Todd Heitner:
And then what about somebody that does have maybe some experience. Maybe they want to do bigger deals. They’ve tapped out their personal network and they want to kind of scale up. How can they expand their network and do that?
Adam Adams:
That’s the main type of person that I work with. And so I love this question. I love this question.
So I usually work with people that have closed lots of deals, but now they feel like they’re tapped out. Now all of these podcasters are coming out and getting noticed. And the past investors are seeing the podcasters before they see this person who has a lot of experience.
So, what I would suggest is that you do these three things right away because you’re going to start not being able to raise money if you’re not doing these three things.
So for somebody who’s got experience, they’ve closed a few deals, but they’re starting to hit that limit. I want you to have a thought leadership platform. I want you to have some type of live event, and I want you to be active on social media regardless of if you’re afraid of it, regardless of if you’re not comfortable with it, you got to find a way with you or your partner to get out in front of new investors.
Because if a lot of people know who you are, you’re much more highly probable/likely to start raising more equity. And those other podcasters that are brand new are starting to be able to raise more than you. So if you’re experienced, you’ve been doing this for a while, I need you to get a thought leadership platform.
Can I give them a few ideas of what that might be? Okay, if we’re running out of time, let me know and I won’t. So as far as the thought leadership ideas, you could write a book or an ebook, or you could host your own podcast or your YouTube channel, or you could write your own blog. And the last idea is to be the organizer of a Facebook group.
That’s what I mean by thought leadership, somewhere where people can see what you’re doing and start to gravitate toward you because you are a thought leader. You are adding value, and they will start looking at you and wanting to invest with you before they invest with other people that even if they’ve done a lot of deals but nobody really sees them, they’re not in the limelight. It’s harder to trust those people.
So it’s interesting how having a thought leadership platform really will help. So those are the five options for thought leadership. And I’m suggesting that you only do one. Don’t do a bunch of them. It’s not going to help you and you’re just going to be stressed. Just focus on one of those things that I shared. Write a book or do a podcast. Just one.
The second thing that I mentioned was your live events. And so I host conferences. We have 600 plus people that come to our conferences. I know you were a sponsor at our last conference. So you were there. There were 617 people at that conference in Denver.
You don’t have to get this crazy. You don’t have to be hosting conferences. You don’t have to have a meetup. You don’t have to have workshops or boot camps or any type of big event. If you want, you could just be you and your partner. If you have a significant other, you and your significant other could get together with a potential passive investor and their significant other. So that counts as a live event.
So I gave you all the ideas of different kinds of live events. You could host meetups, bootcamps, workshops, conferences or just dinner.
And then the third thing is what you do on social media. And a lot of people, they hear that and they their guard comes up, their hearts start to sink, their stomach sinks and their hearts start to tense up.
They’re like, ‘You’re trying to tell me you’ve got to be active on social media?’ Well, here’s all I’m saying, all I’m saying is, I want you to make at least three posts a week, and you’re already saying, ‘That sounds crazy. Three posts a week!’ But at least three posts a week. I do more than that.
And you only focus on one social media platform. You don’t have to be an expert at all of it. Just focus on one, and Biggerpockets counts, Facebook counts, LinkedIn counts. Whatever social media platform you want to be on totally counts. Just focus on it heavily.
And I’m not asking you to go crazy, just, you know, jamming and cramming information down people’s throats, or salesy things down people’s throats. That’s not what we’re trying to talk about.
I use the Gary Vaynerchuk model. He wrote this book called [Jab] Jab, Jab, Right Hook. So you just kind of remember he originally… when he wrote that he wanted to publish it with a lot of jabs with the right hook because he feels like you need to give, give, give, give, give before you ask. His editors… his publisher made him take it down to just “[Jab] Jab, Jab, Right Hook”.
So just remember, you can jab as many times as you want. And the jabs are these things you’ll either talk about your family, your kids, your schooling, the wine that you love, the restaurant that you just went to, the traveling that you just did, the new car that you just bought, the old car that you’re keeping on the road, whatever you’re going to talk about you yourself, your family and your hobbies. These are the jabs.
The other idea for jabs is just adding value, just a total give. No, [there’s] nothing [you’re] asking for, no call to action, no “salesy-ness”, but just ‘Hey, I just learned this. I wanted to give it to you guys. I think this will help you.’
And then the right hook is the ask. So you might say something like ‘If you are looking to become a passive investor and you want to place your money into deals like this, we are open to bringing on a couple other passive investors, helping you through the process. And I just want you to go to my website and click the button: “Get on the list”‘.
I made it that easy on our website anyway. You go to realbluespruce.com, click the button, “Get on the list”. Makes it simple and it’s right at the top. That’s all we say to our past investors.
But when you have that right hook, after all the jabs, you just give them the call to action. You’re basically saying, ‘I can help you through this and this is what you’ll do to do it’. And I love how simple and easy it is to give a call to action by saying, ‘go to my website .com and click the button that just says get on the list’.
And then you tell the passive [investor] that it’s that easy. You just say it’s that easy. Just click “get on the list” and you can start seeing our deals, and we can start helping you through the process. That’s what I would suggest.
Todd Heitner:
Sounds good. It’s like a low pressure thing. They can do it when they’re ready.