KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Relationships Over Profits Avoiding the Pitfall of Short-Term Gain at the Expense of Long-Term Connections!

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

Having work with clients around the world, one of the key aspects of the goals that my clients want to actually produce is a higher level of profitability in their business. And I totally understand and I totally support that 100%, because a business without any profits is actually a business that is either plateauing or going in the downward trends. So really what I've done with so many of my clients, when they start to have their focus on profitability, I've got them to understand that if you only focus on profitability, you're actually almost creating your business to be in a short-term growth path. You see, chasing the money, it's always going to disappear.

We want to make more profit. So ultimately, a lot of clients, they want to invest more in marketing, which means they're expenses start going up and up. I've been working with clients with a different mindset. And this mindset is on the back of profitability equals short-term growth, where relationship building equals long-term growth. And it's the long-term growth that you want in your actual business. you see every business if it doesn't have clients in essence you don't really have a business because it's as clients it's going to be generating all of that income and profitability for you so your business needs to be and we call this relationship centered business in other

words it's a business that is focusing on building relationships now whether that's a face-to-face type of conversation or whether it's a face-to-face type of conversation or whether it it's actually doing some form of program, loyalty program, where you're actually giving back to your clients to try and build their relationships. It's absolutely imperative that you start looking at your business today and saying, am I focusing more on the profitability of how much money I want to make? Or am I focusing on that relationship-centered business where building up those relationships will help me to grow my business in the long term. And it's these type of connections and relationships that we have that's really going to help

your business grow. You see, when we start to focus on, and we call this the short term gains, and there's a big pitfall to this, when we just focus on the money, what we actually start to do is we start to erode levels of trust and potentially we could actually damage our reputation in the long run. You see, when it's only focused about money, our clients who have concerns, they have wants and needs, we're only looking to see how much money we can get out of them. And when you start to absorb as much money as possible out of them, they will get to that point where they will turn the tap off and they will stop doing business with you because that's all your focus is.

You see, those short-term focus is just on the money. It excludes the wants and needs of your clients. Now, yes, the wants and needs can be a little bit exorbitance, but it's those wants and needs that if you can fulfill, what you're actually giving them is a value add from your business to them. So when we start to work on our business, We need to take that mindset away from these short term, how much money can I just make out of this individual? And rather look at those long-term gains of building relationships. You see, when you take that mindset that I want to have these long-term relationships

with my potential clients, you're going to actually come across in a more authentic manner. You see, coming across as that authentic manner, will give you various values that you're going to be giving to your clients. There's a value of empathy because you're going to care about them. You're also going to have the value of transparency because you're going to be open. You want to know about them. They want to know about you.

And you've got to be transparent in your actual business. You're also going to build up a value which is so important, which is called mutual respect. You respect them. They will start to respect you. And in doing this, you're going to start to foster stronger trusts and you're going to start creating this loyalty base. And ultimately, that's what we want in our business. We want loyal customers because loyal customers, they come back day after day, week after week, month after year. And in fact, year and decade after decade.

So it's having this mindset of relationship. centered business. I want to build these relationships. You're going to start to build more authentic connections. And ultimately, as I've said, it starts to build these long-term relationships. And one thing that is absolutely amazing when you start building long-term relationships, they become, and we call them the sneezes of your clients. Why? Because nobody likes to be sneezed upon, because we're going to be shedding and sharing those those journey. but what it actually does is a sneeze as a person that shares your company values. They share the information that your company has.

In fact, they become that loyal customer that gives you that referral business. And this is what you're really wanting in your business. You're wanting to start to grow this business through your loyal customer base because they're the ones that's going to give you the strongest testimonials. the ones that are going to be coming back and saying, you know what, you're actually more than just a business owner. You're actually a long-term friend. And friends like to do business with friends. That's that relationship, that authentic nature that we have between each other. So going out and actually working with your clients. So not about focus on money because it will cut short,

but focusing just on those relationships, there's something amazing that's going to start to transpire. Now, I've said to you that they're going to become the sneezes. And the sneezes really, they just share the word of your company. They share the word of your service. They share the word of your products with everybody that's around them. And that starts to grow in a viral nature. And the more people that become aware of your business, well, guess what's going to lead on? to it's naturally going to start to lead on to profitability. Why? Because you're going to start

building more customers. You're going to start growing with your client base. And the more clients that start coming through your business ultimately leads to profitability. So this focus on money today. I wanted today, it's going to be short-lived and it's going to cripple the business. on those relationships, well, now it's going to start to grow more relationships and that viral growth. So it's all very well that I say that we need to build these particular relationships and being authentic and transparent with them and having this level of empathy with them. But what we really need to do is we need to have this continued communication. We don't want to have this communication that it's a once-off communication because that's not

authentic and real. We don't want to have those conversations where I meet you today. I'm your best mate for life and tomorrow I don't contact you. I actually forget about you. What you need to do is you need to build in some form of program that you can have this continual communication with these particular clients on an ongoing basis. And this comes into what if you're going to spend money in marketing. Spend money in marketing that's focused on building the relationships, the trust and the value proposition so people get to see who you really are. Through that, you're going to find more and more clients coming through your front door. And one thing that I've said with so many of my clients is we're building these relationships, we're building the trust,

we're growing the business in our clientele. And that, it leads to profitability because our revenue stream starts to increase. But ultimately, we need to get to a point where we are measuring this particular success. And when I'm referred to measuring, what I'm referring to is how many clients do you have? And of those clients, how many of them haven't you built a relationship with? You see, when you've got a client base of 10, 100 or 1,000, you want to make sure that all of them have got that same feeling that you give to every single one of your clients. If they're coming into your storefront, you're giving them that warm welcome.

If they're actually giving you a phone call, you're giving them that warm feeling and, hey, that's so great to be speaking to you again. But you're actually going beyond and reaching out to the ones that may be. you haven't built those relationships with. Take that part of your database and start working on them. When I work with my clients, we have three levels to our database. The center, the core is our sphere of influence. These are the people that know you trust you and they want to do business with you on an ongoing basis. And ultimately, you want to get all of your clients into that particular circle. just outside of that are clients and customers that you've met but you don't know them to the level of your sphere of influence. And your goal should be to convert them into your sphere of influence.

Have these ongoing conversations with them, building those relationships with them, seeing how you can add value for them in your services and your products. when you start converting that outer ring to become sphere of influence, it grows and it grows. And your third outer ring, these are the people that you've never met before. In fact, they may have sent you an inquiry that you've responded to. Maybe it's somebody through social media that's like to post or commented on a post. You don't know who these individuals are. And what you're looking to do is seeing how you convert that out. to ring to be someone that you can meet, someone that you can have a face-to-face or a conversation

with, someone that you can initiate a relationship building conversation with. Because once you start that, it's then going to elevate it where they can then start to move into that center sphere of influence. You see, so many times we only focus on the money. We are so almost blinded by the money that we forget about the relationships. We forget about the people that are supporting us and helping us in our business. So when we start to build these relationships up, it will give you the profitability that you actually desire. Make sure that you're building those relationships on an ongoing basis.

because ultimately with our clients, you've got no business.