5 Commitments Every Real Estate Agent Should Make

From time-to-time, it’s a smart idea to step back and take a good hard look at ourselves.

For marketers, this means examining the values you bring to your brand. Market conditions, economics, politics — even the weather — affect our day-to-day behavior and attitude towards our work. Even the most disciplined among us can be overwhelmed by a long, dark winter, low inventories, and rising interest rates.

Under such trying circumstances it’s easy to lose focus and become dissatisfied, depressed, and discouraged. It’s time’s like these when recommitting to the values and principles that guide and define you can be rejuvenating and rewarding.

Here are 5 commitments all agents should revisit

1. Clients

Providing your clients with the best possible service would seem to be an easy commitment to make. After all, this is your bread and butter. Your commitment is to give your clients the best experience possible — to make time for them, return their calls, and get them the best deal that you can…even if it means less commission on your end.

Ask yourself: Am I giving my best to all of my clients? Do I treat them equally regardless of their home buying budgets? Do I meet their unique needs?

Each and every client is a future referral. How you conduct yourself during the home buying or selling process will determine if you can count on them to be a referral resource in the future. Yes, that means even those clients where things didn’t work out as they had hoped and you had planned.

Ask yourself: Were issues explained and resolved to the best of my ability? Did I do the best I could?

2. Business Partners

Like your clients, your business partners are a crucial source of future business. Maintaining an open, honest relationship with builders, contractors, attorneys, appraisers, and home inspectors is critical when it comes to getting the job done. The special relationship you have with lenders, specifically loan originators, may be the single most important. These are partners who, in many instances, work directly with your clients. So, you want partners you can trust with that responsibility.

Ask yourself: Am I working consistently to build relationships with colleagues and partners? Am I comfortable with those business partners who work directly with my clients? Is there mutual trust and honesty at the heart of these relationships? Am I reciprocating when I should be?

3. Community

You should also recommit to building relationships with others in your community.

Ask yourself: Am I doing enough to promote the businesses and other amenities that the community has to offer my clients? Am I working at the local level and making contributions to causes that are important? Am I giving back and am I making a difference?

4. Family and Friends

Work can be an escape. But when times are tough, working harder isn’t always working smarter. Family and friends are important — they center us, and they also count on us to be there. When work takes up all of your time, no one gets the support they need.

Ask yourself: Am I making the time for friends and family? Are the relationships I have with those closest to me strong? Am I emotionally available even if I’m not physically able to be there? Remember, friends and family are also referral resources.

5. Yourself

Lastly, you owe it to friends and family, business partners, and colleagues to take care of yourself. To give yourself time away from work, eat right and get exercise, pursue outside interests, and improve and add to your skillset.

Ask yourself: Am I giving myself the time I need to relax and refuel? Am I looking beyond the day-to-day to build a personal and professional future that I can count on? Am I able to take pleasure in the work that I do, the people that I meet and the relationships I have?

The Bottom Line

How you answer these questions shows just how committed you are. These commitments to clients, partners, family, and friends, as well as how you treat yourself, make up your reputation. And, your reputation is your brand.