“The Time To Invest Is RIGHT Now!”

Waiting for the Right Time?

Have you been waiting for the perfect time to move forward to ramp up your real estate investing business? Has all of the bad news regarding the real estate industry slowed you down to a standstill? “Surely if I wait until next year,” you’ve been thinking, “the market will have corrected itself and everything will be safer.”

You’ve attended a few real estate investor club meetings and you’ve heard all the talk about the “good times” in real estate. Sub prime loans were plentiful, prices were constantly going up, and bargains were everywhere. So you’ve decided to wait it out. Surely those good times will be back.

If you will listen to your reasoning (really listen), you’ll quickly realize that it is fear and procrastination talking. The famous German author, Goethe, once said:

Indecision brings its own delays and days are lost lamenting over day. Action – there is courage, magic in it. Anything you can do, or think you can, begin it. Once started, the mind grows heated. Begin the job and the work will be completed.

A high school athletic director was so wearied with his students coming up with excuses for not working out; he finally wrote up a list of excuses and posted them on the bulletin board so they could simply choose the one that they liked best.

Does that describe you? Do you have so many excuses for not taking action in your real estate investing business that you could make a list and check them off? Business philosopher Jim Rohn says:

I used to say, “I sure hope things will change.” Then I learned that the only way things are going to change for me is when I change.

If you allow external circumstances (downturn in the real estate market) rule your thinking and your actions, you will be defeated from the outset.

This is not to suggest that you take undue risks or to buy property just to be buying property. But by taking wise, calculated steps, you will grow your business. Action is imperative. Inaction kills.
Decisive Action

Born in 1839, philanthropist and oil magnate John D. Rockefeller in his lifetime stepped forward into business ventures that would have frightened lesser men. And did so at a very young age. Once he saw his way clear to enter into a transaction, he moved forward with decisive action.

When he was only twelve, he had saved up $50 by working on neighboring farms. With the encouragement of his mother, he loaned the money out at 7% interest. When it came back – with interest included – he was convinced that he would always be the master over his money.

At age nineteen, Rockefeller as an employee of a produce firm was arranging complicated transportation deals that involved moving a single shipment of freight by railroad, canal, and lake boats. His pay was small, but he was learning a great deal. On the side, he expanded into ventures on his own. By studying each venture carefully, he only stepped in when confident they would be profitable. He moved into complicated deals without a moment’s hesitation.

Before his twentieth birthday, he left employment and started his own business in Cleveland, Ohio, as a commission merchant for commodities such as grain and meats. The business at first was a partnership, but when his partners did not share his vision, he bought them out. Rockefeller was never a gambler but always a planner. He abhorred speculation. When he was sure of a deal, he was not afraid to go to banks and borrow large sums of money. Profits were continually invested back into the business.

But Rockefeller had his eye on two new areas: railroads and oil. And it was in these industries he would eventually make his millions.

He had the foresight to see that Cleveland would no longer lead in areas of agriculture, but rather in raw industrial materials. Oil was one of these.

With no hesitation, Rockefeller entered into the oil business. His plan was be cautious with every penny. Waste was not allowed. He studied to find ways to use every by-product of the oil that was refined.

He was not hesitant to step into the barrel making business to make his own barrels to ship the oil. He was not hesitant to set up a drayage business so that it was his wagons and his horses that transported the barrels of oil.

Because at the time refining was still very primitive, he built improved refineries, along with building holding tanks. Rockefeller was the first to even think of or consider the use of holding tanks. While other refiners were “disposing” of what they saw as “waste,” Rockefeller used it to manufacture dozens of products such as varnish, lubricants, paraffin, and cleaning fluids.

His plans were intricate and his vision big. Every detail was thoroughly thought out. Nothing was left to chance. No undertaking was embarked upon without thorough investigation.

Eventually Standard Oil became a massive monopoly. Rockefeller’s holdings would mount up to become worth many millions. So much so that his later years would be spent in giving away all that money. John D. Rockefeller is remembered as much or more so for his philanthropy as for his leadership in the oil industry.

Make Your Plans; Chart Your Course

Take a good look at your real estate investing business. Do you have detailed plans? Have you charted a course? Are you taking positive steps each day to move toward your goals? Can you look at your neighborhood, your city, your town, and see the opportunities for building your business? Is your marketing plan in place? Is your investor website up and running? Are you brainstorming to create new ways to find motivated sellers and wiling buyers?

There will never be another John D. Rockefeller. He was a man who was in the right place at the right time with a vision to do the right thing. But what is stopping you? This can be your right place and your right time as well. And you can make it so.

If you are looking for distractions to put off what needs doing to build your business, you’ll find plenty of them. Excuses are a plentiful as flowers in spring. If you wait until you are ready, you’ll never get started!

Get rid of the distractions and excuses and replace them with your goals list, your action list! And do it today! The time is NOW!