buying, commitment, Communication, education, Inspiration, planning

Are you ready to hit your personal reset button?

February 19, 2013 Bettina Settles 3 Comments

Within the recent years many of us have taken the road many traveled. Some would call it we failed and others would say we just took a detour to the goals we would like to reach.

Denis Waitley said it best:

“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” Denis Waitley (American motivational Speaker and Author of self-help books. b.1933)

I took my personal detour and had decided to hit my personal reset button and take my personal detour. During my scenic travels I have learned a lot what I now can utilize in my daily Real Estate business.

The Real Estate market is starting to return to a new “normal” and is ready for the buyers who have hit their personal reset button a while back and now are ready to buy for their personal investments. This market is best for the investor who is a cash buyer at this time. Who has either has personal experience in rehabbing properties or has the cash flow to hire a contractor to help with the rehab.

Sure, currently the interest rate for a mortgage is low right, but why are you wanting your investment to pay someone else but you? I mentioned this in my blog called “Are your investments paying you or do your pay for them?”

There will be always good deals in real estate even later, when you are not at the point to pay cash for any investment you would like to buy today.

Here are some Ideas on how to get you to the point to pay cash for a real estate investment:

Pay off your credit cards, house and toys.
Save for your emergency fund and when you have kids start their college fund if needed
Start saving for your investments plus keep the repairs and upkeep and other expenses like taxes insurance in mind when creating the fund.

Will you have your bills paid and your funds in place over night? No!!! This will take time and a bit of personal sacrifices.

commitment, Communication, education, organizing, planning

Are you prepared for the unexpected?

February 16, 2013 Bettina Settles 6 Comments

Had a moment the other morning to watch the news and low and behold they had a flash mob wedding because it was Valentines. In short for the once who don’t know what the flash mob wedding is. The wedding is about an hour after the proposal.

Immediately my thoughts when to how prepared would I be when I would have the unexpected sprung on me.

My mind wondered over to the subject personal or business property or information loss.

Sure I carry insurance for both personal and business and I have all of the information backed-up triple times to prevent information loss but what else do I have missing? Do I truly know what I own and what items I have in my house?

Is the emergency plan for personal and businesses good enough or did I miss some important information? Do I have this information stored in a secure place and who will have access?

Thinking about all of this could drive you crazy.

This reminds me about the “Are you ready for a disaster?” Blog post and I am not sure if I truly took my own advice. I maybe should take the advice of Cindy Hartman with Hartman Inventory, LLC she posted in her ”Be prepared for the next cat!’ Blog or from FEMA as they have outlined in their “Are you ready?” guide.

Mother Nature may be forgiving this year, or next year, but eventually she’s going to come around and whack you. You’ve got to be prepared. “Geraldo Rivera”

commitment, Communication, education, Inspiration, Team work, tips

You never know what will motivate you.

February 15, 2013 Bettina Settles Leave a comment

Just taking a few minutes to read some of the posts on the Affiliated Women International (AWI) – The Connection Station and Linda Fitzgerald’s post about “Beware advice givers” reminds me of the post I have written about “ I m and expert…”

How many time have we ran into the “experts” in a field or to the handful of individuals who love to give their unsolicited active about something.

Two quotes come in mind.

A quote from Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

Advice is like snow – the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper in sinks into the mind.

And the other one is from Denis Waitley:

Never become so much of an expert that you stop gaining expertise. View life as a continuous learning experience.

How well put by both of them.

What has this now to do with motivation?

Simple….. Samuel Taylor Coleridge tells me that when I want to give advice to be very selective on what and how much I am saying and Denis Waitley reminds me never to call myself an “expert” because an “expert” has most likely stopped learning and is ready for the “rocking chair”.

That alone is motivation enough to never stop moving.

commitment, Communication, Inspiration

You have to be kidding me….

February 14, 2013 Bettina Settles Leave a comment

Sometime I am amazed at people and overtime when I think I know a person I am baffled how quickly they can change.

For years I have known this person. During this time I thought of this person to be of high ethical and moral standards, until just recently.

A situation came up where this person showed their “true colors” and I was more than floored. My first thought was….you have to be kidding me…..

I personally had all kinds of thoughts and feeling including being disgusted, hurt, mad, and over all disappointed. I never expected this action from this person.

This quote came to mind after I calmed down:

Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do. ” Potter Stewart”

In our personal and business life we are sometimes faced with that decision and we all have to decide what road we will go down.

commitment, Communication, Inspiration, organizing, planning, tips

Too much information

February 14, 2013 Bettina Settles Leave a comment

Have you ever attended meetings, seminars, webinars where the presenter just kept on talking and talking and talking about the same topic but tried to explain it in different ways over and over again?

Just recently I was in such meeting.

A question was asked and it could have been answered with a short, sweet and to the point but the presenter choose to user up to 10 minutes to answer this simple question. I am sure the presenter felt great about being able to fill the room with all the information he knew about the topic but I am sure that most of the room was lost after 2 minutes.

I need to admit I am the last person to give meeting advice but even I was off to another dimension to occupy my time and to wait out the long winded present to move to the next topic.

Lighthouse Consulting had a great article on how to keep a meeting on track called Six Tips for Holding Successful Meetings with Staff Members. I think this could easily be translated into any type of meeting. I also found a great meeting article from the Norwood Business Portal called Tips on Holding Online Meetings.

No matter if you have a face to face meeting or a online webinar you need to keep your audience engaged and interested and some questions just need to be answered in person or with a personal phone call.

Don’t be long winded with any topic or when answering a question.

Andrew Jackson said it best:

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in. – Andrew Jackson –

commitment, Communication, education, Inspiration, Team work

Every problem has am opportunity

February 12, 2013 Bettina Settles 1 Comment

Inside of every problem lies an opportunity. “Robert Kiyosaki”

Many focus on the “but I can’t” rather looking at an issue or challenge as an opportunity to stretch their wings and taking a new path maybe one less traveled. We should see the issue as a new challenge that needs to be concord to see what is on the other side and not view it as a road block to where we want to go.

When we cannot climb over it let’s find a way around it.

A simple example is when I see a vacant home in the area. This vacant home begs to be listed and when I would just focus on the “but I can’t” side of my brain I would just give up finding the homeowner after a few tries.

My more adventurous side of the brain will not give up that easy and many times I do track down the homeowner who left their property vacant and I do get to list and sell the home.

When I would have listen to my “I can’t do it” side of me I never would have found the homeowner and never either listed and sold the home but also would have never met this homeowner who can be a great referral source for me in the future too.

So …quit listed to your “I can’t do it” side of the brain and get your more adventurous side of the brain in gear and moving forward. You never know what you will find at the end.

Communication, education, Inspiration, Team work, tips

“Do you have workers or believers?”

February 1, 2013 Bettina Settles Leave a comment

Stood out to me as I read an article in the IBJ under the Small Business Matters blog titled Preaching to the choir could be good strategy.

Is our internal and external staff truly satisfied? It is not the leadership it is a satisfied staff that will be the crucial part of a business success. No matter how many money rain dances the leadership does when the Indians are not happy noting will be accomplished.

Is the business as healthy from the inside as you make it appear on the outside or does it have bald spot under all the hair? Is everybody in the same board rowing into the same direction or do you have some who do not understand the your goal and vision and do you have an internal tug-of war going on.

Did you clearly communicate your vision your culture to your organization? Did you include others but the normal decision maker to create your goal and vision or did you just use the “normal” handful to help with the decision making.

When we don’t market our vision to our internal and external staffs who can you expect them to sell it for you?

commitment, Communication, education, Team work, tips

I am an EXPERT in ….

January 31, 2013 Bettina Settles Leave a comment

I see this line on so many things from blogs, business cards, emails signatures and I am wondering if the person who added the line truly is an EXPERT.

An EXPERT is having, involving, or displaying special skill or knowledge derived from training or experience and EXPERT’S have a prolonged or intense experience through practice and education in a particular field.

Reading this I wonder how many of the EXPERTS out there have the prolonged or intense experience through practice and education in the field they are claiming to be an EXPERT in.

I will use myself as an example.

I have been selling real state now for over 15 years including short sales. I am by no means an EXPERT in short sales or real estate. I have experience in selling real estate of any kind, but by no means do I consider myself an EXPERT.

Every day I am learning more and more about my field and I still have a lot to learn.

I am daily doing research in this area to attempt to understand the relation between cognitive structures and processes of real estate in any form. I have gotten better but still not considering myself as an EXPERT.

When I hear anyone call themselves an EXPERT this quote comes in mind:

Experts always know everything but the fine points. When I took my citizenship exams, no one there knew how the White House came to be called the White House. “ Hedy Lamarr “

commitment, Communication, Team work, tips

Your past performance might come to haunt you in the future.

January 29, 2013 Bettina Settles Leave a comment

How many time have we heard from parents, teachers, friends and others never to burn your bridges.

I am sure you had you fair share like we all do. I know I did.

Have you ever thought about your past work performance?

This becomes important when you decide to part ways but maybe later you decided to return due to a change of your personal situation or the company is now offering more of what you are looking for.

It is very interesting to see how surprised some individuals are when they are not asked to return due to their past performance when they inquiring and asking to return. Some of them did not think that a record is kept of their performance especially when they where hired as independent contractors.

They did not think that when no one was able to get in touch with them via phone or email for a longer period of time or when work was not completed with in the allotted time and no communication was received from them about the holdup of delay of work was important.

Your bad performance now and in the past, might burn you some bridges you might need to use in the future.

buying, Team work, tips

I only work Real Estate Monday through Friday 9 to 4

January 27, 2013 Bettina Settles Leave a comment

I am looking for a Real Estate professional to work with in certain areas because I am looking to buy more investment properties.

Before I make my calls to meet with them in person I do a little due diligence on each of them I am planning on contacting and low and behold I ran across several personal websites ( not the company) where the agent posted their personal work hours on their website.

Monday – Friday 9 AM to 4 PM (no nights)

Saturday and Sunday: Closed.

Nice….

I know for certain that this agent and their office will not be on my list to represent me in the purchase of my investment properties.

Not sure if this agent understands the most of the buyers and sellers are only available during the week in the evening or on weekends….that is when I drive by and look at potential investment properties I would like to buy.