This episode applies the “solve the constraint behind the constraint” framework to identify which single business problem, when solved, unlocks everything else. For Serious Land Capital, the current portfolio disposition bottleneck (not acquisition flow) determines survival in tight capital markets, requiring all team resources to redirect toward moving inventory before considering new deals or secondary projects.
Key Takeaways:
- One Problem Opens Everything Most businesses have a single core blocker that, when solved, resolves cascading secondary issues and enables continued growth.
- Emotional Stress Reveals Priority Check in with where you feel the most stress across your task list, that anxiety often signals the true constraint requiring immediate attention.
- Dispo Unlocks Acquisitions When portfolio velocity stalls, solving disposition first (even delaying new deal evaluation) prevents capital lockup and enables strategic recapitalization.
Listen to learn how to identify your business’s true constraint and when to let smaller fires burn.
(Podcast transcript below)
Hi, Chris Duff over at Serious Land Capital, vacant land funding partner. A quicker one today, just getting down to the point here. You know, oftentimes thinking about, you know, you know, Hormosi and other kind of business coaches might indicate of just, know, Hey, there’s when you really boil it down within your business, there’s only
one key blocker going on that if you solve that problem, everything else clears up and orients you for further growth. you know, any other problems besides that main thing are, you know, they’re, they’re, just small fires that, you can leave burning until you clear out, the major one to continue to accelerate. so, yeah, I try to think about that.
often because it’s not always the same big problem and because as an entrepreneur you have so many different aspects of your business, things you want to focus on, it can be difficult. It’s not always obvious to figure out, what is that number one thing that’s just going to open up everything else? So sometimes it can even help to just go over, okay, what are all these key tasks that need to get
done today or at least I need to think or at least what I need. What I think I need to get done and then like almost check in emotionally of like, where where am I feeling the most stress here and how many of these other or you know how many of these other problems that I’m trying to solve for
Um, you know, that I might’ve noted down can be solved or at least, you know, have their wheels greased a lot more by solving, you know, one of these other problems. And that’s a little bit convoluted way to say it. So just going to an example, like on our side, um, you know, we have so many things going on and I’m serious land capital. trying to do the land price there, which has its own problem. Like he has different business technically that they’re related, um, to SLC, but
For SLC at the moment, generally it’s the only two core problems that define pretty much everything for us are either selling properties, moving our portfolio or finding additional deal flow to put capital into. And those aren’t always in perfect balance. Usually,
In our experience, one is overweighted versus the other. And right now it’s dispositions. Obviously, I’ve been talking about this a lot recently. you know, particularly within this macro economy.
I just have even more of a focus on the Dispo side to again, recapitalize and reset underwriting criteria for future deals here. And people are still sending us deals. mean, some are like borderline here, but again, I’ve tightened up my criteria so much that, yeah, again, we’re just being way, way more careful about what we’re even considering funding.
And then if I am saying yes to things, I’m really having to line up closing timelines to make sure because, you know, my partner and I, like, we don’t, we’re not too keen at the moment of just injecting more liquidity into the business as we wait for our portfolio to move. you know, fortunately a decent chunk are under contract, you know, but the cash isn’t in the account yet. And, you know, as we know, like anything can happen.
before the money is actually in the bank. So it’s just trying to be really careful with where you’re making commitments in relation to…
you know, other possible funding deals when you’re not sure how the dispo process is actually looking like in regard to the economy. so, you know, for instance, this week, you know, we have so many different projects going on and my assistant has a whole bunch of stuff on his list. But I was really boiling these problems down and realizing like, okay, more than anything, like the dispo is the unlock here. need to solve this.
and rebalance, the seesaw between Dispo and acquisitions here. as far as our, you know, key problems within the business and Dispo being like the number one most glaring one that, you know, I just oriented my efforts into, okay, using some AI systems. I talked about some yesterday, have more to comment on soon on how to, you know, move some of these properties, especially the more difficult ones in, you know,
relatively difficult macro environment. And again, we have national exposures of some areas are performing better than others here. And so I just had my assistant, okay, just drop everything. I need you to cover all of these items from the Dispo side to just make sure we’re checking all of those boxes and staying on top of that. Everything else can be pushed and they’re fires, they’re fires without a doubt, but.
they’re smaller and we can let them burn at the moment because if we don’t solve the dispo problem right now that you know kind of blows up the remainder of the business and just makes all the other problems more irrelevant because if we can’t solve the dispo like everything kind of shuts down. So you know trying to think about that even on a weekly basis sometimes it can even change on a daily basis depending on how quickly things are moving within your business.
And where strategies and tactics might, might adjust here, but I’m making it more of a concerted effort within my business to be checking in at least weekly. Okay. What is that core problem that needs to be solved? And do I need to reorient my team, have them drop, you know, standing tasks, putting them off till later, some stuff’s just going to get delayed in order to solve that number one thing. And have I really done everything possible?
to solve that number one problem before moving on to anything else. So hopefully this is helpful in regard to your own business. Again, not the easiest time to be a SMB, small or medium size business at the moment, probably even a large business. We are…
We’re in kind of uncharted waters at the moment and everybody’s navigating as best they can. you know, we’re right there with you. I’m trying to give you as much up-to-date info on how we are dealing with it. And even on more hectic days, this is helping me, you know, stay centered and understanding that, okay, we’re not getting lost here in what’s most important. We will solve this problem with enough resources thrown at it.
With that, seriousland.capital for any of your funding needs, Land Daily Diligence Facebook group. on again tomorrow, Thursday. Have a big deal to review then and then landpricer.ai. Just making a lot more headway earlier today, but that has its own set of problems. Maybe I’ll discuss that one on another pod here shortly about the biggest problem that I’m trying to solve within that business. Okay, with that, subscribe and share. Take care everybody, bye.
