The Agent-Centric Model of Doing Business:
How many times have we seen this one? An agent shows up for a listing presentation... and all they do is talk about themselves for two solid hours. It’s a long winded soapbox oratory full of spirited hyperbole about why the agent is the best thing since sliced bread. The whole boastful barrage could be summed up in 8 short words: “List with me because I’m the best.”

What nonsense. We call this the Agent-Centric model of doing real estate business. It’s all about the Agent. It’s easy to know what it is when one sees it. The agent has one mouth and two ears, but the listening conduits are superfluous flappage; it’s the mouth that roars. The client usually just sits there perfunctorily nodding their head from time to time, seldomley getting a word in or completing a sentence... like a bubble-head client doll.

The agent-centric business model is also easy to recognize when one hears it. There a few common phrases, like boxes to check, that must be repeated to affirm that one is the best:

“I’m Number One”:
This is our favorite. Lets see, in our market there are at least three different brokerages that claim to be number one. Each has a different take on the market to support their position. We call this the “I’m-number-one-because-I-sell more-homes-on-odd-numbered-Tuesdays-after-4:30pm- than-you-do” rationale. We see the same thing at the agent level as well, perhaps more so. There are at least a half dozen or more self-claimed number-one agents in our market. All too have their own take to support their position... though Tuesday afternoons we think are taken.

“I Sell More Houses than Anybody Else”:
We really like this one too. But what gets us, and this is coming up in a post tomorrow, is only a Listing Agent can legally claim they “Sold” a house. That’s true. Yet, about 85 to 90% of the time, the Buyer has their own agent... that is not the Listing Agent. Legally though, a Buyer’s agent can only claim “Sold in cooperation with another Broker.” This is nuance, we understand, but what inspires the most trust; the agent who tells the client they “Sold” everything - when 90% if the time another agent brought the Buyer, or the agent who tells the client the truth about what “Sold” actually means?

“I Always Exceed My Clients Expectations”:
This is also a good one. What occurs to us is how can a client’s expectations be exceeded if the agent doesn’t know what they are? Mr. Agent-Centric rarely if ever uses an expectation check list. That requires asking a lot of questions, and sometimes probing about a client’s real wants and needs. That takes a lot of listening, and if the agent is using their mouth far more than their ears, how is he ever going to know what expectations to exceed?

An Old Industry Practice:
The measurement of success in the real estate industry has always been about production -- the number of properties sold, and for how much dollar volume. Years ago, an older model for doing real estate was centered on the Broker. This “broker-centric” model of doing business was characterized by the market position of “come to me because my company sells more than anybody else.”

For the last 20 years or so, the real estate industry has focused more on the “Agent” rather than the Broker. This agent-centric model of doing business is characterized by “come to me because I am the best because I sell more than anybody else.”

For both of these archaic business models, all industry recognition is based on production. There are no awards for service or the inspiration of client trust. Service and customer satisfaction has never been part of any industry award or recognition. Perhaps only rewarding production made sense in the past, but as our industry matures and becomes consistent with the wants and needs of today’s world, customer satisfaction is becoming an important and valuable component of our measurement mix. Hopefully this is at the expense of agent-egocentricity.

There is a better way of doing business!

The Client-Centric Model of Real Estate Practice:
This is the better way of real estate practice. The Client, not the broker, nor the agent, is the picture. Everything about the client is first... in word and in thought. Not incidentally, or coincidentally, but most importantly it all makes sense. Clients are far more interested their own transaction, rather than somebody else’s house that sold before... and how agent sales-breath did it. Today’s consumer is quality driven, not quantity driven.

There are a few telltale signs of the Client-Centric real estate agent. Here’s some things to look for:

The Agent Listens:
Does the Agent use the ears more than the mouth?

Expectations Analysis:
Does the agent use an expectation check list? Does he find out things that are important to you that you hadn’t thought of yet? Does the agent fundamentally understand your needs and your time frame?

Personality and Your House:
Does the agent ask why you bought your house in the first place? Does the agent want to know what you love about it most? We think both are important because these are the reasons why somebody is going to buy it again.

Personal Stories:
Does the agent get you to talk about the good things that happened in your home? We think good stories bespeak a good place. Does the agent ask to get the children involved? A list in a child’s hand about why they like their home is always something to behold.

Your Best Interests:
Does the agent impress you that he cares? Or is that subordinate to personal sales production rattle? One can always tell; which of the two subjects gets the most airtime?

Teamwork:
Does the agent seem like a team player? The successful selling of a house always comes from effective teamwork... between the Seller and the Listing Agent, and between the Buyer and the Buyer’s Agent, and from both Agents working together to find a pleasant, acceptable outcome for all involved.