Is it Like Buttah? - How Agents Set the Tone for Smooth Closings

June 26th, 2008 categories: Real Estate Industry

I’ve been involved in sales that have gone smoothly (like buttah) and others that were the real estate equivalent of Rocky Road ice cream. Without exception, it was an agent(s) who made it difficult- either through poor interpersonal skills, lack of experience, inability to explain things to the clients or a serious. And once or twice, I made the sale harder myself (now I’ve seen the light, though).

Sure, clients can be difficult and circumstances can be tough, but good agents who keep their cool can work through just about anything.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how real estate agents interact with each other and how our relationships with each other affect our clients.

I started thinking about this after I had an “incident” with another agent over the phone where the agent banned me from seeing any of his listings. Seriously. And here’s what I did to deserve this: I called his office to let him know that his office hadn’t called to confirm an appointment to show one of his listings until the actual appointment time, leaving me no choice but to miss the appointment. I thought he’d like to know.

Although I explained to him that it wasn’t a big deal - I just wanted him to know - he got really mad and told me I should have my phone repaired and claimed I had called him a liar. Since the only call that had been recorded “incorrectly” was his, I told him that I didn’t think my phone was broken.

Ultimately, the listing agent got so mad that he told me to “never, ever show one of (his) listings ever again.”

How did this serve our clients? Not well, of course. The listing agent, whose job it is to get other agents INSIDE his listings, risked offending me so badly that I would never bring clients to see his listings and that doesn’t benefit his clients.

My clients may have been represented by an agent who was easily offended and not up to the challenge of dealing with an emotionally disturbed individual.

In either case, our clients may have suffered. For what?

Ultimately, I took my clients to see the house but they were not interested. Had they been interested, I’m sure the sale would have been one that would go down in the record books for “worst-all-time-experience,” not only for me but mostly for our clients.