It's a Relationship Business...

I have had a couple experiences recently that have caused me to pause and reflect on the nature of the real estate business and the mechanisms that make it work.  The one thing that I keep coming back to in my mind is that this is a relationship business.  Regardless of the MLS, yard signes, IDX, flyers, websites, databases and guru CDs, the only way that anyone thrives in this business is by the relationships they have with their fellow men and the inherent quality of those relationships.

Which brings me ask:  How are our relationships?  What are they based on?  How do we nurture and sustain them?

For me, I found my relationships on trust and common interest.  My career has taught me to get a pretty good read on people and when I find folks who share a common interest and value system I tend to gravitate toward fostering a relationship with them.  I think we all do this in our own way.  The trick I think is sustaining and nurturing our relationships.  Do the tools we use today do that?  Does twitter help us deal with the needs of others?  Will facebook help you genuinely pickup somebody who is down?  Does our email communication solve or make a misunderstanding worse?

When I look back at these questions I would have to say that the majority of the time, the answer is no. Unfortunately, the tools we use today to get "to-do" items done do nothing to foster rich and sustainable relationships.  On the contrary, they can detract from them. Oswald Spangler in 1918 writes in Decline of the West regarding how communication indicates the lifestage that a particular society is in.  He states that a society is in decline when the value of the people's communication with one another is in its quantity, not in its quality.

The clients that I work with, and with whom I have the best relationships, are the ones that I talk to on the phone, or when possible, visit with in person.

If you find your relationships strained, a phone call or a visit is often the best remedy.   

Let us heed the immortal words of Conan O'Brian regarding this subject: