Since we don’t want to trust the good intentions of others, we also must remember that any business relationship should be in writing. When I was getting into the real estate business as a real estate agent many years back, I asked a friend of mine to mentor me. He agreed and we established a relationship . . . unfortunately, it was done by word of mouth. I agreed to help him on a particular deal he was working on in exchange for a financial return. Once the deal was completed, he simply disappeared. I got a lot of promises, but never saw a dime. As you could imagine, that was the end of our friendship, but it taught me to put EVERYTHING in writing, ESPECIALLY when working with friends!
Along similar lines, you need to learn to trust only the facts. Not the facts as someone presents them, but the real facts. Is there a difference? I’ll argue that there is, and the following example should help me demonstrate. Recently, a member of our site heard about a deal from someone who was making certain claims about both the deal and himself. He was somewhat skeptical, as he should be, of what he heard, and did some research on his own to VERIFY the claims. This research revealed that the guy couldn’t get his story straight. What he was saying didn’t mesh with the facts of reality, presenting a MAJOR RED FLAG to our member. Thanks to his research, he was able to avoid entering a relationship with someone who wasn’t presenting the REAL FACTS. Again, you can only trust yourself and what you can personally verify though proper research.
I can go on and on about this, giving dozens of examples, but I think you get the drift.
To sum it all up:
¨ Educate yourself so you don’t need to rely on bad information from others
¨ Put everything in writing
¨ Always personally verify information by doing your own research
