Well done Neelam for taking action, as John says.

You've made a very positive start so I am glad you found my advice helpful enough to act on.

I think "consistency" is so vital to success. Many people start out with good intentions but fall by the wayside after a while.

We were talking about this on another thread about sports people and how they achieve success.

A person can be brilliant at something, but if they are not consistent, they will fail.

Let's revisit this thread in a year's time Neelam and see how far you have come! It would be exciting for you to chart your journey either here, or on your own blog, as others would find it very helpful and inspiring.

Thanks John,

Please share if you feel the steps could be improved upon.

Neelam

---

Oh no, a year from now I will be trotting across the globe doing humanitarian projects changing parts of the third world countries most in need of developing! The property goals will be well on their way by then but good idea though I will be updating on this thread probably every few weeks to chart my progress, I like to get things moving along as fast as is possible.

Thanks

N

Neelam,

You asked for some feedback so here goes.

(25-07-2012 12:07 AM)neelam Wrote:  The people who know the recipe for property success are drinking champagne in their private jets, entertaining in their mansions, relaxing in yachts, cocktails on Carribean beaches and driving their Ferarris but not revealing their recipes on these forums.

I disagree. Many who are doing as you indicated above are no more knowledgeable about RE than folks who are still pounding the pavement. As an indicator, I would not use the items listed. They mean something but not a clear indication of the recipe for property success.

I also think a debate about the list above would be an unnecessary distraction from the real point of your message.

(25-07-2012 12:07 AM)neelam Wrote:  Remember I approached you when I was a complete newbie totally lost and not knowing where to go in order to find properties for my investor? Although I am still finding my way around the property game, I am actually getting quite ahead already.

This is a good sign. How do you measure success vs. measuring activity?

(25-07-2012 12:07 AM)neelam Wrote:  The following has been my journey and an executable plan of action for what I think could be a recipe for the beginnings of property success;

Plan your work and work your plan. Well done.

(25-07-2012 12:07 AM)neelam Wrote:  1. Sign up with LinkedIn and create a professional profile with a photo

I am not sure LinkedIn is all that critical. Let's assume it is for a minute. How can I find you on LinkedIn? From what I can see on the site here you do not list your full name or a link to your profile on LinkedIn. There are a lot of people on LinkedIn with Neelam as part of their name.

Your photo to be not fit for purpose. I expect a photo to be clear and mostly a head shot so I could find you in a room if we were planning to meet. The image you used is not clear and you are very distant so little detail is visible.

Use the same photo on your professional profiles so people pick up that you are the same person on the different sites.

(25-07-2012 12:07 AM)neelam Wrote:  2. Clearly state your objectives and be sincere about your intentions
3. Search all the property professionals in the country and invite all of them to join your network
4. Shortlist the contacts which you feel would be most helpful to you and send them a message outlining your requirements

I am less interested in your intentions until I 'discovery' you through some other discussion. This means the value of the intention statement is more as a background check.

Rather than sending people your requirements, I would start with an 'hello' message. Similar to real life where you great a person and maybe start a conversations before you hit them with your requirements.

(25-07-2012 12:07 AM)neelam Wrote:  5. Regularly check your new connections and further connect with their connections and so on...
6. Build on these relationships and slowly you will gain a whole network of beneficial and highly experienced property contacts who WILL help you achieve your goals

A good plan.

(25-07-2012 12:07 AM)neelam Wrote:  7. Your goal is to link with 500+ connections as this adds credibility to your profile

Though I have more than 500 contacts I do not really notice what people have. I am not the most active LinkedIn user. I was a beta tester way back when as a friend is a co-founder of LinkedIn.

What I do find it having a broad network helps when you want to search for something which you could not have anticipated months or years before.

(25-07-2012 12:07 AM)neelam Wrote:  This is what I did 9 days ago and I have almost 300 connections most of which I will never speak with but also amongst ones which I have made some excellent relationships with. I am now working with contacts who have high net worth clients with budgets of over £75 million searching for high end deals which I am now learning how to source on the behalf of these individuals.

Well done on getting started.

I am not sure what to make of the searches you are doing. I just do not know enough about what you are looking for and how solid your relationships are with the investors.

(25-07-2012 12:07 AM)neelam Wrote:  Commissions can be exponential depending on how many millions the property sought after is worth and if you can find them, then you can earn from them.

Technically, the commissions will not be exponential. The word means something different. What is actually true is the commission as a percentage will shrink as the deal size grows.

It is correct, that with larger deals you will earn more in total commissions even if the percentage of the deal tends to shrink when the deal size goes up. The time you invest for a large deal might be no more than the time you invest in a smaller deal.

(25-07-2012 12:07 AM)neelam Wrote:  I am now attending a course which will enable me to acquire marketing strategies in order to find these deals to the investors' requirements.

Which course are you taking? Is it more focused on Internet Marketing or on how to market off-line?

(25-07-2012 12:07 AM)neelam Wrote:  Earning in this way and at the same time learning invaluable lessons about property from the pros who have been there and done it and living it, is one if the best ways to get started in property and build your way up without having to start from nowhere and without having to do it alone and without needing experience and most importantly, without needing any money!

I agree that it makes sense to learn from others. I think you will find that you are on the traditional path in that you expect to learn what others already know. Anyone starting out will do something similar. If you are saying you are doing something unique, please explain.

What do you mean when you say "...without needing any money!"? I would say that you will be spending money on the marketing. Are you talking about being able to be an agent and being paid a commission compared to being an investor where you would need a deposit? If so, I understand the point. If not, please explain.

(25-07-2012 12:07 AM)neelam Wrote:  This is highly practical and workable advice which I am sharing from first hand experience that I am implementing myself and benefitting from greatly.

I hope some tribers will try this method out and post the experiences on here so I can see if it works for others as well as it works for me.

Neelam

I do like how you are sharing. That will increase the rate at which you get feedback and therefore the rate at which you might learn.

What you actually learn and how fast you accept the lessons is up to you. At least you will be exposed to alternatives and hopefully to best practice. Keep an open mind and realize that some of the advice will be in conflict as there are different strategies that will work.

Neelam, If you find yourself in London, let me know and we can meet up.

John

John,

Your answers just produce more questions and challenges lol and I know this is a trend of yours even though you have on several occasions offended some members on here but me, I love a challenge!

1. Yes, you are right "Many who are doing as you indicated above are no more knowledgeable about RE than folks who are still pounding the pavement" as I said it's not what you know, it's who you know and the people who you want to get to know are sitting on LinkedIn. No debate needed for the millionaire lifestyle I listed, I personally know such people, I make it a point to hang around them so I can learn and be inspired.

2. My success level will be measured right here. I told Vanessa that I will chart my progress here regularly so all can see what I am getting up to, how I am following up on my action plan listed and the results I achieve.

3. I purposely didn't put my LinkedIn profile link on here as I didn't want to come across as advertising myself just to make new connections. If someone truly wants to connect with me it wouldn't take long to track me down, taking into considering my name, position, location and photo, my LinkedIn photo is a close up on the one I have on here and it is clearly obvious that it is me. Here is my profile:
http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/neelam-jaswal/53/b69/430

4. LinkedIn is a place to meet like minded professionals who mean serious business. I mean serious business only and will absolutely hit them with my intentions and objectives right from the start. This strategy weeds out the ones which will be no good to me and so far, it has served me well. We are not here to waste time with formalities if you want hello and how are, go to facebook and twitter.

5. When I see a profile with 500+ connections on there I automatically want to connect with them. To me, it shows they are active and are there to make contacts and are credible as is to why so many people want to network with them. It simply looks better to have more than less. Plus the bonus is that if we set this as a target to new members they will be forced to look through as many profiles as possible and this is key to finding the connections which will help you.

6. The commissions can be exponential. One of my contacts, who by the way is an LPA receiver and provides off market property, charges a fee of 2% for up to £50 million deals and 1% for over £50 mil. So you're right, the percentage does shrink with larger deals but work it out, what's 1% of £51mil? One of my contacts has a budget of £75 mil! exponential or not???

7. I don't think I should give out the details of the course on here but anyone who is interested can message or email me and I can provide details. The course is this weekend and they teach us offline marketing strategies to source our own deals via various methods. I will be giving an update on this next week to share my findings.

8. Yes, needing no money to get involved in property was meant by earning commissions as an agent which I didnt know about b4 I encountered these offers directly from my LinkedIn contacts. I am not saying this is a unique idea but these are just ideas I want to pass onto those individuals who are struggling with their goals and hang around here all day without gaining practical/doable advice. They may already have LinkedIn accounts but are not using it to their best abilities, it's something which is working for me and I want it to work for others too.

9. Nothing about what I have said is conflicting nor will there be any harm in doing it. There is only gain here with no loss or risk to anyone.

John, can you tell me exactly what it is that you do in property and what you aim to achieve in your career?

Neelam

6.

Neelam,

Thanks for the reply. Do keep us posted on how LinkedIn is working for you.

I have been a landlord for 30 years now. I expect to continue for decades to come. At present, I am working on a project that is soaking up a lot of my time. It is below the radar at the present. When it is ready for launch, I can share more details on that front.

Ok, would love to hear about your new project when it's ready and launched.

Did you accept my LinkedIn invite?

N

Hi Neelam/ John,

I have enjoyed your correspondence here on the site.

Neelam, think the linkedin strategy is great- thanks for sharing.

John, great to see someone who is really sharing their experience without a sales pitch at the end!

I too am new to the property investment scene and will be looking at the 'no money down' deals at the moment, more specifically at Lease Options and instalment contracts. I am educating myself and will be meeting with some people tomorrow who do these type of deals, so will definitely share what I have learnt.

Chat soon

Vanessa

Hi Neelam,

Thanks for sharing your experiences with us and congratulation on getting off to what looks like a flying start.

Like you, I’m also new to property. I have 4 properties but they were all bought as my main home and then let out as I moved up the ladder. It’s only earlier on this year that I started to take an interest in getting into this properly.

I’d be interested to see how your strategy pans out as it’s very different to mine, not to say that’s good or bad, just different. I looked at the ‘finding deals via contacts’ route and have to say that it didn’t really work for me. The main problem that I encountered was what type of people to ‘connect’ with. Obviously we all want to be connecting with the high-flyers, the people getting all of the good deals and living the high life as a result. The problem was that these people already had a whole bunch of people just live me to choose from when they wanted to pass deals on. What’s more, these people of whom the deals could be passed onto actually weren’t like me, they were bigger players, they had done deals with them before, they already had established channels in place so getting into this club was going to be near on impossible.

So that leaves amateur deal sourcers, people at my level that were also prepared to deal with people at their level. The only problem here is that all of these guys seem to have been looking too closely at the professionals who don’t seem to bother with anything unless there’s at least 10k in it for them and often amateur deal sourcers only actually negotiate deals at 10-15% true bmv so on a 100k property their commission wipes out your discount.

Although I actually work in IT, I don’t use IT as a tool for finding leads. Whilst I’m sure that there are loads of people out there that use the internet as their main source of finding leads, it’s not for me.

So I’ve gone back to good old fashioned leaflet dropping and although haven’t yet got any deals via this route, have had a few good leads.

Anyway, thanks again for sharing your experiences and I’ll do the same with mine when I have something useful to share.

Regards,
Gary.

Hi Gary,

Thanks for your comments.

I was exactly like you when I started this whole sourcing business ie. searching everywhere and anywhere to find contacts like a headless chicken to find these deals but I learnt very quickly that they are not be found via internet, auctions or estate agents. I am very unconventional in the way that I do things and always look at doing things in ways that other people are not.

You are absolutely right, we as amateurs won't even be given the time of day by these other sourcers and investors if done things the 'normal way.' It's why I have stopped going to networking events with the same people, saying the same things, giving the same advice, same info and passing each others' contacts around which seem to circulate around the same calibre of people.

My motto is to stand out from the crowd. LinkedIn has been a great platform for me to connect with the high flyers. These people you will never meet in regular places online or offline. I thought LinkedIn was just another networking site and was sceptical about it but I just got myself out there like nobody's business and like lightening speed started speaking with and meeting up with the people who had high end deals along with others who had high net worth clients. All I have to do is bring them together!

This is not easy though. There are the sharks out there who will take and not give but I am a very wide-eyed smart girl and know how to differentiate with the good, the bad and the ugly. So you gotta be really careful.

Gary, going back to the traditional way of leaflet dropping is the probably the best thing you could have decided upon. I am going to a property marketing course this weekend and I reckon it is something you can def benefit from. If you want details, email me.

Thanks

Neelam

(26-07-2012 10:50 AM)neelam Wrote:  Ok, would love to hear about your new project when it's ready and launched.

Did you accept my LinkedIn invite?

N

I just saw your post here and jumped over to LinkedIn to accept the invite. Your network has just grown a little bit more.