Are you really representing your buyer?

I love the film Jerry Maguire, not so much for the actors or actresses but for the story and principle.

Jerry Maguire was the typical sports agent: willing to do just about anything he could to get the biggest possible contracts for his clients, plus a nice commission for himself. Then, one day, he suddenly has second thoughts about if what he was really doing was right. When he voiced these doubts, he ended up losing his job and all of his clients, except Rod Tidwell.

All of us have sat there at some point in our life thinking, we have it all wrong, our firm is headed in the wrong direction, we need to tear up the rules and start afresh.  Very few of us have believed in it so much that we are willing to sacrifice our job for it, although right here and right now in real estate it might not be such a bad idea.

In launching NationalBLS, the Buyer Listing Service, I have been out and met with lots of Realtors, normally in small groups and normally the ones that turn up are pretty forward thinking.  Frequently, buy side agreements have come up in conversation and how difficult it is to get a buyer to sign one.

Why wouldn't a buyer sign one?  It's simple. They don't trust you. They don't trust that you are 100% unequivocally going to put your personal interest aside and help them.  How do I know? Because I have been a buyer and it is exactly what I felt.  I always felt that there would be a list, your properties first, your companies properties next, your friends properties next and so on. I wouldn't mind this as long as you show me them ALL. But that simply doesn't tend to happen.

Jerry has a line in the film, "I will not rest until I have you holding a Coke, wearing your own shoe, playing a Sega game featuring you, while singing your own song in a new commercial, starring you, broadcast during the Superbowl, in a game that you are winning, and I will not sleep until that happens."

That is the sort of commitment a buyer is looking for and what better way to back it up than by placing them on NationalBLS, the Buyer Listing Service, the equivalent of saying, I am 100% for you.

Humans have an acute sense to spot when someone says one thing but does something else and that is where the trust disintegrates. Make sure actions follow your words, it is the easiest way in real estate to outsell the competition.

Welcome to the Buy Side.