I have started to understand that real estate brokerage is all about relationships: building new relationships, fostering and cultivating existing relationships, and nurturing older ones really matters.  Particularly in Florida, there seems to be a lot of competition for business in getting land listings, earning the trust of not only landowners, acquisition groups, and stakeholders but also of other competing brokers.  No doubt, there is a lot of land to sell both here in this great state as well as throughout the country when the time is right and when the situation calls for it.  This past month I was able to establish a few newer colleagues, not through directly marketing to them or trying to win/earn their business, but through playing in a couple of scramble golf tournaments here in northeast Florida.

First let me say that despite growing up around golf, I am a bogey to double bogey golfer at best.  However, the game has become an experience that I truly have grown to enjoy.  Not everyone plays golf nor even enjoys the game, and for me a great experience often boils down to who I end up being grouped with.  Competitive golf (the PGA and LIV tours, etc.) has become extremely popular throughout the world.  However, my approach to the game is that of complete enjoyment and respect for the game itself: I play for fun only.  Both the Jacksonville Chamber golf event at Palencia and the ABC Florida First Coast golf event at Marsh Landing got me out of the office for a day, enabling me to connect with so many newer colleagues and potential clients that I hope to see around town for many years to come.  In a scramble you typically play as a team and compete against other golf teams in the tournament for prizes at the end.  Whereas my team was often finishing at or slightly under par, we were still able to discuss our roles and responsibilities within the greater Jacksonville community and the real estate industry in general.  In many cases the discussions in the context of the game of golf were filled with laughter and not filled with pressure or stress that that often is felt in a competitive business environment.

Golf is by far my favorite business development activity.  In truth, how productive can you really be and how much business can really be done on the golf course?  Maybe it’s a low productive activity but an excellent ice breaker.  I would rather hit the links for eighteen holes than almost anything else, especially when meeting newer potential clients or colleagues for the first time.  For some reason, it just lightens my mood and brightens the week.