Raise the Bar and Raise Your Client’s Experience

By Jim Knowlton Most of us come to our real estate business with habits and processes from other industries. Due to the limited amount of training time or individual training engagement available within our industry, many people transfer these old habits to their new business in a very entrepreneurial way. Entrepreneurs tend to give the same value to all tasks and then work to complete things or “cross them off the list.” This method makes them feel productive, although they often end up being productive in a non-money-making way. They fall into a habit of planning, evaluating and executing, then starting the process over. Not a whole lot of room there for elevating a client’s experience. With this entrepreneurial style of real estate, the first thing that gets dropped from an agent’s “mind share” is the proper process to show love and appreciation for our current and past clients. This is especially true when you are flooded with tasks and activities that need your attention now. However, anything we do more than three times should have a process. Workflows, action plans and checklists can standardize and organize the process, yet it’s critical to remember that we need to be delivering our team’s or our brokerage’s standard and process, not our own. One of the biggest reasons teams fail is because instead of running the lead agent’s proven process, each team member leans on their own system (or lack of system) and often ends up delivering service that is substandard for the team. Elevating your client’s experience can be as simple as tracking and responding to your client’s wants and needs before they have to ask. Taking the time to develop a process and a checklist for all transactions could easily elevate and improve the delivery for better customer care. At a minimum, taking the time to truly get to know each and every client on a deep and personal level will differentiate you from the competition and elevate your client’s experience with very little effort on your part. Technology has the ability to improve any and all processes easily and succinctly. Why not make 2020 the year you elevate your client’s experience from the start? With so much technology and so many workflows available to you, there is very little reason to not start improving your client’s experience today. Your clients are looking for you to give them the tools, resources, marketing and access in the least painful way. What’s holding you back? Nearly three decades of real estate experience—including 15 years of coaching with Verl Workman—have made Jim Knowlton one of the top agents in the country and one of the most popular coaches on the Workman Success Systems’ team. In addition to serving as director of Coaching for Workman Success Systems, Knowlton also owned and managed several real estate franchises, earned numerous awards for his performance and continues to lead a Keller Williams Mega Agent team in New Hampshire today. Contact him at Jim@WorkmanSuccessSystems.com. For more information, please visit www.WorkmanSuccess.com.