Relational capital is the value inherent in your relationships with your customers, vendors, and public as well as institutions. All of your relationships, basically.
The knowledge you gain and implement as you educate yourself, your capabilities, the procedures and systems you develop all feed into your relational capital.
Building your relational capital is an important part of your growth as a business.
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How To Build Relational Capital Now
As you work with brokers, you need a system for staying in touch them and nurturing those relationships, while also finding new brokers and quickly building relationships there.
To build this relational capital, you have to commit to the process, and you have to realize, you're up against other people in the market that I've already done this successfully.
These people might be flying brokers to the Bahamas for the weekend. How do you compete with that?
You need to be a friend to your brokers.
The first thing you need to do is start conversations. Call them. Let them know when you have a specific type of property you’re looking for. You don’t want to be too specific, of course, but let them know what you own and the markets you’re hoping to break into, and let them know you can move quickly.
Brokers are incentivized by speed. If you close fast, everybody gets paid faster.
So start to use these catch words:
We move quickly
We can give you an answer fast
Be upfront about the relationship you are seeking to build.
You might say, I know you don't know me that well, but I'd love to start to build a relationship with you. If there's anything that you know about that I can't see right now that's online, that's not online, or that I can't see, you send them my way, I'd love for you to give me a shot to show you how we work.
Transparency builds trust. Saying something along those lines is a great entry point with brokers and you can build out from there.
You want to get to the place of genuine friendship, calling one another to have conversations about things other than real estate.
The easiest way to get quickly get a meeting with a broker is to tour the properties that they have listed. Even if you know you’re not going to buy it, show up. Ask intelligent questions and when a broker has questions for you, make sure that you respond quickly.
That’s where the action happens.
When you visit properties, ask tough questions, but also get to know the broker, and don’t be afraid to go the extra mile.
One thing we’ve noticed with our students is, people who are willing hop on a plane before they even have a contract, are building relationships with brokers faster, and the next time the broker has a deal that more closely matches them, they're more likely to call.
It took us about a year to break into the Atlanta market, but we achieved it through eagerness and doing what we said we were going to do over and over again. We analyzed deals, and got feedback to the brokers within 24 hours, sometimes faster.
To break into a market, you need to build relationships with brokers fast so that they start feeding the off-market deals to you.
Nothing beats proving that you’re able to perform, and you do that with your responsiveness.
That's the best way to get your foot in the door and it's not an easy there's no cutting corners. You must build relationships.
