I got a call from a friend yesterday in the midst of turmoil about a client who failed to read an important email. The client then admonished the agent for not handling a situation as he had requested, and as often happens in this business, blamed the agent for what went wrong as a result. I could feel the frustration of my friend, as she blew off steam, telling me what she would say to the client, if it hadn't been for her desire to maintain a professional business relationship with a long-term client.
With the vastly improving real estate market, there is a tendency for clients and agents to experience increasing tension and uprising of fear, as low inventory and multiple offers in highly-desireable price ranges are once again the norm. Coupled with the fast pace of our lives today, it's easy to see how fertile is the soil for emotional eruptions to occur! Sometimes it seems our business is more about how to maintain relationships, than negotiate a transaction.
Not that this is news to any of us, but every evolution in the real estate market brings with it a new set of ideas, desires and expectations freshly born out of the previous iteration. The trick for us as agents is to learn how to be with our clients and their reactions, and still feel okay about ourselves. The work is learning "not take it personally," to stand in our personal truth with conviction, while maintaining our professionalism with integrity and compassion. And the place that we do all of this is only within ourselves. We don't need to say or do anything to demonstrate this to the client; we have to know it for ourselves and that is all.
As my friend and I talked, I could see how much she wanted to "blast him" for his failure to read her email - the entire experience would be non-existent. It was difficult for her to see that sharing her enlightened point of view would reallly not change him or his way of thinking and acting. She may have been 100% "right" in her observation, and yet, it would very likely not have mattered to him at all.
The truth is, we can never change another human being, no matter how clearly or brilliantly we articulate our observations to them; we can only change ourselves. When we experience frustration or aggravation, we change how we think about, talk about, act and respond to our clients by learning first that their reactions are really not about us....it's about their own anxiety or fears. Whatever is going on in their lives, in tandem with the emotional roller coaster of buyer and selling real estate, they are in their own experience of life and it's inherent struggles. It is with this understanding that we are able to come from a place of compassion, rather than denial of wrong-doing or blame.
This is a universal principle called "Divine Order." Everything is happening in perfect order for the greater evolution of humanity. By learning compassion for our clients, we are participating in the ever-upward spiral of evolution.
Thank you for doing your part.
In service to the greater good, I AM.
Lori
With the vastly improving real estate market, there is a tendency for clients and agents to experience increasing tension and uprising of fear, as low inventory and multiple offers in highly-desireable price ranges are once again the norm. Coupled with the fast pace of our lives today, it's easy to see how fertile is the soil for emotional eruptions to occur! Sometimes it seems our business is more about how to maintain relationships, than negotiate a transaction.
Not that this is news to any of us, but every evolution in the real estate market brings with it a new set of ideas, desires and expectations freshly born out of the previous iteration. The trick for us as agents is to learn how to be with our clients and their reactions, and still feel okay about ourselves. The work is learning "not take it personally," to stand in our personal truth with conviction, while maintaining our professionalism with integrity and compassion. And the place that we do all of this is only within ourselves. We don't need to say or do anything to demonstrate this to the client; we have to know it for ourselves and that is all.
As my friend and I talked, I could see how much she wanted to "blast him" for his failure to read her email - the entire experience would be non-existent. It was difficult for her to see that sharing her enlightened point of view would reallly not change him or his way of thinking and acting. She may have been 100% "right" in her observation, and yet, it would very likely not have mattered to him at all.
The truth is, we can never change another human being, no matter how clearly or brilliantly we articulate our observations to them; we can only change ourselves. When we experience frustration or aggravation, we change how we think about, talk about, act and respond to our clients by learning first that their reactions are really not about us....it's about their own anxiety or fears. Whatever is going on in their lives, in tandem with the emotional roller coaster of buyer and selling real estate, they are in their own experience of life and it's inherent struggles. It is with this understanding that we are able to come from a place of compassion, rather than denial of wrong-doing or blame.
This is a universal principle called "Divine Order." Everything is happening in perfect order for the greater evolution of humanity. By learning compassion for our clients, we are participating in the ever-upward spiral of evolution.
Thank you for doing your part.
In service to the greater good, I AM.
Lori
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