Business is a very funny thing sometimes. You can work with a seller for months, only to have them end up going in another direction. You can also get a new lead while you wait to pick up a pizza on a Friday night. Your marketing and networking efforts go a long way in determining the amount of new leads you bring in, but there is always room for the surprise lead if you put yourself in the right place at the right time. If you remember this on every deal, especially the ones you don’t get, you may just end up getting a few extra deals every year.
Rejection is a big part of the investing business. If you work with a mailing of a few hundred people, only a few will even call you. Out of those few, you may end up with only a handful of appointments. Out of those appointments, you may only get to make an offer on one property – which very well may be rejected. The point is – even though you like a property and put the time in, you will end up on the wrong side of the deal more often than not. If you can handle this rejection well, even after months of work, your reward just might be a referral from an impressed seller, realtor or attorney.
The flip-side, on the other hand, is overreacting after things go sour, throwing a fit and taking an aggressive approach with everyone in the deal. Just because you put the time in doesn’t mean you will get the property. For as much as you may gain by handling things well after disappointment, you can do irreversible damage by handling them badly. People within an investing area talk. If you continue to act irrationally, word will travel to attorneys and realtors. They will not want to work with you on deals. If there are two equal offers, you can be sure that yours will not be the one selected. It is not always easy to control yourself after months of work, but you need to look at the big picture and not make things worse.
Business relationships can be forged at a relative’s wedding that you didn’t want to go to just as easily as a networking meeting. Every time you meet people, wherever it is, you really don’t know who they know. The person you strike up a conversation with at your kids little league game could own four investment properties and has been looking to sell for a few months. There are many examples of chance meetings resulting in business partnership. You don’t necessarily need a partnership, but you can find deals wherever you are and whomever you are speaking with. Oftentimes, the people who drive ordinary cars or are working in different fields are the ones who own properties. Deals can come from anywhere. If you take this approach day in and day out, you will find more deals falling on your lap. Other people may say that this is luck, but if you treat people nicely, you put yourself in position to get these deals. The next time you lose a deal, keep in mind that you may have lost one but don’t make the situation worse by overreacting.
