I have a confession. I’ve cheated on reaching my $12,738.75 September goal. Hey! My game, my rules! 😊
Seriously though. I knew this blog was going to be a big part of reaching my goal. It’s a way of holding myself accountable by forcing myself to provide you with something of worth and value. I started thinking about this challenge on August 15th—that’s when I began watching Glenn Stearns journey on Undercover Billionaire. By August 18th, I’d done enough research to feel comfortable about renting out my attic and driveway. By the 22nd I had added web hosting and design to the mix. On the 25th, the first post for the series drafted and edited and scheduled. The next day, post number two, and this post number three was well into the first draft. But what I was about to do, I had to do before I could write about it. If I didn’t begin on my goal in the middle of August, I’d have nothing to write about for September.
So. What I’m about to tell you. Some of you may have already been involved. Additionally, I’ve signed paperwork promising I’d never divulge this information.
Okay Steve. Deep breath. Here we go.
Last autumn, I convinced Mary to spend $800 on the credit card to take a Keller Williams specific training called BOLD. It was the last $800 on the credit card.
I’d been leery of the training. I heard crazy stories where they made you stand in front of a bunch of people and the audience threw wadded up twenty- and hundred-dollar bills at you. The more I inquired about what BOLD was like, the more the whole thing sounded like a cult.
“I don’t believe the kool-aid,” I told Mary. “But, I’m pretty certain I want to drink the kool-aid.”
The training was a huge commitment too. Eight consecutive all-day Thursdays, teaching a full-course load at Great Bay Community College, and keeping up with my own personal real estate responsibilities as well as trying to write this novel, and my kids, and this was also when the car started failing.
No one threw money at me but there was a lot a lot of in sync clapping, cheering, and standing up, and playing competitive real estate games hooing and ahahing. The best way to describe the experience would be to combine a Tony Robbins seminar with an evangelical church caught up in the holy ghost with a good dose of marketing training. Plus there was homework.
Later, much later, I was asked if I’d ever BOLD again. I flat out said no. But you know, honestly, I probably will. I can directly link a $5000 commission check to BOLD, and that money paid summer rent and helped purchase the “new” car. Besides, the program wasn’t about just making money. Although paying the rent and purchasing the car were needed things to continue to survive, BOLD is built around being a better person.
One of the challenges of that training was what they called a BOLD 100. In a single day, you had to have 100 legitimate conversations about real estate with 100 different people. I tried and failed miserably every week. Though I watched with amazement the seemingly ease of which others succeeded at the BOLD 100. Certainly, they were lying. Certainly, they could not talk to 100 people in only one day.
My biggest take-away from Undercover Billionaire is that money doesn’t matter. In season one, Stearns built a team of people who worked with him for free on the promise of a return on sweat equity investment. In season two, Monique Idlett-Mosley met a pastor who put her in touch with a state representative who introduced her to the mayor. Elaine Culotti convinced her landlord to give her his bar. Grant Cardone asked the owner of an RV sales lot to let him stay in an empty RV. All these three people did was unapologetically ask and were okay when they received a no.
It is the people and the opportunity that you create that matter, and the money only a secondary by-product.
You also know, if you’ve been following along in the series, I’ve been reading Cardone’s The 10X Rule. Simply explained, you put forth 10 times the effort others do.
One way to hit my $12,738.75 September goal is to sell 2.3 houses. But that means I need to find 2.3 houses to sell. That means talking to people. That means BOLD 100.
Except Grant Cardone says 10 times the effort.
100 people a day for five days. That’s five hundred. Times 10 = 5000.
Monday, I’m going to tell you was a bust. I had to run to a couple banks and had a few coffee meetings scheduled and because of the no car situation I walked to all of that.
Tuesday I only connected with 27. But, gained seven new people who I don’t know who I can now reach out to. My plan for Wednesday to reach out to those seven new people.
I by the way did not reach out to those seven new people on Wednesday but I did manage to put them on my dry erase board. Thursday I closed on a house and well there is a story there but I sat in a parking lot for most of the afternoon waiting for a moving truck. I called a lot of people but didn’t track. Friday I needed to run errands again so there was a ton of walking but no talking to people….
The one thing I learned is that without a car, everything takes so much more time and becomes much harder to accomplish. But look, there’s an excuse here for every day. The big take-away is I need to stop being about excuses. Will I ever reach 5000 people in one week? Really, I don’t know.
RENTAL UPDATE:
Hours after posting my driveway through Neighbor.com, I found a renter! I expect the attic storage space is going to take a bit longer. But, I was surprised how quickly the driveway went. The first month, I offered half off. I no longer need $12,738.75. I’m down to $12,713.75!
*Photo Credit: https://wallpapers.com/wallpapers/kool-aid-man-graffiti-p72w1zh4lryu9zqu.html
