Transcript:
Hey there, it’s Casey Denman from TaxSaleAcademy.com. Thanks so much for joining me for this week’s quick tip. Before we discuss today’s training topic, if you are looking to learn more about tax sale investing don’t forget to subscribe to this channel so you don’t miss out on future training videos and also don’t forget to take a look at all of our resources linked in today’s video description once the video is over.
Alright, let’s talk about learning. Tax sale investing is one of the simplest businesses in theory, but it takes a tremendous amount of knowledge in the real world. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a genius in any way, shape or form so if I can understand this business you can as well. But the point is that there are a lot of moving parts to the tax sale business. Without understanding the inner workings of this business, you’ll never see success or worse, you might even end up losing money. I’ve mentioned this before, but a lot of people who do fail in this business, unfortauntely seek out training or knowledge after the fact. I can’t begin to even count the number of people who have email me about a mistake they made and THEN try to learn what happened or most commonly, how to dig themselves out of the hole they dug.
What happens is people often make mistakes, then try to learn and then try to apply what they leanred. This is completely backwards. Hopefully you’ll take the time to learn and THEN apply what you learn.
So, let’s discuss the two primary ways to learn about this business. There are pros and cons to each one of these. And I’ll discuss them.
The first way to learn is alone. Teach yourself. And this is actually the way that I learned when I got started. Essentially I learned just a little bit and jumped in head first. I learned about the business when researching some of the success investors in my area, then I called the county and asked for the list, I started researching properties and then went and bought some at a tax sale. I had successes and I had failures. Now, to back up just a little bit when I got started I had a real estate license and was familiar with researching properties . . . to an extent. Realtor research and tax sale research are two completely different things. But, I had more experience than someone just coming in off the street. But I still have a number of failures over the years. Like, many, many. I’m not going to say that I regret taking this route, but it was certainly filled with difficult times.
The truth is that there is absolutely no barrier to entry to this business besides a few bucks to start investing. If you have the money you can do it. And it usually doesn’t take too much. It’s not like you need a license or years and years of documented experience. You can start when you decide to start. And that’s what makes it so easy. That’s also what makes it so scary for me as I watch people start.
The pros behind this approach is that it’s fast and free. You are not committed to anybody except yourself and you’re on your own timeline. Go tomorrow and buy some real estate if you want to. And if you do fail, you’ll likely learn not to do that again because it’ll hurt your wallet so much you’ll remember it in the future, ya, maybes that’s a pro. That’s definitely something that I remembered. The cons are that you don’t have any idea what you don’t know and it will absolutely catch you sooner or later. I wrote about my experience going through this in Tax Sale Playbook. And the most common trait among those who email me their failure stories asking me to find them a way out is that they trained themselves. And I don’t mean this in an insensitive manner. But when they trained themselves, they did a lousy job training themselves… just like I did initially. I learned by doing, I thought I knew everything, but again, it just didn’t know what I didn’t know. I trained myself to be a tax sale investor when I had no idea how to be a tax sale investor. That’s like me training myself to play linebacker in the NFL, strapping on a jersey and running onto the field. I’ll get crushed. So this approach definitely can work. It will usually end up taking longer and costing much more, but in the end, it’s the approach I took.
The second way is to learn from others. Find mentors and learn from them. So, to clarify here the word mentor can mean much more than just someone who you follow around the office and the teach you like a son or daughter. My suggestion here is to USE people to help mentor you. I’ve done this throughout the years with so many people who had no idea I even existed. From that very first auction I went to where I watched and learned from others. Even to this day I’ll look at others and learn from what they’re doing. They’re mentoring me without even realizing it. And the coolest thing here, in my opinion, is learning how to use what I refer to as micromentors. Maybe you learn about title searches from your friend that works at the title company, maybe you have a favorite online marketer you can learn online marketing from, perhaps you how to invest tax free from your financial advisor, you learn the rehab side from your contractor friend or whatever the case may be for you. The point is that all of these micromentors can provide you with knowledge to help shorten the learning curve of where you are now to where you want to go. This is the same as professional athletes who have dieticians, chefs, trainers, physical therapists, running coaches, position coaches, head coaches … one person uses all of these people to learn and better themselves. Crazy when you think about it.
And again, these don’t have to be people you personally know. Learn from the most successful people you know in that specific field, from the best teachers, the people that resonate the best with you. Learn from those types of people. And then apply all of this knowledge to the business.
The downside of this is that it takes effort. It might even take a small investment. It’s also going to take the time to learn. But the Pros are heavily outweigh the cons. You’ll be able to substantially shorten the learning curve to getting to where you want to go in this business. If I could take everything that I know right now back 17, 18 years. Wow, I would be a force to reckon with!
So obviously, from these two methods of learning you can see which is my favorite. I’m a huge, huge proponent in learning and I want you to take the time to do it before getting into this business. Find those mentors and micromentors and leverage their experience and their knowledge in a manner that will shorten your learning curve, reduce your mistakes and propel you to where you want to go in this business.
I truly hope that this episode has been helpful for you. If I can help as one of your mentors, I have a bunch of links in the description of this video. Many of these are completely free resources, and then we also offer more advanced step by step training when desired.
Again, I hope this video and every video that I post plays just a small role in contributing to your tax sale success story.
Take care and make it a successful day. See ya!