All real estate investors need a ‘tribe.’
What’s a tribe? Why do you need one as a real estate investing pro, and how do you build one?
Tribes, as they have been so aptly named, are essential for commerce on various levels. Today, leading brands all have tribes. This applies to every type of brand from Las Vegas to Apple. And yes, successful real estate investors have tribes as well. Tribes are essentially your following.
Fans of highly acclaimed author Seth Godin (members of his tribe) will already be familiar with the concept, but may have failed to see the application to real estate investing.
A tribe is a following, a community, or a fan base that digs what you are about. This group makes excellent customers, referral partners and brand ambassadors.
Stop Selling and Start Growing Your Tribe
One of the biggest challenges in real estate investing is marketing and finding new customers.
It can take a lot of cold leads to facilitate a single closing. As the housing recovery continues and more players get in, it’s also becoming harder to stand out, get attention and get people to listen.
Many real estate marketing methods have traditionally relied on cold and hard selling. This involves a lot of work and costs in materials, finding prospects, educating them on the benefits of working with you and convincing them the product or service is worth the investment.
There is nothing wrong with all of this. Cold marketing is still essential to a certain degree in real estate investing, and still works very well.
However, there are obvious benefits to having your own tribe.
By growing and cultivating your own tribe, you are building a database of easy to close prospects that are good for a lifetime.
This is clearly not only easier and more profitable in terms of ROI, but can be far more enjoyable and rewarding on a daily basis for real estate investors.
Tribe Building 101 for Real Estate Investors
There are many tribes to be built and developed. Perhaps your tribe will begin with those in your community. Look to improve their income levels and their surroundings. Maybe it will be a tribe of vacation homeowners in your favorite sunny getaway destination, or young tech entrepreneurs buying their first homes. There are endless combinations and overlaying filters. Find your niche and build a tribe around it.
Define who is a fit for your tribe, what unites you and how you will help them. Then, continue to build a brand that resonates with them from colors to verbal branding and more.
If you are just starting out in real estate investing, or with this concept, get to know where they hang out and can be found. It could be certain social networks, online forums or local places. Get better at SEO and the platforms you are on to make it easy for them to find you.
Get to know your tribe members intimately. What are their common interests, lifestyle preferences, devices, shopping habits, mediums, challenges and aspirations?
Once you have your first round of followers, focus on ways to make it easy, fun and attractive for them.
Get this down and you’ll have all the referrals you can handle. Buying, selling and renting homes will be far easier with a support network cheering you on.
