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Real Estate Investing Partnerships – Why They Fail and How You Can Succeed!
December 16, 2014
Real Estate Investing Partnerships – Why They Fail & How You Can Succeed! Lately, I’ve been involved in a lot of one-on-one mentoring with several of my more seasoned students. I was approached recently by one of my students. He was inquiring about his partnering with a friend in business. It reminded me of business partnerships that I’ve had in the past. After our discussion, I thought that it would be a great idea to compose a multi-part series on business partnerships. It includes why they often fail and personal examples in my professional past. There are basically two types of partnerships – new and established. Why do people form partnerships? Well, in my opinion, one of the reasons is because real estate can be a very lonely business. Most people cannot appreciate how much work real estate investing involves. Therefore, they don’t appreciate what you do for a living. Real estate investing can be scary. It can be overwhelming and this is why we form partnerships. So we have someone to ride along with us in our journey. It’s impossible to “know the unknown.” (unless you’re Donald Rumsfeld!) When you’re first starting out, you don’t know the process. But if you have a partner, you can lean on each other, which can remove a lot of the negative feeling associated with the “unknown.” New companies might think that having a partner equates to less risk and better profit. It feels like a partner helps mitigate the high start-up costs. I found myself in a slightly different situation. When I decided to partner-up, my business was already established. I had bought hundreds of houses and had flipped 50-60 homes already. But I wanted to go to the next level so I brought on a partner in an attempt to increase the bottom line. Partnering in business is sometimes referred to as the “golden handcuffs”. With this impending series dealing with partnerships, I don’t just want to discuss the struggles and failures of partnerships; I will also be talking about small business in-general. More specifically, I want to talk about those employees that can make or break your company. If you hire the wrong people, those people have the ability to destroy both your business and you personally if things go sour. Are your employees an asset to your company or are they more like gangrene?! In this series, I’ll elaborate on my personal experiences…obviously without naming names to protect the guilty! But I feel like there are many, many lessons that can be learned the easy way and that’s why I will be sharing my personal experiences with you. I’ve been told that one of the reasons my students are fond of me is because I will always give them the truth. I talk about my failures just as much as I talk about my accomplishments. So, in this series, we’ll talk about: partnerships that have succeeded and why, partnerships that have failed and why, hiring family or friends, how to deal with employee’s spouses who are like “gangrene” to your company and cause unnecessary drama, behind the scenes “whisper campaigns,” and that’s just a start! Rotten partnerships and gangrene employees become like a virus, especially in small business – one...
read moreHow to Survive in Modern Business
December 16, 2014
Last year, I began blogging with one goal in mind. To share knowledge and educate other investors like me. I love to share all of my knowledge and time-proven systems with everyone! One of our most popular series has been our weekly “leadership” series. In 2014, we have posted several groundbreaking series on leadership such as: Who Are You Trying to Fool? Parts 1-2 Conquering the Puzzle – The Struggle is the Purpose Parts 1-2 Building Relationships A Leadership Crisis 8 Steps to Sure Success Parts 1-8 The 7 Deadly Sins of Leadership Parts 1-7 All of our past Leadership blog series can be accessed by visiting www.blog.andrewcordle.com The next series that I’m happy to announce will be a multi-part series entitled: Leadership Survival. Over the course of many weeks, I’ll do my best to show you how to survive in today’s cut-throat business world. First and foremost, you must have the ability to maintain an unrelenting focus on the future and a determination to make difficult, sometimes transformational changes. At too many companies there’s not sufficient thought given to the next quarter century because we’re rushed to meet the demands of the next quarter. Companies need to have a strong focus on anticipating change, at all levels. Your company’s anticipating and identifying challenges and opportunities is merely the first step. Then moving-on to address them strategically might involve difficult change, both inside and outside the company. One of the biggest obstacles to this process is something usually considered as a positive virtue and very difficult to overcome: emotional attachment to the status quo. You must refuse to love your product, or mode of production, or whatever your seemingly lasting advantage is, so much that you hinder your ability to make the changes needed to sustain success. Over the course of the next several week’s, I will be providing you many of my secrets to business survival. No special MacGyver knife, tent, or emergency rations are required! This is business survival! Join me next week when we discuss Business Survival lesson #1 – “Pain As a Teacher.” ...
read moreMarketing 101: 3 Ways to Create More Mental Space
December 16, 2014
Marketing 101: 3 Ways to create more Mental Space: Each person has the capacity of remembering and absorbing only so much information. Even though the human brain is said to have the capacity of 2.5 petabytes (one million gigabytes!), we have a much smaller capacity to recall short term, fast-paced promotional material. Not only that but according to the NY Times, every week, the average person sees upwards of 20,000 marketing messages. So how do you create more mental space inside of the brain of the people you want to do business with? We each have our own unique filters by which we experience the world. Here are some commonalities and ways to generate more Mental Space and make your message stick with your potential customer: 1) An Unforgettable Benefit. A person will rarely forget something that has never been offered before. This reminds me of a local jeweler in the Chicago-area that offered a full refund to any jewelry purchased during the Christmas holiday if it snowed more than a foot on New Years Day. His offer made me consider an unplanned purchase just for the chance that I might get my money back if the impossible happened. What can you offer that no-one else can or will? 2) Evoke Emotion. Emotion coupled with information is a very strong tool in creating “stickiness” for your message in the consumers brain. Try to use emotions such as excitement, passion or even fear. Can you bring tears to someone’s eyes? If you can, they will not forget. This reminds me of a current Duracell commercial featuring the NFL’s first totally deaf player, Derrick Coleman of the Seattle Seahawks. At the end of this article, take a moment to watch this commercial. It brings tears to my eyes every time! It worked and it evoked strong emotion! 3) Paradigm Shift. The majority of the American public has been taught in public schools, read public textbooks, and experienced the same media culture. What that tells me is that there are very few individually unique thoughts that exist. If you want to create more mental space you must create new ways of thinking. The book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” comes to mind. It goes against the grain of the traditional way of thinking. If you are going to contribute to “more of the same,” then get used to being placed on the mental shelf of the persons brain who you want to do business with. The example of a true paradigm shift is when light enters into a prism and reflects in a different direction. Because of your marketing the mental processes of the consumer should be affected and forced to think differently! ...
read moreDIY: Tips to Saving Money by Using Those Free “Bonuses” (Video)
December 16, 2014
In last Friday’s DIY video, we told you to keep an eye out for “Free Bonuses“. We previously kept a bonus and reused it in an updated and upgraded bathroom. In this video, we’ll give you another idea on what do with some of those “Bonuses“! Enjoy! ...
read moreThe Importance of Quality Real Estate Photos
December 16, 2014
The importance of quality real estate photos We all know that the first impression is important and typically, is the most lasting impression. For years in real estate investing, everyone stressed the point about “curb appeal“. If your house didn’t have curb appeal, buyers would just keep driving on. The whole point of curb appeal is to get buyers to want to come in and take a look. Then make an offer! With the modern digital age, is curb appeal enough or do investors need more? Today, the majority of interested buyers have high-speed internet access and they use it! The internet has become almost as important as breathing in today’s business world! Whether potential customers buy online or research a purchase online, buyers are clicking through pages at high rates of speed! With all the clicking, there’s no doubt that they are skimming and skipping through pages. They are just waiting for something to pop out at them. IF something stands out, they may give it a few extra seconds of a glance before they move on. That is the most time you’ll have their attention. You spent so much time on that curb appeal. The interior, the tile, the floors, the kitchen and the baths. You have just a brief moment to capture the buyers attention long enough to get a click. So if your buyer is clicking through on a computer or a smartphone, are you willing to let that curb appeal go to waste because of a bland photograph? You put time and effort in every other aspect of your house. Don’t drop the ball when it comes down to the presentation! Remember, most buyers will visit your home online before they ever decide to drive out in front of it, and first impressions are most important! Just a thought to think about! So, the next time you find yourself staring back into your camera phone screen taking another selfie, save the memory space and go take some snapshots of your investment! It could be the deciding factor in your next sale. Be sure to check for future updates! Next time, I’ll be going over “The Importance of Photos, Part 2 – Should you let the agent take the photos of your investment?” ...
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