How can real estate professionals get the most out of attending events?
The real estate industry offers many annual events to attend all over the country (and world). Some are directly related to real estate investing and property sales. Others offer fringe events: mortgage conventions, sales and technology, or marketing and interior design conferences and gatherings. Regardless of your particular area of expertise, there is an event out there for you.
These types of events can be some of the best time and financial investments for real estate investors to take advantage of. Those that attend them can find they yield a superior edge over the competition, and increase their own, and business potential. These events are normally packed with incredible opportunities, real estate and business education. Beyond networking, they can deliver live deals, inspiration and motivation.
Of course, there can be a significant difference between the results each investor gets from attending the same event. Subsequently, real estate investor events are what you make of them. So how can real estate investors, agents, business owners and other related independent professionals get the most out of them?
Get the Best Deals
Obviously, the ROI on event tickets can be directly tied to the prices paid for them. Most will find the value far exceeds any price. After all, just one resulting deal should pay for a decade of events. Still, it’s just smart to get the best deal you can. This can often be found in getting in early and taking advantage of early bird pricing. For attractive events that appear out of budget, at least sign up for notifications and join email and social feeds for the chance for discounts.
Pre-Networking
Why wait until you are there to start networking and collaborating? Why not start pre-networking in advance? Pre-networking even before investing in tickets could prove the ROI even before clicking the buy button. There are a variety of ways to accomplish this: start tweeting and posting blog content with relevant #hashtags and content, to begin conversations and connect with other attendees. Even arrange meet ups at the event. Event sponsors may even be privileged to email and contact lists of attendees and other sponsors for marketing to them early.
Plan Your Time
As with anything else in the business and real estate industry, planning can help maximize results. Create a personal schedule, and map out activities. Where will you stay, and how will that impact time for result producing activities? How early should you arrive? How late will you leave? How will you get around the destination city? Which speakers or social events are the most important to get into?
Define Objectives
Conferences, and even local networking events, can often be completely wasted if real estate professionals don’t hone in on specific objectives. Meeting a lot of people is great, as is taking in a lot of information. It can also cause dilution. Value trumps volume. Who do you want to meet? What do you hope to achieve? What 1 key take away or lesson will you focus on?
Interact
There can be masses of real estate education and new potential deals uncovered simply by browsing trade show booths and mingling. Yet, if real estate pros are going to spring for attending an event, why not get the most out of it? Hone your elevator pitch, find out how you can help more attendees, streamline effective contact info trading, and mix online as well as in person.
Score Content
Events are one of the best resources for new content. Many hosts and organizers often offer virtual passes for making sure nothing is missed. Notes and new ideas can also become excellent sources and inspiration for new blog posts, articles, and social media posts.
Set Follow Up Appointments
Hard selling brand new contacts at events like these can be a turn off. Real deal making does happen. But it can be best to preserve credibility and set up focused follow up appointments. Go in with this goal, and if the other side wants to move faster it’s a win-win, without turning anyone off.
Follow Up
Obviously, all the great new contacts, conversations and information in the world isn’t worth much without follow up. Get some form of lead management and follow up system, and invest the short amount of time it requires to learn it, in order to automate, and get more done, and see a higher ROI from A-Z in the future. A key part of this is also connecting with new contacts across as many mediums as possible. Don’t just focus on phone numbers or Facebook likes. Think Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, email and more.
Follow these tips for maximizing events and they’ll quickly become one of the most valuable investments real estate professionals can make each year.
