Have you ever been in a relationship with clients and discovered there was not full disclosure? They had a hidden financial problem, family problem (for example, divorce), or they were less than honest in the motivation to sell.

Have you ever invested time, effort, money and emotional energy to convince prospects to become clients and later regretted that you had created a relationship with them?

The tremendous changes in the real estate business caused by technology and consolidation have threatened the position of the real estate agent at the center of the transaction. If you wish to restore this position, you must convince your prospects and clients of your superior service. By truly guiding your clients to achieve their long-term goals and visions of homeownership and even financial security, you can achieve a higher status as a trusted advisor. By discovering and helping them fulfill their core values, you will dramatically increase the referrals that you receive from them now and well into the future.

Too often we, as real estate salespeople, focus on the result leaving the process to chance. Having coached hundreds of agents to higher levels of production and quality of life, I know we get tunnel vision as to the result we desire. We first must think process to achieve the result. The result is guaranteed when we apply the right process. The answer is automatic when we ask the right questions. The outcome is a direct result of the well-designed and implemented process.

The result we are looking for is to achieve the trusted advisor status with our clients and prospects quickly. Trust is the biggest factor for creating strong client relationships. This level of relationship will reap big rewards with much less time and effort invested by you.

We all have people that we are wasting our time trying to convince to do business with us. Many of these people will never be good clients. We must define what a great client is and focus our energy in finding more of these people. I have never seen a realtor fail because the bar was set too high. Agents don’t fail by excluding clients and prospects. Agents fail when they work with anyone and everyone. Bill Cosby said that the quickest way to failure is to try to please everyone. Agents who set a higher standard for their clients to achieve earn more money, provide better service and get more referrals. We fail when we set the bar too low and choose prospects that would make poor clients. We do this because we feel we have to because we are low on leads, low on closings and we have bills due.

If you want to avoid these problems, you must have a vision of what type of client you want to work with. The first step in selecting clients is determining your core values. By evaluating them you will have an effective blue print of what you stand for in future business. This blueprint will enable you to hold your core values up against the actions and conversations that you have with prospects. When you have determined that your values are not congruent with your prospects, it’s time to look for another prospect.

You must realize that with people of conflicting core values in a relationship, one will have to alter their values. Have you ever had a transaction that you knew wasn’t right, but you where stuck? How did you feel during and after the transaction closed? Did you want to do future business with these clients? Did you have to invest heavily in time and emotional energy to get the job done? Probably you can answer yes to all these questions. These are clients who did not share your core values. It’s a deal you should have passed on.

Most great companies have 3 to 5 strategic core values. These are values they stand for even if the values become a competitive disadvantage. Core values are what you would tell your children are most important qualities or values to possess. You are all the CEO’s of multi-million dollar sales companies. You must put the CEO hat on daily. Successful CEO’s create successful business through a strong vision of the future. The future of your business comes from your core values.

Let me give you a few examples: The Disney company has a core value of creativity, dreams, and imagination. I don’t think you can watch a Disney movie or go to one of their theme parks and not feel that core value. They live it daily in everything they do. Nordstrom’s is another excellent example. One of their core values is service to the customer above all else. Every employee at Nordstrom’s lives this value, from the sales desk that calls five other stores to find the shirt your want in XL, to the cashier who takes the pair of shoes back two years later and credits your account because the shoes didn’t hold up to the Nordstrom’s standard.

What do you stand for? What level of service are you trying to provide? What do you expect from yourself and in turn from your clients? Understand that if honesty and integrity are core values for you, your clients and prospects must embrace the same values. If they don’t, you are in for a struggle in your relationships. Your job is to find people who are like-minded and like-valued to help, advise, and serve.

There is an old law of success. It’s called the “Law of Attraction”. The law of attraction states that you will attract what you are clearly looking for and focus on. Let me give you an example. You decide to buy a black Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. You will be purchasing this vehicle in a couple of weeks. For the next two weeks how many do you see on the road? They are all over the place because you see them now and are attracting them. Every time you turn around you see another one. The law of attraction permeates everything in life.

This law also applies to people. People are attracted to and attract people like themselves. Think about your friends and whom you hang out with…are they like you? Do you share the same philosophies and beliefs and attitudes? Your sphere of influence over people aligns with your core values and beliefs. Your clients and prospects interact with people like themselves. A prospect that is a problem will not get any better as a client. That person who is distrustful, paranoid, confrontational will be no different as a client. When you finally close the transaction, the referrals they send you will be exactly like them. The referrals will posses the same values and characteristics. Do you want to set yourselves up for more problem transactions? You need to select your clients better so you will insure solid long-term referrals.

Published: October 30, 2000

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Dirk Zeller is a sought out speaker, celebrated author and CEO of Real Estate Champions. His company trains more than 350,000 Agents worldwide each year through live events, online training, self-study programs, and newsletters. The Real Estate community has embraced and praised his six best-selling books; Your First Year in Real Estate, Success as a Real Estate Agent for Dummies®, The Champion Real Estate Agent, The Champion Real Estate Team, Telephone Sales for Dummies®, Successful Time Management for Dummies®, and over 300 articles in print. To learn more regarding this article, please visit www.realestatechampions.com.