Commercial Real Estate Mentors

"Buy Low, Sell High". This is the fundamental axiom of any kind of commercial transaction, and commercial real estate investing is no different in this regard. Commercial real estate products work from the same principle.but the complexities of the business are such that anyone can get overwhelmed by them. Unfortunately, as real estate investors, it's very easy to get into the lone gunslinger mindset, and that can be detrimental to running your business.

The most effective way to learn is from making mistakes; you learn more from mistakes than you do from successes. Even better is to learn from the mistakes of others, and in the commercial real estate field, one of the best ways to learn from the mistakes of others is by talking to others - networking, coaching and mentoring solutions.

Networking can be as simple as talking to other commercial real estate investors, and finding out about properties that are for sale, or projects looking for new investment money. Networking is a great way to reduce your research time in getting up to speed in commercial real estate investing.and it's an obvious first step, since as an investor, if you didn't like to talk to people, you wouldn't be in the business.

However, there's far more to getting the most out of the learning curve for commercial real estate investing that just networking; coaching and mentoring programs also exist, and they tend to be much more in depth. The drawback is that they cost money, and that price tag, to "do something I'd learn on my own" is often a barrier to entry in accepting a coaching or mentoring relationship.

Think of it like this; a lot of people accumulate experience in the wheeling and dealing and financial underpinnings of commercial real estate investing. And running a property can take a lot of time and effort; if the part of the job a person likes is making the deal, not managing the property, then there may be a role for them in coaching or mentoring others.

It's not that a coach or mentor will show you parts of the business you've never seen before. Most coaching experts will take the time to learn how you do your business, and then focus on execution to make sure that you're meeting all your goals. They'll work on contacts management, and teaching you how to do proper data analysis of what you're doing so that you can trim out the parts of your operation that aren't working effectively. Mentoring on little things like making sure that your marketing efforts are targeted efficiently will reduce your expenses while trying to improve marketing effectiveness. Other techniques include learning how to use the Postal zip code maps and US census data to spot trends in your area in time to capitalize on them.

The fact that you're reading this article at all means that you're looking for ways to reduce your workload and improve your income stream from your commercial real estate investing. Taking advantage of coaching or mentoring can help you learn to integrate the "many hats" syndrome. Most commercial real estate investors have to juggle tasks that a larger business would put on the shoulders of several other people - an accounting office, a schedule manager, and more. Mentoring can identify the parts of your job you aren't doing as well as you'd like and teach you how to improve them.

When evaluating coaches and mentors, look for the usual things you'd check on from any other professional: Evaluations from other clients, their own experience in working with commercial real estate, and professional reputation. A good coach should be inspiring to you, and help you "get your hustle on" to implement their suggestions. The interview process for a coach is an important one.

Ultimately, the aim for a coach is to re-inspire you to dedicate yourself to your business. In commercial real estate investing, if you don't love what you do, it's going to show and it's going to show badly. Coaches can help you avoid this fate.

By: Tony Seruga, Yolanda Seruga and Yolanda Bishop of www.maverickrei.com specialize in commercial and investment real estate. As of May, 2006, they and their partners are managing over $600 million dollars worth of new projects.