Ways To Protect Your Short Sale Business

[Nick J.]

Recently, most of you are aware, I got struck a deadly blow to my short sale business. When I say I literally spend a majority of my day(not including being a father to 5 and a husband to a very supportive wife) I am not exaggerating one bit.

In this post: 4 Lessons in Short Sales

You can easily see some of the critical errors I made by allowing someone to screw me and my business royally. That's not what this post is about. This post is about important lessons that I've learned since then.

If you think your business isn't a constant learning experience, your very very wrong. Fortunately, I've got the deeply rooted experience and knowledge that no matter how bad it may get for me, I've learned enough to always get back up and be a rockstar.

Most recently, my realtor and I have had communication issues with our new negotiators. Its something I like to call a work in progress. Ultimately, I hope things smooth out.

My realtor and I realized something today though that we've talked about before but never realized the solution until today. We took action. This action will literally not only save my business but will also 'Protect' your business if you do the same thing.

Don't follow my advice and think you're immune to these issues, suffer the possible consequences that face you as I have already.

To make a successful short sale business, you must systematically have an organized process in which things happen. This way, everything you and those on your team are easily handled, controlled, maintained and whatever else term you could use.

Realistically, as the short sale investor, your job is to produce profits while quarterbacking the show. Making sure all the players do their job and having a back up plan.

First things first.

Again, this is not a one man show. You simply cannot or at least should not be solely responsible for everything that happens. When I first started doing this, I literally marketed to sellers, negotiated the deals, found the end buyers. I did everything and I was somewhat successful.

You need to find someone you can trust and that has as much to lose or as much to gain as you do from your success. In my case, I'm fortunate enough to finally find a realtor that I can say I have nothing less than a mancrush on because of his intelligence, drive and willingness to work his *** off. This realtor simply 'gets it'.

By now, any other realtor would have told me to kick rocks if they had anywhere near as much trouble as my realtor has had to deal with but in the end, he's still there hanging tough with me and thats not something you buy. Its a special connection between two over-achievers who strive for nothing less than perfection and dominance. Lesson again is, find someone you can literally trust with your life to take over the world. With that person(preferably a realtor) you are untouchable.

Next Important Lesson

Control your business.

What I mean by that is, you all know what happens when I put too much control of my business into someone else's hand. Their downright negligence nearly cost me my entire business and would have forced me to start over from scratch(not an easy task).

You MUST be in total control of your business at all times of any transaction. I can't tell you how vital this has become now that I brainstorm and realize all the mistakes that I've made. If I hadn't virtually given complete control of my success to someone I thought was legitimate, I would have never been close to being in the shoes I'm in now.

Even today, as I write this, I'm not in complete control, tomorrow, the only task that is on my plate is mission 'Control takeover'. Lets talk about what that is and why I'm doing it. I feel this will give you value of unmeasurable amounts but its so elementary that I feel to blame that I have not implemented it before.

Here's how it normally works, for me at least. I have a realtor bring me deals and I/we pass it along to a negotiator to handle/process the file.

Well, what I've done is simply given control to someone else haven't I? Now, I'm solely dependent upon the truthfulness, success and the communication or lack thereof which seems to be my BIGGEST issue. I don't personally have a communication issue, but, those who I contract to work with don't seem to want to talk to me once I agree to work with them.

Now, I'm unable to give updates when asked and/or its needed. I don't personally know where we're at in the process, when the last time anyone spoke to anyone regarding anything. Its a scary thing when you think about. When you're dealing with more than one file or one different realtor at a time, this can get very unproductive. The quickest way to lose my business is not calling me back when you say you're going to call me back regardless if you've got nothing new to tell me.

This is true for those that I put myself out there to work with and get their listings. If I tell those realtors that I'll call them back and I don't, why would I expect them to ever work with me again? I obviously show that I can't be trusted. Even if I'm having marital, personal, emotional or physical issues, I must do as promised or suffer the fact that, that person may never work with me again.

Mission Business Control Takeover

Most of you have probably heard about a web based software program being pushed by every retard wanna be guru on the planet called OpenRoad3.

I personally never have used any of these overly marketed 'best thing since sliced bread' program, whether it be a red pill, blue pill or magic fairy dust :roll:

My most recent negotiators started to use this OpenRoad system which I wasn't to excited about at first but after getting access to it and checking it out, I really do enjoy it and see its very valuable to my business. Don't get it twisted though, I'm not soliciting, pushing or advertising this product/service. It may not be for you. The point goes back to being systemically organized and having the ability to 'Control' and 'Manage' your business properly.

I found out today that another 2 files were lost to foreclosure. One of them being an old filed tainted by the previous negotiator and the newest one being an untouched file. Its unfortunate that I've lost yet another file to foreclosure, but, with every *** beating, there is a healing process.

Lets put this together. My new negotiators are using the OpenRoad3 thingy mobobber program but, still, I am NOT personally in control of whats going on. I'm having major issues with it being used properly or as it was being promised to be used by the negotiator and I'm unable to do anything about it simply because again, I'm not in complete control.

The negotiator should update the file each time they speak to the lender about anything. They should document their actions, who they spoke to at what department and the result of the call etc..... however detailed or vague you want because again, you're in control of your business, they're not. My issue is, that hasn't been done. Now, we(meaning myself and the other person who I trust completely because they have as much to lose or gain) finally got on the phone with one of them(both of them are too hard to get a hold of for the most part) and we fortunately think we, or they figured out what was going on so at least that is a huge relief. I'm not going to go into what we realized, just know that we were able to make some progress, positive progress which is always great.

A greatly positive thing about the new negotiator is that they have the right idea and are probably just going to need some time to perfect the process. Unfortunately though, my business runs at the speed of my business, not theirs. On top of that, they still have control.

The mission at hand is to take control of the business. The realtor and I decided today that instead relying on the negotiators, we're going to rely on ourselves. We ended up paying for the OpenRoad3 today. This way, we have control over everything!!!

Starting tomorrow morning, we're going to be uploading the dozens of files we have so that we know they've been properly and fully uploaded into the system. We're going to give the realtors that we're working with access so they can see where we are in the process instead of having to call us, then we 'attempt' to call negotiators to get an update because the program isn't being updated properly(again, we're pretty sure we figured out what was going on today, I'm referring to future updates).

Everything will be in our control. Instead of the negotiators, regardless of who they are giving us access to their system to access updates or lack thereof. We can control the situation.

Now, our negotiators will have to log into our system instead of theirs. This will enable us to keep track of their performance, ability to maintain the file and keep track of its progress. Worse comes to worse, instead having to go through all the unfortunate trouble of pulling files and relying on whats being told to us for any length of time, we can simply cancel their access to our system.

The negotiators may not like this, but again, I must be in control of my business and not rely on their promises.

Lets say for instance things don't work out between you and a negotiator, you are still in complete control of the situation, can quickly deny access and further damage and more importantly, have a better idea of the bigger picture and progress of each individual file enabling you to know when to pull the plug before its too late.

Be Responsible for Your Own Business

Without turning this into a sale promo of the OpenRoad3 platform, you may end up getting it, you may not. Regardless, you're going to have to make sure when a file is being requested of updating or information from the listing agent, seller or anyone involved, you MUST be able to provide answers. Having a system like this will enable me to provide them the answers before they even have to ask. That to me is priceless. This will become a referral machine for me. We all know realtors talk amongst each other. When one realtor expresses frustrations with a particular situation, the realtor I work with will without hesitation bring up how easy it is to work with us, how easily they get updates, the list goes on and we'll ultimately get them as our clients as well. Negotiators don't seem to understand this when we bug them about updates that are being requested of us. We're unfortunately having to pass that responsibility and control to them until now. We're going to be in control now and we will be responsible for those actions.

If the negotiator is unable to update the file and successfully navigate the process, they will easily and quickly be released of their responsibilities. As mentioned before in the previous important lessons post, we're going to be making sure we have LOA's on our files, we'll be able to quickly step into place of the negotiator and complete the file ourselves thereby having complete control of my business.

This isn't a blast on my current negotiators by any means. This is simply lessons learned as they are learned and what I'm doing to correct them as I go giving you the ability to see how its happening, the results and rewards. If my current negotiators don't work out, we're going to be quickly reduce the amount of damage they may cause whether they mean to or not.

Cliffnotes

I know I can talk/type forever so I'll summarize what we just read.

Only trust those that have shown extraordinary characteristics that mimic yours and have the same to gain or lose as you do.

Control your business completely. Do not leave any portion of your business in the hands of others. Have the ability to repair and replace any situation within seconds of a potential disaster without missing a beat.

Use whatever platform, system you feel comfortable with and make those that work for you, work within YOUR system and NOT theirs giving you the ability to maintain control of your business. Have the ability to keep track of success and set standards to know when to take action before its too late.

Give those that you work with the same accessibility to comfort that you expect from those that work for you. Meaning provide them with what is expected of you and that you expect from those that work for you. Take responsibility for yourself and make sure you will always have the answers before they ask.

I hope this was of some help. Have any questions? Feel free to ask and make comments.