Someone asked me this weekend what, exactly, I do all day.
The truth is, many days, I don’t do much more than read.
Sure, people come into my office for guidance on how to handle tricky issues. But, in those cases, I try to get the person asking the question to make a recommendation, which I generally try to accept (unless I strongly disagree). No reason to train people to rely on me, if I can avoid it.
But, generally, I read or look at deals.
Then, every once in a long while, either someone sends me an interesting deal or one pops up on the publicly available databases.
It’s my job to notice that the deal is interesting, quickly determine what we can pay for it, and then convince the broker to take my offer over the others ones she’s sure to receive.
From that moment until the deal closes, I go like crazy, trying to anticipate all of the things that could go wrong and mitigate them.
Then, from closing on, the deal mostly becomes Jon’s problem, and I go back to sitting around.
Until the next one pops up.