Successful people are not as unique as we would like to think they are. They possess in them shared qualities that propel them to the top. Much is true when it comes to the private lending space. In this episode, host Keith Baker lets you in on these qualities of successful private lenders that you can easily have. In fact, they are very universal. He lists four key traits that you can take to your practice and rise among them. So pull up a chair and pour yourself a nice drink. This insightful episode is for you.
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If you're looking for practical tips and advice on being a successful private lender and building wealth without banks or Wall Street, then you're in the right place. If you want to learn from my mistakes so that you can avoid them, pull up a chair and pour yourself a nice stiff drink because this is for you. This topic was made possible from one of the free coaching calls I conducted. I want to thank everyone who took the time to email me with their questions and taking the time to set up an interview and web meeting and letting me help them define their lending criteria and answer questions or put some fears that they had at bay.
I want to give a big thank you to Steve, who made this episode possible. This was one of his questions that he asked me towards the end of the call. I thought it was a good topic to discuss. What Steve asked me was, “What are the three key traits of a successful private lender?” I, fortunately, was able to write down and go back to my responses and I refined them a little bit so that I could provide them to you. As I was prepping, I came up with a fourth trait but it is not specific to private lenders, but I think the human condition in general, so I figured let's get started with that.
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Our topic is the four key traits of successful private lenders. That first universal trait is self-awareness. I know that seems hokey and some gurus pounded on that, but it is very true. Learn who you are. It's good to know your strengths and your weaknesses. It's good to know where you excel in situations. Is it the analysis of looking at a deal? Is your weakness dealing with people? It used to be one of mine. That's why I joined Toastmasters to be able to speak to sellers ideally. It's helped me immensely with private lending. Being able to sit down and be honest and say, “I'm not so good at this.” I am not so good at record-keeping and that's why I love using escrow services or loan servicing companies because they take care of all that stuff for me.
If you do everything yourself, you need to go ahead and file your 1098 mortgage statements, get the statements with the IRS and provide those to your borrowers if you haven't done that already. Knowing where are your strengths, your weakness, what makes you comfortable and what makes you uncomfortable is also a very good thing to know about yourself and how you respond in those situations. Usually, for me, something that is uncomfortable, I try to push forward a little. Not necessarily loan on that, but if I'm in some due diligence and I feel a little worried, I note that I stop, but at the same time I go back and re-evaluate and say, “What is it about this that gives me a bad feeling?”
That's one example of using self-awareness to know where you're going to be. Are you comfortable with lending to people? Are you comfortable putting your money out there? Are you comfortable with learning the process and getting your hands dirty? Would you rather have more of a franchise model? They show you how to make the sandwiches, provide you everything to make the sandwiches and then help you sell the sandwiches. That's not just for private lending. I'm using private lending and real estate investment examples, but it's a good place to start with...
