A dad's advice to himself and his kids.

I was accused of being “shady” once by another Realtor.  It got to me.  I was doing the Mike Ferry thing, and calling people for listings (this was before I knew who the heck MF was).   I was calling targeted neighborhoods when I had buyers.  “I have a buyer–do you know sellers.”   I got listings out of it (because the rule of thumb: the more people you talk to, the more listings you get).  This is when I was in my mid 20′s.  Anyway, apparently someone else had talked to someone I happened to call.  It was instantly assumed that I played dirty pool.  I was the new agent in the office, and Agents (salespeople, really) are high drama types.

Faster than the Internet turned on Greg Swann, I was an outcast.

I was stealing clients, a cardinal sin in a Real Estate Office.  I had–as a new licensee–11 or 12 listings really quickly.  This was novel, and people had a target on me. 

I was also keeping my method of client acquisition secret.  I’d made some gaffes in my new arrival as a RE/MAX agent, and the non producing majority was jealous, and looking for an excuse.  I figured if I let the cat out of the bag that you could call clients and get business then everyone would do it.  I thought that me pulling a list of people to call, scrubbing it against the DNC, calling it, making friends, listing their houses and making sales was easy.  Push marketing works, kids.

Anyway, the mistrust the incident had fostered made it literally difficult for me to work in my office.  My lack of skill at handling it compounded it.  After all–how could I have made this happen if not via crooked methods?  How could I get 11 listings in my first month with a brokerage without spending any money on advertising?

That’s when I learned…

Transparency Creates Trust.

A thought occurred to me: it was then hard (as it is now) to prospect for business.  I could show my methods, and people wouldn’t copy me.  Because few people would have the reserves to wade through the ‘nos’ to get to a yes.  So the offending agent, I took into my office a while later.  I said, “we had a misunderstanding, and for my part, I am sorry that I called a client you were working on–I never meant for that to happen.  I wanted to show you how I came across the number.”

Then I showed him my excel file, the calls that I’d made, and the notes that I’d taken.  He saw that my guy was just part of a list.  He didn’t have the mea culpa that I wanted, but he came to respect what I was doing to get business.  He didn’t pursue me from that point–he knew it was an honest mistake.  I invited anyone else to start hearing about what I was doing to gain business.  It wasn’t really a freak coincidence; I’d pulled a well targeted list, and was calling on people likely to close. 

So from that moment, I didn’t hide any of my methodologies, and I learned (though I didn’t have the name for it) that Transparency was really important.  Because information desires to be free, there can normally be few secrets or long term competitive advantages.  And, even if you told everyone every nuance of your business plan, a pale echo of what you’re doing is never going to threaten you.  You can’t replicate passion, soul, verve, moxie, desire, love by following a script.  As Scott Ginsberg said–there are no cover bands in the rock and roll hall of fame.

OH, By the way:  Monday I should have the my header done.  I learned an absolute TON about photoshop from “You Suck at Photoshop” so Thanks Lani via Bloodhound Blog.  It’s fun to do stuff like this, and it builds more skill than playing DTD

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Finally Ben Folds, Iron and Wine and The Postal Service all rock.  But Ben Folds?  All of his covers rock.  He could be the only cover band in the hall of fame.