Investors: Action Trumps Hesitation
By JD Esajian on April 28, 2014
So you have spent the last few months reading every possible investing book you can find, designing your new website and getting acquainted with social media and search engine optimization. You have even started writing a few blog posts and actually took a call from a friend of a friend the other day. Things are certainly headed in the right direction and you feel great about your new investing career. You spend the next few weeks researching direct mail companies and after you look at a few more you will send out your first mailing. You are have been doing this for a few months and things are headed in the right direction, but what you will find is that until you start working on real deals a few months will quickly turn into years. It is important to understand that investing requires action. You will never know what it is like to invest unless you actually do it. Action always trumps hesitation.
This does not mean that you shouldn’t do your due diligence and set up building blocks for your business. This is a great way to get started, but it is just that – a start. At some point you need to turn your set-up into leads and eventually deals. You can probably get more out of a five minute conversation with a seller than you can from two weeks of working on a website. To get deals you need to be in the belly of the beast and learn how to talk to people in the business. Between sellers, realtors, attorneys and fellow investors, there are dozens of people that can help you get deals. However, more importantly, you have to get out there and meet them.
The quickest way to take action is to take a specific part of the business and run with it. It doesn’t matter if it is wholesaling, landlording, rehabbing or anything else of interest. You should pick out one area and make it your own. The more you know about it, the more confident you will be when you network yourself to others. Many investors make the mistake in thinking they can know everything about the business and try to become experts in all areas. Even for seasoned investors this can be a very difficult task. By becoming too scattered you end up picking up nothing and you will have nothing really to talk about at networking meetings or investment clubs. This will lead to another round of planning and education and more time wasted preparing instead of acting.
Setting goals is a good way to start, but with each goal you need to have a plan of how to get there accompanied with time-frames. The stricter you are with these time-frames, the faster your growth will be accelerated. If you constantly put off what is on your list, you will find yourself with the same tasks months down the road. Your business will be stagnant. This will set the tone for your entire business. If you are flipping properties, it will end up impacting your bottom line.
Nothing can replace action. Even if you make some mistakes, it is far better than watching the parade go by. All of the planning and preparation you will do won’t help you much if you don’t apply it. At some point, sooner rather than later, you need to trust what you know and go with it. You will be glad you did.