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We Made it to the Top 5 Leaderboard on Bigger Pockets!
December 16, 2014
We Made it to the Top 5 Leaderboard on Bigger Pockets! Some of you may not be aware of Bigger Pockets, an online outlet for the real estate investing community. Our company joined Bigger Pockets about two months ago. I only wish we would’ve discover it sooner! Not only has it been advantageous to our networking goals, but it has also helped redirect interested investors to our website, blogs as well as other social media outlets. We are meeting scores of real estate investors from all parts of the country. We’re helping them with their real estate knowledge and education. As they say, “networking is the lifeblood of business.” There is no better internet outlet for investors to rub elbows with other investors from all different experience levels. Bigger Pockets also includes a large discussion forum with a focus on subjects such as “rehabbing and flipping, lending, buying and selling, rentals, DIY, etc.“. Over the course of the last several weeks, I have gotten involved in numerous forum discussions. I also post our blogs and our Rehabs Revealed series to help other investors with their on-going and future flips. I provide the costs, materials, process and SKUs to the rest of the BP community, for free. Bigger Pockets has over 200,000 active members! Over time, as you post forum discussions and blog articles, you begin to accrue points on your “post score”. I am very excited and proud to report that we’ve finally made it onto the leaderboard! The Leaderboard reflects the Top 5 Bigger Pockets members who are involved in articles and forum discussions. Your leaderboard score takes into account several factors. Most importantly the number of votes your posts have received and the number of posts you’ve left. The more high quality posts where you provide great value, the higher your post score will become. Your post score is updated daily based on your previous seven days of activity. To make it onto the Leaderboard – Top 5 of an online community with almost a quarter of a million members is definitely an accomplishment that I am very proud of! Therefore, take a moment and create a free Bigger Pockets account via www.biggerpockets.com/signup. Be sure to send me a colleague request! We’d also love to connect with you on our other social media accounts: LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/andrewcordle/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/AndrewCordle12 Twitter: Username – @andrew_cordle Instagram: www.instagram.com/andrewcordle Bigger Pockets: www.biggerpockets.com/users/andrewcordle ...
read moreThe 7 Deadly Sins of Leadership: Sin #4 – Unnecessary Wars
December 16, 2014
“Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war!” – John Adams Our daily dose of lame stream media drenches us with constant updates of unnecessary wars that rage throughout the modern world. “If it bleeds, it leads” is an unspoken motto for corporate controlled media. At the time of this writing, Americans continue to be bogged-down in Middle East conflicts in Libya, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. And those are just the conflicts we know about. The last 60+ years of American foreign policy have resulted in foreign governments being secretly overthrown with the help of our intelligence agencies…often resulting in “blow-back” which means more enemies than we had prior. The Russians continue to be prodded by NATO and Ukraine. On the home front, daily battles between our Federal Government and the Mexican drug cartels are so often, that it’s virtually ignored by the American controlled press. Visit your favorite sports website or watch ESPN and you’re eyes will eventually absorb pictures of St. Louis Ram’s draftee, Michael Sam, lip locked with his boyfriend rather than articles about his impending NFL season. The NBA headlines were recently flooded not with conference finals articles, but whether a private conversation of owner Donald Sterling and his girlfriend should destroy his 30+ year career as an owner. Performance enhancing drugs continue to reflect negatively not only in MLB, but across the board for all professional sports, including the Olympics. It makes me want to scream, “where is the focus!?!?” Some days I wonder if anyone is actually focused on the actual sport or merely the drama that comes along with it? But it’s even worse when the lack of focus causes strife and unnecessary wars. Unnecessary war is a most deadly sin…for business, for a sports team, and for our nation. And many of these unnecessary skirmishes are a result of someone making himself/herself the issue or of being swallowed up in stubborn pride. It is in the nature of man to fight. Perhaps it’s the DNA from ancient ancestors who had to fight for survival or fight off beasts in order to eat and live. And even though we are “tame and domesticated,” that DNA still reveals itself in close relationships, in our business pursuits – in every area of life. We still stake our turf, whether as a gang-banger in Los Angeles or a CEO of a Fortune 1,000 company. We mark our turf like a dog visiting the fire hydrant. Additionally, we want competitors to know we have staked our claim and they best leave us alone. But the man who will succeed doesn’t allow himself to be drawn into every skirmish. We’re not gunslingers who must accept the challenger of a gunfight for honors’ sake. Dueling and gunfights make for good historical drama, but they are just plain ridiculous. A successful leader chooses carefully his battles. Let’s list a few important lessons from this blog: 1. Understand the Big Picture of why you are in business. 2. Expect rivals, competitors, and the public in general to oppose you at times. 3. Make your decisions based on the big picture, not on your emotional reactions to the opposition. 4. Succeed through clear thinking and smart work, not by injuring or attempting to ruin...
read moreDIY: Adding Extra Value – The Half Bath (Video)
December 16, 2014
In this week’s DIY video, Andrew explains the added value of the half bath. No matter what stage of the flip you’re in, there’s always something one can do to add that extra value. Adding an extra half-bath in the master bedroom is one option. However, it can be done on a budget and really add’s additional “wow-factors” to your investment. ...
read moreRehabs Revealed: Hammond Part 3 of 4 – Bathrooms
December 16, 2014
The warm color scheme really came through nicely in the remodeling of both bathrooms at this house. The upstairs bathroom is basically shared by the three bedrooms upstairs, and the downstairs bathroom with a custom-glass shower door is an optional bathroom for the downstairs bedroom or a great powder room off the family room and fireplace area. Rebecca’s tile choices really came through with a fresh look being we had the contractor’s mix up the designs a little to wrap around the glass block window upstairs, and we had them add diamond-shaped accents in the downstairs bathroom. Here are the SKU’s we used in the bathrooms: Upstairs Bathroom: Floor Tile – Sandy Beach (505-791) Floor Grout – Bone (123-852) Shower Tile – Montagna Cortina (102-294) Accent – Cosmos (366-928) Grout – Bone (123-851) Vanity – Home Decorators Collection (1000-019-073) Faucet – Moen Banbury 4” Bronze (502-654) Mirror – Headwest (406-293) Towel Bar Set – Delta Crestfield in Venetian Bronze (487-323) Bathtub – 5′ Aloha White RH (481-143) Tub/Shower Faucet – Moen Single Handle in Mediterranean Bronze (502-734) Toilet – Dual Flush by Glacier Bay (215-583) Downstairs Bathroom: Floor Tile – Broadmoor Topaz 13” x 20” (1000-012-494) Floor Grout – Bone (123-852) Shower Tile – Broadmoor Topaz 10” x 14” (1000-016-277) Accent – Café Noche (535-413) Grout – Bone (123-851) Vanity – Del Mar 36” (674-025) Faucet – Moen Banbury 4” Bronze (502-654) Mirror – Deco Brushed Platinum Rectangle (876-222) Towel Bar Set – Delta Crestfield in Venetian Bronze (487-323) Shower Faucet – Moen Single Handle in Mediterranean Bronze (502-734) Toilet – Dual Flush by Glacier Bay (215-583) ...
read moreThe 7 Deadly Sins of Leadership: Sin #3 – Hypocrisy
December 16, 2014
The word “HYPOCRITE” means “one who acts in a manner that is not in person“. In plain language, a hypocrite is one who says one thing but does another. Hypocrisy has to do with repetitious behavior, the “act“. An actor plays the entire performance as another person, never in their “own skin“, so to speak. In leadership, repetitious behavior – the “ACT”, is what the followers, employees and stockholders notice. There are three significant areas where we find these deadly sins of leadership: THE OFFICE MORAL CULTURE: Your private moral life should be YOUR business, not the company’s, but it’s not. What you do in secret, if discovered, will impact the business and the perception the public has of the company. Those are facts. Recently I spoke with five unemployed CEO’s. Four of them lost their jobs because of a climate of sexual promiscuity at the executive level. When your romantic interests get the most bandwidth among employees and co-workers, someone is out of focus. Again, someone has lost sight of the big picture. You were either hired to steer the business or you started the company to perform a service or produce a product. Unless your business is a brothel in Las Vegas, you had better keep your moral compass strong. Keep your focus clear of physical temptations. Now, your love life is YOUR business. I’m just telling you that office affairs are dangerous, divorces are expensive and reputations can get stained. FINANCIAL HYPOCRISY: In the corporate world, financial integrity is even more respected than private life morality. I suppose that’s partly due to the over-importance we tend to place on wealth. But as a leader you want people to be able to say that they trust you with their spouse, their kids, and their wallet! Cooking the books, double standards, outright lies and deception – all testify to the greed that is in our hearts. The headlines abound with even highly-respected financial institutions world-wide who have been victimized by greed. You must learn to view your business as an institution of trust. People know that underhanded things occur in nearly all businesses, even in trusted institutions as banks, churches, law-enforcement, and schools. But when hypocrisy is exposed, it is not so much the presence of wrong as it is the deception and cover-up that agitate the common man. Again, it’s understood that flawed humans run our businesses and institutions. It is also understood that hypocritically deceiving the public or attempting to deceive the employees is nothing but an exit strategy or a career killer. LOYALTY TOWARDS EMPLOYEES: The final hypocrisy is that of the boss playing “C.Y.A:” The disloyalty of a boss towards his employees in an attempt to blame or finger-point to draw attention away from his affairs, his financial failings, his inept leadership, or his plain old human mistakes. If you’re gonna be a boss, man-up to your responsibility. If you screw up morally or financially, don’t add to the wrong by hypocritically acting righteous and blaming the good guys for the fall-out from your deeds. Most of us are mature enough to accept the genuine mistakes of others. General Motors admitted that they messed up with the faulty ignition switches. We accept their terrible error that even...
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