Easy Ways You Can Turn First Realtor Meeting Into Success

Today's Business and Life tip is on relationship to Development Referral Partner Relationships with Real Estate Agents, Accountants, Financial Planners, Insurance Agents and the like...

Recently, was talking to one of our wonderful client by the name of Greg Kingsbury, who did a little over 350 loans last year and his master of developing relationships. The strategy that he's used is the one that I used to use. It took me a little while to figure it out about halfway through my career, I started to realize that I needed to go about this process greatly different than most originators, doing that I had been doing.

Most originators will walk into an appointment with a real estate agent as an example and their mind is fixated on the prize. The prize being, I hope that I get a deal from this person, I hope that I can start working with this person, and what I will tell you is to go into the appointment with that as your agenda is a huge trap. And, the reason is because you will start to compromise your boundaries and your selection process, and it truly is a selection process. I used to refer to it as interviewing them for the opportunity to work with me.

Now, back to Greg for a moment. Greg has 16 different real estate agents that are top producers that consistently send him business and they’re incredibly loyal advocates. Well, how did He create that?

He created it in the same way that I did which was to go about the process of speaking and engaging with a new perspective referral partner in a way that is relating to getting to know them and trying to figure out if they’re the right fit to work with you. Greg’s strategy, it has very, again very similar to mine in the day, was to only ask for about a 20-minute initial appointment.

Have you ever had a situation where you've worked really hard to cultivate your relationship with a referral partner and it happened quickly, and then you engaged in the relationship and it ended up being a really dysfunctional relationship? I mean, it's kind of like the equivalent of dating and moving that process along too fast than being in a relationship that's not a very harmonious one, right?

I really want you to pull back a little, and be a little bit more strategic, and a little bit more governing of your boundaries. Ask a lot more questions. I think that what you’ll find is that by asking them a lot of questions and getting to know them and not revealing all that much about you or feeling any need to sell yourself to them. What will happen is a bond will start to be developed with this person. They’ll start to get curious about you, they will enjoy the appointment more because they got to talk about themselves and somebody genuinely showed interest in them rather than selling them now.

Think about it for a minute...

When you’re being sold what’s the first thing that really happens energetically for you is your guard goes up, right? I mean, because you don’t want to be duped, you don’t want to be tricked into something you don’t want to have pressure applied or feel like you have to give somebody a Yes or No answer right away. That’s what we're trying to avoid.

What we want to do is the antithesis of that. We want to ask them questions, we want to be friendly and engaging, or want their guard to go down. So, they start to really reveal who they are so we can start to assess and analyze whether or not there’s a fit here and always remember in closing this, it’s a relationship and by definition relationships take time. There’s a getting to know you process to determine whether this is a mutually good fit.

It all makes sense, right?

I think that you probably agree, but a few of us really follow this path because we’re so fixated on the prize of wanting to get business from this person that we really compromise the process and make it a very unhealthy one in a lot of cases.

I hope that you find this business and life tip to be helpful for you. I wish you a wonderful week and we’ll talk to you next week.