7 Secrets to Success

Seven Secrets to Success

By Dennis Henson

Over the last forty five years I have held in my mind the dream of owning and running a profitable business. I have invested many dollars and a great deal of time--studying some of the world’s greatest business minds. During my life I have experienced many failures but in the past decade I have had the good fortune to achieve some very rewarding success.

To what do I attribute my success? I believe that all business and other successes have some things in common. Successful people have discovered and developed certain principles that lead to their success. I call these principles “The Seven Secrets to Success”

Anyone who fails to make use of even one of these principles will either fail outright or at least have a very high chance of failing. But those who have chosen and will choose to put all these seven powers to work for them—will not only become successful but will probably also become leaders in their industry.

So what are these Seven Secrets of Success? Here they are…

1. Get Your Mind Right

2. Seek Wisdom

3. Develop Skills

4. Make Detailed Plans

5. Take Massive Action

6. Form Great Alliances

7. Be Persistent

Let’s look at each of them—one by one.

The first powerful Success Secret is to “Get Your Mind Right”! A right mind believes that it is on the right path and that success is at the end of that path. It believes with conviction that its goals are reachable and that those goals will be attained.

Like Henry Ford once said--“If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right!”

A right mind is open to new ideas and ways of doing things and is open to receive the answer to problems from an infinite source. Just as the oxygen, needed for life, is invisible--it is available in great abundance for all to use and prosper. So too are the answers to all the problems that present themselves.

And finally the most important part of this first Secret is to have--as Napoleon Hill called it—a “Burning Desire” to succeed.

If you seek to become successful—you will find it very useful to develop a burning in the pit of your stomach to do this thing—and to imagine the successful outcome and hold that vision in the front of your mind all the times.

You must be willing to do what ever it takes within reason to reach this goal. Absent this “Burning Desire--the chances of success are minimal at best. Without this yearning—when life throws obstacle after obstacle in your path--you will find that you will not have the needed stamina to withstand the pressure to give up.

Secret number two is to “Seek Wisdom”! Seeking wisdom means spending time reading books, watching DVD’s and listening to CD’s while riding in your car rather than music or talk radio. It means attending seminars, workshops, and classes and taking webinars and courses. And it means seeking out the leaders in your industry as mentors to help you through the pitfalls that lie ahead.

Ten years from now you will be ten years older but will you be ten years wiser? Those who continually seek wisdom become better, smarter, bolder, and gain the respect of their peers. Seeking wisdom by itself does not guarantee success but for those who fail to—mediocrity and failure will most likely be their destiny.

The Third Secret is Developing Skills. In order to become successful in any business or sport there are certain skills that must be mastered. Understanding what skills are necessary and learning to master them are the next steps on the road to success.

For the Real Estate Investor there are five major skills that must be mastered to become successful. I call these the “5 M's of Real Estate Investing”. Here they are:

Mining
Money
Maintenance
Marketing
Managing

"Mining" means searching for and finding really good real estate deals. Anyone can find a property to purchase as there are thousands of them in the MLS, newspapers, at auctions and For Sale By Owners. But in order to become a successful real estate investor you must develop the skill of not just finding a property to purchase but finding a "golden nugget" (a really good deal).

What is a really good deal? It is a deal that will almost guarantee an exceptional return on an investment of money and time.

Are these really good deals hard to find? No – they are relatively easy to find--once you have developed the Mining skill.

There are many books and CD's on the market that clearly detail techniques that can be used to locate and purchasing good investment properties.

Some of those include:

Realtors
Sellers Ads in Papers and on the Internet
Your Ads In Papers & Internet
Auctions
Foreclosures
Short Sales
Real Estate Owned By Banks (REO)
Sale By Owner (FSBO)
Empty Homes
Builders
Wholesalers

All of these techniques work--but by focusing on them and practicing to improve, you should start to develop the “Mining” skill needed to move you toward success.

The second skill I call "Money". Money means finding the funding to purchase the real estate deals you found while developing the Mining skill.

Unless you have an endless supply of money it will be necessary to develop the “Money” skill of always having a good supply of funds. This is the part the guru's don't tell you and where many new investors stumble. It is harder to find the money to purchase the great deals than it is to find them unless your have the “Money” skill. Some sources of money may be found from:

Banks
Credit Unions
Mortgage Companies
Credit Cards
Private Lenders
Partners
Home Sellers
Cosigners

Reading books and listening to training courses will help you get started, but to truly develop this skill it takes practice and the willingness to go out and fail over and over again. Failing is always a part of skill development and successful people have all had their share of failing on their way to success. The “Money” skill must be worked equally as hard as Mining for deals.

The “Maintenance” can be by far the easiest of the 5 M skills. It is the skill needed to get an investment property ready to market. The skill involves finding the right people to do the work, do it correctly and do it affordably. It's as simple as finding a good and honest contractor and training him or her to do what you want the way you want it and you have it.

The forth skill—Marketing--is also critical to the success of real estate investing business. You must learn how to rent, sell or lease option the property quickly. Learn quickly and move the property quickly. A real estate investment sitting unoccupied for any time at all can and will put a dagger in your chances of success. This skill of marketing is one that simply cannot be overlooked. You must learn to market the property yourself for just turning this important part of your investment to a realtor or agent to handle could be a very big mistake.

"M" number five is the skill of managing the investment property. Next to the Money M this one is usually the most difficult skill to master. Not because it is the hardest to learn but because many investors just don't spend the time and effort necessary to learn how to manage their investment properties. Some gurus recommend that from the very start all properties should be managed by a property management company. That sounds like a good plan. Just find a company that will take your one or two properties and put them at the top of their list over their customers with twenty to fifty properties. Good Luck!

Here is the "wake up and smell the coffee" truth. For all parties concerned--YOU need to learn all the aspects of property management. And do so before you even consider whether you want to manage the properties yourself or farm out this very important part of your success to someone else. The real estate gurus are split on this issue but by learning and doing it yourself before you decide--you can't lose.

The forth powerful Success Secret is to “Make Detailed Plans” Time is the most important thing in your business as well as your life. In order to make the best use of your time you need to spend some of it making plans.

“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” Jim Rohn

Making plans will get you to where you need to go so plan your day, your week, your month, your quarterly, your year, five years, and even 10, 20 and 30 years. Make a plan for each and every area of your life.

Failing to make plans won’t get you anywhere but is one of the most important project management techniques. It is essential to achieving your business and personal goals.

Planning makes you accountable and allows you to see how much you have progressed and how far you still need to go. Knowing where you are is essential for making good decisions about what to do next.
A good plan clearly lays out your goals, objectives, and time lines. A detailed plan will outline each of the steps you need to take to achieve your goals and will include strategies to follow to carry out the steps.

Planning gives purpose, direction and coordinates efforts. If you do not have a detailed plan much of your time will be wasted on unimportant things that are not moving you toward your goal. Detailed planning provides power and control over the obstacles that life is sure to place in your pathway.

Detailed plans will provide you with ways to measure your progress. Without this plan how can you know if you're making progress? Plans help you focus and give you clarity even though your business is hectic and your schedule is tight. And also having detailed plans will give you confidence. When you know what you want and how you plan to get it builds character and gives you the authority that leads to success.

Remember that of each hour you spend planning you will receive the equivalent of three to four hours in solid production. So don’t wait! Start planning today and every day. Planning will put you on the pathway to overwhelming success in your business and in your life!

Success Secret number five is to “Take Massive Action”! Massive action means that if you had planned to view ten potential homes to purchase--this week and the sun is shining and you don’t have the flu—you go out and see forty or fifty homes.

And--massive action means--if you had planned to view ten houses, this week and it’s raining and you don’t feel well or have the flu—THEN you still go and see ten houses.

Taking massive action means that you do the things that average people refuse to do! If you want to become successful being average is not an option. You have to do MORE than your competitors and do things that other people don’t do.

This action will move you ahead of others. So set yourself some goals and do just reach them—blow then away.

If you set a goal then reach that goal that’s taking action, but to take massive action means to go way past your goals. THAT”S MASSIVE ACTION! If you know you need to make forty offers to purchase an investment home—then make fifty or sixty.

Remember—most people will reject this secret but if you want to become successful you will not be one of them--you will start taking massive action today.

The Sixth Secret of Success is to “Form Great Alliances”! I don’t know of any other business where you can get a great number of people to work for you and someone else pays them for there work. There are entire industries set up to support Real Estate Investors and these businesses train their employees to help investors become successful. All you need to do is find them and convince them to become a part of your team.

Successful people did not become successful by themselves. They had a lot of help and if you want to be successful you will need to make ‘Forming Great Alliances” a part of your overall plan.

The last but certainly not the least important of the secrets is to “Be Persistent”.

As U.S President Calvin Coolidge once said…

“Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence.

Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

A big part of becoming a successful real estate investor is learning to deal with failure. You must be willing to fail and try and fail and try again over and over. Successful investors simply refused to let failing get in the way of their journey to success.

Real estate investors are going to be turned down many times and not just from sellers but from Realtors, banks, mortgage companies, private lenders and others. There will be cash flow problems, and unmeet deadlines, foundation issues, bad plumbing, improper wiring, city codes, renters who will not pay and a great number of other obstacles that get in the way of success.

I have had many students come and tell me that they couldn’t get a loan from a bank. So I asked them “How many banks did you ask? And my students will say one or two and will say to them “Go and ask 98 or 99 more and then come back and let me know how you did!

You need to be persistent! When you are knocked down you just have to stand up dust your pants off and get back to being persistent. That’s what will make you successful. It is hard to stop a person with that attitude.

There are many thousands of examples of successful business people who refused to fail.

Thomas Edison filled more than 40,000 pages with notes before he finally had a bulb that withstood a 40 hour test in his laboratory. He tested more than 1600 materials before reaching his goal of a commercially feasible electric light. Edison knew that he had to be willing to fail over and over before he could become successful. His persistence brought him great success, fame and fortune.

But persistence is elusive--you can only remain persistent if you are properly motivated and to become that motivated you need to have deep and burning reason for why you want to achieve or success.

If you know why you’re doing what you’re doing, your energy level will remain high and you will not be easily deterred.

So here are the Seven Secrets of Success in Real Estate Investing.