WS1260: Why Investor Relations is Important | #Highlights

EPISODE 1260

[INTRODUCTION]

0:00:00.0

Whitney Sewell (WS): This is your Daily Real Estate Syndication Show and I’m your host, Whitney Sewell. Today is a Highlights show that’s packed with value from different guests around a specific topic.

Don’t forget to like and subscribe but also go to LifeBridgeCapital.com where you can sign up to start investing in real estate today. I hope you enjoy the show!

[INTERVIEW 1]

0:00:23

WS: Our guest is Alina Trigub. Thanks for being on the show, Alina.

0:00:26

Alina Trigub (AT): Thank you for having me, Whitney.

0:00:28

WS: I know you wrote an article about how to care for your investors like your mom. It’s such an important part of this business. I thought it’d be great if you could elaborate on that. Let’s go into a discussion about that topic specifically.

0:00:44

AT: Let me ask you this and this is more of a rhetorical question. Who do you know that gives unconditional love to others? The answer is always a mom. A mom gives that unconditional love to her kids. I was thinking about that as a mom of two kids. I was thinking about that and made the parallel between my relationships with my investors versus my relationship with my kids. It’s not that it’s unconditional love. When I’m talking to potential investors, I always give them unconditional attention. I listen to them attentively. I listen for what they’re looking for, trying to learn what their background is, where they at in their career or their business, what they are about. These are the people that I can potentially help because it’s not only about them testing the waters and trying to determine whether I can help them, but it’s also about me determining whether that person is someone I can potentially help with.

There are many factors that go into that from my perspective of I’m talking to a person. For instance, they tell me, “I’d like to start investing. I’d like to be involved in decision-making. I want to make sure that if the decision is made to spend say $100,000 or $200,000 from the innovation side, I want my voice heard.” That’s a topic for discussion with this person. That indicates that the person hasn’t done the homework or has not been exposed yet to syndication. In that example, I’ve tried to explain that syndications are all about passively investing. If you want to join us, I can certainly help you. If you want to invest that you would have to be a passive investor, it will entail that you’ll have abilities to lead. It would also entail that you have no authority over the decisions.

You can listen and you will be sure that the decisions that are made by general partners, people that are reading this indication. You will not be given any authority to make the decisions. Questions and topics like that come up. I go into the overview and explanation as to why one thing versus another may or may not work. That leads us to decide on each end, on my end and an investor. Whether that’s something that we can potentially work together and enjoy in the partnership and invest together or whether the investor needs to find some other way for them to go and become potential active investors.

0:03:26

WS: I’ve talked to lots of people who love investing in real estate. They don’t like the syndication model they say because they don’t have any control. It’s a perfect model for many people because they don’t have time to learn the real estate business. They don’t have time to try to find deals. They don’t have time to take the phone calls or to build the teams or all these things. However, they have a large income or they’re wealthy from some other business or a day job or corporate-whatever that is. The syndication model is perfect because they don’t have to do any of that stuff, but they still get the benefits of owning real estate.

0:04:00

AT: It all comes down to several things. Number one is whether they have the bandwidth. Do they even have the time to work on their business? Whether it’s syndication or buying properties like single-family houses or any other type of property. Since this is a business, they need to be able to spend time on this business. In addition to having bandwidth-based potential, investors need to have the desire to work on the business because like in any business, syndication will have its ups and downs. You need to be able to dust off the problem, find the solution to a problem or way around the obstacle, and move forward. Go past that and continue with their business. Otherwise, it will be easy to fail and drop out of the race.

0:04:53

WS: You talked about listening to your investors and that’s important. It seems like something simple, however, most people are bad listeners. It’s something I’m trying to get better at all the time. It’s hard not to talk about yourself. You have to fight that urge to share about something you’re doing or whatever, care about the person you’re talking to and what they have to say. I’m trying to think of questions to ask people about what they’re telling me so I can stay in tune with what they’re saying. It helps me to remember as well.

0:05:25

AT: It’s easy. Think of it as a job interview. For example, let’s say you’re on the other end of the spectrum and you’re being interviewed. If you’re being interviewed, you’re still allowed to ask questions. It’s nothing more than a two-way conversation. It’s telling you about the company and they’ll tell you how great this company is, what benefits they’re offering. They touch upon certain benefits and you can touch upon and expand that benefits and talk about it further.

If we make a parallel and take it to investors, think from the perspective of a parent. You don’t have to be a mother, father, anyone. If you’re an attentive parent, when you’re talking to the kids, what they are looking for is that undivided attention when you talk to them. When they come back from school home and they’re telling you, “I got good grades. My teacher gave me these extra points for doing well on a test.” They want you to congratulate them. They want to see that you’re giving them full attention and not you looking at your phone or somewhere else.

It’s the same with investors. You’re talking to an investor. Let’s say an investor is a woman. She’s telling you her life story. She’s saying, “I went to such and such college. I got my degree in economics, but then I decided to do something completely different. I became a social worker.” You’ve got to stop and say, “How did you decide to get a degree in economics? What prompted you to do that? What happened with that degree? Why did you switch to social science?” There are many trigger points. Even if you think that may be relevant, it may trigger something that will potentially become relevant. It’s something about their background or it’ll tell you what their overall long-term goals are or how they perceive both management and wealth preservation. It’ll tell you more about that person in a way that you didn’t expect to hear.

0:07:27

WS: Remembering that for the next conversation too is good when you can do that. You’re talking about investors not having a decision in the deal. There’s a reason for that. Do they have time to work in a business? They understand that you have to spend time in a syndication business.

0:08:06

AT: As long as an investor knows that in terms of the bandwidth, they may have the bandwidth, but they don’t have any desire to be in the business. If the answer is no, that they don’t want to be in the business, then progressing towards syndication would be a natural decision whether it’s a business owner or professional who is not interested in becoming an active investor. They realize that in finding that passive opportunity and investing with a sponsor that they trust and investing in investment, that makes the most sense for them. That’s where I come in.

I help them select the investment that suits their long-term goals. I help them navigate towards the process of investing passively or actively. If it’s not for them, if I hear that they’re interested in having that power or they’re interested in getting their hands dirty or they have plenty of time of their own and want to dive into business, I’ll tell them like it is. “I don’t think this is for you. You should start investing actively. You should start learning the business.” It may not be the syndication business. It could be any other niche within real estate as long as they know that they want to be active. The next step for them would be to start researching and finding what that next niche within the real estate is. That’s how it works.

[INTERVIEW 2]

0:09:22

WS: Our guest is Caleb Bryant. Thanks for being on the show, Caleb.

0:09:25

Caleb Bryant (CB): Thank you for having me, Whitney.

0:09:27

WS: Investor relations are what you specialize in?

0:09:30

CB: Yeah, it goes back to the same principle of the wife and a real estate transaction. My mindset is aligned with other investors. It’s easier for me to have those conversations. It’s more natural. With a broker, they’re a salesman. I don’t know how to approach it necessarily.

0:09:53

WS: You’re thinking like an investor. You can have that conversation. You know what they’re going to ask usually and probably as well. How are you meeting investors now?

0:10:02

CB: It’s a similar way to you. I hit up a lot of conferences when I can. Their networking events overall, most people go there to learn or get an education. I’m more there to meet people. You get a lot of education by talking to people that are on a higher level than you. I go to a lot of events like Ultimate Partnering in Boston or the Best Ever Conference in Denver. We met at the Wheelbarrow Profits event back when it was called that. That’s been huge. That’s where a lot of my business has started at least. From there, social media has added like a wave because all the people I’m connected with that have been to those conferences are also connected with me on social. Through the mutual connections that people see on social media, they’re able to say, “That guy does stuff. He’s also friends with so and so who does stuff. I should probably send him a message.” It starts to generate a whole new wheel when you plug it into social media.

0:11:10

WS: Do you mind elaborating on that a little bit? You’ve mentioned plugging in into social media and maybe some workflow there that our readers could add to their daily routine to help build their brand on social media or connect with more investors as you have.

0:11:23

CB: It’s not a super difficult process by any means. I basically tell people what I’m doing in this business so it could be a simple picture at a closing, “We closed a property,” or it might be a short Facebook Live video, that’s been very successful, where I talk about what we did that day in a particular apartment unit like, “We replaced the floors. Here’s what it looks like.” Maybe give a few tips or tricks that we have. The key is if you consistently show them that you’re in this business, you’re working it, it builds a lot of credibilities. People see you as a force. An influencer might be the correct term. There aren’t a lot of people doing it in Alabama, so I got an advantage there as well.

0:12:18

WS: A keyword that you mentioned there was consistent. You’re being consistent. People are consistently seeing you often that you’re in this space and looking at real estate. Even though they may not know that they want to invest in large multifamily deals, they still may come to you and they think they do.

0:12:36

CB: It happens quite often. I want to at least put this trick on there. I use BiggerPockets a lot. I don’t do anything fancy. I go on and I have a few keywords. My keywords would be Birmingham, Huntsville, multifamily, apartments, things like that. I want people that are searching for that to find me. The way I do that is I go post on everybody’s thread that uses those keywords or I’ll do my own post that incorporates those keywords. That way if someone’s looking for that, they see it. I’ve set up probably 100 appointments. There’s been a lot of closed deals involved with that too simply by getting on BiggerPockets. I don’t do it every day. I’d say two or three times a week I’m on there. That’s enough to generate a lot of activity. That’s another good one.

0:13:34

WS: I’ve heard numerous people talk about that. The audience thinking about BiggerPockets, you got to be on there. I’m not on there enough personally. Any other platforms that you recommend that you’re talking about social media? Anything else that you utilize to put yourself out there?

0:13:47

CB: Instagram is growing but what I noticed with Instagram is sometimes people don’t even ask for your phone number anymore. They just ask for your Instagram username and I’m like, “I should probably pay more attention.” Since I started paying attention, I’ve grown a lot, believe it or not. It’s funny because Gary Vee would talk about it. I make a lot of money through DMs simply because people do it that way now. I’m like a young, old person. It’s almost new to me. I’ve started doing it, I’ve closed a lot of businesses because I’ll do single-family deals here and there. I have a single-family business partner here as well. If it doesn’t work for multifamily, I’m like, “Have you ever thought about private money? Have you ever thought about the BRRRR strategy?” or whatever it is that fits their situation? I’m able to shift them over into a direction and we’re still able to close some deal.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[OUTRO]

0:14:47

Whitney Sewell: Thank you for being a loyal listener of The Real Estate Syndication Show. Please subscribe and like the show. Share with your friends so we can help them as well. Don’t forget to go to LifeBridgeCapital.com where you can sign up and start investing to real estate today. Have a blessed day!

[END]