There is no magic system to wealth. There is no way to pay someone some money and magically wake up the next day rich. You can though learn a proven system, make that system a religion and wake up in a year and look back at the most rewarding year of your life. Unfortunately, many expect the former to be true. And it frustrates me.
Let me give you some examples:
Larry Lotto comes to class. He gets a refund half way through the class because “I don’t have the time your system requires.” Time is the one thing Larry has. What Larry is missing is commitment to his future. Larry goes from wealth class to wealth class expecting some program to hand him $20,000 without working. Larry decided to leave when I told him he would have to work for his money.
Suzy Seminar goes to all of the property buying classes she can find. She thinks they are great. But when she gets home she does not implement any of the systems she learns even though she loved the courses. Suzy at least admits she will never do what she has learned, but why does she pay so much to fail?
Peter Paranoid does everything he can to avoid taking the most important step…talking with the seller. Peter makes sure his letterhead, business cards, letter verbiage, understanding of the laws, contracts and anything else he can think of are perfect before he will talk to a seller. Usually his mentor gets sick of answering the inane, irrelevant questions before Peter has taken the big step and yells at Pete to “just talk with a seller!” Peter quits the business and blames the mentor.
These are just a few of the ways people let themselves become their own worst enemy. This column is about systems. I developed my system to keep me from being one of the above people. If I follow my schedule, my phone rings with sellers. I don’t have a choice, I have to talk with them. It’s hard to fail from this point.
A good system of culling property-buying opportunities will lead you to good properties to buy. It won’t talk to the seller for you. It won’t negotiate a good deal. But it will give you opportunities to talk to with sellers and that will force you to negotiate.
A simpler concept was never ignored by so many.
Negotiate with enough sellers and you will find a good deal. The more you do this the fewer amounts of sellers you will be unsuccessful with. But to start you must do the system. A simpler concept was never ignored by so many.
I just ran into a Peter Paranoid. Like most, this Peter could not even see his problem. He never did do the system to weed his opportunities. He never did market the sellers. He never did talk to a seller. He did however, set up business cards even though we said that was unimportant. There were myriad things he did, but none of them had anything to do with being a property seller.
Attendees of our programs receive ongoing deal support. They call our consultants and discuss their progress. This particular Peter made that his security blanket. He called three and four times a week. He would do anything but the system we taught. The worst part was his inability to see the problem.
To help you understand, let me share the most difficult part of teaching real estate buying. “I can not teach every possible scenario.” Buying has to be taught from the top down – from the forest to the trees. Because of the infinite nature of real estate deals, we can not even pretend to ever say we have taught you everything you need to know.
This Peter (and most of you other Peters) use this fact to procrastinate. They have to be prepared for any scenario. So our Peter stayed up each night thinking of all he needed to know. Then he would call and ask us. The shame is he had no clue what he did not know. His question had nothing to do with reality. The more we told him this the more he was sure he needed to know.
We said, “Pete, just market the sellers. When one calls talk with him. If it doesn’t work out call us we will discuss it.” Peter though wanted the answer before hand. When we insisted he talk to sellers before he called again, he bailed. Peter sincerely thinks we are the reason he is a failure.
That is a tough reality for me to take. So tough I have shared this story with an old fraternity brother who is now a psychiatrist. My buddy asked me two questions. “Are students who take your advice successful?” I told him I knew of no student who religiously followed my system for six months and was not successful. He then asked, “Why should you be upset because a student does not take good advice?”
Fair enough. If you take the time to learn this business in one of my classes please follow the advice I give. We will both be happier.
