Tuesday, February 13, 2007

The Balance of the Game

In this sport of real estate, as in life, timing is everything. I have spent many hours studying the psychology involved in marketing. This is your first offer in most real estate transactions. Every week or month that your websites are live, your cards are being handed out, bandit sign going up, and direct mail going out, you are silently making offers.

As the title states, the balance of the game, to me is defined by 3 major ingredients. Timing being number 1. You must get peoples attention at the right time. This is where number 2 comes in, persistence. We can't really tell what people are thinking in their head so we have to constantly be advertising, with our mouths firstly, and our materials lastly. The final ingredient is boldness. To be successful in any business you have to be able to look your opponent if you will, in the eye and state your offer in our case.

I will explain in depth my philosophy on each of my key ingredients. Timing is a very delicate thing. We know from a very young age that sometimes we can make our parents laugh, but in a different circumstance our same little joke makes them want to beat us, ha-ha, a little exaggeration. Seriously though, we have all experienced this many times in life where different moods or attitudes, timing, will completely change the outcome of a situation. Where timing really comes into play in our business is in marketing. Having the foresight and knowledge of what point in a selling cycle to send a letter. Or if you are working on a particular seller, when to conveniently nave your bandit signs all over their neighborhood. We have to be the person or company that constantly pops into their head when they are thinking "I gotta get rid of this house". Being at the right time and the right place seems to be most successful peoples good luck. As we've all read though, the harder you work, the luckier you become. This ties in with my second ingredient.

There is no substitute for persistence. Since the early days of warfare, persistence seems to conquer all. In medieval times castles and kingdoms were overthrown, yes technology played a large part, but persistence was the key factor. I believe that your marketing can be lacking some pizazz, your presentation can be shaky, and even lack of experience will be overcome by persistence and integrity of course. In the last 12 months my company has purchased over 20 properties because of our persistence. We have found out what marketing works and tweak it constantly as we see fit, to keep buyers and seller knocking down our doors. I will site an example, 6 month ago or so I was in a sellers home attempting to buy their house. They said that they received postcard from my company offering to buy their home for 8 months. Now they actually sold to a conventional homeowner the week after i was in their living room, but they said that they received direct mail from 4 or 5 different companies. They chose to do business with mine because of our persistence. If we would have quit mailing to that city, or changed our buying parameters, we would have gotten off their radar. But we stick to it. Even though I sincerely believe that persistence is the most important trait for an entrepreneur to have the last of the recipe I spoke of, boldness, holds a close second.

Webster defines boldness as: showing or requiring a fearless daring spirit. What does this mean to me? It means staring at the face of fear and growling at it. A great real estate guru and motivational speaker whose work I study, often says "Be Bold". Along with persistence, boldness will help you bulldoze through the lack of polish, or experience. Please let me clarify, without integrity, boldness becomes another 8 letter word that starts with a B. Being able to look a seller in the eye and confidently say "I will pay you $100,00 for your house and close in 30 days" is easy. Now to deliver on that promise means everything. As I type this with a coffee in my hand at 5:48 a.m. I am realizing that all three of my ingredients create one dish, Integrity.

Integrity has become an almost tangible asset or trait to posses. As I said earlier, i have been involved in many businesses with a few different partners. I have fount that one trait above all others is the most important for one to have in business, the being integrity. As I grow older and hopefully wiser it becomes more and more apparent to me daily that I seek to do business with those that live by their word. I was deeply involved with someone in business for a long time in my entrepreneurial career. I thought this person was a great human being and I learned a lot from them. We put together a few deals and were working on some larger deals along with other business ventures. the last 6 month of our run together I realized this person had some major character flaws. Lack of integrity being the worst. Quite a few years older and wiser I now will only do business with those that I respect that have proven to me a high level of integrity. Now do I know every bank teller or contractor that I have done business with to have high level of integrity, of course not. But for those that I do multiple projects with, or other investors that I have lurch with weekly, I absolutely require a high level of integrity from them.

These 4 factors are definitely pillars that my businesses have been founded on. When we make promises to our sellers we deliver. Our rehabs and homeownership program are second to none. Finally our non-profit premier real estate investor's club is a testament to our business philosophies. I have to brag a little, our first event that we hosted had an attendance of over 130 investors, entrepreneurs, and professionals. Not many real estate investing clubs, or any private non-profit clubs can say that.

-Make it Happen-

www.PrettyMichiganHomes.com our homes for sale. www.WeOfferToday.com where we buy houses, or take over payments www.REIAofMacomb.com Michigan's Premier Real Estste Investing Club