One thing I’ve learned is that you don’t need a complicated system. You need a short list of simple things, done again and again. Five things, five thousand times.
1. Remember the details. The name of their dog. Their daughter’s soccer season. The month their lease ends. People don’t need you to be impressive. They need to feel known.
2. Reach out with no agenda. One message a month that asks for nothing. No listing, no referral request, no “just checking in.” Just “I thought of you.”
3. Celebrate them. Birthdays, milestones, closing anniversaries, a hard thing they finally finished. Most people go years without being celebrated by someone outside their family.
4. Show up in person. Coffee, the board event, the open house nobody else came to. Texts keep a relationship warm. Presence keeps it alive.
5. Follow through after the finish line. The real relationship starts after closing. A call at 30 days. A note at the one-year mark. A “how’s the house treating you?” when nobody’s asking for anything.
None of these will change anyone’s life on its own. A single kind text won’t build a business. One coffee won’t save a friendship. But five small things, repeated thousands of times over a career, are what people mean when they say, “She’s the one I always call.”
It’s the same principle I see in every house I walk through. Small things, maintained consistently, are what keep everything standing.
So here’s my question for you this week: who’s one person or client or friend you’ve drifted from that you could reach out to today? Not with an agenda. Just because they came to mind.
Start there. Do it again tomorrow.
-Jaymie
