Daniel Mollat asked:

Option sellers believe that if it’s not, it’s probably the closest an investor will ever get to the long sought Holy Grail of Investments or what is considered to be the ideal investment.

Let’s take a look and see what exactly is regarded as the ideal investment.

When asked to define what the ideal investment is investors have various versions of what they consider to be the ideal investment or the Holy Grail of Investments. In the ultimate analysis, with few exceptions, most investors feel that an ideal investment should provide the following qualities: safety of capital, consistent high returns, immunity from economic and market fluctuations and finally, liquidity, or availability of funds should the investor find an immediate need to tap his resources. Safety of capital and high returns seem to be the most desirable of all yet these two are totally opposing qualities in any investment. As the saying goes, the higher the risk, the greater the reward or inversely, the lower the risk the smaller the reward.

That said let’s explore our choices. Until the advent of options there appeared to be nothing that came even close to being called an ideal investment let alone be called the Holy Grail of Investments. We had to face the fact that investments were either low risk low reward or high risk high reward. Some investments were somewhere in the middle ground but few or none were in the Holy Grail category. Investors may be classified into two groups, passive and active investors. Passive investors prefer entrusting their capital to third parties and doing nothing more than expect returns from their investments either on a regular basis or value appreciation over time. They put their money into a fixed return instrument such as passbook savings accounts, money market funds, treasury bills, certificates of deposits, bonds and included in this lot are dividend paying stocks and mutual funds. Then there are the other passive investors that prefer to place funds into long term appreciation assets with capital growth as their main goal. Examples of these types of investments would be real estate, precious metals, arts and antiques. All these investment instruments while delivering small returns on a year-on-year basis do offer much safety of capital.

The active investor on the other hand is a more adventurous individual. He seeks high returns for his money, hopefully at reduced risk, by actively being involved in trading the markets, be it real estate, stocks, bonds, commodities, futures, foreign exchange, options or whatever else can be traded and made money on. Although more of a risk taker he nevertheless tries to moderate his risk exposure by restraining his profit objectives or rates of return on his capital. While passive investors are happy with annual returns of 6 to 10 percent, active investors seek higher rates of over 12 percent and more like in the region of 14 to 18 percent per annum. Is this doable? Yes, it is and many are happy actively trading the markets and achieving these returns using their own trading techniques that somewhat controls risk to an acceptable degree. Now here’s the shocker. Option traders are able to generate annual profits in excess of 20 percent without exposing themselves to any more risk that those achieving 14 percent. Now here is an even greater shocker. Among those that trade options the ones specializing on the selling side generate annual returns in excess of 30 percent with many averaging annual returns in the region of 40 to 50 percent without increasing the risk factor any more than the passive investor!

Foreign currency traders as well as commodities and futures traders sneeze at this claim saying that they can outshine the option seller in annual returns. True. But can they claim to do so at the same risk level as the passive investors? Most probably not.

Selling options (stocks, commodities, futures, etc) has become for many the Holy Grail of Investments. To the experienced option seller this trading strategy offers high, consistent returns, a fair degree of immunity against economic and market fluctuations, liquidity, and finally safety of capital. This last claim may be open to debate from non-believers in this trading strategy. To be fair let’s qualify the safety claim by saying that the inexperienced option seller is open to potentially heavy losses if he does not know what he is doing. But to the seasoned trader selling options is a safe investment strategy delivering all the qualities of an ideal investment to the point where successful option sellers claim to have found what to them is the closest one can ever get to the Holy Grail of Investments. Selling options on stocks, which is the specialty of this writer, can be particularly rewarding using a carefully planned trading system combined with disciplined money management and with proper safeguards in place. There are many trading strategies in selling options. Some are simple enough, like the covered call technique, delivering fairly decent returns while others are more complex but more rewarding. There is one option selling system developed by this writer that can be carried out as a long term investment program offering a fair degree of safety and delivering consistent high returns time after time. By using a carefully planned, three-pronged system of trading, the risks associated with selling options can easily be conquered.

This writer has mastered this three-pronged trading technique and anyone wishing more information may visit his web site at http://www.theoptionseller.com

kavita thapliyal asked:

     

Interview: A Success Journey to a Successful Professional Career

The most essential aspect to beat after your academic and professional qualification is an interview. We all focus on our educational development like academic credentials and percentages and are least tentative on focusing ourselves on winning the interview. With the emerging global change, interviews have also taking gigantic leap from the old traditional conservatoire to the recent magnetite global demand.

Today Interview is an exhibition of candidate’s talent. It’s a process through an employer gets to know, how to bridge a gap between employment: Demand and Supply.

Modern interviews are not only stress to the candidates, but also equal stress to the employers. For the candidate the stress is to get the right job, and on the other the stress is to get the right candidate.

What is an interview?

“Interview is an art of expressing self, where an interviewee is a seller and an interviewer is a buyer”. An interview is nothing but bringing our internal knowledge outside and make other feel comfortable listening to it. It is nothing but an interaction between the sender (interviewee) and the receiver (interviewer). In the simplest word interview can be compared with the theory of the guest and the host relationship.

Man being supreme creation of god tends to learn by experience; the same is with the interview, we should never take interview as a negative note rather it’s a positive gesture to conquer next step with more perfection and maturity; where there are less chances of failure than the first. Our practice can provide us a mature platform from where we can make difference in the qualitative approach of getting selected or rejected.

This art of learning could be beautified through preparation and practice, as it is well said, “Practice makes man perfect”. To compete an interview with the flying colors the candidate need to learn with the same theory as he used to learn in his kindergarten stage, trail and error technique. As when we learn bicycle: The more we fall the better we grip, and one day we paddle it with even leaving both the hands.

Major interviews speak the success story of the deserving candidate in just five minutes. As the hiring managers don’t want to hire the most qualified person they also want to hire the person whom they like most to work with. It’s very easy to get to an interview but it is harder to turn an interview to a job. Interview can be successfully beaten by the magical charm of communication skills, where verbal and non-verbal communication plays a vital role. Articulation, phonetics and soft skills also multiply candidate’s success change during the interview process.

Interview Selling Skills

“Selling is an art and for that we need to be an artist.” The most important aspect to master in selling skills is to master on two major aspects; first is the product and the second is service. In order to bridge the gap between product and service we need to believe in self, as it is well said, “Self Confidence is the key of all locks.” Confident person can chase his hardship much smoothly than the one who is crippled with diffidence.

Six Sigma’s for Interview Success:

As it is said that interview is an interaction, but this interaction can easily be converted to triumphal victory by the magical spell of the interviewee, where he mingles his interaction with the six sigma effects by using his interpersonal skills, team spirit, social grace, business etiquettes, negotiation skills and behavioral trades.

Interview process is the sum totals of six most important skills that makes correlated bond between Interviewee and Interviewer.

 Six- sigma’s between Interviewee & Interviewer

ü      Interpersonal Skills

ü      Social Grace

ü      Behavioral Traits

ü      Negotiation Skills

ü      Business Etiquettes

ü      Team Spirit

Among many job aspirants the most crucial and stressful zone is the interview hall. Although they may have all required qualifications, experience and well framed records, yet they may lose the battle to conquer to the other, who are well versed and confident at the time of interaction and can answer the questions in the most acceptable way keeping the track of their interpersonal, social, as well as their behavioral skills. He needs to also sell his business acumen, team spirit and attitude at the time of interaction. These are really the basic component that makes a candidate perfect. No matter what your industry or the role is; effective selling skills are integral to your success.

As it is well said by James Allen: “For true success ask yourself these four questions: Why? Why not? Why not me? Why not now”?

Interview & Three major Elements

The most important fact about the interview process is the first impression that a candidate scripts in the mind of the employer in just initial five minutes.

Research shows that initial first impressions are made up of the following Three Elements:

55% visual impact, i.e. dress, ****** expressions and body language;

38% tone of voice; communication skills: verbal and nonverbal

7% from what you actually say. All is not lost if you are very nervous at the outset but try to create the best first impression you can – a warm smile and firm handshake will help.

When you are being interviewed it is very important that you give out the right body signals as body speaks more than words. During interviews one should always look attentive; a bad body language can disqualify the image of an employee in the very primary rounds of interaction. As it is well said, “face is the index of mind.” We should never forget that, one of the most burning questions in the mind of the interviewer will almost certainly be ‘Will this person fit in?’ Therefore, if you are perceived as being a good fit with the prevailing corporate style and culture you will be strengthening your case and it wouldn’t be wrong to state, that knowledge of Kinesics will add to the overall persona of your personality. The success graph of the deserving candidate is been sketched at the moment he enters the interview venue or the interview room, his body language clearly depicts his mental attitude. The positive body language can even be judged by a novice interviewer not very familiar with the kinetic traits.

The initial five minutes can make or break the connection between two people when they meet for the first time. The starting point for any interview preparation is to try and understand oneself. First impressions are crucial! The employer obviously believes you are qualified to do the job, which is why they have asked you to an interview. But still many interviewees fail because of poor communication skills, which is not only the content of your speech, but includes other non-verbal behavior such as eye contact, posture, ****** expression, tone of voice, and gestures.

Get all of your preparation out of the way well in advance, and allow plenty of time to get to the interview so that you arrive in a cool calm state. Arriving 15-20 minutes early is appropriate. One should be well prepared about the location and required time in order to deliver the best results. The interviewer is looking for a candidate who is interested, enthusiastic, and confident. Professional appearance is extremely important, when you first meet the interviewer, give a firm handshake with greet and smile and let the interviewer take the lead when directing you towards their office and once you are in their office by waiting for them to offer you a seat.

Confidence is the magical word, if you are confident then you will be relaxed, calm and organized and able to talk lucidly about yourself, you will be able to look the interviewer in the eyes, you will not slouch or fidget – you will have the potential to clinch the job. Along with the confidence one need to be very particular about dressing sense. Try and understand all aspects, be it your appearance, personality, likes, dislikes, strengths or weaknesses. Many people think that, interview is a place where one should always speak of positives, but speaking about weaknesses is not negative as it enables us to reason for self improvement.

 

Interview & 3 C’s Principle: 

IP= C³

IP stands for Interview Principle

C³ stands for Credibility, Capability & Compatibility

All three are correlated to each other and hence work as a bond.

Interview Categories:

Screening Interviews

Telephonic Interviews

Face To Face Interviews

Panel Interviews

Group Interviews

Structured Interviews

Campus Interview

Performance /Situation Interviews/ Stress Interviews

Online interviews

Presentation Interviews

Video Conferencing

Dinner Interviews

Screening Interviews

This is the most primary type of interview. In this category the candidate is categorized by different set criteria’s like: subjective, departmental, academic, profession & experience.

Note: Most people loose their hold in interview at the screening rounds, wherein this round is very crucial.

Why is the screening Crucial?

Through this process only the candidate is invited for interview.

One must be very particular, while filling his forms or forwarding his CV/Resume.

Where the hand written details are to be forwarded we need to be very cautious about spellings, vocabulary, and grammar as well as writing skills.

People are using internet as the main source of communication but they are least tentative in making the ID’s matching with their profile, here also most of the candidate loose points. We should always go for decent Email: ID’s

We also need to keep in mind that the photographs that we affix in our CV / Resume need to be updated and need to also match with the desired profile.

Telephonic Interviews

Seeing the time frame many of the organization are focusing on the telephonic rounds. The basic criteria of the telephonic interview session are to judge employment objective, education, or required skills.

Note: Responding to the telephone/mobiles is much tougher than carrying it. Since these interviews can often occur unexpectedly, it is important for a candidate to know the best practice of using it.

How to handle telephonic interviews?

1)      Telephonic interviews basically checks the communication skills and interpersonal etiquettes of a candidate; hence it becomes important for us to talk confidently and maturely at the time of interaction.

2)      When we receive any such call, we should always greet the person and should talk clearly

3)      Avoid or reduce distractions. Always search a quite place for interaction.

4)      You need to have enthusiasm and self confidence while answering the questions.

5)      Keep small note of your academic/ professional details and highlight your strengths.

6)      Avoid caller tones and absurd openings at telephonic rounds.

7)      In your absence groom your acquaintance  to receive telephonic calls properly

8)      Make it more professional by your voice, mannerism and always pay thanks back at the end of the call.

Face To Face Interview

As it is well said,” First impression is the last impression”. Face to face interview works like a mirror for the interviewee and interviewer. It can be explained as a direct answer to a demanded question so we need be well prepared for the face to face interaction.

Note: words play a powerful role in this kind of interactions so, when you come to face such interactions you need to be well advance prepared about yourself, your profile, subjective contents, company profile, work experience as well as the current industrial demand.

Handling Face To Face Interactions:

1.      Face to face interview can make or mar the prospects of a candidate for his further rounds. The impression you make will be a lasting one. It is vital to look your best. Dress conservatively and in good taste and be confident and calm.

2.      Always focus on your SWOT analysis. You can win your interview by your strength and opportunities but on the other hand you should also highlight your weaknesses in such a positive manner that it leads you to a door of self evaluation and opens a way of self improvement.

3.      To master face to face interactions a candidate need to impose five listed elements within self.

ü      Punctuality

ü      Politeness

ü      Professionalism

ü      Positive Attitude

ü      Pro-activeness

Panel Interview

Panel interviews are also titled as committee interviews. These interviews are basically conducted with several individuals at one time, typically sitting around a conference table to evaluate the multiple skills of the candidate. The main purpose of such interactions is to provide a unanimous decision for the acceptance of the candidate.

Best deed to face Panel Interview:

Commonly great everybody: But face to the more mature person and if a lady is also a part of panel rounds than never forget to honor her. Be confident and sit smartly while facing panel interview

Keep eye contact with each person, with special attention to the individual who asked the question.

Remember that you can’t suffice each panelist satisfaction but your maturity, handling stress and positive interaction can win many success chances as many HR experts believe that the real check of a candidate is panel rounds so one needs to be prepared with all dimensional skills.

Group Interviews

As per the limitations of time the group interviews are becoming popular day by day. Basically group interviews are conducted to see the participation, communication and leadership skills of a candidate.

Note: As it is a team work where the main purpose is Together Everyone Achieves More (TEAM), but we should never forget the main theme behind this round is to lead within the group. A candidate need to be smart enough to show his strengths living within the group and ultimately shine at the end to achieve results favoring him because the whole group will not get the job, it will come to that candidate who is the STAR(Situation, Task , Achievement, Result) performer.

How to Conquer Group Interviews?

1.      To conquer group interview a candidate need to first win his group, by his magical communication, content, knowledge and command on the topic in which the interaction is proceeding.

2.      He should show his STAR performance at the different stages of interaction

3.      Should also steal the dialogues of the team players and lead them by his interpersonal skills and would show brilliant task for the demanded situation and at end can achieve the targeted results.

Structured Interview

Structured interviews are commonly used for research departments are basically pre structured on a set pattern. They are also known as a standardized interview or a researcher-administered survey.

Note: The designed questionnaire need to also include all necessary details in-order to reach to the maximum possible results.

As these interviews are more statistical so the interviewing body need to plan systematically and must focus on the reliability and validity of results.

 

Campus Interviews

Campus interviews are becoming popular day by day. Corporate visiting campuses for recruitment and test candidates on their technical expertise, aptitude, and personality. These rounds are based to check the academic & industrial knowledge of the candidate.

Criteria of Campus Interviews:

The candidate’s communication skills and aptitude is judged through group discussions and written tests. His personality is evaluated trough presentation skills. Some companies also conduct online test at the preliminary rounds. Keeping in mind the corporate stress some companies also focus on psychometric test to know candidates maturity and his ability the handle stress.

Advantage to the candidate:

The best advantage for a candidate to win the campus interview is that he is well advance familiar about his interview destination and can perform better as it is the most comfortable environment for him.

Performance/ Situation/Stress Interview

In this category candidates are given certain task related to their workforce to perform. These situations can be categories in different areas as Academic, Social, Hr., Marketing, Finance, IT, IB Etc.

The motive of such interviews is to get the best results on spot. These rounds can also be categorized under audition interviews: like singing, dancing, acting etc. Candidates are asked to deliver presentation or demo in their respective area and even could be asked to solve certain stressful situations.

The most important thing to remember during the situational rounds is you show your competency.

Online Interviews

Internet is the best way of communication today. It is also the fastest and the cheapest medium of interaction.

Tips for online interviews:

Candidate need to write precise and to the demand of the questions.

Candidate need to have good command on his writing skills.

Spellings, formation and editing need to be checked before sending the mails.

One must be aware of formal writing.

Presentation Interview

With the emerging change interviews have also taken up electronic impacts within. It is becoming increasingly common for presentations to be delivered as part of the recruitment process. It enable employer to assess individual’s talent for effective organization growth. Communication skills, Confidence, presentation, body language, concepts are certain parameters to collate and analyze information. Now the usage of projectors, laptops has also added professionalism in the delivery of the candidates and hence the corporate is focusing more on the presentation skills.

Tips for better Presentation Interviews:

Dress professionally: Matching Profile.

Rehearsal the topic as much as possible.

Know your target audience.

Command on topic as well as with the time frame.

Good body language

Pleasing personality/Smiling attitude

Audience friendly attitude.

Complete homework including entire aspects.

Good blend of knowledge and humor.

Voice modulation.

    Video Conferencing

The widest form of interaction is video conferencing. This form of interaction is very common in most of the international brands. It is more conventional and time saving. The basic requirement to conduct such type of interview is camera, microphone and software.

Dinner Interview

These interviews are becoming popular day by day but the most important aspect to remember about such type of interaction is that we needn’t to forget that we are not going for party or dine out where the most hidden aspect is the interview. Remember that the purpose of the dinner interview is to get to know you. Eating should always be secondary to conversation.

Think to Remember:

 Most of the companies ask employee for a dinner interview to check confidence and acumen of handling stress and also social grace.

      Tips to follow:

Know all dinning and business etiquettes in advance. These etiquettes will always give you the edge over another candidate.

Dress smartly.

Less interest on food and again more on communication skills.

Emphasis more on non-verbal skills.

Be confident and where you feel nervous wait for others to proceed first.

Avoid taking that food for which you are not at all familiar.

Take water before the core meal.

Be polite. Remember to say “please” and “thank you” to your host and well as with the server. 

Interview and Dressing:

Dressing plays a vital role in the interview success. Clothes reveal half of the story about the success chance of the candidate. Today most of the youngsters are running far away from the true discipline of formal dressing and hence when they try these outfits at the time of interaction they are totally uncomfortable. Sometimes it is noticed that during campus interviews student borrow the formals from their peer group and thus are confused not only at the part of dressing but also at the conceptual delivery. This is the main reason to give uniformity at all working levels not only schools but corporate and business schools are also tying up with the concept of formal dressing sense to bring more corporate looks at both personal and professional sense.

As such there is no hard and fast rule for interview dressing but yes one should always dress formal with smart appearance and the most crucial point is we need to dress according to our professional demand. Interview dressing should match as per job profile of the company and suiting country norms.

Men and Women common Dressing:

ü       Conservative two-piece business suit (solid dark blue or grey is best)

ü       Conservative long-sleeved shirt/blouse (white is best, pastel is next best)

ü       Clean, trimmed fingernails

ü       Minimal cologne or perfume/deodorant

ü       Empty pockets—only mobile( silent mode) and handkerchief

ü       Dark shoes (black lace-ups are best)

ü       Dark socks (black is best)

ü       Clean shaven face

ü       No gum, candy, or cigarettes

ü       Light briefcase or portfolio case

ü       No visible body piercing (nose rings, chains, bracelets &  eyebrow rings, etc.) or tattoos/ mehandies

ü       Wear a suit with a jacket and skirt or slacks.

ü       Shoes with conservative heels

ü       Clean, polished conservative shoes

ü       Minimum use of ornaments

ü       Avoid large purses but can carry laptop briefcase.

ü       Enamels need to be conservative in color

ü       Well-groomed hairstyle -Keep your hair shot and if long avoid open.

ü       Keep your makeup simple and natural

Conclusion

We can win the interview with our selling skills that we can master from our academic and professional career as well as with our maturity to understand current affairs like economic, social behavioral, science and political issues. We need to be confident but overconfidence can ruin our possibilities for interview success. The most important aspect to remember is that we should start preparing for our interview since the moment we choose our career. Never enter an interview hall without prior homework as it also increases the failure and disappointment chances of a candidate. Study the company profile and the vision as well as the mission of the responding company because most of the interview questions revolve around the above concepts. Speak clearly and enthusiastically about your experiences and skills. Try to be honest but optimistic and speak as you are sharing your ideas and thoughts. Don’t forget that greeting is the magical mantra and smile is the tantra for your success chance during interview. Prepare a solid self introduction as it is the most demanded question to enter the chakraview of interview. My purpose of sharing this article with you is to make you that Abhimanyu which not only knows how to enter the Chakraview but after negotiating all rounds successfully knows how to smoothly sail out victoriously with flying colors.

Barry Cunningham asked:

If you are not aware of just who Sun Tzu was, then you may want to order The Art of War. It is an absolute must read for those in business.

More than 2,500 years ago, there was a period in China known as the Age of Warring States. This was an age of great conflict and uncertainty as seven warring states fought for survival & control of China.

For these states to win they sought out any means of gaining advantage over their opponents; those individuals with knowledge on strategy & leadership were extremely valuable and highly coveted.

During this period arose a general from the state of Ch’i known as Sun Tzu. His ability to win victories for his warlord gained him fame and power.

To hand down the wisdom he had gained from his years of battles Sun Tzu wrote a book, The Art of War, that became the classic work on strategy in China. His book, which details a complete philosophy on how to decisively defeat one’s opponent, has given guidance to military theorists and generals throughout the ages.

Military greats and business leaders alike have hailed The Art of War. Former U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell said, I’ve read the Chinese classic The Art of War written by Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu has been studied for hundreds of years. He continues to give inspiration to soldiers and politicians. So every American soldier in the army knows of his works. We require our soldiers to read it.”

Today, Sun Tzu’s appeal has extended beyond the military realm into the world of business. IBM, XEROX, 3M, and many other corporate giants use the teachings of Sun Tzu in their training of executives because business by definition deals with competition.

So in looking at how Sun Tzu can be applied to short sales, let’s look at a few of his teachings and how they can be applied, and be applied successfully.

The Grand Duke said “one who is confused in purpose cannot respond to his enemy”.

This is the beginning of our journey in applying the teachings of Sun Tzu to our real estate business. Without purpose there can not be any victory. Without purpose there can be no success. Most importantly, being confused in purpose leaves you weak and unable to respond properly to the challenges of the real estate business.

For instance, if your goal is to successfully complete a short sale transaction, you have to define your purpose while simultaneously being able to respond to that of your enemy’s; in this case the foreclosing lender.

When we enter into a short sale transaction we define our purpose very clearly. Our objective is to obtain the highest possible discount on the payoff we are seeking and to sell the property by dual transaction immediately at closing to a buyer we have farmed. We also do not want to be involved in any transaction where we are not receiving at least 30% off of current market value and we expect a minimum of $20,000.00 profit per transaction.

This gives a very, clearly defined purpose and allows us to easily respond to our enemies, whether lender or real estate agent. Whatever response the lender gives us in reaction to our short sale proposal, we are not deterred in endeavoring to achieve OUR goal..OUR purpose.

Here are some other really valuable “Tzuisms” that we can apply to short sales.

“Knowledge that does not go beyond what the generals know is not good.”

This means that being successful is more than simply being on the same page. A short sale project is worthless if it’s not effectively communicated to everyone on our team (Seller, Buyer, hard money lender, agent, Title Company, attorney, office staff). As a project leader on a deal, or as an agent representing the project, one must make certain that all are informed, educated and prepared to orchestrate the transaction successfully.

How many real estate agents know how to manage a short sale correctly? Can you truly coordinate a short sale? Are you following the game plan as designed by the Buyer, or are you out there winging it, hoping it all works out? Calling a bank and asking if they accept short sales is transactional *******. Sending every offer to the bank for approval is short sale *******.

“If your troops do not equal his, temporarily avoid his initial onrush.”

Do not initially engage a competitor unless you are prepared. In regards to a short sale, don’t ever, ever speak to a bank regarding a short sale until you are prepared to do so. This means the only contact you are to have with a lender is to find out who the contact person is and what their contact information is. That’s it; you are not prepared at this point to negotiate. You are not educated, do not have all of the necessary information compiled, no package has been prepared and if you are just sending offers to the bank without preparing a full package to justify your requested discount then you will not likely succeed and be overrun by your opponent, the lender.

“If officers are unaccustomed to rigorous training they will be worried and hesitant in battle”

In his teachings, Sun Tzu often reiterates the importance of preparation. Proper training, proper education and battle tested experience are crucial. Of great significance is that Sun Tzu believed that training should be distinguished from education. While the latter employs a classroom setting, the former provides hands-on learning. In relation to short sales, you can see how to be a short sale expert; you need to have BOTH aspects. You need to have professional class room oriented educational instruction as well as successful hands-on experiential training. Absent both of these vital components you hardly are an expert. In addition, the value of real estate cross-training is integral to your short sale success.

You need to have knowledge of how things work in a short sale and how things impact a short sale. Issues like latent material defects, inspection problems, double closings, Hard Money lending, loss mitigation techniques, subject to transactions, obtaining deeds, foreclosure law, certain tax ramifications, and much more are parts of a short sale expert’s toolbox. What’s in yours?

“Therefore, when I have won a victory I do not repeat my tactics but respond to circumstances in an infinite variety of ways.”

Each deal is different. Sun Tzu recommends that you examine what you did right or wrong and changing your strategies accordingly. Peyton Manning is a MVP quarterback in the NFL, part of his pre-game preparation is watching every defensive play, from every single game, that his opponent has played that season. When we work our short sale deals we do the same. We review what our opponent is doing, and has done and what position they are currently in.

We look at what REO’s the bank has in inventory, we check their annual report and see what level of non-performing assets the bank has on their books, we sometimes buy a single share of stock so we can obtain various documents and the ability to attend shareholder meetings and conference calls, we see what the level of foreclosure activity they have in our immediate market; I could go on and on but suffice it to say, you need to know what changes you need to make in your presentation and approach and continually fine tune your game.

“The supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy.”

The bank wants to make sure they get as much money back from the non-performing asset as they can. In mitigating their loss, their object and purpose is to minimize your profit. It is of the utmost importance that you attack their strategy as forcefully as possible. You have to be in a position of absolute dominance. You do not want to show up to a gun battle with a water pistol.

Our short sale package is over 150 pages once complete. Our template alone is 100 pages. We want our artillery to be armor piercing. We want to go for the jugular and not release until we win. It is of absolute importance to strike hard and attack the enemy’s strategy. If you are not prepared to use every weapon in your arsenal. If you are not educated and trained as to how to wage battle in a short sale setting, then you will succumb to the lender’s strategy.

By the way, you do know they have their own defined personal battle strategy? Don’t you? You do know they are practicing these exact precepts against you don’t you?

If not, you are underestimating your opponent and as Sun Tzu teaches, “He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.”

The bank will own you if you do not know how to properly and expertly execute a short sale.

“To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”

Your goal, like ours has been, is to reach the point in your short sale business that you no longer need to fight. Become a proven opponent. Get to a point of credibility that once the lender acknowledges your presence, you can go straight to negotiation. No need to neither battle and prove your might nor demean your opponent. A mutual respect has been achieved through previous battle. Our capacity to wage battle and the manner in which we are prepared to do so is known and precedes us. Now, with many lenders, we can break their resistance to our numbers simply by being excellent in what we do. They know what kind of package to expect, they know what lengths we are willing to go. They know we are educated, trained and skilled opponents. We are respected warriors.

We train and educate others to be good soldiers and we’ll teach you as well.

Brad Wozny asked:

The present scenario of blistering real estate prices has made “flipping” the hottest rage. It basically involves buying an under priced property, refurbishing it and then selling it at market value to make a tidy profit. In places where property prices plummeted, flipping has been a major flop. However, it can still be a worthwhile option, provided you learn to identify the pitfalls. Otherwise, as someone famously proclaimed “It might not be as lucrative as you thought”. Flipping can be seen as the latest fad in the “nothing-down” movement. Nothing down movement basically means to get into a deal without any sort of initial investment. Of late, it has sort of developed into a tool to overcome objection. When real estate gurus are trying to sell information, they encounter the frequent “but I don’t have any money” response which they need to conquer if they are to make a sale. The bitter truth is that real estate investors generally do not use any “nothing down” techniques.

Not quite “nothing down”: The reality of flip business is quite the contrary to what you may have believed, flipping is all about cash. One cannot expect to get a mortgage as the business costs would be extremely high, considering the fact that you will own the property for a couple of days. Also, it’s not possible that you make use of the buyer’s cash because you really don’t have a buyer until and unless you have closed the deal. The amount will usually be far greater than a wannabe could obtain and could mount to hundreds of dollars.  Real flippers tend to lose money or earn little profit on certain deals, but its okay since they make it up, by gaining exceptional profits on other deals. However, a wannabe is actually trying to make a profit on every deal he/she makes because they only have that one deal at that time. Unfortunately, the flipping business does not allow itself to be prone to outcomes that are predictable. 

Risks involved: A lot of real estate investment techniques tend to suspiciously sound like “brokerage”, sadly flipping is one of them. To do a brokerage deal, you are required to possess a broker’s license or be a salesman with a license, who is affiliated to a licensed broker. Normal regular people, think that they can get around the system by not calling themselves brokers. The law has however enlisted a doctrine called “substance over form” which means it’s not what you call yourself that matters, but what you do. If you do look like broker, you’ll be asked to produce the license and hold you to the standards of behavior of brokers, which is notably a fiduciary duty.

Flipping looks dangerously similar to getting a seller and buyer together just for the sake of commission. This activity in simple words can be termed as brokerage. The practice of flipping has reached hysterical propositions with popular real estate markets like South Florida, witnessing flipping contracts on condos even before they are built.  Certain states like New Jersey prohibit “net listing”. It’s a practice in which the seller says “just get me certain amount of dollars and the rest you can keep whatever the amount higher than that”. Net listings came to be ethically questionable as brokers tend to recommend less than the market price to increase his take, again flipping notoriously resembles net listing.

Daniel Mollat asked:

Option sellers believe that if it’s not, it’s pretty darn close. Probably the closest an investor will ever get to the long sought Holy Grail of Investments or what is considered to be the ideal investment.

 

Let’s take a look and see what exactly is regarded as the ideal investment. When asked to define what this is investors have various versions of what they consider to be the ideal investment or the Holy Grail of Investments. In the ultimate analysis, with few exceptions, most investors feel that an ideal investment should provide the following qualities: safety of capital, consistent high returns, immunity from economic and market fluctuations and finally, liquidity, or availability of funds should the investor find an immediate need to tap his resources. Safety of capital and high returns seem to be the most desirable of all yet these two are totally opposing qualities in any investment. As the saying goes, the higher the risk, the greater the reward or inversely, the lower the risk the smaller the reward.

 

That said let’s explore our choices. Until the advent of options there appeared to be nothing that came even close to being called an ideal investment let alone be called the Holy Grail of Investments. We had to face the fact that investments were either low risk low reward or high risk high reward. Some investments were somewhere in the middle ground but few or none were in the Holy Grail category. Investors may be classified into two groups, passive and active investors. Passive investors prefer entrusting their capital to third parties and doing nothing more than expect returns from their investments either on a regular basis or value appreciation over time. They put their money into a fixed return instrument such as passbook savings accounts, money market funds, treasury bills, certificates of deposits, bonds and included in this lot are dividend paying stocks and mutual funds. Then there are the other passive investors that prefer to place funds into long term appreciation assets with capital growth as their main goal. Examples of these types of investments would be real estate, precious metals, arts and antiques. All these investment instruments while delivering small returns on a year-on-year basis do offer much safety of capital.

 

The active investor on the other hand is a more adventurous individual. He seeks high returns for his money, hopefully at reduced risk, by actively being involved in trading the markets, be it real estate, stocks, bonds, commodities, futures, foreign exchange, options or whatever else can be traded and made money on. Although more of a risk taker he nevertheless tries to moderate his risk exposure by restraining his profit objectives or rates of return on his capital. While passive investors are happy with annual returns of 6 to 10 percent, active investors seek higher rates of over 12 percent and more like in the region of 14 to 18 percent per annum. Is this doable? Yes, it is and many are happy actively trading the markets and achieving these returns using their own trading techniques that somewhat controls risk to an acceptable degree. Now here’s the shocker. Option traders are able to generate annual profits in excess of 20 percent without exposing themselves to any more risk that those achieving 14 percent. Now here is an even greater shocker. Among those that trade options the ones specializing on the selling side generate annual returns in excess of 30 percent with many averaging annual returns in the region of 40 to 50 percent without increasing the risk factor any more than the passive investor!

 

Foreign currency traders as well as commodities and futures traders sneeze at this claim saying that they can outshine the option seller in annual returns. True. But can they claim to do so at the same risk level as the passive investors? Most probably not.

 

Selling options (stocks, commodities, futures, etc) has become for many the Holy Grail of Investments. To the experienced option seller this trading strategy offers high, consistent returns, a fair degree of immunity against economic and market fluctuations, liquidity, and finally safety of capital. This last claim may be open to debate from non-believers in this trading strategy. To be fair let’s qualify the safety claim by saying that the inexperienced option seller is open to potentially heavy losses if he does not know what he is doing. But to the seasoned trader selling options is a safe investment strategy delivering all the qualities of an ideal investment to the point where successful option sellers claim to have found what to them is the closest one can ever get to the Holy Grail of Investments. Selling options on stocks, which is the specialty of this writer, can be particularly rewarding using a carefully planned trading system combined with disciplined money management and with proper safeguards in place. There are many trading strategies in selling options. Some are simple enough, like the covered call technique, delivering fairly decent returns while others are more complex but more rewarding. There is one option selling system developed by this writer that can be carried out as a long term investment program offering a fair degree of safety and delivering consistent high returns time after time. By using a carefully planned, three-pronged system of trading, the risks associated with selling options can easily be conquered. This writer has mastered this three-pronged trading technique and anyone wishing more information may visit his web site at http://www.theoptionseller.com.