Over the past 7 years as a top producing RE/MAX agent, I have given my loan brokers and service providers hundreds of referrals for my client's to use their services. In return, I have received very few if any over the same period of time from them .
Why is this?
During the height of my career in 2004, I literally had lenders and service providers lining up to get my referrals.
When asked, most of them said, I don't get that many people asking to buy a house.
My reply was always, I don't get that many people that ask me for a loan or a roof inspection or pest inspection etc.. either.
They usually said, well, it's different for you.
I always wondered, what makes us so different. Do we as Realtors not have many choices of who we deal with?
Do we as Realtors provide the same great service to our lenders and service providers customers that they provide to ours?
As the market has changed, I often wonder what many of the support businesses in our industry were doing while we were out in the trenches. Were they out prospecting for clients for us, as we were for them? Who gets their referrals, or are they asking for them for us?
In all the other businesses I have owned and managed, in 5 different industry segments, mutually rewarding business relationships were the foundation of success.
I rarely see this happening in this business at all. It seems to me that in certain parts of this business, "it's every man/woman for him or herself.
What do you suppose would happen if we all worked together as an industry, rather than for ourselves.
Is this even possible?
Could mutually rewarding relationships exist in our industry too?
I think we would all be better off if everyone felt this way in our industry, don't you.
We better all stop and think about this, or perhaps this will be the sign of the times!
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