Exaggeration? Hmm…
Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating a little. But I get up in the morning, head downstairs, grab a cup of coffee, and sit down in my office. I check email, and start to write. And my clients find me. I’ve been doing this for a couple of years now, and despite having built a comfortable online presence and a good client database, I’m treated as an exotic creature by my brokerage firm (and by most other agents in my area.)
Windshield, or Bug?
Someone I respect very much says that as the real estate business model continues to change at warp speed, you are either the windshield or the bug. I really don’t want to be the bug, but I don’t have to be driving the car –I just want to make sure I’m at least in the passenger seat! I wasn’t at the NAR conference in Orlando last week, but got to virtually ‘sit in’ on the panel discussions I wanted to see, courtesy of the Real Estate Zebra, Daniel Rothamel, and his live streaming videos. I could even chat with the other folks who were watching, and get their thoughts on the discussions taking place. Conferencing in pjs; priceless!
Now, I understand that I can’t show houses in my pjs. And that there is a tremendous amount of face to face interaction that comes into play when my clients are ready to meet in person and conduct business. But I can meet new people, establish relationships, and engage in some amazing conversations, all from the comfort of my home office. The tools are changing, the rules of engagement are changing, the overall business model for real estate brokerages is changing (hello, virtual office?). With a background in writing, I can use those skills to put my business expertise out there in a way that folks will appreciate.
You Do It Your Way, I’ll Do It Mine
The most fantastic thing about this business, in my opinion, is that you can run it the way that you want. What I do to be successful isn’t going to work for someone else, and that’s okay. There are clients that are a great fit for me, and folks that I would never be able to work with successfully. I have a huge mount of respect for an agent in my office who asks every single person that he comes in contact with if they want to buy a house. Really. And it works for him. I tend to think that my style probably wouldn’t appeal to his clients, and his style wouldn’t appeal to mine.
So I’m going to keep on writing in my pjs to reach out to my clients, and use that to grow my business. And just maybe, at some point soon, that won’t seem like such a strange way to work.
