I recently took some time off from real estate. Well, I guess it wasn't really "time off"... because three full days of that time was spent at the Hyatt Regency Reston Town Center in Reston, Virgnia taking part in a three day Real Estate get-together.
Joe Stumpf has been a National Real Estate Sales Trainer for over twenty years. I remember earlier in my real estate career buying some of his cassette training tapes in the 1990's. For the past many years, Joe has been presenting his "Main Event," the cornerstone of which is his "By Referral Only" way of practicing Real Estate.
I chose to drive to Virginia, rather than fly. For some reason, driving on the "open road" has a very calming effect on me. The drive took me through Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, and finally turning north in Knoxville, Tennessee, and driving into southwestern Virginia. The trip up to that point was scenic at times, but after turning north into Virginia, I began driving through the Shenandoah River Valley and the Shenandoah Mountains. What a beautiful, peaceful part of the country.
I arrived in Reston, Virginia on Sunday afternoon... with plenty of time to relax from the drive, and to prepare for the next three days of classes, videos, networking, and Joe Stumpf's stimulating and thought-provoking Main Event presentation. I can honestly say that I have never spent a better and more useful three days... as far as my real estate career is concerned.
There are many other "trainers" and "consultants" who stress what they call building a "data base" of as many names as possible. Many of them seem to recommend keeping at least five hundred "names" in one's "data base." How any one person could possibly keep track of over five hundred people... trying to keep them separated in their brain... is honestly beyond me. Fortunately, Joe Stumpf's approach does not fall into line with the rest.
I was very pleasantly surprised to hear Joe stess something that is the key part of how I also view real estate. He refers to his "relationship base." Now, I know that sounds like semantics, and kind of "corny," but it is more than that. For me, my real estate career is, just as my previous teaching career was, all about really getting to know people. Sure, you fill their real estate wants and needs. Lots of salespeople try and do that.
This goes much further than that. A relationship is just that. People relating to each other. It must become a "two-way street"... with give and take moving back and forth between both people. Listening to needs, slowly getting to know a person, slowly going below the superficial top layer, and getting to what is important to them... helping them see their dreams come to reality.
More on all of this in future posts.
Karen Anne Stone
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