The Gifts That Keep On Giving

How did we do it? As I look at my peers in the residential real estate industry, I remain impressed by how many of us have made high six and seven figure incomes while still being home almost every night for dinner, reading our kids bedtime stories, and participating in the lives of our communities. What I realize is that we succeeded precisely BECAUSE we did those things. In the world of luxury sales, the greater your involvement with the world around you, the greater your likelihood of creating the lasting relationships which will sustain your business. There’s only one caveat: it has to be real.

A few years ago one of our Warburg agents came to me to discuss how to revive her business. I asked her if she served on any Boards, to which she replied in the negative. She was affluent, with grown children and a wide circle of friends. I was, frankly, astonished. When I suggested to her that she should remedy that, more for her own sake than for the sake of her business, she asked what organizations I thought she should become engaged with. But how could I know?

I have been involved with not-for-profit organizations since I was in my early thirties. At the time I began, I had no thought of how it would enhance my business. I had started my adult life as a musician, and joining music Boards seemed a terrific way to keep that passion active in my life. And as our kids started school, my wife and I both became involved there as well, she going on to become the Board chair of the school they attended. We ate dinner as a family every night, even when I had late afternoon showings, but we were committed to many other activities. And I took every referral, no matter how small, and not only made the deal but often befriended the clients. Little by little, a strategy, at first only intuited, became clear to me. My passions – for music, for floor plans, for friendship – WERE my business plan.

Most of the successful agents I know have pursued the issues they most care about through Board and community engagement organizations and clubs, through dinners and lunches and social activities. One of my top agents for many years made all his connections on the golf course. Another gave a lunch every year for all the people with whom she had transacted business, many of whom were alumnae of the school she had attended as a young woman. Another literally owned transactions at the school which her three kids attended and at which she had held various Parents’ Association and Board positions. And it’s not that they were constantly proselytizing! Their obvious love for and competence in the work they did for the organizations made their constituents comfortable about the competence they would display in the life-changing business of helping to buy or sell a home.

I believe the above observations, so true in our business, to hold equally for other luxury sales endeavors. Over the years opera and music were strong sources of business for me, although I involved myself with music organizations completely out of love for their work. Friendships created in the playground, or at the school recital, or in business bore sometimes unexpected fruit, although the friendships were a critical part of my personal life and not created with business in mind. Still, when I did a good job for one person, they recommended me to another. When a client became a friend, I stayed in touch. Not because I sought repeat business, but because I valued the person and the relationship and I had learned that the different aspects of life shade into one another. In spite of all the new technology, the core of our business remains who you know and how you are perceived. For us as trusted providers in a luxury arena, commitment and engagement are the gifts which keep on giving, in work and, more importantly, in life.