Here I am blogging from my hospital bed. The board across my bed has today's date, my nurse's name, and my room number. Most importantly, it had this slogan across the bottom: We want you to be Very Satisfied with your care.
Before I go on, for all my concerned friends on Active Rain, I want to tell you that I am physically doing very well. If you had not known, I am 33 weeks pregnant, with 7 more to go. He is our first baby... For those whose seen me know that I am petite (5 ft 1 1/2in tall), underweight when compared to the American chart to begin this pregnancy. Not a big deal. My husband is not an Hulk Hogan size, in fact he is average for an Asian. We both do not expect a huge baby. I am not surprised that my baby is considered small when he is charted.
I went for what I thought was a normal sonogram yesterday (Monday) to make sure my baby is growing on the "smaller side". We found out that my amiotic fluid is on the borderline low. Should it fall lower and lower, the doctors might decide to take him early when they feel that the hospital incubator is a better incubator than my tummy. With the emotions that went through my mind went, I started breaking down. The doctor wanted to put me on a non-stress test. That is where it spiral out of control. At 33 weeks, with 7 more to go, I already have mild contractions. 12 in 1 hour - that is definitely not good.
They put me on more medication to stop the contractions and a steroid shot to prepare the baby's lungs just in case he does come out early without his lungs fully developing. After the contraction medication wore off, contractions came back again. That is when the doctors decided that I needed to stay overnight for observations.
I am holding up fairly well now. It has been almost 24 hours since I started receiving news I could barely digest. I am doing my best to take my mind off thinking that my child - my perfect gift from God would have to endure before he comes out to be with me.
I could not sleep well last night. I looked at the white board again and I thought back about yesterday. Even though I did not like what the doctors and nurses told me, they really made me feel re-assured. They want to be VERY SATISFIED with my care. That is very empowering because I felt exactly that! So, how is this very long blog related to real estate? After all, this is about real estate blog.......
While I know nothing much about my medical condition, I have to somewhat trust the experts in this field. As a patient, I do my due diligence to read up about what is going on and verify that what tell me is correct. Again, this is just reading. I do not pretend like I understand this as if people who put themselves through countless years of education or training. But I know what it is like to be scared, feeling lost and not knowing what to do.
The same to real estate consumers. While I would not compare buying or selling a house comes close to a serious medical condition, real state consumers do go through fears, jitterness, anxiety, not knowing whom or what to trust in this "big, big world". So, like medical experts (doctors and nurses), building confidence with your patients, in our case our clients is very crucial. As a matter of fact, it is the number one core fundamentals* in real estate: Building rapport.
As a realtor who provides VERY SATISFIED service, here's some of the characters you will need to have:
A Heart of a Teacher
We do many, many real estate transactions. You would hope that that number is more than your clients - who needs your expertise. Our clients come from all walks of life with difference life experiences - be it real estate related or not. So put yourself in a leadership status, yet be humble about the opportunity to be of service. Please make your encounters with your clients as fruitful as possible. Hopefully, each time you meet them, they would know more about their search, themselves or you.
A Gift of Reassurance
You must understand that most people do not go out to spend large sums of money often (in a real estate transaction, I say that's a large sum of money). They may feel jittery, they may wonder if they are doing the right thing. A good realtor has a gift of reassurance - if you too yourself know that you are working in the best interest of your clients. Do not belittle their fears because sometimes that tells you something. It is always better to take some time to reassure them but if they continue to fear, do not take that feeling lightly.
A Gift of Patience
This comes hand in hand with the gift above. It takes patience to work with your clients. Understand that we deal with transactions day-in and day-out. There are some things no matter how small or large, we have taken it for granted. But it could be the first for your clients. Be patient with them and answer their questions and comments with the utmost respect.
A Gift of Calmness
While purchasing or selling a piece of real estate is not in the "fear" threshold as getting medical news from your doctors that you do not understand, fear is still fear. It may also not just be fear but anxiousness. Having a gift of calmness will help ease the transaction. There are times when the clients do not feel that they want to proceed with the legal transaction and your gifts of reassurance and patience are not kicking in. You might need to whip out your gift of calmness. Be still for a while. Encourage your clients to think about it for one or two days before reacting. When things do not go their way, usually the gift of calmness is good practice. Or if you have a quick-to-react client, "I must get something today or else I'm going to miss out on the boat", instilling the gift of calmness is also the right response. Everything should be well-thought out.
A Gift of Compassion
Broker Bryant is a huge teacher on this subject to me recently in his blog: You are so vain. At the end of the blog, he mentions that Buyers usually buy on their "high" or happy note, while Sellers may sell on their "high" as well as "down" note. Sellers sell for alot of reasons. Share your compassion with your Seller clients while at the same time, you too need to be the strong, analytical one to lead them through one small portion in their lives that they have to deal with right now. Tell your Seller clients that when the negotiations with Buyers do not work in their favor, it is not only just a Buyer's market, share with them that Buyers do have their own reasons to move on. It may not simply with a "They are not that interest" mentality. You can share with Buyers your compassion heart too. While we do not necessarily care about the reasons why Sellers sell, we put in our offer contigent on your clients' needs, showing them your compassion heart shows them that you are human - and not this cut-throat agent.
Well, I have just shared with you what I went through as a service receipient in the hospital. My entire medical team showed me these traits of gifts that go along with their high medical expertise. I am sure we can all apply the same gifts in our profession.
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Practise Your Core Fundamentals
Bryant Tutas: You're So Vain
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