By Marty Douglas
Settle down class. Our topic today is how to fail in the real estate business. It should be on every province’s mandatory education list. For credit. I could write a book but a column will suffice. In no particular order, and you don’t have to do all of these things, any of them will ensure you are a turnover statistic with a short career span.
Nothing sharpens your mind like a pending deadline and just as I despaired for the lack of topics, a faxed contract of purchase and sale arrived on my desk. The good news – it was legible and accepted. The bad news self-inflicted when I wondered how the offer had gone from the buyer to the seller. Was it presented in person by the buyer’s agent or, to use a colloquialism, did they just ‘phone it in’?
One of the obligations of receiving a substantial portion of the commission derived from any real estate transaction is to act as the agent for your client, whether the buyer or the seller. As sellers’ agents we are quite used to presenting offers in person. But as buyers’ agents, due to a combination of geography, sellers’ instructions or availability or – dare I whisper it – bad habits or outright laziness, the evidence is clear that buyers’ reps too often fax or scan the offer to the listing rep and wait for the call. (Okay, there are exceptions – seller’s written instructions, seller in Labrador – but don’t try to tell me it doesn’t happen.)More than once in my late-night patrols of the office I’ve found a fax that didn’t go through – the line was busy, the area code wrong, the access code forgotten. It was kind of scary when it turned out to be a time sensitive offer sent by an agent who rushed out the door right after hitting the start button.
Pretend you are the buyer on an average priced house (in my community) with a sell side (buyer’s agent) commission of $6,500. Wouldn’t you expect your agent to do battle face to face whenever possible? To answer the question raised by the seller about the offer, the question the seller’s agent can’t answer?
The next rung down the ladder of failure from the faxed offer is the oral offer. “My client will pay $295,000, should I bother writing it up?” Or “See if your buyer will come up another $5,000.” A long time ago – during the era of the statute of frauds – I heard this skilled explanation of how real estate works from a salesperson: “Don’t worry about a verbal offer. We have this special form we fill in and you sign and then we take it to the seller.”
Something requiring very little activity in order to guarantee failure is exactly that – very little activity. Novelist Elmore Leonard could have been describing those cobweb draped shapes in the corner of your office: “They were looking, not for something to do, but for something to happen.” I spent my first six months in real estate waiting for the walk-in traffic. No one told me that going out to find the client was more important than doing something to get the client to call. Yes, you have to advertise but advertising alone leads to an office account with no revenue.
Next – too much preparation. Motivational speaker Rosita Perez said, “A lot of people die – stuck in three to get ready – as in one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, three to get ready, three to get ready . . .” You have to take the next step. Discussing dance in his novel Valediction, Robert Parker wrote: “Performance is different. You can take classes all your life and rehearse forever, but you make more progress in one performance than you do in a year of lessons. Performance is the real thing. The other stuff is getting ready.”
As an alternative to too much preparation, try winging it. Howard Brinton, sometimes brutally frank in his motivational pep talks, says: “You have to practice and memorize your presentation – the reason a magician can pull a rabbit out of the hat is that he put it there before the show began.”
My favourite trainer in the old Realty World system, Dick Burnham, said: “You would never give an Academy Award to an actor who made up their lines as they went along. Sellers shouldn’t give listings to salespeople who make up the words as they go along.” Insight from Michael Caine: “Actors don’t get paid for the minute or two they spend in front of the cameras. They get paid for the preparation and the waiting around.”
One more characteristic of failures – they have no idea where their business comes from. Mitzi Bryant says: “Knowing where your business comes from allows you to eliminate those activities that aren’t productive.” Think about that as you review the mound of expenses at month end. Is that classified ad you placed in the Moose Jaw Gazette years ago still working?
Failures look for shortcuts. In an old TV series, Police Story, the desk sergeant bellowed: “I’ve been in this business for a lot of years looking for shortcuts. I’ll be the first to let you know if I find one. Meantime, hit the streets and turn over stones.”
E. Bunker Hunt, in amassing his billions, paused to reflect on success: “Success is simple. First you decide what you want in life. Second, you decide if you are willing to pay the price. Then you pay the price.” In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell’s research indicated the price for success in any chosen venture was about 10,000 hours of practice and timing.
Once achieved, however, success can lead to failure. Success is like a sword – very useful but you can’t sit on it. And it’s not like this is a complicated business or rocket science. Some people who earn a lot of money in real estate are neither bright nor personable – it’s not a requirement. My boss Randy Forbes reminds managers from time to time: “Remind your staff how simple their job is – list property, find people, give them reasons to buy.”
One of the truisms of sales comes from Merle Ace: “Salespeople usually quit a long time before they leave the job.” And that takes us to….
The last word has to be a shot at real estate managers and comes from an old friend in the business, Barry Watchorn: “We are too soft as managers in this business. We spend too much time herding turkeys up and down the runways, hoping they’ll fly.”
Former Vancouver city council Peter Ladner ran for mayor in the 2008 civic election but lost to Gregor Robertson. CBC
The number of sales was 30 per cent lower and the number of listings was 30 per cent higher in Vancouver in June 2010, compared to June 2009. CBC