The December 7, 2021 episode of the RealNex Webinar Series hosted by Demetrios Louziotis, President and COO of RealNex, featured Richard Wilson, CEO and Founder of Family Office Club. Richard focused his discussion on Co-GP Real Estate Deals & How to Work with Ultra-Wealthy Investors & Family Offices.
According to Richard, it’s all about relationships and trust that needs to be built and earned over time. To build confidence of the Ultra Wealthy a sponsor must become part of their community and demonstrate expertise and success in a particular niche. Once such trust is established, the payoff can be enormous. Not unlike other marketing communications strategies, accessing this lucrative segment requires building a lead funnel and establishing a strong personal brand. Creating authority starts with getting interviewed and published or writing an article, research report, white paper, survey results or even a book. These tools provide valuable content to give away as part of a lead generation, top of the funnel, strategy.
Once leads are generated it is important to have a video introduction as well as an executive summary and thorough pitch deck to step a prospect further along the investment decision making continuum. To actually close a sale, Richard stressed the importance of Leadership, Industry and Opportunity. Investors must like the deal and sector but most importantly they must trust the sponsor. They are willing to take a lower return, if they have greater confidence in you. His greatest bit of advice, “Have as high integrity in every part of your business as possible.” It takes time to demonstrate such integrity and show that you care about the client success more than closing a deal. Great value must be given before it is gained.
Once relationships are built, opportunities must be created, structured and presented with a 7-key strategies in mind:
- Maximize Alignment
- Handsome Rewards for Great Results
- Make the structure sweat for you
- Every deal can be more tax efficient
- Become a student of tax strategy
- Don’t follow the herd
- Constantly improve your offering
Yet, he stressed while structure is important execution is key. By way of example, he presented several case studies whereby sponsors where able to rapidly grow their investment portfolio by orders of magnitude after partnering with Ultra-Wealthy clients. By bolstering the size and strength of their GP position they were quickly able to access and execute upon a much broader array of opportunities. Access the video replay here learn more about this important topic.
