I have a basic philosophy in life. Be the person you would want to work with. That is simple, right? Well, today I had an up-close look at how that looks in real life. I had a closing in a community an hour away. When I arrived, I was ahead of my clients, so I spent 20 minutes or so checking and answering emails. One of those emails came from a car dealership where I am buying a new truck.
I custom built a truck on the manufacturer’s website. It only took about 6 weeks to build and ship. When I received the call that it was in, I was ecstatic. My week has been insanely busy, so I have not had time to pick it up, but I will grab it next week. One of the emails I received was the salesperson telling me they aren’t going to honor one of the commitments they made when we were negotiating the purchase.
I had eight dealers offer to collaborate with me on the purchase. I had already designed the truck,
so all they needed to do was accept it and fill out the paperwork. Simple enough. The original salesperson I was working with quit prior to the truck arriving. The new salesperson said the deal would be the same. That was until the email came in telling me they were not going to honor the original deal. That was the opposite of my philosophy. It was more like “don’t be the person you wouldn’t want to work with.”
There was another event today that was also a reflection on my philosophy. The closing was on a new construction property, one of my least favorite sales. The biggest issue I have with them is the total lack of control the buyer’s agent has. I find it hard to represent clients when the tract builders offer no negotiations of any substance.
On this deal, the buyers contacted me in the Spring to ask if I would work with them. They came to my office one Saturday morning and asked if they could sign a buyer-broker agreement. I always use them, so I was thrilled that they wanted to initiate the agreement.
We looked at houses that Saturday and by the end of the weekend, we signed a contract. The BBA they signed guaranteed a certain commission percentage regardless of the seller’s contribution. This builder did not offer compensation at the level of the BBA which meant the buyers were on the hook for the balance.
In the process of closing, it slipped my mind that the buyers were going to owe me a balance on the BBA. We were walking out of the office when the buyers said, “We need to give you a check for the balance of the commission.” That's when I snapped back to reality. We sat down to calculate the number, and the buyers said, now it’s on the gross amount and not the base (which is what the builder paid the commission on).
They wrote the check. I thanked them for their incredible integrity, we had our parting comments, and we left. It was on the way home that I reflected on the car dealer and the real estate clients. One’s words are like ice that melts in the summer heat while the other is like a rock that the worst weather cannot move. The real estate clients were so refreshing and restorative of my hope for humanity. I am sad that the car dealer fulfilled every stereotype I have ever heard about car salespeople. The real estate client demonstrated a deep inner integrity that makes me hungry for another client just like them. Be the person you would want to work with.
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