IM's Stop fooling yourself

[James J. Balter]

Good Evening,

As a financial professional, I get the privilege of doing business with some of the top deal makers in the country and am well versed in how this business operates.

First, do yourself a favor, stop spinning your wheels, trying to do business the way that amateurs are telling you. Your setting yourself up for failure. Let me go into detail.

First, seller mandates do not exist. This is a way for someone to get into a deal and monopolize the biggest percentage of the points. This is usually some idiot that the seller puts into the deal, who is a gate keeper. You will never see more than a quarter point in any deal where one of these people exist.

Next, wake up and smell the coffee, there are no real deals that have price tags in the billions of dollars. There is no entity outside of a large international bank that can buy deals this large. Deals from $100,000,000.00 to billions do not exist. You will never get your foot in the door as a serious player as a one man IM show.

On commercial deals where the price tags are in the millions to a $100,000,000.00 deal are not going to close, because no real seller of these types of assets is going to need you to sell their property. They use the services of an established commercial real estate broker, who has the wide reach within a market to get the deal closed.

Next, stop asking a serious buyer to provide a LOI and POF to get access to a deal. No buyer who can close a deal is going to provide this to you. Don't try the tactic where you begin demanding things and making statements such as well if you were a serious buyer, you'd have no problem providing this.

Stop hanging on the edge of being blacklisted, by trying to convince a real buyer that your an expert, that others have provided it, etc. If others provided a LOI and POF, than you would have sold everything in inventory to those buyers and would not need to keep finding buyer sources.

You cannot expect a real buyer to provide a Letter of Intent, soft or firm, for a deal they know nothing about. But since you've been asking for these docs, how is it working for you? Not well? I wonder why.

Okay so you got some supposed buyer on the hook and he's given you a LOI and POF, look where the POF came from. It probably came from some transactional funding company, where it couldn't be verified if you begged for it and anyone can sign a LOI. Your deal will not close.

Okay in closing, realize this. Sellers of valuable assets will not allow a one man IM show to market their assets, they don't need you, period. Very few IM's who don't understand how the business truly operates, with no track record and who actually are dumb enough to believe a real buyer with deep pockets is going to enter into a deal by knuckling under to your demand for a LOI and POF before the deal timeline dictates, will ever play inside a real deal.

Also, if your not the first person getting the deal and your getting it from someone else then your not direct to anyone, especially the seller/decision maker and your entering into a daisy chain and what do you think a real buyer or seller is going to consider you? You will be considered dead weight and you will be cut out of the deal.

Good luck to you, you don't need to believe me, however, you will find out the hard way and it will cost you in some capacity, whether financially or with your reputation.

[Atiba Cyrus]

James thanks for taking the time out to share your professional advice.

[James J. Balter]

Yes Bob you can, however, when you attempt to tell highly experienced individuals how the game is played, individuals who have been doing it for years, then be prepared to be schooled.

You and I both know that bulk asset deals for example with a billion dollar price tag are not realistic and the chances of some guy who wakes up one day and says oh I think I want to go into the note business, becoming successful marketing a deal like that is also not realistic.

You and I both know that owners of commercial properties with multi million dollar price tags will never allow some guy who is an IM with no track record of success market their property.

You and I both know that buyers do not provide a POF at the front end, that comes when the deal has been seen, reviewed and an offer to purchase is being presented.

I never once said I faulted anyone for getting into this business, but if your going to allow yourself to be led around by other IM's who themselves don't really understand how the business works, then that new IM will not close deals.

I think you will agree that most banks who have large portfolios of bulk assets, use one of 3 to 5 asset liquidation firms to move their inventory and very few IM's will have what it takes to get their foot in the door and themselves would have to provide a multi million dollar POF and this is why most buyers do not provide their POF at the front end.