We all get this. Very frustrating. And very time consuming.
You work with clients, build the rapport, and then 'bang', something happens, and they are running in panic. This is simple: someone told them something. A cautious friend, a bartender, a taxi driver... They say something and one minute later they forget it, but it scares your clients and 10 minutes later they are crossing the Canadian border...
A long time aquaintance of mine had commerical land in one nice FLorida city. Terrific 1.47 acres. Needed to do something with it. The place is one of the fastest growing in the nation, location couldn't be more convenient, the need was obvious - Let's do a day care. My wife spent all her life in education, she started working on that, going to seminars, taking needed credits in college. This was supposed to be the best daycare you could only imagine.
Getting the plans, setting with the State, going for certifications, preparing business plans, tons of ideas, and then, one lucky day in WalMart he runs into a lady, who worked all her life in North or South Carolina in the daycare. He tells her about the plans, mentions that the weekly fee was going to be $95 and she is stunned. - "Oh, this is too much. Nobody would go". 15 minutes later the plans were scrapped, no daycare is coming and the land has to be sold immediately. Wait a second, what relevance has the weekly rate in Carolina to Florida? Yes, they charged $45 but the houses there were for $45K... Doesn't matter, trust is lost in a blink. Now he thinks that everyone is up to something.
Sell the land! Hey, wait a little bit, there is Home Depot trying to get right across. OK, and he waits... one month. "Home Depot will never come. I am wasting my time". He panics. I am telling him that the land would be very expensive, when this happens, but he goes to Watson realty and asks their opinion. They tell him it is only worth $150K.
We close a month later for $232K and 2 weeks later Home Depot announces that they have reached the agreement and the store is coming. I still had my sign on the property, and I was bombarded by agents and developers. I even tried to buy it back for another buyer for $550K, and the guys refused. Within a few months the land goes to $750K an acre.
2 ladies, who were working on opening a daycare center at the same time as us but in a different location, did open. Do you know how much they charged per week? $135. They put the Daycare for sale at $5 Mil.
What is my acquaintance? - "Sorry, you were right then. But who could know?". Yeah, sure...
I had already 4 times like that with him. Every time I say "no more", but then he comes ..... To be honest though, we did something, where for whatever reason he did not screw me.
Oh, maybe because it was in US Virgin Islands and 10 minutes was not enough to reach the Canadian border?
Jon Zolsky, your Daytona Beach connection
www.BeautifulFlorida.com
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