It comes from building relationships with anyone who doesn't hang up on you.What's your pitch to them? 

What I wrote above does not create an attorney/client relationship between us.

I've been wanting to begin my real estate journey for quite some time now and am having trouble getting started, I'd love to meet new people on here and build relationships so that we can all learn together!

I could just get better at establishing relationships with the trades and hope that my cost to manage will go down in the future.

Is it because you have personal relationships with them? 

Keep digging for the best terms...do put good relationships ahead of strangers...and the further you go, the better you'll do. 

But the majority of the time, doing the active diligence can ultimately provide the best experience for any placed tenant which in turn will ultimately help yourself, if a property manager, maintain a healthy relationship with your portfolio of owners going forward for them. 

The sharks at the meetups will be obvious avoid them and build relationship with everyone else.

As with any customer relationship, across all verticals, the number one thing is to set appropriate expectations followed by communication.  

Build the relationship with them.