Cold Hard Truth: Learning From Dragons Den’s Kevin O’Leary On Business, Money And Life Part 17

October 19, 2011

You are much better off bringing your farm area and your real estate expertise to the forefront of your branding rather than you personally.  It’ll make your business sell much easier and for more money when you retire or decide to do something else for a living.  After all, the law of diminishing returns applies as much to people as it does to economics and business.  Venture capitalists know that, and that’s why they have an exit strategy from the beginning for any venture capital investment they make.

“I was in a hotel room in Vancouver when (O’Leary’s educational software company) SoftKey went public.  The moment the first share traded and multiplied, I realized, “Wow, as the company’s biggest shareholder, I’m now rich.”  I was a millionaire, at least on paper, and that lit a fire inside me that made me work even harder, because I now had shareholders who wanted to be rich along with me.  Having shareholders is an incredible incentive to grow a company from a million in sales to a billion.  Getting rich feels like joy.  A hot burst in the heart.   But when you realize you’re also able to make other people rich, that’s an almost indescribable high.” – from Cold Hard Truth

A great way for real estate professionals to get this emotional high O’Leary describes is by working with real estate investors.  Associating and doing business with a real estate investor is far more valuable than working with a normal home buyer or seller.  Real estate investors buy and sell far more properties than regular people.  As buyers the more experienced investors are far easier to work with than normal home buyers because the best ones often have a single investing strategy and follow it religiously.  If you understand their investing criteria and can regularly provide them with properties fitting their criteria you’ll sell them a remarkable number of properties over time.

Filed under: Inspiration

Tags: angel, capital, den, Dragon, investor, shark, startup, tank, venture