Networking in Your Local Market

Mike Hambright: Hey, it’s Mike Hambright from FlipNerd.com and we have a quick VIP tip to share with you from Mike Simmons who’s going to share a tip on the importance of networking in your local market.

Mike Simmons: When it comes to networking, I will say this. I’m not a natural networker. It’s not something that comes to me easily and it’s not something that I’ve been doing since I was a young kid and working the room and the life of the party. Quite the opposite. Networking for me is sometimes a little bit painful and it’s something that I had to learn to be good at, but here’s the deal. Everything that I did in the beginning of my career in real estate, every success I had, I can draw a direct relationship back to a networking event where I met someone that changed things for me and allowed me to kind of take my business to the next level.

For example, the first deal that I did I found it on my own, but I did the deal and immediately when I bought the house and started renovating it, I started going to local real estate investor meetings and I started telling people what I was doing in painstaking detail, the good, the bad and the ugly, the mistakes, the successes, and I would talk to anyone who would listen and just tell them what I was up to.

Before I got to the end of the first deal, before I closed that first deal and sold it to the end buyer, I had two private money lenders in my local market who had come up to me and said, “Listen, we’ve been sort of following what you’re doing.” And by the way, I was doing this in person and I was also doing it online. I had a Facebook page and I was documenting through video and through pictures and texts exactly what I was up to. I mean, like power networking.

I was going to every local meeting, I was doing it online and posting everything that I was doing, and as a direct result of that I had private investors come up to me and say, “Listen, we’re following what you’re doing, you and your wife, we really think you guys seem great. We want to get involved in your next project. How can we get involved?” The funny thing was I had money secured for my second deal before I had even made money on my first deal.

I could have lost money, potentially. I mean, I thought I was going to make money but the deal was not done and I had already secured funds to do my second deal, and while I was doing my second deal I did the same thing. I started talking, and what happened was the guys that I was working with, the private money lenders, they also started talking about how they were working with me and how it was going and how responsive I was and how professional I was, and as a result of me and them talking I got more private investors.

I got to a point early on in my real estate investing that I actually had more money than I could even use, which sounds like a good problem, and it really is, so as a direct result of networking and just talking about my experiences and what I was doing, and not keeping it all to myself and not trying to be on an island, I built a stable of investors that allowed me to do every deal that I did for years to come.

I haven’t used my own money on a deal since the very first deal that I did, deal number one. Every deal after that I’ve used private money and I’ve always had plenty of private money investors willing and ready and able to work with me along the way.

Networking is directly responsible for the success that I’ve had in real estate without question, and I can’t tell you enough. When you’re new, sometimes you’re shy, sometimes you’re nervous that you don’t know what you’re talking about, but I can tell you this: people invest with people they can identify with and they invest with real people. If you try to act like you know everything, you’re going to put people off because they know you don’t know everything.

Getting out there and networking and just being genuine with people, being honest with people, being yourself, not everyone is going to identify with you and that’s fine, but these private investors, when they were coming to me and saying, “Hey, I want to work with you.” It’s not because there weren’t other investors that they couldn’t find. I mean, there were other investors in the room with me when I was talking to them, but they liked me. They identified with me and my wife and those networking opportunities created the financing that I needed to do deals.

All the way to this day I’m using private investors. So networking is key, guys. Get out there and meet people, tell them what you’re doing, you can’t do this on an island, don’t try, get out there and meet people. It will change your business and it will allow you to take this to the next level.

Mike Hambright: Awesome. Mike Simmons, everybody. Thanks, Mike.

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Mike: Please note the views and opinions expressed by the individuals in this program do not necessarily reflect those of FlipNerd.com or any of its partners, advertisers or affiliates. Please consult professionals before making any investment or tax decisions, as real estate investing can be risky.