Stop Calling Yourself “An Investor”

[Joe Evangelisti]

If you call yourself an investor, I want you to stop. Right now.

That’s right, I don’t want you to refer to yourself as an investor anymore.

Even if you’ve actually done a deal or two, you shouldn’t refer to yourself as an investor.

I’ll explain why in this blog post but let me first ask you a question…

What Does An Investor Do?

Investors spend their day driving around looking for properties.

Investors buy in their neighborhoods because they want to buy properties close to where they live.

Investors go through houses to assess them.

Investors pick up a hammer and paint brush to renovate the property they own.

Investors interview tenants.

Investors manage the properties they own, even driving out to the property in the middle of the night to fix an overflowing toilet.

If you call yourself an investor, you’re joining a long list of people who are thinking small about investing, who want to own lots of properties but are held back by a lack of capital or credit. Therefore, when you tell people that you’re an investor, you’re telling them that you’re focused on the details. You’re also unconsciously telling that to yourself as well.

Here’s What You Should Do Instead

Stop calling yourself an investor. Instead, start calling yourself a CEO.

That’s right, you’re no longer an investor; you’re the CEO of an investment company.

What Does A CEO Do?

A CEO builds a team.

A CEO looks at the numbers.

A CEO raises capital that he delegates to his or her team to deploy to invest for the company.

When you tell people that you’re a CEO of an investment company, you’re telling them that you are a big picture strategic thinker and you value yourself, your time, and your business quite highly.

There is a MASSIVE conceptual difference between being an investor and being the CEO of an investment company.

Do You See The Difference?

An investor is busy working in their business. A CEO works on their business. That is a massive difference in YOUR mind and in the minds of buyers and sellers you work with… and you’ll notice the difference in how they treat you AND in the value of the work you do ON your business.

“But Joe…”

While you’re reading this, some of you will be thinking, “But Joe, I don’t have enough money to hire a team, and therefore I have to do the work myself.”

My response is: That’s fine. You have to hustle, and you have to do a lot of the hands-on stuff yourself at the very beginning. Even CEOs of small start-ups are grinding it out 18 hours a day to build their business. However, the end goal of a CEO is to run the company, whereas the end-goal of many investors I meet is to simply invest (and that end-goal holds them back from achieving the next level).

Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying… I’m not harshing on investors. I want you to think big and grow your business and I’m sharing with you a simple mental trick to elevate your thinking and realize a greater potential than you might normally realize for yourself!”

I want you to invest and grow your business so you can enjoy the lifestyle you want to live. And if you’re thinking of yourself as an investor, it’s common among investors that your thinking will remain small, detail-focused, and very hands-on. I want you to dominate in your marketplace and the only way you’re going to do that is by thinking of yourself as a CEO – a big-picture strategic thinker who builds a team and raises capital, delegating the hands-on work to someone else. Investors are focused on looking at the details to get the next deal; CEOs are focused on how to create a business that will allow them to get the next 1000 deals.

Are you an investor or a CEO?