1. I don't like business cards. Had them printed one time around six years ago. Their life begins at a printer and ends in somebody's drawer. We are all good at collecting business cards at networking meetings, seminars, and foreclosure tours and then... we just put them in a drawer with a rubber band around them. So the first thing would be - why even bother in 2009? Does anybody is even looking at them as we are texting, emailing, tweeting and facebooking away?
2. But if you are going get business cards made ... Joel says that make your business card do business for you. Here is how
May 2009 Archives
I got this email all the time:
"With the state of the current real estate market, I'm thinking this is one of the best times to get into the game. I would like to set up a business (LLC) before I buy any property. If possible, could you provide me with contact information for the following?
- Real Estate Accountant
- Real Estate Lawyer
- Property Inspector"
If you have been thinking about this lately, here is my very opinionated answer:
1. You don't need a real estate accountant - there is no such thing. You need a local CPA, preferably in your city that will become, after a while, your best source of private investors. Interview couple of them and ask them if they have clients who invest in real estate whether commercial or residential. If they do then it is a fairly good bet that they are keeping up to date on the tax code changes that benefit you. If they start frowning about real estate investing (hard to believe but some of the old school ones do) - do yourself a favor and walk out. Find somebody who talks aggressive and you can click with, nurture the relationship with them and pretty soon they will send you a half a dozen private investors.
2. You don't need a lawyer specializing in real estate either unless you are putting together a multi-million dollar development or commercial deal and the due diligence package is 400 pages. You need a regular lawyer who will not kill you with hour rates. Real estate lawyers cost around $250 - $350 hour. Regular lawyer who can draw up contracts, private mortgages, private money documentation, LLC operating agreements only charge $75 to $100 per hour and they work fine for us. If you need a referral for that - let me know.
3. Property Inspector for metro Detroit area is John McAuliffe - great guy and several of my mentoring group members use him. His phone number is (248) 471-9800 and he is based out of Livonia.
You formed your LLC for investing in Michigan real estate.
You got the federal tax identification number.
You got the operating agreement done, opened up the business checking account, got a business checking VISA card, got a Home Depot charge card in your business name, ordered business cards, ordered checks, and got a good domain name from Godaddy.
Now do the most important thing of all.
Make an appointment with your LLC, seriously, for 30 minutes every day, to get your business going on. The minutes don't matter. It could be 30,45,60 minutes but whatever they are - they have to be the same amount of minutes, seven days a week when you start.
One of the worst things you can do is to do a lot in the first week and do nothing in the second.
The first week, when you finished reading that new book, when you came back from a weekend seminar, when you finished listening to the last CD of the home study course you just invested in - is all motion. You start lots of things, spend hours every day, late into the night to get things going on.
Next week comes along and all of a sudden you have lots of things appear on your life magically and you stopped working on your business, hoping to catch up the next day, the next day, the weekend.
I rather spend 30 minutes every day on my business, consistently, then to work 8 hours on a Saturday and then don't look at it for the next two weeks.
Set an appointment with your own LLC like the same way you get up every morning and keep the appointment to show up at 8:30am every morning at your job. Split the appointment during day and evenings because there are certain things (talking to a REO broker or getting a property inspection done) that you cannot do late at night.
Why this is so important and has the power to speed up everything you are doing in your business? Because it will build you working on your business into a daily new habit. Since 1995 you have build two new habits - checking your email several times a day and carrying your cell phone around with you like your life depended on it. In 1994 you were not doing either. Now you cannot imagine a life without your email and cell phone.
Now in 2009 I want you to build a third, very profitable habit - keeping an appointment with your own LLC every single day of the week. 21 days from today, this good habit will be burned into your nature. It is your business. Take good care of it.
