KGCI: Real Estate on Air - How to Host a Zero-Cost Hyper-Local Business Owner Networking Event

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

Summary:Host Tina Beliveau debriefs her first business-to-business networking event, which she hosted with zero out-of-pocket costs and minimal labor. By leveraging her 10,000-member local Facebook group and partnering with a title company for free event space, she attracted 40 registrations and met dozens of new local business owners. The episode outlines a scalable system for agents to build local "street cred," expand their digital Rolodex, and transition online relationships into high-trust, in-person connections.

Welcome to the high-performance agent podcast. I'm your host, Tina Beliveau, and I'm an expert in real estate marketing, social media, technology, and systems. I'm here to teach you how to build a sustainable and consistent business that supports your dream life. Through my repeat, referral, and relationship-driven systems, I've built a team that sold nearly 2,000 homes over my 20 years in the industry. In this podcast, I keep it real and share exactly what I do, and more importantly, how you can do it too. If you're ready to scale faster, work smarter, and generate more leads from your sphere, please check out High Performance Agent Academy, my 12-month course packed with plug-in-play systems, done for you marketing, and step-by-step strategies. You get my entire business in a box, plus coaching and personalized support for me every step of the way. Get all the details at Tinabellivode.com slash academy. Welcome back to the podcast. I am here today to debrief.

the first business to business owner networking event that I have ever hosted. And it was such a success and it just felt so like happy and good and easy, breezy. So whenever something comes together really organically on its own, I always pay attention because A, I'm always looking for ways to just decrease my mental, emotional and like actual labor to grow and maintain my business. And because I'm just someone who needs, like, kind of constant change in a way, even though so much of my business is systems-based. So I'm always excited when I have something new and different that feels like kind of a thread that I can keep chasing down. So basically, I'm going to tell you all about the event, and the whole point of this is to tell you how you can do it too, or maybe like

slightly modify it for an audience that would make sense for you. So I, anyone listening to this, you probably know my spiel. I have a locally focused Facebook group that has almost 10,000 people in it. And I have done a lot to nurture that group through strictly online means, which has been great. And that's honestly why I've never done an event like this. Like for about five years now, I've been milking this group for a lot of business. And it's been sort of my like single-minded mission of like, how can I create business and like not ever do anything in person? And I think, you know, I'm at a point where my kids are getting a little bit older. And it's just, I'm willing to take on more than like staying in my house.

So anyway, I've never really had an in-person event for the people who are in this group. And I don't even know why it hit me, but it just hit me at some point this summer that I should throw out. Like I think I was like, oh, I think I see a way that I could do this really easily. So basically made a decision to go for it, put it out there, and either, you know, if there was some immediate lift to, go with it. And if it was just sort of like crickets, I would either like quietly cancel or just have something really small and just kind of write it off as a lesson. But what happened was I basically threw together an event right. Like nothing about it was creative. I was actually like,

I'm a big fan of titling things so clearly that like you know what they are without having to be like, what's that? Because you know, like we only get people's attention for two seconds. So I literally decided just to name it Lutherville business owner networking event. And I made like a little event bright landing page where you could just like register for free. I mean, I guess in theory you could charge, but like I didn't want any barriers to people coming very much like sort of like a just a community building vibe. I happen to have a local title company that is in the geographic area where I'm hosting. And they're like my main business partner for title work.

And they have like a really nice event space. It's like a kitchen and then like just this big like area where you can have like training. or parties. So I've started to make use of it more and more. Reached out to them first. And of course, they were happy to provide their space for free because, you know, I'm basically bringing a bunch of business owners into their business. So I basically put the event right together and went to chat GPT and had it help me draft a post just to save myself a little brainwork, something that would be kind of cute and just get people's eye. And I put it up there. And I had like 30 signups within the first

24 hours. So that's when I was like, okay, great, this has legs. And what I did actually is one of the many, many reasons I love Facebook groups is you can schedule posts up to 60 days out. So I love working in batches when I'm able to, especially when it's really simple stuff that isn't like a huge project. So when I scheduled that initial post about the event, I went ahead and scheduled several reminders. There was like, I basically started marketing it four weeks out. Then I did like a three week, a two week, and then the week of, I was like, we have two more days. There's still room sign up. And I will say, we did get a trickle of additional signups from those follow-up posts, but the majority was kind of that initial burst. I did use that at everyone tag so that

people in the group were more likely to see that. I use that very sparingly. So first I just want to share why it was a win and why it would be worth your time putting it together. And I also want to tell you some of the things that I would do differently or better next time. And then and just kind of break down how you can go ahead and do this too. And as always, if you're thinking about doing this and you want to like run something by me or just kind of like bounce an idea off of me, feel free to just DM me in my Instagram account, which is at high performance agent. And I'm happy to chat chitty chat about anything, anytime, but especially events. I just love planning them and helping other people plan them. Okay. So big picture. There were a bunch of reasons

why I felt like the event was such a big win. Number one of the 40 people who signed up, I'd only met about five of them in person. And then there was a handful of people who I knew from the group or at least recognize their name. And then there were a bunch of people where I was like, I've never even noticed their name before. So I was like, okay, this is such a great opportunity to develop my brand and get in front of a bunch of new people. And then like level up the couple relationships that I do already have with some of the people in this group. The second reason why I felt like this was such a win is I love business to business conversations. In fact, that's why I'm talking with you on my podcast right now.

It's why I have an Instagram for agents. It's why I have a course for agents. It's why I have a real estate team, but I'm totally behind the scenes and spend a fair amount of my time building my agent facing business. I just love to talk business to other business owners. I guess it's what interests me more than houses per se. But also, I feel like, you know, we're just on that wavelength. Like it's just we can cut right to the chase.

People, you know, when they ask you what you do, they, you can just be a little bit more like straightforward of me being like, this is what I do. This is like a problem that I'm having right now. This is the kind of client that would be like a great referral for me. And by the way, like what's the scoop on that for you? Like I feel like it may be in a way it's almost more like transactional, but it's just like more real in a lot of ways.

And I feel like again, I can just, you can just kind of jump ahead to getting to know someone like really, really quickly. And there were a couple conversations that I had at the event, especially where I was like I just got right into it with some people after we did introductions. Like, we went around in a circle and everybody had like a minute to just sort of give an elevator pitch, if you will, and like a very like laid back way. And as they went around, I was like mentally making notes of like, there were several people where I was like,

she's really cool. Oh, I definitely want to get to know her. It was all women who I was interested in chatting with. And yeah, like I kind of like built this list in my mind through the introductions. So so yeah, like, and I think that's like the third win that connects to the fact that like I love the business to business space is I had a really nice time. Like it just, you know, throwing things like this together for me, this is actually child's play. I mean, that sounds egotistical, but like, I guess it's child's play. I throw lots of events. I'm not afraid to like put myself out there. I'm not afraid to put things together. But for a lot of people, like they would never in a million years do that. So at the event, a lot of people were like, wow, like, thank you so much for doing this.

Like, thank you for your time. Like, people were just grateful. And like, it felt nice. Like, it felt. it felt good to hear that. And like I feel like I definitely deposited some goodwill with like this whole group of people will where you know you just when you when you're the host like people get a taste of your style, your personality, your values. And it's just like a great way to like be out in front leading without necessarily like teaching or making it about you. And like when you create spaces for people to get value like that means something to them. And then you know that can eventually lead to other opportunities. But really the biggest win was that like I genuinely had a really nice time. Like sometimes I go to events or host my own events where I'm just like, okay, like I'm here to serve a function. But in this case, I was like, I felt very inspired and kind of just that that like gratification of like connecting. Like it just felt really good to connect and to connect with people that were like hyper local. There was just something kind of unique about that. Like a lot of people commented that they've been to, you know, many events, but none of them like this.

somebody mentioned like it was so nice we didn't have to pay like i you know did it done somebody else was like it's so cool that everyone here is so friendly so it was definitely kind of like a little magic thing where i feel like a lot came together at once the fourth reason it was a win and i wasn't actually seeking this is i have a pretty stellar roll-dex i have contractors for almost everything but you know you know how it is as agents like sometimes we need a backup or someone we've been using, like isn't doing a good job anymore. So I actually ended up meeting several people who I absolutely did need to add to my digital Rolodex. And it was actually really helpful because just meeting people in person, it's funny because it's like, I love building relationships online and through

social media. But in a way, it is a very slow burn. And I'm thinking about like the interactions I had with these people in person. And it was sort of like just, I felt like I had a sense of who they were. very quickly and really liked what several of them had to say. So there was like a roofer, a female roofer, which I was like, I love this, a woman running a roofing company, a house cleaner, and then an insurance agent. And like I have one insurance agent, but I really want to have like a secondary one. And there was just something, I just noticed that, that like I do so much in the online space that it was really interesting to just like meet someone in real life. And I, I almost think it's like we're living in this world now where like there's so much AI and there's so

much fakeness online and so much like posturing and things that are like, you know, staged and photographed from a certain angle and like all of that. It's almost like there's this big part of me that is like ready to go analog again. And I think this event was like very much a reminder of that and that like I need like a hearty dose of both in my life overall and in my business. So the other thing that was really cool about the event is we went to around in a circle and I basically gave like the template of the event was we started at 10. I think I put on the invite that it would last from 10 to 1130. So people got there at 10.

I waited till about like 10, 15, 10, 20 for enough people to be there where most of the people who were going to be there were there. And then like I quickly grabbed everyone's attention, which was actually a little awkward for me. I'm not like, I'm not like 100% comfortable with all of these things. But I sort of just like, I didn't know what to do. I just like clapped my hands. And then like everyone started looking at me.

And I was like, okay, like, we're going to do this. So I introduced myself and then said, and we kind of were already naturally in a circle. And I just said, we're going to go around. I just want everyone in the room to have a chance to say your name, tell us what your business is, tell us what your business does. And if there's anything you need today, if you're having a problem, if you're hiring and you're looking for talent, if you are looking to meet a certain kind of person, if you just want to articulate what your ideal customer is, like just take a second to like put

your need out there. We're going to go all the way around. Everybody gets a turn. And then at the end, and then we're just going to mingle afterwards. And, you know, if you see or hear from people in the circle, you want to connect with, like, follow up with them after. And then, and that's it. And then I just jokingly was like, and for anyone who hates public speaking, like, I'm sorry, but you can just at least tell us your name in your company. And I feel like everyone was just like, took a, took a breath and was like, okay. So the one of the spots where I didn't do as well is I was actually, like, way overly humble when I introduced myself. So one of my main intentions with the event was to be like to really sell myself. And you know, there were things I could have said like it's funny.

There's sort of this local element of like the fact that like I live in the area. I grew up in the area, even referencing like the high school and college that I went to. Like I basically didn't mention any of my local street cred. I did talk about the Facebook group and how large it had grown. and that was cool because I think, you know, everyone there was like part is part of that group. So like telling the story of the group, I just kind of explained how it like started with like 200 people and is like blown up and how grateful I was. And I think that that was cool. But I didn't talk about my local credibility.

I didn't, you know, some of my like biggest, like I do think it's really important to use numbers and to help people understand who they're talking to. So like the fact that I have and my team have sold 2,000 homes, the fact that I have been doing this for 20 years, the fact that, you know, X, Y and Z, like those things just need to be said. Like if I don't say it, no one is going to know. And it's not the end of the world. But the point is, I definitely, I don't want to say bungled my intro, but I was way too humble.

And even as like we went to the first person, I thought to myself, oh, but here's what happened. My friend who wins the title company that hosted us and my lender were both there. And when they got to their turn in the circle after they introduced themselves, both of them were like, by the way, like, they basically upsold me. and they were like, Tina's the best agent in Timonium. Like, she is so great. She's this. She's that. So it was actually better.

Like other people said it for me. So everything took care of itself. But one of my notes to self was that I could definitely work on my elevator pitch in person. So having your people there to speak highly of you, you know, having like your key business partners, like your vendor partners, I definitely recommend that. And it doesn't hurt if they're, you know, poised people who can, you know, speak highly of you and also just be articulate for themselves. So those were, there were a lot of wins for the event. The last one is I just want to say it was extremely low lift. It is the most successful thing I have done this year with the least amount of work.

Very little time, very little energy, no cost, didn't pay for the venue. I asked lender entitled to just figure out coffee and breakfast. I didn't even want to have to figure it out, let alone pay for it. Maybe it's not even the money. It's just like one less thing. I didn't want to have to spend 30 extra minutes that morning, running to the grocery store and picking stuff up. So it's just great.

They took care of everything, scheduling the posts, et cetera. So I definitely feel like I can do this on a quarterly basis. And I'll do it until either it doesn't make sense to keep doing. Or I will say I actually did start another networking group a couple years ago. Different constituency was like female business owners in Baltimore. And something happened where I just, after a couple years, like I just wasn't, I just didn't feel compelled to be part of it anymore. sounds so terrible, but just like, I don't know, it just felt like it didn't align exactly with

what I needed. And I ended up finding someone to take it over and they're like still running it and like doing all of that. So I feel like sometimes starting groups like you just don't know where it's going to go. And I just try to follow the energy for as long as it's there. So what I'm going to do next to capitalize on the success of the event is number one, because I manage registration and had people register, I now have their name and email address. So I'm putting them in my database. They will get two email newsletters for me moving forward. I have like an everyone newsletter I send out on the first of the month that is like generally like Baltimore centric. That goes to my whole sphere and like really anyone that's in my database for any reason. And then in the middle of the month,

I have a hyperlocal email that goes out just to my local group members that I have their email address. So they're now going to get those two emails. I did not collect home addresses so I can't put them in home bot, which is fine. So that's the first thing. I also already sent an email to the group and just like blind copied everybody because I also wanted to prevent replying all. I was just part of a terrible reply all email thread. That was so crazy. So I basically followed up and thanked everyone and made sure they had my contact info in like a very low key way, let them know how much I enjoyed it, that I was going to do it again. And also said if anyone is interested in helping me organize another of these in the future, just like step up and let me know.

And I got a couple of responses. The third thing that I did is I went ahead and Facebook friended and or Instagram followed everybody that I really liked. And a couple of them I like DMed to like start a conversation instead of just emailing. So that is done. And I'm now connected with like, you know, there were like seven people where I was like, ooh, I really want to follow up with these particular people. And then my final step is to plan my next one for three or so months from now.

I might even just make it in January to like get, I'm not a fan of hosting anything in December unless I have a really good reason. So I just decided that right now. Thanks for listening to me, verbal process. What I want to do specifically is turn this into a system, just like document it a little bit so my VA can just do everything next time. All I'm going to do is set the date and location and then she can literally just duplicate everything and then I don't even have to kind of like personally create anything and

then just let it rip. So that's my plan and I'm going to put it on my calendar to, have these quarterly or just make sure I plan the next one at the end of each one. So that's my plan to make the most of these new connections and new relationships. And I, you know, I feel like even just like a couple good relationships that end up generating some business for me could be more than enough to have this be worth it. And I feel like part of it too is just brand building and like being the go-to person. And I think I have just like I have a great opportunity to make use of this Facebook

group and bring it more real life. So a couple things I would do better next time because I actually made a decision to like not really plan or think about anything, which was good for my, my mental load because I am also doing a lot of other stuff this fall. If you've listened to my recent podcast episode, you know exactly what I'm talking about. So couple misses. Number one, I recommend that you bring name tags in a Sharpie. Luckily my venue had that, but it was just, you know, it's really hard when you don't know who you were talking to or if you're supposed to recognize them and you don't. Number two, the food was barely touched. So if you try and do an event like this and you really want to keep it simple, you could skip food and do coffee only or nothing at all,

or just like a really small spread. We had about, I don't know, 25 or 30 people of the 40 who actually showed up. And it was, again, like barely touched. The second thing, like I said, I wish I'd been a little more precise with my elevator pitch. I even, like I'm a big fan of writing down like two or three bullet points of what I want to say. I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with having your phone open and glancing at it and like making sure you say what you want to say. So that's definitely something I want to do next time. And the third thing is I didn't bring business cards, which is definitely a me thing. I'm very bad about this. I have like a couple different purses and I never seem to have my business cards in them. That said, I like to use that

as an opportunity to get someone else's contact information anyway and then email them and social media follow up with them and, you know, connect with them. And then, you know, when I feel like if someone emails me, it's so much more usable than like a business card. Like every business card I'm handed is a project. Like it's a small thing that I need to then do something with. Like I don't, I don't have an app for it or whatever. Maybe I should, you know, message me. If there's something obvious, I'm missing. But it would have been nice to at least hand my cards out, but also make sure I get everyone's info. But that's it. Like, that's really all I'd change. at the event, after everyone introduced themselves, I was like, would we want to do this again?

And everybody was like, yes, like this is so great. So that's the debrief. Just wanted to leave you with like a couple tips of if you want to do something like this. First of all, you may not already have a big Facebook group like mine with this immediate audience to tap into. I think there's so many ways you could do this. I actually think it would be such a good idea if I did this for my actual database of past clients who already have supported me. Like I could be doing a lot more to support them, quite frankly, like it can be a little bit out of sight, out of mind. So I think this could be something that you put together and

invite your sphere through an email, through a postcard. If you, you know, do mailings to your sphere, Facebook post just to your general friends list and kind of let whoever comes come. Or, you know, handpick and invite people. Or maybe if you're a part of, you know, you know, know, some kind of local Facebook group or where it would be fine to organize an event, even if it's not your own group, just like ask the admin for permission or if you know it's a group where people don't even care, you could just plan it yourself. So those are just some ideas of like how you could do something like this. And then beyond that, I just suggest finding a free local space to host the event.

Maybe your lender or title company has a space or maybe there's like a restaurant that like a coffee shop or something where they're just happy to, you know, let everyone be in the space in return for knowing that people are going to buy food. I will say I definitely prefer to have events like this, not in a public space where there's like background noise and like struggle hearing each other. I think like that's really important. If you're going to do something where you like circle up and have introductions or have everyone talking, if you're just mingling only and decide to like have that be your approach,

then I think it doesn't really matter at all. As far as timing, I suggest picking a day in time that's about a month out. Like that's my personal sweet spot. I need a little bit of urgency to get my projects rolling. And I think a month notice is plenty of time, you know, plenty of advance notice to get it on people's calendars. So if you're like, yeah, you know what, I'm listening to this and I want to do this in, you know, the middle of, you know, early November and like, let me just find a venue.

So it's like figure out your venue, then figure out a date and time. And then all you have to do is like make a simple landing page. I like event bright because it's free. People can sign up really easily. it's like a good mobile optimized website and it does automatically remind people about the event so if you like you can customize the reminders but if you completely forget all about it it'll do it all for you so if you want to see my event landing page and want to like copy it just message me on my instagram which is at high performance agent and i'm happy to like send you the link so you can just kind

of see what my landing page look like and just you know rip it off and duplicate and then definitely recommend sharing the link somewhere that is easy for people to click on, aka not like an Instagram post caption, but a Facebook post, an Instagram story, a Facebook story, an email to, you know, your database or a segment of your database, any like niche Facebook group. I mean, you could even do it on Reddit, you could do it on LinkedIn. Anywhere where people gather, where you kind of have a sense that it's the right target audience is the way I would go. And groups are amazing, again, because you can schedule out your reminders. So if there's a group where you are an admin, that is obviously like a bonus and a good reason to reconsider building a local Facebook group,

especially if you love doing in-person stuff and almost want to use the group, the Facebook group as sort of like an in-between to kind of build that. That's what I did with the other network, like the women's networking group that I started. And it's like a nice, cozy group and it's like very much connected to the events. So that's it. I recommend you just try this if it resonates of course try it see who comes take notes for next time and whether you have three people come or 30 people come or honestly way more i think investing time in relationships is always worthwhile i learned something important every time and you know for me i learned that like i need more in person interaction than i've been getting and i definitely need to work on my elevator pitch

i definitely need to put my business cards in my purse so somebody follow up with me and make sure that i did and i think the biggest thing is you know my group has a lot of untapped potential and it felt really good to tap into that and meet people and, you know, kind of be pleasantly surprised by how nice of a time I had if that sounds so crazy. And I'm going to really think about, you know, potentially doing something like this with my own database as well. So that's it from me on this topic. As always, I'm happy to answer your questions, point you in the right direction. And if there's anything you ever want to hear me speak on in an episode, feel free to shoot me a message and happy to record on anything that is in my wheelhouse. Until next time, have a good one.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of the High Performance Agent Podcast. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next one. I check the show notes for links to all of my resources, including my course, High Performance Agent Academy. And please come say hi on Instagram. You can find me at Tina Bellevaux. Talk to you soon.