Are YOU Setting Healthy Boundaries With Your Clients & Peers?

Great advice.  Sometimes we have to be like Doctors, being upfront about bad news. It is always easy and fun to bring the good news.

Take care.

Sally- I thought I was logged on...the above comment is mine.  Great post!

Post of the day!!!

I always strive to have satisfied clients and I don't lie to get satisfied clients. 

A Realtor's integrity and honesty should always be maintained.  The true professional will be honest and disclose everything on a timely basis.  We all make mistakes however we need to be truthful and disclose when a mistake has been made.  Great blog.

This is a really good post because it is such a complex issue.

My thoughts: 

"Perception versus Reality" tend to get in the way of communication, even if you are a professional with a healthy self-esteem, and are forth-right about facts. Sometimes perception can make it hard for  the truth to be more palatable.  Thus leaving a bad taste about what an agent had to say. 

I have heard that if you say something 3x it becomes the truth, (even if it is a lie!)

Then again, I have heard that those of a changed mind are of the same mind still.  So, you can perceive you have changed someone's mind, but in fact you haven't, (even if you gave them all the facts).

Last, but never least, the law of attraction, and like-minded individuals...not that I have the actual statistics, but I am going out on a limb and say that people like to have their perception confirmed.

In closing this long winded comment, "damned if you do, and damned if you don't give the cold hard facts".  Me... I would rather be damned telling the truth.

Oh and an additional sad fact, it is very unprofessional to go back to clients, especially if they did not use your services... and say "I told you so."   ...I bet there are few out there that wish they could of, including me.

Again, excellent post!

Great advice - especially in this market! We should not promise anything but honesty and hard work for our clients.

If you treat people right and are honest with them then they will hopefully understand the message.

Sally Jo, great points you bring up. Being honest is all in the delivery, and if the individual with whom you share your "truths" doesn't like it, they're better off with someone else. I don't know how Hawaii is faring, but in most areas, we've all been confronted with offering information that's less than good news. While tempting to sugar coat, it just isn't the right thing to do.

another great post leads to just one question: DO YOU EVER SLEEP?????????????

Sally - I used to be terrible about setting boundaries due to my upbringing in a rather dysfunctional family, but through years of therapy I learned how to set good boundaries.  Reminds me of that Robert Frost poem, "Fences make good neighbors".  Good boundaries enable me to empathize with my clients' problems and still operate professionally.  They enable me to care for my 95 y.o. mom in the nursing home, my 87 y.o. dad, who lives with me, a friend who is battling cancer, and in the next breath pick up the phone and put my focus on my clients.  Boundaries keep us functioning well and on an emotional keel.  Thanks for writing this post.