3 Reasons Why I Started a Local Meetup and Why I Think You Should Too

It’s been a year since I started my real estate investing business. While I have enjoyed sufficient success, it has not come without certain hurdles. It does not help that your personal life keeps getting in the way as well. However, I have persevered over the year and I am quite happy with my achievements.

Just to give you a clearer picture, I am a multifamily investor so my business naturally is a commercial multifamily investment company. We buy apartments, add value to them, sell them, and share the profits with our investors. So yes, a significant part of my business involves talking to and building relationships with accredited investors and industry experts with access to high net-worth individuals.

Even though I was never a natural talker, I have learned to approach people and talk real estate. It is not easy but not impossible either once you get past that initial hesitation. A good education (lots of books and many hours of podcasts in my case) and passion for what you do help as well. However, what is even more difficult than talking is to build relationships; develop networks.

Long-term relationships are often based on trust and reliability. Furthermore, you must have something to offer. During this one year, I have struggled to develop my investors network so I knew I had to make certain decisions for my business. And I did.

Following advice from my mentor I began to think about arranging meetups. Was it easy to do so? Not at all. But after two successful meetups, I am confident that I’ve taken the right decision and my business is already reaping the benefits.

Following the same line of thought, I will discuss why I decided to start a local meetup group in this post.

Developing a Network

Elaborating what I was already discussing, a meetup was a significant key to meet real estate investors and professionals interested in multifamily investing. A local meetup often attracts the right people if you do the marketing right.

When the promotion is effective, you will be surprised the number of investors that show up. One thing to remember is that you should not expect everybody you want to show up right at the first meetup. You should always keep your mind open because you never know what you may be missing out. An open mind makes you welcoming of new people. It is always interesting to meet them as they can often lead you to where you intend to go.

At the events I welcome people who may be interested in adjacent real estate elements as to my field. It actually creates opportunities and adds knowledge too. Eventually, you will realize that industry experts and qualified investors have started to show up.

As of now, I have only held 2 meetups. But the meetups added up to a total of 80 attendees. For me, that was humbling and I could see that I can take this to a new level. Therefore, I have committed to doing monthly events for at least 1 year. I believe “CONSISTENCY IS KING”.

Developing Leadership

I often get asked about why I put so much effort and time into arranging these meetup while I can attend them personally elsewhere. It is true that I will have similar benefits if I attended just other regular meetups. However, I get an additional benefit from arranging my own.

Since I invest my time, hard efforts, and money into the arrangements, I also get recognized for it. This will allow me to build a credible thought leadership platform, and therefore, become a local leader in my field. Investors keep me in mind when they need a go-to person. It kind of becomes a two-way street as compared to only me reaping the benefits of knowing the investors and industry experts.

Direct Relationships

One of the keys to successfully build relationships is to genuinely care. If you are not looking to provide value and are willing to explore ways you can help others, then trust me, it’s more than likely that you also will not receive any value.

I truly care about the content that is presented at the events by our guest speakers. I want to provide real educational value to everyone that attends the meetups, and one of the ways I’m able to do it is by having true industry experts as guest speakers. I put a lot of effort in reaching out to these experienced industry leaders and it’s through that process that I’m able to start building a direct relationship with them. I gain their respect and start learning from them even before we set up a date for their presentations at my local meetup group. The types of relationships that I’m building with these industry leaders are not the type you build at someone else’s networking events.

For me, putting together a local meetup group has been extremely productive. I ensure that you can yield positive results as well. In fact, I think a similar concept can be applied to other businesses and industries too; if the environment allows.

Although there have been only two meetings so far, I can already see the potential for more productivity. As mentioned earlier, the plan is to continue to host these events consistently and build a solid knowledge sharing community and provide an environment where quality relationships are built.