Honest

So I'm gonna be honest. I've been really slacking with my business ever since I read that article talking about how all these people are doing it better then me. I probably would still be more enthusiastic about it now, but I haven't had any luck reaching my latest investor. The prospect of paying $20 a week in parking and trying to get up to a farther away county every Friday just to get 5-10 leads isn't very inviting either. At this point I think I just need to regroup and find a better approach.

The best idea for now would probably be to attend some REI meetings, not as a "Jobber" trying to find investors to work with, but just as someone who wants to learn more about the industry. I think just taking some time to do market research and learn about the purchasing process while I look for my own house would be extremely helpful. Not only would it save me money but after going through it, I'll have experience to look back on and compare with, rather than just playing with the ideas I've read in various books.

Also, I might be able to just volunteer to work with an investor on the weekends who is already doing these deals. That way I see what they do and get some advice, since usually having a mentor to learn from is a great shortcut and extremely valuable. I've noticed that at my day job, whenever I work with a more experienced member of the staff I pick up different tips and tricks that save me time in the future. Plus, by working with an investor, I can get a better idea of the information they want and where they would go to get it.

So for now I'll keep working on trying to find a car, building up my stock portfolio and putting money into my house fund. While I do that, I can start attending REI meetings and see how things go from there. Also, I'm planning on going to a Toastmaster's club meeting this Monday, so we'll see how that goes as well.

Courthouse Update

So I pulled myself out of bed early today and headed to the distant county to pick up some leads. I found a closer parking garage, but it turned out to be for a hospital next door, so the price ended up being higher than the $12 normal. I did manage to snag about 10 leads or so for the zip code my investor wanted me to look in. The housing may be below his normal price range, so we'll see how he responds. The other issue is that I couldn't find the court dates, only the dates the information was filed, so I don't know how happy he'll be about that.

I've been really frustrated recently. I feel like I've put a lot of time and effort into learning about business, stocks, real estate and various other fields. But then when I actually try to put my knowledge into practice I get nowhere. I can't tell if I'm just young and ignorant, if I'm not trying hard enough, if I'm working in the wrong direction or whatever else could be the problem.

I'd like to find a mentor of some kind to steer me in the right direction. I don't know anyone who is successful in all of those fields though, so it seems the only compass point I have is the information I read. The problem though, is that most of the stuff seems theoretical or introductory, so it doesn't help me to determine what I'm doing wrong in my specific situation, only more of an overall outlook or philosophy. I guess that's where the lack of experience comes in, I make mistakes because I don't know and haven't done things before, so I have no way of telling if what I'm doing is correct or not.

After reading Made to Stick, I feel like I run into a lot of situations where I want to get information or learn from someone, but the "curse of knowledge" stands in the way. They know what they're talking about but can't articulate it to me in ways that I can understand. So it seems all I can keep doing is plugging along.

The other thing I've been thinking about is at what point do I reach that big goal. It's like people say about making the first million is the hardest and once you've reached that point it's all downhill. I don't know if it's still the first million now or not, but if I just go by salary it's going to be a long way off before I reach that point. I'm hoping that all my efforts to move my money into less taxable but still profit making vehicles will start to pay large dividends in the future.

I guess I just put too many expectations on myself. A lot of people my age have much less than I do and very little goals or direction. I've only been working for almost two years and I basically started with zero. Most people my age probably have student loans and car payments that eat away at their earning potential, so I should be gratefully that I'm already in the position I'm in, instead of impatient at not being farther.

Regardless, I hope everyone has a good weekend as we slide into the final month of 2007.

Knock Out

I lined up another investor to work with today. He was one of the numbers I found earlier in the week. It seems his company is pretty substantial because they can handle deals up to 3.5 million dollars and are even licensed mortgage brokers as well. They only work in one zip code primarily, but at this point anything is better than nothing. I'll have to keep calling a few more numbers and see if I can get more investors on board so that the other leads don't end up going to waste. It's good to have something to focus on and potential to generate some income again.

The courthouse trip this morning only produced six leads, but that's all in other zip codes anyway. Next week I'll have to make the trip up to county number two again, and then see how much information I can put together to ship out to them. I imagine the first set of leads is the most important because it starts to establish the flow of how the relationship is going to go. You don't want to put in a poor performance and then lose potential business.

I'm also planning on going back to the car dealership tonight. I called the guy up and the car is still there. I asked him about the selling price and he gave me some line about how "their computers are down" and he can't check it, but to check the website. I think he's just stalling giving me some hard numbers before I'm actually on site. This is probably going to be a hard buy to get the price I want. My plan is to start at a low offer of 5K and then make a big concession up to 5.3K. After that I'm going to be as rigid as I can and only let him work me up to 5.5K. I want that to be the off the lot price, none of this before all the extra fees stuff. If he gives me a hard time about it I'm just going to walk away and forget about him. It's been a week and a half since I test drove the car and I doubt anyone else has come to look at it, so they might be itching to unload it. This is what these guys do though, so I'm gonna have to be firm and not be afraid to walk away.

Things are getting back on track now, just gotta keep this good momentum up.

Long Weekend

So the long weekend has come to an end. I knocked off a number of things on my "To Do" list including participating in the Buy One get One program for One Laptop Per Child. Also, I was able to test drive a few cars and focus in on what exactly I'm looking for in the one I end up buying. To top it off, the updated x-rays from the chiropractor looked good so I only need to go in every two weeks for maintenance. So, just like that a lot of my weekly routine is suddenly gone.

Disappointingly, I did not manage to get to the Real Estate Investor meeting I wanted to attend yesterday. I ended up with some schedule conflicts and difficulty finding the location the event was held. Next time I'm going to have to bring my A game and make sure to get everything inline before the date, potentially even making a dry run to the location.

I recently started reading Made to Stick, which is starting to feel like the next Never Eat Alone. It contains some solid advice about clarifying your message and saying something with meaning. I'm still early on in the book, but I like everything I've read so far. It seems to build off of part of The Tipping Point, where the idea of stickiness is introduced as part of process of viral marketing. I still have a few other books in my queue like The Art of the Start and True Professionalism, but currently they are checked out at my local library so they are pending.

The stock market has been choppy at best recently. I've taken huge hits the last three market days with a small rebound today. This market dip is actually a good thing, since a lot of stocks are dropping to under priced values. I wish I had planned to have more money outside of the market right now to move in, but since I'm still building a base I haven't reached that point yet. If I do come up with some extra funds, I'll probably jump in near the end of November when another big dip should hit, and then hang on as some resurgence comes from December sales.

I'm going to go through some local newspapers again today in an attempt to find new investors. I'm staying away from the major local paper since that seems to have little returns. Hopefully I'll have some prospects to send this weeks leads out to.

Weekend Plans

Another trip to the courthouse today. Rounded up 10 leads for my basic location. That's about average, and from what I've read the foreclosure rate is only going to continue to go up. The greater problem of nothing actually being done with the leads still exists, but hopefully I will make some new contacts on Monday that I can funnel the leads out to.

I've been rereading The E-Myth Revisited, and I hope that once I get a steady amount of investors who are producing sales, then I can really put a system around my business. The training that I read for how to be a Jobber was essentially all the system I need, but I hope to automate the process more and eventually move myself to more of a supervisor role. Eventually I should be able to get jobbers underneath me to go to the courthouse or be doing driving trips to find leads. Also, I plan to setup a website. Then I could have jobbers log in and input the data online, only to have the system then send emails out to the investors based on some rules that I setup. But that's all in the future for now.

Stocks are having a terrible day for the second or third day in a row. It just reemphasizes how important getting my business to a productive level is. With the business I actually have some control over what happens rather than playing the role of the middle man, hoping that the unruly mob that is the market continues to push up in my favor. Stocks are a great and extremely passive source of income, but when you're trying to get to a substantial amount of wealth, they are very slow and unhelpful. Getting a strong business cash flow is really the best fuel for filling up your asset portfolio.

The car hunt is continuing this weekend. I may just settle and buy the car I test drove on Wednesday. It seems the most powerful tools available for negotiating the purchase of a used car are the ability to walk away and the ability to buy the car outright on the spot. I'm hoping to use them to knock $500-1000 off the price tag. I figure if I can get the car for about $5K, then it's really a steal. So we'll see how it works out.

I've begun filling out some business school applications. The essay seems to be the hardest part because it's hard to write to a target audience that you know nothing about. Write now I have some basic framework for the content and a mild attempt to string it together, but nothing that would amount to a full first draft. If I don't finish the applications before the spring semester deadline then I'm not really going to worry about it. Usually bigger classes start in the fall which might play better into my favor.

Don't forget - One Laptop Per Child starts their Buy 1 get 1 program starting 11/12. So enjoy your 11/11 holiday and help some kids on 11/12!

Written Off

For some reason, before I even got up this morning, I had written today off. I worked late on Wednesday anticipating going to county two today, but when it came time to make it happen, it didn't. Again I figured not having an investor to send the leads to made it not worth the time and parking money to go. I did go to courthouse one and picked up 15 leads. Pretty solid numbers for that area, but again, no investor to send them to at this point. Plans are still set to go out to a REI meeting tomorrow morning, so I'm hoping that will be productive.

I was talking to my sister last night, who has an MBA in Finance, about her job. The stuff she does and the people she works with seems so much more interesting than what I do. Plus, with a background in Computer Science and software development, I feel like I could really make some big strides in moving the Finance department of a company to the modern era. Most of the time they use plain Excel spreadsheets to do their calculations. There is very poor UI for what each field is expecting and what it means to the project as a whole. My sister showed me this cool tool she made to replace it, so I'm glad to see that someone is pushing forward and making things happen.

When I talked to her about her job it just reinforced how little I like my own. I want to blame my company because they hired me with false promises, but even so, if I wanted to I could change things. I just feel no desire to do so. I feel like I don't want to do this stuff for the rest of my life and I have no interest in it outside of doing enough to get paid. But the money is only worth so much because once I meet my financial objectives, I won't need a high salary anymore. At that point I could quit and take a lower paying job somewhere else just to get into something that I love doing. If you're doing what you love you end up getting promoted faster and it's worth more than the money. In the long run you end up ahead.

Back at my old job, when I first started working there, we were building up a new department. I spent a large amount of my days in the finance and contracts departments. I learned a lot there and was really into it. I even built a pretty elaborate Quote system that is still in use today. But then I got pulled back to doing testing and customer service and I lost a lot of my motivation. I want to do project management, working with customers, doing analysis of how a project is going and the risks it faces. That kind of thing seems exciting to me.

I do feel like this job could be tolerable if I moved back into development instead of just bug fixing. When I started here and was learning new things I was excited. I designed a security program and a few cool tools. But then I had to be placed somewhere that was billable and the guy who was mentoring me threw me to the sharks. I don't think he's even talked to me in about 2 months. So I go from actually doing and learning something to sitting on the back burner. One of the VPs told me that it was like a right of passage to do bug fixing for 6 months before you really get into anything else. That seems stupid to me though, since I'd learn a lot more if I was developing something worthwhile and interacting with multiple parts of the system. I chalk it up to poor management and bad distribution of resources.

That's enough whining from me for now. I encourage all of you out there in a position like me to not settle either. Find your passion, or make a career out of what you do with your free time. Put the time and effort into making it happen. Otherwise your financial commitments will grow around you, pinning you in. Do it now while you can because it'll only get harder. Good luck and best wishes.

Weak Week

Courthouse

So I bailed on the second county today. I know, it's lame and I should have found a way to go. But I'm going to make some excuses instead.

I stayed up later than normal again last night. World Without End just has this power of sucking me in so that I keep reading, chapter after chapter, until it's late. I can't say I regret it because I'm too fascinated about what will happen next to care a lot about what's going on in my own life right now. Probably also because there isn't much going on in my actual life.

The courthouse I normally visit had about 10 leads today. I brought my new (old) laptop and used it. It was struggling because the battery doesn't hold charge very long, so I had to hunt around for an outlet. Also, the processor is pretty weak so Open Office did not open. I ended up typing the leads in notepad and then moving them to my Master Lead Log later.

I figure, since I'm not supremely confident in my investor right now and I don't have any others lined up, getting a lower amount of leads this week is not that big of a deal. Also, if he does get my emails, maybe he'll notice the lower amount and contact me back. That would be nice, since then I would know he's actually doing something still. I'm planning on going to the REI meeting I mentioned previously next Saturday regardless of his status. At this point I need to really focus on actually creating something out of this.

November

For some reason I'm really looking forward to the beginning of November. I can't put my finger on why, but I almost feel like something is going to change. It might end up being as little as me flipping the page in my calendar, but any change would be nice at this point.

I go to a chiropractor 3 days a week. My medical insurance covers the whole bill and back in July I figured, why not? I had been having some back pain and people had recommended it. The pain is gone at this point, but this process called "traction" that I do to correct the angle of my spine leaves me aching. I think that's part of the reason why I'm so tired. In November we'll be done the second stage of the treatment process and maybe I won't have to go as frequently. Going three times a week forces me into a pretty tight routine, esp with when I get to and leave work.

I'm thinking about getting season tickets for my local NBA team this year. It's $600 per seat for the season, which isn't bad considering the high part of the range is $32,000 a seat. My thinking is that when you have something other people don't, it can be used as an asset. If I get two seats, I can always try to sell the second one or both if I don't want to go to the game. If I do want to go, I can call up a friend and ask them if they want to go, so it's a way to reconnect. The final benefit is that I can give the second seat ticket away as a gift for different occasions, like birthdays or graduations. My brother-in-law has the local NFL team's season tickets and he does essentially that. Every year he seems to get his money worth, so I think it'll be worth it. I've built up all the money I need to purchase a car outright, so I feel like this is a good way to reward myself and make my life a little more enjoyable.

That's all I've got for today.

Phase 2

I picked up the laptop last night from the guy who I setup a deal with on Craig's List. It was a long drive out to the exchange location and back, but it was worth it since a laptop will be extremely valuable for storing leads. The only problems are that it doesn't have a wireless card or spreadsheet software and it smells like either coffee or some kind of tobacco or smoke. I can always pick up a wireless card at some point so that's not that big of a deal. I'm going to install Open Office on it tonight, so that'll fix the spreadsheet problem. I'm hoping over time the smell will start to fade and then disappear.

Tomorrow I'm going to do my new routine of going to another county courthouse as well as the one for the county I live in. From the articles I've been reading about housing prices and foreclosure rates, I'm guessing the average I've had for the last two weeks should remain consistent if not go up. Having a laptop will be greatly helpful when writing up 90 or so leads.

I still haven't solved the greater problem. Clearly my investor is not working out very well. I need to find more than one, as well as target ones that work specifically on foreclosure cases. Even if the agreed rate drops and I only get $500-1000 per sale, it still beats not getting anything. I plan on going to an REI meeting, like I mentioned previously, but the next one is going to be a week from Saturday. I'll have to scour the paper today and tomorrow and see if I come up with any ads that could lead me to investors.

Aside from that, I've been exhausted this week. I'm reading World Without End, the most recent Ken Follett book and sequel to Pillars of the Earth. It's an excellent read, but it entices me into reading for long stretches and staying up later than I normally would. I recommend it for anyone who is looking for a leisure activity. It's about 1,000 pages long, so based on how fast you read it could be a source of entertainment for a long time. Normally I read pretty quickly, I finished the last Harry Potter book in under 24 hours, but this book makes you think because there are a lot of intricate plot lines and you really get drawn into the environment and care for the characters.

Reader Feedback

A call out to the readers, if you know any ways of advertising a blog, finding investors, or just have interesting or helpful books that you suggest, please feel free to comment and let me know.

A New Week

Last week's expeditions went very well. I was able to collect 93 leads for the week and send them off to my investor. Sadly, I still haven't heard anything back from him, which, along with a total lack of production, has made me lose all the faith I had in him. So I think I'm going to go back to the drawing boards and try to collect a bunch of new investors. Specifically, I'm going to target ones that deal exclusively or mainly in foreclosures, since they should be up to date with all the laws and capable of actually making deals happen. I figure, if I'm going to have the production like I had last week, I need to actually start capitalizing.

Today has been pretty depressing outside of potential business success. The stock market is taking a beating and there seems to be large amounts of talk about a recession. I've built my portfolio around some international stocks or at least ones that should benefit from international markets, but it seems that when the US isn't doing well, there is almost a gloom around the whole market.

The other thing I'm frustrated about is the lack of returns on my money. At this point I've built up a pretty solid stockpile of capital, but it's growing so slowly that it might as well be sitting forgotten in the bank. This, along with this book I'm reading, has me thinking about the "class system" that exists even today.

The Class System

Way back, there was a clear separation between nobility, middle class, and poor. The nobility were the lords of the land, who didn't do any of the work but rather played on people's fear of God and lack of education to get them to follow them without question, working their land and paying taxes to them for the privilege. The middle class would work through apprenticeships for years, slowly learning and practicing a skill, until they became a master themselves with their own business. Then, based on the type of work they did, their trade pretty much determining their income level and social standing. The poor, with little or no education, did the manual labor that was needed to supply the goods and food for society. I think that, while slightly different in form, the system still exists today.

The poor nowadays are those who are right at or around the poverty line. Maybe they don't have a college degree or maybe they just don't care about the quality of their work, but they sit at minimum wage or so, barely able to get by. The middle class are educated, usually with degrees, but end up working for companies, doing skilled labor but not having any real holdings in the assets that they are building. Content with their paycheck, they live through there days keeping up with the status quo and being entertained by sports and TV.

Todays nobility are the business owners. Those who, through whatever means, own the company they work at, or a large apartment or office building that generates revenue for them with little actual work needing to be done. They employ the poor and the middle class and keep them content with benefits and slow pay raises. Meanwhile, they're paying less tax and pulling in money just because they are willing to go outside the main society lines and do things differently.

Great, so now what?

So, the real question in all of this is, how do you cross the lines up the class system? I've struggled with this one for a while. I have I read numerous books, learned about many investment tools and had many conversations with various people of different social standing. There is only one way to do it.

People are a product of their habits and their environment. If you want to change where you are and who you are, you have to change who you spend your time with, what habits you foster and what thinking process you support. The three classes just think and do fundamentally different things. If you are always around people who think like you, you will continue to do things the way you do. If you have problems, you'll ask your close friends for help and they'll give you the solutions that will keep you where you started. The only way to break free is to change all of that.

It's not an easy path. Hard work and persistence are the habits of the rich and powerful. By the time they've reached a certain status that you are aware of who they are, they have already done the hardest parts. You see the end result, the wealth, the freedom, but all the extra effort and behind the scenes work that it took to get there is gone from view.

So don't be fooled. If you want to change, do it, be bold. Step outside the box, find those who want to help you and see you succeed, help them as they help you. For the rest, leave them behind and move on. You can't help them by lagging behind and trying to hold their hand. Be a beacon of success for them by being a success yourself.

Jackpot

I took off work today and headed to the courthouse. The one I normally go to had 9 new leads for today, which is below average but still beat last week. Then I headed to a nearby county to see if it would be a good idea to expand my route. Turns out that there were 40 leads in that county. I had to pay $17 for parking and it's a little out there, so it'll be a challenge to add it to my weekly routine without taking a day off each week. But it seems that figuring out some way of doing it will be worth the effort.

So I wrote up the leads and sent them to my investor. With 49 or so leads per week, I'm looking at what should average 2 purchases per month. That's a lot better statistic than previously. I imagine that it'll take a while for a pipeline to be built up with a good amount of purchases coming in each month, but this definitely makes things seem more promising.

The rest of the day was pretty productive as well. I had time to watch my brother's soccer game as well as hit the gym. I've been sick for the past 2-3 weeks with an annoying post nasal drip so I had been ditching the gym in hopes of helping recovery. I figured I'd go anyway today, and thinking about it now, it might help me push through this. Regardless, it felt good to get in a work out.

I also updated the breakdown of my finances. Interestingly enough, my savings are still 60% of my net worth, my liquid amount is up to 12% and my investment percentage is up a percent to 28%. My net worth went up a good chunk in the last two weeks overall, so while the balance isn't exactly how I'd like it to be, it's still an improvement.

Alright, that's all I've got for today.

Engineering Business

I had a revelation a few days back about business. I believe one of the main reasons a business will fail is because the person running the business treats it more like a hobby than a business. What I mean by this, is that in order to succeed there has to be metrics to track where you've been, where you are and where you are going. If you only focus on doing what you've always done, or just whatever task is at hand and leave out this perspective you lose your propensity towards growth and it becomes more of a job than a business.

I read somewhere recently about this kid in a third world country. He spends his day begging on the side of a popular road. What's special about him is that he varies what he says, how he says it, his body position and various other factors for each situation. He then keeps statistics of the results in order to determine what combinations work best for what types of tourists or other people that pass by. Now that is using an engineering approach to business.

My current favorite TV show is House. The reason I love it is because, unlike how I envision most doctors, he takes an engineering approach to diagnostics. He creates a list of symptoms, determines treatment and proceeds. If the output does not match what he expects, he now has another symptom to use to analyze the problem and determine a new diagnosis. The beauty of this is that he is able to remove all the clutter of potential traps towards figuring out what is wrong with the patient, including emotional attachment.

Now, keeping this in mind, I've been analyzing my own business.

Since starting going to get leads, the weekly numbers have been as follows:

8/24 - 15 leads
8/31 - 21 leads
9/14 - 19 leads
9/21 - 10 leads
9/28 - 6 leads
10/5 - 8 leads
* 9/14's results are slightly skewed since they include 9/7's results as well.

So I'm averaging a little over 11 leads per week. Since usually you will get positive results from 1 out of every 100 leads, this means that every 10 weeks I should get 1 commission. So, maybe between $500-$3000 ever 2.5 months, or an average of $200-1200 a month, with a start delay of 3 months.

Based on this, I think my conclusion to start going to other counties in order to pull in a larger amount of leads is a good idea. Also, I need to start determining other potential sources for leads, such as houses with tax liens or code violations as well as just the foreclosures. Once I've developed a healthier flow of leads, hopefully in the range of at least 25 per week, then I can do some analysis of my investor to see how good or bad he is versus the average 1 connection for every 100 leads.

Clearly though, these statistics point out how great a need I have to increase the number of leads I find and move my pursuits forward to the next step.

The other important thing in business that ties in well with statistics, is goal setting. My current goal is to expand my operation this week by visiting courthouses in other counties. This will give me some familiarity with their locations, best routes to get there, amount of time it will take to visit them, as well as how much potential they have for leads. Then with this information, I can start finding ways to incorporate visits in my weekly routine. The goal being to hopefully double or triple my flow of leads. I'd like to get my average up from 11 to at least 25 by the end of the month by incorporating these new methods.

Now with some stats and goals, I'm hoping to move this business to the next level and actually start seeing some strong results. Then I'll be able to keep pushing for more growth by doing more statistical analysis and setting new goals.

Courthouse Sum Up

Courthouse results for this week were only slightly better than last week. Eight new listings for the county. In doing some checking, it seems that Monday will be a holiday for the courthouses and they will be closed. What I might do, is go to work on Monday and then take the holiday on Wednesday or Thursday since it's an optional holiday that I can move around. I'll have to see how I'm feeling on Monday.

Recently, the subject of retirement and investing has come up a lot in what I read and conversations I've had. A friend of mine said that his Financial advisor told him that with some smart planning he would be able to retire by the age of 50. This shocked me because the guy is an engineer, is already buying his own house and is putting money away towards retirement. You'd think he would be farther ahead than just 5 years. Apparently justification for only 5 years is based on theoretical expenses for children and some emergency funds in case something else comes up. I still think he should be much farther ahead than that.

Personally, I have three accounts setup for retirement saving. First is my 401k through my company. I have this balanced pretty well in some mutual funds that will avoid a lot of current USA domestic problems caused by the credit crunch going forward. My rate of return for the year is only 3% in this account, mainly because I set it up at the start of June and it got whacked pretty hard by the dip in the market before I did some more research and setup a better selection. Ever since I rebalanced I've been charging back and I plan on leaving this alone and letting it grow for the remainder of the year. The combination of not having to pay tax on what is put in and my employer matching really helps this grow.

I also have another 401k from a previous company that is averaging about 9% return so far this year. If last year is any view of how the last quarter will turn out, I should end up with about a 15% return for this year.

My second account is a Roth IRA that I setup last year. It's focused on some foreign markets that are mainly revolved around gold mining. It's been averaging 11% growth per year, so it seems fine to leave alone. I'm not sure how high the management fees are, but it's more of a bonus fund so I'm not tinkering with it much. I realize I can't touch this money till I'm 65, but not having to pay taxes on earnings is worth it since it's a solid long term setup.

My third account is my individually selected stocks. I'm taking the value investing approach and following the system of Joel Greenblatt, the investment stud who has averaged insane returns over the last 25 years. This is my pride and joy account that I've been priming for almost a year now. I've heard a lot of people talk about their failures in picking individual stocks, but I believe in value investing and I'm dedicated to sticking this out, esp since it's already produced 10% gains even during the dry period of the market and should really excel during the upcoming months.

The combination of those three accounts are the backbone of my retirement savings plan. My current goal is to prime them and let them compound over the next 20-30 years. The result should easily leave me in a comfortable position to decide if I really want to keep working long before the retirement age.

Like I stated previously, I'm trying to move away from saving now that I've setup the backbone. The greatest and worst thing that stocks have going for them is that they are so passive. While I don't have to do any work to see change, I also have no control over that change after the initial buy decision. I'd like to shift my money flow into priming other things that I have control over into a larger state of growth. The best example is the Jobber business I'm building. Eventually I would like to significantly increase operations by purchasing a laptop to use to collect lead information as well as start using some paid sources to acquire leads. At that point I will increase the number of investors I work with as well as pay to join some local REI clubs. But again, this growth hinges on some capital investment. But the nice part is that I have direct control over the results.

The final thing I want to mention is the use of mutual funds. My guess is that a large number of "investors" throw their money into a mutual fund and then go on with the assumption that someone's active management of that fund will lead to their profit. I'm warning that this is not the case.

Mutual fund management is a job like any other, and with any job there is always a range of how good or bad the person doing it actually performs. Just because they hold that position does not mean that they are really more educated about the market than you are. They most likely are just following a corporate system that does not take into account any of the real factors that determines how a business will perform. Warren Buffett follows the value investing approach of determining the actual value of a company and its shares. He takes it a step further than just that, though. He looks at the management and decision making and sees if they are intelligently directing the business.

I read the book Good to Great a year or so back. This book was a brilliant analysis of what are the differences between a company destined for success and one that will walk the average line. They are real, they are true and they are greatly overlooked. Never forget that what you are investing in is not just a name, it is a business. A business is only as strong and capable as the people who do the work.

Goals

Tomorrow will be my weekly trip to the courthouse. I'm looking forward to it because it will be a welcome break from my current work monotony. Based off of the real estate numbers from articles I've read this week, there should be a good number of foreclosures.

To date I've compiled a list of 71 foreclosures over the last month or so. Unfortunately none of this has led to any actual purchases or cash flow to this point. It is understandable why though, since I've only been sending leads to my investor for 3 weeks. The first round of leads contained some that were weeks old and potentially had gone bad. The last round I sent had a total of 6 leads, so there wasn't much help there.

Based on what I read in the Jobber information, you should expect something like 1 in 100 leads will produce a sale. Right now I haven't reached 100 and if you don't count the first few weeks that had turned stale, then I still have a ways to go. This serves as reinforcement to my idea that I should be going out to other counties to pick up my lead quotas. Currently, I'm still sticking with the plan of exploring during the holiday on Monday, but if the courthouse is closed then I'll have to make other arrangements.

One of my brothers is actually currently employed and I've played with the idea of recruiting him. I've tried to involve him on some ventures in the past with poor result, so it makes me hesitant to even offer up the suggestion now. Also, when you don't even have a flow of income it's hard to figure out how you would split it up. What I might do is offer him a flat rate for every lead that ends in a purchase, and then hopefully the deal I have setup with my investor will provide me some solid income over that. It's hard to say what to do though, since I don't have any precedent to use for measurement.

For now, my current plans remain at a trip to the courthouse tomorrow and one planned but unconfirmed for Monday.

In concert with the books I've been reading, I developed a few new goals yesterday. My first is to get a new job doing something more inline with my goals by January 1, 2008. This is a bit of a surprise since I just changed jobs at the end of May, but the daily grind at my current job has reached an unbearable point. It's not that I don't like the job, but the work is unfulfilling and boring. It's nice to have a certain amount of free time at work, but I don't have that feeling of freedom to spend the time towards something constructive. The environment of my cubicle has become mentally taxing to the point that I find it hard to accomplish anything, even just simple tasks because I'm so use to the lackluster stream of intellectually stimulating work.

The second goal is to build contacts, systems and ideas to the point that in 3 years I will be able to break off from any job I'm involved with and start my own business. I don't have a 100% game plan of how to do all these things yet, but the idea will be to find a mentor as well as start implementing ideas from the books I read, rather than them just remaining abstract ideas. I'm not sure if I'll take the route of going to get an MBA or just trying to find a job that will teach me how to run a business, but based off of goal 1's result, that should be easy to determine.

The third goal is to be a CEO of a successful business in 5 years. Either through the business I start reaching a profitable and successful level, or through the skills learned from the business opening up offers from other businesses for me to step in at the CEO position. This is a lofty goal, but I feel like completing the first two goals will put me within grasp of achieving this.

Now the problem I have is finding a path to reach each goal. For the first one, I've already started updating my resume, I'm going through the Pathfinder, and I've started looking into companies that seem to implement the business systems I would like to learn. The hard part is breaking out of this mental rut I'm stuck in and pushing myself to focus and make progress. I'm hoping that establishing these goals here will help me to do just that.

One final note, I've been doing some reading about how to build up traffic to your blog. Some of the stuff is really gimmicky and I really don't want to do. Like I could start putting together lists of things, but it seems to trivial and pointless. But I would like to keep increasing traffic. If anyone reading has some ideas or suggestions, or things they would like to read, leave some ideas in the comments.

Weekend Escapade

So I managed to go to the courthouse again on Friday. It was a good thing I did since there were four more leads, which was double the previous total for the week. Six isn't really that much since before I was getting around 15, but according to articles I've been reading about foreclosures, the stream should be picking up for a while to come. I didn't get a chance to go into another county this week since I had to spend time packing, but I'll try to work something out for next week. Monday is Columbus day, so I'll see if the courthouses are closed or not and then plan a trip based on my findings.

My weekend trip went well. It wasn't a business trip, but rather more of a vacation so it was successful in giving me some time off to relax. I went out to visit my brother so I got to see his setup and meet some of his friends. He's got a good core group and a nice place. It's a good thing because the senior year of college is something you should really enjoy. I don't mean by drinking it all away or by blowing off class and work, but more just having a good group of people to spend time with as well as getting a real taste for living on your own before 40 hour work week grind sets in. The communal setting of living in an apartment is a lot nicer than living in the middle of the burbs miles away from your friends. Just the fact that you can pop in and out of people's places and just hang out for a little while or even for hours, kinda feels right. Either that or I watch too much Seinfeld.

I did make some interesting observations over the weekend.

Your environment is a simple, but accurate gauge of how productive you are. I don't mean that everything has to be spotless, but organization is key. That's why libraries are successful places to study. Information is accessible and all around you. You feel like anything that comes up you'll be able to find a resource for and it's motivating. If an idea comes to you, or you have a project to work on, being surrounded by multitudes of unfinished tasks is just going to overwhelm you. If you have a clear space to work and the tools you need to work on the problem you'll jump right in. As they say, action is the cure for procrastination. If it takes you 15-30 minutes to clear off a space and get together everything you need, the task it going to feel even more overwhelming.

I run into this problem a lot with my current living space. All of my stuff is crammed into spaces that are not large enough. Therefore, when I sit down and want to work on something, I almost feel like I'm trapped in too small a space. So I end up blowing it off. The ideal setting would be a place where I could partition off my different projects. If I want to work on my Jobber business, I sit down where all my files are and plug away. If I want to read some information about setting up vending machine locations, this should be somewhere else, and so on. Unfortunately, that is not a current option, but now that I know what would work and have a picture in mind, I can start working towards making it so.

Goal setting is very valuable. Almost every "Self Improvement" book I've ever read talks about goal setting. The best example I've seen was in The Science of Getting Rich, which discusses getting a clear vision of what you want and then focusing on it. By keeping that vision, your conscious and subconscious thoughts will start seeing ways for you to make it so. When you are that focused, you start to use your brain's natural pattern matching ability to filter out things that would distract you or become stumbling blocks and focus only on things that will lead to what you want.

Another observation I made is that illness always settles in when you relax. I've read things that discuss this before in a variety of places. I imagine it's because your body is always toggling between fight or flight mode and passive mode. Once you remove the daily stress and switch to passive, things jump up on you while you are trying to recover with your defenses down. Luckily I have some illness fighting tools. I usually take a multivitamin each day, and I have a neti pot that I use every other day as well as days when I start feeling pretty bad. Here is more information on what a neti pot is and how it works for those who are interested: http://www.healingdaily.com/exercise/neti-pot.htm

Finally, I was reading Genius Types ( a great blog about passive income as well as a good perspective ). The author mentions blogging as "Your Brand" which I completely agree with. I'm curious if he's read Never Eat Alone, but what he is saying is very much inline with what Keith Ferrazzi wrote about. In The World is Flat, they discuss how times have moved from corporations being able to do what only countries could before to the individual being able to do what corporations can do. So now each person is their own brand, has their own image and their own skills that they have to market to a global world. By having a blog you are able to do this. It takes a while to develop your ideas and methodologies, as well as how you are going to express them, but it is a more accurate depiction of the individual.

I had a conversation a few months back with my brother where I was telling him that perhaps he should divide his resume up by skills rather than by work experience. Focus on things like leadership, organization, persistence, and then list the jobs and activities at those jobs that developed those skills or showcased his use of them. It was a more human approach to a resume, rather than just a list of technical jargon to set off keyword searches. While it probably isn't the best approach for applying for a job, since so many companies focus on keyword searches, I feel like that is what blogging is becoming. It's a living document that shows the deeper aspects of the person rather than a list of time sensitive buzz words that show little about who you are or what value you will bring. I imagine in the future social networking profiles and resumes will merge to be a larger, more accurate viewpoint of an individual. I know employers already look at people's profiles before making hiring decisions, so I doubt this merge will be too far off. I'm not a member of linked-in, but since it's suppose to be social networking for professionals, this may have already happened.

Overall, it was a relaxing and thought provoking weekend. I hope to repeat it sometime in the near future.

Weekly Update

The courthouse was pretty disappointing today. Only 2 new listings for this week. I'll probably drop by again tomorrow since I'm taking the day off just to see if more pop up. I'm also going to try to visit another county's courthouse since I'll have the free time. If it goes well and I get a good feel for the lay of the land then I'll try to find a way to fit it into my weekly routine.

It's interesting to read about the various companies making plays in the market. Berkshire Hathaway just purchased 12-15% of two of these major railroad companies and are also rumored to be purchasing some of a hedge fund that took a huge hit from the sub prime market collapse. They're moving millions of dollars around like its a drop in the bucket. I suppose it is for them since their net worth is in the billions, but its just a hard concept to wrap your head around. When you compare conversations you have with people who would be happy for the rest of their lives with 3 million dollars, versus people who throws hundreds of millions around, its just a monumental context change. If you've got hundreds of millions of dollars then $10 for lunch really isn't a big deal anymore.

I finished the fight yesterday, which is why I'm having trouble writing and focusing today. Staying up a little late and waking up early to go to the courthouse is a dangerous combination. Luckily I'm done for the week after today so I'll have some time to recover.

I've been doing some work to try and make this blog more popular. I'm not sure what people want to read though, so if there are any topics or ideas someone reading this would like to hear my opion on or discuss, please feel free to email me or leave some comments.

Back in Action

So, I've been out at a training class for a week so I haven't been updating at all. A lot has happened since my last post on many fronts.

First off, I managed to do my weekly trip to the courthouse last Friday. Picked up a pretty substantial amount of leads since it had been two weeks since my last visit. This was great since I took the big plunge earlier in the week. I got over my qualms and made some calls to my potential investors. Some of them were duds, more real estate agents that weren't actually investors, but I found one who acts as a wholesaler. He is willing to split any sales profits with me 50/50, which was an unexpected but positive happenstance. So after I gathered my leads on Friday I emailed my collection to him. I didn't do the extra research this time since I'm not sure what information he wants. It seems the approach he takes is to send out letters to people and then work with whomever contacts him. I'm not sure if anything will come of this yet, but it's a nice feeling to think that there is a potential out there for my efforts to come to a profitable conclusion.

I ran into an older guy named Jim at the courthouse while I was there on Friday. He was looking at the foreclosures as well and does his own wholesaling thing. Apparently he normally goes to the courthouse near where he lives in Annapolis and every so often will make the trip out to Howard county. He gave me some advice about joining an REI and to hang in there and stick with it. I should have asked him more questions, but running into him caught me off guard. Maybe I'll run into him again, so we'll see.

I had not given any thought to going to other courthouses. The investor I talked to said that he use to go to the one in Baltimore and would get hundreds of hits each time. I'm not sure the frequency he went, but the idea sounds pretty good.

My current plan is to procure a laptop, which will greatly increase the speed I can copy down lead information, and then maybe try to find ways to hit up the other courthouses. It's hard to fit in time to do it around work, since they are open during normal business hours only, which is the same time I'm required to be at work.

I'd like to start working at home more, since that would eliminate commute time and give me some more flexibility. There seems to be some snags and grumbling about my training from last week and what budget to charge it to, so I'm currently keeping a low profile until whatever details are causing problems get ironed out. I'm hoping after a few solid work days back at the office things will be closer to back to normal. I guess I'll just wait and see.

At this point I'm happy with my current progress. I'd like to contact some more investors, solidify the information for my leads and then start adding other lead sources for the future goals. I'd also like to expand my operation to more than just me. I realize having investors that provide the capital and finish the purchase process counts as more than just me, but since I don't have an opportunity to do much during normal business hours, I need to find someone who can.

I'm also done with the GMAT. My scores weren't as high as I wanted but I am proud of my writing score of 5.5/6. I need to being the process of putting together all the information I need to actually apply to the schools. Plus there is still the matter of how to pay for it. Now that I'm back at the grind I guess I have more time to look into that.

Slippery Start

So today started poorly. As they say, what begins poorly can not end well.

Normally I go by the courthouse on Fridays and pick up leads for the week from the foreclosures. This week I ended up sleeping in later instead. I was going to get up early but then had some trouble falling asleep. When I finally did, I then ended up waking up at 5:30 in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep for an hour or so. That's when I made the executive decision to sleep as late as my body felt like sleeping rather than getting up early, since then I wouldn't be mentally exhausted all day, making work feel even longer than it is. Now I have to work till 6 to make up for it though. Which in a way, makes work seem longer anyway.

I feel like I've been taking a mental beating recently. Maybe it's more just the combination of taking on too many things at once. I've been doing background studying for the GMATs for three weeks now. I'll be glad to finally take the exam tomorrow and then be done with it. Also, I'm doing Remedy Admin training at work, which isn't difficult but just takes a lot of energy to stay focused and move through all the material. Ontop of that I'm doing miscellanious work items for both software groups so I have to keep jumping back and forth in focus. Beyond that, I have the jobber stuff that I need to make some process with. And ontop of all of that, I've been playing through the Phantasy Star series, watching US Open tennis and trying to keep up with Fantasy football.

This of course all points to me doing exactly what I said I need to not do in my last post. Spreading myself too thin.

So my plan going forward is to start chopping things off the list. First thing is the GMATs tomorrow, which will remove a big strain. Second, I can somewhat put on hold work stuff next week while I'm at Remedy Admin Training Part II, but I will most likely have to duck into the office in the after hours to keep up with what is happening. It'll be nice to be free of having to think of stuff to keep my mind occupied during work hours though, since that'll be taken care of by the class.

I guess I really need to focus on my sleep habits. A few hours here and a few there have really eaten away at me and made me lose focus. I need to whip that into shape while I take this class or I won't pick up on all the information I'll need to know.

Alright, I'm done for now. Have a good weekend.

Lead

So today I went for a driver around some of the local neighborhoods. I only came across one real lead so it was a little disappointing. I did manage to get a better feel for the lay of the land in those areas which is nice for the future.

I think I'll be better off going to the courthouse and exploring other potential lead sources there instead of driving around aimlessly hoping to stumble upon something. The courthouse is organized and has a pretty good flow of things coming in each day. I just need to find a time during the week to go and sift through some sources.

I also found another add in the classifieds, but I'm a little disappointed because it was only one. The guy who wrote the instructions for starting up said he found like 20 in one paper. Maybe it's because the market is taking a beating right now, maybe I'm just checking in the wrong papers, but it doesn't seem to be the case here.

In order to start preparing for the GMATs, which I'm taking in exactly 3 weeks, I stopped by the library and picked up some books. I started going through the first book and did the first sample parts to see where I will need to focus. My biggest trouble was the sentence completion but overall I did very good. Somewhat disappointing was the fact that the answer book had 2 mistakes. For some reason it thought that .03 was greater than .09. The other one said that the correct answer was that statement A only was sufficient when in the explanation is clearly said that both A and B were sufficient on their own. Oh well, at least it'll help get my mind thinking about the right types of questions and give me some practice to get in game shape by the time the real test comes along.

At this point I'm a little doubtful that I'll reach my goals for the week since I'm at 5 investor ads and 1 lead. That's alright though since now I have a better idea of the landscape of what I'm getting into. The big goal is to keep making steps towards shifting my routine to include taking actions towards my business each week and hopefully each day.