmed right now thinking that we have been talking about them and this is how they feel. Where should they even start? What's the first system every investor should build? I would say a system that you're a centralized operating system, which really is just going to like a fancy way of saying your system of Rutgers. This could be a Google Sheet or Excel file where you have a list of all your tenants, all your properties, all of your insurance or utilities. I just think that having something centralized, it's going to help, and then you're going to build off of it, right? Like, when you're buying, when you're applying for loans, there's a lot of different times when property information is needed. And even if you have two properties, instead of having to memorize the address and making sure that the zip code is right, you know, just having a Google Sheet, you know, of what that information is, you know, could really help out in a long run. That is like one thing that I created, and I love. I call it my master entity list and capital letters. And it's like, started my Google Drive to like the top thing to like easily access. And I have the LLC name, the EIN number. I have each point of contact, so like who's the accountant, who's the bookkeeper, who's, you know, anything that anybody would do for that LLC, the VA, then I have which properties at owns. I have any mortgages that are in any of those properties who the lender is. The bank accounts. I have the routing number. I have the account number. I can't even tell you how many times I go to have to look up the routing or account number to like do a quick, pay an invoice through email or things like that that this has like made it so simple. But I think just I agree, starting out with some kind of spreadsheet or document that has all of that basic information in one place for you has been like super, super helpful for me. It's just like a starting point, though. I'm going to echo what both of you just said. I call ours isn't the, what did you call the entity master command center? Our is just called the property tracker, but it has a lot of those same details on just pull mine up. So we have the date that we that we purchased it. We have our purchase price, what we originally bought it for. The escrow company that we used, our settlement statement, our closing disclosures, the entity name, our short term rental permits, our parcel numbers, what date the trash gets taken out because that's big for short term rentals. We don't have, I like to have in the bank details, we have like the last word, the debit card associated with that property, the door lock type, like we have different door locks on different property. So just all those details that you feel like you find yourself trying to reference, getting them into one location, especially as you start to build the team around yourself, one of the best things that I think we've ever done. Now, Jamie, one of the reasons it, I think we all kind of like bonded over this is because we're all we're also using the same tool, I believe for most of this. So I use Monday, Ash, what are you using? Yeah, I'm using Monday and Jamie. Monday.com. Monday.com as well, right? So we are all Monday.com evangelists. So Monday, if you're listening to this, you got to make sure you sponsor some episodes in the future because we love the product. Jamie sir, are you building out your, I guess, let me maybe frame the question this way. Have you decide what lives inside of the tool, like Monday.com, because there are other options out there, like air table, notion, like there's lots of other popular options out there. Google sheets. Google sheets, even, and I guess that's what I was going to ask, like how do you decide what lives inside of just like a basic Google sheet versus what makes more sense inside of your actual property management software or management tool? That's a great question. And I think it really comes to the intended purpose, right? So like let's say you're someone who has one property, your purpose is just having the information somewhere. I'll tell you a lot of times, don't use Monday, use a Google sheet. If you have one property, you're probably might not buy another one for a while. Google sheet is probably going to be your best bet. But the great thing about Monday, and there's a Monday nerd. So like there's work management, which is probably what you think of Monday, when Google Monday has to come up. But there's a Monday CRM, just no, I'm particularly talking about the Monday CRM, because that's different capabilities. With the Monday CRM, it really takes things to the next level of like, okay, so I have a property in New Orleans, I have to get termite pest control. If you don't get it exactly 364 days before, it goes from 300 to 3000. So I need to pay that 300 to scam. But anyway, I'm not missing that date. And then also I want to do it after the fiscal year for past reasons, whatever, I'm not missing that date. If there was a single Google sheet, I would still have to put a reminder somewhere of that date, or I'm not going to remember, I know now, because it's like PCSD, it's January 7th. But I don't want to have to remember, right? Like that date all the time. But in Monday, I can have it listed, right? Have it. Mine's called just like my property management for is that I have a reminder of, I think it's 14 days before that due date, I'm getting a reminder. Or like, and then I build off for that, like now I have a virtual assistant who handles property management. So he's getting that information in the email and it's told to pay it. And so then, you know, like Monday.com or any system, like Asana and Notion, there's similar systems, click up, that will do those actual automations for you. And I think another thing is what the Monday CRM, especially, it could take some of those tasks away. So a lot of times things we have to do as investors or email someone are a check out is happening. A maintenance request is happening. Someone needs to stop by the property for X, Y, D. I, for me, wanted to use a system that can then take care of sending that email. Because if I'm sending the same email to the same person, even if it's quarterly, you know, by, you know, by annually, if it's annually, or with every three years, right? Like I want to be able to send those things automated. And that's from maintenance request. I raise private money for my deals, right? There's not really a system when you raise private money of making sure that those lenders are getting the information and are getting paid. And so really Monday.com for me has really helped me take the next step. And like for people who actually want to be able to do some of those things with automations and things, that's where like a system like Monday can help versus like a Google sheet or another spreadsheet. So do you man want to clarify a little bit here? Are you using Monday.com as your property management software then too? Or are you using anything else outside of that? No, I use Monday.com literally for everything. So for, I say like for, so like acquisitions when I knew I pretty much buy things on market. My virtual assistant scrubbing Zillow based on my criteria, entering the data into my Monday.com board. So like the data you would get from Zillow, the price they want, not the price of my pay, but square footage, bedroom bathrooms. Because I'm buying a certain type of property in the same market, all my calculations are done by Monday. Because I know I can get a thousand per bedroom. So Monday is doing those calculations and spitting out my projected cash flow. And then if it meets my criteria, I'm being alerted to take the next step and basically do some more due diligence to make a offer. Or if it doesn't meet my criteria, I don't see it. And so from that to a property management, the only thing Monday can't do is rent collection. So I use baseline for rent collection. I can't collect any type of payment. And then even from like asset management. So I have an equity partner on a deal. And she's getting basically automated report. So I don't have to email her, you know, every quarter to tell her what's happening. Yeah, that's interesting. I never thought of it as like a property management tool. But that would definitely work. I use for my short term rentals. I use hospital. Then I use turbo tenant for my long term rentals. And then my Monday dot com board is more of just like tracking or like if I'm doing a rehab to track the rehab project, different things like that. Tony, how are you using Monday? And then what other software are using to kind of compliment it to manage your properties? Yeah. More than the way that you described as it's more of like a repository of information, but I'm still using my property management software hospital for my short term rentals, you know, price drops, repricing all these different things. But we are using it similarly to how Jamie described where we wanted to automate some of the work associated with these things. Like I'll give you as a real example. We had a property where we missed the deadline to renew our short term rental permit. And when that happens, it is the worst thing because not only do you effectively have to close your short term rental until you can then go through the entire approval process all over again, the price is also double for a new application versus a renewal. So even though we're the same exact owners, same exact property, nothing changed. They're treating it as a new application because of your original one expired. So instead of it being like, you know, I don't know, like I think it's like $400 for a renewal. It's like close to $1,000 for a new application, right? So we're doubling the cost there. So anyway, it was a big deal. We had to shut the property down and had to pay double the fees. I wanted to make sure that didn't happen again. So now inside of Monday, we already have the short term rental permit on there. Now we just added another column that says permit expiration date. And we have now reminders that go out 90 days before that expiration date, 60 days before that expiration date, 30 days before, 21 days before, and seven days before. So now there is literally no, there should be no chance of us ever missing a permit renewal. And it's because all of that's automated through Monday. So that, that is one of the big reasons that we like it because there is that functionality there. So it's a bit of a blend as we're using both in the way that you and Jamie are using. So Jamie, you talked about this a little bit, right? Like you talked about acquisitions. You talked about the actual property management. But how do you personally break your rental business into its different buckets or categories? And how does that kind of correlate with how you're using your project management software? Yes, I break it down into like I call them department to like acquisitions of property management is an asset management also dispositions if I'm selling anything. And then I have like a CEO kind of department where it's basically things that I have to do. And so I think with that, it helps because like back in with Monday.com, but also I'm sure with other tools is you can kind of build your automation based on those things. So if it's like, if it's a, you know, an acquisitions tool, we know time is money. We know that with acquisitions that goes a lot faster. So our automations for due date is a lot, like, it's a lot sooner. But something comes in and we need to do it now where maybe asset management, that's really going to be the things that are done. Like think of like your owner's reports, right? Think of like your high level, how is my portfolio like performing to also be looked at as before portfolio management? That's really for me and my partner is internally, right? That's not something that needs to be done right now. So we can kind of set the due dates apart from that. And then I think too of like what I want to delegate. I know I mentioned a little bit. I use virtual assistance and my goal is to not have to work. And I have a consulting business with Monday.com and I hope investors I look at their systems. And so I want to focus on that. I don't want to be focused on midterm rentals day and a day out, especially with midterm and my average length of stay is about five to six months. We don't have a lot day to day. And so the things we do have are going to be your, like when someone moves in, all of those, you know, the messages they're getting, the movement instruction, their confirmation, reminding them of trash day, bullet trash day, or the Wi-Fi, right, things that we might already tell them, but we know they're going to have a reminder of it. And then also the things for the move out instruction, some properties, like half a minute HOA, that they have to like turn in their parking badge and things like that where, you know, there's things that are happening at the beginning kind of end of that process. So like automating those has been really helpful and then just kind of having the virtual system in the middle. So like anything that I can delegate right, I want to, I want to have categorized or, you know, put into money that come because then, you know, so what else can do it? And then also, I would say things that are happening reoccurringly and reoccurringly to be monthly or even annually. Can you maybe walk us through how you turn something messy into something beautiful, like a turnover or maintenance issue into a repeatable process that someone could do over and over again? Sure. So I would say, let's do my maintenance process. So my strategy, and I'm talking about the last episode, is more working with businesses for midterm. So while my property is on Airbnb and in different sites, I'm mostly working direct. And the problem with direct is direct to the email, right, it could be text, it could be different then. And so one thing I do the only way that we take maintenance requests is by someone filling out the maintenance form. If you text us, if you email us, if you, we tell you, if you, however, we're not, we're going to say fill out the form. What I've done, it took a step further, I have a QR code that's actually on the refrigerator of each property that takes them to the form so that like, you're, I'm sure you're eating every day. So you can see, you know, that's the maintenance request for me there. And I just tell, like, all my tenants that, that's just ensures that we get it timely. And then also it asks all the questions that we're going to ask anyway. And so it's a short form, maybe like, drive question in Monday.com, you can have triggers. So like, if someone says it's water rate, water is very bad, it can be very detrimental to a run of property. And so there's additional questions like, where is the water to include a video, how deep is the water, right, if it's a standing water issue. And so then they fill out the maintenance request form, a few things happen. One, they automatically get an email that says, hi, so and so, and then based on what they so like, there's automations on kind of what this will say, but essentially says, hey, so and so, thank you for your maintenance request. If it's urgent, it's going to say we got the request, we're on it, we're going to be in touch as soon as possible. If it's, you know, wire pride, we remind them, you know, our biggest hours are 9 to 5, you know, we'll get in touch with you when we can, you know, it's a more professional than that. But even objects like I have four properties, but I still want to run a professional management company. And so even them knowing and just getting a confirmation that, oh, hey, they got it. I know they got it. I know they're handling it, you know, that's helpful. And on the back end, it's being logged into the system. Everyone on the real estate team, which is me and then also one of my virtual assistants is being notified of of that request. And then my virtual assistant is taking it forward. We have another the called boards of the property vendors coming through different markets. And so based on the category that selected my virtual assistant would choose the appropriate vendor. Then once they're selected, they're notified automatically via email as well of the request. And then from there, you know, there is a lot of back and forth, you know, not a lot, but there could be back and forth pending on the maintenance request. And just what my SLP says is it has to be logged. So even if, like I'm dealing right now with the wash machine that my phone would hopefully done, but there's been maybe three or four, you know, different conversations with the tenants with my handyman of this install. And so every time something happens, it's being logged in Monday, like talk to handyman, wrong washer with bar or, you know, talk to the tenant, wash machine, still isn't working. All of those things were logging so that when it comes down to five months later, and maybe there's an issue maybe there's not or maybe, you know, unfortunately, sometimes there's, especially with Airbnb, like a tenant could come back and say, hey, this wasn't done or the Airbnb is equal. I work against. And so I even like having that log that I could print out, that I could, you know, download PDF, screenshot, whatever I want to do to show, okay, this is exactly what was done and this is when it was done. And so that means like with the maintenance request, I don't, we're not going through email, text, you know, like whatever other, like WhatsApp and, you know, Airbnb, let's say, although there might be a different method of communicating, everything is logged in Monday. And so I know, my VA knows if someone else is tied on the team, they know exactly kind of what happened with that request. And then the good thing kind of, when I say was like asset management, what I do is like put in my CEO hat on is quarterly, I'll review the maintenance request. So with this wash machine issue, I'm having, I noticed that there was three repairs. There shouldn't be three repairs on a wash machine that's wasting money. We can just replace it. And so that's something that my virtual assistant is going to say, hey, this is the third one because I'm not dealing with the day to day. But as I'm solid and I was doing my review, like asset management, I realized, okay, I spent extra money on this repair. There's been zero repairs. It's time to replace it. Jamie, I guess why haven't you decided to switch to a property management software that has a lot of this already integrated into it? So like for your, the maintenance issue, like switching to a property management software that has like the troubleshooting built into it, the AI chat that's talking with the tenant, then having all that communication in one place instead of having to, you know, screenshot it from text and then uploading it into Monday. What do you see as the benefit of using Monday compared to a property management software? I would say of like using a prop, because I have a user, I used a co-host, so I used like a software. I mean, if you use actual terminals as well, it's like there's no channel management. So that's, you know, like a drawback of Monday.com has. But for me, when I had a property management software, I also needed something for the information, because I think like a property management software will do some of the things, but you can't keep, like I have three lock boxes for all properties, one that's visible, two that are completely hidden, because I've had too many lockouts, right? I couldn't put all the different locations of those, you know, attached to my property grow, as well as I have different types of business. Like I have a business, my portfolio, and then also like a hire, right? Like I hire a few virtual assistants this year. I can also have my hiring process on Monday.com. And so for me, when I was looking at different tools, I realized one, as like I want to grow a business that I can delegate, and then also so one day, I want to be able to have a tool that's the source of recovery, and definitely like Monday can have a straw back, you know, like with payment. You can't collect payment, but then also, you know, I have to set up payment once, so it's okay with going outside of the platform to set it up once. But I think for me, just having a system that I can train that, you know, my virtual assistant and other team members can really learn, and then also just having multiple hats of my business, departments, and my business in the same place helps me. I did also, too, I think, with like, there's different integrations, and like Monday can integrate with QuickBooks, Monday can integrate with different things that I'm also using from my bookkeeper for, you know, other outside vendors. And so I like that. And I'll think like always tell people to try out multiple to see, because for me, I didn't like, I felt like doing property management half in the software, isn't half on like Monday or even Google She, because I had to keep the information, where someone may be who has like short-term monos, it might be better suited for them to have a property management software or a channel management software like Onerys, AutoFi, et cetera, and then just use Monday kind of like as a backup. But for me, it was just kind of personal preference of really wanting everything in one place. And also, I'm a data nerd, so I like analytics. And so I can track a lot of like the data like my, you know, average rent rate or like raising part of money. I can use those analytics to then show my private wonders like, oh, this is how my property is performing. You know, lonely all your money. So a few different reasons, you know, for that. Well, Jamie, we talked about why building out these systems and processes are important. We covered how to actually start going about building those out. And I actually want me and Ash to share how we've started building out those in our own business as well. But then more importantly, once you built it, how do you make sure you stick with it? So we'll cover those right after a quick word from today's show sponsors. For decades, real estate has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios, but it's also historically been sort of complex, time consuming and expensive. But imagine if real estate investing was suddenly easy, all the benefits of owning real tangible assets without the complexity and expense. That's the power of the fund rise flagship fund. Now, you can invest in a $1.1 billion portfolio of real estate, starting with his little is $10. The portfolio features $4,700 a single family rental home spread across the booming sunbelt. 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But Ash, you know, I want us to kind of open up the, you know, give a peek behind the scenes for our own business as well. If you remember, if you can, what was maybe one of the first things you built an SOP around? And what was your process actually putting it together? Because I think a lot of folks again can understand the importance, but it's the how where they actually get stuck. So I know I'm sending you in the time machine right now. But if you remember, what was that first one? Bookkeeping. Mine was also bookkeeping. That's funny. It was an SOP, you know, enter in the website for the bank, bank login, login, go to bank statements. And then it was as using QuickBooks login to QuickBooks, go to this, you know, entity, go in, go to reconcile. And it was like going through the monthly bank reconciliation from start to finish of what you would need to do. And that was my first one. It was just literally a Google doc step by step, by step, by step. Yeah. Mine was almost exactly the same thing. We were using Stessa when we first started and when we first launched our portfolio, I was doing all the bookkeeping. And that was like one of the first things I wanted to get rid of. So we hired a virtual assistant. And as part of our training, I just recorded myself going into Stessa, categorizing every single one of the transactions, attaching the receipts. And that was the first SOP that I created. But now obviously we've got lots and lots and lots of SOPs. We primarily use a combination of loom and Google docs for hours. But Jamie, I'm curious for you, how do you decide like what actually needs an SOP versus something that can just kind of like remain as a one off? Like where is that tipping point on the scale where it actually makes sense to turn it into an SOP? I would say I asked myself like two questions. Like one is someone going to have to do it again. Because I know Alex has spent my time thinking about growing my business, not thinking about a process that I had to do a year ago and not have to remember. And it also will be delegated. Like a lot of times, like I'll do something once. And I'll decide, okay, this is something that I'm then going to delegate. And so just taking that extra 15 to 30 minutes, it's not always fast to create the SOP. But taking that extra time to create it then will save me time later. And so I feel like if it's something that you're not going to do for a while or you're still maybe deciding between softwares, probably doesn't make sense to systemize it and put it into an SOP. But it's going to be doing it on a recurring basis and/or delegated. That's kind of like my triggers on like a SOP. I would agree. Like anything that I find myself repeatedly doing that I don't want to do, that's usually the trigger for me. Like, okay, I need to I need to put this into an SOP. Like right now, we're actually dealing with this in our business where we switched over to new payroll and scheduling software for our hotel. And I was like, I kind of spearheaded set it this up. So I'm still kind of the one with a lot of this tribal knowledge. And it's been working great. But one of the things that I haven't offloaded yet was the actual publishing of the schedule. So like I literally I've been getting text from my team like, hey Tony, schedule not out yet, schedule is not out yet. So I'm like, I just need to record the SOP so I can then give this to someone else to go knock out. But you know, there is that pain of like, man, it just takes longer when you have to like record it and like voice through everything that you're doing. But now this is like the fourth week in a road that I've done this and had I just done it the first time, I wouldn't have to be doing it anymore. So I get that it's painful. But we've got to be able to kind of move through, move through that pain so that we can delegate it to someone else. It's also so awkward talking through it. Especially the first gold size event. Okay, now I'm going to go into this city. It's like, I think the first time I ever did that, I like, stop the recording and start it over like three or four times. And I eventually was just like, okay, it doesn't matter. It doesn't record. Yeah, I think it was warm. It's really cool. They have, like, a loom AI. So like it takes out like your like ads and ums and filler words and stuff because I'm just, because I don't forget I'm recording and I'm sitting in my court and I'm like, oh, I forgot. So yeah, it's definitely something that can be awkward. But I feel like now I don't even know the number of SOPs that I have. But I realize that it's easier to have it because then I can even if I have three or four SOPs that are a few, you know, like lines long, I can throw it into like AI chat GVT to, you know, kind of boost up to make sound a little bit better or to even combine into one process. So like I said, I was like, oh, how to list on Airbnb. We're just trying to find her. You can have one, you know, that, you know, take two kind of incomplete ones, put it together so that AI could kind of create one for you. But AI definitely, it was specifically excuse me, chat GVT for me, um, hopes, and then also on chat GVT. You can actually upload your SOPs if I think I was the business chat GVT, but you upload your SOPs as your like company knowledge. So if my VA is asking about, um, what's the check out parameter X, Y, Z property, it pulls my SOPs, it links to Monday.com, it links to everything and we'll tell them the check out time. So that's another reason for having it is because then you can also turn you into AI tools on how to, um, work smarter for you. I remember we had a guest on who talked about this where they took everything, every document they had for their company and they put it to AI. And so it was like their company directories. So anybody on their team could ask a question. I just remember my brain exploded after they said that like, oh my god, it's such a good idea. So now we just integrate, well now it's even easier because it integrates with Google Drive. So assuming you have all your SOPs on Google Docs, it, you know, it just takes a few minutes, but that's been so helpful, or it's like, oh, that's why I created all these SOPs and taking so many hours, um, they were the way that's the end of the tunnel. I believe it also connects to Monday.com now, if I'm not mistaken, chat GVT does. So if you're saving those things in any of those places, you can go there. Um, so Jamie, obviously we talked about how, why it's important. We talked about how to do it, but I think for a lot of folks, they're worried about perfection as I start to build out that first or those first few SOPs. So how do you balance just getting it out versus it actually being good enough to be useful? How do you, how do you strike that balance? Because in my mind, it's an iterative process, and what your SOP looks like today is probably different than what it might look like a year from now, but you got to start somewhere. So I guess how, how do you draw that line of like, okay, it's good enough. Let me just hit hit ship. Let me hit publish on this one. Yeah, I think for me of like, I look at it as like the first time you do it, like maintenance requests, but that's a big SOP, but it's you're sitting down and you're doing the request and you're putting every single step. And like, let's say three to four kind of different sections. So if you have number one, V&A, then you have the Roman numerals, right? You're never going to finish that SOP. That SOP is going to be a work in progress for probably the rest of your life. And so what I like to do is like, okay, if I'm starting the SOP today, that's what the one I started today, I have four or five steps, right? I'm not going into, right, that next section, you know, if you're on Google Doc, I'm just doing one, two, three, four, five. I'm saying go to this website, number two, submit the details, right? Whatever, you know, process. And I would say of like, just put enough so that if you weren't feeling low, you know, or you're on vacation, the next time it came up, someone could read through it and at least know where to go, right? Or at least like, all right, or someone coming with one question, not 20 questions. So, you know, just starting somewhere is important and I think like, or even something sounds odd, dude, because, again, I love SOP systems, it's all just time block. Okay, I have 30 minutes to get this SOP to the correct place, because if you're a perfectionist or you're like, oh, well, what if, you know, this happened to this of like, you know, it's just like, it's better to have something than nothing, because remember the purpose of the SOP is to help you, is to let next time if you're doing it, you don't have to start from scratch and/or if you're delegating it, they have a base to start. And so, like, you're not going to start perfect. You know, I used to work for a large corporation, I worked for Capital One, and like, that's why I learned system and processes. And so, obviously my systems and process was on as great as, you know, Capital One that's been around, but I don't even know how many years, that's 40,000 employees, right? That's my level of perfection. My system's sub-comparative then, but just knowing that I have the steps that I need to get through, and just know of like, for me, I'll create a SOP, well guess what I'm not going to be doing it, my virtual assistant is. So, if my virtual assistant can do A to B without asking me, it's a success, I don't care what the SOP says, right? It's a success. And so, realize, too, if you're doing it for you to remember, and then you're like, oh, it's not perfect, well guess what? Oh, you're going to see it. Or if it's for your VA, or, you know, another team member, just making sure that it at least has the intended target of getting through this step. Like, it doesn't have to be perfect, because again, like, I don't know, like, I use open phone, they change their name to, I don't even remember. So, definitely, I have my SOPs are wrong, because it says open phone. That's okay. Next time that we, you know, use the SOP where we need that system, we'll just replace it. And like, because you're always going to be updating your SOPs, like, it's going to be a living breathing document. I've also done SOPs with people's names, as in then, like, if the position changes, it's, you know, not their name anymore. But I find, find and replace on Google Docs, very, very useful in situations like that. But I guess Jamie, before we wrap up here, when is the time that you fix a system? When do you realize that it's a breaking and you actually need to go in and change or adjust or create a new system for something? Obviously, it's just spending more time thinking about how to do the process than doing the process. It's broken. It's like a maintenance request. I shouldn't be thinking about what to do. I should be calling, emailing, doing what I have to do to get, you know, the maintenance issue solved. Or even, there's one key thing underwriting, right? If we're analyzing deals or you haven't looked at a deal in a while, and you're trying to remember how you analyze or remember your underwriting assumptions and remember, you could just have the SOP because you should be spending your time going from, you know, point A to point B in, like, securing that deal, analyzing the deal, writing your offer. That's where you're actually going to, you know, make your money in that deal, not in trying to remember how you analyze the deal. Well, Jamie, thank you so much for coming on today and giving us a mini master class and SOPs and project management. You mentioned Monday.com, there's a sauna, there's clickup, there's a ton of other programs that you can check out, like Jamie had said a bunch of times, like, find what works for you to be able to do this. So Jamie, where can people reach out to and find out more information? I'm most active on Instagram. It's under my name Jamie Banks and then Real Estate. Well, thank you guys so much for listening today. If you enjoy the show, make sure to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform and make sure you are subscribed to Real Estate Rookie on YouTube. I'm Ashley, he's Tony and we'll see you guys on the next episode. Okay, we're going to shift gears for a minute to cover something important, especially for new landlords. The shows often talk about getting stuck doing everything ourselves and the cost of sweat equity. It saves me time and tenant communication and keeps me organized for tax season. It's called rent ready and you can sign up for a six month plan for just one dollar with promo code BP 2025 pro users get it for free because we believe in it. Rent ready helps ensure on time rent with auto reminders, keeps communication professional and lets you post listings to multiple sites. Check it out at rentready.com/biggerpockets. That's rent-r-e-d-i.com/figurepockets. Hey, rookies, if you're watching this, we want you to apply to be a guest on the Real Estate Rookie podcast. That's right. Ashley and I are looking for amazing stories just like yours to be a part of our Real Estate Rookie podcast. And look, you don't need to be an expert, you don't need to have done thousands of deals, even if you've done one deal. Your story could help inspire the next listener. It has a rookie investor, especially if you just got your first deal. It is all fresh in your minds and you are the best person to tell your story, give your experience on how you got it done to help someone else get their first deal. So head over to biggerpockets.com/guest. If you want to be a part of our show, again, that's biggerpockets.com/guest and we'd love to have you on.