What separates successful real estate operators from those who struggle isn't how hard they work—it's how they approach problems. In this episode, Scott Todd breaks down the fundamental difference between operators who set goals and those who actually achieve them.
Key Takeaways
The Critical Difference
Poor operators set goals and hope for the best
Rich operators identify and remove obstacles standing in their way
Goals without obstacle removal is just wishful thinking
Real-World Example: The Self-Storage Operator
A self-storage operator wanted to fill 30 units by year-end (3 units per week). When asked what would help him achieve this in just two weeks to save his business, he realized none of his planned improvements (marketing, VA hire, automation) would actually solve his real problem: execution.
The Rich Dad, Poor Dad Parallel
Poor mindset: "I can't afford that" (statement that closes conversation)
Rich mindset: "How can I afford this?" (question that opens possibilities)
Poor operator: "My goal is to rent 30 units"
Rich operator: "What's stopping me from renting 30 units?"
Top 5 Problems Real Estate Operators Face
Based on hundreds of IPP assessments:
Lack of capital (the #1 challenge)
Can't attract the right buyers
Can't convert leads into sales
Can't find enough deals
Don't know their numbers
Every single one of these is an obstacle that needs to be removed, not just a goal to work around.
The Wrong Defense System
Many operators work on optimization and order-level issues when they're actually stuck at deal flow—like Cracker Barrel spending $750 million on rebranding when they had a revenue problem, or France building the Maginot Line in the wrong place before WWII.
Scott's Personal Story
In August 2015, Scott had his worst month ever—zero sales, zero revenue. Despite having fancy systems and automations, he was optimizing for the wrong thing. His ads weren't connecting with customers. Once he identified the real obstacle (terrible ads, not systems), he returned to basics, started writing ads by hand, and focused on connecting with people. That's when everything changed.
The Investor Priority Pyramid Framework
The sequence matters:
Deal flow comes before profit
Profitability comes before order
Vital needs come before nice-to-haves
Action Steps
This Week's Challenge:
Ask yourself: "If I had to close one deal in the next seven days to save my business, what would STOP me?"
Not slow you down—what would completely stop you?
Write that down. That's your obstacle. That's what to fix first.
Identify Your Specific Problem:
Is it capital? → You have a capital problem
Is it finding buyers? → You have a prospecting problem
Is it converting leads? → You have a sales problem
Is it finding deals? → You have a sourcing problem
Is it knowing if you're profitable? → You have a numbers problem
Ready to identify your biggest obstacle? Take the IPP assessment and discover your vital need in less than 5 minutes. [FixThisNextForRealEstateInvestors.com]
Transcripts
Scott Todd (:
I'd like to tell you the story of two operators, a poor operator and a rich operator. And when I say poor operator, I don't mean a bad operator. I just mean someone who's not getting what they want financially yet. And what makes these two operators different is their approach to the business. Let me give you an example. See, poor operators, they set goals. Okay, now you might say, Scott, doesn't everybody set a goal? Well,
Kind of. but rich operators do something that others don't. they remove obstacles. And I see this constantly. I hear people say, well, my goal is to do 10 deals this month or 10 deals this year, or I want to hit half a million dollars of revenue, or I'm going to double my portfolio. And I'm laughing because
I've said all of these things and more. I can't tell you how many of those things I've said. And the cool thing is that they feel ambitious. They feel productive. They feel like something that we should be doing. But in analyzing hundreds of real estate businesses, here's something that I've learned. Goals and setting goals without removing obstacles is just wishful thinking. Let me tell you what I mean. I had a call last week with an operator.
He's in self storage. So he's a self storage operator. And his goal was to fill 30 spaces by the end of the year. Now, when I'm recording this, there's about 10 weeks left in the year. So his goal was to rent three units a week. And I asked him, I said, well, what's stopping you from doing that right now? And he paused and he came back and he said, well, I need to work on my marketing.
And I probably should hire a VA to handle the inbound calls as they come in. And I sure would like to have a way that I could automate the process to where people could just rent the unit remotely so I don't have to be involved with it. And then I asked them this question. I said, if you had to fill these units in the next two weeks to save your business, which of those things that you just listed would help you?
And he paused and he came back and he said, none of them. I would have to get super aggressive and think about the goal differently. And that was it. See, he needed to think differently. For him, everything that he was working on was optimization. His true obstacle was his execution. He just didn't have a good execution plan.
And this is a pattern that I see everywhere. Operators set goals while ignoring the bottlenecks. It reminds me of the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. in the book, the author Robert Kiyosaki, mentions, hey, rich people approach problems differently than poor people do. And what he said that I remember, and it's been a while since I read the book, but he said poor people might say something like, I can't afford that.
or we can't afford that, or that's too expensive. But rich people will ask, well, what can we do to afford this? Or how can I afford this? Or how can I make this happen? See, one of those is a statement which closes off the conversation. The other is a question that opens the conversation.
So poor operators in my experience, they might make a statement that says, well, my goal is to rent 30 units by the end of the year. The rich operator would ask what's stopping me from renting 30 units by the end of the year. Very good question.
And when you get something that's aggressive, an aggressive question, your mind starts to solve that problem differently. You see, one of those approaches sounds productive, but it goes nowhere. The other feels uncomfortable, but it actually moves the business forward. And after running hundreds of operators through the IPP assessment,
Here's the top five problems that I see real estate operators struggling with. Number one is a lack of capital. Number one, by far, lack of capital. That is, it's been like that for months. That's the biggest challenge right now, The next one is that they can't attract the right buyers. They can't convert leads into sales. They can't find enough deals.
And lastly, in the top five is they don't know their numbers. Every single one of these is an obstacle. In episode three of this podcast, we talked about Cracker Barrel.
and how they spent $750 million on their rebranding activity when they had a revenue problem. They didn't have a logo problem. They had a revenue problem. And then we followed up in the next episode, episode four, we talked about how France built the wrong defense system in World War II. And I challenged you, are you building the wrong defense system? Are you building your own Magonot line? You see, these things,
are working on order level issues when you're stuck at deal flow. And so here's the shift. Instead of setting a goal that says, hey, you I'm going to do 10 deals this year or whatever the timeframe is, I want you to ask a question. If you had to close one deal today, what would stop me? Not slow me down, stop me. Is it capital? Then you have a capital problem.
Is it finding buyers?
you have a prospecting problem. Is it converting leads? Then you have a sales problem. Is it finding deals? Then you have a sourcing problem. Is it knowing if you're profitable? Then you have a numbers problem. That obstacle, that one obstacle is your vital need. It's not your goal, it's the obstacle.
And once you identify it, then you can remove it. But you have to identify the right obstacles in the right order. Now look, early in my investing career, when my goal was to replace my corporate income back when I was a VP at that Fortune 300 company, my goal, my income replacement goal seemed to be just massive. And I never stopped to say what's stopping me from achieving this number. I just saw the goal and it felt massive.
as going okay until August of:
was like the business was over. I thought, well, heck, maybe it's over. Why? What was the heart of that? You see, all my fancy systems, they weren't working. On the lead side, the lead generation side, that fancy system that I had, it wasn't converting buyers. I had built a system that pumped out ads. Yeah, crappy old ads.
that did not connect with my customers. I was optimizing for the wrong thing. Then I stopped. I finally asked, what's actually stopping me? And the answer was clear. The terrible systems that produce terrible ads. The market was talking to me. I mean, they technically weren't talking to me because it was crickets. Nobody was saying anything to me. See, the problem was not my systems and it was not deal attraction.
I had a lead problem. So I stopped building those systems and I returned to the basics. I started writing my ads by hand and I wanted to focus on connecting with people. And that's really when everything changed. Not because I worked harder, but because I removed the right obstacle. And this is the core of the investor priority pyramid. It's not about working harder. It's about diagnosing the right problem. See, deal flow comes before profit.
Profitability comes before order. Vital needs come before nice-to-haves. The sequence that we approach these issues matters. So here's what I want you to do this week. I want you to ask yourself this question. If I had to close one deal in the next seven days to save my business, what would stop me? Not slow me down. What would be the one thing stopping me?
from accomplishing that goal. Write that down. That's your obstacle. That's the thing to fix first. Now, you can also take the IPP assessment. I'll put the link in the show notes. It'll show you your vital need in less than five minutes. Because poor operators set goals and wonder why they're stuck.
Rich operators remove the obstacles and watch everything become possible. So I challenge you, what's your obstacle?
