In 2007 Tim Ferriss launched a global “Lifestyle Design” movement with his best-selling book The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich.
 He intentionally did not copyright the concept, allowing it to emerge, flourish, and spread as a movement.
Maverick Investor GroupTM, also founded in 2007, took the concept, ran with it, and began building a community of real estate agents from brokerages all over the world that are committed to closing more properties in less time by using highly leveraged techniques, recapturing their time, creating freedom and mobility, and designing their dream lifestyles in the present instead of waiting for some future “retirement” date. We have an entrepreneurial drive, we don’t work at a 9-5 office job and we have freedom to set our own hours. |
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Are you ready to take your real estate game to the next level?
The Maverick partners are able to run an international real estate company from remote locations around the world ranging from rooftop pool decks in Los Angeles to Ski Lodges in Canada to Yacht Marinas in the South of France. We live where we want and travel when we want for as long as we want, and no business falls through the cracks because of the systems and processes we have set up and the technology we use.
Learn exactly how we do it, down to the specific technology products we use, and how you can do it too.
(Don’t worry, we aren’t going to charge you anything for this information. We are all about building a cool community, and that means sharing information not nickel and diming people).
STEP 1: Create a Paperless Office:
Traditional businesses have a lot of paper and a lot of clutter. Go Maverick and get rid of everything you legally can*. Here is how:
- GET AN E-FAX ACCOUNT and STOP USING A FAX MACHINE. If you still use a fax machine for ANY-thing, stop that immediately. Get an e-fax account with one of the many companies that provide that service for around $10-$15 per month. This way if you happen to be dealing with companies or individuals that "need" to send or receive faxes, you can correspond with them the same as if you were sending and receiving emails. You can even send and receive faxes from your PDA device.
| - MAVERICK PICK: After reviewing and testing a variety of providers, the e-fax service we use and like the best based on pricing, features and performance is MetroFax. It's a cheaper service than the popular MyFax or eFax services and allows 1,000 pages (incoming or outgoing) compared to eFax's 160 or MyFax's 300. Also, if you go over the page allowance, the extra pages on MetroFax will run you 3 cents per page vs 10-15 cents with the other services.
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- GET A GOOD QUALITY SCANNER and GET RID OF YOUR PAPER. When you need to sign documents, in order to avoid having to fax them, you need a good quality scanner so that you can quickly scan them into a PDF and e-mail or e-fax them where they need to go. And you need to start by making electronic files out of your current paper files so you can shred the paper. Depending on how much you have, this could be time consuming and you may want to get an assistant or intern to do it. Just make sure you create the system (the electronic folder trees, categorization schemes, etc) and give very clear instructions to whomever you allow to do it for you. Then, moving forward, just devise systems for scanning everything (your monthly receipts for business expenses, etc), so that everything is stored electronically.You want to be able to do this as quickly and efficiently as possible, which is why a "good quality" scanner is emphasized.
| - MAVERICK PICK:
 The quality of scanner we recommend is just above the Best Buy/Staples product level.You might find one or two there, but for the best selection, you should start looking online. The Maverick partners use the HP "all in one" printer/copier/scanners in our home offices. These machines allow us to load up to 50 pages at a time and scan them directly into a single PDF document relatively quickly. We found the All-in-One line initially by simply looking for the highest reviewed products at CNET.com -- the "All in One" was given an excellent rating. CNET is useful for comparison shopping for various tech products. |
- GET TWO EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES, KEEP ONE OFF-SITE AND REGULARLY BACK UP YOUR FILES. Your entire office is now paperless, including most of your contracts, receipts and important financial information. Don’t take a chance of losing it. Back it up and keep it in a minimum of two totally separate places.
Maverick partners each have two external hard drives, one that we keep in the home office, and the other that we keep in a safety deposit box at a bank. After a back-up, the drive is taken down to the bank and swapped out for the other one, such that the most updated one is always in the safety deposit box.
External storage devices are plug-n-play. You simply connect the storage device to your computer via the USB port and it's easy to either drag-and-drop your important files onto the external drive or download and run one of the many free "Back-Up" applications available (such as SyncBack). These programs will help you back-up your computer and usually come with a convenient automated schedule option that will run back-ups automatically. | - MAVERICK PICK: There are a variety of reasonably similar quality products in this field. Go with one of the known and trusted brands. We generally use Western Digital or Iomega brands. Both brands often include backup software ready to go right on the drive.
Storage has become incredibly cheap. You can easily find any number of external storage drives that will run less than $100 for 500 GB. Check out reviews here for Iomega Drives.
*Check with your broker for compliance requirements. You may be required to keep some original contracts in your office and/or other documents. Local laws and regulations vary. It is your responsibility to be sure you always comply with applicable law.
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STEP 2: Become Mobile:
Most people are often tethered to an office. Go Maverick and work from wherever you want. Here is how:
- USE ONE LAPTOP FOR EVERYTHING. If you don’t have a laptop, get one. If you have a laptop but you also use a desk top, stop that. Anytime you "need" to go to your desktop computer for any reason, it limits your mobility. If you like the "big monitor" and the "regular keyboard", then just got a docking station with a regular keyboard and a big monitor that you can leave in your home office and plug your laptop into when you happen to be working there. Transferring files between two different computers is an unnecessary waste of time. Use one laptop that you can take anywhere
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- GET A WIRELESS BROADBAND CARD SO YOU CAN ACCESS THE INTERNET ANYWHERE. Free public WiFi is fairly easy to find these days, so if you live in an urban area, you can usually count on access when you need it. However, in those moment where time is of the absolute essence, you don't want to lose business or be beholden to hotels or coffee shops that don’t have wireless access (or that charge a mint to use it). Furthermore, you want to be able to go to the beach and other places that definitely don’t have wireless access. Get a broadband card for your laptop so you can get onto the internet anywhere you want at any time you want without having to worry about whether or not they have "wi-fi". This allows you to control exactly where and when you do work sessions, check email, etc.
| - MAVERICK PICK: We use the Verizon Wireless Broadband Card. It appears to have the best reception based on our testing of a variety of competitors. If you are getting a new laptop, you may be able to get it installed internally. If you already have a laptop that you are going to continue using, click here to get the external card.
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- GET A SMART PHONE WITH AN UNLIMITED TALK, TEXT AND DATA PLAN. While you need to be disciplined so that your work doesn’t invade your leisure time, you also need to be able to function without ever going into an office or using a landline. You can also get discounts on your wireless broadband service if you buy it as part of a bundle with your phone plan.
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You should now have a paperless office with everything on your laptop (and backed up on two hard drives, one of which is currently in a safety deposit box).
You should also be free to work from anywhere and never "have" to go into the office again*. Since you got rid of all your paper and your desk top, there shouldn’t be anything in your office anyways!
*If you have weekly or monthly "office meetings" or "floor time" responsibilities, read The 4-Hour Workweek for tips on how to get out of them.
