Steve D Valentine explains how he integrates personal hobbies—especially the car/drift community and attending car shows—into his real-estate business to build relationships. He describes using shared activities (drift track, car shows, bringing clients to events) as ways to connect, sometimes treating those activities as business expenses, and recounts personal anecdotes about building trust through involvement in school and community activities rather than formal advertising.
Chapters
One of the things that has been part of my relationship building is the car community, right? When we're on the drift track, when we're at car shows and we have the Blazer out, when we're doing different events, it was a hobby and a passion that we were able to put into the business. So it gives me two abilities. One, it becomes a business expense, right? For the things that we enjoy, for the drift racing, all the things, all the cars, all that stuff, right? It gives something to do with clients, it gives a connection. And there's guys that were building, you know, through and with, on the investment side. And that came out of hobby, right? You have little kids. I spend so much time at school, you would have thought I was enrolled. But dude, we were broke. I didn't have any money to advertise, so I just, you know, went in and played in the mud with the kids and helped them color and like, you know, you just got to be a five year old for four hours twice a week. But I built a lot of real relationships and people like, well, this guy's kind of crazy, but I mean, I buy a house from him, right? And you know, it goes back to my dad saying, right, it's better to be there than be good. The relationship comes, and this is the funny part about all the crap that's going on in the world right now. Most of the time, the consumer doesn't do a good job of interviewing the person. Like, oh, you were referred. You were also a serial killer. Yeah, but we don't know that. So you kind of go through those relationships and those pieces. But yeah, the circles and the hobbies are great places to go. Where can I meet and enjoy the community? And real estate may come up where I can throw something in.
