So I’ve been a customer with a particular bank for over 5 years.  They don’t know me.  They have no record of any conversation with me ever in the last 5 years.  They don’t know if I’m a homeowner, if I drive a car, or ride a bike.   This company has no CRM (Client Relationship Management).   No SalesForce, no HighRise, no Sugar, no in house CRM.  They have a banking computer system but there is no way at all for them to note a customer’s account.  This may sound like a fantasy but it’s true.   You can go into one branch and tell them a long story about a problem, then go into another branch and it is if they have short term memory loss.   This bank will remain anonymous until I’m able to get rid of all my business there (I’ve been trying for some time).  Over 90% of my banking business is elsewhere.

Even better; the phone will ring 15 times everytime I’m in the branch.  No one is interested in answering.

Does your organization mis-behave this way?   Better question:  How did this bank get a $7billion market cap and fool so many people?

If you are a small or micro business you can get a license on something as simple as 37Signal’s HighRise for a couple bucks a month.

I’m sitting hear at 9pm on a random Wednesday thinking to myself. I’m crunched for time.  Cell phone battery is dead. Need to get gas for my car. I’m starving because I haven’t had time to eat. I’m tired. My eyes hurt from staring at the computer. I’m beat. I’m also smiling.

I love being an entrepreneur.

I love creating something

I love seeing something grow from an idea to revenue to something that creates revenue for people who work for/with me.

You see Investor Nation is my 8th startup. I’m classifying a startup a something I’ve devoted considerable time, energy, and resources to. Another definition: something that has had its own Tax ID#. Now I’ve had had a couple dozen websites, ideas, or otherwise which we won’t count because I always have several of them(we’ll call them hobbies).

Here’s how my 8 startups have fared:

• 2 were failures, (t-shirt company, lawn care company)
• 1 was successful for 2 years then sold to my partner (mortgage company)
• 2 (realty, and a fix & flip co) were outgrowth businesses that fed off of my most successful business
• 1 became a multi-million dollar company in less than 2 years (wholesale real estate business)
• 1 became my biggest learning venture although I made limited revenue (startup web dev and SEO company)
• And Investor Nation, (online real estate sales) my current company which is the biggest undertaking of my life and the funnest.

Despite some costly failures I love the learning that comes with being an entrepreneur.   I see more passion and excitement out of entrepreneurs than any other type of person.   Most believe they can change the world.  Whether they can or not, the belief is why I’m an entrepreneur.

Become a GREAT mortgage broker / underwriter / lender / processor. They are few in numbers. Most are mad their business has changed and loans are now hard to do. Shame. I can say this because I owned a mortgage company about 4-5 years ago. Want to be even more successful? Figure out how to do real estate investment loans. You’ll be an overnight millionaire! OK maybe not. But if you can figure it out, return calls, and put a smile on your face, you’ll probably make more money than you can handle.

Yesterday I was fortunate to be on the receiving end of a mortgage lender who has given up. He’s still “trying” to close out a couple loans but this is really means he’s turning them down one by one. What’s even more interesting to me is the number of lenders who are not really thankful when they receive more business. It is the new Rubik’s Cube.

The economy is definitely picking up steam but it seems mortgage lenders are going after the easy loans. The investor loans are going on the back burner(often never to return). Did they not forget before the government tax credits and bailout cash that investor loans were keeping many of them afloat? If you are offended at this blog, then turn it into an opportunity. I’m always looking for lenders to refer clients to.

I’ve been putting a bit of effort lately into a pet project of mine: Fifty-Two Books. This is a site that I’ll be sharing books I’ve recently read. I set out to achieve a goal of reading 1 business related book this year per week. I’m on pace for that.

Reading voraciously is important. I learned a lot of my marketing skills through reading then implementation. I plan on sharing these ventures very soon when I launch. Additionally I’ll offer up some book recommendations. And finally if you are reading, I wouldn’t mind hearing what you like and if you’d be interested in guest blogging.

I’ll keep you posted.

So there I was at the Germantown Court arriving at 6pm for the 6:30 appointed court time.   See I really wasn’t in trouble.  I was standing in for a good friend of mine, Manish.  But he wasn’t in trouble either.  He simply came to Memphis on a business trip to do his taxes a couple months ago.  I loaned him my VW Jetta which is garaged more often than not as it is a car that is worth more to me then the couple thousand I’d ge selling it.   It’s a spare.  However a year back when I purchased a new vehicle I simply forgot to renew the tags on the VW.

Fast forward to 2 months back.   Manish drives the car to an appointment and gets pulled over for expired tags.  They give Manish a ticket of which he passes to me to stand in for him at court.   I arrived at 6pm.  I was home at 10pm.   Thankfully I had my new Kindle with me.  The excruciating pain of waiting in line had been turned into a wonderful journey with Chris Anderson’s  ”Free”.   So I was able to crunch an incredible amount of info and not let the city of Germantown’s inefficiencies waste the precious minutes of my life.

I could have just had the book you might add…true, but only sort of.  About once an hour I’d take a short break and read blogs that I had subscribed to or bounce over to a PDF market study that I’ve been reading on the Manhattan rental market.   This would have taken many more atoms than my arms could have held.

I won’t bore you with the details of the outcome of the court issues but let’s just say that they wasted a lot of people’s time…but not mine.  Cheers Amazon!  Everything about the Kindle is right.

Kindle: Amazon’s 6″ Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation)