In his book Ten Greatest Salespersons, Robert L. Shook covers sales success in ten different fields. For the real estate field, he spoke with Rich Port, president of one of the nation’s largest real estate firms and a former real estate salesman. In this article, Port shares the concept that set him on the high road: Service means more and better sales.

“We’re in a unique business,” Rich Port explains. “In most other fields, a salesperson can offer his customer a product which will have some differences from his competitors’. But when we sell a residential property, we’re often selling the same product which the buyer can purchase from the real estate office down the street. So in order for us to offer something better, we must give him or her more service. The key to success in the real estate business is service.”

As you listen to Rich speak, you notice that he seldom uses the word “I” but rather says “we.” Rich Port is 100 percent committed to serving his client. Only after the client is satisfied will Rich think of his own interests.

“Sure, we’re interested in the bottom line,” he asserts. “What business isn’t? But if one thinks in terms of his client first, everything else falls into place, and at the same time you’ll make a profit, too. When we first began to sell multiple listings, one of our salesmen didn’t relish the idea of not getting the 100 percent commission which he was accustomed to receiving on an exclusive listing. Well, every time he had a prospective buyer, he’d only show our homes. It was fine to show our homes, but while he was doing it, someone else might sell his buyer one of their listings. It happened to this salesman three times in a single month, and that was the end of that. He thought his people were so loyal to him they would only buy from him. It’s his duty and obligation as a professional real estate person to find the right home for his buyers regardless of the amount of the fee.”

In spite of some early warnings from the old pros in the real estate business, Rich Port Realtor had little turnover of salespersons. “In the beginning we decided to have the most highly educated, most professional salespeople in the community,” Rich states. “Once, after I’d delivered a speech to our real estate board on my thoughts about training and developing new people, the old-timers told me I was crazy. They said I would make salespeople too smart for their own good. You see, I wanted to educate them so they could take a transaction from the listing right through the closing without any help from anyone. We wanted a truly professionally trained all-broker staff. Well, the old-timers believed if we made all of our people professionals, then they would open their own offices right down the street.

“What they were telling me is that I should keep my people dumb. Our people, meeting the public representing our firm, and yet they should be dumb so they won’t go into business for themselves. Well, that kind of thinking made me furious. We felt if we couldn’t make our operation so appealing to the staff, convincing them they were better off with us than in their own shop, well then there would have to be something wrong with the operation. In any event, if they left, we would be sure to help them succeed and continue to be friends.

“It was this kind of philosophy on which we built our business,” Rich say beaming.

Rich’s training procedure doesn’t exclude the foundations of real estate, but stresses the service end. “Sure, we’re going to teach our salespeople the basics of the business,” Rich explains, “such as how many square feet are in an acre. And they’ll learn about footings, heating and air-conditioning systems, and those things which make up a home. But that’s not the total education. We’ going to teach them how to understand people and, most important, to recognize a buyer’s needs. The salesman is a problem solver, so he has to be capable of determining the buyers’ problems.

But in order to do that, he must understand their requirements. For example the client may be transferred. Or perhaps the client’s present home is a two bedroom and they now have four children. In order to really help the client, the salesman has to listen. Not only is it a matter of listening to what the man and wife saying, but listening to what they really mean, because they don’t necessarily always say what they mean! So what it boils down to is being a student of human behavior, knowing and understanding people.

“In our training program we cover virtually every facet of real estate as well as the general field of selling,” Rich continues. “We have sales meetings on subjects such as ‘Time Utilization,’ ‘Body Language,’ ‘Empathy with the Client,’ ‘Self-Motivation,’ ‘Self-Discipline ‘Setting Goals: both Short-Term Long- Term,’ ‘How Properly to Show a Home,’ ‘Selling Sellers Successfully ‘Closing a Sale’ – you name it, and we’ve taught it at one of our meetings. We believe strongly in role playing as a teaching technique, using video tape. Also, drilling in the sales skills is essential to success. This is best done at meetings in our local offices. Twice a month we conduct regional sales meetings with the combined sales forces of several of our offices attending. Then we have one general sales meetings for the entire Rich Port Realtor organization. Of course, it takes a large facility to accommodate everybody, see we conduct the meetings out-of-house. Usually a guest speaker is invited to these general meetings, and we have arranged for guest speakers from all over the country – Los Angeles, New Orleans, Denver, just to name a few.

“Everything we do is structured to provide service,” Rich stresses. “That’s the name of the game. An excellent example of what the word ‘service’ means in the real estate business is exemplified by June Hofmann. She is continually one of our top salespersons and now manages our Clarendon Hills office. June has been with us for 23 years and has always done business only on a referral basis. We believe she could do business on top of the water tower in Western Springs because people would seek her out. I remember one instance when she sold a home and the buyer was so pleased that he sent her several referrals, and one of them sent her nine more.

“Often June will get a call from one of her satisfied buyers (now friends) who will say, ‘June, an acquaintance of mine has been transferred from Cincinnati, and I wonder if you and John could come over for cocktails and dinner tomorrow evening.’ June and John go to the home, but before they even walk in the door, that Cincinnati couple has been sold on living in Western Springs. The host has also extolled June’s qualifications and virtues for being able to put things together, and the couple was told that there’s no firm finer than Rich Port Realtor. After a few minutes of chatting with the man and wife, June has a complete picture of what they want to buy. In many cases, she will conduct only one or two showing presentations, and there won’t be much she can do to keep those people from buying the property. That’s because she’s analyzed their needs so well and knows exactly how to match the benefits.

“Do you want to know June’s secret?” Rich beams with pride. “She kills her clients with service! I mean it; she’ll kill them with service, even after they have purchased the home. For example, she’ll see to it that their water is turned on. If it requires a deposit because it has been turned off by the previous owner, she will make a deposit. She’ll arrange to have the telephone installed. June knows all the answers including exactly what the student-teacher ratio is in each grade of the school, and she often calls the teachers by name. She tells people exactly – to the penny – how much it costs to get a monthly ticket on the suburban train. ‘It’s only 19 air-conditioned minutes on the fastest train,’ she may inform a buyer. June will have a gift for the family which may be in the home before they move in. The first day in the home she’ll cater a meal. Or, knowing how inconvenient moving can be, she’ll invite them to her home for dinner that first evening. She’ll make sure that they are in the Newcomers’ Club. June will call a church of their denomination and say, ‘You have new possible parishioners, and you ought to meet them.’ You name it,” Rich boasts, “and June will do it. June helps the family adjust to the community in every way possible.”

This philosophy of service is at the heart of Rich Port’s success story. As he says, “As long as I can make a contribution, I will continue to remain active.”