Knowledge, Power and Trust Building
Harrison, our Director of Estimating, received that call we love. It was from a newer realtor looking out for his clients, who were so enamored with a stucco home that they wanted to purchase it without any investigative work. This particular realtor had been coached and conditioned to not even want to show clients stucco homes for fear of something “bad.” Harrison patiently guided him through the facts of stucco and the responsible next steps that he should help his clients through – securing a reputable invasive stucco inspection followed by any necessary repairs and sealants completed by ICE. This quick education and process put the agent’s mind at ease, overcame the unfounded preconceived notions about stucco, and enabled him, as a client-focused realtor and fiduciary, to help better serve his client. There are several ingredients that apply to, but extend beyond stucco, and help all of us reframe and better approach unfamiliar situations and bias in life.
Knowledge: Human nature is to resist, those things that we are unfamiliar with. Blame it on insecurity – that moment we might have to admit we don’t know much about a subject. Unfortunately, when we make decisions without good information, we run the risk of either 1) rushing into something we shouldn’t, or 2) running away from and missing out on, something truly positive in our lives. Think about cars (but go ahead and expand that to all areas of life) and the brand loyalty comments we have all said or heard – some perhaps in jest but some simply because we are operating with bad information. One dodge truck-loving friend of mine swears that Ford stands for “Fix Or Repair Daily.” There are plenty of people who will passionately try to dissuade others from a certain brand of anything or, dare we say, stucco homes, for a variety of personal, inaccurate, and subjective reasons.. Bias and misinformation are huge reasons why we embrace the opportunity to be a part of educating and dialoguing with realtors and others on the topic of stucco homes early and often.
Power: This is not that kind of power that feels like someone has something they hold over someone else but rather the reassuring kind, anchored in knowledge, that makes someone grateful and better for the encounter. It should not come as a surprise that some of the most powerful and influential realtors we work with have mastered the knowledge piece of the equation and provide the best purchasing and selling guidance to their clients. They recognize both the incredibly amazing qualities of a stucco home while fully understanding the approach needed to properly maintain it. It turns out that they also possess the same acumen about, and approach to, all of the other material and structural considerations of a home (HVAC, Plumbing, Roofs, Pools, Yards, etc.). If you own a home, you know the list is long.
Trust Building: It is a privilege and honor for us to play a small but important role in many stucco home sale transactions. When we are able to take the baton from a fully informed homeowner, equipped with great information from an objective educator realtor, we can then help reassure them that they are in a good place. Unfortunately, this side of heaven, nothing naturally ages well so at ICE, we actively develop trust from the first interaction – the kind based on expertise, but, perhaps more importantly, the right mindset and objective perspective that reassures.
Harrison’s call with that realtor did not result in immediate work for ICE, but it was a prime opportunity to prove we care, educate and inform, and lay the foundational cornerstone for building trust. Much of our work is a time-sensitive effort to help in buyer or seller do what is necessary to help bring a sale to a safe conclusion. But we take a long position on relationships, both realtors and homeowners and approach every interaction with that in mind. Leader guru John Maxwell once said, “You add value to people when you value them.” In life and at ICE, we are seeking to add value to customers by simply valuing them.