REI BOS: The Secret to Building Self-Running Real Estate Businesses

Ian Bishop (00:00)
We just had to update our ⁓ PFS and what we found was our net worth has doubled in the last 14 months and we largely attribute attribute that to working with you.

What we do is we come in and we help accelerate the learning curve of the
so that the investor can truly just sit in the investor up more of their time and still have the business grow on autopilot.

Erika (01:54)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pro Show. I’m your host, Erika, and today I’m thrilled to be joined by Ian Bishop. He’s running REI Boss and they are revolutionizing the investing world and helping people out in that space. Ian, it’s so awesome to have you on the show today.

Ian Bishop (02:12)
Yeah, thanks for having me, Erika.

Erika (02:14)
So let’s dive right in. And for those who don’t know you yet, give us the rundown. How did you get started in the real estate world?

Ian Bishop (02:23)
Man, that’s a great question. I

was a Cardone guy initially, so I used to listen to a ton of his stuff. I did a burr before I knew what burrs were, put the rehab on a 0 % credit card, refied it out, ⁓ invested in some syndications, but never even talked to an investor relations rep because I was too intimidated by the terminology. ⁓ And so did a couple of flips and just kind of kept getting my feet wet, but my primary business is

I’m an operator by trade. And so I started looking at like

needed to get done, got it introduced to a couple of large investors and realized that like, man, the thing that they really need is the thing that I do really well and what my team does really well. And so through that, we just keep getting introduced to more and more people ⁓ in the investing community. And yeah, that’s kind of how it’s progressed.

Erika (03:17)
Yeah, that’s exciting. Was there a certain

in your journey that you knew this was it, that that was the path you wanted to take?

Ian Bishop (03:25)
Mmm. ⁓ have a mantra in my company. We say we work with high quality people to solve high quality problems and I do a lot of work in some mastermind groups around Brandon Turner and a lot of the guys around Brandon I would say are high quality people and What I found in a couple of those rooms. It was like the takeaway I had we would meet up every quarter and the takeaway I had every quarter was like

man, these guys all take their business very serious, but none of them take themselves that serious. And I just loved that level of humility mixed with like the tenacity around business. And I was like, these are people I could see spending time with. They’re solving high quality problems, worthwhile problems, and they’re fun to work with. And so I look at a lot of like what we do is not work. You know, a lot of my clients are friends now.

We travel together and so I think for me it was a lot of the community is what kind of pulled me in in realizing like man this this is fun this doesn’t feel like work at all.

Erika (04:33)
Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. For our listeners who are investors, you maybe share like a story for us where, you know, your services made all the difference for someone?

Ian Bishop (04:46)
⁓ Yeah, I can. I’ve got a great one I can share. So I’ve got a client that we’ve been working with for. We’re probably coming up on two years now, but at the time I think it had been 14 months and

he went on a podcast so I can say it publicly because he said it publicly. He went on a podcast and we were on together like it was kind of like a three four person thing and he said hey we had

just had to update our ⁓ PFS and.

what we found was our net worth has doubled in the last 14 months and we largely attribute attribute that to working with you. And so that was like the most flattering, you know, humble brag kind of thing where it’s like, Hey, let’s make sure we clip that. ⁓ But yeah, ultimately what we do is we come in and we help accelerate the learning curve of the operator. So a lot of times we work with like the director of operations or the COO so that the investor can truly just sit in the investor seat and not be self-employed in their own business.

⁓ And most of the time when guys hire that person, he or she is not up to speed on real estate as much as the investor is. They probably don’t have the business acumen, but the investor knows them, likes them, trusts them. And we always say it’s kind of this like double punch to the gut because typically they’re not wired to move as fast as the normal investor. And so it already feels slower than they would like it to.

And then secondarily, they’re not incentivized to move as fast as the owner is. And so you get this double whammy where it’s like, man, it just feels like they’re dragging their feet. It feels so slow. It feels so slow. And so we come in and kind of help accelerate their learning curve, get them up to speed a little bit faster, ⁓ and help eliminate some of the bottlenecks around information, decision-making so that the investor can free up more of their time and still have the business grow on autopilot.

so the goal for us really, and I would say probably

you back to your question with like a story is we try to get investors more time back while having the business still grow. And so our main goal, we call it leverage is how do we get leverage where there’s less of you and more of the business.

Erika (07:45)
Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. And with what you do, what would you say is the biggest misconception that people have about having efficient operations?

Ian Bishop (07:56)
this is a great question. I’m glad you asked this. So the number one mistake I see you guys make is I’ll give you an analogy. This is how we describe it. As we say, the business is like a formula one team. So as the business owner, you’re like the team principal. You get to set the vision and say, Hey, we’re going to win the points cup. We’re going to be the fastest in the corners. Right. And then you hand that off to your chief designer who’s going to go and build the race car.

and then he’s gonna hand that race car off to the driver who’s gonna go out and win races. The biggest mistake I see people make is they never build the race car. It goes straight from the visionary, the business owner, the investor themselves, they bring somebody on to be their driver and they send them out on the racetrack in a go-kart or barefoot and they’re now frustrated that they’re not winning races. So is the operator.

And there’s a different dynamic or a different skill set to being the person who can build versus the person who can execute day in and day out. And most companies aren’t big enough to where they need somebody in the business full time building. And so they kind of skip that step, but then it ends up biting them because they haven’t created a fast race car that can go out and win races. And so it’s two different skills to be the race car builder versus the driver. And that’s really where we come in is we’re like, Hey, we’re not trying to buy ourselves a job.

We’re just trying to help you build a faster race car so that you can put your person back in the driver’s seat to go win the races that you want to win based on the strategy that you want to use.

Erika (09:29)
Yeah, I love that analogy. then, you know, kind of to almost go, ⁓ you know, we’ve talked a lot about a lot of positives here. What would you say has been the biggest challenge with your company?

Ian Bishop (09:42)
Hmm

You know, I think the biggest challenge honestly is probably the operations is not a sexy cell. And so it’s not something that people are, you know, banging our door down for. It’s one of the things that when somebody is the right fit, it’s a no brainer and it’s effortless.

But getting our, our name out there, if you will, ⁓ isn’t super popular. It’s like very overlooked. But when it does get painful enough, it, it’s a perfect fit. Like I said, ⁓

So yeah, we look at it like everybody wants typically to double or triple. Like, you know, if you look at year end planning, when people plan out their numbers for revenue or profit or portfolio size or door counts, it’s always two to three X wherever they’re at now. Like it’s just kind of the human psychology standard. But what we look at it as is you’ve got a one story house and everybody wants to build that second or that third story, right? That’s that, that double or that triple.

The operations is the work that goes into making sure the foundation can support it. So we look at it like, yes, it’s not the sexy sell of how do we stack more revenue on top of this thing, but it’s what makes that possible. So it’s kind of the step before that. And that’s probably the hardest part is most people don’t think of it like that or maybe don’t recognize it. And so until somebody has experienced that pain, there’s usually some educating that kind of goes into what is it exactly you do and.

Why do I need that? ⁓ But for our clients that have seen the benefit of it, they’re like, this is a no brainer. I see how this works.

Erika (11:54)
Yeah, yeah, totally. That makes sense. Ian, I want to talk a little bit more about your own investing. Tell me more, like what markets are you

in? What kind of properties are you focusing on?

Ian Bishop (12:05)
Yeah. So, ⁓ primarily, so we’ve been in Maui for 15 years and so that’s where we started and that’s where we’ve done all our investing, ⁓ up until this year. And so, ⁓ we’ve done some short-term rentals, some condos, we’ve done some flips, some single family stuff, some long-term, ⁓ and that was all based here in Maui just because we knew the market. I felt really safe and secure about the value of knowing like.

You know, they’re not making more land beachfront on an Island. and so I felt good about knowing the market. It was in our backyard. ⁓ but we branched out to Franklin, Tennessee, and we’ve got a couple of properties out there right now that are doing fantastic. and those are a mixture of some short term, midterm, longterm. ⁓ you know, it’s kind of like, we’re, as we’re dipping our toes in this new market, it’s okay. Well, let’s see what hits.

Our goal longterm with some of the properties, you know, I’ve got four boys and we homeschool. And so we have the flexibility to be able to travel quite a bit. And so that’s kind of the goal is how can we acquire a few more of these high end short-term rentals that are large enough to accommodate six people comfortably, ⁓ that we can travel a little bit, but then we can also short-term random when we’re not there and just creates that ease for us selfishly. ⁓ but yeah, so that’s, that’s kind of how we’re spread now is between Maui.

⁓ in Franklin, Tennessee, and we just saw really good indicators in that market. Honestly, part of it was we spent a summer there and we had such a hard time, you know, as the consumer, finding a place to rent, finding a midterm, finding a short term. And then what we were paying for the locations we wanted to be in, it was like, maybe we should take a look at this. And so it took about a year to put a couple of deals together and get the right buy, because it’s not a strong.

It’s not a strong rental market in like your cookie cutter standard homes. It’s when you start getting into the more like high end luxury stuff. What we find is a lot of ⁓ rental applicants are people who are building a home or who are looking to move. And so they’re only looking for six months, nine months, maybe a year. But they’ve got plans to relocate and we’re just kind of solving the bridge for them. They’re not looking to be there long term. They’re just looking for

I need a nice place to stay until I build our next place. Like we just had a tenant recently. They stayed at our place. I think they did like a midterm. I think it was two months and they were buying a place, $4.5 million place and they were just waiting for it to close. And so that type of person isn’t looking for the 1600 square foot three bedroom in the neighborhood.

they want something a little bit nicer. And so that’s where we’ve had better luck in that market.

And honestly, probably similar with Maui, except with Maui, obviously the short-term rental market is ⁓ the way to go when it comes to condos. And then I think just good dirt, good location long-term for the long-term rental stuff.

Erika (15:58)
Yeah, yeah. Ian, do you have any systems or tools that you use to determine whether these properties are a good fit for you?

Ian Bishop (16:08)
Honestly, like I’m sure like a lot of investors, there’s a lot of gut intuition, right? That probably too much. ⁓ But no, we look at the data to see, okay, what is our exit strategy? And ultimately what I’m looking for is do I have multiple ways out? So I had a friend recently, said, you know, running a business or investing in real estate is a lot like robbing a bank. There’s a lot of different ways you’re gonna get caught, a lot of different ways you could get caught and you’re just trying to stay one step ahead.

and you need to know sometimes when to cut your losses and move on. And so I think it’s a great analogy and that’s kind of what I look at when we go into a deal is how many different ways can I get out of it so that I’m not backed into a corner where I only have one exit strategy that maybe creates too much pressure on that execution. ⁓ So for instance, we have a deal in Tennessee where we bought the house next door as well ⁓ after we figured out that we could.

deed the yard from one house over to the other. And so it just gave us another exit opportunity where the arbitrage of that land was worth more to the larger home than it was the smaller home. And so, okay, this is just another exit opportunity. It’s another refi strategy. ⁓ It’s another rental avenue because somebody renting this house with a yard versus this house with a yard, if I split it in half. And so that’s kind of the big thing we look at is just how many different

exit strategies can we make out of one thing? ⁓ To me, that gives me lot of comfort because I feel like I’m not going to get backed into a corner.

Erika (17:41)
Yeah, absolutely. Ian, for our listeners who are new for investing, maybe they haven’t even done their first deal yet. What kind of advice would you give them?

Ian Bishop (17:51)
Ooh, I would say find a great mentor, find a great group that can help you. ⁓ Even to this day, like when we’re looking at deals, I’ve got a group text of three buddies who are ultra creative. I go, Hey, you know, I’m negotiating with the seller. Here’s what they said. Here’s where we’re at. Here’s what I’m thinking. You know, give me a new perspective. Give me a new way to look at this. How do I, how do I turn this sideways?

and look at it from another angle. I think that is so invaluable to a new investor

you don’t know what you don’t know. ⁓ For me, my background was in the automotive industry and in automotive, there’s only so many options for how you can structure a deal when it comes to financing. And in real estate, like the options are unlimited. And so for me, like that amount of freedom is almost daunting to where I’m like, man, I need, I would rather replicate.

then try to create. so tell me what you’ve done in the past that’s worked well that maybe I could replicate in this deal. So I think community and having people around you where you can borrow ⁓ and get input from them is invaluable when you’re first getting started.

Erika (19:01)
Yeah, absolutely. Ian, as I’m sure you’re familiar with, every investor has a moment with a deal where things get real. Maybe things don’t go as planned with a flip. Maybe you have to totally pivot and change your plans. Can you share one of those moments on your journey?

Ian Bishop (19:20)
Hmm ⁓

We’ve had a couple, but I mean, I feel like all the problems are solvable. You know, we had a short-term rental where ⁓ the way we had structured the deal on some seller financing created some complications in applying for a short-term rental permit where you needed to have a business license that matched the deed and just it created some, some complicated nuances. And so we just had to pivot to go in like, okay, well we already furnished this thing, getting it ready to short-term rent.

⁓ Now what do we do? And we just made a pivot to going midterm ⁓ utilizing Furnish Finder and a couple other resources and ⁓ it ended up working out fine. ⁓ We’ve had our normal run in with challenges with contractors and budgets and well hold on a second, I thought we were doing this and that’s not what you said.

You know, nothing that can’t be solved. They’re just day to day challenges that come up and I think staying positive and moving past them is always the best way to address it.

Erika (20:35)
Ian, what’s next on the horizon for you and REI boss?

Ian Bishop (20:40)
Yeah, it’s a great question. So we host a like an owner operator event where it’s typically the investor with their COO And we’ve been doing that once a year. We’ll probably put more of those on the docket I help with some masterminds all across the country with a few different groups But as a company like we want to be the go-to advisory firm at a executive level for investors So we have in-house CFO leadership development coaches

⁓ business managers, EA coach, we try to support the group as a whole, ⁓ to really just make life easier for the owner. And so our main focus is typically on the COO, ⁓ and in the investing community, if you know, guys are familiar with EOS or traction, we have a background in that as well. And so oftentimes we work, we work with the integrator to allow the investor to truly be the visionary. ⁓ but that’s the goal is to be the go-to for.

investors when it comes to building out their C-suite, getting them support and primarily for the CLO.

Erika (21:45)
Awesome. Ian, before we wrap up, if someone wants to learn more about what you’re doing or maybe they need some help, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Ian Bishop (21:55)
⁓ I’m on Instagram as the RevOps Coach. It’s also our website, the revopscoach.com, or they can go REI boss, which is R-E-I hyphen, like dash, ⁓ B-O-S, which is the real estate investors business operating systems. Cause we say we don’t teach real estate, we stay out of that lane. We primarily work with investors who’ve already gotten started, so they know what the heck they’re doing.

where they need help is on the business side of things. And so we say, we don’t teach real estate, we teach business and we support that side of the business. So reiboss.com would be the place to go for that.

Erika (22:33)
Perfect. Ian, thank you so much for dropping all this knowledge today.

Ian Bishop (22:37)
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me, Erika.

Erika (22:40)
For everyone tuning in, if you enjoyed this

make sure that you’re subscribed to the Real Estate Pro Show. We’ve got more conversations lined up with innovators like Ian who are building incredible businesses in real estate. We’ll see you on the next episode.