If you're thinking of aggressively growing your real estate portfolio, or want to leave your 9-5 gig for the world of entrepreneurship, we've got some advice for you...
Better grow yourself some thick skin.
And quickly.
The number of problems you'll have to face is NOTHING in comparison to the amount of crap you'll have to deal with from other people.
Luckily, as you grow your portfolio and your business you'll pick up some real friends along the way.
Both Nick and I have managed to develop some real relationships with good people that will last a long time.
BUT...
In that process you'll end up having to deal with some people who don't have your best interests in mind, will accuse you of things, and will try to steal your ideas.
Case in point, in just the last FIVE DAYS, here are a few things we've experienced:
1. A reminder that someone from the past continues to borrow (aka, steal) our business ideas ... pretty blatantly.
2. A professional who we've worked with for years is upset with us because he feels he's not getting his fair share of referrals from us. This person has never asked us how to help grow our business ... they just want more referrals.
3. Another professional who is taking our referral business and then referring these clients to other people instead of back to us. This person has never asked how we could work together ... they're looking out for numero uno, themselves.
4. Yet another professional "pitching" other investments to our clients ... and doing it behind our backs.
Now, please don't think we're complaining here.
All of this is par for the course.
This is the cost of doing business.
We're only sharing this to try and prove the importance of our next point:
Do you know why this doesn't bother us very much?
Because we know how to generate business for ourselves and don't depend on anyone else for it.
We've invested our own time, money, and efforts to understand marketing.
In fact, we consider ourselves the chief marketing officers of Rock Star.
The buck stops here ... we're responsible for generating new business.
We're responsible for our properties.
We're responsible for our success.
We're responsible for our income.
No one else.
Not now, not ever.
If we didn't know how to make the phones ring, how to make fill our properties with tenants, or how to create income by ourselves - all of these problems would bother us.
And in fact, we believe that the people who are rubbing us the wrong way this week have that problem ... they don't know how to generate business for themselves so they focus on "short term" thinking instead of winning "the marathon."
Have you ever worked with someone who you just felt was selling you something you didn't really want or need?
Just to make a buck?
These people do this because they don't understand marketing.
They don't understand how to build a constant stream of leads, prospects, and customers.
There is a certain comfort and confidence you gain by feeling in control of your own future.
And for us, in real estate and in business, it comes from understanding marketing.
It allows us to "do what's right" and think "long-term" instead of always focusing on "now money."
We'll teach this lesson to our own children ... and we've started to already.
It's at this point we wish we could just hand you the keys to successful marketing but we're not even sure where to begin.
Our own journey started over ten years ago.
We've spent a lot of time, read a lot of books, and studied a lot of businesses.
We wish there was a single key that we could hand you ... unfortunately, we've learned that anything of value takes time to learn.
It's a process.
Mastery is a lost art.
But if you're serious about freedom, living life on your terms, and being 100% self-reliant - we would encourage you to read ... devour ... anything you can around direct marketing. Go to Amazon and check out people like Dan Kennedy, Jay Abraham, Robert Collier, Chet Holmes, Robert Ringer, Robert Greene's The 50th Law, Claude Hopkins, Gary Halbert, Robert Cialdini's Influence are some that come to mind.
And one more thing...
Growing some thick skin can't hurt either. 🙂
Until next time ... Your Life! Your Terms!