By Heather

The scariest day in your investing career is undoubtedly the first time that your contract gets accepted.

You spend all that time making calls, talking to Realtors, knocking on doors, driving through neighborhoods, etc. At night, you are reading and researching all the creative ways to make offers and how to negotiate. You have a stack of business cards of all the people you have met in the past few weeks. There are title companies, attorneys, Realtors, mortgage brokers, hard money lenders, and tons more. You are ready. You have this thing figured out.

You aren't worried because you know how to put out risk free offers with contingencies to protect yourself. You have nothing to worry about!

You are sending out offers every week and you know that the one that gets accepted is right around the corner. You know that you negotiated that contract well and it's absolutely going to be accepted.

Guess what? It is. You just received that phone call telling you that the offer has been accepted or the buyer has said "OK. What do we do next?"

Now what? You are probably filled with panic. What were you thinking? You can't possibly do this deal? You don't have money to put down. What if you lose the deposit? What if you can't find financing? What if you missed some of the problems with the house?

That is probably the scariest moment of your entire career. There is no book, tape or video that can prepare you emotionally for that first yes! But use that energy in a positive manner. Don't forget everything you have learned. You just follow a system that works. If you don't have one of your own, ask someone that does. Use your mentor or find a mentor.

My first yes was all backwards. I made so many mistakes, but I got the deal done in the end, which is what is important afterall isn't it? I did learn quickly though that I needed to have a system in place for my deals so that I didn't go through that again. I needed a simple step-by-step plan that could be repeated over and over again, time and time again.

Now, I go through our checklist. I have several depending on the type of deal. One for wholesales, one for rehabs, one for properties to hold. The key is to simplify it. If you don't know the answer, just find someone who does and call them. There are tons of people willing to help and tons of products to get you through.