I always tell people when they attend an AZREIA meeting certain things will happen including you will be informed; you will learn; you will meet new people; you will laugh; you will save. But, I rarely say why it is important. Here is what I mean:
• You will be informed: Information is critical to your success in real estate investing. That is why we spend so much time on it. Providing you market trends and analysis is important as long as you use the information to make your investing better. Information can be useful in raising funding, finding property, increasing your credibility, confirming your investment strategy, adding new investment options and much more.
• You will learn: There is always an education aspect to AZREIA meetings. We pick content carefully to match what is going on in the market or to provide a different approach or investing technique we think is of interest. We use varying ways to do this from panel discussions to investor interviews to outside educators to presentation from AZREIA members with expertise to simulations. Learning can take a couple of different approaches. Learning can help you be better at what you are already doing like making you a better landlord or increasing the profit margin on your rehabs. The other possibility falls into the “you don’t know what you don’t know” category. Learning about something new can completely alter your investing or the processes you are using in your current investments. Recently we provided education on residential assisted living on both the real estate and the business. Few members knew much if anything about this investment strategy until they were introduced to it. Several members are actively pursuing this interesting approach.
• You will meet new people: Nothing could be more important especially if you are networking with a purpose. We make it easy in AZREIA to meet new people. Helping is the fact that virtually everyone who attends an AZREIA meeting has something in common with everyone else in attendance – real estate. Also, I believe meeting someone new is a blessing. It could change your life.
• You will laugh: Well I hope you will. Nothing is planned, but there always seems to be a couple of items that get a laugh from something in the Market News or a less than intelligent comment from someone on the stage. You just never know what it will be. Laughing is good and certainly helps breakup the meetings which last a good long while.
• You will save: We always offer an unpublished saving for upcoming education. You can only receive the discount at the meeting, so you must attend to get it. It is usually an exceptional savings. We do it this way because we realize attending meetings can, at times, present a challenge. Any time we can increase the value of attending, we will do it.
Another aspect of how I approach every AZREIA and Phoenix Real Estate Club meeting is in this saying, “I can refund your money if you aren’t satisfied with the meeting, but I can’t give you your time back.” To me, time is a very precious item. So, in planning AZREIA meetings I always look at it from the value of time – your time. I commit, your time will be well spent.
by Alan Langston