How to Do Everything Wrong In Real Estate and Still Be Successful. Franklin Cruz
“All Contractors are good at FIRST, so stay after them!”
Wholesaler (‘bird dog’): Someone who specializes in finding deals. That is all they do: find deals such as foreclosures or quick sales and put them together. You will want to learn how to be a wholesaler/bird dog because if you can cut out the middle man it will result in more profit. Learn all the tricks of this trade. If you master it you can make any deal a great deal - but remember, sometimes you will ‘pay’ for this experience by making mistakes!
How do you find a wholesaler? If you see signs which say, “We buy houses!” or “Stop Foreclosures” etc., call the number because you’ve just found one! Look in the newspapers for people buying foreclosures as well. As you continue in the business you will find more and more wholesalers, and not always from a sign or newspaper ad. Usually, you will be referred.
Just remember this single-most important bit of advice: Don't trust anyone! They are trying to make money just like you are. Find out their track record. Ask questions, and go with your gut!
Questions to ask:
Real Estate Mentor: The key to your future! Without a mentor, you are nothing. If you don’t have a guide through the forest, the lions and tigers will eat you. Remember, in a multitude of counsel there is wisdom. The blind leading the blind never located the pot of gold. To find your pot of gold you need to be led by someone who can see. A visionary just like you! You just know when you have found your mentor. There isn’t a set formula, or even a certain set of questions to ask. You make a connection on a spiritual as well as a business level. This is a person who is willing to help you succeed – provided you work for it. Your mentor will normally be someone who has been in the business for a long time. You can't buy their time… or can you?
“Remember, in a multitude of counsel there is wisdom!”
In a way, you can. I have bought books from all my ‘distance mentors.’ You know them: Donald Trump, Zig Ziglar, Sam Zell, Tom Barrack, and a couple of others. I would be willing to work for and learn from them for free, because I believe knowledge is more important than twenty dollars an hour. What I gained from my mentor has made me a small fortune thus far.
As I said, you’ll know your mentor when you find him. He is the one who wants you to succeed, and he'll help you take a step forward - but you have to show you’re serious by moving and pushing and crawling forward. Then kick down the door!
Here’s my own story of working with mentors and how they helped me recognize knowledge does not come without a price, and that it is sweeter when you are willing to work to get it. Pay the price physically and financially, and remember nothing is free. When I started in this business I was no different from so many others who wanted to step into real estate investing. I watched an infomercial, and thought the free seminar it offered was just the thing! Off I went to check out the “free” seminar, and after spending 2500 dollars was ready and willing to become an investor! As you probably already know, my first big leap produced a sour deal. You see, a seminar and 2500 dollars for a “how to” book and a “guideline” to finding properties simply is not enough to prepare a guy in the military for how to correctly invest in real estate.
I wised up and realized what I really needed was some decent networking with other people in the business - and naturally this was a lesson I learned from another program advertised on TV. Off I went to join the club mentorship program for five hundred dollars a month, which is a healthy bit of cash for someone subsisting on Army Sergeant’s pay.
After five months in the program and another 2500 dollars wasted… I mean” invested…” I truly changed gears. The mentorship clubbing approach hadn’t made me any smarter, and so many of the questions I had when I started the program were left unanswered - but some good did come of it. I made connections with people in and around the club program who knew of people who had mentored others.
That paid off. I met five men in the business, all of whom were willing to teach me in exchange for my willingness to work with and for them. I’ll call them “David, Noah, Moses, Sampson, and Solomon.” There was no pay in the form of cash from any of them, but I have used the knowledge gained to build my net worth ever since. Most people would have chosen one of the five, but I wanted to learn as much as I could from as many different perspectives as possible.
This is the way I did it: I woke up at 3:30 AM to go my “day job” on base, worked until 1:30 PM, and then worked for one of my mentors from 3 PM until 10 PM Monday thru Saturday. One mentor in particular took an interest in me, and I worked for him even though he had a bad reputation in the area.
I considered even this to be something I had to understand. What gives one a bad reputation, and how valid is the label? I had to find out for myself. I learned all of the in real estate trades through these guys. I worked with a mortgage brokerage, a title company, a real estate attorney, a real estate appraiser, and a real estate broker. During my mentoring stage I learned so much and pushed myself to learn something new every single day. I truly believe that is what makes you a player. It is the only way to truly become successful. Long story short - you have to pay your dues! To sum it all up, a “free seminar” fits into the category of “anything which sounds too good to be true is usually NOT! Save your money, find a mentor, and be willing to pay your dues while you learn the ropes. You will never regret it.
Chapter Two
Learning from a SHARK (Savvy Real Estate Investor) and Not Getting ATTACKED!!
“Avoid the shark bite and get into his mind!”
Very often when a person is bitten by a shark he or she does not recover. In those rare cases where the person does survive, they are never really the same again. They are scarred for life, both physically and mentally.
Sadly, I’ve seen sharks in the business world as well. More than likely you have too. Let’s look at what a shark is in the real estate world. It is a predator which attacks when it senses weakness or injury. You need to learn how to ‘circle the shark’ and