How To Avoid Real Estate Investing’s "ATM Syndrome"

Whenever you use an ATM machine, and key in your passcode, the money you receive comes automatically, but you had to work to earn that money in the first place..

That’s a common misconception by the majority of investors out there who constantly buy into money making systems month after month. Hopping from one business opportunity to another, never settling down to focus on doing just one thing great. Because that’s the type of behavior that causes many to fail before they ever really begin. Let’s talk about some of these programs for a second so that you can know exactly where I’m going with this, and how you can avoid one of the ATM syndrome in your real estate investing business to create long-lasting wealth and financial freedom.

No Selling
I’m sure you’ve seen the great business ideas and opportunities on late night TV and Google ads all across the internet that swear to you that you won’t be doing any selling. Personally, I hope you have never believed that it’s possible. A “no selling” proposition is a job. That’s a teacher or a firefighter type of position. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being either of these – in fact, it’s quite honorable. But, if you are going to create wealth in any type of industry, as your own boss, setting your own hours, you are going to have to be selling something. How else would you generate income?

“No Selling” speaks to many people because they fear that selling is the hard part. It’s approaching someone in person, by the phone, or via the internet and grabbing their attention. It’s fighting through all of the negative connotations they have of salespeople because of how many times they have been approached before. It’s actually presenting something where you can create a sense of value and need. It’s closing a deal. As you can now imagine, this is a process that not many people are comfortable putting themselves through. It’s not an overly difficult process, but it does take a certain amount of skill to be successful.

Earn $20,000 in a Month or More
I’m not saying it’s not possible. But, let’s say you’re starting right now from scratch. You have a job and you only have a few extra hours a day to invest into growing your own home based investement business. So, you follow the steps to real estate investing and building a business around it and you can see some things start to work. You got a nibble from a prospective buyer who was just “window shopping”. You get a few more bites. You start to wonder how you can transfer those nibbles into sales. So, you take some time and go back through some things you’ve learned about business and real estate. In a month, you haven’t made any money.

What went wrong? Well, there are many factors to consider when answering that question. What were you selling? Sit back and think reasonably if what you were selling ever had the potential of delivering $20,000 in a month. Real estate can easily deliver that amount every month and much more. But, you can’t expect that kind of return if you’re selling something in a niche market like vintage ads, or ink jet printers. And you won’t get much money at all if you’ve invested into a scam and now you too are unknowingly trying to peddle it. Honest ventures, when lead correctly, make honest money and tend to stick around for a long, long time.

So, Back to the ATM
In order to make yourself a great deal of money, you have to forget the fact that it’s going to be easy and it’s going to be completely automatic. Real estate is a big beast that will eventually turn all of your efforts into money easily and nearly automatically. But, you have to get there first. You have to discover some of the basic tenets of marketing and the art of selling. You have to learn the ins and outs of the type of real estate niche you want to dominate. And you have to accept the fact that it’s not going to happen overnight.

Investing into a system that has promise also comes with responsibility. You have to be responsible to yourself – after all, at the end of the day, your report card will be the check you deposit into your bank account from the closing company, or that new pile of equity added to your networth. I know of plenty of people who have put their hard earned money into learning how to make money only to give up after a few weeks because it wasn’t producing any results. They thought that because they had bought into the system that they were guaranteed results. And they stepped in with both feet and high expectations. Honestly, if you were to quit anything in just a few weeks or a few short months, you won’t get anywhere.

Moreover, 92% of all investors quit within their first 90 days of starting out, so you’d just become another statistic.

Here are a few simple steps to prevent that from happening to you. First off, Make a list on paper of the goals that you have right now. Look at them realistically. How much time and effort do you think it will “really” take to achieve your goals? You want to be a millionaire in a year? I’ve seen it happen. So then, how are you going to make it happen?

Getting rich overnight is a pipedream and anyone who has that expectation should reevaluate themselves.

But, getting rich in a short amount of time is not a problem. It depends on how well you learn real estate, and how well you consistently apply that specialized knowledge. It depends on how much focused effort you are willing to give. If you don’t have much time after work and you don’t want to take too much time away from your family, then focus. Make every second count when you are working on your business. Maximize your efforts and get smart.

Investing in a home based business like real estate investing with all the tools to properly run it is not a proposition that includes having an ATM machine delivered to your front door. It will be very rewarding once you have put yourself through the system, followed the steps and actually learned how it works. And- when you follow through consistently, week after week, and month after month, it will be very rewarding to you in a rather short amount of time.

It’s one of those tricky perception deals.

Right now, it seems so far away. But one day, perhaps in the next 93 days – or a full year from now - you’ll be looking back on it and saying to yourself it wasn’t that hard In summary, patience and persistence are qualities you need to embrace and continually practice as you begin or continue your real estate investing career.

Finally, wealth creation isn’t a one time thing where you can key in a secret passcode, and the money automatically flows into your hands, approach the business strategically and recognize that your consistent efforts will payoff handsomely.

Brad Wozny
Founder, www.INSTANTRealEstateSolutions.com™
Creator, 7 Figure Profits™

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