BiggerPockets

In general, I love to work on and see a project complete successfully. I currently work as an IT computer administrator, and there is a never ending line of projects to complete and I love the feeling of completing them successfully. Thus, I figure that I can carry over that into real-estate. And I can... as soon as I get to the point of working on the (real-estate) project. I have done it on short-sales and I love it when those complete successfully. I have had other short-sales that didn't complete, but, for the most part, that was Ok, because I fought the good fight: the working of the project was "successful". My biggest hang-up is getting these things started. Having to market and get the word out and network and door knock and cold call and meet with strangers and convince people to work with me. I obviously can help these people out. I've helped other people out already. I have the contacts and resources to make the project successful. But just getting past that "Hi, I'm Dean. We've just met me, but....." ARGH! It drive me nuts. It makes me not want to make the call. It makes me not want to go knock doors. I know that if I just do, there are $5000-$10,000+ per month checks waiting for me to cash them. All the pump-you-up hype that every motivational guru out there spews doesn't get me going. Those $5000, $10,000, $15,000 checks don't get me going. I should be cranking $100,000+ per year income without a second thought. I know that there are other people that do it; I talk with them regularly. I know what to do and that if I do it, it will be others talking to me about how I do it on a regular basis. I know that if I do this, I won't have to wake up at 7:30AM every morning to clock-in until 5PM. Yadda, Yadda, Yadda, I know we've all heard this stuff a million times before. But why can I not get these things up and running?
I thought that maybe if I can just get people that are motivated to call me instead, that will "break the ice" so to speak. Ya know what happened? I didn't want to do marketing or advertising. I didn't want to put up bandit signs. I didn't even want to go to the store to buy the poster board and magic makers. "What a pain", I kept thinking to myself. WTF??? It seems, that anything that will make me a piss load of cash, I just can't seem to get motivated to do it.
Now, take, for example, things that are trivial and valueless. I have no problem going out and renting a movie. I actually look forward to it. I have no problem playing video games. Sometimes, I can't wait for the next time to play. I have no problem sitting around and being lazy and taking a nap. I have no problem wasting hours at work surfing the internet about things that have no value except maybe rarely on Jeopardy. I can BS with just about anybody about gossip for hours on end. All these things that I have no problem doing, none of them will put food on the table nor pay the bills when they're due. Anything that does pour in the cash and stuff my wallet, I get this feeling of "What a pain". Even at my job, I could excel to get promotions, but "What a pain". I just don't get it!!! What is my deal???
At one time, I kept default attributing it to my light case of ADD. I have a real short attention span and bore quickly. However, I have met with other entrepeneurs and business owners that claim that its their ADD that keeps them going.
So, I don't know. I know that the money is sitting just in front of me staring at me. I know that I can do this stuff once it gets going. I know how to talk to complete strangers and network and sell myself about what I can do. I've done it all tons of times. But what a pain it is to get that stuff started as opposed to doing time-wasting recreation. What a pain (it is to collect and cash checks).... Again, wtf??

Any ideas?

Wholesaling is every bit as much a job as being a sysadmin. Both have more pleasant and less pleasant aspects. If you don't do the less pleasant aspects you won't get to do the more pleasant ones. Could well be wholesaling is just not the right job for you.

*sigh* I was kinda afraid of that, but have somewhat of that "gut feeling" that you may be right.
Still, I have to question it to a degree. I still have that same "what a pain to do this" about the parameters my boss sets for me at my job. However, once I get past that what-a-pain roadblock, I'm rip, roarin' ready to go. Just the other day, there was a problem with a warranty deed on a property. Bam! I was instantly in the zone: getting in touch with title companies, putting together the paperwork, getting it submitted to the county recorder, project done completed successfully. The same thing is with my IT job: new project drawn up, getting the software put together, setting the configurations, debugging the hiccups, marking it as complete.
In both cases, once I "get in the zone", I'm a machine. It feels great!

Anyways, sorry for dragging everyone into my mid-life soul searching crisis. I feel like a total dumb**s for being such a wuss. Don't quote me on that! :mrgreen:

I read your post on another forum. Real estate is not easy, but it's simple. It's as simple as putting out signs, sending out letters, making phone calls, placing an ad, networking, putting out flyers, passing out business cards.

But that all takes work, and you better believe it at first you will need to do all of those things in order to get going, unless you already have a lot of cash to where you can outsource all those things.

The people who will be rewarded are the ones who will do things that others won't do...

for someone claiming to have attention span issues, you sure did manage to write a post that takes a hell of an attentions pan to get through! next time try breaking it up into paragraphs, humans need white space too so their eyes can take a break!

I understand where you're coming from, as I am also an IT person and I'm not really the personality type to just walk up to a stranger and start asking them about properties in the area and if they know who lives in what property and when they'll be home, etc. I'm just not much of a "salesman/bullsh***er" type. It's something that takes effort.

Having said that, you can use your IT background to emphasize IT advertising. Don't want to post signs up? Use google ad words. Use Yahoo ad services. I believe Microsoft Live has a service too. Build a decent website, optimize it and submit it to decent search engines. Make a sitemap and fine-tune your keywords. Then post ads on sites like craigslist to drive people to your site.

I ordered business cards from VistaPrint and they included a 50$ google ad words credit as a promotional item. I have already gotten several cash buyers to contact me just via google adwords pointing them to my site.

Once you have a decent buyers list you will be way more confident when approaching sellers and that will make all the difference. You can just cut right through the crap and say I work with a few investors and this is exactly what they're looking for. We all buy with cash and close quickly. If you can negotiate to a price that works, sign a purchase agreement with him right there. Just be all business don't hesitate and act normal, he won't have much reason to object. If you get all nervous he is going to ask you a thousand questions some of which will be very hard to answer. You need to close him right there, if you have to get back to him odds are it won't end up going through.

Laziness is like cancer just cut it out of your system or it will eat you alive.

It has been said, "People only change when it is too painful to stay the same". I know this statement to be true. The "PAIN" of not having the things you want or even worse need, will motivate you at some point. You are motivated to go to your 9 to 5 job now because you have to put food on the table and you are comfortable with that. I think David A. hit it on the head, motivation may not be as much of a problem for you as fear is. Over come the fear of talking to people on a business level. What is the worst that can happen… They say no. Remember the definition of F.E.A.R.=

False
Expiations
Appearing
Real

Now suck it up and lets go… you can do it.

Wow, after spending so many sentences telling us how much you hate wasting time, I have to imagine you wasted at least a half hour on that useless post...

I have to agree with MikeOH on this one...

You sound like you want a way to "get rich quick" with no risk, no real effort, no pain, and no hard work, etc. Unfortunately, it generally doesn't work that way -- you have to work hard, and do a lot of things you don't necessarily want to do, if you want to be successful at something.

It's sound like you're not willing to do any work that you don't consider "fun," and if you're not willing to do the "crap work" to bootstrap yourself, you might as well give up now.

It doesn't sound like real estate (or any real-life business venture) is right for you...

Well, this is the psychology section, so what are you expecting?

Anyways, the real big question remains: Is all of this stuff fun? And if its not, why do it? Thinking about it now, I have not ever heard any real-estate investor ever say something even remotely along the lines of, "Dude, this real-estate stuff is so much fun! You have GOT to come try this!" I have heard people say that about things like water skiing. I've heard people say that about Wii Sports. I've never heard a real-estate investor say, "I have the greatest job in the world!" (Yes, I know. A real-estate investor would never use the word job in a sentence about themselves. We get it already). I have heard people say it about things like mountaineering tour guide. Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter, God rest his soul, never stopped talking about how great his job was. I've never heard a real-estate investor talk about real-estate investing with such enthusiasm, energy, and love of the work like the Crocodile Hunter did about his "job". I think it's safe to say that Steve Irwin truly had fun at what he did and didn't do it just to get to the fun things. The general consensus I gather from those that are actually doing real-estate, or those that build up a doing real-estate image, is that they aren't doing the real-estate because its fun. They are doing the real-estate so that they can get to the fun things that they really want to be doing instead.

Did I miss something?

Despite the guru BS, real estate is just as much a job and most other jobs. The ONLY activity we discuss here I would really consider investing is owning property. Wholesaling, developing, rehabbing, and property management are really, honest-to-goodness jobs. You turn the crank, money comes out. Gurus like to deride the notion of "trading hours for dollars", but THAT'S ALL IT IS!

Owning (not managing) property, like owning stocks, bonds, CDs, or another other sort of investment, its truly an investment. You put your money into something and it earns more money.

I have no statistics to back this up, but I think most people don't particularly like their job. They do it because they get paid. A small portion of people get to do a job they actually enjoy, at least to some extent. A tiny portion of people get to do something they really love.

Why? Luck. Nothing more. Yes, hard work counts, and you don't get there without hard work and knowledge. But hard work and knowledge are insufficient to get you to one of those "love it" kind of jobs. You have to have some luck. You have to be in the right place and the right time with the right skills and knowledge.

Read Malcom Gladwell's book "Outliers". Its an enlightening, if somewhat discouraging read. Yes, Bill Gates got very rich because he gave IBM the right answer at the right time. And he worked very, very hard. But he also grew up in a neighborhood where the moms all were able to raise money to give the kids access to computer time at a very early age. That's pure luck. How many other equally bright kids could have done what he did but had no way to learn about computers early on? He has numerous other examples of why a confluence of fortunate events, i.e., "luck", is a requirement for getting to a Steve Irwin type situation.

I left my corporate job making A LOT of money to flip houses for a living, and I can honestly say it's the most fun I've ever had making money, and even though I have enough cash saved that I don't really need to be doing this, I still work my ass off...because IT'S FUN!

I get to make my own hours, I get to do the parts of the job I enjoy (and let my employees do the rest), I get to work side-by-side with my wife all day, etc. It's fun. Everyday. Even those frustrating days where nothing seems to go right is fun.

Would I have fun wholesaling? Probably not, as I'm not a big "people person." Would I have fun landlording? Probably not, as I don't like dealing with whiny tenants (though I'd happily own rentals and hire a PM company). Would I have fun doing other real estate strategies? Probably not as much...

But that's the nice thing about real estate. There are thousands of ways to make money, and it's very possible that you can find at least one of them that is fun to you. I did.

Of course, maybe you can't find any aspect of real estate that's fun for you. In which case, you shouldn't be in real estate! It's that easy. If you really hate it, don't do it. Go find something you don't hate doing.

Of course, maybe you couldn't find any money-making effort to be fun, in which case you need to decide whether it's more important to have fun or more important to have a roof over your head and food on the table. Whatever you decide, consider that it may not be real estate that is the issue...it's probably your attitude and your perspective on making money...

Good luck!