The power of networking is MASSIVE. The more like-minded people you know will have a direct impact on your net-worth: it is said that you are worth on average the 5 people you network with the most, so observe the people you spend the most time with, it will have a strong bearing on your results.
Now let me ask You a question: how many people know you are in the property business? If it’s less than a 1000, then you are not yet in a property network.
We all know when starting out in property that it can be lonely or challenging without support or guidance, we’ve all been there. The benefit of networking is that you build up a network, a ‘power-team,’ who can help and assist you, finance you, support you, connect you with the relevant people that will enable you to complete on cash-flowing deals, and ultimately allowing you to build up a contact base that helps overcome any fears you may have: giving you confidence that you can achieve your goals, no matter how grand.
We’re now living in the recommendation age: people are too busy doing 101 things to be searching for that specialist mortgage broker, finance packager or legal expert [parts of your essential power-team]. By going to networking events [online and offline] you will already have a group of professionals who will save you 100’s of hours and £10,000’s.
We personally continue to network, getting into higher and higher circles the more success we achieve and the better relationships we attract. We learn something new every time we go, no matter how small, which directly impact our results and increase our net-worth.
Remember you work to learn NOT to earn
Although we now don’t buy properties outside our patch, in the early days when there were no Big Property Meet’s and we were young and buying anything that looked like a great deal [we totally forgot about our buying rules, actually come to think of it, don’t know whether we had any?!] we would often meet investors in another area and network in a pub [that was our networking] close to where we wanted to buy and let the JV partner do most of the leg work and who even sourced a few deals in a specific location.
The point we are emphasising is, if you find a deal in an area outside your patch, get to some networking events closer to the area and construct some JV partnership which will save you a lot of time and money.
We still see a lot of people making mistakes when attending networking events: they often go to sell their brand and products and start pitching to someone they probably have never even met.
Remember the law of reciprocity: the goal should be help other people first and foremost without expecting anything back in return.
If you network the right way, by helping people you will get more people coming back to you- that’s just the way the world is. Your life will become better by helping others, and thus be rewarded in due time.
Another classic mistake we see are people talking to someone they already know [obviously don’t ignore them]- the whole point of attending networking events is to build up a new contact base.
Mingle with different people: you don’t know what you don’t know -that person who you completely ignored may have been a multi-millionaire who may have be interested in your personality and character to strike up a deal with you, but you maybe didn’t like the look of him or never got out of your comfort zone to do anything about it.
Never Ever base your decision or make assumptions on the way a person looks or dresses – they could be the missing link to help you with your property projects.
Always follow up people whom have given you there cards- don’t make the mistake of collecting a lot of biz cards and leaving them to gather dust and only contacting them 6 months later because now you are in need of desperate finance!
Always keep in contact and offer ways you can help the contacts, even for free.
Reconnect with the contacts pretty much the next day while you can remember who gave you their card and they remember you because of the ‘purple cow’ conversation you had with them.
The more people you know, the more successful you will be, as you will always be able to contact them for advice and strike up JV agreements.
Speak to many people [take a lot of biz cards] as you can and be interested in them as a person and how you can help each other build a win-win partnership.
You must know before you even attend a networking event, what your outcome is: do you want to know the name of that specialist solicitor who is the man to go to when doing lease options, do you want people to share their experiences of working with another investor and how they are conducting JV partnerships, are you looking for advice on how to get started or excel to the next level?
Whatever it is you want, write it down so you have embedded it in your subconscious and explain to as many people as you can what your trying to achieve.
It’s amazing how far other investors will go to help you if you just ask them nicely
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