My past week in the investing world has been spent thinking of ways to build the infrastructure of our company.  It was probably good timing to have read Michael Gerber's the E-Myth during this time.  The book's main objective was to set up a system for every part of your business, so that it can be replicated by anyone who steps into each role.  Our investing company has started to get a few leads, and one of the main obstacles has been deciding on the best way to set up each process.  Answering the phones, tracking the lead, responding to the potential seller, the initial offer price, keeping up with emails, and many other functions all needed a system.  We had some great guidance from several seminars we went to as well as some background in how good systems should run from all of our partners' experience working for CPA firms.  The main struggle comes with trying to set up the perfect system before actually doing the task.  In my mind I want the process in place, but from listening to many people who are very successful in this industry, the best way to keep advancing is through ACTION.  Action will get us 95% of the way there.  We can then wrap up the remaining 5%, with some tweaking, and work out the kinks in our processes.  I have to constantly remind myself to just keep putting things in action and the rest will fall into place.

Another obstacle for me is getting used to the numbers game that must be played to succeed.  In wholesaling other investors say that you have to send out over a hundred pieces of direct mail to get a response, get turned down from 19 leads to close a deal, and so on.  One campaign we started was to try to identify motivated sellers by sending out 100 pretty low offers to properties that have been on the MLS for over 270 days.  It takes some time getting used to some of the negative comments that come back from a lot of the low offers.  A lot of the responses are simply a decline and refusal to put up a counter offer.  Then there are some that seem to be motivated and are worth looking into further.  The hard part is not taking the rejections and negative responses to heart.  The idea of the constant positive attitude, identification and dismissal of negative thoughts, and refusal of failure has to take over each time.  Once a deal is closed, I am trying to visualize each party being happy in the result.  A seller out of a tight spot and able to move on with their life.  An investor buyer able to make a large profit on a rehab or rental property.  And our company getting to cash a check in our newly established bank account. 

Our next step is setting up a concrete marketing strategy.  Each campaign will be examined for cost, timeliness, and quality of leads.  Only time will tell which campaign will come out on top...