Ron Nedd

Morning and night at the same time.

Last week I was out at just the right time, about 6:30 in the morning...

..and I just had to take these photos to show you what I saw.

Morning was just arising to east - the sun coming up, ready to start its day...

While night was heading off to bed - the moon still proudly glowing to the west, just ending its shift.

A contrast of light and darkness, colors and blacks, seen with just a turn of the head.

One of the perks of starting my day early...in addition to getting way more work done.

"Surf's up"

On my 5K last week I passed by a surf shop on Clearwater Beach that had a cool-dude, shark surfer statue outside.

It reminded me of my friend, Michael Stephen Wilson, who is now in Hawaii for a month to prove a point.

He's planning to surf every day while still running his business and making passive recurring revenue through online marketing.

Proving the point that you can make money at a good level while also enjoying life.

That you don't have to be trapped by set hours or having to be in a specific location.

I'm looking forward to hearing about and seeing photos of his trip as he progresses through November.

Especially since I'm working toward that in my own life.

Financial security AND freedom of time and location.

"Not because I have to"

The choice I had this morning came down to the battle between comfort and ambition.

Do I really want to achieve the goals I'm working toward no matter how much time and energy it will take?

Or would I rather take the easy way? The comfortable way?

That was the decision I had to make early this morning.

Our monthly fitness program, called GRIT, begins on the 4th of the month and ends on the 31st.

From the 1st thru the 3rd, we don't really have a workout laid out for us.

Meaning we have 3 days of 'a break'.

Yesterday, I did take the day off.

But today is Wednesday and for the past 4 Wednesdays that meant it was 5K day.

And I don't like to skip my 5K days.

I woke up at about 4:45 after a pretty good night's sleep and thought it would be nice to get another hour or so of sleep.

Do I really want to get up and do a 5K when I don't have to?

No one will know if I don't.

There's no team I'd be letting down.

No one to report to.

Our coach, CJ Thomas, wouldn't know.

It really just comes down to me and what I want most.

I could just stay in bed until 'normal people hours'.

I don't have to go out at 5:30 in the morning in the heat and humidity.

Just like I don't have to work as hard as I've been working to build the type of business and life that I really want.

But, the bottom line is that I'm the one who's responsible to hold myself accountable.

To travel the path and persist despite whatever gets in the way.

I can get help from others - but it still comes down to me in the end.

I don't have to do a lot of the things that I do.

I don't have to get up early in the morning to get my workouts done.

I don't have to spend my time learning skills that are new - going through the discomfort of feeling stupid while I get through the learning curve.

I don't have to spend those extra 2 hours, or 10 hours, or 20 hours to achieve higher quality - when I could have settled at 'good enough'.

I don't have to do a workout on any of the 3 'off days' each month.

But I choose to, because I know that doing those things are the only way I will ever get the life that I want to have.

Which means, in the end, it's up to me.

In other words, it's always my choice.

And that's really good news.

"I'm Not Selling to a 'Company' That Uses "btw".

If you don't know how to handle the fallout from being in a negative reputation industry, you'll have a hard time making it in real estate.

Either as an investor or as an agent.

I get this reinforced for me every day of the week from conversations with home sellers who reached out to Virginia House Partners for help selling their homes.

Some have hidden concerns.

Some are upfront with what they've heard or read about investors.

Then there was the bizarre one that happened yesterday.

It started out as merely strange, but went downhill from there.

There were 5 seller leads that came in yesterday. This one arrived around 2:00 in the afternoon.

But the address that I got for the property this seller wanted help with was in Pennsylvania - which is weird because our ads are only for VA properties.

Not only that, the address given didn't come up on Zillow or any other online portal, and didn't even come up on a standard Google search.

Looked like the address didn't exist.

So instead of sending the standard reply, I started by asking this person to confirm the address.

Turns out the street name was misspelled.

Once I got the right spelling I was able to find the property online.

But then I saw it wasn't in PA. It was actually in VA.

I confirmed that with the prospective seller and then sent him the standard first message to get him to fill out the info we need.

That's when it got bizarre.

Rather than try to explain it to you, let me show you his next 4 text messages:

"Never mind you can cancel all of this."

I found a real person to sell to."

"I'm not selling to a "company"that uses "btw" "

"And I looked you up in the bbb website ur not legit" "

================================

When I saw that come in my train of thought went like this:

"What the f*ck is he talking about?"

"Who has a problem with someone using 'btw' in a text? And then uses 'ur' but is okay with that?"

"A real person? Like I'm not? Didn't he notice that I asked him specific questions related to confirming his address? Not something a bot could/would do? And on a Sunday, no less."

"What is he talking about on the BBB site?"

I had no idea what the BBB site said about Virginia House Partners, so the next thing I did was go look.

What I found was that Virginia House Partners has an A+ rating on the BBB site.

He lied!

I was pi**ed at this point (not a very productive reaction on my part) but a real one.

Fortunately, I knew better than to mishandle the communication because of my reaction.

But...

I also wasn't going to let it slide.

He needed to be called out on what he said about us not being 'legit'.

Ryan Fletcher has taught me in the past that I need to use media to show people what I want them to understand. Rather than just telling them.

This includes 3rd-party proof when trying to prove or disprove something that affects the decision to work with us.

Basic marketing principles.

So here's what I did...

I texted him back with a screenshot of what I found on the BBB site (see the image here - showing an A+ rating).

Calling him out on his bulls .

"You mean this BBB website? The one at www. bbb.org where you can look up Virginia House Partners in Woodbridge, VA...

I'll honor your request above and cancel anything further on our end."

You can probably tell I was still a little pi**ed.

But here's the thing...

I kept everything civil and polite.

While STILL calling him out on his bull.

Then I changed his record in our system so that we would never contact him again.

At that point, I took my attention off of this bizarro exchange and started working on responding to the next person requesting help.

Funny thing...

He didn't just ignore me or slink away.

He replied to my text with this:

"Sorry I've been scammed to many times and didn't want to take a risk if it's okay we can continue the process."

Good for him.

And continuing with the process is exactly what we did.

This is a perfect example of how this Negative Reputation Industry fallout works.

And how en ethical investor can win despite it.

One of the 3 Fundamental Reasons people don't work with you (i.e. Sellers won't sell to you) is that They Don't Believe You (i.e. they don't trust you).

My friend and mentor, Ryan Fletcher, explains why this makes your job so much harder:

"YOU ARE HATED BEFORE YOU ARRIVE.

DISTRUSTED BEFORE YOU SPEAK A WORD…"

And that's why...

I'm spending so much time studying marketing.

To be able to counter the negative reputation assigned to us because of what others in the industry have done or are doing.

There's no getting around the negative reputation.

Ignoring it or wishing it didn't exist doesn't get the results we want.

But knowing that it exists.

Knowing how to handle it.

And providing a superior level of service.

Gives me a leg up over our competition.

So, here's the deal...

There are problems and barriers in any business.

And in any attempt to better your life.

Dealing with the negative reputation that comes with being in this industry has to be viewed as just another problem to solve.

A barrier to overcome.

One that can be beat with the proper use of the proper tools of marketing.