How to Start a Real Estate Investor Meetup Group w/ Rob Chevez

March 8, 2022

In 2007 Rob Chevez began a local MeetUp focused on empowering real estate entrepreneurs to build wealth and create a legacy. Less than 10 people attended the first meeting. Now, what is known today as GRID, has grown to over 16K+ members in 8 states and over 18 locations. 

Millions in revenue have been generated from the training, tools, and connections created by the GRID network alone.

GRID is a global network of real estate entrepreneurs who believe collaboration empowers, shapes, builds and transforms you. Becoming a real estate investing pro is best done at the local level – with local knowledge, local contacts, and local resources to help you grow.

All and all, Rob shares a great passion for empowering real estate entrepreneurs to build wealth and create a legacy

What’s your motivation and how did you start?

“I started thinking about a way to go from a 1 to 1 communication to a 1 to many. As your starting to build a business you know you have to build a database. You do that by having a cup of coffee with somebody, or prospecting somebody, or talking to a lead … What would the world look like if I could actually create something of value that would attract 20 people, 30 people, 40 people, 100 people to me at one time where I then have the ability to pour into them on a topic that I love and we could just talk about it. So that’s where the idea came from. I wanted to build my database, I wanted to lead with value, and it started with 5 people and it just kinda grew from there… Before we knew it there were over 100 people in the room and we were all just talking about what we love to talk about which is building wealth and buying real estate investments and I would help facilitate those discussions.  ” [Rob Chevez 4:10 – 5:16]

How to Provide Value

“Before you decide to do something like this, I really believe you have to have some content/context, you need to be doing it, you need to be in the game already. My wife and I had been going to real estate investment association groups for 5 or 6 years prior to this … buying real estate along the way. I remember going to these groups and saying to myself ‘This could be done better, there’s no cohesion in this conversation. They’re giving you just enough information to be dangerous but not all the information.’… What if I just gave the information out for free so we could do more deals? What would an investor need to know first?” [Rob Chevez 6:48 – 7:49]

Rob started by examining his and his wife’s own experiences with real estate investing throughout the years and came away with several foundational topics that he felt would bring the most value to do a deep group dive on.

These topics would serve as the general structure for Rob’s MeetUps with one meeting a month at about 2-3 hours each. 

“You spend about an hour to an hour and a half on a topic and people get really into the topic … You get 30 minutes of intros because I wanted people in the room to learn who is in the room … after the topic, the most important part is people in the room networking with each other … Once the topic was over people would talk to the people they had an interest in talking to and I made sure that I was a power connector. That I was helping them build their database. ” [Rob Chevez 8:55 – 12:30]

“The way you provide value is: you help someone make money, you help somebody save money, … or you’re trading them information that makes them smarter … Go from being a transactional agent to being a transformational agent.  ” [Rob Chevez [21:33 – 23:39]

Provide a Platform

“What I learned is I pulled people into the conversation so it was never a monologue … I made sure that I made my members part of the experience and the discussion. Of course, everyone wants a platform, and this gave them a platform to show what they were doing. We celebrated successes in that process. ” [Rob Chevez 12:33 – 13:15]

Providing an environment to facilitate relationships is one of the greatest ways to provide value. This mindset in creating your own mastermind groups will result in meet-up events that go beyond the standard networking event. 

Reach

Promote your meet-up across all your regular channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, etc.), email lists, and even linked in your email signature.

Rob also live-streams his meetups and provides a playback on his youtube channel. This is another great way to expand your digital footprint. Feature video content of meetups and any highlights from your Meetups in your workflows.