Welcome back to the Discount Property Investor podcast. Our mission is to share what we have learned from our experience and the experience of others to help you make more money investing like a pro. We want to teach you how to create wealth by investing in real estate, the discount property investor way. To jumpstart your real estate investing career, visit freewholesalecourse.com, the most complete free course on wholesaling real estate ever. Thanks for tuning in.

David: Alright guys, welcome back to the show. Today, we are going to focus our time and efforts on talking to you guys about analysis paralysis and just kind of talk about why people have it and what are some of the things we can do to overcome it.

Mike: I was always too stupid to be like analysis paralysis.

David: I had it for a couple weeks when I first got started.

Mike: I just didn't know what to do.

David: But the thing is though is there's some people that have had it for years.

Mike: Yeah.

David: You know, I mean, there's- we get a lot of people that hire us that have had it for years and that's great because they already know a lot of the business if not all of it, but they're just not doing any of those things, right? So, let's talk about some of the things that people may have analysis paralysis on. I would say first and foremost, they think that they need to know everything about something before they can begin and that's like the worst mindset to have. If you know a little bit about it, start doing that. What do you know? Start doing that. Don't wait until you know everything, okay? So, that's big picture analysis paralysis. If we're talking about marketing, we got a lot of people that come to us and they say hey, you know, should I do direct mail, or should I cold call or cold text? Well, man those are two totally different types of marketing. Are you gonna spend time or money? Which can you afford to budget for, right? but there shouldn't be analysis paralysis there but there is because people are thinking well, there's so many different options and those are only two or three different ways Mike. There's fifty to a hundred ways to find motivated sellers, you know that.

Mike: [inaudible] radio ads.

David: Yeah, exactly.

Mike: Facebook ads.

David: Right, I think another big analysis paralysis-

Mike: Should I do tv commercials?

David: Is okay so, you know, I've got this marketing ready to go but I'm scared to send it cuz I don't know what to say whenever my phone actually starts ringing or hey, I got this guy, I get this like once a week, hey I got this guy that wants to sell his property. What do I do now? Set the appointment.

Mike: Yeah, buy it.

David: How are you going to buy it if you can't get eyeballs on it, right? Like, get out in the field.

Mike: Yeah, no that's not true and you know, what I said earlier is not true because I do- I remember being scared to answer the phone. I had a separate line for my business, I bought a different phone just sending out marketing and I was scared to answer the phone. Why?

David: I think we all probably have that feeling in the beginning. I don't remember having that per se, but I would be- wouldn't be surprised Mike if I was a little scared in the beginning to answer the calls as well. I mean, everyone's going to have a little fear of doing something they haven't done before, but the goal here is to just do it guys. Analysis paralysis is- it's like fear in my opinion, right? and you can eliminate it by stop worrying, right? Like, don't worry twice is one of the mottos that I always tell my wife and she will remind me and tell me. If we're ever like sitting around worrying about something, alright here's the actual quote, we say don't worry, you're suffering twice. If something bad happens or something that happens or there's something that happens where you have to then react, well you can worry then cuz you're dealing with it, but don't sit around worrying about it suffering for then it to then just happen. So, don't suffer twice is the thing, right?

Mike: The way that I look at, I say don't steal your own joy.

David: That too.

Mike: Because you are literally- you're dwelling on something that hasn't happened or whatever. You're basically stealing the opportunity from yourself, you're- I don't know. Don't steal your own joy, that's what worrying and overthinking, and over-analyzing does.

David: I would say the biggest analysis paralysis, making offers Mike. You know, you may get somebody that knows what they're doing and they either know it all already or they know enough to be dangerous, and they start which is the way I prefer everyone to start. That's how I started, and they'll even do some marketing and get on an appointment or two or ten or twenty, who knows, but they haven't made any offers yet and they're- it's like they're not only are they scared to get the property under contract, but they might be scared to have to back out. Like again, they're worrying about all the things that could happen or that may happen that may not be a positive experience for them, but because of that, nothing gets done. No deals get secured with contracts therefore no deals get marketed to our buyers list, which makes it impossible to profit off of a wholesale transaction if you don't have control of one. So, analysis paralysis is just- it is a widespread issue.

Mike: I think it's the fear of failure too.

David: I agree.

Mike: It's a lack of knowing, so you're-

David: All of these things yeah.

Mike: So, you're analyzing something and you're saying well I don't know what to do, I might mess it up. Well, I- we messed up so much.

David: Yeah, I mess up every week.

Mike: We still- I think that's the biggest thing about being an entrepreneur which is so neat especially cuz right now cuz I'm feeling like we're doing pretty well so it's great to look back and be like dude, we failed so many times. Well guess what? It took that to be somewhat successful.

David: I was telling a student just over the weekend, I said you know what the formula for success looks like? and we we're joking with each other and he goes no Dave but enlighten me and I said, it's failure + failure + failure + failure + failure + failure = success. So you got to try, trial and error. If you- you are- it is very unlikely, put it this way, that you are going to try something and just be the very best at it the very first time you try it, unless that is basketball and your name is LeBron James, right? Like some people are obviously gifted but most of the time, 99.999% of the time, you're gonna screw it up in the process of learning it but that's part of the formula.

Mike: That's a great point.

David: And he was like, sometimes you say things that are just so like duh, he's like, but I love it because I don't ever think of it that way, you know and I'm like dude it's that simple you know. Get out there and be okay screwing up and failing because you're gonna learn as you go and there is also so many things that you know, Mike and I are able to teach our students. You know, like obviously we want to help as much as we can and we want to show them the door, but they have to walk through and sometimes they won't walk through it cuz they get analysis paralysis and we'll go grab their hand, metaphorically speaking, and we'll run to the door with them, and we'll show them hey this wasn't that hard, let's do this again, like we gotta get you doing this so on so forth but you know analysis paralysis is a big reason why most people that want to be in real estate aren't in real estate, or they want to do more deals and they're not doing more deals or just you know, anything in life in particular. So, let's talk about some of the ways that we can overcome analysis paralysis. I feel like you know, when it comes to real estate investing specifically wholesaling or even landlording, I feel like the best way to prevent analysis paralysis is to stop thinking that you need to know everything. I think that is the first thing we can all do is accept that we don't know everything.

Mike: Yeah.

David: But that's not going to let- that's not going to stop us from doing what's important.

Mike: Hey, I hardly know anything about real estate and here we are doing a real estate podcast couple hundred shows in, right?

David: But you know Mike, yeah, but that's why I'm partners with you. You don't have analysis paralysis, or at least enough of it to deter you from making moves and I'm- I feel like I'm the same way, like we are okay failing.

Mike: Yeah.

David: Because we're going to learn in the process.

Mike: Exactly, and I don't do everything perfect. It's hard to accept that and neither is Dave.

David: I don't intend to.

Mike: We both screw up our business constantly.

David: yeah, constantly.

Mike: But I mean again, that's-

David: But we're still here talking about it and that's the point, right?

Mike: Yeah, because you get over that failure and you say okay, and we learn from it too. That was the other thing you were touching on is like hey we've made mistakes, we're gonna help our students, but some of those failures that you make, you really learn the most from. Even when you hire a coach, we have- we've both used coaches, used coaches.

David: We have coaches right now.

Mike: We still make mistakes.

David: Right.

Mike: We still go against some of their advice because it's-

David: We often regret it.

Mike: Yeah, it's human nature though like it's just what it is, and you learn from those failures, you learn from those mistakes.

David: Right.

Mike: Again, just got to bust through it.

David: So, number one guys, don't think or have the feeling or limit yourself because you feel that you don't know enough or all of it. I get people that come to me all the time, Mike too, you know, I've been studying for 6 months and I've read 5 books but I just feel like, you know, I need to know the next thing, I need to know, you know, I'm missing something and it's like man, you probably know more than me about this and I've written books and done 500 deals cuz you're reading all the little details like, I learn as I go and I feel like everybody can also do that, you just got to take the leap, right? So don't- number one, don't feel like you need to know everything before you start, period, and that can go for wholesaling, that can go for fix and flipping, that can go for landlording. Obviously the more you know, the less risk you're going to have cuz you're going to be able to prevent a lot of it, but what I mean by that is you can go read one or two books, three books maybe and/or listen to maybe 10 hours of podcast on the topic and know enough to start. You don't need to spend seven weeks, two years, so on so forth, you know, just learn a little bit and then implement and that's so incredibly important. So, that's big picture. When it comes to marketing, let's talk a little bit about market analysis paralysis, very similar. There is a lot of ways to market, don't think you got to learn how to do them all. If direct mail is intriguing to you or it sounds interesting, go buy a list or create your own by driving for dollars. Deal machine's how I do it, use coupon code Dave, you get a hundred free text messages, I'm sorry a hundred free skip traces. D-A-V-E, but either create your list or buy one and send the mail. If you decide you want to do some cold calling, then get your list or create one, skip trace it and start calling. Don't think you need to know how to do 30 types of marketing because none of it gets done, so focus on one or two things, do. Action will trump any other activity 99 times out of 99 times. Action is the way to do it, so if you're having analysis paralysis with marketing, I can tell you right now. Mike, we bought a hundred houses last year, we bought a hundred houses the year before, what percentage of those houses were vacant?

Mike: Oh, that's most of them.

David: 70?

Mike: Yeah, I mean, I could make it up, I don't have the number.

David: I don't expect you to.

Mike: Maybe 75%, 80%?

David: Okay, but the point was it 20% or is it 80%?

Mike: 80%.

David: Okay, it's on the high end, right? So, go find vacant houses. That's your marketing right there, boom. Vacant houses, absentee owned properties, start there, call them, text them, send them a letter, that's your marketing period. Do not overthink it or go hang bandit signs and don't do all of those, just pick one, get good at it and then once you're a pro at that or you feel that you can now teach that topic, then expand to the second one or the third one, but don't do it all at once because none of it's going to happen, and this is again, this is breaking through these analysis paralysis barriers that we're putting on ourself in our own mind. This is a mindset podcast right here at this point. So, you have analysis paralysis on the whole business as a whole which we talked about. Don't worry about it, stop trying to think you need to know everything, do something. Same thing with marketing, pick one, start doing, it is not that difficult. Next will be making offers and talking on the phone to people, alright? Understand that you are going to screw up. I screw up, Mike screws up. We don't make it our goal to get out every day and go screw up, but we do make it our goal to get out and do something, take action and if we make a deal out of it, awesome, we hopefully learned something and if we screw up, well that happens too, hopefully we also learned something from that experience so you just- you got to just- you got to get out and you got to act. Action is really where it's at. Don't be afraid to talk to sellers’ guys, here's a little something that I think is very very very often overlooked. People are new, right? New wholesalers, new investors, new landlords. They come to Mike and I and they want help, and I say man, I don't know what to tell these people like I haven't bought houses before, well guess what? They probably haven't sold houses before, right? or if you have a couple properties that you've done, you most likely have done more transactions than they have so don't think that you're going to call them up and they're just going to be like oh you're a rookie, they don't know.

Mike: That's a really good point. Most people have not sold a property.

David: Ever.

Mike: To an investor.

David: Ever.

Mike: Yeah.

David: In their entire lives. So, your goal isn't to go out there and impress them like you're this kick ass investor that's like everything around you just turns to gold. No, your job is to get out there and be like man, I'm a human too, you wanna give me a good deal on this property? I maybe consider buying it, but like I'm not chasing it, I don't need it, I'll pay retail, did I say I was an investor? I think I did. That's it like make a friend, you know, just get on the damn phone. Don't be afraid, make a friend, tell him you're new, I tell people this all the time cuz like man I'm so scared to go on an appointment or get on that phone. You're scared because you are leading on to this person or maybe you're just telling yourself that you don't know what you're doing so tell them that. Just say hey, I'm new to this whole investing game, but I know I want to buy rentals and it seems like you have one. I would love to come out and meet you and look at the property. I don't know if I'm going to be interested in buying it and I don't know what my offer is. That's okay guys, it's not a bad problem or a bad thing to just tell people that.

Mike: I think being candid and admitting your vulnerability to other people is one of the best ways to open up or start that relationship. Just saying hey, I don't know what I'm doing, I know I want to buy a house, is yours one that you want to sell? Again, to me that is going to put your relationship with that person just in fast forward. They're gonna be like oh, this guy's just a normal person like he's just trying to buy a house like maybe I'll sell it to him.

David: Yeah, and it can come off intimidating if you like get on the phone with a seller that's never sold a house and you're like oh the comps in the neighborhood are you know, for 3-2's are 1100 square foot or $126 a square foot, and you start rapping out all these numbers, they're not gonna know what the hell that means. Just make an appointment, get out there, make a friend. If you never bought a house before, tell him, don't worry about it, but you got to get- you got to get through that analysis paralysis of getting on the phone and/or making offers.

Mike: I wonder how much more common analysis paralysis is now and by now, I mean like in the past 10 years, not just in our business but just in general cuz like so we have the internet now, right? It's the information age or whatever it is now.

David: Yes, the microchip.

Mike: Like there's so much information out there Dave. Like how can you not be overwhelmed with it?

David: Yeah, and I think everybody, they get in their own head.

Mike: Yeah.

David: And they think they've failed before they ever even started, and that is failure in my opinion, but you don't fail until you fail, so get off your ass and get out there and go fail because it's not going to be the end of the- of the world for you.

Mike: Yeah, but you don't even-

David: You're going to learn.

Mike: You don't fail when you fail.

David: You learn.

Mike: You only fail if you give up or quit.

David: When you give up, yeah and man, that's it. You nailed it. I wasn't even thinking about that.

Mike: Cuz we fail-

David: But that's so true. It's part of the success formula is really where we're at.

Mike: Yeah, cuz we fail- and exactly, you said fail, fail, fail- fail plus fail plus fail plus fail equals success.

David: And you could have 30 in there if you want, doesn't matter, right.

Mike:  And if we constantly do it.

David: Yeah.

Mike: Like, everyday like oh shit, another rental that has another maintenance request, shit there goes our cash flow on that one.

David: Can't wait for that one.

Mike: I mean again, like we're constantly fixing problems because we messed something up. Big deal like I don't know.

David: Yeah, it's part of it.

Mike: I don't know just a couple loser here.

David: You gotta get out of your-

Mike: Don't take our advice.

David: Yeah, exactly you know. We haven't flipped that many houses, only 500 of them or so, give or take, so yeah but that's it guys, you know, analysis paralysis, it's a real thing.  We're just trying to give you guys some pointers here today. That's the point, you know, to get people out of analysis paralysis. I think the main ones would be, you know marketing. They're not sure what to say when they do their marketing and I can tell you what I say: Hey, I'm Dave. I'm looking to buy some property, do you have a property, do you own one? Great, you want to sell it? Great. Yes or no? Great. Have a good day or let's talk about it. That's it, boom. When you're sending your mail, man I see this all the time, hey, you know, what do you write on the- what do you send in your mail? Like what does your letter say? or do you have a specific postcard? Mike can you please answer this? What do you put in your direct mail?

Mike: I've no idea.

David: But it doesn't really matter, the point is-

Mike: We put we buy houses, I buy houses, hey whoever.

David: It's not important.

Mike: It doesn't matter.

David: Yeah, what the message should say is hey I'm looking to buy some properties, if you have one, here is how you can contact me and give a phone number, a website, an email address, a fax line, a texting phone number or an address for them to mail something back to you cuz that does happen from time to time, but don't overcomplicate the message. I'm an investor, I'm looking to buy some properties, seems to me you own one, you wanna sell it? Like that's it, that's the whole thing.

Mike: Yeah.

David: Maybe they need 3 paragraphs to expand on that but that's the message guys, it's simple.

Mike: Well, what's so easy about it now is like we use so many different services that I don't really know what the messages anymore. Like if-

David: Oh, yeah.

Mike: If we're using our driving for dollars, like they've got their own postcards, you click that one. If we use REI print mail-

David: Yeah, all the mailing providers like Deal machine, REI print mail, Propstream, all of these companies, Yellow letter HQ, all these great companies, all the one I've just listed, we've used and/or are using, okay? but they all have templates too and Mike and I aren't in there trying to tweak the template. We just say hey what looks the most appealing to you or me when we're in there ordering it, you like the yellow? you like the red? you like the blue? The message is all the same: we buy them. So, when it comes to the marketing guys, pick one, start doing it, stop dicking around alright? Seriously, this is the analysis paralysis that we see every single day. In the big picture, if you know that this business consists of marketing and that you have to make offers in order to do deals, stop worrying about buyers lists. It's irrelevant. You don't need a single buyer to be able to start making offers and/or marketing to the sellers to see if you can go out and find a deal. Don't worry about step 7, 8 or 10 when you haven't even done one or two and that's really the point of this podcast is there is a simple simple process to wholesaling real estate or becoming a landlord or fixing and flipping a property, and people- people are what make things complicated. People. People are complicated. So, the process let's say for wholesaling specifically is so simple: market and find motivated sellers’ guys, make a lot of offers because most of them are going to tell you to kick rocks, but that's okay, make a lot of offers and then the ones that you are able to get under contract, market. Not every one of those are even going to sell, market them to find that buyer, double close or assign. That's it, you're talking 5- 4 or 5 steps to do a deal but people think that they need to know how to do 37 different things to do this and that is just so incorrect to me. It's so wrong. So, Mike what would be your number one piece of advice to people that are facing analysis paralysis, cuz I think this episode is actually going to get quite a bit of people, you know searching out for it cuz this is a big problem.

Mike: I'd say limit your amount of information that you consume.

David: I love that.

Mike: There's- if you are-

David: It just leads to more, that's the problem.

Mike: Well, that's just it. If you're looking at okay well, how do I do this? Okay, give yourself like an hour of research time and that's it, then after that-

David: Yeah, cuz David Dodge may have a different way on YouTube of using Propstream versus you know, Brent Daniels or Jerry Norton or some of these other guys out in the space, right? That's a great point, limit your knowledge, you know like-

Mike: Well, and I don't mean necessarily limit your knowledge, limit-

David: Limit your time.

Mike: Limit your scope of search.

David: Scope, there you go. That's what I meant.

Mike: Like, you have to take action on it like- so let's use that as an example is so Dave wants to know how to-

David: Pull motivated seller lists.

Mike: Exactly, okay so you're gonna, first off, you're gonna go down and click the link below and we're going to show you how to do that on DPI, what is it, podcast backslash comps. Go there.

David:  Forward slash, why would you say that?

Mike: I say backslash cuz I don't know any better.

David: Right.

Mike: Where was I going with this? So again, give yourself whatever it is. If you say I'm not going to be ready to do this for 4 months, okay give yourself one month. If you say I'm not going to be ready-

David: Yeah, there you go. I see where you're going with this.

Mike: - to do this for 1 week, give yourself one day.

David: Right.

Mike: Like you don't need to keep reading- Again, we've got a book on the BRRRR method, you don't have to read the whole book to do a BRRRR property. You don't- again, if you are-

David: Or at least all in one sitting.

Mike: No.

David: Yeah.

Mike: There's absolutely no reason.

David: Right.

Mike: Same thing, so the wholesaling be an even better example. We've got a whole book on wholesaling too. You don't need to know everything to get started. That's- who is it that used to say this all the time? I think it was Matt Theriault, epic podcast. I'll plug him cuz he's a great inspiration to me when I'd started out.

David: Yeah, still is. I like Matt, he's a great guy, met him a couple of times too, good dude.

Mike: Yeah, very very very cool guy.

David: Yeah.

Mike: One of his things he used to always give the example of if you tried- if you waited to leave your house for all the stoplights to turn green-

David: Oh yeah, great analogy.

Mike: To get to your destination, you would never leave your house.

David: Assuming you could see them all.

Mike: Exactly.

David: Yeah, cuz they're always going to be turning green and red, green and red. That is a beautiful analogy Mike because even when you're on the road and you see three green's ahead of you, the odds are what one of them is going to turn red. You're going to have stop or slow down or yield or something. Life just- it's the way it works. Love that.

Mike: Yeah, so again, that's a great analogy from Matt and his podcast, he's got way more probably listenership than we do, but again, it's very very accurate in the way that a lot of people approach doing something new. They want to have all of the green lights or all the knowledge before they leave the driveway, don't- you cannot do that. It is impractical, it is unrealistic to have all of the answers in your brain, know everything without actually doing it. You have to do in order to know. So again, that would be my two cents on the topic.

David: I love it guys.

Mike: That's all I got for you.

David: So, the takeaway here is everybody is going to have some sort of analysis paralysis at some port- at some point and if you are that listener that has been wanting to get into wholesaling real estate and you have listened to more than 5 of Mike and I's podcast, you probably know more than the next guy just from listening to a couple of these shows. So, if wholesaling's what you want to do, the first step is learn how to market and then part 2 of step one is to market. Don't worry about what contract you're going to use or what title company you're going to close at. Start with step one, finish it, then go to step two and that's personally how I feel any challenging or something that I'm looking at my life that doesn't look like it- that it's going to be you know, achievable, I just try to break it down hey what's step one? And just start there and then that's it. That's kind of my whole- my secret to avoiding it is hey, maybe I'm not that good at step one but I got to do it cuz I can't jump over to step two cuz then this is just going to be all out of whack and I'm going to end up just spending a bunch of money on something that's not going to work. So, just keep it simple, start there and whatever you have to do to tell yourself that it's okay to make mistakes, you better learn how to do that quick cuz you are going to make mistakes, but it doesn't mean that you're failing. You said that earlier Mike, failure isn't failure unless you didn't learn or you repeat that.

Mike: Failure's just a mindset, really.

David: Just a mindset.

Mike: Yeah man, it really is. It's like oh, I'm a failure because this one thing happened. Well okay, yeah bad things happen to all of us. We all get ourselves in situations that we don't necessarily like or want to be in, so you just keep moving like you- failure is just a mindset. Yeah, keep failing and you are success, that's- a lot of cheesy one liners but man, keep on keeping on. Life's a garden, dig it, throw dirt. I don't know, what else can we throw on here?

David: I like it. Well that's it, I mean, I don't think we really need to keep going. I think that analysis process is a very real thing and it's all in your head. So, just put your best foot forward and just know that if you just start with the simple things that are needed to get to the finish line one foot at a time, one step at a time, start there, don't worry about the last quarter mile of that marathon, worry about the next 10 ft and that if you keep looking at it like that, there is no reason that you are not going to be successful at anything you put your mind to. Not saying it's going to happen overnight but as long as you just keep putting one foot in front of the other, eventually you're going to be able to achieve whatever it is you put your mind out to do guys. Analysis paralysis is made up guys, it's in your head, overcome it and hopefully some of the things you've learned on this show today will help you do so. Signing off.

Thanks for listening to the discount property investor podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, share, and subscribe to help us reach a wider audience to jump-start your real estate investing career, visit freewholesalecourse.com- the most complete free course on wholesaling real estate ever. We would also appreciate it if you left us a review on iTunes or Stitcher. Thank you in advance for your support and remember you make your money when you buy, you get paid when you sell. Now let's go build some wealth.z

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Welcome back to the Discount Property Investor podcast. Our mission is to share what we have learned from our experience and the experience of others to help you make more money investing like a pro. We want to teach you how to create wealth by investing in real estate, the discount property investor way. To jumpstart your real estate investing career, visit freewholesalecourse.com, the most complete free course on wholesaling real estate ever. Thanks for tuning in.

David: Alright guys, welcome back to the show. Today, we are going to focus our time and efforts on talking to you guys about analysis paralysis and just kind of talk about why people have it and what are some of the things we can do to overcome it.

Mike: I was always too stupid to be like analysis paralysis.

David: I had it for a couple weeks when I first got started.

Mike: I just didn't know what to do.

David: But the thing is though is there's some people that have had it for years.

Mike: Yeah.

David: You know, I mean, there's- we get a lot of people that hire us that have had it for years and that's great because they already know a lot of the business if not all of it, but they're just not doing any of those things, right? So, let's talk about some of the things that people may have analysis paralysis on. I would say first and foremost, they think that they need to know everything about something before they can begin and that's like the worst mindset to have. If you know a little bit about it, start doing that. What do you know? Start doing that. Don't wait until you know everything, okay? So, that's big picture analysis paralysis. If we're talking about marketing, we got a lot of people that come to us and they say hey, you know, should I do direct mail, or should I cold call or cold text? Well, man those are two totally different types of marketing. Are you gonna spend time or money? Which can you afford to budget for, right? but there shouldn't be analysis paralysis there but there is because people are thinking well, there's so many different options and those are only two or three different ways Mike. There's fifty to a hundred ways to find motivated sellers, you know that.

Mike: [inaudible] radio ads.

David: Yeah, exactly.

Mike: Facebook ads.

David: Right, I think another big analysis paralysis-

Mike: Should I do tv commercials?

David: Is okay so, you know, I've got this marketing ready to go but I'm scared to send it cuz I don't know what to say whenever my phone actually starts ringing or hey, I got this guy, I get this like once a week, hey I got this guy that wants to sell his property. What do I do now? Set the appointment.

Mike: Yeah, buy it.

David: How are you going to buy it if you can't get eyeballs on it, right? Like, get out in the field.

Mike: Yeah, no that's not true and you know, what I said earlier is not true because I do- I remember being scared to answer the phone. I had a separate line for my business, I bought a different phone just sending out marketing and I was scared to answer the phone. Why?

David: I think we all probably have that feeling in the beginning. I don't remember having that per se, but I would be- wouldn't be surprised Mike if I was a little scared in the beginning to answer the calls as well. I mean, everyone's going to have a little fear of doing something they haven't done before, but the goal here is to just do it guys. Analysis paralysis is- it's like fear in my opinion, right? and you can eliminate it by stop worrying, right? Like, don't worry twice is one of the mottos that I always tell my wife and she will remind me and tell me. If we're ever like sitting around worrying about something, alright here's the actual quote, we say don't worry, you're suffering twice. If something bad happens or something that happens or there's something that happens where you have to then react, well you can worry then cuz you're dealing with it, but don't sit around worrying about it suffering for then it to then just happen. So, don't suffer twice is the thing, right?

Mike: The way that I look at, I say don't steal your own joy.

David: That too.

Mike: Because you are literally- you're dwelling on something that hasn't happened or whatever. You're basically stealing the opportunity from yourself, you're- I don't know. Don't steal your own joy, that's what worrying and overthinking, and over-analyzing does.

David: I would say the biggest analysis paralysis, making offers Mike. You know, you may get somebody that knows what they're doing and they either know it all already or they know enough to be dangerous, and they start which is the way I prefer everyone to start. That's how I started, and they'll even do some marketing and get on an appointment or two or ten or twenty, who knows, but they haven't made any offers yet and they're- it's like they're not only are they scared to get the property under contract, but they might be scared to have to back out. Like again, they're worrying about all the things that could happen or that may happen that may not be a positive experience for them, but because of that, nothing gets done. No deals get secured with contracts therefore no deals get marketed to our buyers list, which makes it impossible to profit off of a wholesale transaction if you don't have control of one. So, analysis paralysis is just- it is a widespread issue.

Mike: I think it's the fear of failure too.

David: I agree.

Mike: It's a lack of knowing, so you're-

David: All of these things yeah.

Mike: So, you're analyzing something and you're saying well I don't know what to do, I might mess it up. Well, I- we messed up so much.

David: Yeah, I mess up every week.

Mike: We still- I think that's the biggest thing about being an entrepreneur which is so neat especially cuz right now cuz I'm feeling like we're doing pretty well so it's great to look back and be like dude, we failed so many times. Well guess what? It took that to be somewhat successful.

David: I was telling a student just over the weekend, I said you know what the formula for success looks like? and we we're joking with each other and he goes no Dave but enlighten me and I said, it's failure + failure + failure + failure + failure + failure = success. So you got to try, trial and error. If you- you are- it is very unlikely, put it this way, that you are going to try something and just be the very best at it the very first time you try it, unless that is basketball and your name is LeBron James, right? Like some people are obviously gifted but most of the time, 99.999% of the time, you're gonna screw it up in the process of learning it but that's part of the formula.

Mike: That's a great point.

David: And he was like, sometimes you say things that are just so like duh, he's like, but I love it because I don't ever think of it that way, you know and I'm like dude it's that simple you know. Get out there and be okay screwing up and failing because you're gonna learn as you go and there is also so many things that you know, Mike and I are able to teach our students. You know, like obviously we want to help as much as we can and we want to show them the door, but they have to walk through and sometimes they won't walk through it cuz they get analysis paralysis and we'll go grab their hand, metaphorically speaking, and we'll run to the door with them, and we'll show them hey this wasn't that hard, let's do this again, like we gotta get you doing this so on so forth but you know analysis paralysis is a big reason why most people that want to be in real estate aren't in real estate, or they want to do more deals and they're not doing more deals or just you know, anything in life in particular. So, let's talk about some of the ways that we can overcome analysis paralysis. I feel like you know, when it comes to real estate investing specifically wholesaling or even landlording, I feel like the best way to prevent analysis paralysis is to stop thinking that you need to know everything. I think that is the first thing we can all do is accept that we don't know everything.

Mike: Yeah.

David: But that's not going to let- that's not going to stop us from doing what's important.

Mike: Hey, I hardly know anything about real estate and here we are doing a real estate podcast couple hundred shows in, right?

David: But you know Mike, yeah, but that's why I'm partners with you. You don't have analysis paralysis, or at least enough of it to deter you from making moves and I'm- I feel like I'm the same way, like we are okay failing.

Mike: Yeah.

David: Because we're going to learn in the process.

Mike: Exactly, and I don't do everything perfect. It's hard to accept that and neither is Dave.

David: I don't intend to.

Mike: We both screw up our business constantly.

David: yeah, constantly.

Mike: But I mean again, that's-

David: But we're still here talking about it and that's the point, right?

Mike: Yeah, because you get over that failure and you say okay, and we learn from it too. That was the other thing you were touching on is like hey we've made mistakes, we're gonna help our students, but some of those failures that you make, you really learn the most from. Even when you hire a coach, we have- we've both used coaches, used coaches.

David: We have coaches right now.

Mike: We still make mistakes.

David: Right.

Mike: We still go against some of their advice because it's-

David: We often regret it.

Mike: Yeah, it's human nature though like it's just what it is, and you learn from those failures, you learn from those mistakes.

David: Right.

Mike: Again, just got to bust through it.

David: So, number one guys, don't think or have the feeling or limit yourself because you feel that you don't know enough or all of it. I get people that come to me all the time, Mike too, you know, I've been studying for 6 months and I've read 5 books but I just feel like, you know, I need to know the next thing, I need to know, you know, I'm missing something and it's like man, you probably know more than me about this and I've written books and done 500 deals cuz you're reading all the little details like, I learn as I go and I feel like everybody can also do that, you just got to take the leap, right? So don't- number one, don't feel like you need to know everything before you start, period, and that can go for wholesaling, that can go for fix and flipping, that can go for landlording. Obviously the more you know, the less risk you're going to have cuz you're going to be able to prevent a lot of it, but what I mean by that is you can go read one or two books, three books maybe and/or listen to maybe 10 hours of podcast on the topic and know enough to start. You don't need to spend seven weeks, two years, so on so forth, you know, just learn a little bit and then implement and that's so incredibly important. So, that's big picture. When it comes to marketing, let's talk a little bit about market analysis paralysis, very similar. There is a lot of ways to market, don't think you got to learn how to do them all. If direct mail is intriguing to you or it sounds interesting, go buy a list or create your own by driving for dollars. Deal machine's how I do it, use coupon code Dave, you get a hundred free text messages, I'm sorry a hundred free skip traces. D-A-V-E, but either create your list or buy one and send the mail. If you decide you want to do some cold calling, then get your list or create one, skip trace it and start calling. Don't think you need to know how to do 30 types of marketing because none of it gets done, so focus on one or two things, do. Action will trump any other activity 99 times out of 99 times. Action is the way to do it, so if you're having analysis paralysis with marketing, I can tell you right now. Mike, we bought a hundred houses last year, we bought a hundred houses the year before, what percentage of those houses were vacant?

Mike: Oh, that's most of them.

David: 70?

Mike: Yeah, I mean, I could make it up, I don't have the number.

David: I don't expect you to.

Mike: Maybe 75%, 80%?

David: Okay, but the point was it 20% or is it 80%?

Mike: 80%.

David: Okay, it's on the high end, right? So, go find vacant houses. That's your marketing right there, boom. Vacant houses, absentee owned properties, start there, call them, text them, send them a letter, that's your marketing period. Do not overthink it or go hang bandit signs and don't do all of those, just pick one, get good at it and then once you're a pro at that or you feel that you can now teach that topic, then expand to the second one or the third one, but don't do it all at once because none of it's going to happen, and this is again, this is breaking through these analysis paralysis barriers that we're putting on ourself in our own mind. This is a mindset podcast right here at this point. So, you have analysis paralysis on the whole business as a whole which we talked about. Don't worry about it, stop trying to think you need to know everything, do something. Same thing with marketing, pick one, start doing, it is not that difficult. Next will be making offers and talking on the phone to people, alright? Understand that you are going to screw up. I screw up, Mike screws up. We don't make it our goal to get out every day and go screw up, but we do make it our goal to get out and do something, take action and if we make a deal out of it, awesome, we hopefully learned something and if we screw up, well that happens too, hopefully we also learned something from that experience so you just- you got to just- you got to get out and you got to act. Action is really where it's at. Don't be afraid to talk to sellers’ guys, here's a little something that I think is very very very often overlooked. People are new, right? New wholesalers, new investors, new landlords. They come to Mike and I and they want help, and I say man, I don't know what to tell these people like I haven't bought houses before, well guess what? They probably haven't sold houses before, right? or if you have a couple properties that you've done, you most likely have done more transactions than they have so don't think that you're going to call them up and they're just going to be like oh you're a rookie, they don't know.

Mike: That's a really good point. Most people have not sold a property.

David: Ever.

Mike: To an investor.

David: Ever.

Mike: Yeah.

David: In their entire lives. So, your goal isn't to go out there and impress them like you're this kick ass investor that's like everything around you just turns to gold. No, your job is to get out there and be like man, I'm a human too, you wanna give me a good deal on this property? I maybe consider buying it, but like I'm not chasing it, I don't need it, I'll pay retail, did I say I was an investor? I think I did. That's it like make a friend, you know, just get on the damn phone. Don't be afraid, make a friend, tell him you're new, I tell people this all the time cuz like man I'm so scared to go on an appointment or get on that phone. You're scared because you are leading on to this person or maybe you're just telling yourself that you don't know what you're doing so tell them that. Just say hey, I'm new to this whole investing game, but I know I want to buy rentals and it seems like you have one. I would love to come out and meet you and look at the property. I don't know if I'm going to be interested in buying it and I don't know what my offer is. That's okay guys, it's not a bad problem or a bad thing to just tell people that.

Mike: I think being candid and admitting your vulnerability to other people is one of the best ways to open up or start that relationship. Just saying hey, I don't know what I'm doing, I know I want to buy a house, is yours one that you want to sell? Again, to me that is going to put your relationship with that person just in fast forward. They're gonna be like oh, this guy's just a normal person like he's just trying to buy a house like maybe I'll sell it to him.

David: Yeah, and it can come off intimidating if you like get on the phone with a seller that's never sold a house and you're like oh the comps in the neighborhood are you know, for 3-2's are 1100 square foot or $126 a square foot, and you start rapping out all these numbers, they're not gonna know what the hell that means. Just make an appointment, get out there, make a friend. If you never bought a house before, tell him, don't worry about it, but you got to get- you got to get through that analysis paralysis of getting on the phone and/or making offers.

Mike: I wonder how much more common analysis paralysis is now and by now, I mean like in the past 10 years, not just in our business but just in general cuz like so we have the internet now, right? It's the information age or whatever it is now.

David: Yes, the microchip.

Mike: Like there's so much information out there Dave. Like how can you not be overwhelmed with it?

David: Yeah, and I think everybody, they get in their own head.

Mike: Yeah.

David: And they think they've failed before they ever even started, and that is failure in my opinion, but you don't fail until you fail, so get off your ass and get out there and go fail because it's not going to be the end of the- of the world for you.

Mike: Yeah, but you don't even-

David: You're going to learn.

Mike: You don't fail when you fail.

David: You learn.

Mike: You only fail if you give up or quit.

David: When you give up, yeah and man, that's it. You nailed it. I wasn't even thinking about that.

Mike: Cuz we fail-

David: But that's so true. It's part of the success formula is really where we're at.

Mike: Yeah, cuz we fail- and exactly, you said fail, fail, fail- fail plus fail plus fail plus fail equals success.

David: And you could have 30 in there if you want, doesn't matter, right.

Mike:  And if we constantly do it.

David: Yeah.

Mike: Like, everyday like oh shit, another rental that has another maintenance request, shit there goes our cash flow on that one.

David: Can't wait for that one.

Mike: I mean again, like we're constantly fixing problems because we messed something up. Big deal like I don't know.

David: Yeah, it's part of it.

Mike: I don't know just a couple loser here.

David: You gotta get out of your-

Mike: Don't take our advice.

David: Yeah, exactly you know. We haven't flipped that many houses, only 500 of them or so, give or take, so yeah but that's it guys, you know, analysis paralysis, it's a real thing.  We're just trying to give you guys some pointers here today. That's the point, you know, to get people out of analysis paralysis. I think the main ones would be, you know marketing. They're not sure what to say when they do their marketing and I can tell you what I say: Hey, I'm Dave. I'm looking to buy some property, do you have a property, do you own one? Great, you want to sell it? Great. Yes or no? Great. Have a good day or let's talk about it. That's it, boom. When you're sending your mail, man I see this all the time, hey, you know, what do you write on the- what do you send in your mail? Like what does your letter say? or do you have a specific postcard? Mike can you please answer this? What do you put in your direct mail?

Mike: I've no idea.

David: But it doesn't really matter, the point is-

Mike: We put we buy houses, I buy houses, hey whoever.

David: It's not important.

Mike: It doesn't matter.

David: Yeah, what the message should say is hey I'm looking to buy some properties, if you have one, here is how you can contact me and give a phone number, a website, an email address, a fax line, a texting phone number or an address for them to mail something back to you cuz that does happen from time to time, but don't overcomplicate the message. I'm an investor, I'm looking to buy some properties, seems to me you own one, you wanna sell it? Like that's it, that's the whole thing.

Mike: Yeah.

David: Maybe they need 3 paragraphs to expand on that but that's the message guys, it's simple.

Mike: Well, what's so easy about it now is like we use so many different services that I don't really know what the messages anymore. Like if-

David: Oh, yeah.

Mike: If we're using our driving for dollars, like they've got their own postcards, you click that one. If we use REI print mail-

David: Yeah, all the mailing providers like Deal machine, REI print mail, Propstream, all of these companies, Yellow letter HQ, all these great companies, all the one I've just listed, we've used and/or are using, okay? but they all have templates too and Mike and I aren't in there trying to tweak the template. We just say hey what looks the most appealing to you or me when we're in there ordering it, you like the yellow? you like the red? you like the blue? The message is all the same: we buy them. So, when it comes to the marketing guys, pick one, start doing it, stop dicking around alright? Seriously, this is the analysis paralysis that we see every single day. In the big picture, if you know that this business consists of marketing and that you have to make offers in order to do deals, stop worrying about buyers lists. It's irrelevant. You don't need a single buyer to be able to start making offers and/or marketing to the sellers to see if you can go out and find a deal. Don't worry about step 7, 8 or 10 when you haven't even done one or two and that's really the point of this podcast is there is a simple simple process to wholesaling real estate or becoming a landlord or fixing and flipping a property, and people- people are what make things complicated. People. People are complicated. So, the process let's say for wholesaling specifically is so simple: market and find motivated sellers’ guys, make a lot of offers because most of them are going to tell you to kick rocks, but that's okay, make a lot of offers and then the ones that you are able to get under contract, market. Not every one of those are even going to sell, market them to find that buyer, double close or assign. That's it, you're talking 5- 4 or 5 steps to do a deal but people think that they need to know how to do 37 different things to do this and that is just so incorrect to me. It's so wrong. So, Mike what would be your number one piece of advice to people that are facing analysis paralysis, cuz I think this episode is actually going to get quite a bit of people, you know searching out for it cuz this is a big problem.

Mike: I'd say limit your amount of information that you consume.

David: I love that.

Mike: There's- if you are-

David: It just leads to more, that's the problem.

Mike: Well, that's just it. If you're looking at okay well, how do I do this? Okay, give yourself like an hour of research time and that's it, then after that-

David: Yeah, cuz David Dodge may have a different way on YouTube of using Propstream versus you know, Brent Daniels or Jerry Norton or some of these other guys out in the space, right? That's a great point, limit your knowledge, you know like-

Mike: Well, and I don't mean necessarily limit your knowledge, limit-

David: Limit your time.

Mike: Limit your scope of search.

David: Scope, there you go. That's what I meant.

Mike: Like, you have to take action on it like- so let's use that as an example is so Dave wants to know how to-

David: Pull motivated seller lists.

Mike: Exactly, okay so you're gonna, first off, you're gonna go down and click the link below and we're going to show you how to do that on DPI, what is it, podcast backslash comps. Go there.

David:  Forward slash, why would you say that?

Mike: I say backslash cuz I don't know any better.

David: Right.

Mike: Where was I going with this? So again, give yourself whatever it is. If you say I'm not going to be ready to do this for 4 months, okay give yourself one month. If you say I'm not going to be ready-

David: Yeah, there you go. I see where you're going with this.

Mike: - to do this for 1 week, give yourself one day.

David: Right.

Mike: Like you don't need to keep reading- Again, we've got a book on the BRRRR method, you don't have to read the whole book to do a BRRRR property. You don't- again, if you are-

David: Or at least all in one sitting.

Mike: No.

David: Yeah.

Mike: There's absolutely no reason.

David: Right.

Mike: Same thing, so the wholesaling be an even better example. We've got a whole book on wholesaling too. You don't need to know everything to get started. That's- who is it that used to say this all the time? I think it was Matt Theriault, epic podcast. I'll plug him cuz he's a great inspiration to me when I'd started out.

David: Yeah, still is. I like Matt, he's a great guy, met him a couple of times too, good dude.

Mike: Yeah, very very very cool guy.

David: Yeah.

Mike: One of his things he used to always give the example of if you tried- if you waited to leave your house for all the stoplights to turn green-

David: Oh yeah, great analogy.

Mike: To get to your destination, you would never leave your house.

David: Assuming you could see them all.

Mike: Exactly.

David: Yeah, cuz they're always going to be turning green and red, green and red. That is a beautiful analogy Mike because even when you're on the road and you see three green's ahead of you, the odds are what one of them is going to turn red. You're going to have stop or slow down or yield or something. Life just- it's the way it works. Love that.

Mike: Yeah, so again, that's a great analogy from Matt and his podcast, he's got way more probably listenership than we do, but again, it's very very accurate in the way that a lot of people approach doing something new. They want to have all of the green lights or all the knowledge before they leave the driveway, don't- you cannot do that. It is impractical, it is unrealistic to have all of the answers in your brain, know everything without actually doing it. You have to do in order to know. So again, that would be my two cents on the topic.

David: I love it guys.

Mike: That's all I got for you.

David: So, the takeaway here is everybody is going to have some sort of analysis paralysis at some port- at some point and if you are that listener that has been wanting to get into wholesaling real estate and you have listened to more than 5 of Mike and I's podcast, you probably know more than the next guy just from listening to a couple of these shows. So, if wholesaling's what you want to do, the first step is learn how to market and then part 2 of step one is to market. Don't worry about what contract you're going to use or what title company you're going to close at. Start with step one, finish it, then go to step two and that's personally how I feel any challenging or something that I'm looking at my life that doesn't look like it- that it's going to be you know, achievable, I just try to break it down hey what's step one? And just start there and then that's it. That's kind of my whole- my secret to avoiding it is hey, maybe I'm not that good at step one but I got to do it cuz I can't jump over to step two cuz then this is just going to be all out of whack and I'm going to end up just spending a bunch of money on something that's not going to work. So, just keep it simple, start there and whatever you have to do to tell yourself that it's okay to make mistakes, you better learn how to do that quick cuz you are going to make mistakes, but it doesn't mean that you're failing. You said that earlier Mike, failure isn't failure unless you didn't learn or you repeat that.

Mike: Failure's just a mindset, really.

David: Just a mindset.

Mike: Yeah man, it really is. It's like oh, I'm a failure because this one thing happened. Well okay, yeah bad things happen to all of us. We all get ourselves in situations that we don't necessarily like or want to be in, so you just keep moving like you- failure is just a mindset. Yeah, keep failing and you are success, that's- a lot of cheesy one liners but man, keep on keeping on. Life's a garden, dig it, throw dirt. I don't know, what else can we throw on here?

David: I like it. Well that's it, I mean, I don't think we really need to keep going. I think that analysis process is a very real thing and it's all in your head. So, just put your best foot forward and just know that if you just start with the simple things that are needed to get to the finish line one foot at a time, one step at a time, start there, don't worry about the last quarter mile of that marathon, worry about the next 10 ft and that if you keep looking at it like that, there is no reason that you are not going to be successful at anything you put your mind to. Not saying it's going to happen overnight but as long as you just keep putting one foot in front of the other, eventually you're going to be able to achieve whatever it is you put your mind out to do guys. Analysis paralysis is made up guys, it's in your head, overcome it and hopefully some of the things you've learned on this show today will help you do so. Signing off.

Thanks for listening to the discount property investor podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, share, and subscribe to help us reach a wider audience to jump-start your real estate investing career, visit freewholesalecourse.com- the most complete free course on wholesaling real estate ever. We would also appreciate it if you left us a review on iTunes or Stitcher. Thank you in advance for your support and remember you make your money when you buy, you get paid when you sell. Now let's go build some wealth.