You’ve probably heard the phrase “If you can’t count on family, who can you count on?”

Barb Betts found this out the hard way. When her grandmother passed away in the early 2000s, she thought for sure that, being a real estate agent, her family would want her to sell the property. That turned out to be a hard no.

“I was devastated,” Betts reveals.

Now a seasoned leader in the industry, Betts advises other agents on how to prioritize and nurture relationships to maximize success. By following a system of simple, commonsense relationship-marketing principles, she says that any person or business can easily and naturally create raving fans.

Be remembered

As the above example illustrates, you can’t necessarily rely on people—even your family—to remember you. That doesn’t mean Betts’s family forgot about her; however, her being a real estate agent might not have been top of mind when it came to selling her grandmother’s house. To prevent this, Betts says you need to be proactive about your business relationships. She mails something of value every month to every single person in her database, or what she refers to as her “list of relationships.”

And then there’s the one thing Betts says agents always forget to do: ask. “Agents want to apply this relationship-based marketing system and have it work immediately. But it won’t if you don’t tell people you need their business. Trust me, they won’t be lying awake at night worrying about you. You have to ask all the time for it to work.”

Show them you know them

If you have an older parent, then you likely know that technology isn’t always their friend—and that the reverse is probably true if you have a millennial sibling. Betts says that navigating and using such knowledge is invaluable in real estate, simply because you can maximize the impact of your relationship-building with minimal effort.

“I’m not reaching out through Facebook Messenger to older people; I’m calling and leaving a message,” she admits. “Conversely, if I call a twentysomething or thirtysomething client, they’ll think someone’s dying because you just don’t call those people. But I know if I send a message on Instagram, I’ll get an instantaneous response.” Betts also recommends tracking such communication-preference trends and logging them in a CRM for easy reference, especially if you have a large database of clients.

Seek connections, not referrals

“People don’t want to hear it, but no one cares about your listings. The only people who do are the people who are buying or selling a home,” Betts says matter-of-factly. Instead, she recommends using the CTA to introduce yourself to other people. “I always tell agents that you’ve got to sell through someone, not to someone,” she continues. “If you just sell to someone, you’re a cheesy used-car salesperson, and that’s unfortunately how people view us. When you sell through someone, though, you’re looking to help people and people they know. Good people know good people. If I loved working with you, I want to work with more people like you.”

And how you say it is just as important. Betts insists, “I never use the word ‘referral’ anymore with my clients because it’s way overused and comes with the connotation that you’re going to get something if you help me.” Instead, she started using phrases like “Introduce us,” “Connect us,” and “Share us,” which led to her referrals skyrocketing. In addition, she says her “secret weapon” is plain ole sincerity: “My message will be ‘I was in your neighborhood today and thought of you,’ and then I’ll ask how their family or business is doing. It shows you really care about the person and not how you can benefit from your relationship with them. Ninety-nine percent of the time, they respond.”

Timing (and patience) is everything

Believe it or not, people are referring agents every day; agents just don’t always know it. Betts is adamant about this based on her experience. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thanked a client for a referral, and they say, ‘I’m so glad they finally called you. I told them about you months ago,’” she shares. “The client is silently referring us; they don’t need accolades and they don’t think twice about it. But there’s no way for me to follow up.”

To bridge this communication gap, she suggests gently asking the client in the future to introduce potential buyers/sellers to the agent through Facebook or a group text message. This will lessen any awkwardness and open the door to communication—and the upside could be huge. “Our pipeline grew exponentially and our business transformed simply because I’d say, ‘If you know someone who is looking to sell this year, there are some things they need to start doing now. It’s never too soon to contact us,’ she shares. “I want to know about those people now so I can nurture them. In fact, I sometimes know about referrals two years ahead of time; I wouldn’t get those clients by getting referrals when they’re ready to sell.” Plus, when people refer you, especially those Betts calls “advocates,” the referred people will like you before you walk in the door. So when you do walk in, you can just be yourself.

Finally, even though she ranks her client relationships (see sidebar), Betts only ever removes a client from her database if it’s clearly necessary. In this field, patience is certainly a virtue. “The ways that people show up are mind-blowing. I even heard from someone about selling a condo after nine years of no responses. They apologized to me!” she marvels. “It just shows that every single time I think about deleting someone from our database, they reach out, saying ‘I don’t know if you remember us…’.”

Betts learned firsthand the value of relationships after her missed family opportunity years before. “Looking back, I know why that happened,” she reveals. “They had no obligation to use me. Fast-forward to today, and my family is 100 percent going to use me. We’ve earned it after all these years because we’ve worked hard to build relationships. Anyone can if they believe in themselves and establish real connections with people.”

For more info, visit barbbetts.com or follow Barb on Instagram at @barbbetts