Sometimes we are part of a big project and we don’t realize how big it can be until somebody else reminds us. Today my mobile phone rang and the caller number display showed the Italian country code. I picked up the phone anticipating it was my partner Daniele Bogiatto who was catching up with me after almost a week of no communication. I had been sending e-mail messages all along the week briefing him about all the progresses we were going through here in the US but I wasn’t receiving any reply.
Initially I thought I had the wrong e-mail address, since he had just given me a new one, so I contacted him on another address but still got no reply. I knew he was busy at the landmark event of Tony Robbins in Rome and I knew he was knee deep into its organization therefore I didn’t expect him to come back to me, but still I wondered what was going on. I kept up with him through his blog (a convenient way to use the Web) and I had seen the enthusiasm coming out of the event he was living there. But I wanted to share some of it and also take some important decisions together with him based on the evolutions going on in Italy and in the US.
You need to recognize what are the strong points in every your associate and connection. Part of a presentation done by me and Daniele in Atlanta last June.
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Therefore I answered rapidly to the call and indeed it was Daniele who explained he had received all my e-mails but had not been able to answer because of a wrong configuration on his smart phone. But he anticipated immediately that there are some major important news stemming from the Tony Robbin’s event as well as from the activity he has done in Italy in the last four weeks that are going to blow me away.
Only three months have passed since me and my partner Daniele Bogiatto from Italy held out first presentation on how to network with international investors in Atlanta. The presentation is part of a major event (bootcamp) organized by my friends Mark Jackson and Sam Bell 3rd on the subject of real estate investing with bank owned property and that will take place at the Sheraton Gateway Atlanta Airport starting from tomorrow (Friday) and going all the way to Sunday.
The Sheraton Gateway - courtesy of http://www.starwoodhotels.com
The event includes all the information you will ever need to select, acquire and wholesale an REO (Real Estate Owned – which is just another name for repossessed house). My contribution is to bring the European networking style that allows you to build solid business relationships so that you don’t have to go and look for new customers every time, but you can have investors with whom you do repeated deals.
A section of the presentation held in Atlanta at the previous event by me and my partner Daniele Bogiatto. Slow down in order to accomplish more in relationships.
Dealing in real estate I often hear about leverage and it is intended as money that you borrow from others in order to conduct your investment activities. But leverage actually begins with finding the right people that are key to you success. It is not only a matter of recruiting the right resources but rather of creating the relationship and the true networking that will bring you forward. I think it was Jeffrey Gitomer who said: “All things being equal, people will do business with their friends” and the “all things being unequal, people will still do business with their friends”.
A section of the presentation held by me and Daniele Bogiatto in Atlanta o nnetworking before a vast audience of investors.
Business and life in general are not black and white things. Very seldom things go exactly according to plan and only a robust and honest friendship will carry you along the difficulties you will encounter coming out winning at the other end. If you don’t take the time to actually establish a relationship and to bring to a friendship and mutual respect level, business will always be uncertain and you will never know when somebody else will bail out suddenly. living you in trouble.
I believe the concept of creating a networking and building a relationship is often greatly misunderstood, particularly in the US. In Western Europe and Italy particularly, people never do any serious business with somebody that hasn’t become their friend before. It is ingrained in the culture and it is simply a fact of life. In the US, I see that people that believe that all it takes to build a relationship is going to meetings, hanging out with people and whipping out a business card. Very often the first question I am asked is “What business are you in” and then, shortly after, I am proposed some kind og business opportunity or product. While it might be working in some cases, it looks to me that the immediate sell approach is working less and less. Particularly in the Web age where people are getting accustomed to getting things for free.
Building a relationship, actually means caring about the fellow you have in front of you and listening to his story long enough so that he feels there is really a connection between the two of you. And it shouldn’t be just a casual, careless listening, something you do mechanically following some kind of “system” you have memorized. You should actually be interested in what eh is saying and if you are not, then you shouldn’t connect with him. You don’t need to do business with everybody and particularly you don’t need to deal with people you don’t like because that will show up in the relationship anyway.
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