We recently did a survey of people that we have in our network and found overwhelmingly that most people that follow us are either in their first year of investing or have 10 years or more of experience. The first few years of investing are the biggest challenge and when many people fail. What are the reasons for failure? There could be many really.
- Lack of Action
- Lack of Training or Knowledge
- Lack of Capital
- Lack of Systems
- Lack of Inventory
- Etc
These are all fixable situations by the way. Anyone can take massive amounts of action. You have to be able to move fast in this business so you should start getting fast in just about everything you do. Increase your decision speed. You can do this as you grow your knowledge. The key is to take massive action every single day towards your goal. I focus on making my goals so big, that I have no choice but to take massive action to try and get to the level I want to be. If you want to learn more about this, I encourage you to read “The 10X Rule” by Grant Cardone.
You don’t need to pay a guru thousands of dollars to learn. Most things you can learn from books, YouTube videos, Podcasts and by getting a mentor. Getting a mentor changed my entire life and was the greatest gift the universe ever gave to me. Start becoming a sponge to information on whatever style of investing you want to be in. If you’re starting with wholesaling, I’d encourage you to get “If You Can’t Wholesale After This: I’ve got Nothing for You” by Todd Fleming. There are tons of great books on real estate investing. BiggerPockets.com is also a great resource. If you want to find a mentor, attend your local REIA meetings and find someone performing at the level you want to be at. You should grow in mentorship as your skills increase as well.
Lack of capital is laughable. There is money everywhere, you just need to learn how to find it. The question that’s key is “Who’s got my money?”. I always thought private money was so difficult to find but it turns out it’s quite easy when you have a deal to fund. Put your deal out to the universe and you can find some people to partner with. Take the deal to your accountant / CPA and ask them who they know that would be interested in funding that kind of deal. Make sure you have your exit strategy clearly defined so they will know how and when they will get paid back.
Systems are carefully built and constantly refined. If you don’t have systems, you will never be able to grow the business so that you’re not working in it, but instead working on it. A great book to read about systems and scaling is “Scaling Up” by Verne Harnish. It’s one of the best business books I’ve ever read and is incredibly easy to begin implementing into your business as it grows.
Inventory is not too difficult to find. That’s one of my favorite things about real estate. There are always deals to be found and that’s really how we get paid in this business. Become a deal finder or, find a deal finder to work with. It’s worth paying someone a bit to help you find deals if it’s not your strong suit. Being an entrepreneur, you need to create relationships with those that do things better than you do and learn to leverage them. Create your own value and reciprocate it. The sky is the limit if you adopt that style of business.
In closing, your first year in investing will be a challenge and the cream will rise to the top. You have to become obsessed with real estate, learning, networking and figuring out ways to systematize your business. If you can do that, you’ll be one of those that makes it to 10+ years as an investor. If you can’t, you’ll be the guy at the bar telling the story about trying to invest and real estate and that it’s quite the racket. If we can be a resource to you in finding deals or getting started using our owner financing, don’t hesitate to reach out. Also, be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram by searching @OdellBarnesREO