Connection Tree Networking Event

So tonight I was invited by my good friend and real estate attorney, Chris Goodson, to a local networking event in Wall, New Jersey. Though, it’s not very local to me because I live up in Somerset, New Jersey but nonetheless it’s a good opportunity for me to meet a couple of people that have similar interests as mine and I thought that it would be great opportunity to have dinner with Chris Goodson whom I haven’t gone out with for a while.

So I only got the heads up about the event a few hours before it began and as you can imagine, I was in quite in a hurry to leave the house! Thanks to the help of my beautiful wife I found an outfit and got dressed and headed right on over!

After dealing with a few traffic delays (thank you Garden State Parkway), I ended up about 5 minutes late to the event, well maybe only 3 minutes. When I walked in to the event, I quickly realized that it had a lot of older business owners in attendance. Most of them are dressed up in suits and I actually felt a little uncomfortable at first, but I decided to put a smile on my face and have a positive attitude about it and so I went into the room where the event was being held and just started meeting and greeting every single person that caught my eye. I put out my hand and shook the hand of anyone that met eyes with me. And I said “Hi my name is Joe Lawrence”. With a good smile on my face I found out what they did for a living and what they were at the event for. I told them what I did for a living and what my purpose was and why I was there as well.

Finally, the event got started and all of us got an opportunity to introduce ourselves. We each got a 30 second introduction.  That room was full of at least 35-40 people. So as you can imagine, it took sometime to finally get to my turn (especially because you know most people take longer than 30 seconds). Fortunately it didn’t go too long though.

It was about to be my turn and I actually got nervous as it was coming to be my turn. It was nice to feel nervous again because, naturally as a public speaker, I don’t usually get nervous before I’m about to speak. So now it’s my turn. I made a little joke about how I’m the owner of the restaurant where the event is being held and I shared with everyone that I’m a pre-foreclosure investor in Somerset, NJ and my passion was teaching business credit workshops.

After that, about 3 or 4 people came to me and I talked them about my real estate business and about my business credit workshops. Meanwhile, Chris kept trying to pull me out so we can go eat dinner. I don’t blame him because I hadn’t eaten much that day myself. So I met with and greeted as many people as I possibly could, shook hands, exchanged business cards, and then we went and had dinner at the Shogun Legends Restaurant (where the event was being held). We ended up getting sushi and I even had some heavenly chicken! I had a great meal. We had a few Blue Moon beers too. The atmosphere was nice and it really was a relaxing, good dinner. We had some good conversation and caught up on things.

My advice to anyone who attends networking events is simply to have a positive attitude going into the event. Catch the eyes of all the people that are there and then smile and put your hand out and shake their hand. Introduce yourself and listen to what they’re saying and share what you’ve got to share.

My other advice would be: don’t get distracted when you go to a networking event. Meaning, you’re going to be meeting a lot of people and you might get excited about a lot of different opportunities. But at the end of the day, you need to stay focused on what your core business focus is and what’s making the majority of your revenue. You don’t want to walk out there with a 100 new projects to take on! So you want to stay focused! And if you feel that you’ve met someone that you’d like  to pursue a relationship with or do business with, then of course follow through (which 85% of people don’t). Simply by following through and following up you can turn those relationships into profitable relationships. Good luck!

My new plan

Hey guys,

I apologize that I have not been keeping up with this Blog. The blog that I have been working on and updating weekly is located at http://www.businesscreditworkshop.me . It’s my Blog where I teach Business Credit Tips / ways to obtain business credit.

This Blog is my personal blog though and I found a clever way to keep it up-to-date. Thanks to Jason Rodriguez (http://extremerealestatechallenge.com/).

Here’s the deal: I enjoy speaking, but I don’t exactly LOVE sitting down and typing, plus I type about 2-3 times slower than I talk (so do you – I bet!). Most people speak at 120 words per minute. Most people type at 40 words per minute. Point being, I can now talk into my blackberry phone and I press a transcribe button and within a short period, I receive the transcribed text back to me via email. I then edit the document and will post it here on this blog. Cool huh? The service I am using is called Idictate.

So, you will see and hear more from me from now on. If you find some posts that don’t have perfect verbiage, it’s because when you talk, it’s different than when you write. For example, you would never type the phrase “Umm…”, but people do use it when speaking, got it?

I plan on posting on this blog the way I would act at a social event. I’ll share some insight with you, tell you a little about what’s going on in my life and tell you about things that work for me in business. I appreciate you following!

Fake it ’till you make it

I just wanted to share some advice I gave to a recent student of mine…

In the begining years of business, specifically as a real estate investor, a lot of this game is faking it ’till you make it. You need to sound confident and act confident. Even if you are not confident, just ask yourself what WOULD you do if you WERE confident? Then simply do what you think a confident person would do. before you know it, you will be confident.

If you want to sound like a player, who is doing deals and has the “cookie”, then act that way and eventually you will believe it. Its not easy in the beginning, but then again, anything with an enormous payoff is never easy, its just worth it.

The reason I sound so confident, when I speak to prospects is because every day, I tell myself that I am a player, a winner, I am the man and that I have the cookie!

If you believe you have the best thing since sliced bread and you convey that to the other party, then they too will start to believe it.

“As a man thinketh, he doeth.”

Here’s the bottom line: the difference between winning and losing is the way you think. Yes, that’s it.

95% of your actions are subconscious. If you train your subconscious, to believe you are a winner, or that people love to hang out with you, or that you are financially independent, then eventually you will act this way…

You must expect to succeed, in order to succeed. If you are constantly thinking about failure or fearing failure, then failure becomes your focus. What you focus on grows, so focus on success and believe in yourself. If this is hard for you, then start telling your self daily that you are a great success and when a negative thought enters your head, immediately rebuke it and say something positive.

Think about it: all day you talk to yourself. So if you are always having negative thoughts and this is normal, then can’t you start to constantly have positive thoughts and this becomes normal?

Controlling the way you think and training your brain (which is a muscle), is one of the key components to my success and will be yours I guarantee it!

Recommended Book: The Secret

Hello world!

Hi there!

Welcome to my blog! This will be a great journey and I’m glad to see you made it. Let me share a little about myself…

I Enjoy Helping People Achieve their Dreams. I went from working for someone else, hating my job; to finding freedom. I had no idea there was such a BETTER life out there. Many people made differences in my life and I’d like to do the same for others.

My favorite thing to do: Travel the the Caribbean! The reason I work so hard is so that, one day soon; I will be able to do what I want, When I want, With Whoever I Want for As Long as I want! How ’bout you?

How do I Make Money? I help Business Owners and Real Estate Investors Obtain Large Lines of Unsecured Business Credit. I Also Run a Business where my Office Processes Short Sales. I started as a Real Estate Investor 3 years ago and went full time 1.5 years ago. My boss asked me to pick one path or the other. Looking back…I’m really glad he did. I had to choose between making a years worth of income in a year or making a years worth of income in a month. Guess which direction I picked?