Optimizing Your Efficiency For Maximum Success with Taylor Doolittle

Taylor Doolittle: [0:00] It really comes down to how you approach that conversation and if you're leading with value. Mean, something that I tell agents on my team is when you're cold calling, it's not your job to convince someone to sell. It's not your job to, like, logically tell them why. It's really you're there to provide value, provide information, and see if they're at a spot where they wanna sell.

Speaker 2: [0:22] Welcome to the collecting keys real Estate Investing Podcast with your host, Mike DeHaan and Dan Austin. From wins, losses, horror stories, and tactics for optimizing your business, Mike and Dan take a real uncensored deep dive into the ins and outs of running a full time real estate investment and wholesaling business.

Mike DeHaan: [0:45] What's going on, guys? In this episode of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast, we have Taylor Doolittle out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, And he is a realtor, investor, triathlon runner, Ironman guy, but his whole thing is learning how to balance all of the different parts of life and do so strategically and in a way so that not only are you able to be productive, but you're actually able to balance the parts of life that everyone wants, you know, your family. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [1:15] He dispels the myth that you're too busy to do things because he's running, like you said, he's training as an endurance athlete, running his own brokerage team, investing in real estate, and still taking care of his family where he has young kids, or will have young kids when this episode drops, so I'll have his second kid. So it's like, he's got a lot going on in life, but he's still able to block out time for every aspect of that and be highly successful in each area.

Mike DeHaan: [1:38] Yeah. He has a lot of super valuable insight about the best way to do it. He even goes into some of the general tools and tricks and stuff that he uses himself to be successful with that, that whole like time blocking, you know, lifestyle setup, which is honestly gonna be super challenging for most entrepreneurs, especially when you're new, you're coming from kind of like a corporate environment, learning how to be successful just off your self motivation is hard, right? And it's challenging.

Dan Austin: [2:05] I I mean, I struggle with it too because Mhmm. Sometimes you just wanna work, work, work, work. Yeah. And there are times when you have to work, work, work, work, but you gotta learn. It's a learned skill how to balance that out so that every aspect of your life can, like, you can serve each aspect of your life, each person in your life, each part of your life.

Mike DeHaan: [2:23] Yeah, and I think too where a lot of people get caught up is because they typically come from an eight hour workday environment, they feel like they need to fill up that eight hours with something. Right? And so what they do is they take the task they can realistically do in a couple of hours, they drag it out eight hours. And what that leads to is they're not getting as much done as they could, or they are just not having any free time to actually spend doing things they enjoy. And that's something that Taylor has really worked to overcome, and he has a lot of great insight about how to go back. So anyways, guys, enjoy the show with Taylor. Absolutely reach out to him after the show. He's a super nice guy, and you'll be able to pick up on his tone. Like, he's more than happy to chat with people who are sure going through these same challenges. And if anyone who needs to learn take a chill pill, needs to learn how to how to break up their day a little bit better so that they're more productive, have more time to not be a workaholic, this is a great episode to share with them. So please do that. And outside of that, leave us a five star review, helps us grow the podcast. And our growth right now is going crazy. And we want to just keep that momentum up as best we can. And by leaving us a review that helps out a lot.

Mike DeHaan: [3:28] So anyways, enjoy the show with Taylor Doolittle. Alright, guys, we are here with Taylor Doolittle. You are the real estate lifestyle balance expert, I guess, as we were chatting about before the show. It's always interesting before the show. People tend to have a laundry list of things that they are excited about. I guess a laundry list of things they always say that they're willing to talk about. But I always want to know is what are people excited about? Because that's what really makes good conversations. There's nothing worse than on a podcast, we listen like a guest, whereas obviously, they're like, professional guests, and they've like rehearsed a bunch of stuff. You're just like, like, you know, they are giving a dictation. Their pitch. That's not our shtick at all. If you want that, go listen to Bigger Pockets or something. Yeah. But Taylor Man, super excited to have you. For people that don't know who you are, give us a little bit of breakdown of your background, and kinda what you're all about.

Taylor Doolittle: [4:20] Sure. So my name is Taylor Doolittle. I live in a suburb of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. So I'm out in the Western Suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I love it here. Originally from North Carolina, I married a Minnesotan gal, and they call it the Minnesota boomerang. Minnesotans go out, grab someone, and then move back to the Midwest. Yeah. Nice. So I've been here for about thirteen years, and this is home now, I love it. So I've been married for ten years to my beautiful wife that I totally married up, and I have a two year old daughter and another daughter on the way that's due here in June. So come the summer, chaos chaos is gonna crank up just a little bit, and I couldn't be couldn't be more excited about that. I run a residential real estate team with a couple business partners. We've got 15 people on the team helping people buy, sell, and invest in residential real estate, do some commercial as well. And then also, I am a real estate investor, so I'm a smaller portfolio that I'm just building over time as the right deals come along. And then I'm super passionate about health and fitness, and my most recent addiction is triathlon. So I'm training for a half Ironman in May, which will be my last big race before baby two gets here, and I promise my wife that I won't be training for anything until we see how life is with two kids.

Dan Austin: [5:48] Yeah. Right. Why why half? Just go mean, full. There's not much of a difference there.

Mike DeHaan: [5:53] Yeah. No.

Taylor Doolittle: [5:54] And that's actually a great point. I value my marriage too much right now to do a full iron. Yeah. Right. Because really doing any of these endurance sports is it really comes down to like, race day is is your reward. Really, it comes down to are you willing to sacrifice the things necessary to train properly for that race, which that can, like, cross over to every area of your life. But to properly train for a race that's gonna take you twelve to fifteen to seventeen hours on race day, that means during your peak training weeks, you're training twenty five hours a week. That's a lot. And so what I found, the half Ironman, which is about a five ish hour race, is the maximum time that I can train for to where I'm really only sacrificing my sleep and being disciplined, and I'm not bleeding over into it impacting, taking away time from my wife.

Dan Austin: [6:56] Yeah. Or other people. That's a great point, like, to even bring that up, but here is what I'm gonna give you some training advice. Train for the half, and then get a m p three player that has David Goggins on repeat, and then just do the other half. Just do it twice, and then you'll do a full, and just like, you don't know me? You don't know me? Yeah. There you go. You might break something. Likely, you'll actually probably injure yourself, but who cares?

Mike DeHaan: [7:23] Don't listen to Dan. Dan just like goes and does like a 25 mile mountain climb with no preparation. So he's not the right person to be taking advice from on that.

Taylor Doolittle: [7:32] I listened to his recent book and during this training, like, training for this race, and it is very motivating Yeah. To listen to him yell at me while I'm getting up at 05:15AM and not wanting to train. So it's great. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [7:47] Right. Yeah. It's an interesting guy. That or he is an interesting guy. That's for sure.

Taylor Doolittle: [7:51] That's funny.

Mike DeHaan: [7:52] There's always this fascination Well, I guess I have this fascination about high performers' fascinations with endurance sports. Like, I don't Me I I consider myself a high performer, but I'm like a meathead. Right? I like to go like lift weights and throw heavy shit and like, you know, do those kind of sports. I did a lot of strength sports. But there's this thing with like people that are in real estate, you know, they're C suite professionals, you know, they're doctors, whatever, they're getting really into Ironmans and triathlons and marathon running and adventure racing and whatever. I'm curious, why do you think that is from the perspective of someone that's into those things?

Taylor Doolittle: [8:30] Well, think that endurance training is such a good metaphor for life. And like I just said, like your race day is the reward and the training aspect is the real grind. So it's really easy to see people in kind of the business world, real estate world where they're doing really, really well, where they're like, oh my gosh. Mike and Dan, they're just closed on this other thing. Like, wow. Look at them. But they don't see the years and years of, like, quiet grind that you guys did to get to that point. So it really comes down to the it's such a good metaphor to, like, the daily choice of consistency through discipline to train is the only way that you're gonna complete that goal, which is the same for endurance racing, which is the same for for business, starting a business, investing in real estate. And it really is comes down to it's so much mindset. It's not whether or not your body is capable because, of course, it is in most cases. It really is just are you disciplined enough to put in the work required? Are you willing to sacrifice the things that need to be sacrificed in order to train properly to achieve the mission? Yeah. So same for business, same for for racing. It's like cracking it's

Dan Austin: [9:54] like you're saying, like, you once you've cracked the code in business, it's an easy replication of that, because when it comes to fitness, especially endurance, you you made the great point, it's literally just consistency over time and being dedicated to a goal or a mission, be successful in business, as you know, you just said that you gotta grind for a while, or it's overnight success, which doesn't really result in anything long term.

Mike DeHaan: [10:14] That's interesting, because I I guess I would argue, that's the same statement I would make, I guess I would make for strength training and getting strong. I mean, it's the same thing. People can be like, oh, you know, you can squat a certain amount, you can dodge a certain amount, That still requires the same level of dedication. It's just that the training time domain is smaller. And I would say it's probably a different level of discomfort and patience that's required. Because to do that properly, you have to be equally as disciplined. You have to be, you know, more disciplined with food, I would say, even because if you wanna put on appropriate muscle mass Mhmm. There's just a different sort of stimulus.

Taylor Doolittle: [10:45] And which is why Mike will not come

Dan Austin: [10:47] to my weight lifting challenge that I've been pitching to him for years now on this podcast, and he still won't show up.

Taylor Doolittle: [10:53] Come on, Mike. Come on, Lester. I know.

Mike DeHaan: [10:55] I suffered. It's funny. So you've never met Dan. I'm about a foot taller than Dan and about 60 heavier than Dan. So Oh, please. Yeah. Right. You're definitely at least 60 heavier. Oh, yeah. For sure. What do you what do what do you like? Like, one fifty five? I don't know

Dan Austin: [11:11] about a foot taller. Your ego's a foot taller, but one fifty five soaking wet, and man, that's pound for pound. Like I said, pound for pound, I'm stronger.

Mike DeHaan: [11:20] Anyway, that's cool. Let's go into your business a little bit. So, you covered a lot of things in your little intro there, but what's your main business right now? You're a realtor for the most part, you do some investments. Is like, is that your focus or is it your like brokerage your focus?

Taylor Doolittle: [11:37] Yeah. So good question. Kind of my three jobs that I have is helping people buy and sell real estate, leading the real estate team, and then investing in real estate. And my main day to day focus is my real estate, my realtor business where I'm helping people buy and sell and invest in real estate. So I have a full time assistant that he's just incredible. I cannot do my job without him. And so between he and I will help between 75 and a 100 families a year get into homes either buying or selling or investing.

Mike DeHaan: [12:12] Nice. That's pretty cool. So that's your focus. And then your investment opportunities, do you source those through your brokerage or do you do you like other stuff outside of that? Yeah. I'd say that so my portfolio, the way it

Taylor Doolittle: [12:25] looks right now is I have 15 doors. So that's split between a couple duplexes, a single family rental, and a 10 u small 10 unit apartment building. And almost all of those deals have come to me from other sources. So saying like, hey, Taylor. I know you're looking. Here's one that I think works. And that's how most of the opportunities that I'm Mhmm. I'm underwriting to just to see if they even work. That's the main way that I find it is just having colleagues and people know what I'm looking for, and then they'll send me stuff. Yeah. Yeah. It's just with rates right now, it's so tough. A blessing is is the bank is basically like a built in underwriter for you, so they're gonna tell you if the deal works with rates, but at the same time, these deals that a year ago with rates where I'd be so pumped about the price, now they just don't even work. And so what I think is a good deal on an apartment building, the bank's like, yeah, if you could get it for $400 less, I'm like, it was already a a good deal. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [13:30] Yeah. And then the sellers, are they just not budging or are they finding buyers that are willing to pay that? What are you seeing?

Taylor Doolittle: [13:35] Well, lot of the ways that we find deals is just going direct to sellers and a lot of sellers, at least in our market, and I'm sure it's like this in most markets, are they're like, well, I don't have to sell, but I would sell if I could get this. Yeah. And so trying to find a price that is motivating to them. Yeah. Because you find a 75 year old dude that has a massive portfolio and it's all paid off. It's like, well, they just they don't sell it, so it's just right now really hard to find a price that's motivating to people while at the same time works to get a loan approved on it. So it's just hard to find anything that works.

Mike DeHaan: [14:14] Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's always a bit to that, right? And you know, that's what we do. That's like our main business is off market real estate. So when you say you're going direct to seller, are what you doing with that? And like, how do you that's actually a question. How do you handle doing that with your realtor and your brokerage? That's something that comes up a lot. Because people are worried about doing any sort of direct to seller engagement when they have a brokerage because of how it might reflect on their, you know,

Dan Austin: [14:41] the realtor brand. As in because they may want to negotiate a price that would be less than if you were to list it on the market.

Taylor Doolittle: [14:47] Yeah. So I mean, just like in any market, we pull lists of owners, rental property owners. In Minneapolis, that list is public data, so just calling sellers directly. And I think it really comes down to how you approach that conversation and if you're leading with value. Mean, something that I I tell agents on my team is when you're cold calling, it's not your job to convince someone to sell. It's not your job to, like, logically tell them why. It's really you're there to provide value, provide information, and see if they're at a spot where they wanna sell. So oftentimes, when I'm calling, I'm asking the sellers like, hey. I'm looking in this area. I'm just curious. Are you looking to build your portfolio? So I'm asking people oftentimes, are you a buyer? And so providing them value to see where they're at, and if they're not, it's like, well, do you have anything that in your portfolio that that you're willing you're considering selling? And so just having a genuine conversation Yeah. And providing the value of, like, hey. Are you looking to buy? Are you looking to sell? And so me being a realtor, I can provide all of those options in one call. I need speaking to a seller. Hey. You know, I wear a couple different hats. I'm an investor myself, so if you're looking to sell, I would consider buying it. If it doesn't work for me, I have a list of buyers that might consider buying it. But if you're not looking to do that, well, I'm coming across sellers that do wanna sell, and here's three properties. Do any of those work?

Taylor Doolittle: [16:20] Do you wanna buy those? And I've gotten really good feedback from owners saying like, wow, you're the first person that's called that's like tried to give me something. That helps.

Mike DeHaan: [16:29] Yeah. It is, for sure. And ultimately, you're trying to solve a problem or like provide value to people, which is where most people for some reason in real estate, a lot of people don't understand that it you know, you need to add value if you want clients, you wanna make money. Whether you're a realtor, right, the top performing realtors are ones they're not like just the ones with like the biggest billboards. They're the ones that, you know, they have a strong brand, but they also provide services that are so good that they make other people refer them. If you're a wholesaler, you know, that you're gonna get the most deals if you are willing to navigate different situations people get themselves into, you know, whether it's a troublesome tenant. Wanting to buy with a tenant? Perfect. You're gonna have more deals. You're willing to help navigate liens. Willing to help navigate title issues, divorces, whatever. And a lot of, you know, wholesalers, realtors, all the transactional people in this business, they're like, all I want is someone that has their shit together, that can just make it so that I get a collect check for really nothing. And that's not how it works.

Taylor Doolittle: [17:28] Yeah. Yeah. I work a lot with estate sellers, estates and probate and stuff like that, which I'm sure you guys run into a lot of that, and it really is just I oftentimes go in and say, hey. With us, we're gonna eliminate the most stress possible from a inherently stressful process. So we've got a team to help with every aspect, and I know that this is emotionally a lot going on. So it'd be an honor to work with you through the process. So I think people love not being hard sold and felt like they're actually being helped.

Mike DeHaan: [18:00] Mhmm.

Taylor Doolittle: [18:01] That's a big way that I've built my business.

Dan Austin: [18:03] Yeah, yeah, that's great. Think too, just a small nuance when you're calling these landlords, by asking the first question is, are you a buyer? You've now just doubled your opportunity to capture people. If you're just calling people like, hey, you wanna sell? I wanna list your property. You're cutting out half the people that might actually wanna buy something. Mhmm. And then spark that relationship, and then maybe they aren't buyers right now, but then you come back around because you've created that relationship and they become sellers in a year or two, and now you've just got this lead pipeline just by flip flopping that question. So that's why I think it's a great way to prospect. Just a small nuance.

Taylor Doolittle: [18:36] Yeah, and two, if you're calling duplex owners and you have a hold of maybe smaller apartment buildings, you know, five plus units, then helping them kind of upgrade and selling their property to ten thirty one. There's just a lot of lot of cool things that you can do using that strategy.

Mike DeHaan: [18:52] For people that are kinda like looking at a similar sort of setup to you, or they have a brokerage, they wanna buy some more investments, they wanna prospect a little bit. What do you think is the best place for them to start doing that?

Taylor Doolittle: [19:05] To start prospecting? Yeah, kinda

Mike DeHaan: [19:08] like how are you doing? You just say, Oh, just go and get a list and just start calling people. Do you have always wants to know what step one is.

Taylor Doolittle: [19:16] Yeah, would say for me, building my real estate business, I wanted to do everything possible that was free. So whenever you're starting a business, you have nobody and nothing but time. So spend your time doing the things that get you results, and as that pendulum starts to swing and eventually get to a point where you've got the money, but you've got no time, so then you use your money to implement systems and delegate to buy back your time. And so for me building my real estate business, I'm not from Minnesota. I didn't go to high school here. I didn't go to college here. I don't have like built in network, so I just sat in open houses. I probably sat in four or five open houses every weekend for three years meeting buyers and building trust with people by adding value. And then so that's how I would prospect buyers and then prospecting sellers is there's a lot of lists that are public data from the town that you live in. Call up city hall and say, hey. I know this is public data. Send it to me, and then pick up your phone and start dialing. You don't have to say like, ah, I gotta save money to buy this expensive list, or I gotta pay money to have this multi line dialer. Those, in my opinion, are just all excuses to prevent you from taking action. So literally just, you got a cell phone?

Taylor Doolittle: [20:42] Perfect. Can you call the city? Grab a list. It's in an Excel file and just go what down the list? Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [20:50] I think that's super valuable. And within this sort of space, there's so many, I wanna say, productive procrastination things that people do, because they don't wanna do the hard part, which is actually talking to sellers. Know, the word they're gonna get cussed out, they're gonna be told no, whatever. But like, people get so caught up, like you said, trying to get like the perfect list. People go driving for dollars. And and thing is, you know, is other real estate bosses, like, a proponent of us. Oh, you want you know, find freely, just go drive around your neighborhood and then find like the shitty house. No, that doesn't work anymore. Nine. There's so much recorded data out there. You know, or like, they're like, I need to spend time building the perfect cold calling script, or, like, downloading 25 different cold calling scripts and rehearsing them so I know it sounds good. Just start talking to people. Think of them like human beings. You know? And that's ultimately where deals can start to come from. Yeah.

Taylor Doolittle: [21:43] And and it's really easy for people to say, well, everyone's calling this list. Well, yeah. I own property in my city, so I get those calls, me being, seeing if people, and 99% of the people calling you are really badass. Mhmm. Yeah, and so I always answer and see how people do. Yes. So if you can lead with value and have genuine conversations with people, that really can open up doors. So just have a good conversation, pick up the phone, and be genuine, and that's a

Mike DeHaan: [22:14] weapon you can have. Yeah. They're they're really bad at it and they're not consistent. You know, and that's why people don't get results. No follow-up. No follow-up. They don't have a sales process. I mean, like, people ask us all the time. Our main marketing process is mail. The direct mail. We're in at time, this recording active in what? Down like 15 markets doing prospecting for leads. Something like that. And people all the time are like, well, what makes you different from everybody else in the markets that you're in, they're able to get results? Like, consistency, like nothing else. We pull the same list everyone does, you can go watch a YouTube video, you can see how to do that. We send pretty general mail. It's not like we have some like super fancy that we're sending, but we have a professionally look looking brand behind it. And we do it consistently over a long period of time. And that's literally all that it takes, you know, there isn't some crazy formula to get deals. But most people, they spend too much time sort of like seeking the, you know, secret sauce, and then they miss out on doing anything.

Dan Austin: [23:11] Yeah. They try to make they need a logo or they need this or that, and it's like you don't need any of that before you start.

Taylor Doolittle: [23:16] And in fact, I don't

Dan Austin: [23:16] know if we've had much of anything like when we started this podcast. Don't even know

Taylor Doolittle: [23:20] if we had

Dan Austin: [23:21] wasn't collecting keys wasn't the name, let's put it that way.

Mike DeHaan: [23:23] I took us to episode five to get Right. To

Dan Austin: [23:26] And like, we didn't have a intro.

Mike DeHaan: [23:27] We didn't have anything,

Dan Austin: [23:28] right, to start this podcast. We just started recording and posting it because we knew massive imperfect action's gonna get us to where we wanna go, and the same thing goes for anything you're doing out there to try to find people. Mike and I have just figured out, just get off your butt and do it, and you're saying the exact same thing, Taylor. It's just like, if you have your butt and do it, and do it consistently, do it often.

Taylor Doolittle: [23:47] Yeah. I mean, there's just so many excuses to not take action in every area of life and really it's those that get up and just start moving. I like the idea of God can't steer a parked car. So you just gotta be moving and then you'll be directed.

Mike DeHaan: [24:03] Right. Right. So that that's perfect segue to segue. Is that the right word? Yeah. That's not what's the thing that you drive?

Dan Austin: [24:10] Yes. But it's not spelled s e g w a y, that's a scooter. That's a different segue.

Mike DeHaan: [24:16] I have this habit of saying words that are like kinda close, and afterwards, my wife's like, that's not a real word. I'm like, goddamn it. Now everyone's gonna hear it.

Dan Austin: [24:22] Yeah. Or it's like kind of like just an adaptation of a word in a different sentence. Yeah. Yeah. But we get what you're saying.

Mike DeHaan: [24:29] So one of the number one objections people get about prospecting and other sort of things is time related, kinda like you mentioned. Right? And for most people, that's revolving around family, personal life, work life balance, whatever. I know this is something you're very passionate about, Taylor, so I'd love to dive into that.

Dan Austin: [24:46] And here, and let me let me add to this too, because Mike and I talk to a lot of people that are like, I would love to do that, just, yeah, I've got so much going on in life right now. It's like, but you've taken step one, like you know what to do, but then you've got too much going on in life, and you're not willing to sacrifice or shift or balance, and I think this is a great conversation around how to do that.

Taylor Doolittle: [25:04] Yeah. I think a lot of that comes down to actually getting clear on what do you actually want and why do you want it. Because I think for those people that say, well, yeah, I just got so much going on. Mhmm. I just truly don't believe that that they want what they say that they want because they're not prioritizing. I guarantee you if you did the practice of sitting down and for the entire week journaling, this is what I'm doing with every minute of my day, you'll get to the end of the week, and it's like, holy cow. 85% of this, 90% of this was totally a waste of time, and it didn't move the needle forward in any way possible. Mhmm. So I think really it comes down to we've talked about consistency and just taking action, It really comes down to discipline and just really getting clear on why is this my goal? What is my purpose? What is my why? And then just taking a really honest look at yourself and just being disciplined, sacrificing the things that are necessary to sacrifice in order to achieve those goals if they're truly important to you. I was just saying, you know

Mike DeHaan: [26:17] what the great thing is about that comment? What you just outlined there. So we we wanna start working with a business coach beginning of this year, and that was actually the first thing he had us do, was he had us go and document every fifteen minutes of every day for two weeks. Mhmm. And I guarantee you said that, and everyone in who's listening to this that has not accomplishing anything, I guarantee you their first thought was, I don't have time for that. I don't have

Dan Austin: [26:41] time for that.

Mike DeHaan: [26:42] Right? Right. Yeah. But realistically, it takes like ten minutes for a day, but they're like, oh, I can never do that. I don't have time. It's like, well, there's your problem.

Dan Austin: [26:50] Yep. And you find so much in doing those time assessments. Like, you might actually be busy, but you're busy doing stupid stuff.

Mike DeHaan: [26:56] Yeah. I think for

Dan Austin: [26:57] the average person, find, like, if you actually were honest with yourself, you find stuff that you did not have to do.

Taylor Doolittle: [27:03] Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [27:03] Like social media 12 times a day for fifteen minutes, which is probably not uncommon for the average person.

Taylor Doolittle: [27:09] Is it would it be helpful if I just ran you through how I categorize those things and something that might be helpful? Yeah. High performance coaching with Trevor McGregor. Are you guys familiar with Trevor?

Mike DeHaan: [27:19] Is that Connor's brother?

Taylor Doolittle: [27:20] I don't know. Would I don't wanna fight him. Trevor's the He's a high performance business coach, and he really helped me get get clear on kind of my schedule and my timing and things like this. And so the exercise that I did was, one, go through and catalog everything that you're doing, and then you need to assign a color to that particular task. So the lowest value color is brown. So that task is brown time. It's a waste of time. It's just crap time. Right? Things that you probably shouldn't be doing. It's just poop. And then right above that is light green time. So light green time is kind of a low income producing. So things that do actually need to get done, but it's not the highest and best use of your time. Then you draw a line, and then once we go above the line, the next one is dark green time. So that is the high income producing activities. So that's prospecting, talking to sellers in regards to real estate. It's like, what are the things that are actively earning you income? And then above that is gold time, and gold time is that invaluable time. So it's like date night with wife, time with kids, time with family, taking care of your health, going to church, like those types of things that are invaluable.

Taylor Doolittle: [28:40] So once you go through the practice of cataloging your time, I'll say the color saying, okay, is this gold time? Is this dark green, light green, or brown time? And then you need to make sure that more than half of your time during the week is playing above that line, doing the dark green the goal time. And so then what I would do as kind of next steps to that practice is just give a go at time blocking. And we've all probably heard that story of the professor stands at the front of the room and he puts big rocks in a jar and says, how full is the jar? And everyone says, it's full. And he puts smaller rocks and then it fills up. How full is it? Right? And then he puts sand in, then he puts water in. Right? And so really going throughout your week and blocking out most importantly time for the gold activities, so time for family, time for your health, and then putting in those dark green activities. So maybe it is just I'm gonna call 10 owners. That's not gonna take very long. Like, just start the habit. And then block time for the gold time and the dark green time, and then just fill in the rest of the time with light green and delegate as much as you can to whether it's to a person or to a system or to a software, then cut out as much random time as you possibly can.

Dan Austin: [29:54] Great. I love it. Like, it's so simple, and and I like how you just said, like, well,

Taylor Doolittle: [29:58] I'm just gonna call 10

Dan Austin: [29:59] people today. Right? Like, that's like, build that habit. I use the the habit tracker for certain things just because there's some gratification, I think, in in writing it down and like this it's funny. Use the habit tracker for, like, the small things. Like, for the big things, like the big rocks, I know I have to do those, and those are, like, gonna get done. But for these little things that build into big rocks, they're super important. Know? Like, I have just around fitness, have a goal, like, many days I wanna be at the gym, and all the and a few other fitness goals that will build up to the big rock, which is like a shift in body composition. Same thing for business, right? There's tons of stuff you can do in there, and that is just so valuable. And people, I think, overlook writing something down. Right? And saying you're gonna do it, honestly, and checking that box.

Mike DeHaan: [30:39] Yeah. I think it's a big comment there. And also too, a thing with this where I think a lot of people get stuck is doing that time blocking when you're already in like a hectic space and you're kind of all over the place is very challenging to start. It does require a lot of discipline. You have to understand that you're going to have to shift like your normal routine. You're gonna have habits that you have to change. Like a big thing that a lot of people get caught up on, and I used to be really bad about this, is email. Every time they get an email, they have to respond to it right away. They feel like they need to. Which I can understand the responsiveness of that. But realistically, if you have an email that comes in and you wait three hours to respond to it, is that gonna be the end of the world? If the answer is yes, you probably need to look at your business a little

Dan Austin: [31:19] bit and find out. And to be honest too, like nowadays, this is this is a a shift that I've made. And if you're using email, that's the same in today's time as sending a letter. Mhmm. Like, you should not expect it to come back right away. And if you do, you're using the wrong media.

Mike DeHaan: [31:33] Yeah. Exactly. But, you know, a lot of people, especially if they come from a corporate environment, they're like, in a corporate environment, your realistic job is to respond to email all the time.

Taylor Doolittle: [31:41] Yes.

Mike DeHaan: [31:42] Like most people, they sit in a corporate office, they don't do shit all day, they respond to email, and they fill out their TPS reports. You know? They they do a

Dan Austin: [31:49] 100 emails that could be done in like a twelve minutes of phone time.

Mike DeHaan: [31:51] Exactly. So then they become an entrepreneur, they do the same thing. But realistically so so what happens is they're like always getting distracted. But if you take that, you time block it, and you're like, okay, cool. I check emails first thing in the morning, then maybe for like fifteen minutes at lunch, and then at the end of the day. And that's it. All of a sudden, you have now opened up like six hours where you can be focused on things that are a lot more focus, like a lot more intentional.

Dan Austin: [32:15] And it's not even just the well, you said the word focus is important, and I'd love to hear your kind of input on this, Taylor, is like, there's the focus piece, and if you're drawing focus from a task to go and respond to a quick email, that is not just the time you're doing that, it is what you're sacrificing in the focus, and how unproductive you become after that. Uh-huh.

Taylor Doolittle: [32:33] Yeah. Yeah. We've all heard people talk about context switching. So you're switching from your brain from one task to another, and even though you think it's just a, hey, it's gonna take thirty seconds, well, it actually is gonna take you seven minutes to get back into the frame of of the previous task that you were doing. So, I mean, simple techniques are like, hey. Just set a twenty minute timer on your phone, put your phone on do not disturb mode, and just for twenty minutes crank out that task. I mean, there's so many easy things that you can do. With that being said, there's so many excuses not to do any of it. What I found about email in context of my business as a realtor is it was actually coming from a place of pride, why I thought that I needed to respond to stuff right away, whether that be a text or an email. As in, I thought I was so important, and I was putting myself in such an elevated place of authority that I'm like, they need this from me right now. And it was actually a prideful thing. I I Yeah. Came to realize that in my years of businesses, you know, I thought people had much higher expectations of me than they actually did, and they totally would would have been okay if I didn't respond to that and I was present at dinner with my wife and then emailed them back in the morning. They probably would have been more upset if they knew that I wasn't paying attention being present at home in order to respond to this thing that totally wasn't urgent. Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [34:07] Yeah. I think that what you said right there is actually super valid. Lot of people, especially as a realtor, feel like this is really important. Or even as a wholesaler, if you some sellers, you dehumanize yourself, and you say like, hey, listen. I will absolutely get to you. I have dinner plans with my family. I need to do that first, and then I'll get you get you that information afterwards or tomorrow, whatever. In 2023, most people respect that. And like not only do they respect that, they like you better because of that. You were less transactional. Yes. And they're now doing a transaction, you know, they're doing a business related thing with a human being, and not just like a machine. And so like, we find that a lot with our sellers too. And motivated sellers, unless they're a crackhead, crackheads do weird stuff. But if they're like an older person Right. And, you know, you have an appointment or something with them, and you're like, oh, I forgot that I have to pick up my kid from soccer practice. If you call them up and you say, hey, you know, miss Seller, I'm really sorry. Need to push back my appointment by an hour. I need to go pick up my kid from soccer practice. Is that okay?

Mike DeHaan: [35:06] I can almost guarantee your chance of closing that deal are much higher because you have now shown them that you're a human being and not some giant hedge fund that's just come in trying to like, you know, ruin the American dream.

Dan Austin: [35:17] Yeah. And I just, I'll just throw in this, like, one of my least favorite things to do is see the social media post from a real estate agent on a Saturday on their boat with them, in their laptop, in their lap, and they're like, just grind it for all my clients. It's like, that is disappointing, I'm sorry.

Mike DeHaan: [35:33] You know, and I understand, like, there's a little bit of, you have to do that a little bit. It's give and take, especially in the real estate business. And that's what we tell our sales guys too, is real estate's a blessing and a curse in the way that you can have infinite flexibility with your time. But it is also a reactive business, you know, if a lead calls in, like, let's say it's a prospecting lead, and they call you at, you know, 10AM on a Saturday, and you don't answer, they will call somebody else. Right. If it is somebody that you have a relationship with, you don't need to, you know, be their slave to everything.

Dan Austin: [36:04] Well, you just need to be better at serving them to where you don't feel like you have to be on the clock all the time to serve. And it goes back to a little bit of what you were saying, Taylor, being present, you have kids, a spouse, whatever it is, like, you're going to feel vastly less guilty or vastly better about the time you spent with those important people that you said you wanted to spend time with if you're not distracted while you're doing it. Uh-huh. So an hour with your kids while you're sitting on your phone and really just distracted while you're with them is nowhere near as valuable as an hour with them not on your phone, and to them too, for engaging with them, and you get it, your spouse sees that, they feel it, and so, like, if you're gonna say you're spending the time, make it high quality, and then you don't feel guilty, and you don't need to be present for everybody at all times.

Taylor Doolittle: [36:49] Yeah, for me, if I told a client that, hey. Listen. I'm spending time with my family. I need to get back to you later, and they didn't respect that, then that's just not a client that I wanna work with. Right? So and to knowing that Mhmm. Every client, I'm not the best fit for because I prioritize my family. Then that's okay. Right? So getting clear on that. And then I I think too, Daniel, to your point of Mhmm. Spending time and being present at home, a lot of that comes back to just being really good and diligent with your the time that you are giving yourself to work during the day. So whether that's through time blocking or whether that's through just having your priority task list for the day and making sure I gotta hit these top three. And if I hit these top three, when I get home and I'm spending time with my wife and kids, then I can be present because I knew everything that I needed to do in order to move my business forward today. I maybe didn't meet 15 new sellers that all want me to sell their house today. Maybe I had no good phone calls, but I did. I fulfilled my end of the deal and it was making those calls. So I can just, I can go home and be present. The first couple years in my business just being so all over the place, so reactive, I would work all day long and then get home and not be present because I didn't really do anything dialed in to move my business forward. So once you just kinda get prioritize the things that do matter, those dark green income producing activities, that at least helped me be much more present with my family.

Mike DeHaan: [38:33] Yeah. And I I will say, as someone who's grown several businesses and constantly doing that doing this and trying to find this balance, There will always be those times where you have to sort of over encumber yourself or you have to kind of blow up your counter. You have to do these things. So it's never gonna be perfect. But I think the goal should always be being intentional about figuring out, you know, who to hire, what systems to implement, how to optimize your business and your time to get back to that position where you can be more present. And so I think that's another thing where people hold themselves up. So they go like, we've talked about people who are like, I wanna invest in real estate. These are my non negotiables. I do this for my kids every single day. I do this with my spouse every single weekend. That's awesome. Understand that if you do not have some sort of give and take, you are not going to able to be able to achieve the same results that we have.

Taylor Doolittle: [39:21] It is work life balance, and if you're not working, you can't talk about work life balance, you gotta work. Exactly, so true. You know

Mike DeHaan: [39:27] what I mean,

Taylor Doolittle: [39:28] yeah, So for the people that are like, hey, I'm thinking about getting into investing, or like, I wanna start a real estate business, but I need to make sure that like, I've got my time. I'm like, well, in any industry, any job, any business owner, you're going to have to put in the hours in order to create the momentum quick enough so you're making money quick enough before your bills catch up so then that you have the opportunity to kind of create to to let off the gas a little bit. So it is necessary, but what I've found as a married person is I needed to just make sure that my wife was on board with the vision for our family. She was on board with what it was going to take for me to to get the ball rolling, and so she was all in. She was supportive. She's my number one support player. So with her on board, it made all of that worth it, and she understood. Where I think it would be really tough if it's like, hey. I wanna start my own business, and your spouse, your partner is just not on board, then that would make the time required to get up and running very difficult to do. Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [40:37] Yeah. And that is another question that we get a lot too, at least I do, is how did I get my spouse on board? Because like my my journey, I quit my w two first, and then went into stuff and kinda like we gave up all of our income and I did that. And everyone always asks, how did you get your spouse? How did you convince your wife to let you do that? I think if you have to convince your wife, it's not gonna be a long term solution anyway. Like, let's be honest. And, you know, this is maybe unpopular opinion. If you are somebody, you're I don't wanna say a guy. If you're an individual who you feel like your life needs to go a certain way and your spouse is 100% not supportive of that, you probably need to address your marriage. Probably not good. It's probably not the the ideal marriage for you. And you know, that's a tough conversation for people. They can be married to someone for fifteen years, and then like have that realization, that sucks. But like that is the reality of life. Know, you don't need to look at is that relationship more important to you, or is your vision that you have for your own life more important for you? And there's no right answer for that. That's a very individualistic sort of thing that you have to address. Okay. But I don't think that gets talked about very much of like sometimes the marriage might be what's holding you back, and that's an unfortunate situation, but it's true.

Taylor Doolittle: [41:49] Yeah. People grow and change over time and priorities, and your vision changes over time, and that's why marriage is is hard. I believe it's so worth it to work through all of that, and you should do everything you can to fight for it. Absolutely. But being on board with your spouse under the same mission for what you want your family and your life to look like, It's just an ongoing conversation, and yeah, if you're not those are conversations that you should should have before you get married and commit to that.

Mike DeHaan: [42:24] Ideally, right? Yeah. That's a

Dan Austin: [42:26] that's a great point actually, because it's like you said, it's like people do grow and change and adapt, and if you're not able to have that ongoing conversation with it's not just for your spouse, this is for all the people that are close to you in your life, like, that may, you know, to Mike's point, be your boat anchor or whatever you wanna call it. Like, if you can't adapt to have those conversations, like, nobody's gonna be successful in that relationship you have with that person, whoever they are. It could be a parent, it could be a sibling, it could be kids, it could be your wife. Obviously, typically it's your spouse and your kids who you're having to have that ongoing relationship when it comes to what you're going to grow in life and business, because they're the biggest stakeholders. Is that your wedding ring you're throwing off, man? He just threw it

Mike DeHaan: [43:06] off, he's like, I'm done, This conversation is

Taylor Doolittle: [43:08] too much. She's not married up. I would be absolutely screwed. If Sarah was like, you know what, it's just not working for me. There's no there's no one else. I somehow I swindled her into attaching herself to me.

Mike DeHaan: [43:24] Alright, awesome. Well, good stuff, guys. We're running up on time here. So let's go into the end of the show questions. So first question, what is your craziest real estate investing story? This can be a big win, big loss, crazy tenant, crazy acquisition, whatever you got.

Taylor Doolittle: [43:42] Yeah, I would say, I mean, just owning real estate, you run across stuff that's gonna cost a lot of money, and that's just the cost of doing business. So I bought this apartment unit. There were a lot of long term tenants in the building, and so when I bought it and I did my walk through and did inspections, there's only so much you can inspect when a hoarder is in a unit, and there's everything wall to wall to wall. So I had a tenant move out of a basement unit, and after they moved out, the management company that I have was just kind of due to move out clean, realized there were soft soft spots in the bottom of the walls kind of across all one side. So they started ripping it out and realized, hey. There's water coming in, Minnesota is a very wet state. It's a basement state as well. Don't know why, but we get wet basements. That's normal. They started ripping stuff out, and it got to a point where they started ripping up the floor and realized that whoever built out that unit literally just put vinyl plank onto dirt. It wasn't there was no floor.

Dan Austin: [44:50] Nice. So what what Wow.

Taylor Doolittle: [44:53] Yeah. What turned into like a, hey, we're gonna have to do some drainage tile, or hey, we just need to do some wall repair turned into a like, what do we even do here? And so that turned into probably a $25,000 repair on a unit that maybe brings in $800 a month. It's like a little studio. Not awesome return on that money. Was there any way to foresee that? No. Because I'm not digging into all the floors in every unit. But to me, it's like, hey. If you've got an issue, if something pops up Yeah. And you've got the finances to solve that issue, it's not really an issue. Just look at it as the cost of doing business. Investing in real estate is is a marathon. It's not a sprint. And if you own it long enough, you're gonna come out winning in the end.

Mike DeHaan: [45:41] Yeah. That's a crap situation. My one of my I think my third or fourth flip that I did by myself, I ran into a similar sort of deal where I had, like, the the basement kept flooding. Like, there's had been water damage down there for decades. And the previous owner was like, I don't know. This is how it is. And like their tenants and they're like, yeah, it's all everything's always ruined. I have no idea. And they'll finally, we just like gutted the whole room and found out that it was basically like dirt and like stacked stone foundation. And all they had done was thrown up some framing and put drywall over the top of it. There was no moisture barrier.

Dan Austin: [46:13] No vapor barrier.

Mike DeHaan: [46:14] Yeah, no vapor barrier. So it was just stacked rocks. And every time it would rain,

Dan Austin: [46:17] the whole thing would just flood. Oh my gosh.

Mike DeHaan: [46:19] And it was had been like that for probably fifty years. It's so just like, Oh, God, so it's put vapor barrier rebuild the entire downstairs. People people do man. Alright, next question. What is the number one tip you have for either a new investor looking to get started, or a small investor looking to take their business to the next level?

Taylor Doolittle: [46:39] I'd say is just find out what your next step is and take action. Put a deadline on it. So we've talked a lot about this on this episode is all of the things that prevent people from getting started or moving to that next level in their business, and it really just comes down to eliminating the excuse and take action. If you wait to make sure that you've got the perfect script or you've got the perfect list or you've got the perfect setup in your office or the perfect dialer software, you're just never gonna do it. And so fail and fail fast so you can move past that and start winning. There you go. There you go. Easy. Easy.

Mike DeHaan: [47:20] Alright. Where can people find you, follow you, and reach out to you if you'd like to do so?

Taylor Doolittle: [47:24] My biggest platforms would be Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. So just my name, Taylor Doolittle. There's not many of us, so you'll be able to find me. I'm always willing to help anybody in any way I can in this there. So total free rein to send me a message on Instagram or Facebook and would be happy to help point you in the right direction, connect you to the right person, encourage you in the right way, slap you in the right way, whatever whatever you need willing to to be helpful if I can. Cool. There you go. Cool.

Dan Austin: [47:59] Mike loves getting slapped the right

Taylor Doolittle: [48:00] way.

Mike DeHaan: [48:01] Woah. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok guy? I mean, come on. That that's like the new thing now. It's supposed to have all these like 45 year old, you know, not that you're 45. It's like 45 year old real estate guys that are like dancing on TikTok pointing to the

Taylor Doolittle: [48:14] I'm viral on TikTok in Bulgaria, but that's it.

Dan Austin: [48:17] Yeah. That's about it. Yeah. Very obscure.

Mike DeHaan: [48:21] Yes. At at the dancing doolittle on TikTok, you see all his sick moves on there.

Taylor Doolittle: [48:25] Yeah. I I'm just man, I've just have not gotten into that, and I I absolutely refuse. I absolutely refuse. Like Mike, get it there. Seeing people doing those videos where it's like, it's so cringe So crazy So to

Mike DeHaan: [48:38] bad. Yeah. Especially when you see the same one like 57 times, and and especially in the realtor world, they all have the same suit they got from the same store. They have the same hair They

Dan Austin: [48:48] the same social media expert. Oh,

Mike DeHaan: [48:50] god. It's the worst. And I'm like, you all look the same. You know? And they're like, here's things about me. I have three kids. You know? I'm like, oh, god. I'm like, you're a 45 year old man. Remember when you used to be really upset when your children were upset with social media? Well, they stopped doing that ten years ago, and now you're doing it.

Taylor Doolittle: [49:05] Well, I would say, I mean, that that that I think applies perfectly to what we talked about where it's like, track your time during the week, how much time did you spend Yeah. Doing those things, and what kind of return did you get on the tasks that you did? And I guarantee you that 98% of the people that are

Mike DeHaan: [49:24] Right.

Taylor Doolittle: [49:25] Use TikTok a lot, they spend way too much time watching other people's TikToks and not just creating content, and they're not seeing a return from it. But you're doing something so it makes you feel like you're doing business, and you're not. Right.

Mike DeHaan: [49:40] Yep. They got seven likes, that's all that matters. Know?

Dan Austin: [49:43] Well, that's probably TikTok might not be the honey hole for people buying houses or selling houses. Maybe. Yep. Maybe I'm wrong, but might not be.

Mike DeHaan: [49:51] Anyways, I get full circle there. Right on. Well, thanks for coming on the show, Taylor, man. We really appreciate your time. Seriously, guys, reach out to Taylor. He'd love to help you figure out the next phase of your business and probably help help you figure out how to balance your life and time block everything in there as well. And I assume too, if people are in the Minnesota area, they could probably reach out to you as well if they wanna buy property, sell properties, things like that.

Taylor Doolittle: [50:14] Yeah, buy property, sell property, drink coffee, whatever. Let's say perfect.

Mike DeHaan: [50:19] Right on. So cool. Reach out Taylor, guys. He has a lot of good info for you. And besides that, please share this episode with anyone else who might find it interesting. And was interested in real estate business investing, or just wants to know how to be more productive with their life. This is a great episode for them. And you could also leave us five star review. And I don't think anything else to talk about right now. So thanks for listening, guys. And we'll talk to you all next week.

Speaker 2: [50:57] Investment and wholesaling business.