Tag Archives: crepig

The Commercial Real Estate Professional Investor Group CREPIG is being offered for sale

Posted on December 3, 2015 by | 2 comments

crepig 3d plagueBidding Is Closed.

CREPIG, once one of the largest private CRE websites is offering it’s websites and social media clout to the commercial real estate industry.

NOTE: Information may have changed since you last looked at this page. Please go to the offer section and re-read if you have not done so in the last 8 hours. To go to offer click here

What is CREPIG

Hello, my name is JW Najarian and I am the founder and creator of On Purpose Magazine and the Commercial Real Estate Professional and Investor Group (CREPIG) site. It has been a wonderful run. We started CREPIG in October of 2008 officially. It was open a bit earlier to a smaller group of Commercial Real Estate (CRE) professionals.

The site was initially created to help an ailing industry. The economic crash in 2006/7 crippled the industry severely and CREPIG was formed to  try to get the industry back on it’s feet by providing information we believed necessary to help out many struggling CRE professionals, after the market crash.

CREPIG jw najarian interviewing with greenpearl speakersI did interviews with the top CRE execs and world class economists and heads of banks to try and figure out how to move ahead in a world where money went from being easy to becoming almost impossible to get.

CREPIG jw najarian with ryan slack greenpearlI talked with hard money lenders and so many others and at some point realized that the market would take more time than we first thought, to come back.

crepig stats 100403CREPIG grew quickly and became one of the top 10 CRE sites nationally, we competed with several sites and although we never reached numbers like Loopnet, we did do very well.

I published news and articles and did graphs based on MIT / Moody studies that showed that the trends ahead for commercial properties were not going to be as they were in the past. Since 1985 there was a steady growth in CRE of around 8% growth year over year, till the crash and all the new studies showed only a 3% growth rate for the next 15 to 20 years.chart TBI

cppiallpropertyallyearindex110521At that point I made CREPIG into a site where you could post your deals and these deals were shared with the 5000+ on this site, plus an additional 40,000 across CRE social media.

The social technology companies like Twitter and Linkedin have changed policies as to slow down and even stop the auto posting of the forum here to other forums.

IMG_0088I have paid hundreds a year to keep this open and free for you the CRE public, but I came down with stage IV cancer and have had to stop spending time I did not have on providing free services to an industry that barely uses them.

I did help co-author a cancer book Cancer: From Tears to Triumph and it went #1 Bestseller in the US, Canada and Australia in the first week of publication which allowed us to give over $25,000 to a children’s cancer fund.

Book Cover - Cancer: From Tears to Triumph

Click Here to Order From Amazon

It allowed me to tell my story and help cancer patients, family members, friends and caregivers see the gifts and positive side of the challenges and tragedies associated with this terrible disease.

My digital art, featured at www.ArtQuench.com Gallery, Magazine and Coffee Table Art Book Series and is being received well. So I am not down and out, but do need to stop paying for CREPIG and let it go to someone who has the capability to do something with the foundation I have laid over the years.

I have met and spent a lot of time with many of you and I have to say we had a great family of CRE pros at CREPIG and it’s other social media proponents. I have grown to know, work with and care for so many of you, but it is over for me now and I just want to thank all of you and wish you the best going forward.

I want to thank my incredible staff of volunteers for all their selfless work and support for CREPIG and me. So thank you Bob Schecter, Sossi Crilly, Beth Ann Grib and Bill Evans

If you have the right stuff and want to run this site. Call me at 818-353-9100 and listen to the message to find out how to make an offer. I will consider all offers. I will be shutting down the site in January one way or the other.

Many have asked what the current traffic is like. I do not consider this a selling point as no one has promoted the site for over 2 years, but the numbers are actually good for a site that I do very little work on.

The forum keeps chugging along and so we continue to get fair traffic relatively, but remember the offer is not for traffic. It is for the site and all the other social media Super Groups and the ability to use those platforms to grow your business or to use as a foundation to start a new business. Here are the current stats.

crepig traffic

Notice Unique visitors is rather large, which is good. Would like to have a smaller bounce rate, but everyone that visits seems to spend on average just under 3 minutes, looks at just under 3 pages and so without any moderation the site still gets over 15,000 pageviews. The right person could take this back to the previous numbers or more in no time.

Here is what I am offering

As the founder and creator of the CREPIG site www.CREPIG.com the Linkedin Groups and the Twitter Group associated with CREPIG I would like to offer the following.

What you get

  • CREPIG Site (as is) with a cost of $24.95 a month that the new owner will take over in January 2016. The site has 5600+ members with full contact info. NO SALE OF MEMBER LIST outside this deal.
  • Twitter CREPIG Accounts @CREPIGsite 43,600 and @RREPIG 35,700 Followers ~ Total 75,000+ Followers
  • Linkedin CREPIG Group 21,700+ RE Professional Investor Group with 2400+, RE Open Networker / Investor 2000+ Members for a Real Estate Total of 25,000+ Members.
  • CREPIG.com URL which you will pay for after transfer and CREPIG Site is on a Ning platform and costs $24.95 a month to maintain (not counting your or your IT departments time)
  • (NEW) Facebook CREPIG Page with over 800 members
  • So in Total of over 111,000+ Real Estate Followers and/or Members

If you are not sure if the lists of CRE Professionals and Investors is real or useful, just know that it reached you! That has to mean something. 🙂

What I am looking for:

I am looking to make the best deal possible.

I am putting the CREPIG site, social media and the brand up for bid. In a perfect world I would like to receive a dollar amount and a percentage of any profit going forward. That is not necessary, however. I will take just a dollar amount, but keep in mind, best deal wins.

Also know that whether or not I get a percentage of profits going forward, I will not be able to work with your staff at no cost. If I am needed for technical issues (transfer of URL and sites not included. I will help to make transfer as smooth as possible.) I will ask for an additional $80 per hour with a minimum of a one half hour per session.

Note that because of my health condition, I may not be able to help, but I do have a partner that can help with all realms technical including porting over to new platform etc., so you will never be left out in the cold if you or your team need technical help with the new sites and apps.

This is a FIRE SALE. The average cost of a single lead is very expensive out on the open market. Depending on whether you will be pursuing an inbound or outbound marketing strategy here is what you will pay, on average for a good lead according to Hubspot, the leader in Internet and Social Media Marketing Research.

What is CREPIG Worth?

Average Cost of a Lead

Using these numbers and taking CREPIG leads, depending on your promotional strategy, at their worst, these are the numbers I should be asking for.

111,000 / 2 = roughly 50,000 (figuring for dupes)
50,000 / 2 = 25,000 (figuring for worthless leads)
25,000 / 2 = roughly 12,000 leads (figuring for good leads that go no where)12,000 / 4 = 3,000 leads (just to make sure I am fair)
So let’s figure 1110 leads are solid sales (That is 1% of the leads offered)
1110 x Inbound Lead Amount (Most of the people I have spoken to will use Outbound Marketing techniques with my members and followers) of $135
This equals a lead cost of hundreds of thousands

Now to be ultra fair take the 5,000 members I have at CREPIG.com and say that only 50 of the names are useful leads. The math would look like this 50 x $135 = $6750.00 or 50 x $346.00 = $17,000

So worst case the site is worth close to $7,000. To the right person this site and it’s associated groups is a goldmine if used properly. I have checked these amounts with Internet marketers and car dealers and they are similar. Check out Driving Sales Forum, Hubspot, The Marketing Sherpa and many other forums and sales organizations.

If you Google Commercial Real Estate Leads you will find one company that charges $35.00 per lead. Then you find that the company has a Ripoff Report as they do not provide sales ready leads. Are there good leads under $135 each? I do not know, but I haven’t found any. Have fun.

How Do I Make An Offer?

I am starting the bidding right now. The bidding process will end on December 15th at midnight – Pacific Time. I am asking for 50% on sale and other 50% on delivery. All sites, social apps and Linkedin Groups will be transferred as is and the sale will be final.

Update: I will post the latest bids on December 13th so that everyone has a chance to counter offer. The post will be on this page only.

I will not part out the different platforms separately. The bid and sale will be for all that is listed above. No more or less.

 

Good Luck and may the best Deal win.
JW Najarian
CREPIG Founder

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The Commercial Real Estate Distressed Assets Association CREDAA Story 2009 to 2011

Posted on April 11, 2014 by | 1 comment

CREDAA Advisors

About The Commercial Real Estate Distressed Assets Association

History

CREDAA was founded in pre-launch in January of 2010 and was first developed starting on August 20th 2009.

CREDAA is the brainchild of Scott Miller and Warren Samek, both National Commercial Account Executives with Fidelity National Title in Seattle, WA and JW Najarian, formally a commercial lender with Pathfinder Commercial Mortgage and the Founder of The Commercial Real Estate Professional Investor Group out of Los Angeles.

After the real estate and stock markets fell in September of 2008 the founders envisioned a commercial real estate collapse coming as the CRE market tends to lag just around 2 years from the Continue reading →

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Larry McDonald on The Collapse and The Future of the Economy

Posted on October 13, 2011 by | Leave a comment

lawrence mcdonaldLarry McDonald Former Lehman VP and NY Times Bestselling Author on The Collapse and The Future of the Economy.

Lawrence G. McDonald Senior Director at Newedge and NY Times Bestselling Author of “A Colossal Failure of Common Sense – The

Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers; certainly the first and one of the most comprehensive and well written books on the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the economy as a whole, sat down with me to discuss his life, the book, the fall of Lehman and what he believes is going on with the economy both nationally and internationally.

Larry is known for successfully reading market trends both during the dot com meltdown of 2000 and was one of a group of people at Lehman’s that actively predicted the fall of the real estate markets in 2008 when everyone else was bullish.
I really enjoyed Larry’s book because it is a great story and Larry lays out the confusion of those tense days of crash in a way everyone can understand and

comprehend.
I want to thank Larry’s staff for their time and patience and Larry for the incredible amount of time he spent with me as his schedule is nuts!. – JW

Lawrence G. McDonald

foxpic2

Larry McDonald has written New York Times Best Seller “A Colossal Failure of Common Sense” about the collapse of Lehman Brothers, with Patrick Robinson, the #1 New York Times best selling author of Lone Survivor.

Global Lecture Tour

Larry is on the lecture tour, recently speaking at Universities, Banks, Investment Firms, Law Firms and Insurance companies.

His speaking engagements have been all over the United States, Europe and Asia. He has been a Keynote Speaker at over 20 venues since his book was published.

lawarence G. McDonald lehman a colossal failure of common sense

“A Colossal Failure of Common Sense – the Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers,” was published by Random House 7/21/09, and hit the New York Times bestseller list in its first week. It is now one of the bestselling business books in the world, translated into 12 different languages. Larry is President and Founder of LGM Group, LLC an asset mgmt firm, specializing in Washington, DC policy research and trading, based in New York City.

Larry has been a guest and or contributor on CNBC, MSNBC, the New York Times, Fortune, CNN, CCTV China, France 24, BBC World, BBC America, Barron’s, Channel 4 News London, Bloomberg TV, Fox TV, Fox Radio, CBS, PBS Frontline and NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, CBC News Canada, Business Week, The Economist, Die Zeit Germany, Tokyo TV, the Financial Times, Time Magazine, NPR, and the New York Post. Read More…..

Larry Mcdonald book a colossal failure of common sense lehman brothersThe Book

One of the biggest questions of the financial crisis has not been answered until now. What happened at Lehman Brothers and why was it allowed to fail, with aftershocks that rocked the global economy? In this news-making, often astonishing book, a former Lehman Brothers Vice President gives us the straight answers—right from the belly of the beast.

In A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, Larry McDonald, a Wall Street insider, reveals the culture and unspoken rules of the game like no book has ever done. The book is couched in the very human story of Larry McDonald’s Horatio Alger-like rise from a Massachusetts “gateway to nowhere” housing project to the New York headquarters of Lehman Brothers, home of one of the world’s toughest trading floors.

We get a close-up view of the participants in the Lehman collapse, especially those who saw it coming with a helpless, angry certainty. We meet the Brahmins at the top, whose reckless, pedal-to-the-floor addiction to growth finally demolished the nation’s oldest investment bank. The Wall Street we encounter here is a ruthless place, where brilliance, arrogance, ambition, greed, capacity for relentless toil, and other human traits combine in a potent mix that sometimes fuels prosperity but occasionally destroys it.

The full significance of the dissolution of Lehman Brothers remains to be measured. But this much is certain: it was a devastating blow to America’s—and the world’s—financial system. And it need not have happened. This is the story of why it did. Read More…..

Where you can find Larry:
Twitter @convertbond
Blog LawrenceGMcDonald.com

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Scams, Cons and Questionable Deals

Posted on September 1, 2009 by | 8 comments

The Commercial Real Estate Professional Investors Group www.CREPIG.com, has become a great place to get Internet eyeballs on your deals. It is inevitable that two things may occur on CREPIG and many other places on the web. One is that a person with great integrity is working as an agent for someone that does not. I have found that many scams are perpetrated via very intelligent, but not necessarily savvy deal makers.

Lending Scams:

You should never pay an advance fee to secure a loan. Legitimate loans, like loans obtained through Lending Club, do not require an up-front payment. Here are tips from the Federal Trade Commission on how to avoid lending scams:

• Don’t pay for the promise of a loan. It’s illegal for companies doing business by phone in the U.S. to promise you a loan and ask you to pay for it before they deliver. Requiring advance fees for loans also is illegal in Canada

• Ignore any ad — or hang up on any caller — that guarantees a loan in exchange for a fee in advance. These are called Front Money Scams.

• Remember that legitimate lenders never guarantee or say that you will receive a loan before you apply, or before they have checked out your credit status or contacted your references, especially if you have bad credit or no credit record

• Don’t give your credit card, bank account, or Social Security number on the telephone, by fax, or via the Internet unless you are familiar with the company and know why the information is necessary

• Don’t make a payment to an individual for a loan; no legitimate lending organization would make such a request

• Don’t wire money or send money orders for a loan through Western Union or similar companies. You have little recourse if there’s a problem with a wire transaction. Legitimate lenders don’t pressure you to wire funds

• If you are not absolutely sure who you are dealing with, get the company’s number in the phone book or from directory assistance, and call it to make sure you’re dealing with the company you think you are. Some scam artists have pretended to be the Better Business Bureau or another legitimate organization

• Check out questionable ads by calling Project Phonebusters in Canada toll-free at 1-888-495-8501. If you live in the U.S. and think you’ve been a victim of an advance-fee loan scam, report it to the FTC online at www.ftc.gov or by phone, toll-free, at 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357)

Bulk REO Scams

I have been involved in several of these. Most of the people involved are seasoned and legitimate professionals that seem to be taken in by large sums of money paid as commission. In your usual day to day deals you are used to working with people you may know as legitimate and if you do not know them at least there is a procedure where you will be able to check with who and what you are dealing with.

Many of the professionals I have worked with in the bulk REO market seem to throw caution to the wind in order to get these mostly fake deals done.

If you are not a Real Estate Lawyer and you solicit million and billion dollar BULK REO deals on the internet, and are asking for proof of FUNDS etc. you are probably in violation of the LAW!

Make sure you find out who you are dealing with and beware of the realm of secrecy and have to move tactics that are so prevalent in these deals.

Find out and corroborate any past deals that have been done.

There are legitimate brick and mortar companies that handle bulk REO and you should seek them out if you are an investor in these commodities.

BG’s, PPP, MTN, LC and SBLC’s

These deals seem to be scams also. Bank Guarantees almost definitely are scams. You can search out the Internet for more information and you can check out the FBI site http://www.fbi.gov/majcases/fraud/fraudschemes.htm

Gold, Oil, Diamonds and other commodities

More of the same. I have worked many oil deals and know the ins and outs. Again most are scams.

I am sure I will get emails back about this information from those of you that claim to have legitimate sources of money, property or investment platforms. I will not argue the validity or your deal with you or anyone else. What I will say is that if your stuff is legit, then it should be easy to prove. I say if you have nothing to hide than you hide nothing.

I know of an FBI sting going on to catch a group for stealing upfront money investments and the people that were duped were all successful, seasoned and intelligent. The problem is that we all seem to lose our heads when large amounts of money are involved. Also when your life is falling down all around you and someone tells you they can get you millions without great credit or collateral be very leery.

The important point here is not to believe anything you hear or read. If you get a call from a trusted friend who says they are working with someone direct to a bank that has bulk REO’s and needs a buyer; great. Go to the bank and substaintiate the claim.

If you need to get the information on any bank or financial institution, their asset managers and / or lost mitigation etc… Try Lane Guide. It has all the most recent information and I have used it to connect to banks directly. Use it… Call them… Confirm.

Please do not come back to me to check out your particular deal. I will not. It is up to you to do the due diligence.

JW Najarian

CREPIG
CREDAA

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CREPIG helps them who help themselves

Posted on June 5, 2009 by | Leave a comment

The Commercial Real Estate Professional Investors Group allows CRE investors and professionals the ability to promote their project, product, services, deals, funding options or requirements to other investors and professionals.  CREPIG is also a great place to find CRE resouces and network with others.

I get calls and emails all day long asking me to promote an event or deal and I would love to, but I only have so many hours in my day and the site was set up to allow you to do it on your own.  There is plenty of help and it is actually pretty easy if you take a minute to check it out.

CREPIG’s Promotion Forum provides a place to enter anything you need to enter.  You can upload files, insert pictures or videos and us HTML tags to make your stuff zing…  This section updates the CREPIG Twitter page with thousands of followers.  It also updates my Facebook page and over 5000 CRE investors and professionals over on LinkedIn.

So in the future don’t call me.  Take advantage of the ability to make yourself know to around 8000 investors and professionals by joining the site and posting your stuff.

JW Najarian
www.CREPIG.com

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Are There Too Many Social Networks?

Posted on February 2, 2009 by | 1 comment

group-success-with-borderI was following a discussion in chat area on the member site Networkers United Worldwide www.NUOpen.com I am an officer and advisor on that site, and found this question, which I have pasted below. I feel stronly about Social Networking and Social Business Structures, but we can talk more about that later.

 

“Anyone here find that Social Networking sites have become a dime a dozen? I have had a hard time determining which ones have the best programing and potential to do what all the other claim to do. Any feelings strong or otherwise about this one?”

Social Networking sites are tools. As with any tools you can use a butter knife as a screwdriver or a rock as a hammer, but if you need to pound lots of nails or are using a phillips head screw you may need a more specialized tool.

I belong to LinkedIn, Xing, Ecademy, Naymz, Plaxo and on and on…. Which one do I use the most? Which one am I willing to pay for? LinkedIn. Why? Well it suites me and what I am trying to accomplish.

I am also on Facebook and MySpace, but as a business man in the field of mainly commercial real estate, I don’t want to nudge you or send you beers and hugs.

feedthechildren-logoI do a lot of work in the humanitarian field. I work with www.FEED333.org as they help feed thousands of families in the U.S during the holiday season. I am the blessed and honored Los Angeles coordinator of Miracle on South Central and this last year we fed around 4000 families aroundsalvation-army-logo 40,000 meals in cooperation with the Salvation Army, Feed the Children, The NBA Players Association, Humanity Unites Brilliance (HUB) and others. I also started a e a group of over 1100 of us that feed, get water, education and micro loans to around 3000 families in Africa a month. These are very important to me and so I promote those on Facebook where I might just nudge you or send you a hug ♥.

In order to get a better web presence I believe you should join many of the free sites because when you get googled and you have a website you want people to go to, or a product project or service to promote, it will show up all over the place and that is how the Internet works for the most part.

I do also believe as the founder of 6 of my own networking sites and as an officer of this site, that as you become good at networking and are looking at using the site to increase your business or monetize it in some way, that you need to look at a niche audience.

An Example: A CPA may elect to join a CPA Association. This is cool for keeping up with the industry, but if he is looking for clients that group would be no help at all. He would have to join say a business site where business owners come to find resources. Would the large groups like Facebook work fine for growing your business? Yes, and as mentioned you need presence their, but remember you have to wade through so much to find the people you need. While on a niche site, most of the people there may be exactly who you are looking for. There is a difference.

This is interesting

If you take the number of total sites out there then you can say Holy Cow… this is madness. I get a count of networking sites on Yahoo at over 3 Trillion!!! Although you may be into Naturapathic Healing and love bowling as well as play in a band on the weekends, if you are looking for a way to promote and grow your commercial real estate business, then you can negate music sites, Natural Healing Sites, Bowling sites and so on. Now search on commercial real estate networking sites at first on Yahoo I got a count of 139M of those and as I broke down my search pattern by using quotes (If you do not use quotes on Yahoo or Google searches you are taking much more time than you need searching. Find out how to use them….) I get my count down to 4M. If I start refining my search I can get this number down much further until I have a number I can comfortably go review to see if it meets my needs. So you see you need to know what your goal is. If you define what you are trying to accomplish then the daunting number of sites is not so daunting.

Another thing I notice is that though I have started over 6 networking sites you can never tell when one will take off by fulfilling a need for someone. I have groups that are over 3500 members and some that have no more than two. What did I do different? Nothing. I promoted and built them the same way. People are looking and you never know what for. If you build it they might come if they feel a need or an interest. I have seen some sites that make me scratch my head only to see huge memberships…. Huh… I don’t get it and am not running to join those sites, but it will prove the point that there is always room for one more.

By the way if you are looking for a great commercial real estate site check out mine at www.crepig.com

<

p style=”line-height:14.25pt;”>Kindest Regards,
JW Najarian
www.jwnajarian.com

Also visit

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p style=”line-height:14.25pt;”>www.FEED333.org
www.CheckOutHUB.com
www.Giving4ALiving.net
www.repig.net

 

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Is Social Networking Becoming Specialized?

Posted on November 24, 2008 by | 2 comments

Social Networks are everywhere and it seems like everyone is at least on one or six of them.  Where are we going with this?

Almost everyone it seems belongs to a social network like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Jaiku, Plaxo, Roov, Friendfeed, Nexopia, Bebo, Hi5, Friendster, Orkut, Pownce, Xing or Eacademy and they are becoming more and more popular every day.  I get so many request to join different ones that as soon as I see the requests I delete them.  You only have so much time in the day to go check all your various networks.  I like LinkedIn because as a businessman I don’t get bothered with pokes and hearts.  I get to meet and search on other businessmen that I may be able to work with.

Most of the networks that I have seen have different cultures like MySpace and Facebook that seem to be designed for families and friends wheras, Xing, Ecademy and LinkedIn are more business aligned.

How many people are using social networks worldwide?  I have no clue, but it is in the hundreds of millions and shows no signs slowing in the near future.  Facebook just blew MySpace out of the water with 161 million unique visitors worldwide in September, compared to 117 million for MySpace in September. 

There are many reasons people are on social networks.  Sometimes it is just to connect with friends.  Sometimes it is to make new friends.  Sometimes it is to meet with known business contacts, sometimes it is to meet new business contacts and sometimes it is to try to build very large networks of people in order to stroke your ego or to build a large database to market to.  Whether you are or are not on a large network you still do not like to be spammed or marketed for the most part. 

Recently with the advent of websites like Ning, everyone can now create their own social network.  It is daunting at best.  This sounds almost nuts, but I believe that with the advent of Ning that the new wave may be the niche network.  You will still have to go to the big boys if you are collecting names to build large lists, but in order to really be effedtual and get to work with like minded people you may find yourself going to or guilding a smaller specialized network.

On the smaller networks you are more assured of networking with like minded individuals that will be open to your projects, products and services.  Small networks tend to have, support and make their sites work best for the type of group they support or market to.

In order to test this theory and to better support the members of a group I started on LinkedIn, I have started a new social network that is dedicated and supports investors and professionals that work in and support the Commercial Real Estate Industry.

All the News on the site is dedicated to Commercial Real Estate or Global Finance.  The Forums allow members to offer their projects or services and allows Investors to use these services or search for professionals they may need.  The Groups are geared toward the Investor or Professional and so you don’t have to wade through thousands of unrelated sites.

The Ning network allows you to build a social network for your group or cause and allows enought customization for you to get most of what you need to do done.  This is a FREE service so for the small cost of your time you can build a network of great value.

I don’t know where this will all go.  Maybe the large networks can tie together to give everyone the ability to search for what we need from everyone on the big sites.  That would be exciting or maybe we will be like doctors specializing more and more.  Since social networking is still in it’s infancy, it will be fun to watch.

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10 Reasons Why You Will Fail At Social Business Networking

Posted on November 21, 2008 by | 3 comments

Many of us have found that social networking can pay off very big.  Some of us run around signing up for everything without results.  Why do I think so many fail at taking advantage of this incredible opportunity? 

 

I have to define that I am a user of LinkedIn and have my own network at www.crepig.com, which is niched toward commercial real estate professionals and investors.  I am not talking about MySpace or other sites for making friends.  Thought I still believe that most of these reasons still could apply.

 

  1. You don’t upload your photo.  People like to see who you are.  Upload a professional or at least halfway decent picture of yourself.  Take the time to make sure it is not too dark or that you are too small to be recognized.  Also if you upload your business logo or a picture at least you have gone halfway, but you still get a better response from your own face…
  2. You don’t join any groups.  If you don’t like the groups offered start your own.  I have started several groups on LinkedIn and some have grown to Super Groups and others have done nothing.  Why?  I find that I never know what the public wants.  Put yourself out and find out.  Join a group that means something to you.  Woody Allen famously said that “80 percent of success is showing up.”
  3. You don’t participate in the group you belong to.  If 80% is showing up the other 20% is participation.  If you sit back and wait for people to come to you; you will wait a long time.
  4. You don’t place your promotion in a Forum or Blog.  If you don’t let people know what you offer what other reason might they have to connect or speak to you?
  5. You don’t fill out your profile completely.  If people are searching for your service and your profile doesn’t name your product, project or service than how will they find you?
  6. You don’t place your contact information in a non private area for people to see and be able to get ahold of you.  If you are afraid that you might get spammed then go to your email provider and make an alias address.  When I join a network I make an alias account.  eg. at LinkedIn I use linkedin@prigen.net.  This allows me to see where I am getting emails and spam from.  I can then change the email whenever I wish without my friends loosing my main address.  I can’t tell you how many times I read something I got excited about only to find that the writer did not leave any contact info… Argh! 
  7. You don’t allow emails from forums or mail to you to get to you.  If you join a site and then don’t allow the site to keep you abreast of what is up then how will you stay in the loop.  Sometimes you just want to get your name or business out there and don’t want to be bothered by updates.  OK, but at least allow the site to contact you.
  8. You never update your profile.  If you are not getting feedback or contacts from your current profile or Forum post you need to update it.  Every copy writer that is worth their salt knows that you need to change up constantly to find out what copy works best.  If you are getting a lot of play from your promotion then you don’t have to change till demand goes down, but feel free to play.
  9. You have something to say or promote and you don’t set up any teleseminars.  You can get a conference line from FREE Conference call for FREE.  Duh….  Get a number and promote your teleseminar or Webinar in the Events Section.
  10. If you are doing all the above and still not getting any play you might have to re-evaluate what you offer.  Successful businesses make money in direct respect to the value they offer.  What value are you offering.  If you offer no or little value then you will make no or little money.

 

In conclusion I would ask that if you want success you need to make your own Luck, get off your butt and do something.  Don’t wait for the phone to ring… Make it ring.  Get involved.  Get to know people.  Call people that you consider prospects and ask them what they need.  Don’t vomit all your information all over them and especially don’t be pushy.  What a big turn-off.  Listen, get to know another person and be of service.   

JW Najarian 11/21/08
www.jwnajarian.com
www.crepig.com 

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CREPIG

Posted on November 11, 2008 by | Leave a comment

C R E P I G
Commercial Real Estate Professional Investors Group

This stands for the Commercial Real Estate Professional Investors Group.  It was started on LinkedIn and has grown to over 2100 users since March.   Here is the link to Join:  www.linkedin.com/e/gis/79765

CREPIG was set up to allow commercial real estate professional investors, lendors, consultants, developers, financial institutions and others network together in order to give or find funding and expertise to close and complete deals.  CREPIG is interested in the funding of Socially Responsible, Concious and Green projects and is especially interested in the sustainabilty of social business entities.

My group was growing very fast and although LinkedIn was adding news and Discussions to the groups it wasn’t enough.  I needed to get everyone to a place where they could serve and get served.  A place where you could blog, have discussions, tie groups together, do more with your own page and much more.  I love LinkedIn, but it is adding very slowly and most of the professionals I speak to want to get going.

Using Ning

I started a Ning site for the group and it is also growing very fast.  It’s a pretty amazing site.

Come Join the PIG

The acronym of CREPIG has given me some grief, but I have decided to embrace it by calling the site The PIG.  Yes you too can join the PIG….  I have added RSS news, videos, pictures, forums and plenty of great groups.  If you are in finance, commercial real estate or any of a number of occupations and companies that deal with real estate and funding of projects big and small; you are allowed to promote your product, service or project in many different ways.

Come check out the new site at www.CREPIG.com.

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