A List Of Things We’ve Failed At
Last week was incredibly busy… and this week is going to be even busier!! We have our Will’s and Estate Planning this Thursday, our Full Day Workshop on Saturday, taking members/investors out to look for homes, taking RTO tenants to look for their new homes, home inspections in Kitchener, helping investors get their properties filled, working on our next Podcast, working on July’s MASTERMIND EVENT…. and that’s just off the TOP of my head!!
But don’t feel to sorry for me…. I’m heading down to Cuba next Sunday for some much needed R&R to recharge the batteries for a week!
This weekend I went to a kickboxing match with my brother-in-law and a good friend. I realized something interesting; the relationship between a person who is victorious and a person who is defeated. Those 2 men that were in the ring, had a dream. What differentiated them? They trained, practiced and worked hard to get to where they were standing. While these two fighters were giving everything they had, there was ONLY going to be one victor.
The fighter who won may continue to get better because they have the heart to get to the next level but it becomes easier for them to slip back down to the bottom unless they stay consistent and dedicated to hard work!
The defeated on the other hand may already be at the bottom and only has one place to go.. and that’s up. Some of the best lesson’s in life come from being defeated…. and I know this because it’s happened to me on different occasions. In the last 5 years of Real Estate investing, there has been many mistakes, but with every error is a lesson to be learned.
I bring this story up because some of our members have seen great success by filling their homes quickly, while others have experienced longer vacancy periods than expected.
Don, Darlene and I know what it feels like to expect 4 or 5 people to show up to your open house to have no one show up at all!! At times it can break the spirit and make you doubt what you’re doing. When you’re faced with these challenges you have 2 choices. Push through like other successful investors have or quit and go back to the believed safe haven of a 9-5 job.
Real Estate Investing is not an easy job… and for every difficult obstacle you face, the next one is going to be even more difficult if you choose to move forward.
Here’s a few mistakes and hurdles we have had to overcome:
Buying low income rental properties in sketchy areas when we first started. South Oshawa and Jane and Finch.
Lawyers telling us Smart Home Choice wouldn’t work when we first started our business.
Advertising campaigns that cost us $1000’s and produced negative results.
Starting our first newsletter campaign with 6 emails and 5 of the emails being ours.
Taking tenants out and not getting our commissions due to having no investors of our own in the beginning.
The interesting thing is… even with all these failures and obstacles it allowed Darlene, Don and I to leave our full-time jobs in less than 5 YEARS!
What I’ve learned is; don’t ask yourself, “why does this always happen to me?” What you should be asking is, “what skills do I need to acquire to resolve this issue”.
Until next time… MAKE THE SMART CHOICE!
Gary Hibbert
