Integrity in Real Estate Business – Debo Adejana

Integrity is an integral act that an individual should incorporate in his/her attitudinal dispositions to succeed in life and real estate is no different. It is the social currency you spend that enables you move up life’s ladder. Albeit because integrity is not a hard earned currency, you may want to think it’s not important but suffice to say that if you don’t have integrity then you are as good as an empty cannon.
If you want to get to the zenith of your real estate business and be the best you can, your integrity should come handy. To be effective in business, integrity must and should be your trusted ally.

Integrity is like a code of conduct that enables you to excel. It ensures that people hold you liable for anything you say or do. You may join a professional body with total adherence to its code of conduct but that doesn’t still make you someone with integrity, it goes beyond that. We’ve had situations where professionals are made to face disciplinary committees of their professional bodies for gross misconduct and were delis-ted afterwards.

In other words if you have your integrity in check it will not only garner you respect, it will also enhance your business whether you are subscribed to a professional body or as an individual. Let people be able to find your ‘YES’ as ‘YES’ and your ‘NO’ as ‘NO’. However often times we say ‘YES’ in answer to an issue raised because that’s the information available to us only to realize later that it could have been ‘NO’. When this happens, we must then ensure that we get back to the people privy to that information with our change of answer as regards the subject before they get back to us. By so doing, you would have succeeded in keeping your integrity regardless of the slight setback. Simply put, your ‘YES’ cannot always truly be ‘YES’ because you are only human; you are not God that can change situations and circumstances at every point in time even when such situations and circumstances should change. However you need to be quick to correct your flaws and errors before you get corrected or before you are held tenable by the people you entrusted with your answers. You need to give them answers before they come headlong with you with their modified questions to avoid a dent in your integrity.

In summary, be smart! be at alert always: serve people the truth to the latter, say the truth even if you will take the fall for it that is what it takes to be equipped with integrity. Remember! Integrity is a currency; if you keep expending it without due process or you keep spending it frivolously without investing it then failure is closer to you than you think because people will not patronize you in business anymore not when you say black they already know you meant white.

We have a particular group of people we refer to as ‘OMONILES’, If you are not practicing Real Estate in Nigeria specifically in the south west region you may not comprehend this term. ‘Omonile’ is a parlance used among the Yoruba people to describe traditional land owners who inherit landed properties from their ancestors.
In my line of business, ‘Omoniles’ have been known to have no iota of integrity whatsoever. Generally, people have difficulties dealing with ‘Omoniles’ or doing business with them because they are hard to trust. For most of them dishonesty is their trademark. When an ‘Omonile’ tells you a building is painted white from a distance be sure to go close, possibly take binoculars with you and observe the building carefully. If you look deep you will realize that it’s not white but amber colour, little wonder people try to avoid them as much as possible.

For this reason, me and my colleagues in the real estate business carved a niche for ourselves to provide the enabling environment that the ‘Omoniles’ fall short of. We try to bridge the gap left by them in providing the services people dread to meet them for. At a premium we offer that which they will fear to accept from an ‘Omonile’ due to their lack of integrity. Now, that’s our business proposition; that’s our unique selling point. Therefore, the ‘Omoniles’ are losing a lot of money due to the fact that their integrity is been questioned time and time again.

The aforementioned is to drive home my point on how the stakes are measured when it comes to the issue of integrity. So, you need to be fair to people and be certain you are your own regulator before an individual or organization places a code of conduct on you. It’s good to subscribe to a professional body but you mustn’t wait on them to sustain your integrity. Someone once said, if you can lie for me, you will lie to me. So I tell my staff; if you can lie for my organization, sooner than later you will lie to the organization and we can’t condone that. Our customers deserve the truth, so we can’t afford to have someone that will lie for the organization in our fold.

Always tell the truth no matter how bitter or painful that truth will turn out to be and be tactful. In other words be diplomatic in your application of the truth. The same statement that was uttered in a heated atmosphere and consequently led to war could broker peace in the same heated atmosphere; it’s the way it is said that counts.

Keeping your integrity doesn’t mean dumbness, hence be tactful in your application of the truth or how you choose to tell the truth.

Debo Adejana
MD/CEO Realty Point Ltd