Have you ever had a crisis in your career? Maybe we should ask how many have you had today? Let's face it, a great real estate agent is first and foremost a problem solver, and because of this, a top producer's desk will often become a crisis management center. This center is where all problems arrive and are expected to be solved within a short period of time.
In this current market, our clients present many crises to us that need our help. They lose jobs just as the sale is ready to close. The appraisal on their property comes in too low. The bank turns down their short sale and the buyer is ready to walk. Sometimes, even if we have the wisdom of Solomon, we cannot turn the situation around in a way that salvages our sale or helps our buyer like we'd like to.
How can we become better at crisis management? Before we can begin to answer this question, we need to start by admitting that most of us deep down are cowards at heart. Yes, we may come across as confident and strong, but at our core, we fear like every one else. We fear that we may fail, or worse yet, that someone won't like us. We often don't face each crisis as quickly or as effectively as we could; and occasionally, we don't face the crisis at all. Soon it is too late. By accepting our natural aversion to crisis, we can then begin to unravel the simple techniques all of us can use to be better crisis managers. There is an old saying, "It is not what happens to us that matters, it's what we do about it." This is one piece of sage wisdom that definitely applies to crisis management.
As with many things in life, in a real estate crisis, our natural reaction is to point fingers, maybe at someone, maybe at the system. Often we need to look our selves and muster our response.
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