Z_Definitive_Guide_to_Running_a_Successful_REIA_Meeting_Reduced_size

RUNNING A SUCCESSFUL REIA MEETING
advertise your REIA group and increase the attendance of an event.
You can essentially ride the coat tails of your speaker's own
personal marketing. It's effective, and it works.
One of the things we have also done with groups is to agree to split
the cost of a direct mail campaign. Most speakers already have a
mail piece or post card designed and should agree to split the cost of
doing a direct mail campaign to get more attendees to the meeting.
You can mail to your list and the speaker’s list of those that are
close by. This is also a great way to increase attendance.
Profits For All
While education and gaining new members are important
considerations, money is (and should be) one of the biggest
concerns of many groups. Just like any other organization, a REIA
group needs to make enough money to support itself. Most groups
will do this in a number of ways, such as membership fees, selling
tickets to events, and offering a range of products for sale.
The most obvious financial benefit to booking a speaker is
attendance. A popular speaker, assuming he has a desirable topic
and effective marketing materials (more on that in a minute), will
fill seats and sell tickets. With the right speaker, a rather small group
can see a surprisingly large attendance list and will be able to make
a very nice profit by selling tickets to the event.
I remember a while back, there was a REIA that was just getting
their feet wet. Two gentlemen bought an existing REIA from
another owner who could never seem to get more than about 50
people to a meeting. These two new owners brought in a national
speaker that had quite an extensive marketing plan, and they worked
together to implement it over the course of about 30 days. When the
speaker came to the freshly owned REIA for their first meeting,
there were almost 300 people in the room. This was before I started
speaking, and I remember sitting there in awe, wondering how they
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