A vital part of your real estate investing business is having lenders. In this episode, Stacy Rosetti teaches how to impress your lenders so that they want to keep giving you money over and over. She lists the different methods and strategies you can use to raise money and how to keep it coming. Stacy also discusses how to effectively communicate and keep transparency and how to create your private referral program. Stay tuned to learn all about it!
—
Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Impress Your Lenders
Let’s get into some money stuff. I’m going to show you how I raise money. I’m online and virtual when I raise money. There are three different categories. I’m going to do the basics of raising money fast. The way that you look at private money is in layers. The best way to raise money, in my opinion, is to do what I call friends and family. Every time I talk to everybody, they’re always like, “I don’t have any friends and family that have any money.” That’s their first answer. The truth is you have no idea that anybody has any money because you haven’t asked them yet. There is a lot of money out there.
Also, you should ask yourself. If you don’t know anybody that doesn’t have any money, who are you hanging out with? The truth is, if you’re hanging out with people that don’t have any money, how are you ever going to grow? You can’t get rid of your friends and family but you can choose who you surround yourself with. That’s the key to raising money.
If you don’t know anybody that has any money, why don’t you put yourself into a group that has money? I’m not sure what your hobbies are or where your interests are but if you get out and start talking to people and networking in different groups, pick the groups that you think might be able to help you out. I’m not sure what it is. It could be political or a hobby like golf or skiing. For instance, my dad is a skier. He has been skiing his whole life. It’s his thing. He lives in Texas. The largest ski club in the country is in Austin, Texas and he is a huge part of that group.
He goes to every session and meets everybody. He also goes and does ski trips around the country and world. That’s his hobby but that’s also his community. People who ski have a lot of money because skiing is expensive. Think about who you’re hanging out with and maybe there’s a hobby that you’re interested in. It can just be a hobby and then you could start hanging out in that group.
[bctt tweet=”If you’re hanging out with people that don’t have any money, how are you ever going to grow?” via=”no”]
What I’m saying is to think outside the box. The truth is that you’re never going to get anybody to give you any money if you don’t ask for it. That’s the key. You got to be able to ask but in the world of raising money, friends and family would be 1st and the 2nd area would be acquaintances and then also colleagues. These two areas are going to be the most important circles that you have around you.
If you don’t have any family that has any money, then start looking at the people that you know. There’s a list of everybody. It’s the things that you think outside the box. Who’s your chiropractor? Who’s your doctor? Who’s your dentist? Were you ever in a sorority or a fraternity? I’m sure you could Google it too. Search private money lender brainstorming activity.
When you start brainstorming who you know, what you’ll realize is that you know a lot of people. You could even go through your list on Facebook. A lot of people follow me on Facebook and I’m like, “Who are these people?” I can’t do that but if you’re one of those people that’s super picky about who you have as friends on Facebook, then you could go through that list and be like, “Maybe some of these people here have money.” The goal is that you’re trying to brainstorm and list out every family member, friends and then maybe friends of theirs or anybody in your life that you may meet or know that could possibly have money.
You also want to be thinking about who you’re surrounding yourself with. For example, the groups or networks that you’re in. Those are the two main groups. The last group would be strangers. You can’t go around and ask strangers for money. The SEC, the Securities Exchange Commission, does not want this, so you have to be very careful with this. A stranger can become an acquaintance, so you can reach out and say, “My name is Stacy. I invest in real estate. What’s up?” You can take a stranger and a stranger can become an acquaintance. That’s the goal. The strangers become acquaintances or colleagues.
Impress Your Lenders: The way you look at private money is in layers.
The lenders and investors that I work with all become acquaintances because I do try to get to know who they are as well. I wanted to have you keep in your mind that you need to be brainstorming with these people and thinking about who these people are. Come up with a list of people that you think you might be able to ask. That’s the rule.
Let me go back. I want to show you what I do online. I build a list and then have them on to a Zoom meeting. That is where I can pitch to them. Step one is to build a list up and put it into an email database. I’ll remind them that every Monday, I pitch and that’s when I’m getting to know them. Let’s say there are 5 or 10 people that show up to my pitch every Monday. From there, I asked them if they could do a one-on-one Zoom meeting with me. That’s my process.
What I wanted to say too, is to make sure that you utilize social media. You can’t pitch like, “I’m looking for money. Does anybody have any money?” You can’t do that, especially because there are a lot of strangers and stuff that you don’t know on social media but what you can do is post your wins. This is key and what all the coaches on REI USA do. We’re out posting what we’re doing. If you’re not taking advantage of social media, then you’re missing out on huge opportunities.
Everybody else is like, “What should I post? I don’t know.” Follow all the teachers and see what they’re doing. Also, follow me to see what I’m doing. I’m always posting what I’m doing at the storage facility. I’d be like, “I came out and counted these latches.” I make my husband post as well. Whatever he’s doing at the storage facility, he’ll do a quick video or picture and then I’ll post that out under his name. We’re both posting.
[bctt tweet=”If you’re not taking advantage of social media, then you’re missing out on huge opportunities.” via=”no”]
He doesn’t get on social media that much so I do all that for him. Anything that you see from my husband is because of me most of the time but still, that’s 2 for 1. We’re trying to get the names out. He has a whole different type of people that follow him and don’t follow me. Make sure that you take advantage of the power of social media. You need to be posting out what your wins are.
Something that is also good is posting when you get a deal under contract and then when you close on the deal. Let’s say that you sell a deal and you make some money on the backend. I see people post like, “I closed on this deal. It’s awesome.” I’d be so excited because you closed on this deal. You bought and sold this property but you also want to be posting something about the lenders like, “I closed on this renovation. It was an awesome renovation. My lenders also made $50,000 or $20,000,” or whatever it is. You want to post out about what your lenders are doing and keep that mindset that you’re playing a part in their lives as well. You want to let everybody know how much money they’re making.
A win can be anything. Everybody always has this idea in their mind like, “What’s a win? What should I be posting out?” Typically, when they’re getting started, people are like, “I don’t know. I haven’t closed on a deal. What should I post about?” You should be posting about any property that you go to. Let’s say that you’re on the hunt for a property to buy, whether it’s for rehabbing, wholesaling, buy and hold, land or whatever it is. You should be taking a picture of yourself on this property. How many houses do you have to look at to buy one house? A gazillion. You could have a gazillion pictures of houses that you’re posting about.
I used to take pictures of houses. I’d be like, “I’m thinking about buying this house. I’m not 100% sure if I will. If I was going to buy this, what color should I paint the outside?” I would get 20 or 30 answers like, “You should do blue with a red door.” You get all this engagement when you ask these questions. The more engagement that you get, the more you come up on everybody’s feeds. You always want to make sure you post something but don’t just post it and then that’s it. You want to post something and ask a question.
Impress Your Lenders: Take advantage of the virtual world.
Social media is a huge part of how I raise money. I raise a lot of money by posting what I’m doing on a regular basis. I got into this habit of posting whatever I’m doing so people can see what I’m doing. I also get a following. I had a friend of mine that I had not talked to in many years. I was posting and doing my thing. She private messaged me and was like, “I want you to know that I’ve been following you ever since we studied in Australia together. I’m so impressed with you. I wanted to know if there’s a way for us to work together. I came into some money and I want to lend the money to you.”
This is a friend that I had met and studied with within Australia many years ago. She has been following me ever since. It took X amount of years for her to say something to me. The truth is you never know what’s going to happen or when you’re going to get money. Maybe it’s all about timing. The more that you can post and let everybody know what you’re doing, the better. Take advantage. A lot of people have issues with social media but the truth is that I have raised a lot of money by utilizing social media. Please utilize that.
Everybody is asking how I am building my list up. On my website, I have a page that talks about Stacy Rossetti and all she does. Whether or not you have a website, I have an Investor page to which I can send my investors. The purpose of this page is to educate people on what private lending is. You can see Private Lenders and then the Self-Storage Fund of America, which is the fund that I have. Come to my page and look at what I’m doing and how I’m doing it so that you can get an idea of how I’m raising money.
Those two pages have raised millions of dollars for me. It’s the same format that you saw on the main page. All it does is you go in and register for the pitch. It then leads you to a web form. You put your name and email in. When you put your name and email in, that gets put right into my private lender list in my email funnel.
I have an email campaign where I’m emailing people about what private lending is like, “Private lending is this and that. If you want to meet me and talk to me about what this is, hop on my pitch on Monday night.” I took advantage of the virtual world. A lot of people will teach you to go have a meeting, which is also very good. I happen to travel full-time. For me to raise money, everything has to be virtual. If I happen to be in an area where one of my investors is, I try to meet and have lunch with them.
When I first began, I used to have coffee with them, take them out and talk. There’s nothing wrong with that as well but so much has changed over the last couple of years with being virtual that I say take advantage of the virtual world. I’m living proof that you can be virtual and raise money. That’s my spiel and I’m sticking to it. That’s the big thing. You can take a look at my website. Utilize social media and do online marketing campaigns. That’s what I do. I also utilize zoom to have meetings. I also probably have 4 or 5 investor meetings a week on Zoom.
Important Links
About Stacy Rossetti
Real Estate Investing – My Journey, My Career My Life
As a real estate investing expert and coach, I have built my name on the results I have created – for myself and for my students.
Investing in real estate has changed my life, opening doors for me and my family and affording me an outlet for all my creative and entrepreneurial energy. Through scaling up a renovation company in Atlanta with hundreds of transactions to learning to invest passively through creative financing deals and storage facilities, I have not only overcome many trials and tribulations, but systematized and organized my days so that I can run several successful businesses.
Day after day, I work hard at what I do, striving to stay ahead of the curve by building on my knowledge and making shrewd decisions. This did not happen overnight, of course. My early days in real estate were slow, exhausting and hard, but little by little, I earned a sense of what worked and what I needed to do to achieve consistent results. Because I taught myself all this learning through experience and mentors, the process was gradual and required the utmost diligence on my part.
Today, I own and operate REI USA and StorageNerds. REI USA is an online education and networking platform that is exactly the tool that I would have wanted when I was getting my start, something that aspiring and established investors can turn to, a means to cutting your learning curve dramatically. Together my husband Pete and I currently own and operate eight storage facilities. Investing in self-storage is our passion and how we have decided to build wealth. It is the best kept secret in the investing world and I don’t know why more are not investing in it.
In addition to investing in real estate myself, I have since discovered another passion in my life – coaching and empowering others. Whenever I see that I have guided someone toward a breakthrough or helped them to transform themselves professionally, I feel deep fulfillment, confident that I am on the right path and reinvigorated to go out and do even more.
As a coach and teacher, I specialize in helping my students navigate real estate investing, rehabbing, and storage facilities. These are all complex, involved topics, but I have honed my ability to communicate the intricacies – and found ways to demystify them efficiently. Seeing the light go off in my students’ eyes, I know that the magic is happening, and in everyone I teach, I recognize myself – wide-eyed, hopeful, firmly believing in all the opportunities that real estate investing can present. For years, I have connected with my students through workshops, offering a glimpse into the thought processes and techniques that have led to my success.
In order to share my knowledge with as large an audience as possible, I have currently expanding beyond person-to-person coaching, developing a Self-Storage Investing mastermind and group coaching mentorship called StorageNerds. This mastermind draw on my years of experience in real estate and self-storage investing and break down my ideas and strategies in a way that even beginners can digest.
My passion is to help beginner investors learn to invest in real estate and my mission is Affordable Financial Literacy. REI USA embodies this mission by engaging those that truly want to learn to invest in real estate but don’t want to go broke doing it. Over the course of the last five years my husband and I have spent many years perfecting how we find, fund and run our storage facilities so we can be anywhere in the world. Our facilities are truly passive income and we love sharing our tips and tricks on how we manage them through our StorageNerds mastermind.
Renovating my first home in 2012, I knew that I had stumbled upon something big – a calling, a vocation, a passion. There was no doubt in my mind that I was going to stick with real estate and give it everything that I had. Collaborating with my husband has been a bonus, and I am grateful every day for the career that he and I have created together.