It’s time to practice letting your clients speak for themselves. When you answer for them–even if you honestly believe you know what’s best for your clients–you do them a disservice.
There’s a huge difference between advocating for your client and speaking for them. Sure, you’ve been in the business long enough to know the typical scripts that buyers and sellers follow. But no one wants to feel railroaded during a real estate transaction.
Get Some Perspective
Even though you’ve been asked the same question dozens or even hundreds of times during your career, remember that each client is a unique case. This might be the first time they’ve been involved in buying or selling. They need information to make their decisions, and you are the one who is supposed to provide it.
Don’t let yourself get frustrated. Don’t rush to blurt out what you consider to be the obvious answer. This isn’t your first rodeo–but it might well be theirs.
Take a Step Back
Even though you’re at the center of the transaction, this isn’t a story where you are the sole hero. Everybody has a stake in the game, from the buyer and seller to the lender and appraiser.
Take your ego out of the equation, and you’ll find yourself better able to find a satisfying compromise. But if you approach each sale as an opportunity to score a “win” for yourself, you might lose one of a real estate agent’s most valuable resources: positive word-of-mouth.
Let Your Clients Decide
Being a real estate agent is a little bit like parenting. You want what’s best for your clients, and it’s so tempting to push them toward the right decisions.
Let’s say that you get an unreasonable list of repair requests from a potential buyer. You might be tempted to fire off an email to reject the request. After all, you know it’s a waste of time. Or what happens if you get a low-ball offer that you think your clients will toss in the garbage? Should you even bother going through the song and dance of taking it seriously?
The answer is, of course, to let your clients make those decisions for themselves. They might be willing to jump through a few hoops to close the sale. They might even be okay with that low-ball offer if it means closing the sale as quickly as possible.
What Happens When You Assume…
Ultimately, all you can do is present your clients with the information they need to make their own decisions. Maybe they’ll make what you consider to be a mistake. But that’s their choice.
When you make assumptions about what your clients will or won’t do, you take away their agency. And when you withhold information or make a decision without consulting them, you break their trust. Letting your clients speak for themselves is a surprisingly difficult part of this job, but it is an essential skill to master.
