4 Networking Tips for Proactive Real Estate Investors

The term “real estate investing” is so broad that it’s often challenging to find any commonalities between one investor and another. Every geographical market is different, there are countless investment strategies, and everyone has their own unique goals.

However, if you look closely, you’ll discover that the most successful investors in your area all do one thing exceptionally well. Specifically, they know how to network. Do you?

Four Tips for Networking like a Pro

Professional networking is something the majority of real estate investors either try and fail, or ignore altogether. And while there are many reasons why investors fail, a lack of quality networking is one of the top culprits. Keeping this in mind, let’s review a handful of relevant, high-returning networking tips that proactive real estate investors heed in order to enjoy healthy and lucrative results.

1. Surround Yourself with the Right People
   

Successful entrepreneur and motivational speaker, Jim Rohn, was famous for his theory that you become like the five people you spend the most time with. This theory is based on the law of averages and simply states that a person is influenced by the people closest to them.

If you pause right now and think about the five people you’re closest with as a professional, would you be happy or sad to discover that you’ll become the average of them put together? For many of us, this is a scary thought.

This is the best way to gauge the efficacy of your networking habits. Every few months, evaluate your networking circles and think about the five people you’re closest with. Do you aspire to be just like them or are they comfortable crutches?

When you think about networking in terms of Jim Rohn’s theory, you’re bound to be more selective in the relationships you forge.

2. Avoid a “Me First” Attitude

The goal of networking is obviously to enhance your career as an investor and arm yourself with more resources. However, you can’t approach networking with a selfish attitude. A “me first” approach will ultimately turn people away and leave you scrambling to find connections.

Remember that networking requires both give and take. Instead of entering into a relationship with the mentality of taking, begin by lending a hand. You must be vulnerable to help someone who’s never done anything to help you, yet confident they’ll eventually return the favor. Assuming that they’re networking for the right reasons, they’ll almost always return the favor in the future.

If you have a hard time overcoming your natural “me first” approach to networking, focus on talking less and listening more. This is a sure-fire way to show people that you’re interested in building mutually beneficial relationships.

“Learn to listen; some people believe that in order to be heard, they must be continuously speaking,” says investor Marcus Maloney. “Stop talking about yourself or your potential deal or the deal you closed last week, and listen attentively. You may find a resource that you may need in the future.”

3. Cast a Wide Net

There’s nothing neat and easy about real estate investing. It doesn’t happen in a vacuum and you can’t expect to check it off after attending a one-hour meet and greet at your local real estate investment club. The only way to succeed is by casting a wide net and making networking a priority in every area of your professional and personal life.

While there’s nothing wrong with real estate investment clubs and formal gatherings, you also need to build up your network via other channels. One strategy is to enhance your internet presence with social media profiles, a personal website, and guest blogging profiles. Another approach is to join local clubs, charities, and organizations in order to forge relationships.

When you begin to combine multiple networking strategies, you’ll notice that you have a much more balanced professional network. In the long run, this creates more stability and produces higher returns.

4. Make Follow Up a Priority

A lot of people are good at networking, but very few understand how to follow up after an initial introduction, meeting or conversation. Unfortunately, this renders the groundwork useless and turns warm leads into cold leads.

As a real estate investor, you must have a follow up strategy for keeping leads warm. Here’s a sample strategy that you could use to stay on top of new connections:

• Day after meeting. Send a LinkedIn request with a notation about when and where you met to solidify the connection and save their information.

• One week later. Send a brief email or LinkedIn message telling the individual that you enjoyed meeting them and look forward to working together in the future.

• One month later. Schedule a casual lunch meeting to discuss more details regarding what they do and how you can help them (and vice versa).

• Two to three months later. Check in and follow up on any conversations you’ve had in the past.

• Six months later. Set up another meeting and begin working on concrete plans for a mutually beneficial deal.

If you’ve done all of these things, you should have a pretty good idea whether or not the connection will go anywhere. If nothing else, you’ve done everything you can to solidify the relationship. In the future, that connection should move forward in a natural way.

Work With Green Residential

Are you surrounding yourself with the right people, connections, and professionals? At Green Residential, we understand the importance of networking because we’re networkers ourselves. Over the past 30-plus years, our family has developed into a premier Houston property management business. Along the way, we’ve built connections with some of the industry’s biggest names and most reliable companies.

While nothing replaces personal networking, you can instantaneously enhance your professional network by aligning with us. When you work with our professional property management services, you gain access to all of the resources and connections we’ve spent decades growing. Contact us today for more information and we’ll happily answer any questions you may have!