Direct Mail and Private Lender Luncheons; Waste of Time?

[Alvin Grier]

Is it waste of time trying to get strangers to attend a "private lender luncheon?"

BACKGROUND

For the last couple years, we've had one single private lender that we've partnered on rehab projects with.

But after reading and watching Alan Cowgill's material, we decided to host a luncheon, so that we can take on more projects.

After speaking with our Accountant, attorney, and speaking to the SEC, we purchased a mailing list of local Accredited Investors, and sent over 1000 of them very nice, professionally-done invitations to our luncheon.

We even hired a company to man a toll free line so that we could accept RSVP's 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The luncheon was held at a very expensive, 5-star hotel in our area.

THE PROBLEM

Only one attendee showed up.

We're thinking about giving it another try. But this time around we were considering sending two-to-three mailings to the list BEFORE sending an invitation to the luncheon.

This would hopefully build familiarity, credibility, and somewhat of a rapport with the members of the mailing list, to get more attendees to our next luncheon.

Aside from Alan Cowgill, I have yet to find someone that has had success with developing new lender partnerships with this method of inviting strangers to a meeting.

SUMMARY

So before we invested into hosting another luncheon, I wanted to run this by you guys.

Although I would think that our second approach might be more effective, I don't want to waste time and money trying to get strangers from a mailing list to a live event, if it's been proven to be an ineffective method.