Cold Hard Truth: Learning From Dragons Den’s Kevin O’Leary On Business, Money And Life Part 18

October 21, 2011

Best of all, in working with these investors regularly it’s almost inevitable you’ll start learning their investing strategies.  You also have the great benefit of learn from your investor clients’ errors without losing money yourself.  Most people learn by example and many a real estate sales person has gone on to become a full time real estate investor.  These real estate sales people get an edge on investors by having and keeping their real estate license because they can often find out about new property listings on MLS several days before the public can know about them.  This allows them to capitalize on many more great buying opportunities than the general public gets.

“There are tons of books on how to have a happy marriage.  But keeping your business partnership healthy is an equally important goal, because it’s a direct reflection of the health of the company … Find someone whose strengths are precisely your weaknesses.  Have very little overlap … Amongst the three of us (who ran The Learning Company) there were simply no gaps in the armor.  We rarely made mistakes.  Sales, marketing, finance, operations – we had it covered.  As a team, we were brilliant and envied.” – from Cold Hard Truth

Over 80% of people who start out in real estate fail and leave the business within the first two years.  I believe that number would be a lot lower if more of these people started out with business partners rather than trying to go it alone.  Some broker/owners will disagree with me because they think one partner always does more than the other (especially in sales) and therefore conflicts are bound to happen.  O’Leary makes a compelling case for the value of the right partnership.

In Cold Hard Truth O’Leary states that all of his successful business ventures were partnerships.  Few people have most of or all the traits necessary for success in real estate, so only 1 in 5 makes it in the long run.  So even if you have been in the business for years you should still consider taking on a partner even now.  Think about the things about your business you procrastinate working on – those are the things you’re probably weakest at.  Try to find someone at your brokerage or another sales rep you’ve worked with who is strong in those areas where you’re weak.

Filed under: Inspiration

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