photo courtesy of mollypop
Finally...a connection.
I had a call today from Stacy Jones of The Jones Team in Katy, Texas, we've been trying to connect for awhile now, but today we finally spoke. It was a conversation about real estate and technology (mostly websites) and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's always great connecting with other agents and just sort of bouncing ideas and thoughts back and forth. The call went on for about an hour and I think we both took away a few things while chatting. Sometimes in the middle of a conversation about something, a light goes off in my head and I hear something so pure, so true, so right that I jot it down as soon as I can (in this case, it was during the conversation - sorry if I seemed distracted for a moment, Stacy).
Thinking and Hoping - never saw the two so clearly.
I'm not great with quotes, so you'll have to excuse me for paraphrasing (and I hope Stacy won't mind), but the quote went a little something like this:
Your client already thinks you're competent. They hope you're honest.
It's a pretty simple quote, but when I heard it the bells went off in my head. I had to think this one through some more (and of course, blog about it).
Thinking you're competent.
When Stacy said "thinking" there was no implied "maybe" or any kind of doubt that you (the agent) might not be competent. Think about it for a second. The consumer hires an agent for a reason - they believe, no...they think that we are competent at our jobs. They may have found out someone wasn't, but they are placed their trust in the fact that you know what you're doing. They assume you know how to do your job. They are sure you know the neighborhoods. They hired you because you're the expert...a professional that does this job day in and day out. Even if you're new, they know that you know (or will find out) what is needed in order to successfully complete their transaction.
That consumer just placed a lot of faith in you...don't mess with that. Know your industry and know your job.
Hoping you're honest.
The second half of the quote struck me a bit. We're all honest right? That's all a big part of ethics and just being a good agent. But step out of your shoes and put on the consumers...is the agent honest? How do you know? You have no prior proof of their honesty. You don't know if they lie, cheat, and steal. You know very little about them, except what they've told you. What if they lied about all of that? Although, I sure hope that's not a rampant problem, there's no real way for the consumer to know that right off the bat. They have to build that trust-relationship with you. They need to grow into the belief that you are the most honest person they've ever met. Until then, until you've proven your honesty, they can only hope.
The consumer must hope that you will be absolutely honest with them...don't stand in the way of that. Demonstrate your honesty through your actions.
I'll probably never hear those two words in the same light ever again. Stacy's point went on to discuss how we're not selling houses (the house, price, location, etc.) do that. We are selling our service. We are selling us. We want them to pick us over all the other agents. But that's a post for another day...
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