The real estate industry is a relationship business…
The success of your real estate business is determined by the quality of your business relationships. Make one mistake of providing your clients or agents with unethical or a so-so service, and good luck getting back on track.
The key to unlocking real estate success is found in building and nurturing relationships – working hard to maintain your clients and your network, and by creating strong relationships that can last more than just a one-time sale or listing.
We’re in a Relationship Business
Let me give you a concrete example…
Real estate agents have pocket listings that go to their favorite clients. Pocket listings are great deals that the agent doesn’t want to give to just anyone. Clients become one of the ‘favorites’ by:
Having financing lined up- Avoiding ‘jailhouse lawyer syndrome’ (introducing all kinds of ridiculous requests)
- Paying full commissions to the Realtor
- Generally being someone who makes everything easier and more profitable
But time after time, preferred clients make the most money – because people bring them the best deals.
A lot of other clients may actually become upset because the agent doesn’t call them when a great deal comes along. When they complain like that, they are not on their way to becoming a preferred client.
Without a good relationship with the real estate agent, people miss out on great deals.
It’s critical to have solid relationships with various people in the real estate industry so they will let you know when something special is going on.
Life Lessons 101: Trust Is the Foundation
Just like every personal relationship, mutual trust is needed for your business relationships to work.
Don’t tell me that people you do business with or the people you employ are the ones you don’t trust… if that’s true, your business is heading down. Fast.
Usually, the people who work on your deals are the ones you’ve met over the years – you know, like and trust them.
For a real estate agent to bring you the best deals, he must like and trust you enough to do business with you.
Credibility is very important in this line of work. It goes hand in hand with taking care of the relationships you’ve formed.
In the real estate industry, it’s imperative that you have these relationships in order to thrive – and also you’ll know who to go to if you need something.
A good relationship also means you don’t abuse that trust…
Don’t let your appetite for profit grow to the point where you are ticking off everyone around you. Think of the Preferred Client…
Remember?
The one who makes things easy for everyone.
Constantly bugging your agent for new deals does not make things easy for her/him.
A New Investor?
If you’re a newbie investor and you don’t know anybody in the industry, you might not know where to meet new people and how to start building your network.
To start, you can:
- Join a local real estate club or the National Real Estate Investors Association. These are groups that meet regularly, allowing investors and other real estate professionals to learn and connect with other people.
- Be active on social media. Social media is one of the fastest and most efficient ways of connecting and communicating with other people. If used right, it can help you find and get in touch with fellow investors, agents and other real estate professionals. Besides the great community we have on REItips, there are lots of real estate investing groups on Facebook and LinkedIn.
- Attend conferences and industry events. These are a perfect way to not only network with other people but also learn about new market information and innovations.
- Create a professional website or blog. Even if you’re still a one-man team, it wouldn’t hurt to delve into the online world. Publish articles and blogs and advertise them on your social media.
You need to form relationships in different states and areas of the profession.
For example, get yourself a new attorney in each state since state laws differ from one to another. You can also have broker relationships in different regions, as well as contractors and the like.
You can usually get these referrals from property management companies, colleagues, fellow investors, Realtors, etc.
Immersing yourself in various networking strategies to build your network, helping other professionals with their real estate needs and being strategic in forming relationships will most definitely help your business. So get to it.
Action Items – Do It To It
- Always think long term. Work hard to provide stellar customer service, and in no time, you will have a great relationship for life.
- Fail forward. I’m not saying that you deliberately make mistakes, but in the event that you do – because we all make mistakes – make sure that you learn from them.
- Get a mentor. Success can’t be attained alone. To make the process easier and minimize the mistakes, get a mentor.
Share your BIG lessons with us!
Got any hard-learned lessons, falters, or good ‘ol fashioned mistakes to warn others about? Share below! We’ll take the best ones and write about them in a future post.
