If You Paid A Lot To Get Into The Note Business…It’s A Shame

From PaperSourceOnline.com’s eznie

by Michele Robbins, CPA
President, Note Funding Resources, LLC

There are so many unsuspecting people that sign up to become a note broker by watching a late night infomercial or by paying grossly expensive seminar fees — and then sit back and wonder why their business hasn’t taken off.

They paid the fee. They read the material. They did (some of) the things to find the notes. Why can’t they find the notes? Why can’t they find real buyers to fund the notes? Why is everything a great big secret when it comes to who the buyers are…and who the brokers are? He-he-he. It’s like a secret society, right?

Don’t get me wrong. I personally don’t think there is anything wrong with having the entrepreneurial spirit to try to get into a new business. I personally don’t think there is anything wrong with dipping into your pocket (not too deeply) at first to learn about a new business. I think I paid $250 several years ago just to have the door opened.

Had I known about THE PAPER SOURCE back then, I would have got a new dress and my nails done instead.

But even so, it was worth it. Not because it gave me great insight on this business, but because (and only because of this) it basically informed me that there was a note industry. Everything else, and I mean everything else, was learned by trial and error, excellent mentorship with an experienced broker,
background experience, an intense desire to change my current profession (I hated taxes), and just plain luck.

The best advice I can offer to a new broker who just paid thousands of dollars to learn this business:

1) Get your money back, if any way possible;

2) Learn the basics of what brokering a note is; and

3) Find an experienced broker to work your first few deals through. Not a broker who pays a referral fee, but instead a broker who will truly “co-broker” the deal with you and let you do all the work while they tell you exactly what to do. You will be able to close the deals because you will have their experience and their errors
behind you, in a sense.

If anyone tries to get you to pay them to bring your notes to them (or their website) run the other way.

A few important things I learned along the way:

1) Don’t post your notes on a website, ever;

2) Don’t pay a seminar fee for something that you can get for free;

3) Don’t say you’re the end buyer if you’re not;

4) Don’t burn any bridges with investors/buyers - even when a deal goes sour; and

5) Don’t buy a note yourself until you have at least a couple of years in the business.

Michele Robbins, CPA
Note Funding Resources, LLC
Office (410) 827-5788
Fax (410) 827-8294
Website: http://www.notefunding.com
e-mail: mailto:info@notefunding.com