Bridge Lending Group Attends the Family Office Capital Conference in NYC!
Investment managers from across the country came to New York on August 18, 2016 to attend an annual capital raising conference sponsored by Wilson Family Office Conferences.
Bridge Lending Group LLC was a Charter Member attendee for this year’s Summer Intensive Training Workshop – held by industry leaders in finance and investment – to learn more about the best practices and strategies for raising capital for a private real estate lending fund.
Richard Wilson and his panel of hand-selected speakers continue to unselfishly share their wisdom and experience in order to assist newer fund managers in building their investment funds. More specifically, they explored relevant capital raising strategies that are relationship focused while serving the needs of end investors.
For example, Richard began his talk with the importance of dedicating ample resources – both time and effort – on the front end of the business with a goal of building a wide investor funnel that attracts qualified investor prospects to invest in real estate and lending offerings. Some examples he shared were: publishing blog posts (like this one), writing articles that provide timely tips to investors in our industry, building real content on one’s website and hosting podcasts that add value (stay tuned for the new BLG LLC podcast series!).
A guest speaker from California has become an authority in his space by writing a best selling book (featured on Amazon) and is a regular host on an AM radio station in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The room was also captivated by the story of Glenn Hanson (Colony Hills Capital), who has raised over $500MM in real estate debt and equity from investors over the past 4 years. He shared with us how he has learned the value in “over delivering” what he promises to investors. He is an instrument rated Helicopter Pilot who is widely known for taking investors for a first-hand aerial view of proposed projects and involves himself in several local charities to gain exposure to high net worth families. He has served on many boards and is involved in several community activities in New England, which is where he does the majority of his business.
Though there were several other notable speakers that provided their insights on what continues to work for them in the present environment, Charles Eaton from CP Eaton Partners had everyone’s attention at the end of the day as he shared some of his successes as a pioneer in the Private Placement Agency business. He has lead his firm through several dozen successful capital raising ventures totaling over $70 billion over a 33 year span. Charles shared that it takes time to build a reputation. He often meets someone and it will be at least 18-24 months – spanning several meetings and interactions – before that person makes an investment or decides to do business with his firm.
The bottom line is that we all came away with many ideas to help our businesses grow. The underlying theme was that we need to endeavor to “have many fishing poles in the water” to find out which one works best for us, rather than counting on just one or two “laser focused” marketing strategies.
Glenn Geraci
Chief Executive Officer; Co-Founder & Fund Manager
Bridge Lending Group, LLC