Yeah, the IT background does help. Just having a good capture page for sellers and buyers is helping quite a bit. When I had an ad up on craigslist saying email me your qualifications for buying I got next to zero responses, once I had a professional capture page I am getting 2-3 buyer submissions at a time.
gici and w2w,
In all seriousness, there are a few skills that are required in almost every business…whether you go to college or not. Basic writing skills are among the most important. I would strongly suggest taking some writing courses at your local college, even if you don’t pursue a degree.
In business, you are judged by the way you speak and write. Being able to write in an acceptable manner can make the difference between being successful and being a failure.
Good Luck,
Mike
I agree wholeheartedly, there are many people out there that simply can not write at something even resembling an acceptable level. Nothing looks less intelligent than spelling errors, lack of capital letters, etc. I am not generally the best example of excellent grammar but I try to spell things correctly, use capital letters and puncuation, etc. I’ve gotten emails from professional people that look as if a third grader typed them.
Me? CH-46E transport helicopters. That is the primary troop transport helo for the Marine Corps.
I have a Bachelor’s and a Masters, 8 years of higher ed.
College won’t change who you are beyond a certain degree (you can become more mature but won’t make a dishonest person honest or a lazy person diligent). It can give you skills if you’re the right kind of person for entrepreneurial work and take full advantage of the college experience and resources.
I considered the military several times because I knew it would help me become even more disciplined and diligent- that wasn’t something I learned from college but from finding out how my own business effort didn’t work as well without it.
Brian
This is the key because it is not about being trained it is about being educated. An educated person knows something about everything a trained person knows everything about something. It makes life a lot more fun.
I am what everybody here hates. My dad was a Doctor. He worked for a large hospital company as a corporate Vice President made a lot of money working for that corporation and also had a lot of real estate. I went to college with a nice car and apartment money for the girls fraternity etc. I got out of college and started to work in corporate America and now run the auditing group of a multinational corporation. My dad, did understand that I needed to understand how to deal with people of all classes. When I was growing up, I always had a job. I had to cut the grass at my dad’s apartments every weekend and was a crew member for his makeready crews. I knew I would never need money, but I also knew how to do the work that people do when they must do that work or starve. That kind of upbringing taught me that when contractors and handymen come to do a job for me it is not that I can’t do the job, it is that I don’t want to do the job. I also understand how hard it is to do and where they would tend to cut a corner or two.
I now have my 14 year old son going with me when I do my real estate so that he can see how different people deal with life. He gets to deal with crawling under houses to check pipes with the spiders and he gets to see how there is money in a project or not. He gets to do the yards of any properties that are not yet rented just like I did when I was young. That is a big part of getting an education it is not all in college.
IT guy here too 
I worked in the IT industry for a while and was making 6 figures income when I decided to go back and finish it. It cost me $30k cash to finish it. I did not go back to increase my income, but to get the degree itself.
Some will understand it, others will think $30k is too much to spend on it when I did not need it career wise
PM me. I have a lot of good ideas I’ve been working on, too. Perhaps we can collaborate/partner on some of them.