How to Make the Most Out of a Real Estate Conference

Hello! Hello! Good afternoon, we are going live on Facebook and on YouTube and today we're talking about all the fun around real estate conferences as you guys know it's real estate conference season lots of conferences are coming up whether it's I know we've got the Buffini conference coming up we've got the Tom Ferry Success Summit. I keep seeing advertisements for Fubcon and all of the other Sierra interactives doing what GGMS is doing everybody's doing their real estate conference and you may be wondering what I should do to get the most out of attending a real estate conference and that's actually what I wanted to do today because I know a lot of you guys are going to be going to conferences and they can be a very valuable piece of your business we just need to make sure that we're doing the most to get out of the conference what we need to. So, as always Kelcie's done a great job preparing the slides for you today. You can find them in the resources on our website there is a link here QR code and if you know anybody in the Southeast Valley that's looking to join a team, the Big Helper Team is looking to align themselves with individuals who are looking to take their career to The Next Step so you can find more at joinbighelper.com.

So let's jump in, I can see we've got some people here now so I would love to follow along with you guys on social media if you're on Facebook go ahead and drop a comment. Let me know where you're coming from this class is always more fun when people are engaged and they are typing in the comments I'll do my best to answer your questions as we go. So let's talk about how you get the most out of a real estate conference. Well, first of all, why should we even go to a real estate conference, right? A couple of the things that I want to just bring up as we start to get tactical and go through some of the advice let's make sure that we're going to the conferences that are going to support our business. So, one of the reasons to go to a conference is for networking, it's a great way to meet other individuals this is where a lot of times we get to set up our masterminds figuring out who should be in our Mastermind and masterminds is a different subject but networking at these events can lead to referrals, of course, can lead to lifelong friendships and just even sharing knowledge, a lot of times we call it drip off and duplicate. I meet people in other markets all the time that are willing to share conferences are a great way to do this. In some professional development or education, you're going to learn things you're going to be exposed to new technology tools right to techniques that ultimately develop your skill. So you're going to get better by going to the right conferences let's also not you know discount the fact that going to a conference can help you if you're feeling a little bit burned out right and you need some Rejuvenation. If you're looking for some inspiration or even some motivation going to those conferences can do that and that also helps you solve your problems. A lot of times when we're going into a conference one of the things that we're going to do is we're going to look and identify a couple of key pieces of our business that we want to improve that's where we get more out of the conferences. So those are a couple reasons why I believe you should absolutely attend a real estate conference but now let's talk about some of the things to consider before attending. I like to have my clients prepare at least or I would say not even prepare but come prepared with three key focuses that they want to improve so a couple of examples I'm giving you guys right here is maybe you want to start a geographic Farm, maybe you want to grow your Geographic Farm or maybe you're just deciding if you should you know to Implement something new into your Geographic farm. So you could say that one of your areas of focus is geographic farming and then maybe you want to create a new lead pillar or maybe you want to just figure out some skill like the listing presentation or the buyer's consultation so I would figure out three areas of focus of your business and then prepare three questions to go with those and the idea behind that is if you get a chance to meet someone in an elevator let's say you don't just waste time on oh how's the conference going where are you from put your ad below to say oh you have a geographic Farm great boom boom boom you're able to Pepper them with the questions that are going to help you in your business. If you don't prepare in advance, you're going to blow the opportunity to have your questions answered and to gain Insight.

Now, let's also just remember that you can segment these types of focus so maybe you focus on one area for systems and operations. So maybe you want to find someone who's really good at checklists, who's really good at technology and systems and you have a couple of questions that you would ask maybe you're looking at lead generation so you pick a lead pillar that you can go a little bit deeper on and be able to pull out that information and then, of course, there's always skill development strategy that you could focus on don't forget that you are also somebody who's attending the real estate conference and therefore should really make sure you're prepared to answer someone else's questions. So, let's talk about the fact that you want to engage in meaningful conversations and your elevator pitch should be just as good as when someone says, “Hey my name is Kristi Jencks, where are you from? Tell me a little bit about your business.” You don't want to drone on and not make an impression so have you thought about what are your unique value propositions as a referral agent, right?  Where are your strengths? What's something that you could bring and share with someone at the conference if you were to be in an elevator with them chances are just like you've got your list someone else is thinking about I need help with this and you might be you know the answer to what they're looking for.

So make sure your elevator pitch is you know on purpose and concise definitely want to have some buddies at the real estate conference or any conference but I want to encourage you guys to sit next to new people meet new people go to lunch with new people go to dinner with new people in fact don't go to dinner or lunch alone these conferences have a ton of people there's never an excuse to go by yourself in fact that's one of the mistakes that Merrill and I we talk about a lot is when we first started going to Real Estate conferences. We were kind of shy, and we didn't really engage with a lot of people at one conference, in particular, Glenda Baker invited us to her happy hour and it was the first time that we had been invited to a mastermind or a function and we went and we loved it and the funny thing is that we met a lot of people there that have continued to be friends with and to develop relationships and at that conference, it was a turning point because that's where we started to build relationships and network that ended up giving us referrals and that was a huge boost for our business. So we started going to conferences with a little game that we play so we like to go to events but we also like to go back to our room and rest if we're just being perfectly honest we are not the couple that parties all night. So we would say to each other, okay we cannot leave this party this function, or anything like that until we at least get one referral, and the very first time we did that, it was an 80s party and of course, Merrill's Mantra in life is if you're on time, you're late and if you're earlier on time. So of course we were the very first people at the party of this conference and we immediately wanted to leave but we had said to ourselves we are going to stay until we talk to enough people that we can create a referral opportunity or referral partner and it was really fun because when we came back together, we had that and then we had permission to leave and we didn't feel bad about it we showed up for just enough time to build some meaningful relationships. So I encourage you to get uncomfortable meeting new people right heck you're a real estate agent if you don't like to talk to people that might be a problem these are other agents and there are probably other people who are nervous and feel like maybe they don't know anybody you could be that you know the comfort that someone else needs you never know so we're going to talk about whether you should hand out stuff or you shouldn't hand out. I could read you a funny text message from my husband on his philosophy on if you should bring things to the conference or not but I also want to remind you guys that you do want to have a business card now.

I'm a big fan of the digital business card my favorite one is Blink b-i-l-b-l-i-n-q and one of the reasons that I love it is that it's let's see if I can come in with my phone one of the reasons that I love the digital business card is it's got a QR code. So I'm able to save this to my home screen on my phone and I can pull it out right there and when you look at the digital business card it has your name it has your phone number, and your location but this one also has all of the social profiles. My YouTube channel, LinkedIn all of the places that I'm going to be found online and it's really easy you can also put notes in there like where we met so the really cool thing is if you exchange digital business cards and again I like this one because it's free and it's easy to use it Imports it into your contacts and there's a note of how you met this person. So we met in Dallas in August it was probably the top very success Summit so that's one of the that's in my opinion that's my favorite digital business card. I really like that one but when you do bring a physical business card one of the key things that I'm always shocked about is that people don't include their address or their city in town, where they're coming from and that's just crazy because think about all of the people that you meet at a conference you want to make sure that you have your location on there how are they going to know that's the person from Austin, that's the person from Philly. Make sure your address is absolutely on your business card. You don't want to be the person that that doesn't have that now there's also a case for digital versus old school my friend loose she is old school to the T she says she hands out a business card every single time she doesn't just do the digital and that's because she's able to generate over 19 transactions every year from agent to agent and she has a plan which we're going to talk about but then you've got other people that say well I'm just going to throw that business card away so why do I need it I would come prepared for both come with the digital and come with the physical old school and make sure it's got the relevant information so that you can be the agent of choice when it comes to the referral so let's talk a little bit more about taking advantage of those referral opportunities so one of the things that I'm doing right now with a lot of my coaching clients to help them prepare to go into conferences is to use a really cool website called how money walks and let me see if I canlet me see if I can well I'm going to stop sharing and I'm going to get out of my presentation and we're going to go into how money walks so coming into how many walks here we go so this website's really cool how many walks.com allows you to track where people are coming in from out of your area and where people are moving to if you click on explore the data now you just can go and pick your your state your area right so this is going to load a map and as it loads the map it's going to show me where I'm going to stop my screen share so that it'll load better but you're going to be able to pick your state and so I'll come over here to by the way the red and the green shows you states that are losing population versus states that are gaining population so you can see that California is a red state which is losing a lot of population and Arizona is a green state but as they come into Arizona I can start to see the different counties of Arizona again the the darker the green counties are the ones that are gaining population but I live in Maricopa County we also service Pinal County they're right next to each other and we're kind of right in here but if I click on Maricopa County and I come over here some of the things that I can see is that we're gaining a lot of movement from Los Angeles County right we're getting some from cook Illinois that's the Chicago area Orange County California Santa Clara County California and then I don't even know where that is but we're also losing population and you can see most of it is people are moving from Maricopa to Pinal so they're moving from over here to over here Navajo Gila and then of course we are losing people to Travis County but by by being able to see where the population is coming from and going to I can then start to look for and network with agents in those areas so it's a meaningful way to build relationships with agents in other areas and um and that's completely free to be able to do that so I think it makes a lot of sense right it makes a lot of sense for you to be able to um take a little time prepare yourself in advance and make sure that you are meeting people that are in those areas or at least being aware of what areas you want to be in so that you can say hey I know you know what Los Angeles has a ton of people moving to our area do you have a referral partner already in Maricopa County do you even know where Maricopa County is because that you know what does that mean well Phoenix right so a couple other things to think about takeaways and action items so in terms of takeaways when I say uh takeaways or giveaways my husband says he never referred somebody because they gave him a a Chapstick so here's what I would say if you're going to bring something to the conference that you want to give away don't be the person that while everybody's out at lunch you just throw a bunch of stuff on the table because most of the time that's just getting thrown away people are not paying attention so if you're gonna if you're going to hand something out make it a meaningful interaction right I have gotten chapstick from the Emerald Coast and you know I really like it in fact I've gotten a lot of things that I have kept through the years but it was more because of the conversation I had with the person versus the tchotchke itself so if you're going to bring something make it meaningful and if you're going to pass something out I would highly recommend that you focus on rather than the quantity that you're going to pass out focus on the quality of the conversations that you're having with those people so that it becomes something meaningful now note taking you know the top very success them it's going to be three days long that's a lot of notes so I would consider what is your note-taking strategy how do you want to organize yourself and one of the things that I learned from my husband actually from the very first conference I went is that he would always take the very last page of the conference book to write his action items so you're taking notes and of course because I'm an expressive I take notes in multiple colors with highlighters and little flags and you know over the top but how do you decide between what's just notes and what's an action item Merrell always uses the very last page to put the actionable items or the steps that he needs to take so maybe they say read this book and you you want to read that book so you go to the back and you write down the name of the book and you know that as you download from the conference and kind of go through your notes that last page is going to be your actionable items and things that you want to do and and make movement on I think that's a great strategy if you have a different strategy I would love for you to put into comments because those are things that I you know I like to hear how everybody else is organizing themselves the other thing I would say is you know take notes on things that are most important to you when you're attending a long conference if you're just taking notes the whole time how are you really going to decipher what was something that was really meaningful versus you were just trying to you know take notes so think about how you're going to take notes think about how you're going to capture the actionable items and the good ideas and who you want to share them with now the other thing is I like to go into the conference with the three things that I'm trying to take away so as you're taking notes does this fall into one of your top three areas if so put it in your notes because you know this is going to help you with this with what you wanted to go to the conference with and you also want to make sure that you don't pick too much to do right you're going to have a plethora of of ideas coming out of the conference you're not going to be able to take action on all of them so if you write a 20 long to-do list of things you want to implement into your business chances are you're not going to get very far but if you pick one or two or three things that you want to implement you'll be way more likely to implement those things into your business and then from there I would absolutely if you have a if you have a coach share it with your coach and if you have an accountability partner share it with your accountability partner this might even be the time to join a mastermind so like we said what if your focus was Geographic farming and you wanted to implement a geographic form or improve your Geographic Farm you would share those ideas with your coach or you could join a mastermind of other people who are Geographic farming so that you could take it a little bit farther if you share your goals and you share your takeaways with someone else the likelihood that you will Implement them just increases so that's something to make sure that to don't just keep it in your notebook but put together a plan and don't over commit yourself to a bunch of different ideas make sure you're focusing on just a couple of them because you'll be more likely to actually get themed in so after the conference we talked about what to do before the conference we talked about what to do during the conference let's talk about what to do after you attend the conference so you are going to meet a bunch of people and some of these people are going to you know have an opportunity to build long-lasting relationships with them you're going to collect a lot of business cards what should you do with those business cards well of course if you are going to collect them let's make sure to capture that information so bring them back if you have an assistant give them to your assistant have them put them into your agent to agent database if you don't have an agent to agent database this is going to be a perfect time to start one of the business cards that you collected and the people that you met take time to have a meaningful interaction this could look like a text message a video text message a DM on social it could be a video email but take a minute to just reach out and reaffirm whatever that conversation that you had was but reaffirm that you are active in the business and remind them because chances are they met a lot of people too so uh you know incorporate videos as a personal touch it's just a really great idea to kind of bring them back and gratitude and appreciation so if somebody did share something with you one of the things that I like to do is I like to follow up with them and say hey remember how you told me about this well I did this and it worked right or you could even follow up and say I have some additional questions there's always a great idea and here's the thing as you build this agent to agent Network you're going to treat them just like you would your sphere of influence you need to find meaningful ways to be engaged with them not just at the conference but throughout the years and that could look like some systematic you know touches through social media some well-placed text messages to see if they're going to be at the next event or just to check in on how their Market is doing and then to Ryan then that you are in a specific area nobody wants to be cheesy or you know slide into the DMS type of thing but when you have and build relationships the chances of you getting referrals is greatly going to increase so think about how you want to stay in touch with these people that you meet in meaningful ways throughout the year so a couple things that you should think about when going to a conference I always recommend having some pens and some paper again I'm a high expressive so I have highlighters I have Flags I have everything you could possibly need but functionally I would also say don't forget to pack some snacks some healthy snacks to kind of help you refillable water bottles are always a great idea make sure you're hydrated and then typically these conferences are freezing cold so I definitely recommend that you bring a sweater or dress to be able to layer or down layer you do not want to worry about your phone dying so bring the Chargers that you need I would also say though like yes I bring my laptop but if you're going to be in the room be in the room try to position yourself to not be answering emails and engaging with clients during the conference because you'll be less likely to pull things out that you really need so be focused while you're there but be prepared again I mentioned don't just spread materials all over the place focus on meaningful conversation so if you're going to you know hand things out focus on the quality of the conversations versus just you know putting a bunch of stuff on tables and of course you want to identify those those potential referral Partners ahead of time if you can and set up time to meet with them at lunch Never Eat Alone this is a chance for you to meet new people trying new things and to be able to potentially also help other agents who are looking for things so that's pretty much the content for today I would absolutely appreciate it if you could drop over to my Google business page and leave me a review if you found anything helpful in this class I do have a goal to grow my Google business profile as a coach and this is one of the ways that I do it by teaching these classes and so if you haven't already left a review over on our Google business page we'd love for you to do that here's the QR code I believe it's Jencks coaching Mastermind or Jinx coaching something like that this is an old it used to say Kristi Jencks but now it says Jencks coaching you can find it or just snap the QR code but for now let's go ahead and answer some questions that you guys might have about how do you get the most out of attending a conference so if you hear here and you are on social media go ahead and post your question for me so that I can go ahead and give you guys some of the best tips I'm also curious like what's your favorite real estate conference that you like to go to I'm of course a huge fan of the Tom Ferry success Summit that's one of my favorite events he also does the elite Retreat I really like that one and then of course he's got some of those team events but I also know that there a lot of people are doing masterminds now where they get together and that's a phenomenal idea to be able to connect with agents outside of a big conference and to take the work a little bit deeper well that looks like nobody has any questions so I'll go ahead and give you guys six minutes of your time back if you are going to be heading to the Tom Ferry success Summit in a couple of weeks definitely shoot me a message Merill and I will be there happy to connect so if you've been following us online that's going to be a phenomenal opportunity for us to meet in person exchange some business cards and practice all of the things that we talked about today hope to see you guys in a couple weeks thanks so much for attending go out help some people and sell some houses.