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/.