I hate speaking in front of people but want to start a meet-up

[Russell Lavoie]

Hey BP I’ve been talking about starting a meet up for some time now and the main reason I haven’t already is speaking in front of people is something I don’t enjoy at all. I love talking just not in front of crowds. I’m trying to be self aware here and double down on my strengths, so I am looking for a partner that wants to enjoy in the benefits of having our own meetup but enjoys speaking @ the meet ups. I’m willing to do the rest of the legwork to set it up and run it. I’m in the New Bedford/Fall River area but i hope to get a BP meetup going for a majority of the south coast eventually. Thanks in advance   

 Russell Lavoie          

[Derek Rice]

@Russell Lavoie I was the same way. For the last year I wanted so bad for someone else to start a meet up near me. But most people from my area don't even know what bigger pockets is, or even the idea of meet up. But this past month I went all in. I sent out 250 letters to anyone and everyone I knew with an interest in real estate in a 30 mile range. 96 of those were brokerages. I set up with the local Max n Erma's to use a big room that they don't even open up on Monday nights to try it out. I have also spent $300 on Facebook advertising and created a Facebook page for it. I also created a meetup.com page, and upgraded to Pro here on bigger pockets to advertise my event. All in I'm looking at $500 in advertising for my event, plus the meetup & BP pro upgrade, another $500. I hate public speaking too. My idea was that if I got enough people there, everyone would have someone to chit chat with, and the meet up could kind of just organically grow into whatever the people that come want it to be. I don't plan on getting up in front of everyone that shows up & talk. No way lol. My first meetup is tomorrow at 6pm. For my $1000 investment so far, I have about 12 people committed to come. Not quite what I had hoped lol but I have about 50 people that say they are "interested" on the Facebook page. And a lot of who I mailed to are older investors who aren't on Facebook. And I am all set up for the January meeting already now too, and every meeting after that. We will see how it goes, wish me luck! My best advice is just start it. Dont worry about the public speaking or how it will go.