10 Reasons Why I Share Info With Other Realtors

August 4th, 2007 Categories: Home Buying in Calabasas, Home Selling in Calabasas

819245_low On my way to a listing appointment, I either listen to head banging, loud music or motivational CD’s. This has been my “pre listing” warm-up since I started my career. I listen to the loud music when I need to get pumped up and I choose a motivational CD when I need focus. Yesterday was a need focus day, so I popped in a classic by Zig Ziglar. With his Southern drawl and booming “from the pulpit” voice he says, “You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want”.

Now those cogs in my brain start to turn. I have always believed in this philosophy and would even go so far as to say, that when you give, you should give unconditionally. In other words you should give and expect nothing in return. If you do receive benefit from the gift, it’s just a bonus. For those of you that are parents, this will make total sense, because this is how we give to our children. We give to them because we can and we don’t expect anything in return.

I openly share information with other agents in my office and give them copies of my marketing materials and any other projects that I’m working on. But would I share information with an agent if they weren’t in my office or if I knew they were working my farm? Yes, I would. I’m not saying that I would call up the other agents and tell them about my upcoming newsletters or promotions, but if I met one of these agents out and about, and they asked me about blogging, or video on the web, or even websites and SEO, and they wanted information I would definitely tell them what I know.

And here are my 10 reasons why:

1. Whether you’re a listing agent or a selling agent, you depend on other agents to provide buyers and sellers. The more successful they are, and the better the relationship that you have with them, the more buyers they’ll bring to your listings and the more listings they’ll have to sell your buyers. I know there is a glut of homes on the market right now, and the last thing you need is another house for sale in the neighborhood, but real estate is cyclical and this to shall pass.

2. Everyone in the RE industry benefits if even one agent is brought out of the polyester dark ages and into the natural cotton now. (people tend to remember the bad eggs, so if we can help one egg to cover his crack, we’ve actually helped the industry as a whole).

3. When you teach someone something new, it can be interpreted and implemented hundreds of different ways. Most likely if the other agent does use some of your ideas, their delivery and final product will be so different from yours. One of the biggest compliments I get is when someone mimics my ideas. I never feel like they “stole” them because I have more oozing from head than I could ever use.

4. When you give freely, you’ll be rewarded with more ideas than you can handle. When you hold on to everything you have because you’re afraid that someone will steal your ideas, all you’ll have is one tightly held idea.

5. You never know which agent will be on the other side of that negotiating table, so it pays to be helpful to all agents, especially the ones in your farm, since they are the ones listing homes that you’ll probably end up selling.

6. By sharing knowledge with another agent you may start a friendship that blossoms into having them join your team (or you joining theirs).

7. After developing trust and a relationship with another agent, you just never know what they’ll share with you. It may or may not be real estate related and their stuff might be better than your stuff.

8. The old saying goes, what goes around comes around. I believe that if you share information and spend the time to help and teach others, information will be shared with you.

9. There is always someone smarter, better looking, and more successful than you. By sharing what you know, your spot in the whole pecking order is somehow adjusted upwards. Good things are rewarded.

10. It’s better to give than to receive, it just feels good.

Think about this, we were taught sharing in kindergarten and the lesson is exactly the same today.