This is a topic that I been battling with, wether or not to expose yourself to your town as to who you are and what you. When I was gtting started , all the gurus teach how you should build a company, logos, and let the whole town know what you do. My local mentor does things somewhat in the shadows. Only a few people in his circle know what he does and of course those people that were involved in his deals.
He tells me that is not a good idea to let everyone know what you are doing as it creates competition, jealousy, and possible trouble (lawsuits). He does all creative real estate and so do I (wholesaling) and is not doing anything illegal, on the contrary he is a very good man. However; I think we all know that sometimes we get close to that “gray area” where some people who may not like us (realtors,attorneys), refer to us as predators, scammers, etc. This is specially true when people don’t understand what we do and can’t believe we make a really nice profit mostly by using some paperwork.
Mainly for that reason and the fact I work alone , I started of as a sole proprietor to not announce my business to everyone. Now I formed an LLC (tax purposes) and have started to announce myself more . I am starting to get more noticed and not sure if that is good or bad. I know branding yourself is a good thing but maybe not when are doing this business.
I also fear competition as I am the only wholesaler around here (that I know of) who is doing well on a consistent basis ( 10 deals my first year). If I start talking a lot, I may train some of my competitors… For example, I am the only guy around my area that does bandit signs consistently. I have heard other wholesalers say these don’t work and I just think “keep thinking that buddy". I know we love sharing information here but we are all spread out. I think it might be different if we lived in the same town.
The downside to this approach is that I may lose out on a few deals as I don’t network, advertise as much as I should. I also lose credibility sometimes as a few sellers would rather deal with someone who is known as oppose someone they never heard of.
Eventually everyone will know who I am and what I do but for now I feel like it might not be the best approach but I could be wrong. How do you guys handle this? Thanks in advance.