Interested in business coach feedback!

[Chris D.]

HI BP'ers. 

I live in the DC area. I'm interested in buy and hold. I ran across a successful rehabber in the Baltimore area who had used a business coach....in fact he had more than 1. Has anyone had any experience with a paid business coach....as opposed to an unpaid mentor or a highly paid guru? Would love to hear some opinions and get referrals from successful investors who have used a business coach!

[Dev Horn]

There are "business coaches" that help you grow and manage your business in many ways and, particular to our business, there are "REI coaches" that teach you how to do real estate investing.  The "gurus" we speak of in here are not the real REI coaches, but rather the guys (often reality TV show people) that offer the late-night-infomercial hotel courses. We're not big fans of the gurus because what they offer is a crappy deal (not even talking about their unscrupulous way of getting people to pay for those courses with their 401Ks, etc.). Gurus often offer a few days of classroom training for a higher cost than a year of personalized REI coaching.

Now, do you need a "business coach" for your real estate investing business? Not sure what value they provide. They will not be teaching you how to do this business. My guess is most people who are new to this business would get the most value out of an "REI coach".

REI coaches are - in my opinion - a good deal if they offer a flat-rate, 1-year program.  I would never sign a deal that gives someone 50% of my deals in the future when I have no idea if they will even help me get those deals.  And after you've done a few, you don't need the coaches help, so why would you give him 50% on deals where he (or his staff) did little or nothing to help you score that deal.

REI gurus are NEVER a good deal.  NEVER.