Surprise! You Might Already Know People in the Real Estate Industry!

When you are first getting started in a career, it is surprising to find out how many people you already know. This is especially true in real estate. There are days when it feels like you can’t sneeze in public without finding someone who is somehow involved in real estate. The trick is finding someone who specializes in self-storage. The other trick is finding someone that you can add to your power team.

When you are just getting started at self-storage, you might be afraid to talk to people about your business. However, this is exactly what you need to do. When you are talking to friends and family, you need to let them know what you are doing and why. You need to explain to them that they can help you by helping you make connections within the real estate industry. While they may not know someone who is a self-storage guru, they may know someone who does. This is why it is so important to communicate with people who already know you.

These people know that you are honest and work hard. They know your background and most importantly, they know that you are worth recommending. By introducing you to someone in the business, you have a door in. This is a much better way to find your power team than just cold calling Realtors or lenders. While that works, this can take you to the top players faster.

You should not only talk to friends and family, but you should also talk to people in the elevator. Prepare your elevator speech. Something short and quick that you can chat with someone about. Decide what your ultimate goal is for that elevator speech. When you are building your power team, you want to find people to build that team. Once you have built that team, then you want to move on to finding properties. While these people don’t know you, a referral is still a referral.

Once you have the name of someone to talk to, make sure that you can use the name of the person that you were talking to. For example, if you are friends with John, be sure to tell Larry the Lender that you are friends with John, and he said to call Larry. Chat about what a great guy John is and find out how you each know John. Build that rapport as your starting point. Then you are going to move on to the fact that you are investing in self-storage, and you need a good lender. What loan programs do they have that would work for you? Always remember that as you are networking and interviewing power team members, they are interviewing you too! Be professional and be prepared. You need to make sure that you are ready to answer their qualifying questions.

They are going to know how long you have been in the business or what other experience you have in real estate. They are going to want to know about your financial situation. They are going to want to know if they are going to waste their time working with you or if they will benefit from the relationship as well. You only have one chance to make a great impression. Be ready.

Take advantage of the resources that you already have to start building your power team. Start talking to the people that you know and find out who they know in the business. As always, happy investing.