Have you noticed how a lot of people are talking these days about how to raise private capital?
But even more important than finding those investors is how to service the money raised from those investors.
Hey Moguls, Chris Urso here, reminding you that it’s important to know how to respect your investors and make them feel that they’re an important part of your team.
Because they most certainly are!
While I am referring specifically to our investors in apartment deals, this concept applies to raising private capital for any and all real estate investment strategies.
We do this effectively in my company through webinars. So, read on to see how we create happy repeat lenders with something as simple as regular communication.
Repeat Investors
It goes without saying that good returns will make your investors happy, but how can you keep them coming back? How can you develop repeat investors/lenders?
You do that by networking… with consistent communication… and by leveraging resources.
It’s our goal to take that “institutional feel” out of our investors’ experience. We do that by creating a family/relational environment. We never ask our investors to simply take our word for anything. Rather we make sure that they understand exactly what it is they’re investing in.
“Personal relationships are always the key to good business.
You can buy networking; you can't buy friendships.”
~Lindsay Fox
Consistent Communication
It’s important to have plans for consistent communications with your investors.
At the end of the day, it’s all about servicing your clients to retain them and have them continue to invest with you.
One tip on how to do that is this – at the beginning of the year, set up a schedule to communicate with your investors once every quarter. Some of our students use newsletters, we like to use webinars.
Once a quarter, we do our live investor-relations webinars for all of our deals. We walk through the progress of that particular project over the past 3 months.
This way, they’re able to get updates and see the progress, and have access to us in a controlled environment. This is opposed to simply telling your investors, “Call me if you have any questions.”
A webinar is more all-encompassing.
We have all of our investors on the call at one time, we give them the updates and give them the opportunity to ask questions. For those who are unable to make it to the webinar, we record the call and then email it out to the investors.
This method has been highly successful for us. Our investors appreciate it. They’re able to stay in touch with us throughout the project—some of which last from 3-5 years.
“Communication is the fuel that keeps the fire of your relationship
burning, without it, your relationship goes cold.”
~William Paisley
Summing Up
The key here is to put a strong emphasis on the investor relations aspect, and not just on raising capital.
By communicating the right way, you’ll have investors calling you to see when you’ll have another project coming up that they can invest in.
You know, this reminds me… I recently wrote a great lesson about the importance of investor communication. You should go check out: Apartment Investing: The Right Ways to Communicate with Investors.
Your Experience
What’s been your strategy for retaining and communicating with your investors? Leave your comments below.
Spend as much time on investor retention as you do in locating investors
Purposefully schedule time to update investors
Keep investors appraised of exactly what’s happening in the ongoing project(s)
Massage those ever-important relationships with regular communication
Decide early on the communication vehicle you will use—newsletters, webinars, etc.
Christopher Urso
is the founder of URS Capital Partners and National REIS. Chris has been investing in real estate since 2001. Over the years he has been involved in all aspects of real estate, from single-family fix and flips, buy and hold cash flow houses, and finally to apartment buildings. His real estate investment career only took off when he purchased his first apartment building 3.5 years ago. He now controls over $15,000,000 of apartments and has raised over $8,000,000 of private money in just over 3 years. He now structures investment partnerships to acquire large apartment complexes and also private coaches investors helping them purchase their own apartment buildings.