Becoming a real estate investor can certainly be fun and exciting, but you must realize one important thing: doing so definitely does not mean you will be respected and held in high esteem in your community. In fact, just the opposite may be true. Recent polls have shown real estate investors are trusted only slightly more than used car salesmen.

Ouch, that hurts!

While you do want everyone to know you are in the real estate investing business and want to buy properties, simply approaching your business in this way will do nothing to give you the reputation you aspire to. In order to earn the respect of the community (and your family and friends), you need to demonstrate that you are a problem solver. So take off your real estate investor hat and put on your problem-solver hat.

Becoming a problem solver is a process, not an event, so be patient and work hard. Here are suggestions that will help you to be branded as the real estate problem solver in your community:

• Get educated. Take classes online, read books, go to seminars, and take advantage of as many live classes as your budget allows. Your clients will look to you as an expert if you know a little bit more than they do about real estate. After taking classes with the Wealth Intelligence Academy, you will know more about real estate than most people, including many of the real estate professionals in your area. You should also engage the valuable services of a Wealth Intelligence Academy Mentor. The more information and guidance you have at your finger tips, the better you will be at solving problems.

• Immediately put your education into action. You will always learn more by doing than by simply studying. You may not be the ultimate problem solver to start with, but you will mature into one quickly if you put into action everything that you learn in your classes.

• Think of yourself as an expert problem solver, and soon, you will be. Your perception of yourself drastically affects the perception that others have of you, and building the confidence of others is virtually impossible unless you first have confidence in yourself.

• Position yourself as the local real estate problem solver. How do you do this? By teaching and becoming an expert. Be an information source without an agenda. Always give information that may be useful without pitching them on the fact that you are looking for homes to buy. In this way, people will learn to trust you. Once people trust you, they will start coming to you to solve their real estate problems and sending their friends to you for help. When you are dealing with potential clients for the first time, listen carefully to their stories. Ask questions until you have a complete understanding of their situations. Building trust is critical. As you have heard, people do business with people they like and trust.

• Keep your name in front of your target audience. For example, once you have selected a specific area to work in (sometimes called your “farm” area), send out a newsletter every six to eight weeks. The newsletter should contain useful articles on the current state of the real estate market, tips to make a home more likely to sell quickly and at the desired price, and tips to get financing. Prevail upon local experts, such as real estate agents, mortgage brokers, accountants, and attorneys to write articles and help pay for the mailing costs of your newsletter. This publication will build credibility for them as well, but will position you as the expert. Also, take time to add educational information to your flyers. Short articles on the local real estate market will get people’s attention.

The main goal is to educate people in as many ways as you can. If you provide valuable information, people will keep coming back for more; they will do business with you, or will refer someone to you who will.

Here’s a list of traditional ways to get your information in front of as many people as possible:

• Letters - Make sure your letter contains valuable content and mail out new letters every couple of months.
• Postcards – This option is a little less costly than sending out letters.
• Flyers – These can be hand delivered by you, your kids, or others for a minimal expense.
• Newsletters – Follow the suggestions detailed above.
• Press releases – Create a press release for your business and submit it to our local news outlet. Newspapers are always looking for solid content, and will run a well-written press release at no cost to you. Be sure to utilize this opportunity to build your credibility. Also mention that you send out a newsletter, and provide the necessary contact information for requesting this publication.
• Educational seminars – Put on a free educational seminar on how to sell your home in this current down market, or on some other interesting real estate topic. Again, serving as an educator to others builds your credibility and gets your name in front of more people.
• Offer to speak at local civic clubs and groups. These groups are always looking for people to speak on interesting topics.
• Join your local real estate investors club, and offer to speak on a topic such as wholesaling or foreclosures. Again, you will begin to brand yourself as the local expert, and other investors will start to come to you with deals and ask for your help.
• Offer to speak at some of your local real estate company meetings. Be sure to concentrate on teaching/educating the agents on topics that they don’t teach in real estate school. Now you will have the real estate agents bringing their problems to you to solve. Eventually, you may even get approval from the real estate board to teach a continuing education class for real estate agents. It would not be such a bad deal to get paid while getting your name in front of a bunch of agents!
• All of your correspondences should encourage people to call a 24/7, toll free phone number that provides additional information. Have a short, prerecorded message that gives interesting real estate information and offers a free newsletter on relevant real estate topics. Ask people to leave a phone number, e-mail address, and an optional physical address to gain access to the report. This can be handled by an automated service, and will create a list of future clients.
• Develop a website that provides further information and valuable content.

As an expert problem solver, you will have more business than you can handle.
Get educated, and immediately put that education into action. Teach others and help solve their problems. Following this advice will help you get that much closer to making all of those dreams come true!