Schooled in Customer Service
At 14, Scott Steadman started Scott’s Neighborhood Landscaping to save up for a TV. Along the way, he built a thriving lawn-mowing operation focused on customer satisfaction. “It was important to be on time for appointments, and I even sent handwritten thank-you notes,” Steadman, now 29, recalls. “I knew if I did a bad job for my next-door neighbor, he wasn’t likely to refer me to his next-door neighbor. So it was all about taking care of people.” Some of those customers from his youth are his best real estate clients today. Those long-nurtured relationships help explain why 70 percent of his business is from referrals. “It’s funny when some of my clients look back and say, “Man, I knew you when you couldn’t drive,’ ” Steadman laughs. “They know I’m not just putting a sign in their yard; they know they’re not just a transaction.”