Written By: Ralph R. Roberts, CRS, GRI. Ralph is the author of the forthcoming book Flipping Houses for Dummies (John Wiley & Sons, November, 2006), co-authored with Joe Kraynak. Visit www.TagTeamTactics.com for a seminar coming to an area near you and download free marketing materials.
I have been in the real estate business since I was 18 years old. I worked for a bunch of different companies since then. I now own my own company.
When did I write my first business plan? What do you think? 20 years ago? You would think that 20 years ago I had a plan to sell over 600 homes a year? Not even close!
I wrote my first business plan only 5 years ago - on a pad of yellow paper - it ended up as 10 sheets of paper with handwritten notes.
On yellow sheets of paper...I run a business doing in excess of $50M a year in real estate sales and my business plan is on a yellow sheet of paper? It really hit me between the eyes when I went to the bank for a line of credit to buy some investment properties. The banker said, "Let me ses a copy of your business plan." I gave it to him. He said, "well, it's good but is this how you keep your business plan?" I said, "well, that's the written copy, but we keep the typed one back at the office with the staff."
I didn't have a typed copy. My assistans had no idea of what I was going to do and where we were going. Just repeating this story makes me shutter.
Stanley changed my life...Superstar agent, Stanley Mills from Memphis, Tennessee, visited me. We spent a week writing a business plan. That week changed my life forever.
Read More
