Wield your superpowers for good!

Key Takeaways

• Real estate agents have vast lists of contacts with plumbers, bankers, lawyers, contractors — why not build those into a trusted referral service?
• Foster relationships between between your clients and trusted business people by being a connector.
• Business people will return the favor and refer their contacts to you.

As a real estate agent, you are uniquely positioned to help people far beyond real estate matters. Over time you will acquire all kinds of contacts: plumbers, landscapers, painters, doctors, lawyers, restaurant owners, bankers, hairdressers, dentists, builders, investors, photographers — key employees at businesses all over town.

They might be people you’ve helped in some way with a listing, or they might be former clients or their family members. The longer you’re in business, the more people you end up knowing.

Why not leverage your knowledge bank of contacts to forge deeper relationships by helping people connect with each other?

What if you tell your clients to contact you before having work done on their house because you know many great contractors? Or let them know that if they need a referral outside of real estate — for an accountant, auto mechanic, caterer, etc. — to contact you, because you make it part of your job to know the right people to recommend.

You become “The Connector!” Think of yourself as the superhero who helps people find the help they need within their community. Let all your clients and the people in your sphere know to contact you for trusted recommendations. They don’t have to be related to real estate.

Your contacts will soon learn to rely on you any time they need a recommendation. You become a trusted resource for them, and your business contacts will love you because you’re referring business to them.

They’re more likely to return the favor and refer their clients to you. The cycle continues until you have one heck of a great referral source for your business. At the same time, you get to help people in multiple ways.

There is an agent in my office whom I would describe as a connector. I hear her frequently tell her clients to call her anytime they need a recommendation for something. She tells them that she has been doing this for a long time and has learned through her clients’ experiences (and her own) whom to call when somebody needs help with something.

A few times she has emailed out to agents in the office to see if they have recommendations on a particular type of contractor. The other day, she asked if anybody had a go-to drywall contractor. Sure enough, she got two recommendations from agents and was able to share that information with her client.

She is The Connector! If she doesn’t have a connection, she knows where to get it.

She doesn’t need to spend money on marketing her business; she doesn’t make cold calls or chase leads of any kind. She just focuses on helping connect people, and as a result, she has a very enviable business. As a trusted resource, she has referral clients coming in every month.