You have no competition: everyone is an ally.
I’m not saying you need to add a bunch of friends to your friend list or invite a bunch of new people to your summer barbecue.
But often in real estate – and real many real estate agents do this – agents see other agents as competition.
Agents Need to Work Together
Some agents treat others like competition during the course of a deal. In reality, agents should be working together to bring their client’s needs and goals to a common place.
But you see this a lot, especially with really inexperienced agents, who feel like the best way to win the deal for their client is to go out there and be combative with the other agent.
Experienced agents know that is probably the worst tactic to deploy when you’re in the middle of a deal. And rather, we should be making sure that we are getting along and working with that other agent.
But I want you to go even deeper in your engagements with agents.
I want you to really be thinking long-term with every interaction that you have.
Developing Long-Term Relationships
Every encounter is an opportunity to develop a long-term relationship with another agent, whether they are from your brokerage or a different brokerage.
Agents from other Brokerages
Locally, you work with agents from other brokerages or teams just about every time you close a deal.
This gives you endless opportunities. I’ve listed licensed agents’ homes while they still are holding a current real estate license, for different reasons in their lives.
You also may get agent referrals if they don’t work as large of a geographical area as you do; they may just want to stay in there one little area in town. If you’re willing to work in a wider region, and you have a great relationship, they may have a buyer or a listing that they’re willing to refer to you because they don’t want to travel that distance.
And the big one – if you’re thinking super long term – is how many books of business can you potentially buy in the future? How many legacy brands can you potentially accumulate over decades and periods of time, if you create really great relationships with every single agent?
Agents from Your Brokerage
You should also work to build relationships with agents on your team or in your brokerage. This starts locally, but you can also connect with the agents in your brokerage nationally, and even internationally if they have an international presence.
Any commonality you have is an opportunity to Mastermind and create relationships with these agents. Once you build relationships, they might send you referrals, or share strategies and tactics that are working for their business.
How do you build these agent-to-agent relationships?
Okay, so how do you actually get this done?
- Understand how the other agent operates. You have to recognize how that person operates and ticks. Even if you’re a 99% driver like I am, if you’re dealing with a really successful agent, you’re probably dealing with another 99% driver. It is okay for you to make sure that they feel like they’re in control when you’re negotiating a deal. This doesn’t mean you sit there and say nothing, but you let them feel like they are in the lead seat, as you work to close a deal for your clients.
- Listen. Actually listen to the things that they are saying. You will learn so much about the person, which you can use to further your relationship with them. And by the way, you will probably learn something, because there’s an opportunity for us to learn from everybody.
You don’t have competition out there, you’ve got allies. Look at every single interaction as an opportunity to create a winning relationship for you and the other person.