You’ve seen the numbers. You’ve seen the results. You know that continually producing great content is one of the surest ways to attract investors, gain trust and build a relationship with them, and rapidly expand your current network. Doing these things is especially important in the world of real estate syndication, even more so in the crowdfunding era, when having access to a vast and reachable network can be the deciding factor between success and failure.
However, recognizing the importance of content is one thing. But simply committing yourself to being a creator will not be enough—what you’ll need, even still, is the actual content needed to put your name on the map. Unfortunately, this can often be extremely challenging. Many bold, big-picture sponsors will resolve to begin a robust content campaign, only to eventually discover they have no idea where to begin.
What is the first piece of content you hope to create? A blog post? A social media post? A full-length book?
The first piece of content that makes the most sense for you will depend on many different factors, including your ideal investor avatar and the kinds of projects you develop. In most cases, it would be absurd to expect that a single piece of content will be enough to put you over the top and help you achieve your goals. But over time, executing a steady and disciplined content campaign can be exceptionally effective.
What many people fail to realize is that, even if they are somewhat new digital marketing, they already have vast swaths of content within them.
Adam Gower discusses the three crucial components to writing a good blog or article with Hunter Thompson of Asym Capital:
Tiny seeds, big harvest
Choose a topic related to your value proposition, try your best to talk about this topic for twenty minutes as though you were explaining the concept to a prospective investor and record yourself either by audio using a platform like Nonotes, or using Zoom to record both video and audio. Depending on what you say and how fast you are able to say it, a twenty-minute video (which can be automatically transcribed) will often yield enough words and information for you to quickly produce a high quality article on the topic you discussed.
Once you are comfortable extracting written content from a twenty-minute recording, consider expanding your horizons and seeing if you can talk for a full hour. There might be a few pauses or gaps in the recording, and even a few moments where you feel you have nothing more to say, and that’s okay. The important thing about this process is that it helps you take the abstract “nuggets” of wisdom currently floating around in your head and begin converting them to a medium that is real, tangible, and accessible.
Ultimately, this simple—but crucial—process is how you begin turning your many tiny “seeds” into something that can be harvested. Over time, even a very narrow topic can be expanded into a perpetual content machine. There will always be more that you can say, tangential topics you can talk about, and ways to tie already existing content together. Making these connections and demonstrating your understanding of them will help you begin to cement your reputation as an industry expert.
On a platform with a seemingly limitless bounty of information—the internet—it can be incredibly easy to become overwhelmed. The sheer size of the digital world makes it all too tempting to want to conquer a niche space in a day, or even less, which will ultimately lead to unrealistic expectations and disappointment. Content creators, both in real estate syndication and elsewhere, will often use their limitless ambition as a justification for procrastination. But instead of procrastinating, what is really key is making a commitment to create and actually following through.
That’s it.
That really is what’s most important. You might sit down having no idea what you want to say or what you want to write about, but if you can force yourself to begin talking or generating outlines, some of your best work will immediately follow. Those that are truly able to succeed in online syndication don’t do so because they have been able to create a flawless manifesto that discusses everything in their field—just the opposite. The are able to succeed because they were able to have the discipline and wherewithal to talk about one thing expertly and then to add another, and another until they have a corpus of information that fully demonstrates their expertise and capabilities.
There is so much content already within you, more than most people will ever be able to appreciate. By taking direct action to transition this content from being abstract and intangible to something that can be shared and appreciated, you will be able to proudly call yourself a content creator, attract prospects and convert them into being active, repeat investors in your deals.
Adam Gower Ph.D., builds digital marketing systems for real estate professionals who want to find more investors so they can raise more money. He is known as the creator of the Investor Acquisition System, and combines a lifetime of experience in real estate investment and finance with best-of-class digital marketing tactics, techniques, and strategies to help crowdfund real estate syndications. Find out more in this new book, SYNDICATE or at GowerCrowd.com