3 Strong Traits for the Strongest Partnership

Brothers from different mothers

Collaborations between team mates are common in our business. For the matter of fact, it’s likely more common than ever in any trades but this article is meant for realtor’s collaborations and advice on how to find yourself the strongest possible partnership that you could leverage on one another forever.

Ok maybe not forever, but for the longest time you will be able to find the satisfaction from working together. As part of leadership, for team mates to have collaboration, you have to be mature to let everyone know that partnerships would take time to mature and if it does not work out to be as envisioned, observe again the following traits and end things off in an amicable manner so that there is less damage to your friendship, and even your name should partnership turn sour.

Amazing results with synergy
Amazing results with synergy

These are the top 3 traits for a Partnership to work in my words

Friendship

Look ma! Same watch even on holiday!
Look ma! Same watch even on holiday!

How many of you would defend your friend in adversity? How many of you would stand up and defend when your friend is being dissed in a private conversation or even walk away and not participate in baseless conversation? Friendship takes time to build and invest. Mutual liking for one another would be how genuine you are in order to show the other being how much of a friend you are to them. There’s not even any description I could attest to friendship as it’s a strong feeling that binds two or more beings together in comrade. It’s like knowing what the other person might do and you do things to compliment your friend instead of doubling the effort required for a task.

Group trip to Hokkaido, 4 years and counting. Everyone is still working together!
Group trip to Hokkaido, 4 years and counting. Everyone is still working together!

The more time you spend together, whether its for work, play or even family time. The more the following few traits which I have described below will be more apparent.

Trust

Spartan Beast in Brisbane - You have my back, we have yours!
Spartan Beast in Brisbane – You have my back, we have yours!

Integrity is part of having this trait. To trust would be knowing that when you’re doing one thing for a cause, your partner will be supporting you without taking advantage of you as all of us are on the same side. It simply means that even with bickering and differences in opinions to support your goal, you know that your partner has your back so that you could dedicate your time wholeheartedly instead of being suspicious.

A situation where I move then you move, I don’t because you don’t makes complete different sense away from trust.

Generous

I would think in Chinese it would be labeled more of “non calculative” (不计较). As two parties or more work together, the requirements of scope to achieve a vision requires some sacrifices, whether its time or money. Money is also a byproduct of time, as you exchange time for it, whether its measurable. So efforts wise cannot be equated or measured properly.

A partnership is formed because you find synergy in another being and even strategic plus traits that the other party has. Whether it is something that you can see, or can’t (as with synergy), as long as both parties are working towards the same goal with trust, there will be long and short ends but as long as both finishes together.

Partnership definitely isn’t for everyone. All people are born differently and have their own reaction to people around them. We always seem excited when we started to talk about a grand vision, but when its time to get things going, the above 3 traits one or another is usually being compromised. That’s why partnerships usually breaks up, and more often the sad thing is that friendship could have a permanent dent.

Bruce and Benson

Yearly affair in 1000m hut, Hirafu. 8 years and counting.
Yearly affair in 1000m hut, Hirafu. 8 years and counting.

My working partner in business, Bruce and I have came a long way with the above 3 traits of a strong partnership that has enabled us to create a community of realtors friends which shares most of the same good values as us when it comes to work and play. Without pun intended, I would say this as the most ultimate partnership that many are longing for. It will be many years to come when we semi-retire in glee and still spending time as old stubborn men in our silver hair age laughing at the most ridiculous events and doing the most stupidest things, yet still giving back to the community where we can contribute as much as we have received. We have come onto a consensus too that we love what we do and will not retire even when we are old and disabled.

Like the saying, brothers from different mother. Have someone like this and you can build a long outstanding working relationship, otherwise work on the traits above. They won’t just yield you just good partnerships to have, but definitely good businesses and loads of loyal friends that will safeguard your interests along the way.

Best of luck in building ultimate partnerships and bonds that will never break!

Brothers from different mothers
Brothers from different mothers

Why SRI makes sense for an experienced Realtor

In one of our Enrich sessions

Bruce Lye and I have greatly benefited from the environment which we were in since 2009 working together as a division in another real estate agency before creating what we believe could continue to forward our people in Singapore Realtors Inc (SRI)

Location

"Location is not bad la not bad!"
“Location is not bad la not bad!”

SRI’s office is located currently in 66 Eng Watt Street #01-06, Tiong Bahru. The consideration for the venue of business has been carefully planned before inception. From its open concept area to its cheerful pantry environment, we believe that an open environment breeds communication. Loads of chic eatery places, great coffee baristas and local food all within walking distance. Last but not the least, no car park issues!

With SRI’s office, the elite realtors can commute quickly to areas which we have a strong foothold in, whether in Central Business District(CBD) which is just 10 minutes drive away, or prime districts such as Orchard, Newton, Bukit Timah which is merely 5 – 15 minutes distance. Time savings. Time is money.

Continue reading “Why SRI makes sense for an experienced Realtor”

5 Crucial Reasons why New Realtors Fail

ps. this is a rerun from 2011, but I suppose it deserves some love since its the time when Realtors decide to join the industry or make the switch.

There are many reasons the joining and dropping rate for joining the Real Estate family as a full-time professional Realtor is high.

Correct me if I am wrong team leaders, but the true and the hard facts of helping every team mates to the best of your extent does not always help and sometimes it might even backfire on you.

Before any individuals who decided to join the industry, these are thoughts which should be useful to form some opinions of our industry before you plough your money and time into joining us (yes, before you even take your RES course please),

Continue reading “5 Crucial Reasons why New Realtors Fail”

How do you decide which Real Estate Company to Join?

Many new Property Agents especially before taking their exams are wondering what are the best prerequisites of which property agencies to join after clearing their RES papers. Here’s a few of what is important in my take on which ones to go for after consulting a couple of friends running the Real Estate agency business.

Branding

A way to identify whether a particular Real Estate Agency has its brand close to everyone’s heart would be how much a reach an Agency has over its audience. They typically would command a decent number of realtors in terms of market size for this to happen. It also holds true that the longer a brand is in the market, the reach is more mature.

Only practicing Realtors would be able to identify and see the growth of different Agencies since they are in touch with the market, else new Realtors would have to seek help from practicing friends on their feedback.

Some do have their different strength in different segments on the market. Niche franchise brands where numbers are smaller might have a certain reputation for being in segments such as private, commercial or even luxury residential. If you are looking for a certain niche to start with, you could start by exploring on the reputation of the agency as with how much you can leverage.

Generally you would hear of groups or divisions of Realtors carving their own branding, which are much more prominent and active in the market as well. Their choice would usually be a brand that sticks and is more prevalent, as they would rather much concentrate on their sales instead of worrying about the Agency they are in.

Continue reading “How do you decide which Real Estate Company to Join?”

Difference between Cloud Storages & Evernote

A Happy New Year to everyone :-)

SRI5000 SLP Realty, Benson Koh training on Evernote 101 - The Basics.
SRI5000 SLP Realty, Benson Koh training on Evernote 101 – The Basics.

After a training for my agency SLP Realty earlier in the morning and I think these snippets are pretty useful to share as they are common questions to which Dropbox, Google Drive users would normally ask in terms of how they manage their cases and productivity. There are also several other pointers which I brought out which is important in order for Evernote to be useful to you.

Evernote vs Dropbox, Sugarsync, Google Drive, SkyDrive (Whatever you can think of)

Dropbox, Sugarsync, Google Drive, Sky Drive are cloud services which offers online backups. Although they are useful and many swears by organizing their database cleanly so that it becomes effective, it was never meant to be a planning tool. Continue reading “Difference between Cloud Storages & Evernote”

5 Evernote Applications to Boost your Real Estate Sales

As I was writing about why Evernote was essential to my business 3 days ago and getting ready for the lesson for my team, it would be better to further deliberate on some scenarios why Evernote could boost your sales instead of just plain boasting about that green elephant. These are some snippet applications on what you could use your Evernote for in Real Estate.

Using a Pen and a Paper to Goal

Cool ainnit?
My goals for 2014

I love to doodle. It’s innate. And it’s still my best way to get many things done with even checklist boxes and things to do with scenes to follow. Since it’s the end of the year and most of us would write the goals for 2014, why not try this:-

Write your quarter goals for 2014 (Q1, Q2 nada nada) and have them broken down into what you would be doing on a piece of paper? I use Moleskin because I’m a sucker for quality products, but hey, a 555 jotter (your childhood 10cents book) will work here. Write down everything you want to do for 2014 and snap shot with Evernote ‘Document’ camera mode.

It’s that simple. Continue reading “5 Evernote Applications to Boost your Real Estate Sales”

Evernote for your Real Estate Business

After a good 7 years, I have been going through what is seemingly a high transition on how print media dropped its anchor of being the leader in information and coverage; where Real Estate sales became more transparent with different media portals, discussion boards, and even the way that you handle your clients have changed.

Brooding over the weekend, these are the factors which are important to me and why Evernote is a game changer and why you should use it to run your Real Estate business.

Why Do You Need a Third Brain

There’s too many things happening in our fast paced career. You have appointments to appointments, with things to follow through from different customers. You have things to learn everyday. You follow up with real estate news. New cooling measures break in, you have to follow through the regulatories to understand and see how it applies to each of your clients.

You drive. Calls come in, you have to probably “take notes” or call your clients later. This can go on, sometimes even 14 days in 2 weeks. And you forget something important in the midst. You get into trouble.

This happens. Continue reading “Evernote for your Real Estate Business”

5 Most Important Traits of a Real Estate Agent

Having being in the industry to see the different cycles in the market and grooming great people to work with in my team, people right outside my industry always ask what is the most important trait to success in the business. This question always lead me to ponder whether there is one that is more outstanding or more important than the rest of the other traits or whether do they have any order of priorities at all.

And then there are these few atop that is worth mentioning and these are the ones that guides my principle not only in the real estate business but to most of the things I do in life.

Be Responsible

To mention that you are responsible is a statement. Wholeheartedly responsible is to be able to do the things even when nobody else might even know or notice that you have done the right thing. In order for you to do well, you would have to be set goals (short, medium and long-term) and stick to them. You would have to plan your week, your months and your quarters and make sure you carry out your tasks. This is responsibility to oneself and plays a crucial part to our business.

Continue reading “5 Most Important Traits of a Real Estate Agent”