Happy Sunday Everyone:
Annoying when you know exactly what message you want to get out there but trying to put multiple things together is making it difficult. hopefully I can merge this together to make some sense.
When I went to work for the first time after school, I had to get signed up for insurance. I went to a friend’s dad who was a big agent. I waited in his office, slightly intimidated, he brought me in, talked to me, signed me up..that was it. For 5 years, I literally didn’t speak to him again. Second example-leaving my first job after 3 years, I had a decent chunk of change saved up so I called a buddy who became a financial advisor, met with him, gave him my money, didn’t hear another word for a 18 months (yes I received statements/bills) but no human contact with either person.
Completely different topic-We’re in a businesses where, in my opinion, you need to balance making people aware of what you do, and not being the guy/gal on the tee box screaming “so what’s everyone’s rate, have you ever considered home ownership??”. I error on the side of caution, to a fault. Almost as though I’m playing hard to get, which works well in high school, but really stupid in business. By trying so hard to not be “that guy”, I think to some degree it can come off as uninterested in doing business w/ friends or people in my sphere, which also is not the case.
Last story-very recently, I missed out on an opportunity to work with a friend buying a house, someone that had used me before. I’m close enough with him where I refuse to pin him down and be another version of “that guy”. Business wise, my hope is to never create a scenario where a friend says “that’s why I don’t do business with friends”. If he wanted to use me, he would have, if he chose not to, it’s on me. With that said-I’m still going to reflect on it and learn from it. I’m not going to beat myself up but there are certainly things I can take away from it.
Attempting to tie this all together. We always say, and I agree, that people do business with people they like and trust. Once you’ve checked that box though, I believe people continue to do business with people they believe care about them. I had my original insurance person and financial advisor sign me up because I liked them and trusted them but I gladly fired them when I believed they didn’t care about me. How do you care about someone without reaching out to them for 5 years, and then the other for 18 months.
Some take aways for me:
– Asking the question, “who feels about me like I felt about my original insurance broker and financial advisor?” Those people do exist (for all of us), and we need to do something about it.
– Get out of my own head within my sphere/friends. Although I will always error on the side of caution, if someone shows interest, then go all in. Being cautious can very often be confused with uninterested. i.e. “I don’t want to bug them so I just won’t call them, they’ll call me if they’re interested”….this is dumb.
– We are in a transaction business unless we make it personal. Not every client wants to be in a relationship with me but to base all of my decisions off the people that don’t will guarantee the people that do will never get the chance and vice versa.
– A true referral business is based off of true relationships. You can’t be in one if you don’t work on it. Technology will not solve this for us, it will actually detract from the authenticity of it.
– Learn from my mistakes, don’t beat myself up, flush it, move on.
Not sure that came across exactly like I wanted it to but hopefully you got the gist.