Why I Still Take Every Call Even After Getting Lied to More Times Than I Can Count

I don't market myself. A few posts on Facebook and Instagram, nothing paid, nothing elaborate. And yet I still get contacted regularly by investors of every type. Complete novices and so called seasoned veterans alike.

Here's what I've noticed. The ones who claim to be complete novices are almost always completely honest. The ones who claim to be experienced tend to prove fairly quickly that they're faking it until they make it. I can smell a lie like a fart in a car.

I don't mind helping people. I don't mind giving advice. I've spent an hour on the phone walking a complete stranger through how to get out of a bad situation and never thought twice about it. What I do mind is being lied to.

The lies are rarely about anything that would actually matter. Nobody needs to exaggerate their experience to get my help. But their lack of real experience doesn't let them know what they don't know and so they fill in the gaps with whatever sounds right. A couple of deals becomes a track record. Looking into it becomes actively investing. It's natural to put your best foot forward but there's a meaningful line between that and straight up fudging the truth.

My real pet peeve is the intentional time wasters. The ones who have no desire to do business and only want whatever they can extract before moving on to the next person. They ask a lot of questions. They want their deals gone over once, twice, three times. And then the texts stop. The calls go unanswered. The emails disappear into nothing.

You would think after writing a novel about it I'd be done taking those calls.

I'm not.

Not because I enjoy the punishment but because I like to be surprised. Those calls are a lot like deals in real estate. I go through a lot of them that turn into nothing. But that's necessary to find the diamond in the rough that actually leads somewhere worth going. I look at dozens of properties before I buy one. I talk to dozens of people before I find the hustler with real deals or the JV partner worth working with.

The people part is hard because you can't run a title search on a person. A lot of hidden stuff that takes time to surface, same as real estate. But you have to keep taking the calls anyway.

Don't BS anybody. Don't quit. Success gets a lot easier after that.

If you're one of the honest ones ready to actually do something, let's talk.

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