Honoring the deals you make is essential for maintaining and building your relationships. Any good sales person can convince someone of almost anything in the short run, but if you are not fact based and honest you will get caught. Once you are caught in a dishonesty, or not honoring the deals you have made it will be almost impossible to make that ground up again with that person, or with any of the people that person knows. As an agent it is easy to make promises like, "I will get back to you with that answer." but so many don't. How do I know, because I am picking up your clients by answering my phone and doing what I say I will do. It all seems so simple, but the reality is that it is not always so easy to follow through. Life gets in the way, new commitments get in the way, laziness can rear it's ugly head and just plain forgetfulness will cause problems. I make it a point to jot down the promises I make to people in my day and never leave a 24 hour period without following through. This isn't a badge of honor, this is normal best business practices.
Being a person of your word pays you residuals each and every day. People know you will do what you say and are not afraid to depend on you when you make some promise. People will trust you with more and your influence will grow. I know way too many agents that talk a great game in the first few minutes, days, or months of a relationship to find out all that they have said to you was self-serving, untrue or just plan a lie. The psychology of this is amazing to me. How anyone can think they are fooling people through an entire career is sad to me. They have no idea what people think of them because they are lying to themselves each and every day. Like the joke goes, De-Nile is not a river in which to swim.
Take this to a personal level and answer a few questions to yourself. What promises did you make to yourself that you are not following through with. Is it an exercise program that you have started and stopped a thousand times, quiting smoking, daily prospecting, loosing weight, spending more and quality time with your family? What are you promising to do that you are not doing. It is better to not promise that to lie to yourself. It is better to take baby steps and build your honest habits until dishonest is no longer an option. Real life starts inside and spreads out. I find the liars and cheaters start their life outside themselves trying to control or manipulate others rather than center themselves. My personal experiences may not be yours, but I am betting you have some experience that allows you to recognize what I am sharing here.
If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything. ~Mark Twain
Not honoring yourself or your deals leads to dead ends in your life. While the path in life is never straight and narrow, you can stay aquarely in the middle of that path with honest efforts and follow through. Make it a great week.
