Tom and Nick Karadzas Rock Star Inner Circle

How To Sell Anything – Even If You Hate Sales

(This article was originally shared in our 12-page monthly newsletter to Rock Star Inner Circle Members and had such an impact we decided to share it here too. If you're not a RSIC member yet you can check out details here.) So many people incorrectly believe that sales is a dirty word. They feel that you have to be pushy, aggressive and “like to talk” to be a good sales person. Many also incorrectly believe that putting in the effort to develop their sales skills are a waste of time because they’re “not in sales”. These beliefs are so blatantly wrong it’s either humourous or sad… we’re not sure which. Everyt...

Is Now A Good Time To Buy Property in Canada?

Usually when people ask us this question the answer is easy. Find a good community. Determine if the rent (revenue) will be greater than your expenses. If it is, you're good to go. Buy it, manage it and hang on for the ride. But yesterday someone screamed out, "No No, I'm not asking you about investment property - I'm asking you about my own home ... so, is it a good time to buy right now?" We prefer to avoid such conversations. We understand the interest in it though... Buying your own home with the hopes of prices going up after you buy is everyone's dream of course. And it's a much more difficult conversation than discussing income property. There are countless Canadia...

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How To Find Good People

Photo: Tom Froese

We've been in business now for six years. Over that time we've been pitched, sold to, met with and approached by all sorts of people. Some want to work with us, some want to sell us, some want something for nothing. We're sure you've been in similar situations yourself. And we've learned a thing or two over that time about people. Here's our own biased, and very general, thoughts about good people to work with: 1. Good people don't complain. Recently we've had a whole serious of situations in our office that could be complained about. We're blessed with a team of people who just keep pushing through the crap that comes our way. It's awesome. But we have sev...

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Real Estate Mentors, Rent To Own Demand, and Our Driving Force

We get a lot of questions sent our way and we do our best to answer each and every one of them. Sometimes it takes us a bit longer than we would like but we get there. There is a long list of questions and answers online which you can click here to see, some are at the end of articles like this and others come to us by mail, fax, email, our Facebook page, and any other form of communication we have available to us it seems. Here are a few that cover some popular themes...

The Lost Art of Mastery

Personally, we are guilty of not taking time to reflect often enough. To look back and remember what things were like when interest rates were in the teens, when the average new house price was $100,000 less (not long ago), etc. Or to recall all of the roadblocks and challenges that we have faced and conquered, and the initiatives we took that didn’t work out quite like we had hoped. Nothing ventured, nothing gained! But what’s the point really? Why take the time to sit down and reflect? The biggest reason is to understand the lessons from the past. This month, we were invited out to a nearby college to speak to students interested in starting their own businesses, either online or ...

Future Income vs. Now Income

Photo: M@H

Someone we take a lot of value from once explained the difference between "now income" and "future income". Now income is money you go out and earn today. From your job. Or perhaps, from fulfilling orders in your business that have come in. From your day-to-day effort to produce immediate income. But ten years from today you may not want to be doing what you do now to make money. My father-in-law lived until he was 92 years old. He had a pension that kicked in at 65. That's twenty seven years that he was able to cover with his pension. He was creating his "future income" when he was in his thirties and forties earning that pension. And with pensions rarer than flying unicorns these days...

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Lessons From Quitting Your Job & Going It Alone

Photo: Eileen S

Over the last few weeks Nick and I have fought some battles over here that have reminded me of 2006, the year we decided to quit our corporate jobs and go it alone. Today I'm going to share a few of the lessons we've learned going from zero clients, zero revenue, zero everything to today having served hundreds and hundreds of clients, with over 500 investment properties worth over $130,000,000 in real estate and growing. If you've been hanging out here for any length of time you know that I was a Sales Manager who was going to put my head through my drywall office walls unless I made a change in my life. Luckily, Nick, my brother, was at a ve...

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