Long Term Investor Client - Time to Ask for Some Exclusivity?

[Robyn Phipps]

I have a couple fix and flip investors that I work with regularly. One in particular has been a client for 3 years and over 60 transactions (both buy and sell sides). We manage the bulk of their buy and sell sides and myself and my team have put in countless hours forging this partnership. I've offered incredibly competitive commission rates, full staging (my own man hours), top notch marketing, etc and subsequently raised prices in our suburban area (repeated comments from appraisers and the community). It's a partnership that has worked, but gets strained due to my clients need to get additional deals from other agents. 

Our market is extremely tight, so I understand this, however I bring pre-market deals to this particular investor (and this investor only) whenever possible. By my last count, I was able to bring over a 1/2 dozen non MLS deal (most of which I would have listed myself retail). I drop my commission on MLS buy sides to get them better deals and I've collected none or next to none commissions in some cases on buy sides (if we were listing it on the back end post flip).

It's public knowledge that we have this partnership, due to the sheer number of transactions and recognition of the homes we've sold, however this has not deterred agents from pursuing the investors business. I get it, it's the name of the game. I have investors contact me about partnering regularly, but I've been very up front in that we do have a particular investor who will get 'priority' on properties in our market area. Up to this point, I haven't heavily pursued additional investor business because of a possibly ill-fated sense of loyalty. 

During the time we've worked together, our client has bought and sold 4 homes with other agents and they are ready to do their 5th. Hearing after the fact that our client viewed a pre-market property with another agent in my office isn't the best news when we're busting our hump for them. 

Thoughts? 

Do I branch out our business similarly with other investors so that I'm protected and not feeling like our loyalty isn't being returned or do I ask for exclusively buyer agency within our market area? I know that's something investors shy away from and understand why, however I've literally dedicated a massive portion of my business (I have a team that I just grew to 6 and we did $35M last year) to this particular client. The market share has been the biggest benefit, in all honesty the $ from their  transactions isn't even that great. 

Sorry for the novel ... TIA!