In a world of modern communication and global business you would think that you don’t actually need to meet anyone anymore but I still hold the opinion that you shouldn’t do business with anyone you’ve not actually met face to face. It might sound a little old school but there is great merit in seeing the ‘whites of their eyes’. This might sound an odd thing to say but face to face you can get a great judge of character of the person in question. This approach means that in business I’ve never been let down when it’s come to paying our due fees and the working relationship has always been stronger.
This week alone I’ve spent countless man hours driving around visiting sites and meeting new developer clients and potential introducing agents.
Yesterday is a great example and one worth sharing: An hours drive to a South Yorkshire town to meet up with an old contact and friend who I bumped into at a corporate event a couple of months ago. As part of a national land & new homes agency their input and opinion is always valuable and interesting and it helps to keep me in the loop of what is happening in corporate agency. By coincidence the national boss was there and again he’s someone I’ve known for some years. A cup of coffee and two hours later we had discussed holidays, children, marriages abroad and life. I’m not sure property featured more than ten per cent of the time I was with them.
Half an hour drive to a new build house site again in South Yorkshire and with someone I’d never met before and a scheme I’d never visited before. There was arguably no reason to actually visit apart from having a hands on view of the actual property and meet the developer who is a referral from an existing client. Good solid site, prime for buy to let property investors and great to meet up with the vendor.
Another half an hours drive and back into West Yorkshire to meet the other director of the development company who are building the South Yorkshire scheme visited just before. Again, arguably no need to meet up and we stood there for nearly an hour talking football. Property talk featured very little.
The point of this blog entry?
Get on the road, meet people, talk about life and not always business and it builds far stronger relationships, results in more opportunities and secures long term contacts…and some new friends along the way!
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