Why? Tell me More...

Since 2002 I have helped more families than I can remember, because I have never counted clients, counted sales, looked at the numbers of sales.  That is unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

However, I was recently contacted by a past client whom I helped by a home in 2005 and somehow, I failed them, I lost touch.  I’m not sure exactly how they fell off my audience list, but they did.  They wanted to start looking at houses again and wanted to sell their current home.  Since I did a poor job of keeping in touch with them, keeping the relationship moving forward, keeping the conversation going forward like you are a member of the ‘Morning Musings’ and you are most likely on my newsletter audience (if not and you wanna be, let me know) where we are constantly sharing stories.

Even though I didn’t do my job in moving our relationship forward, totally on me.

They contacted me and said, “Eric you were so compassionate and caring when we purchased 13 years ago, you cared about us, that it left an impression and we said if we ever moved we would call you!”

When I meet with clients, it is NEVER about the transaction it is about the person and the relationship.

People move for any of a million reasons and until you can ask the correct questions to figure out ‘why’, the real ‘why’ that they are moving you can never truly find out their motivation.

Do they need one level living because the wife just had her knee replaced and doesn’t want to do stairs? 

Are they selling and moving closer to their kids because they are about to be grandparents and want to be close?

Do they want to buy because… [fill in the blanks]

When I meet with clients I try to dig deeper and find out their ‘why behind the why.’  Some times it is a few meetings for them to ‘open up’, but ultimately the sooner I can find out the real reason behind a client’s motivation to buy or sell, the better I can work for them to get their desired results.

This is why clients continually come back… This is why friends refer their friends to us.  They know that are clients are more than ‘transactions’, they are family.  We become emotionally involved in our clients’ story, in their life.

Finding out the real why is not easy, and it needs to be handled delicately otherwise you just come across as a pushy a.hole.  And if you don’t really ‘care’ people can see through the BS.  Our actions, they speak louder than words and clients/friends, they can tell that we care.

What is your ‘Why’ for doing what you do?