What are the vital skills for real estate investing? They may not be what you think... Bill Gates was once asked, “If you could have any one superpower, what would it be and why?” His answer? “Being able to read super fast.” Of all the things he could have said, he chose to answer the superfluous question by addressing his reading ability. Why? Because he understands the principle we’re going to discuss today; the principle that each time you add a skill to your roster, you double your chances for success. The more skills you acquire, the more times you increase your likelihood of success. Not all skills are created equal and are subjective to the work you do. Learning to toss the perfect pizza dough won’t do you much good in the real estate investment field (unless you pay your contractors in pepperoni slices). But I want to share seven universally needed skills that will not only double your chances at success, they will pay off for as long as you live. Here are 7 skills that are challenging to collect but will last your whole life: 1. Being honest with yourself. Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, co-owner of 2929 Entertainment and chairman of the AXS TV, and one of the main “shark” investors on the ABC reality television series Shark Tank said this; “Know was you know and know what you don’t know and be honest about both.” Too many people lie to themselves about their abilities, time, and ambitions, but rarely see it all come together because they aren’t honest with themselves. You can build upon little truths, but you can’t take a big lie and make it a reality. 2. Having confidence. I’ve never seen someone with “natural ability” in everything they do. But I HAVE seen people who seem to be amazing at everything. How? They have confidence, and that confidence is their power to exceed their vision. Like a muscle, you must work out your confidence in order for it to grow. 3. Listening. If I could give you one take away, it would be this one: be the last one to speak. Give others the ability to say what they know is true. Then, bite your tongue from commenting and instead ASK questions, so you will understand why they have the opinion and not just what their opinion is. Don’t listen to figure out when it’s your turn to speak. Listen to hear, analyze, and understand. Once you’ve gathered everything you need to know, move on to the next skill… 4. Speaking up. I once attended a real estate event with a gentleman whose main goal for attending was to network with others for his brokering business. There came a time in the day when attendees could line up by the stage to spend 30 seconds in front of the microphone to introduce who they are and what they do. I asked my friend, “So, you’re going to go up there, right?” and he shook his head, claiming he didn’t have anything to show. I pulled out a piece of yellow paper, made him write his phone number in big numbers, and sent him up to say, “Hi, I have money to lend if you need it, here’s my number!” Speaking up is invaluable, whether it’s on stage, in front of a room, on the phone, or participating in a meeting, God gave you a voice for a reason. Use it! 5. Manage your time. We’ve traded effectiveness for business, and it’s killing productivity! — Click here to read more on time management– Don’t clutter your life with stuff that keeps you from being effective. Time is the only thing we spend that we can never replace. Don’t waste it. 6. Be someone who doesn’t whine. It isn’t productive to complain about what you don’t have, how you compare to others, what isn’t happening, etc. Train your brain to look for the opportunity in every hurdle instead of seeing the hurdle in every opportunity, and I guarantee you’ll become unstoppable. 7. Being consistent. You can outperform anyone who is more knowledgeable, talented, gifted, or privileged than you by simply being consistent. It’s called a grind for a reason. “Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.” Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson “For changes to be of any true value, they’ve got to be lasting and consistent.” Tony Robbins These are all internal skills, ones that relate to any profession. But the principle that learning new skills doubles your chances at success is equally true when you acquire skills related to your business. What skills can you pick up to benefit your business? If you can’t think of any, borrow from this list: – General Contracting Skills – House Inspection skills – Project Management – Design (think fliers, banners, bandit signs, business cards, etc.) – Design (think staging) – Color Coordination – Social Media Management – Ad Writing – Effective Communication – Scheduling – Budgeting – Acquisitions – New Marketing Skills – Accounting Have a specific hole that can be plugged with a new skill but don’t know how to obtain it? Give us a call and we’ll help you find the training you need 800-533-1622. You don’t need to know everything. Remember how we talked about doing a S.W.O.T. Analysis and playing to your strengths while hiring out your weaknesses? ( CLICK HERE to read more .) But if learning something new today will increase your chances of success tomorrow, then why not pick up a new skill? Still having trouble deciding what to learn next? I challenge you to practice my 8 skills above while attending a Funding Tour . Not only are you going to pick up many new skills, pump your brain full of information, and jumpstart your career, if you sign up today, we will pay for your seat. To conclude, let’s circle this all the way back to our friend Bill. How many books have you read this year? What are you reading right now? Who you will be in 5 years is an accumulation of what you do, what you read, what you watch, who you spend your time with, and who you listen to today. Remember, consistency is key! If you haven't ready “ Eat that Frog ! ” by Brian Tracy, then add it to your list today. To Your Success; Lee A. Arnold CEO The Lee Arnold System of Real Estate Investing Follow me on Twitter: @ CogoCapital and @LeeArnoldSystem Have a deal? Visit us at www.cogocapital.com to fill out your fast and easy quote. Want to learn more about COGO first? CLICK HERE to get to know all the ins and out!

Good Sales People Aren’t Born, They’re Trained. “But I’m not a salesperson,” you say. “I don’t need to close sales because real estate investing doesn’t require sales. That’s why I have an agent who sells the houses for me!” Excuse me while I take a sip of my coffee to suppress my chuckling. You could be the best in your area at marketing and creating leads. You could have all the distressed houses at your fingertips. But unless you can get the seller to sign, you’re out a whole lot of work while someone else snags up the properties. The ability to sell isn’t exclusive to used car salesmen or corporate jobs. If you’re waiting fore deals to fall into your lap because you don’t want to “sell,” then you might as well make yourself comfortable because you’ll be waiting a while. You need to be able to sell to create opportunity for yourself. If you can’t close a deal, you don’t have a deal. Though it takes practice—and for some, training—being a top-performing closer will drastically shift your real estate investing from hobby level to replace-your-job level. If you’ve been on a webinar with me, chances are you’ve heard my Circle of Wealth goals for you. First, you need to earn $250,000 in liquid capital. Do you think that first step to life-long wealth happens by putting out hobby level effort? I won’t even continue with the steps needed to create life-long wealth, because if you can’t close a deal, you won’t get much further than step one. (You CAN read more about it: <CLICK HERE> ) But closing a sale doesn’t have to be daunting, and you don’t have to be a character straight out of The Wolf of Wall Street to succeed at it. In an effort not to overwhelm, let’s start with the first 4 steps in training to be a winning closer. Master these and we’ll up your game even more. Have Multiple Strategies This is why I teach on making a 3-tiered offer. If you only give the seller one opportunity to say yes, you’ve instantly reduced your odds for success by way more than half. Even with a 3-tiered offer, you need to have several approaches ready to employ. Closing a sale is like going on a road trip. If you don’t have enough fuel, you aren’t going to get to your destination. You need more strategies than the homeowner has objections. Stop Buying the Seller’s Story When talking to a potential seller or distressed homeowner, we need to ask questions to glean as much information as possible. And when they start in on their story, our ears need to perk up because it’s that pain point that we can fix. Never glaze over the meat of the story. Maybe it was divorce that lead to financial distress and pre-foreclosure, or a loss of a family member or a layoff for the bread winner. Whatever the root of the distress is, pay attention! You are not their councilor, swooping in to fix their problems, nor do you want to use their pain for your gain. But if you let the homeowner sob into your shoulder about their pains without offering a solution, you’re not doing anyone a service. Get the homeowner out of their own head by selling them on the solution. You can provide them with the cash they need to start over, you can give them a life raft out of their sinking ship, you can untether them from a bad situation by providing a monetary solution. But the more you buy into their story without selling them on a way out, the more you reinforce their victim mentality and set them up for failure. Apply Pressure to the Wound Let’s say you suffered a serious wound on the leg and began bleeding out. You’re weak from the blood loss and don’t have the strength to rip off your shirt and tie it around the cut with enough force to slow the bleeding. An acquaintance is nearby with a sterile bandage in hand, but they are too afraid to apply pressure to the wound, believing that pressure is rude and unprofessional. And so, you continue to bleed. Ridiculous, right? You’ll encounter distressed homeowners who are bleeding out financially. For whatever reason, they don’t have the strength or knowledge to fix it themselves, and though they won’t come out and ask you to apply pressure, if you don’t, their situation won’t change. Pressure doesn’t have to be a bad word. If the solution you’re offering someone is wise, well addressed, and valuable, then they may need a little persuasion to see it as such. When you see a wound, sometimes you need to apply a little pressure. Train I’m not talking locomotion, I’m talking education and practice. Sales people are the third-highest paid profession on the planet, directly behind doctors and lawyers. Consider how much time both doctors and lawyers spend in school and in practice before becoming professionals in their field. Don’t believe you can just jump in and close your first deal and then get discouraged when it doesn’t work out. I’ve seen too many people give up prematurely because they didn’t understand that to be great at anything requires practice and developed skill. You can learn the skills; I can teach you that. But the fortitude must come from you. You may have to get uncomfortable for a while. You’ll stretch your selling muscles, make mistakes, learn from them, and improve. But remember to ask yourself, “Who am I NOT to do this?” YOU have what the distressed homeowner wants: a way out. By not doing your absolute best to get a deal under contract, you’re actually doing them a disservice by leaving them in the bad situation you found them in. Not every deal is going to close, and that’s okay. Like the rest of business, it’s a numbers game. Put your best foot forward, lead with love, and help others. If you’d like the hands-on training needed to catapult you from meandering salesperson who hopes for good deals into a confident closer who enters each potential transaction with the needed skills and tools to secure a deal, then stop waiting and wishing. Act now and call us at 800-473-6051 to discuss the necessary courses or coaching to get you there. Don’t worry, we’ll only apply pressure if you’re bleeding. Lee A. Arnold CEO The Lee Arnold System of Real Estate Investing Follow me on Twitter: @ CogoCapital and @LeeArnoldSystem Have a deal? Visit us at www.cogocapital.com to fill out your fast and easy quote. Want to learn more about us first? CLICK HERE to get to know all the ins and out!

Last week over on my Lee Arnold Blog , I wrote about 5 of the best qualities of a CEO . Today, I'd like to do a deep dive into what it takes to get you there. There are so many traits a good CEO must have. But, how can you understand and pile on a bunch of positive attributes if you don't know where you currently are and how you can improve? You need to start with the basics; a baseline of self-discovery to build upon or trying to stack traits could feel like throwing wet noodles against the wall. Some might stick, but most will fall behind the stove. Grab a sheet of paper and set it up like the photo below (or print this PDF here: S.W.O.T) Strengths: First, list all your strengths. - What do you do really well? - Who do you have on your team? - What do you offer that is different/better than your competitors? - What parts of your business are you passionate about? (Without passion, you won't make much money, but without money, you'll lose your passion!) - What are your business strengths? Are you detail oriented, outgoing, analytical? - What are the assets you can contribute? Weaknesses: Next, catalog your weaknesses. - What parts of business are you weak at? - What are the weaknesses in you that others are likely to see? - What do you despise doing? - What can you delegate/avoid? - What weaknesses can you work to improve or manage around? - What factors are costing you money and need to be addressed ASAP? Understanding your weaknesses is vital to your success. It shows you where you need to navigate, what you can delegate for the best results, and hints at what you can automate for optimal time management. No two businesses are alike, as everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. Opportunities: It's important to know what you have going for you. List your opportunities. - What opportunities exist for you? Time, marriage/partnerships, being close to retirement, having money to invest, skills, education? - Look at the people you can get to know, the events you can attend, the connections you can make. Threats: Don't be shy. What is threatening your business? - What obstacles are you facing? Cash flow problems? Time constraints? - What are your competitors doing? - Is your spouse not on board? (Convincing your spouse may be your biggest sale, but I highly recommend you get on the same page before moving forward.) Like knowing your weaknesses, understanding your threats is essential for the prosperity of your business. Though it isn't fun to dive into the aspects that are potentially menacing, it's much more threatening not to. Take the time to analyze yourself and your business, then press forward. Attend conferences, hire out your weaknesses, and focus on building and USING your strengths. Take advantage of your opportunities and decide how to handle your threats. In this, you'll propel your work forward. To Your Success; Lee A. Arnold CEO The Lee Arnold System of Real Estate Investing Follow me on Twitter: @ CogoCapital and @LeeArnoldSystem Have a deal? Visit us at www.cogocapital.com to fill out your fast and easy quote. Want to learn more about COGO first? CLICK HERE to get to know all the ins and out!

Personal Growth Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Hard Money Lender For Fix & Flip Residential Investments

The Illusion of Rejection: Why Your Fears are Bogus and How to Get Over It

The Illusion of Rejection: Why Your Fears are Bogus and How to Get Over It I may not be very popular for the following statement, but that isn’t my goal anyway, my goal is to improve lives. I don’t believe your fear of rejection holds much validity. I get questions about how to deal with rejection more than I should. And it’s not the questions I don’t like; it’s the fact that adults are asking them and struggling with the notion as if rejection is personal. Please don’t take offense. It’s not just a few people; ...

By Lee Arnold|2020-01-27T21:20:39+00:00April 6th, 2018|Entrepreneurship, Personal Growth, Wealth|

How Following Up Can Change Your Business

What is the best practice you've implemented when investing in real estate? All of our answers may vary, but I would argue that one overarching discipline sets successful investors apart from hobby-level investors: your follow-up routine. We all know that it cost more to gain new clients than it does to maintain the ones you have. A lot of people send out mail, for instance, and that's great! It's an often untapped way to get your foot in the door with potential buyers and sellers. According to a recent USPS study, 98% of consumers bring in ...

By Lee Arnold|2020-01-27T21:26:24+00:00March 28th, 2018|Entrepreneurship, Getting Started, Personal Growth|

Vital Skills

What are the vital skills for real estate investing? They may not be what you think... Bill Gates was once asked, “If you could have any one superpower, what would it be and why?” His answer? “Being able to read super fast.” Of all the things he could have said, he chose to answer the superfluous question by addressing his reading ability. Why? Because he understands the principle we’re going to discuss today; the principle that each time you add a skill to your roster, you double your chances for success. The more skills you acquire, ...

By Lee Arnold|2020-01-27T21:42:39+00:00March 10th, 2018|Entrepreneurship, Getting Started, Personal Growth|

Planning Your Project

Planning Your Project With each passing day, your loan costs you a little more. Don’t get discouraged...get organized! The best way to assure that you’re maximizing your profits on any given project is to make sure you’re maximizing your time. Well, okay. The BEST way is to buy the property at the right price--we make money when we BUY, after all, and we realize that money when we sell. But I digress…Time is money, but unlike money, you can’t get your time back. TIME IS UN-REFUNDABLE. USE IT WITH INTENTION. Even the experienced investor may need ...

By Lee Arnold|2020-01-27T21:51:46+00:00March 3rd, 2018|Borrowing, Entrepreneurship, Fixing, Flipping, Getting Started, Personal Growth|

How to Shred Through 200,000+ Phone Numbers

How to Shred Through 200,000+ Phone Numbers Getting through 200,000 phone numbers is doable. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say it’s easy. Now, like most things, you can tear through these phone numbers one of two ways; the long, hard, trial-and-error way on your own or you can do it the tried-and-true way by learning from someone who has consistently done it…in 20 seconds… Impossible? Who thinks a phone book is durable? Could you run over it with your car without causing too much harm? Could you wedge it between a door and ...

By Lee Arnold|2020-01-27T22:25:01+00:00February 9th, 2018|Entrepreneurship, Personal Growth, Uncategorized|

Closing Like a Pro

Good Sales People Aren’t Born, They’re Trained. “But I’m not a salesperson,” you say. “I don’t need to close sales because real estate investing doesn’t require sales. That’s why I have an agent who sells the houses for me!” Excuse me while I take a sip of my coffee to suppress my chuckling. You could be the best in your area at marketing and creating leads. You could have all the distressed houses at your fingertips. But unless you can get the seller to sign, you’re out a whole lot of work while someone else snags ...

By Lee Arnold|2020-01-27T22:34:03+00:00January 31st, 2018|Entrepreneurship, Getting Started, Personal Growth, Wealth|

Achieving Your Goals; a Supplemental Guide

We’ve been talking about goals a lot lately and for good reason. If you need a refresher on what S.M.A.R.T. Goals are and how to use them to get what you want, CLICK HERE. If you attended the Lee Arnold CEO Fireside chat this last Monday, January 8th, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. Kudos, too, for all the ambitious goals you committed to in the comments. If you gave us those goals, we WILL follow up with you! …

By Lee Arnold|2020-01-27T22:57:44+00:00January 10th, 2018|Entrepreneurship, Getting Started, Personal Growth|

S.M.A.R.T. Goals in 2018

It's that time of year again...say it with me, "New Year's resolution time!" I love New Year's resolutions. It's the annual time where we collectively look at what we want out of life for the upcoming calendar year and challenge ourselves to make new things happen. Sometimes the resolution is to do that one thing you've been procrastinating on, and you're ready just to get it done. Whatever your reason behind setting the new resolution, chances are, you've gotten there because your intent and actions haven't met up in the past. So, you resolve to commit. ...

By Lee Arnold|2020-01-27T23:26:15+00:00December 30th, 2017|Getting Started, Personal Growth|

The Reduction of the Ridiculous

Did you know that you could own a beautiful home worth $500,000 for the change you might find under the seat of your car?! Now, before you get up in arms about me making unrealistic, outlandish financial claims, let me explain: If you purchase a house for $500,000 with 20% down at a 3.78% interest rate for 30 years, you're going to pay $1,859.28 a month on your mortgage. Take $1,859.28 and divide it by the days in a month: 1,859.28/30=61.97 Now, divide by the hours in a day: 61.97/24=2.58 Finally, by the seconds in an ...

By Lee Arnold|2020-01-28T23:38:23+00:00November 17th, 2017|Entrepreneurship, Personal Growth|

S.W.O.T. Analysis

Last week over on my Lee Arnold Blog, I wrote about 5 of the best qualities of a CEO. Today, I'd like to do a deep dive into what it takes to get you there. There are so many traits a good CEO must have. But, how can you understand and pile on a bunch of positive attributes if you don't know where you currently are and how you can improve? You need to start with the basics; a baseline of self-discovery to build upon or trying to stack traits could feel like throwing wet noodles ...

By Lee Arnold|2020-01-29T03:38:52+00:00June 29th, 2017|Entrepreneurship, Personal Growth|

Previous 123 Next