In any industry, your reputation is important. Now, take one as competitive as Australian real estate and it becomes absolutely essential to building and maintaining a successful client base and having an impact on your market.
However, a handful of slip-ups can taint people’s impressions of you, and once you’ve built a negative reputation, it can be hard to change. So, what can you do to develop a reputation that’ll make clients want to work with you? Read on to find out more.
1) Keep Your Promises
First and foremost, there’s nothing wrong with saying “I don’t know, but let me find out” to a client. The second you say that you’re going to do something or that you’ve already got something done, though, you have to deliver on it. After you backtrack on a promise you’ve made, you’re going to lose client confidence.
In real estate, it’s much better to under-promise and over-deliver than bite off more than you can chew and leave your clients disappointed.
2) Return Calls
The single biggest annoyance most of your clients are going to find is agents who don’t stay in touch. If you leave them days waiting to get a call back, they’re going to start to think they’re not important to you.
In the technological world we live in, it’s easier than ever to stay in touch, so no matter how busy you are, you have no excuse not to drop your client a quick response to say you’ll get back to them. In almost all cases, this form of communication, or even a quick return call, isn’t going to take more than a few minutes of your time.
This goes for bad news, too. If you’ve found out that an offer got rejected on a property, or a buyer has pulled out, it’s not going to be easy news to deliver, but you should make a point of telling your client as soon as possible.
3) Be Ethical in What You do
There are several grey areas in real estate that aren’t right or wrong, but once you’ve crossed them, it can be difficult to turn back. If your clients or other professionals in the industry start to think you’re untrustworthy or overly ruthless, they could well be reluctant to do business with you in future.
The relationships you forge in real estate are largely going to be about trust and you need people to believe that you’re going to do what you say you’re going to do. If there’s even the slightest question raised about your ethics, your reputation is going to take a hit.
4) Think About the Bigger Picture
There are more people involved in real estate deals than just the buyer, the seller and you. The majority of deals involve attorneys, mortgage brokers, appraisers and inspectors, too. So, if you’re the individual in that chain that’s causing problems, everyone is going to know. Although it’s your right to try and make as much money as possible on each deal, you should know that it’s sometimes wiser to look at the bigger picture.
In fact, small sacrifices go a long way. If you’re willing to go a bit further to make someone else’s life easier, that’s going to be remembered and the more often you do it, the more often people are going to speak well of you and more often than not, that’ll pay off down the line.