Nate Armstrong
Founder,
Calhoun Ventures
651-789-5386
The truth is, there is plenty of room in my business for unscrupulous people to make a quick buck. I must emphasize, though, that a quick buck can only be made once.
We live in a world where people know what Kim Kardashian ordered at a restaurant before the plate even gets to her table. Once your reputation is blackened, everyone will know it, and you’ll find yourself either digging yourself deeper and deeper into a hole looking for new innocents to con or mopping the floors at an IHOP.
I love real estate, I want to do it forever, and I can’t afford to do it without clients. To say nothing of my character, I believe that the best and most lasting way to earn someone’s trust is to genuinely deserve it.
Furthermore, real estate investors are smart, so there’s no sense in trying to gloss anything over for them. I open my books for my clients, show them every little thing about their investments and show them how they’re benefitting from my hard and honest work. In the rare instance where I make a mistake, I take the hit — no one else.
If you extracted every single moral fiber from my body, somehow turned me into the most fiendish charlatan who’d ever called himself a real estate man, I’d still know that there is no more effective way of moving around in my business than by being completely upfront with investors.
Integrity is such that it transcends personal values; it is objectively the best tool to earn clients’ trust, and therefore it is indispensable.
Craig Haskell
Founder,
Value Hound Academy
623-582-9766
If you are serious about growing your real estate business and taking it to the next level, at some point, you will need to leverage your business with investor capital, whether equity or debt. Yeah, you’re going to have to raise money from investors for your deals.
Here’s a little-known secret: Investors invest their hard-earned money because of you, not because of the property. While the property is important, the final reason they write you a check is because they believe in you and what you’re doing.
They trust you with their money because you are honest, truthful and operate with values based on integrity.
My first real estate syndication, in the mid ’80s, was a single-family house that we renovated with one equal-equity partner, where we made a significant profit. When we sold the house, we got a security deposit refund of $3.30 on our natural gas bill made payable to me. While it was a small amount, I wrote a check to my partner of $1.65 to cover his portion. It was the right thing to do, right?
Because of that act of integrity, this partner went on invest millions of dollars in my deals because he knew I was honest, trustworthy and a person with integrity.
If you can build a syndication business with honesty, transparency, trust and integrity, you’ll have lots of money chasing your great deals.
Leon McKenzie
Founder and Managing Partner,
US Probate Leads
877-470-9751
Every entrepreneur knows that integrity is the key to managing and growing any successful business. If someone is going to buy something that you are selling, they need to know that they can trust you.
Our business (providing probate leads for real estate investors and Realtors) is based on our ability to provide the timely information that our customers are seeking.
We provide data from more than 1,000 counties throughout the U.S. on a subscription basis, for folks seeking new, fresh, reliable leads for residential real estate. Our customer is someone who is seeking a lead source that is not being overworked by his peers.
This means that our business is predominately a word-of-mouth business. Investors come to us because they have heard from their friends and/or business acquaintances that we offer a reliable service in a niche market that no one else can provide.
We have built our reputation by making sure that we deliver what we promise and that we approach all of our business dealings with a high degree of integrity.
While our customers come to us because of our reputation as a vendor that always delivers what we promise, they remain our customers because they recognize that we approach every business transaction with the same level of integrity that we would expect if we were their customers.
What our focus on integrity has done for us is to help us build a business that has a great reputation and has been instrumental in our business growth.
0 Comments