I learned a valuable lesson yesterday.

I make a practice of contacting and introducing myself to the other professionals involved in each new home loan purchase.  The real estate agent and the solicitor are my primary contacts.  With every new purchase I make a point of calling each of these parties, introducing myself and advise them of the expected timeframes for finance and the lender details.

I do this simply because it makes everyone's job a lot easier if we are all working together.  It also makes it much easier to extend finance dates or settlement dates if I've already established a rappoire with these professionals.  Remember that Real Estate agents will quite frequently try to push these dates forward as they don't get paid until the deal settles so they want this to happen as quickly as possible.  If you leave it to your client to liaise with all of these parties then there is always the possibility that your clients may be talked into unfavourable terms.

So what happened yesterday?  A Real Estate agent that I dealt with a month ago for one particular client had remarked a few times to me that he was really surprised to have the broker keep him updated along the way.  I was happy with the feedback but thought no more of it, I mean this client was on the Northside and likewise so was the Real Estate agent so I didn't anticipate any further contact after the deal settled.

That Real Estate agent contacted me yesterday and asked if I would mind having a look at his own finance as he'd spoken with his existing lender and they were unable to help him.  He said that he thought of me because I had been so proactive with his previous client. 

The point I'm making is that in the process of helping a client, I have excellent exposure to several possible referral sources.  Without even attempting to do so, I had formed a relationship with these guys which led to a possible business lead.

I honestly hadn't looked at it from that perspective before (ok, maybe I'm not as bright as I thought I was) so suddenly I've seen the golden opportunity presented from each deal.  Possible referral sources and a reason to add these professionals to my database.

And... there is no reason why, once you have established a relationship with these professionals, that you can't ask them to consider you for any future finance needs.

You learn something new every day.