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Welcome to the rent roll startup podcast. My name is Ellen Bathgate and I’m a property manager, turned rent roll owner, turned rent roll growth coach. If you want to discover how to grow your rent roll using cheap and often free marketing strategies. You are going to love the rent roll startup podcast.

Hi there. Before we jump in, I’ve got a question for you. Are you ready to grow your enroll? Like are you ready to get more leads through the door then you are going to love my on-demand training. Five ways to grow your own room. Grab a seat this free webinar training at rentrollstarter.com/5ways. That’s rent, roll starter.com. There’s no way you forward slash the number five ways. Let’s jump into the episode now. Welcome to the rent. Roll start a podcast with me, Ellen. This podcast is for you. The rent. Roll enough. You are gonna love it. If you always want to get more leads into your rent roll. And today is the first episode in our six part series. Ellen reads her book. So this is the recording from a Facebook live. I just recorded recently where I talk about how you get more referrals into your rent role, even when your business is really small.

I think that one of the biggest challenges, when you first start your rent roll is that you want to connect with all these potential referral partners and set up these awesome referral partnerships where you can send leads to each other, but when you’re first starting out, or even when you just have a small red role, you don’t always have enough clients to be able to send referrals to other people. So in this Facebook live, I recorded, I talk about three strategies. You can implement to encourage more referrals into your role, even when you don’t have a big rent roll right now. So let’s jump into that recording right now.

How to get more referrals when you rent wrong. Isn’t big enough to send referrals back. If you are in the first couple of years of growing a rent roll, you’re going to need to focus on getting more landlord leads into your business. And if you have ever attended and heed BDM or rent roll growth training event or webinar or live stream, or read an article, just like this one, you’ve probably been told to network network network. And this is great advice. You should be networking. You should be growing your referral network. I’m just going to reappear on screen because I’ve got something to add to this. I don’t know about you, but look, I think we’ve all been to live training events. We’ve been to zoom training events, especially in the last 12 to 18 months or so. We’ve read articles, we’ve attended webinars. We’ve done all of that.

And we get told to network network network. Am I right? Let me know. Am I right? Let me know in the comments below if you’re watching live, but it’s not enough to just network. So let’s keep, how do you take this networking that you’re being told to do and turn it into a steady stream of landlord referrals into your rent roll. Like that’s what you want, right? Once you’ve done your networking, there’s actually a followup process you need to take. And if you follow the process, you’ll start generating referrals from your network every single month. But first let’s just remember that there are actually two types of networking, organized, networking, and unorganized networking, or perhaps we should call it informal instead of unorganized networking. Although let’s face it, it probably feels unorganized sometimes. And you need to do both types of networking. So there’s the organized side of networking.

And we’re going to dive into what each of these tend into what each of these types of networking strategies are, and I believe you should be doing about. So let’s jump into the two different types of networking, and then I’ll step you through some strategies that you can implement with both. So organized networking is a scheduled networking event as part of a networking organization. So you usually have to pay to attend these events and you are expected to show up to scheduled meetings. So it might be BNI. It might be smart business networking. It might be BX. It might be any of those. It might be a local chamber of commerce. So there’s usually a fee to attend the networking event. And then there is this expectation that you will show up and that you will attend a certain number of events. And if in some cases, if you don’t show up for those, for those networking events, your membership is ended or you’re required to send somebody in your place.

So let’s keep going. I love organized networking events. And one of the reasons I love them is because they’re especially useful when you’re first starting your rent role, and you need to establish yourself within a business community. They require you to commit to attending the networking events for a fixed period of time. And often they’ll actually teach you some excellent business networking strategies to you as a member. Now, I just want to pause here for a moment. I am naturally an introvert. I am not an extrovert. So my nature is not to love attending big networking events. So why do I say I love networking events. I love them because of the results they achieve. So even though I’m an introvert, I still lock people. I still like catching people. I still like catching up with people. I just find group networking events like organized networking events to be quite draining.

So I need to have a little break from people after I have attended them. Let me know in a comment below, if you are also an introvert, actually let me know if you’re an extrovert as well, or you would have a person who loves to attend live events with lots of people, or are you, I’m the type of person who doesn’t get energized so much by that. Either way you can do really well with networking, whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, let’s keep rating. If you’re in the first couple of years of growing a rent roll and you don’t already have a strong referral network of complementary businesses who can refer landlords to you, you need to get yourself involved in an organized networking, networking group. This was me when I first started my rent roll, I first started my rent role.

I did not have a network of people. I had only moved to that area quite recently. So I didn’t know anybody. So for me, it was valuable to get myself into a networking group. It just allowed me to meet a whole bunch of people that probably otherwise I would not have met. So it was super useful for me. Let’s get ready. Now let’s jump into informal networking or you can call it unorganized networking. If you want. Informal networking is more self-driven, it’s as simple as calling up your mortgage broker and grabbing a coffee together. It’s that easy. There’s no scheduled networking event. There’s no group attendance. It’s just you. And usually just one other business owner catching up. So if you are part of an organized networking group, like a chamber of commerce or like BNI, then you’re going to be able to create informal networking opportunities with the other members of the group members of the group.

So, but having said that if you are not in an organized networking group, then you’re just going to need to make contact with local complimentary businesses in your area who could become part of your referral network. So this is why I quite like organized networking. If you don’t already have contacts, it’s easier to make those contacts when you join a formal and organized networking groups. But if there are no formal and organized networking groups in your area, or maybe there are no openings, then you can still take advantage of informal networking. Okay? So now that you know the difference between organized and informal networking, let’s talk about how do you actually get leads. Now, usually when you meet with someone in your network, you are going to want to ask them to send referrals to you. But quite often, they’re going to want refunding. They’re going to want referrals in return.

Now, if you are a well established agency with a decent sized rent role, then you can probably do this. But if you are in the early years of growing your rent roll, you might not have enough clients to be able to send referrals back to them. So, because this was my experience because I was starting from scratch. I had to discover some ways to get referrals from people, even when I did not have referrals to send back. So I discovered there are three effective ways to get your referral network, sending you more referrals, even if you can’t send them back just yet, because let’s face it. The goal is to be able to send referrals back at some stage, but if you only have two landlord clients, even if you only have 50 landlord clients, then you are probably not going to have the capacity to send as many leads back to your, your referral partners as perhaps they would like you too send.

All right, let’s keep reading. Let’s start with strategy. Number one, my favorite topic of all coffee. Well, not just coffee meeting people for coffee. So this is meeting people for coffee with people in your referral network is key. When I was growing my rent role, I actually found that I needed to meet with people in my referral network, at least every four to six weeks. And if I did not meet with them that often, they would just forget about me. In fact, I found that if I met with a referral partner for coffee, two out of every three coffees I had would result in a late, that means for every three referral partners I met in person, two of them would say, Oh, Hey, I’ve got a new client who is buying an investment property, who is buying an investment property. I’ll send you their details.

That’s $9 well-spent spent just for the record. $9 is about how much it costs to buy two coffees. One for them, one for me now the best way to ensure that you’re meeting with people in your referral network, every four to six weeks is to set reminders in your CRM. That way you can treat your referral network, almost like they are leads to follow up on a regular basis because let’s face it. They kind of are. Now, remember when you meet with your referral partner for coffee, there are many things that you can discuss with them. Sure. You can swap stories about being in being business owners and use some of that time together to bond. And if you’re anything like me, you are going to do that because for me, relationship is really important. I don’t want leads from people that I don’t have some sort of a relationship with.

And also I don’t want to send leads back eventually to someone that I don’t trust and value and have a relationship while you and have a relationship with that’s really important to me. But there are also, there’s also an opportunity at this to talk about shared promotional activities. So you can discuss opportunities to film videos together, like interview each other. Talk about writing articles as guest blogs for each other, make plans to run promotions more on this shortly. So times where you’re meeting with other business owners with your potential referral partners are really good opportunities to bond, to create relationship, to be really genuine in that relationship. I, for me, that’s really important. I really need to feel as though I know like, and trust people that I am working with, that I’m working in partnership with. So I assume it’s probably important to you as well.

So it’s a great opportunity. So it’s a great opportunity to bond, but there are also so many things you can be talking about during these coffee. Catch-Ups let’s keep reading. Number two is content. Now you probably know that you should be creating content regularly to share with your following. That means blogs, videos, tips, guides, those sorts of things that you can share by email on your social platforms, et cetera, but this content creation strategy, isn’t just for potential landlord clients. It’s also for your referral network, creating content and getting it in front of your network, achieves three things. Number one, it forces your referral network to take you seriously. If they see you creating content and publishing it widely, they’ll realize you mean business. And when you’re a small or a brand new agency, this is important, many established businesses. Those businesses who you want to become your referral partners will want to see that you’re taking your business seriously.

You’re taking your business seriously. And publishing content is a great way to prove this to them. I just want to take a sidestep on this topic very quickly, because it’s not just a referral partners that this is important for. I don’t know about you, but if you’ve started your own role and you’ve got friends and family who have said to you, Oh yeah, I’ll give my property to you. And you’re three, six, 12 months into the journey and they still haven’t transferred the management to you then creating and publishing content is a wonderful way to prove and establish credibility to them as well. So it’s not just your referral partners who benefit from this. Let’s keep writing right now, creating content and getting it in front of your referral network. Also achieves these two other things. Number two, is it positions your agency as the expert in the marketplace, your referral network we’ll want your referral network will want to send the clients to the expert.

So if you can position yourself in that way, then you’re more likely to get leads from your referral partners. Plus it puts you in front of your referral network digitally. So even though you’re going to meet with them, say every four to six weeks, if you are also emailing them, maybe your weekly blog article, or they’re also seeing videos and tips on social media from you, you are going to be front of mind. Now, the other side of this content strategy is to be sharing their content too. So this means when your accountant publishers a great blog about preparing for tax time, you share it on social media. But remember, if you are going to share on social media, make sure that you tag the accountant in your posts so that they know that you shared it, because sure, it’s going to add value to your following.

But you also want your accountant, for example, to know that you shared it or that you shared it, the secret to using your content and theirs to prompt your referral network, to send you more referrals is staying front of mind. The content marketing strategy may be the difference between no referrals coming in at all. And many referrals coming in each week. This front of mind thing is really important because when you meet with a new referral partner, even if they meet you and they just think you are the bee’s knees. And they’re just like, yes, I am going to send all of my property investor clients to see you. You are absolutely the right property manager for my clients. Even if that’s what they think they are still going to need to be reminded because their job is to be working on their business. Their job is not to be working on your business.

So if you can use your content strategy to be front of mind, that strategy to be front of mind for them, it will be a constant reminder to them. So when they are talking to one of their clients who owns an investment property, they’ve just seen something of yours on social media, although they’ve just received your weekly email. So they’re more likely to have you front of mind. So that’s really important. Let’s keep reading. So number three, in this strategy is publicity besides meeting with people in your referral network in person and including them in your content marketing strategy plan to help them with publicity too. Now, social media is a really great way to give shout outs to your referral network and to feature them in your marketing plan. Now, when you promote your referral network on social media, they are likely to receive a notification about them, about the fact that you’ve promoted them.

If you tag them. So please make sure you’re tagging them again. This is just a wonderful way to keep them away, to keep them front of mind, keep your business front of mind in your referral network. And of course, you’re going to score a few brownie points with them as well, because who doesn’t love it when another business shares a post of yours, I think we all love it, right? So it’s a wonderful way to score a few brownie points and help your fellow business owner. I remember not to just give shout-outs on social media, to your referral network, you can be really strategic about these posts and include them in it. So you could plan out your social media to include video interviews with your referral partners, add some guest blogs to their website and guest blogs from theirs to yours, create cross promotions and other shared marketing opportunities.

Now often, if there is no denying, it’s hard work to grow a rent roll or a rent roll. But if you apply these three strategies with your referral network, they will reward you with new client leads. And until your rent roll is large enough that you can be sending referrals back to that, that network, which I show you what to do, use these strategies to keep those referrals rolling in. It’s a really powerful way to encourage people to continue referring to you. Even when you may not have a rent roll, that’s big enough to be able to refer back. So let me know which one’s your favorite strategy strategy. One is coffee strategy. Two is content and strategy. Three is publicity. Let me know in the comments below coffee content or publicity, which one is your favorite. Now, if you want more strategies for growing your rent roll, join me in my masterclass. Five ways to grow your rent five ways to grow your rent ramp. There’s a link in the description of this video. There’s also a link at the bottom of the screen, and you can just head to rent, roll spanner.com forward slash five ways. We’ve got an on demand option, plus a whole bunch of other time slots that you can choose from. We would love to see you there. And let me know which was your favorite strategy, coffee content, or publicity. Thanks so much for joining me. I’ll see you in the next episode. Bye.