You'd be amazed where you'll learn things about how to be a better foreclosure investor. This article is about a real estate investing lesson I learned at, of all places, a hockey game.

I’m a huge Colorado Avalanche fan and I attend every single play-off game that the Avalanche play in Denver. In 2002, the Avalanche played the Minnesota Wild and were knocked out in the first round of play-off.

I went down to the Blue Sky Room in the Pepsi Center to have a beer at the end of the game and relax a bit. Over in the corner, sitting by the fireplace, I recognized the owner of the Avalanche, a guy by the name of Stan Kronke. Kronke built his empire through real estate. He starting off investing in houses and graduated to commercial projects, strip centers and other very large projects. Kronke had amassed a fortune and was involved in the ownership of the Denver Nuggets, the St Louis Rams, the Colorado Avalanche and owns the Pepsi Center.

Having no fear whatsoever in meeting people, I decided to walk up to Kronke and ask him about the real estate business.

I walked up to him and introduced myself. His response was, “I don’t know why our team lost--we’ll go get them next year.” And I told him that’s not why I was talking to him. I said I really wanted to talk to him about business. At that point, he really perked up, because nobody at the Pepsi Center ever talked to him about business. They always talked about his sports team.

So he asked me to sit down and we talked for about 15 minutes. I said, “Clearly you’ve been very successful Mr. Kronke.” And the nice guy that he is, he said, “Call me Stan.”

I asked him about his business, why he was so successful in real estate and what it takes to be successful in real estate.

He said absolutely the number one component of being successful in real estate is your network of people. He said: “Rarely do I market anything anymore. I have people who call me from all over the world with real estate deals because they know I have the means to fund their deals. I look at their deals, help them make money and at the same time help me make money.”

So here’s a guy who's made a fortune in real estate and owns sports teams and he says the most critical component to the real estate business is your network of people! To this day, the number one thing I focus on to help improve my foreclosure investing business is my network of people.