I read this entire thread to tell you that your original post was incorrect. I think your personal example demonstrates it best. Just as you worked harder to become a top salesman, so a business owner or investor can work harder to become more successful. If you went home at 5 pm every day you may have had a 50-50 chance to succeed (I think less) but you didn’t.
I’ve made a thousands of mistakes in my life and business but they weren’t because of chance they were because I didn’t know what I was doing.
Now I still don’t profess to be right 100% of the time but I do so many things that I can live pretty well with an 80% success rate.
I leave you with this:
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.” - Theodore Roosevelt
I love the last post! It is so true. Now, I may think some things in life are 50-50 like you have a 50-50 chance of getting killed if you play chicken with someone else who is exactly like you in every way… Naaaa, that’s a load of garbage!
I don’t believe in any kind of 50-50 theory. You are the one who controls your own destiny. You decide what will be 100% sucsessful before you do it. The reason people fail and don’t get 100% of their investments or any life decissions right is because they didn’t prepare enough or account for enough potential problems and most of all, they didn’t listen to their true gut feelings. I look at everything and if I am unsure I anylize it by asking a simple question. What am I pretending not to know? If I find potential problems that I was about to overlook and can’t find good solutions for them, I walk away. I’m not always able to see all the problems so some times I get burned, but that’s life. You can’t be affraid to try. I’d say overall I am an 85 percenter and that isn’t bad. My glass is always half full, never half empty because there is always the next day or deal just around the corner.
I have to say, reading such a pesemistic post is such a downer. You are what I would call an emotional vampire. I am new here, but I hope I speak for all of us. Go to some other forum and suck the positive energy from them. This place is for uplifting conversation and support for people trying to make a better life for their families. Your comments are not what I call “welcome.” Might I suggest a gothic genre instead!!!
I feel like a fool because I posted both of my last posts before I read everything people wrote. I did exactly what I said I don’t do! Had I read them all I might not have been as harsh in my critcism of your posts. I still don’t agree with the 50-50 theory, but I will say, you have some good thoughts. You are right about honesty, but that takes a very convincing person to pull it off without a little BS. I feel I am honest with people. I was always in the top 10% of my department in sales and I never misled people. I just made more calls and worked harder for the customers I had established. I don’t think I was ever the number 1 salesman out of the 32 in the office, but I could sleep sound every night. I never lied to make a sale or upgrade their services. I dealt with large business and government contracts for a leading phone company. I never really liked that kind of sales and now, while I am launching my RE business, I work outside for the same company. I don’t sell for them, but hope my experience pays off. I think selling for yourself is much different. I know this, I will never be dishonest because I truly believe in the statement, “You reap what you sew.”
Long story short, I am sorry for being so abusive, but I still think your original posts were way too negative. Maybe you think BRUTAL HONESTY was the best way to put it. In this case, I don’t agree.
I cannot answer both your posts in depth, so instead will post a few wickedly true observations and quote from your own 2 posts:
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[cbli-said] I get burned, but that’s life. You can’t be affraid to try. I’d say overall I am an 85 percenter and that isn’t bad. / This place is for uplifting conversation and support for people trying to make a better life for their families.*
[Whilst Jharris said] I’ve made a thousands of mistakes in my life and business but they weren’t because of chance they were because I didn’t know what I was doing. Can you see that without realising it you both confirmed my theory. Now here’s some gems for your brain-food diaries, in India they’d call them your mantras for the next 12 months.
I’m asking you not to read any more uplifting messages, not to attend any more Go-Go-Go training sessions, and not to be sucked in to the I’m making a better world for my family crap. Your doing it for yourself because you are bored with the way you are and like a prisoner in jail you want to break out. In short you want to do something different which might buy you a huge mansion, a yacht, or which might get up the noses of all those people you hate and can’t stand. You might for all I know want to be a captain of industry - the best ones are slave drivers but keep that to yourself.
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So what should you do, first be yourself, don’t change your voice, your demeanor, or tell yourself your great, be such an ordinary Joe that people can feel comfortable in your presecence. Be honest with yourself and clients, say to them “Look buying your property might be a mistake, the plans I have for it might not come off, I could lose badly on the deal -What would you do if you were me” Then shut up, knowing full well “You’ve just closed the deal”. To succeed you must always trade one notch below the person your trying to do the deal with. I once had the amusing job of making out the local trash collector I was talking too was wise, clever and a man of respect. But I’m a professional rep and thats what we do.
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And keep away from uplifting thoughts for the day, avoid preachers, priests, parsons and prostitutes and your life will alter for the better. Be a brutal realist and kill all wishful thinking habits. Over to you.
I have to be honest, I see a lot of wisdom in what you say. I will have to ponder it a while. I never did totally trust a person that was so happy, positive and upbeat because I figured they were covering something up. I try not to mistake an overly positive person with a confident one. They both could be crooks, but the confident one is more reassuring. I can see where being brutally honest is a form of confidence the average person doesn’t expect. My gut tells me that is the better way to be. Perhaps I can learn from you even though you seem negative. Is it possible your negative, in a profound way, is actually a positive? I will ponder this a while…
About 15 years ago I worked in our local branch of a mega-corporation. I was in sales and the manager was full of positive uplifting advice. I had heard all this book crap before and took no notice of it. Unfortunately new comers did and they soaked it up, they loved it, they left the office humming a little-tune and full of life and pepsi-cola. The snag is the moment they hit the streets cold-calling on clients, they knocked on quite a number of doors and to their dismay, before they could open their voices they were told in no uncertain terms "to f**koff, and were given the chase.
You see all their product knowedge was useless and the pep-talks were soon forgotten. In short its a war out there and you have to understand the unwritten rules and know your customers. Its not what you want - its what they want that matters. Why people don’y buy something, is more important than why they do?
True Story 2. This manager Mr Pep agreed to go out one day with the reps selling, they arrived in the agreed area [patch] and guess what he sat in his car and dare’nt for the life of him knock on a strangers door and sell them something. They waited and waited and he sat there petrified, it was soon learnt that he had never sold a thing in his life and all the talks were ideas taken from books. About 6 months later he was fired for stealing reps orders, altering the commission code and claiming the commision for himself. Each week he stole about 60 0rders and told the reps, the client had cancelled the order and no commis was due to them. He stole about $8000 dollars of me, and similar amounts of others. These thefts made him appear to be quite a good sales rep in the firms weekly bulletins. Please read this post as a “this is what happens in real-life story”, and please keep well away from uplifting people.
Can I rub it in and mention Jimmy Baccus, the Preacher and the other one [forgotten his name]who got time in jail. I only thing i liked about Jimmy was his wife who was dead genuine and gorgeous in a June Allyson way, but, alas they were both involved. Chew this over. Bob.
This place is for uplifting conversation and support for people trying to make a better life for their families. Your comments are not what I call "welcome." Might I suggest a gothic genre instead!!!
Bob is a downer and I he is 100% wrong. If a person can’t control his own destiny, then what’s the point. Why study? Why become educated in your field? Why get out of bed in the morning? His theories are ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS!
However, I disagree with the statement that we are here for uplifiting conversation of support. Often, there can be too much cheerleading and too little facts. It is a total disservice to newbies to say “just do it”, or “take action and you’ll succeed”. That is equally as ridiculous as Bob’s post. The truth is that the vast majority of newbies fail. They fail because they didn’t understand business; cash flow issues, dealing with tenants, etc. They “just do it” and that’s not good enough.
My Spelling error the names was Jimmy Bakker not Baccus.
Talking about uplifting messages and people who have the right spirit ands virtues, I did a google search and got 255 000 hits on disgraced preachers. This is a sample:
Epinions.com - The Apostle
This church had just recently lost one preacher, who had gotten hauled off to jail for shoplifting large quantities of salami from a local delicatessen. …
… preachers, pastors, and evangelists disgraced and defrocked—and in some cases even prosecuted and jailed—when their dirty little secrets were exposed. … www.cuttingedge.org/articles/p123.htm - 19k
Disgraced Boston priest faces child molestation trial … Geoghan was murdered in his jail cell in August 2003. Both Massachusetts cases were buttressed by … www.courttv.com/trials/shanley/background_ctv.html - 21k.
So when you say be positive, be uplifting - please include me out. Bob.
When I say"Just do it, I obviously mean pick the best deal, the one with best best prospects and teach yourself by handling this deal, by overseeing it to final completion and profit, one facet of the Real Estate Business. In other words I’m being practical and giving newbies practical How to Succeed advice. I’m sick of people claiming to be big successes, but who never ever reveal that just 3 of their deals produce a good profit, 2 are middling / to fair, and 5 they are glad to see the back off. In my view these success-drivers won’t admit that its the 3 good deals that win the day and keep them afloat. I take the view that if you can break even on 7 deals, pay the bills on them, maybe make a small profit, the other 3 are Gold. And you can only find gold by refining a lot of waste. And we all know people love talking about there best deals- but forget to mention the duds, the dross.
So newbies are in the refining business and need to get shovelling, not dreaming.
Thanks Mike. I agree that we are here for real information and your posts have been full of it.
Bob - you contradict yourself in your posts. If everything is up to chance then why work so hard? I understand if you are sick of the cheerleading but geez.
I certainly didn 't come here to argue about which attitude is more successful. I hope I’m through with this thread but I’ll be around.
Jharris have you ever sold items, or been in speciality sales?
I work so hard to be a success to earn more commission for myself each week. Its as simply as that. At age 19 I worked for Britains very first billionaire, out of 2000+ reps I was the top producer. This indicates I had the right attitude. I then spent another 40 years in sales.
I realise this counts for nothing to the likes Jharris and guess he could beat me hands down every day, but lets say we both went for the same job together, lets say we were interviewed for some job we both wanted, then I’m afraid Jh your out. You see go-go-go never beats people like me, nor are bosses impressed with The How to Win Friends and Aquaintances Philosophy, they want hard-bitten types they can rely on - producers. The other type don’t last the 1st week. Ask any good sales manager what are the facts and figures when recruiting SALES staff, to be honest they are parthetic, and you’ve got to find this out for yourself before you’ll believe it.
The odds are still 50-50. If i didn’t work hard they would be 10 to 90 against. I thinks a bookie would call this 9-1 against succeeding. I managed to influence the odds upwards to 50% [batting average] in my favour.
In steelworks and on building sites most of the men put in 14% effort. The never do 50%. Time Motion Studies.
In sales if they recruit lets say 100 new staff, the drop out rate is incredible. Some, in fact most never make a sale. By day 2 - half have gone never to be seen again. And this is fact. Your gurus never let on about the hidden side of a sales reps life, and the true odds.
However, I disagree with the statement that we are here for uplifiting conversation of support. Often, there can be too much cheerleading and too little facts. It is a total disservice to newbies to say “just do it”, or “take action and you’ll succeed”. That is equally as ridiculous as Bob’s post. The truth is that the vast majority of newbies fail. They fail because they didn’t understand business; cash flow issues, dealing with tenants, etc. They “just do it” and that’s not good enough.
[Q] Whatever the odds, you admit that you can change them by work. Jharris;
You appear to change them, you appear to be beating the system, but strange to say like water, the odds find their own level and when they settle down, or you add them up, [which ever comes first] you end up with 50-50. I’m stoic about this. I might have hit the nail on the head when I said in all we do, if we have a 50-50 chance of success these are really good odds, and the best we are ever going to get.
In the USA they have this thing about a certain ethnic group who “if they’ve had a good week and have earned a lot of money for them - then the next week they do not turn out for work until they’ve blown all their money in”. So in this case [which is true to some extent] the winner drops back [lowers his efforts] to stop himself from scoring.
America is worlds leader in thinking “That if you give some sales wizard / or property expert guru $2000 or $6000 dollars for some rather corny words of bulls***t , you will gain a mind improvement profit on the deal”. I say No you won’t, your being conned, don’t do it. To some by saying this “I’m a bitter old Brit”. Actually I 'm a very happy and well liked Brit- who just wants to say what he thinks, on the off-chance it might help someone and stop him conning himself and losing his cash.
