How To Convert Investors When Raising Capital in 2026

Now in regards to capital raising, I wanna dive in and actually talk about this. On the screen, if you kinda see the Funnel Launch Formula, this dives into the 3 stages of raising capital. Hopefully you've seen that video that breaks this down, but I wanna talk about specifically right now, you know, when you get in the right room and you're trying to connect with people in the room and actually build rapport, this is something that I have used that has been very good when I go to networking events and try to meet people, and these are tactics and tips that I think will greatly benefit your life when you go out and try to network. So, for example, I've been to multiple social gatherings and events or parties, whatever it is. And I have done— so I've done bad stuff and good stuff. So I'll give you kind of both. First off, sometimes I'll fly across the country. I get there, I got the plane ticket, I get to the event, and the introverted side of me just like takes over. And I like sit in the corner. I go talk to the 2 or 3 people I know. I go to the drink. I get a drink. I go to the bathroom. I go up to my room. I do anything. But go meet new people. I don't know if I'm the only one, but I've totally done that, and it's like I've wasted all this money to get here and talk to people, and then all of a sudden, like, ugh, I just kinda tense up. It's like, man, it's kinda awkward to talk to people. Like, I don't know who to talk to. Like, what do I do? And you go into your little shell, and I think it's, number one, it's good to understand that people are at the event because they want to meet other people. They actually want to know what you have. Second kind of problem I've done, bad thing, is I'll go to an event and I try to take. I'm a taker, I'm trying to just get things from people, get cards, whatever, and typically people sense that you're a taker instead of a giver and people generally don't like to do business or work with or remember people that are takers, okay? So those are bad things I've done. I'll give you example of like good things I've done, good actually tactics that I think you could apply right now. So number 1 tactic that I've used when I go to networking events and meet people, again, this is converting the room. Back to the iPad here. I got in the room, I worked my way or bought my way in, now I'm in the room like how do I actually connect with individuals? Something I'll do Is when people start to—they generally will talk about what they do or business or whatever—and I start to learn things about people, and I'll take mental notes about people. What I like to do if I just met you: Hey, we're talking me and Sarah. We're talking. Hey, Sarah, how's it going? Blah blah blah. I go, oh my gosh! You're in the same space. I just met a guy, Nathan. Nate, come over here. Nate, did you know that Sarah's in the same space? And I will like—I'll be a little bit loud, like Nate. Hey, Nate, come over here. Oh my gosh! I'll go grab Nate. Sarah, you got to meet Nate, and I'll bring. These are brand new people I just met. Hey, Nate, I just met you, but you got to meet Sarah because Sarah's in your same field. And I'll talk Sarah up to Nate. Oh my gosh. So did you know that Sarah does X, Y, and Z? Boom, boom, boom, boom. She's an incredible, you know, whatever. And Nate, Sarah, did you have— have you met Nate yet? Oh my gosh. Nate does X, Y, and Z. He's incredible. And what happens is I just talk up both these people to each other. And I naturally— like naturally, people love other people talking them up for them. Great, I just met Bridger but man, this guy's already talking me up, he's helping me meet someone new, he's already added a ton of value in this room as a connector and what I'll do is I will connect those 2 and chances are whenever I've done this, people remember, oh my gosh, Bridger, thank you so much, great to meet you, and all of a sudden I've just built a ton of rapport with these 2 people. And then I move on and I go find the next person. I start talking people up and I go, oh my gosh, you got to meet Sarah. Sarah, come on over here. Sarah, hold on. And Sarah's like, oh my gosh, Bridger. And now she's going to come over because Bridger talked her up the first time and made her status increase in the room. And then I'll talk Sarah up and I'll talk this new guy up, Joe, to Sarah. And they make a good connection, I move on. If you do that, it only takes 20 or 30 minutes. Half of the room All of a sudden has really strong rapport with you and you've been a connector in the room and connected like 10 people together. It's a massive advantage. The chances when I've done that at events, people like remember me and then people start doing it to me. Oh, Bridger, you got to come over here, come over here. And I'm like, oh great. I come over to it like a little circle and all of a sudden it takes everyone's walls down. It helps you build rapport and all of a sudden people want to do business with you because they've already shown that you're such a giver in event. That's a very tactical thing. That like has changed my life. Now, secondly, I'll dovetail this. Hopefully this is useful. The second thing we've done is if I go to an event with a partner and I learned this from a capital raiser, he'd raised hundreds of millions of dollars. He's like, this is what we did. We go to events. We do the exact same thing but for our business partners. So, I'll go with like Dan Young, my business partner right now in our fund. We'll go to an event, we'll start talking to people and then I will say, oh my gosh, you have got to meet my business partner. You guys would just— And I'm like, Dan, come on over here. Oh my gosh, did you know Dan? He's on the board of Intel for 16 years. Multiple Inc. 500 winner. This guy's amazing. You gotta meet like Chris. Chris, holy crap. Chris was just telling me about his whole project. Boom, boom, boom. All these cool things about Chris. I'd love for you guys to meet. And then they meet and it gives me a chance to move on and start working the rest of them. So then I move on, meet somebody else. Dan continues that conversation. Then I grab Dan. Dan, oh, come over here. And he— it gives him a chance to get out of that conversation because typically sometimes it's hard to get out of conversations. It gives him an opportunity to get out of the conversation. He comes to me. It gives me an opportunity to get out of that conversation. We move to the next person. Now, this sounds very tactical and maybe thought out. It's really not. It feels more natural when we do it. But what it does, it's the same process. It builds tons of rapport. It allows you and your business partner to meet the entire room and build rapport with the whole room. And whenever I've done this, when people get my card or my number or whatever, they call me up, they follow back. Like all of a sudden we have this ton of connection. Rather than they took my card and they just threw it in the trash because they didn't have any recognition of who I was or where I am. Last thing I'll do, kind of tactical, so 3 tactical things. Number 1 was like, you know, talk people up, talk up your business partner. The 3rd one I'll do is say someone's name back to them like 50 times, and that's just very tactical for me. I meet a lot of people, we go to events, I throw events, I meet a ton of people. I try to say their name. Once I learn their name, like, hey, what's up, Adam? Oh, Adam, how you doing? Oh, great, Adam, and I just keep saying their name so that I can remember their name. And meet that person and then oftentimes if I get their number, exchange contact, I will, hey, can I send you a text right now? I'll put their phone number and then we'll take a picture together. Like literally, hey, can we just take a picture so we just— you're going to meet 100 people tonight, just remember each other. Take a picture, a selfie. I'll send the selfie in a group text with me and that person so that we can remember the face that was with the name. It just helps. It's way easier than the— or even take a picture of the business card with our face. So that you remember the person, the business card because so many times I go to an event, you get 100 business cards and you're like where was that one, what was their name again? It's hard to track that person. So those are a few very tactical things that I've used back to this MEGA framework to connect with people in the room, build rapport and then ultimately like I said at the end, you get them on your list down here. If you saw this video, you build that list and you start sending deals to them, you start having contacts with them. My favorite thing is to send them deals. You can do other things but to start Building rapport with that person to warm them up to the idea of maybe one day coming over and hearing your pitch to potentially close in your fund. Massive way to build connection rapport in any room that you're in. Doesn't matter if you're raising capital or not. Huge way to do that.