With Valentine’s Day proper across the nook, many profitable real estate agents throughout the nation will likely be doing what they do each February: dropping off goodies, flowers, handwritten playing cards, and in just a few formidable circumstances, cherry pies, on their purchasers’ doorsteps.
And weirdly… it really works.
Not as a result of chocolate makes folks promote their home.
Not as a result of cherry pie unlocks itemizing inventory.
However as a result of Valentine’s Day faucets into one thing a lot older than real estate.
Lengthy earlier than people had open homes, CRM techniques, or market studies, we had … grooming.
Anthropologist Robin Dunbar argued that primates use bodily grooming to construct belief, reinforce social bonds, and keep group cohesion. It wasn’t hygienic. It was social. Grooming mentioned: I see you. You matter. You’re a part of my circle.
The issue, Dunbar famous, is that grooming doesn’t scale. You may solely decide fleas, lice and ticks out of so many buddies’ backs in a day earlier than both your calendar fills up or your arms fall off. (regardless of how scrumptious parasites could also be)
So people advanced one thing higher.
In Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, Dunbar proposed that language itself emerged as a type of social grooming, a method to keep relationships at scale by shared data, storytelling, and gossip. As an alternative of touching one another’s fur, we exchanged perception and context.
(Dunbar, Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, 1996; Wikipedia abstract: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooming,_Gossip_and_the_Evolution_of_Language)
In different phrases, we constructed relationships by exchanging helpful data.
Similar as monkeys, However with higher instruments.
Evolution
Now fast-forward about 50,000 years.
Each February, brokers hand out goodies and flowers. In October, Pumpkins, in November, it’s pumpkin pies. Typically it’s branded. Typically it’s do-it-yourself, different occasions it’s from Costco.
And it really works for a similar cause grooming labored for monkeys.
Psychologists name it the norm of reciprocity, the deeply wired human intuition to return favors when somebody offers us one thing of worth. When folks obtain an sudden present or useful gesture, they really feel a delicate inside stress to provide one thing again later, even when nothing was requested for within the second.
(Cialdini, Affect: The Psychology of Persuasion; abstract: https://www.simplypsychology.org/reciprocity-principle.html)
It’s not logical. It’s not transactional. It’s a pure social intuition. Your internal monkey is maintaining rating.
Right here’s the place brokers quietly get this mistaken.
Nearly each agent says, “We love referrals.”
They are saying all of it 12 months. They print it on indicators, magnets, and enterprise playing cards.
They even carve it into bus cease benches.
They ask for them… with out giving something first.
“Have you learnt anybody who needs to promote?”
“Simply checking in.”
“I’d actually recognize your referrals this 12 months.”
That’s not relationship constructing, that’s social chilly calling, and it’s simply noise.
It violates the oldest rule in human belief formation: don’t ask for favors earlier than you deposit worth.
That’s why Valentine’s Day gestures work.
They aren’t salesy, transactional or asking for something. They’re simply small belief deposits.
Which can also be why value-first outreach works when every little thing else doesn’t.
When somebody shares related, individualized housing data like modifications in residence worth, fairness progress, neighborhood pricing developments, it doesn’t really feel like advertising.
It appears like: “Huh. This individual is taking note of me.” Form of just like the small hit of dopamine you get from a like in your Fb put up. That’s grooming in Dunbar’s sense. That’s a belief deposit. Totally different wrappers. Similar mind.
We’ve discovered that when folks reply with questions, they aren’t elevating their hand for a gross sales pitch. They’re reciprocating. They’re persevering with the social trade.
Nonetheless monkeys. Nonetheless grooming.
Hopefully, simply with fewer fleas and extra spreadsheets.
Dunbar’s perception got here from observing monkeys, but it surely was actually about scale. People wanted a method to keep 1000’s of social connections with out bodily proximity or fixed interplay. Language solved that.
Right now, information and helpful data serve an identical function.
They allow you to keep related, useful, and trusted throughout way more relationships than your reminiscence or calendar ever may. Simply by giving first.
In my expertise, most individuals don’t interact as a result of they’re truly prepared to purchase or promote at that second.
They interact as a result of they had been seen, helped, and given one thing of worth.
That’s not advertising, that’s anthropology.
We’re nonetheless the identical social animals we had been 50,000 years in the past.
We’ve simply swapped grooming for cherry pie, chocolate hearts, and customized perception.
And the rule hasn’t modified:
When you scratch my again,
I’ll scratch yours.
Let me know your tip to deposit belief with prospects within the feedback, and please ship pie.
Dunbar, R. I. M. (1996). Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language. Harvard College Press.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooming,_Gossip_and_the_Evolution_of_Language
Cialdini, R. (2006). Affect: The Psychology of Persuasion.
Reciprocity precept abstract:
https://www.simplypsychology.org/reciprocity-principle.html
Chris Drayer is the co-founder and CEO of Revaluate.
This column doesn’t essentially mirror the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial division and its homeowners. To contact the editor liable for this piece: [email protected].
