Hi, I’m Phil Pustejovsky with freedommentor.com . I’m a full time real estate investor, real estate mentor to investors in communities across America and Canada, and in this blog, I’m going to share with you the all important topic of giving away business secrets. Even if you haven’t verbalized it before, almost everyone has thought about this at one point or the other, these principles of,” Should I give away the techniques, the strategies, the best tips that I’ve learned about my business ?”
Getting Rich in Real Estate
Real estate endowing is such a unique business because it’s broadcasted how good of a business it is. Undoubtedly you’ve possibly heard it from me before, but no doubt you might have seen infomercials about it, maybe you’ve heard of forums that are coming to town, and these principles of get rich from real estate, it’s as American as apple pie. I realized a newspaper clipping from the 1920 s where they were advertising how to get rich with real estate, come to the neighborhood inn and discover all about it. This is nothing brand-new, it’s been around for a very long time, this idea that someone can get rich from real estate, and there’s so many beings telling you about it.
Dry Cleaning Example
By contrast, let’s think about another business that does very well profitably in this country, dry clean. Do “you’ve been” meet forums on how to own your own dry cleaning firm? Have you ever heard of infomercials, how to start your own dry clean firm. You can discover out here, you merely announce this quantity here. Why real estate? Why is it so favorite to tell everybody about how good it is and then bring so many beings into the industry at all eras, so one only has this constant pour of new people? I don’t know, but it is a fact of this industry, and it is true that there’s so much opening in it, but we go back to this question, should you be giving away your business secrets.
In this blog what I want to do, is I want to explore this subject more with you, I want to share with you what my opinion is, and why that’s my opinion, but hopefully this subject is up for dispute. Hopefully there’s some communication below here in the form of the comments so we can go back and forth on this subject. It’s not just that there are seminars and there are infomercials about it, there are also societies in many of the major metropolitan areas, these real estate investor societies, where people get together and they system, and in a lot of cases, they share their mysteries with each other’s competitors, which I still have never understood, and I’m going to go back to this dry clean example. There aren’t these large-scale dehydrates cleaning firm societies in all these areas where they all get together and talk about how to make their dry clean company more efficient and tell all their competitors how it works.
Real Estate Clubs
They do that in the real estate business. At least they try to. I know when I firstly get started, I used to go to these societies, and I recollect as I was moved forward and progressed, and I started to learn some things, I recollect at one point imagine to myself,” I merely learned something actually, really helpful. Should I share that at the golf-club ?” Then I was talking to somebody at the golf-club the next time I was at a fulfill, and they asked me what happened, and I got a little loath like I didn’t want to tell them. Then I got the pressure.” Oh come on Phil. Come on, don’t be that person. Come on. You come to these club sees, we’ve shared so much with you, and now all of a sudden you learn something new and now you’re not going to share .” They said this,
” The More You Yield, the More You Get .”
Is that genuine? Is it the more business mysteries you give, do you get more back in return in business? I want to give you two examples. There’s a book announced Rework. It’s actually a terrific book written by the gentleman that started the company 37 Signals. 37 Signals is a software firm that has created such software products as Base Camp , they’ve created High Rise, and Camp Fire, and one more. Anyway, they’re these simple on-line tool that allow companies and teams to collaborate, and in fact, their software’s pretty nice, it’s pretty nifty. I used to be a user of their software, so hang in. I’ll tell you why I’m not in just a moment.
Rework
In the book Rework, the chaps that write the book are exceedingly, particularly insistent that you are able to give away your business secrets. In knowledge, “they’re saying”,” Oh come on. There’s no real secrets in business. Come on, grow up .” They practice what they proclaimed. They actually developed different languages called Ruby on Rails. They wrote a work on how to build a great application business just like them. They practiced what they proclaimed, and here’s what happened, a entire bunch of other adversaries came to the market, spate in there, learned exactly what they were doing because they put everything there is on display, and then there are now companies out there that render a better product at a less cost, and I went to one of them.
If you are the owner of 37 Signals and you’re watching this video, perhaps you have been able argue that because of all those concepts you’ve given away, your business has grown by leaps and bounds, but I know me personally, I left your company and I went to somebody else that was cheaper.
Enough Deals For Everyone ?
There’s another part to this and that is, whereas the application business, there’s a tremendous sum of possibilities because there’s so many different industries that you could sell to, real estate expending is a reasonably limited market. There is indeed a common phrase that you’ll discover around real estate investor clubs and this kind of happen that will say concepts like,” There’s enough treats to go around for everybody .” Do you believe that? There’s enough treats for everybody? Perhaps you do.
My experience doing millions of treats and working with parties all across the country and Canada, and I’ve been a part of as many or more real estate treats than anybody living on this planet right now as it relates to residential real estate investing. Maybe there’s somebody that’s about in the same scope as me, but I’ve done an ultimate bazillion of these concepts, and I will say this, it is a limited market. An sample of a product or service that entreaties to everybody would be like Amway. Amway, you can bring somebody in the business, and then you can have parties in your down cable, but what are you selling? You’re selling household pieces. You’re selling shampoo, you’re selling soap, cleanser, you’re selling beautiful concoctions, you’re selling concepts that perfectly apply to every single person.
The Answer
Motivated vendors, which is something that I focus on doing the creative slope of things, but even on the traditional slope where there’s foreclosures, or other auctioneers, or things that are potentially good deals, there’s a limited number of those. It’s not an unlimited number of treats. It’s a very small marketplace, so “what’s happened” is unlike, say software that could appeal to the masses, or Amway that could appeal to literally every human being, because everyone necessaries cleanser and those kinds of things, we’re dealing in a business that has a particularly, very limited market, and so therefore, there is a limited number of opportunities, and so there aren’t” enough treats to go around ,” in my opinion. You may disagree with me, but my own experience have proven it to be true.
Barrier to Entry
If you have a limited marketplace, then all the sudden, the insight is a little bit more valuable. Another key factor to real estate investing is the
- Barrier to entry: That is this concept of how difficult it is to get into the business.
- The impediment to enter in this business is knowledge.
- Some might reason it’s fund, some might argue it’s experience, I would reason it’s insight.
- You don’t even have to have your own funds.
- You could get access to fund from other sources if you are interested in even do deals that involve fund, or you could flip-flop the deals all different ways to monetize real estate asset possibilities, but I argue that the barrier to enter is, number one, insight
Knowledge
If the barrier to enter is knowledge, and then there is also a limited quantity. If these two factors are critical to this business, then I would argue that giving away business secrets can be detrimental. Not all secrets, because I think it can depend, but some secrets can be absolutely detrimental to your income.
You may be asking yourself,” Phil, what about you? What about your videos and books?”
I’ve had so many beings tell me that what they’ve learned from my free videos is more valuable than they have learned from all of their real estate investing routes, schooling, meetings compounded. From one perspective, am I talking out of both sides of my speak here? Not genuinely, because what I share is actually for a couple of purposes.
- Real estate investors have a bad name in service industries of real estate.
- We’re a loss to agents, shutting firms, mortgage agents.
- When beings in service industries of real estate hear real estate investor, they’re not always elicited to hear about that.
- Outside of exactly service industries, the overall general public at large, it’s not like they’re vast followers of real estate investors either.
- Whether it’s the person or persons that be considered that real estate investors were the cause of the real estate bubble explosion, or it’s the real estate investors that are greedy and making money off of poor old-fashioned females that need to get rid of their mansion.
Our Purpose
Bottom line is real estate investors don’t have a great name in the marketplace, but my argument is that we serve a very, very important purpose. I know it’s a limited supply, it’s a limited marketplace, but for the people that we serve, we serve a very important role. I think it’s honorable, and I think it’s an important part of the entire industry, but there’s been a lot of bad seeds. Not just dishonest people. I would argue the majority of bad seeds are very ethical, very honest, high level of integrity people, but they’re incompetent. They just don’t know what they’re doing, and so whether it’s because somebody had ill intent, or they just didn’t know what they were doing, the result is the same. When a deal goes bad, that’s yet another example of real estate investors name plummeting in the general public’s mindset.
Why I Share My Knowledge
Part of the reason why I share what I know, is because a lot of the stuff I share is to help people be better at this business. Whether I work with them or not, I see where if they get better, and what I share helps them become better business people, it makes us all look better. Does that make sense? I do have a method to my madness.
These videos are sharing secrets and techniques, in many cases, that help everybody, but those things that I do share, they’re not directly competing against me, because there’s a whole other level to this thing. The stuff I share on my videos is incredibly helpful and powerful, but there’s a whole new level, because a lot of the knowledge is actually gained as you’re in the field, you’re in the trenches, and then it’s when the questions come from the sellers, and the title companies, the real estate. All these things happen in the real world, what do you say, what do you do, how do you handle it? That’s when my apprentice program comes in.
Intellectual Property
The second reason why this knowledge is out there is because people watch these videos and some of them say, “Man this Phil guy knows what he’s talking about. I’d love to be mentored by him.” Certainly there’s that purpose as well, but the idea is that you want to be selective about the information you share, because it can be detrimental to your business, because I believe that intellectual property is real. Intellectual property is valuable. Intellectual property is important to business. Intellectual property.
What Are They?
- Trade secrets
- Patents Trademarks
- These are occasions that businesses developed further and has only one intrinsic significance. That could be like the Pepsi label, that could be the patent on a machine.
I believe that intellectual property rights is precious, and in real estate investing, the intellectual property rights are those business secrets that you detect when you’re doing the business, the hell is tremendously value, and those secrets, to me, do not need to be shared unless you are prepared for the fact that that what the hell are you share is going to get decimated out to the general public, and potentially who are able to induce all kinds of challenger for you.
Example
I want to give you a good example of that. I’m undoubtedly not the only one to have come up with this, but many years ago, I put out a video on how to find bargains applying Craigslist. Back when I applied that video out, the method used acted jolly damned well. There been a great deal of opportunity on Craigslist, but here’s what’s happened since then. If you fast forward to today, and you try to find real estate bargains on Craigslist, here’s what you’re going to discover. As soon as someone throws a home on Craigslist, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, they get like 10 reaches from investors. Here’s what happens to the homeowner. The homeowner is already a little bit concerned about selling their dwelling. Should they work with an agent, should they try to sell it on their own, what should they do? Here’s what they decide to do, they say,” Well before I work with an agent, let me exactly applied it on Craigslist and check what happens .” They applied it on Craigslist and then their phone is resounding off the hook.
They think, “Wow, this was easy. I already got 10 phone calls. Wow.” It actually causes a problem. It’s very difficult to find deals on Craigslist these days. Is it possible? Yes, it’s just a whole lot more difficult, so if I was to give away all my secrets, that wouldn’t help you either, because if I gave away everything for free, there would be so much competition, that it wouldn’t work. I know that some of you may not buy that, but I get that from time to time. I get these people that say, “Oh Phil, there you go. You won’t turn everything over. Now that you’re successful, you won’t help out the people that aren’t successful yet.” Whoa, whoa, whoa, yes I will, but only the ones that are committed, that are willing and ready to make it to the next level, and they get through my apprentice program, because if I gave it away to everybody, it wouldn’t work.
A Second Example
I got another example that’s kind of interesting. There’s a lot of real estate trainers out there, they use the phrase gurus. I don’t like to consider myself a guru. I’m a real estate mentor and a coach. I’m an investor myself. I’m investing everyday in the marketplace, but these guys will get up on stage, and they’ll just sell their courses. I was talking to this one person one time, he was a speaker, and I said, “Hey do you ever get concerned that you’re offering your program out there on this stage, and have you ever been concerned that someone’s going to buy it that lives in your own hometown?” This is what the person says to me. He says, “Oh yeah, I don’t worry about that stuff.” I said, “Well why not?” He said, “Well you know, because they’re probably not going to follow through.”
“Okay, so they’re not going to follow through, but what if they do? You’re banking on the fact that they’re going to buy your trainings, and then they’re not going to read them. That’s what you’re hoping for?” “Well no, I’m not hoping for that.” “Okay, but that’s what you just said, that they’re not going to follow through anyways.” “Well yeah, but if they follow through, it’s no big deal. There’s enough deals to go around.” I said, “Well you know that’s not true. There’s not enough deals to go around.” Anyways, this conversation just really went nowhere after awhile, and here’s what I discovered. When it’s all said and done, that person wasn’t doing deals in his own backyard. He wasn’t even doing real estate anymore. He was on the circuit full time selling his course, and he was just up on stages.
Be Careful
Now, I don’t let anybody into my program who is in my own area. I tell you what, it drives people nuts, because they’d love to be in my program and be in the same area as me. I don’t let them in because that would be crazy. I would give up my golden goose in my own hometown, so I practice what I preach. I’m very careful about what I share. How does this relate to you though? Here’s how it relates. When you get out there in the real world, there are going to be competitors that you meet with, real estate agents, contractors, mortgage brokers, other investors, and they’re going to want to know what you’re doing if you’re becoming successful.
I know that it’s not popular. I understand that it’s not going to make them happy, but I believe that it’s better off that you are very particular and careful about what secrets you share with people that are right there in your own hometown, those that you are competing with in the marketplace because you’ve got to be careful. This is a business that is based on knowledge, and that intellectual property that you gain, that you discover, whether it’s through your experiences, deals you’ve done, that’s valuable. In order for you to maintain that level of success, the less people that are doing exactly what you discovered, the better. Does that make sense?
Conclusion
I understand this is a bit of a controversial subject, but I figure hit it head on here in a blog like this, because it’s something that gets brought up a lot to me and I want to make sure that everybody understands where I’m coming from and why I do what I do, because it makes total logical sense once I’ve laid it out the way I have here, and that is you’ve got to be very careful with what you share and the secrets that you give away. There are going to be certain secrets that if you give them away, they help everyone, and that helps you as well. I talk about that. A lot of stuff I share, including this video, it’s going to help everyone become better investors and it’s going to help us all get a better name in the marketplace.
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