MANAGING RELATIONSHIPS 

I was a banker from 1975 to 2005 where the perennial buzz word was Relationship Management. Whether you were a Corporate Banker or an Investment Banker or a Retail Banker, managing relationships was what you did one way or the other, except if you were a trader. This concept of managing relationships caught on with other industries as well. However, in all my years of banking both as a banker and a customer, I have never had a person who was as good as my best relationship manager. He is a real estate broker in Hong Kong - David Cheung. 

Normally real estate brokers are a breed apart like the used car salesmen, particularly in Hong Kong. You should watch the Hong Kong movie Temporary Family  to get an idea about the aggressiveness and inventiveness of the Hong Kong brokers. I have had a woman broker ringing my door bell at mid-night to make me sign an agreement, so that I did not change my mind next day and sell to someone else. I have also dealt with real estate brokers in London, New York and in India. They are all the same.

I met David in the early nineties. He is a smallish bouncy always cheerful man. He helped me buy, rent out, manage and sell my properties over the years. He had a cousin who takes care of the repairs and maintenance. Over the years I introduced him to a number of my friends and to a person they have been delighted with his services. A friend still uses him to let out and manage his property even though he is no longer in Hong Kong. 

We sold our last property in Hong Kong soon after leaving in 2005. David helped find a buyer and arranged for all the documentation. I flew in for a day, signed the sales agreement (the whole process took 15 minutes) and left. However, that was not the end of the relationship.

Almost sixteen years later, even though he knows that he is not going to get any business from me, both during Western and Chinese New Year, I get Ecards or emails from David greeting us and enquiring about our family. Today I received a message expressing his concern about the Covid situation in India and offering to ship over masks or anything else we might need. This is the ultimate in relationship management. No banker can match that or even come close.