Startled?

Don’t worry… this isn’t going to be any sort of scandalous, adults-only blog post! I just wanted to share a few recent lessons learned from the billionaire mastermind of the Virgin Group and the world’s greatest entrepreneur: Sir Richard Branson.

I just finished his autobiography, which shares the title of this post. It was a gift from a great friend & CEO of RealEstateInvestor.com, Colin Egbert.

While Branson’s early sexual promiscuity (he actually “wife-swapped” with his friend for a weekend) and his failure to recognize God as God certainly temper my respect, you can’t help but admire the way he did business.

Here are 8 notes I scribbled as I read the story of his success from 1950-2001…

1. A huge key to Branson’s success was his ability to leverage debt and protect his downside. For many years, the Virgin Group consistently overdrafted millions of dollars to finance their ventures. Why were banks willing to do this? Because of Branson’s uncanny sense of choosing the RIGHT ventures and his track record of success. Each of these ventures involved tremendous risk, but Branson was never without an awareness of where the risks were and rarely without a contingency plan.

2. He never shied away from competition. In fact, he seemed to thrive off of it. He entered the airline industry with a single plane when British Airways was dominating UK market share and eliminating smaller competitors left & right. He launched Virgin Cola, knowing that Coke and Pepsi held 70%+ of worldwide market share but seeing small weaknesses that he could exploit.

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Posted on Sunday, 27th July 2008 in Books, Business, Life, Marketing, Real Estate | Comments (0)

I sent this email to the Teamwork Lead System community last week, but it’s worth posting here as well…

I wanted to share a quick wholesale tip that I picked up a couple weeks ago at the Virtual Investing Seminar.

Someone - and I can’t remember who, so I apologize! - mentioned that he always markets his wholesale deals via flat fee MLS listings.

The key, he said, is to include in your purchase contract:

“Seller gives Buyer (you) the right to relist the property with an agent of your choice”

He said this particular clause has NEVER prevented a seller from signing the contract with him.

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Posted on Friday, 18th July 2008 in Real Estate | Comments (0)

At the Virtual Investing Seminar a couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to meet Caroline… a Teamwork Lead System Investor from New Orleans. She had started using the system a couple months before and she had previously emailed to tell me she closed 2 wholesale deals in her first 30 DAYS with the system.

That’s $11,000+ in her pocket. Here are the scanned checks she sent me..

Well guess what… as I’m talking to her on Saturday, she gets a call & learns that her third bird dog-generated deal is under contract. That’s another few grand she’s expecting.

Sunday, I’m on stage speaking & I mention Caroline’s story. As I do this, a guy yells out that she just put 2 MORE freakin deals under contract THAT morning from our system.

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Posted on Friday, 18th July 2008 in Real Estate | Comments (0)

If I asked you to picture the “archetypal man,” who comes to mind?

By archetypal man, I mean a man who epitomizes everything a man was meant to be.

Who comes to mind? Stop and think about this.

How about Clint Eastwood? George Clooney? Russell Crowe? Denzel Washington?

It’s probably difficult to think of 3 men you actually have personal contact with because “real men” are - indeed - hard to find. Can I get an amen, ladies??

The problem is that, for most of us, Jesus probably didn’t immediately pop into your head.

Why is that?

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Posted on Sunday, 13th July 2008 in Books, Faith, Life | Comments (0)