Becoming a Real Estate Investor in Hawkinsville, Warner Robins, Perry.

I became a real estate investor in 2013. As a business owner, I have to wear a lot of hats; Bookkeeper, negotiator, lawyer, administration, etc. I started as an aircraft mechanic that got paid hourly for 25 years (I still do for now). My habits included; read the repair manual, do the jobs I was told to do, clean up, organize, document the work and go home….8-10 hours, I’m done for the day… Not anymore.

Since launching Property Conveyors, I have had to learn thru multiple errors that cost big money, I needed to change ; my attitude, speech patterns, body language, dress, and the way I think about situations.

 

Attitude- Being the employee that has limited risk and input into the final product or the overall success of the company, tends to create a more lazy, don’t care attitude. If you don’t work and your company offers time off, you still get paid and the company keeps going. Running my own business to start with requires my full attention and the business success or failure stands squarely on my shoulders. Exciting, huh.

Speech- Being a mechanic usually requires a false face with a don’t care attitude and a lot of colorful words and metaphors at the right time. Contractions and slang are normal (Did I mention I’m in the south?). As a business person, words are annunciated more clearly, of course the choice of wording is more appropriate, and the contractions are left at the door. There is an old silver screen movie about a man that could tell where in London a person was from and the social status they were simply by listening to them talk. That is still true today in America. Becoming a real estate investor is like most business owners, creditability is key. Talking to a client like a redneck is not going to win them over.

Body- 60% of communication is body language. With that being said, go somewhere where different skills of people go when they are off work (park, concert, street party, etc.) After a while you can pick out the contractor, electrician, truck driver, office worker and the entrepreneur. Skilled labor folks look like either a caveman because they are tired or the macho man because nobody can do the hard job he has. Office workers walk like they are hiding from the boss or they don’t have a care because the only time they act like they care about work is from 9-5. Once I decided to become  real estate investor, my business was always on my mind. It’s my baby. I’m always looking for an opportunity to add one more person to my network or make another deal. Slow stepping, long looking, thinkers. Covert ops type people.

Dress- is obvious, to a point. Many investors will wear a five piece suit to talk to a working class couple selling a house for a job transfer. Others may dress like they just came from the beach. Most successful real estate investors try to dress one step above the client they are meeting. Full suit for a client in a mansion, business casual for a young couple buying their first house. Real estate investor want to look approachable and creditable, but not overdressed.

BUT, the way I THINK is the biggest habit that has changed in my life. Attitude is external, but this is internal. How I see the world now is 180 degrees from 2012, Hells, it’s changed just as much in the last year as it did the year before and the year before that. Running your own business requires just as much training, if not more, than any other skill. Learning how your currently thinking (negative or positive) come out in your attitude and body language. People see that before they see anything else…and they don’t even realize it. That’s what makes people like you or not. Your life moves in the path of your most dominate thought. Bad thoughts get bad results. I used to fight with my wife all the time about her train of thought. She was quick to point out the bad things, reasons not to do it, what could go wrong. BUT she could not think of a solution to those problems or alternate ideas to save her own life. It was maddening. It was only when I surrounded myself with other people that had done what I was doing and had the way of thinking that I needed (along with a lot of recorded conference calls with motivated speakers) did I learn to stick to my guns and IGNORE THE “NA” SAYERS. I also used what I had learned to talk my wife into getting involved in my business out of desperation. She can’t critique from the sidelines if she’s involved, right? AND, Once my positive way of thinking became strong enough to stand up to her, she started becoming a positive thinker (attitudes really are contagious). New habits complete.