We talked about 2 parts of our membership and I think you might be interested.
Our usually older and more experienced investors want to see more advanced topics. One that was brought up was the 1031 Exchange and it was suggested to start an Exchange club. I would love to hear from our more experienced investors as to what they would like to see at our meetings that would benefit them besides how to wholesale a house, how to rehab a house, etc.
Then we had 2 successful 20 something investors tell us how they think - and if you are a baby boomer it will help you understand your kids and or your grand kids
1) The facebook and twitter thing is because they want to feel a part of a conected community, be a part of something bigger.
2) They want to be a good member of that community - honest, integrity, green all very important to them. One spoke of doing green rehabs, that he does, costs him more. But he is also able to pull in a better quality tenant who will pay more because they are being better members of the community by being green.
3) They like instant gratification, they don't want to work at a job 30 years to finally end up well of and in a good position, they want to be in that good position next year and many are very entreprenurial and turning down good jobs because it will not get them where they want to be fast enough.
That's it for notes for today. I hope you now understand how we as REIA group leaders think and have a new insight into your kids, grandkids, employess and Gen Y tenants and home buyers.
See you at the meeting in July -
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Day 2 - after lunch - legislation & speakers
We moved on through out the day to talk about Legislation
and guy's if you are not staying up to date with the Calls to action that we send out, we need you to react on each one. Our law makers don't know that this paragraph here or those 50 pages there are important to us unless we tell them. So when we send out a call to action, please take the time to take action or we may get walked all over and not be able to offer lease options, owner financing, or maybe even short sales the way some things are going.
And the best part each year of mid - year seems to be the Good the Bad and The Ugly. We kick all the speakers in attendance out of the room and talk about who does a good job and who does a bad job. And I got page of good speakers to bring back and a small list of people to avoid.
and guy's if you are not staying up to date with the Calls to action that we send out, we need you to react on each one. Our law makers don't know that this paragraph here or those 50 pages there are important to us unless we tell them. So when we send out a call to action, please take the time to take action or we may get walked all over and not be able to offer lease options, owner financing, or maybe even short sales the way some things are going.
And the best part each year of mid - year seems to be the Good the Bad and The Ugly. We kick all the speakers in attendance out of the room and talk about who does a good job and who does a bad job. And I got page of good speakers to bring back and a small list of people to avoid.
Day 2 - continued
Next we got to hear from Alan Langston with AZREIA in the Arizona markets. Please take a look at his site and see what they have going on.
He was sharing with us some new models for the local REIA like MAREI to work with our national Business Partners like Home Depot and Sherwin Williams and still support National REIA and the efforts that they do for us every year.
You don't know it, but the REIA groups like MAREI need money to keep going and bringing you great services, but we also want to offer your more services, education, benefits, and fund a way to track and react to legislaion at the local city and state level as well as at the Nationl Level. So we all have to play nice to create the revenue so we can offer service -
So think about it, last week we had many people who had issue with something Kansas City Missouri did. Now we all wanted to be a part of a committee that would follow up, take our concerns back to the city council and then get it changed. And to do that we can form a committee and do something and we should. But if we had the funding, we might be able to hire a watch dog whose job it is to tell us about things before the happen instead of us reacting and trying to change something once it's already a done deal.
So Alan's plan would allow us to parnter better with large National Vendors like the Home Depots and Sherwin Williams stores that would bring in more national companies with large discounts for you as members, bring in additional members that benefis us all as well as their membership dollars to fund more services, which would in turn give us buying power as a whole to negotiate larger local and national discounts and influence our lawmakers more effectively.
This probably does not make any sense, as I am still on the first cup of coffee after a late night trying to figure out how the craps tables work. I will stick to real estate or see if I can find a YouTube video instruction, cause I still don't get it.
He was sharing with us some new models for the local REIA like MAREI to work with our national Business Partners like Home Depot and Sherwin Williams and still support National REIA and the efforts that they do for us every year.
You don't know it, but the REIA groups like MAREI need money to keep going and bringing you great services, but we also want to offer your more services, education, benefits, and fund a way to track and react to legislaion at the local city and state level as well as at the Nationl Level. So we all have to play nice to create the revenue so we can offer service -
So think about it, last week we had many people who had issue with something Kansas City Missouri did. Now we all wanted to be a part of a committee that would follow up, take our concerns back to the city council and then get it changed. And to do that we can form a committee and do something and we should. But if we had the funding, we might be able to hire a watch dog whose job it is to tell us about things before the happen instead of us reacting and trying to change something once it's already a done deal.
So Alan's plan would allow us to parnter better with large National Vendors like the Home Depots and Sherwin Williams stores that would bring in more national companies with large discounts for you as members, bring in additional members that benefis us all as well as their membership dollars to fund more services, which would in turn give us buying power as a whole to negotiate larger local and national discounts and influence our lawmakers more effectively.
This probably does not make any sense, as I am still on the first cup of coffee after a late night trying to figure out how the craps tables work. I will stick to real estate or see if I can find a YouTube video instruction, cause I still don't get it.
Day 2 - continued
Then we got to hear from another REIA leader who has turned around a declining group and got it growing again. Tom Zeeb from the Capital Area REIA in Washington DC He had a lot of ideas for us on how to attract new members and we plan to implement many of his ideas so we have new faces at our meetings for you to network with or share your service. And the bigger the community, the more clout we have when issues come up that are bad for investors, like billing the landlord for the water if the tenant does not pay.
And many of these ideas will translate over into your business.
1. You have to have Video on your site, so figure out how to record Video and drop it into your site. So do short 30 second to 2 minute videos and put them all over your site.
2. Use your face, and as an investor I can't figure out what investors barely put their name on the site, let along their photo - realtors personalize their marketing well - so why don't we as investors, let the people know who they are working with.
3. Take some time to reduce costs, - renegotiate contracts on your rent, your phone service, anything you pay money for on a regular basis, if you have not put services out to bid this year, do it, you might cut $100s off your expenses.
4. His group has gone to a full time quarterly membership that auto bills the member's card once a quater. They are paying a bit more through out the year, but in smaller increments - I need feedback from the members on this.
5. Their group also put together their own Lead Generating web site for motivated sellers than feeds into a call center that shares calls with the members who pay for the service in a round robin type of thing. I think all the Home Vestors Franchises had this at one time in Kansas City and they pooled their money for all the bill board ads to get the calls to go to the main web site or an 800 number and the call service had a round robin feed to each of the home vestors owners - I need to know more about this because we need to do it - bill boards and massive web sites can be cost prohibitive, but with 10 investors pooling funds, it can be more effective.
6. He talked about sub groups - their group has a womens only group ( we heard this yesterday) and they have a night owls group that meets once a week except for the week of the main meeting. They meet from 10 to midnight and it is very well attended. - I want to do subgroups more at MAREI, but I need sub group leaders.
7. He also suggested we include on our name tags what our specialty is, so that we all know exactly what the person we are talking to at the meeting does. We are going to try to implement this, so does anyone know where I can buy specialty stickers?
And many of these ideas will translate over into your business.
1. You have to have Video on your site, so figure out how to record Video and drop it into your site. So do short 30 second to 2 minute videos and put them all over your site.
2. Use your face, and as an investor I can't figure out what investors barely put their name on the site, let along their photo - realtors personalize their marketing well - so why don't we as investors, let the people know who they are working with.
3. Take some time to reduce costs, - renegotiate contracts on your rent, your phone service, anything you pay money for on a regular basis, if you have not put services out to bid this year, do it, you might cut $100s off your expenses.
4. His group has gone to a full time quarterly membership that auto bills the member's card once a quater. They are paying a bit more through out the year, but in smaller increments - I need feedback from the members on this.
5. Their group also put together their own Lead Generating web site for motivated sellers than feeds into a call center that shares calls with the members who pay for the service in a round robin type of thing. I think all the Home Vestors Franchises had this at one time in Kansas City and they pooled their money for all the bill board ads to get the calls to go to the main web site or an 800 number and the call service had a round robin feed to each of the home vestors owners - I need to know more about this because we need to do it - bill boards and massive web sites can be cost prohibitive, but with 10 investors pooling funds, it can be more effective.
6. He talked about sub groups - their group has a womens only group ( we heard this yesterday) and they have a night owls group that meets once a week except for the week of the main meeting. They meet from 10 to midnight and it is very well attended. - I want to do subgroups more at MAREI, but I need sub group leaders.
7. He also suggested we include on our name tags what our specialty is, so that we all know exactly what the person we are talking to at the meeting does. We are going to try to implement this, so does anyone know where I can buy specialty stickers?
From National REIA Mid - Year Day 2 - Rentals.com
We started out the day with Breakfast with our Industry Partners. I was able to eat with the women from http://www.rentals.com/ and learned a lot about their services. We know that we can all get a 20% discount from them on their regular pricing (discount code in the Member Library), but other than that they were a place to market our rentals, I did't know much more - so here goes: They rank usually either #1 or # 2 in google when people search for "house for rent" that means your people looking for a house to rent, start there.
Then they got technical - they have all the demographic data on who rents from them, how many clicks that get from an area, what they are looking for and other statistical data. They know that the tent to have a little better tenant looking on their site which converts into a better tenant in your houses. And they have other services to track leads who contact you via email or phone. So if you are offering any type of rental, you should give http://www.rentals.com/ a test. It's like hiring a part time employee to do a lot of your marketing work for you with out the payroll issues or giving them a desk to work at. And there were quite a few Rentals.com users or group leaders with users at the table, and they all loved the service.
Then they got technical - they have all the demographic data on who rents from them, how many clicks that get from an area, what they are looking for and other statistical data. They know that the tent to have a little better tenant looking on their site which converts into a better tenant in your houses. And they have other services to track leads who contact you via email or phone. So if you are offering any type of rental, you should give http://www.rentals.com/ a test. It's like hiring a part time employee to do a lot of your marketing work for you with out the payroll issues or giving them a desk to work at. And there were quite a few Rentals.com users or group leaders with users at the table, and they all loved the service.
Friday, June 25, 2010
National REIA Mid-Year Conference - Day 1
Ideas to bring back to Kansas City from National REIA Mid Year conference - day 1.
Members, please give me feedback
- I Pad - saw these on the plane on the way here - way cool. Don DeRosa is integrating them in his training program. Get an Ipad with all of his training and all of his tools preloaded with instruction. This is too cool.
- Recording meetings like we already do, but then making CD's to sell them rather than downloads from the web site. If you want to make CD's or DVD's for your own markeitng we talked about a sesrvice - KUNAKI?? have not looked it up yet.
- Women In Real Estate - sub group for the ladies only. Maybe in Kansas City we could combine efforts with the local WIRE chapter.
- For a meeting idea - have an "As a Dumb Question Night" with a panel who answers any audience question.
- Have our more experienced members create and teach a class. Great for the business associates to share their expertise and gain new clients.
- Weekly Breakfast Sub Group at Ihop for the more experienced investors
- Market Update once a quarter at the meetings
- 15 mintes of I have this to share or I need this at the beginnig of each meeting
- Take real live actual deals from the audience and have 3 different investor analyze it for their way of inesting.
- And I have been talking with Edwin Kelly from Equity Trust about an all day Self Directed IRA training and networking meeting to get us all working together and utilizing self directed IRA's and private lending among the group more.
Will have more after today I hope.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Getting more customers as a Real Estate Investor
As a real estate investor in Kansas City or anywhere in the country for that matter, it all comes down to really two things: finding the money and finding the deals.
To find either one, you are going to have to put on a good face and put out some good marketing.
I am going to assume for a minute that you have taken the time to set up a good an effective web site, but the next step is to get people to go to it and to get the search engines to find it and tell people about it on the first page of Google.com for example when a search is performed.
From what I have been reading and hearing, one good way is to write relevant articles that are key word rich and get them out there on the internet. I have been working to some extent to use article marketing for both my real estate investment businesses and the real estate investment association.
There are quite a few keys to using article marketing.
For example as using key words with in the article and in the title, words that you think your customer might search for on the internet. Another key might be writing an interesting and informative article, not just rehashing the same old thing over and over. Or maybe having a good about the author section to entice them back to your web site for more information.
After you write the article, with several different titles and slightly different content in the article, then you need to post it online somewhere.
Maybe on your blog, or on an article submission site.
One site I have been using of late is http://www.articlesbase.com/ and since I have registered for my free account with them, I have been receiving a short email about once or twice a week with a quick article about how to improve my articles, make them more effective, and get people clicking on them back to my web site.
If you have been thinking about driving traffic and search engines to your web site using articles, I highly recommend checking out this site and their how to information.
And this concept will work for anyone:
And this concept will work for anyone:
- Investor site trying to drive buyers or sellers
- Investor looking for private money
- Contractor looking for houses to rehab
- Title company wanting to do more closings
- Mortgage people wanting more loans
- Insurance company wanting to insure more people
- Anyone.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Learn more than fluff at your Real Estate Investment Club
I think in the past few articles we have covered finding the right real estate investment association and how to meet people, now let’s look at learning.
You fill find that most associations have a speaker for 60 to 90 minutes. By far not enough time to learn everything there is to know about the topic. But it is ample time to give you the highlights and the tools to go get more.
When you arrive at a meeting, don’t go sit down, you can’t network very well sitting down. Do go mark your seat to save it. And you want to sit as close to the front or an aisle seat as you can. Why? Speakers will notice you more and you might get a give away item in those locations better and more importantly if you have to ask a question, it is easier for you to get to the microphone to ask or for the microphone to get to you.
After marking a good seat you are going to go network, and this is a great time to learn. During networking you want to learn from the people in attendance.
• What is it that they do?
• How can I find out more information about that?
• Do you offer a newsletter or a web site?
During networking your objective is to meet new people and get new concepts, but you don’t have time to dive deep into the topic, save that for follow up later.
Then comes the speaker presentation. Take your seat promptly and pay attention. Take notes.
Now when I say take notes, don’t write down everything the speaker says and if they have a power point and the probably will, don’t write down everything it says. What you want to write down is
1. Key concepts.
2. Web site addresses for follow up
3. Emails and phone numbers for follow up.
If the speaker has a hand out great, if they don’t be sure to get their brochure or business card or write down their contact information and web site.
As you have questions, write them down, don’t break into the presentation as the speaker has a planned outline and your question will probably be answered later and if it is not, it is probably a little beyond the scope of what the speaker wants to share. Save the questions for the Q & A portion that most speakers have or follow up with the speaker later. Often you can take those questions to the association message board and the speaker just might be answering those questions there.
So why don’t we want to ask questions as the speaker makes the presentation. Well first of all, it interrupts the speaker and his planned flow of information. It may make him or her forget where they were or lose their train of thought. Professional speakers can handle this, but many of the speakers at the association are not professional speakers, but fellow investors or service providers. Secondly when you interrupt with a question, that takes up valuable time and make cause the speaker to have to cut out very valuable information that you needed to know. So please save your questions till the end or for follow up later.
The last concept about learning at the real estate investor association meetings is the fact that all speakers are there doing presentation for one reason – to sell you something. Yes, it’s true, 95 % of all presentations at the REIA meetings are not out of the goodness of the speakers heart but to drum up sales of something.
This gives us 4 different types of speakers:
1. Professional Trainers who are there to share with you their knowledge to a point, but if you want to know everything they know, they will be offering a training package or event at the end of the meeting. Many times this will be a Saturday event for the association that is free or less than $50 – go to these trainings you will learn a lot. Other times it will be to sell you a training program or bootcamp. If you know there will be a professional trainer at the meetings, do a little research on them in advance so you know if you may want to buy their training materials before you go. Usually any training they offer is either at a major discount from what they usually offer it or it comes with a lot of extra bonuses.
2. Service Providers who are there to share what their product or service does. For example a property management company might make a presentation on screening tenants. They will teach how you can do that one piece of their business yourself, but also how you could use their service to free up your time to do other things.
3. Fellow Members who want to be professional trainers. The professional trainers have to start somewhere and that is usually at their local real estate investment association. They will usually speak several times and offer training classes through the local REIA as a way to create their materials and perfect their methods. Then when they take the show on the road and go other places, then they will start selling a training package. The local REIA’s usually get the benefit of being the testing ground without too much selling.
4. Fellow Members just sharing knowledge. This does not happen very often because creating a presentation is work and takes time. Successful, full time real estate investors just don’t have time to create presentation. But it does happen from time to time and they are usually packed with information and many times they will help you if you call with a question. What you see most of the time is a fellow member serving on a panel for a question and answer session.
This article is a part of a series of articles to help new people and experienced people figure out how to utilize their REIA group and build their investing team. Please watch for our previous or upcoming articles:
1. Where to find a real estate investment club.
2. What to look for in a real estate investment club.
3. What to take with you to a real estate investment club meeting.
4. Get the most out of the vendors at the real estate investment club meeting.
5. Networking at the real estate investment club meeting.
6. Learning at the real estate investment club meeting.
7. Follow up after the real estate investment club meeting.
8. Beyond the real estate investment club meeting.
About the author: Kim Tucker is an active real estate investor in the Kansas City Metro area as well as the director of Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors or MAREI. MAREI works exclusively with real estate investors who want to learn and success at real estate investing. Get more information at http://www.kansascityreia.com/ or http://www.mareinet.com/.
You fill find that most associations have a speaker for 60 to 90 minutes. By far not enough time to learn everything there is to know about the topic. But it is ample time to give you the highlights and the tools to go get more.
When you arrive at a meeting, don’t go sit down, you can’t network very well sitting down. Do go mark your seat to save it. And you want to sit as close to the front or an aisle seat as you can. Why? Speakers will notice you more and you might get a give away item in those locations better and more importantly if you have to ask a question, it is easier for you to get to the microphone to ask or for the microphone to get to you.
After marking a good seat you are going to go network, and this is a great time to learn. During networking you want to learn from the people in attendance.
• What is it that they do?
• How can I find out more information about that?
• Do you offer a newsletter or a web site?
During networking your objective is to meet new people and get new concepts, but you don’t have time to dive deep into the topic, save that for follow up later.
Then comes the speaker presentation. Take your seat promptly and pay attention. Take notes.
Now when I say take notes, don’t write down everything the speaker says and if they have a power point and the probably will, don’t write down everything it says. What you want to write down is
1. Key concepts.
2. Web site addresses for follow up
3. Emails and phone numbers for follow up.
If the speaker has a hand out great, if they don’t be sure to get their brochure or business card or write down their contact information and web site.
As you have questions, write them down, don’t break into the presentation as the speaker has a planned outline and your question will probably be answered later and if it is not, it is probably a little beyond the scope of what the speaker wants to share. Save the questions for the Q & A portion that most speakers have or follow up with the speaker later. Often you can take those questions to the association message board and the speaker just might be answering those questions there.
So why don’t we want to ask questions as the speaker makes the presentation. Well first of all, it interrupts the speaker and his planned flow of information. It may make him or her forget where they were or lose their train of thought. Professional speakers can handle this, but many of the speakers at the association are not professional speakers, but fellow investors or service providers. Secondly when you interrupt with a question, that takes up valuable time and make cause the speaker to have to cut out very valuable information that you needed to know. So please save your questions till the end or for follow up later.
The last concept about learning at the real estate investor association meetings is the fact that all speakers are there doing presentation for one reason – to sell you something. Yes, it’s true, 95 % of all presentations at the REIA meetings are not out of the goodness of the speakers heart but to drum up sales of something.
This gives us 4 different types of speakers:
1. Professional Trainers who are there to share with you their knowledge to a point, but if you want to know everything they know, they will be offering a training package or event at the end of the meeting. Many times this will be a Saturday event for the association that is free or less than $50 – go to these trainings you will learn a lot. Other times it will be to sell you a training program or bootcamp. If you know there will be a professional trainer at the meetings, do a little research on them in advance so you know if you may want to buy their training materials before you go. Usually any training they offer is either at a major discount from what they usually offer it or it comes with a lot of extra bonuses.
2. Service Providers who are there to share what their product or service does. For example a property management company might make a presentation on screening tenants. They will teach how you can do that one piece of their business yourself, but also how you could use their service to free up your time to do other things.
3. Fellow Members who want to be professional trainers. The professional trainers have to start somewhere and that is usually at their local real estate investment association. They will usually speak several times and offer training classes through the local REIA as a way to create their materials and perfect their methods. Then when they take the show on the road and go other places, then they will start selling a training package. The local REIA’s usually get the benefit of being the testing ground without too much selling.
4. Fellow Members just sharing knowledge. This does not happen very often because creating a presentation is work and takes time. Successful, full time real estate investors just don’t have time to create presentation. But it does happen from time to time and they are usually packed with information and many times they will help you if you call with a question. What you see most of the time is a fellow member serving on a panel for a question and answer session.
This article is a part of a series of articles to help new people and experienced people figure out how to utilize their REIA group and build their investing team. Please watch for our previous or upcoming articles:
1. Where to find a real estate investment club.
2. What to look for in a real estate investment club.
3. What to take with you to a real estate investment club meeting.
4. Get the most out of the vendors at the real estate investment club meeting.
5. Networking at the real estate investment club meeting.
6. Learning at the real estate investment club meeting.
7. Follow up after the real estate investment club meeting.
8. Beyond the real estate investment club meeting.
About the author: Kim Tucker is an active real estate investor in the Kansas City Metro area as well as the director of Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors or MAREI. MAREI works exclusively with real estate investors who want to learn and success at real estate investing. Get more information at http://www.kansascityreia.com/ or http://www.mareinet.com/.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
So how eactly do I network at the real estate investment club?
You have found a realestate investment association to attend. You have your business cards and flyers all lined up. You have been to a few meetings and know the vendors and what it is that they do. You have also have meet the movers and shakers at the meeting, now what?
Now it’s time to get into the true networking and using the vendors to your advantage. Now’s the time to start approaching everyone else in the room. Look for the new people that look at little lost or that you have never met at the meetings before. Approach them with a sort of a meeting ambassador approach.
You might say “Hi, I’m Bob, is this your first time to a meeting?” . . . . “So are you new to real estate investing?” . . . or “What do you hope to accomplish by attending these meetings?” You are trying to find a little bit about them, find out what they do, and get their business card for follow up. We will talk about follow up in a future article.
Now you have a new friend, you have to find a way to brush them off kindly and go on to the next person. You are networking and want to meet a lot of people and find out a bit about them, so you need to pass your new friend on to someone else. It’s time introduce them to one or two of the Vendors or one of the movers and shakers.
So why do all of this, what is the objective.
First and foremost, you want everyone you meet to remember you. As you approached them, you asked them questions so they talked about themselves. People like it when they get to talk about themselves. Then you introduced them to new people at the meeting. This accomplishes your second objective of letting them know you are in the know. That you just might be a go to person when they need help. But they don’t know what it is that you do, so they will start asking about you to the other people at the meeting. With these two things, everyone you meet witll have a much better chance of remembering you rather than the other guy who just said “Hi, my name is Bob and I am a real estate investor.” . . . then digressed to talk about the weather and the price of tea in China.
I saw this over and over again a few years ago with one of our vendors. He always reserved a vendor table and put his flyers on it. But was he ever at his table? No, he would look for the person standing in the corner all by themselves and go up and start asking them questions. Once he had a little bit of info as to what the person did, and what they were trying to accomplish at the meeting, he would ask them for a card and introduce them to someone else at the meeting. He never said who he was or what he did. Then when the person was handed off via introduction to someone else, they would ask the someone else “Who was that? What does he do?” The response was always, “that’s the guy you need to talk to if you need a loan to buy a house, you need to get his card.” Needless to say he made a 3 or 4 loans immediately after his first meeting and was the most called upon guy in the group for loans.
So remember
1. Find the people you don’t know.
2. Ask them questions and take note of the answers
3. Get their business card and put a few notes on it for follow up later.
4. Introduce them on to someone else.
This article is a part of a series of articles to help new people and experienced people figure out how to utilize their REIA group and build their investing team. Please watch for our previous or upcoming articles:
1. Where to find a real estate investment club.
2. What to look for in a real estate investment club.
3. What to take with you to a real estate investment club meeting.
4. Get the most out of the vendors at the real estate investment club meeting.
5. Networking at the real estate investment club meeting.
6. Learning at the real estate investment club meeting.
7. Follow up after the real estate investment club meeting.
8. Beyond the real estate investment club meeting.
About the author: Kim Tucker is an active real estate investor in the Kansas City Metro area as well as the director of Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors or MAREI. MAREI works exclusively with real estate investors who want to learn and success at real estate investing. Get more information at http://www.kansascityreia.com/ or http://www.mareinet.com/.
Now it’s time to get into the true networking and using the vendors to your advantage. Now’s the time to start approaching everyone else in the room. Look for the new people that look at little lost or that you have never met at the meetings before. Approach them with a sort of a meeting ambassador approach.
You might say “Hi, I’m Bob, is this your first time to a meeting?” . . . . “So are you new to real estate investing?” . . . or “What do you hope to accomplish by attending these meetings?” You are trying to find a little bit about them, find out what they do, and get their business card for follow up. We will talk about follow up in a future article.
Now you have a new friend, you have to find a way to brush them off kindly and go on to the next person. You are networking and want to meet a lot of people and find out a bit about them, so you need to pass your new friend on to someone else. It’s time introduce them to one or two of the Vendors or one of the movers and shakers.
So why do all of this, what is the objective.
First and foremost, you want everyone you meet to remember you. As you approached them, you asked them questions so they talked about themselves. People like it when they get to talk about themselves. Then you introduced them to new people at the meeting. This accomplishes your second objective of letting them know you are in the know. That you just might be a go to person when they need help. But they don’t know what it is that you do, so they will start asking about you to the other people at the meeting. With these two things, everyone you meet witll have a much better chance of remembering you rather than the other guy who just said “Hi, my name is Bob and I am a real estate investor.” . . . then digressed to talk about the weather and the price of tea in China.
I saw this over and over again a few years ago with one of our vendors. He always reserved a vendor table and put his flyers on it. But was he ever at his table? No, he would look for the person standing in the corner all by themselves and go up and start asking them questions. Once he had a little bit of info as to what the person did, and what they were trying to accomplish at the meeting, he would ask them for a card and introduce them to someone else at the meeting. He never said who he was or what he did. Then when the person was handed off via introduction to someone else, they would ask the someone else “Who was that? What does he do?” The response was always, “that’s the guy you need to talk to if you need a loan to buy a house, you need to get his card.” Needless to say he made a 3 or 4 loans immediately after his first meeting and was the most called upon guy in the group for loans.
So remember
1. Find the people you don’t know.
2. Ask them questions and take note of the answers
3. Get their business card and put a few notes on it for follow up later.
4. Introduce them on to someone else.
This article is a part of a series of articles to help new people and experienced people figure out how to utilize their REIA group and build their investing team. Please watch for our previous or upcoming articles:
1. Where to find a real estate investment club.
2. What to look for in a real estate investment club.
3. What to take with you to a real estate investment club meeting.
4. Get the most out of the vendors at the real estate investment club meeting.
5. Networking at the real estate investment club meeting.
6. Learning at the real estate investment club meeting.
7. Follow up after the real estate investment club meeting.
8. Beyond the real estate investment club meeting.
About the author: Kim Tucker is an active real estate investor in the Kansas City Metro area as well as the director of Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors or MAREI. MAREI works exclusively with real estate investors who want to learn and success at real estate investing. Get more information at http://www.kansascityreia.com/ or http://www.mareinet.com/.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Get the most out of the vendors at the real estate investment club meeting.
So you have found the real estate investment association to attend, you know where to go and you know what to take with you. Now let look at getting the most out of the vendors.
If the real estate investment association you attend has a time and place for vendors to set up booths, you will find there are typically only 5 to 10 booths and they will tend to be the same 5 or 10 booths at every meeting. So you need to know how to work with these vendors to your advantage.
At your first meeting when you don’t know anyone, you are going to be a little shy and not know what to do, I have seen the new attendees and know this to be true. So turn to the vendors to get the lay of the land. Ask them how the meetings progress, ask them who you should meet, ask them who the movers and shakers at the meeting are. The vendors do business with the people at the association and they will be know who are the active investors you want to meet and talk to.
So how do you approach the vendors. Well since they probably paid for a table at the meeting, they are ready, willing, and hopefully able to answer all your questions about their business. So I would be ready with your note pad and pen and ask them a few questions:
1. What is your company and what does it do?
2. As a (new) investor, why do I need your company or when would I use your company?
3. If their services are totally new to you, ask them to briefly explain what it is they do and why and ask for a web site so you can go get further information.
4. Be sure to get a business card from them for follow up.
5. Leave your business card, they may have a newsletter they send out with more relevant information or they may be offering a giveaway for the evening.
6. Lastly, is your “I’m new here, if there were only 3 people here I could talk to tonight, who would you suggest?”
This article is a part of a series of articles to help new people and experienced people figure out how to utilize their REIA group and build their investing team. Please watch for our previous or upcoming articles:
1. Where to find a real estate investment club.
2. What to look for in a real estate investment club.
3. What to take with you to a real estate investment club meeting.
4. Get the most out of the vendors at the real estate investment club meeting.
5. Networking at the real estate investment club meeting.
6. Learning at the real estate investment club meeting.
7. Follow up after the real estate investment club meeting.
8. Beyond the real estate investment club meeting.
About the author: Kim Tucker is an active real estate investor in the Kansas City Metro area as well as the director of Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors or MAREI. MAREI works exclusively with real estate investors who want to learn and success at real estate investing. Get more information at www.KansasCityREIA.com or www.MAREInet.com.
If the real estate investment association you attend has a time and place for vendors to set up booths, you will find there are typically only 5 to 10 booths and they will tend to be the same 5 or 10 booths at every meeting. So you need to know how to work with these vendors to your advantage.
At your first meeting when you don’t know anyone, you are going to be a little shy and not know what to do, I have seen the new attendees and know this to be true. So turn to the vendors to get the lay of the land. Ask them how the meetings progress, ask them who you should meet, ask them who the movers and shakers at the meeting are. The vendors do business with the people at the association and they will be know who are the active investors you want to meet and talk to.
So how do you approach the vendors. Well since they probably paid for a table at the meeting, they are ready, willing, and hopefully able to answer all your questions about their business. So I would be ready with your note pad and pen and ask them a few questions:
1. What is your company and what does it do?
2. As a (new) investor, why do I need your company or when would I use your company?
3. If their services are totally new to you, ask them to briefly explain what it is they do and why and ask for a web site so you can go get further information.
4. Be sure to get a business card from them for follow up.
5. Leave your business card, they may have a newsletter they send out with more relevant information or they may be offering a giveaway for the evening.
6. Lastly, is your “I’m new here, if there were only 3 people here I could talk to tonight, who would you suggest?”
This article is a part of a series of articles to help new people and experienced people figure out how to utilize their REIA group and build their investing team. Please watch for our previous or upcoming articles:
1. Where to find a real estate investment club.
2. What to look for in a real estate investment club.
3. What to take with you to a real estate investment club meeting.
4. Get the most out of the vendors at the real estate investment club meeting.
5. Networking at the real estate investment club meeting.
6. Learning at the real estate investment club meeting.
7. Follow up after the real estate investment club meeting.
8. Beyond the real estate investment club meeting.
About the author: Kim Tucker is an active real estate investor in the Kansas City Metro area as well as the director of Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors or MAREI. MAREI works exclusively with real estate investors who want to learn and success at real estate investing. Get more information at www.KansasCityREIA.com or www.MAREInet.com.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Networking at realestate investment clubs, it’s all in the preparation.
Read the web site or call and find out where they meeting, what time to arrive, do they have pre or post meeting networking. For example some groups might meet for a meal before the event or go out for drinks after the meeting for extra networking, you may want to plan to attend if you have time.
During the networking, do they have vendors with tables or a table where people can place flyers? If so what are the rules regarding the tables or placing flyers? How many people typically attend? If there is a snow storm and the meeting is canceled, how do they get the word out? Is there a way you can attend your first meeting for free or a discount? How much does it cost to join?
No matter what the rules and regulations, you will definitely want to have business cards to take with you. If you are a service provider that offers services that the average person may want, those business cards would probably be great. You can drum up extra business at the meeting while you learn your way around.
But if you don’t currently have a need for a business card, you will want to get your first real estate investor business card. For your first one, if you don’t already know what you want to do in real estate investing, you may want to go with a cheap business card with basic contact information.
You can study up on what you want on a business card as you learn more about real estate investing and buy new ones as your needs change.
You may want to create a few flyers If you have already got your feet wet and have something to offer:
• An investment property for sale
• A private lending message
• A real estate investing service you offer
• Etc
Be sure to put your name and contact information on your flyer. I tell you this because many new investors bring flyers of properties to our meetings and while the deal looks great, there is no contact information on it anywhere. And usually it is a rule to have a name and contact info, not just a web site.
You will also want to get something to take notes. You will want something small that does not take up a lot of room and a working pen to write with. You will need this to take notes or write down info from people who don’t bring business cards.
Lastly, you may find you want to bring a friend. It is always easier to approach new people in a group setting if there are two of you. So if you have an interested friend attend together. You may even find you can join as a team and save money.
This article is a part of a series of articles to help new people and experienced people figure out how to utilize their REIA group and build their investing team. Please watch for our previous or upcoming articles:
1. Where to find a real estate investment club.
2. What to look for in a real estate investment club.
3. What to take with you to a real estate investment club meeting.
4. Get the most out of the vendors at the real estate investment club meeting.
5. Networking at the real estate investment club meeting.
6. Learning at the real estate investment club meeting.
7. Follow up after the real estate investment club meeting.
8. Beyond the real estate investment club meeting.
About the author: Kim Tucker is an active real estate investor in the Kansas City Metro area as well as the director of Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors or MAREI. MAREI works exclusively with real estate investors who want to learn and success at real estate investing. Get more information at http://www.KansasCityREIA.com or http://www.MAREInet.com.
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