Relational Performance: Building Success In Real Estate and Life Through Relationship Building

By Richard Dolan

Success begins with a plan to achieve it. Achieving your objective and fulfilling your intention in any undertaking requires focus, hard work and an unapologetic commitment to seeing things through. This is the hard skill required to create success for yourself as a real estate investor and professional. Planning your work and working your plan – this we know.

The opposite to a hard skill is a soft skill, and they are complimentary to one another. You cannot succeed on one skill alone. Soft skills are often regarded as an interpersonal competency, the skill to move, touch and excite others with what you are doing or have to offer. Some call it salesmanship, marketing, or charismatic leadership and I would agree. Soft skills are like the finishing touches on a newly built home. Structure and engineering are paramount, but it?s nice to have furniture and lights to make it livable. Today?s real estate investor requires soft skills to raise capital, negotiate a deal or to vet a tenant.

Comparing Apples

I walked into an Apple store recently to consider an upgraded phone. When I walked in I was greeted by a doorman, armed with an iPad, who was both assertive and friendly. He asked what I would like to accomplish while in the store. I told him I was keen on a new phone. He asked for my name, told me where to hang out, and that someone would be with me within a matter of five minutes. Almost to the minute, a very enthused Apple employee approached me and said ?Hello Richard. I understand you?ve come into the store today because you?re considering a new phone. How can I help you?? I know what you are thinking: ?What?s the big deal? That?s typical customer service.? Well, I challenge you then to walk into the Microsoft store and compare your in-store shopping experience. Look for the number of opportunities and moments someone makes the effort to reach out, connect with you and truly invests in developing what I would call relational-equity, the value you give to and get from others.

Developing relational-equity is not about stellar salesmanship. It?s about building a simple relationship. The question is: ?How do you do this??

A relationship is defined as ?the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected.? In the old days, when I first entered sales, I was taught to immediately build what was called a bond and rapport in every new encounter that I had. You know how to spend time bonding with friends, family and loved ones. Rapport is defined as ?a close and harmonious relationship in which the people or groups concerned understand each other’s feelings or ideas and communicate well.?

Building a bond and rapport with customers was all about developing a warm, fuzzy and familiar feeling with them so as to enter a business conversation with ease. For example: ?Hey, are those golf clubs in the corner? I golf too.?, ?Is this a picture of your kids? Gosh, I have a few myself.? People today, however, have caught on to what?s behind this technique, and see this – the development of a connection with an agenda, purpose or intent – as inauthentic. What was missing from bonding and rapport was the act of developing authentic relatedness or ?belonging to the same family, group, or type; connected.? In other words, you need to go beyond the idea of just building a relationship with customers, joint venture partners, investors and tenants. You instead need to build a connection.

There are loads of ways that you can improve your customer engagement, you just have to find the right way for you. This might mean that you connect with them through social media – perhaps you have a young audience and they like to see things on Twitter or Facebook? You might find that some people prefer to use Instagram as their form of communication, particularly if your business takes lots of photos of things. If you haven’t already set up an Instagram account, then you need to do that as soon as possible, to be honest. You can even give yourself a bit of an edge when you first set up by getting free instagram followers, however, the decision is up to you. Just do whatever works best. If you aren’t sure then it would be a good idea to try out new things and then make your decision on what you are going to do to keep improving your customers relationships.

Relational Performance is all about authentic connection with purpose.

To achieve optimal Relational Performance you can deploy what I?ve come to call The PAL Method. By definition pal means to be a friend. Inside this conversation, however, PAL is an acronym that stands for Possibility, Acknowledgement and Love. Establish each in sequence and you will build yourself relational performance, whether within a chance meeting, over a few meetings or over time. The sooner you execute each step, the sooner you can be on your way to growing relational-equity that can be leveraged in ways that are beneficial to all involved.

Begin with first identifying the possibility (defined as the ?unspecified qualities of a promising nature; potential.?) within the framework of your relationship with your client, investor or joint venture partner. Get creative, think outside the box and harness your imagination to answer this: What could YOU personally contribute to their life that would make a difference? Once you can have them see a future-state, a vision of sorts for the way things could be, you?ve begun engaging them into a possibility.

Next, you want to continue with an acknowledgement of who they are, what they represent to you or what their role will be in the realization of your personal and professional objective. The term acknowledgement means ?the action of expressing or displaying gratitude or appreciation for something.? You could share how much you?ve learned from the relationship, how they?ve inspired you, or discuss the energy you get when in their company. Find something, and acknowledge them for it.

The final and most important thing to establish in a relationship is a conversation with love. As Shakespeare once wrote in the play Love?s Labour?s Lost: ?When Love speaks, the voice of all the gods makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.? Harvard Business School?s research asserts that the personal commitment to make a contribution to one?s life with love makes a measurable impact in the way people hear you, trust you and engage with you.

The litmus test to truly experience the impact of this final and most crucial step in the PAL Method, is to make a call to a client or colleague and conduct a conversation with zero love. Don?t smile, don?t laugh and certainly be sure to have zero heart in the language you use. Following the call, sit with the experience and notice where it went, how it felt for you and how you believe it may have been experienced by the person on the other line. Then make a second call. This time, do it with the smile on your face. Bring love into your voice, heart into your intent and be sure to send the warmest of vibrations through the telephone and into the ear and heart of your listener. Following this call, again sit for a while and reflect on how the call felt for you and estimate how it felt for your listener. At the very least you will discover one thing: it takes less energy and bandwidth to produce a conversation based in love then it does in anything less.

Today as I write this article to my side is my brand new phone from Apple. It?s not sitting beside me because it?s the best technology that is synced with my music and photos. It also has nothing to do with the fact that I was a fan of Steve Jobs or I use an Apple notebook. My phone sits to my side because I feel like I belong to the Apple world and community at large. There?s a warmth and presence of possibility, authentic care and love whenever I think of my phone and just imagine?it all began with ?How can I help you today?? to which I responded ?Thanks pal…let me tell you.?

Richard Dolan is the President of REIN and the resident expert on Performance for real estate investors and professionals. Addicted to producing results, Richard is an expert on raising funds, building brand and strategy with one aim: to produce competitive immunity. Reach Richard at Richard@reincanada.com.

{{cta(‘8d2c2b7e-9f3d-451c-8b5e-7795129de36e’)}}