EP258: 5 Proven Ways To Double Your Income (Over and Over Again)

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Most people earn far less than they deserve. The real question is: how can you increase your income, even double it, without working extra hours?

What if we told you that doubling your income is not only possible but easier than you think? Today, you’ll learn five powerful strategies to make it happen. Just wait until you hear the last two—you’ll have no doubt that you can break free, double your income, and achieve financial freedom, no matter if you’re feeling undervalued at your job, overwhelmed by tasks, or stuck in the time-for-money trap!

How do we know this is possible? Because we’ve done it ourselves. We jumped into the multifamily apartment game in 2018 with zero experience in acquiring or operating properties and acquired our first deal in Aug 2019. In just a few years, we’ve 10x’d our wealth, making millions. And guess what? We’re working far fewer hours than we did in our old careers.

Strategy NO. 1:  Know Your Worth

When most people think about doubling their income, they usually think about asking their boss for a raise. But that’s not the quickest or most effective way, and sometimes it’s not even possible.

Instead, think like a business owner. How can you make yourself indispensable and directly impact your company’s bottom line? This approach significantly boosts your chances of a substantial raise. Be creative—consider trading a portion of your salary for equity. This way, you can share in the company’s growth and reap the rewards as it scales to new heights.

And when we say become indispensable, it doesn’t have to be at your current job. Sometimes, you need to change your environment to gain leverage. For example, when we were in the fashion industry, we were making good money, but it was nowhere near what we make today acquiring multifamily apartments with much less work. 

Less time at the office, less travel, fewer client headaches, and none of the fashion world politics. Yet, we’re earning more. If you feel underpaid or underappreciated, consider moving to a different organization or changing fields entirely. You might find that another place recognizes and values your worth far more than your current one does. The grass is sometimes greener on the other side, if it’s the right field.

Strategy NO. 2: Narrow Your Focus

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, the company was struggling. He realized that to save Apple, he needed to focus on what was working and cut out the rest. Jobs identified the 20% of products that were responsible for 80% of Apple’s profits. He streamlined the product line, concentrating on high-impact items like the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. This strategic focus transformed Apple into the tech giant it is today.

Let’s dive deeper into why this works by understanding the Pareto Principle, which was brilliantly applied by Steve Jobs. The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, suggests that 80% of results come from 20% of efforts. In other words, a small fraction of your actions lead to the majority of your outcomes.

And we find that to be so true. In the multifamily world, there are many roles to play: finding deals, connecting with brokers (which was hard for us since we don’t live near any of our properties), building relationships with sellers, walking through properties, managing them (being the “boots on the ground”), having massive net worth and liquidity (your net worth needs to match the loan amount, and liquidity must be 10% of it), or being the human capital (raising moolah).

So, once we figured out the 20% of actions that would give us 80% of the results, we zoomed in on those—specifically, capital raising and focusing on asset operations. 

You see you can apply the same principle to your career. Start by identifying the 20% of tasks that generate 80% of your value. These high-impact activities are where you should focus your energy. Eliminate or delegate the rest. This approach not only makes you more effective but also more indispensable to your company.

Strategy NO. 3: The Backward Design

Back in our fashion business days, we worked tirelessly, taking on every new project, believing that more work equaled more pay. But that didn’t happen. All it did was cause us endless nights of answering customer calls and emails, and stressing over arbitrary deadlines. The key lesson here is to use Goal-Oriented Backward Planning, also known as Backward Design, to achieve your desired results by identifying the necessary steps and actions to get there.

This approach involves starting with the end goal in mind and then working backward to identify the steps needed to achieve that goal. It’s commonly used in various fields, including education, project management, and strategic planning.

This approach ensures that you move forward and capitalize on opportunities rather than getting bogged down in endless planning.

Don’t get stuck in the planning phase. We used to spend months analyzing every detail before making a move.

Now, we set non-negotiable action dates to transition from planning to action. This shift has been crucial in ensuring consistent progress. For instance, when we decided to venture into large-scale real estate projects, whether purchasing multifamily apartments or developing 100+ single-family townhomes, we set a firm date to make our first offer. This decisive step propelled us forward and helped us overcome analysis paralysis.

When we approach new multifamily apartment projects, our number one goal is to deeply dive into risk mitigation. Growing and protecting our passive investors’ investments are our top priorities.

In addition, we will assess how much this project will make us (yes, because we know our worth, and we don’t do ALL deals that come across our desk). 

Opportunity cost is real—investing time and energy in one project means you might miss out on a more valuable one later. That’s why we ensure every project we take on helps us scale and achieve our overarching goals.

To analyze new deals, we use backward design. We start by identifying the end goal of the project and the business plan. Then we determine what’s in it for our passive investors (the benefits and the risks) and finally assess if the deal makes financial sense for us. As we tell our investors, we won’t pursue deals just to make money. We’ve turned down over a quarter of a billion dollars in deals in 2023 because they didn’t meet our internal investment criteria.

This approach is why we now focus exclusively on A-class or newly built assets (we’re currently building 118 single-family townhomes north of Dallas). While, there are mentors and gurus who double down on C-class assets, and that’s fine for them. Let them have that cake. For us, we prefer newer or new assets because they are easier to manage and practically run themselves without us having to put in hard work.  Ask us how we know.

C-class assets, typically built in the 70s in workforce housing neighborhoods, require a lot more effort. For those in the know, you know these properties come with constant concerns about tenant security, collections, evictions, deferred maintenance, and other issues. 

None of these are factors with A or A+ class assets. For example, one of our A+ properties, built in 2021, has had only one eviction and maintains nearly 100% collections within the first three days of billing each month. This provides peace of mind and ease in managing the property.

People often approach us wanting to partner up. While we love the idea, we have strict investment criteria. If a partnership doesn’t align with these criteria, we simply don’t have the capacity to pursue it. Quality over quantity, always.

When using our backward design method, we look at the return on investment of our time (ROIT) in the project and assess the work structure. We consider responsibilities, the amount of hand-holding required, and the overall workload. This is supposed to be a lifestyle business, so we aim to do the least amount of work for the highest return.

Strategy NO. 4: Create Scalable Income Sources

If you sell a service that requires your time, you’re limited by the hours in the day. Instead, create products that can sell without your constant involvement. Write ebooks, create online courses, invest in large-scale real estate, or start a YouTube channel.

To escape the time-for-money trap, you need scalable and automated income sources. We were fortunate to stumble upon multifamily apartments because it’s one of the best ways to separate your income generation from time. 

With the capacity to hire a robust team or join forces with experienced partners, multifamily apartments allow you to grow your wealth exponentially without a massive time commitment.

When we first got started with multifamily apartments, our very first deal was a $6.9 million purchase. While that number seemed intimidating, we didn’t let it scare us off. We got educated to ensure the property was a good asset, and we partnered with experienced individuals. This approach helped us feel confident and avoid the blind leading the blind.

Since our first purchase in 2019, we’ve acquired nine properties and hope to announce our 10th one to our tribe community soon (for those who want to be in the know, join our FREE newsletter).  Okay, I digress. Interestingly, we’ve visited most properties no more than three times, and some only once or twice. Out of the nine properties, we’ve already gone full cycle—sold—on three of them.   

The point here is we’ve successfully bought, operated, executed our business plan, and exited these properties. Our strategy focuses on ensuring our income is scalable by relying on a robust team to help grow our wealth.

To achieve scalability, leverage the five strategies we always emphasize: team, tools, time, taxes, and debt. Without these leverages, you’ll be the bottleneck, limited by your capacity to work 24 hours a day.

We can’t stretch enough, partnering with experienced individuals is crucial. It reduces your risks, limits your involvement and liability, makes the venture safer for lenders, buyers, and sellers, and ensures you have seasoned problem-solvers on your team. 

In multifamily apartments, we always advocate for going big—but never alone. Go big with a deal that includes knowledgeable, experienced partners who will support you every step of the way.

Strategy NO. 5: Work on the Business, Not Just in It

Naval Ravikant said, “What you choose to work on and who you choose to work with are far more important than how hard you work.” Focus on the big picture and strategic tasks that drive your business forward. Delegate day-to-day tasks to skilled team members. This way, you can steer your business in the right direction while others handle the details.

Think of your role as a captain steering a ship. You need to work on the business strategy while others handle the operations. This approach allows you to scale effectively. 

We used to be bogged down with day-to-day tasks, but once I focused on strategy and delegated, my business grew exponentially.

We’ve always known we needed to stop trying to do everything ourselves, but old habits die hard.

We didn’t know how to find the right people to help us, so we ended up juggling all the tasks. In Q1 and Q2 of 2024, we’ve shifted our focus to hiring the right people. We reshuffled our team, letting go of those who no longer fit our current needs, even if they were indispensable when we started.

Now, we’re laser-focused on the 20% of tasks that truly move the needle—scaling our multifamily apartments portfolio and teaching real estate entrepreneurs how to raise MORE money to fund their deals. 

It’s about tackling the high-value stuff and being the visionary, like a captain who needs to see beyond the deck chores. If we get bogged down in the minutiae, we’ll miss the big opportunities and obstacles ahead.

From the outside, it might look like we’ve scaled impressively over the years, and that’s true. But compared to our potential, we’ve been underperforming because we’ve been stuck doing too many tasks ourselves. 

Even with a team in place, we were still handling day-to-day tasks that others could do—maybe not perfectly, but well enough. So, our new mantra is simple: focus on working “on” the business, not “in” it.

So, there you have it—the five strategies to double your income without working more hours. 

Now that you’re ready to double your income, go watch this 🎥 video to learn how to get extremely rich using other people’s money.