Business of Real Estate

In the business of real estate, what goes around comes around. And we don’t mean properties that we help selling coming back into the resale market after a few months! At Gupta & Sen Associates we instruct every one of our associate agents to be pleasant to at least 5 people every day. Because the power of positivity goes a long way in ensuring that you attract the right kind of clients towards you and increase your SOI (Sphere of Influence). We believe that not all potential home buyers are actively researching for homes online or wandering into the offices of real estate brokers or real estate developers. Some of them are at the local Starbucks coffee shop, or taking a stroll through the local park, are at the PTA meeting or working in your wife or husband’s office. Potential home buyers are everywhere you are. They are not in one particular club, industry or a city – they are in fact everywhere.

I like to operate under the assumption that very time that we leave our homes and encounter other human beings, every one of them could be having a real estate need or maybe knowing another person who does. And that could be the biggest deal of your life.  The size of the deal does not matter. Even if its your smallest deal ever it could potentially lead you on to your biggest deal ever!

The vast majority of people who we meet on a daily basis may be of absolutely no use to us in our real estate career either today or in the future whether we are pleasant to them or otherwise. But the problem is that we cannot select which one of our contacts will be useful to us and which ones will not. But the odds are heavily stacked in our favour when we are pleasant to a larger number of people because then it is more likely that we will meet someone who has a use for a real estate agent.

Finding Five People to be Pleasant to

Let’s look at some places where we can all be pleasant to others. Checking out at Godrej Nature’s Basket – my favourite department store, there are usually at least 4 people within 4 feet of you – the person behind you, the person in front of you, the checkout clerk etc. If the manager of the store is wandering past that’s one more person! You already have about 5 people to be pleasant to right there! The same can be applied if you are visiting your bank branch or at the coffee shop. If you want to network, do not hide yourself at the back hiding behind a book. Positioning yourself in the center of the action can lead to a lot of interesting opportunities for meeting people.

What Do you Say

One does not start pitching or making a sales pitch to someone you’ve just met. You would be crazy to do something like that. Apart from basic pleasantries one does not have to make long conversation with people you meet everyday. The concept I am making here is very simple – Be pleasant to everyone you meet.

Getting Contact Information

How does one get contact info of people that one meets daily? Well the fact of the matter is that you wont. Most people that you are pleasant to will never cross your path again. But the good news is that if you are pleasant to five or ten people on a daily basis, then you will be able to start up a conversation that could lead to a friendship or atleast an acquaintanceship. If you do the math then the statistic is staggering. If you are pleasant to over 3000 people every year and if only one out of ten people end up becoming a friend, then that’s 300 plus people who you have added to your contacts list! Even if your ratio is only 1 / 20 or 1 / 30 even then it is some serious contact-building!

But back to the original question – how to get the contact details of people you meet. Well you only ask for their contact details if it seems appropriate. And it only seems appropriate if there is a good rapport that develops and both parties trust each other and want to continue the friendship. I don’t think any person in the right frame of mind should go out every morning with the purpose intention of garnering as many names and mobile numbers as possible. That is a sure shot way to shoot yourself in the foot and come across as a neurotic person.

How Do you Mention Your Business

The moot question is how does one inform these people that you meet about the fact that you sell real estate. This is again something that you wont mention immediately. I myself do not make it my goal to mention my business. If I get talking to someone and if the conversation progresses long enough, I will surely reach the point where either of us mentions, “ So what do you do?”. That’s when it can naturally emerge. In my own networking opportunities I definitely do not mention that I am a real estate broker if the conversation is heading into a different direction altogether and I do not insist on fitting this into the conversation if its not appropriate.

Meeting new, interesting and successful people is not nearly as hard and complicated as everyone makes it out to be. One does not have to pay to join business networking clubs and arrive for networking breakfast meetings at shady hotels at 7 am! If all you want to do is meet with people and network, realise that “People are everywhere around you”! If you are pleasant to others, you will meet more people, increase your Sphere of Influence (SOI) and eventually get more business 🙂

Read my earlier related article on the Power of your Sphere of Influence here.

Save

Real Estate Agent at Gupta & Sen
Chloe is a real estate advisor with Gupta & Sen. With a combined experience of over 15 years in varied industries, she is a vocal and knowledgeable ally for buyers and investors who want to make informed choices when buying a property in India. With superlative communication and marketing skills, Chloe handles our PR, real estate marketing strategy and client management.
Chloe Dodd