Millionaire Investors. Thanks to Jerome Adair

How to Add Millionaire Investors to Your Network

Your network is extremely important. I’m always surprised at how many struggling investors I meet who are trying to break into the real estate game without the support of experienced investors.

For some of them it’s not for lack of trying. Many of them have gone to networking events and REIA clubs and have passed out business cards, but they find that the only people willing to work with them are other novice investors.

So how do you get the experienced investors to take notice of you? How do you get into their inner circle? How do you get to the point that #1) they actually take your call when you call them and #2) they actually know who you are and will work with you?

Because when you approach an experienced investor you probably realize they are very busy, but what you might not know is that they get approached fairly regularly by new investors who want to learn real estate from them. Here’s an excerpt from an email I received yesterday:

“I am very interested in real estate. I am a new real estate wholesaler and would like to work under other investors guidance to learn all aspects of the business. I am a hard working person with a good work ethic…”

I get a couple of these emails a week. A lot of investors do. Everyone one of these people describe themselves as “hard working”, they’re a “team player”, they “learn quickly” etc… Those are important qualities, but they won’t make you stand out.

If you’re interested in expanding your network, here’s a little tip that got me got me some face time with some amazing investors.
They’ve gotta eat, right?

For an average of $10, I sat down with several amazing investors and got to pick their brains for an hour. This was when I was very first getting started and brought nothing but my enthusiasm to the table. And I brought lunch…

If you meet an investor you’d like to get to know, ask them if you can take them out to lunch. Before you invite them to lunch, I suggest you find out a little about them first and use it to stroke their ego a bit. Here’s what happened the very first time I tried this:

I was new at a networking event, and I asked a new acquaintance named Norene “Who do you know here that is doing really well?”

Norene said “Matt, the guy over there, is doing well. He’s in the middle of a $25 million land deal in Hawaii right now.”

Using this information, I approached Matt.

Me: “Hi Matt. I’m a friend of Norene’s and she was telling me that you’ve been doing pretty well in real estate.”

Matt (you’d have to know him to appreciate his answer): “I’m doing all right.”

Me: “From what I’ve heard you’re doing better than all right.” He chuckles. “I’m new here and I was wondering if I could take you out to lunch?”

I figured if anyone was going to turn me down, it would be him. But he accepted, and for a $6 sub sandwich (he chose the location) I got to pick his brain for an hour and a half. It was awesome.

I did this several more times and sat down one-on-one with multi-millionaire investors for an average of $10/hour, and new investors have done this with me since. It’s amazing what most people will do for food. If you offered to pay me good money to sit down and teach you real estate, I’d likely decline. If you offered me pizza, I would probably take you up on it. I really can’t explain why.

This is a great way of getting your foot in the door of an investor’s network. It’s a great start, but here’s the problem you run into: One lunch is not going to do the trick. Even after an hour of face time, they’ll likely forget your name after a couple weeks and you’re back to square one.

Lunch is just a first step–it’s just an introduction (by the way, don’t quiz an investor about real estate strategies when you sit down with them–ask them about themselves and how they got started, and then perhaps specific deals that they’ve done. You’ll get some great info and they won’t feel you’re just out to get free real estate tutoring–you do, after all, want to form a good relationship with this person).

There are a couple more steps you should take after that to cement the relationship, including simply saying the one thing that would be music to the ears of any investor (that they basically never hear from beginning investors)…

I’m not going to go into more detail here. I’ve saved those next steps for the “The 7 Great Lies of Real Estate Investing” Guide. Visit
the 7 Lies page here to learn more.
-Jarom Adair
Real Estate Investing for Beginners