Hosting and Leveraging In-Person Networking Events

Imagine hosting large, powerful, well-done networking events each and every month and your only responsibility is to show up and network.

Keep reading to learn how this is possible.

Real estate agents that commit to hosting and leveraging networking events grow their database and their business, all while growing and strengthening their community.

Yet, many real estate agents struggle to find the time to consistently execute this strategy.

And rightfully so. There is a lot of work that goes into making events such as this go well.

Steven David Elliott, the Chief Visionary Officer of Rockstar Connect, and I discuss these topics as well as his company’s offering to help agents do one big networking event each month where all they have to do is show up.

Embedded in our conversation we discussed the dos and don’ts of networking events as a leveraged activity and how we can utilize them to cover a lot of ground quickly.

Podcast Timestamps

7:56- What Rockstar Connect does to help you pull off large networking events each month

9:08- The perils of networking events that are not done well

10:28- Real estate’s magic bullet

11:22- The opportunity cost. of doing it yourself

16:36- When you’re first getting started in real estate

20:09- How these principles correlate with the teacings of my book, The Upstream Model

Justin Stoddart
So the big question is this. How do those of us in the real estate industry, with crazy amounts of ambition, how do we Think Bigger than the building of our own empires? How do we simultaneously seek success and significance, income and impact? My name is Justin Stoddart. And this is the Think Bigger Real Estate Show.

Justin Stoddart
Welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. Today, we’re going to be talking all about in-person networking events. We’ve all gotten pretty comfortable in the zoom room. And probably many of us have wondered, should I go back to doing in-person networking events? I think all of us know that it’s an essential component of building a great referral-based business.

Justin Stoddart
Today, I have an expert, this gentleman in 2019, who was a part of choreographing over 1200 Real Estate events across the country. So we’re going to learn from the expert about why we should be eagerly getting back into networking events, but not just that, we’re going to talk about what are the best practices to where you actually get tons of value from it.

Justin Stoddart
And we’re gonna be talking about also some principles from my book, the Upstream Model, which are very similar to what this gentleman is talking about. Before I fully introduce him, let me remind you that inside the Think Bigger Real Estate Group on Facebook, is where we go deeper on these topics. It’s a community of people that are thinking bigger, that are achieving bigger, and by being around this group of people, you too will think bigger and achieve bigger, so so be sure and join us there. Again, that’s the Think Bigger Real Estate Group on Facebook, Stephen, David Elliot out of North Carolina, hello, my friend, thank you for taking some time to be on the show today.

Steven David Elliott
It’s my pleasure. I feel like we’re really kindred spirits. But what’s sort of fun with these type of shows is oftentimes you don’t know that much about me. And I don’t know much about you, and you’re just sort of thrown together. And you know, what are we going to talk about? We have the same philosophy in business in life. Yeah, but it was about altruism and helping other people. Right.

Justin Stoddart
100%. And I think I shared this with you prior, right, that I want my audience to know, is that I believe one of the reasons why real estate agents oftentimes, either they don’t have enough revenue, and income and profit in their business, and or enough time freedom in their life, is because they’re so focused on serving the masses, they’re so focused on serving massive databases, rather than identifying who are the key pillars in the marketplace, they can be able to give you more referrals in less time, and be able to lower your cost of customer acquisition, increase your conversion rates, and again, give you more income and less time. That’s the essence of my book, the upstream model. Steven, I can’t wait for you to read the book. I think you’re gonna love it. And I can’t wait to learn more about you. Let’s talk a little bit about obviously, you’re in real estate, you’ve been in sales for 20 years. Tell us a little bit about your bio.

Steven David Elliott
So I guess a little bit old. I’ve been doing sales since since I was a little kid. I used to pick little red wagon. And so with rocks and and sell door to door, and my next book will probably be called rocks to riches. I love it.

Justin Stoddart
I love it. Let’s talk about this 1200 events in person events that you were part of. in 2019. You want a company that does what exactly do you guys do?

Unknown Speaker
My company is Rock Star Connect, you can you know our website is rockstarconnect.com. And what we did is, well, if there’s sort of a backstory to it. I am 52 years old, I’ve worked for myself since I’m 21 years of age, which many people find impossible to do. That’s just the way I’ve led my life. You know, making my own rules. I’m unteachable. I’m uncoachable. And I’m incorrigible, essentially. And for 15 years, I got to do something I really enjoy doing. I owned rare and used bookstores. I have four of them. And I love doing it and I made money doing it.

Steven David Elliott
And people used to say to me, how are you able to make a large amount of money in an industry that other people can’t make any money in? And I said, first of all, I care more about people than I care about books. It’s all about the people. And I utilize small events in order to attract people to my business. So I had my own farmers market. I had my own music series, I had author C. And I also had a networking event that I did on a consistent, regular basis. And I sort of wanted to figure out well, what is it that everyone can do in order to create the business, not everyone can do a farmers market. Not everyone can run an author series, but everyone could be a host of a networking event. And a real estate agent had come into my business and asked for my business. And I said this is amazing. How do you get your business through referrals? And they said yes, so I’ve been doing this for 15 years no one has ever asked me Not one real estate agent is ever asked me for a referral. And then I told her my idea about developing an enormous following of people through using networking events, leverage through social media, and Facebook groups. I got a call the next day from her broker-owner saying, come into my office, I’d like to talk to you. I gave my brief idea to them. And the guy opened up his checkbook. He said, what would it take for you to start doing this for my company. And then I backed up a little bit, and I said, I’m really onto something here. So I actually sold my bookstores. They weren’t sure I loved doing it, but they weren’t challenging me anymore. And I went on eBay. And I bought 85 suits from a minister in Detroit. That was roughly my size. And I sold my book then, and I bought a class, Mercedes. And I said, Now I am the super real estate agent. And I went to talk to other brokerages in town. And I said, this is what I’m going to do, I’m going to utilize events, and relationships with other business owners to create an enormous following in business. And by doing that, and starting my first event, the company I was with, I was in their top 1% of salespeople in my first three months in their business, in business using an event. And I was the Rookie of the Year. And then I was recruited by another firm that wanted me to do the events for them to help them grow. So they could go public, and I became their national director of business development. I was their number one agent out of 2300 agents. And all I did was host regular monthly networking. Now, this is where, where it becomes a little complicated. I wanted to teach other agents how to do it. And I created a very definitive course a 15-hour course teaching them how to do it. And what they said is, this is fantastic. There’s everything I need to know here. But guess what, I can’t do it. We need someone could you do that for us? Because we keep we don’t have anyone on staff to do it. And we want to keep a balance of family life. It seems like it would be expensive to do it. Can you do it for us? And that’s how Rockstar Connect was started. My wife, Sarah, who is great with systems found out a way how we could deliver an event for real estate professionals all over the country where they could consistently do an event every month, and basically just show up at the event. And on our end, it’s helped us grow a list of 117,000 business people that have attended our events in the last five years.

Justin Stoddart
Interesting. So you keep the data as well.

Steven David Elliott
We manage the data for the client, we manage their mailing lists for them their CRM, we booked the venue for them do all the venue management, we send them all the supplies for the event, we do all the branding for them in house videos, flyers, we give them training to learn how to do deep referral relationships. It’s funny, you know, the name of the course, was how to create a sphere of 1000s from your sofa. Because I’m a lazy networker. I don’t feel like I need to go to 100 events per month, and I don’t have to be everywhere. I like to have balance. I like to cook for my family. I like to go on vacations. I like to go on trips. When you are the leader of an event. You’re the altruistic leader, it changes the whole paradigm. What do I mean by that? Well, typically, when you go to a networking event, for most people, it’s not a comfortable situation. It feels like you’re going to the prom. Without you don’t have anyone to dance with you meet the same four people there. I can totally relate. Like, yeah, I need to be here. But man, this is awkward,

Steven David Elliott
Really awkward. And you probably meet the same people and you rinse and repeat. You do it the next day. When you’re the host of the event, you’re spending 30 days promoting that or our company’s doing that for you. They’re seeing your name over and over and over again. 10s of 1000s hundreds of 1000s of impressions as a company we send out over 5 million emails a month on behalf of our clients. So people know you before they go to the event, you’re the homecoming king or you’re the prom queen. Everybody wants to dance with you. Everyone wants to shake your hand. You don’t even have to discuss business or real estate or do anything like that. You’re just the altruistic host of a great event that people value and they want to know who you are. And for my feeling is you know sort of that lazy networker. I don’t need to know 20,000 people. I don’t need to know 100,000 people, I need to have 20 to 100,000 people know me that my pipeline is completely 100% filled. When people contact me for business when I choose to do business with them, they’re asking permission of me to do business with them to be their real estate agent they’re interviewing to be my client. It’s a completely different situation. I like turning it around. I love inbound business.

Justin Stoddart
And I love so much what you’re saying here. All too often, I see real estate agents, again, I’ve got the good fortune to spend all day every day coaching consulting real estate agents, and I see them want to engage in certain activities like you’re describing. Yet the infrastructure costs, right, I mean, just the load on them, figuring it all out. Either a causes them to turn back and not do it, or take their eye off the ball. And they go months without making money because and it’s like, oh crap, and even if it would have worked, and they continue to do it consistently, it’s like, That was scary because I took all this time and effort to put together this thing. And I didn’t see an immediate result, which you won’t, necessarily right. And so then they stop. Because they have this dip in their income because they took their eye off being a real estate agent, and put their eye on being an event planner, let’s

Steven David Elliott
say that, yeah, they’re not going to be good event planners, they just aren’t, and they’re not going to be good at managing their data. They are the follow-up is so so important. Now, we booked the venue for the client, we name their event for them. We put their branding associated with our branding that’s nationally known so that we know that people are at least going to want to go to the event. We’re doing the emails on their behalf after the event, doing the follow-up with the people that came asking them and encouraging them to bring other people but we’re also teaching the best practices as well. Just because you’re developing a new network, you shouldn’t ignore your old network. You’re doing this as a benefit for the people that already exist in your network. Because that’s what you’re supposed to be doing for them, providing them the opportunity to make meaningful connections. And this is what it’s about. It’s this is a branding exercise. It’s not lead gen you will generate leads. But it’s showing you Well, I can’t make everyone a rock star. I work with rock stars. So, people that have great personalities, know what to do with a room of people that are happy to be in front of five people, let alone being in front of 30 4050 or hundreds of people. They’re talented people that are always going to be successful. Those are our clients, the people that come to the events, they are the raving fans for the rock star. They’re the audience, they become the brand evangelists, they’re going out there, and they’re introducing you to the greater community. Rock Star Connect word. We’re just the roadies, we’re doing the heavy lifting the stuff that’s not fun, like, can you match day of your event, having to go buy supplies, because you forgot Sharpies, and you have a client in from out of town that’s buying a $5 million home. That’s an awkward position, you should never be in that position because of your real estate agent. First and foremost, we’re going to do all that stuff. That’s not so fun, that that’s involved with being successful. And it’s about consistency. Because the day after, you know, on my end, when an event ends on a Tuesday night, Wednesday, Thursday night, which is when we do most events, my phone and every phone of every person, my company starts ringing up with a protocol to start booking the next event and follow up with the client and follow up with the people that went to the event. It’s automatic. Also, you know, a lot of times, I’m sorry, go ahead.

Justin Stoddart
You know, the purpose of this event, it’s simply a networking event. It’s simply to get people together, that are business-minded, and allow those connections to happen. It’s not like that there’s it’s not a client appreciation event. It’s not like the typical event you see, like a real estate agent does it simply lets get business minds together and see what happens.

Steven David Elliott
Let’s just get a whole bunch of people to go work. Typically in small businesses, entrepreneurs are there with some companies. They may not be the leader company, they may simply be the gatekeepers, of course, the people that you always want to meet, as far as your networking, there are people that are new in town that are looking possibly to move to your area. There are people that go to Rockstar Connect events all over the country, and they now may be considering moving to your area. The first place they’re gonna go is a rock star-connected mat. And you’re the host of that event. It gives you the opportunity to mix it’s really a mix and mingle type of we have different events as a company. They’re all disruptors. Basically, I told you that I’m not coachable. I’m not teachable, and I’m incorrigible. So I created my event was what I consider to be a networking event. To me a networking event wasn’t listening to speakers, or being sold to, or paying a large feat ago, it was just meeting a lot of like-minded individuals, and potentially becoming friends with them. And most of your business comes from your friends.

Justin Stoddart
And all right, I mean, I think part of the reason why people don’t go to networking events, because all the things that you described, it’s going to be pitchy or it’s going to be awkward, or it’s going to cost a lot of it’s, you know, you guys, obviously, have done the number of events that you have you figured out a lot, right?

Steven David Elliott
I mean, can we provide an event to our client that costs them $400 a month. Whoa, we frequently have people that come to us that have been doing their own events and spending 3000 to $10,000 per month or whatever and having to do all the work in-house, where they become an event company and their real estate company. The attendees are good or events, they go for free. Imagine how grateful they are to the host for that.

Justin Stoddart
I had a conversation with an agent yesterday. In this market, there are some agents that are struggling, right, not everybody’s making tons of money, some are a lot of art. And the conversation came up about the best way to generate leads. And I said, there are a dozen ways that we could discuss that would work to generate comp like real estate-related conversations that would get the convert into leads. I said the question is, what do you want to get up and do consistently, day in and day out? Like, consistency is the magic bullet, right?

Steven David Elliott
Like, right is what matters, especially when you’re starting out. When I started out as a real estate agent, I had nobody right recognized me as a real estate agent. That’s not what I was, I was the book guy. So what did I do in the morning, I would put on, you know, because you have to earn it in the beginning, put on my sports coat, and put on those shoes that hurt a little bit. And I would say I’m, I’m gonna go get my hair cut. And I’m gonna go to the grocery store. And I’m gonna go to the tailor and I’m going to go get myself a client or customer. And I consistently have my day blocked out that way. And usually, my first endeavor, whatever I did, that day was going to bring me a client, that’s a very difficult way to start. And that’s, you know, the way a lot of us have to start. But once you’ve established yourself, and you are, you are a talented real estate agent, and you know that you’re providing good work for your clients and customers, then that’s your opportunity to become, you know, basically a local celebrity, the best agents in your market, for anyone who’s listening here, you know, why are they the best agents? Well, Frank, let’s just because you know who they are. And you’re able to find them. So when I go out, and I, wherever I go, whether someone has met me or not, all I have to do is sort of giving a couple of sentences about what I do. And they go, Oh, you’re Steven, David Elliot, I’ve heard of you. And I’m able to leverage that for my clients as well, I get them vendors on a, on a better basis, I’m able to get them off-market properties. And right now, that’s one of the difficulties people are having as inventory. If you are well connected and well known in your area, you will never have an issue with inventory, because you will befriend other real estate agents, I we heavily invite agents, to our hosts events. And that’s one of the things how we know that we whether an agents gonna work with us or not, if they go, we don’t want real estate agents at your event. They pretty much eliminate themselves. because really what you want to be is you want to be king of the real estate agents. And when you’re doing an event that they don’t understand how you can do it and how you can afford it, and how all these people come out to you.  I mean, they frankly, they worship you. And they want you as a mentor enables you to grow a team or to bring people to your brokerage. It provides you with a lot of opportunities, but also what does it give you? Hey, put out something on Facebook, I’m looking who’s got a property coming on the market that’s off-market? Who are they going to bring it to, they’re going to bring it to the person they know and trust

Justin Stoddart
Or even when they just see your offer come in, right and there’s 15 other offers, yours is gonna get a special like a doubletake, right, it’s gonna get oh my gosh, I have

Unknown Speaker
I had an agent left guard. You know, he, first of all, he countered my offer. When he had 53 offers, I did not have the highest offer. He gave me the offer to counter it. Unfortunately, we couldn’t make the deal work. But he was crying on the phone. He was crying. He said I so badly wanted to be able to do a transaction with you. Because you do so much for the community. How about that? Yeah, it was like, you know, so it took a little bit of the sting off for me. Yeah. And I know that I’m going to do a transaction with that gentleman. Yeah. And you know, when I speak to other agents, and they’re involved in like with the listing that I’m involved with Tell them, you know, you’re all gonna have a fair chance. And they trust me. And they believe that they’re going to have that because they know my public persona.

Justin Stoddart
Really quick, I want to point out, kind of highlight something here, that again, I talked about in my book, which is the value proposition of real estate agents has to get better. There’s this adage, it’s been said forever, which is, if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get we’ve always gotten I disagree with that statement. Here’s why is that that would only be the case if all other variables stayed the same. The reality is, we’re in a very fast-moving, innovative market and marketplace. And you can’t do what you’ve always done, you actually have to do more, you have to be better. And one of the things that I teach agents is that you add your value proposition has to be stronger than just the status quo of I’m good at negotiating, you know, I’m good at follow up, I’m etc, right? All this stuff, you can fill the blanks that everybody says, And what if your value proposition where I have a very comprehensive business network, and from that, not only are we going to serve you in real estate at the highest level, but I’m gonna be attuned to other things that you may need to advance your own career, to take care of even personal challenges, you know, conflicts you’re going through, I have the network of people that can help you build wealth over time. That’s why you should choose me. And I think, as we start to restructure our value proposition to be completely out of the box, from what everyone else is saying, we start to really stand out people can’t, like, compare us, we’re not a commodity, because we’re so different. And what you’ve given us here is a system through which people can establish a really powerful network and Harry, tell us even what’s the best way for people to learn about your company you’re offering here, if they wanted to do it themselves,

Steven David Eliott- I mean, the best way to go as it is to get a rockstarconnect.com and request to speak with one of our success coaches, to see if you have what it takes to participate in the program. That’s the best place to go. But what you’re saying about, I mean, we could probably be best friends in real estate. It’s about the value proposition, what’s the best value proposition you can bring. And I bring my the proposition on my network and my event. So when I started out, I did my events, and I was knocking on people’s doors on business people’s doors, they say, I was Steve, I’m Stephen, David Elliot, I work with so brokerage, I am here to help your business. I you have great events, and I am an expert in marketing. And I want to be able to be there for you whenever you need me, here’s my phone number. Never once would bring up real estate. I was there as their associate. And that’s the way I do my real estate with my clients and customers as well. So my clients frequently will say the word your my fiduciary, frequently I have very wealthy clients that will say to me, will you be my financial advisor, I said maybe in another life, that’s not my job right now. But I will help you with everything in real estate. But that being said, I know some of the best financial advisors in the state in the country. And I would love to make those introductions if you would like,

Justin Stoddart
I love it, and what value that provides the people when they know that they’re that you are a one-stop-shop to get them the best talent in, you know, across industries, help them solve their biggest problems,

Steven David Elliott- You know, you help it’ll solve your own problems. Like right now I’m sitting here in a T-shirt, and I have a pandemic beard going on. Because I actually am going through the experience, every real estate agent should have I just purchased a home myself. And we just moved seven trucks into this house. And I’m just going through my network, everything that I need done all these people that have gone to my events, reaching out to them to immediately get help with electrical, plumbing, moving, not waiting, you know, people waiting four weeks, five weeks, six weeks now just one phone call and they’re over at my house. You can do that for your clients as well. I do the same thing for my clients. They’ll contact you know, vendor and say can be six weeks. I say I can get someone there today. That’s a big value proposition for your clients.

Justin Stoddart
Yeah, huge, huge. I had a friend of mine who called me asking me if I had any personal friends who are able to help her with a move. She said, I feel like I should call you because my mover was supposed to be here this morning. And he just canceled and like it’s another 15,000 to find another mover like when you have that kind of network across again, all industries. That’s the beauty we’re talking about here across all industries. It changes everything right? It changes your ability to add value that you can’t just put a price tag on you can’t put a commission reduction on you know, it’s fabulous stuff. Steven. I love what you’re doing my friend.

Steven David Elliott
You just feel fantastic doing it because right? Yeah, we definitely need to connect again. Thank you so much for having me on the program. And I’m gonna, where can I find Where can I buy a copy of your book?

Justin Stoddart
Yeah, you know, I’m gonna send it to you here and we’re done. Let me ask you one more. The question, Stephen. You’re a big thinker. Obviously, you’ve kind of blown the limits, expanded the possibilities of what it looks like to have an events company. What is Stephen do on a regular basis to continue to be a big thinker? This is our final question. We really interested to know what you do like how you see the world and how you continue to make it to where you see the world differently than the typical person?

Steven David Elliott
Well, I think that’s very helpful for me is, first of all, the people my network, they’re always bringing opportunities to me on a regular basis that makes me think, also reader, I mean, I read 1000s of articles per month, have that expand my view of the way other people think and understand what they’re doing. So it’s very important to keep on top of what the newest things are. Meet people that are different than yourself, as well. Don’t limit yourself to only people from your industry, or only people that can help you try to find people that you can help. I learned the most when I mentor and I’m so excited when I get to get on the phone with either a real estate agent or someone who’s trying to grow their career. Because I learn more by teaching than I’ll ever learn through experimentation.

Justin Stoddart
Good stuff, my friend. I’ve put a couple of links for those that are watching us that is even catching the replay after this Rockstar Connect comm is where you go to learn more about how Steven can help you be consistent with events, events, that’ll blow your mind, right. And then also, just because we’ve referenced my book a couple of times, I’ve put the link to the book as well, Justice center.com forward slash book, just a free plus shipping offer to get on your hands quickly. Steven, this has been a pleasure, thank you for sharing not only what you’re doing on the business side, but what you’re doing to always continue expanding, you know, reading, connecting, I love it. And there’s a whole bunch of great business wisdom. And there’s some great life wisdom in here that you’ve shared with us today about really how we live a great life, which is really just

Steven David Elliott
about life and the lifestyle, you do what you like and you help other people. you’re prepared pandemic I felt you had to give in order to get but really reflecting during the pandemic, what I found was just having the privilege to be able to give you receive immediately it’s an automatic return on investment, improves the quality of your life, to be able to have that balance to be able to give and also receive as well.

Justin Stoddart
Yeah, great stuff my friend, really, really glad we connected today. thankful to have you here on the show, helping us to think bigger, and to everybody listening today. My final request for all of us is to go think bigger. Thanks so much, Steven for helping us do that today, my friend. I want to thank you for tuning in to this episode of the thick bigger real estate show. If you found value here, I asked three things. Number one, give us a review. Number two, go to Facebook and in groups search, think bigger real estate and apply to join. Here you will find a community of big thinking professionals that will help you grow your income, your independence and your impact. And my third request is Go Think Bigger!