YOU NEED THICK SKIN

Nobody said this would be easy. Hey, in life, what is? But sometimes your expectations fall far short of reality and that happens because a number of things don’t align. Most important is honesty. Whether you are dealing with a buyer or a seller that is probably the most important quality (DUH!!) I have had buyers waving a chequebook at me screaming they will be buying a home today, and then they disappear. Sometimes for a short time. Sometimes forever. That’s OK. My expectation bar was set really low many years ago. And quite often you find that a client emerges from the mist that you just never expected. And that is where pre-judging gets in the way. I have always said to expect the unexpected and never pre-judge a situation. You just never know. I had 3 deals come out of one listing that probably shouldn’t have happened but did anyway. It was both interesting and exciting. Never a dull moment in the Real Estate Biz. Ask any agent and you’ll get a nod. At any rate always beware of the ones that scream they are buying because they usually aren’t. What stings though is the people you have worked with for weeks/months/years who drop you a line that follows.... “We were out travelling around and saw an open house. We went in and loved the place, so we put in an offer. Just wanted to thank you for your time.” Really? The hundreds of miles I spent driving you around? The countless hours spent researching the ultimate home for you? All of the other pieces that go into doing the job properly? Or, and this one really hurts, driving the clients around like a taxi cab would. So, I guess the take is, that if you want a chauffeur then maybe you had better hire one. My favourite is doing many things for the client and even supporting their business and then they drop the bomb on you that they bought with another agent. Or they just don’t tell you, thinking you’ll never find out. AND then they complain about the service they received and the property they bought. I had one situation many years ago where I met with clients to possibly list their home. We toured the property. It was a nice home. Modest but nice. So we sat down at the dinner table and I started to go through data for recent sales in the area that were comparable to their home. All of that didn’t matter a lick. They had a price in mind and THAT was what they were going to list for. So I agreed on one condition. If the home had no showings or activity over the course of the next 2 weeks then we had to re-visit price. They said fine to that and we signed everything up. Put up sign. Advertised. I did 2 weekends of open houses. Nothing. Not a call. Nothing at all. Pure crickets. So I called and asked to meet them. They agreed to that. When I sat down and reminded them of our agreement they both looked at me like I was crazy. I repeated we had the discussion and they agreed to it. Then came the kicker. They called me a flat out liar and said I created all of this myself. Not nice. So I said fine then. We will terminate the listing and I basically fired them. But I did learn a very valuable lesson. Everything and I mean EVERYTHING that is mentioned and agreed to needs to be put in writing and acknowledged by all parties. And I have stayed that way to this day. Makes life interesting for sure. If this sounds a little off, it may be. But anyone in sales will totally get where it comes from. All I can say is you get what you pay for. At ALL Levels and in ANY business. Always remember - Caveat Emptor.