Reputation in business is almost exactly like creditworthiness: it determines the character and extent to which your peers and consumers are willing to deal with you. It can be nearly impossible to change a poor real estate relationship (in particular; although this goes for virtually any relationship), so it is important to work to maintain and improve it.
- Keep Your Promises
This one is, frankly, a no-brainer. Avoid making promises that you cannot expect to keep, which requires enough humility to admit ignorance. If you are unsure of your ability to commit or deliver, state as much in the beginning. By not keeping promises, you jumpstart a domino effect since now others who depended on you can probably not keep their promises, either.
- Keep the Lines of Communication Open
This simply means that you should make yourself available to the commercial real estate community – at least, insofar as you have business with other realtors and clients. The chief way to do this is to promptly return phone call. The emphasis is on “prompt”; since keeping clients waiting engenders a feeling of unimportance in them. It is human nature to avoid being the bearer of bad news; but in business, dealing with this in a straightforward and prompt matter is a definite reputation-enhancer overall.
- Timely Recompense
Basically – pay on time! Commercial real estate is big business, and late payments adversely impact investment schemes and portfolios more than in your personal, non-business life.Not being timely with payments will see future business opportunities dwindle – it’s all about establishing and maintaining your reputation. News that you consistently pay late will spread amongst your peers, and you may find that upfront payments are required on future acquisitions
- Be Even-Keeled in Your Dealings
This can be summed up by considering the long game. For example, you don’t want to be known as a haggler in commercial real estate – especially when the monetary amount is paltry compared to the value of your portfolio or even just the property. If dealing with is unnecessarily difficult, fewer people will choose to deal with you in as competitive an endeavor as real estate, where there are always other clients, realtors and agents.
- Ethical Dealing Goes A Long Way
This explains itself – avoid opportunities for fraudulent dealing wherever they crop up; this is a part of seeing the bigger picture. What you gain in the short-term will come back to bite you in the long-term. Practicing ethical real estate is all about reputation management.
