Today I want to talk about a subject that came up a lot in my interview with Tom Krol. Automation is a huge part of the way he runs his very successful business. I spent the majority of my real estate investing career without much automation. But once you create systems that work, automation can really allow you to utilize people's skills and grow your business to a whole new level.

Most importantly, you need to be honest with yourself about what you're good at and what you're not. So much that you're not good at or just dislike doing can eventually be passed on to someone else so that you can make better use of your time. These days, it's so easy to find someone to hire, whether it's in person or online. I recommend oDesk or even Craigslist.

And if you're thinking that you're new to the business and don't have money to spend on hiring someone, you will be surprised at how inexpensive it can be to hire people for certain functions. Especially for clerical, repetitive work, hiring someone can really free up a lot of your time for very little money.

Once you have systems in place in your business, you should look for tasks that are redundant or that you don't need to be doing yourself and download those to someone who can do them for you. You will be amazed at how much more you can get done by automating things. It will free you up to grow and expand.