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Make Networking Easy

January 12, 2021 By Steve Leave a Comment

Networking — that elusive, difficult, tedious, formal process of discussing what you do with other professionals and asking for referrals. Yuck, right?


Then you may be doing it wrong.

People commonly associate networking with going to organized events:  Chamber of Commerce, Real Estate Investor Associations (REIA), Business Networking International (BNI), etc. While all are good places to network, they are only a few drops in the bucket of opportunities available.

But Steve, networking is hard!

I don’t want to feel like I’m begging for business.

I hate those big meetings.

Hold on tight, I’m about to change your mindset…

What is Networking?

Networking is the lifeblood of every business. No matter what you do, you need to interact with other people, whether that is for finding customers, vendors, properties, resources, employees, anything. 

The ultimate goal of networking is to have people know you and bring ready, willing and able customers to your business. It’s not a one-time action; it’s continuous and really should be considered a form of marketing or advertising (I can hear the groans already!).

Most people have this idea that networking is convincing others to do your marketing for you. While that would be great, it’s really not how networking works. What you want is people who know you telling other people about how great you are; that they should contact you because you can help them.

At its essence, networking is communicating what you do to other people. In other words, having a conversation. Talking to people who don’t know you very well and educating them, however briefly, about what you do.

Mindset Shift

What if you changed your definition of networking? 

What if “networking” was simply talking to people?

What if “networking” became “chatting” or “small talk”? 

Hmmm. That’s not so scary. Now networking is nothing more than being friendly.

Saying “Hello” to someone in line at the grocery store and asking how they like that item they just put in their cart.

Asking someone at the coffee shop if they like the caramel macchiato. Little ice breakers.

If you strike up a brief conversation with someone, as they’re ready to leave, you could ask them if they know of any properties for sale. Tell them you buy houses, and if they know of any for sale or that look run down, please let you know so you can help the seller. Maybe offer a referral bonus, or send gift cards, or whatever works for you.

Does This Really Work?

The best networkers I know simply talk to people. That’s it. Eventually they say what they do, or the person asks them what they do. Isn’t that brilliant? Get strangers to ask you what you do for a living, when you’re waiting to tell them exactly that.

People like to talk about themselves, even with a stranger. This won’t work every time. You occasionally may get a grumpy person who doesn’t want to engage. That’s OK, apologize for bothering them and let them go. Hey, everyone can have a bad day, right?

Most people will respond out of politeness. And the reality is a smile and friendly attitude brightens anyone’s day, so most people will talk to you. The important thing is to be interested in them. You have to develop some affinity with the person before you tell them what you do. Don’t come on like a bull in a china shop by explaining details of your business right away. Or at all. Less is more.

Just talk to them out of a genuine interest in them, or the weather, or a question about a grocery item they’re buying, or the shoes they’re wearing. Something about them. Then as you’re parting, it’s a quick ask and hand them a business card.

Check out my Real Estate Developers podcast with Mike Fitzgerald. His superpower is networking, and he tells you exactly how easy it can be: Find it on YouTube, and watch my podcast on Facebook LIVE every Wednesday at 2 pm Arizona time at RealEstateDisruptors.net

You Did It!

You just networked with someone you didn’t know five minutes ago. No high-pressure meeting, no having to drive across town for a lunch event, and no time commitment. And if you picked a person who doesn’t want to talk to you or fall flat on your face? So what, it’s over in a matter of minutes. No harm, no foul, move on.

Think about how many people you cross paths with every day in your daily routine: Pumping gas into your car — There’s someone at the pump next to you, how do they like their truck? Grabbing lunch out — The person behind you, what do they recommend? 

Networking isn’t being all professional, sitting at nice restaurants and listening to speakers (there are those opportunities, and take them, too). Networking is talking to people out of interest in them. Eventually you get to what you do and ask them to help you if they can.

Just talk to people. Be curious about them and their things. Be observant so you can find a subject to discuss. (“Hey, how about this weather?” gets old pretty fast.) Be interested in them, and you will enjoy it too. The first few times may be tough to make yourself start a conversation, but soon you will find it second nature. Be genuinely curious about other people, and before you know it, you will be a master networker.

All without “networking.”

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: blog, networking, real estate disruptors, real estate marketing, steve trang, wholesale, wholesaling

Just Start

January 8, 2021 By Steve Leave a Comment

The most common question I get is “How do I start a real estate business”, or “I don’t know where to start.”

My answer is always the same:  Just start.

Paralysis by Analysis

Many, many new real estate investors suffer from paralysis by analysis. Many of us have a burning desire to know every detail before we do something. They always feel like there is something else to learn, or something they’re unsure about.

Real estate has too much information for you to know it all.

The ironic thing here is that real estate transactions really aren’t that complicated. In wholesaling, you find a seller, get the property under contract, find a buyer, close the deal. Everyone’s happy, everyone makes money.

But Steve, what do I say to the seller? What if he asks about XYZ and I don’t know about XYZ? What contract do I use? Do I need money? How do I find buyers? What title company do I use? What? What? What?

You don’t need to know all the answers now. You’ll figure it out while you’re working through your first deal. Why? Because you have to then. Besides, you could learn “the answer” only to discover it is wrong for your deal. Then you have to figure it out anyway.

Successful Investors Just Do

The stories abound about super successful real estate investors who started with nothing. And yet they made it. Now they have money, time, freedom. 

Why? Because they started.

You will never reach your destination until you take the first step. 

Don’t know which contact to use? Ask someone for one, or Google it.

Not sure what to say to a seller? Contact one and talk to him — don’t be a robot, talk to him. 

Don’t know which title company to use? Make some phone calls.

Need money for a fix and flip? Ask people; you might be surprised.

Dreams Don’t Start Themselves

Most people who never realize their dreams get stuck in the start phase. They talk about wanting a real estate business, but they never do anything to get one.

Real estate, like any business, isn’t do one or two things and then the money truck backs up to your house.

Consistent action brings results. You’re going to mess up. You’re going to make a mistake. You’re going to be turned down by a seller who really needs to sell his house. But you learn, and you move to the next one.

Let’s Go!

Just start. The single most important piece of advice I can give you is just start. Take action today. Get a list, make some calls, drive some neighborhoods and knock on doors. Do something.

Once you start, each step becomes easier, and you learn a little more, and do a little better. Pretty soon you have your first deal, then three, 10, and suddenly you’re a real estate investor.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: investor, real estate disruptors, real estate investing, real estate marketing, start, steve trang

Michael Fitzgerald Shares How He Went From Bandit Signs to 100s of Doors and Running a Fund

January 7, 2021 By Steve Leave a Comment

Michael Fitzgerald talks about how he went from calling ads in his one bedroom apartment, to going to REIAs, to bandit signs and direct mail. He bought a farm for a million dollars with nothing down. Lost a lot during the recession. Paid off all his investors, and now owns hundreds of doors while running the Dream Fund.

Video Replay of Interview with Michael Fitzgerald

Sign up for our free wholesaling course: https://www.jotform.com/Trang_Steve/ask-me-anything

Want to close more deals without spending any more money? Go to https://www.disruptors.com

Follow me on IG: https://www.instagram.com/steve.trang

SHOW-NOTES-Michael-Fitzgerald-Shares-How-He-Went-From-Bandit-Signs-to-100s-of-Doors-and-Running-a-FundDownload

SHOW NOTES

Michael Fitzgerald Shares How He Went From Bandit Signs to 100s of Doors and Running a Fund

With Michael Fitzgerald, Gideon Properties

January 6, 2021

About Michael Fitzgerald

Michael Fitzgerald planned on importing products from China and selling them in the United States. After his first deal, and a chance meeting, he switched to real estate and has since built a multi-faceted empire.

Michael had no money to invest in real estate, so he had to be creative. His first several deals were all different types:  Subject To, wholesale, even developing farmland with $0 down. Along the way, he has become friends with people all around the world. Currently Michael is involved in city-state partnerships where he actually gets the government to help finance his projects!

Michael’s story is as unique as it is inspirational. He proves that you don’t need money to build a real estate business. You just need to get going. Connect with Michael on Instagram or Facebook. 

Show Notes

Steve asks Michael how he got started in real estate, and they explore many concepts for how people can start. One of Michael’s emphasis is that you don’t need to know how to do everything, or have any money. Just start and learn along the way. 

Top 5 Takeaways from Michael:

5.  Review every potential deal. You don’t need to know how to do a deal to get started. Figure it out, learn what you need to learn, and keep moving forward.

4. Take care of the people you work with. Honesty and commitment, along with fulfilling your obligations even if you could get out of them, will benefit you in the long run.

3. Never stop marketing. Too many people market, get some business, then stop marketing while they work on those deals. Once those deals are done, they have nothing in the pipeline because they stopped marketing. 

2. If something bad happens, don’t let that stop you from doing more deals. New deals can pay for unexpected losses from a bad deal. If you stop, you have no way to cover the losses. So accept the problem, and do more deals to make up for it.  

1. Networking makes life easier and more enjoyable. Networking shouldn’t be forcing yourself on others — just start up conversations with people everywhere you go.

Bonus Takeaway:  Just start. You don’t need money, you don’t need to know everything, you just need to start and keep going until you get some deals. If you take consistent action, you will succeed even if you fall down a few times along the way. If you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backward.

About Steve Trang

Steve Trang is the founder of the Real Estate Disruptors movement and host of the Real Estate Disruptors Podcast. He started his podcast in the middle of 2018 to inspire wholesalers and real estate agents to double their incomes by adding a second leg to their business. The podcast has now grown to ten thousand followers with new members of the community sharing their success story every week.

Steve’s goal is to create 100 Millionaires. One of his favorite quotes is from the great Zig Ziglar: “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” He heard this quote when he first got into real estate, and it has stuck with him throughout his entire career. In fact, it’s essentially one of the core values Steve lives by.

Connect with Steve at linkedin.com/in/stevetrang, facebook.com/stevetrang, instagram.com/steve.trang, stevetrang.com, or realestatedisruptors.com.

TRANSCRIPT:

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Filed Under: Interview, Wholesale Tagged With: @mike2thefitz, buy and hold, fix and flip, michael fitzgerald, mike fitzgerald, real estate disruptors, real estate investing, real estate marketing, rental properties, steve trang, wholesale, wholesaling

Find Success Where Others Run Away

December 21, 2020 By Steve Leave a Comment

Doing the work the way successful people work.

Doing what everyone else says you should do is easy. Focusing on that is tough.

Well, it’s not always easy, but it’s the easier way to work. If this is how people are successful, why be different?

There’s nothing wrong with doing what works. In fact, we teach other people how to wholesale the same way we sell precisely because it works. And it works extremely well, thank you very much! (shameless plug intended — visit Real Estate Disruptors to see what we offer). Focus on the right things, and success will follow.

Yet there is always something else out there. One of the fun and maddening aspects of real estate is the ever-changing nature of this business. Techniques that worked a couple of months ago may become ineffective due to a change in market conditions. That also means there are always new opportunities.

Most large, successful companies were not built on fantastic, completely new inventions. Apple built computers from existing components. Heinz developed ketchup based off of other sauces people were using to make rancid meat edible. Henry Ford didn’t invent the automobile or the assembly line, but he married the two to make affordable cars.

New opportunities present themselves all the time. The question is, should you take it? And if you do, what will you sacrifice to build the Next Big Thing? Where should your focus be?

A Perfect Example

Sandy Cesaire of the Bellaire Investment Group was on my podcast recently. She had made it big in real estate, lost it all in the crash ($800,000 CASH!), and rebuilt her life and her business. Sandy took her past experiences and found a new market — mobile homes with land. Most REIs won’t touch mobile homes, mainly because we don’t know what to do with them.

Now Sandy didn’t know much about mobile homes. She knew how to buy and sell properties though, and she took that knowledge and shifted it to this new market. Sandy had to learn about the peculiarities of mobile homes along the way, but she didn’t reinvent the wheel. She took what she had already been successful with and plugged her systems into a new market that other real estate investors were avoiding. Then she added a wrinkle:  instead of selling to other investors (who always want a low price), she sells directly to the general public. They save money, Sandy makes money, and everyone is happy.

Sandy expanded her business to other states and has plans to take it nationwide. All because she saw an opportunity and folded it into what she already knew worked. She stepped into an area others ran from and made it work. Sandy didn’t discover a new market — mobile homes are bought and sold every day — she applied her knowledge with a new twist to create a new opportunity.

Don’t Squirrel Around

People get into trouble when they get excited about something new and put all their energies into it. Classic Visionary problem — have a new idea and drop all your “boring” existing projects for the thrill of the new challenge.

The danger is that while you’re figuring out the bright shiny car, your old ones break down, and stop winning races for you. Pretty soon, you’re sitting in a Lamborghini but you don’t have any gas to put in it. And a garage full of supercars is useless if you can’t drive them.

Be careful of the shiny object, but don’t be afraid of it either. Remember, new doesn’t have to mean brand new, as in something completely different. It could be as simple as moving into a new market using your same systems.

Focus

Focus is key — Sandy admits in my podcast that she is constantly fighting to maintain her focus on the important things. It’s not that she doesn’t have big dreams or new ideas, but she knows if she chases them all, she won’t catch any.

Definitely dream and keep developing new ideas. After all, you don’t want to miss a golden opportunity, right? Then critically evaluate them, bounce them off other people, and let them simmer before adopting them. And don’t be afraid to put them on the back burner, or throw them out altogether. 

You also don’t want to see every idea as a sure-fire winner. Looking at your own ”brilliance” with a skeptical eye might be the most difficult skill to master. And yet it’s essential to your success. While the idea may seem unbeatable during conception, upon reflection it may have more flaws and holes than the Titanic.

Evaluation

So keep dreaming and coming up with the Next Big Thing. Then throw darts at it, have others poke holes in it, blast it with dynamite, search for all the ways it could blow up in your face. Ask yourself, “How does this fit into the rest of my business and my life?” Be real, and then take those answers, even the ones you don’t like, and make your decision.

Even following this advice, the new idea could flop. Or it could be wildly successful. You won’t know until you take it through the process. Hopefully this method can help you avoid the new ideas that should remain ideas only and not put into reality.

You may find that only one in 20 ideas have any real chance of success. Don’t be discouraged; you saved yourself from 19 bad ideas! Don’t let discarded ideas get you down. Give yourself the freedom to dream, the discipline to evaluate, and the honesty to listen to the results. 

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: focus, mobile home, real estate, real estate disruptors, real estate investing, real estate marketing, real estate podcast, sandy cesaire, steve trang

Wholesale 70+ Mobile Homes On Land w/o a Buyers’ List During Covid – Featuring Sandy Cesaire

December 20, 2020 By Steve Leave a Comment

Summary

Sandy Cesaire flies in from Florida and tells her rags-to-riches-to-rags-to-riches story. We learn how she bought and sold over 70 mobile homes with land for big profits in 2020. All without a buyer’s list. She also tells us how to find buyers easily and inexpensively. A great niche market to look at for your business.

SHOW NOTES

Wholesale 70+ Mobile Homes On Land w/o a Buyers’ List During Covid

With Sandy Cesaire, Bellaire Investment Group

December 16, 2020

About Sandy Cesaire

Sandy Cesaire was drawn to real estate very early. Almost right out of high school, she tried to get her real estate agent’s license, but couldn’t sit for the exam because she didn’t have the full amount for the fees. She became a mortgage broker and learned which lenders liked to loan to investors or had creative financing options. 

Sandy did very well with fix and flips and even got into hard money lending. But the 2008 crash wiped her out (or wiped out her investment partners, who had her cash). She eventually dipped her toes back into real estate and developed a method for wholesale buying and selling mobile homes with land to end users and significant profits. Now Sandy is expanding her mobile home wholesale business to other states, with plans to go nationwide soon.

Connect with Sandy on Instagram, or Facebook. You can also find her online at Bellaire Investment Group and her personal website.

Show Notes

Sandy and Steve discuss how Sandy got into real estate, her history as a mortgage broker,and  how she dealt with losing $800,000 cash in the 2008 crash. Sandy talks about her return to real estate, and how she discovered how to make big profits wholesaling mobile homes with land. She even touches on dealing with mommy guilt and her company’s future plans.

Top 5 Takeaways from Sandy:

5.  Have your paperwork in order. Don’t rely on the goodness of other people you work with, even if they have the best intentions. If you don’t protect yourself, you will eventually get burned.

4. Mommy guilt is real. Remind yourself that you’re working hard now so that you can enjoy life later.

3. Do the right thing for your sellers. Most are selling to you because they need help. Don’t be afraid to help them — not only is it the right thing to do, it will make your deal easier. 

2. Stay focused. It’s easy to become distracted and not pay enough attention to your core business.  

1. Figure it out. No matter the situation, you are not likely to know everything. So dive in, figure it out, and make it work better for the next deal.

Bonus Takeaway:  Let it go. No matter what bad things happened, you won’t move on and rebuild until you let it go. Put your boots on, pick yourself up, and move on. Get rid of toxic things and people. Only then can you be happy and prosperous.

About Steve Trang

Steve Trang is the founder of the Real Estate Disruptors movement and host of the Real Estate Disruptors Podcast. He started his podcast in the middle of 2018 to inspire wholesalers and real estate agents to double their incomes by adding a second leg to their business. The podcast has now grown to ten thousand followers with new members of the community sharing their success story every week.

Steve’s goal is to create 100 Millionaires. One of his favorite quotes is from the great Zig Ziglar: “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” He heard this quote when he first got into real estate, and it has stuck with him throughout his entire career. In fact, it’s essentially one of the core values Steve lives by.

Connect with Steve at linkedin.com/in/stevetrang, facebook.com/stevetrang, instagram.com/steve.trang, stevetrang.com, or realestatedisruptors.com.

Download Show Notes
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Filed Under: Podcast, Uncategorized, Wholesale Tagged With: buyer, mobile home, real estate disruptors, real estate investing, real estate marketing, real estate podcast, sandy cesaire, steve trang

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