The Power of Networking To Grow Your Business

So, the big question is this, how do aspiring real estate investors like us escape from the rat race and build real wealth and freedom without access to millions of dollars in investment capital and start to live the life that we know we deserve? This is the question and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Zack Childress and welcome to Real Estate Investing Talk Show.

The message today is about networking and what are you doing to grow your business? And I promise you this, if you embrace the, the art of communication and empowering others around you by getting out and shaking hands and kissing babies and drinking coffee and having powerful meetings, you will be a very powerful influence in your life, your business, your family and everything around you and you will start to embrace the ability to build the kingdom that you’re trying to build in your life because you cannot do this alone. I’ve said it a thousand times, it takes a team, it takes an army, it takes an entire kingdom to build to the empire that you’re trying to get to. If you’re, if you’re a solo entrepreneur then you’re going through a lot of challenges and I know what they are.

I’ve been there, I’ve lived, I’ve done it and I, I’ve embraced it. It has deteriorated me from the inside out as a solo entrepreneur and so I embrace you to hear the message today, okay? So I want to just, you know, one do two folds today, obviously show you guy’s love and give you guys shout outs. But number two, I want to make two folds here today. Number one, my big goal is to answer real estate questions, right? If you, if you’re working a deal, if you’re a student, you need help, man throw it out there. I’ve got 16 years of experience doing this man, you know, when I think back, 16 years ago, I remember what it was like, you know, trying to figure this business out and the struggles I went through, right? And, and the aloneness and the late nights and the early mornings and the, you know, not hanging out with my friends and not going to the bars and not doing all the crazy stuff and the fun stuff that they were doing because I was working on a dream.

I was working on building a future for my family and my children that weren’t even born yet. I was focused on being a better me, right? And through that we have this idea, right in our minds, whether it was given to us by our society or culture was given it to us and it was to be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be alone. And so we go into this world of being alone like, oh, no one understands me, no one gets me, no one’s going to understand what I do. And the problem with that is, is that as a mold that has been set on us as entrepreneurs, if we want to be successful, we have to cut everybody out and that is not true. That is a lesson that I’ve had to learn through being coached and guided through a gentleman by the name of Garrett White that has shared a message with me that has resonated from my toes to my head and I’m telling you right now, it has changed the being that I am because I’ve been in a place that I was trained that way.

I thought that way I thought the more companies I built, the more alone I had to be, no one would understand me, no one would get my thinking process. I didn’t want negative people in my life, and then the more I analyzed everybody was negative, right? Everybody was negative and so, but that’s not the fact. That is not the fact, the fact is that everybody has something of value and it’s up to you to be a great communicator and a networker to find those people and to gather that data and to share data together, share information, share strategies, share vision, share goals, and how can you build a network around you that will collaborate together to keep the same vision alive. Not just you, but be a servant. Listen, it’s easy for us to say, this is what I want, this is what I want, but how do we become a servant in the world that we live in and say, I want to network at a level that I can serve you and you can serve me and together, we can go after the same vision. That is the message that we have to get clear on, right?

So my two goals answer real estate question and to get you guys to become more of a servant in your community and how do we become a servant? We look for what we have that we can offer. What do we have that we can offer? Look, I love serving my community some people in my community don’t think that I get out enough. Some people in my community will tell you, oh, well, Zach, he’s untouchable or he’s hard to get to, you know. And I had someone I met with the other just the other day. I was networking I went out and met with someone and had a meeting and I said, look, I know you’ve been wanting to have a meeting with me for three or four months and I’m sorry that it’s taken this long to get there.

And he said, you know, man, you’re super busy and you’re hard to get to and I looked at him and I said, well man, I take that as a compliment. I take it as a compliment because here’s why. If I was super easy to get to, not to say that I’m not easy to meet with, especially in my local community, that means I’m not doing enough. That means I’m sitting around on my assets and I ain’t got nothing going on. So I’m glad that I’m busy I’m glad that I have to calendar things and schedule things, you know, because here’s why that means I’m a mover and a Shaker and if I’m sitting with you, stop pointing out the negative and let’s start working on what we can do to get together to collaborate in that meeting eventually got to that point.

You know how we got real clear? I think it kind of confused them when I said that, but it got real clear, like I didn’t take it as an insult, I took it as a compliment, right. And through that discussion, lots of great things came from it, right? Lots of great visions, lots of great things for 2019 for my local community in my local market. And which will roll over into you because you’ll get to understand and see it and feel it and just making more connections. And so sometimes we lose the identity of what the phone is for, right? Like people say to me a lot in my life, especially those that I do business with, they say man Zach, you call me all the time. I’m like, yeah, because I want to talk to you we’re in business like we need to talk man.

Like we need to be on the phone together. Like where are we going? What are we doing? What’s the game plan? I mean, I’m a talker and that requires, that’s networking, right? That’s picking up the phone and stop sending an email stop sending texts, call somebody. Listen, call somebody man. Like set a meeting. I had a power meeting today. Let’s talk about that for a minute. I had a freaking power meeting today. I mean, it was a powerful meeting of a man that I’ve known well knew 10 years ago and we, you know, things weren’t going in the right direction back then and he went his way. I went my way and needless to say I saw him and you know, time had gone by so I reached out to him and said, hey man, I’d love to sit down with you and talk to you.

Not thinking in any way that it was going to go in the direction it did. I just wanted to reconnect with him, get him to be part of my REIA. I have a local real estate investors association here in the Madison County area, and I wanted him to be part of it. And as I’m sitting with him and we’re talking, it’s like the light bulb is starting to go off with me because this man is a very powerful and influential person in the community. He was a judge at one point in our area, he was a politician, he knows the governors, he knows the county officials, he knows like, he’s just extremely well connected. And I was blessed that he was like, yeah, I’d love to be part of your REIA again, like that credibility for us is huge to have some one like that on our team again. And not just that, but I was also talking to him about the state of some of the cities in our area and a couple of cities in particular where it’s, there’s an abundance of like vacant properties. And I said, look, you know, I think if we could find a way into that city to see our message that we could show them an avenue on what to do with all those properties. And he was like, no problem. He’s like, I’ll get you into the city.

Like, what? He’s like, yeah, I know them all. I was like, just like that. He’s like, yeah. He’s like, I love what you guys do and I want to be part of it again and if this is something I need to do for you guys, then he’s like, then let’s get a meeting. I’ll call them over for dinner, come to my house we’ll sit down with them and boom, right boom. That my friend is how you get things done. You network, you talk, you have meetings, you get out there and you start finding people of influence and you know that you can sit with and you can have a resonating type of conversation that leads you both in the same direction and he wants those cities to be revived and he wants that to happen. I mean, the guy understands that this level where we’re all, you know, the private sector, like he understands that level up there as a judge and other things and he’s like, yeah, we can make that happen.

And so for my local community, I’ve got something absolutely huge that’s about to happen and I’m just blessed that I made a decision to pick up the phone and reach out and say, look man, you know, I know things happen, whatever, nine some years ago but let’s reconnect, let’s sit down. This is why I say the power of networking is endless. It’s endless, it’s endless, it’s endless, it’s endless. I mean, I’ve been out on, you know, just in my just networking, talking to people in the information business, talking to people, getting ideas, what’s coming next, where’s the market going? You know, what do we need to do? Like let me talk to this specialist, let me talk to that. For you as an investor, you need to be out there networking and talking to other investors. You need to be meeting with agents and brokers and you know, people have influence anybody in your market that’s doing podcast or doing videos, you need to find those people and you need to sit down with them and say, look, what is it you do and how can I serve you? Like, what can I do for you? You don’t want to start every meeting off with that. I say, look, thanks for meeting with me. You know, I really wanted to call this meeting together because I really want to find a way that we can work together and I have lots of great ideas, but what do you need?

What is it that I have or that I can get that might serve you in something that you want? Tell me about what you’re doing. Tell me about what it is that you’re trying to achieve, right? And that’s something that we lose in the, in the influence of networking. I mean, when I meet with people, yeah, there’s always something that I want I’m not going to sit here and say there’s not, but at the same time, you can’t just be a me, me, me and your networking. And let me share this with you guys if you’re brand new, don’t be networking with people and then take the first five minutes of that conversation and just puke on them. All of this is what I do I’m doing this and I’m doing this. They don’t care, you haven’t even found a common ground with them yet, right? Find the common ground that you can build on. So the real message today is not just how great all you guys are, because I do love you guys. If I didn’t have you guys in my life, I don’t know what I’d do.

The real message today is, is what will you do during this great time of year, my favorite time of year, the holiday season, my favorite time. Do you know why it’s my favorite time? Because we’re closing out the year. If you’re smart, you’re spending the month of December really reorganizing and building the momentum for the next year. Setting your goals in place, setting your strategies, setting your, your needs, wants and desires in place, you know? And so that’s where December comes in. December is a networking month, guys, Christmas parties, holiday parties, you need to be going to all of them. You need to look at anyone you can find anything on business and real estate. You need to go, go with the holiday party, go network, be part of what’s going on out there, build your power team even stronger. Really dig into setting meetings and here’s the thing. Let me be clear, there’s a strategy to network.

When you network at a party like a Christmas party, you’re not trying to go in there and spend 15 minutes to tell someone at a networking party everything about what you do, everything about what you do. A networking party is like speed dating, right? I’ve never done it, but I’ve heard about it. You need to go in and really get clear like, hey look, I’m in real estate, I’m an investor. These are the things I’m doing, but what is it that you do? Oh, okay. You’re in the mortgage business. Oh, that’s awesome. You know what there’s probably some collaboration between us, whether you know, maybe you can help me or even some of the people that I’m working with that I can’t buy their house they might need a refinance, you know, I’d love to spend some time with you, you know, how does next week or the week after sound for you? Set them, set that appointment to be outside of the networking party because when they’re in a networking party, everybody’s minds.

True networkers that is is they look in a room and they see 150 people and they go, how am I going to shake hands with 150 people? And they’re looking around the room. So if you’re in their face, just chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat,chat, chat the whole time, they’re not listening to you because they’re already trying to figure out who’s next in that room to go talk to. So you need to be like a stealth ninja at a networking party. You need to go in, you need to meet somebody spend three minutes explaining what each other do. If it’s something that you’re like, Hey, I think there’s some connection here, let me get your card, let me give you a call. You know, after this networking or this weekend, I’ll call you on Monday and see what you’ve got available this week or next week that we can sit down and have coffee together or maybe lunch or I can swing by your office. Listen, when somebody does that to me, do you know how much I appreciate them? Do you know how much I actually look at that person and say, that’s a professional networker?

They came, they gathered data, they realize there could be synergy, they got the set for an appointment after the party and now they’re onto the next person. That’s where your mind needs to be. If you’re in a room, one of the things I learned a long time ago never be the needy person in the room. Oh, let me talk to you, let me. Look hey, there’s plenty of time to talk. Look, I got how I can help you. Like you told me what you do. I’ve told you what I do. I think we can work together. I like your vision, I like how you, you know, you expressed yourself. I’d love to meet with you where we can actually have time together were all this distraction is out of the way that we can sit down and actually collaborate together. That is what makes networking so powerful in the age of social media I mean, you could reach out to anybody at this point in life, right?

So here’s really my goal for you guys. I don’t want to keep you on here that much longer, but my goal for you guys is this, this is the message today and I didn’t see any real estate questions coming in so hopefully we’re going to do homework today, right? We’re going to make a plan until next Tuesday and hopefully it next Tuesday I’ll be down maybe another five or seven pounds. That’s the goal and then I’ll have 20 pounds gone in three weeks. That’s my, that’s my big goal, right? Stay with me, stay focused. I’m quitting the old me right? I want you guys to sign up for at least four Christmas parties in your area. I know that might be uncomfortable for you, but you need to do it.

Go on Facebook look for Christmas parties, you’ve got a company Christmas party. You might know somebody that has a Christmas party. Just say to them, hey look, oh, this year I want to get out to more Christmas parties you know do you have anything that you can invite a guest to? Yeah, I’ve got this coming up, oh great I’d love to come with you, find some of that. Also, start looking for networking events, whether it be on MeetUp, it’d be on social media, not like a networking of that where you’re doing it from home, but I need you to get out of your house, out of your comfort zone, and actually physically put your body in front of other people, okay? Share the message get it out there start talking to people, find out what they do, what you do, how can you find some synergy amongst yourself, right? Start setting some time to do that, and I know some of you are going yeah but Zach that’s easy for you to say I work a job nine to five, Monday through Friday, okay, great. Well guess what if you don’t have kids, get out and have coffee at 8:00 in the morning and then get to work by nine, meet them, okay? If not, maybe you have a late dinner one night during the week. If not, maybe you do a Saturday meeting or a Sunday after church meeting. Listen guys, the only limitation is yourself. You can tell yourself all the excuses in the world or why you can’t do something, and I’ll tell you every reason why you should and could do it, okay?

So really it’s your journey you have the choice, right? I mean, we even have wristbands that we give out to our students it says the choice is yours, the choice is yours. Whether you are going to build the kingdom that your family is going to live in and you’re going to build the walls and you’re going to build the army around you to support you to grow that kingdom or you’re going to sit back and keep wishing that you had done it, and the only way is to get out there, make it happen, guys you have to make it happen. You can’t do it alone you just can’t. It just doesn’t happen that way. And I’m here to share that with you because I know that at the end of the day, the true fact boils down to this. What are you willing to do that you have not done that is extremely uncomfortable, that you know will lead you to success? That one thing is what you need to do. We call it facing the fear or facing the giant because you have it, we all have it.

Look, I have my own fears. I had to publicly announce one of my fears to you guys. One of my fears, right? It was I know I’m a big guy, I don’t need to be a big guy. I’m going to not, you know, have the life I want staying a big guy, right? I had to, I had to face that fear. It took me three weeks, three weeks to build up the courage to even say it to you guys, right? Three weeks it took me. But the point is, is I knew it was a fear and I had to face it and I had to overcome it. You know, look, I’ve got students that I coach and they are some of the best data aggregators and researchers I’ve ever seen, but we do live in a world where that’s accessible. But at the end of the day, let me tell you this, let me tell you this, guys, that when they’re that great at research and that great at data, and then I give them an assignment that requires them to actually physically engage with other people, they freeze, they freeze up, they get like stage fright or something, which I’m blessed I never got stage fright. So but that’s the one thing they need to do the most. Like when I tell people, look, you need to make phone calls to find deals. You need to make phone calls, you need to be on that phone, you’ve got to talk to people, you’ve got to talk to people. And it terrifies them to death because why? It’s a fear, it’s the unknown, it’s they’re afraid they’re going to make a mistake, but listen to me when I say this to you, if you get nothing off of this show today, take this to the bank and I’m mean this because look, fear is nothing more than false evidence appearing real in your life, and if you don’t overcome that, you will never grow. You will never grow. You have to be able to face those fears and run face first into them.

Why do you think our mascot is the rhino? Because the rhino does not care what’s in front of it. It will run face first through anything and it will say, I will see you on the other side, my friend, and that’s the challenge that you have to face with yourself and in your life is are you willing to be the rhino or are you going to be the gazelle and you going to run from everything that makes you fear, everything that makes you fearful? It’s your choice at the end of the day, okay, but be engaged in your life, be responsible, and here’s the other thing, I’m going to leave you with that if the fear of doing something is greater than the reward in which it will give you in your life, you will never do it. You will never do it, so therefore the reward of your journey has to be so great and so impactful that the fear of not doing it does not compare to the fear of the loss that you would have by not doing it. When you embrace that, then you embrace your life and you embrace your journey. That is the truth guys. The fear of loss has to be greater than the fear of the unknown. Put that on a sheet of paper somewhere, write that down, please. Put it on a poster board stick it up somewhere. The fear of loss of what you won’t get if you don’t go after your journey has to be greater than the fear of the unknown because if the fear of the unknown is greater than the fear of the loss of what you’re going to go for, then you’ll never go after it because you’ll be. You’ll have the fear of the unknown, killing you, eating you up. It will literally chew you up and spit you out, and then you’ll be sitting here another year from now and wonder, what could I have done different? Where could I be if I would have just started back then where could I be if I would have just done something, where could I be if I would have just faced my fears, where could I be if I would have just started, right? Where could you be, that’s the question?

So your goal is to start networking, you got to network. Some of the best connections I’ve ever made in my life didn’t come from marketing, paid dollars, direct mail, some of the best things that I’ve ever had in my life. Most profitable ventures have came from have came from networking. Just literally getting out and talking to people. So I empower you this week because we’ll be back here again next week to embrace the networking, embrace the idea of talking and communicating with others and getting out there and letting people know exactly who you are and what you can bring to a venture together

You’ve been listening to the Real Estate Investing Talk Show. I’m Zack Childress and I’m on a mission to create 10,000 real estate bosses over the next year. Will you be one of them?
Head over to my website, ReiSuccessAcademy.com/webclass, and register for my free web class, where you’ll discover how to escape from the nine to five grind and become your own boss in real estate. See you there.