Since the founding of the United States, in every generation, in every field of business, politics, sports and society, we’ve watched in shock as corruption, deceit and desire bring down heroes, titans and those we thought we could trust. In the aftermath, we’re left with too many questions, how did this happen? Who is to blame? Subscribe to American Scandal today. www.wondery.fm/scandal

A show for entrepreneurs, for anyone who wants to know about business, or how to have a life while having a business.

Amazon is changing the world. And that includes real estate. With the rise of e-commerce, commercial properties have never seen such a drop in value. People no longer leave their homes to go to shopping malls, and what this means for the real estate world is complex.

There are many different types of real estate ventures. From buying and flipping to seeking investment from hard money lenders, the range of possibilities is vast. That’s why it’s important to learn about all types of real estate ventures before specializing in just one.

Making money in real estate requires an education. This is because people will call you out if you speak from a place of ignorance. In no other industry is your success so reliant on interpersonal communication. You must be articulate and educated in your opinions for people to lend you money or purchase property from you.

Listen to American Innovations on iTunes and learn/listen on the American Innovations website here.   iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/american-innovations/id1370092284?mt=2   American Innovations: https://wondery.com/shows/american-innovations/   Search “American Innovations” on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.   American Innovations is hosted by bestselling author Steven Johnson, who The Wall Street Journal called “one of the most persuasive...

To be successful at real estate requires being a jack-of-all-trades. From selling units to analyzing the data behind deals, each point of the real estate job description requires something different from you. How you get to this caliber of well-roundedness is through working jobs that promote unique skill sets.

Growing a business is not for those who fear failure. At every step of the way, the entrepreneur faces an obstacle. And some of those obstacles will get the best of him. This is especially true in real estate, where the saturated market can make it difficult for the entrepreneur to find success.

Your product will not be seen without great marketing. That’s the truth for any industry, but it’s especially relevant to real estate. In such a saturated market, no matter how great your business operation is, you will not cut through the noise unless you have great marketing.

With ambition and work ethic, one person can make a lot of money in business. More than any other industry, this is particularly true in real estate. If you catch your stride as an agent selling houses, you will soon learn that you can be netting millions of dollars by yourself per year. But at some point, your income plateaus and your exhaustion levels peak. You have to look elsewhere for relief.

Real estate is unlike any other industry. That’s because the level of deal-making is so high. From negotiating with tenants to signing contracts with developers to soliciting investment from lenders, at every touchpoint of the real estate funnel, there is a deal happening. Mastering the interpersonal seesaw of negotiation will help take your efforts on this front to the next level.

Building a business should never be solely about the money. Instead, make it about doing what you love, in addition to making the most money. When you add passion to your mission statement, the money will come in even greater quantities because people will feed off the shared love for the project. This will also keep your operation in check, as you will continuously be tempted by lucrative avenues that test your moral compass but tempt your profit agenda.

You don’t need to quit your job to sell real estate. You don’t even need a college degree. The only requirement to start flipping houses is hard work. Real estate is the ultimate meritocracy because of this. There are no gatekeepers preventing you from getting your hands wet.

Selling real estate is a do-it-all hustle. You have to build client relationships, manage the marketing of your properties, generate leads that hopefully turn into sales, and much more. Most people can’t do all of thes jobs by themselves; that is why networking in real estate is so important. When you collaborate and play to each others’ strengths, the mountain becomes much more conquerable.

In any business, hustle is most important. But in real estate, it’s extra special. The agent who sees the most properties and talks to the most people is likely to be the one making the most deals. People in the industry who try to bypass this undeniable truth with less active processes are just finding excuses to be lazy. Hustle is the only method.

There’s many different personality types in real estate. From construction worker to investment banker, being in real estate means knowing how to interact with every imaginable personality type out there. To do this requires cheat codes; we must have a set of indicators that we can look out for that help us determine the personality type of the person standing in front of us.    

A great real estate mentor is your ticket to real estate dominance. Learning through a mentor is the most effective way to learn. Through osmosis, you pick up on their tricks, habits, and mindset. Unlike typical learning methods, the absorption of knowledge is effortless. Just being in their company will get you to their level in no time.

A successful real estate operation has many moving parts. From accounting to operations, the pieces of the puzzle can be overwhelming. If you don’t have processes and procedures in place, the juggling act will quickly become too much to handle. We know this information, but we might not be implementing it into our practice. If this is the case, stepping back and reevaluating your business as a whole might be the next most logical step.

Your ideas are meaningless if they’re just inside your head. That’s why we must constantly be trying to push them into the market. This is especially true in real estate. If you have an idea for a new sales strategy or a new type of investment infrastructure, you must develop and test the concept in the actual real world before you start to analyze the idea.

There are many ways to market your properties. You can advertise online, using websites like Craigslist or FSBO. You can get into people’s mailboxes using direct mail advertisements. You can also put signs around the neighborhoods you wish to target. With all these options, it’s hard to know where to allocate your marketing budget.

Hiring for real estate is unlike hiring for any other industry. You have to smell out the workhorses from the nonchalant. The day-to-day grind requires a unique resilience and work ethic, so we must seek out those who can tolerate a combination of rejection and hustle. 

Aimless marketing will get you nowhere. That’s why Facebook is one of the most valued companies today. It allows you to target a specific demographic at a specific time. It’s the antithesis of a billboard, which is just a marketing message to whoever will see it whenever.

Borrowing money is never easy. And that’s especially true in business. Whether it's taking out a loan or accepting investment money, one party (the lender) is trusting the other (the borrower) to pay them back. Assuming you’ve done the math and will return the lender’s sum in full, what extra elements can you add to this exchange?

You can still run your real estate operation while living abroad. It just requires understanding the legal nuances of your type of corporation. If you have an LLC, you must follow the specific laws that govern LLC operations. And the same goes for a C Corp or S Corp. If you do this, you will be smooth-sailing during tax-filing season.

Real estate is like every other industry. To become the best you have to surround yourself with mentors and put in the sweat equity to learn the tricks of the trade. The agent who shows the most houses sells the most houses. We forget this because we see real estate reality TV shows that make it seem like all glitz and glamour.