What's the Plan?!?!

When we first decided to be real estate investors we thought "This will be so easy! Market, sign a contract, go to closing, GET PAID!" But we eventually learned that it's not as cut and dry as that. Yes, those are the basics that you need to have in place and make sure are involved in every transaction, but we were naïve to think there wouldn't be any more than that. People want to know what you do, who you are, what you stand for, how and why you are going to help them, and so much more.

One of the biggest, most helpful things you can do is build a business plan. It can be a long process but you'll see that in the end it's one of the best investments of your time you will ever make! Early on we made attempts to write it on our own and to be honest with you it did not go well. We got frustrated, got in fights, didn't know what to include, didn't know what to leave out, didn't know who we were writing it for (ourselves, for people to invest in our company, our clients, etc.) - it was a MESS!

At that point we decided to find some help and guidance. Lucky for us - you can find anything online! After doing a search for business plan templates and review many of the options that popped up, we decided on using www.LivePlan.com from Palo Alto Software. What a tremendous help! It has everything broken down into sections and has helpful tips and descriptions to help you understand what each section should contain.

So if you are just starting to build your investment business (and yes, no matter what kind of investing you are doing you should treat it as a business - trust me it makes it so much easier on yourself) we highly recommend starting with getting your business plan in place so that you can stay organized and be able to answer any question about your business without hesitation.