Creating Customers for Life

Dave Gorham is back as our guest on The Property Management Show. He is a co-founder of Realty Solutions in New Jersey, and we’re diving into his philosophy around customers for life, and how it’s important to align a business with the idea that you’re going to serve your customers in some capacity for as long as you can.
Dialing into Customer Lifetime as a Business Model
Customer lifetime is an important part of Dave’s business. And, it was never intentional.
This focus grew out of the discussion he began having with clients about their financial assets and their exit strategies. It became part of the same conversation. As the company began to grow, Dave was acting as the Business Development Manager (BDM), and he would talk to potential clients about exit strategies. He’d be curious about why they were buying a particular property and what they planned to do with it. Dave found himself wanting to know what the client would do with a property if it became unprofitable and a financial advisor recommended letting it go.
This naturally helped him to create customers for life. He found it was necessary to figure out how to serve a client as a property manager for the lifetime of the relationship.
Curiosity really drove these conversations.
It was Dave, building relationships and being really curious about why his clients wanted a particular property and what they planned to do. If the property didn’t make money, was that his concern as a property manager? Or, did it depend on the owner’s strategy? They might have an equity position where they don’t need the cash flow now, but they know the zip code they’re buying in will lead them to a profitable sale in five years.
For other investors, there has to be cash flow. They invest in properties that will never provide the equity that others are looking for.
Scope of Services and Customer Lifetime
A lot of those conversations resulted in owners not necessarily having the answers to those questions.
For Dave, this became an opportunity to build relationships and plan for a lifetime customer. He and his partner built Realty Solutions on just one property. Many of the owners who struggled to answer Dave’s questions about why they were investing or what their exit strategies were could relate to that. They were starting with one property, too.
Initially, these questions were curiosities. Now, Dave sees these questions as part of the conversation. If a potential customer cannot answer the questions, Realty Solutions can provide advice and guidance. If they can answer the questions, they’re getting a glimpse of how Dave’s company can help them succeed. They’re saying:
“This is what the journey can look like.”
This is part of helping new customers and even existing customers understand the scope of services that Realty Solutions can provide.
You don’t want a client looking for services elsewhere when you can provide those services yourself.
When you have the conversations up front, you’re better positioned to provide all the required services, and for life.
Knowing how to talk about what makes you unique is a huge selling point. What is the heart of what you do?
Customer Lifetime from a Sales Standpoint
This can be part of your sales process. You’re trying to educate someone on how to think about what would make a good investment. Why one asset instead of another? You cannot just buy a property and wait to make money.
Dave acknowledges that this lengthens the closing cycle. There might be a client eager to sign up for prop...