Wholesalers Need Mentors Too

We've all heard how being a successful real estate investor almost always involves having a mentor.  A mentor can help you make a lot of money, save a lot of money, avoid a lot of pitfalls, mistakes, headaches and generally make the entire experience much more positive and profitable.  Absence of a mentor can do the exact opposite and it can do it in a hurry. When we hear about mentors we always hear about it in terms of growing these massive real estate empires with tons of cash flow in properties or flips or both.  Well as true as all that is, one thing that I feel like we don’t hear enough of is mentoring wholesalers.  While I see a lot of advertising for wholesaling whether it be online courses, training, seminars, ways to make quick cash just seems to be the dominating voices.  Never seem to hear much about mentoring for wholesalers.  I would argue that I think wholesalers might need mentoring more than a lot of people in the investing realm, simply because it’s the easiest avenue to get in but it’s also the easiest avenue to completely mess up and do it quickly. With wholesaling we are dealing most of the time with people, real people with real feelings and real situations.  The properties could be bank owned in some scenarios but most of the time, you are dealing with a distressed situation whether fire damaged properties or rented properties or tired landlords or properties with difficult tenants or properties that need a lot of work or properties with code enforcement issues and on and on.  There’s really quite a plethora of possibilities that a wholesaler may come across.  As a result you need to be prepared as a wholesaler to handle these situations and the sellers behind them.  As many different types of property there are, there’s infinitely more types of personalities.  Being a people person and learning the skills to communicate with sellers is an art form that is an ongoing learning experience for life.  People change and they can change very quickly on you when a situation takes a spin in an unexpected direction.

So as a wholesaler what do you do?  I recommend every wholesaler get a mentor.  Maybe you don’t need a pitch for the massive amount of money some people charge but some of you may.  More often than not, just some guidance on how to help you through all these situations can save you a lot of time and grief. As a mentor right now, I know that I've started working with a one particular individual who I've been able to help avoid a lot of issues.  But then, there are several issues that they created for themselves that could have easily been avoided.  These are the types of things that can help you as a wholesaler spend your time working on deals and getting deals done as opposed to doing damage control.  This unfortunately happens too often where again one wrong turn by the wholesaler can create a flood of problems very quickly. 

So check out your mentoring options.  Look online as there are people out there. Go to your local REIA and talk to a local wholesaler that has been successful and see what kind of options are out there.  A little training and walking through those first few deals can help you a lot.  You don’t have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars to get a good mentoring experience.  Many mentors will be happy to split the first few deals with you.  Just make sure that whatever you agree to, put down in writing on a signed contract between you and the mentor and then really go out there and do what the mentor asks you to do.  This last point is incredibly important.  There are many times where mentors give advice on action items to take and next steps for a new wholesaler to do and the wholesaler takes their sweet time doing it.  And then they wonder why ‘nothing is happening’.  Speed is huge in the wholesaling business.  So it’s important that when the mentor says to do something, you do it and do it right away for better or for worse.  You do it and if it doesn't work that’s okay, as you’ll learn faster getting you closer to your goals.   

So, my recommendation to wholesalers is get a mentor and good luck with your investing needs.  A good mentor and you can go a long way!