The Old School Says Agents/Brokers Are NOT the Center of the Universe

Posted @ 9:59 pm - Filed under Real Estate Brokerage, Communication

I’ll preface this post with the mea culpa that I’m of the Old School. I’ve adapted to some of the New School’s ways, especially when it comes to marketing and technology. It seems when it comes to a choice between people and technology they invariably choose the gadget or the software over the live person. This irritates me no end. It’s not all about me, the broker/agent — it’s about clients, and those who are indispensable in the operation of our day to day business. To New Schoolers I ask you to ponder this thought. You’re in a service business. This means you serve them, not the other way around. Your convenience has little value — get it? You are not the center of the real estate universe.

Man did that feel good.

Ever called an agent’s office and asked, “May I please speak with John?”, and find yourself sent directly to John’s voice mail? Does it irritate you? Get the feeling yer calling an empty office? Or how ’bout the people who want you vetted for everything except your FICO score just to talk with ‘em? “May I tell them what this is regarding?” “No, my mistake. We don’t need to talk after all.” They do it for their convenience, not the caller’s. Besides, if you call me and have to go through a cavity search to talk with me, don’t you begin to feel as if I’m deciding if yer important enough for me to grant you some of my precious time? What about your time for Heaven’s sake?

Or how about email? How many times have you sent information by email, or a series of questions to someone during an escrow, only to have them call you with several questions which were answered in your initial message — Or answer only two of the five questions you asked. Does everyone have ADD?

Ever found yourself waiting after lunch for a response from an email you sent in the morning, only to learn they hadn’t even checked their email yet? Often these are the same people who fancy themselves as being part of a ‘hi-tech’ operation. Email isn’t even ‘tech’ these days.

In our business people sometimes get their panties all in a bunch over not much. In our experience it’s clients only about 10% of the time. (And for the record, they get a pass.) Usually it’s a service provider or vendor involved with a transaction. They’re angry about something, and want to vent all over someone, often an agent. Ask anybody who has any real time in real estate brokerage if they’ve received a voice mail or email acting as a kinda sorta preview for a movie titled, I’m Really Upset and It’s All Your Fault. I’ll make some basic points about these messages.

Address them as quickly as possible — waiting is never a good idea.

Sometimes the sender of the voice mail/email isn’t upset at all.

Returning all messages demonstrates your professionism.

Never be fearful of addressing that kind of message.

Responding Promptly

Brown and Brown clients, and the cast of characters involved with the myriad things we do as a brokerage, learn early on we return their phone calls and reply to their emails not only the same day they’re received, but more often than not, within minutes. It’s not our time that’s so dang valuable it’s theirs. Once they realize the value of their time to us is as the Hope Diamond, it dawns on them — we get it. We get positive comments on this all the time. People appreciate prompt professional responses — as they’ve learned it’s apparently not the New School rule these days.

They’re Not Always Upset

Please allow me some straight talk here. I’ll speak only for myself. As a young man I learned the hard way taking the coward’s approach never works. It can make a mildly bad situation into a disaster, many times making you look like a total fool. I speak from embarrassing personal experience. At least I had age as an excuse, as I was only 19 at the time. Having your dad, the broker/owner intervene only made it worse. From that point on I called folks who wanted to hear from me. ‘Nuff said.

Look, we’ve all been yelled at for real and imagined sins. It ain’t pleasant, and we surely don’t look forward to the experience. But if you can’t take the heat get another job, ‘cuz folks simply don’t want to do business or even be associated professionally with cowards. Nobody walks on water, which means nobody’s protecting their perfect record. Deal with people head on. In the above story I told on myself, my behavior was cowardly.

I receive requests weekly via email to call the sender. More often than not (3 of 4) a reason or subject isn’t supplied. So what? Call them immediately and find out. If they emailed you using your company site, I dunno, maybe they have something positive to ask or say. Ya think? I sometimes send an email to other agents asking them to call me when they have time. I don’t want to interrupt an agent I’ve not met, just because I need something, or want to talk about something important to me — so I email them to call me when they have the time.

I did this about a year ago to a local agent, Kris Berg. Asked her to give me a buzz when she had time. Within an hour or so my phone rang. “What can I do ya for?” or something to that affect. We’d never met in person or by phone.

Last week I was read the riot act via email because I hadn’t left a reason the recipient should grant my request for a call when he had the time. He was afraid, pure and simple, as he’d been verbally abused by some callers who hadn’t cared for his employer’s business methods. Here’s a hint. Sending an email asking why you should honor someone with a call by the incredibly important you, isn’t the way to make friends and influence people.

How many times have we received a voice mail or better yet, an email in which the person’s attempt at humor and/or sarcasm is lost on us? We’ve all had that experience multiple times. I had an experience several years ago which has always been my favorite example.

Making a long story very short, I received a message (can’t remember for sure if it was an email or voice mail) saying, ‘I have a bone to pick with you’ — from a person I didn’t know from Adam. I had no earthly idea what this person had in mind, not a clue. I called the number they’d left. Turns out they’d received a letter I’d sent earlier that week to income property owners in various targeted areas. The bone they wanted to pick? When I asked him he started laughing — ‘Why haven’t you written me before this? I shoulda been doing what you advise for years. When can we meet.’ I couldn’t have misread the meaning of his message any more if I’d tried. We ended up doing years of business with him. In fact, he and his wife are now personal friends. The moral? You never know when lightning is gonna strike.

Returning All Messages Sets You Apart

It’s the same as being prompt. Every message is important for the same reason every person is important. Also, as Grandma taught, it’s the importance the other guy puts on his message not my valuation that matters. Duh. Common sense says they wouldn’t have left the message in the first place if it wasn’t of at least some importance. Can we hear another Duh! from the congregation?

Don’t Be Afraid of An Angry Message

As mentioned above, sometimes they’re not mad at all.

Do you honestly think they’ll cool off if you ignore them? Hellllooo.

A quick response demonstrates clearly you’re not a fair weather broker.

They’re often mistaken in their anger — they’ve misunderstood something.

It happened but they’ve blown it up into something it isn’t and couldn’t be — this is a good thing.

They’re absolutely correct, providing you the opportunity to pony up to the bar, addressing it forthrightly and as a true pro — which is why they called you in the first place. Duh.

Faxes too have become a major headache. By the time a document does a few laps it may resemble pages copied from the Dead Sea scrolls. The cost of scanners are down these days to just above a Venti (Fill in 13 word description here — any help Lani?) Starbucks specialty drink, so scanning signed docs for emailing makes a lot of sense. It’s also saved hours of needless conversations between agents with escrow, lenders, and other agents. How many times would you have given yer first born just to have a readable document when time mattered? This is where scanning, and the use of pdf’s are simply a no-brainer.

All these shortcomings can and generally do cost the agent credibility, and sometimes their clients’ money. In the short run clients will accept the fact that others are slowing you down through poor performance. Eventually though the failures of those upon whom you rely will be associated with you.And if the offender is you, your clients will not long think of you as a real pro.

I offer the solutions we’ve installed in our office. They’re surely not the only way to go, but they work for us.

With rare exception the phone will be answered before the third ring by a live voice.

If the person called is unavailable, a time for the returned call is established.

If someone else can help the caller immediately they go out of their way to do just that.

Our email programs are set to send & receive every five minutes. Furthermore, they are set to appear in front of anything else we might be working on if there are in fact messages.

Unless on the phone or with clients, all emails are to be returned immediately if not sooner.

If good judgment dictates, emails are quite often answered by phone to avoid confusion.

All docs will be emailed and not faxed if the choice is available.

Lenders, escrows, transaction coordinators, title companies, and inspectors who work with our firm all agree to adopt these policies when dealing with us or our clients whenever it’s possible.

Our clients and those with whom we work, have often commented how nice it is to get their calls answered by a human voice 90% of the time — including cell calls. And love getting the vast majority of their emails responded to in 2-15 minutes. Their transaction file folders contain contracts, disclosures, and other documents which, unlike previous experiences, are actually readable. They feel spoiled –which was the goal in the first place.

I’ll still take Old School most of the time when it comes to matters of common sense and communication. People trump technology every time. In the end it’s not about us. Clients and all those who help us do our job are the center of the universe.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 11th, 2008 at 9:59 pm and is filed under Real Estate Brokerage, Communication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.