Whether your office actually has a water cooler or not, small talk with fellow agents is an occupational hazard when you’re working on a team (at least if you’re not all remote, but I digress).
If you’re busy (as REALTORS® tend to be), then small talk can seem like a waste of time, but enjoying the company of your teammates is an easy way to make your job more enjoyable. Since you may not have the time to think up some good icebreakers in between showing homes and writing contracts, here are a few evergreen ones.
Your clients
Presumably, you’re both somewhere in the process of handling some real estate transactions, so compare notes: how the current transactions compare to ones you’ve previously managed, what your clients are like/how they’re unique, etc.
The risk is if your business is unequal (for example, you’ve got plenty of clients and your teammate is struggling to even get one), it can get the conversation off on a bad foot.
Even then, a quick fix is to offer some tips to your less lucky or experienced teammate.
The news
An unwritten rule for conversation with acquaintances is “no politics or religion.” Even so, topical news stories are a good way to get the conversation moving since you’re both sure to have strong opinions. The real estate industry has plenty of those right now, from consistent market struggles to recent lawsuits that threaten to upend commissions.
You might be thinking that you don’t want to focus even more on these lawsuits’ fraught ramifications for the industry, but talking through something can be an easy way to destress.
Sharing tools
Being on a team means supporting one another, so why not share more tips, or tools, on how you’re getting ahead? Since you’re both on the same team, you’re probably using the same CRM or MLS, so there’s little to recommend there—however, you could mention features of those programs that you’re skilled in or that you’ve found beneficial to compare notes. Other, more individualized, topics could be how you’ve been using social media platforms to find leads in your community or how you choose to host your open houses.
