What began as 3 people is now +165. How a MeetUp supercharged our networking & connected us with experienced investors!
Greeting BP members, especially newbies who are looking for creative ways to connect with other experienced real estate investors, mentors, coaches, etc.
Think you're living in an area where it's hard to network with others? So did we.
We being members of the Seoul Real Estate Investing Meetup in Korea.
About 8 months ago, @John Van Uytven reached out to me through BiggerPockets. I thought, "This is awesome! Even all the way out here in Korea there are people I can meet to talk with about real estate investing." I brought along my real estate investing partner @Benjamin Hauser and the three of us met for coffee.
After we met, we decided to do this regularly and John even had the idea to create a meetup group.
We thought maybe we'd find another investor or two out here in Korea, so we were pleasantly surprised when 12 people signed up for the next meetup. And from there it continued to grow and grow!
We now have over 165 members, and expect +30 people at each of our meetups. We've been averaging 20 new signups each month. So how have we've been able to grow?
I've signed up for about three or four different meetups and here are four ways our meetup is different:
- 1. Sending out post-meetup wrap-ups. After each meetup, I'll send out a summary of what happened last time. (If you want to see samples, I've included a link below)
- 2. Creating videos clips from our meetups and posting these to build credibility. It helps make our meetups look professional.
- 3. Sending out a personal greeting to each new member that features links to posts, vidoeos, etc. about us.
- 4. Finally, the most helpful thing was probably posting here on BP about our successes.
By posting on BP about our successes, we've been able to attract awesome BP 'virtual guests' such as (sample video clips below):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNe1b178zWY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqgZTwwu_2Q&featur...
And this month's Virtual Speaker:
who generously spent over 45 minutes answering questions about Turnkey Real Estate Investing. (Click on the link above to find out Ali's method advice on AVOIDING THE SCAMMERS!)
In April, we'll be having @Engelo Rumora as our virtual guest and we may be able to get @Jay Hinrichs to speak if we can make the times work out.
So, through our meetup, not only have I've been able to talk with all our speakers personally and ask them questions (every newbies greatest hope!), I also feel good because we're able to give back to them by helping to increase their profile (international speaker sound good to anyone??), and introduce them to a new audience.
While what we give back is only a fraction of what they give us, I still feel good about that.
Meanwhile we've also been able to grow the BP community.
Our latest in-person speaker @Robert E. Medlock II and newly minted BP member, gave an awesome talk on how he rehabbed and rented out a $9,000 house in Jacksonville, Florida, complete with pictures of the entire process.
So if you're looking for a way to connect with more experienced investors and a way to build your own credibility and brand, I definitely suggest starting a meetup. There are so many benefits and the only 'cost' will be a little bit of your time.
That's it for this post. I hope it encourages others to start their own meetup!
Here's a link to some of the messages we've sent our members:
http://www.meetup.com/Seoul-REI-Meetup/messages/bo...
Here are some pictures from our latest meetup:
Some of those featured in the pictures:
@Sandra Roddy, @Dustin Karns, @Josh McNicoll, @Account Closed