There’s nothing but praise from most clients when a real estate agent goes above and beyond their usual responsibilities to help out or provide practical and smart advice to their clients.
It may be as simple as giving out tips or tidbits of home hacks that can make clients turn to you when it comes the time for them to ask questions or get information on anything about real estate, winning their trust, loyalty, and patronage.
Know how to tickle the senses
Studies have shown that most Australians consider the kitchen as one of the most important areas inside the home, and guess what, it includes the pantry.
So, why not leverage your organising and planning skills to wow your clients by giving them practical ideas on how to arrange the pantry.
Getting a client’s buy-in for this is easy because a clean and well-organised pantry becomes a treat when they can easily grab a bag of crisps or kitchen essentials without breaking a sweat.
Pantries can be anything from a hanging drawer or a walk-in compartment close to the kitchen.
Getting it clean
The first step to having a great pantry is to inspect what is inside the pantry, what you need to take out and what to dispose of.
Just like the fridge, take out what you don’t need and set-aside items that you need to retain. Start from the top layer and move your way down, then make sure to clean the ceilings, walls, and floor, then check for damages that may need fixing.
Make sure to have the spaces cleaned and disinfected. When possible, you can also repaint the pantry walls to match your colour preferences.
Make an inventory
Before putting everything back in after your clean-up, get a couple of boxes then start sorting out items that you need and set aside things that are no longer relevant.
Throw out food items or ingredients that have reached their expiration dates, then in another box, put in items that are still good but you do not need and consider donating them to charity or community centre.
Accessibility
There’s no denying the pantry may have hard-to-reach areas, especially walk-in closets with shelves close to the ceiling, making an inventory of your stocks or times will be very helpful in ensuring a “first-in-first-out” management of items, as well as an idea of which items are frequently used so you can arrange them in easy to reach places.
Plan for adjustments, if necessary, such as adding shelves if there are wide gaps between levels to add more compartments or installing a small portable ladder in areas that may be too high to reach. It would also help to designate areas for similar items to make them easily accessible.
Consider storage solutions
This is an effective way of sorting and grouping items together. Airtight storage containers provide amazing benefits, especially for spices, since it helps preserve aromatic spices longer and prevent oxidation that may cause them to expire or lose potency over time.
Square or rectangular bins can also be used when grouping items together to prevent things from getting scattered or misplaced.
Proper management
Whether it’s a sheet of paper on a clipboard or a more high-tech software platform accessible to your smartphone or tablet device, having it on hand is a great way to manage the movement of items from and into your pantry.
It will also help you focus on putting things back in their rightful place to avoid wasting time and reduce the stress of finding things.