Hungry for sales
“Touch base with customers regularly, or they’ll think you’ve lost interest in them.”
When Yusef Khatib started in real estate a year and a half ago, a veteran Long and Foster top producer, Maureen Amendola, spotted something special in the young man--”You could see he was hungry to learn,” she says--and took him under her wing.
“We just clicked,” agrees Khatib. It wasn’t long before he clicked with customers, too, to the tune of $8 million in sales in 2000. While working his way through college, Khatib honed his skills working with the public as a manager at Banana Republic and Brooks Brothers.
“I love dealing with people, and I love selling,” he says. “I carry at least 20 business cards with me at all times. I even start up conversations in the supermarket checkout line and hand out a card. Everybody you talk to can be a potential client.”
Khatib believes a positive attitude is his best sales tool. “You create your own environment, and that affects your clients, too,”he says.