Carmen Rodriguez is a broker associate with Carmen & Tony Real Estate Services of Coldwell Banker in Edgebrook.
Every week, we ask a real estate professional for their Short List, a collection of tips and recommendations on an essential topic in real estate. This week, we talked with Carmen Rodriguez, a broker associate with Carmen & Tony Real Estate Services of Coldwell Banker in Edgebrook, on how you can distinguish yourself from the competition.
3. Read – It may sound passé, but in the age of the Internet, seeking out printed material may make you the one person in the room who knows something that the surfers haven’t seen. Read books or magazine articles about the neighborhoods you service, read the newspaper (especially the Sunday real estate section) and read the business news. It’s all relevant to your business and opens up new avenues of communication with clients and colleagues.
2. Call – Think of yourself as a retro agent, if that helps. Instead of a chain of email several days long, or the pinging back and forth of disjoined texts, pick up the phone and resolve the question right away. Your clients and colleagues will appreciate the expediency and efficiency of a resolved matter, making you the problem-solver. If you rely upon documentation to keep track, send a follow-up email to confirm the conversation.
1. Post – When you learn something new, even if it’s not about your business or your clients, post it to appropriate social media. When I learn something about a good restaurant or a school function in my neighborhood, I post it to my social media sites. These posts make me look less one-dimensional, more in touch with things others are doing and relevant to buyers and sellers who may like those restaurants or be interested in those schools.
Carmen Rodriguez is a broker associate with Carmen & Tony Real Estate Services of Coldwell Banker in Edgebrook. With more than 15 years of combined experience in long-range financial planning, real estate portfolio management, traditional and distressed sales, product placement and marketing, client service and process improvement, Carmen has an extensive referral network and can assist clients with finding the right resources for all aspects of a real estate transaction. She is the chair of CAR’s Subcommittee on Cultural Diversity and a member of the Government Affairs Committee.