From Chris Smith:
The past 10 years have been a digital revolution. And much like the Industrial Revolution, which modernized society, it’s changed the way people and companies operate – this time, though, by connecting everyone. Now we’re in a people revolution. It’s not all about technology anymore; it’s about how you use technology to work with more people, more efficiently.
These five business principles are adapted from Peoplework, a book I co-wrote with Austin Allison, Founder and CEO of dotloop, which runs on the Peoplework principles.
Human Companies Win
Start treating your clients and staff the way you treat your friends and family. People connect with humanity. If your sister were to ask you to pick up her kids, you wouldn’t get a mileage reimbursement app to figure out how much she’d owe you. But in business, we treat people that way. We wait until Monday to make the call we should make on Friday.
Change Requires a Blueprint
Change is now normal. It’s going to happen, and you have to have it to grow your business. But you can’t just hope and wish for change. You have to sit down and write out the blueprint for change; you have to have people in place who are comfortable with it; and you have to have meetings about it.
Service is Marketing
There’s no better form of marketing during a people revolution than marketing that’s focused on customer service. Become a customer-service organization whose product is homes. When you screw up, overcompensate. Make it right. Be a human. Apologize. And do it quickly. How do you get really good online reviews? You take great care of people. Trust me, people know how to leave reviews on the Internet – it’s 2014.
Purpose Before Technology
Don’t focus on technology over purpose. If you focus only on technology, you’ll never focus on people. Your purpose isn’t a new website or SEO or lead generation. Your purpose should be growing your business and talking to more people who want to buy or sell a home. Your clients aren’t going to thank the ads you run for them or the website you built; they’re going to thank you.
Quality Creates Quantity
This is one of my favorite principles. By focusing on quality, you create quantity. If you keep working people in a vanilla way, you’ll keep getting vanilla results. So take back people skills. Care the most. Put your phone on airplane mode during every showing with your buyer, every meeting and every interaction. Imagine the lifetime value of a real estate client if they have a quality experience.
Good stuff