Real Estate Investment is a really complex process, guys, so I am going to break it down how it’s like riding a bicycle and how investing is just like a bicycle. Let me go through the anatomy of bicycle and kind of break that down. On a bicycle you usually have a front wheel and a back wheel. Then you have basically some pedals here that you pedal.
What are the first things in investing that are like a bicycle is that you’ve got to know that you have two wheels- you have the front wheel and the back wheel. What that symbolizes in this business, in real estate investing, the front wheel represents the seller. What that means is that you have to go out there and market and find motivated sellers. That’s only part of the success. It’s like climbing halfway up a mountain.
You’ve still got to come down. Coming back down represents the rear wheel. The rear wheel means finding buyers. To look over this again- you need two wheels. You need to find motivated sellers and when you find these motivated sellers you are going to put their deal on the contract and now your job is to find motivated buyers or buyers that want to buy these properties you have on a contract. If you have a flat or if you have one wheel it is going to be impossible to move forward on this bicycle.
You might have to get off and walk. Walking in this scenario represents getting a J O B, while on the bicycle you are able to travel further but you need more … besides your foot and two wheels. Then again, that’s not it. The business represents the bicycle you are able to go much further than getting a JOB or walking. However the bicycle isn’t going to get you any further. You need that human, you need you to be able to be on this bicycle and pedal as hard as possible forward.
A lot of students I deal with or mentor, I see them taking classes, taking seminars and they spend 10 grand or 20 grand or 2500 or whatever the story may be and they learn this bicycle, the front wheel, the back wheel, how it is structured, how to pedal it, however, they don’t learn that it is them that needs to make this bicycle move forward. Anybody knows that the bicycle is going to travel a further distance than walking, however riding a bicycle is a lot harder, if you’ve never done it before, than walking. Does that make sense?
And getting the bicycle costs more money than walking, because you have to go buy this product and this product costs more money, because there is a manufacturer that makes rubber, it makes the chain, it makes the frame, they paint it- there’s more involved into it. It doesn’t mean it’s impossible to own a bike- it’s very affordable. You go all the way from Walmart, it costs like 50 bucks, all the way to Shwinn or Trek that costs 2000-5000 dollars and there is everything in the middle.
But it’s definitely possible to own a bicycle. With me, I am giving you the bicycle, I am giving you all the loose ends and all you have to do is get on this bicycle and pedal as fast as possible. And I am doing it for free. So you’ve got to pedal hard guys. Your success depends not on the bicycle, not the lessons I give you and not the classes you take which make cost thousands of dollars, but it depends on you and how you are willing to pedal. Okay guys? Let me go back into the bicycle and the wheels because it is so important. In each one of these wheels, for example the seller, there is going to be many smaller wheels. These little wheels in the seller quadrant represent different skills, labour or materials, or resources that you are going to need to make this wheel move forward. Let me break it down for you guys.
One of these can be, for example, sales. The next one can be negotiation, the next one can be marketing, the next one can be taxes, the next on can be setting up systems, the next one can be follow up. In each wheel there is a lot of sub-wheels that need to be functioning to make the bigger wheel move forward. Just like a tank. In a tank, if you notice, you go through a lot of hard surfaces, because there are a lot of small wheels pushing the bigger wheel.
In your bicycle investment, both your wheels the front and the back, are going to have many sub-wheels and each one of these sub-wheels is going to represent a skill or characteristic that you need to go learn or obtain through outside education, through internal changes, because you need to change to become a different person, through trial and error. I want you to understand this, because this is a very complex process. For example, if you want to go find a seller, you need to have sales skills, you need to have marketing skills, you need to have follow up skills, you need to know how to file taxes.
There are so many different things involved in that. Then, one you find a deal, the same thing is going to happen with the buyers. The same exact thing is going to be in this one, but they are going to be a little different, because you are going to have different marketing strategies, different phone scripts, different ways you process the lease and qualify buyers. As you can see it is a hard business to be in, but it doesn’t mean its not doable.
I broke it down step by step and I am going to spoon feed you and I am going to hold your hand until you guys score the goal. The reason I am bringing this to your attention, is because its hard and I don’t want you spending your time, if you don’t understand the concept.
Because it is very hard, each one of these circles represents a skill that you have to go get through your cash or your time or through sacrification of things that you love to do, but you can’t do, to obtain your ‘why’. Why you are watching me, why you are learning about the real estate investment and how it is like a bicycle.I really want people to understand these two circles, because it is very important. Now I will say 70% of my students fail and this part, because they do a great job at finding the deals, which means they climb up the mountain, but then they are close and they want to relax and think the deal is going to hatch by itself and that’s when 70% people fail, because the deal never hatches, guys.
This wheel is as important as this wheel. Once again, they are both equally important. If one of them was a flat and the other one was not there. This bicycle would be useless, I don’t care how many sellers you have. When you get the deal, 70% of the time it is not going to come through, especially if you are a new student, because you are relaxing.
You are not going out there and working hard to harvest this lead that you got and sell this product to a buyer, whether it is an investor or a retail buyer. Make sure you listen and you don’t do the same mistakes. Now let’s talk about the frame of this bicycle. The frame of this bicycle represents the education, it represents the way you could structure the deals, it represents the interconnection between the wheel number 1 and wheel number 2 and it represents the harmony, because if something is wrong here and the frame breaks, I don't care if you have wheel.
You are not going to go nowhere, you are going to have two broken pieces. Everything in here is very-very important guys. The frame represents a lot of different things, from structuring a deal to education. One of the most important things in this picture, besides the two wheels, besides the frame is you. You are the key factor, guys.
There are too many people that I know that have so many advantages and they don’t make an opportunity of that. I know people, who have high school education and they became millionaires. I know that it’s all possible in America and the main co-factor is that person. It’s not the external, its not anything else- it’s them.
That is why if I was going to bet on anything, it is you. You have to be the one that’s going to make this bike go forward. What you want to do on this bicycle is you want to move forward to your goals. You don’t want to look down on the ground, because if you do look down on the ground, you’re going to land on the ground. What does down on the ground mean?
You are looking at all the reasons why it is not going to happen: I don’t have money, I don’t have credit, I don’t have leads or the sellers are telling me ‘no’, or I am calling on Craigs List, but there are too many investors or I just don’t know. There are so many excuses that you are telling yourself or that I hear, so if you’re looking down for all the reasons why its not working, you are not going to go anywhere, because the bike isn’t going to go anywhere.
This is what I learnt one on one on motorcycle classes is that you need to look, where you want to go to and it made a whole lot of sense to me, because in life I always looked at my goals and where I want to go, I didn’t focus on ‘hey, I have no education, I am an immigrant, I didn’t have any credit, any friends, any infrastructure, any networking, I didn’t have any support’. I didn’t think about that. I think ‘Hey, I am in America, I live in a great country, I am going to focus on my goals, I am going to focus every day, I am going to sacrifice every day’. I am willing to look forward and forget about everything else.
The rest is history, guys. That’s what I am going to tell you. If you’re driving a bicycle from Walmart, which when I started I had a Walmart bicycle, because I immigrated here, I didn’t speak the language. It doesn’t matter. Or you could be driving a $2500 Schwinn or Trek bicycle or you could have a Walmart bicycle without a helmet and some street clothes or you could be having a $2500 bike with the gear. It does not matter if you have the best bike and the best gear. If you have the heart and the burning desire to focus on straight ahead and where you want to go in life, you are on this bike and you just got to pedal.
You’ve got to pedal to medal, as they say and never quit. I keep saying that- you’ve got to never quit. There are going to be bumps on the road. If you have a shittier bike, like from Walmart is going to be heavier, the system is not great, the gears are not that great, but, hey, if that’s the card life has given you, you’ve got to take it and run with it. You can’t look down and say, hey my bike is heavy, the gears are not good. You’ve got to look forward and say ‘Thank God I am here, thank God I have these goals, I know I am going to make this happen’. That’s what you’ve got to focus on – your goals. That’s why I keep saying real estate investment is like riding a bike.
Tremendously, from the wheels to the structure to you, you need to be looking to. Hey, it is dangerous, because you’re not on four wheels. If you look down, if you have so many holes that are missing, this wheel may not function correctly or a 100 percent, so you are not harvesting as you should. You are putting more money and more time or more marketing and not getting a return of your investment.
When that happens, that’s when you’ve got to check yourself, before you wreck yourself in a way and evaluate all the way through the process and keep changing, so you can inflate these little tires, so this wheel is running at maximum performance as this wheel. If one is running at maximum performance and the other one is not, you are not making as much cash as possible.
You have 10 houses and you only have 2 buyers, the other deals are not going to go through. Now another point I wanted to bring up to is that sometimes my mentored students get so focused on this wheel – finding deals – that when they find these deals, they can’t move these deals, a). because they are tired and they think the deal is going to hatch by itself b). they are not putting in enough energy into it and c). they need to learn so many different skills for this wheel that they are just like ‘I’d rather just outsource that out’. You can definitely do that, that’s called co-op marketing and you can definitely co-up market.
What that means is that there are other investors that have a buyers and they are willing to be part of your wheel to get you to the next destination or the next transaction and you are willing to share that. If you co-op market, you have to understand you are going to have to split your profits. Most co-up marketers that I know want 50%. So if you are making a deal for $5000, they want $2500. Is there anything wrong with that? No, absolutely not! I always like to train my mentored to create your own wheels, to create your own system, so you are independent. Sometimes, when we need co-op marketing, sometimes we need other people to help us move our units. That great!
But lets go ahead and try to move the units yourself, why not keep the $5000. There’s a lot of different ways you can do it and I am going to show you how to do it, so you can keep the $5000. The only thing you’ve got to do is make sure you get on this bicycle and pedal man. The last thing I wanted to talk you about was this human being can only pedal for such a long time. If you are mentally fatigued, if you are mentally drained, if you don’t put the right food into your body, you don’t work out, you can’t pedal like somebody who does work out, somebody who eats organic foods, somebody who is meditating, somebody who is doing yoga, somebody who is relieving their stress.
Just because a person who is not doing that kind of stuff, that is not taking care of themselves could maybe pedal 3 hours, 5 hours, 8 hours, where the other guy, who is as hungry as this person can deliver 8 hours and he’s working out and eating better, he might be pedaling 18 hours a day. What I am trying to say is that this symbolizes you tremendously in the real estate investment world, because it’s not about knowledge and the systems, its not about how you structure the deal. A lot has to do with you, not only mentally, but physically. Not only do you have to put these deals together and look forward to your goal, but more importantly you’ve got to take care of yourself, so you have the energy and the motivated to get on this bike and pedal it. There’s a lot of people at the lower people that are trying to pedal with you. You’ve got to be stronger, you’ve got to have more motivation, more drive. Keep pedaling, because whenever they are sleeping, you are pedaling guys.
Whenever they are on their holidays – you are pedaling. When they are on vacation- they are pedaling. Where’s all this pedaling coming from, because it’s not a machine, its not gas. It’s coming from you. You’ve got to have that energy to pedal.
Make sure you take care of yourself, because you can’t pedal and reach your dreams and look forward unless you have it within you. You’ve got to feed yourself, you’ve got to eat right and rest to be able to get on this bike and pedal.
This is Mike with Mr. Investor and the real Estate DOJO. Thanks for watching!