welcome to fight talk my name is Christian [Music] young but I don't know y'all welcome to fight talk my name is Christian young So today we're going to talk a little bit about vendors vendor selection can be a fairly interesting and when I say interesting I'm going to put it in quotations activity because a lot of times you're trying to buy a service that you're not a professional at so it's tough to really find the right balance but I have a few tips for you when it comes to selecting your vendors first be very clear about what it is that you need spend a little bit of time understanding the skills that you would like to have and then also what are your expectations of Serv service then when you're looking for your vendors select a few you need to go through and make sure that you give yourself options when it comes to a vendor because there's going to be varying levels of service depending on who you select also you want to spend some time actually interviewing your vendors having a conversation with them to understand if they can actually provide the services that you're looking for if you need some assistance in developing your questions using the internet is is always a great tool to make sure that you're including certain questions that you may not have even thought of when I was looking for venders for my business initially I did spend a lot of time on Google and the broader internet just asking what should I ask a bookkeeper what should I ask a tax professional what do I need to know about a marketing plan so that I can make sure that the vendors who are providing me Services actually can provide the services that I look for and also during the interviews do not not be afraid to be very upfront about the services get their perspective on how they deliver Services gain an understanding on whether or not they're insured if it's an insurable vendor and then also understand whether or not they're appropriately licensed once you've done your interviews and you've made your selection what you want to do is make sure that you establish some level of governance with your vendors do not be afraid of a probationary period and also do not be afraid of terminating your vendor relationship if they're unable to fulfill the promises that you need as long as you make sure that you are appropriately communicating with your vendors your relationships can be very successful but you do have to understand that not everyone is a professional even though they are vendors for my um Real Estate Investment Group when we were developing our um our operational agreement we hired a lawyer and we went through an entire process because we of course were overprepared as a bunch of type A can be sometimes myself included and we had like lists of questions and we ran an interview process we checked references we called to see how other people had been satisfied with their services but the mistake that we made is that the vendor we hired did not have significant experience in actually writing operational agreements they were a lawyer but we didn't really focus in on the fact that they didn't have that level of experi especially a multi-partner operational agreement so we thought hm this should work out and fast forward maybe two to three months later we had to make the decision two part ways and it was a bit tough because you know you don't want to be hurting people's feelings but we had to have like a team meeting and say okay so like are we paying for feelings or are we paying for service and once we had that discussion we were able to successfully part with with our vendor and find the right one for the types of services that we needed now it wasn't the easiest process but it was a very worthwhile learning experience for all of us so today I brought one of my favorite vendor professionals here to talk about finding a vendor so we're going to be talking with sharifa she's the founder and CEO of 137 LLC and good morning good morning and can you tell us a little bit about your business I I can um so 137 is really focused on kind of real estate investing um we are new so we have a like a property or so under our Bell it's really nent um and the goal right one day is to have properties multifamilies um parking lots um apartment buildings uh just any kind of thing that has to do with real estate like all over the US so that's kind of the vision um for the future but for now we're we're doing our baby up so yeah excited to be here so you're in a building stage which is always an interesting time for an entrepreneur and then also you have the special designation of being a parap preneur meaning that you have a full-time career in Corporate America M while also trying to run and stand up your business yes and part of one of the things that I found so interesting about your business is that you require a lot of vendors very true can you tell us a little bit about your um vendor process yeah sure yeah um so I'll back up a bit and then kind of address your question um I grew up in real estate watching my dad um like build houses from scratch mostly residential um I've seen that process from end to end and what that looks like right if you are developing and then you have all these vendors coming in um so I I learned some lessons from just kind of being nosy and just um sitting there listening about what it takes to have the right vendors um For Better Or worst what licenses are needed um how to properly do the process how to maybe improperly do the process and so for me I when I started this business and I do some work with my mom we do work together on some things it was really about creating processes that make things easier um and so doing the work in the front end right so whether that be um you're sourcing vendors you're looking at their ref refences you're talking to them to figure out um what it is that they have experience and you're you're actually getting photos or video of the work they've done right in real estate things are tangible um you're doing background checks on the vendors you're setting up your contracts so they make sense um in terms of I'm not giving you all this money up front I I know you want it all but you haven't done anything yet so I think it's fair to give you maybe 25% or we might have those negotiations right and then there's Milestones along the way um and then I think another thing that's key in real estate is licensing there's a lot of unlicensed activity that happens and that's cool um Insurance on their part right like if you do something in my property and like mess it up you drill a hole through the wall to the other side um who's paying for that not me so I think some of those things are are Lessons Learned I'm big on um people being on time people doing what they say they're going to do or if you can't you need to communicate and so I think in the real estate world that is a it's a gem if you find somebody so you mentioned Lessons Learned yes so I'm assuming that you have some lessons lessons that that you have have learned over the course of engaging vendors can you share a couple of tips that you definitely stand by now that you've kind of lived the experience yeah yeah um wow so many I'll keep it short um I think that sometimes pay what people are worth it's worth it so I am not so stringent like if somebody's quoting me a price that's like thousands less than another you know for the another person you have an idea what things should cost but if somebody comes highly recommended um like for my my house that I live in I went with somebody that was a little bit more but amazing work um did what he said he was going to do the team was there so sometimes I think it's worth paying the extra to get with you know to get somebody that's good so that's one um I think a a second one is don't be afraid to stop and find someone else um I think I've had an experience with a property manager who is managing our property um and things started off good and then it just went left and we were under contract for a year and I was just like well you know you kind of giving Grace giving Grace giving Grace and at the same time money is leaving your pocket and so I just had to have the epiphany of like get the lawyer break the contract do what you need to do um so that you can get to the other side it's okay to start over um so that's two I think those are the two main ones I would say for now so then on the topic of Grace because this is one that I know I've experienced in my own business like and then also um since we happen to also have a business together we have experienced that right at the beginning with as much with you know not necessarily understanding the nuances between the different types of services that someone can offer and that lack of understanding of the nuances resulted in us kind of having a bit of a back and forth with that vendor yep how do you go about informing them that their Grace has run out great question um I think the best way is to be direct and um like say what you need today say get it on the table in that scenario that you're talking about uh we were obligated under contract the vendor was not um doing what they said they would be doing and it was taking a lot longer than it should have and so I think for me in that situation with us the lesson learned was Don't Be Afraid again to just say thank you for your services this is not working for me here are the reasons why if you you know if things need to be in writing if especially when it relates to contracts um you didn't do this X Y and Z and we're going to go ahead and release you take care of yourself I mean maybe don't say that part but um you know yeah take care my favorite thing but you know just get it out there make sure things are in writing everything should always be in writing and then you know move on to the next how important is it that you know who you are as a client before you engage a vendor you're hitting me with the questions today um I think it's so important especially you know using the scenario of our joint business together it's four of us and we are all uh background type A Consultants but very different personality types um I'm a questioner I want to ask you a through z and then go back to a and do like one a one a plus two like I want all the questions and then you know others are not right and there's a range and so I think it is important to do some self-reflection um lessons you learn around the way about how you work and inform people like I will tell people here's my background um from a work perspective this is the way I work from a background in real estate so there's some things that like I just need you to know that I know before we like go here um and so like let you know cuz you have as a vendor they have a right to say no thank you as well so I think that's very important no I think that one of the things that really struck me in in our business Endeavors was the fact that we had to literally sit and be like now we know how we are so there's no point in in us even playing games and pretending like we are not yeah Special as a group collectively and individually so let's just make sure that we're all on the same page another thing that I think that was really helpful for me was making sure that we had a very clear understanding of what the vendor was supposed to be doing yes so a lot of research yes and as someone who does a lot of research can you tell us about your process yeah I um For Better or Worse you know like you said you have to know yourself it's who I am um and so I will do all the Googling I will do all the looking in the trades I will do all the there's a lot of in the instance of real estate a lot of um groups social groups um industry groups that like I will ask have you worked with this person do you know this person is it a referral from someone that I trust or I have seen work um I will background your insurance I will talk to the people you worked with um and did work on their property sometimes I'll be like can I see it um my with my own eyes cuz pictures can LIE there's a thing called Ai and so I think all of that for me maybe some people would say it's over the top but it makes me feel better about you spending this money and you can't get it back and time is money in real estate so and then one of the you just actually mentioned AI is real how much has that impacted how you move forward with venders particularly when there's a visual aspect or a tangible aspect to their work yeah I no um I think it's not something I like fully thought through honestly I think for me I'm very literal so like a photo a video I I think most contractors are probably not yet at the place where they are you know dreaming up stuff on AI doesn't mean it won't go there um in real estate I don't think that's for the small you know general contractor he's probably or she is probably not doing that or they are not probably doing that but um I think it is something in terms of reviews cuz those are easily like autogenerated I think it's in terms of um well you know visuals of work that's been done I need you to back it up or I need to see something a little bit more mhm and then switching over to thinking about it from your perspective based on your professional experience so one of the things that you didn't mention is that you are very well-versed in the customer experience that's true and as a small business owner how have you not the differences in customer experience across vendor cycles and what things do you need to just give Grace on versus expect it is so hard um when your day job is literally improving the customer experience literally make it easier for people to get the services and products they need and to flip that over into a space where um it's not always the case um you asked about Grace first I think it's understanding the industry that you're in I think it's understanding the Norms of the industry and then like real estate for example and Investments like a lot of those things are predicated by um people's relationships with you so if I'm a contractor and I have four other people I work with and as their vendor that net me 500,000 every year cuz they're just turning properties and then here I come and I'm like I have my one property I can give you like $10,000 you're going to put prioritize that other person and so on my side of things it feels like you're not responding enough the experience is not great maybe you you deprioritize your workers coming to my house because the person that's spending you know half a million with you needs something now and I think it's understanding like where you draw the line and I think everything is situational right um You have to build that buffer into the timeline for the work that you need to get done so can a vendor ever come back like if they have a effectively torn their undergarments with you I.E failed in some way shape or form provide the services that you're Contracting yeah is it possible for them to redeem themselves and come back probably not um I will elaborate and say it may depend on the level of egregiousness that has occurred um on the scale of you did you were supposed to do work for for me we were engaged in the contract and you left me height and dry mhm absolutely not on a scale of where I've had happen before we're talking about you coming and do something you get busy doing something else and would I give you another chance maybe yes in that instance cuz I understand things happen but if you are in something and you have messed something up and cost me money like there's too many fish in the sea I'm so sorry now as far as all the fish in the sea yeah it can give you what I call like a little it can be a little overwhelming like AB there are a lot of people there's a lot of YouTube videos on how things should be done properly there's all of these competing perspectives particularly like once you get you know the contractor space is one thing but then if you start thinking about the Professional Services so the your lawyers your accountants your doctors if you need one for something yep um how do you effectively sort through that or what would you recommend to do to sort through it so that you don't get like yeah that overflow I definitely I felt so overwhelmed and sometimes you just pause because you're like it's too many people sometimes you look at reviews online and it's like some person saying they're the best thing that ever happened and then in the same review the worst thing left me high and dry lost money like Scandal so I think like a couple of things one I do read through that person that like goes to the end of the review thing and like clicks to the next page and then like filters on the the like person who got one star um I read in depth right so you can kind of triage and say like okay if there's like all these people that said that person's great and there's like one or two people that happens in business okay so maybe you're okay I think the other thing that's really important to do and I think you mentioned it is really immerse yourself in what the industry of what you're doing so in real estate there are so many communities there's so many in-person networking events there's so many ways to get plugged in that you can start to reference hey do you have somebody that you would recommend um and like I'm currently in something now where there's literally like an ongoing Google Sheets list of like each vendor that people have used that they're like I would refer this person for all kinds of things so I think it's important to spend the time to just like dive in and be a part of the community of which industry you are trying to grow your business so I think that what I'm kind of hearing is is a few key points number one is do your research yeah number one I say number one twice but it one in one in one so do your research understand who you are as a customers absolutely understand your Baseline expectations on that vendor especially if they're in an industry that you're unfamiliar with so familiarize yourself with the industry yep um read read read interview check some references if necessary look at the photos y so all the things yes yep and if you were giving advice to someone who was just starting out and who literally has like the entire world of vendors to even begin to delve into yeah what advice would you give them as far as starting so I'm going to pin that and then there's one more thing I want to add on what you were just saying because I think you always summarize um what I'm saying so perfectly it's the benchmarking as we would say in Consulting you need to understand how much things cost and how long things take generally right like if I want somebody to come I don't know fix the kitchen sink is that like an hour job typically is it a 5H hour job does it cost $100 cuz it cost $1,000 so you can better like Source your vendors right and then there's something probably in the middle um so that was my add-on but to your question around advice that I would give somebody like as they're starting off right and in selecting vendors um I would say two things one do your research but like you're going to things are going to make mistakes it's okay right like youy and have like you said use the internet um find out like just some general baselines for things so you know what you're talking about so you can talk the language and just like dive in like I'm an analysis paralysis type of girl but at some point you just have to try it and then you adjust right mistakes happen you just keep going um and like you said give yourself Grace for those one last thing because you definitely kind of triggered a thought yeah yesterday's price is not today's price yeah how like Contracting can only take you so far with your vendors yeah how do you deal with change orders it's a very good question so I'm thinking of it in two ways one I would say you have to think about each of them individually is it a fair change orderorder did you tell this person you're just going to have to tighten the pipe under the sink and now they're rebuilding your whole kitchen like then yes that's probably Fair worth a change order there are situations where vendors will get you into a place where like they torn everything up and now they're like oh we need a change order because of this it's not really fair and you're in a place where if you don't do it now you have to start over um and I think in those instances you just have to weigh your odds if they're doing a good job you might just have to Fork over more and then put them on your no no list next time um and just remember that right like I think part of doing very specifically um for Real Estate is building in buffers for things that are going to happen it will late it will take twice as long as they said it will there will be things that they found so like you budget all build all that into your budget and know that um you might have to take a margin loss on this one um and then lesson learned mhm but generally if it's going to get the job done and you know that they can do it I'm going to sign it and just note it for later um the other side of things I think are probably repetitive if I see you going down a path and I'm like this man is using like a hammer when he should be using a saw um take care of yourself I'm just going to have to start over like I just just part of what it is I could thank y'all for coming out situation thank you so much take care yeah thank you so much for being here today and talking with us a little bit about vendors and your process and how it kind of works for your business I think that in sharing this it really helps to translate across multiple businesses because we all will engage vendors at some point and we just need to be very diligent about our approaches because you know the money's not Limitless M and you definitely want to make sure that you're getting what you pay for absolutely it's been a pleasure thanks for having me